I turned around and marched down a street called Biltmore Avenue, looking for a place real people might belong.
I found two pubs, practically side by side. I avoided the one with the aggressively shiny brew kegs, wine list, and perky logo, and chose the one that boasted Forty Beers on Tap!
It was like stepping back in time to being a teenager in England; the place smelled of smoke and beer and felt utterly peaceful. Patrons talked in low murmurs, minding their own business over tall glasses half filled with dark, murky brew and streaked with white foam. Smoke curled bluely through the occasional slant of sunlight; dark wood gleamed. I found a table in a corner, facing the door, and ordered pizza and a pint of Greenman ale, which turned out to be more like a bitter than anything else and slipped down beautifully. The pizza, when it came, had everything on it. The sausage was chewy and tough and I savored every bite. I ordered another beer, and half drowsed in the snug warmth, until I felt the light touch of Julia’s hand on my hair, and her whisper, My anti-Samson. The room fractured and shimmered.
She sat next to me in the truck all the way back, her hand resting on my thigh.
“Something’s changed,” she said. We drove west. The sun, low on the horizon, shone straight into the cab. She wore the same coat as on the night we’d met. A raincoat. Today it was dry.
“I still love you.”
“Bed linens, bread, orange juice…”
In the rearview mirror, my face was gold in the sunlight. Hers wasn’t, and when she turned to look at me, she didn’t squint against the glare.
“…beer, milk, fruit and vegetables and fish. And a newspaper.”
“Dornan will need a decent place to sleep tomorrow night, and breakfast. And I want something for dinner that’s not rice.” I couldn’t explain the newspaper.
The raincoat had disappeared. Now she wore jeans and a white, low-cut button T that exposed her tight belly. When had she worn those?
“You didn’t mention the other things,” I said. The tarps, the cash, the liquid propane gas, the double tanks full of diesel fuel. She didn’t seem to hear. After a while, I realized why: they were going-away things.
CHAPTER THREE
The Isuzu bumped into the clearing just after midday, and Dornan poked his head through the open window. His face had more lines, or maybe it was the light. He climbed out and stretched. “Mountain roads…” He looked around, looked at me. “Something’s different.”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Well, I brought everything you asked for, plus a few extras.” He went round to the back of the Isuzu, opened the rear door, and pulled out a cooler. “There’s steak, and beer, and potatoes. Some decent coffee. And just in case you get the power on…”—he balanced the cooler against the rim of the trunk, reached in, and pulled out an espresso machine—“this.”
“Good,” I said, then ran out of polite conversation. “Bring the records, and my clothes.” I lifted the cooler from him and carried it into the trailer. He followed with my hanging bag.
“Where should I put it?”
I jerked my chin forward, towards the bedroom, “On the bed,” and started transferring the cooler contents to the fridge.
By the time he came back with the two cardboard file boxes, the food was in the fridge and I was wiping down the inside of the cooler. “On the table. I’ve almost finished.”
He leaned against the table for a moment, considering. “The power is on,” he said, “and you’ve had your hair cut.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond. “I’ll make coffee.”
He hummed to himself while he ground and measured, but he moved more slowly than usual, and there was more shadow than there had been around the bones of his wrists and nose.
“You’ve lost weight.”
He didn’t turn around, but said after a moment, “So have you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and now he did turn around, but I wasn’t sure how to explain what I meant: that I knew I’d been selfish; that I hadn’t cared about his worry, about Tammy; that there just wasn’t much room inside me for anything but my grief.
“I just want you to find her for me, and bring her back,” he said.
“I’ll find her.”
“And bring… Oh, god. You think she’s dead.”
“No.” The espresso machine hissed and spat. “Make the coffee and come and sit.”
He made the coffee mechanically and brought it to the table.
“I’m going to find Tammy,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. If she wants to come back, I’ll bring her. If.”
“You’ll tell me where she is?”
“If she wants me to.”
He could have said a lot of things then, but he didn’t. He forced himself to smile. “You’ll let me know she’s safe at least?”
“Yes.” If she was.
He sipped at his coffee for a while, as though I weren’t there. “It’s a nice afternoon,” he said at last. “I think I’ll take a walk.”
“There’s a trailhead on the west side of the clearing. If you follow that, it’ll bring you to the creek. If you’re not back by four, I’ll come find you.”
I sat for five minutes after he’d gone, then took the lid off both boxes. One held a collection of opened and unopened mail—junk and bills mainly—going back at least three months, plus the other information I’d asked for: insurance documents, 401(k) and bank statements, birth certificate, apartment lease. The other was Dornan’s private shrine to Tammy. He had saved everything, in no particular order: printouts of e-mails were bundled with birthday cards and Post-it notes; snapshots poked out from cassette cases; there were plane tickets and hotel bills and dinner receipts. On top lay a shopping list. Slim-Fast, it said forlornly, toothpaste, water, dishwasher soap. I imagined Tammy loading a dishwasher, and the only picture I could get was her playing to an audience: stretching so that her pants pulled tight across thigh and buttock. But her handwriting was not what I’d expected: no circles over the i, no fat loops; it was strong and clear and angular, and she had preferred black ink.
I didn’t want to know what Tammy had said to Dornan via e-mail, what she had whispered late at night to his phone machine; I doubted I’d need to.
I started with the mail, sorting it quickly into bills, junk, and personal. The junk I put back in the box, the personal—all unopened—I set aside, and the bills I sorted further by date and type, discarding anything before the first of the year. Tammy had not canceled the lease on her apartment, so there was ten months’ worth. All had been paid by Dornan; his notation of check number and date and amount was scrawled in the upper right corner of each. The Visa card pile was significantly smaller than the others; it contained nothing since August. Her other credit card, an American Express, was there in full, though the last three months showed no spending activity. I pulled an example from each pile. The AmEx listed plane tickets, hotel bills, out-of-town restaurant meals. Business expenses. Probably referred immediately to the company she worked—used to work—for. The Visa was billed from a variety of Atlanta restaurants, two different hair salons, Macy’s, Saks, auto repair, pharmacy: purely personal. The conclusions were obvious.
I found the 800 number on the bill and, while it rang, assembled a few things from the box. A bored, beaten voice answered. “ParkBanc this is Cindy how may I be of service.”
“Yes, hello. I’m calling about my Visa bill.”
“Name please.”
“Tammy Foster.”
“Account number please.”