by Schow, Ryan
“I know it’s hard. But you trusted me to do this with you and I respect that enough not to let you get caught over something so predictable.”
I’m looking at him like you’d look at the Pope if he scratched his balls on live television. Like you just can’t believe what you’re seeing. Who would’ve thought Brayden would be this mature? All this time, he seemed like the class clown, the computer geek, the foul-mouthed hater. But now it’s like he’s transformed over night. Or maybe I’m just getting to know the real him. I don’t know, maybe he got some sort of shotgun maturity. How I see him now versus how I saw him just a few days ago, it’s seriously blowing my mind.
I lean in and kiss him on the cheek, right next to his mouth and say, “Thank you for protecting me, Brayden. And for doing this with me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I really mean it. No one else could have or would have done what you did for me and Maggie, and this will always be one of the things I cherish most.”
I can see his eyes start to mist over and again, I feel like I’m having an out of body experience. He leans in and hugs me and says, “You’re my best friend, Abby. I would do anything for you.”
“If you had tits and a vagina, I’d tell you I love you right now.”
“Maybe I do have tits and a vagina,” he says.
He pulls back and I can see in his eyes what this trip did for him. Or better still, to him. More important, I know he knows how much I appreciate him. And if he was a girl I would tell him I love him. Because deep down, as a friend, I really do.
6
The minute Brayden and I walk in the front door, my father gives me the third degree. He’s like an old, menopausing woman who’s really letting it go. He tells me how worried he was, tells me I made him a promise, reminds me I broke that promise.
I don’t know what to say.
He gives me a hug and inside I feel him shaking and I’m like, holy crap, he actually cares! This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but it does. I guess this whole thing about feeling loved is still new to me. I almost don’t know how to take it.
Then he starts going off on me again, and on Brayden, too. He’s saying how Brayden took me, his only daughter, and that as a man he had a duty to not only look after me but make sure I did as I was told. Brayden lowers his head, ashamed, or embarrassed.
I feel so bad I want to tell my father to leave him alone, but that also might make matters worse, so I remain quiet.
“And what happened to your cell phone? I tried your number about a hundred times!” Now Rebecca’s in the room and I know she wants to hug me, but she looks a little startled by my father’s outburst.
“My battery crapped out on me,” I say, but my voice sounds small and unconvincing. “And my charger, I left it here.”
“Bullshit,” he says.
“It’s true,” Brayden says.
“So you’re telling me one battery dies and all the sudden you can’t see to call me for two days? Where’s your phone, Brayden?”
“I left it in Vegas when I came out here. I was in a hurry because…well…the way Savannah, I mean Abby, made it sound, I had to drop everything and go. So I did.”
“So where were you?”
“West Hollywood,” I lie.
I tell my father Rebecca remembered her mother being a librarian, that she lived in Los Angeles. I refuse to tell him Rebecca said Reno instead. Telling him the truth about what Brayden and I did down south would only implicate him if investigators ever found their way to our doorstep.
Politicians call it plausible deniability.
“Her mother did work in the main library in West Hollywood,” I say, “but it turns out she ended up moving to Reno a number of years ago. The timing fits for Rebecca’s disappearance, so that’s where we’re headed next.”
“Not together, you’re not. Not now.”
“So you’re saying we shouldn’t try to get Rebecca back to her mother?” I ask, challenging him.
He pauses, realizes I worked him into a corner, and says, “Go to your room.”
“Like I’m twelve?”
“Yes,” he says. “Like you’re twelve.”
“And Brayden?”
He looks at Brayden and says, “Back to Vegas, player.”
“No way!” I say. “He’s coming with me to Reno!”
“He’s going back to Vegas, or wherever, because I can’t send you to your room and him to his room without thinking this sorry ass punishment even comes close to fitting the crime.”
The crime, hah! Nice choice of words…
For shooting a man, for making my father worry the way he did, for lying to him, I’d say this punishment will never fit the crime. I finally relent. I do so because our victory down south was too monumental for words, and really, my father is right.
“Daddy?” I say.
“I’m not kidding about this.”
“I know. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for making you worry. That I love that you care enough to do…what you’re doing.”
“Brayden is still leaving.” He looks at Brayden whose head is now hanging in shame. “Which is disappointing because I really like him.” Brayden finally looks up and my father says, “I do.”
“Thank you, sir. I like you, too. And I’m sorry. I am.”
“He can’t just leave now, dad. He has to rest. We just drove back from L.A. for God’s sake.”
“I know.”
My father, for all his heart, kinda sucks at doling out punishment. “It’s late, so why don’t you all just go to bed.”
Brayden clears his throat and says, “Sir, if you want to send Abby to her room, and really punish her, then may I suggest Rebecca sleep with me tonight? Abby hates to be alone.”
OMG! Did he just say that?!
My father’s eyes flash with disbelief. He levels Brayden the super-duper freaking mad-dog stare down, which visibly shrinks Brayden, and then he says, “I really don’t know what to say right now.”
Talk about poor timing. Talk about the worst timing ever!
