by Dante Medema
then Post Alley,
she says,
“When I first came to Seattle
I was a young girl,
and Pike Place
felt magical.
It’s still my favorite destination.”
This is where Jack would’ve brought me
if we ever got
the day we planned
the way we planned it.
And I feel cheated,
knowing I won’t get this
with him.
Kodiak and I linger at the end of the group,
our held hands between us
as I check my phone’s map.
Not for the destination of our makeshift tour
but for Jack’s house—
and my breakaway moment.
While our class is gathered,
watching men yell and throw fish,
I pull Kodiak
by the hand,
slipping down a
crowded
surging alley between market stalls
and people
traveling in every direction.
We sneak away,
stealing kisses along the way,
down a set of concrete stairs.
A smile crinkles
into the corners of his eyes
when I catch him muttering
—trying to memorize—
his poem beneath his breath.
“You’ll do great,” I say,
trying not to look at my phone.
“I really need the extra credit.”
I think back to what Sana said
—how she heard he might be back
next year too.
And like he might realize he said
too much.
“You ready?” he asks,
whispering lips
on mine.
He stops at the bottom of the stairs,
set in front of a wall,
with gum stuck to every surface.
Thousands of colors,
fill the space.
It would’ve been pretty
like a Pollock painting
if it wasn’t so gross.
The wall Jack
promised in his messages.
Kodiak kisses me again.
I want to feel the free fall I felt
the day we kissed at his house,
but my stomach quivers.
I don’t have time.
Pulling away,
I show him the address in my phone.
“This is my only chance.
Tomorrow is Sunday,
our last full day.
Today we have to
find my father.”
“You’re shaking,” Kodiak whispers.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
He’s right.
The quivering in my stomach
now extends through my entire body,
the reverberation
loosens my soul.
I’m so close to seeing Jack.
A twenty-five-minute half-run from the gum wall,
then I’ll have an in-person idea
of what my father looks like.
See if his smile is crooked
like mine,
or if he’s got long ears
and a single dimple.
Kodiak puts his arm around me,
pulling me close,
and we walk in tandem
as if we’ve done this before.
He’s wrong about one thing.
We have to do this.
“We have to do this.”
I take a few steps
before I realize
Kodiak stopped.
“Doesn’t he know we’re coming?”
he asks.
“He stopped answering my emails.”
I say,
“But what does it matter?”
“It matters.”
Kodiak’s voice changes,
it’s strained,
and something flickers in his eyes
that feels like anger.
“No.”
I grit my teeth and
in a voice that matches his anger:
“I was ready to do this yesterday.
Over and done.
I waited for you.
“I can’t do this without you.”
“Listen—” he starts,
voice not raised
but shoulders straight.
“I’ve been supportive this entire time.
I’ve got a lot at risk.
Cordelia, I’m still on probation.
If I get caught—
“I’m worried this won’t
be what you think it is.
If I learned anything with Liv
it’s that you can’t force a relationship
to be something it isn’t.”
I start to shake all over again,
finding too much truth
in his words.
“Maybe I’m wrong.”
I try to find something to look at.
The street.
The signs.
The sky.
“But I’ll never know if I don’t go.”
Then the anger in his eyes
seems to melt
like ice cream
losing form.
It’s replaced with something
I don’t quite know.
Something
that makes me feel
like he sees something
he didn’t before.
“You’re right.”
We cross a busy street
our shoulders too close
to everyone
who doesn’t belong
in my story.
Kodiak leads,
headfirst now,
like he can’t wait
to end this detour
when I want to go slow.
So when I meet my dad,
for the first time,
I can remember his cologne.
And the way his tattoo looks in person.
How his voice sounds
when it’s not muffled
behind the static
of our phones.
When we march up the stairs
to Apartment 240
of a building that feels
all wrong
I freeze,
remembering what Sana said
about being careful.
A baby screams
somewhere nearby.
An ashtray sits outside the door
on a peeling windowsill,
and my stomach lurches at
the scent of stale beer
wafting from inside.
