Page 20

Palm Springs

January 3, 2023

7:00 P.M.

As I left the command center, all I could think about was Grant’s backpack and the journal inside, pulsing like a beating heart.

How on earth had he become separated from his things, and when? I wanted to break into Brady’s office and steal the Moleskine back. I was desperate to see what Grant had written, although after glimpsing his journal years ago, I had good reason to suspect it might reveal nothing at all.

Inside Le Desert’s courtyard, a massive spread of appetizers, cheese, and a huge spiral baked ham were waiting for me. A feast to keep my spirits up, but I had no appetite for food.

The Husbands made a specialty cocktail they called the Absent Professor. Everyone wore neon-green RESCUE T-shirts in solidarity with the many volunteers. Raul’s was cut at the midriff, and he’d paired it with bright orange booty shorts. “Sister, we put the party in search party,” he’d said, giving me a warm hug. Later, he pulled me aside, serious and sweet, and looked right into my eyes. “You okay, my girl?”

“I’m fine,” I lied as I downed my third drink, my hands still shaking. “Actually, Hobie found Grant’s backpack today. Before, I was honestly worried Grant might not even be hiking. We’d gotten into a fight the night before and I thought he might have stormed off. At first I was relieved to know he’s actually up there, but now another day has gone by and it’s also, like, the worst news possible.”

Raul gave me a hug. “Do you think it’s strange that of all those volunteers, Hobie was the one to find his backpack?”

“No, he’s been out there searching every day. He looks harder than anyone, and that’s saying a lot. These rescuers, they’re amazing.”

“You know how arsonists stick around to watch a fire burn?” Thomas asked. “Raul and I, we were talking, and we think Hobie might have had something to do with Grant going missing. Maybe he’s hidden him somewhere out there and he’s about to ask for ransom.”

“Thomas, your imagination runs wilder than mine does.”

The girls and Octavia were due to arrive the next day, and I was dying to reunite with them. In the meantime, I looked around the firepit and realized I wasn’t going through this alone. These new people I might never have met were part of my life now, and because of Grant’s drama, they would be forever.

Coco ran to her unit and returned with another giant pitcher full of greyhound cocktails made from grapefruit juice squeezed from fruit that grew on the property’s trees. California grapefruits weren’t sour at all, or perhaps the magic was in the old trees. The drink tasted like candy, which made it a little too easy to sip.

A week or so earlier, before all the drama started, I’d gone for a walk near the Sandcliff condo complex and noticed that the air smelled of citrus. Dozens of grapefruits rolled down the street like errant bowling balls. “Why was that tree cut down?” I asked the landscaper after he’d pushed the trunk through the chipper and turned the machine off. With so much fruit, I couldn’t imagine it was diseased. I felt as if I’d happened upon a heartbreaking crime scene.

He shrugged. “Nobody wants citrus trees on their properties these days. Too messy, and they use too much water. Ever heard of fruit rats?”

Coco walked around, with a cigarette stuck to her bottom lip, to refill our glasses. It drove everyone crazy when she smoked in the courtyard, but she was the grande dame of the complex; nobody was going to tell her what to do, and she’d been here so long, none of the rules pertained to her.

“This vodka tastes like lighter fluid,” Melody said. “I’ll bring you some Chopin next time. It’s distilled from summer potatoes. It has a very mellow taste.”

“‘Summer potatoes.’ Listen to Little Miss Smoke Tree. As long as it makes my hair curl, it’s good enough for me.” Coco leaned forward to ash in the firepit. After a long exhale she said, “Kim? I’ll be delicate here—”

Melody let out a hoot. Was it possible that Coco and Melody were becoming friends? “My dear, you’re about as delicate as a jackhammer.”

“That’s part of my charm.”

“What’s the other part?” Melody asked.

“This.” Coco stood up and pointed to her ass, covered up in metallic-silver leggings.

The mood changed abruptly when Hobie walked through the gate and took a seat with us by the fire; he’d gone back in the helicopter after I left to show the rescuers where he’d found the backpack. At last, he was commanding the respect he’d desired.

“Any news?” I asked.

For once, he had little to say. “I looked high and low. Nothing. I thought for sure we’d find him.”

This was the first time I’d seen him totally exhausted. Finally, his age showed. Coco pushed a glass in his hand. “Drink. Relax.” For the first time, I could imagine them as a couple.

She continued, “See, I know people. You wouldn’t believe the crap I hear when I’m picking at their cuticles. I’ll just come out and say it because I have a feeling we’ve all been thinking the same thing: Do you think Grant might be having an affair?”

“He’s not having an affair,” Cassie said. “His heart is aligned with Kim’s.”

Coco seemed skeptical. “I don’t know. Remember that young mom who went missing at Zion and it turned out she was in San Diego? She staged the whole damn thing so she could get away from home for a few days and sneak off with her ex-husband. Could Grant be with an old sweetheart? That’s what men do at his age. They go looking for the women who used to think they were hot, relive their sexcapades, try to rekindle some old flames. Grant wasn’t much when he arrived, but he was looking good lately. I’m sorry to say it, my dear, but it’s possible he was up to something. Men don’t change like that for no reason.”

