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In which our hero shrugs off an existential threat to his doll collection.
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CARL: Edwin, if you don’t call home right now I swear I will destroy every Star Wars doll in your room.
The preceding text message was from Carl. It was the seventh of eighty-four threatening texts he’d send over the next two days, though I missed most of them after Parker blocked his number in my phone. By then we’d been on the run for over an hour, and word had trickled back home that we would, in fact, not be on the next flight to Atlanta. We were still in Paris though, lost in the 8th arrondissement, because (1) Central Paris is a cluster of roundabouts, medieval one-way streets, bike lanes, and crosswalks, which would have been okay had we been the only ones driving, but (2) apparently every person in France was driving in central Paris that morning, and there was never even a chance to pull over and get our bearings, which still might have been okay with a competent navigator, but (3) Parker was perhaps the worst navigator in the history of navigation. Half the time she was reading my text messages and wasn’t even looking at Google Maps, but we did see the Eiffel Tower eleven times, which was cool the first three.
“Your stepdad texted again,” Parker said as I tried to successfully negotiate the Arc de Triomphe roundabout for the fifth time that morning, a new American record.
“Okay,” I said, half paying attention.
“He says he’ll destroy your Star Wars dolls if you don’t call home.”
“They’re not dolls,” I said, trying to ignore the shouting man in the car next to us who was upset I’d violated some unwritten rule of French traffic courtesy. “They’re vintage action figures. And he’s bluffing.”
“I don’t think so. He cut off Darth Vader’s head,” Parker said, shoving the phone in my face.
“The heads come off,” I said, pushing her hand away.
“Uh oh. He melted Chewbacca in the microwave,” Parker said, shoving the phone back in my face.
“That’s a Snickers,” I said, pushing the phone away again. “Just reply that I’m fine and I’ll call home soon.”
“Too late,” Parker said, typing with her thumbs. “I told him we were on a train to Gibraltar and you’d call after our wedding.”
“Dammit. No. Why’d you—”
“Because that’s where John and Yoko got married.”
I gave her a dirty look.
“Besides,” she said, “you said you weren’t going to call home until we found Madeleine so what does it matter? This way they might all think we’re going south.”
“Sure,” I said, “but tell him the wedding part was a joke. Mom will flip out and she’s stressed enough.”
“I knew you’d get cold feet,” Parker said, before losing focus again and saying, “Oooh, what’s that?”
I risked taking my eyes off the road for a second and looked up at a massive white building on a distant hill overlooking Paris.
“I don’t know,” I said, “but it’s beautiful. Maybe it’s a castle. Does France still have a king?
“France beheads their kings,” Parker said. “But Spain still has one.”
“I doubt the King of Spain lives in France,” I said, and we heard Garland growling from the back seat.
“It’s a church,” the old man said, slowly sitting up. He’d been asleep since we’d left the cafe. “It’s called Sacré-Cœur, and it’s on a hill called Montmartre. Best view in the world from that church’s steps, and they’ve got these singing nuns ... anytime they had me in France through the years I made a point to go up there to hear those nuns sing. Wait, why the hell are we still in Paris?”
“Because he/she can’t drive/navigate,” Parker and I said in unison.
Garland sighed and said, “Parker hon, see if Rémy was kind enough to leave a map in his car.”
“There’s a map on my phone,” I said.
“And how far has that gotten us,” Garland snapped. “Parker. Map.”
Parker opened the glove compartment and began taking inventory aloud, “Owner’s manual, gum, dental floss, mouthwash. Rémy is way into oral hygiene.”
“We’re looking for a map, dear,” Garland reminded her.
“No map,” she said, then began digging under her seat. A moment later she shouted, “Holy shit!”
I almost wrecked. “What?”
“Shit,” she said again, and Garland leaned over the back seat to investigate. Using two fingers like she was holding a dead mouse by the tail, Parker pulled a small black pistol with a dark wooden grip from under the seat.
I didn’t get a great look at the gun because taking your eyes off the road in Paris is inadvisable, but at first glance I thought it was a toy. In my defense it was the first time I’d ever seen a gun up close.
“What is it?” I asked.