It is all wrong—
snow in July,
Halloween candy in summer.
A thaw come too early,
the hibernating bears
who aren’t ready.
This isn’t the way I’m supposed to meet my father.
“You good?”
Kodiak asks,
studying every disgusting detail
with his eagle eyes.
Long enough
to maybe change my mind.
Kodiak knocks for me.
A woman answers the door.
I recognize her,
instantly:
one of Jack’s Instagram women.
Only her hair isn’t silky smooth,
the bright red dress in pictures
replaced
with a bleach-stained shirt
and cutoff jeans.
She’s popping gum
between nicotine-stained teeth
looking at me
with her arms crossed,
eyes narrowed
like she can’t understand
what I’m possibly
here for.
“What do you want?”
“I’m looking for Jack Bisset,” I say.
She actually sco
ffs,
picking one of the cigarette butts
out of the ashtray
lighting the end
to inhale one last drag.
Her eyes go all misty,
Sad.
Mad.
Hurt.
Angry.
Confused.
“I haven’t seen that piece of shit
since he walked out
a few weeks ago.”
My heart’s sinking faster
than our shuffle back down the stairs,
swollen with disbelief and relief.
She calls down to us:
“Might want to try Parkhill Bistro.”
The place in Sana’s email.
“Last I heard he got a gig there,
if he hasn’t fucked it up already.”
I expected a home,
maybe a girlfriend,
in some fancy apartment
that overlooks Puget Sound.
So high it makes you dizzy
when you get close enough
to the window’s edge.
I expected a tour of the city,
a day at his office,
watching bands I don’t know
make music only a few people care about
in a sound room
commanded by his hands.
I expected a connection.
Our eyes would meet
and I’d see part of me.
Like we both hate sushi,
but love Chinese,
and think poems are the music
that connects word to sound.
He has to say something
a million times in his heart
before he says it with his tongue.
And he loves fiercely
the same way I need to be loved.
I still expect those things.
I
Never
Thought
It
Would
Hurt
This
Bad.
I don’t know what’s worse:
the heat of Kodiak’s gaze on me
or the rib-crushing embarrassment.
The way my chest feels hollow,
empty like the promises Jack made.
My mother’s words
over and over in my head:
He’s not a good guy.
It can’t be right.
I didn’t come this far,
sneak away from the group,
and lie to my father
to uncover the lies
of my other father.
Kodiak brushes the tears from my cheeks
and kisses the side of my face.
“Don’t cry, Del.
He doesn’t deserve your tears.”
“Let’s go to Parkhill.
One more stop, just one.”
If I can get there,
if I can see him,
he can explain
what doesn’t
make sense.
Will any of this ever make sense?
Vidya Nadeer, Kodiak Jones
Vidya Nadeer: Where are you?
Seems as though you’ve been separated from the group.
I need one of you to text me back immediately.
Kodiak: Sorry.
We got lost.
Me: Headed back now!
Where are you?
Vidya Nadeer: Meeting at the pier.
I expect you here shortly.
The pier smells like the oddest combination
of sweet flowers
and salty fish,
puckered together
and lingering long after you leave.
Our classmates take selfies in front of
a brand-new ocean.
They get to put everything from Tundra Cove
out of their minds—
Their Seattle selves laugh freely
but I cry timid tears into Kodiak’s shoulder
because I’ll never be free like the eagle
or strong like the bear.
Ms. Nadeer dips her glasses on her face,
making sure we see she notices us.
A self-conscious bubble settles
somewhere between my throat
and stomach.
I slip my hand out of Kodiak’s,
rubbing it against my pants,
the way I wish I could wipe away this memory.
Jack Bisset
Me: I know I’m blocked everywhere else, and you aren’t going to respond to this text either. I tried going to the address I had for you. I met a woman there who said you don’t live there anymore. I don’t understand, but I want you to know that even if you aren’t who you said you are, it doesn’t change anything for me. I leave late tomorrow night/early Monday morning and I’m staying at the DoubleTree closest to the airport.
