I SENT NICOLE A TEXT AROUND TEN O’CLOCK IN THE morning: Just wanted to see if there’s any update.
I waited for her to reply.
And waited.
And waited.
It was so frustrating that there wasn’t anything for me to do. Aunt Elise’s friend Frances picked her up to take her to the doctor, and I stayed back and cleaned the house. I changed the sheets on the beds, dusted the bookshelves and the tables. My fingers lingered on the brown leather photo album on the coffee table, the one Aunt Elise had told me about when I’d arrived.
Whenever I picture you, you’re the little girl in the red dress you wore on your birthday.
I flipped through a few pages before I found the red-dress pictures. There was white trim on the collar and on the edges of the capped sleeves. Talley was next to me, in a white blouse and a red skirt that was clearly made by the same company as my dress. Mom was in a few of the photos. In one of them, I was on her lap.
She must’ve picked out Talley’s and my clothes. Matching outfits weren’t anything Dad would’ve thought to buy us.
And there was Dad, looking like he did now, but less gray, and less . . . I don’t know. Less something else.
I flipped the album closed and put it back on the table.
It was hours before I got a text from Nicole. Finally, nearly twenty-four hours after our first phone call. My phone buzzed: It’s Nicole from NHL. Can you chat?
Of course I could chat. If I were undergoing dental surgery, I’d still find a way to chat. I pressed the button to call her without texting back. “Sorry for the delay,” she said. “I didn’t want to call you until I gathered as much information as I could. I heard from my student Rafe, and he said the day of the assignment, he went to Laurelwood Park in San Mateo. Whenever he saw someone or something that looked interesting, he’d take a picture. He didn’t chat with anyone beyond asking if he could photograph them. He didn’t even ask anyone’s name. But Talley was one of those people.”
“So that’s it,” I said. If that was it, then what next? I pressed a hand to my face. I’d cry about this for sure, but I’d wait till I hung up with Nicole. “I really do appreciate that you tried to help,” I said.
“Hang on,” she said. “I have a little more information. Rafe told me he’d left his contact sheet and negatives in my darkroom, so I went searching for any other photos of your sister that he might have taken. I know if there were other photos of my dad out there, I’d want them.”
“Yeah, anything you have with Talley in it, I definitely want it. Even if it’s just her hands or whatever.”
“Well, unfortunately, there weren’t any additional photos of Talley. The photo of her hands was the second to last photo on the roll, and the last photo was of the guy she was with. Same hair, same chin, and you can actually see his face. I took the liberty of developing the photo. If you want it, I can text it over to you.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. I could hear my dad’s voice in my head: I think you’re missing a couple words. “Thank you,” I added.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “If there’s anything else I can do, or if you do want to come to a meeting, just text or call, okay?”
“I will,” I said.
Nicole sent the picture seconds after she hung up. It was a profile shot, but you could still see the guy’s longish hair and the scruff on his face. There was a daisy chain of dandelions settled on his head like a crown, and I knew it was something Talley’d made for him. She’d made dozens for me over the years, maybe hundreds. But that was back when I was little. I hadn’t worn a dandelion daisy chain in years. This guy looked about Talley’s age, or maybe a little bit older, but not too much older. There were small lines at the corner of his eyes, but no major wrinkles. I’d say he was late-twenties, tops. He was sitting on a bench, and his body was facing the camera, so I could read the words on his T-shirt: Must Love Dogs.
I stared and stared at the picture. Who was he? Could he be Talley’s large gentleman? Figuring out Talley’s list was like climbing a mountain. I’d been totally exhausted and ready to give up and go home. Then I’d found the flyer, and it was like finally seeing the peak of the mountain—nearly there! I couldn’t give up now! But it turned out all I’d seen was a vista point, and there was so much farther to climb.
I called Adam to update him on what I’d learned from Nicole, which was not much. Just a picture of the guy Talley’d been goofing off with, this one without her hands over his eyes. “I’m wracking my brain trying to think of ways to find him,” I told Adam. “All I can think to do is make up our own flyers—like, have you seen this man? And then put his picture underneath.”
“Just don’t post them on trees,” Adam said. “Bark is a protective layer, like skin.”
“I know,” I said.
“Sorry, I just said that to make you laugh. It wasn’t funny.”
“It was,” I said. “I’m just trying to think of what Talley would want from me. When she gave me a game when I was little and I couldn’t figure it out, she wouldn’t tell me the answer straight out. She’d give me another clue, and another. But I don’t have her to give more clues now, and I have no idea how to find a person I know next to nothing about—literally, all I know is what he looks like, that he hung out at Laurelwood Park at some point with Talley, and he had a T-shirt that said ‘Must Love Dogs.’”
“Is it navy with a silhouette of a dog?”
“It’s a black-and-white photo, so I can’t tell the color of the shirt, but it could be navy, and there is a silhouette of a dog. Are you psychic or something?”
“Wouldn’t it be your lucky day if I was?” Adam said. “But I might know where to find our mystery guy.”