Louisa: Road Trip - Everything's Connected

I'd like to say the title of this post refers to some greater truth that Jessica and I have discovered here in the American West, where you can drive for hours without seeing much in the way of human settlement, but I'm afraid it refers to something more - well, not prosaic, but decidedly human. Jessica and I have been going back and forth over whether or not to post about it the past couple of days, figuring it might be wiser just to mail Arthur, Ashlyn, Darren, Jeff, Jaci, and the others privately, but we figure this is better; we know there are other people like us who read this blog and this is worth knowing. The rest of the world should probably know, too, but of course they won't believe it. We barely do.

Dex Langan was part of Arthur and Ashlyn's group. We met the "new" Dex toward the start of our trip, in Washington, and we've been trying to get in contact with the original for a while. We didn't think it would be that difficult; after all, Jessica had found a lead on him/her even before I'd ever gone to that inn.

It took some doing, though. He'd become Kayla Johnson, so we started in her hometown. We found her parents easily enough, but they didn't have much to say. They hadn't heard from their daughter in over a year; it was as if once she'd finished college she decided she didn't have any more use for her family. Jessica asked if she had any friends in town who might still be in contact with her. "Not according to Kayla."

Detective work it was, then. That meant another public library; I joked with Jessica that I was spending more time in these places than I did when I was in my old life, working as a school librarian. She laughed and said it would be a tragedy if these places ever disappeared completely, to be replaced by the internet and e-books and the like. The internet is not very good at being local, for instance, and even the biggest monitor and best user interface can merely approximate how well spreading a bunch of information out in front of oneself can be.

(This, as my old English teacher friends would point out to her students, is what they call foreshadowing.)

We got lucky in that Kayla is a nice photograph and was involved in a bunch of activities in high school. There were plenty of pictures of her in her school's yearbooks, not just "official" club portraits, but candids and collages. Jessica was methodical about seeing who she stood near for both National Honor Society and field hockey, and then flipping through the book to see who she was standing near in the candids.

This was five-year-old information about Kayla, as opposed to Dex, but it gave us some people to talk to. A number had moved away after college, and a couple really weren't that close to her, but we hit the jackpot with her high school boyfriend.

Johnny Farmer had looked nice in his yearbook pictures and had matured into a handsome adult. His family actually did have a farm, and a couple women our apparent age looking for him made him feel good. We decided to go with the reporter story again - only this time, Jessica had printed out some business cards for me. Simple things reading "Marie Desjardins, Freelance Journalist" along with my cell number and email address; Jess said people respect the no-frills approach and being a freelancer means no-one asks why I have a generic Yahoo! address rather than globeandmail.ca or something. He was a little disappointed that our "story" was about Kayla rather than him, but admitted that there was a story there.

According to him, she had come back home to get her things en route to her new job after being in Maine a couple weeks longer than expected, but everyone noticed how erratically she was acting. She stayed in a hotel rather than her parents' house, she didn't drop in to see old friends. He had run into her by chance, in a bar, and been confused by the way she acted - she had almost never been one to drink enough to get hammered, and while they'd talked amicably enough, she had completely freaked when he made some innocent comment that referenced their prior relationship. She made a big enough scene for them both to spend a night in lock-up, and when her parents were brought in...

Dex had told the truth. All of it. And, of course, it just bounced right off people. Johnny said that she made some comment about it not just being Maine, that this was bigger than anyone thought, and a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense.

There'd been brief talk about having her involuntarily committed, but upon hearing that, she'd started acting, if not normal, then less hostile. After a few days, she left town for her posting with the Forest Service. She didn't write, call, have her mail forwarded, or do anything else. She didn't even come home for the holidays, and don't think that wasn't a sore spot with her family. It was no wonder the Johnsons gave us the deep freeze when we came to talk about Kayla.

Johnny gave us the location of her post, and asked us to mention him to her if she decides to talk to us. We do, and head out again.

December is not the greatest time to try and visit a National Park in a cold-climate state, especially if you're driving an old car like Jessica's without four wheel drive. (Actually, December is not the best time to do anything up north. I can't wait until we reach Pasadena!). We tried to get hold of Dex/Kayla by phone, but neither of us could navigate the voice-mail system. So, when we arrived at the rangers' station, we were just hoping "Kayla Johnson" hadn't been fired or transferred.

We got lucky; she was still there. We did the usual little dance: "Do I know you?" "No, but we have some mutual friends - Arthur Milligan, Jake Matthews, Jeff Miller." She was more wary than most of the people we've talked to, but was willing talk with us. Better than going into town and getting hit on by the cowboys.

