When you leave the apartment that morning, the car has disappeared. You can see this right away. The car is not an easy thing to miss, old and orange and rusted, belly low to the ground with a shot suspension. You bought it off Craigslist the week before, two thousand dollars, less, even, than this particular piece of junk was worth you thought, but the guy seemed in a hurry to get rid of it. Los Angeles’ Craigslist for sale section has to be one of the saddest places on the internet. All those people making last ditch efforts to finance their sad little dreams. Whatever, you thought, it’s not your problem, but now it is your problem because that car, that stupid car, that last ditch effort barely worked anyway car, [[is gone]]
“Fuck,” you say, under your [[breath]]
Normally you don’t like to swear, you work at a preschool and these things are hard to slip in and out of, but it was right there, last night, you are sure of it, parked diagonally in the hillside space you carefully wedged it into the night before, late, a little tipsy, ok, yes, but basically fine stopping off at Mark’s house on your way back to your mother’s in the valley, and you didn't mean to spend the night but now it’s the morning and here you are, and your car is gone.
“What’’s that, babe?” Mark says behind [[you]] He leans forward and kisses you flat on the mouth, his lips closed, teeth pressed tight against them, all musky fleshed, a kiss like the way it had felt to kiss when you first started kissing, something like a dank suburban basement where you would watch your friends’ cute older brothers play Legend of Zelda, and, when you were a little older, smoke dry, skunky weed from a hollowed out apple. Mark’s main charm for you is that he seems to exist in the space between childhood and adulthood, knowing and unknowing. Being with him evokes the same feelings that you used to have drinking sweet shoplifted drugstore wine, or sharing one of Maria’s mom’s menthol Vogues on the lawn during a slumber party, the circle of you sitting close together, feeling brave and powerful and grown up, feeling your way towards actual grown up knowing in the dark. The space between becoming and become. That’s Mark. It’s a rare feeling, and when you first met it filled you with a strange, dark excitement. But when you woke up that morning, you thought that you hated him.
The rational part of you knows that it’s not his fault that it’s later than you wanted it to be and you have a hangover and there were things, so many things you wanted to do on your day off that you cannot do with a sticky mouth and a throbbing head, logically, you know, that none of this is his fault. Still. There is something about him that vaguely disgusts you. You try not to flinch away, remind yourself that he is kind.
Do you:
[[Tell Mark about the car]]
[[Keep it to yourself]] You don’t hate him. Not really. Not really, hate is a strong word, you think. You remember the way you looked at him when you first met, at the backyard of a house in Highland Park that somebody’s parents had bought her. When you finally arrived (late, you’re always late, you pretend that other people might find this charming, but secretly you know that they do not and never will), the friend who invited you is nowhere to be found and you feel so alone there, texting into the void at her, surrounded by all these beautiful, rich kids clustered around a table full of vegetables sliced into little rounds, bitter hoppy beers in a bucket, two kinds of vermouth. But you didn’t leave. You just have to stay an hour, you think, just an hour and then you can go.
The house was high up in the hills. This is the main thing you remember, how far away everything seemed, spread thin at your feet. Night time is the only time Los Angeles looks beautiful from a distance. So you walked to the edge of the yard to look, and there was Mark, smoking one of his horrible cigarettes, looking out past you, past everyone, at nothing. You liked him immediately. He didn’t say much to you, and you liked that too. That night you let him give you a ride home, you were too drunk, you said, you drive drunk all the time, and you spent the night on the mattress in the corner of his bedroom, huddled close together under the slow rotation of the ceiling fan, waking up with a plastic fish stuck to your thigh. And you kept coming back. He doesn’t know anything about you, he doesn’t know where you live, but you know him, know the corners of his musky bedroom, the faded stripes of the living room couch. Most nights you stand together at friends’ shows, close, but not holding hands. There is something about that, the closeness, that is reassuring to think about. Mark will help you. He has to.
“Hey,” you say, “Babe? I think my car’s gone.”
“What?” He says, “Oh shit, really?”
He kicks himself off the steps, comes towards you, turns. His brows are all wrinkled up, and he is trying to sound concerned, your can tell, but you can hear the way his voice quickens. This is exciting for him. Finally, something has happened. He comes and puts his arm around your shoulders, giving you a little squeeze.
“One sec,” he says, “I’ll put a shirt on. Just hold tight. The first thing to do is to make sure they haven’t towed your car, do you know the number for that? Or wait-maybe it’ll be quicker just to go down to the station together, let’s do that, we’ll drive to Highland park, that’s where they do all the car stuff. My buddy had his stolen a while back, that’s where they sent him.”
You like the way he jumps right in, tells you what needs doing.
“Let’s stop for breakfast first,” you say, “No rush. If it’s stolen, it’s stolen. It’s too late to do anything about it now.”
“Ok,” he says, and you try not to look too pleased. You’ve never been out together in the [[daytime before.]] “Nothing,” you say, not turning around, “It’s all good.”
He started calling you babe the first night you spent together. It’s unclear whether he’s being cute, or if he is unsure of what your actual name is. There’s a strange push pull with him, always, too much and not enough. Once he told you you were the most curious person he’d ever met. “You know everything about me,” he said. “And I don’t really know anything about you.” You had told him to ask you a question, then. Anything, you had said, anything you want to know. He couldn’t think of one.
“See you this week?” He says.
You turn. You smile.
“You know it!”
You’re not sure yet whether you mean it or not. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, he’s already looking down at his phone.
