by Claire Raye
I tried moving on, yet something about each new guy I met felt wrong, like I was cheating myself out of something great.
I take a deep breath, figuring we have a few hours till we hit Boston, I might as well fill her in since she’s opted to join me on this idiotic quest for something that probably no longer exists.
“I stop off at Dad’s and stay for a day or two, hanging out with him and making dinner. Then I drive across the country following any leads the PI I hired has found in hopes of finding Elliot.” I say it like it’s completely normal, like it doesn’t sound stalkerish or borderline crazy.
Lucky for me, Alice is as crazy as they come and while I’m sure she’s secretly judging me in her head, she acts like nothing I’ve said seems at all off.
“Sounds good,” she replies. “Can we stop at Kane’s?”
I laugh out loud wondering if this is the real reason she’s decided to join me.
“Of course. I’ll pay you in donuts for your help.”
“Yes,” Alice says cheerfully, tossing a hand up in the air.
The car falls silent and I ask the one question I know she’s been waiting for, but doesn’t want to answer.
“When was the last time you were home?”
“I don’t know,” she says, but I know that isn’t true. She knows exactly when the last time was, because it was the time our father finally told her he was done supporting her. While I truly believe he had her best interests at heart, he crushed her and she left bitter and angry.
“That’s bullshit,” I tell her, flatly.
“It was five years ago.”
I didn’t realize it had been that long. Whenever I’d visit my dad, he’d ask how Alice was, and I was always vague in my answers. I knew he didn’t want to know that while I had created a life for myself in New York, Alice was still out “finding herself.” I know he blames himself for enabling her for all those years and the guilt was even worse when he eventually called it quits.
Alice begins to fidget in the seat, picking at the skin around her fingernails, kicking off her shoes and changing positions multiple times before letting out a long huff.
“He’ll forgive you, Alice. He’s our dad.”
“I know. But he shouldn’t.”
A few hours later we pull into the driveway of the home we both grew up in. The home where we lost our mother, the home where Alice was told she was no longer welcome, and I know by bringing her with me, it can go one of two ways. I’m hoping today we find our father ready to forgive her.
He steps out onto the front porch, a smile on his face, wearing a Boston Red Sox t-shirt and holding two cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, a tradition we started when I was finally old enough to drink.
“The game’s on,” he calls. “Bottom of the third.”
I find everything about him comforting: his lazy smile, his disheveled hair, his obsessive love for the Red Sox, but most of all, his love for me.
I watch his smile fade as Alice steps out of the car, and I can’t decide if he’s angry or shocked at what I’ve done.
“Hi, Dad,” she says, giving him a slight wave and a feeble smile.
He waits momentarily before saying, “Why don’t you girls come inside? I’ll order a pizza.” And I know everything’s going to be alright.
Alice links arms with me, smiling bigger than I’ve seen her smile in years as we head up toward the house.
Families are a funny thing, and if they’re done right, the passage of time means nothing. All the bad decisions and the arguments, the things left unsaid and the time spent apart dissipate.
By the time we go to bed, it’s like Alice hasn’t been missing for the last five years and by looking at her face, the stress is gone. She looks years younger, calmer, almost at peace with herself.
While this wasn’t my intention to bring normalcy back to our family, I’m glad I did. But I can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t part of the reason Alice agreed to join me.
I fall asleep feeling lighter, at ease, but I know it will only last so long. Tomorrow, I’ll set off to find Elliot, almost resigned to the fact that nothing will happen, yet I still can’t bring myself to give up.
Chapter Three
“So where’s our first stop?” Alice asks, sounding eager.
We left our father about an hour ago. Kissing him goodbye, while he wished me a fake but decent attempt at a good luck. He disagrees with what I’m doing. He always has and viewing it from a parent’s perspective, I understand his hesitation.
He asks me why I can’t just let it go and I wish I had a definitive answer for him, but I don’t. I’m not like this. I live a normal life, one of regular every day work and visiting with friends and movies and DVR’d television shows. This is my one indulgence; the one thing that sets me apart from everyone else and possibly makes me crazy.
I flip open the file folder from the PI and look down at the map I’ve outlined, the route highlighted from Boston to San Diego. Each point marked with a number, the order I plan to follow before finally ending in the place where it all began. According to my calculations the entire trip should take about three weeks, longer than the last one, but not even close to the longest.
“First stop is Pittsburgh. Then on to Chicago,” I say, my eyes focused on the road. I’ve never had someone join me on this journey and it already feels awkward. It’s far less embarrassing alone, but with Alice in the car beside me, knowing what I’m doing, it’s suddenly weird.
“Woot!” Alice shouts and I look at her strangely.
“What was that for?” I ask.
“Can we stop at Kennywood?”
“What’s Kennywood?”
“You know, that theme park they have there. Supposed to be a shit show, but kinda nostalgic and whatever,” Alice answers, explaining it like I should know exactly what she’s talking about.
“I don’t think we’ll have time,” I respond, wondering why I even thought bringing her along was a good idea.
