A few days ago, I called in the middle of the night. I must have caught him off guard, because he picked up the phone. “Hello?” he said, a note of panic in his voice. I could not help but wonder if, in his half-asleep state, he was reverting to the past. Perhaps, in that moment of partial awareness, he believed it might be the call about Emma.
“It’s me.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s Abby.”
Long pause. “Hi.”
“Sorry to call in the middle of the night. You’re not easy to get in touch with.”
“I’ve been busy,” he said.
There was no static on the line, just his voice, deep and smooth, exactly as I remembered it. “You sound as clear as if you were in the next room,” I said.
“You too.”
“I wish you were,” I said. “In the next room, I mean.”
“Abby…”
“I just wanted you to know I miss you.”
He sighed. “Where are you?”
“In Tamarindo. It’s pretty here.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“Passing the days.”
All those times I tried to reach him, I knew exactly what I would say to him. I would tell him I still loved him, still wanted to make a life together. I would tell him I was very, very close to coming home. But once I had him on the phone, my mind went blank. I could hear him getting out of bed, walking across the floor, opening the lid of the toilet. I could picture the bathroom, his shaving cream and razor placed neatly on the shelf above the sink, the blue towels hanging over the shower rod. I could hear him peeing, and the intimacy of that sound made me lose it completely.
“You’ve got to talk to me,” I said. Even as I said it, I knew I had no right to ask this of him, that what we had together ceased to exist that moment on Ocean Beach when I looked away. I knew that his attempt at reconciliation the day before I left for Costa Rica showed far more generosity than most men would be capable of.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really do have to get some sleep.”
The line went dead. I called back, but he didn’t answer.
70
DAY 304. Playa Hermosa. The long gray beach, surrounded by volcanic rock and tropical forests, is as familiar to me now as Ocean Beach. Annabel’s voice on the other end of the line. “When are you coming home?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
A tiny sand crab scuttles across the tile floor of the phone booth. “I have a pet,” I say. The sand crab finds my foot and begins climbing up by way of my big toe. “Remember when we used to collect sand crabs at the beach? Remember how we’d trap them in mason jars? We never could keep them alive for more than a few days, no matter how well we took care of them.”
“I’m worried about you,” Annabel says. “What about your work? What about everybody here who loves you? Your new niece is due in eight weeks.”
“You know I wouldn’t miss that.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I feel like I’m losing hold of you. We hardly ever talk.”
“I was looking at the calendar today,” I say.
“I know. Impossible to believe it’s been close to a year.”
A year of her alone, or dead, God knows what. “I’ve made a decision,” I say. “I already hate myself for it, but I’ve made it. I don’t know what else to do.”
Annabel lets out a little yelp. “She kicked. She’s getting restless in there. You should see me. I look like the Goodyear blimp.”
“I’m coming home after Toes on the Nose,” I say.
I can almost hear Annabel smiling. “Thank God.”
Even as I make this promise to Annabel, I’m thinking, What next? The search itself is so much a part of my life now, I cannot imagine going through a day without pursuing it in some way. Work only takes up so many hours. Eating and sleeping only take up so many more. I cannot imagine having a free hour and spending it in some frivolous way—shopping or seeing a movie, meeting friends for drinks. I cannot imagine an hour that does not include the idea of saving Emma, this ultimate, impossible goal. An hour in which I am simply alive and content, going about the mundane business of living.
71
DAY 329. Crossing over the alligator bridge north of Jaco once again, I feel less hope than dread. After this, there is nowhere left to go. If I don’t find what I’m looking for here, I have to accept that I won’t find it anywhere.
At the entrance to Boca Barranca, there’s a huge banner that says Welcome to Toes on the Nose. It’s true what the guy at the hotel desk said: the place is so crowded it’s unrecognizable. Cars, people, buses, bicycles. There’s a carnival atmosphere in the air, radios playing loudly, vendors selling trinkets, local girls plaiting hair in the shade for three American dollars.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, the bus drops me and more than a dozen others at the hotel. I wait in line for nearly an hour. “You’re back,” the clerk says, sliding my key across the desk. “I didn’t think you’d show. I was tempted to give away your room.”
