––––––––
Two days after their intense exchange in the woods, Rika realized that she wasn’t going to sit around and wait. Healing took time, she knew that, but she also knew that getting out of your own head is a real good thing when the world has just turned into a confused mishmash of weird feelings and fear.
His office line rang and rang, but no one picked up. Not until the third time she tried, which was about ten minutes after she saw her mom come down the stairs, post Jane Fonda, looking as worn out as if she’d just had eight or ten orgasms in the woods, caused by a bear.
“Doctor Melton’s... you know what? Who cares? That’s you, right, Paprika?”
“I, er,” Rika’s voice caught in her throat. “Well yeah? Abby, is everything okay?”
“Look, T told me about you two, with the kissing and everything. You know him as well as anyone in this town except me, which is honestly pretty sad, seeing as how you’ve had a completely unreasonable number of nearly-sexual run-ins and haven’t shared so much as a meal. You shifter types always confuse me, but when it comes to one that looks like him? I totally get it.”
Near-sexual? Guess she hasn’t heard about the last one. “Yeah,” Rika said, embarrassment obvious in her up-turned voice. “Listen, I was just worried about him. He told me about his mom and then he ran off in the woods and I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Shit,” Abby cursed, a bitter laugh following her swear. “I hadn’t until about thirty minutes ago. Hurricane Thor came through just as your last call was filling my ears with the dulcet tones of train engines.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Abby said. “He came through, told me to close up shop, and then just left. I have no clue what the fuck is going on, but I’m pretty sure he just left town. His car was all full of crap, and he looked like he’d either just chugged a gallon of Jack, or he hadn’t slept in three days. He didn’t smell like the inside of a distillery though, so I’m guessing it’s the sleeping bit.”
“Oh my God,” Rika groaned. “Why the hell... bears and their emotions. They’re like John Wayne times eighty. Why can’t they just talk things out instead of stewing until they blow up.”
“Yeah well, you just described ‘all American males who don’t cry every time they hear Tiny Dancer on the radio’ so I doubt it’s just the bear part that screws them up.”
Rika snorted a laugh – she couldn’t help it – and then the gears in her head started to grind. “What kind of car does he have?” She could have waited for an answer, but instead just rapid fired questions. “Where was he going? Did he have food? Has he given any indication of a place he’d go? What about the—“
“Okay,” Abby cut in. “Hold on Columbo, let me answer at some point or I’ll start forgetting the questions.”
Rika sighed. “First of all, nope, no clue where he’d go. I doubt he’d go back to the commune, not in this state. He had food, I guess, I mean he had some sack of burgers from a drive through. He didn’t tell me anything, uh... what were the others?”
It didn’t matter. No amount of Disappeared viewing was going to make her into a crack detective. And after all, this was a bear who felt like he was at once trapped, and had nowhere to go. She told him she loved him, which was likely just a really great thing to do to someone who was already panicking.
“I didn’t even mean it, not like he probably took it.” She closed her eyes in disbelief as soon as she realized she’d talked out loud.
“Huh?”
“Oh, nothing, I just told him I loved him after we fooled around in the woods,” Rika said absently. Her mind was scanning all the places he might go, but he hadn’t ever— “Wait a minute. Did he leave his computer?”
Abby sounded genuinely confused, but then figured out she’d been asked a question. “Oh, uh, let me go look. He only ever had a laptop anyway. Always hated typing on that thing. Give me a second.”
The phone hit the desk with the determined thud of someone who didn’t know, or care, how to work the hold function on an old office phone. Rika heard Abby’s bare feet plop along the tile, until they disappeared down the hall that joined his office and the front. Then she listened as they came plodding back, and something hit the desk before she picked the receiver back up again.
“Yeah, I got it,” she said. “But, why? He never looked at it for anything except model train shit.”
Rika had her mouth open to instruct Abby to check it when what she’d just said registered. “Did you say train shit? Like he plays with trains?”
“Loves ‘em. Even has a—“
“Please tell me you’re about to say conductor’s hat because I swear to God that’s the only thing that could possibly make me smile right now.”
“Yeah, conductor’s hat,” Abby finished.
The two laughed in the way only two very strained, worried people can. It was a momentary release – relief – from the fear they both had pounding against their skulls. “What am I supposed to look for?”
Rika heard the laptop open. “Just see what he was looking at. I’ve seen enough TV to know that people usually just shut their laptops and bolt when they’re going to run off somewhere. Hopefully he was so upset that he didn’t bother closing anything.”
“Password,” Abby said. “Any ideas?”
Paprika drew a long, irritated breath. “I Love Paprika,” she said sarcastically.
“Nope.”
