Charlotte and I spend a while in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405. I allow Charlotte twenty minutes of public radio, and then when I am thoroughly newsed-out I turn on The Knife, because I am a firm believer that important moments in life are best with a sound track, and this will undoubtedly be one of those moments.
“Who do you think she is?” I ask, switching into the right lane. Charlotte’s holding Clyde’s envelope, studying Caroline’s carefully written name.
“Maybe an ex-girlfriend?” she says. “She’ll probably be old.”
I try to think of other possibilities, but Clyde Jones is famous for being a bit of a recluse. He had some high-profile affairs when he was young, but that’s ancient history, and it’s common knowledge that he died without a single family member. With relatives out of the question, I can’t think of many good answers.
We exit the freeway onto Ruby Avenue.
“I’m getting nervous,” I say.
Charlotte nods.
“What if it’s traumatic for her? Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do this before our finals. What if Caroline needs us or she passes out from shock or something?”
“I doubt that will happen,” Charlotte says.
Neither of us has been on Ruby Avenue, so we don’t know what to expect. But we do know that as we get closer to the address it becomes clear that whoever Caroline Maddox is, she doesn’t live the same kind of life Clyde did. Number 726 is one of those sad apartment buildings that look like motels, two stories with the doors lined up in rows. We park on the street and look at the apartment through the rolled-up window of my car.
“Maybe she’ll be someone he didn’t know that well. Like a waitress from a restaurant he went to a lot. Or maybe he had a daughter no one knew about. From an affair or something.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Charlotte says.
We get out of the car.
After climbing the black metal stairs to the second story and knocking on the door of apartment F, I whisper, “Is it okay for us to ask what’s inside? Like, to have her open it in front of us?”
Charlotte shakes her head no.
“Then how will we ever know? Will we follow up with her?”
“Shhh,” she says, and the door opens to a shirtless man, holding a baby on his hip.
“Hello,” Charlotte says, professional but friendly. “Is Caroline home by any chance?”
The guy looks from Charlotte to me, shifts his baby to the other hip. He has longish hair, a shell necklace. A surfer who ended up miles from the beach.
“Sorry,” he says. “No Caroline here.”
Charlotte looks at the address on the envelope. “This is 726, right?”
“Yeah. Apartment F. Just three of us, though. Little June, myself, my wife, Amy.”
“Do you mind my asking how long you’ve lived here?” Charlotte asks.
“About three years.”
“Do you know if a Caroline lived here before you?”
He shakes his head. “I think a dude named Raymond did. We get his mail sometimes.”
I turn to Charlotte. “Maybe she left a forwarding address with the landlord.”
She turns to the surfer. “Does the manager live in the building?”
He nods. “Hold on,” he says, disappears for a moment, and returns without the baby. He slides on flip-flops and joins us outside. “It’s hard to describe. I’ll lead you there.”
We follow him down the stairs.
“Awesome weather,” he says.
I say, “Well, yeah. It is LA.”
“True,” he says.
We walk along a path on the side of the building until we reach a detached cottage. He knocks on the door. We wait. Nothing.
“Hmm,” he says. “Frank and Edie. They’re old. Almost always home. Must be grocery day.”
He pulls a phone out of his pocket.
“I can give you their number,” he says, scrolling through names, and Charlotte enters it into her phone.
~
Walking back to the car, I say, “If we can’t find Caroline, are we allowed to open the envelope?”
“We should really try to find her.”
“I know. But if we don’t.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Probably.”
I hand Charlotte my keys and she unlocks her side, gets in, leans over and unlocks mine. I start the car and look at the time.
“We could have slept an extra hour,” Charlotte says.
“Let’s call the managers now,” I say. “Maybe they were sleeping.”
But she calls and gets their machine. “Good morning,” she says. “My name is Charlotte Young. I’m trying to get in touch with a former tenant of yours. I’m hoping you might have some forwarding information. If you could call me back, I would appreciate it.”
She leaves her number and hangs up.
Sometimes she sounds so professional that I can’t believe the girl talking is also my best friend. At work, as long as I do my job well I don’t have to talk like an adult because I’m one of the creatives. But Charlotte helps with logistics and phone calls and scheduling and making sure people show up when they are supposed to.
“I hope they call back,” I say, noticing a brief ebb in the traffic and making a U-turn in the middle of the block.
“I’ll follow up if they don’t,” Charlotte says.
“But if we can’t reach them, and we can’t find Caroline, then we’ll open the letter,” I say. “Right?”
“Maybe,” she says. “But we’re really going to try to find Caroline.”
~
After my physics final and my Abbot Kinney stop, I drive to the studio, a little nauseous. Heartbreak is awful. Really awful. I wish I could listen to sad songs alone in my car until I felt over her. But I can’t even talk about it with Charlotte, and I have to finish designing the room I’m working on now, even though I know Morgan will be on set with her sleeves pushed up and her tight jeans on and her short hair all messy and perfect. I pull into the studio entrance and the guard waves me through, and I roll past Morgan’s vintage blue truck and into an open spot a few cars away, trying not to think of the first time I sat in the soft, upholstered passenger’s seat and all the times that followed that one.
Morgan is off in a far corner of the set, but I see her first and then she’s all I see. Filling everything. I’m carrying the music stand and I set it down in the room, but even though I’m looking at it and running my hand along its smooth wooden base, I can barely register that it’s here.