Connect the Stars (20 page)

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Kate cleared her throat and, with her eyes trained on the ground, said, “Maybe sometimes, for example, a person will lie about sawdust because she's worried that ever since her grandmother died, her family doesn't get along so well, and her house isn't a very nice place to visit.”

Even though I would have sworn there wasn't a drop of extra liquid left in my body, my eyes filled with tears. I reached over, took Kate's hand, squeezed it, and let it go. She raised her dark eyes to me and smiled.

“And maybe,” I said, “a person will lie and say she isn't friends with her friends because she's scared of being hurt, and she's been telling herself that same lie for so long that she almost—but not quite—believes it, and then, afterward, she'll realize she would give anything if she could just take the lie back.”

I held my breath.

“It sounds to me like she just did,” said Louis.

I shook my head. “No. I lied to you guys. I did. Nothing can change that.”

Kate, Aaron, and Louis all looked at me.

“What I'm hoping,” I said, “is that you'll stay friends with me anyway.”

They exchanged glances with each other, smiles dawning on all their faces. On mine too.

“Well, sure,” said Aaron. “Definitely. Because—” He paused.

The four of us said it at the same time: “The anyway is the whole point.”

For a second, even with my backpack straps digging into my shoulders, I felt light as air, like I might float right off that gritty trail.

“Ishkabbible! Pishkabbible! Mishkabbible!” Randolph sang in his sleep.

We all laughed. When we finished, we kept hiking.

“Kate?” said Aaron after a minute or two.

“Yeah?”

“I'm just wondering. I mean, you're so good at walking in other people's shoes, right?”

“I guess.”

“Well, I'm wondering if you've ever tried to walk in
your mom's, to try to figure out why she acts like she's not sad about her own mom dying. Because I bet there's a reason.”

“I bet so too,” I said.

Kate walked a few steps, her face soft with thought. Then she nodded. “Maybe I will,” she said. She nodded again. “I will.”

A cloud covered the sun, and in unison, Aaron, Kate, Louis, and I stopped hiking and lifted our faces to the sudden coolness. We stood there together, soaking up the sunlessness, until the cloud slid away, and then we started hiking again.

An hour later, the seamless rock wall we seemed to be hiking smack into stopped being seamless. When we shielded our eyes with our hands, we could just make out the slot canyon, a mere crack in the towering sandstone face. According to the map inside Aaron's head, on the other side of the canyon was the river, the point where Daphne was supposed to meet her father, the spot at which she'd never arrived. In less than an hour, we'd be at the mouth of the slot canyon, and not only had we not found Daphne, we hadn't found any trace of her since the boot print hours ago. And now, with the mountains rising up steeply on either side of us, it seemed less likely than ever that
she'd accidentally strayed from the trail. Who would leave a perfectly good trail and head straight up a near-vertical incline? And why?

We were taking a break. The four of us sat in a circle, with Randolph lying a little ways away. With a sigh, Kate had poured the last of our water down him, and we'd left him lying in the meager shadow—all the shadow we'd been able to find—of a creosote bush.

“This doesn't make sense,” groaned Kate. “If she'd gotten hurt or run out of water, we would have found her. If she'd gotten delirious or lost in the dark and wandered off the trail, we would have found her or some trace of her. If her father had found her, he would've called Jare. If he'd come to find her and gotten hurt or dehydrated, we would've found him or both of them. She isn't on the trail and she isn't off the trail. Where could she have gone?”

“Ugh. I just wish I could climb inside her head,” I said.

“Really?” said Louis, wide-eyed. “That could be a pretty scary place.”

“Can you, Kate?” asked Aaron.

Kate stopped and shut her eyes, trying to imagine what it was like to be Daphne, but then she shook her head and opened them.

“I just didn't know her well enough,” she said, then caught herself. “I mean
don't
know her well enough.”

“None of us really knew her very well,” I said. “I mean
know
her very well.”

“Yeah, she wasn't what you'd call approachable,” said Louis. “I mean
isn't
.”

