Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [95]
“It’s good to have friends like that,” Milo said.
“Yes, it is. Listen, Milo. I’ve got to run if I’m going to be on time for my mom. But this was great. Thanks for … I don’t know. For letting me watch the movie with you and not thinking I was crazy.”
“Hey, I was the one who wanted my room back to watch a movie I’ve seen a dozen times,” Milo said, knowing the number was much higher. “If anyone acted crazy today, it was me.”
“I don’t think so, Milo. You may be a little sentimental, but you’re certainly not crazy. It’s a damn good movie. Worth watching again and again.” Lily extended a hand and Milo reached out to shake it, but before he could clasp her palm, she had converted the handshake into a brief, somewhat awkward hug. Then she turned, said one final “Bye,” and was off.
Before Lily had even disappeared from view, the ring of placebo forced him get moving once again.
Chisholm, North Carolina, waited.
Before Milo could resume his journey south, however, placebo would need to be satisfied. Milo’s solution had come to him while brushing his teeth earlier that morning, and for that bit of seemingly divine inspiration, he had been thankful. So far away from home and without his customary resources, he had started to worry about how he might meet this demand. But in the end, the solution had actually been easier than most. Ten miles south of the hotel, Milo stopped at his third pharmacy that morning and finally found success.
“Good morning,” he said to the pharmacist, a middle-aged man wearing glasses and a yellow bow tie, looking a little bit like a modern-day Woodcock, Milo thought. “I have an odd request. I’m traveling with my daughter, who gets car sick anytime we’re on the road more than an hour. We used to give her Dramamine, but about a year ago, our doctor prescribed … What do you call it? A fake pill? The one that makes her think that she’s taking real medicine?”
“Oh, you need a placebo?”
“Yes,” Milo said, trying to mask the wave of relief washing over his body on hearing the word spoken. “A placebo.” The first two pharmacists had failed to use the word, referring to them instead as sugar pills. But the modern-day Woodcock had come through.
“So the placebo helps her with the motion sickness?” the pharmacist asked.
Milo said yes, answered a few more questions, laughed at a bad joke, and finally left the pharmacy with a dozen sugar pills, free of charge. There were twenty more already in the car from his previous two stops.
Finally, after all these distractions—Butch and Sundance, Lily and Eugene, and placebo—Milo pulled into Chisholm, North Carolina. By the time he brought the car to a halt in the gravel parking lot of the Town Chef, a diner on Main Street, it was after five o’clock. He was tired, hungry, and once again in need of the restroom.
As he entered the restaurant to the sound of bells ringing above the door, he was pleased to see a redheaded waitress behind the counter, chewing gum, drying a plate, and welcoming him with a smile.
Town square or not, maybe things were looking up.
chapter 23
Prior to leaving for North Carolina, Milo had acquired several bits of information that he thought might assist him with his search of Tess Bryson.
In reading additional news reports of Sean Bryson’s arrest and conviction, he found that the niece whom Bryson had molested had been on his wife’s side and that his wife’s maiden name was Plante. He also found that Sean Bryson’s wife, Tess Bryson’s mother, had died of pancreatic cancer a year before her husband had been arrested.
Milo wondered if Tess Bryson had ever returned to Massachusetts to attend the funeral or visit her mother’s grave. Probably not the funeral, but maybe the cemetery, he thought. That is, if she was still alive.
Next, he conducted a search on WhitePages.com for the last names Plante and Bryson in Chisholm, North Carolina, and found two Brysons and one Plante within the town’s limits. He had the addresses and phone numbers for all three of them.
Emily and Michael Bryson, presumably married, lived at 107 Federal Street.