“Hello? Admin? 12345? All those things you’re never supposed to use?”
“No go, bro,” Abby said.
“You sure you typed my name right? I—“
Abby scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure unless there’s a Y in there somewhere.”
“All right, all right,” Rika tapped her fingernails against her teeth. “Trains,” she said, thinking out loud. “Trains... Engineer? Conductor? What’s that model train company?”
“Lionel, and no to all three.”
Rika sighed dramatically. “I don’t even... wait, how about choo-choo?”
“Ugh, I hope not,” Abby said. “Nope.”
“Did you hyphenate it?”
“No, well, oh my holy ass,” Abby said.
“Don’t tell me that worked.”
“You got it, I won’t say anything. Except,” she trailed off. Rika listened intently, waiting for anything that might tell her where to look. “You ever heard of some place called Jamesburg?”
Paprika was quiet long enough for Abby to ask if she was there. “There’s a picture of a sign, it says Welcome to Jamesburg on it, like a road sign? Hello?”
“I’m listening,” she said, but really Paprika was pulling on her shoes. She had to get upstairs before her mom got in the car. “Thanks, got it, you’re awesome Abby.”
“It says Jamesburg,” Abby was interrupted with the beep of a mobile connection cutting off. “Jamesburg, Gotta Love It.” She finished reading the sign, to a beeping phone, right before the line went dead, and she rolled her eyes and unleashed a real whopper of an eyeroll.
*
“Mom! Wait!” Rika stuck her head out the window and called out just as Rosalie was climbing into the driver door of her way-too-big Wrangler. “I gotta use that!”
It took her a second to realize it was her daughter, yelling from the basement, and not someone underneath the car. “Rika?” she asked. “Is that you?” as she pulled the earbuds out of her ears and wiped her forehead with a wristband.
“Yeah, sorry, I’ve gotta...” she couldn’t think of what to say, so she just went for broke. “Thor’s mom died, he’s panicking, and I’m pretty sure he just packed all his shit and moved to Jamesburg?”
It took about eight seconds for her to run up the stairs and out the front door. “I’m sorry, but can I please take the Wrangler for a couple days? I probably won’t wreck it.”
“At least you’re honest,” her mother said. She’d already tossed Rika the keys before she said anything.
Rika was already inside. “Thanks, Mom,” she said. “This is crazy as all hell, but I think I love him.”
Saying the words somehow made it seem more real, but it didn’t make it seem any less stupid.
Her mother suddenly got very serious, sticking her head into the window and grabbing her shoulder. “The only thing stupid is not following your heart,” she said. “If you think you love this guy, and you’re going to go after him, then you do it and you don’t stop until you either reach the end of the world or you have him. I can’t tell you how many times I regretted something I never tried way more than something I did.”
“The world doesn’t have an end, ma,” Rika said, with a grin. She grabbed her mom’s hand and squeezed. The smell of wine-orade wasn’t very strong.
“Then I guess you’re just going to have to keep going until you drag his big, shaggy, beautiful ass in, huh? And what an ass it is.”
“Oh my God, Ma, you’re gonna kill me with all this. Boundaries exist for a reason.”
She stood up on tip toes and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I know, I just wasn’t ever very good at them.”
Rika laughed at that, and leaned her head back to crack her neck. “How far is it, do you know?”
Rosalie shrugged. “That’s why I have that thing.” She pointed to the ancient GPS suction-cupped to the windshield. “No reason to need a map if I’ve got magic technology to keep me from getting lost.”
“This from a woman who refuses to drink water out of the tap?”
“One thing you’re going to learn the older you get, hon,” Rosalie said. “You get to pick your battles. And if that thing keeps me from having to pull off the side of the road and gawk at a map every time I think I missed an exit? I’ll deal with the cognitive dissonance.”
The two of them shared a short laugh, and then squeezed one another’s hands. “Go get your bear, Paprika,” Rosalie said, stepping back from the car. “And while you’re there, say hello to your sister for me.”
Rika nodded, smiled, and started to back down the short driveway into the street.
“Paprika?” her mom called out as she did.
“Yeah?” she pulled to a jerky stop.
“And maybe while you’re there, find a good one for your sister? I get the feeling that she needs someone even more than you do, which... well, it’s saying something.”
Rika smiled, and gave her mom a faux salute as she closed the window and backed into the street.
After a few moments of infuriated pressing on the ancient touch screen, she’d got her directions to the address her sister had texted when they talked about her moving before. “Eighteen hours, huh?” she asked the device.
“EIGHTEEN HOURS, EIGHT MINUTES,” it answered in a robotic monotone that had a vague, and slightly disturbing English accent.
“Right,” Rika said. “Everyone’s an expert.”