Mark takes a pack of American Spirits out of the pocket of his jeans and holds it out to you, but you shake your head. You hate American Spirits, which seem, to you, like the ultimate cop out, their virtuous branding and organic tobacco not doing much to mask the basic fact that you’re still a dirtbag smoking cigarettes in an alleyway behind a noise show. Plus, they taste like compost. Mark was smoking American Spirits when you met him. This probably should have been your first sign to stay away. But [[here you are]] Mark lives in a small white house at the top of what must be the steepest hill in Echo Park, a godforsaken slant walled place that some cousin of a roommates’ friend had rented for cheap when the lake was being dragged for bodies, back in those early days when there was the still occasional shootout on this part of Sunset, before the coffee shops and vintage stores and coffee shops and wine bars and coffee shops and coffee shops popped up like mushrooms after rain, closer and closer to choking out the last remaining panederia, the public health clinic with murals on the walls of brown skinned women holding golden bowls, pouring water over painted waves of green grass, the podiatrist with the happy foot/sad foot sign. He likes to talk about how cheap his rent is. He likes to talk about that time when they were dragging the lake and they had to close off the street for the county to come remove the bodies they found. He seems to feel some pride about this. You figure these things happen, cars get stolen, batteries are cut, it’s all a natural part of life in a city of drivers. You had thought your car was too cheap for anyone to bother with, but everything is good enough for someone, you guess. It was good enough [[for you]]
It’s summer, and the sun is out. The light, which is what, you wonder, afternoon light, maybe, late morning, shines even the most rundown stucco houses marshmallow smooth. At the bottom of the hill, the shimmer of lake. That morning you had smoked half a joint in bed with Mark, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but now your head feels cloudy, like there’s a thin layer of cellophane. You need to walk yourself clearheaded before you think about calling the police.
In the park, you follow the curve of the lake up towards the freeway, the rush of the cars strangely like rushing water, while the water beside you is mildewed still, the fountain at the center barely rippling the surface all the way over here. It’s a weekend, so the park crowded with families, small men selling ice cream from makeshift carts, impossibly hip couples strolling hand in hand. The air smells like danger dogs, the burnt sugar tang of grilling corn and cotton candy, a faint undercurrent of rot off the water. Afraid of seeing someone you know, you stop walking, sit with your back turned away from the lawn of picnickers, looking out over the water towards the curved walls of the Church of the Four Square Gospel, rising up over the park like a cruise ship pulling up to an island. The church was here first. It was here before the bakeries and auto shops and schools. It was here before most of the houses, built by a woman who one day swam in the Pacific Ocean and then ten months later came walking out of the Sonoran Desert with no shoes on, singing hymns. The lotuses she planted are still here, too, curling their dark way through the mud. You imagine yourself lying down there, cradled by worm white roots, looking up through the water to where Mark would stand, his hair shining in the sun, calling your name [[into the air]] And then, someone really is calling your name. For a crazed moment, you think that it’s real, it’s Mark, and you are somewhere underneath the water, but you turn around, and of course not, you see a figure rising from the squirming mass of picnickers and it’s Nick, and your stomach lurches, the last person you would want to see you like this, hungover, stoned, in old jeans, and here he is. He sits down beside you. “Hi,” he says. “How’s it going?”
You have known each other for years, you and Nick, and for almost as long as you’ve known him you’ve loved him, stupidly, just a little bit, not a serious love but present enough that sometimes you lie awake at night staring at the ceiling or talk to yourself when you’re stuck in traffic saying some day I’ll say something, someday I need to tell him, but you know you never will. There is a kind of comfort in this. A safety, too, since Nick is and has always been, dating a series of preternaturally poised blondes, the current one the best yet, imbued with all the self possession that over a decade of expensive Montessori method education can buy. They live together in a small house in Frogtown. You like Nick too much to try to disrupt any of this. You’re too realistic to think you’d have a chance if you tried. So you’re friends. This is, for the most part, fine with you.
“I’m ok,” you say. “I think my car was stolen.”
Nick will know what do, you think. That’s something you’ve always liked about him, his ruthless competency. Nick is the kind of guy who knows how to fix things, who knows the right people to call. You can count on him.
“Oh shit,” he says.
You think he’s going to ask if you’ve told Mark, but of course he doesn’t, he doesn’t, you remember, know anything about Mark to begin with. You’re weirdly private about that part of your life, with him. He already takes up so much space in your brain, at least you can have this, some small private thing for yourself.
“What’re you doing on this side of town, anyway? Aren’t you still living in Stud City?
Stud City is what Nick calls Studio City over the hill where yes, in fact, you do still live with your Mom, as if this was something you needed reminding of. Nick can be kind of an asshole sometimes, with his jokes that started out stupid and then got funny through repetition and now are just stupid again. Your head aches. You wish he would leave you alone. You kind of want to tell him about Mark, because the thing is, Mark is cool. Cooler than Nick in some ways that count for a lot. For a second you want to say, I'm here to see my boyfriend, actually, I'm visiting is my boyfriend, but he’s not, and then Nick will tell Bianca and then Bianca will tell everyone and it’ll be a Whole Thing, but still, wouldn't it be worth it to see the look on his face?
Do you:
[[Tell Nick Mark's your boyfriend?]]
[[Play it cool?]] “Yeah,” you say. “But I'm visiting someone. My boyfriend. Mark. You know him?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I know Mark. He’s the worst. So have you told your boyfriend about the car?”
There's something snide in the way he says this that makes you want to hit him in the mouth. You are also, weirdly, full of regret, this will get back to Mark in no time, and he'll make a big deal about it. You don't tell Nick any of this, of course.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Good, I wouldn’t. At least not til you figure out what’s going on.”
This was new. Was Nick jealous? As annoyed as you are by his weird presumption, it also gives you a quiet little thrill. Nick, for once, is concerned about you. You try not to show him that this matters.
"What are you talking about?"
“Look,” said Nick, “I don’t want to sound like your dad, but I don’t like this guy. There’s something creepy about him. At first I thought he was just some pathetic aging hipster refusing to let the dream die, but….”
“Well that’s a shitty thing to say." You don't want to hear whatever comes next. But Nick just shakes his head at you.
“I just think there’s something off about him. I’ve heard things-rumors, I guess.”
“What kind of things?”
“Look, he’s your guy, I get that. I don't want to cause you any trouble. You know him better than I do, I'm sure.”
“What kind of things, Nick?”
“I don’t want to get into it. I have to go to dinner with Bianca. I’m just saying to be cautious, is all. Want a ride to the station?”
There is no point in arguing with Nick. You've known him long enough to figure that out, and long enough to be sure that he will tell you eventually, when he had held on to whatever secret he had long enough for him to feel virtuous about finally telling me whatever it is. You won't give him the satisfaction of asking again.
“Sure,” you say, "[[Let’s go.” ]]
“Just visiting a friend,” you say. “Mark. You know him?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I know Mark. He’s the worst. Have you told him what happened?”
