42.
It was tourist season and all the hotels near the San Diego beaches were packed. So, after I arrived, I picked up my rental car and drove east through the darkness to reach a hotel in Mission Valley, where I’d been able to make a reservation. It was ten at night by the time I got there—one A.M. New Bern time—but I was wide awake. I sat in my room, staring at my phone, realizing I had no one to text that I had arrived safely. I’d left a phone message for Danny, telling him I was going out of town for a few days to see a friend, and now I felt sad and lonely. I missed Bryan. I missed Sherise. No one knew where I was and the one person I’d told I was going away, I’d lied to.
As usual, I couldn’t sleep. Why should a change of coasts make any difference in my insomnia? I was anxious to do what I’d come here to do. I surfed the Internet on my laptop in bed, trying to make myself tired. At two in the morning California time, I gave in, took a Benadryl, and finally drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Most of the shops in Ocean Beach seemed to be on the main road, Newport Avenue, and I managed to find a parking place a couple of blocks from the beach. I had a few pictures of Lisa with me in my tote bag and my plan was to go from shop to shop asking anyone over the age of thirty if my sister looked familiar to them. A long shot, but it seemed like the only shot I had.
I’d never been to California before and it felt like another world. The sun was unnaturally bright as I walked along the sidewalk, and the palm trees that lined the avenue looked like tall skinny pompoms. The sidewalk was packed with people of all ages. A lot of students, I thought. Young mothers with kids in tow. Aging hippies. There were all sorts of shops. Antiques. Surf shops. Jewelry. A Pilates studio. Had Lisa walked on this same street? I wanted that to be true. I knew decades had passed—and maybe Sondra was wrong and she’d never been in Ocean Beach at all—but I felt oddly close to her here.
After talking to people in fifteen stores, I took a break in a coffee shop, feeling discouraged. I’d quickly discovered this was a young town, full of people who were barely walking when Lisa would have lived there. In each store, I’d shown the framed picture of Lisa, Danny, and myself, telling whoever I spoke with that the girl in the photo was my sister who had run away when I was two. I’d selected that picture because she was close to the age she would have been when she’d worked in Ocean Beach … if she’d worked in Ocean Beach … and she wasn’t holding a violin. I’d worried that the violin might give her away as the famous prodigy she’d been, but I quickly realized that was a pointless concern. Twenty years was a very long time. None of the shopkeepers recognized my sister, and I began to wonder if I should be speaking to the straggly old hippies instead.
After my break, I resumed my hunt. I was about to skip the Pilates studio—had anyone even heard of Pilates twenty years ago?—but at that point I thought I had little to lose.
The ponytailed blond woman behind the counter in the dimly lit studio was no more than twenty-two, and she shook her head when I showed her the photograph. But an older woman, her gray hair in braids, stood next to me at the counter and she touched the edge of the carved frame with her fingertip.
“Oh, I remember her,” she said. “Only her hair was darker.”
I felt my heartbeat kick up, but I was afraid to get too excited. “That would fit,” I said. “I’m sure she dyed it. Where do you remember seeing her?”
The woman leaned her elbows on the counter to study the photograph. “She worked at this music store that used to be across the street.” She pointed through the window. “Grady’s. I went in there a lot. I wish it was still there. I’d rather support an indie shop than buy all my music online, you know? She had a funny name, I can’t remember what it was.” She looked at the receptionist. “What was it?” she asked, as though the young woman could possibly know.
“Got me.” The receptionist laughed.
My brain had perked up as soon as she said music store. That fit. It fit perfectly. The funny name did not.
“Her name was Ann Johnson,” I said.
“Really?” The woman looked at the picture again. “Maybe I’m wrong, then. I don’t remember her name, but I know it wasn’t Ann.”
“Well,” I asked, my hope fading a bit, “do you have any idea where she is now?”
“Oh, God, no. I haven’t seen that girl in”—she looked toward the ceiling, thinking—“I don’t know how long. You should try to find Grady,” she said. “The owner of the store.”
