I watch from down the block, waiting. When she reaches the green car, she starts punching the buttons on her handheld scanner.
I sprint down the block, stopping a few feet away from her. I hold up my hands as if telling her to wait.
Annabelle looks at me like I’m crazy.
I pull out my phone, type, and hand it to her.
Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you! My name is Tobias. I am deaf.
She reads it. Her shoulders relax, and she nods.
I point to the car and then to me.
She points to the expired meter.
I clasp my hands together below my chin, as if I’m begging. Or praying.
She laughs. Annabelle has a nice laugh.
I smile, showing her my dimples.
Anabelle wags her finger at me.
I hand her my phone.
Promise I’ll never do it again …
She sighs.
I’ve won. The green car does not get a ticket.
It’s not even my car.
I am not even sure why I spoke to Annabelle. This time, I didn’t have to; I don’t need to know more about her life or where she lives or who might be waiting for her. I already have the answers, but I did it anyway. All part of my process for choosing.
On Wednesday, I will see her again. She doesn’t know it.
* * *
• • •
Owen’s picture is everywhere. The computer experts have aged him up, theorizing about what he looks like now. They even consider how he might disguise himself. I am bombarded by these pictures; they are all over the news, in the paper, on the Internet. Flyers are taped to telephone poles. Owen with a beard, a mustache, dark hair, bald, fat, and thin. Owen with long hair and short, sunglasses and contacts, with sideburns and a goatee. Owen looked like everyman and no man.
I did this.
Well, Millicent did it. Or started it. But I did it, too.
I have not achieved much—certainly nothing out of the ordinary—but because of me, everyone is looking for Owen Oliver Riley.
I always wanted to be more than above average.
First, it was tennis. My father played, my mother pretended to, and at the age of seven I hit my first tennis ball. It was the first sport I was interested in, so they hired a coach, bought me my first racket, and sent me on my way. Within a few years, I was the best young player at the club. I still didn’t get their attention, not the way I wanted, but that only made me better. I had no idea how much anger I had until I hit that little yellow ball.
I wasn’t average then, wasn’t a disappointment to anyone but my parents. I was better than everyone else, right up until I wasn’t. Then I didn’t know how to be average anymore, so I went overseas, away from my parents, in search of a place where I could be better than average, better than a disappointment. With Millicent, I am.
It’s terrible to say, but my life has been so much better since my parents died.
And since Millicent came into my life. She makes me feel better than everyone. She is so impressed with my letter. In bed, she talks about it.
“I wish I could cut it out and paste it on the fridge.”
I laugh and rub her leg. It is slung over mine in that lazy way. “The kids might think it’s weird.”
“They wouldn’t even notice.”
She is right. Our refrigerator is a mishmash of pictures, taped and mounted and pasted together into a family album of sorts. The details are so blurred nothing stands out. “You’re right,” I say. “They wouldn’t.”
Millicent rolls over and puts her face close to mine. She whispers. “I have a secret.”
My heart jumps a little, and not a good way. “What?” I say. Not a whisper.
“I watched her.”
“Her?
“Annabelle.” She mouths the name, not making a sound. My heart relaxes a little. We did this last time; we watched Lindsay and reported back.
“And?” I say.
“She’s going to look perfect on TV.”
The lights in our room are off, but it’s not pitch-black. Our bedroom is on the second floor and faces the front. The light from a street lamp glows around the edges of the curtains. I have stared at it many times since we have moved into this house. The square of golden light seems so unnatural.
“Penny,” I say.
She laughs. “What?”
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
I close my eyes.
Sometimes, I say it first; other times, she does. I like that, because it feels even. But she said it first. Originally, I mean. She was the first to say she loved me.
It took three months. Three months from the time we met on the plane to the moment she said she loved me. I’d loved her for at least two and half months of the three I had known her, but I didn’t say it. Not until she did. When it happened, we were literally up a tree. We were young, broke, and in search of something to do, so we climbed a tree.
As expected, Woodview does have trees. We have a park full of giant oak trees, perfect for climbing. But on that day, Millicent and I were up a maple tree. I should have known that when Millicent said she wanted to climb a tree, she would pick one that required trespassing.
The tree was on private property, in front of a house set a few hundred yards back. The only thing between the road and the front door was a flat green lawn and that giant maple tree.
It was the middle of August, the height of summer heat, and we stared at the tree from inside my air-conditioned car. We had parked down the block, a spot with a good view of everything, and we waited for all the lights in the house to go off. Just one was left, upstairs on the right. Millicent clutched my hand, as if she were on edge.
“You really want to climb that tree?” I said.
She turned to me, her eyes shining. “Don’t you?”
“I never thought about it before.”
“And now?”
“Now, I really want to climb that damn tree.”
She smiled. I smiled. The light finally went out.
I turned the key, shutting down the air-conditioning. The inside of the car immediately felt hotter. Millicent got out first. She held the handle as she closed the door behind her, making as little noise as possible. I got out and did the same thing.
I stared down at the maple tree, which suddenly felt too open, too exposed, and I wondered if the punishment for trespassing included jail time.
Millicent took off running. She bolted across the street, over the lawn, and she disappeared behind the trunk of the tree. If she made a sound, I didn’t hear it.
I ran the same path. My feet felt heavy, plodding, as if every step were booming through the neighborhood. I kept running until I got to Millicent. As I reached the tree, she pulled me against her and kissed me. Hard. I had to catch my breath when it was over.
“Ready to climb?” she said.
Before I could answer, she had hoisted herself up using a large burl. From there, she reached up to grab the lowest branch, and then climbed higher. I watched, waiting for a light in the house to turn on. Or waiting for her to fall so I could catch her. Neither happened.
“Come on,” she whispered.
Millicent was sitting on a high branch and looking down at me. The moonlight turned her into an outline of herself. I could see her long hair swinging in the breeze, and her feet dangling on either side of the tree branch. Everything else looked like a shadow.