She (unlike Ashlyn, I never met Dex as a man, so I have a hard time calling her "him") got really nervous when we started asking if she'd had any contact with people who knew who she really was. When Jessica showed her some of the pictures from her phone, the ones she took in Texas, Dex/Kayla took a real long look. She was weighing what we were showing her, and the fact that we just put it in front of her. "Perhaps I should show you the back room."

We followed her to the back of the little cottage, where there was a bulleting board hanging up, with pictures and photocopies of documents and different-colored pushpins and handwritten notes and strings connecting the pushpins. "Damn," I said, "you've got a wall-of-crazy straight out of the movies." And, of course, instantly felt bad about it.

But she laughed. "Don't I just?" She pointed at a couple of documents which matched names from Stephen Jeffries/Jake Matthews's address book. "But maybe it's not so crazy after all."

The three of us stood in front of the wall, just staring, and then Jessica wrote "J & S Motion Graphics" on a blank card and stuck it into the board. Dex/Kayla nodded, and then started stringing lines between it and the places he already knew about. It wasn't connected directly to the question mark at the center of the board, but there was no doubt that whoever the Feds' mystery man was, he was an investor in J & S. Dex/Kayla started adding more, finally putting Ashlyn's name up, as well as Jean-Michel's and then André Trudeau's.

We stand back and stare at the more complicated pattern, not saying anything for a bit. Jessica was the one who broke the silence.

"You weren't in Maine to investigate microbrews marketing to minors, were you?"

"No." She sat down in a chair and stretched her long legs out. "After 9/11, a lot of federal agencies were ordered to share records more closely - you know, Department of Homeland Security. Internal investigations of people in different branches of the government turned up some common leads; once we knew what to look for, we found a few more. The thing that tied them together was vacations at the Trading Post Inn in Old Orchard Beach, Maine."

So, I asked, is that what the Inn's about? Replacing people in the government?

She shook her head. "I don't think so. There's no pattern, and half the people leave their jobs afterward. I think it's more opportunistic - that someone finds people who have changed and gets their claws into them. And even after... There's stuff that looks like corruption, but no bad acts. Just people not very good at their jobs for no apparent reason. The Special Agent In Charge of the investigation thinks that's evidence of sleepers, but now..."

"It's just people in unfamiliar situations unable to tell anybody else why."

Dex/Kayla nodded at Jessica. "Yeah, at one level - but there's an infrastructure here, doing something. But it's been going on for so long - I managed to find stuff in internal investigations from forty years ago before the new me changed my password. And some of the people who left government service wound up doing stuff that just seemed random - and it wasn't just going back to their original lives; they weren't always good at it at first."

Jessica processed that. "So, what do you think is going on, knowing what we know?"

"I think someone is screwing with us. Not all of us, just whoever he takes an interest in, or maybe the ones who can help him with the ones he's interested in. He's been doing this a long time, so maybe he's been to the inn himself once or twice. Maybe he's not a he, or wasn't to begin with. Maybe he's been alive so long his brain's gotten full and he's gone nuts."

This was starting to seem too big for me, so I tried to concentrate one what I could understand and relate to personally. I pointed to one card. "Ashlyn. Why Ashlyn?"

Dex/Kayla laughed. "You've never been a guy, have you? If you had, you wouldn't ask that question."

I blushed, and Jessica laughed. "Yeah, if I were my old self... Maybe it's just a bit of fun."

"And it fits the profile. Like... There's a guy we were suspicious of in the New York INS office. Maybe he threw the monkey wrench into 'Ginessa''s and 'Nicoleta''s visas, just to see what would happen. There's documents that the guys in DC don't understand - can't understand - but make perfect sense to me. He gets off on that - sticking people into difficult situations and seeing not just what they do, but what they become."

We talked all through the night, leaving the next morning. We're not sure posting this is the right thing to do, but anybody who is in our situation reading this needs to know that Ashlyn's secret admirer appears to be into bigger things as well. Besides, now that he's apparently got someone inside the investigation of his network, he might be twice as dangerous. We don't know who he is, but we've got a name for him.

We're calling him Pygmalion.

-Louisa

Louisa/"Marie" - Road Trip: Day One in New York (and getting there)

Meeting Her

There were a number of reasons why Jessica and I knew we had to stop in New York on our cross-country jaunt, but it wound up being first simply based upon proximity.

We had to get out of Boston first, of course. By now, you've probably read Ashlyn's description of my meeting Jessica, which covers everything important. I must admit, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of her. I've worked in a high school library for years, so even though I never had any children of my own, teenagers aren't a great mystery to me. Jessica looks like a certain group of them on the surface - the high-achievers who handle a course load of subjects that most of their parents would cringe at while somehow playing a sport each season and participating in another extracurricular activity or two... And having time to talk about the latest movies and music and having lives worth gossiping about.

