That had been the start of three and a half blissful months. During the day, Mark worked in RPM Records, and Jo wrote new songs on her battered guitar. At lunchtime, she would show up at the shop with paper bags of home-made sandwiches and clinking bottles of root beer. They would have a daily picnic on the floor of the stock room, surrounded by stacks of vinyl albums, where they would debate Dylan’s move from acoustic to electric guitar, or the decline in modern lyrics.
In the evening, they would spend their time in the bar, gradually building up the quality and reputation of the music nights.
Eventually, inevitably, Jo grew restless to continue her journey. She would talk about the West Coast more often - usually in terms of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ she would get there. She had been digging around on the internet, and wanted to play in a popular music venue called The Black Cat bar.
It had been tough for Mark, who had found everything he ever wanted in Jo, to know she was still looking for something more. But, he was wise enough to know she was like a wild bird - stuck in a cage, and dreaming of wide blue skies. She talked as if getting down to the Coast would be a visit, but they both suspected otherwise.
As the lay together in bed one night, with Jo facing the bedroom window, Mark asked the difficult question.
‘Do you want me to drive you down, just from a safety point of view, I mean? I have some time off coming up. No strings.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said softly.
‘I don’t mean in a stalker “take me with you” way. I just meant to save you taking the bus.’
‘It’s okay.’ Jo half turned and smiled. ‘I kind of like the old bone shaker buses, plus I got a really cheap ticket - all the way to San Diego for fifty bucks. Leaves tomorrow night’
‘Oh.’ Mark took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think you’d booked already. Are things here that bad?’
He sat up in bed, took a cigarette from the night stand, and lit it.
‘Mark, I’m not trying to get away from you,’ Jo said, as she turned fully around, and placed a hand on his arm, touching the edge of a spiralling tattoo. ‘I’m just trying to find my place.’
‘I know,’ he said, blowing out a cone of smoke. He knew this was true. ‘Look, Jo, I’m not trying to be some ball and chain. Whatever you need to do is cool. But, I’m not naïve - you have the heart of a poet, the voice of an angel, so I’m guessing you might not be showing up here again too soon.'
‘Never say never.’ She shrugged. ‘Plus, you could always come down, too.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t want to be your baggage.’
‘Then, how about a weekend trip?’
‘Maybe once you’re settled, eh?’
‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
She turned away and Mark switched of the night light. The sound of The Blue Oyster Cult was drifting through from the living room. Somehow, the darkness made it seem louder.
As he pressed against her back, Mark slipped a hand on to Jo's warm stomach, and closed his eyes.
‘I do love you,’ he said, his mouth against her warm soft, shoulder, but she was already away.
That had been the last night he ever spent with her.
The following evening, Mark drove Jo to a bus stop on the outskirts of town. They had sat and waited in the car, until the silence was unbearable for both of them. Then, they had stood uncomfortably apart by the roadside, until the silver coloured bus had arrived. The driver - a large, friendly guy in a Hawaiian shirt - loaded Jo’s guitar case into the luggage compartment, as Mark gave her a quick hug, and said his brief goodbye. He watched the tail lights of the coach shrink into the darkening horizon, feeling like he had been robbed.
Now, six weeks later, he sat alone in his apartment, and rubbed his hands over his unshaven face. If she had been in touch, then, he had been prepared to move down to the Coast for a few weeks. They could see how things went, and simply chill out for a while. But, as time passed, Jo had not contacted him - no phone call, no email - just a void. It seemed to Mark she was either sending him a message she was happy without him, or something had gone badly wrong.
Despite the pain it caused him, Mark hoped the reason was the former, but somewhere at the back of his mind, a small alarm bell was ringing.
11
The town of Barstow was slightly larger than Vicki had expected. The way Laurie had spoken about it made it sound like one dusty street in the middle of the desert. Instead, it was a cross of intersecting roads, which formed a basic grid of functional homes and single storey businesses.
Leighton turned the car into the parking lot of Barstow Station. ‘Okay, this is the town,’ he said, ‘so what’s the address?’
‘4 Vineyard Drive,’ Vicki said. She was holding a home printed map in her hand, but didn’t need to consult it.
‘If you drive through the main, keep going until you leave the built-up section, you’ll reach Burke’s End, then turn right, then left - it’s the fourth house along.’
‘I thought you said you had never been here?’ Leighton said, as he put the car in gear, and began driving back out on to the street.
‘I haven’t,’ Vicki confirmed. ‘I checked out the town online a few times. I must’ve just learned it by osmosis.’
Leighton shot her a sceptical glance. ‘Maybe you should consider a career with the CHP,’ he said wryly.
‘I doubt I’d be very good,’ Vicki said softly.
‘You couldn’t be any worse than I was.’ Leighton’s words could have been taken as a joke, but there was no humour in his voice.
It took no more than a few minutes for Vicki and Leighton to travel along the dusty road leading through the Burke’s End area to Laurie’s home.
As the car pulled into the roadside, Vicki suddenly felt a sick feeling form in the depth of her stomach. Up until that moment, she had somehow managed to push the reality of the situation to some dark area of her mind. But, now, she was forced to confront the painful truth.
Looking at the single level, misshapen bungalow, with peeling rust coloured paint and colourless felt roof, made her guiltily aware of the extreme contrast between her own Oceanside accommodation and Laurie’s humble home. This sad fact seemed to solidify Vicki’s commitment to finding her friend.
‘You coming?’ Leighton smiled briefly, and unclipped his seatbelt, but his tone had become business like. Crime scenes - if this was indeed one - were as familiar to him as his own home.
‘Sure.’ Vicki nodded, as if to motivate herself, ‘Let’s go.’
Vicki opened the creaking car door, and stepped out into the dry heat. Laurie’s house sat on an empty stretch of desert road. Directly across the street from the small home was a weed-covered pile of sandstone rubble, which may once have been a similar house, but other than that, there were no other buildings for half a kilometre in either direction. The area was nothing but flat, dusty fields filled with needle grass and giant cardons poking up like prickly scarecrows.
Even to Leighton, it looked like a lifeless and lonely place to live.
Vicki imagined what it must have been like for Laurie, who had dreamed of leaving college to take photographs in Europe, to have found herself stuck in a shack on the edge of a desert town.
The front garden of the grubby house was little more than four square metres of dead grass ringed by a waist-high fence of sun-bleached wood. Leighton lifted the loop of green garden wire, which held the small wooden gate shut, and pushed it open.
‘After you,’ he said, and stepped aside to allow Vicki to approach the house first.
Vicki stepped cautiously towards the hazy screen door at the side of the building. She almost tripped over a swollen bag of trash, which sat surrounded by a scattering of crushed cigarette stubs. A cluster of house flies buzzed in the air around the garbage, as if to protect their territory. Vicki wondered how many of their wriggling offspring were feasting inside the plastic bag.