Letting Loose

by Joanne Skerrett

  Surely, she did not think…

  “I think the FBI or the CIA could have picked him up.”

  “What?”

  “I’m serious, Amelia. I went to his place and all his clothes are still there. The only things missing are his laptop and his wallet.”

  “How did you get into his place? Never mind.” I really didn’t want to know.

  “I think I’m going to make some calls.”

  “Some calls? To whom?”

  “To the FBI!” Whitney said this as if I should have known. Well, silly me.

  “Can you just call them up and say…And say what? What would you ask them?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Whitney said, determination in her voice. I’d heard that tone before. And I was scared.

  Chapter 18

  I checked my e-mail in the teacher’s lounge, relieved that I’d made it through yet another school day without killing anyone. I had one message from Vanessa, thanking me for thanking her for her hospitality, and another from Melody, Miss Clara’s pregnant daughter. Oh, how sweet, I thought, I’d actually made a lasting impression. She asked me for a Roots CD. Oh, well. Kids are kids wherever you go, I guess.

  I read Drew’s e-mail, realizing that Whitney would kill me if she knew I was discussing her private life with someone she’d never even met. But he gave such good advice! I must be turning into one of those women. Those women who lost all loyalty to their girlfriends once they fell in love. Right then, I promised myself to hold back a little. I didn’t have to tell him everything. Especially when it included other people’s business. But he did give really good advice!

  Next was an opus from Whitney that made about as much sense as the original text of the Magna Carta. She’d obviously gone on a fact-finding mission and was operating in full paranoia mode.

  “I KNOW that something is up because this has happened before.” She cited a case in which a Canadian citizen was seized and shipped off to the Middle East to be questioned by the authorities there and was jailed there “for a whole year, Amelia!!!!!” It was pages and pages of ranting about the reasons, the clues, and the rationale behind the government’s plan to seize Max. After reading about half of it, I was almost convinced. That’s when I chose to stop reading. This girl needed some help.

  I called her as soon as I got in the car. She did not pick up her cell phone, but I left her a message to call me back ASAP.

  She called an hour later, sounding out of breath.

  “I was at Max’s place,” she said.

  “Doing what?”

  “Just checking things out. There were a couple of official-looking cars parked outside his building.”

  “Whitney, I think you’re taking this a little too far.” I hoped I sounded serious enough to get through to her.

  “Listen, Amelia. You don’t know what’s going on, okay?”

  “Then, tell me! Tell me what’s going on. Because you just sound crazy to me.”

  “I sound crazy? I sound crazy?” Then she paused. “He told me,” she lowered her voice, “that he knows some people who have done some things.”

  “So?” I immediately thought, I know you and you’ve done and are doing some “things.”

  “I don’t expect you to care. You’re all hung up on this Drew guy.”

  “Whitney, I care. About you. This is not funny anymore. You need to just stop. Even if he’s Osama bin Laden’s godson, just let it go. Move on. Let his family worry about him.”

  “His family’s not going to care. And I know what that feels like, Amelia.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t take this anymore.

  “Whitney, I’m going to hang up now. But just don’t go over there again, okay? Please.”

  She didn’t answer at first. “You’ll see when I expose—”

  “Whitney, stop it already!” I yelled.

  She hung up on me.

  The last time I’d been in a courtroom was with Whitney. She’d poured purple paint all over some guy’s car, slashed his tires, and threatened to kill him. He filed charges. The judge ordered her to pay for the damage and issued a restraining order. They got back together a month later, but broke up two weeks later after she found him cheating again. Another guy had gotten a restraining order against her while she was in grad school. She laughed those things off; I took them way more seriously than she did. I’d say, “Whitney, you have a criminal record!” And she’d shrug and reply, “Yeah, guess I can’t run for president after all.”

  Now I was sitting in Roxbury District Court, which should have been one of Dante’s nine circles of hell, with a nervous Grace Wilson. I’d gotten her a lawyer who was somewhere in the back of the room, chatting on his cell phone. He’d said, “Not to worry. This is gonna go by quickly.” But she looked worried anyway.

  I had taken the day off from school to do this, and I wasn’t happy to be there. I hated being in a room full of criminals and people who existed solely to put away or defend such criminals. We didn’t talk. I was so angry with her for taking the blame for something she did not do just to protect Gerard. And dragging me into it.

  Hours later, I was positively burning with anger and impatience. I’d spent an entire morning in a courthouse full of brothers wearing throwbacks, Timberlands, and bad attitudes; and long-suffering mothers and girlfriends who just had to bring their crying babies along. It was purgatory!

  They finally called her name and I waited in the wings. Her accuser, an elderly woman who’d lost a fence and some shrubs in the incident, could barely speak when asked. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. This was like the Judge Judy show. But the lawyer was all right. He told some crazy story about my mother not being aware of the extent of the damage because it was dark, blah blah blah. Judge Judy, however, must have been in a bad mood because she still fined Ma $500 and suspended her license for six months. The fine would be a hassle; the suspension wouldn’t matter because she hardly ever drove. And we were done. I thanked the lawyer, who before we’d even left the courtroom was already on his cell phone.

