by Calla Devlin
“Except there’s no way in hell your dad will,” Emma says. “He’s not going to go from being their hostage to being their spokesperson. Your dad would never, ever do that. Not a single decent journalist would.”
She’s right. Dad wouldn’t say anything that he didn’t mean, not for his captors. These are people who bomb villages. He won’t do anything to help them. He’d sacrifice himself first.
“Just tell them to release your dad,” Isaac says. “The point is to get news coverage. Let’s get all over Ukraine and Russia too. That should get people’s attention.”
“How much trouble is this going to get us in?” Emma asks. I know she’s thinking about the college letters that will be in the mail any day now.
“Does it matter?” Josh asks.
“Some of us have plans for after graduation. You know, college. I want to help, but I don’t want to get arrested. Not everyone wants to get suspended like you.”
Josh opens his mouth to speak, looks at me, and closes it again. He shakes his head. “You’re an editor,” he says, looking right at Emma. “You know how important it is to get all the facts before reaching a conclusion. Maybe you should apply that to me. You don’t know what happened.”
“Tell us, then,” Isaac says.
“It’s not my story to tell. We’re here to help Charlotte, so maybe save the righteous judgment for another day.” Josh sounds like he’s delivered this speech before. I wonder how many times and in what situations.
I catch Emma rolling her eyes, and I shoot her a quasi-glare, enough of a stink eye to get her to remember her promise. Be nice.
“Okay,” she says. “But I want to hear more later.”
“There’s nothing else to tell,” Josh says, clearly annoyed. “Where should we film the video?”
“Emma’s house,” I say. “My mom always says it looks Sovietesque with all the concrete. That okay?”
“Yeah. My parents are away for the weekend—that’s why I’m still on my takeout and Pop-Tart diet.”
“Okay, I’ll finish the U.S. script,” Isaac says. “Want to take a crack at the Russian one, Josh?”
An olive branch. Thank you, Isaac.
“I don’t think Charlotte needs a script to talk about her dad,” Josh says. “But thanks for asking. Really.”
Isaac nods. When Isaac is quiet, things are fine. He’s quick to speak up and quick to get offended, so you always know where you stand with him.
“Let’s bring Jeremiah Lang home,” Isaac says, raising his coffee cup.
“And to hell with the FBI,” Emma says.
“We agree on that,” Josh says.
We toast to my father’s safe return. To doing something on our own. Emma, Isaac, and Josh may never be friends, but at least they’re here with me.
Twenty-Three
We drive to Emma’s house together, leaving Josh’s bike chained in front of the café. He seems reluctant to give it up, even temporarily. I think he’s the type of person who always has an exit strategy.
Roller coasters fill me with unquantifiable horror, but they pale in comparison to riding shotgun with Emma. I hang my head out the window like a joyriding dog, welcoming the fresh air. When Josh suggests she slow down, Emma laughs in response. We snake through winding streets bearing the names of the planets. She lives on Jupiter.
We all climb out of the car, knees weak from the drive. I wait for Josh, who looks a little green.
“You’ll get used to her driving,” I say.
“Have you?”
I shrug. “Sort of.”
“My favorite spot in the city,” Josh says, pointing to Sutro Tower, the giant candy-striped TV tower atop Twin Peaks. “That’s my production company’s name. Sutro Films.”
“You have a production company?” I ask.
“Yeah, I had to create one when I entered that film festival. It’s just me and my brother.”
The tower, with its three giant prongs, is visible from many angles in the city. “I’ve never been up there.” I pull out my camera, and take a shot of the tower, the top rising into the low, thick clouds.
“You have to go sometime. It’s beautiful at night. You can see most of the city. The bridges and the bay. I’ll take you.”
I wrap my cardigan tighter around me. The fog rolled in and never left. “Let’s go inside.”
When I first saw Emma’s house, it took a while to adjust. They don’t have many things, but everything they do have is exquisite. The entire house, except for Emma’s and her brother’s rooms, looks ready for a magazine shoot, Architectural Digest or Dwell. Not staged, exactly. Curated. The house, along with all that fills it, is a work of art.
