“Oh,” Simon says, taken aback.
“They’re classic car people. Average age is like eighty.”
“How old is Dave?” Charlie’s twenty-seven, so Simon’s been assuming his stepfather must be in his fifties.
“Sixty something.” The words come out strange. Charlie’s fists are clenched and his face is red. This is how he looked all the time that first season, but back then Simon chalked it up to whatever array of substances Charlie was on, and also to Charlie being a giant asshole. Now, he’s pretty sure that what he’s seeing is anxiety, maybe the beginnings of a panic attack.
“Okay, you’re going to sit down and have a glass of water and a snack, then we’ll knock on the neighbors’ doors and see if they know anything.”
“Can’t eat Dave’s food,” Charlie says in that same strained voice. He tugs at the collar of his T-shirt.
And, okay, there’s a lot to unpack there, but for now Simon gets a granola bar out of his bag and Charlie’s own water bottle from the car. He’s expecting a fight, but Charlie drinks the entire bottle of water and eats the granola bar.
If someone hovered over Simon while he was freaking out, Simon would hate them forever, and since he and Charlie are just barely being cordial, he decides to play it safe and make himself scarce. Figuring that Charlie’s mental state can’t possibly be helped by it being at least eighty degrees in this house, Simon finds the thermostat, then fiddles with it until he hears the air conditioning turn on.
The house has two bedrooms. One contains an unmade bed, a full laundry basket, and an old television. The other has nothing but weight equipment that, even from the doorway, Simon can tell is covered in dust. There’s no trace of a child ever having lived here.
There are no photographs anywhere in the house. Back in the living room, there’s a bookshelf with a dozen or so Clive Cussler and John Grisham paperbacks, none more recent than twenty years old. There’s a dog collar, just sitting there on the shelf, even though there’s no other sign of a dog. Everything is covered in a layer of nicotine-tinged dust. It’s like the set designers went overboard staging a lonely old bachelor’s house.
“My hands are tingling,” Charlie says. “That’s new.”
“This sort of thing happen often?”
“Been awhile.”
“Does anything help?”
“Gotta ride it out. Distraction’s good.”
And that isn’t exactly Charlie asking Simon to distract him, but it’s close. “Don’t look now, but three of the fattest cats I’ve seen in my life are staring at us through the back door,” Simon says. Charlie, of course, looks immediately.
Small talk isn’t a skill Simon has, but it’s the only means of distraction he can think of, so he tries to imagine what Jamie would say. Jamie has a way of stringing together random observations into a narrative that blends into something like ASMR.
And so Simon reminds himself that he’s an actor and sets about channeling Jamie. He narrates everything he does.
“I’m getting the mail,” he says, as he steps outside and empties the overstuffed mailbox. “It’s just bills and coupons.” Next to the mailbox, hidden behind an empty planter, are a pile of rolled up newspapers. Simon counts six. He brings it all inside and stacks it neatly on the counter. The whole time, he keeps up his stream of dumb commentary about feral cats and junk mail and the sheer variety of allergens he’s noticed in this house.
“Based on the newspapers, he’s been gone six days,” Simon tells Charlie.
Charlie nods, as much as he can with his head in his hands.
“Hey, this is probably a stupid question, but would your mother know where Dave is?”
“I texted her. She asked Dave who. So, no.”
Somuch to unpack.
“What if he went on vacation and I’m being messed up about it for no reason?” Charlie asks.
“Wouldn’t he answer his phone if he were on vacation?”
Charlie shrugs. “Probably.”
Simon currently has over two hundred unread texts on his phone, mostly from group chats that he’s not invested in and likely only got added to out of politeness. He hasn’t listened to his voicemail since 2018. He’s not exactly a shining star of keeping in touch with people. But he’d like to think that if someone called repeatedly, he’d respond. If Charlie’s stepfather went on vacation and just turned his phone off with no warning, he’s an asshole of a caliber that Simon can’t even aspire to.
“Do you want to sit for another minute or go knock on some doors?” Simon asks when Charlie’s hands finally unclench.
They knock on the doors of the six closest houses. A young woman holding a baby doesn’t know who Dave is but wishes whoever lives in that house would get rid of the car that’s up on cinder blocks. An older woman squints at Charlie and says she hasn’t seen Dave’s truck in a week—or, at least, that’s what Charlie tells Simon after translating from Spanish. Nobody else answers the door.
