Page 7

Palm Springs

January 3, 2023

11:00 A.M.

At any given time, as many as a dozen trained volunteers could be at the command center. Brady didn’t want the public in on the search because he feared he could have another lost person to deal with, or they’d stomp on the footprints Grant had left behind. I was incredibly grateful for the rescuers, although it was unsettling to see how they lived for these situations, jumping at the chance to head out into the wilds in bad conditions. It couldn’t be just pure benevolence. Deep down, do we all have a great desire to be part of the action? Or, is the allure of a missing person, the prospect of being well and truly lost, just too irresistible? Are we all secretly longing to be utterly removed from the world?

Melody stopped by with some lunch and handed me a copy of The Desert Sun. “A souvenir from your winter here.” There was the photo of Grant and Forever Marilyn that I’d given Brady. Now our hell was everyone’s news. The headline: SEARCH CONTINUES FOR ISOLATED MISSING HIKER: NO SIGN OF MIDWESTERN TOURIST.

The word isolated struck me as especially sad. Midwestern rankled me—it sounded pejorative, as if it were put there to explain that he wasn’t equipped to navigate this harsh mountainous landscape. Then there was tourist. We’d been in Palm Springs for a few months, long enough to find the best date shakes at Fruit Wonders, for Grant to log hundreds of miles hiking and transform his appearance, long enough to fill up Basil’s condo with the junk Grant brought home from the resale shop. Long enough to learn the name of the reference-desk librarian at the Palm Springs Library. Long enough to make friends. Long enough, even, to be occasionally bored here.

We weren’t tourists. We were snowbirds.

Almost instantly, the story proliferated online. I began to hear from everyone we knew. High school and college friends, former colleagues, flirty Trent, neighbors back home—even a reporter for the Cap Times in Madison wanting to know more. The emails were filled with bromides and well-intended messages of support. Even my acupuncturist had found out.

How are you holding up?

I didn’t reply. I was touched that these people cared, but what could I say that they didn’t know already? There are two kinds of friends: the cheerleaders, who think they can make you feel better with optimism, and the ones who acknowledge that you’re in a bad situation and it just plain sucks. The latter style is how my mother had dealt with life’s mishaps, and that was the form of support I’d come to prefer and insist on, even if it wasn’t always what I needed.

I also appreciated the rare third category of friend, the ones who made me laugh because their humor revealed that they knew Grant better than anyone who was searching for him.

They’ll find him, Octavia said. And when they do, I’ll let my cat pee in his hiking boots.

Rodney, Grant’s former colleague from the philosophy department, said, The searchers just need to listen for the sound of him talking to himself.

Melody must have told Basil. He wrote, I know you’ve checked the jails and hospitals, but have you checked the libraries?

Please let us know if you need anything, they all said.

What I needed was Grant. I never knew I could need him so much; or, rather, I did know, but I didn’t want to. The only thing I found more terrifying than being needed was to need him.

The biggest surprise came from Celia, my college roommate. I hadn’t seen her since our Saint Mary’s of Notre Dame twenty-year reunion. GET A LOAD OF THIS, the subject line read, followed by an email filled with her trademark exclamation marks.

Kimmer, Did you know there’s a “Find Grant” Facebook page? We’re all on it, that’s how I found out he’s missing. OMG that must be so scary but I know he’s fine, I can feel it!!! He’s smart enough to figure his way out of anything.

Maybe this isn’t the right time, or maybe it’s the perfect time, but anyway, I’ve been meaning to send this email to you for a while now. Remember how obsessed Fitzie was with his dumb camcorder when we lived in Chicago? He took it everywhere. We have boxes of tapes in the basement, boxes and boxes! I was getting ready to sell our house after the divorce. Did I tell you I’m single now? Fitzie had been having an affair for four years with his dental hygienist.

FOUR YEARS!!!!!!

He moved with “Boobs, Butt, Barb” to Ohio and left me with all kinds of junk, including his tapes.

How come it couldn’t have been Fitz who’d gotten lost on a mountain? Life is so unfair.

I finally sent some out to be digitized. Not going to lie, there was some amateur porn, like Blair Witch Project meets OnlyFans. Now I’m glad we did it. At least I have proof of how young and hot I used to be. At my lowest point, know what I did? I emailed one of the videos to Barb, ha ha.

Look at the date on this one (don’t worry, it’s rated G): New Year’s, 1991. Are you thinking what I was thinking?!? Fast-forward to the twelve-minute mark, and… well, you’ll see.

I’ve had this for a while and kept meaning to send but then my mom got sick and Anna had some mental health issues and Fitzie fucked up our lives and… you know how life goes.

