After the End (6 page)
I’VE BEEN WANDERING FOR HOURS WITH NO LUCK, feeling like the biggest fool on earth. I want to give up, but remember the look on my father’s face when he said I needed to prove myself to him. That’ll never happen in the mail room. I’ve got to find this girl.
I try to think like a detective would. If you’re new to a city, you most likely go to touristy areas. I walk up a road with several restaurant terraces and sit down on a street bench to watch the people passing by.
At least I got out of the house for the weekend. When I told Mrs. Kirby I would be fine on my own, she actually sounded relieved. And I answered Dad’s
Is everything okay?
text this morning with:
Just watching TV in my jail cell. Don’t worry, I’m fine.
I finally get up and begin following signs for Pike Place Market, the one spot in Seattle that I’ve actually heard of. Across the street a rowdy crowd sits at tables outside a sports bar. I doubt this girl will be in that group. I sigh. This is worse than finding a needle in a haystack.
“Hey, Starry Eyes, baby! Come back, I was just kidding!” someone yells.
I’m suddenly on high alert, my eyes scanning the crowd across the street. I home in on a group of college-age guys wearing identical Greek letter T-shirts and drinking pints of beer. It was one of them who shouted “starry eyes.” But walking away from them is what looks like a small-built boy with a kind of fuzzy crew cut.
Wait, no. It’s a girl.
I jog across the street toward the frat boys, watching as the girl stops at another table, leans in, and talks with them.
“Hey, what’d that girl ask you for?” I ask the first table.
One of the guys looks me up and down and then, satisfied that my button-down and jeans meet his dress code or something, says, “You don’t want her, man. She’s crazy.”
“You’ve got that right,” the guy next to him says, and laughing, they lift their mugs to clink in agreement.
“What do you mean, crazy?” I ask.
“Chick’s been showing up every night, wandering around asking everyone their name,” another guy says. He shakes his head and wipes the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand.
“And what about that creepy star-shaped contact lens?” the first guy says. “Weird, right?”
Star-shaped contact lens? Excitement rises in my chest. I walk away from their table. “You’re welcome!” one of the frat boys calls after me, and his friends laugh.
The girl is watching something across the street, and I turn to see what she’s looking at. My heart stops in my chest. It’s two of Dad’s security guards from work, and they’re staring straight at her.
A car speeds by, forcing them to wait before they jog across the road. I look back at the girl, but she’s gone, and Dad’s guards are looking around like
Where’d she go?
I take a quick right onto the next road, and then I see the girl dart out of an alleyway a block away. She moves so smooth and fast it looks like she’s gliding.
I spend the next hour trailing her around town while I run over Dad’s description in my mind: starburst eye, long black hair, probably traveling with two huskies. Looks like she lost the dogs and the hairdo sometime during the last week, but according to the frat boys, she kept the weird contact lens. She doesn’t seem like an “industrial spy” who everyone’s dying to get his hands on. She looks more like a lost little boy.
As I watch her, I realize there’s something wrong with her. She flinches at the smallest provocation. A street cleaner goes by and she looks ready to climb the nearest tree to escape. She stands outside the Apple store and stares at the window for so long, it looks like she’s planning a major electronics heist. You’d think she was seeing everything for the first time. Like she’s Tarzan or something—raised by wolves in the deepest, darkest forest. And then there’s the fact that she keeps stopping people and asking their names.
I follow her as she roams the streets until well after dark and watch as she finally walks into a guesthouse with a sign outside reading
CATCHING DEW GUESTHOUSE: NO VACANCIES
. I jog back to where I parked my car, hoping she doesn’t leave while I’m moving it. Once parked in front of the guesthouse, I settle in and keep an eye on the front door. That’s when my phone rings. Dad’s yelling before I even have a chance to talk.
“. . . called the home phone and when you didn’t answer, I got Mrs. Kirby on the line. She went straight over to the house and then called to tell me you weren’t there. Now you better have a good reason to—”
“I found her,” I say, cutting him off.
“You found her? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” my dad asks, confused.
“I’m in Seattle, and I think I found the girl you’re looking for.”
Dad is silent for a whole thirty seconds, and I wait to hear whether he’s going to start yelling again or if he’ll take me seriously.
“Where are you?” he asks, his tone clipped. Unreadable.
“I’m parked in front of a guesthouse I saw her go into,” I say.
“Where? Give me an address.”
Within minutes, one of Dad’s company Saabs comes down the street and parks a few places away. I stay in my car and watch as one of the men I saw earlier today walks up to my window and taps on it.
