Chevy Stevens - Still Missing

I followed the road until it ended in a wall of dead broom bush and branches. At the bottom, a piece of metal glinted in the sun. With frantic hands I ripped the vegetation away. I was staring at the back of a van.

A quick search of the glove box turned up no wallet or registration papers, not even a map. Peering between the seats into the dim back of the van, I noticed some material wadded into a ball and reached for it. It was the gray blanket. The one he used to abduct me.

The sensation of the rough wool in my hand combined with the scent of the van was all too familiar. I dropped the blanket like it was on fire and flipped around in the seat. Trying not to think about what had happened in the back, I focused on turning the key in the ignition. Nothing.

I held my breath. Please start, please start … and tried the key again. Nothing. My body dripped with sweat in the sweltering van and my legs stuck to the vinyl seats, where my dress had ridden up. With my forehead against the hot steering wheel I took a few calming breaths, then popped the hood. I spotted the disconnected battery cable right away, tightened it back up, and gave the engine another try. This time it came to life immediately and the radio began to blast country music. It had been so long since I’d heard music that I laughed. When the DJ came on I caught the words “…back to a commercial-free hour.” But no clue to where I was, and when I tried to find another station, the knob just spun around.

I threw the van in reverse, backed down the little road, ran right over some saplings, and shot out onto the main road. It hadn’t been graded for a while, so I took my time coming down the mountain. After about a half hour my tires hit pavement, and maybe twenty minutes later the road straightened out.

Eventually my nose caught the familiar scent of ocean air tinged with the sulfur from a pulp mill, and I came into a small town. Stopped at a red light, I noticed a coffee shop on my left. The smell of bacon drifted through my open window and I inhaled the aroma with longing. The Freak never let me have bacon, said it would make me fat.

My mouth filled with saliva as I watched an old guy sitting near the window pop a piece of bacon into his mouth, chew quickly, then shove another one in. I wanted bacon—a plateful, nothing else, just strips and strips of bacon—then I’d chew each piece slowly, savoring the salty yet slightly sweet juices every crunch released. A big bacon fuck-you to The Freak.

The old guy wiped his greasy hands on the shoulder of his shirt. The Freak whispered in my head, You don’t want to be a pig, do you, Annie?

I looked away. Across the street was a cop shop.

Hope you’re feeling better this week, Doc. Guess I can’t give you a hard time for canceling our last session, considering I was probably the one who gave you the cold. I’m feeling better myself, about a lot of things. For starters the cops called early this week to tell me they nabbed the guy who’s been doing all the break-ins, and yep, it was just a teenager.

You’ll also be happy to hear I haven’t slept in the closet since I last saw you, and I’ve stopped having a bath at night. Now I can shave my legs in the shower and I don’t even need to wash and condition my hair twice. I can pee over half the time without having to do any deep breathing and I eat when I need to. Sometimes I don’t even hear The Freak’s voice when I break one of his rules.

Only thing that keeps nagging at me is that stupid photo The Freak had of me—the older one. I hadn’t thought about it once since I came home, too much other shit going on, but then after I mentioned it to you the other day I came across it in a little box where I keep the stuff I brought home from the mountain, during another of my many that-bastard-must-have-stolen-something searches of my house.

The real estate company where I worked had cubicles and I kept a corkboard above my desk with lots of photos pinned to it, so I figured maybe The Freak had snatched it from there. If he said he was looking for a house, he could have been in the office meeting with any of the Realtors. That might even have been when he first saw me, for all I know. But why would I have had one of just myself up in my office? And why am I driving myself nuts trying to figure it out? It’s not like it matters anymore. Hell, sometimes I think my mind just looks for shit to obsess about. It’s like trying to put a group of kids to bed—one worry finally drifts off, and another is out and running.

This week I was thinking about how in the past Christina and I would’ve gone over every minute of Luke’s visit, analyzing it scene by scene, and I had a wave of missing her. Reminding myself how relieved I’d felt after I made my list, and how proud I’d been when I finally faced Luke, I dialed her cell before I could chicken out.

“Christina speaking.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Annie! Hang on a sec—” I heard muffled sounds of Christina speaking to someone, then she came back on the line. “Sorry, Annie, hectic morning, but I’m so glad you called.”

“Shit, it’s tour day, isn’t it? Want me to call later?”

“No way, lady—I’m not letting you off that easy. I’ve been waiting too long for you to pick up the phone.” We both paused.

Not knowing how to explain my avoidance of her and everyone else, I said, “So…how have you been?”

“Me? Same old, same old.”

“And Drew?”

“He’s good…he’s good. You know us, nothing ever changes. How are you doing?”

“Okay, I guess….” I searched my mind for something interesting in my life I could share. “I’m doing some bookkeeping for Luke.”

“You guys are talking again?” Out came the fake Russian accent. “Vell, vell, vell, that’s good news.”

“It’s not like that —it’s just a business thing,” I said, quicker than I meant to.

She gave her I-know-you’re-full-of-shit laugh, then said, “If you say so. Hey, how’s your mom doing? I saw her and Wayne downtown the other day and she was looking, ummm…”

“Pissed out of her mind? Seems to be the theme lately. But she did come over a couple of weeks ago to bring me back my photo album and some pictures of Dad and Daisy I’d never seen. That shocked the shit out of me.”

“She thought she lost you—she’s probably still trying to come to terms with it all.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t feel like getting into it, so I said, “I was wondering what my house is worth these days.”

“Why? You’re not thinking of selling, are you?”

Not wanting to talk about the break-in, I said, “It’s just not the same since Mom rented it out—doesn’t even smell like me anymore.”

“I think you should give it some time before you—” A voice said something to Christina in the background. “Darn, my clients just arrived out front. We’re already late, so I’ve gotta run, but give me a call this evening, okay? I really want to talk to you.”

During and after the phone call, I missed Christina more than ever, and I did think about calling her that night, but her sign-off told me she was gearing up for another of her this-is-what-you-should-do talks and I just couldn’t deal with it. So when I heard the knock on my door Saturday afternoon and looked through the window to find Christina, who’s always dressed to the nines, standing on my front porch wearing white overalls, a baseball cap, and a shit-eating grin, I didn’t know what the hell to think. I opened the door and saw she was holding a couple of paintbrushes in one hand and a huge paint can in the other. She handed me a brush.

“Come on, now, let’s see what we can do about this house of yours.”