Cold Feet (8 page)

“I don't know, exactly. I guess I thought actually being in the same city as him would help; I'm not sure why. Does that sound ridiculous?”

“Nope, it doesn't. What kind of Internet searching did you say you've done?” Dusty asked thoughtfully. I explained the shallow depths of my research and how difficult it was to find a person whose name wasn't really a name, but two words.

“That's the problem,” Dusty said, thinking out loud. “You need a search database that's only for people. Like Yellowpages .com. Something that won't cloud up the hits with half-moons and statistics on deer overpopulation.”

“Why deer . . . ? Oh, Hunter. Exactly! Hey, this is your area of expertise. After you get MyLocal up and running, you should start a Who's My Daddy app for people looking for deadbeat dads.”

Dusty laughed but looked like he was considering it. I made a mental note to invest.

“Have you tried LinkedIn?”

“No, only Facebook and Google,” I said, feeling like a moron. “That's a really good idea. That would narrow it down to just people.”

“Exactly. LinkedIn, Twitter, Meetup—something where you can put in a first and last name.”

Dusty pulled out his phone. “Here, let me show you.” Over the next few minutes, he quickly checked a few of the social networks he'd mentioned for Hunter's first name, last name, and any combination of the two, using HTML language and a search box I wasn't familiar with. This was ostensibly to make it go faster, although he might have just been showing off. I felt slightly less stupid when he also came up with nothing.

“I have to admit,” I joked, “I'm glad we didn't find him on Meetup. It sounds a little too Tinder-y for my taste.”

“Meetup isn't like that,” Dusty said defensively. “It's for people who have hobbies like skydiving and who move to new a city and want to meet people who share their interests.”

He paused.

I gave him a knowing look.

“Fine, I'll admit it. Carrick is the only person I knew when I moved to San Francisco. I joined to play Scrabble. And I know what you're going to say, but online Scrabble isn't the same! The sense of excitement is lost.”

I genuinely had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I excused myself to get another round of drinks with Liv, and we made a quick detour to the bathroom to have an official girl chat.

“You and Carrick seem to be hitting it off,” I said cheekily.

“He's cute,” Liv offered lightly. “I can't get over all of the coincidences today. First, our rental is on the street of the bar where I met Tony.” I reset the counter. “Then we run into the guys who
live there at the bar. What's next?” she said as she pushed the door open and turned back to look at me.

As if on cue, standing at the sink was Val Baby.

That wasn't her real name, of course. Her full name was Valerie Babbitt. Val Baby was her social media handle. More than that, it was what she encouraged everyone to call her. I am a firm believer in the fact that you can't give yourself a nickname. If a nickname comes your way, accept it. If not, sorry. But you can't tell people to call you A-Train or the Handyman; it either happens naturally or it doesn't. Thus spoke Emma on the Law of Nicknames.

But that was Val Baby in a nutshell. Ridiculously confident in her own skin, because at a size 2, with long black hair that fell down her back and almond-shaped green eyes so large that people often stopped midconversation to comment on them, why shouldn't she be? She had that exotic look that encouraged strangers to ask what her heritage was, as if her parents had the secret to impressive genetic combinations. I always wondered how these people planned to use this information, whether they asked out of genuine curiosity or solely in an effort to create the hottest match possible down the line. Oh, you're a Brazilian Italian, quarter Japanese? Hold on, booking a trip to Rio.

We were really good friends the first year I lived in Los Angeles. However, all at once, everything changed. The summer after we became friends, Sam and Val Baby left town to work on the aforementioned film,
On the Royal Road
, in South Carolina. It was
based and shot in Charleston, his mother's hometown, which gave the script a sense of place so real it could only have been written by someone who spent every summer there growing up.

Twelve weeks later, after a long, lonely summer without my new boyfriend and my current closest friend, they were back. As soon as Val came back, however, she dropped me like a bad habit. First she stopped texting me updates, then she was always too busy to hang out. Finally, her birthday rolled around and I saw her tagged in a big group dinner, looking gorgeous as she blew out the candles. I'd kept the night free, figuring we would be doing something to celebrate, so instead I sat at home, watching reality TV and feeling sorry for myself. A couple months later her network and profession changed on Facebook. She'd moved to San Francisco without telling me.

