SO CASSIE WAS SINGLE, in a U-Haul with a couch and a half a ton of books from her bookshelves, pulling into a BP station outside of Baker on I-15W, when she learned of Costco Long’s bombing of the Social Security Administration Building and his and Mark’s arrests. She’d hit the California border. It didn’t have one-one-millionth of a percent of the effect of Independence Pass. After six hours of tearing across the blank Nevada desert west of Vegas, doing eighty-five in a rented truck and having Honda Odyssey minivans pass her doing a hundred, she saw the sign for California and saw it pass in the same desert blankness. Every iota of the freedom she’d felt the day before had disappeared in the grinding push of moving across Western desert. Maybe arriving at the Pacific would feel more exciting.
No matter what she was or wasn’t feeling, she had done it, she’d driven across the country alone and without the Internet and now she wanted the Internet again. She opened iTunes and hit the first song she saw, Violent Femmes’ first record in a flash blaring on the radio with its everything, everything, everything, everything—she rocked out to it for a second, then turned it down.
She turned the key in the ignition, pulled it out, and pocketed it. She got out of the truck, filled it with gas, bought a Vitamin Water—the one with taurine for the jolt, though it tasted like the spit from someone who’d been eating a pomegranate popsicle—and got back into the truck. She located her phone in her bag and went to Options and slid the Airplane Mode to off, a little sliver of green going white, and then the thing started buzzing buzzing buzzing in her hand. Twenty-seven texts flipping through at rapid pace at the top of the screen, a little red superscript showing thirteen new voice messages, all of them from Regan. Well, and two from Natalia. Natalia? She didn’t even have time to look through any of it before she went ahead and called Regan.
“Listen, you don’t need to worry,” Regan said.
“Worry about what?” Cassie said.
“Uh, about your own safety,” Regan said. “I already talked to my lawyer and he said you should call him as soon as you can. I’ll text you his number when we get off. They preserved all your e-mail here at the office, so I was able to access it, and clearly you had nothing to do with it.”
“What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talking. About.”
“Uh, okay. I guess I should say: Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling for two days.” Cassie said that of course she’d been, well, everywhere there was to be between New York and Baker, California. Driving across country. She’d decided to put her phone on Airplane Mode until she got all the way west so she could have some peace.
“And I did,” Cassie said. “I had some peace—holy shit, the Colorado Rockies! I’ve never seen anything like it. I think maybe I had an actual mystical experience or something.”
“Airplane Mode is for when you’re on an airplane,” Regan said. “Because no one is on an airplane for two full fucking days while the world goes crazy while they’re gone.” Cassie didn’t say anything. “Well, whatever. Mark Brumfeld and his friend bombed the Social Security Administration Building. People died. It has totally overwhelmed the news. His friend is dead and Mark is in custody, but listen, you don’t need to worry.”
“Mark … and Costco … did what the fuck now? Say again.”
Regan kept talking but Cassie wasn’t listening. Couldn’t. Couldn’t bring herself to. Make herself. She took the phone from her ear and hit the big black button at the bottom and opened the Times app on her phone. There it was, the first story on Top Stories, or what used to be called The Front Page: Mark’s mug shot and a picture of Costco and a picture of smoke trailing up from the white buildings in Woodlawn Costco had driven them by when she was down in Baltimore just more than a month ago. What. The. Shit. The Times story went away and her phone just said “Regan” in that signature Helvetica Neue, and a green button to answer or a red button to tell her to fuck off. There was a weird ringing in Cassie’s ears that was different from the ringing she heard from the cold of the Rockies. She could feel a squiggle in her esophagus and she barely opened the door to the U-Haul in time to vomit pomegranate Vitamin Water onto the pavement of the BP station. She spit twice, three times, and called Regan back.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Cassie said.
“I know you had nothing to do with it,” Regan said. “So does our lawyer.”
“Lawyer?” Cassie said. “Our?”
“Yes. I’ve been in touch with him. He’s been in touch with a contact at the Bureau and you don’t have anything to worry about. I mean you’ll need to go in to make a statement, but beyond that you have nothing to worry about. I’ve been through your e-mails here like I said, and like I said they look great for you—Mark asking and pining for you but you just giving cold shoulder. Stuff about playing in a band together. And nothing at all about his activities.”
“Been through my e-mails?”
“Had no choice, dear Cassius Clay. You’ve been radio silent—Airplane Mode—for two fucking days, right after your ex-boyfriend committed a domestic terroristic act. You’re lucky you have me. And Lucien.”
“The lawyer. Lucien the lawyer.”
“Yes. He was awfully glad you had your contract from Atelier on your desktop, too. What a godsend that turned out to be. It’s all airtight, time-stamped and dated and clear cut. Even with you MIA. But still, call him right now. Don’t wait until you get to San Fran. Call him.”
So she called Lucien the Lawyer.
“Listen, first and foremost don’t worry,” Lucien Williams said.
“I’m not worried. Do we know how he is?”
“Who?” Williams said.
“Mark.”
“No,” Williams said. “Please don’t worry about him, either. Whatever trouble he’s in now he’s made for himself. And he’s made plenty.”
And so that was it. She drove on to the Bay Area with her head full of Mark Brumfeld all over again. It would be weeks before she could think of anything else. Before anyone could.