Foreign Exchange (17 page)

Chapter
Seventeen

We dart into the first café we find with Wi-Fi to figure out directions to the modeling agency where we hope to find Tristan. I’ve explained to Sawyer about the return address that I saw, and we’ve been talking nonstop about what the pile of letters might mean.

The
se are the only two options we think are likely: She’s found some modeling work and is receiving checks for it. Sawyer's seen this sort of thing in his house for many years, between his own modeling and his sister’s. Apparently, one of them does a shoot, waits a few days, and a check arrives in the mail. But this option freaks us out, because why on earth wouldn’t she come back to pick up her money?

The other option is that they’re some kind of rejection letters. Sawyer says that sort of thing isn’t common in the U.S., but perhaps they’re more formal in Italy. And it would make sense for her to
want to avoid picking up those letters. Thankfully, the name of the agency is not one Sawyer recognizes as being one of the disreputable ones.

“There’s something here from my parents
!” Sawyer says, opening his email. I move in beside him and he pulls my chair closer, like he has no secrets from me.

I skim the email
—a bunch of pleasantries about how glad his mom is that Sawyer’s getting a chance to see Europe. Then, finally, a line that tells us something.

“
The last we heard from Tristan was before you left. She was getting ready for that excursion,” I read aloud. “Her host family was taking her to Rome. She was so excited about it!”

“Rome
?” Sawyer repeats, and immediately his eyes go outside, in what I would guess to be the direction of the train station. I keep rereading the word, as if by reading it enough, it will change to Barcelona, because at least that would make some kind of sense.

“Let’s check
out Milan first,” I say, not willing to think we might be in the wrong city after all we’ve done to get here. At least we’ve found links to her in Milan, and if Tristan would lie to anybody, I’d think it would be her parents. They still think she’s living with a host family and attending an academic exchange program.

Except I can’t help but think about the fact that her parents seem to be the
last ones she’s communicated with.

It’s almost noon by the time we navigate our way to
Giardino
. Milan is a complicated city and all the brick buildings look the same. But eventually we see the small sign. I have no idea how we’ll scour this whole city before the night train leaves for Barcelona. Or until we have to move on to Rome.

Sawyer walks up to the glass door, ready to hold it open for me again, but
the door doesn’t move. It's not that I don't believe him, but I have to reach up and give the door a pull for myself. There’s no Italian
Back in Fifteen Minutes
sign, or even an inscription of the hours on the door.

I check
the time. “Why would they be closed at one o’clock on a Friday afternoon?”

Sawyer
stares up at the building. “It looks like a pretty big establishment.”

My shoulders slump. “Unless it’s one of those siesta things
, like they have in Spain.” Sawyer raises an eyebrow at me, so I explain. “I guess the Spaniards take a break from work, right in the middle of the day. It’s normal there, and I don’t know, maybe in Italy, too.”

“Normal, but annoying.”
He blows out a breath.

It’s more than annoying. After
getting my hopes up about finding Tristan and then having them snatched away at every turn, this feels like one more thing than I can take. I let out a breath too, but mine comes out as more of a choke.

Sawyer
places a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, are you okay?”

It’s all I can do to shake my head. He pulls me into a hug and strokes my hair. Then my back. Then my hair to my back.
I’m definitely not thinking romantically, but still, involuntarily, my skin covers in shivers.

“We’ll find her,” he whispers. I don’t know if he believes it
, but one of us has to keep saying it, and right now he’s the strong one.

He slides his arm around my shoulder and guides me across the
small lane to a line of similar brick buildings. I don’t care where he’s taking me. I trust him completely at the moment. I have to.

Sawyer
dials Tristan’s number again, but still there’s no answer. She must be awake and out of the shower by now, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Sawyer looks into each of the doors we pass, until finally he opens one and an incredible garlicky smell wafts out. A restaurant. There’s one large table of men in dark suits at the far end—some of them have an arm slung over the back of the guy beside them and they look a little like the mafia. Otherwise, the place is empty.

“We haven’t eaten anything
since dinner last night,” he says. “Coffee alone isn’t going to keep us thinking straight, so we might as well use this time to get some sustenance.”

It all makes
sense, but he doesn’t need to explain. I have to let someone else be in charge.

“Can we get a seat
near the window?” Sawyer asks, motioning to a small table up front when a waiter comes to greet us.

The waiter nods, says
,
“Si,”
and leads the way. He places two menus in front of us, and I let out a tired sigh. I don’t have the energy to translate right now.

But then the waiter
speaks to us in Italian and I recognize two important words: Menu or Special?

“La specialit
á,”
I say, too fast. I turn to Sawyer and notice for the first time today how exhausted he looks. He nods. The special will be fine with both of us.

“Do you know when
they open?” Sawyer asks the waiter, pointing across the street.

Thankfully the waiter can understand some English. “Soon.” He nods with a
cheery smile. Our eyes settle across the street when the waiter leaves. We can’t miss seeing them open their doors. It’s the only lead we have for finding her.

I don’t realize I’ve said
the words out loud until Sawyer replies. “Well, not the only lead. We can always check out Rome.”

I shake my head. “
Rome is even bigger than Milan. How would we ever find her there? She’s not in Rome. Not if she told your parents she is.” I admit, even the thought of her traveling to Rome when she knew I was coming irks me. She wouldn’t.

Sawyer rakes his fingers through his hair and pulls at the roots. “I don’t know, Jamie. She’s lied to all of us. Who knows which of the lies are the worst or the most recent, or the ones we should ignore?”