“This trip is gonna blow,” Alice huffs out, folding her arms over her chest.
I want to shout at her that this isn’t about her and she needs to, for once, stop being so fucking selfish, but I realize I’m going to be trapped in the car with her for the next fifteen or so days, so I keep my mouth shut.
The car falls silent and Alice pops her earbuds in, resting her head against the window, she drifts off to sleep.
I enjoy the quiet, the hum of the tires on the road and the sound of the wind as it cuts across the car.
It gives me time to think. After doing this for almost twelve years, there have been times I told myself to call it quits, to be done traipsing across the country looking for someone who probably doesn’t exist anymore, who possibly never existed—a dream of sorts, an idealized version of a person. Maybe I’ve made more out of this than was ever meant to be, yet maybe, the part that I hold onto, was real.
As much as I come home defeated and broken down, telling myself to give up, I can’t seem to let it go. This trip will be no different.
I pull into a gas station to fill up the car and get a few snacks. I wake Alice and she stumbles from the car and heads inside to use the bathroom. She’s been asleep almost from the time we left Boston and it doesn’t bother me. It’s nice to have the company, but it’s also nice to have complete silence.
When we’re finally back on the road, Alice starts talking again and I know I’m the only one who appreciates a quiet car ride. Alice doesn’t do well with silence and will talk just to fill it. More times than not it has gotten her in trouble. She’ll talk just for the sake of talking, which leads to her admitting things, starting arguments or saying something she always regrets.
“Why do you only look for him once a year?” she asks, picking at an unnaturally pink TastyKake snowball and popping small bites into her mouth.
“The first year I looked for him almost every day and it began to consume my life. I decided to limit my search to once a year so I can carry on somewhat normally,”
I say, adding that last part in as a joke, but knowing I’m hardly joking.
I question my method regularly, wondering if I’ve missed something during that year, something that could lead me to him. I hire a private investigator about a month prior to my trip and he or she searches for Elliot, but holds any information until the day before I plan to leave. After that I make my plan.
Some years there is so much information to sort through that I use the full five weeks of vacation I have and other years there’s only a day or two. Once there was nothing, not a single person or house address or lead, and that year was the hardest. I wanted to say fuck my once a year bullshit, but I held firm.
“What if you find him and he’s married? Better yet, what if he’s ugly now? Or he has no idea who you are,” Alice says, her voice growing higher with each question she asks, almost like she’s picturing this in her head and laughing at me.
“Don’t fucking mock me,” I retort. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of all those things?” I roll my eyes, but Alice doesn’t stop.
“What do you hope to accomplish by finding him? Do you have a plan if you ever do?”
I listen to her words and as annoyed as I am with her, I understand what she’s saying. I guess a part of me believes I’ll never find him so it doesn’t matter. But then, I wonder what will happen if I do? I’ve never thought it through enough, knowing how irrational the situation is.
“I have nothing,” I tell her quietly and for some reason that shuts her up.
But it doesn’t last long before she’s back questioning me. “So who are we stalking tomorrow?” she asks and it does make me laugh a little.
“A guy named Elliot Mitchell.” Just as I’m about to fill Alice in she cuts me off.
“Eww, I hope it’s not him. I hate guys with last names that are first names.” Now I’m laughing harder and I have to agree with her. “So what makes your PI think it could be him?”
“He was born in San Diego and lived there until 2010, but moved to Pittsburgh for a job. He’s single, the right age and has blue eyes.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” Alice questions, her nose scrunched up as she looks at me over her shoulder.
“That’s all I’ve ever got,” I say, nonchalantly. “I don’t know his last name, I don’t know if he’s even from San Diego. I honestly know very little.”
“So it’s like legit looking for a needle in a haystack,” she says and I nod my head.
She’s never been more right in her life. I’m no closer to finding him than I was all those years ago and the fact that all I have to go on is a first name, a vague possibility of a hometown and a description of him at nineteen, it’s pretty fucking pitiful.
“Why didn’t you tell him your last name?” Alice asks with curiosity. “I mean, you sat and talked for hours, yet it never crossed your mind to tell him or ask his.”
I wait a few seconds before answering and as much as I’ve wondered this same thing myself, the answer is still the same.
“I honestly don’t know. We were so caught up in talking that the moment was missed, and I guess we thought we had more time.”
“I can see that,” Alice says, and something about the tone in her voice makes me feel like she understands. Maybe it’s all those one-night stands she’s had or all those unknown guys she’s slept with that allow her to rationalize my answer.
We’re about two hours outside of Pittsburgh when we stop for dinner. A local dive off the side of the road that Alice balks at, but after doing this far too many times, I know the dives are the best places to eat.
The place smells of stale cigarettes and fryer oil. It seems to be baked into every surface of the restaurant, including the worn out vinyl booth that Alice flops down on, making the bench waft out the terrible smell.
“You sure you want to eat here?” Alice asks disgustedly, with her face scrunched and her hands in her lap as if she’s afraid to touch anything.