That was why the second I saw my old friend, instead of being excited to see her, my nerves kicked into high gear. I observed her leaning forward against the wide metal sink, applying bright red Nars lipstick. When I walked in, Val handed the lipstick back to her friend—who, even glossier than Val, was practically glistening—and turned to face us. My shackles went up. Her shiny friend gave us what could only have been called a smirk. My fight-or-flight response said,
Get the hell out of this bathroom immediately,
but I had no choice but to acknowledge her presence.

“Oh, hey, Val! How's it going?” I reached over for the extremely fake one-armed hug made popular by gymnasts the world over, who were attempting to show their team spirit post performance, but who quite clearly wanted to shank each other.

“Hi, Emma. Long time no see. And you're Lydia from New York, right?”

“Olivia. You got two syllables right,” Liv replied dryly. Val didn't seem to register the correction, lazily pushing up the sleeves of her three-thousand-dollar (give or take) off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater before beginning to apply another layer of mascara.
Unflappable
. The girl is unflappable.

“How are you?” I repeated nervously, my mind going blank from fear of confrontation. This was the first time I had seen her face-to-face in years. Val didn't respond, only stared at me, making me feel like an idiot in two seconds flat. Meanwhile, other girls were moving in and around the bathroom and I somehow managed to be in everyone's way at once.

Luckily, Liv stepped in. “I'm here for the wedding. I'm sure you heard, Sam and Emma are getting married.”

“Next Saturday,” I added unnecessarily.

“I did hear that, from some old friends at Left Brain. We were getting drinks and they mentioned they were heading to Santa Barbara next weekend.”

“We're going to a wedding next weekend, too,” Shiny piped in pointlessly. “In Turks.” She didn't elaborate so I looked to Val, but she was busy blotting her perfect bow lips with something that looked like a mini toilet seat cover. She had told me once—when she handed me one and I, having no idea what to do, tried to dry my forehead with it—that it was a lipstick blotter. Val knew so much more than I did about feminine makeup maintenance that
it made my head spin. Which was maybe why, in the brightest red lipstick ever, she somehow didn't look like a scary clown.

“Leaving tomorrow for a week,” she explained, without turning from her own reflection. “I can't wait to be tan.”

“Well, don't forget about skin cancer,” Liv said, flashing Val a fake smile. “Good to see you.”

Liv headed to a stall, reminding me what we were doing there in the first place. Val dropped the makeup she was holding into her leather fringed hobo bag, gave herself one last look of approval, and started toward the door, where I was still hovering.

“Bye, Emma. Good luck with the wedding.” This didn't sound like the normal thing one says in the circumstances, but this wasn't the most normal of situations. She pushed her way out, back into the bar, and oddly enough, I followed her.

“Can I ask you a weird question?” I asked, raising my voice over the din. She was silent but paused, which I took as my cue to go on. “What happened between us? You know, when you got back from Charleston, I never really figured out why we stopped hanging out.”

“Emma, that's ancient history,” she said, glancing at the noisy bar.

“Did I do something to upset you?”

“It wasn't that,” she said, moving her bag from one arm to another.

“Was it because of Sam? Because you felt caught in the middle or something? Did
he
do something to piss you off?”

“Emma.” Val paused and sighed heavily. “Fine. You're right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I did cut you off, and I'm sorry for that, but it was the right thing to do.”

“What do you mean?” My inner voice told me to turn around, stop the conversation. I no longer wanted to know.

“It was because of Sam.”

“What do you mean?” I attempted to keep my voice steady although my insides felt instantly sick, and my heart was beating out of its chest even harder than it had been when I started this idiot's mission.

“The truth is—and you might as well know now because I don't think you're gonna let me go until I tell you—we hooked up. In Charleston. I thought you knew.”

No, no, no, no, said my brain. This is not true. This cannot not be true. Everyone stop talking
now
. I felt a cold chill wash over my entire body.

“Look, I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry. I have beat myself up about it and I debated for a long time whether to tell you. I decided that it wasn't my place, but it didn't feel right staying your friend. If it makes you feel any better, I think he felt really bad about it.”

