Proof of life?is all it says.
Sent this morning.
I dial him back.
It’s a Sunday. He might be golfing. Might be on a date. Might be in the office catching up on paperwork.
He’s due to step into his father’s shoes in a few years too, but unlike me, he’s excited at the prospect.
It takes five rings before he answers. “Dude. You catch that race today? Unbelievable.” A door clicks, and his voice echoes more. “Hold on. Signal’s bad.” One more door click. And a third. “I’m at my parents,” he finally says quietly. “Grandmother’s doing her thing again. Talk to me. You survive so far?”
“Fucking Daphne Merriweather-Brown stowed away in my car.”
Silence stretches over the miles.
So much silence.
“And yes, I’ve survived so far,” I mutter into the continued silence.
“How the hell did she?—”
“Still piecing that together. I think she fell asleep in the back seat waiting to talk to me about something, and I didn’t see her until she woke up and said something when I crossed into Pennsylvania.”
“Shit. You need me to send someone to get her?”
“No.”
“No?”
I pull the pack of undershirts out of my original suitcase, spot the very large writing announcing they’reYouth Largesize—dammit, I’m a disaster—and toss them into the back seat, then throw three more pairs of boat pants next to them.
Travel plans? Success.
Internet shopping for my new wardrobe? Fail.
Need to start batting better than five hundred soon here.
“What do you know about her situation?” I ask Archie. He’s her age, a couple years younger than I am, grew up with all of us, and he’s the only one of the original crew of friends I hooked back up with after college who stuck after my father’s sentence.
“Completely cut off from her family except Margot, living somewhere upstate, not getting arrested anymore?—”
“You’re sure?”
“If there’s one thing her father loves, it’s bitching about Daphne when she screws up. If she got arrested, I’d hear about it from one channel or another. Tell me again why I’m not immediately sending someone to get her.”
“I can’t keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t blow this before I’ve even started if she’s not here.”
More silence.
Archie thinks I’m a dumbass. Don’t have to be in the same state as he is to feel that coming through the phone right now.
I sigh. “And she knows how to do things like pump gas and how to get in and out of ValuKart as fast as humanly possible when you need new clothes.”
“Why’d you need new clothes?”
“Sizing error.”
More silence.
