I looked at you. “Huh. Yeah, I guess that would make sense.”
“So let’s do it,” you said. “Let’s find her.” You pulled out your phone—it was an old-model iPhone; the phone of someone with money who hasn’t gotten around to upgrading yet.
I was wrong in thinking that, I know that now. I didn’t know it was the phone of someone with very little money at all. Someone whose dad bought it for him after he scored 1600 on his SATs. Bought it secondhand, spent days scouring eBay to get it for him.
But now I know. I know because I have spoken to your dad. A couple of times. Yeah. You didn’t realize that, did you? I know a lot more about you than you think.
I don’t mean this to sound sinister. I mean … I understand you better than I did.
Anyway.
You pulled out the phone, and you called up maps.
“This thing is too old for 4G,” you said, as the screen slowly loaded. “You said this was in Bayview, right? The row of old clapboards by the sand?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
You dragged the map with your finger, then used thumb and finger to enlarge it. I had never seen anyone do that before; that’s how sheltered my life was. That’s how much I didn’t have friends and how much the phones my dad got for me always sucked hard.
“You can just zoom it like that?” I said. “By touching? Wow.”
You looked at me like I was from another planet. “You haven’t seen one of these?”
“Yes! I mean, from a distance. Yeah.”
“Hmm,” you said. “Very Pygmalion.”
“What?”
“You know, in Ovid. The guy who makes a statue of a woman, and brings it to life. But she doesn’t know the language, the customs, and stuff. You’re like that.”
“I know the story. You’re saying … I’m a statue woman? Learning to speak like a person?”
“You know the language already. But you haven’t seen someone use a touch screen before, so it’s as if you’re new to the world, like her, and … Hmm.”
“Doesn’t really work, does it?”
“I admit it’s a flawed analogy,” you said. You smiled, and to my surprise I smiled back, though there was still an aching hole inside me where Paris had been. Where my memory of Paris still was.
“Anyway,” you said. You flicked something, and the map turned from a sketch, all lines and block colors, to a satellite image.
“Whoa,” I said.
“Seriously?” you asked.
“I’m a Luddite, okay?” I said. “And I’m poor and have no friends. So bite me.”
You smiled again. “I love that you know the word ‘Luddite.’ ”
“Thanks. I think you’re alone in that.”
“Didn’t Paris love words?”
“Yes.” Paris appeared between us like a ghost.
Silence.
“Sorry,” you said. “Shouldn’t … you know, mention her.”
You lowered your head to your phone again, zoomed out. You held the screen up for me to see.
“What am I looking at?” I asked.
“You’re looking at a straight road, with no cross streets.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t see what that means?”
I peered at it. I could see the shapes of the houses, the darkness of the beach and ocean, the street. Cars parked up and down it. Everything, even from this satellite view, looking dilapidated and sad.
“No,” I said finally. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“You said when Paris was in the house, Julie saw a car turn in front of her. It woke her up with its lights. Yes?”
I took a breath, looking at the phone. I was holding it in my hand now. “But there are no cross streets,” I said slowly.
“Bingo. If a car turned, then it came out of a driveway. Or a garage.”
“You’re thinking …”
“Yes.”
“But how could Agent Horowitz miss this?”
“You said he was FBI, right?”
“Yeah. Or something like that.”
“So he’s from out of town. He wouldn’t know the street.”
“You’re from out of town,” I said. “How come you know the streets of Bayview so well?”
I asked it kind of as a joke, but you blanched a little. “I do a lot of deliveries,” you said. Your tone was strange, but I didn’t push you on it; I was thinking about Paris and Julie.
“I need to talk to Julie,” I said.
“Yes.” You took the phone back from me; put it away. “And then we need to decide what to do next. I mean, maybe she remembers what kind of car it was. And maybe … maybe Paris is still alive.”
“You think so?”
“It’s possible. No one ever finds the bodies, do they?”
“No. Well, a foot.”
“Yeah. But who knows what he does with them before he kills them?”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling sick. “You just made it awful again.”
“Sorry. But … what if she’s alive? Maybe we can find her together. I mean, if you want my help. If you want … we could try.”
There you went again, using that little word. That dangerous, beautiful little word.
We.