“A simple yes will do,” Brayden says, continuing to push the envelope.
“Brayden,” I warn. What the hell is he doing?
He looks at me, but only for a second. His head is low and cocked sideways, like a beaten dog still hoping to be pet by its master. He has that look like he’s not sure whether he will get my father’s rage, or a laugh. Man, he’s going for a laugh at the most inopportune time!
“Rebecca will be sleeping in Abby’s room tonight. And you’ll be sleeping in yours.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alone.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wow,” I hear myself say. Brayden doesn’t look at me. He wouldn’t like the expression on my face and he knows it.
Rebecca takes my hand and walks me to my room. I steal one last look back just in time to see Brayden heading the opposite direction toward the pool house. And my father? He’s standing there, watching Brayden go. Then, for a second—for just the thinnest of moments—he turns enough for me to see a smile crossing his face, and I know Brayden played his cards right.
Amazing. Fuh-reaking amazing.
7
I know I should do what Brayden says. Waiting until tomorrow to put my battery back in my cell phone and power up is easily the smartest thing to do. I’ve been awake for forever, but I can’t wait any longer. I have to talk to someone, like now! Netty, Tempest, Cicely—any of them! All this restless energy in me, it’s at a full boil, and I have to siphon it off before I spiral into a Maggie-level depression. So I do the only thing I know to do: I head into the living room and ask my father to borrow his phone.
“What’s wrong with yours?” he says. He’s sitting on the couch watching reruns of Breaking Bad on the DVR and eating popcorn without butter on it.
“Told you, dead battery,” I say. It’s easy to see he’s still upset by the way he’s not looking at me and not pausing the show. I try not to be irritated, but I�
�m failing. Inside I’m totally screaming at him.
“So charge it.” More popcorn. He’s not even closing his mouth as he’s chewing.
“Dad, goddammit, I need to use your phone! Please.”
Now he pauses the television. He hits me with fiery eyes that tell me he’s still pissed. “First off, don’t curse at me or take the Lord’s name in vain,” he says. “Second, you didn’t use your phone when I needed you to, so now you aren’t using mine.”
I take a breath, but the mad fluttering of my heart won’t stop. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are!”
“Your friends can wait until tomorrow.”
“Dad—”
“Go to your room!” he shouts, tipping the popcorn bowl half over in the process. “Jesus Christ, Abby!”
Holy crap, he’s never been this mad at me! Ever. And now he’s taking the Lord’s name in vain? Ugh! My resolve changes quickly. This is not the first time someone has exploded in my face or rattled me, so I stand my ground.
“Something else is going on here,” I say.
He’s gathering up his spilled popcorn. He’s fuming. But at least he’s not yelling. Then again, it’s late and Rebecca’s asleep, so maybe he’s trying not to wake her up, or embarrass himself further.
“You had me terrified for a day and a half, only to see you again and have you act like you could care less. There’s nothing else. This is all you, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” I say for the umpteenth time.
“Right now your apology and a hot turd is still only worth the hot turd,” he says.
“Dad—”
“Go back to your room or I swear to God, I will send your friends home and you’ll be grounded for the rest of the summer. Am I being clear, young lady?”
“What you’re being is cruel.”
“Never-the-less,” he says.
I cross my arms over my chest, hit him with glaring eyes. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Whatever.”
He un-pauses the television, completely writes me off. There’s nothing left to say. I stand here a little longer and he turns up the volume. Resumes eating his popcorn. Loudly.
“I’m sorry,” I say, one last time. I really am…
He doesn’t say anything, so I return to my bedroom. It’s pitch black and Rebecca’s sleeping, so I crawl into bed, careful not to disturb her, then close my eyes and try to sleep.
8
My dreams have become nightmares. Sleep is not sleep but physical and emotional pain. It’s chaos and fear; it’s confusion and paranoia. My brain is a movie projector playing the horror show highlight-reel of every bad thing that has happened since I went from fat Savannah to Abby.
In your dreams, the way you’re always running from an attacker, but you can’t move fast enough because you’re sloshing through invisible mud and your fright is a black flood boiling inside you, that’s how every second of my sleep has become.
There’s blood and screaming, gunshots and death. I wake up crying. I wake up kicking. I wake up screaming.
I roll over and Maggie’s asleep beside me. Really it’s Rebecca. But then she’s awake. And then she’s crying with me. Smoothing my hair. Wiping sweat from my forehead with a cool washcloth.
I wonder, is this real?
And then it’s sleep again. And then it’s Gerhard and his monster. Trying to grab me. Trying to kill me. It’s Demetrius kicking me. Punching me. It’s Damien telling me I’m a lab rat, it’s Jake rejecting me, it’s Margaret telling the twelve year old me I shouldn’t wear a two-piece bathing suit because of my belly and how it sticks out further than my little, uneven boobies.
Tossing and turning and whimpering. Fighting the bed. Sobbing.
The last thing I remember is Rebecca curling up beside me, pulling me in her arms, telling me it’s okay, that everything is going to be okay. But it isn’t.