I’m thinking of you and Grant, Kim. We all are. I can’t wait to see you when you guys return home TOGETHER, but don’t hurry back, there’s a polar vortex and it’s freezing here! People are throwing boiling water into the air to watch it vaporize and getting third-degree burns. You were smart to escape the tundra. I’m jealous. Sending hugs and good, positive vibes from Chicago! Love you!!!

The video took forever to load; the reception was bad from the Indian Canyons parking lot. Once it did, I entered the loud, grainy world of my past and encountered my “sliding doors” moment.

I was at a low point the night I met Grant, utterly heartbroken over the abrupt end of my marriage and lonely without Basil, who’d moved to San Francisco. I was working a miserable, entry-level job with an underfunded patient-advocacy organization.

I retreated back to my old friend group, who’d moved en masse from South Bend to Chicago after graduation, including Celia, who invited me to a New Year’s party in Hyde Park.

Saint Mary’s of Notre Dame wasn’t a college I would otherwise have considered attending—in fact, I might not have gone to college at all, but my fate was decided the first summer Basil attended camp. When Melody and Vandyke picked him up on the last day, they were thrilled to see Basil sitting on the steps of the Pioneer cabin with his arm around my shoulders. I was crying because I knew how much I’d miss him. They noted our physical proximity and concluded that I had the power to make Basil heterosexual.

After that, the Underwoods went to great lengths and great expense to keep our relationship going. They sent Basil back to camp the following year, and the year after that. Vandyke had been a big donor at Notre Dame. He knew the only way to convince Basil to attend his alma mater was to make sure I did, too. He helped get me into the sister school, Saint Mary’s, even though I hadn’t attended a church service in my life—the closest I’d come to religion was in my late teens, when Polly became a Quaker. I joined her a few times for silent “worship” at the meetinghouse, where we’d quietly wait for “that of God” to speak to us. What I took away from the experience was that decisions can be made by waiting for the divine voice, or through a difficult process of discernment, where the right choice, the one that will lead to joy, gentleness, and peace, will rise up inside you when you are free of your personal agenda and ego. This gave me the flawed idea that I had to be moved by divine inspiration for all my decisions, big and small.

My Catholic college friends, such as Celia, were the same variety of cute-and-adored upper-middle-class suburban girls I’d known at Chicago Latin. My roommates slept in Lanz of Salzburg nightgowns and received extravagant care packages from home, while Polly sent me boxes of tampons, a twenty-dollar bill, and newspaper coupons held together by a crusty rubber band.

My preppy and ponytailed college friends were much more fun than I’d initially thought they would be. The thing about Catholic girls, I came to learn, is that they believe they can do anything wrong during the week because their sins will be forgiven on Saturday at confession or church on Sunday.

And there my Catholic friends were, preserved in Fitzie’s video. It was dizzying to watch because I was bleary-eyed from exhaustion, and Fitzie was a poor documentarian, with his drunken grip and short attention span. The camera jiggled and swung wildly from scene to scene. I almost gave up until suddenly I spotted my younger self, like a different person, an old friend. Grant could have used this as a teaching moment about the personal unconscious, all the repressed memories and temporarily forgotten information surrounding an event. I could fill in what I couldn’t see; I knew I was cradling my cheap beer with the pastel gloves Polly had bought at the five-and-dime. She’d stuffed Hershey’s Kisses into each of the fingers, a rare show of affection.

Young me was wandering through a sea of my former classmates in their Notre Dame–logo sweatshirts. I was as anxious about my future then as I’d been feeling lately. I was surrounded by the usual midwestern party atmospherics: a bong, red Solo cups, a couple making out on the sagging couch. A grainy image of Times Square appeared on the screen of the giant console television. I could remember wanting to peel away from the undergrad friendships that had defined me and meet new people who had strong concerns about Operation Desert Storm, who worried about the homelessness that broke my heart every day, and who would attend talks with me at the Art Institute. I was craving new ideas, men, sex. I wanted to go to better parties, where guests could hear one another talk about something other than sports, and where nobody threw up in the stairwell.

And there was Grant. He didn’t belong at the party any more than I did. He looked tousled, as if he’d been lost at sea for months. He was a few years older than the rest of the revelers, and he didn’t dress like a jock. He wore a Joy Division T-shirt and a Scottish-plaid scarf that was hung long on one end. With his thick, wire-rimmed glasses, he could have been a poet from the twenties.

“Who is that?” I asked Celia, transfixed. He was rumpled and woolly, dark and intense.

“Some dude who lives upstairs. Kirk invited him for a drink so he wouldn’t call the cops if it got too loud. He was talking to me about how the Chinese used to make paper out of old fishing nets.”

“He’s cute.”

“I guess, if you’re into the scruffy type.”

