The Last Kid Left

by Rosecrans Baldwin

  It feels like I’m trying to fill in a puzzle. I don’t know what the puzzle will look like. I just know that you’re a big part of it, or I want you to be.

  At the very least, he finished, in the final note, he wanted to meet her for dinner. Afterward he’d fly home. She could pick the restaurant, location, day on the calendar. Everything was up to her. Love, Dad. Miss you, Dad. Regret terribly, more than she’d ever know, all his past mistakes, Dad.

  Then he waited. Waited more. Of course his back spasmed again. Two and a half days, with a fistful of doctor bills, he was unable to untangle himself, and was left to stare out the window. He’d thought about calling the stripper for another spine-walking session. The harder painkillers, he refused, but he ate ibuprofen like it was candy. He lay in the bed thinking of everything he’d say to Camille in person, if only he could say it.

  On the third afternoon, his phone vibrated on the side table.

  You want to see me. For dinner

  Yes.

  You’ll fly all the way out here.

  Yes.

  That’s stupid

  No it’s not.

  And then you’ll fly home, the next morning or whatever.

  I’ll fly home the same night, I just want to see you.

  We’re getting sushi.

  Sushi sounds great.

  You hate sushi

  I’m not coming for the sushi.

  Lol

  The baggage claim area turns out to be open-air, open to the sky. Only in California. He laughs with a tight throat. Up ahead stretches a colonnade of Rose Bowl flags. He goes looking for a taxi stand. The sunlight’s intense. And the old Urge hits him, out of nowhere, to grab a quickie to steady his nerves.

  His phone rings. He answers without looking.

  “I want to talk.”

  Lillian.

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  “I want to talk,” she says. “You haven’t been exactly forthcoming.”

  In the days before he left New Hampshire, her lawyer had badgered him with messages. They wanted to set up a meeting in Eagle Mount, as soon as possible. He’d never answered. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to have an answer. He didn’t want to be ready.

  “It’s your dime.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense anymore. Martin, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We were so unhappy.”

  “I was happy, actually,” he says; he can’t help himself. “Or something. Anyway, that’s behind us now.”

  “We had issues,” she says. “Individually and as a couple. I thought I had a handle on it. The ups and downs with my career. Getting older. All my struggles with my self-esteem. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “You did sleep with someone else.”

  “I became paranoid,” she says, sounding plagued. “I can’t explain it. I know you think I’m self-centered. Try to believe me: I thought I was going crazy. I hated depending on you.”

  “On me?” He laughs. “Your salary’s double what I made.”

  “For anything. I’d been independent so long. I was depressed. I was scared.” She pauses. He hears the sincerity in her voice; he can’t help but be moved. God, he’s not over her. He can’t be.

  “Honestly,” she says. “I was convinced you were going to leave me at some point.”

  “Now that’s bullshit.”

  Though he hears that it’s not.

  “I felt helpless,” she says. “So I needed to make you feel even more helpless.”

  “It’s fine. I get it.”

  “I know how this all must sound. What I’ve put you through, no one deserves that. How are you?”

  “How am I?” He laughs again. The main problem with marriage is that it requires two people. But who wants to be alone? The thought makes him smile. To even exist as an older adult, as a human past fifty-five, is the most childish thing in the world. “I’m good,” he says. “I’m good.”

  “What’s that noise behind you? Where are you?”

  A taxi pulls up to the curb. He signals to the driver. An old guy with dyed black hair gets out and pops the trunk. Martin turns away, stares into the airport, so many people finding rides, finding loved ones.

  “I can’t change what I did,” she says. “I can’t forgive myself.”

  “You’ll come around,” he says, but regrets it.

  “Please don’t make this into a joke.”

  “Lillian, I need to go.”

  “Neither of us are quitters. Martin, what do you want? Do you want us anymore?”

  “What I want is to have this discussion tomorrow,” he says. “I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise. I’m in California right now.”

  “California? But why?”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says. “I need to go.”

  The cabdriver takes his bag out of his hand. The sunlight is endless. It reminds him that he’s thirsty. By the curb is a newsstand. He buys two bottles of water and drinks one straight down. He tosses the bottle away. Next to the recycling bin is a blue federal mailbox. He smiles, perches his briefcase on his knee, withdraws an envelope, drops it down the chute.

  * * *

  The Claymore County Courthouse houses the Sheriff’s Department, the County Commissioner’s Office, the court itself, the Claymore Historical Association, and the Public Defender’s Office. It’s easy to get lost, though by now Nick knows where to go whenever Brenner wants to meet. One of the assistants escorts him to a conference room, but he knows the way, knows there’s a minifridge by the dry-erase board that’s stocked with bottled water and Coke and iced teas.

  The assistant says Brenner will be there soon. He stands at the window, watches cars leisurely swing around the square. His nerves are twisted. He can’t keep still. Good news on the horizon, supposedly, she’d said. She called to let him know that all of the evidence under secondary investigation was squaring to his story, exoneration was all but guaranteed. He should be tremendously happy, she’d said.

