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045: reality

chapter 45: reality
location: buffalo, wyoming, day 2

Every cis white girl in America - and a lot of trans white girls, too - have amassed a certain skill with time. It is not a skill that they enjoy having, but it is one that is crucial for survival. If a white girl in America is ever in trouble, she will never hesitate to use this skill.

The skill is: how to sit still, look pretty, and be the victim.

It was in this fashion that, upon arriving at the campground office, Sara Dinah LaPostale was intercepted by big, strong, nice white police officers. She was taken to sit in one of their cars, while her parents were called, and the 'criminals' who had kidnapped her were arrested and taken to jail. And, instead of fighting them, Sara complied. It was in this fashion that Sara did what she could to pay attention to her surroundings, to observe what she might be able to use to her advantage, once she got away from playing nice with the police. It was in this fashion that she did her best to stare straight ahead, when she saw a tow truck take the purple van away, followed by a police van. The boys and the van were gone, taken to the precinct by the officers, and then who knew where. But Sara was still free, and she could do something about this, if the police officer in the cruiser would stop bugging her about calling her parents to pick her up.

Sara couldn't call her parents to pick her up. But she did have a trump card that just might work.

The police officer had one of those newfangled cellular phones that Sara had never seen before. It looked like a radio and weighed a brick, but Sara gave him the number she had used years ago. She knew the number still worked and that the company still had a board operator. She just hoped the person she wanted to call was still in the directory. Thank God Britannica had filled in a few gaps for her.

"Miss lady, if we don't know who you belong to, we're gonna have to take you down to the precinct," the policeman said in that saccharine voice usually reserved for children.

"Oh, I know, it'll just be any second now." Sara held her ear up to the receiver as the call clicked through. She told the operator whom she was calling for, and after a few seconds, the operator confirmed that the person Sara was looking for no longer worked for LaPostale. They did, however, have the person's home phone number, and gave it to Sara. The policemen were so distracted with the fact that they had actually caught the seven Korean runaways that Sara was able to hang up with the operator, call collect, and give them the number to some place in Los Angeles, California.

A man picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Yes, you are receiving a collect call from the Shady Oak. Would you like to accept the call and pay the charges?" the call collect operator stated.

Sara held her breath, hoping that the person on the other end of the line would accept the call, and finally, he clicked over. "Who is this?" she heard.

It was a voice she hadn't heard in months. But he hadn't spoken to her in over forty years. "Hi, Davie."

Two thousand miles away, David James LaPostale dropped his phone.

"I'm dreaming," he muttered to himself, pausing to assess reality. He was standing in the kitchen of his Hollywood mansion. If he looked out the window, he could see the swimming pool in full display, framed by palm trees. His wife was upstairs, tucking the children into bed. And his dead sister was on the phone.

"Miranda?"

"Honey, I'll be right down," he could hear his wife upstairs.

He leaned against the kitchen counter and picked up the phone again. "Who is this?"