“No,” I say, “Not yet, and he’s not the worst, that’s a shitty thing to say.”
“I wouldn’t. I’ve heard things, rumors, I guess, nothing concrete.”
“Like what?”
“Never mind”
“Like what, Nick?”
“Honestly, it’s no big deal. I don’t want to get into it. I’ve just heard that he spends time with some sketchy people, that’s all”
“This is LA, Nick, who doesn’t?”
“Yeah,” he says, “You’re right,” but he seems unconvinced, and you kind of like this. Maybe he’s jealous.
“So can you give me a ride to the station?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and this annoys you. Nick is always making you feel like you’re a problem for him.
“Yeah,” he says, finally, “I have to get dinner with Bianca in a bit, but I can drop you off.”
You almost want to say no. You have other people you can ask for help. You can call an Uber. Nick sucks. But the thought of riding close with him in the car he’s been driving since high school, the seats seeped in years of cigarette smoke, seems oddly comforting. A return to something familiar on a strange, strange day.
“Ok,” you say, “Sure. [[Let’s go.” ]] At the station, Nick comes inside with you. This surprises you. You had thought he might leave you at the door, saying something cute about Bianca, driving back up into the hills. The ride, you thought, was nice, at least, you had shared a cigarette and listened to Marquee Moon and for a minute it was like everything was normal again. Whatever that meant. But he comes inside and picks up name badges at the desk from a woman in blue bead tipped braids who smiles at him white teethed. Women always smile at Nick.
You follow a thin blue line of vinyl tape down the hallway, passing closed door after closed door, a depressing little nook of battered looking toys and books that someone kind has set aside for the children unfortunate enough to find themselves inside this cold florescent echo chamber. At the door of the traffic department, he turns, pulls you in close for an awkward embrace, clumsily kissing your cheek, his lips muffled by a thick layer of your totally sweaty, unwashed hair. This is so Nick, you think, these tiny gestures that inch close to intimacy but never quite arrive. He peels off his own name tag, and sticks it on top of yours, his name obscuring your own.
“Well, this is where I leave you, kid. Good luck in there,” he says.
He ruffles your hair and leaves you standing alone outside the door. You watch his back receding, the small holes in his worn soft shirt that smells like grass, those cigarettes. You feel nauseated by the whole thing. You push open the [[door.]] The traffic violations department of the Highland Park police station consists of one bald man reading a newspaper behind his desk. You stand there in front of him for a long time, waiting for him to notice you. He doesn’t. While you wait, you try to peel Nick’s name tag off your own, working the edges of your too short fingernails under the sticky skin, but it’s no use, it won’t budge. You try to make a little noise so the man will look up, stepping backwards and forwards a few times, rustling, coughing a little, clearing your throat. Nothing.
“Excuse me,” you finally say.
He still doesn’t look up from his paper. Now that you’ve shuffled yourself closer, you can see that it’s a racing form. You read the names on it, Brightside, Seagram’s Hero, Little Bit, Ghostzapper, Pixie.
“Ring the bell,” he says.
There is a tarnished looking hotel desk bell on the counter with a folded up notecard to the side of it reading. “Ring for service."
“Really?” you say. He doesn’t look up. You tap the bell as lightly as you can, but it still makes an impossibly loud noise in the confined space. He sighs, looks up, still not lowering the racing form.
“What can I do for you, Ma’am?”
You feel nervous. Cops always make you nervous, even when you haven’t done anything wrong. This is normal, you tell yourself, this is a perfectly normal interaction. You haven’t done anything you're not supposed to do, or nothing much, anyway. There is noting to worry about.
“I’m here to report a stolen car,” you say.
“Stolen?” he says, “How do you know it was stolen?”
You haven’t thought about this.
“Well it’s gone,” you say, “I guess I don’t know yet if it was stolen or towed or what, but it’s gone. It’s a burnt orange Honda Civic. A 1992. I parked it on the corner of Bonnie Brae and Santa Ynez last night. This morning it was gone.”
He leans forward, crinkling the folded racing form with his belly.
“Oh yeah,” he says, “I remember that car. I have the report right here. Owner picked it up about an hour ago. Whatever your problem is, if you haven’t paid your lease, or if this is some kind of personal dispute, you’ll have to take it up with her.”
There’s this strange moment where you think you are going crazy, that you’ve been here before, have been here all along, maybe, sitting in that sad little children’s nook, coming in and out of this man’s office, bothering him. But that’s not right. That can’t be right.
“I’m the owner,” you say, “If someone took it, that’s theft. It’s mine.”
You are becoming upset, but trying to control your voice. It is of vital importance, you realize, that this man not think you crazy.
“Look,” he says, “All I know is what I’m telling you. The car was brought in this morning. Shortly thereafter, the owner picked it up.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” you say, “It’s my car. There’s no one else’s name on the title. My name’s Margot, Margot Hollingsway, my name’s on the paperwork for the car, please, sir, if you could just check it for me I would really appreciate it.”
“Your name tag says Nick.”
You scrabble at the edges of it with your fingers again. Nothing. It won't budge.
“Obviously my name isn’t Nick, sir, it’s a joke, my friend-“
“Oh, so this is a joke to you? You’re trying to have some fun with me, are you, young lady?”
“No,” you say, “No sir, not at all, that’s not what I’m saying”
“Because I don’t think attempting to file false reports and misrepresenting yourself to an officer of the law is a very funny joke, Miss. And I think that the sergeant would agree with me.”
“I promise I’m not kidding,” you say, “And I’m sorry about the name tag. But I can prove it. I’m Margot Hollingsway, I bought that car a week ago, you can compare my driver’s liesnce to the name on the paperwork, it’s my car, please sir, just check.”
No tears, you think, no tears. He sighs, an exhausted sounding, elaborate sigh.
“Fine,” he says. He holds his hand out, and you fumble in your purse. You reach in, and your stomach drops down to the floor. Your wallet isn’t there. You dig and dig, becoming more and more nervous, and finally you just dump the purse out onto the counter, a tangle of headphones, chewed looking lipstick, hairpins, some kleenexes, a notebook, all of it loudly spilling across the counter, tumbling to the floor. No wallet.