“I never heard from you,” I say.
“I kept my eyes open, but those two guys with the Rossbottom never came around. You might get lucky this week, though. We have a record number of entries.”
I find my room, change into a tank top and sarong, grab my camera, and head out to the beach. The contest doesn’t start until tomorrow, but a huge party is already under way. A couple of DJs are set up under tents, speakers blasting. There are guys hawking raffle tickets, girls in hot-pink bikinis handing out free CDs, Ticos grilling chicken to sell to the surfers, makeshift bars offering beer and tropical cocktails. There are a couple of camera crews here from American and Costa Rican television stations, as well as a few lone photographers.
I wander through the crowd, camera in hand. As always, I am watching, hoping, every nerve in my body attuned to the remote possibility of Emma’s presence. I search the entire crowd, stopping here and there to snap a photo. People are friendly, drunk, and approachable.
“I’m looking for a Killer Longboard,” I say to a young woman who’s here to compete in the Women’s Longboarding Classic. “Have you seen one?”
“No, but I’ve had my mind on the heat.”
Another photographer approaches me. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to the waist and a pair of ill-fitting shorts. “Louis,” he says, shaking my hand.
“Abby.”
“I’m on assignment for Surfing Magazine.” He holds up his laminated ID tag. “No tag,” he says, glancing at my chest. “You independent?”
“Lonely Planet. We’re doing an international surf guide.”
“No kidding. I’ve got some great shots from the Siargo Cup. Think they’d be interested?”
“Maybe, you should call them.”
For the rest of the afternoon and evening, I alternate between sitting on the beach and wandering among the crowd. The sun goes down, the surfers come in, the beach party continues. The music gets louder, the crowd gets rowdier. People are drunk and familiar, ridiculously young, offering me beers, which I accept. I take advantage of their friendliness, asking if they’ve seen a guy with a tattoo of a breaking wave on his chest. Asking if they’ve seen a little girl, about this tall, who answers to the name of Emma.
Around ten p.m., a guy who can’t be older than twenty-two sits on the sand beside me, pops the top on an Imperial, and presses the cold bottle into my hands.
“Where you from, sister?” he says, slurring his words.
“San Francisco. You?”
“Idaho.”
“You’re a long way from home.”
“So are you,” he says. “Want to spend the night with me? I got this great cabin just down the beach a ways. Good weed. And I’ve been told I’m a sensitive lover. Name’s Thor. Like the Vikings.”
“Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”
“I urge you to reconsider.” He’s closer now, his cool breath
on my face. Good-looking, tan, and lean. Beautiful lips.
I’m a little dizzy from the beer, but not dizzy enough to do something that stupid. “How old are you?”
He grins. “Old enough.”
“I’m sure you’ll make someone very happy tonight, but I’m afraid it’s past my bedtime. Yours too, if you’re competing tomorrow.”
“Surfing is like driving,” he says. “I do it better drunk.”
I stand to go, and he grabs my ankles. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
Back in my room, I lie down on the hard bed, beneath sheets that don’t feel quite clean, and fall into a fitful sleep. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.
72
BY THE time I get outside at eight o’clock the next morning, the beach is already busy. Groups of surfers have set up camp with bright umbrellas, ice chests, and banners announcing the names of their surf clubs. Several surfers are already out in the water, warming up. I lay my towel down by the guard tower and settle in. My supplies include three bottles of water, a cheese sandwich, my camera, and a pair of binoculars I picked up a couple of weeks ago in Playa Hermosa. I point the binoculars out to the lineup, but even with the magnification, the guys are moving too fast for me to get a good look at their boards.
“Look at that,” the lifeguard says. “Shoulder-high peelers breaking on two different peaks. This should be a good one.”
“You bet,” I say. “What time is the first heat?”