Dad believes buying art is a waste of money. Instead, buy a plane ticket and visit museums and monuments. See art in context. It’s an experience, not a commodity. Still, the few times he’s picked me up at Emma’s, the admiration was plain on his face.
“Over here,” Emma says as she moves a table and chair away from the wall. “Stand away from the table.”
Josh checks the shot on his phone. “Move to the left. There. Stop. Good.”
In the car, Josh convinced everyone that I’d sound forced if I read from a script. I don’t want to look like a hostage myself, he insisted. I need to be natural. I need people to pay attention.
“Just be yourself,” Josh says.
What does that even mean? I glance at Josh, Emma, and Isaac. They all, more or less, know who they are and what they want. I have a general sense, but nothing fully formed. Not yet, anyway. Not since Dad left. Not since Megan suggested I approach photography more like art. The thing is, I know she’s right.
“Okay, look at me,” Josh says. “Ready?”
“Wait!” Emma hollers. I try to see what’s wrong. “Makeup. You need makeup.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Josh says.
Emma never leaves the house without putting on mascara and lipstick. I’m the opposite.
“Oh yes, she does.” Emma makes a swatting motion with her hand, a dismissive gesture, barely kinder than the middle finger. She squints at me. “Pucker,” she says. We’ve done this millions of times. Before school pictures and parties and dances. She’s a perfectionist with the most random things, and makeup is one. If only she applied this level of concentration to chemistry.
She smooths my curls. “There. Better. Now you’re all set,” she says.
It’s Josh’s turn to roll his eyes. “Okay,” he says. “Charlotte, start whenever you’re ready. Look and talk directly to the phone.”
I stumble when I say my name. It takes four times. I’m a toddler trying to speak in complete sentences. My name. Dad’s name. He’s missing. We want him home safe. With each take, I get out a few more sentences, but it’s clumsy and hardly newsworthy.
I want to scream. I wish I could do a photo montage instead. Here, look at my brilliant and kind father. Here is my fragile mother who will die a spiritual death if he doesn’t come home soon. Look at me. I need him home or I’ll be almost orphaned, living with a ghost. Two, if you count Lena, who Mom keeps alive with her palpable grief.
“Just be yourself,” Josh says again.
“I need a break,” I say, and go hide in the bathroom.
Even the bathtub is beautiful.
I look at the mirror and pretend I’m looking at Dad. Come home. I’m flustered and frustrated and wish Raj Singh and the FBI would do their damn job so I didn’t have to do this damn video.
It’s easier and harder having Josh here.
I don’t want to do this, but it has to be me. Mom is the only other one, and there’s no way she’d support our rogue campaign, no matter how upset she is with the FBI.
Emma comes in without knocking. It is her house. “Do you want me to hold up signs? Maybe a script is a good idea after all.”
“No, that isn’t it.” I turn to face her. “I’m not good in front of the camera. I wish I could film you. Or Isaac. Even Josh, but he would kind of suck at this.”
> “Yes, worse than you.” She smiles and pokes my arm. “You’re not bad at speaking. You’re just thinking too much. What if I stand next to Josh and you talk to me?”
“We can try it,” I say.
“Talk about Will Baxter. Say how long he’s been gone and how the government has to do something. Enough is enough. Talk to the camera—to me—just like you explained everything at the café. You can do this.”
I pretend I’m about to race, that I’ve stretched and am ready to run the distance. I take a deep breath. “Okay, let’s try again.”
When I’m in place, Josh asks Isaac to move to the other side. His shadow is ruining the shot. Emma stands next to Josh, and when she nods, I begin. My name is Charlotte Lang. My father, Jeremiah Lang, is a reporter for the San Francisco Tribune. Last week he was kidnapped by rebels in Ukraine. When I mention Will Baxter and the years since his abduction, my voice wavers. I notice Emma notice. I squeeze my hands into fists and dig my nails into my palms. I want to look at Josh, for just a second, but I need to have a steady gaze. Look at Emma. Don’t cry. I take another breath, deeper than normal, but hopefully not too obvious.
