Fly Me To The Moon

She hated the beep-beep coming from her phone to alert her that she had a message when she was in the middle of reading her favorite books. She didn’t want to stop reading but figured that it might be news from her sister who was 9 months pregnant and about to go into labor any second. She took her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the message. 

“I know that you only want to be friends and I am okay with that for now. Just keep our secret okay? I know that I am asking a lot but please k?”

She looked at the number and it was her best friend, Jamie’s number but she had no idea what she was talking about. She didn’t have a secret, Jamie told her no secret and as for friends they had been friends for 15 years. She called Jamie to ask her what that text was all about.

Jamie’s phone rang 4 times before the voice mail came on. She hated getting voicemail.

“Hello, this is Jamie, please leave a short message and your number and I will return your call as soon as I can.” Beep

“Hi Jamie, this is Sobrina, call me back ASAP about the text that you sent me. Ok, bye.”

Sobrina went back to reading her book and thought nothing more of the strange text message until she realized that 5 hours had passed and she hadn’t heard back from her friend. That was strange, very strange. Jamie usually calls back or at least texts back within an hour or two at the most. Sobrina knew that today was Jamie’s day off and she goes to see her mom on her day off but she should be home by now. 

Sobrina, put her book down, checked the time once more and grabbed her car keys. Twenty minutes later she was knocking at Jamie’s  front door. 

“Jamie, are you there?” Sobrina screamed loudly. She knew that the neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate her yelling to the top of her lungs but she didn’t care.  

Sobrina stood there for a few minutes staring at the door. She knocked once more and even rang the doorbell. There was no answer. 

Sobrina walked a few feet to the tree near the side gate that led to the backyard and bent down and  moved a flowerpot and grabbed the spare key to Jamie’s house. Sobrina remembered telling Jamie that it was a bad idea to put a key outside of her house like that but Jamie insisted that she lived in a safe neighborhood and wasn’t worried. Sobrina was glad that she didn’t listen to her about the key.

Sobrina walked back to the front door and unlocked the door slowly and called out to Jamie. She yelled Jamie’s name a few times as she searched the living room, then the  kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom. Jamie wasn’t there. Her dog, Blu, came running up to Sobrina and almost knocked her down. Blu was a black and white German Shepard with a sweet personality. 

“Hey, Blu, where’s Jamie?” She asked Blu as if he could tell her.

Blu, barked as if he was trying to tell her the answer. If only Sobrina could understand him she might know where her friend was. But, Sobrina patted Blu on the head and proceeded to look around again. Jamie's house looked pretty normal. She noticed some dishes in the sink, a coffee cup, a plate and a pot on the stove that looked like Jamie cooked eggs in. 

“Strange, Jamie must not have been home since breakfast.” Sobrina said aloud. 

Blu barked again and Sobrina fed him and put down some fresh water.  

Sobrina pulled out her cell phone and called Jamie’s phone again and again with no answer. 

“Jamie, I am at your house with Blu. Where are you? Call me please. I’m getting worried.” 

Jamie pushed the end call button on her phone and went to the living room. On the coffee table was a note that Sobrina hadn’t noticed when she entered the house the first time. She picked up the note and read it.

“Fly Me to the MOON!” was written in red ink probably using a sharpie. Sobrina didn’t know what to make of the note. Maybe it was the name of a movie or book that Jamie wanted to read or watch. Maybe it met nothing. Sobrina didn’t know. All she knew was that she couldn’t find her best friend and that worried her. 

“Come on Blu. Let’s go. I am taking you to my house until we find Jamie.” 

Sobrina called her other friend, Dallas as soon as she and Blu walked in her door. 

More voicemail. She shook her head at Blu and rolled her eyes.

“Dallas, this is Sobrina, call me back as soon as you get this. It is important.” 

“Well, Blu now we wait. If anyone can find out what happened, if anything to Jamie it is Dallas. 

Dallas came from a long line of police officers. Her dad was a police officer and so was her brother and her sister. Dallas was a teacher, she thought about going into law enforcement but decided that her calling was teaching. But, she was good at solving mysteries and with her help and the help of Dallas family, maybe they could figure out if Jamie was okay. She hoped that she was okay. 

The phone rang and Sobrina almost jumped out of her skin. It was Dallas. 

Dallas raced over to Sobrina’s house and Sobrina told her everything that she knew about Jamie’s disappearance and about the text and the note.  Dallas looked concerned right off the bat. 

“When was the last time you talked to Jamie?” 

“Yesterday. I talked to her right before she went to bed. She told me that today was her day off, the first one she has had in ten days and that she was going to her parent’s house, grocery shopping and taking Blu to the dog park. We talked for almost an hour and she said she was going to take a shower and go to bed. 

“Did she say anything else?” 

“No, except that she would text me in the morning. But, she didn’t text me in the morning. I got this text that I told you about from her phone around 4 pm.” 

“Does the text mean anything? Has she told you about any secrets?” 

“Nope, nothing like that. Jamie is not the kind of person to keep secrets. At least I don’t think so.”

“Well, something is up. Did she tell you about any trips she was taking?” 

