Coldwater. Diana Gould

her Internet browser, and saw that her friends had been sending her instant messages, trying to find her. At least, that’s how I deciphered, “WRU?” I tried to read them, but they were in a language that bore little relation to the English I had always written. I took out my notebook, and jotted down screen names and messages. “OMG. CD9 – P911.” “RU doing Sushi?”

      I wrote it all down, hoping to make sense of it later.

      I rummaged through the notebooks on her desk, looking for scraps of paper, whatever I could find. I rifled through the books on her shelf.

      I was gratified to see how many books were in the room, not only on her desk and shelves, but by her bed. Julia read for pleasure, an unusual trait in someone her age—or mine, for that matter.

      Also on her bed, leaning against the pillow, was a frayed and tattered Piglet doll. The only remnant of the child I left behind.

      I looked through the books stacked by her bed then felt behind the pillows and under the mattress. Success. A notebook was jammed under the box spring. I recognized it as the journal I had given her for her birthday along with a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank. I flipped it open now but heard Jonathan’s footsteps in the hall coming towards me. I slipped it into my bag along with the notes I’d found in her notebooks. When Jonathan arrived at the door, he found me sitting on her bed, holding the tattered Piglet next to me. His face, angry a moment before, softened slightly.

      “Brett, you have to leave.”

      I put the Piglet back down on the bed. “How are you? Aside from this? I guess there is no aside from this right now, is there.”

      “No. You?”

      What could I say? It was too complicated, and now was not the time.

      I could feel Jonathan’s and Lynda’s eyes on me as I walked back down the hall towards the front door, which Maile was holding open.

      A smile flitted across Lynda’s face. If she were thirty years younger, she would have stuck out her tongue at me. As it was, all she had to do was slightly arch an eyebrow.

      The door closed behind me on a family to which I no longer belonged.

      CHAPTER 8

      As I drove away from Jonathan’s—and Lynda’s—I had to remember that now it was her house too—the sky turned from blue to a cold grey slate; soon it would be black. A cool mist rolled in from the ocean, bringing with it a dank cold that brought drops of condensation to the windows. I too was enveloped in the fog of all I had lost. It wasn’t only the career, the money, the house, the boyfriend, or the family. It was the sense when Jonathan and I were together that there was somewhere I belonged. Now the man who used to love me, who’d thought I was funny and smart and talented and sexy, froze at the sight of me, and who could blame him? I’d put his daughter’s life and happiness at risk too many times to count.

      Where was she?

      I pulled over to the side of the street and stopped the car. I reached for the journal I’d taken from Julia’s bedroom. I’d given it to her for her 13^th birthday, and she’d made sporadic notations in it since then.

      My heart contracted at the sight of her handwriting. I recognized in its roots the mother’s day cards and valentines she’d written me as a child.

      I thumbed through its pages. She’d write every day for a couple of days, and then there’d be big gaps until the next burst.

      “October 2. We won against Bentley!!!! 2-0 (25-13, 25-22)!!! Megan Gannaway cried when they lost. Next week is Calhoun/Webster. They’re first in the league, and they’ve got Tawna Dunworth, but we were on it! I put away 11 kills. Not bad. Heather keeps bugging her Mom to let her get a nose job.

      October 3. Dawn came over to study. She’s going to get grounded unless she brings her grades up.”

      I took out my notebook and made notes of names she mentioned, thinking it would give me clues as to who might know where she had gone.

      “Feb. 19. Dad says I should try out for the debating team. I told him I feel so self-conscious in front of people, but he says that’s why I should do it. Brett so obnoxious. Trying to get Dad to dance with her and teasing him about how uptight he was, but she was acting like a jerk. I hate it when she gets like that. And if you say anything to her about it, she gets mean.”

      I closed my eyes, like a child who thinks if he covers his face, he can’t be seen, but it did nothing to staunch the flood of remorse. Whatever illusion I’d entertained that my drinking and drug use had hurt nobody but myself—and Rosa Aguilar, of course—evaporated. Thinking of Rosa, I flipped through the notebook quickly, to see if there was anything about the night of...the “accident”...on Coldwater. But I’d given this notebook to Julia for her 13^th birthday, and that was after the fact.

      I took a deep breath and continued to read.

      “March 3. Just finished Silas Marner. Loved it!!! Now I have to write the paper. Brett shit-faced. So obnoxious.”

      “March 29. Tomorrow is the debate with Calhoun/Webster. I’m going to be awful!!!! I have to argue the case FOR using animals for medical experiments, and I don’t believe in it!!! Dad says it will be good practice. Brett says it will teach me to be a television executive. That just gets them started again. They should just make a CD. They always say the same things over and over.”

      “April 23. Brett left. Dad says I’ll still be able to see her, but she won’t live with us anymore. At least the fighting will stop.”

      “May 3. “Caleigh says her Dad wants her to go to the prom with Lance Pearlman because his Dad is the agent for Space Wizards.”

      “May 16. Caleigh went to the prom with Lance, but she gave Tyler a BJ in the parking lot. I’m worried about Caleigh. She seems lost. Lynda’s so phony it makes me want to puke. Oh, Heather’s bulimic. She stuffs her face and then barfs her brains out. Her trainer told her it was bad for her electrolytes, but she says she’ll look like her mom if she doesn’t do it. I hate my body. I hate my hair. I hate my eyes. I hate my life. I wish Brett were here...”

      “Feb 18. Well, dear Diary, I’m 15! Dad says I look more like my mother every day. He says I’ll be beautiful like her as if that makes everything okay, but I know when he looks at me, he sees her, he never sees me. I can’t even remember a time when I mattered to anyone...”

      * * *

      There wasn’t enough air in the car. I rolled down the windows. It didn’t help. I gasped for air, strangled by a mixture of grief, loss, and remorse that constricted my throat and made it hard to breathe. There was only one thing I couldn’t understand. How could you possibly not drink over pain like this?

      I put the car in gear and headed back south.

      CHAPTER 9

      Boots Caruthers commandeered me as soon as I walked into the Playa del Sol Alano Club. She was using both hands to carry a giant coffee pot. “Hello, precious. Just in time to make coffee.” Her gravelly voice left no room for discussion, and I followed her into the kitchen. She handed me the pot, and I measured out coffee into the strainer.

      “Have you seen Mike?”

      “Drummond?” She looked around. “He’s a popular guy. You’re the second person tonight who’s asked for him.”

      “Who else?”

      “Some redhead,” Boots said, adding with a laugh and a confidential nudge, “I should talk. That’s one bottle I’ll never give up.”

      I must have looked as wretched as I felt because her eyes softened. “How much time do you have, sugar?”

      “It’s my second day,” I said.

      “Oh, baby,” she said, “It’s going to get better.”

      A concave