“It’s gone!” you say, almost crying now, trying very very hard not to cry, but your voice is still doing that weird pinched pre cry thing and he looks exasperated. He thinks you’re crazy now, for sure. “My wallet’s gone. I don’t know what happened, it must have been stolen.”
He stands up, his stomach sliding up against the racing form so it makes a loud crinkling noise, like dead leaves, ice.
“Oh,” he says, “And I suppose you’d like to report that, [[too."]]
Outside the station, you fumble around in your purse again, just in case. Of course the wallet isn’t there. This isn’t some kind of elaborate prank. You find your phone though, at six percent, and a half crushed cigarette nestled down in the lining. You’re trying to quit. You are always trying to quit. But if there’s ever a time to cave, this is it.
It’s afternoon, now, and the sun is starting to slant down, the air less punishingly desert hot. You have enough battery life left for one call, probably. You could finally cave and call an uber, but your bank account is dangerously close to bottoming out and then what will you do, once you’re back there? This isn’t a city you can live in without a car. Your mother’s house is near the top of Laurel Canyon, miles from the nearest bus stop. You have no way of getting to work, no money left to buy a new car. You need to call someone, if only to get out of your own head for a minute, just a minute, everything inside you is pounding and sick. You can’t stop picturing some grotesque other, a copy of yourself sitting across the kitchen table from your mother, driving towards the ocean in your car. You need to talk to someone who will tell you that it’ll all be fine, that you can breathe again. That you are you. Someone who will help you get your car back.
Do you:
[[Call Mark]]
[[Call Nick]]
[[Call your mother]] Mark’s phone rings and rings and rings. While it rings, you think about what Nick said earlier. About Mark. How strange he was acting, like you shouldn’t trust him. You hate yourself for it, but there’s a small part of you that thinks that maybe, just maybe, he knows what he’s talking about, so when the call goes to voicemail you are half annoyed, half relieved, to hear the sleepy sound of the recording. You know well. You were lying there in bed beside him when he made it. The memory of this, the coziness, the reassuring body smell of his dirty sheets, is comforting, so you speak. Nick doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Nick doesn’t know anything at all.
“Hey” Mark says, “This is Mark. Sing me a song.”
When you first started going out, you had tried to be cute. Every message would be to the tune of a song you knew he liked, or made up on the spot, pipped in your reed thin voice. You’re too tired for that now, and pissed, so you just talk.
“Hi,” you say, “I'm sorry to bother you, but I’m at the Highland Park police station, and something really weird is going on. Call me back when you can.”
Your phone buzzes, five percent.
“Shit,” you say, “My phone’s dying. Call me back anyway, I guess. I guess I’ll just wait for you here.”
The streets around the station are dark, warehouses, a closed Goodwill donation center, across the street, oddly enough, a baby gym. And, you realize with a sudden flash of inspiration, Winston’s house. The house where you and Mark had first met all those months ago. You didn’t know Winston well, but he was Mark’s best friend, and that had to count for something, right? All you needed was a place to charge your phone, sit down. Maybe there would even be someone there who could help you figure out what was going on. Who had heard about this kind of thing happening, and could tell you what you were supposed to do.
“Actually,” you say, “Scratch that. I think I’m right by Winston’s house. I’m going to try to walk it, I’ll call you when I get there if they have a charger. Otherwise, I guess you’ll know [[where to find me.” ]] Nick picks up on the first ring. This is uncharacteristic, normally you have let it ring through before he texts you back, later, asking what it was you wanted. He’s still driving. You can hear something that sounds like traffic in the background.
“Yeah?” he says, “Did you leave something in the car?”
“No,” you say, “But something really strange just happened. Can you come pick me up?”
“Of course,” he says, but you can hear that he’s annoyed, his voice tight.
“I’m sorry to impose,” you say, “But I really don’t know who else to call.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll be right there.” Still the tightness in his voice. That dinner with Bianca, you remember, you're making him late. Well, he's a big boy. He can always say no.
Your phone beeps again. Three percent, now. No chance of calling anyone else.
“Ok,” you say, “Thanks,” you say, “I owe you. [[I’ll be waiting outside the station.” ]] “Yes?” says your Mom, answering the phone. She’s in a bad mood, you can tell. Maybe a stressful day at the salon she owns, a fight with her boyfriend. There’s always something. The thing she hates most, you know, is when you make her feel like a mom, like she’s beholden to you, owes you something. This wasn’t very much fun when you were a kid. In high school, it got fun, you could have friends over whenever you wanted, especially on nights when she stayed at her boyfriends house. Everyone did drugs and annoyed her neighbors by yelling at each other in the backyard about things you had learned in school, US history, econ. You weren’t bad kids. Smart. You all still got good grades and made out with each other in the empty garage. It was basically fine. You appreciated her distance, in a way, back then. It is less fun now. Less fun to be out of college, living at home, feeling like you owe her something you are unable to give her. Still, she is your mother. Presumably there is some part of her that wants to know when things are going wrong, to help you figure yourself out. You hesitate, wondering what you should do. “What is it, Margie?” your mother says. You can hear her dog, a fluffy scalped grey standard poodle, yelp in the background.
Do you:
[[Tell your mother what happened]]
[[Figure it out on your own]]
“Jesus Margie,” your mother says, “A stolen car? Already? I thought we talked about this. Weren’t you going to be responsible? You told me you were going to try, this time.”
She sounds so tired that you want to cry.
“I know, Mom,” you say. “I am trying. I’m sorry.”
On the other end, you can hear her sigh.
“Well what do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might have some suggestions. Something really weird is going on.”
“Margot, please, you’re overreacting. In this city, getting your car stolen isn’t anything unusual. Why don’t you just come home? I’ll drive you to the station to file a police report in the morning.”
Your mom can be a little abrasive, sometimes. This is something you know about her. She isn’t the person to come to with a broken heart, an embarrassing day. You remember when you had your first period, the way she laughed when you told her, handed you a box of tampons. “Welcome to the curse,” she said. You can’t expect her to be overly sympathetic, it’s just not her style. Still. She is ruthlessly efficient. She had you when she was younger than you are now, went from being a high school drop out to a rich woman, a rich woman who has become rich by making other rich women feel bad about their collagen levels. If anyone can get this bizarre situation figured out, it’s your mom. Another beep. Two percent. You have to make a decision.