And it won’t be okay.
Maggie is dead, I’m a murderer, my body is somehow superhuman and impossible at the same time, I’ve got boy problems and girl problems, and maybe I’m turning into a slut.
Then, finally, thankfully, I fall back asleep.
And I don’t dream.
Silver State
1
Around four thirty in the morning, I wake up and can’t go back to sleep. My face hurts, like it’s warm but frost bitten. My eyes are raw. After an hour of my mind spinning, after an hour of trying to go back to sleep, I finally crawl out of bed and get in the shower.
It’s when I’m towel drying my hair that I decide, the hell with my father, today we’re going to Reno. I wake Rebecca. She’s bleary eyed and yawning. When she realizes she’s awake far too early, she gives a groan of awareness. With some people, you can wake them with a bullhorn and they will still turn over and try to go back to sleep. That’s Rebecca.
“We’re going to find your mother,” I whisper.
Now she’s coming to. She rolls over, stretches and looks at me with hopeful eyes.
“Really?” she asks.
“Really.”
She’s in and out of the shower, dressed and ready to go in record time. I make sure my father’s still asleep before we sneak out. For a second, I think of taking Brayden with us, but I don’t. Leaving him behind, it’s a psychological strategy. Maybe my father will feel bad for him and let him stay.
I leave a note on the table, tell my father he can call me only if he promises not to yell at me. In the note, I tell him not to be mad. I tell him I love him.
“Are you hungry?” I ask Rebecca.
“I’m too excited to be hungry.”
“Me, too.” But not really. The idea of not seeing Rebecca after today, of not having her in my life, is killing me. I don’t want her to go. What I want most is for her to stay with me, like the sister I never had. But I can’t be that selfish.
I have to be the bigger person.
By the time we hit Sacramento, we’re both starving. We stop off at a McDonald’s, get ourselves Sausage McMuffin’s, those delicious, greasy little potato patties and orange juices, then we get back on the road heading east.
We arrive in Reno four hours after leaving Palo Alto, then spend almost three more going from one library to the next with the intention of hitting all seven today. Then my cell phone rings and I see it’s my father calling. My stomach clouds with butterflies as I take the call.
“Hi, dad,” I say as chipper as possible.
“I’m not going to yell,” he says, his voice sounding tempered over the Bluetooth connection, “but this type of behavior is so unbelievably unacceptable I really don’t know what to say or do.”
“This isn’t about me, dad. I’m helping Rebecca.”
“This is always about you.”
“No, dad—”
“Sweetheart,” he says in an even tighter voice, “you took her because that is what you wanted. Ever since you found out about the clones, you haven’t been able to get this fixation out of your head—”
“She’s not a clone, dad.”
“I understand.”
“How many of them aren’t clones, dad? Huh? Do you even know?”
“She’s not part of my old program. She’s someone else’s—”
“Kidnapped child? Is that the description you’re looking for? Because she was kidnapped dad. Kidnapped!”
“Yes, well in our program, we had strict policies against using actual children. It was in our contracts. We never used real kids.”
“And how certain are you that the company you used to get these clones followed the contracts to the letter? I mean, how can you really know? You can’t. And besides, clones are not mannequins, dad. They can’t be thoughtless, emotionless and immune to suffering and you know that.”
There is silence on the line, long enough for me and Rebecca to exchange glances.
“You’re right,” he finally relents. “As for using real children in my program, I c
ouldn’t know if they were real or not.”
This is a huge admission from my father. This argument we’ve been having for what seems like forever now, it always ends in a standstill. But with Rebecca—with this one question—I’ve given him something more to consider.
“Dad, I have to go. I’m in Reno checking out libraries.”
“How many?”
“I have a list of the seven largest public libraries. We’ve been through four already, but with no luck.”
“Where are you now?”
“Pulling up to North Valleys. It’s off the 395.”
“Do you think she’s there?” he asks.
“I’m not so sure about it because it’s in a shopping center. The lady at Reno’s downtown library called it a decent sized library and said it’s been here since 1988, so we’ll see.”
“Good luck,” he says. “Let me know what happens.”
“Okay.”
“And be careful.”
“Okay. Oh, dad?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make Brayden leave?” I ask.
“He left this morning. Said he was used to driving, and that he was going to get on the road. He apologized to me about ten times.”
“How was he? About me leaving without him, I mean.”
“He was hurt that you didn’t say good-bye. Then again, I’m sure he knows your penchant for disappointing those people closest to you.”
Ouch, that one stung.
“I’ll call him when I get a chance,” I say, ignoring his jab. “Did he say where he was going?”
“Vegas. A couple of times he was on the phone with some guy named Titan.”
“Okay, thanks. Love you.”
“You bet,” he says, businesslike. “Be careful.”
2
It takes some asking and some prying, but we get our first real break at North Valleys. One of the librarians, an older woman with big glasses and seventies hair and gigantic comfort breasts (as Brayden likes to call overly large baby-feeders), tells us there was a woman who worked there about ten years ago with curly blonde hair and a small girl.