“I’d think you’d like it here. Like it’s your mothership or something. The only thing that’s missing is the liquor smell,” I respond, but she doesn’t find the humor in my joke.
“Piss off. I haven’t smoked once since we left Boston.”
Alice lets out a huff and pulls her phone from her purse, proceeding to ignore me, she begins taking pictures of the restaurant as our waitress walks up. Alice snaps a quick picture of her too and the look on the woman’s face is priceless. This might be a small town dive of a restaurant, but this woman isn’t an idiot. She rolls her eyes at Alice and then asks what we’d like.
After we order and the waitress isn’t within an earshot, I say to Alice, “You know she’s spitting in your food, right?”
“I wasn’t trying to be rude. She’s kinda the epitome of a small town waitress, you know, like all middle-aged and haggard. What’s that term, something about being rode hard and put away wet?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I mutter, wondering if we’re really going to survive this together. Three weeks driving cross-country and back with a person who has been on my shit list more times than not doesn’t seem like the best idea.
Dinner is quiet with the exception of Alice mindlessly typing away on her phone, the annoying click of the fake keyboard sound echoing throughout the restaurant. I need to try to not let her bother me or else one of us will seriously end up dead or left on the side of the road.
After eating and before we leave the restaurant, Alice pulls her camera from the trunk of the car and gives me a pleading look.
“Just a few more pictures?” she asks and I nod. Photography is something Alice has always loved. It’s also something I thought would eventually lead to a career for her, but sadly, she never pursued it. Her pictures are amazing, she has an eye for this kind of thing, and as I watch her lie down in the gravel parking lot, shooting up toward the neon sign, it makes me smile. This is her element; this is where she’s comfortable—a camera in hand, trying to get the best angle, the best shot, the perfect picture.
She mills around the parking lot, shooting a few pictures here and there before climbing in the car.
“Get some good shots?” I ask, not because I want her to think I’m interested, but because I actually am.
“I think so.”
We finally arrive at the hotel, and after checking in, both of us fall into bed, the lights out almost immediately.
Through the silence of the room Alice asks, “Why don’t you just email these people? The PI gives you email addresses and Facebook profiles, so why don’t you save yourself the trouble of driving all over the United States?”
“I used to and sometimes I still do. But most people don’t respond to emails or Facebook messages from a random stranger.” I laugh at my own words and Alice joins me. “I wouldn’t either, honestly. It’s creepy,” I add and Alice giggles again. “I feel like I’m doing more to find him if I meet these people in person.”
She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, but replies with, “I can understand that. Almost like you need to actually witness for yourself that it’s not him.” I nod even though she can’t see me.
That’s definitely part of it. There’s more to it than that, but I’m not even sure I know what that is.
“So what happens tomorrow? Do you just roll up on this guy and are like, ‘Hey did you fuck me on a beach in La Jolla when I was eighteen?’ Or is it more stealthy than that?”
“Alice, you have a way with words. Has anyone ever told you that before?” I shoot back, playfully, knowing her teasing is meant lightheartedly. She laughs a little, but doesn’t respond to my facetious questioning.
“It all depends on the situation,” I tell her. “Sometimes I meet them in person and we talk. Other times I see them and immediately know it isn’t him. A few times I’ve actually sat down with the person and talked for hours. Not many find what I’m doing interesting, but a few have.”
I think back to a few years ago when I met a man named Elliot Spencer. He lived just outside of No
rfolk, Virginia with his wife and two young daughters. By that point I had been ringing random people’s doorbells and sending unsolicited emails to people all over the country, so it was no big thing to walk up and knock on these people’s door.
And although I knew from the moment he opened the door that Elliot Spencer was not the Elliot I was looking for, I still explained my story. His wife happened to be standing behind him while I was talking and she invited me in.
She was one of the first people to be taken with my story, explaining that she and her husband met at the age of eighteen and she knew the day she met him that she was in love with him. She understood my obsessive need to find Elliot. She understood the pull that love can have on a person, especially when it’s taken away from you.
Her husband is in the military, the Navy, and is stationed on submarines making it impossible to contact him. She struggles with missing him and wondering if he’s safe, but says that each day he’s away, she finds herself loving him even more. She also admitted there are times when he would be away, that she would literally give everything for just one more day with him.
We talked for hours that day, well into the night and we still talk regularly now. She checks in with me every now and again, asking how things are going with my search and helping me in any way she can. Knowing someone is as invested in this journey as I am makes continuing worthwhile.
She once told me the heart doesn’t understand the passage of time; it aches just as much for one day as it does for a hundred. You can keep yourself busy, distract yourself, but you still feel what’s missing.
And I still, to this day, don’t know if it’s so much that I’m missing Elliot or what we had together, or if I’m just missing the feeling it gave me to be so consumed with someone.
I tried to find it, but I never succeeded. I dated, was in long term relationships, but none of it gave me the feeling I had when I was on that beach with Elliot. At one point my best friend Meagan tried to tell me that maybe it was just that lustful, obsessive feeling that comes with all young love and as we age we lose that ability to fall so hard for someone.
