As the pickup rattled out of the gas station, the adrenaline of a near miss flooded my limbs.
A compact luncheonette sat annexed to the edge of the gas station’s boxy cement building. My jitters were probably partly because I hadn’t eaten in five hours. A meal was a small step that would do me good. After stopping by the disinfectant-drenched bathroom, I set my bag down in the least sticky booth in the luncheonette.
I nodded through the service window at a waitress/cook in a hairnet and gravy-stained apron. Steam from the deep fryers rose dramatically behind her, cloaking her imposing silhouette.
“Menu’s up top,” the woman said, expressionless, pointing an apathetic finger toward the roof.
A blackboard above her head listed a comprehensive selection of misspelled offerings, most of which had a jagged line of chalk struck through them. Only two items were still available: the patty melt and the grilled cheese.
I figured the latter was the least likely to expose me to salmonella. “I’ll take the grilled cheese, please.”
“You wanna pickle with that?” The woman clearly couldn’t care less.
“Sure. I mean, yes, please.”
“Coffee?”
“That would be great, thank you.”
The woman nodded at the coffee pot sitting on a warmer at the end of the service window. She slid a mug in my direction. “Help yourself.”
The burnt aroma indicated the coffee pot had overstayed its welcome. I poured myself a cup for comfort rather than enjoyment. Sitting down in the booth, I sat stirring, thinking. It’d been a sad part of growing up when I realized that the answers to all hard questions didn’t really lie at the bottom of a coffee cup. I tapped my spoon on the side of the coffee mug three times.
Here I was, once again, sitting alone in a diner.
Perhaps I’d slightly overreacted to Sebastian’s criticism. But he’d basically told me that my whole life was a lie.
Following an incongruously long wait since I was the luncheonette’s only customer, a plate with an anemic grilled cheese and miserable pickle plonked down in front of me.
I smiled as politely as I could at the waitress. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Sure.” The woman disappeared back into the kitchen.
As I bit gingerly into a corner of the gooey sandwich, my phone, which was facedown on the table, vibrated with a message. I hesitated before turning it over. It could be Sebastian texting to apologize, but I wasn’t sure I even wanted it to be him.
I flipped the phone quickly, like a hot piece of toast.
Mike, take advantage of these unbelievable mortgage rates right now.
A spam text. No matter how many times I blocked the number, I still got them weekly. (And whoever sent them clearly thought “Mike” was pretty gullible.) I went back to my sandwich, trying not to notice the plastic-like consistency of the cheese.
I could call a cab and go to the nearest car rental place. Or bus station. Or airport. Of course, that all depended on whether cabs even serviced this gas station in the middle of nowhere.
My phone convulsed with another message, kick-starting my pulse.
Sylvie’s name populated the screen.
I grabbed a scratchy paper napkin from the dispenser and wiped the grease from my fingers.
Hey C. Hope you’re OK and the road trip’s going well. That was weird yesterday—can we talk about it?
Part of me wanted to pick up the phone and tell her about my fight with Sebastian—she’d definitely be on my side. And I could use her calming voice of reason.
But since I obviously didn’t know Sylvie as well as I thought—and also because of my behavior yesterday—maybe she’d agree with him about how weird and pathetic I was. As I deleted the message with a resentful swipe, the burning in my chest shifted to the ache I knew best.
Loneliness.
I was right back to where I’d started before I met Sebastian and Sylvie. What was the point of putting myself out there if this was how I ended up? All I wanted to do was curl up on my sofa with my animals and never leave the apartment again.
But then there was Claudia. She was the reason I was doing all of this, not Sebastian. And if I gave up when we were so close to finding Hugo—we’d made it to Maine, after all—I knew I’d regret it.
Breathe in. Breathe out. The next right step.
Motioning to the waitress for the check, I ignored the dread in my stomach. She scribbled on her pad and tore it off, placing it in front of me.
“I know it’s hard to admit when you’re wrong, sweetie, but sometimes you just gotta do it for the sake of the marriage.”
I stared back, confused, then realized she must have seen my dramatic exit from the car. “I’m not married,” I said, trying to hide my embarrassment.
“Oh,” she replied. “Well, good luck with whoever he is.”
I hastily pulled the bills from my wallet. “You didn’t charge me for the coffee, so I threw in an extra few dollars—hope that covers it.”
I slid out of the booth and headed back to the restroom to scrub the grease from my hands. The duffle on my shoulder was a graceless companion for the gas station’s narrow aisles, sending a stand of plantain chips flying like a wrecking ball. The teenaged store clerk rolled his eyes but didn’t move from behind the counter to help me resurrect it.
I knew I couldn’t stall things any longer. Positioning myself in the corner farthest from the clerk, I took a breath and tapped Sebastian’s name on my phone.
He picked up after one ring.
“Hi, Sebastian.” I didn’t give him a chance to speak. “I’m sorry for … overreacting like that.” What was left of my pride now lay hemorrhaging on the grimy linoleum floor. “The most important thing right now is finding Hugo.”
“I’m really sorry too,” Sebastian said cautiously. “It’s none of my business how you live your life. I shouldn’t have said … what I said.”
He wasn’t exactly saying that he didn’t mean it, but I didn’t have the luxury of triviality right now.
“I’m not sure where you are, but I’m still at the gas station.” I examined the expiration dates on the cans of Pringles, searching for one that wasn’t a potential health threat. “Do you think you could come back and pick me up?”
A staticky pause. “Look out the window.”
I looked from the Pringles to the gas pumps.
Leaning against the rental car, Sebastian waved at me.
41
The number on the letterbox confirmed we were in the right place. But there was no house, just a dirt driveway lined with soaring birch trees leading down to a lake. Surely this wasn’t the place—there was nothing here.
Sebastian double-checked the GPS. “This is definitely it.”
I peered ahead through the trees but couldn’t see a building anywhere. “Should we drive down closer to the water?”
“There’s no house anywhere around here,” Sebastian said impatiently. “We’d be able to see it.”
I felt my heart deflate. All this time and energy on a foolish quest. Thank God I didn’t say anything to Claudia about the trip.
“I was stupid to think we’d find him,” I said, ashamed to have to admit yet another shortcoming to Sebastian. “I’m sorry I dragged you up here for nothing.”
He nodded toward the water. “Let’s go down and check out the lake. Since there’s nobody here, we aren’t exactly trespassing.”
“I guess we could.” It was too late to drive back to the city tonight, anyway.
The tang of crisp, woodsy air eased my disappointment as our footsteps crunched against fallen bark. I’d forgotten how comforting nature could be—I hardly even visited Central Park anymore.
“Looks like it’s called Megunticook Lake,” Sebastian said, peering at his phone. “Home to the landlocked salmon, pumpkinseed sunfish, and the banded killifish.”
“Are you into fishing?” I wouldn’t have predicted that.