  She was quiet in the car.

  “I’m glad that’s over with,” I said.

  Silence.

  “At least you won’t have to go to jail.”

  No laughter, not even a smile.

  “Are you all right, Ma?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Okaaaay.

  “Amelia, I worry about what’s gonna happen to me sometimes.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I don’t have nobody, except for you and Gerard.”

  “Ma, you’ll be fine.”

  “I know you get sick of me sometimes.”

  I wouldn’t argue with that.

  Silence ensued again the rest of the way home. I didn’t want to get into a big, heavy conversation with her. I felt filthy and angry from being in that courtroom all day.

  I slowed down as we neared the house and she asked about my trip again. I’d told her about it before on the phone.

  “So, this was all about some man?”

  “Not really. I wanted to see a new place. I’ve never been anywhere.”

  “Don’t go running after any man who smiles at you just ’cause you wanna get away from me.”

  “Thanks, Grace,” I said dryly.

  Then she thanked me. Thanked me for getting her the lawyer and for taking her to court. A cold day in the seventh circle of hell, maybe?

  “You’re welcome, Ma.”

  “You coming in?”

  “No, I gotta go plan my lessons.”

  She kissed me on the cheek. I got the urge to laugh and I did because I couldn’t hold it back. She laughed, too. “That judge was an ugly, mean old woman,” she said.

  “She was. And I’m so glad that’s over.”

  I watched her disappear inside the house. I’d done my duty as the good daughter. Now if only I could get Gerard to take my calls so I could give him a piece of my mind….

  As soon as I got home I called Whitney. I’d had this sinking
feeling that something wasn’t right. I was afraid of what she’d do and what she’d already done that she hadn’t told me.

  But she sounded upbeat.

  “I think I’m making some progress. I spoke with someone at the FBI who might be able to help me.”

  “What? Whitney, I thought you were going to leave this alone!” My head ached.

  “I can’t leave it alone, Amelia! I think they’re holding him against his will, without a lawyer. His rights are being violated. I have to do something!”

  “Whitney, please. For all you know the guy could be down in Miami with some other chick. Don’t go crazy over this.” I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Go crazy?” She laughed bitterly. “That’s what you think? That I’m going crazy because Max dumped me?”

  That about summed it up.

  “You don’t know what we had. It was too perfect for him to just walk away.”

  “Whitney, I don’t…I just don’t think he’s in any kind of trouble. That’s all.”

  “You don’t know what I know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, there are things that I can’t tell you. All I know is that I have to find a way to see him and get him some help.”

  “When you said that there are things you can’t tell me, what exactly are you talking about?”

  “I can’t talk about it, okay? Just trust me on this, Amelia. I am not losing my mind.”

  What the heck was I supposed to do now? The worst-case scenario I could imagine was that this guy was indeed some shady character and Whitney was right, he had been seized by the authorities and was probably being tortured as of this very moment. But I just couldn’t fall for that. I’d seen Max, heard him talk about himself and his proteins. He loved himself too much to care about what the infidels were up to. My hunch was that he was off somewhere sweeping some other girl off her feet. But I knew that there was no way I could convince Whitney of that. When she fell in love she lost touch with reality. I just didn’t know how far she would go with this and in how much trouble she could get into.

  Why did I have to deal with this? Why couldn’t I be in the backyard of Drew’s house in the hammock, listening to the waterfall, reading a romance novel?

  “Do you believe these bastards?” Whitney was hysterical, screaming through the phone.

  “Who?”

  “They’re trying to get me fired. They actually sent a cease-and-desist order to my house and to my freaking job. They said I’m harassing people in their offices.”

  My jaw almost hit the ground.

  “Whitney,” I tried to remain calm. “When did all of this happen?”

  “Last week. My boss called me today telling me that some FBI goon came to his office. In freaking Redmond, Washington!”

  She kept on jabbering and I could not get a word in. “They can’t intimidate me!”

  The last time she scared me like this, I had called her foster mom, who arranged for her to go to McLean Hospital. But she hadn’t spoken to the woman in years. Whitney literally had no family except for me. And I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t just call a doctor and say, hey, I think my girlfriend’s crazy, can you come and take her away? But I also couldn’t encourage this fantasy of hers. Either way, it seemed that I would be the one making the decision. I decided to wait it out some more. Maybe the threat of losing her job would straighten her out.

  “So what did your boss say?”

  “Told me to take some time off. They forced me to take a three-month leave. Screw ’em. I haven’t done any real work in a year anyway.”

  “What are you going to do? Is this leave without pay?” I wondered if she’d thought this all the way through. She had a mortgage, car payments, and a designer-clothing and spa habit.

  “They’re paying me. What are you worried about? I’m not worried. They’d better not screw with me else I’m suing them, too.”

  Too?

  “What do you mean, too?”

