-Damn presidents.
Snow found Polk’s disappearance particularly disturbing, as she realized Polk now knew people were looking for him and could thus evade capture much easier than the presidents showing up at train stations, homeless shelters and prisons. Blair was more disturbed by Seph’s disappearance, as he would not--or could not--answer his phone.
Emmit suggested he and Blair go search for the missing presidents and Lily and Mitch could search for Seph. Emmit felt that he and Blair were the best team and could find every president before Lily and Mitch found their way out of the museum, but he did not say anything beyond the suggested division. Lily and Mitch voiced their support for the plan.
But Blair pointed out that Emmit and Mitch had found more presidents than anybody and thus should stick together. Snow agreed; unsure of how much clout she carried with her non-employees. Mitch then asked for Todd’s advice but Todd had already disappeared again. Snow was not amused.
-Damn wizards.
Blair and Lily took a taxi to Seph and Mitch’s apartment. The cab driver had just received his Master’s Degree in Theater and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be driving a cab much longer. He said he didn’t regret following his passion and had the girls been listening, they would have believed him. This job isn’t bad, said the driver. He was careful to not say the word “profession.” The money wasn’t so good, but he got to meet interesting people most days. Just yesterday he picked up the District Attorney from the airport, that was pretty special.
Riding the cab, Blair looked out her window at the sky. It was that deep blue color right before night can be considered night, when the sky looks like a blanket. She had tried to capture the color in several of her paintings but never had it right. She considered, for the first time, that maybe the color was more than a color when it was in the world. She wanted to find Seph and was sure they would. But she also thought about how Seph, like everybody else, thought Blair captured the right shade of blue in her paintings. Unexplainably, this frustration led to Blair taking a break from paining all together to focus on her photography. Someday Blair would come to understand Seph might not have seen the difference in the blue colors, but he knew the feeling of struggling when other people didn’t understand the purpose. Until then though, Blair shook her thoughts away from herself and wondered if she should call her older sister.
Lily didn’t notice Blair was looking out the window, as she was looking out the window on the opposite side. Years ago Lily had been at a party and made a joke about Mitch. She was making people laugh and didn’t know Mitch overheard her until it was too late. She later explained to him that she didn’t know he was in the other room. Then she said she was just joking and that the people listening knew that. Then she said she was drunk and didn’t really believe what she said. Then she asked him to see a movie with her but he declined. Then she apologized and he said everything was cool. They stayed friends, or at least shared friends, for another year before she moved but she never felt like Mitch truly forgave her because he never seemed angry in the first place. Maybe he forgot about it all by the next week. But she never would and would have to die not knowing how much Mitch really remembered.
Blair paid the cab fare and unlocked the front door to the dark apartment. Blair turned on the lights and walked into the kitchen. Lily checked the bedrooms. The place was dead.
-How do you have keys to their place?
-Mitch kept locking his keys inside so finally made a copy for me so that I could let him in.
-Why wouldn’t he have Seph let him in?
-I think he did, but he thought annoying each of us half the time was the better route.
Blair put some popcorn chicken in the microwave.
-You hungry Lily?
-No, I’m fine. You sure Seph and Mitch won’t care you’re eating their food?
-You kidding? I bought this for them.
-Then I’m starving.
Lily turned on the TV but only got static and turned it off. Blair explained that Seph and Mitch didn’t have TV despite having a TV. Which wasn’t that unusual except they also sold their DVD player and video game systems. The certain DVD player was actually Blair’s but the Robocop and Star Wars DVD’s were the boys’. Blair said all this with a certain air of admiration, or at least understanding of people trying to simplify their lives. That is, until she added that the boys’ TV was as useless as an empty Kleenex box.
After throwing away their paper plates and trying to call Seph again, Blair noticed a note taped to the refrigerator that simply read: At Emmit’s. No date, no time, no explanation or even signature. Though in an apartment of two a signature would have actually been stranger. Still, said Lily--honing her detective skills--it’s the only clue we got. This might be a message for us. Maybe Seph knew we’d come here looking for him. Maybe somebody else is following him though so he couldn’t elaborate. Maybe they were really close so he didn’t have time! Some kind of fight would also explain the mess in the living room.
-Yeah, that’d explain it, muttered Blair.
Still, Lily was right in her first point. They had no other clues to go off of. So the girls started walking to Blair’s where they could finally get a car and then went on to Emmit’s, knowing Emmit knew less than they. While walking to Emmit’s, Blair borrowed Lily’s phone and called her manager at the Paul Walker Art Museum. Blair didn’t specifically know why, but certainly felt that she was going to be busy tomorrow and said she wasn’t going to make it to her 8-hour shift and just quit.
At Emmit’s, the front door was appropriately locked and the interior lights were appropriately off. Seph hadn’t been here since Blair needed to borrow the shoebox of tools. In fact, Blair realized that was probably when Seph left the note on the refrigerator for Mitch. Lily asked Blair about her now unemployed status. Lily told her friend to get her job back because all this wasn’t worth losing a job over. Didn’t she have bills to pay? How would she buy food? Was she moving away?
Blair shrugged off the concerns with non-answers. Curious to learn more about Lily, Blair didn’t mention that this was the third time she had quit working at the P-WAM. Lily couldn’t understand why Blair quit but tried to stay focused on the missing people.
Finding her focus became impossible, so Lily suggested they at least go see if Bogart needs water or food. Blair felt a sting of embarrassment, having forgotten about Emmit’s popular dog. As they walked into the fenced in backyard, Blair tripped into a small hole and fell down. Lily helped her up and realized how dark the night was getting. Aside from not being able to see, the thought entered Lily’s mind that Seph, along with three former U.S. presidents, might be missing through the night. Blair had realized this while eating popcorn chicken but didn’t want to seem pessimistic and so didn’t mention it. Four people were missing, possibly lost and almost certainly alone.
Thankfully the night wouldn’t get too cold, but now both girls understood that searchers have to sleep sometime. It had been a long day, and even though they weren’t ready to give up yet, for the first time, they acknowledged they’d have to--albeit temporarily--sometime. Lily realized that Blair had quit her job because she couldn’t sacrifice more time or energy than absolutely necessary. Blair couldn’t be distracted from what she wanted, even if nobody knew what she wanted. This display of dedication frustrated Lily, who now realized she had nothing to sacrifice for the cause herself. All her friends had their way of life hanging in the balance, but she had no status quo after moving back home less than a week ago. Lily was fighting the same battles in life as her friends but she wasn’t in the trenches with them.
Emmit had once told Lily that you gain as much as you risk. She thought it was just betting advice at the time, and indeed it was. Emmit was no philosopher, but that didn’t make him wrong.
Blair stepped over a drool-absorbent chew toy and let herself sink into her surroundings. The backyard was as quiet as a monk and just as peaceful. There was a police siren a mile away and leaving. Lightning bugs sporadically went bright, as if they were stars fighting for a last glimmer before sinking into the earth. Blair said she had expected to be greeted by Bogart by now.
-Bogart? Bogart!
-Blair.
-What?
Lily had gone back to the fence gate and closed the door right above the hole Blair tripped in just moments earlier. It was a big hole. Big enough for Bogart to get through? Yes, Blair confirmed. It was.
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