“I kind of hate to suggest this,” said Kate, “but maybe it's time we talked to the only person around here who did know her. I mean
does
. He seems to be getting perkier.”

We all turned to look at Randolph, who was sitting up, scowling in a familiar way, and not singing a nonsense song. As we watched, he reached out to the creosote bush that had been sharing its puddle of shade with him, yanked off a handful of it, threw the handful on the ground, and eyed it with satisfaction.

“Randomly tormenting the innocent,” observed Louis.

“Yep,” I said grimly. “He appears to be back to normal.”

“If only he could spend his entire life in a state of life-threatening dehydration, he'd be a much nicer guy,” said Kate. “Weird and with a really bad singing voice, but nicer.”

Reluctantly, we all lugged ourselves to our feet and started toward Randolph. When he saw us, he yelled, “Hey! I'm thirsty. Which one of you morons is hogging all the water?”

I saw Kate tense up, but I said quietly, “I know, I know, but hold off. Remember we want his help.”

When we got to Randolph, Aaron said, in his cheerful
way, “It looks like you're feeling better.”

“Fit as a fizzle,” said Randolph, thumping himself on the chest.

“Fiddle,” mumbled Kate.

“What was that?” growled Randolph.

“‘Fit as a fiddle' is an idiom that dates from the early 1600s. Originally it was used to describe suitability or appropriateness rather than health, and while its exact origins are unknown, some speculate that it refers to the way a violin fits snugly under the chin,” said Aaron. I glanced at him, his tired face and anxious eyes. I knew he was doing his best. He'd dialed way back on the info-spouting lately, but when he got stressed, the facts just seemed to pop out on their own.

Before Randolph could throw something at Aaron, I jumped in. “Randolph, we were hoping you'd help us,” I said.

“Ha! Like that's ever gonna happen.”

“Not us,” said Kate. “Daphne.”

It was exactly the right thing to say. I could practically see the storm cloud over Randolph's head dissolve.

“Oh,” he said.

“You know her better than anyone,” I said, following Kate's lead. “We think you're her best hope.”

Heaven help me—and Daphne—this wasn't a lie.

Randolph dropped his sneer and, for a few seconds, looked almost human, blinking and flattered and about seven years old. Then he smirked and said, “More like her only hope. You guys are obviously clueless. Okay. What?”

“Well, she was supposed to meet her father, but it seems like she never did, and she doesn't seem to have run into any trouble along the trail. So we were wondering if you have any idea about where she might have gone instead.”

“The answer to that is a big fat nowhere,” said Randolph. “She never would've stood up her dad.” After a second, he added, “That girl thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

“In 1928, Iowan Otto Frederick Rohwedder perfected the first loaf-at-a-time—” began Aaron, but before I could even send him a warning glance, he stopped, which was good because it meant that I never had to take my eyes off Randolph, so I caught the expression that flickered over his face right after Aaron said the Otto Frederick Rohwedder thing. It was an expression I had never seen Randolph make before and, until that moment, would've bet wasn't even something his face could convey: pity. Randolph felt sorry for Daphne.

“She thinks he's great,” I said. “But you don't, do you?”

He stuck out his jaw. “Yeah, I do! The guy is like the
coolest dad in the world. Anyone would kill to have a dad like that.”

Lie. Lie. Lie.

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Most definitely!” said Randolph.

Lie.
But I knew that if I called him on his lying, he'd get mad and clam up. No matter how irritating Randolph was, if we wanted his help, I had to tread lightly.

“I know Daphne confided in you. Why don't you tell us what you know about him?” I asked. “It might help.”

Randolph punched his thighs with his fists, not hard, but not that lightly either. He was thinking. He stopped punching and looked up.

“Okay, so there was this one Christmas break when he invited Daphne to go snowboarding in, like, one of those awesome places in Colorado where movie stars and whatnot go. He bought her a business-class ticket and everything. He got to the place a couple days ahead of her, and get this, he met Vaughan Gray!”

“Who's Vaughan Gray?” asked Louis.

“X Games? Snowboarder? Only the best in the whole entire freaking world?” said Randolph disgustedly.

