Page 3 of Missing White Woman

Her last string of texts had come just as I was getting off the train.

I can’t believe you’re going someplace you’ve never been with a stranger.

But that was the thing. He was only a stranger to her. I’d met his mom, Ms. Patty. He just hadn’t met mine. And it wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

I just think it’s premature, Breanna.

My mother thought a lot of things. So did I. So did the entire world. The rest of us simply didn’t feel the need to share them all.

It’d just been the two of us since my dad unexpectedly died of a heart attack when I was in grade school. My memories of him were fleeting at this point, but one of the things I would never forget was how he used to look at me and my mom. I’d never felt more loved—more safe—than when he was smiling at me.

I pushed the convo out my mind as I took in my home for the next two days. I dropped my “weekend tote” a few feet into the first-floor open-concept living area.

110 Little Street in Jersey City.

I felt like one of those kids the first time they stepped inside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I didn’t know what to look at first, what to touch, where to sit. I was afraid to even put my bag on the glass entry table, which looked so simple it had to cost more than a month of my paychecks.

Ty had made his presence known. There were dishes in the sink and he’d left the big-screen TV on mute. I didn’t recognize the news anchor, which meant it had to be a local station.

I put my phone up and slowly did a 360, taking photos of the exact same things in the pics he’d screenshotted from the Airbnb listing. The entry table and stairs a few feet away from me. The living room couches and oversized rug the same dark gray as the walls. The all-white kitchen in the back of the house. The entire garden through the windows behind it.

My shots were nowhere near as pretty, but they’d do. Finished, I sent the lot of them to my mother with two words: Made it!!!

Ty had done good. I wished it wasn’t so important to me that my mother see that.

By the time she responded, my Kenneth Cole and I had made it up three flights of stairs to the “owner’s suite.” Of course I stopped on floors two and three to take more pics. Sent those to her too. She got the office, the gym, and both spare bedrooms. All varying grades of gray. All fancier than anything I’d seen on some decorating show. But if the rest of the house was HGTV, the fourth floor was Architectural Digest.

The bedroom took up the entire floor. When I finally willed myself to look away from the bed, I noticed the floor-to-ceiling windows. The skylight. The Keurig twinkling on a marble counter, joined by a sink and a mini fridge. Guess when you’re rich, you don’t go downstairs for midnight snacks.

I took another photo in front of the “beverage center”—this one a selfie—then sent that one to her too. My phone buzzed just as I was realizing that the green blob I saw out the back window was the Statue of Liberty.

I smiled, for once excited to see what she had to say. There was nothing she loved more than a good marble countertop. She had to appreciate this house. There wasn’t a single thing bad even she could say about it.

I unlocked my phone and opened the text. Her response was simple.

You let your mystery man see you looking like that?

* * *

He’d lied about being on his way, but then I did too when I said I didn’t mind that he was still stuck at the office. It was a gorgeous house, and I forced myself to enjoy it. I haphazardly unpacked, hanging up the lone dress I’d brought in the walk-in closet. It had a safe, but I didn’t own anything worth putting in there.

Unpacking didn’t take long, which meant I had time to do a quick face-mask treatment. I ran downstairs to see what was in the fridge. Ty had gone shopping. There were eggs, oatmeal, yogurt, and honey—perfect for a quick facial. I mixed and matched until it was ready to go. Then slathered it on my face, waited the requisite ten minutes, and went upstairs to shower.

Once in there, I took my time, pressing buttons and turning knobs at will. All while pretending not to be surprised—and excited—by what each one did.

My studio in Baltimore was in an old building and I paid all utilities, which meant I wasn’t used to anything more than quick showers. Lukewarm ones at that. I kept expecting the water in the Airbnb to get cold. Someone to bang on the door to tell me to hurry up, like my mom would do when I was a kid. That I was wasting all that good water, like she used to say. But it didn’t happen. Made me want to stay in there forever, the steam keeping the rest of the world—and the problems that came along with it—at bay.

When I got out, I was going to go downstairs. Wait for Ty there in as little clothing as I could manage. But then I opened the door. Saw the inky blackness below. Turning out the lights and the TV when I’d come up to shower had been a mistake. I’d never been afraid of the dark, but it sure hit different in my six-hundred-square-foot studio than it did being solo in a four-story row house.

I came back into the light, shut the door, then burrowed myself under the heap of covers and sheets that felt softer than my legs after a fresh run of my razor. I checked my texts again. Nothing from Ty. Guess he was just as tired of his lies as I was. I tried to turn on the bedroom television and failed miserably. But who needed it when you had thousands of online videos to keep you company? Not as good as Ty, but still.

When it came to social media, I was familiar with the usual suspects, using them all differently. Facebook was for birthday reminders. Twitter, or whatever it was called now, was for news and outrage. Instagram was the one I used most. I didn’t have to dance or edit thoughts down to 280 characters. I didn’t even have to put a caption if I didn’t want to. I could just upload a photo and call it a day.

My page wasn’t private but it might as well have been. There were less than 100 followers. My life consisted of two things: working and running. The closest thing I had to friends were my coworkers—a conveyor belt of college students too self-involved to ask me much about my personal life or past. I had to admit I liked it that way. Surface conversations. Only going out to celebrate birthdays, new jobs, and, most often, graduations.

No one told you how hard it was to make friends outside of college—especially when you didn’t try that hard. I was crap at keeping in contact with folks—especially the ones who knew me before. Just like with dating, my last close friendship had ended in college. A childhood-turned-college friend who had been the closest thing to a sister. And that breakup with Adore had been just as painful as with any college boyfriend. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time online.

Of all the apps, TikTok was still trying to figure me out. I hadn’t committed to following many accounts. A few Black skin-care influencers and The Rock, because who didn’t follow The Rock? The result was an algorithm as much a mess as my desk at home—videos with a #BlackSkinCare hashtag and any other thing with a ton of views.