I've met a lot of those kids (as you might expect, they tend to hang around the library more), but Jessica is different. She's got neither the apparent belief that she can conquer the world or the insecurity that many of those teens have. She looks like them, with the too-tight jeans and clever t-shirt, but there's a disconcerting maturity and wisdom to her. When she acts like a typical teenager - like shouting "Road Trip!" when Ashlyn suggested that she could help me search for the real Marie, it's like she's imitating her apparent peers, although maybe she's just got an acute awareness of what kind of freedom from expectations she has.

I had only expected to get some pointers or a cell phone number that I could use to ask her for help, so the idea of us traveling across the country to where she's been accepted to college in Pasadena was sort of overwhelming. It was to her mother, too - she insisted on meeting me, which seemed eminently reasonable.

The two of them have a strange relationship. "Jessica" (she hasn't told any of us the name she was born with, yet) has actually lived longer than her adopted mother, and they more like best friends than parent and child sometimes. They got out a map and plotted a route that should get us to California in time for her to start classes, even figuring in a couple of weeks for unscheduled stops. When Jessica went to move some things into her car from her mother's, though, the older woman touched my hand to signal she wanted to speak with me alone for a moment.

You have to understand, she said, I don't really believe you are who you say you are. Not you, not this Ashlyn girl... I don't feel it like I do with Jess. But she does, and I hope the two of you can find what you're looking for. After eight years, there's no way I can get my original Jessie back, but if you can find out she's okay, and safe... And make sure that the girl I've got stays safe too...

I may not have had children, but I've had friends who went into crisis about their teenagers, or had trouble letting go. I've never seen it be easy.

The Drive

Jessica drove the first leg of the trip, while I handled the map. That wasn't really necessary, as it's a trip she's made a few times before, as evidenced by her knowing exactly where to find a new classic rock station on the radio dial when the one she'd been listening to faded out. After a while we ran out of things to chat about, and I started listening to a book on tape somewhere around Hartford.

Initially, we drove around the city, figuring it would be easier to find an inexpensive motel out on Long Island than in the city. One of the people from Arthur and Ashlyn's group came from the area, too, and we thought we might have some luck interviewing his "successor". We didn't, yesterday, but we did at least find a place to stay that was near a Long Island Railroad station. After a few hours in the car, it was nice to stretch out on the beds for a couple minutes.

Jessica has all of our stops planned in a notebook, with four pairs of names written on the page for "New York": Darren Bridger/Jamie Connor - recent, but potentially well-connected, might be worth a courtesy visit at least; Mark Lange/Ginessa Lopez - Blue collar guy, Peruvian immigrant actress; Vinessa Lopez/Nicoleta Fidatov - Ginessa's cousin, also from Peru; and ????/Vinny DeSantis. Mostly from "Ashlyn" and Arthur's group, or connected somehow.

Vinessa/Nicoleta

I have never been to such a large place; before staying at the inn, I was not much of a traveler. Baton Rouge is home, and New Orleans, Boston, and Montreal are big cities themselves, but New York is somehow bigger than all of them put together. I just stared out the window of the train, gawking, as we entered the city, and then even more as we actually stepped outside the station and the buildings seemed to go on forever. I confess I'd been guilty of taking the word "skyscrapers" for granted, not understanding how literally true it was.

Jessica just sort of stood aside grinning. "It is amazing, isn't it? Pity it's full of Yankee fans."

I laughed. "As far as I'm concerned, it's just full of yankees." Then I thought of something. "So, you've gone a little native, being in New England for eight years?"

"As a lifelong Orioles fan, I can hate the Yankees just as well as anybody from Boston. Although, yeah, I have sort of started pulling for the Sox. It's easier when your hometown team is so inept. I still hate the Patriots, though. Of course, I still like the Colts, too." He let me gawk a little more, until I got sick of being shoved past, and then suggested we start looking for our fellow transformees.

The easiest name to track down had been Jaime Connor; from reading the blog we knew Darren was in Tribeca, so all we needed was the phone book. Calling his/her home phone number didn't do us much good during the day. We thought about calling the newspaper, but thought better of it. We'd sent an email to the address Ashlyn had before leaving (the one registered with Blogger), but gotten no reply.

Next up was "Nicoleta Fidatov". She, at least, was listed in the phone book, although when we called the number we were told it had been disconnected. We still had an address, though, and it wasn't much trouble to take the subway there.

Nicoleta's place was sort of on the border between a good and a bad nieghborhood, a third-story walk-up. Jessica could see a light underneath the door, so started banging. "Vinessa, we'd like to talk with you."

The door opened a crack. "How... you know that name?"

"We've been to the inn too," I said.

"Come in. Habla espanol?"

We shook our heads. I said I was afraid not.

"Ah, well." She undid the latch and indicated a couple of chairs. She's pretty in that blonde, eastern European way - a very strong jaw, but kind of skinny, though I'm sure many men would find her body perfect. "You want to sit down?"

