Chapter 41: A Pink Message Slip
Marisol kept a pad of duplicate message slips beside the phone.
Pink on top, yellow underneath.
She filled them in for me even after I started answering the phone, because she was at the counter and I was in the back.
On the Thursday before Halloween there was one on my keyboard when I came back from lunch.
Her handwriting is small and upright and she prints.
TIME: 12:41. FOR: CASS.
FROM: RENATA HALLOWAY.
Then, on the message line: Says she is your aunt. Says it is about family. Would not leave a number.
Then, underneath, in the same pen, one more line that was not part of the form.
She knew where you work.
I stood and read that slip four times with my bag still on my shoulder.
Then I put it in the notebook, and then I took it out and put it flat on the desk, because folding it felt like a decision.
Marisol came through at one, stood in the doorway with a folder under her arm, and did not sit down.
She said, “She asked for you by name and by this address.”
I said, “How did she sound?”
She said, “Like somebody who does this.”
I said, “Does what?”
She said, “Calls.” And then, “Pleasant. Very pleasant.”
I asked whether she had asked how Renata got the number.
Marisol said, “I asked. She said somebody mentioned it.”
There is no version of this where somebody mentioned it. I do not know a single person who knew both facts.
Except that there is a version, and it is boring, and it is the correct one, which is that I am on a bail bonds company's public licence page as a clerical employee.
I checked that evening at the library. I am.
Name, role, date of hire. It is a licensing requirement.
Anybody with my name and eleven minutes can find where I work. My aunt had six years and a reason.
So it was not sinister. I want to write down that I checked before I decided it was sinister, because I did not always do that.
I did not call for nine days.
I want to account for the nine days honestly, because they were not brave and they were not clever.
Day one to day three, I told myself I was busy, and I was, because month end is forfeiture notices.
Day four, I decided I would call at lunch and then did not go to the phone.
Day five was a Wednesday and I was at the district office at eight and did not get to the office until half ten.
Day six I put the slip back in the notebook, which meant I could stop seeing it every time I sat down.
Day seven and eight were the weekend, and the wall phone at Cranmore has a sign-up sheet, and I did not sign up.
Day nine I signed up for 7:00 to 7:15 and I did not need fifteen minutes.
She had left no number, but Halloway is not a common name in that county and there was one listing.
She answered on the second ring and said the full number back, which is a thing people her age do.
I said, “It's Cass.”
There was a pause of about two seconds. I have written elsewhere about two-second pauses.
Then she said, “Oh, sweetheart.”
I did not say anything, because there was nothing in that sentence to answer.
She said she had been trying to find me since March. She said it as though March had been difficult for her. It had been difficult for her. I do not doubt that.
I said, “You found where I work.”
She said, “I found where you work in April.”
That is a true thing to say and it is also the answer to a question I had not asked, which told me she had prepared for it.
Six months between April and October. I did not raise it. She did not explain it. Six months is twenty-six weeks. I did not say that either.
She asked if we could meet. She said she did not want to do this on a telephone.
I said, “Do what?”
She said, “Talk. Just talk. Nothing else.”
I said, “Saturday. Eleven. The coffee place on Dell Street, on the corner by the chemist.”
She said she knew it. She said, “I'll be there at eleven.”
Then she said, “Cass. I'm so glad you called.”
I said, “Saturday,” and put the receiver down, and it was 7:11, and I had four minutes left.
The next person on the sheet was Yaz, who was standing there with her arms folded.
I said, “It's yours.”
She said, “You look grey.”
I said, “I'm fine.” Which was not a lie, exactly, but it was not the kind of true I would put in a document.