Everything Leads to You

~

My parents have gotten delivery from Garlic Flower, so I kiss my mother’s cheek while she talks on the phone to a colleague, then grab a plate and a fork and heap rice and garlic chicken on my plate. My dad is watching a reality show about rich women. This is the kind of ridiculous thing you get to do for money if you are a professor of popular culture.

“Dad?” I say. “I need to vent. Mom’s on the phone.”

He turns the TV on mute. “Your mother has just finished reading a New Yorker article on emerging African American filmmakers and is now trying to coax them all into speaking to her graduate seminar,” Dad says. “So try me.”

My mother is also a professor, of black studies and gender studies, which basically means that while Dad observes all things pop culture with palpable glee, my mother observes and then obliterates them with whichever theory best suits the subject. Which, considering the subject I’m about to raise—perhaps the whitest, straightest, most gender-normative American icon in all of cinema—makes my dad the far-better sounding board anyway.

“Okay,” I say. “It starts with Clyde Jones.”

“I’m intrigued.”

I tell him the story from the beginning: Charlotte’s phone call, which came at the perfect time because it meant I didn’t go to see Morgan; all the cool stuff in his house, Toby’s belt buckle and Patsy Cline; and then, finally, the letter; and Frank and Edie; and the library and all of those obituaries from all of the papers.

“Do you know how many newspapers there are in Los Angeles?” I say.

“I know of quite a few,” he says. Then, “So Clyde Jones had a daughter named Caroline who died in an apartment on Ruby Avenue. And you need to learn more about her in order to find someone named Ava who may or may not be her daughter.”

“Exactly,” I say. “And, really, why is it so difficult? Why can’t I just search ‘Caroline Maddox’ and have an obituary pop up?”

My dad strokes his beard in a way that’s so cinematically thoughtful that I have to try not to laugh.

“Why do you want to find her daughter?”

“There might still be money in that account that belongs to her.”

He raises an eyebrow, so I try again.

“It seemed to really matter to Clyde.”

Still, he is unconvinced.

“Okay,” I say. “Look. It’s just important to me. I just feel like it’s important.”

He seems satisfied by this answer.

“And how do you know that Caroline died in September or October of ’95?” he asks.

“Edie said something about the Dodgers losing in the playoffs.”

“That’s right,” he says. “Three–nothing.”

“You should hear this woman talk,” I say. “She’s really great. ‘I said I wanted plain,’” I imitate. He laughs, so I keep going. “‘Do you shop at the Vons on Wilshire? Nice deli section. Too crowded, though.’” He laughs harder. “‘Those Braves beat them three to nothing. Three to zip. Terrible!’”

“Wait,” he says. “The Braves?”

I take a bite of my dinner and nod while chewing.

“They lost to the Braves in the playoffs in ’96. Not ’95.”

I swallow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. The Dodgers lost three–nothing in the playoffs in ’95 to the Reds, and then again, three–nothing, to the Braves in ’96. Sounds like Edie got her years mixed up.”

I stop chewing. Stare at him.

“Are you sure?”

“Emi,” he says, tapping his head. “There is a world of Los Angeles history in here. I am absolutely sure.”

But I still run to the computer to make sure. And moments later, I find it on the Major League Baseball site. The Dodgers and the Braves. 3–0. 1996.

I groan, head in hands. “Why didn’t we check this before we spent all day in the library?”

“Hey, at least you have a new direction,” Dad says.

“Easy for you to say. You like this research stuff.”

“True,” he says.

I take out my phone and text Charlotte.

Braves beat Dodgers in 96. Back 2 library. 2 p.m.?





Chapter Four



After seven weeks, fifty-two garage sales, and sixteen estates, the impossible happens: I find the sofa.

It’s upstairs in a Pasadena house, my fourth and farthest stop of the morning, in a dressing room adjoining the master bedroom.

I push through the hoards of people to get to the woman who is clearly in charge and tell her I’ll take it.

“The one in the dressing room?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Hm,” she scrunches up her face. “That one’s on hold.”

I laugh because the universe must be playing a trick on me. But she doesn’t crack a smile, so I get serious.

“Nothing said it was on hold,” I say.

“I know but one of my clients expressed interest at the preview.”

“Expressed interest? That’s hardly putting something on hold. Did she pay a deposit?”

“No.”

“Then I should be able to buy it. I can pay you right now.”

“Why don’t you check back this afternoon?”