I roll the window down and stare at him. “Your father says for you to check into a hotel and then drive straight back to L.A. in the morning,” he says.
“Got it,” I say, and roll the window up in his face. I make no move to leave. He shakes his head and walks back to his car.
The guards and I spend the night in our cars. Finally, around 10:00 a.m., one of them goes into the guesthouse and comes back out at a jog. “She’s gone,” he calls to his partner, and throws me a scowl as they speed off.
Dad calls five minutes later and commands me to head home. Now I’m in a bind: if I go home without the girl, Dad will definitely kill me. I have to find her before his security team does and somehow convince her to come back to L.A. with me. I rest my head on the steering wheel and experience a moment of pure panic. What have I gotten myself into?
I breathe deeply and reason with myself. What worse can happen? I’m already grounded. I’m already going to be kept out of Yale until Dad feels like greasing some palms. I can’t think of a fate worse than the mail room, although I’m sure Dad could.
I have to do this,
I think, and start the car.
Three hours later I finally spot her, crouched down outside an ultramodern glass building, talking to a street person. Just then it starts pouring down rain. The girl stands, pulls her hood over her head, and sprints into the building.
I turn the car around, park in the building’s parking lot, and make a dash to the door she disappeared through. I just hope she’s still here. If she’s not, I’m going to seriously consider admitting failure and going home.
I HAVE SEARCHED THE STREETS OF SEATTLE FOR several days, looking for the person my oracle spoke of, without the foggiest notion of what he looks like. Yesterday I felt he was near, but I had to run from my pursuers before I could spot him.
Used to being the hunter, I am now the hunted. Men are chasing me—they aren’t dressed like Whit’s captors, so I have no idea who they are. I just know I have to continue looking for the person I’m supposed to meet while keeping the men at bay. It would help if I knew what he looked like instead of just trusting my hunter’s instinct that he is following me.
But the second he walks into the library, I know it is him.
I am sitting at my usual table: the one I use whenever the rain drives me off the streets, reading magazines and newspapers to familiarize myself with the events of the last thirty years.
I keep my head down, scanning the pages of a
Time
magazine while I see him glance my way and take a seat at the end of my table. Only when he pretends to be reading a book do I allow myself a peek.
I study his features carefully. His light-brown hair is the color of fireweed honey tossed about in a scramble of loose curls. He has a long, straight nose and lips that look like they’re hiding a joke. Or a secret.
He glances my way and sees me staring at him. I can’t tell if his eyes are blue or green. I rise, walk to his end of the table, and sit down directly across from him. He watches me, his face reddening with surprise.
“What’s your name?” I whisper. The page-padded hush of the room swallows my voice, but he hears me.
He hesitates, looks uncertain, and then focuses on my left eye. Clearing his throat, he whispers, “Miles.”
It’s the answer I’ve been waiting for. I nod and study him for another few seconds. And then I rise to my feet. “Come on,” I say. I swing my backpack over my shoulder and stand next to him, waiting.
He sits there looking dumbfounded. “What? Where?”
I extend my hand. He looks at it warily—like it’s an inanimate object. Like it’s one of those mystery boxes Kenai loves to make: you never know if it holds a piece of blueberry cake or a coil-spring snake that will smack you in the face.
The boy doesn’t take my hand. Instead, he follows me out of the library into the parking lot. It’s still raining. I pull up my hood and let the rain drizzle down my jacket, while Miles huddles beneath the building’s overhang.
“Which one’s yours?” I ask.
“The Beamer.” Miles points to a silvery-blue car that looks brand-new, and then wraps his arms back around himself. It isn’t very cold, but his shirt is too light for the weather.
Doesn’t come prepared,
I think, continuing the mental assessment I had begun the moment I saw him.
I walk to his car and stand next to the passenger side. “What are you doing?” Miles calls.
“Waiting for you,” I respond. “And getting wet.”
He gives me an incredulous look. When I don’t move, he leaves his dry spot and jogs through the rain toward me, pressing something on his keys as he runs. I hear the locks click and I open the door, slide in, and stash my backpack in the rear seat. Miles bundles into the car and turns to gape at me. “What are you doing?” he repeats.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I respond. “You were looking for me. And now you’ve found me. I’ll tell you what I’m doing if you tell me what you already know about me.”
His jaw snaps shut and his eyes grow wide. Green eyes. I can tell now. They’re the dark blue-green-black of a Denali lake at dusk. The thing about lake water is it’s opaque. You never know what’s hidden underneath.
“What I know about you? Nothing!” he says.
I stay silent, crossing my arms as I wait. He sees that I won’t talk until he does.
