Payton Hidden Away

by Jonathan Korbecki

  I hear her ask the question, but I don’t answer. I’m barely listening. My mind has drifted, because the words ‘after she disappeared’ are lodged like a kidney stone in my mind, chiseling at my memory, and suddenly I know why she called.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  I forgot. I completely forgot. I mean, I remember Joanne, but I forgot that she went missing. There was that whole thing—a missing persons—but I wasn’t even here. I was down in Georgia getting ready for fall semester while they were organizing huge search parties up here. They traipsed through fields and looked in abandoned buildings for weeks. Joanne Lambert made front page news from June until December. My mom gave me all the updates when I called on the weekends, but—

  They never found anything.

  “Tony?” she asks.

  “Yeah?”

  “You okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember? Which part?”

  “Any of it. All of it. I forgot.” I shake my head. “I forgot about her.”

  “About Jo?”

  “How do you forget something like that?”

  She sits back, clearly angry. “You forgot?”

  I shrug.

  “Are you for real? You forgot?”

  “What, you think I’m lying? You think I’m happy about this? I have this big blank spot that I can’t reconcile, and it’s eating up half my fucking childhood. I can’t remember anything. When you called this morning, I couldn’t even remember what you looked like.”

  She stares at me from across the table, a table which might as well be the Grand Canyon given the distance between us. I do remember, but only fragments of that lost summer. I remember that Joanne left without saying anything to anyone, and nobody knew why. But I also remember that by that time I was already gone.

  “She disappeared the same day you left,” Kristie says softly.

  I stare at her, realizing that if what she just said is true, then maybe this is a trap. After all, if Jo and I really did both leave on the same day, then despite my inability to conjure memories into a contiguous timeline of events, the timing does seem a bit suspicious. Kristie might be setting me up.

  “I left for school,” I say defensively, my voice sounding anything but confident. “It had been in the works for weeks.”

  “Did she go with you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just asking.”

  “I have no idea where Joanne went,” I say, looking her in the eye. “I wasn’t here.”

  “You swear it?”

  “What difference does it make? I don’t remember.”

  She exhales and folds her arms, about to say something then stopping. There’s some more glaring before she gets over it, leans forward and starts picking at her meal again, her eyes on her plate. “Fine. I believe you.”

  “Your support is overwhelming.”

  “I had to ask.”

  I shake my head.

  “You asked me why I stayed,” she says, chewing. “We all did. My mom and dad. And me. I guess we were waiting.”

  “For Joanne?”

  “No, for fucking Santa Claus.”

  I toss a fry at my catsup before plucking the crumpled napkin from my lap, wiping the grease from my fingertips. “Sorry.”

  “Jesus Christ, Tony, wake up.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Then try harder.”

  “I’m trying,” I repeat, my tone soft.

  Kristie leans her elbows on the table and runs her fingers through her hair. “It’s been a nightmare that just won’t end. A twenty-year nightmare. I mean, after we got the letter, we kind of thought maybe she’d come back. Then when Dad got hurt, I couldn’t just leave Mom here all by herself to take care of him.”

  I take a sip of water to cool my throat. “What letter?”

  She picks at a fry. “Joanne’s letter.”

  “She sent you a letter?”

  Kristie looks up. “You didn’t hear about that?”

  I continue to stare.

  She pushes her bangs behind an ear but doesn’t look up. “She sent us a letter.”

  “When?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “Jesus Christ, Kris, no, I didn’t know.”

  She shrugs. “We got it something like a year after she left.”

  “If she sent you a letter, then what makes you think she was murdered?”

  Tears well in Kristie’s eyes, but she smiles as if to hide them. “Forget it. It’s complicated.” This is a strange comment, and I think this might actually be the first time she’s ever lied to me. “How’s your mom?” she asks suddenly, dabbing her eyes.

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I’ve gotten good at that.” She chuckles. “Years of practice.”

  I study her for a long moment. I can tell she’s not going to talk about it. She’s going to do things like ask me about my mom even though she doesn’t really care, and I’m going to do things like answer in order to keep this pointless conversation going. “She’s doing good,” I answer. “She’s living in Chicago with her sister. She moved over that way a long time ago.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Everyone knows. When someone moves out of this town, it makes front page news for, like, three weeks.”

  I chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, her sister’s husband passed away, so Mom moved in. They share rent.”

  “You still see each other?”

  “Holidays and family reunions. Things like that.”

  “Are you still close?”

  I shrug. “It’s complicated.”

  “Touché.”

  “If the shoe fits.”

  “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

  “What goes around, comes around.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “That again.” I smile.

  She grins while shaking her head, once more playing with a wayward bang that refuses to be tucked behind one of those cute little ears. “That was one of the things I always liked about you.” She takes a sip of water, careful as she sets the glass back down. “You loved your mom. You took care of her.”

  “She and I have had a unique relationship ever since Dad died. I was pretty young, and I don’t remember a lot, but even then I remember us having good and bad days.” I smile. “But she’s still my mom.”

  “Sounds comfy.”