Do you use your remaining battery power to:
[[Call an Uber to your Mom's house. ]]
[[Call someone else?]]
“Well,” your Mom says, “Margie, what is it?”
“Nothing,” you say, “Just calling to say I love you. I won’t be home tonight.”
Her tone softens. How long has it been since you said those words to her? Since she said them to you?
“That’s sweet,” she says. “Margie, are you ok?”
Again, you can’t remember the last time she asked you this.
“I’m fine,” you say, “Just thinking about you.”
Your phone beeps again. Two percent.
“I actually have to go,” you say. “I’m having kind of a stressful day.”
“Ok,” she says, “Sure, but you’re positive nothing’s wrong? You sound a little off. Are you getting sick, Margie? There’s a cold going around. Maybe you should come home and rest. Take some vitamin C.”
Your mother locates all ailments in the body. She has no time for emotions. She likes to watch daytime talk shows named after the shiny haired women who host them, talking trash on the other, ill dressed women who sit on their couches and cry about their husbands, children, sisters. She has no patience for self indulgence. If you want to talk about pain with her, you have to transform it into sickness. Your first breakup was a nasty flu, vomiting and crying. Your low SAT scores, hives. A mysterious itch underneath the skin that she worked hard to find the source of, driving you from dermatologist to dermatologist, buying you hot chocolate with whipped cream on top to drink in the car. Your post college bout of depression, so far, has been mono, low iron, hypoglycemia. She is losing patience with your illnesses, now. But it would be so nice to just go home, get into bed, be taken care of, even if it means that nothing is solved. Maybe you should tell her. Maybe you should just call a car, let yourself in, get into bed and ask for a cold compress. Or maybe you should stick to the plan, call someone else who could actually help you. Figure this out on your own, like the adult you are trying so hard to become.
Do you:
[[Call someone else?]]
[[Tell your mother what happened]]
[[Call an Uber to your Mom's house. ]] Double-click this passage to edit it.
There’s a diner by Mark’s house that you’ve always imagined going to together. It’s pretty old school, the decor a remnant of better days in the neighborhood, or different days, at least, days when this was the kind of place families spent time together, all warm and orange and yellow, calcified cakes shining dusty in their domed stands like gems under glass in the natural history museum where, on rainy days, you used to stand with your mother in the must smelling dark watching the glint of spotlight on rock. The cakes might be just as old as those old rocks. You sit together at a both, on different sides.
Mark fiddles with his phone as you eat, looking up occasionally to smile at you across the table. You’ve got chocolate chip pancakes, he’s ordered the usual, which is apparently eggs over easy, sausage, hash browns. Everything is twice as expensive as it would be in a place like this in any other neighborhood. But the clientele is all people like you, hungover couples in beat up clothes, not looking at each other across the glitter vinyl tabletops. The coffee, at least, tastes like you imagined the coffee would, sort of reassuringly thin, like burnt water. You can drink as much as you want to without getting jittery. It’s more symbolic coffee than anything else, but holding it is oddly comforting. You wrap your hands around the thick porcelain of the mug. Do you:
Wait for Mark to say something
Start the conversation yourself:
[[Wait for Mark to say something]]
[[Start the conversation yourself]] “Never mind, Mom,” you say. “I think I can figure it out on my own.” She starts to complain on the other end of the line, why did you call, then, you’re bothering her, she was having a perfectly nice and now-but you hang up. Free rent aside, you don’t have much patience for this kind of thing at the best of times. You know she’ll call back soon, the incoming call draining your battery power for good, so you have to make a split second decision. Who can you call, now? What will you do next?
You realize that you don’t have many friends. Sure, you know a lot of people. You know everyone. But you’ve never been much of a best friends girl, are bad with closeness. It makes your skin itch, having someone take up your space with their problems, being expected to vulnerably expose yourself by confide in them in return, like a dog wiggling it’s tender little belly in the air, desperate to be loved. There aren’t a lot of people you trust. You really only have two choices, and if you’re honest with yourself you don’t entirely trust them either. But you need help, and they’re the only two sources of help you can think of. At least they might pick up when you call.
Do you:
[[Call Nick]]
[[Call Mark]] For a long time, Mark fiddles with his phone in his lap. Finally, he speaks to you.
“So what’s the story with this car?” he says. “Is it your mom’s?”
“No,” you say, “I bought it.” This is something you’re quietly proud of; that you had the time and energy and inclination to track down such a good deal, “It was only a few thousand dollars. The lady said she got it in a police auction, she didn’t want it anymore.”
Mark finally puts down his phone and looks at you.
“A police auction?”
“Yeah,” you say, “You know how they confiscate people’s cars sometimes? And if they don’t show up for them, or can’t pay to get them back, the city will put them up for auction. That’s what apparently happened here. She said she only bought it a few weeks ago, and she was telling the truth, I checked the title, it had been listed less than ten days before out of the Long Beach garage. It was kind of weird, actually. But what’s that they say about gift horses and mouths? It works. That’s all I care about.”
“Interesting,” says Mark, and he really does look interested. He keeps looking at you for a second, then picks up his phone again and keeps typing faster than ever. “And what did it look like? Orange, you said, right? Pretty old?”
You laugh, “What, are you filing a report or something?”
“Nah babe,” he says, “It’s not my fault you never pick me up. I’m just trying to, you know, ascertain the perimeters of the situation. Get a feel for things, feel me?”
The sudden technicality of his language sounds strange, clunky in his mouth.
“So is that what you’re doing?” you ask, “Looking up the registration or something? Trying to figure out more information about the car?”
“Hmm,” he says, “Kinda.” And then, quietly, under his breath to himself, “Holy shit.”
“What is it?” you ask, but he’s already standing up.
“Nothing,” he says, “It’s nothing. Now come on. I know someone who might be able to help.”
You still have an entire pancake left, but his plate is clean, so you try to eat fast as he pays at the cash register up front, chats with the cute tattooed girl who keeps his change. In the parking lot, he puts his arm around your shoulders. [[It feels good.->“Not exactly,” he says.]]“So,” you say, “Have you ever had anything stolen from you? A car?”
