This Story Might Save Your Life(44)

Joy’s parents are still six days out from Port Canaveral. When the charter boat idea failed, they tried to commission an emergency helicopter. To no avail.

“I feel like the mom from Home Alone,” Gail says in her voice message. “Only it’s so much worse. Please call me back as soon as you can, Benny. I talked to Detective Keller, but I don’t think she’s giving us the full picture.”

Her number goes straight to voicemail, so I detail everything I know before the beep cuts me off. I then leave a message with our corporate lawyer, saying I’ll catch up with him after the search party. I sound detached, even to my ears. A month ago, I could never have imagined feeling this ambivalent about the distribution deal, considering how much money is on the table. I also could never have imagined Joy and Xander going missing. The fact is, there’s nothing anyone can do. Not until they’re found.

I let the dogs out, make coffee, and return to Joy’s computer, hoping the few hours of sleep I managed will allow me to come at this puzzle with fresh ears. I pull up Joy’s “deadly appliances” episode from three weeks ago and start where I last left off.

“Quiz time!” Joy says. “What is the most dangerous home appliance? I’ll give you three guesses.”

“Three? Too easy. Garbage disposal.”

“Not even in the top ten.”

“But your hand—you stick your hand in there, and the blades spin?”

“Is that how you use your garbage disposal?”

“That’s my greatest fear. That it’s gonna turn on the moment I stick my fingers in there.”

“Second guess?” She starts humming the Jeopardy! theme song.

“I don’t know, dishwasher?”

“Benny.”

“What? I couldn’t think. You were making smart-people music at me.”

“Making smart-people…” She laughs for several seconds. “Speaking of dishwashers, did you know we just got ours replaced? Have you seen it?”

“I have. It’s very pretty.”

“It has nine different rack positions. Nine! And do you know what I was thinking about this morning? Remember the dishwasher from my old apartment?”

“The completely nonfunctioning hunk of junk that you used as a minibar? Yes.”

“Glassware on top, bottles on the bottom.”

“Upcycling at its best.”

“I remember, I was so certain I’d feel like I’d made it if I could just have a brand-new dishwasher someday. Like, to me that was the very apex of civility.”

“Funny how our goalposts keep moving, isn’t it?”

She made a sound I couldn’t quite read at the time. I still can’t read it now. “All right, third guess?”

I guessed the stove. Burns and all that. Who knew refrigerators were responsible for the most ER visits of any other appliance? Clearly not me.

I make notes on the rest of the episode, jotting down everything that feels potentially relevant, but when I read the list over at the end, it makes no sense. I guessed at all of the ways refrigerators might cause injury. She read a listener survivor story about a child who nearly suffocated while hiding inside an out-of-service refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek. We had an extended conversation about the Punky Brewster episode where Punky’s friend did the same. Joy mentioned jelly beans three separate times. We talked about ice makers for a full seven minutes. Joy made smart-people music at me twice.

Lord help me, what am I doing?

I take my coffee out to the back porch, where the scent of toppled eucalyptus hits like a medicinal punch. It’s already warm at this early hour, and the air is calm. It’s going to be a scorcher.

Richie and Potsie sniff purposefully at the wreckage, padding carefully from edge to edge like two long-eared archaeologists preparing to excavate a site. They have no idea the significance of what was lost.

You have to see it in person, Joy wrote, back when the house first went on the market. There’s something special about it.

It was a chilly March morning, just seven months ago. My divorce wasn’t final yet, and I was only reluctantly house shopping. The listing agent, a waify bottle blonde with thin red lips, was waiting at the curb when Joy and I arrived. I stared at the house, confused, as we all made our introductions. From what I could tell, it was a typical mid-century ranch. I’d seen a thousand of its kind, and because Joy lived on the hill I was already familiar with the neighborhood. I saw nothing special about it.

The interior offered no further explanation. Well-maintained, nicely updated, but typical. I couldn’t even say I was impressed with the view. There are a lot of hills in Los Angeles. A lot of views. It wasn’t until we stepped into the backyard that Joy elbowed me and said, “This.”

She was referring to the twenty-by-fifteen shed near the back of the yard. It had a sloped roof, two windows, and a small porch in need of repair. Beyond it was a raked gravel garden lined with climbing vines and a rock wall fountain. “Okay,” I said, still not getting it.

Grinning, she pointed to the hand-carved wooden sign on the shed door: THE ZEN DEN.

“Do I look like I need to take up meditation?”

“You look like you need a lobotomy.”

The agent chuckled at this and then covered it up with a cough before scuttling away.