  I wag a finger at her. “Don’t start, Kristine.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “God, you know how I hate that name.” She takes a bite and smiles as she chews, but I know her. I know how her mind works. She’s thinking about how she’s going to tell me why I’m really here. “So, when I called you,” she says, swallowing before taking another sip, “why’d you come back? I mean, if you don’t remember anything, and since there’s no one left here...”

  Guilt Trip #3.

  “Except…” she says, awkwardly.

  “For you,” I say, filling in the gap.

  “For Ritchie,” she suggests.

  I go rigid.

  “Hmmm.” She smiles. “Touchy subject?”

  “Sort of. We haven’t spoken since I left either. Things didn’t really end well between us.”

  “So, you do remember?”

  “Enough.”

  “Of what?”

  I smile, but there’s nothing funny about it. I do remember something. A number painted on an aluminum bleacher. The kind you’d see in a stadium. The numbers are blue, the paint worn, but there it is, just like a tattoo that won’t wash off. The number 44.

  “You were best friends,” she continues. “How do you just…do that to your best friend?”

  “You were my best friend, and I did it to you, didn’t I?”

  She leans back, wiping her mouth. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

  I set my fork down. “I’m sorry.” I look at her an
d realize I might be the world’s biggest turd for leaving her all alone to fend for herself for the past twenty years. I’m out of things to say. The waitress comes by, and yes, everything is fine, but she tops off our nearly untouched glasses of water anyway.

  “What am I doing here?” I ask once we’re alone again. “You called me, asked me to fly halfway across the country, and whether it’s guilt or amnesia or God knows what, here I am.”

  She gingerly picks up her and picks up her purse, which she places on her lap—under the table and out of view—before leaning forward. “I found something.” Her voice is barely a whisper.

  “That’s what you said on the phone.”

  “Remember the old Johnson farm?”

  Suddenly my steak has lost its appeal, quivering on my white plate in a pool of red blood mixing with A1 sauce. Yes, I remember the old farm. I passed it on the way into town, and I reflected on it then, but now that she’s bringing it up, I’m wondering what it has to do with anything. “Sure,” I answer, and sure, I remember. Sure, I remember that Ritchie and I used to shoot bottles out there to kill lazy afternoons. Sometimes we’d even get lucky enough to have a rabbit or squirrel serve as a moving target. And now that I think about it, sure, I think…I think…

  “Tony?”

  Route 89. That was the way out of town. Route 89 led all the way to the edge of the Earth and beyond. You didn’t take Route 89 unless you never planned on coming back. To us kids, the farm marked the final outpost, or as we called it, the point of no return.

  “I was over that way the other day,” she says quietly.

  “I passed it on my way in,” I say, chewing again, but this lump of meat isn’t going anywhere. “I was surprised to see it still standing.”

  “That place always gave me the creeps,” she says. “I remember as a kid thinking the Devil lived there. Its peacefulness was like bait. It lured us in.”

  “Then why’d you stop?” I interrupt, washing the bit of meat down my throat with a gulp of water. I keep my tone light, the conversation casual. Not that I feel either light or casual. Everyone knows you don’t just wind up at the old Johnson Farm and keep the conversation casual. Twenty years ago the driveway and yard was littered with rotted boards and hundreds upon hundreds of broken bottles from the numerous teenage excursions of tempted bravery bent on drunken dares. Even if you’re wearing steel-toe boots, you don’t just wind up ‘over that way’ unless there’s a reason to.

  “My car broke down,” she says. “I had to walk back.”

  “But your car’s working fine today?”

  “It was an easy fix. They said it was just a loose thingamajig.”

  “Is that a technical term?”

  She smiles.

  “What were you doing out on Route 89?” I ask. “You weren’t trying to leave town, weren’t you?”

  She smiles again. “No. Well, yes, but no—not permanently. I visit my friend Natalie over in Lansing once a year. Remember Natalie Biggs?”

  “Sure.”

  “She lives there now. She comes home for Christmas. I go there in the summer. It’s kind of became a thing.”

  “The way things often do,” I say with good humor.

  She throws a French fry at me. “I’m being serious.”

  I chuckle. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “There’s no cellular service out there, so I was stuck walking. And it was raining, so I stopped to wait it out in the barn.”

  “And?”

  “And…you.”

  I frown.

  “We have history out there, and I’m not embarrassed to talk about it.” She’s blushing, so I know she is embarrassed if only a little. “I mean, do you ever think about me?”

  “Sure,” though she should know better, and maybe so should I. If I can’t remember details from that summer, then why would she believe that I remember anything about her? Somewhere along the line I made a choice to forget as much as I could, and I would have never returned had it not been for her phone call.

  “You remember how all the kids used to say that place was haunted?”

  I nod. “Ritchie used to drag me out there. We’d go out there when there wasn’t anything else to do. I guess he was bound and determined to prove to the world how unafraid of ghosts he was.”

