The Fallen

Now on the phone Dawn sounded distracted. I could hear the pop of a cork from a bottle and the clink of glass hitting glass, then a gurgle. Then again. I told her Gina had packed some things and left because she thought there must be more to life.

A moment of silence. Then, “Oh, Robbie. Oh, damn. Are you... are you sure?”

“I’m pretty darned sure, Dawn. The closet’s half empty, she quit her job and had Rachel tell me good-bye.”

“But are you okay?”

“I’m fine but I need to talk to her.”

“But... I can’t believe she’d just — You mean she packed and... Are you sure she...? Have you been fighting or maybe...”

Dawn usually has an orderly mind. She has hundreds of things to track and coordinate with every wedding. I thought about the two clinks of glass on glass and thought I understood what was wrong. The little coal of hope inside me burst into a small flame.

“May I speak with her?” I asked.

“She’s not here, Robbie. There’s no way she—”

“Put her on, Dawn,” I said.

“What? No, Robbie, she’s not—”

“Dawn, you and I have known each other for, what, almost six years? I can tell when you’re fibbing or upset, and right now you’re both.”

A long pause, then a quiet, “Goddamn it.”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t see why I—”

“So just put her—”

“Damn it, Gina, honey. Just come over here and talk to your husband, will you? I can’t—”

Then a clacking sound as the cordless phone smacked a table or counter.

“I’ll be gone by the time you make the airport,” said Gina. Her voice sounded frail but determined. “Or by the time you hit Escondido if you try to drive here.”

“I won’t come, then. Just stay where you’re safe. I won’t bother you but I need to know one thing.”

“Liar. Good-bye, Robbie. You shouldn’t have called.”

“Is there any—”

But she clicked off and when I hit redial I got a busy signal.

Of course I was lying. I called two airlines for their Lindbergh — to — Las Vegas flights that evening but the times were too soon and too late.

I filled up my gas-guzzling slickback and used the toll lanes on northbound I-15, which actually deposit you directly into the worst of the commuter traffic when they merge back into the freeway south of Escondido.

Slowly floating down this river of red brake lights toward Gina was one of the most frustrating things I’d ever done. My heart was beating like a runner’s but my car was hardly moving. Once, when I was ten years old and a first-time skier, I tried to ski in a snowstorm on Mammoth Mountain. I launched down the beginners’ run ahead of me and I flung myself into the swirling whiteness, goggleless and determined. I was soon blinded — I could see nothing but white — but I could feel the snow slapping against my face and the strong wind biting through my cap and I remembered to keep my knees bent and I got into a rhythm with my skis like the instructor had said and I headed into that storm until there was a lull in the white fury around me and I regained my vision to find that I’d been standing still the whole time. But now, inching along in the northbound traffic, I didn’t even have the luxury of my own illusions.

Five hours and thirty-seven minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of the Brancini residence in south Las Vegas. My heart fell when I didn’t see her car, just the empty driveway and the open garage door. Dawn and Vince’s two cars were in the garage. To my surprise, Vince sat in a folding chair behind his Cadillac with an electric heater glowing red at his feet. An empty chair sat beside him. Gina’s car was nowhere to be seen. Good to her word, she had probably left here by the time I was stuck in the Escondido traffic.

I sat in the folding chair next to Vince and we talked for a few minutes. He poured me a cup of coffee from his thermos. I was surprised how cold it was out here in the Nevada desert. To the south the stars were bright and close.

Vince apologized for his daughter’s “flightiness” and said he’d worried about things just like this when she’d announced her marriage plans at age eighteen. What could he have said or done? He had loved his daughter. He had liked me. Gina was happier than he’d ever seen her. Dawn was already talking gown material, floral motifs, and a way to trim the sit-down dinner costs.

“I’ve got a PI friend here in town,” he said. “Between the two of us, we’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Did you call him already?”

“Soon as she left, Robbie.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Don’t ask.”

I knew she had friends here from high school. I knew that some of them had found trouble. I knew that Gina had considered herself a candidate for trouble and that moving out to San Diego to marry me was part of making sure that didn’t happen. She liked to call me her “big, square hero.” Beneath all of Gina’s gaiety and mirth is a heart closely attuned to what can go wrong. I think her lightness and darkness get strength from each other, like the roots and branches of a tree.