LYLE USHERED US INTO HIS GOLF CART and then drove us down a narrow asphalt path along the golf course, past a big log cabin with a wooden sign out front identifying it as THE COTTAGE.
I hadn’t visited the Pickett estate in many years, and it had grown even more majestic. The sand traps of the golf course were newly raked. The cart path we drove on had no cracks or bumps. Newly planted maple trees lined the path. But mostly I just saw endless grass, weedless, freshly mown into a diamond pattern. The Pickett estate was silent, sterile, and endless—like a newly built housing subdivision before actual people move into it. I loved it.
As we drove, Daisy struck up a wholly unsubtle conversation. “So you head up security here?”
“I am security here,” he answered.
“How long have you worked for Mr. Pickett?”
“Long enough to know you’re not friends with Davis,” he answered.
Daisy, who lacked the capacity to experience embarrassment, was not discouraged. “Holmesy here is the friend. Were you working the day Pickett disappeared?”
“Mr. Pickett doesn’t like staff on the property after dark or before dawn,” he answered.
“How many staff are there exactly?”
Lyle stopped the golf cart. “Y’all best know Davis, or else I’m taking you downtown and having you booked for trespassing.”
—
We rounded a corner and I saw the pool complex, a shimmering blue expanse with the same island I remembered from my childhood, except now it was covered by a glass-plated geodesic dome. The waterslides—cylinders that curved and wove around one another—were still there, too, but they were dry.
On a patio beside the pool were a dozen teak lounge chairs, each with a white towel laid out atop the cushions. We drove halfway around the pool to another patio, where Davis Pickett was reclining on a lounger. He was wearing his school polo shirt and khaki pants, holding a book at an angle to block the sun as he read.
When he heard the cart, he sat up and looked over at us. He had skinny, sunburned legs and knobby knees. He wore plastic-rimmed glasses and an Indiana Pacers hat.
“Aza Holmes?” he asked.
He stood up. The sun was behind him, so I could hardly see his face. I got out of the golf cart and walked over to him.
“Hi,” I said. I didn’t know if I should hug him, and he didn’t seem to know if he should hug me, so we just sort of stood there not touching, which to be honest is my preferred form of greeting.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, his voice flat, neutral, unreadable.
Daisy walked up behind me and held out her hand, then shook Davis’s forcefully. “Daisy Ramirez, Holmesy’s best friend. We had a canoe puncture.”
“We hit a rock and landed on Pirates Island,” I said.
“You know these people?” Lyle asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine, thanks, Lyle. Can I get you guys anything? Water? Dr Pepper?”
“Dr Pepper?” I said, a bit confused.
“Wasn’t that your favorite soda?”
I just blinked at him for a second and then said, “Um, yeah. I’ll have a Dr Pepper.”
“Lyle, can we get three Dr Peppers?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Lyle answered, and took off on the golf cart.
Daisy’s glance at me said, I told you he’d remember, and then she wandered off. Davis didn’t seem to notice. There was something sweetly shy about the way he looked at me, glancing at, and then away from, my face, his brown eyes bigger than life through his glasses. His eyes, his nose, his mouth—all his facial features were a bit too big for him, like they’d grown up but his face was still a kid’s.
“I’m not sure what to say,” he said. “I’m . . . not good at chitchat.”
“Try saying what you’re thinking,” I said. “That’s something I never ever do.”
He smiled a little and then shrugged. “Okay. I’m thinking, I wish she wasn’t after the reward.”
“What reward?” I asked, unconvincingly.
Davis sat down on one of the teak loungers, and I sat across from him. He leaned forward, bony elbows on bony knees. “I thought of you a couple weeks ago,” he said. “Right when he disappeared, I kept hearing his name on the news, and they would say his full name—Russell Davis Pickett—and I kept thinking, you know, that’s my name; and it was just so weird, to hear the newscasters say, ‘Russell Davis Pickett has been reported missing.’ Because I was right here.”
“And that made you think of me?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I remember you telling me—like, I asked about your name once and you said that your mom named you Aza because she wanted you to have your own name, a sound you could make your own.”
“It was my dad, actually.” I could remember Dad talking to me about my name, telling me, It spans the whole alphabet, because we wanted you to know you can be anything. “Whereas, your dad . . .” I said.
“Right, made me a junior. Resigned me to juniority.”
“Well, you’re not your name,” I said.
“Of course I am. I can’t not be Davis Pickett. Can’t not be my father’s son.”
“I guess,” I said.
“And I can’t not be an orphan.”
“I’m sorry.”
His tired eyes met mine. “A lot of old friends have been in touch the last few days, and I’m not an idiot. I know why. But I don’t know where my dad is.”
“The truth is—” I said, and then stopped as a shadow flashed over us. I turned around. Daisy was standing over me.
“The truth is,” she said, “we were listening to the radio, heard a news report about your father, and then Holmesy here told me she had a crush on you when you were kids.”
“Daisy,” I sputtered.
“And I was, like, let’s go see him, I bet it’s true love. So we arranged for a shipwreck, and then you remembered she likes Dr Pepper, and IT IS TRUE LOVE. It’s just like The Tempest, and okay, I’m going to leave you now so you can live happily ever after.” And her shadow was gone, replaced by the golden light of the sun.
“Is that—really?” Davis asked.
“Well, I don’t think it’s exactly like The Tempest,” I said. But I couldn’t stand to tell him the truth. Anyway, it wasn’t a lie. Not all the way. “I mean, we were just kids.”
After a minute, he said, “You almost don’t even look like the same person.”
“What?”
“Like, you were this scrawny little lightning bolt, and now you’re . . .”
“What?”
“Different. Grown up.” My stomach was kind of churning, but I couldn’t tell why. I never understood my body—was it scared or excited?
Davis was looking past me at the stand of trees along the river’s edge. “I really am sorry about your dad,” I said.
He shrugged. “My dad’s a huge shitbag. He skipped town before getting arrested because he’s a coward.” I didn’t know how to answer that. The way people talked about fathers could almost make you glad not to have one. “I really don’t know where he is, Aza. And if anyone does know, they’re not gonna say anything, because he can pay them a lot more than the reward. I mean, a hundred thousand dollars? A hundred thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money.” I just stared at him. “Sorry,” he said. “That probably sounded dickish.”
“Probably?”
“Right, yeah,” he said. “I just mean . . . he’ll get away with it. He always gets away with it.”
I was starting to respond when I heard Daisy return. She had a guy with her—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing matching khaki shorts and a polo shirt. “We are going to meet a tuatara,” Daisy said excitedly.
Davis got up and said, “Aza, this is Malik Moore, our zoologist.” He said “our zoologist” as if they were normal words to say in the course of everyday conversation, as if most people who reached a certain standing in life acquired a zoologist.
I stood up and shook Malik’s hand. “I take care of the tuatara,” he explained. Everyone seemed to assume I knew what the hell a tuatara was. Malik walked over to the edge of the pool, knelt down, lifted a door hidden in the patio’s tile, and pressed a button. A reticulated chrome walkway emerged from the pool’s edge and arched over the water to reach the island. Daisy grabbed my arm and whispered, “Is this real life?” and then the zoologist waved his hand dramatically, gesturing for us to walk across the bridge.