“Only remember the tall guy. Sorry. I hope you find her.”
As I walk to the door, I feel dizzy. Now that the last drink has settled in my stomach, I realize I’m more drunk than I thought. I sit back down on a patio chair and have the strongest sensation of falling. Something about Milwaukee turns me into my worst self. Or maybe, sometimes, you have to walk your way through a bad thing to get to a good thing. I don’t know. I’m no longer thinking straight. I have a cigarette and a water from my bag and try to sober up a little, but I am not very successful. I stumble my way back to Rose’s house and let myself in, heading straight for the couch.
MASHA
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A few hours later, I am nursing a massive headache when I hear a doorbell followed by a loud banging on Rose’s door. I assume it’s my dad again, that he has grown impatient and didn’t want to wait for me to call him. So when I go down there, I am very surprised to find Liam. In an actual coat and pants this time.
“What’s up with your phone?” he asks me.
I think about this. Does he need the real explanation? I choose not to give him one. “It’s dead,” I say. This is not a lie, unless you count it as one by omission. Although, it is a slippery slope. This is possibly why I never came back to Milwaukee, to avoid the temptation to be bad. I am terrible at avoiding temptation, if the last day and a half is any indication. “What are you doing here?”
“Rose told me you were staying with her.”
“I mean why are you banging on the door and calling my name?”
His face breaks into a grin. “You better thank me with a kiss,” he says. Then, when he sees my horrified expression, he puts his hands up. “I was just kidding, Jesus. Relax. I came because I know where your sister is.”
“What? For real?”
“Tao’s friends are at the trainyards. They’re leaving tonight.”
“So she’s there? She’s there for sure?”
“Tristan is there. Tao saw him somewhere and they got into a huge fight about the shit he stole, which Tao lost from what it sounded like, but I guess they made up because they’re going together.”
“Shit. What time is the train?” I ask, suddenly full of adrenaline. The blanket I had around my shoulders falls to the floor. A gust of bitter cold air rushes in and makes me shiver. Behind Liam, I notice his old white conversion van sitting impatiently in its fumes.
“I don’t know, man, do I look like a crusty to you?”
“Sort of.” I let my glance fall over his ripped black jeans and boots and stretched-out black t-shirt of a metal band he once drummed in.
To my surprise, Liam laughs. “Do you know how many times I tried to tell people how funny you are? No one believed me.”
“Would it be online?” I ask. “The schedule?”
“No, it would not be online,” he says, still laughing. “These guys guard their train manuals like gold. You better just go now and hope for the best.”
My brain works quickly, despite the mix of emotions I’m now feeling; excitement, relief, anxiety, exhaustion. I remember from old friends of mine that the yard to catch a freight train is about three miles south, somewhere near Second St., past downtown. I have no idea how I am going to get there at night. I am busy trying to mentally coordinate bus schedules and cost of fares nowadays when I hear Liam clear his throat. “Fine, fine, I’ll drive. Just don’t ever say I never did anything for you.”
Relief blooms in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t been entirely crazy to like this guy. “Thanks, Liam. I mean it.” I turn to grab my stuff and put on my shoes. I take my phone just in case, and a charger too. It may be dead, but it’s better to have it on me. Worst case I can always find a nearby store or restaurant with an outlet to charge it. Or maybe I’m scared to be without one, like everyone else. The new adult-version of a security blanket. It’s crazy how quickly you can get used to things. Not that long ago the idea of a phone you could carry in your pocket would have sounded like a trinket out of the Jetsons.
Once I’m in the hallway, and the door is locked, Liam puts an arm around me, and squeezes. I let him. “You’re lucky Melanie is still gone,” he says. And I’m so relieved he found Anna I don’t even ask him what I’ve slowly started to suspect: that Melanie isn’t just on a weekend getaway.
That she is, perhaps, gone for good.
MASHA
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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It’s after ten-thirty when we make it to the trainyards. By then my nerves are totally frayed, my heart beating into my chest so rapidly I’m unsure how Liam doesn’t hear it. I’m not exactly a fan of dark, abandoned fields, or approaching groups of strangers in general, and here I am about to do both. I wish I could tell my dad the lengths to which I’m trying to help him—help Anna, really—but I know already I can never relay any of this to him. One heart attack was enough.
“You need to relax,” Liam says, laughing. “They’re like dogs; they can smell fear.”
“Hilarious.”
“Not a joke, actually.”
The moon is full now and slightly ominous, the wind cold and making the van sound haunted with its wails. I continue, unsuccessfully, trying to force down my panic. “How about you come with me then?” I ask Liam, finally.
He shakes his head, grabs a cigarette out of his coat pocket. I catch a glimpse of something long and shiny tucked under his shirt—a knife maybe? Part of me wishes I’d thought to bring something like that; David would have insisted, had he been around. “This way is funnier.” Then he lights the cigarette and turns off the car. “If you’re not back in fifteen, I’m leaving you here.”
“What a gentleman,” I say, and get out of the car. I’m officially on my own.
As I walk through the field, I tell myself they’re just kids wearing strange uniforms, filled with strange ideas about the world; lost, maybe, but nothing to be scared of. They’re no different than those who had come before them, people I’d known and talked to. There’s no reason to be so nervous! And yet, when I look down, my hands are shaking.
I slide my hands into my coat and focus on the task at hand: making it through the field without falling on my face. I don’t have a flashlight, so I meander bumpily through the field to a wall of trees, beyond which, I understood from Liam, is where I would find everyone. I’m lucky there’s a full moon. I can’t see any train tracks nearby, but I imagine they must be close since I can hear the low rumble of cars moving slightly back and forth, as if being adjusted into place on a rail. Eventually I get far enough to hear some hushed voices. Some are laughing, others deep into conversation. I walk over more loose branches and wet leaves until finally, a group of figures emerges into my view, along with a very strong smell of something flowery mixed with smoke.
“Is that a bull?” someone asks right away, starting to get up. I almost laugh at this, that they imagine I am some hired security guard meant to find them. My night vision is so bad I can only see the shapes of things, not what they are. Or maybe that’s been my problem with everything since I returned. Otherwise, shouldn’t I have found my sister by now?
“It’s just some girl,” a man’s voice answers, letting out a long cloud of smoke. From my brief experiences with drugs, it looks like they’re smoking opium. I see a lighter meet the edge of a butter knife, underneath a hollowed-out milk carton. Someone moves over and puts their lips over the spout and inhales. Another person stands up and heads my way. A girl in black overalls and dreadlocks tied up in a beige bandanna. Not my sister.