Jack: I can’t.
Me: Please.
Jack: error
Me: Just for a few minutes.
Jack: error
Me: I want to meet you.
Jack: error
Kodiak Jones
Me: What are you doing?
Kodiak: Lying in bed.
Carson is sneaking over to Vanessa and Lindsay’s room as soon as Ms. Nadeer is done doing checks. Want to come with us?
Maybe get your mind off stuff.
Or you could come over here.
Me: I have another idea.
Meet me by the pool?
Kodiak: Give me ten.
I beg Kodiak.
Just one more time.
One more time,
one more try,
so I can meet Jack.
“I came all this way,
and it will kill me
to leave
never knowing
what he looks like.”
Without the filters,
without the text.
Or the apartment,
or job.
Then maybe I’ll know what it was
that swept my mom away from my dad.
“Last time,” I promise.
“Then we’re done?”
Kodiak’s words are tired,
I’ve heard them before.
Like a parent,
stretched thin
by a child
who wants too much.
“If we got caught I’d be done.”
Done.
“Promise.”
At night
the Seattle lights
don’t seem as pretty
as they do in pictures.
The city doesn’t look alive.
The Space Needle is too far
to bring comfort from familiarity.
I barely recognize its shape.
At least not in this little spot.
A seedy line of dive bars
and a homeless man who says,
“I’d like to kiss a girl like you,” when I pass.
Kodiak holds my hand tighter.
It’s not the man who might take me,
but the night itself,
pulsating with the lie I sold myself
that Jack is
something
he might not be.
I use the only-for-emergency credit card
to get a rideshare account.
Even then it still takes 27 minutes
to get to Parkhill.
A wave of people is leaving,
my stomach clenches,
eyeballing every man
for a tattoo on their collarbone
of a woman who looks
like my mother.
It’s hazy outside the bar,
with a neon Open sign
hidden between ads for beer
and wine
and liquor.
A chalkboard promises the live music
I can already hear from the street.
A woman crooning
through crackled windpipes
sings an old country song.
>
A large man stands at the door,
checking IDs.
I point to him,
leaning into Kodiak
so I can take in the smell of home
instead of fear. Kodiak says,
“Go wait in the alley.
There’s a back entrance and
I can come around and sneak you in.”
It’s dark,
and my heart pounds with every step I take
over broken glass
and a filmy liquid coating the ground.
The dumpster next to me stinks
of rotten food
and booze
and regret.
It makes me wonder if I made a mistake
until I see Kodiak through
a tiny side window.
He’s effortless,
handing his ID off,
rubbing his chin
with the tips of his fingers,
smiling until his dimple shows.
I’m not the only one with masks.
He stops at the bar,
nodding to someone behind it
—is it Jack?—
before pointing a finger
like he’s telling the bartender
which beer he wants.
Kodiak heads to the back
and I run
in rhythm with my heartbeat
to the back entrance.
He slips the door open,
pulling me out of the darkness
and guiding me through
to where my answers
must be.
The inside of Parkhill looks like any bar
in any movie
I’ve ever seen.
There are bright tin signs
covering every inch of wall.
My lungs tighten
when I look at the people drinking
expecting one of them to be Jack
but they’re not.
Kodiak doesn’t take his hand from my back
even as we approach the bartender,
who looks down at me,
confusion thread through her too-tweezed brows.
“Honey, whaddya need?”
A loaded question.
I ask if she knows Jack.
Does he work here?
Would he be around this weekend?
The confusion clears away,
making room for something else.
She and Kodiak share a glance,
and I feel my shoulders shudder against
his frame
as I see her shake her head back and forth.
Because I can’t help it.
My body cries even when my eyes can’t.
“He was bar-backing a few weeks ago.
Sweet pea, I don’t know what you’re doing
lookin’ for him,
but it ain’t gonna lead anywhere good.
You aren’t . . .”
Her lips peel back uncomfortably.
“You’re not in any sort of trouble,
are you?”
Her eyes move from me to Kodiak.