I felt I was scruffy myself. I have always dressed in what might charitably be described as camp chic—all that was missing was a whistle around my neck and a clipboard in my hands. I worried that if I tried too hard to be fashionable, I might do it wrong. After Burl’s death, I took to wearing his old Pendleton plaid shirts over tie-dyed T-shirts, Levi’s red-tag jeans and canvas high-tops. I had leather and rope bracelets on my arm. I never wore makeup, preferring to look natural and outdoorsy, my long auburn hair swept up into the same easy ponytail I wore until just weeks ago. This was a natural look Grant would later say he found attractive.

I didn’t think I had a type until I saw Grant. He didn’t just appeal to me for his looks—it was as though I could see straight through to who he was, and I found him as endearing as a stray puppy. He seemed bruised by life, and in need of rescue. I whispered in Celia’s ear, “I’m going to go home with that guy.”

“I’ll give you ten bucks if you do.”

“Deal.”

There was a burst of activity. Suddenly people were donning hats and blowing into noisemakers. The countdown to the New Year—and what would become my new life—had begun. Everyone screamed, “Three—two—one!” Confetti shot into the air.

That’s when I did the most spontaneous thing of my life: I turned and planted a kiss on Grant’s lips, and he instinctively kissed me back. This was not the kiss of a drunk frat boy. His lips were firm, his cheeks stubbly. He tasted new and sweet, sugary.

Grant pulled away, flustered. “ That was one hell of a kiss. It’s like we rehearsed it a thousand times.” He leaned in to talk above the noise, his lips grazing my ear. “Who even are you?” His voice was gravelly and mature. I liked that he was different from everyone else at the party, and I was intoxicated by my own boldness.

“I’m Kim.”

“Kim.” My name, short and monosyllabic, had never sounded so special until it rose out of his throat and tripped off the tongue that just moments earlier had pressed into my mouth. “Where’d you come from, Kim? God, you’re adorable.”

Adorable is not a word people had used to describe me. I’m tall and broad shouldered like Burl. Strong is a word people use. Capable. “Who are you ?”

“I’m Grant Duffy.”

I liked the name Grant because it hit my ears like a declaration, and I thought Duffy sounded gentle.

I wanted to kiss Grant Duffy again; in fact, the attraction was so surprising and strong that it felt as though the kiss—sudden, achingly sweet—was still happening. His dark hair swung moodily over his eyes. Already he was visually imprinting on me, from the flush on his cheeks to the shape of his earlobes to the cleft in his chin, a feature I had no idea the girls would eventually inherit. He looked smart, and I liked that. He was also somehow more animated and alive than every other person at the party, like the single colored-in figure in one of those manipulated sepia photographs.

Grant said, “I want you to kiss me again, but only if you want that. Do you?”

I didn’t think Grant could top the surprise kiss, but the second one was back arching, tender. Achingly sensual. My legs turned to jelly.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked. “We can go upstairs to my place.”

“God, yes.”

He placed his warm hand around mine and stealthily guided me through the crowd.

Fitzie’s footage was almost unwatchable. I could barely make out the sound of Bob Marley’s “We Jammin’,” a soundtrack to the most consequential moment of my life. I pulled the screen right up to my face, and it was unbelievable. There we were, a blur of movement. We hadn’t even kissed yet! It gave me the chills to see Grant standing behind me, still a stranger.

Here was the story we’d told a thousand times, playing out before my eyes. We joke about it all the time. People ask us how we met, and Grant says, “It was a one-night stand that never ended.”

And I joke that it reminds me of an old New Yorker cartoon. There’s a couple in a bedroom, and the disheveled husband is getting dressed after stepping out of bed. The wife says, “Look, you seem nice, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I was really drunk when we met, got married, and bought this house.”

The kiss. I saw those ghosts of ourselves pull back from each other, and then the camera moved on. It was just a fleck in the action. I might not have noticed it unless I was really looking.

I reversed and watched that explosive moment again and again, visually flying backward to the seed from which my entire adult life bloomed. It felt especially wonderful with Grant being lost to see us find each other that first time, and to be reminded of the feeling that happens when you meet someone consequential. It’s the feeling of being found.

There was Grant, his back a little straighter, his belly leaner, his skin fresh and unwrinkled, his hair thicker. And there I was, more attractive than I realized at the time, back when I wished I were delicate and small boned. I gasped aloud, seeing with my own eyes the bending of our futures. How many couples get to actually see that?

How I wished I could show Grant that there was evidence of that emotional rocket launch that marked our beginning. I was mesmerized by the moment we’d come together, but also by the space that once existed between us, and how I’d been the one to close it. And thirty years later, I’d been the one to open it back up again.