“Seriously,” he claims. “All I know is that some people are looking for you. And the locals think you’re crazy because you go around asking people’s names.” He pauses, looking sorry that he said that last part. Understandable. It’s not the kind of thing you would want to mention when sitting in an enclosed space with said crazy person.
Tactless,
I add to my list, and ask, “Do you?”
“Do I what?” he asks, looking cornered.
“Think I’m crazy?”
“Um, I would have to say . . . at this moment . . . yes,” he admits.
I chew my lip and look out the window at the parking lot. No question about it—I’m sure Miles is the one Frankie foresaw.
I look back at him and raise my eyebrows impatiently.
“What?” he asks, looking defensive.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Go where?”
“To find my clan.”
His features flip through a series of comical expressions: incomprehension, doubt, surprise, and finally exasperation.
“Where . . . where do we have to go to find your . . . clan?”
I lean forward to peer at the point where the sun hides under the rain clouds to get my bearing. “It looked kind of desertlike. Kind of Wild West. It’s in that direction,” I say, pointing southeast.
“Whoa,” he says, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Listen here. I don’t have any clue what you’re talking about. And I haven’t said I’m taking you anywhere. Much less to the Wild West.”
“Then tell me why you were following me.” I look at him.
He stares back at me as long as he can before shifting his gaze away. I just sit and watch him, waiting for him to come around. Finally he sighs and says, “Okay, I’ll give you a lift. But I was headed south, actually. To California. We’ve got a lot of Wild West there. You could ride there with me and then go look for your clan. But I’ll need to make a stop and pick up some . . . stuff first. Clothes. You know.”
“What’s in the suitcase behind the seat?” I ask.
“Um . . . clothes,” Miles says, fidgeting. “Yeah, I forgot about that. But I could take you to your hotel if you need to get . . . supplies.” He rearranges his face into a helpful smile and then lifts his eyebrows in a way that I think is meant to charm me.
Nome would be eating this up,
I think. She had actually gone through the EB and ranked the photos of every scientist, politician—anything male—from one to ten, based on “charisma,” as she called it. I can never think of John F. Kennedy without the number 7.5 popping into my head.
But I feel only amusement watching Miles. I have a goal, and he is the one who will help me. My interest ends there. “I don’t need to go back to the guesthouse,” I say. “I’ve been here seven days and paid up front for the week. Plus, I have everything I need in my pack. Let’s go.”
“So you have money?”
“Some.”
“Well, then, why didn’t you rent a car and drive yourself?” he asks curiously.
“I don’t know how to drive.”
He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You could take a bus.”
“You’re supposed to take me. And California’s due south. I’m going southeast.”
Miles clenches his jaw in frustration. He digs his fingers into his temples and squeezes his eyes shut. And then, opening them again, he glares at me.
Doesn’t like to take orders,
I think, noting that tidbit on my checklist, and then add,
Is used to getting what he wants
.
“Why in the world would you trust me to take you anywhere?” he asks. “I could be dangerous. I could be psycho. You don’t know me from Adam.”
I turn to him. “Actually, I don’t trust you. Frankie told me not to, but he also said I had to be honest with you.”
“Who the hell is Frankie?” A note of hysteria creeps into Miles’s voice.
“Frankie is the guy who sits and drinks beer on the corner of Pike and Pine. People call him Crazy Frankie.”
“You take advice from an insane alcoholic?” Miles’s face is dead serious now.
Be completely honest,
I hear the voice in my head. I exhale and brace myself. “He was my oracle,” I respond. “And he told me to go with you. Therefore, whether or not you are dangerous or psycho—which I don’t think you are—”
“Thanks,” Miles interjects drily.
“—you are driving me.”
“How does this Crazy Frankie even know who I am?”
“He doesn’t,” I respond. “He told me to go with the person whose name will take me far.”
Miles stares at me, all semblance of coolness gone. He looks scared.
“You are psychotic,” Miles says, eyes wide. Tearing his gaze from mine, he sits for an entire minute staring straight ahead at the parking lot.
He needs you as much as you need him,
Frankie had said. I wait.
Finally, shaking his head in despair, Miles turns the key in the ignition. “Okay. I’ll take you at least part of the way on your crazy road trip.” He reaches for something on the dashboard. “But first I have to make a call.”
I get to the contraption first. “Is this your cellular phone?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says.
Clasping it in my hand, I close my eyes and contact the Yara. I’ve been waiting for a week for this to happen. I’m ready. A little spark flies out the side of the phone, and its screen goes dead.
“What the—” Miles yells.
“Frankie also told me not to let you use your phone,” I reply. “Now let’s go.”