After her shift ended, and after she’d whacked the ball and showered and walked to the BART station, she couldn’t resist checking out Jason on Facebook. His capacity for enthusiasm was everywhere in evidence. But of course what she wanted to know was how pretty his girlfriend was. The news on that score was mixed. The girlfriend had a great face and a scarily hipster look and a scarily French name, Sandrine, but she appeared to be a full foot shorter than Jason; they looked awkward together. With a shudder of revulsion at herself, and at Facebook, Pip turned off her device.
She was on her way to a Peruvian restaurant in Bernal Heights, maximally inconvenient to her, because Colleen apparently had foodie tendencies and wanted to try it. This after Colleen had twice bailed out of earlier dates at the last minute, pleading overwork. If her intention was to keep punishing Pip and make her feel small, it was working well.
The season of gray was on Bernal Heights. Shouting techies in their twenties filled the restaurant. Colleen was at a small table awkwardly situated by a wait station; she’d left Pip the chair that was in the waiters’ way. Pip was struck by the unnecessary makeup Colleen was wearing and by the obvious priciness of her silk jacket and jewelry. She remembered that Colleen’s stated ambition was to do boring, safe things.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “It’s quite the schlep from Oakland.”
“I ordered some small plates,” Colleen said. “I have to go back to the office later.”
Already it was clear to Pip that Colleen had been a summer-camp friend, not a real friend, and that she shouldn’t have kept sending her emails. But she had no one else to talk to about Andreas, and so she ordered a sangria and talked. She led with the big picture — that he’d killed a man in Germany and had brought her to Los Volcanes in some insane attempt at a cover-up — so that Colleen might see that what had happened at the Hotel Cortez wasn’t personal.
“I think he was really sick,” Pip said in conclusion. “Sicker than anybody knew.”
“This is not exactly making me feel better about spending three years wanting him.”
“I wanted him, too. But the side of himself he showed me was too scary.”
“You really think he killed someone.”
“He said so. I believed him.”
“You know, I’ve been reading way more about him than is healthy. It’s pure masochism. But I haven’t seen anything about a murder.”
“Even if he left a confession or something, I’m sure they covered it up. It’s hard to see Willow or Flor not protecting the brand.”
“You should tell the world,” Colleen said. “Just to squish fucking Toni Field and all the others. ‘Your sainted hero was a psychopath.’ Would you do me that favor?”
Pip shook her head. “Even if I wanted to go public, who’s going to believe me? I have other problems anyway. He told me who my mother is.”
“You mean, besides being your mother?”
“She’s a billionaire, Colleen. She has a trust fund worth, like, a billion dollars. She’s like a renegade heiress. I can’t begin to figure out how to deal with that.”
Colleen frowned. “A billion dollars? You told me she was poor.”
“She changed her identity. She ran away from it. Her father was president of McCaskill, the food company.”
“That’s your mother?” Colleen gave Pip a sidelong look, as if Pip herself were a pile of money and Colleen was deciding whether to believe her eyes. “That’s what Dear Leader told you?”
“More or less.”
“I guess it’s obvious why he liked you.”
“Thanks a lot. He didn’t care about money.”
“Nobody doesn’t care about a billion dollars.”
“Well, my mom didn’t. I’m not sure it’s even still there.”
“You should try to find out.”
“I just want everything to go away.”
“You should definitely find out.” Colleen reached across the table and touched Pip’s hand. “Don’t you think?”
By the time she got back to Dreyfuss’s house, very late, there was a long email from Colleen in her in-box. It wasn’t the email’s content that was strange. Colleen apologized to Pip for making her come all the way to Bernal Heights; the next time they met, which she hoped would be soon, Colleen would come to Oakland; so great to see Pip again; really liked the new haircut … There followed several paragraphs of vintage Colleen on the crappiness of the legal profession, the crappiness of China, and the crappiness of the techie she’d dated for two months before discovering his passion for tax avoidance. What was strange about the email was its timing. For eight months Pip had waited for a few warm words from Colleen. Only now, within two hours of her saying the word billionaire, was she getting them.
Was Colleen aware of how obvious she was being? Pip thought not. Then again, maybe she herself was being paranoid. She remembered what Andreas had said about fame, the loneliness of it, the impossibility of trusting that people liked the famous person for himself. She suspected that being a billionaire would be even lonelier in that regard.
The next day, Monday, brought another long email from Colleen, plus two affectionate phone messages. On Tuesday, Dreyfuss had his injunction hearing with Judge Costa, who gave him ten minutes to present his case and then issued his judgment: fifteen days to vacate the house. On Wednesday, Jason left a Facebook message for Pip, asking if she wanted to hit with him. This wasn’t a message that a boy with a serious girlfriend sent innocently to a girl he’d nearly slept with in the past. Pip might have felt glad of it, or at least flattered by it, had Colleen not suddenly become so friendly. Now all she could think was that her connection to Andreas had piqued Jason’s interest. Was this going to be her new normal? She’d already had enough trouble trusting people; now she was facing a whole lifetime of not trusting them. She wrote back to Jason: To be discussed at Peet’s. Then she did some research and made some phone calls. Early the next morning, Thursday, she flew to Wichita.
* * *
From the back of the cab from the airport, she saw the name McCaskill on Little League fields, on a big pavilion downtown, on a day-care center and a food-distribution depot on the city’s slummy east side, on billboards affirming that MCCASKILL CARES. The midday heat was as intense as anything she’d experienced in Bolivia. Lawns were fried nearly white, and the trees looked ready to drop their leaves three months early.
Thanks to air-conditioning, the offices of James Navarre & Associates were chilly. Pip had barely opened her mouth when the receptionist led her back to a large, wood-paneled office where Mr. Navarre was waiting at the door. He was short and white-haired and apparently one of those men who weren’t comfortable in clothes that weren’t rumpled. “My God,” he said, staring at Pip. “You really are her daughter.”
She shook his hand and followed him into his office. The receptionist brought her a bottle of cold water and left them alone. Mr. Navarre continued to stare at her.
“So,” she said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Thank you for coming here.”
“I have pictures of my mom, if you’re interested.”
“Of course I am. I’m also obligated to be.”
Pip handed over her phone. She’d selected night pictures from inside her mother’s cabin, so as not to betray her location. Mr. Navarre looked at them and shook his head as if confounded. On one wall of his office were photographs, Midwestern faces in exotically unstylish clothes and settings, somebody else’s idea of America. Pip recognized David Laird, her grandfather, one of the objects of her research, on a golf cart with a rumpled and younger Mr. Navarre.
He handed the phone back to Pip. “She’s alive?”