“Oh.”

“Anyway, Vaughan and a bunch of his X Games buds
were taking off for this other really amazing resort in, like, Park City, Utah, and
they invited Daphne's dad to come with them
.”

“Wow,” I said, doing my best to sound impressed. I'd never been a snowboarding fan and honestly only knew Vaughan Gray because he starred in some funny soap commercials that Janie loved, but it seemed like a bad idea to tell Randolph that.

“Did he go?” asked Aaron.

“Duh. Of course he went,” said Randolph. “Do you know how many people would kill to hang with guys like Vaughan Gray? Like, millions.”

He stopped and squinted up at the sky.

“Go on,” Kate said. “Please.”

Randolph shrugged. “That's it.”

Lie.

“Really?” said Kate gently. “Because it seemed like there was more you wanted to say. To, you know, help Daphne.”

At the sound of Daphne's name, Randolph's face got serious.

“Okay. A couple days later, Daphne's dad texted her all these awesome pictures of him with the X Gamers. Obviously, she was blown away. She printed a bunch out and hung them on her bulletin board, after she got home.”

Randolph dropped his eyes as he said this, but not before I saw the pity flare in them again.

“Home from where?” I asked.

Randolph kicked the clump of leaves and branches he'd broken off the creosote bush. “Well, the really hilarious thing is that she got the pictures while she was waiting at the airport,” he said.

“Which airport?” asked Aaron. “Was she about to get on the plane to go to Colorado?”

“No. The airport
in
Colorado, stupid,” said Randolph. “She was in baggage claim. Had been there for a while, I guess.”

“How long?” asked Louis.

“Why does it matter?” snapped Randolph.

“It might,” I said simply.

“Whatever. All day. I mean, I think that's what she said. Like the place was practically deserted. The janitors were mopping and whatnot.”

“So hold on,” said Aaron, frowning. “He left town and forgot to pick up his daughter at the airport? She waited there for
hours and hours
?”

Randolph glared at her. “Dude! It was the chance of a lifetime to snowboard with those guys! In his position, I would've done the same thing.”

Lie.

“Anyway, it was fine. She got a cab to this fancy hotel, ordered room service, took a bath in a tub as big as a swimming pool. She had a blast. And he came to get her late the next night, so she got to spend a full twenty-four hours in the hotel. By the time he got there, they only had a day left before Daphne had to go home, so they never actually went snowboarding, but that was cool because the hotel was awesome.”

“He didn't come get her until the next night?” I asked. “He didn't rush back? So, what? There was a snowboarder party that day he didn't want to miss?”

I was so horrified by Daphne's dad that I had forgotten to tread lightly. I braced myself, waiting for Randolph to lash out at me, get defensive. But the odd thing was, he didn't.

He looked straight at me and said, “I guess the snow conditions were especially dandy. He brought her a T-shirt from that other resort, though, signed by Vaughan Gray. So it was all good.”

His tone was hard, quiet but bitter. You didn't have to have a lie-detecting unsuperpower to know that Randolph didn't think there was anything “all good” about any of it.

After a while, Kate said, “I don't buy it. No one could really forget his own kid like that.”

We looked at her, surprised.

“I guess Daphne's dad could,” said Louis.

“He admitted to it,” said Randolph defensively. “That's totally what happened!”

“Forgetting your kid doesn't exactly make you look good,” said Aaron. “Why would anyone lie about that? Kate? What do you think?”

Kate lifted her chin. She looked furious. “Yeah, forgetting your kid is bad. I can only think of one thing worse.”

Aaron, Louis, and I exchanged puzzled looks.

“Oh!” I said, suddenly understanding. “The only thing worse is if he remembered and still didn't pick her up.”

“Yeah! Just left her there because he chickened out, couldn't handle the parent-child alone-time thing,” blurted out Randolph angrily. Quickly he collected himself. “Not that that's what happened. It would just be kind of a typical dad thing to do.”

We all stared at Randolph. Deserting your kid because you were scared to hang out with her was a typical dad thing to do?