26.
“So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.”
—“REVELATION”
In the space of an hour we’ve managed to tour the entire “town” of Harmony without ever taking our eyes off the gallery, and not one person has come in or out of it. After stopping by the old creamery for ice cream, we found a closed saloon, an open wine-tasting room that does, in fact, check IDs, a wedding chapel, and a glass blowing studio full of beautiful, swirled “tobacco” pipes hand blown by an aging hippie who didn’t bother to pull his wild gray hair back into a ponytail. Apparently this is one of those places that people only come to for art, drinking, smoking, and getting married.
By the time we finish our lap, the clouds have multiplied and deepened to an ominous shade of gray. We sit back down on the bench, and the easy talking and laughing of our walk subsides into quiet. I check my phone for the millionth time. No missed calls. Not from my mom, which is a good thing, but not from Kat either, which worries me a little. It’s late afternoon now, and I would’ve thought that even if she were mad at me, she would’ve called or come back by now.
My hopes lift a bit at the sound of a car coming from the direction of the highway, but when it makes the turn onto the main street, I see it’s just a beat-up pickup truck. The truck slows and comes to a stop, and a man and a woman get out and begin unloading the back. They take out one of those fold-up tables and a few chairs, then begin to cover the table with cardboard cases full of oranges and avocados. In the next few minutes several other trucks and cars pull up, all of them setting up makeshift produce stands.
“Guess Harmony has a farmers’ market too,” I say to Trevor.
He’s eyeing a truck that arrived towing a large, half barrel that’s now sending wood smoke drifting in our direction. “More importantly, they have barbecue.”
We watch as the empty main street of the town becomes an outdoor country market filled with citrus and olive oil, avocados and honey-filled mason jars in flavors like lavender and orange blossom. Other cars begin to pull up, and families with strollers and people toting reusable shopping bags fill the street. A music trio sets up near our bench and a woman wearing a long skirt and Birkenstocks tests the microphone while the two guys who are with her tune their guitars. In no time the ghost town we’ve spent the afternoon walking around becomes a bustling outdoor market filled with live music, barbecue smoke, and kids running around with painted faces and cotton candy.
“Wow,” Trevor says. “Who knew?”
“Really.” I scan the crowd, being careful to keep the gallery in my sights. “Where did all these people just come from?”
Trevor shrugs. “There’re all kinds of little towns nearby. Maybe this is what they all do on Mondays. Wanna check it out?”
“Sure.” I stand, wanting to find a place closer to the gallery now that there are so many people milling around. As we walk, I scan for blond hair and come up with matches in every direction. It makes me nervous as I search each of their faces for some trace of the girl whose journal I’m still holding. I want to think that I would recognize her right away, but the truth is, ten years is a long time, and she could be any one of these people walking around me. She could have a child with her, or be strolling down the street holding hands with a new love. There’s nothing that says she’ll be alone. Or easy to recognize.
“You wanna stick close to the gallery?” Trevor asks. His eyes run over the people we pass too, and it makes me feel good that both of us are looking for her.
I nod and we duck between two booths selling the same assortment of oranges, lemons, and avocados. It’s getting harder to make out people’s faces in the dusky light, so camping out in front of the gallery seems the safest bet. We stand in front of the window, hands in our pockets, with nothing else that we can really do except wait.
Inside the gallery a few people mill about, and I see that Ashley has put out wine and a cheese platter. She’s standing in front of the ocean painting, having an animated, one-sided conversation with a woman who holds a glass of wine in one hand and a cracker in the other and doesn’t seem to be listening.
“Bet she’s not there for the art,” Trevor says.
I watch Ashley talk as the woman sips. “Bet you’re right.”
The only other people in the gallery are a middle-aged man—maybe the woman’s husband—who is posted up right next to the food, helping himself, and a petite, dark-haired woman in skinny jeans and a lacy tank top, who looks more like she belongs at a tattoo shop than an art gallery. A fat raindrop lands on the back of my hand, and then another hits my cheek. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Trevor flinch, then wipe a drop from his forehead before we both turn back to the gallery window.
What I witness next happens in quick succession and in slow motion at the same time. I see Ashley say something to the one in the tank top, who then walks over and shakes the hand of the woman holding the wine glass. Ashley talks between them, gesturing at the ocean painting, and the wine woman brings her free hand to her chest in an emphatic gesture. The brunette nods graciously and tries to inch away, but then Ashley stops her and ushers her over to the glass counter. She looks confused at first, but Ashley picks up a slip of paper and hands it to her. As soon as she reads what it says, the confusion on her face tumbles into something else. Something like fear and recognition, and at that instant, that is exactly what I feel.
She’s visibly shaken. The paper slips from her fingers and flutters to the floor. I suck in a deep breath. My phone buzzes in my pocket. Trevor looks from me to the girl falling apart in the gallery. A raindrop lands in my eye, blurring my vision momentarily. I’m suspended in the moment, paralyzed.
Trevor’s voice cuts through it and his hand grabs the phone from mine. “It’s Kat. I’ll talk to her. You go. Now. That has to be her.”
I look from him back to the gallery, and Ashley and the couple are still there, and Ashley looks like she’s apologizing or something, and the girl—Julianna—is gone. I burst through the door, a rush of wind and rain and desperation and hope.
Ashley looks at me, startled. “Oh—um, she just left. I’m so sorry, I—”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know, I—”
I don’t wait for her to finish. I push past the three of them and duck through the doorway I saw Ashley come out of earlier. It’s a small hallway with a door on each side and one in front of me that didn’t close all the way. Rain and mist sneak through the crack, and I know she went out that door.
Raindrops prick my face with cold when I step outside again. I look around, desperate. She can’t have disappeared into thin air. To the left there’s nothing but emptiness. The dark backs of buildings, and a few trash cans next to their back doors. I look to the right, and just in time, I see her small figure, which looks fragile in the rain, about to turn the corner at the end of the street.
“JULIANNA!”
She freezes, and in the light from the corner building I see her turn, just slightly. Then she grabs the door handle in front of her, yanks it open, and disappears behind it.
I run. Through the rain, past one, two, three buildings and their doors, until I get to the one she went in, and when I burst through that one, it’s with little hope that she’ll actually be inside. Cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol rush at me on warm air, and I realize I’m in the saloon that was closed earlier. It’s packed now, with every table taken and barely any standing room at the bar. My heart beats a desperate rhythm in my chest. Be here, be here, be here. I repeat it like a prayer as I take my first tentative steps through the crowd of people. And then it’s answered.
She’s there. Sitting at the far end of the bar, forehead resting in one hand so that I can’t see her face, but I know it’s her. My feet step beneath me, my hand reaches under my shirt for the journal, and I forget to breathe. I forget everything else except for Julianna Farnetti, who lifts her head just as I get to her and looks at me with complete and utter anguish in her green eyes.
I don’t have the right words for this moment. But then I do. I have hers. Without saying anything, I walk over to where she’s sitting, set her journal on the bar, and slide it over to her.