“Half an hour. The judges are setting up.” He nods toward a long table set up in the sand a couple hundred yards away. There are three judges, all bare-chested. One of them is wearing a cowboy hat.
I sit, wait, and watch. The morning haze lifts, and the sun comes down bright and hot. By ten o’clock the beach is hopping. Surfers jockey for a place in the lineup. Guys high-five each other as the scores are announced. During the second heat, one of the guys moons the crowd just before the wave closes around him.
It’s like an enormous frat party, everybody hungover from last night’s binge, but surfing their hearts out anyway. If I were in Boca Barranca for any other reason, I could really enjoy this. I think of all those mornings my senior year of high school, when Ramon would pick me up at the 7-Eleven across the street from school and we’d drive out to Gulf Shores. We’d spend the day on the beach, and I’d come home late in the afternoon, sunburned and tipsy, sneaking to my bedroom before my parents could get a look at me. Even then, I understood those were perfect days, something to treasure. My parents’ marriage had taught me that grown-up love was different; there was something angry and hard about the kind of love my parents shared. Then Ramon was gone, and there were years of dead-end relationships, where things just didn’t click. Then there was Jake. Before I met him, I’d forgotten that sex could be so good, that conversation could feel so easy.
“You’re a good talker,” I once told him, after listening to him riff for half an hour on quantum mechanics.
“You’re a good listener,” he replied.
At noon, I leave my towel by the lifeguard stand and wander up and down the beach. Thor from last night is standing at one of the makeshift bars, drinking tequila. “Hair of the dog?” I ask.
“You got it,” he says, but I can tell he doesn’t recognize me.
I order a Bloody Mary and wander among the tents, searching the faces, the chests, the boards. After four months of studying surfboards every day, I’ve come to recognize some of the brands and models: the Hobie Vintage 9'6'' with its rolled V bottom; the pretty blue and yellow Robert August 9'6'' What I Ride, equipped with a signature fiberglass fin; the 10'6'' Freeth Model by Malibu Longboards, named after the first known surfer in California. But no Rossbottom.
I go back to my towel and sit down to watch the next heat. There’s a lot of commotion on the beach, everyone crowding close to the water. “What’s all the fuss?” I ask the lifeguard.
“That’s Rabbit Kekai,” he says, pointing to a lone surfer paddling out.
A few minutes ago there were a couple dozen surfers in the water. Now, it’s only him. “Where’s everybody else?”
“Giving him room. Out of respect. Rabbit’s the most famous living longboarder in the world. Hell, the most famous living surfer. He started surfing in Waikiki when he was five. Learned from the greats—Duke Kahanamoku, Tom Blake. Eighty-four years old, and he can still put any guy out here to shame.”
Even I can see why Rabbit Kekai causes such a stir. He looks like he belongs in the water, at one with it. He doesn’t fight the surf, like some of the younger guys do. He flows with it. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, even for a layperson like me.
Half an hour later, the next heat is announced, and the ocean fills with bodies. Once again, I walk up and down the beach, searching. It’s under a big blue umbrella that I finally see it. Towering twelve feet tall, with the sun glinting off the deck. Red, with a golden frog at the center. The rider is standing behind it, supporting it with one hand, his face and body hidden, one leg jutting forward, foot digging in the sand. I walk slowly, eyes focused on the frog, afraid to believe what I’m seeing. My heart races. I can actually feel it swelling and pumping, a hard, fast rhythm inside my chest.
Then I’m within five feet of the board, and there’s no question it’s a Billy Rossbottom. There’s the signature down on the tail, scratched into the wood. A small r, a big flourish on the m. Several guys and a couple of girls are gathered around, talking to the owner, whose face is still obscured. My legs feel weak.
The surf thunders, the sun beats down. I look around, trying to concentrate. A few children are standing nearby. I search their faces, look into their eyes; each one is too young or too old. Not one of them is Emma.