“He wouldn’t need to sneak off with his ex,” I said. “Sasha is already very much part of our lives.”

“Hold up,” Thomas said. “Sasha? Who’s Sasha?”

“His first wife. When I met Grant, she kind of came with the territory. The three of us were practically a throuple all these years.”

“Throuple! Nice job, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Our work here is done.”

“I think,” Cassie said, “that Grant pursued hiking because he is a seeker at his core. He’s been trying to locate the map within, and that is ultimately what will guide him home.”

Hobie sank back into his chair and closed his eyes, his mind still on the hike. “That’s just a fancy way of saying he’s lost. And it’s a terrible thing to get lost.”

Everyone became silent and entirely focused on Hobie. The firelight played up his features from below, so he was lit up like a figure in a Caravaggio painting. “See, it’s an emotional experience. You have to ask yourself, What does someone do when they are in a state of profound darkness? Profound. Fucking. Darkness. You’re supposed to sit still. That’s what everyone tells you, as soon as you realize you don’t know where you are, just sit down. But who can do that? Not me. I’ve been lost before, and I kept going. What are you supposed to do, jerk off? Daydream? We’re animals, man. Pack animals. We’re not good alone for too long. The problem is our nature. Your phone doesn’t connect, you’re hot, you’re cold, you’re confused. You’re really going to… sit? Maybe it’s not safe. And even when you realize you’ve lost your way, it takes a while for it to dawn on you that you’re actually lost. Lost lost. It hits with a sudden shock, a deep way of knowing. You freeze, take inventory, and then you are truly afraid. The adrenaline kicks in. So you move, that’s what you do. The blood flows out of your brain and into your limbs so you can fight, punch, run.”

Thomas put his hand on one of my shoulders, and Melody put her hand on the other. Cassie set her mesa in my arms. “Hold this close to your heart for comfort,” she said.

“The problem with Grant? He thinks he’s smart. But it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy genius when you’re out in the mountains. Even the most experienced hikers get punch-drunk without a map, without GPS, without a fixed object to focus on—a water tower, a tree. The landscape is very deceptive. You hike in the middle of the day when the sun is directly above you, it’s not easy to see where the trailhead is. Or you see the lights in the distance and think you’re not far away from civilization, but you have to go across boulders or down cliffs to get there. There are no guardrails, just a dirt path, and it disappears or comes back and makes branches. Nobody learns to tell time by the sun anymore, nobody knows their cardinal directions. Nobody even gets lost, not when they can see the little blue dot on their phones telling them where they are.”

Hobie paused, his eyes fixed on the fire. I didn’t want to hear his monologue, and yet I felt I needed to know what Grant was up against now that I knew where he was—approximately, at least.

“I tried to give him some pointers. And maybe he did do everything I told him to do. But he’s one of those guys who gets in his own way. Even if he was wearing bright colors, and even if he did carry a book of matches and extra food and half his weight in water, he might not be in the right state of mind to make the best decisions. The minute you realize you don’t know where you are, your brain and your body begin to disconnect. It’s like what happens when you’re sitting in the doctor’s office and they’re giving you a terminal diagnosis.”

Coco said firmly, “Hobie, stop scaring Kim. She’s right here. Maybe you should tone it down—”

“Me? You were just telling Kim that you think Grant was having an affair. How is that any easier to handle? You’re in no position to talk about protecting Kim’s feelings.”

“You know all about affairs, don’t you?”

I interrupted their argument. “It’s not like all these possibilities haven’t been running through my mind. It’s all I think about. For the past three days, I’ve been trying to put myself in his shoes. That’s what’s so exhausting, not knowing what he’s thinking, or if he’s okay.”

“I’ll tell you one thing, Kim,” Hobie said, locking eyes with me. “This will change him for good. Because the thing about fear is it’s also a form of pleasure. You produce dopamine when you’re scared. It’s a natural high. The darkness becomes desire. To get lost in the landscape is like getting lost in emotion. Something bad happens and it becomes a place in your mind, a place you don’t want to return to, so you avoid going back to it, even if it’s the only place you really can be found, the only place that makes sense.”

I realized he might as well have been talking about Grant’s earlier episodes, and I became aware for the first time, on a deeper level, that when he ran, he wasn’t running from me; he was running to a place he could feel safe.

“You can take just a few steps off the trail, and you might never find your way back again. It all starts with the sense that something might be wrong, but you ignore it—and then it’s too late.”

“That’s enough for me,” I said. “Thanks for dinner, you guys. My daughters are coming tomorrow and I need to get the place ready.” As I stood to go back to Basil’s condo, Hobie said, “Oh, wait. I have something for you.”

“For me? What?”

“When I left, Brady asked me to give you the backpack. He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“Hobie, are you kidding me? You’ve had it this whole time and you’re just telling me now? It’s been sitting in your car?”

“I’m giving it to you now.” He shrugged. “Look, I’m beat. I hiked fourteen miles today. I picked it up at the ranger station for you, and this is the thanks I get? Do you want to read it or not?”

He held out the tattered Moleskine. I knew that whatever was inside would either hold the answers I’d been desperate for—or leave me with even more questions.