Power Slide by Susan Dunlap Read Free Book Online

along, I taught him all I’d learned. It wasn’t till near the time he disappeared that I realized he’d done me one better. He was getting around John and me, too.”
    “Doing what?”
    “That I don’t know. But if this comes out, John’s going to be hurt, and Mom.”
    Stop! Don’t make me choose! But when it came to Mike, for me there was never any question. “Gar, it’s Mike’s life we’re talking about. If some of us get our feelings bruised, so be it.”
    “If, suddenly, after twenty years of each of us chasing every tiny lead, if this unearths him, yeah, fine. But here’s the likelihood—we don’t find him, and the only thing that changes is the scabs we pull off each other.”
    I stared down at the table. Each of the siblings had a tag: John, the enforcer; Janice, the nice one; Katy, Numero Uno; Gary, the Can-Do-Kid; Gracie, the scrapper; me, the wild kid. Only, Mike, I suddenly realized,
was untagged. He was Mike—no need to say more. Or maybe it’d been that each of the rest of us viewed him differently, so one label couldn’t suffice. Maybe Gary was right about Mike. The notion seemed at once shocking and yet so right, I had to wonder why I hadn’t seen it before.
    Still, it unnerved me that Gary, Mr. Optimist, saw nothing but bad coming out of this search.
    I needed to be at that meeting to protect . . . whoever. I was going to hear what my brothers and sisters had been unable to say before. They were right that I was the one who cared most about Mike, and dammit, that made me the one responsible for seeing that this time, once and for all, we got the search right. If there was any chance at all of some clue, lead, something Mike had said that could be interpreted differently now, I had to recognize it.
    But I needed—wanted . . . longed—to be with Guthrie. All the years of our odd, intermittent relationship had led to this moment when he was ready to face his past, and do it with me. It was the only time he’d ever needed me like this. I couldn’t blow him off.
    Cut off your right arm? Or your left? How could I—
    I reached across the table to Gary and said, “Give me your car keys.”

7
    ON THE WAY to pick up Gary’s car, I called Guthrie again. Still no answer. Any other time—but this wasn’t any other time. I wanted to go back and knock on Leo’s door and have him tell me Guthrie was okay, that now, after their talk, Guthrie was going to be feeling better and better. But Zen interviews didn’t work that way. They’re not salve. Often they pull back the scab and say, “Look!”
    I hit redial. Again, the call went to his recording. There could be a dozen good reasons for Guthrie not answering or—
    I left a message that I was on my way.
    The wind was whipping down Montgomery Street, pushing handfuls of fog into my face. If I got across the bridge to Oakland in half an hour, I’d have at least a few minutes, see that he was okay, spend a little time before I had to tell him why I was abandoning him at the one time he really needed me. If I did.
    But how could I leave Mom and everybody sitting around a table waiting like we’d all done day after day when Mike disappeared?
    I turned the corner to the garage—the wrong garage! What was I thinking? Gary kept his big client car here, not the Honda he was lending me. The Honda was in a lot across from his office half a mile away. Talk about not focusing! Now there’d be no time to do more than say sorry to Guthrie.

    In any other city I could hail a cab! I turned and ran full out, beating the pavement so fast I couldn’t think. Sprinting, I made the light at Broadway and in twenty minutes was poking the key in the ignition. The heel of the key jammed into my hand. Pain shot to my elbow. I shook it off.
    The Bay Bridge was crowded. I weaved in and out of traffic. The bandages cut into my palms. I loosened my grip, but in a minute I was back clutching the wheel.
    Traffic just about stopped in the Treasure Island tunnel, and when I