I take another step. The hand moves, and the board turns so that it is in profile, exposing the man behind it. He runs his hands over the deck, talking to the onlookers. Then I’m standing in front of him, holding my breath, looking into his face.
Hair: brown.
Eyes: brown.
Height: tall.
Tattoo: none.
Accent: Australian.
Just one glance into his face, one look at his bare chest, and I know it isn’t him. Not my man from Ocean Beach. Just some guy with a Killer Longboard.
The beach spins, the breath goes out of me, the camera slips off my shoulder, and suddenly I’m sitting on the ground, sobbing like a child, like a crazy person. Staring at this man who isn’t the one. And those children behind him, who are not Emma.
A hand reaches down. A big hand, a kind face. “You all right, love?”
I accept his hand. He pulls me up. “Sorry,” I say. “It’s just the sun. I’ll be fine.”
73
Casey Lopez. Corona, California. June 5, 1971. Twelve years old.
Benjamin Jent. Lexington, South Carolina. June 6, 1986. Four years old.
Miles Sevreva. Las Vegas, Nevada. February 16, 1992. Three years old.
Joseph Moore. Welch, Oklahoma. December 30, 1999. Sixteen years old.
Tyrone Johnson. Chicago, Illinois. July 6, 2001. Ten years old.
Jimmy Schadler. Chicago, Illinois. July 6, 2001. Three years old.
Ashley Rubin. Bridgeport, Connecticut. November 7, 2001. Eleven years old.
Grace Costa. San Diego, California. April 25, 2002. Two years old.
Twyla Chandler. Richwoods, Missouri. October 6, 2002. Eleven years old.
Melissa Berquist. Saint Louis, Missouri. June 11, 2003. Nine years old.
Angela Simpson. Houston, Texas. November 16, 2004. Eight months old.
Lily Taylor. Reno, Nevada. April 21, 2005. Four years old.
That night, in my dingy motel room in Boca Barranca, I can’t stop thinking about where the girls go, and the boys, the teenagers, that endless procession of vanishing children. One moment they are here beside you—in the grocery store, the mall, the park, at the gas station, on the beach—and the next minute they are not. It is easy enough to find the names and dates, the place from whic
h they were abducted, their age at the time of kidnapping. But the essential information, their current location, whether they are alive or dead, is missing.
Months of searching turn up nothing, not even the faintest clue. It seems as if they are nowhere, as if the cells and skin of which they are made have simply evaporated. But the laws of physics demand that they must be somewhere, alive or dead. Some remnant must linger in the world. The vanished are not truly gone—they are only gone from you.
And Jake. I can’t stop thinking about Jake. His hands, with their chalk and eraser smell. His long pale feet in sandals, the leather stiff with salt water. His chest, the coarse, dark hairs I used to feel against my cheek at night. His breath in the afternoon when I met him after work, the sweet mint of his gum layered over the taste of peanut butter from the sandwich he’d had for lunch. I think of Jake in fits, in photographic swatches, never in the whole. I think of the parts, not the sum, and I know I will never find that same beautiful amalgamation in another man.
It’s so hot I’ve stripped the top sheet off the bed. The mosquitoes are at their business. I’m wearing nothing but underwear; there’s a wet cloth pressed to my forehead, another on my stomach. I can hear the guard making his rounds in the hall, boots thudding against cement. People are partying in nearby rooms. Next door, a couple is having sex. It’s eight p.m. in San Francisco. I imagine Jake sitting in his big leather chair in front of the television, the evening’s darkness closing in, the television muted so that he has to make up the words. It’s a game we used to play, ascribing pithy remarks and intellectual dialogue to the voluptuous blondes on Frat House Diaries and the pumped-up gym rats on Iron. There would be a couple in a hot tub, a bikini-clad twenty-something talking a mile a minute, ensconced in steam, and Jake would have her quoting Hegel. He’d do the voice for the women and I’d do the guys; bouncers would recite Muriel Rukeyser, cops would hold forth on Diebenkorn.
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