“No,” she says. “God, no. I’m sorry. I’m just tense.”

“I know, it’s okay,” I say.

I know she wants to stay on the phone and say nothing, but my flight to Providence, Rhode Island, is boarding.

“You there?”

“Yes! Joe! Stop asking me! Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She cries. I tell her it’s okay and now I’m gonna have to wait. I can’t board with Group A. People are real assholes about their suitcases and I’m nervous there won’t be room for mine, but Love comes first. Suddenly she is laughing.

“I’m watching Friends,” she says. “It’s the one where—”

“Shit,” I say. “I think I see him.”

I hang up and rush to the Jetway. It’s a shitty thing to do, but watching Friends while you’re on the phone with your boyfriend is also a shitty thing to do. I text her: Sorry. False alarm. I love you.

She writes back: XOXOXOX

I wish she had said I love you but then again, I have to prepare myself for change. I go online again because I still can’t believe it. I watch a press conference with Peach’s parents and her mother is identified as Florence “Pinky” Salinger. She is an old version of Peach, with fuller lips and broader shoulders. “I repeatedly told the police that while my daughter battled depression, she was not suicidal.” She breathes. “While it is comforting that the authorities are now treating my daughter’s disappearance as a crime, a murder, it is deeply disconcerting that the police declined to investigate until someone called in an anonymous tip.” The woman heaves. The woman has no soul. No wonder Peach was so terrible. “It is a sad state of affairs when a mother’s instinct and knowledge means nothing to a detective. But we are grateful that my daughter’s murderer will at last be brought to justice.”

She straightens her jacket, as if it matters what she looks like, and steps back from the podium. I wonder what it’s like to be a mother and you’re going to give a speech for reporters about your dead daughter and still, you go and get your hair and makeup done.

The broadcaster explains that the Salinger family intends to use all their resources to resolve this homicide case and the video ends.

We take off and it’s strange to be going back to Little Compton, to think of a time when I was so in love with Amy. I haven’t thought about her or our trip in so long, about Noah & Pearl & Harry & Liam, about Charlotte & Charles and all that food and all that sex. I remember the way she tasted and I remember the blueberry-stained sheets and the sound of her voice when she said she would try to learn to trust. If I never took Amy to Little Compton, would we still be together? Is life predestined or do you change it by shoving your way into small, quaint towns because you’re fascinated by how out of place you feel there?

It’s a risk, going back to Little Compton. But I’m doing it for Love; our love can never be safe so long as the mugofurine is out there taunting me. And really, it’s like love itself, like drinking. We all get our hearts broken. We get fucked up and throw up and we cry and listen to sad songs and say we’re never doing that again. But to be alive is to do it again. To love is to risk everything.

WE land in Providence and no flight was ever this fast. I text Love: My phone died and I’m gonna crash. Nothing yet, wish I had better news. Love you.

She writes back immediately: Ok

I buy some crap in the airport. A candy bar that’s too big, a copy of Mr. Mercedes, and a Red Sox cap. I walk directly to Budget Car Rental. There’s no way to rent a car without showing an ID and providing a credit card. I do these things. What I have going for me: I was only here with Amy this summer, a vacationer. That guy who was here in the winter, that guy who smashed up his car and killed that girl? His name was Spencer Hewitt.

I don’t get a convertible. I get a Chevy. I start it up and I drive into my life, into my past, my future, my genetic coding, my mistakes, my possible salvation, my probable doom, Little Fucking Compton.

46

THE theme of my life appears to be working vacations. Like so many Americans, I appear to be incapable of taking a fucking break. And it’s bad for you. This is where Europeans are healthier. They relax. They rest. They turn off their phones and leave their work in the office and when they go to the beach they take off their tops, they show their tits and their hairy chests and they drink and sunbathe and they fucking go for it. I, on the other hand, am one of those fucked-up workaholic Americans plodding on an empty beach, not savoring the sunset, not romping in the waves—though it’s too cold, it’s autumn—and I am working hard, deciding how the hell I am going to get into that motherfucking house.

After I checked into my shitty motel, I went into a sleep coma. Vegas will fuck you up. I think I went twenty-eight hours without so much as a nap. I woke up on the cruddy, low-thread-count bedspread in a pile of my own drool. I showered in the stifling, tiny shower and I used the terrible small rectangles of bad soap, and I drove to the public parking lot that’s closest to the beach near the Salinger house. And I started walking. As if you can just walk into a fucking crime scene. Before I even got there, I saw the activity, the police cruisers and the TV news vans, the various Salingers in their winter clothes, and I had to back off.

I pretend to be a guy walking on a beach relaxing and meanwhile, that fucking house fills up with people who might find my mug of piss. I need to get in there so I try to get in there.

I drive to Crowther’s and order a shit ton of food to go. I buy one of their T-shirts. I go to the Salinger house and park as close as I can. The TV vans are gone—news is only news for a little while—and there is only one cop. I put on my Red Sox cap and I lift the heaving box of food and I trot toward the house, the way any delivery guy would. I knock on the door, the way any delivery guy would. Nobody answers so I ring the bell, the way any delivery guy would.

A guy who can’t be more than twenty and looks exactly like Peach walks up. He’s wearing a Yale T-shirt and scratching his head. He looks like he’s never held a rake or scratched a lottery ticket in a 7-Eleven. “What’s up?” he asks.

“I have a delivery,” I say, as if this isn’t completely fucking obvious. “Can I get in there and put this down?”

The Salinger’s eyes roll to the side of his oval head. “Mommmmmm!” he calls out.

“Buddy,” I say. “My back’s breaking here. If I could get in there and get this down.”

But now his mother is here. “Trot,” she says. “Don’t scream.” She looks at me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We’re requesting that all flowers and food and gifts be sent to the battered women’s shelter in Fall River. Peach was very passionate about women’s rights and we just don’t need the food.”

Peach was not very passionate about women’s rights. She was passionate about women’s pussies. She wanted to fuck Beck, which is why I killed her. Salingers. This bitch just stares at me. “Do . . . you . . . speak . . . English?” she asks.

NO, BUT I SPEAK CUNT. “That’s so great of you,” I say. “But my boss would have my ass if I drove to Fall River. You sure I can’t just get in there and leave this with you?” Meaning, get in there and steal the keys that are undoubtedly on the kitchen table because rich people, particularly the ones on the East Coast, really like to throw their shit on the kitchen table.

The bitch sighs. “You poor thing.” She reaches for her purse. She thinks I want a tip. “You take this and you keep that food.” She slips me a five-dollar bill and gives me a fake smile, the kind people do when they want you to know you’re faking it. She closes the door and locks it and now I’ve been made by not one but two fucking Salingers, so it’s not like I can show up here tomorrow in a UPS uniform. Not that I have a UPS uniform. All I have is a heaving box of food.