Page 99 of Your Every Wish
I push the pad closer to her. “Let’s just try, for shits and giggles. ‘In the shade of towering pines, a cedar stands tall, its presence defines.’ He’s talking about Cedar Pines Estates, right? It has to be.”
“Okay.”
“And ‘Beneath the dry stacks, where courts reside, my gift to my neglected daughters is tucked inside.’ What the hell does that mean?” Misty stares at me, blankly. “Come on, you’re the one who originally said the golf bag was hidden in the stacks. What are the stacks? What does that even mean?”
“I saw the wordstacks. It kept coming back to me, like one of those electric exit signs. Or the novelty ones that say ‘applause. ’ ”
“You think it’s the welcome sign, the one that’s missing theL? You think it’s buried underneath it somewhere?”
“That sign isn’t electric.”
“Is there an electric sign anywhere in the park?” I rack my brain trying to remember if I’d ever seen one. “What about Hadley’s Bug Zapper?” Okay, now I’m reaching.
“It’s not a sign,” Misty says.
“How do you know?” Because a minute ago, she said she saw the wordstackson a lit-up exit-type sign.
“I just do. The sign was simply the conveyor of the message. The operative word isstacks. The golf bag is in the stacks. ”
“Stacks of what? Papers? Plates? Magazines?”
She blows out a breath. “I need air. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Fine.” Though it sounds like a waste of time to me. We were finally getting somewhere. Yes, it was at the pace of a glacier, but it’s better than nothing.
“But I’m not giving up on the sign idea,” I say. Signs make good landmarks. Willy would’ve wanted something visual to mark the site.
On our way out, I grab the notebook just in case.
We make our way down to the creek. It’s full from all the rain we’ve been having and I wonder if there’s a risk of it overflowing past its banks and flooding some of the nearby trailers. The pungent odors of pine, wet dirt, and fish fill the air and while I don’t usually like the smell of fish, combined with everything else it smells good, like forest and rain and nature.
Misty’s quiet, which is fine by me. I’m focusing on finding the sign, or anything electric, which leaves plenty of options. We walk under a canopy of leafy branches with its kaleidoscope of colors and I suck in a breath at the majesty of it all. Autumn in all its glory. Though Mrs. Casey’s blow-up pumpkin is looking a little worse for wear and her yard ghosts are on the verge of drowning.
We get as far as the clubhouse and Misty takes a hard left.
“Hey,” I say, “are you in a trance or what?”
She puts her finger to her lips in the classic sign for me to shut my mouth, which I do. Instead, I follow her lead, trailing slightly behind her. We wind up on another path, one I rarely use because it’s rocky and uneven and a catastrophe for runners. Even walking, it’s easy to turn an ankle here. But Misty is sure-footed as if she’s walked the course a thousand times. It takes us past the pond on a side of the park I’m not as familiar with. The recent rains have made the water less like Jell-O and more like brown muck, but it doesn’t stink nearly as bad as usual.
We come off the trail at the place I would put my fictional pickleball courts. It’s close enough to Bent McCourtney’s property to bug the shit out of him, which would be my life’s mission if I didn’t have more pressing issues to weigh.
Misty seems like she has a specific destination in mind and instead of questioning her about it, I simply follow along. She hasn’t said a word since we left her place and seems to be hyper-focused.
We head in the general vicinity of the pool and at the last minute Misty switches directions. She is moving faster now. For a short woman, she has long strides, and I can barely keep up. She definitely appears to have a purpose.
I start to ask her what’s going on and stop myself, lest I get the button up, buttercup finger-to-the-lips gesture again. Better to just quicken my pace.
She whips around when I come up close behind her and says, “It’s calling me.”
At this point, I know better than to question her and continue to follow. She appears to be moving toward the clubhouse. I glance at my watch. Too late for canasta and too early for mahjong.
She stops before we get to the building, closes her eyes, and shakes her head. “I thought I had something.”
“But you don’t?” I come up alongside her.
“I don’t know. I keep seeing rocks.”
I glance around. There are rocks everywhere, everything from gravel driveways (does gravel count as rocks?) to giant boulders that crisscross the landscape. “You think he buried the golf bag under a rock?”
