*
As I play with my VISITOR badge and work through a chapter on the Zhou dynasty in my history textbook, Chase Carlisle enters the conference room. He is different today. No more implied fuck off when he sees me. No more brusque, dickish tone. Instead, he smiles warmly, like a real human, and inquires after my health and the health of Georgina. When I tell him we’re both good, he smiles warmly again, as if he cares about the answer. Then he sits.
“Gwendolyn, I need to speak with you about your father now,” he says.
I ball my hands into fists under the table. “You have news,” I say, a statement, not a question.
Carlisle inhales through his nose, places his palms flat on the table. “We do not,” he says.
“You do not what?”
“Have news.”
I blink at him. “So then…”
“Gwendolyn, for twenty days the NSA has monitored all communications from all possible sources—terrorists, suspected terrorists, criminals, suspected criminals—everyone. There have been no mentions of your father, nothing related to your father.”
My lip trembles. “Look harder.”
“French intelligence, French police, our own FBI—they’ve scoured every inch of Paris. They’ve interrogated the man your father met there. They’ve interrogated everyone that man knows, from his brother to the person who delivers his mail.”
“And?”
Carlisle turns his hands, palms up. “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” I repeat in a breathy whisper.
“There is no evidence, Gwendolyn—none—that your father was kidnapped. If there were, we would go to the ends of the earth to find him. But right now, nothing indicates anything other than that he—walked away.”
The buzz of the fluorescent lights above us is deafening. I bite my lower lip and feel my face expand into the tortured version of itself that’s become so familiar to me. I force myself to breathe slowly. I count to ten in my head and open my eyes. “But you have no evidence for that, either,” I say. “That he just walked away. You don’t know that. You have no proof of that.”
“No,” Carlisle says. His eyes are wide, sorrowful. “But such cases—such instances when people simply walk away—rarely provide anything like proof.”
The words burst out of me in a furious shout. “So keep looking!”
He nods slowly. “And we will. I promise.” He folds his hands together, as if in prayer. “But on a different scale.”
“What does that mean, ‘a different scale’?”
“Interpol—it’s a police network, worldwide.…”
“I know what fucking Interpol is.”
“Interpol has issued alerts. His passports—diplomatic, civilian, both—have been flagged. And border agents have his photo and biometrics in case he’s traveling as someone else.”
I stare down at my hands, trembling with a sudden violent palsy. “So—a missing person flyer on a telephone pole. That’s what you’re doing. That’s the best you got.”
“A question of resources, really. Manpower. So many threats in the world today. We just can’t afford to—”
“You can’t afford to save your own agent,” I gasp, pushing myself back from the table.
Carlisle grimaces as if the words hurt him. “Unfortunately, without a crime, our best hope is waiting for him to surface on his own. Which means this may take a while.” He leans forward, waits for me to look at him again. “In the meantime—”
“Go to hell.” I cross my arms over my chest, squeeze tight.
“In the meantime, your aunt Georgina. I called her today, explained the situation. We are both in agreement that you should go with her back to Texas. Is it ideal? No. But on a temporary basis—look, Gwendolyn, it’s the best option.” He pulls a thick packet of paper folded in thirds and opens it on the table in front of me.
“What’s this?”
“A court order. Giving your aunt and her husband temporary custody. Until you turn eighteen or your father comes back.” Carlisle coughs, frowns. “Or is declared dead. Legally, I mean.”
I get up to leave. Fuck him. Fuck Georgina. Fuck legally dead. “I know my rights. You can’t just do that. There’s—court hearings. Lawyers. Speaking of which…”
He intercepts me at the door, grabbing hold of the handle before I can. “It’s an emergency order. Government attorneys met with the judge in her office this morning.” He looks at me sadly. “Your attendance wasn’t required.”
“Get out of my way.”
“There is no more you can do for your father here in New York,” Carlisle pleads. “You are still a child, Gwendolyn. An intelligent one, absolutely, but per the law, still a child.”
I push past him and through the door, stab the elevator button, and stab it again when it doesn’t come fast enough. I turn around, thinking Carlisle might be coming after me, but he’s not. He’s just standing there in the doorway of the conference room, hands in his pockets, looking at me with what may actually be real human pity.
*
In my apartment, I find Georgina sitting on the couch, an empty suitcase open beside her. “It’s just temporary,” she says like she believes it. “Until he comes home.”
“How could you do that?” I seethe. “Your fucking signature. Right there on the court order. While I was at school.”
“I’m sorry, Gwendolyn. I am.” Her eyes squint like she’s about to cry, like she’s the fucking aggrieved one here. “This is—it’s for your own welfare. The only choice. You know that. In your heart.”
I break down again. And once more, there she is, holding me, as if holding me was her right. But she is right. She is. And I know it. Or think I do. Maybe.
“When?” I say into her shoulder.
“This weekend,” she says softly. “Sunday morning.”
When I’m finally dry and done honking snot into a paper towel, she places her hands on my shoulders. “I have an idea,” she says. “Let’s go to dinner, my treat, and—you know I’ve never been to a Broadway show?”
“Tickets are, like, two hundred dollars or something.”
“Dinner and a movie, then. Girls’ night out!”
Her smile is so damn bright.
*
At the fancy Thai place Georgina picks out a few blocks from the apartment, I order soup and a Sprite, while she orders crab cheese wontons and pad something and a cosmo.
“All the ladies in New York drink cosmos,” she tells me.
Maybe in 1997, I want to say. But it’s a catty thought. She’s sweet and trying so hard. So I say, “Oh, all the time,” instead, and touch her hand. “I want to—I want to tell you—that I appreciate it. What you’re doing.”