“Nope. Nothing. She was saving up for a trip to go and see her grandmother in Hawaii but she wasn’t going there until the end of the year on her grandma’s birthday. I think she said in December.” 

“Okay, let’s go back to her house and look around again. Maybe she is already back home.” Dallas said, grabbing her jacket.

“See the house is just like I saw it. No Jamie.” 

“Did you look around?” 

“Of course, Dallas, I looked around. That was the first thing I did.” Sobrina rolled her eyes at Dallas. 

“What do you think this Fly me to the moon note means?”  Sobrina asked.

“It could mean anything or it could mean nothing. We need to find out.” 

“How are we going to find out? “

“I have an idea. Have you spoken to her mom?” Dallas asked.

“No, I only called Jamie’s phone and left a few messages but nothing. She never called or texted back.” 

“Let’s call her mom to see if she ever made it there. Do you have the number?” 

Sobrina dialed the number on her cell phone and talked to Jamie's mom. She hung up a few minutes later.

“Well, what did she say?” Dallas inquired.

“She said that Jamie came over around 10am and took her to the grocery store and to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions for her dad and they had donuts at the donuts place around the corner and Jamie dropped off her mom and said she would call her later that she had to take Blu to the dog park.” 

“Obviously, she never made it home to take Blu.”  

“Nope, when I got here Blu was hungry so I knew she hadn’t come back. She always feeds Blu. Blu is her baby.” 

“You are right about that.” Dallas said looking at the Fly note. 

“What are you thinking?” Jamie asked.

“I am thinking that something is desperately wrong and maybe we should call the police.”

“Can we wait to call them just in case she shows up?” Sobrina asked. 

“We will give it one more day. She really isn’t missing for 24 hours anyway and the cops will probably think that she just left to go on a trip or something. Usually that is the case. The person just goes on a trip or wherever and doesn’t tell anyone and a few days later they are found alive and well. “

“I hope that is the case with Jamie.” 

“Me too, Sobrina. Me too.”

The next morning Sabrina and Dallas decided to talk to Jamie’s mom in person. Maybe she could tell them more. They spent an hour talking to her and listening to stories about when Jamie was a little girl and sipping tea and eating fresh baked chocolate chip cookies but her mom didn’t know anything more. 

“Well, at least we know that her mom can’t tell us anything more than we already know.” 

“Yeah, she wasn't much help.”

“Did Jamie have a boyfriend?” Dallas asked Sobrina.

“No, her last boyfriend, Sunny, she broke up with 4 months ago. She found out he was cheating on her. He had a baby and everything by another woman. She kicked him out and of course he begged her to take him back but she refused. One thing that Jamie won’t tolerate is cheating. The last time she heard from him was probably a month ago. She stopped responding to his calls and texts when she kicked him out.” 

Before Sobrina could sit down in her car on the way home her phone rang. It was a private caller according to the caller ID on her cell phone. Usually she wouldn’t have answered but since her best friend was missing she swiped to answer the call because it might be a lead on where her friend was.

“Hello, this is Sobrina.” 

“Sobrina, what’s going on?” 

“Jamie? Where are you? We have been worried and looking for you all day and night.”

“I am sorry girl, but didn’t you get my note? Or my message?”

“If I had gotten either of those things why would I have been running all over town looking for you? No, I didn’t. Where are you?”

“I am at the airport.”

“The what? Airport? What are you doing at the airport?”

“I had to pick up someone.” 

“Jamie, you were at the airport all night picking up someone? Is that what you are trying to tell me?” 

“Yes, I left a note at my house.”

“The only note we found was something about a moon. And it didn’t make any sense to me.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t understand it. I might have left some words out. I guess I was in a hurry and my mind was racing because I was just so excited.”

“ What did it mean and who did you pick up at the airport that got you so excited that all you could do was scribble a note that made no sense to anyone and you even left your dog.” 

“Ok, I am on my way home. In about an hour this will all make sense to you. “ 

“Oh, and Dallas is here with me.”

“Dallas? Why is she there?” 

“Because you aren’t.” 

Jamie laughed and hung up the phone.

A few hours later Jamie unlocked her front door to find Sobrina and Dallas standing there with their hands on their hips and ready to give Jamie the evil eye. But, when they saw who she had with her all they could do was smile.

“Jamie is that who we think it is?” Sobrina said looking confused.

“Yes, it is.”

“I’m confused.”

“Dallas and Sobrina I would like you to meet the newest member of my family, my daughter, Jayleen. Remember I told you that I was going to adopt a baby? Well, here she is all the way from China.”

“Oh My Goodness she is so cute. But, why didn’t you tell me that you were going to pick her up?”

“Sobrina, I thought I did. The note was supposed to say that I was going to the airport to wait for flight number 109, which was the moon flight. I don’t know why they call it that but they did. So, I guess I left out some words and wrote ``fly me to the moon because I was just too dang excited to meet my daughter. I am so sorry that you were worried. “

“Well, we forgive you this time because you brought back such a beautiful baby girl.”

“I think I am in love already.” Jamie squealed.