I’ve never been anywhere, except Boston, to visit Tim’s family when we were married, and Iowa to visit mine.
Mntnbiker: Then you’re going to like this. Click the start button.
Maggie did as he said and heard a new voice through her speakers, a woman with a heavy Caribbean accent. Reggae music played in the background.
“Welcome to the beautiful island of Barbados in the East Caribbean, a land of warm seas and fertile earth, a tropical paradise unlike any other….”
A video tour showed shimmering aquamarine seas, white sandy beaches, dark-skinned locals, some wearing dreadlocks, and lush wet countryside. Through instant messaging, John pointed out sights along the way and summarized the history of the island, which was something the guide didn’t cover. Maggie was thoroughly impressed.
Zachman: This is really cool! I love it. How do you know so much about the sugar plantations of Barbados?
Mntnbiker: I worked there for a while.
As a security guard?
Zachman: Then you moved back to Utah?
Mntnbiker: Yeah.
Maggie felt a twinge of excitement at the thought that they could meet if they wanted to. Twelve hours by car wasn’t exactly close, but it wasn’t across the country, either.
Zachman: I live in California.
Mntnbiker: Is that where you were born?
Zachman: No, I was born in Iowa.
Mntnbiker: Did you grow up there?
Zachman: Until I graduated from high school. Then I left for UCLA.
Mntnbiker: Is that where you met Tim?
Zachman: Yeah. We were married right before I got my Bachelor’s in journalism.
Mntnbiker: Tell me about your family.
Maggie told him about Ronnie and her mother, the only family she had left. When prompted by a few more questions, she shared what it was like growing up with a brother who was ten years older, what it was like having parents who were already forty-five when she was born and hadn’t been planning on any more children. She told him she’d been the apple of her father’s eye—until he died of a heart attack a year before she married Tim. She even admitted the terrible guilt she felt for going to UCLA and leaving him behind, how painful it was that she didn’t get to see him before he died. She’d received the bad news by telephone, returned for the funeral, and that was it. In her first great bid to make something of herself, she’d lost the one person who’d given her a firm foundation on which to build.
Mntnbiker: I’m sure he knew you loved him, Maggie, and that’s all that matters. I bet he was very proud of his little girl.
Maggie couldn’t help the tears that slipped from the corners of her eyes at that statement. Her father had never seen her as the ugly duckling she was—the acne, the skinniness, the knobby knees. He’d looked at her and seen a swan from the moment she was born.
Zachman: At least he wasn’t around to see my marriage fail.
Mntnbiker: That wouldn’t have lowered his opinion of you.
Zachman: I hope not. I just wish he’d lived long enough to know Zach.
Mntnbiker: I’m sure that would’ve been the highlight of his life. Where is Zach today? What do you do with him while you work?
Ah, a happier subject. Maggie told John about Mrs. Gruber and her spaghetti, the balls of aluminum foil, the sweater she wore over her dresses even in the heat of the summer, and the old Cadillac she drove without much concern for inconsequential things like “right of way.” By the time she was done, John indicated he was laughing by the LOL—laughing out loud—symbol, and she felt surprisingly close to him.
Zachman: You seem like a good man. I’m glad we met.
There was a longer pause than usual.
Mntnbiker: I’m not always sure I’m a good man, but I’m glad we met, too.
Zachman: Do you have a scanner?
Mntnbiker: No.
Zachman: Then would you go to Kinko’s or some place and scan me a picture of yourself?
Mntnbiker: Why? I thought looks didn’t matter.
Zachman: They don’t, really. I just want something to imagine when I close my eyes and think of you. I know you’re tall and definitely not overweight. And you have dark hair and eyes. But that’s it. Aren’t you curious what I look like?
There was another pause, this one even longer than the first.
Zachman: John? Are you still there?
Mntnbiker: Sorry. Listen, I have to run, but I’ll write you later. Okay?
Maggie frowned at her screen. They’d been together online for ninety minutes, but there was still a good hour before she had to leave for work. She wasn’t ready to let him go and couldn’t figure out why he’d suddenly turned cold.
Jeez, I’m lonelier than I realized, she thought. Now I’m clinging to a man I’ve never actually met. She groaned and smacked her forehead. Snap out of it, Mag!
Zachman: Sure. I have to get to work, anyway.
WHEN MAGGIE ARRIVED at the office, she found Nick Sorenson slouched in her chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes on her pictures of Zach.
Surprised, she drew to a halt and gaped at him over the partition that divided her small space from everyone else’s. “What are you doing at my desk?”
He smiled and stood. “Waiting for you.”
“For me?”
He handed her a slip of paper. Maggie glanced at it and immediately recognized the scrawl—Jorge, the cop reporter who had the shift before hers—but she didn’t take time to read his note. Nick was talking, explaining.
“Jorge’s son is having his fourteenth birthday tonight. Whole family’s going to be there. He wanted to take the call but couldn’t miss the party. So it’s your story now.”
“If I want it.” She forced her gaze away from Nick’s rugged face and looked more closely at Jorge’s note.
Police on their way to the burger stand at Broadway and 14th Avenue. Drive-by shooting. Don’t know details. Call just came in.
She raised her brows in speculation. Broadway and 14th. Oak Park. It was the roughest area in Sacramento.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You want it.”
She