  The humor has drained from her face, and I realize the time for telling jokes has passed. She tilts her glass and takes more than just a sip. Her eyes are misty when she looks up. “When I was out there yesterday I sat down on one of those old bales of hay. The lighting wasn’t all that good, but I could still see. Sort of. The barn doors were open, and it was around midday, so I could still see all the stuff the Johnson’s left behind.” She smiles. “Nobody’s touched any of it. Even after all these years. It’s like an antique store, but eerily devoid of life, you know?”

  I shrug. “I haven’t been there in years.”

  “Well, it was still light enough to read all that graffiti you and Ritchie spray-painted on the walls.”

  I shake my head. “That was Ritchie’s idea.”

  She smiles. “Even the part that reads AAA plus KL?”

  Now it’s my turn to blush.

  Her smile begins to wane, and her attention drifts. I might as well be sitting alone.

  “How is everything?” the waitress asks. Again. She’s like a fly that won’t shoo.

  “Fine,” I return, though my tone isn’t terribly friendly. The waitress nods with a half-smile before turning away.

  “Then I saw it,” Kristie whispers, leaning forward. She pushes the bangs from her eyes. “It was in the corner, next to an old bale of hay and mostly buried. I wouldn’t have even seen it except for just a bit of color poking through the dirt. And you know how Joanne is. She likes bright colors.”

  I can feel my pulse racing.

  Kristie leans back and reaches into the purse on her lap. She pulls out what looks like a rotted piece of orange cloth wrapped over a horseshoe-shaped wire. Dirt has ruined the original vibrant color, and moths or mice or something had chewed a lot of the cloth away leaving only bits, but despite the poor condition, even I recognize what Kristie’s holding.

  “Jesus,” I whisper, leaning back. I’ve suddenly lost all interest in my meal. And Kristie’s face is already stained with tears.

  “She was wearing this the day she disappeared.” Kristie whispers. “She only had two of them, and the white one was still in her room. That means she was wearing this that day.” She draws a breath. “She wouldn’t have taken it off. Not on purpose.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, but I know it’s not. I take the cloth-wrapped wire from her hand to examine it. It was Joanne’s hearing headband. In better days, it didn’t look much different than the kind of headbands girls wore in their hair to keep the long bangs out of their eyes. It looks different now, but just the sight of it dredges a slew of memories I had long buried. Joanne’s disappearance destroyed this town.

  I was in Georgia by then, but the cops tracked me down anyway. They asked all kinds of questions I didn’t have answers to. They asked me about Kristie. Then they asked me about Joanne, but I didn’t know anything. I told them the truth. I was at UGA on scholarship, and I’d taken a job at the bookstore. I invited them to check the records. Everything checked out, and they eventually left me alone.

  It’s terrifying not being able to remember. I remember bits and pieces of the day I left, which is more than I remembered just yesterday, but at best, what I do recall is broken fragments that don’t add up to a whole story. I remember being scared, but I don’t remember why. I remember wanting things to go back to the way they had been, and I remember knowing they couldn’t. It was over. All of it. It was over between Ritchie and me, and it was over between Kristie and me. When I left, I knew I’d never be back. I’d never come home. It wasn’t a vow. I just knew I’d never be back because of what had happened, and I vaguely remember passing the old Johnson Farm on the way out of town. Once the farm was behind me, so was Payton. I was on a Gre
yhound bus, and everything I owned was packed tightly in a single suitcase beside me—kind of like the one I brought with me when I flew in earlier today.

  Funny how things revolve in circles.

  “If she was wearing this the day she allegedly hitchhiked out of town,” Kristie murmurs, “then why was it in the corner of that barn?”

  I look down at my meal. Just a few more bites of tender meat sitting in red and black sauce, wiggling—almost alive. “It doesn’t mean she was murdered,” I murmur.

  “Oh come on, Tony, she never came home. She never called. We never heard from her.”

  “What about the letter?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not talking about the letter. I’m talking about her. She never showed up. She never picked up the phone. She and I were close. We’re identical twins. Twins have a unique bond even close brothers and sisters don’t share. They can’t share.”

  “Were you two fighting? When she left, I mean.”

  “Sure, she and I fought. We fought a lot. Sisters fight.”

  “Did you fight the day she disappeared?”

  Kristie leans back. “What do you think? You were there.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s a cop out.”

  “It’s not. I honestly don’t remember.”

  “Come on, do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

  “There are all these flashes,” I say demonstratively. “Images. Like photographs. Bits and pieces. But they’re not whole scenes, just snapshots.”

  Kristie shakes her head. “I called you this morning because you were there—the day she disappeared. You two were close.”

  I just shake my head. “I don’t remember being close…”

  “Well, regardless of what you choose to or choose not to remember,” Kristie murmurs. “I still love her. By now we would have heard something. More than just some stupid letter. I would have felt something.”

  “So you think she’s dead because you don’t feel anything?”

  “No.” Kristie shakes her head. “I think she’s dead because I found this.” She waves the wire in my face, her eyes tearing up. “For almost twenty years we’ve buried our heads in the sand and accepted the lunatic premise that she just hitchhiked her way into the sunset—that she’d hooked up with the wrong guy or something. It was that letter that kept us from considering that maybe she never even left town. Nobody looked around to see if she might still be here.”