“Do you know where I can find him?” I asked.
“There’s a jewelry store a block up.” She pointed east. “On this side of the street. The jeweler Sal was good friends with him.”
I’d already been in that jewelry store, but I hadn’t met a Sal.
“Thank you so much,” I said, and I slipped the photograph back into my tote and headed out the door.
A funny name, I thought as I walked the block toward the jewelry store. That worried me. But the music store fit so well, and that gave me hope. I wanted to hold on to that hope as long as I could.
* * *
The young guy in the jewelry store told me Sal would be working the next day, and I decided to wait till then to resume my search. Funny how I could run a half marathon without a twinge, but my feet ached from the stop-and-go walking through Ocean Beach.
I drove back to my Mission Valley hotel, took a long soak in the tub, and then spent the evening Googling “music store,” “Grady,” and “Ocean Beach.” On various music Web sites and blogs, I found people reminiscing about Grady’s Records from back in the day. The shop apparently closed down in the late nineties. I searched for any reference to a female employee, with a “funny name” or not, but no one mentioned anyone from the shop other than Grady himself, and I finally went to bed for another long and restless night.
* * *
Sal was not a very trusting guy.
When I arrived at the jewelry store the following morning, the gray-haired, bearded jeweler sat at the worktable in the window, and he wore a blank expression as he looked at the picture of my sister through his safety glasses.
“Never seen her,” he said, resting his soldering iron on the table.
“Someone told me she might have worked at Grady’s Records years ago,” I said. “And that you might know where I can find Grady.”
“Rad shop,” Sal said with a nod. “Grady closed it down around 2000 when vinyl officially tanked. He could open it up again now, though, and have customers lined up for blocks.”
“Can you tell me where I can find him?”
He looked suspicious as he slipped his safety glasses to the top of his head. “You going to cause him any kind of grief?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not. I just want to see if he remembers my sister.”
He stroked his beard, considering the request. I thought I looked pretty straight and innocent in my blue capris and black T-shirt, my hair in a ponytail. Apparently, he thought so, too. “He’s a sound engineer at the stadium,” he said.
“Where’s the stadium?”
He gave me directions back to Mission Valley, and I remembered passing a stadium not far from my hotel.
I thanked him for his help, then walked slowly to my car, reluctant to leave the beach. I was so sure I felt the vibrations of my sister in this town.
* * *
It took a lot of walking around the aging circular stadium and many questions of many custodians before I found the guy named Grady, but I did finally find him. He sat in a small room in the middle of a half circle of monitors of varying shapes and sizes. His back was to me, his hair in a curly gray ponytail.
“Excuse me?” I said.
He swiveled his stool around to face me and I was mesmerized by his see-through green eyes.
“You lost?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m looking for you if you’re Grady. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
“Depends on who’s asking,” he said, but he smiled warmly.
“My name is Riley MacPherson.” I waited to see if my name meant anything to him, but he looked at me blankly. “I think … there’s a very small chance you might have known my sister,” I said. “Did you ever have a girl working for you by the name Ann Johnson?”
He lost his smile and stared at me. “No,” he said, but the look in his eyes told me he knew that name, and I felt my own eyes fill with tears.
“Please talk to me,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to hurt her. I promise.”
He was still looking hard at me, but I saw something inside him begin to bend. “You’re too young to be her sister,” he said.
Oh, my God, I thought. He knew her.
“My family was very spread out in age,” I said. “But I promise you. I am.” I wiped the corners of my eyes with my fingertips.
“Why would you think I know her?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure that a private investigator talked to you about her long ago. Do you remember?”
He shrugged. “Some guy came in with a picture of a girl and I said I didn’t know her,” he said. “And that’s what I’m saying to you, too.” He swiveled his chair around so his back was to me again.
“I flew all the way from North Carolina to try to find someone who knew her,” I said. “Please.”