The Lost & Found (11 page)

L
os Angeles faded away into the distance and was replaced by nothing. Just the road in front of us and desert surrounding us. I drove for seven or eight hours. I wished my car had hand controls so Willa and I could switch on and off. I wished I had remembered to get a shot of Freon (I had looked up what it was), because even with the air conditioning blasting it was still too hot. Willa leaned forward and put her forehead against the vent.

“I think we have to stop soon, Louis,” she said. “I'm sitting in a pool of my own sweat.”

“Noted,” I said.

“And I have to pee. And I feel like it's been fifteen hours since we ate lunch.”

“It's been six,” I said.

It was seven p.m. now, and I wasn't eager to stop. There was something to be said about driving through the night, something strangely appealing about the stamina that would require.

Then again, there wasn't much appealing about falling asleep at the wheel.

I got off at the next exit.

Willa vetoed two motels before we found one that met whatever expectations she had set. There was a diner across the street; we headed over after we checked into our room. The hostess gave Willa a long, not unkind look. I realized it had been a while since I'd seen someone stare at my sister's legs. Everyone knew us back home. Nobody was that thrown by them anymore.

“Chill,” Willa said when we were seated. She opened the menu. It was enormous; it covered her entire body.

“What?”

“I said you need to chill. You can't let that shit bother you.”

“It's rude.”

“Look, it's human nature. It's the same reason you do a double take when you see someone with purple hair. We're drawn to the different. She can't help herself. And if
it doesn't bother me, it shouldn't bother you.”

“How can you be so confident with random strangers but so weird with . . .”

Willa looked at me over the top of her menu. “Are you going to finish that sentence?”

“Maybe later.”

“Good decision. I'm ready to order. You think they serve breakfast all day? They must, right? All diners do. I'm going to get some tater tots.”

The server came over and Willa ordered first, rambling off a bunch of sides and expressing her sincere gratitude that they did, in fact, serve breakfast all day. When it was my turn, I asked for a salad. I was suddenly not very hungry.

“Do you feel okay?” Willa asked. “Because you just ordered the lamest thing on the menu, and that concerns me.”

“Just tired,” I said.

To be honest, I didn't really know what I was. I was tired, but not overly so. I was nervous to meet Frances and tour the university, but not overly so. And I was irritated that the hostess had spent so long looking at my sister. I was irritated at the way her eyes had traveled up and down Willa's body, pausing where my sister's real legs met her fake legs.

I didn't know why it bothered me so much. And I didn't know why I was suddenly itchy—like my skin had been dunked in a barrel of chili powder. My throat felt closed up and small.

“Louis?” Willa said.

“I think I'm going to head back to the room,” I said quickly, standing up before she could say anything. “Grab mine to go, will you?”

I heard her call after me, but I didn't turn around.

There was no warning.

This was how it happened. There was never any warning.

I just didn't know why it was happening now, after I'd been so good for so long. I had learned to manage my panic attacks by counting (as Willa had obviously noticed). I tried to run through some numbers in my head, but I was already too far gone for it to do anything.

I ran from the diner to the motel. It was one of those motels that are laid out in a strip. Our room was around the back and faced a large, empty parking lot. At the other end of the parking lot was a movie theater that looked like it had been abandoned for at least twenty years. It was covered in green vines, and a large section of it had crumbled in on itself. There was yellow caution tape around the debris but they hadn't gotten around to cleaning it up yet.

Something about it was depressing; I closed the blinds and locked the door behind me.

I sat down on the bed and focused on my breathing. I counted in and I counted out, trying to make my breaths come evenly. My skin burned but at the same time felt somehow detached from my body. It felt like something that did not belong to me, like something I had stolen. It
felt like I would split open if I didn't release the pressure that was building underneath it.

I wanted to.

But I couldn't.

I hadn't purposefully cut my skin in years and I didn't want tonight to be the night it came back, in this mostly shitty hotel room while my sister asked for my salad in a Styrofoam to-go container at an equally shitty diner across the street. I didn't want that to be how I spent my first night on the road, my first night away from home. I didn't want “being someone who cut his skin” to be what defined me anymore.

I got off the bed and walked back and forth across the small room, counting my steps until I fell into a rhythm I didn't have to concentrate on anymore. I tried to reclaim my skin, like Dr. Williams told me I had to do, to convince my mind that it was okay and it was supposed to be here and there was nothing wrong with it.