No,
I wanted to scream,
that does not make me feel better!
Why was she saying this, part of me demanded, when it couldn't be true? It was impossible. Sam was a lot of things. He was messy, he was stubborn, and, let's be honest, when he unwrapped gum wrappers in a movie theater when it was dead silent, it made me want to stab him, but he wasn't a cheater. He was honest to a fault. He made me pay for my fifty-cent soda refills, for God's sake. What Val was
suggesting was absolutely one hundred percent impossible. But as she stood there, staring at me, I realized that this wasn't a joke. She meant it. She was serious. Ashton Kutcher was nowhere to be found and besides, they don't punk real people, do they?

I felt like I was going to throw up. It was like I was watching myself have a nightmare, only I couldn't end it. Wake up, a voice in my head begged. Please wake up.

The weirdest part was Val's reaction. She was almost stoic. She looked slightly guilty, but not utterly ashamed. She looked like she'd just accidentally spoiled the plot twist in
Gone Girl
, not ruined my entire life.

“I don't know what to say, Emma. I didn't plan for any of this to happen. I don't think anyone did.” She gave me one final look that said,
It wasn't my proudest moment, but the statute of limitations on feeling bad is up,
and simply walked away. I wanted to run after her, to stop her, to make her take it back. But she was already gone.

CHAPTER 8

I
woke up on Sunday in an unfamiliar darkened room, startled from a terrible dream. In the dream, Sam was explaining that he was in love with Val and that he was leaving me for her. He asked if he could use our wedding to marry her instead. All of this took place on a train, but I didn't know where we were headed. I was desperate in the dream, pleading, begging him to change his mind, to give me another chance. But he was resolute; his decision was made. At one point the conductor came by and I realized in a hot flash of fear that I'd forgotten to buy a ticket. The scene changed. I was on the station platform, frantically attempting to make eye contact with Sam through the window and watching the train pull away. He never looked up as the train left the station and I dropped to my knees, crippled by the realization that I could do nothing to change his mind.

I woke up in the middle of a sob, gasping and blinking, slowly regaining consciousness. It was early, too early. So early you know that if you don't completely open your eyes you have a couple more hours of sleep in you. But the second you become aware of it, the game of chicken comes to an abrupt halt, and you're awake.

After losing the extra hours of sleep, I evaluated my mental state. For a brief moment I was relieved, realizing that the dream wasn't real, but then I remembered my current reality. I wasn't on a train, but I was definitely unsure of where I was going. Instantly anxious, and annoyed that my dreams couldn't be any subtler, I padded over to the window to check the weather. Pulling back the room-darkening curtains, I was slightly irritated to see the sun peeking through clouds. Right then the San Francisco fog would have been welcome.

I sat back down on the bed, careful not to wake Liv, trying to process what had happened the day before. But what
had
happened? I had no idea. I knew one thing. It couldn't be true. Val was either lying or confused, that much was clear. If this was a movie and a guy was falsely accused, I would be mad at the girlfriend for not giving him the benefit of the doubt. So I decided to. There was really no other option. It couldn't be true.

I had to hear him say it, I realized. I rooted for my phone inside my bag, then quickly scrolled through my recent contacts. There had to be some mistake. Maybe she'd mixed up the timing. Maybe they did hook up, but it happened before I even met Sam. My mind groped for this possibility quickly, hopefully, and I decided to hang on to it. For a moment, I felt the sickness start to subside and the mountain of ice in my chest begin to thaw. My heart started to beat more normally
and I drew a full deep breath. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, this idea, and the accompanying hope, was dashed. Sam hadn't even met Val before he knew me. They met at Left Brain, after he sold his first movie, a month after we started dating. With that realization the sickness reemerged, rising like an ice cap, colder and sharper than before, piercing my heart as it fought to get back through.

My call went to voicemail.

Liv turned to me sleepily.

“What are we doing here, Emma?”

“What do you mean? We're in San Francisco looking for my long lost dad. It was your idea, remember?”

“Em, that's not what I mean. You have to talk to Sam.”

“I tried to call him.” I pointedly opened my suitcase to get dressed. “He didn't answer.”

“Look, you have to deal with this. I'm as mad as you are, but this is something you guys can only fix if you talk about it.”

