Part 28 (1/2)
Caleb tried to smile patiently. ”Excuse me? Where are your pay phones?”
The old man looked at him quizzically. Whether it was because of his appearance, or smell, or the oddness of the question, Caleb could see he had done something unwise.
”Ain't had a pay phone in years. Don't you got a phone?”
”I lost my cell,” Caleb tried. ”Do you have a phone I can use?”
The man exhaled and handed him a black cordless phone from under the desk. Caleb swallowed and dialed information.
”San Francisco. Shane Oberest,” he responded to the automated question.
After a moment, a human voice clicked on. ”I have one Shane Oberest in San Francisco, California. On one hundred twenty-two Bay Street?”
”That's great.”
”I'll connect you now.”
Caleb gripped the phone tight, heard its distant ringing. He pictured Shane walking across a room, his own baby in his arms. He might need time to get to his phone. A woman's voice answered, but it too had been recorded: ”You've reached Shane, Janelle, and Nicholas. Please leave us a message.”
Caleb shut his eyes tight. He had not antic.i.p.ated this.
In an even voice he explained, ”Hi. It's Caleb. I'm with June and Lily. We're in Yosemite, in a town called Groveland. At the Groveland Hotel. I'm wondering if you can get us. I'll call you back in a bit. Thanks.” After a beat he added, ”Love you.”
Hanging up, he smiled at the man. ”Thanks.”
Caleb walked back out into the warming morning, rubbing his temples. He saw June on a bench in the sun, poking through a white plastic bag. Sitting beside her, he kissed Lily, who was chewing a banana, and tore into a burrito and Powerade.
June frowned. ”I forgot napkins. I'll be right back.”
She handed him Lily, a plastic spoon, a cup of applesauce, and walked back to the Mini-Mart. She took the two steps, pulled open the wood door, made her way to the register. She was smiling, prepared to shrug and explain her reappearance to the clerk, but someone else was already there. A thin middle-aged park ranger, with short black hair under her tan hat, leaned against the counter.
”. . . having this crazy race. Up the old trails, all around the park. We're so p.i.s.sed off about it I can't tell you. They said people was gonna get hurt, lost, we're going to be in and out trying to find them.”
”What was a baby doing there?”
June took a step back, into the aisle. Panic spread throughout her body like an anaphylactic reaction.
The ranger was shaking her head sadly, ”I guess it was part of this weird group. This guy who's in charge of them came to the main station and notified Emilio. Emilio said he was saying that two of his people have a sick little baby, and that they left the race to go to San Francisco or something. He was really concerned. They just took off with no money or food with this sick baby. Can you believe people?”
”Sick, how kind of sick?”
”Emilio said the guy just said that she isn't being taken care of right, and these two people aren't in their proper minds, and that we should find them right away. So we're all looking for them now. And that's on top of twenty of these idiots being took to the hospital. A bunch got lost in there, got a couple of broken ankles. Puking all over themselves. Now I got to drive around by the bus stop looking for this loony family. I tell you I'll be back here this evening for some of that wine.”
June walked quickly back outside, down Main Street, to the bench.
”Oh G.o.d, Caley,” she whispered into his ear as she bent over him.
Caleb listened to her, still as stone.
”He told them that,” she almost shrieked when she had finished.
He looked at her. A ranger, a police officer, would see their dusty hair, dirty faces, the scratches along their forearms from the backcountry branches, the pallor of Lily's skin. Things might not progress well from there.
Caleb calmly stood up and unzipped June's yellow backpack. He found sunscreen and gently rubbed it into Lily's soft face and throat and neck and shoulders. Circles of dirt appeared over her cheeks; it must have been his fingers. He took out a soft white sun hat and tied it under her chin.
”Did you hear me?”
He fit Lily snugly into the purple pack and slipped it back over his shoulders, adjusted his weight, and snapped the belt around his waist. He blinked into the sun.
Then he started to run.
2.
Shane stood in their narrow kitchen, sweat running down his forearms, and began removing the contents of their open refrigerator.
He looked at the eggs, leftover pho, bacon, and milk at his feet, trying to judge which of them possessed some intrinsic right to stay.
”What are you doing?”
Janelle surprised him; he nearly jumped. He'd thought she was out for the afternoon with Nicholas. He turned to face her. She wore a thin black raincoat for the May drizzle, house keys still grasped in her right hand, Nicholas napping in his plastic bucket seat behind her.
”Close the front door?” he asked her quickly.
”Shane . . .”
”If the doorbell rings, don't answer it.” He blinked rapidly. ”Or the phone.”
Janelle stepped closer, looking at the food on the floor, its condensation pooled on the tile like the blood of a ma.s.s murder. She arched her eyebrows questioningly. Shane steeled himself and pointed to the styrofoam cooler propping the refrigerator door open.
”It's the medicine.”
Janelle hesitated, processing. Then she stepped backward. ”Oh, Jesus.”
”It's not body parts, for G.o.d's sake.”
”You really did it.” She repeated to herself quietly. ”You really did it.”
”I just need to hold this here for a few days.”
”Hold it here? You sound like a c.o.ke dealer.” She came closer, peering at the cooler. ”Why can't I answer our phone?”
”Because,” he offered helplessly.
”You want to elaborate?”