Air gushed from Angel’s mouth like someone had turned on a leaf blower.
‘Last year,’ Angel’s words came out in a loud whisper. Her body straightened taller as her enthusiasm gained momentum.
‘Well, I…’ What was it she wanted to say? ‘Do you have a contact number for him?’ Hayley asked.
The woman’s lips drew inwards. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘An email address?’ Hayley said. ‘Anything?’
‘I have a website address, that is all.’ The woman held a small piece of paper in her hands.
Hayley watched Angel light up like a Christmas tree, eyes twinkling, skin glowing, smile wider than the Hudson River.
‘Could you give it to us?’ Hayley said excitedly. She swung her rucksack off her back and began scrabbling inside of it for her phone.
The woman adjusted her glasses, looking down at her own writing. Angel started to read out the letters.
‘www.oilandwater.org.’
Hayley started tapping the address into the search engine on screen. What sort of website address was that? But out of all the searches on Google, Safari, Bing and Internet Explorer, it was definitely one she hadn’t tried before. Her fingers shook with each key tap.
As she hit the search button, she could feel the nervous energy like static coming out of Angel’s every pore. This meant the world to her daughter. She said a silent wish as she watched the blue line creeping at a snail’s pace along the top of the phone screen.Please.
The line zipped along at last and a mainly white page appeared.
This webpage is not available.
No. Hayley hit the refresh button, angling the phone away from Angel’s gaze and fixing a smile on her face. This time, the blue line was quick.
This webpage is not available.
Hayley raised her head, caught the expectant look of the woman, the Olympic swimming pool sized eyes of Angel. What was she going to say? She let a small cough start her off.
‘Damn 3G never works when you need it to.’ Her cheeks were burning like hot oil was coating them. ‘I’ll check it on the PC when we get home.’
Delaying tactics would have to do for now. She needed to make sure she had tissues and marshmallow hot chocolate before she said anything to Angel.
31
DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN
‘I need the nearest bodega,’ Hayley said as they trudged through the rapidly falling snow on the way back to Dean’s apartment.
‘Do you have 3G yet?’
Angel had phrased this question in ten different ways since they got off the subway. Hayley was still wondering how to reply. She knew she had to tell her daughter. She knew she’d promised honesty. She just wanted to get her back to the apartment, in a safe, confined place before she told her it was another dead end.
‘He could be right here in New York,’ Angel continued, her eyes rising to the height of the buildings all around them.
Hayley grabbed her arm as the stream of people hurrying along the street thickened. The inclement weather and the rush-hour city traffic were converging together in a congested mix that was making her head spin. She really did need fizzy wine.
‘Do you think he’s in New York now?’ Angel asked above the engines of the long line of cars and the beeping horns.
‘I don’t know.’
‘But he must still be in America,’ Angel continued. She was full of excitement or nervous energy. Maybe a little of both.
She was in a no-win situation. She made a non-committal noise that didn’t affirm anything.