“A few things,” says Mark, “Not a car, though.”
“What did you have stolen?”
He laughs, like you’ve made some kind of a joke, and goes back to his phone.
“What’s the story with this car?” he finally says. “Is it your mom’s?”
“No,” you say, “I bought it.” This is something you’re quietly proud of; that you had the time and energy and inclination to track down such a good deal, “It was only a few thousand dollars. The lady said she got it in a police auction, she didn’t want it anymore.”
Mark finally puts down his phone and looks at you.
“A police auction?”
“Yeah,” you say, “You know how they confiscate people’s cars sometimes? And if they don’t show up for them, or can’t pay to get them back, the city will put them up for auction. That’s what apparently happened here. She said she only bought it a few weeks ago, and she was telling the truth, I checked the title, it had been listed less than ten days before out of the Long Beach garage. It was kind of weird, actually. But what’s that they say about gift horses and mouths? It works. That’s all I care about.”
“Interesting,” says Mark, and he really does look interested. He keeps looking at you for a second, then picks up his phone again and keeps typing faster than ever.
“Come on,” he says abruptly, standing, “I know someone who might be able to help.”
You still have an entire pancake left, but his plate is clean, so you try to eat fast as he pays at the cash register up front, chats with the cute tattooed girl who keeps his change. In the parking lot, he puts his arm around your shoulders. It feels good.
“The things you had stolen,” you ask him, “Did you ever get them back?”
[[“Not exactly,” he says.]] You keep thinking that you’re lost. There are some unfamiliar patches, a thrift store you don’t remember driving by last time, a burrito place, a beautiful sidewalk planter filled with overgrown tomato vines and squash, everything yellowed, gone to seed. But, somewhat uncharacteristically, given what most people seem to think of as your sloppiness, your disorganization, you have a very good sense of direction. A good memory for places, street names. You have a good memory for other things, too, you just don’t always want people to know that. Sometimes it’s better if the people around you underestimate you, just a little. It helps to be thought a little stupid if there are things you need to find out from the people around you, that the people around you don’t want to tell you. You have a feeling that you’re going to have to be stupid now.
The streets are deserted, and you pull your jacket close around your shoulders. The sun hasn’t quite set yet, and the air is warm, but the empty sidewalks in the twilight make you nervous. You don’t have anything worth taking, of course. Everything of value you possess has disappeared into thin air today already. But years of conditioning make you feel guilty, naked, for walking down the street in the gathering darkness, a woman, alone. Whatever has already happened feels like your fault. And whatever comes next, it feels like it will be your fault, too.
You find the house more quickly than you expect to. Just when your calves have started aching from the tight slope of hill, there you are, in front of the narrow lawn, gravel, succulent garden. A round globe of a lamp hangs over the doorway, switched on. The lights inside are on, too, the door wide open. You have an uneasy feeling that there is something, or someone, waiting for you inside. You check your phone. Dead. Do you:
[[Go inside]]
Try to take a bus to your mother’s houseWinston lives in a clean white house, every room of it pristine, full of 1970s Danish modern furniture and austere plant life. There are little clusters of flowering cacti, a towering ornamental fig, rhododendrons whose flat pale leaves reflect the flat pale light from the pendent lamps. You had thought that it was pretty last time you were here, the time that you met Mark. The presence of all those people, crowded close together, talking, had brought a kind of frantic life to the room. Now, it feels calcified in its stillness. You know you shouldn’t be here. But here you are. Looking for an outlet, you run my fingers over the leaves of the fig tree. Fake. The slippery plastic of the leaves gives you a creepy feeling, surreal. No outlets here, you make your way back further into the house, looking for somewhere to charge your phone. You know that you should call out, at least, alert someone to your arrival. You don’t.
Every wall is painted the in same palate of pale shades, eggshell, chalk, ecru. In Winston’s bedroom, you finally find what you are looking for, an outlet with a charger in it, the right kind, thank goodness. You were afraid that he would have the newer model, but Winston seems like the kind of guy who keeps older things even when he can afford new ones, to seem relatable, maybe, keep ahold of some kind of 21st century working man’s authenticity that, for some reason, he finds useful in his presentation of himself. Feeling lighter already, you plug in your phone, wait for it to light up. You lie back on the bed, your head nestled into the nests of his stacked white pillows, and close your eyes.
And then, all of a sudden, voices in the kitchen, a closed door. You freeze. What should you do?
[[Go into the kitchen and see who it is]]
[[Stay Hidden]] In the kitchen, two girls are sitting, talking. They don’t even look up when I come in. Your recognize one of them, a daughter of some aging rock star who you vaguely remember meeting at the self realization fellowship’s Halloween party a few years back. Her name, you think, is Minorca. She sees you staring, and waves you over. You sit beside her at the counter, sipping the beer she slides over to you, which is warm and has a sticky, orangey sweetness.. The other girl keeps talking.
“So we had been seeing each other for what, a few months? Three months maybe. That’s when I found out he was a hustler.”
Minorca looks bored. “And there were no warning signs? He seemed totally chill until then?”
You have this theory that if you walk into a women’s bathroom anywhere in the world and start asking questions you will, within minutes, find yourself engaged in a fairly in depth conversation about the relative shittiness of someone’s boyfriend. You have yet to be proven wrong. You find yourself settling into it, nodding, taking another swig of beer. It’s a relief to cloak your own anxieties with someone else’s problems.
“I mean, no,” the other girl says, “That’s the weird thing, I literally had no idea. He had this whole secret life going on that I had no idea about. It was totally outside of me, you know? This whole second self.”
“And you were seeing a lot of each other?” I ask. “Was he weird about his phone?”
Minorca nods, “They’re literally always weird about their phones, though.”
“Of course we were seeing a lot of each other,” the other girl says. “He lives in San Francisco, but I flew him down a couple of times a month, and we texted every single day. Multiple times a day. And he was really into emojis, lots of emojis, it was cute. Particularly the moon emoji. I thought that was a good sign. He’s sensitive, you know? A sensitive guy and everything. I liked that.”
We both nod again. That is nice. It takes a certain kind of man to develop an in depth understanding of the nature emojis. We appreciate this.