France protected Pascal Baudin. They paid the ransom and brought him home. The United States needs to do everything in their power to bring home my father and Will Baxter. I quote Megan about how a free press is essential to democracy. Are we really going to abandon those who seek to tell the truth? Are they going to leave my dad there to be abused and maybe tortured and killed? My voice breaks.
Every American should care about my father. The government should use diplomacy and force and all available resources to bring him home. If they won’t pay the ransom, then they need to figure out how to bring him, Will Baxter, and all kidnapped journalists home. My father is the bravest man on the planet. He leaves his family behind to tell the stories about the families ripped apart by earthquakes and fires and hurricanes. He thinks the world needs to see the truth, the suffering, so we remember that we’re all connected. We’re vulnerable and fragile and precious. That was what my father was doing when he was taken. He deserves to come home. He’s not done telling stories. He’s not done helping people. I need him. My mother needs him. He needs to come home.
“That’s it,” I say. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I suspect my mascara resembles Mom’s raccoon eyeliner.
No one speaks. Josh stares at his phone, and Emma and Isaac stare at me. “Sorry,” I say. I blew it. Again. I’m about to retreat to the beautiful bathroom, but Emma stops me.
“That was incredible.” She steps forward, and I see that she’s crying too. “You were perfect.”
Isaac nods. “You’re going to break the Internet.”
I look at Josh. “See,” he says. “I told you to be yourself. Think you can do the same thing in Russian?”
“Maybe in a minute,” I say, my voice a little shaky. “I don’t want to cry again.”
“Not to take my director role too seriously, but I think you should do it now,” Josh says, the phone still in his hand. “Don’t think too much. Remember, this time, you’re talking to the guys who took your dad. It’s okay to get emotional.”
“He’s right,” Emma says.
Isaac walks over to Emma, taking the place next to her. We’re all in this together.
I want to sit or at least have a drink of water, but they’re right, get it over with. Something shifts. Tears dry. Eyes clear. My hands return to fists, but now it isn’t because I might cry. I’m too angry. I assume Mom’s ballet posture, her straight spine. Josh nods and I begin, although now there’s nothing soft-spoken about me. I don’t stare at Emma; I stare right at the phone. I don’t know what the rebels look like, just the hand of the guy who pointed a gun at my father. I tell them that Dad is a good man and he came to help. They kidnapped someone who cares about the Ukrainian and Russian people. He has family ties to Russia, and they are harming someone who respects the culture. They should do the right thing and release him.
Once again, I finish and am met with stares.
“It’s like you were a completely different person,” Isaac says. “I’ve never seen you like that. I couldn’t understand a word you said, but wow. Wow.”
“I pretended you were one of them,” I say. “That helped.”
“You were a little scary,” Emma says. “In a good way.”
I couldn’t recite my exact words, but I have a sense of how I looked and sounded. Like Mom before her layer cake of losses.
My phone beeps. A text from Uncle Miguel.
No go on story.
“Oh no,” I say as I hold up my phone for them to read.
“It’s up to us, then,” Josh says. He turns to Isaac, and they start talking about when and where to post the video.
“I think we should blanket it,” Josh says. “Total saturation. Post all over social media and the news sites.”
“Maybe we start with the news and see where it goes. We probably don’t have to do more work than that,” Isaac says.
“Let me talk to Uncle Miguel and my mom first,” I say. “I don’t want to do this without checking with them since the paper can’t run anything.”
“Will they stop us?” Josh asks.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I need to ask them. Uncle Miguel can help us decide where to send it. Maybe we give it to CNN as an exclusive or something. Probably should be broadcast. He’ll know what’s best. I’ll let you know ASAP.”
“Let’s watch it,” Emma says, and the three of them gather around Josh’s phone.
