Page 32 of Your Every Wish
I toss him his jacket and shrug into mine before looping my arm through his. The sun is putting on a show as it makes its final descent, painting the sky in strokes of reds and blues. The temperature has dropped since this afternoon, and I can see my breath in the crisp evening air.
We take the trail behind our double-wide, which eventually meets up with the designated trailhead. It rained yesterday, making the ground soft but not muddy. And everything smells so good, like fresh earth and fir trees.
There are people out, walking their dogs or getting a little exercise before turning in for the night. Dex does a double take when he sees Rondi walking her cat.
“Shush,” I warn him, then wave to Rondi and urge Dex to pick up the pace before she waylays us and talks our heads off. “She’s a sweet lady, just a little . . . intense,” I say when she’s too far away to hear us.
“Not every day you see a cat on a leash. And the dude from this morning, the one shooting flies with a salt gun.” He was talking about Hadley Ralston, who entertained himself by swatting insects from his rocking chair, using various contraptions he finds on the internet.
“This place . . . it’s like where old weirdos go to die. ”
“Stop, that’s mean. Besides, I like it here. Everyone’s his or her own person.” I rest my head on his shoulder. “But I miss you, Dex. This long-distance thing is killing me.”
“I know, babe.” He pulls me closer so that I fit perfectly against his side. I snuggle in, inhaling the smell of his skin. “Bad news, though, I can’t make it up next weekend. I’ve got tickets for Coldplay.”
If I can talk Kennedy into letting me borrow her car, I’ll go to San Francisco. It’s my turn anyway. “I’ll come to you, and we can go together.”
“I already promised Benny that he could have the other ticket. You don’t even like Coldplay.”
True. Their songs put me to sleep, and they all sound the same. But I could certainly tolerate them for a few hours if it means spending time with Dex. “I’ll just hang out at your place until you get home from the concert.”
“It’ll be late, sweetheart. We’ll probably go out for drinks afterward. I’ll come up the following weekend.”
I start to say No, no, it’s fine, I can meet them at the bar, and we can spend the rest of the night together , but realize how thirsty that sounds.
How suffocating. In my advice columns, I’m constantly warning men and women not to be too clingy, to give their partners plenty of elbow room to do their own thing.
And here I am about to commit my own cardinal sin.
It’s just that two weeks seems like an eternity. How can we build on our relationship if we hardly see each other anymore?
“Any chance you can take a day or two off and come up on a weekday? Or if that won’t work, I can come to you, write in your apartment, and we can at least have dinner and breakfast together.” I’m not being thirsty, I tell myself. I’m being assertive. Communicative.
“Work’s insane right now, Em. Weekends are better.”
I acquiesce, like I always do, wishing I knew the secret recipe to make Dex love me as much as I love him.
That night, I watch him sleep. The perfect way his mahogany hair falls over his forehead, the curl of his long lashes, and his slightly parted lips make my heart move in my chest. I tuck myself against his side, stealing his heat and reveling in the solidness of his body, dreaming of our future together.
He leaves Sunday morning right after breakfast. He wants to beat traffic and avoid all the impatient motorists returning home to the Bay after a weekend in the mountains.
“Wow, he was hardly here,” Kennedy says.
Leave it to her to rub it in, though I don’t think she’s intentionally doing it. One thing I’ve learned about Kennedy, her bark is bigger than her bite. That is to say, she’s blunt and opportunistic but not mean-spirited.
“He has stuff to do at home before he starts his workweek. His job is very demanding. You’re taking this running thing seriously, aren’t you?” Today, she’s got on running tights, gloves, and a windbreaker to ward off the cold. My phone says it’s fifty-two degrees out.
“There’s nothing else to do around here and it helps me think. ”
I don’t have to ask her about what. I know exactly what’s occupying her mind. There’s only ten days left and she’s still forty thousand short.
“After my run, I’m heading over to Misty’s. Gonna pick her brain.”
What Kennedy really means is she’s going to mine Misty’s extrasensory perception.
“I researched her story about the missing kid the night of our soiree,” I tell Kennedy.
“She’s the real deal. According to the Indianapolis Star , the police credited her with helping to find Roman Johnson.
Detectives were already investigating three people of interest, including the former babysitter, but were mostly focused on the pedophile.
Misty’s dream—or information—influenced them enough to take a closer look at the babysitter.
“And there are other cases she didn’t tell us about, including a high-profile missing person case here in Northern California.
Three years ago, a seven-months-pregnant woman disappeared from her home a day before Christmas.
Misty told the police to look three hours away, here in Fall Lake.
They dragged the lake and sure enough found her body, enabling them to trace her disappearance and death to her husband. Why is it always the husband?”
“How did they connect her death to the husband?” Kennedy refills her coffee mug and takes it to the kitchen table.
“According to the news story I read, detectives checked the electronic registry of the lake’s boat-launch parking lot and found that a car with the husband’s license plate had been there Christmas Eve. Later, they found homemade cement anchors in his garage.”
“My God, who does that?”
“Kill their wife?”
“No, leave the evidence lying around so any half-decent investigator can find it. What an idiot.”
I snort. Leave it to Kennedy. Sometimes I think she says outrageous things just to show how tough she is.
How resilient. Based on the stories she’s told me about her mother and her childhood, I’m not surprised.
Not to be too dramatic—it wasn’t as if Madge Jenkins was a crack addict, turning tricks to support her habit with a little girl under her roof—but Kennedy’s upbringing was a lot different from mine.
“I’ll go with you to Misty’s,” I say. “But Kennedy, Misty may be good at finding missing people, but I wouldn’t count on her to find money that doesn’t exist.”