  That same morning, Emily had gone back to work. He should be happy about that, too, but she was different since they’d returned from the road trip. He couldn’t pin it down. Like there was a gap between them now, something new, across which he can’t quite reach. One second she’s normal, says all the right things, and he’s happy. But then she’s quiet, disengaged. Like she no longer wants him around. New silences. New looks. He feels more alone when he’s around her than when he’s not. It’s messed-up.

  The night before, he’d had a big idea about the two of them doing a picnic on the beach that weekend. Figuring maybe he hadn’t been romantic enough the way she liked, like guys in the movies. So he laid out the proposal: he’d pack a backpack, take a blanket, get the beach umbrella from Suzanne’s garage.

  She didn’t even look up from the book she was reading to say that it would be pointless, too conspicuous, being in public together like that in a crowd.

  “All that stuff’s over,” he’d said.

  “No it’s not. Of course it’s not.”

  Two months ago, she would have jumped at the idea.

  He said, “You’ve changed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Then she yawned. It wasn’t even a fake yawn. He couldn’t help but start arguing; she knew precisely how to get under his skin. Two minutes more, suddenly he was going on about being loyal, not playing games—everything dire, extremely serious. He had a true flush of anger, it impelled him to raise his voice, but she let him rant, which made it worse, because he knew he was ranting! And when he was done, all she said was that she was tired, she was going to bed. She went upstairs calmly and softly closed her bedroom door. As if he hadn’t said a word. As if it was a compulsory task to tolerate his presence. Like he was her mom or something. So he was pissed all over again.

  Forty minutes later, he still savored the injury. Though he’d managed to consider that maybe he was in the wrong. After all, he was the one picking fights. Maybe he
was the one who’d changed. He’d become needy like a girl, like Typically once said. He turned off the lights and lay down in the empty nest of blankets on the floor. A tightness gripped his chest. Did she love him anymore? Did he love her? Maybe the problem was twofold: maybe she had changed, and as a result he’d become desperate. Because he wanted her to feel the way she used to feel, the way he still felt. Feelings that maybe she no longer shared.

  Then she was gone when he woke up. His phone woke him: of all things, his mother texted him. She was in a parking lot, outside an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, just wanted to see if Nick was up, if he wanted to catch a movie that night, dinner, her treat.

  A second later, another message:

  Going in wish me luck

  Another:

  If my breath smells like Kool Aid later you’ll know why

  He wrote back:

  You can do it

  She replied:

  Thank you xo

  An hour later:

  Well that was bullshit

  From the courthouse window, he watches the cars go around and around. A green car pulls out of the current, takes a parking space in front of the courthouse. A man gets out.

  Nick stares. Stares harder.

  Brenner opens the door behind him.

  “Nick, buddy, how are you?”

  “My dad,” he stammers. “My dad.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s my dad.”

  The man he’s pointing to is actually staring up at their building. But doesn’t see Nick. He walks up the sidewalk slowly, as if unsure of where to go, up the stairs into the county sheriff’s office.

  “That’s your father?”

  He can’t believe it. He’s absolutely sure of it.

  “You need to go down for me.”

  And every feeling he’d buried comes clawing up out of the dirt. Every time he felt haunted. Every time he was in a crowd, thought he’d spotted the back of his head.

  “And do what?”

  “Please. Just find out why he’s here.”

  “Okay. Give me a minute.”

  Did he really see him? Was it him? Impossible. He doesn’t recognize the car anyway. And yet, when the man had taken more than two steps, it was him, every inch. His mind races with everything he’s wanted to say. What flushes through his body is terror.

  His lawyer comes back into the room looking annoyed.

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?”

  “You were right. It’s him.”

  “Shit.”

  “He’s looking for ‘the media,’ evidently. He asked for the press liaison, at the sheriff’s office. He’s in her office right now.”

  “Why? Why would he do that?”

  “Nick.”

  “Tell me.”

  Brenner says slowly, “What he told the girl, after identifying himself as your father, is that he’s interested in finding out how a person goes about selling his story. To the media.”

  Nick sits down and drops his head in his hands.

  She says, “I don’t know how long he’s going to be in there. In case you want to go down. You could talk to him. I’ll show you where he is. If you want.”

  “Jesus.”

  Then his body, his mind, become a single, rippling wish.

  “Fine,” he says a second later. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Eight days after her return to Claymore, three days into awkwardly hanging around her parents’ condo with nothing to do but worry, Leela prevents herself from pinging Bryan James—ex-colleague, current lifeline, by chance a bridge to an ideal future—for some type of reply to the email that she sent him with a draft attached of her big story.

  The trip to Mount Washington had been a shock. No sooner had Emily texted than Leela was riding in the truck, formulating questions on the fly. With no idea what she was doing. Barely had time to put on deodorant. Get a grip. Totally thoughtless, defenseless, nervous, unprepared. Then, when Emily came to her room that night, it was most definitely a matter of improvisation. The task was to keep her talking, muffle her own shock while guiding Emily into stories, when there was nothing that she wouldn’t discuss.