“There was only one shitty thing before I found out. One time I flew him down when I was on my period, and he was furious, I mean, really mad. He told me I was disgusting. But he wasn’t wrong, it’s gross, and I’ve heard worse, but he’s so young that I didn’t really take it seriously.”
“So what, he was just using you for your money?”
“I think he really liked me, you know? I don’t think it was for the money. I mean, there were the tickets, and I bought him a few things, presents or whatever, like, I sent him this reality expensive blanket, but he’s nice, he deserves nice things. I covered his rent a few times, but I’m working really hard on this documentary I’m thinking about making and he was really helpful, he used to have a marketing internship, so he knows a lot. Basically he was a consultant. The money wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he was letting skeezy guys from the internet pay him to suck his cock.”
“No shit,” says Minorca. “Well obviously that’s a problem.”
“Yeah, he’s an artist, so I get it, and his family’s like, disadvantaged, but I don’t think it was even about money. I’m not even mad about the gay shit, I’m poly, whatever, but we weren’t using condoms, and I could have caught something, and he wasn’t even sorry. He was mad at me for snooping! He hasn’t talked to me for a week, ever since I found out. And I think I’m gonna take him back if he asks. Just this morning, for example, he sent me a text that was just that little brunette girl in a pink shirt with her hands raised up over her head. I think it’s supposed to be me. That’s a good sign, right? He honestly does have a great heart, you know?”
“Sure,” says Minorca, “They all do.” She turns to me. “And what about you? Don’t I know you? You’re dating Mark, right? What are you doing here?”
Do you:
[[Tell Minorca what happened?]]
Keep it to [[yourself.]] Impulsively, you jump into the closet, sliding the door shut behind you. You can hear footsteps coming down the hallway, the bedroom door open, close, someone come in talking on the phone. It’s Winston. You recognize his voice. And with a horrible jolt in the it of your stomach, you realize that you’ve left your phone plugged in. Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now. You can’t exactly casually emerge from a man’s closet. The only thing to do now is to stay as quiet as you can, and hope the phone doesn’t ring. Winston, at least, seems preoccupied.
“Well shit,” he says, “What are the odds? In a way, I guess it’s best that it ended up somewhere we can control it. Still, I’ll feel more comfortable once all this is done with. Where is it now?”
He listens for a moment.
“And you think you can be persuasive enough to do that? I really don’t want this to come back home to me.”
Again, silence. “Here? Really?” he sighs. “Ok. I know this isn’t something you can control. Still, it’s inconvenient.”
I hear him rifling around in drawers, the rustling of clothes.
“I get it,” he says, “Ok, I get it. It’s not your fault. But ultimately this is your mess to clean up, you know that.”
He’s still on the phone when he leaves the room. You stand there in the dark of the closet for a long beat, thinking, inhaling the warm musk smell of all the sleek line of jackets that hang around you. What was Winston talking about? And who was he talking to? You know it’s probably none of your business, but something about the things he said has set off this persistent niggling feeling in the back of your brain, like a loose tooth. Maybe you’ll ask Mark when he gets here. He always seems to know what’s going on.
You wait for a moment before cautiously leaving the closet, listening at the doorway. You hear the backdoor close. It’s probably safe to come out. You check your phone, it’s screen still dark. You’re stuck here until Mark arrives, anyway. There are voices in the kitchen now, female voices. If you come out of the hallway pretending that you’re returning from the bathroom, [[you can probably sneak in undetected.->Go into the kitchen and see who it is]] “Oh nothing,” you say, I was just in the neighborhood.” There’s some shiftiness about Minorca that makes your reluctant to trust her. You all sit in silence for a moment, trying to figure out who’s going to talk about their problems next. Suddenly, Mark comes in through the back door, Winston following close behind him. He smiles when he sees you, even gives you a little wave.
“Hey babe,” he says, “Glad you didn’t leave. Can you come talk to us for a second?”
“Of course,” you say. “Nice seeing you girls.”
A beat of relief. Maybe it’s going to be fine. Mark has some theory figured out, he is here to help. Thank goodness. You follow them out of the room, into Winston’s [[garage]]
You pull up in front of a familiar looking house. After a beat, you realize that it belongs to Winston, a close friend of Mark’s whose party you met at, months ago. You’ve only seen it once, but you recognize the slope of the narrow lawn, the gravel, succulent garden out front. The round globe of a lamp hangs over the doorway, switched on. Somewhat uncharacteristically, given what most people seem to think of as your sloppiness, your disorganization, you have a very good memory, especially, for places, street names. You have a good memory for other things, too, you just don’t always want people to know that. Sometimes it’s better if the people around you underestimate you, just a little. Beside you, Mark is on his phone again.
“Why don’t you go hang in the kitchen, babe,” he says, “I want to sort some things out with Winston before we all talk.”
Part of you is insulted that he’s trying to relegate you to the kitchen already. What a cliche this guy is. Still, babe. It’s kind of growing on you.
“Wait, Winston is your guy? That’s the person you thought you could help with this?”
Mark laughs. “Sort of. Winston has a lot more going on than you might suspect. I’ll see you in a minute, k, babe? Go grab a beer or something. I’ll come get you soon.”
You hesitate. It’s fine, you think. He’s going to help you. He’s helping. “Ok,” you say, “See you soon.”
You try to kiss him on the cheek, but he’s still looking down at his phone, so it just sort of glances wetly off his ear. [[He doesn’t look up.->Go into the kitchen and see who it is]]Minorca looks bored at first, but once you’re about halfway through your story her attention seems to snap onto you like a tracking beam acquiring a target. It’s intense. She has the thousand yard stare shared by connoisseurs of non prescription drugs and the terminally narcissistic, but you kind of like it. It feels good to have someone take your story seriously for the first time today. She doesn’t say anything until you mention that Mark’s on his way, when she stops you, putting her hand out and grabbing you sharply around the wrist, her bony fingers scrabbling at your skin.
“Wait, you told him where you are? Why did you do that? Why did you even come here, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” you say, “I was nearby. I needed to charge my phone. I didn’t know what else to do. But I’m sure that Mark will be able to help, he’s spacey, sometimes, but he’s really good with this stuff.”