We sat. "Your English is very good," I said. "Ashlyn gave the impression you barely spoke."

She shrugged. "I had to. I can't go home. The... new me and new Mark... were married, are again... It's very confusing."

"So... you have contact with them?"

She shook her head. "No, they live in Peru now. Her... my.. visa expired, and he followed her." She started to cry. "Now they want to deport me, but I can't go to Ukraine!"

I moved to sit next to her. "Hey, don't worry... I'm sure there's something you can do."

"I do everything! The man says... The man at INS says Nicoleta did everything, and I do everything, but someone above him... Says someone has it out for us."

Jessica took her glasses off to clean them for a second. "Us?"

Mark/Ginessa

Vinessa had laughed, and asked to use my phone. She dialed a number from memory and asked about clubbing.

I'm still not used to this body; I was quite frankly shocked to find that I was almost the same size as Nicoleta. Sure, her clothes were a little tight on my new bottom and not quite so tight up top, but these things are kind of one size fits all. I felt slightly scandalized looking at myself in the mirror, but also a little impressed; it has been a while since I've tried to dress sexily, but I remember what it was like to be a young woman trying to impress the field.

Putting on club clothes just made Jessica look even younger, and we weren't terribly surprised when the bouncer shook his head at her (Nicoleta knew him, and Vinessa had inherited the relationship). "We can only let so much slide, Nic. You know how it is."

Jessica had sort of been expecting this. "I hate being under twenty-one!" she grumbled, and said she was off to see a movie. Vinessa and I went inside.

Vinessa wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I was; she may not speak the language that well and may have grown up on another continent, but she was young and single and knows the game. We hung around and danced a little for about an hour before we heard someone call "Nic!"

Ashlyn had described Mark as being "blue collar", but that would hardly be the word I'd use to describe the person who moved across the crowded room like she was wading in shallow water. She was petite, wearing a painted-on dress with a plunging neckline and four-inch heels. She grabbed Vinessa by the hands and air-kissed her cheek. "How are you? It's been weeks?"

"Better, maybe. This is--" She gave me an enquiring look.

"Louisa."

"Nice to meet you, Louisa. How do you know Nic?"

"We've stayed at the same inn, although nearly a year apart. It's nice to meet you, Mark."

She looked surprised, but quickly gave me a hug. "Oh, god, it's so good to meet you! Who were you before?"

"Well, the way I figure it, I'm still Louisa Torrence, even if my passport does say 'Marie Desjardins' now."

"I know what you mean... It's just like that with me!" From the way she touched her chest, with a palm resting on her breast in such a way as to flash a rather large diamond ring, I was beginning to doubt it.

She noticed me staring at the ring, and blushed. "I know, isn't it crazy? But I'm sure Nic--"

"Vinessa."

"Of course. Vinessa. I'm sorry." She turned toward me to say that she doesn't have many opportunities to use real names, so referring to Vinessa as Nicoleta is sort of habit. "Anyway, I'm sure Vinessa has told you about the INS trying to deport us. Fortunately, I had just auditioned for a play, and while the producer didn't think I was right for THAT part... Probably because I didn't have any of Ginny's training... Well, I couldn't let them send me 'back' to Peru. No offense, Vinessa."

I don't understand Spanish, but I suspect Vinessa said something about Peru being glad to let her stay here.

At about ten-thirty, my phone rang; Jessica's movie was done. I told 'Mark' and Vinessa this, and Vinessa was only too glad to get out, although Mark looked a little disappointed.

To be fair, though, she didn't sulk. We met Jessica at one of the million or so pizza places that line the streets in New York, and the former guys got on like a house on fire. Within about ten minutes they were arguing about sports, and Mark seemed to practically glow when (s)he bit into a folded-over slice.

"Mmm... That is so. Fucking. Good. Don't tell my husband, though - he is not keen on the idea of me gaining weight."

More proof that Jessica used to be a guy - she apparently did not inventory Mark's jewelry without prompting, or only registered the big old ring as a sparkly thing. Or she subconsciously couldn't believe it. "Husband? You've only been a woman, what, less than a year?"

"Just about... But circumstances... Well, you know. There was some sort of SNAFU at INS and I was looking at deportation. You do what you've got to do. It's not always so bad."

We talked a bit more, but Jessica just seemed sort of stunned. I asked if they had any contact with the original Ginessa and Nicoleta, and they said no. Vinessa looked particularly pained by that, and I felt for her - she came to look for her cousin almost a year ago, still hasn't found her, but has to put up with another person taking her face and name, while the real Ginessa could be anyone, anywhere.

We took our leave of them, after a quick stop back at Vinessa's for me to change clothes. Then it was back to the train and the hotel.