“Hey, it’s me.” Charlie knows her voice sounds off. Tremulous. A tad too quiet. “Just checking in from the road.”
“How’s the drive? Smooth sailing, sweetheart?”
Charlie shoots a glance at Josh. Even though he doesn’t appear to be listening, she knows he is. The whistling has stopped.
“Actually, things took a detour.”
“Very funny,” Robbie says.
“I’m serious,” Charlie says, sounding the opposite of serious. Because she has to. Because she knows that Josh is paying attention to every word. “We’re no longer on the highway.”
“I don’t understand,” Robbie says. “Where are you? What’s going on?”
“I can’t talk long. Just wanted to say hi.”
“Charlie, I need you to tell me what’s happening.” Robbie sounds panicked now. It streaks through every word. “Just give me a hint.”
“Oh, you know, we were driving along, got hungry, and decided to get off the highway,” Charlie says, faking a smile and hoping that, like Robbie, it comes through in her voice. Not for his sake. And certainly not for hers.
It’s for Josh, who’s back to staring up at the sky, his hands still in his pockets.
“Where?” Robbie says. “Can you tell me?”
“The Poconos. We’re at the cutest diner. It’s called the Skyline Grille.”
She hopes Robbie’s writing this all down. Or at least committing it to memory. And as soon as she hangs up, she hopes he calls the police.
“Can you get away?” he says.
“Not at the moment. Our food’s almost ready.”
“Shit.” Robbie pauses, helpless. “How can I help? Tell me what to do.”
Charlie doesn’t know how to respond. She’s all out of code words. They hadn’t taken it further than this because, honestly, it was all a joke. Just something Robbie came up with to ease the pain of her departure. But now her life might literally depend on what she says next.
“You should watch a movie,” she says. “Shadow of a Doubt.”
She hopes Robbie gets the hint. He’s seen the movie, of course. She made him watch it their first month of dating so he’d understand how she got her name. Now she hopes he understands that the film’s plot is coming true. Life imitating art in the worst kind of way.
“I should be home in about four hours,” she says, this time completely for Josh’s benefit. A not-so-subtle reminder that her boyfriend expects her to be home by a certain hour and will be worried if she isn’t. “I’ll call you when I get there.”
“Charlie, wait—”
She hangs up before Robbie can say anything else, unable to bear hearing him sound so frantic and helpless. She also wanted to avoid a maudlin goodbye. There’ll be no last words from her tonight. Not if she can help it.
“You all done?” Josh says.
Charlie nods.
“Good. It’s cold out here.” Josh flashes her that perfect smile. “Don’t want you to catch your death.”
INT. ROBBIE’S APARTMENT—NIGHT
Robbie still grips the phone, even though a full minute has passed since Charlie hung up on him. A recent birthday gift from his parents, it’s one of those new, expensive cordless phones he thought were pointless. But now Robbie sees its purpose. It lets him pace the bedroom unhindered by a tangled cord.
And pace he does.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Hard enough to wear down the carpet if he paced long enough, if he did nothing. But he knows that’s not an option. He has to do something.
So he dials *69 to call back the last number that called him.
He keeps pacing as the phone rings.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Five minutes ago, he’d been sound asleep, lost in a dream he can no longer remember.
Then the phone on his nightstand rang, yanking him like a fishhook back to the present. He took his sweet time answering, resentful of the phone for waking him, even though he knew it was likely Charlie checking in like he asked her to do. He was tempted to ignore it and just let the phone keep ringing. Because Charlie was right. They were going from New Jersey to Ohio. As boring a drive as exists in this country.
But that’s not the only reason Robbie was slow to answer. Charlie had left him, after all. Not officially. But Robbie knows that’s what’s happening. A long, slow, painful uncoupling as opposed to a clean break. And he spent the rest of the night feeling sad and self-pitying about that.
So when the phone rang and he assumed it was Charlie, a petty, wounded part of him didn’t want to pick up. He thought that maybe if he let the call go unanswered, Charlie might think he wasn’t home. That he was out at one of Olyphant’s many off-campus bars, chatting up one of the many drunk co-eds all too willing to go home with him. And that if she thought that, it would make her jealous. And that if she was jealous, then she might also start to miss him. And that if she missed him enough, then maybe she’d decide to come back to him.
Robbie ended up answering—as he knew he would.
Charlie was too special to ignore.
So he grabbed the phone and said hello and prepared himself for a quick check-in and maybe some awkward small talk. He certainly didn’t expect what came next. That dire code he had devised as a joke.
Things took a detour.
At first, he thought Charlie was kidding. A bit of movie-based humor to signify she still loved him and was still thinking about him. But then Charlie said, “I’m serious,” and everything changed.
So now he’s here, pacing.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Meanwhile the phone keeps ringing and he keeps hoping that Charlie will pick up and tell him it was all just a joke, that everything is fine, that it’s smooth sailing, sweetheart.
When the fifth ring goes unanswered, Robbie ends the call, stops pacing, decides on another course of action.
He dials 411. Trusty, reliable information. This time, someone answers. Robbie gives them the name of the diner Charlie told him she was at, says it’s somewhere in Pennsylvania, and asks where, exactly, it might be located. The operator, God bless her, comes through in a jiff.
Monroe County. Peak Township. Dead River Road.
“Do you also have the phone number for the Peak Township police department handy?” Robbie says.
The operator does. She connects them. Two rings later he’s on the phone with a local dispatcher.