I Was Here(47)

             Getting to Spokane is expensive and a pain, because the last bus back is pretty early and I don’t want to get stuck there for the night. I ask Tricia if I can use her car.

             “Can’t. Gonna earn me some mad money.” She mimes a slot machine and makes a ca-ching sound. “Wanna come?”

             Tricia loves to gamble, maybe because it’s the one area in her life where she actually has decent luck. When I was younger, she dragged me with her to the Indian casino in Wenatchee a few times.

             “No, thanks,” I tell her.

             I catch a bus to Spokane, figuring I can talk to Ben and skip out on his show if I can’t get a lift back tonight. On the ride out, I alternate between nervous and nauseated, but that’s pretty standard these days. Spending all this time trying to find Meg and All_BS has put me in a perpetual state of anxiety. I’ve had trouble eating and sleeping, and I’ve lost so much weight, Tricia says I look supermodely.

             It’s a short walk from the downtown station to the taqueria where Ben told me to meet him. It’s so hot and dry and dusty, winter having jumped right into summer without ever passing spring this year, which seems fitting. All extremes, no time for gentle transitions.

             Ben is already at the near-empty restaurant, in a booth in the back. He jumps up when I come in, and he looks both tired—probably from being on the road—and happy—maybe also from being on the road.

             When I get to the edge of the booth, we both just stand there for a second, unsure of what to do. After a slightly awkward pause, I say: “Should we sit?”

             He nods. “Yeah, sitting’s good.”

             There’s a six-pack on the table. “It’s BYO,” Ben explains. “Do you want one?”

             I take a beer. The waitress sets down a basket of chips and some salsa, and I scoop some up, and find that I can actually eat it. Ben and I drink our beers and small-talk for a bit. He tells me about the tour, about the floors they’ve slept on, about sharing a toothbrush with the drummer because he lost his. I tell him that’s disgusting. That you can buy toothbrushes at any 7-Eleven. But he says it wouldn’t make as good a story, and I’m reminded that Ben McCallister is all about the artifice.

             We talk about the cats, and he has pictures on his phone, a sort of ridiculous amount of kitten pictures for a guy to have. Our food comes out, and we talk about other bullshit stuff, and after a while it starts to become clear that I’m sidestepping my way around the thing I should be talking about. The reason I’m here.

             I take a deep breath. “So, I found some stuff.”

             Ben looks at me. And those eyes. I have to look away. “What stuff?”

             “On Meg’s computer. And then from there.” I start off by telling him about the documents Harry decrypted. I’d planned to show him the posts Meg wrote to All_BS—I’ve brought them with me—but I don’t get the chance, because he’s jumping down my throat.

             “I thought you said you were going to tell me if you found anything,” he says.

             “I’m telling you now.”

             “Yeah, but only because I called you. What if I hadn’t?”

             “Sorry. There didn’t seem much point.”

             I don’t mean anything by it, but he leans back in the booth, and I can tell he’s pissed.

             “Cowgirl Cody rides alone, huh?” he says with that growl.

             “Didn’t used to,” I say. I push away my plate. My appetite has vanished again. “That’s why I’m doing this.”