  But on the night they returned, after a long, lovely nap, Leela had sat in her makeshift room, on the air mattress, and plugged in her headphones, and quickly figured out that Emily’s loquaciousness would be merely her second-biggest problem.

  The whole ride back from the mountain, she’d kept her excitement hidden. When all she could think about was that she’d really gotten it: a scoop. The story that everyone wanted—was hers! So turning the material into an article would go beautifully, of course.

  Quickly, that evening, she realized she was an insane person.

  First, the material, she had too much material. Hours and hours, nearly seven hours of teenage talk. Endless stuff about cross-country meets, fashion interests, report-card worry, the friendship with Meg Rosenthal’s little sister. It took her most of the night and the next morning just to transcribe the whole thing.

  But her biggest problem wasn’t the material. It was that, in a mountain of information, she didn’t know what to use.

  So the next day she did everything else on her to-do list instead. Research, reporting, burning the rubber off her new sneakers. She needed to build context: Emily Portis as teammate, student, employee. Nick Toussaint Jr. as mechanic, pizza deliveryman, drinking buddy. She got some good stuff, though almost everybody she talked to said they weren’t talking to anyone, they were done.

  But that night, after a quick dinner of her mother’s baked chicken, she sat on the condo’s back patio and read her transcription, and when she was done she kicked the railing posts from exasperation.

  “I can’t do this,” she loudly told the trees.

  A minute later, her father quietly opened the sliding door. She felt fifteen. Maybe twelve. He sat down next to her on a piece of plastic lawn furniture. Pine trees surrounded them, towering above.

  “Sorry for yelling.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “There’s obviously a problem.”

  Her parents knew. The moment she’d returned, she told them about the trip. She’d explained with a satisfied smile how the story would write itself.

  “I’ve got too much material,” she said quietly, addressing her feet. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Well, what’s the story?”

  “What?”

  “What’s the story? Tell it to me.”

  “It’s the girl, the road trip. All the stuff that she told me. So everything her dad did, and about her mom being sick. I need to fit in the murders and the crimes. But it’s also about Nick and their relationship, and then you go back to the murders—”

  “Leela, what’s the story?”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “What’s the story?!”

  “Why are you shouting at me?” she said. “I don’t know!”

  He got up gingerly.

  She apologized.

  “I don’t know about these things,” he said. “But it seems to me, if you figure out what the story is, then at least you know what it’s not.”

  He went back inside.

  And it wasn’t until about eleven-thirty, after her parents were asleep, both snoring, that her father’s comment came back to haunt her. She was lying on her back on the air mattress. What’s the story, Leela? And there appeared the simplest answer, right in front of her nose: her promise. Her pledge to tell her story, Emily’s story, as Emily saw it, all of it, all at once.

  So that’s what she’d do.

  She didn’t sleep, she outlined, she tiptoed to the kitchen and made coffee. Two days later, she had a draft. She printed it out at the public library, read it in her car. It wasn’t too awful, too tragic. Probably too thinky-thinky? Way too DFW, obviously, and what did “nidificate” even mean? Since when did she
use so many semicolons, what style was she aping?

  But something felt right. Natural to the source. She’d tried to render the stories in a way that rang true, not transcription. Not merely a representation, but something more. And she kind of thought she did.

  After her second reread, her brain blinked: Game Over. It was all so much crap. The pivots weren’t even believable, the structure was obviously a ripoff. Every word was bullshit, hack bullshit. She was about to delete all and go drink Bloody Marys until Armageddon. Instead, she went for a run. Returned, showered, edited, and revised. Then did it again. She found the guts to share a copy with her dad, who’d already offered at least ten times to be her proofreader. And only when he returned with a grin, his glasses folded in one hand, did she manage to feel okay.

  He even suggested the Burt Reynolds reference, which she’d needed to image-search on the web to even get.

  By draft six, day five, at least it wasn’t worth dying over. She emailed her draft to Bryan, explaining that it was as yet unfinished, mucho to be done still, but maybe there was something there, some there there. And she’d appreciate his feedback.

  Now it’s Friday. Three days since she pressed send. The Battle of Gettysburg took three days, fifty thousand dead. How long does Bryan need to read a couple pages? How many times had he jerked off in that span of time? Fifty-one thousand?

  She’s about to email him when a different email arrives, a different penis.

  Hey Leela, just wanted to check in. How’d the read go??? Just come by the store. I can’t wait to talk! Honestly I think the book can really use a Woman’s perspective, know what I mean? Looking forward! Rob

  She’d forgotten all about Rob Miller and his great donut novel. Karma is hell. Then again, what else does she have to do? Maybe giving Rob proper feedback will be cosmic payment paid forward to the critique she wants from Bryan. She grabs her laptop, opens the file. Reads the first pages again, then keeps going. It’s the story of a not-so-secret misogynist in his twenties, who manages a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise that his parents own in small-town New England. Hobbies? Surfing and guitar. But he speaks like he’s Ichabod Crane’s grammar master, and he can’t meet women because he’s too ugly, his face is lopsided, one of his eyes is oversized, semiprotruding.