Garland took the pistol and said, “It’s a 9mm. SIG Sauer P938 if I’m not mistaken.”
“Throw it out the window,” Parker said, scooting up in her seat in an attempt to get as far away from the gun as possible.
“I’m not throwing it out the window,” Garland said. “That’d be littering. Besides, we might need it later.”
“In what scenario would we possibly need a gun?” I asked, but Garland ignored my question and began shouting driving directions. He was guessing, I think—we did pass the Eiffel Tower three more times—but half an hour later we found the motorway and headed west. Satisfied that we wouldn’t get lost again, Garland lay back down. Parker reclined her seat, propped her feet on the dash, and started to put her earbuds in and I asked, “New Pornographers?” but failed to mention I’d downloaded the song she played me on Tuesday and listened to it seventy-six times already.
“What? No. Camera Obscura. I’m only listening to Scottish bands with female singers this month.”
“It’s still April,” I said.
“Oh, you think I’m on the Gregorian calendar, Edwin Green? That’s cute.”
I wanted to reply, but sometimes she’d say things so bizarre the gears in my brain would grind to a halt, so I didn’t say anything and she put her earbuds in and leaned her head against the window and fell asleep. I drove for maybe an hour and watched as the landscape became increasingly rural. Endless farm fields dotted by tiny French villages, each with a church tower standing tall on the horizon. I watched these forgotten towns pass in Parker’s window, and then I watched Parker, the rise and fall of her breath, the part of her lips, the terror in her eyes when the wheels of Rémy’s hatchback left the road and a tractor-trailer blared his horn as I swerved to get back on the motorway.
Garland moaned from the back seat but didn’t wake up, and Parker looked at me like she knew I’d been watching her sleep, and I stared straight ahead like nothing happened. A few minutes later she shoved my phone back in my face and said, “Someone named Fitz said you should stop breaking international laws and call him right now.”
“You know Fitz,” I said. “He’s in three of your classes at school.”
“If you say so,” Parker said, and handed me my phone. I called Fitz.
“Green, I dreamt you texted me last night and said you were in France with Parker Haddaway, which sucks because I’d rather not dream about you and Parker Haddaway. No offense.”
“None taken,” I said.
“But my mom woke me up thirty minutes earlier than normal and dragged me into the living room and unpaused the morning news and there was your ugly mug next to Parker’s and some old geezer named Garland.”
“We were on the news,” I announced to the car, but Garland didn’t stir and Parker had her earbuds back in. “What news?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Fitz said, “whatever news my mom watches in the morning.”
“Yeah, but was is it like local Birmingham news, or—”
“No, it was the NBC one. The Today Show. They played a clip of the old man’s attorney, then Al Roker made a couple jokes about you guys, then they moved on to a cooking segment.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Yeah, shit,” Fitz repeated. “You didn’t mention this hypothetical plan of questionable legality involved kidnapping some old man. You know, if you wanted to be famous for doing something illegal you didn’t have to go all the way to France. You could have just threatened the President on Twitter without leaving your bed.”
“We didn’t kidnap him. Wait, is that what Al Roker said? That we kidnapped him?”
“That’s what the old man’s lawyer said. He was on the courthouse steps shouting about the old man being out of his mind and that you and Parker planned to ransom him or something.”
I tapped Parker on the shoulder and when she took out her earbuds I said, “Garland’s lawyer went on national television this morning and told the world we kidnapped him and we’re holding him for ransom.”
“Bitchin’,” Parker said.
“No, not bitchin’,” I said to her, then to Fitz, “We didn’t kidnap him. He wanted us to take him to Europe to find a woman he met during World War II.”
“So you thought, ‘Hmm, if I help this crazy old man find some French chick he hooked up with seventy years ago my super famous ex-girlfriend might notice me again.’”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, it looks like your dumb plan might work. Too bad you’re going to prison. You should call Al Roker and tell him your side of the story.”
“Yeah ... or better yet,” I said, “I’ve posted a couple of videos of Garland telling his story, can you send those to every news outlet you can think of?”
“Sure,” Fitz said.
“Actually wait, give me twenty minutes. I’ve got a better idea.”