Minorca rolls her eyes. “Mark’s not gonna help with shit. I know about Mark. He can’t do anything for you. I can, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I might have some idea about what’s going on. And if I’m right, I know someone who can help.”
“Wow,” you say, “Really? Like a detective? That’s so amazing, thank you. Could you maybe give me their number, I know these things are time sensitive like, the longer something’s missing the more likely it is to stay gone, right? Plus I need it for work Monday. So if you could help me that would be amazing.”
“He’s not a detective,” says Minorca. It seems weird that of all the things you’ve said, this is the only one she has a reaction to. Who cares what this person calls themselves, you think, as long as they can help you. “But you’re right that we can’t wait. We have to leave right now. As in ASAP. My car’s parked out back, come on, we’re going.”
She stands up, snatching her purse off the counter with an odd, crablike motion. The other girl, who is back on her phone, seems totally unconcerned with all of this.
“Ok,” you say, “Sure, just give me an address and I’ll let Mark know where we’re going.”
“No you won’t, “ Minorca says. “If you want my help, you’re not going to tell him anything at all. Make some excuse if you have to, tell him you got a ride home, whatever. If he calls, don’t answer. If he texts, don’t text back, at least not until it’s over. I don’t want him knowing anything about this, get it?”
You know she’s trying to be helpful, but you’re finding Minorca increasingly annoying.
“But he’s my boyfriend,” you say. This is the first time you’ve said it, and it feels good. “He’s probably almost here already. He’s probably worrying about me. I have to let him know what’s going on.”
Abruptly, Minorca reaches across the counter to where you’re standing and grabs you by your shoulders. Her eyes are tight on yours, and wild.
“Listen to me, she says, “And listen good. He’s not you boyfriend. He doesn’t care. And you don’t have to tell him anything. Whatever reason he has for coming here, he’s the only one who knows it, and I can guarantee you it’s not just because he’s such a nice, caring type of dude. I don’t trust that guy. And neither should you.”
Letting you go, she stands up and grabs a couple of unopened beers out of the freezer, drops them in her purse.
“For the road,” she says. “Now come on. We’re going to the Melody Lounge.”
“One sec,” you say, “I just need to grab my phone.” You walk fast down the hallway before she can say no, [[giving yourself a second, at least, to think.]] When you come back into the kitchen, Mark and Winston are standing there together in the center of the room.
“Hey babe,” he says, “Glad you didn’t leave. Can you come talk to us for a second?”
You look from the boys to Minorca, who has walked back across the kitchen and sits at the counter again, beside you. She doesn’t acknowledge their presence at all. She looks bored, examining her nails. But when, for an instant, they look at each other, she casts her eyes back up to you and shakes her head, firmly, just once. Do you:
[[Go with Minorca]]
[[Stay and talk with Mark and Winston->garage]] Double-click this passage to edit it.You look from Mark’s face to Winston’s. Mark looks totally normal, that same wide goofy grin, that reassuring nonchalance. You want to trust him. But when you look over at Winston, his eyes shift rapidly away from yours. Something’s not right. As whacked out as Minorca seems, she knows something. And it’s not like she’s the first person today to tell you there’s something wrong with your handsome boyfriend. Nick warned you too. This seems too odd to be coincidental; certainly they know something you don’t, and you are determined to find out what it is.
“Sure thing babe,” you say, “One sec. I just gotta pee real quick.” You flash him what you hope is an apologetically cute smile and scurry down the hallway where there is a bathroom, yes, but also Winston’s bedroom, which, you know from recent experience, has a large glass window with no screen. In short order, emboldened by years of sneaking out of your own bedroom, it is open and you are through, scurrying down the driveway silent, casting one last look back at the house. Nothing is stirring. So far, you are undetected. Minorca, as you hoped,[[is waiting for you out front.]]
Double-click this passage to edit it.You drive through the night together, you and Minorca, in Minorca’s car, or Minorca’s father’s car, probably, whatever it is it is sleek and loud and expensive and takes you down from the scruffy hills onto the 101 where Minorca drives too fast, turns the radio, surprisingly, to KCOST where the Saturday night love song request program is in full swing.
“This one goes out from Linda in El Segundo,” says the smooth voiced woman in her throaty mumble, “To her honeybun, Daryl. Honey, she says, you will always be my man. I will never stop loving you. And I’ll be waiting right here when you decide to come on home. What a touching sentiment. And now, from Linda to Daryl, it’s Muskrat Love,”
Minorca, thank goodness, turns the radio down. You feel a pang of guilt. Linda waited for Daryl, didn’t she? Stayed right up on that beach by the refinery, waiting. And you couldn’t even trust Mark as much as that. You take out your phone, thinking you might text him, but Minorca is looking so you drop it back in your purse, pretending that you were just casually checking the time.
“So where are we going, exactly?” you ask.
“The Melody Lounge,” Minorca says, like you’ve asked her a painfully obvious question. “I told you before.”
“Yeah,” you say, “Sure, but what is that?”
She shrugs. “It’s a place I know where you can find things. Missing things. I started going there to pick up my Dad, and then whenever he went missing I could usually find someone there who knew where he was, or who could tell me that he was still alive. Made a few friends. Don’t worry about it too much.”
“So if it’s this big secret,” you say, “Why are you taking me?”
She spins the wheel hard, banking across three lanes to the exit, not looking. I can hear cars squealing and honking around us, but she doesn’t even seem flustered. When she pauses at the end of it, it’s only to give me a dirty look.
“I mean, thank you for helping me, I’m grateful, obviously, but I don’t understand in it for you.”
“Nothing’s in it for me. Don’t be so suspicious. Maybe I’m just a nice person.”
“Well,” you say, “Are you?”
She snort laughs. “Not particularly, no. Maybe I’m helping because I’m annoyed with your alleged boyfriend. Maybe it’s because I’m a snoopy bitch who likes getting mixed up in other people’s business. Or maybe underneath this glamorous exterior is a soft little girl who just wishes someone would have warned me about the stupid things I did the way I’m warning you. Whatever. You pick. It really doesn’t matter to me. Anyway, we’re here.”Double-click this passage to edit it.[[Nobody Walks]]