Luster’s is our default after-work place, a dark steakhouse right across the street and dirt cheap if you hit it before seven.
“I’m saving my energy for tomorrow and Bootleg,” I say, sitting down and grabbing my folder from Juanita. After she leaves tonight, I intend to sneak over to her cube again and check her calendar.
“Yeah, Bootleg. But that’s with them,” Yegina says, sounding as if she’s slightly dreading our plans with Hiro and Brent. “Come on. We should catch up, just us.”
“We’ve talked sixteen times a day since 2002,” I joke, opening the folder.
Yegina stands there, the binder perched against her waist, tucking her black hair behind one ear.
She never begs like this. I want to say yes. But if I say yes, it ruins my plan to search Juanita’s cube.
“Early drinks tomorrow night. Just you and me. I promise,” I say, rooting through the clippings. I hold up the Yates picture. “Check this out.”
Yegina stares at the twentysomething Bas in the photo.
“Before the facelift,” I joke, and put the clipping down.
Yegina winces. “I’m worried about my brother,” she says. “He’s not answering my calls.”
“Maybe you should invite him out for drinks tomorrow, too.” I turn to my keyboard. “It’s high time Don started anesthetizing himself to failure like the rest of us.”
“Yeah, right,” Yegina mutters. The light in my office brightens as my friend walks away and I rise to shut the door after her, knowing she’ll hear it click.
I’ve met Yegina’s brother a few times. A more categorical opposite to Yegina could not be invented: Don is tall and skinny, and he blinks a lot. His music tastes halted somewhere after Barney; obscure pop culture references sail over his head; and he favors khakis, Hondas, sincerity, and holidays at Disneyland. In college, Yegina backpacked alone through Europe and rode the Moscow-Beijing train all the way to China. Don has never left California. Yegina learned to spray-paint graffiti; Don dutifully colored the entire illustrated Grey’s Anatomy, page by page, never going over the lines. They spent their childhood caged together, Yegina always disappointing her parents, Don always winning their approval, and sometimes I think their resistance to each other was the only thing they had in common.
But when Yegina’s parents were flipping out about her divorce, Don supported her. He told her without a trace of sarcasm that she was the best person he knew in the world, and she shouldn’t settle for someone who didn’t believe that, too. She was profoundly touched, and it has ushered in a new era of perplexing closeness between them. “I actually like Don now,” she told me once after they went bowling together. “What a funny feeling.”
I think of my brother John, who has offered to fly out. Siblings need to rescue each other. I go to my inbox, open a message, and write to Yegina:
Sorry for sounding glib earlier. Just keep telling Don you care about him. And if he doesn’t respond, say you’re going to come kidnap him tomorrow. I’ll make sure he has fun.
I hit send. A few minutes later:
You don’t know my brother, but okay, I’ll try.
The parking garage is dim as usual, but somehow tonight all the vehicles I pass are sheer and shining, lined up like bottles in a vending machine. There’s Phil’s little coupe, Spike’s Vespa, Evie’s spotless beige sedan. The rows of glimmering chrome hoods and bumpers stretch half a football field, looking as new and untouched as if they just drove off the lot. I could go blind from all the reflections. My skirt swishes on my bare knees. My sandals skim the concrete. Even the walls’ dirt streaks look premeditated, gestural. I am tingling with my sleuthing success.
I found Juanita’s calendar and read it without getting caught. Bas did indeed meet someone on Monday. I have a name for him.
“You look happier,” says a voice. I turn to see Jayme, standing by her white car. She has sorrowful lines around her mouth. The hairs above her ears have started to kink into tiny scribbles. Although I know Jayme is older than I am, I don’t know by how much. Too old to want to marry anyone? Too old to have children? I don’t usually worry about her vitality—she’s so lovely, so competent at life—but something has unmasked her age tonight.
“Just glad to go home,” I say. “I heard the press conference went well.” Another lie, but what does it matter? I found a piece of evidence. I can feel it. Even my clothes fit differently, looser, like I just dropped five pounds—my dress barely touches the skin of my waist.
“It went. That’s about all I can say for it,” says Jayme. “You ready for tomorrow?”
I try not to look blank.
“The big meeting about the annual report,” she says, studying my face. “We talked about it this morning? You said you were putting together some stories.”
“I am,” I say brightly. “I just found some good info for Bas.”
“All right, then.” She puts her hand in her big red purse and beeps off her car alarm.
It was all so easy, I can’t believe it happened. I waited for Juanita to leave and then I slipped over to her cube. I found her blue calendar, right there on her desk. It practically opened on its own to last week. I read the entries. No meetings on Monday for Bas except one, with a Steve Curtain. Funny name. Distinct name. How many Steve Curtains can there be? I’ll figure it out tonight, safe from prying eyes, in my own apartment.
“Although, you know, Bas might get the ax,” Jayme says without turning around. “The board votes on Wednesday.”
I wonder if I should act surprised, and don’t respond for a moment.
“He gets fired, and the reporters will be all over this place, looking to connect it to Kim’s disappearance,” Jayme says, fury in her voice. “TV, too. Tabloids. I’ll quit before I have to deal with that.”
She opens her door: the car’s interior is as dark as a safe.
“If they don’t think I’ll quit, they’re nuts,” she mutters.
I’ve never heard Jayme angry like this.
“Don’t quit,” I say. “The Rocque couldn’t run without you.”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t turn. Down the row, a minivan squeals as it wheels up the spiral ramp to the street.
My throat constricts as I say, “I hate Kim’s show, too.”
Instead of answering, Jayme slowly sinks into her car seat and stares over her steeling wheel, through her windshield, to the concrete wall beyond. But she doesn’t shut the door.
I hover over her, trying to articulate what I felt when I looked at the Judy Ann Dull portrait earlier. It comes out clumsy and broken, but I say it anyway. “I mean, I don’t hate what it is. I hate what it says.”
Jayme continues to gaze at the wall, her face in profile, frozen in an expression of sadness and exhaustion. Then she looks down at her hands on the wheel, her graceful, tan fingers, and they tighten until the knuckles flex.
“It wouldn’t bother me so much, but he’s out,” she says finally, in a calm voice, as if we’re discussing some tedious office matter. “He served twenty-two years for abducting another thirteen-year-old. But he got out in November.”
I don’t know what man she’s talking about. I’m afraid to interrupt, though.
“I always thought I was one of the lucky ones,” she says, still gripping the motionless wheel. “The police did nothing about him following me, but my mother moved us here and let me change my name. She knew she had to save me, and she did.”
Jayme abruptly twists away and rummages in her purse and I think she’s searching for something to show me. She searches and searches, her hand grabbing in the bag, coming up empty, grabbing again. All this time she doesn’t meet my eyes. Finally she pulls out her key and slides it into the ignition.
“He’s out now?” I say softly. “Here? In California?”
She makes a noise of derision. “Who knows. Maybe. Guess I think I’m safe now, though, old lady like me.”
“Jayme, I’m so sorry …”