I never like looking at myself, and I really don’t have a desire to see myself cry. I watch them watch me. They take turns smiling and nodding, obviously happy with how it turned out. I wonder how Dad felt when they filmed the video of him, when he stared into the camera and recited the rebels’ script.
After a few seconds, I ask them to turn it off. We don’t need to see the whole thing. I feel disembodied, like the girl on the screen isn’t me. Isn’t real.
Twenty-Four
I’ve spoken all of my words to the camera.
I’m quiet as we move back the furniture and quiet on the drive home. Emma and Isaac and Josh are giddy and optimistic. They aren’t convinced the video will spur the rebels to free Dad, but they know how news spreads, how it takes over a conversation.
All I can think about is Dad, the marks on his face, the way he looked at the camera. And Will Baxter. His family circulates petitions. They’ve been waiting in this limbo hell for years. Will I graduate from high school, then college, and still have Dad hidden as a hostage in Ukraine? How are we supposed to carry on with our lives when he’s there, captive? How do the Baxters get through the day?
Josh and Isaac banter about how to best pressure the government. Emma drops Isaac off first, then Josh at the café so he can reclaim his bike. I promise to keep them posted. I’ll text after I talk to Mom and Uncle Miguel. We’ll make a plan. We’ll see each other tomorrow.
Emma wants to come up, but I’m too tired. She says she understands. She looks disappointed, though. We’re used to sharing everything. But only Mom can share this.
She’s in the living room, resting on the couch with her eyes closed. She sits up when I come in. She smiles, but her eyes are red. “Look what came in the mail.”
A stack of letters, some in thick envelopes and others in thin. My future is spelled out in that stack of paper. I always imagined we’d open them together, the three of us, Mom, Dad, and me. I want to be excited, but more than anything, I miss him beyond belief. I wipe the tears from my cheeks.
“I know,” Mom says. “He should be here. Just know that he’s proud of you. Me too.”
I take the seat next to her, and she wraps her arms around me. “It’s going to be okay,” she says.
More than anything, I want to believe her, but I can’t, not entirely. I open the slim one first, a rejection from Brown University. I feel both crushed and relieved. I drop the letter and rest my head on Mom’s shoulder, not caring if she�
��s feeling maternal or not. We both cry, for Dad and for our lost future. Nothing feels important, not with him gone.
She wipes her nose. “That’s the one in Rhode Island?” she asks.
“Yeah. Emma really wanted to go there. It’s a good school, but I mostly applied to be with her.”
She hugs me tight, harder than she has in years, maybe more than she ever has.
“You need to be strong, Charlotte. No matter what happens. Be stronger than me. Before you open another letter, promise you won’t do what I did. Break. Stop living. Promise you’ll go to school.”
This only makes me cry harder. “I can’t promise anything right now. Don’t make me. Please.”
Mom does something I’ve needed for so long, for my entire life: she holds me. She doesn’t say anything. She just tightens her arms and lets me cry. I’m not sure how long we stay like that, but I feel myself calm down with every breath. Her arms are boa-constrictor-tight, and I suddenly feel like it’s going to be okay—no matter what. She’s here. She may disappear a little, but she’s never gone completely. We have each other and Uncle Miguel and Tatya Nadine.
I squeeze her back before pulling away. “Let’s see who wants me.”
Mom hands me a thick envelope, the telltale sign of an acceptance. She laughs when I see the return address: New York University.
“Right now, your dad is smiling,” she says. “I bet he has a sixth sense that you got in.”
“Do you still want me to go away?”
She shakes her head. “I never wanted you to go away, moya lyubov’.” My love. “I want you to have adventures. I want you to live. That doesn’t mean I don’t want you. Understand?”
I’m tempted to press, to ask her if she really means it, if she can promise that if Dad never comes home, she’ll be here, present, awake. Not in that strange sleepwalking state she can inhabit for days. But we’re both strung out, and I can’t take a single other hard thing. Not one.
Two more college rejections: Northwestern and the University of Southern California. Not my top choices.