What he says makes sense, but still, I murmur, “She’s not in Rome.” And he decides to let it go.

The waiter returns with a wine bottle and two wineglasses.

“Oh!” I say, surprised.

“La
specialità?”
he asks, seeing my surprise.

The wine is part of the special? I don’t feel like arguing.
“Si. La specialità.”

When the waiter leaves, Sawyer says, “I guess they don’t ID in Italy.”

“I think the drinking age is, like, really low here.” I sigh and turn the glass of white wine in my fingers. I’ve had wine at Christmas with Mom, one glass, and it’s always been kind of an exciting, special-occasion thing. I’m not feeling celebratory at the moment.

“Maybe…you know, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a little? To calm down
,” Sawyer says. Calming down does sound like a good idea, so I take a small sip, and then look back across the street. Still no movement at the modeling agency.

Sawyer takes a sip of his wine too.
“I’ve been thinking... How can we realistically comb this entire city—and Rome—all by ourselves?” He doesn’t let me answer. “Maybe we should go to the police.”

T
he waiter returns with what he calls
antipasti,
or what looks like cold cuts rolled up and decorated in a really fancy formation. We nibble at it and my thoughts return to Don Bristolle and the lengths she had already gone to at home. I’m nervous about where Tristan is, but part of me is also nervous about screwing things up for her.

“We haven’t even checked the hotel I told her to meet at,” I say, even though I hadn’t given her an exact time or anything. “Or the
conference center.”

Sawyer nods, but stays silent. We both know my idea is unlikely, but at the same time, if Tristan
simply hasn’t gotten my messages because she hasn’t been getting online, or if she’s avoiding us because she’s angry, I don’t want to miss out on seeing my dad.

“
You should take a picture,” Sawyer says, interrupting my thoughts. I pull out my photo and my camera and quickly take a shot of my snapshot of Tristan and me beside the
antipasti.

Sawyer smiles. He’s not going to bug me
about my strange memory-making, because he knows it’s all the hope I can muster. But after I slip my camera away, he’s still looking down at the picture of me and Tristan with his lips twisted a little.

“Tristan was doing the same thing?” he asks. “Did she send you any shots?”

I can’t believe this hadn’t occurred to me. “My email,” I say. “Let me look up my email.”

Thankfully
the restaurant has Wi-Fi and we take a few more bites of food as we wait for his laptop to boot up.

“She only sent a
couple, but maybe they’ll help.” 

The waiter strolls by, eyes our almost
-full plate of cold cuts, tops up our wine and hurries off. Both Sawyer and I hunch over the screen, trying to see anything in the background. He enlarges it as much as he can before it distorts.

“There are trees,” I say.
“Lots of greenery, and if you haven’t noticed, there’s not a whole lot of that in downtown Milan.”

Sawyer nods. “Let’s check out the others.”

“There’s only one other.” I pull it up. This one is on a street corner with what looks like a big cathedral in the background.

“
Duomo di Milan
,” Sawyer says, and I’m surprised how nice his Italian sounds. So far I’ve done most of the speaking. “Milan Cathedral.”

“You know it?”

Sawyer nods. “It’s in our World Arch book. Haven’t you seen it?”

I shake my head. To be honest, I hadn’t paid much attention to our textbook yet this year
, though I’ve wished more than once now that I had.

“So another place we can check,” I say. “Near the cathedral.”

It’s amazing how much it calms my nerves to know we have options if the modeling agency is a dead end. I sip some more wine, eat some more meat, and soon our waiter is clearing the meat plate and returning with a pasta dish for each of us.

“I should have known some sort of pasta would be the specialty.” Sawyer smiles.

It’s less saucy than I’ve had at restaurants at home, but it practically melts in my mouth. It has a yellowy-white sauce, not quite Alfredo. More garlicky and just…savory.

Sawyer ha
s checked his email and of course there’s nothing new.

“What if Tristan hasn’t been getting online at all?
I mean, if she doesn't have access to a computer, and what if she lost her cell phone?” Tristan had gone through three cell phones in the last year. Her parents only spring for the cheapest ones now. “If she’d bought a cheap international one at the airport, chances are good she may not have been too careful with it.”

Sawyer nods with serious
eyes.

I have another thought that I’ve been trying to fight off, but I know I need to say it. “Maybe I should call
Don Bristolle. Demand some answers from him.”

I have no desire to ever speak to the guy again, and Sawyer can probably tell that from the look on my face. He nods, and before I realize what he’s doing, he’s dialed a number into his cell and is asking an operator for a phone number for
Don Bristolle in Detroit.

But after several long seconds, it’s obvious that
Don is not picking up.

“No voicemail?” I ask.

He shakes his head and then tries Tristan’s number again. After another long minute, he presses the phone roughly onto the table. “Sometimes I wonder if this cheap phone even works.”

I can hear the aggravation in his voice. More as a distraction than anything, I say, “Have you checked your other phone? Your U.S. one?”

He reaches into the front of his backpack, willing to take the distraction, even if he doesn’t look hopeful, and retrieves another phone. It looks like an iPhone, but knowing his parents, it’s not a real one. He turns it on, and I see the moment it must be working, must be connected to some network, because Sawyer’s face gets as bright as the sun.

“What? What?” I ask. I race around the table to look over h
is shoulder. It’s a text. From Tristan.

I’m really busy this week. I will talk to you all soon.