“First of all, I don't know what there is to fix. I don't know anything. I don't need to start talking about fixing a situation that couldn't even be true.”

“Fine, but we need to go back to L.A. so you can talk to Sam and confirm that.”

“Actually, I don't. Not right now. I tried to call. I did my due diligence. I know it's not true, so there is no sense in making a huge deal about this by flying home to confront him.”

“Okay.”

“You know, I'm not surprised,” I said, despite myself. “I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and there it is.”

It was true. My feelings about Sam and marriage had been twisted around each other for weeks. I blamed it on my background, and the persistent thoughts about finding Hunter, but here it was, another blow to the idea that marriage could ever possibly work. I didn't think there was any way that what Val had told me could be true, but the fact that this drama was even happening days before my wedding, wasn't that symbolic in and of itself?

In books and movies it's always so obvious whether or not people should be together. I could easily watch a romantic comedy and tell you within the first five minutes if the main characters would make it, or if she was really meant to end up with the scruffily hot next-door neighbor whom she thought she despised. Or, when reading a novel, I would think, That girl is so lucky to be with that amazing man—someone needs to tell her to stop acting like a dummy and tell him she loves him back, pronto! I would get stressed, wishing I could reach into these fictional worlds and tell the characters what to do. Yet in my own world, the real one, I had no idea what was right or wrong. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to know the answer.

I thought back to the beginning with Sam, when everything seemed so easy. When I first moved to L.A. after law school, I joined a Venice softball league for the sole purpose of making friends and meeting boys, as the thrill of competition (and coordination) are completely lost on me. During my first game, I was standing on the field trying to figure out how to get the team T-shirt on without taking my current shirt off, and Sam walked up. He smiled at me, offered his hand, and asked if I wanted to warm up, which I found funny, as I had no idea how one warmed up for a co-ed intramural
softball game. I knew immediately that it didn't matter, though. What mattered was the way this guy was looking at me, and the way it was making me feel. You know how you can tell someone is attracted to you? I felt it. Instantly. In spades.

It's not that I'm naturally beautiful in that way where I can bat my eyelashes and get out of a speeding ticket, or confidently slip a guy my number at a bar, knowing he'll call. I would describe myself objectively by saying, I do it for some guys. With wide gray eyes, slightly too angular cheekbones, and a dimple in my right cheek when I smile, I'm a bit unusual looking. When I was younger people would often comment that I would “grow into my looks.” It was the equivalent of the teacher's comment to a student's parents at a back-to-school conference that their child had potential, if only she would apply herself.

Before Sam, I've always had a type: dark. Dark hair, tanned skin, dirty stubble, and a wicked sense of humor. Kind of Robert Downey, Jr., postrehab. Which is why my instantaneous assessment when I met Sam was, Too bad he's blond, he's almost perfect. In the next thirty seconds, something happened. My type changed, or maybe Sam changed it for me. People debate all the time whether or not love at first sight exists. My opinion is, you don't believe in it if you haven't experienced it—which is technically true of a lot of things, like the magic of the Nubra and ghost stories, but I can speak from experience about this particular phenomenon. I fell in love with Sam, maybe not at first sight, but within about a minute. Maybe it was because he was so nice, picking out the one person on the team who didn't know anyone and making her feel included. Or because the
second we started tossing the softball back and forth and chatting, I felt instantly at ease. Or perhaps it was because our pheromones were on fire and I wanted to rip his clothes off right there on the field of Penmar Park. All I know is, the first time I met Sam, I knew I loved him. It was a simple truth, like knowing the capital of Zimbabwe or how to make a proper martini.

I sighed sadly, overwhelmed by the memories, by Val's claims, and by Liv's insistence that I deal with any of it, which I was in no way ready to do. We'd been prepared for a
spa week
, for goodness' sake. I missed feeling normal. I missed feeling sure of my surroundings. I missed Sam. I stood up decisively, putting an end to this unhealthy train of thought. I had something far more important to worry about. I was here to find my father, who, once located, would make everything clearer.

I took some deep breaths and focused on the task at hand, searching my suitcase for my most appropriate “I might be your daughter” outfit. Who knows? We could find him today.