  “I got a lawyer. He’s really good. He’s suing the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA on my behalf. Hopefully, we can force them to release any information they have about Max and tell us where he is.”

  “Whitney, you can’t be serious!”

  I couldn’t believe that any ethical lawyer would take a case like that. How much of this was in her head and how much was real?

  “What’s the lawyer’s name?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Amelia.” She said this as if I should know. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this on the phone. They probably have my phones tapped.”

  I was speechless.

  “Whitney, I’m gonna come over now, okay?”

  “Why?” She sounded genuinely surprised.

  “So we can talk about this in person. Without worrying about anything,” I added to make her feel better.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “But I can’t tell you everything. I don’t want you getting involved in this.”

  Chapter 19

  I was doing the unthinkable and Whitney would never forgive me if she knew. But I had no choice. This had been Drew’s idea, and I had to admit it was a bit crazy, but I had to know whether all of this was real or just a figment of her imagination.

  After school, I put myself through the hell of downtown traffic to get to the Mass. General lab. I was fuming because this little truth-seeking excursion would cost me seven dollars an hour in parking. I hadn’t called ahead or anything, I just decided to do a surprise drop-in. And once the security guard told me where to go, I began to get nervous. I had no right to be doing this….

  I went down one floor on the elevator, down a freezing hallway, and followed a white-coated guy into a little office that led to another room in the back. I didn’t see anyone, so I called out, “Hello?” The white-coated guy had disappeared in the back, so I decided to follow. There were more rooms leading to other rooms, and then I finally hit a wall. I needed a keycard to get access beyond that point. This must be where I needed to be! There were scary-looking signs on the door about nonauthorized persons not entering and biohazards and whatnot. I stood there and pondered my next move. If Whitney were here she’d know what to do. But then again, Whitney was the reason I was here.

  Then I heard footsteps and the door opened. I looked up and there he was. God had literally made him appear.

  “Max!”

  He jumped. His face turned red then white, and he looked around as if searching for a place to run or hide.

  “What are you doing here?” His surprise turned to anger.

  “I…I…” What was I doing there? “I wasn’t expecting to see you,” was all I could manage. I was so shocked to see him so alive and well. So, he wasn’t being tortured in a prison on Guantánamo Bay or in Kuwait?

  “Is she here?” He looked around the room warily.

  “Who? Whitney? No, she’s not.”

  He looked at me as if he didn’t believe me. “What do you want?” he scowled.

  “I just wanted to know what was going on. She thinks you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.” I folded my arms and stood in front of him. There was no way I’d let him get away without answering my questions.

  “Listen, because of your friend I’ve had to leave my apartment; force my coworkers to lie about my whereabouts. She’s ruining my life. You tell her to stay away from me else I’ll get a restraining order.”

  He knew all this time that she’d been trying to reach him? And he’d been hiding from her! What a jerk.

  “She’s been worried about you, Max. She thinks the government is holding you hostage or something.”

  He laughed crazily. “She knows what’s going on. I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore and she went nuts. She was showing up at my apartment at all hours. She even came here and made a huge scene. I gave hospital security her picture.”

  I leaned against a wall. I didn’t understand. So where did Whitney get this idea that Max had disappeared? He was right her
e, saying that he’d broken things off. Where had those ideas of hers come from?

  But I hated that guy. I turned to leave. “Okay, Max. I’m sure she won’t bother you anymore.”

  “Hey, how did things go with your Caribbean trip?” he asked.

  “Go to hell,” I said, not even looking back. That bastard. I just knew he’d dump her eventually, and he had the nerve to think that I’d hang back and make chitchat with him? After the way he’d treated Whitney?

  I drove straight to Whitney’s. I had to see how she took this latest development.

  About thirty minutes later, I was flustered enough from driving through rush hour traffic that I considered just going home and talking to Drew, but I couldn’t. I had to get this straightened out with Whitney. She had to face reality, and I would give her the tough love she needed to get her there.

  I knocked on her door for five minutes, but she did not answer. Her car was outside, so I called her from my cell phone. She answered the phone in a low whisper.

  “Whitney, babe, I’m outside. Why aren’t you answering the door?”

  She hung up and a few seconds later I could see her peering through the front window. Then the door opened just a crack.

  “Come in! Come in!” she hissed.

  I walked in the house and she quickly locked the door behind me. It was a mess. Books were strewn all over the floor. Clothes lay across the furniture, and there were dirty dishes and half-full coffee cups on the coffee table. This was so unlike Whitney. Her house was her pride and joy, and she kept it in immaculate condition.

  “What happened in here?” I took a good look at her and noticed that she had lost at least fifteen pounds since I’d last seen her.

  “Whitney, what’s happened to you?” I went closer. Her hair was a tangled mess she’d pulled back in a scrunchy. There was crust around her eyes, and her breath was atrocious. If I didn’t know better I’d think she was on the bottle. I’d seen my mother like this on her worst days.

  “They’re after me now, Amelia.” She looked scared, genuinely afraid.