caffeine will energize her. She slumps onto the chili-pepper-red Naugahyde bar stool, her eyes zoning out of focus as she waits. Debra has gone, waddling out to wait for the MAX line with the folder, Chloe’s business card tucked in her hip pocket, and Chloe would bet her favorite brown suede boots she’ll never see her again.
Suddenly, on the TV over the bar, something catches her attention. Paul. Chloe leans forward, trying to hear more.
“Tragically, Ned, Portland police and the Nova family are still waiting for a break in the case of the kidnapping of Baby Wyeth one week ago today.”
And flashing across the screen is the image of Eva Nova, hunched over the podium, Paul’s arm wrapped behind her shoulders, his hand like a bear’s paw against her wrinkled white shirt, her hair like it hasn’t seen a brush in a month. She looks directly into the camera and says only, “Please, please.”
Across the bottom of the screen, Chloe reads the “BREAKING NEWS: Amber Alert” and the date, January 29, 2001—a week ago. The night she saw Paul in the driveway, the bitterness in his voice. God, where has she been, under a rock? In a Portland winter fog? She remembers now, coming into work earlier this week, she’d overheard Beverly and Casey talking, a local kidnapping, but she’d had to pee so badly she walked right past them. Oh, Paul…
“In his statement this morning, Detective Haberman says there are currently no new leads in the case, though the former employee of a Portland Heights gas station has not reported for work since the incident and cannot be contacted. Though she has not been formally named as a suspect, police are seeking information on the whereabouts of Brandi Gardham, age sixteen, last seen at the Portland Heights gas station on the twenty-ninth.”
There is no photo, just a police sketch that could be any cracked-out ethnic teenager, and Chloe stands and pays for the soda. They flash an image of the Novas at the news conference again, a slightly overexposed photo of the baby. He is wearing a white outfit with a pale blue puppy chasing a red ball on the chest, and he is mostly bald, nondescript hair, worried eyebrows, slightly crossed eyes, a smattering of baby acne on his newborn nose. He could be any baby, but if you look closer, if you know them, you can see Paul’s serious expression in his eyes, Eva’s broad Scandinavian forehead.
In the parking lot, though it is not their scheduled Sunday-night chat and it will cost her a minimum of eight dollars, Chloe calls Dan’s apartment in Hawaii, her hands shaking. After Debra Disneyland and now the Novas’ tragedy, she really needs to hear his voice.
“Hey, babe,” he says, and he sounds so happy to talk to her, she wants to turn her car west and keep driving until she reaches him. She is so tired, feels like she has been physically stretched, trying to span a hundred miles to the coast and huge stretches of ocean to connect with him, physically here but mentally there.
“I just needed to hear your voice,” she says, and her own breaks. Outside her windshield, the used-car sales lot flags dance, the sun catching on the silver. The motor is running, the heater on high. What is she doing here?
“Nice to hear you too.” They sit in silence for a few seconds, and she can hear him running water, brushing his teeth.
“I miss you,” she blurts, but it is a filler, like Styrofoam peanuts.
“Yeah, me too.” Crunch crunch, light and fluffy; crumbling to nothing.
“Remember the Novas, from the agency, from our neighborhood?” she says.
He waits; she can hear him spitting his toothpaste. “Nope.”
“Paul and Eva, they live just a few streets over, off Patton. Their baby got kidnapped last week.”
“You’re kidding! What happened? The birth parents steal it back, or what?”
“No, they used to be my clients, but they got pregnant on their own.”
“Oh.” Long pause. “That’s terrible,” he finally says, and she can feel the ocean between them, the tall pines by the coast, the rocky shores, the millions of fish and sharks and ships and orchards and buildings, every bit of it, as though she has to literally crawl, paddle, swim, climb it all, to reach him. Her stomach rolls, her eyes tearing.
“Babe, you okay?”
“I think I’m coming down with something.”
“Baby. Sorry to hear that. You work too hard for those people. Hey, there’s a waitressing job here, at the Cannery.”