“Why there?” I ask.
“Dunno,” Ian shakes his head. “She had us drive her up to this big house. She said she had to say good-bye to someone there, but we never found out who or why. And then that was it. My last memory of her was her standing in front of this giant house holding her little overnight bag and this giant snowboard, waving.”
“Why did she have a snowboard?” Something clicks in my head suddenly. The other charge on her credit card bill, Edgebridge Sports. I’d almost forgotten.
“To go snowboarding, I assumed.” Ian shrugs. “She was a mystery, your sister. And not too fond of questions. We asked her to get in touch but she never did. She left that drawing behind though, the one on our new album cover.”
Peter leans over, reaches into a brown box, and pulls out a record and hands it to me. “Our label thought it would be cool to release a proper vinyl record. And this is it,” he says. “This is an advance copy they’re mostly just sending out to radio stations.” On the cover is Nina’s drawing, the one Jamie-girl showed me yesterday. “She never even got to see the album,” Peter says. “Never even knew that we put her drawing on there, actually. Will you take this and give it to her when you find her?”
“Of course,” I say. And hearing him phrase it like that, when, not if, when, makes me smile. “Is there anything else you can tell me about your time with her? Anything she might have said about what she was doing or where she was going or…anything?”
“Well, like I said, we dropped her off at a big house in Big Sur,” Ian says. “I bet you Peter remembers. He made us go back a couple months later on the way back to Denver.”
“It was on our way,” Peter says. “Sort of…” Peter picks a green notebook up off the floor and pulls a pen out of the spine. He tears out a little sheet of paper and scribbles on it. “There,” he says, handing it to me. “That’s the address. Don’t know how much good that’ll do you, though. When we went back the place was all deserted-like except for this lonely looking groundskeeper fella who was wandering around trimming the hedges. Said no one had been there in months.”
“It’s worth a try at least,” I say.
“Do you want a bowl of cereal?” Marc has stood up and is pouring himself another bowl. “I’ll rinse a spoon for you and everything!”
“I should go back out there.” I motion toward the door. “But thank you.”
“She was a lovely girl, your sister was,” Peter says. “When you see her, would you give her this, too, for me?” Peter scribbles something else on a piece of paper and hands it to me, looking ever so slightly embarrassed. I look down. It’s his phone number.
“I will,” I say.
“And if you’re ever in a pinch,” Ian calls out after me, “you could always sell that album on eBay!”
Twenty-five
Back out in Spit Pavilion, the music is softer and no one is dancing. There’s a girl onstage in a baby blue dress with a flower pot balanced on her head, singing along with her acoustic guitar. And I am wandering through the quickly thinning crowd looking for Sean. I let the questions swirl through my head as I walk. So if Nina was single, then who exactly is J? And what happened with him? Did they run away together, and then break up? And why didn’t she just come back then? Or did they break up and then get back together? Is she living with this guy somewhere?
And while we’re at it with the questions, Where’s Sean?
I look back at the stage where a couple is pressed against the wall, limbs entwined. The guy has short dark hair and a dark T-shirt, jeans. Just like Sean. The girl’s hair is blonde. My stomach burns with hot liquid jealousy. The guy turns his head to the side, as though he can feel me staring at him. Not Sean. I feel a flood of relief.
“Ellie?” I hear someone calling my name, loudly, over the music. “Oh my God, Ellie!” It’s not Sean’s voice. It’s higher. A girl’s. “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” I turn around.
Amanda?
She wraps me in an expensive-hair-product-scented hug. My arms hang limply at my sides. She leans back, lets out a little squeal, and then hugs me again. “I got here a little late and I was worried maybe you’d left! ”
I just stand there, staring at her face. The sound of her words and the motion of her mouth seem slightly out of sync, like she’s been badly dubbed.
“Ellie?” Amanda says. She leans back again and looks at me. “Hello?”
I’m just not sure what to say. I’m too confused to say anything.