I kissed the girls goodbye with a twinge of guilt. But I also hoped that years later, they wouldn’t remember me leaving. Hopefully, when they were older and looked back on their tough time, they would remember me for getting them through it—as flawed a human as I was. I also recognized that as a mother, there wasn’t a time, tragedy or not, that I could leave my kids without feeling a twinge of guilt. It came with the territory.
I fell asleep soon after takeoff and awoke with a start to the plane touching down on the tarmac. Instead of feeling refreshed, I felt exhausted.
Sarah waited in baggage claim. She jumped up and down, clapping, when she saw me. She was dressed head to toe in white over a golden tan, looking ever the Beach Boys’ California girl, with her blond hair cascading in waves down her back. We embraced, and I felt tears in my eyes. I hadn’t seen her in over a year. With her in front of me, all the reasons I’d pushed her away the last few months seemed silly.
She held me at arm’s length. “You look awful!” But she was smiling.
“Thanks a lot. You know, I’ve been through a tragedy here.”
“Yeah, but do you sleep? At all? You look so tired!”
“If you tell someone they look tired, you mean they look old,” I protested.
“Well, you finally lost those twenty pounds you’ve been talking about for years. How does that feel?”
“Oh, Sarah, I’ve hardly noticed it. Isn’t that the shit of it? I can’t even enjoy being in a size smaller jeans. I’d take every pound back and then some to erase the last six months.” I pulled my red-wheeled suitcase off the conveyer belt.
“How do you look exactly the same?” I asked, shaking my head. “You don’t age; you don’t get fat. Have you had Botox?”
She laughed. “No, no Botox, I swear!”
She linked her arm through mine as we walked into the brilliant sun and led me to her car, a midnight blue BMW convertible. Seriously? Good thing our friendship doesn’t have a competitive edge to it. I let the warm California sun beat down on my shoulders as she drove. The seventy-degree weather felt rejuvenating compared to the cold gray of March in New Jersey.
“What do you want to do while we’re here, Claire?” Sarah asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know what I wanted.
“Do you want to sightsee?”
“I think so. I think I want this to be a vacation with the understanding that I have to go to the places where I know Greg stayed. And I might need a day to be on my own, following my hunches. Does that sound crazy?”
Sarah shook her head. “Sounds good to me. I did some searching, and I came up with a few things we could do. The zoo, and there’s a railroad winery tour. Gray whales migrate in the winter off the coast, so a whale watching tour is supposed to be amazing right now. And maybe a spa day. What sounds good to you?”
I waved my hand in a distracted I don’t care motion. I couldn’t concentrate. It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and all I wanted to do was start my hunt for Greg. I realized that was unfair to Sarah. “What about this? Let’s go to the hotel, and I can drop you off. You relax. I’ll take your car, if you’ll let me, and go do my Greg things. Then, I’ll come back and get you around seven for dinner.”
Sarah shook her head. “No way. I’m coming with you. If you ever do actually find him, I need to be there.”
“Ok, fine, but I get to kill him.” I grinned.
We headed north on I-5 North to Greg’s Valentine’s Day hotel, the Grand Del Mar. I tipped my head back on the seat rest and looked up at the sky, blue and cloudless. Did Greg look at this exact same sky? Maybe mere miles from me?
I was unprepared for the lavish spread of the Grand Del Mar. A red adobe Spanish-style roof baked in the sun, and forty-foot palm trees lined the driveway, swaying in the gentle breeze. Elaborate stone fountains decorated the entryway. The luxury hotel was out of my league, out of our league. We’d stayed at a Hilton on our honeymoon.
A valet opened my car door. I felt self-conscious and out of place, as if I had come naked to the presidential inauguration.
Sarah gaped at the building. “What exactly are we doing here?” she stage-whispered.
“Honestly, I have no idea.” I touched the fifteen pictures of Greg in my purse and felt ridiculous. The Grand Del Mar was not a convention center hotel, and there would be no naïve southern belle at the front desk. The concierge would be a skilled trade master. We walked inside where a tall, frosty woman greeted us.
I stepped up to the counter. “I’m not sure if you can help me. But can you tell me if this man has stayed here recently?” I fanned the pictures in front of her.