I counted, counted.

And when I got to one hundred, I realized my skin wasn't crawling anymore.

That was nice.

I took a shower and brushed my teeth with a towel around my waist. I heard a key turning in the lock and then the door opened and the lights went out suddenly. I saw a beam of light shine across the room. I poked my head out of the bathroom.

“Willa?”

She held the flashlight under her chin and grinned broadly. “Where'd you get this?” she asked.

“That's not mine.”

“It was right outside the door. You must have left it there.”

“I think I'd remember if I did.”

“I guess someone left it,” she said, shrugging. “Got your salad,” she said, handing me the container. She turned the lights back on and tossed the flashlight on one of the beds and I picked it up, curious.

It was enormous and black and heavy, clearly very old and made out of some type of metal. I turned it over in my palms and saw the writing—faded with time but still pink and still readable:
Frannie.

“Are you feeling better? What was wrong, anyway?” Willa asked.

“I'm fine. Where did you say you found this?”

“It was just outside the door, why?”

“Look,” I said, pushing it toward her. I put the salad on one of the bureaus and waited while she read the word on the flashlight a few times, her lips moving slightly.

“Is this a joke?” she said.

“It's not a joke. I've never seen this before.”

“But why does it say Frannie?”

“I think it says Frannie because it belongs to Frannie.”

“I'm worried about your brain,” she said.

“I think you should worry about the universe breaking.”

“You don't actually think this is hers? And it just, what? Magically appeared outside our motel room?”

“That's kind of exactly what I think happened.”

I could tell she wasn't going to believe me. Willa wasn't really open-minded when it came to stuff like this. She might not think I was a fabric drug dealer, like my mother, but I knew she also didn't believe the things I lost were anything other than just that: lost. I decided not to press the issue.

“You know, I think this is a sign,” she said, flicking the lights on and holding up the flashlight thoughtfully.

“The flashlight is a sign?”

“When was the last time you did something you weren't supposed to? I mean, besides lying to me about college.”

“I don't know, Willa,” I said. I didn't like the way she was looking at me. Her eyes were too big.

“Come on. Put your pants on. We're going on an adventure.”

It was no use arguing with my sister. I'd learned that a long time ago. Ten minutes later, we were staring up at the abandoned movie theater. Willa held Frannie's flashlight, pointing its beam up at the building in front of us.

“This is a terrible idea,” I said.

“This is a truly excellent idea.”

“It's probably going to collapse on us.”

“Louis, if it was really dangerous they'd have torn it down already. It's fine.”

Willa couldn't climb the chain link fence that snaked around the building, but she didn't have to. The lock on the gates had rusted and split in two, like someone had taken a shovel to it. Willa danced inside.

“I don't want to be arrested,” I said.

“They don't arrest kids with no legs, Louis.”

“I have legs.”

“That's true. Okay, they'll probably arrest you. But I will bail you out.”

“With what money?”

“They don't make kids without legs pay bail money, Louis.”

I followed her through the gate.

She walked right up to the front entrance of the building, which was chained off halfheartedly. We obviously weren't the first people to have the genius idea of breaking and entering, because someone had already kicked through the rotting wood of the door. Willa slipped inside easily and then aimed the flashlight back so I could see what I was doing.

The inside lobby of the movie theater was cavernous and dark. There weren't any windows, and Willa's flashlight cast long shadows all over the place. The floor was covered with debris. There were still movie posters on the walls advertising new releases for movies that were now twenty years old.

“Cool,” Willa said.

“Can we be done now?”

“Shut up, Louis.”

She led us deeper into the theater.

There was no shortage of abandoned buildings in Los Angeles, but the risk of breaking into them did seem, admittedly, higher. This building was in the middle of nowhere. It was creepy, sure, but it seemed relatively safe. In LA, you were breaking into an abandoned building directly next to a Starbucks. You ran a much higher risk of being caught. Still, I was nervous. I could feel my heart starting to speed up, and I tried to convince myself we wouldn't even be here long. Everything was going to be fine.

“Willa, exactly where are you headed?” I asked.

She ignored me, but a few seconds later she turned into one of the theaters. We were on the side of the building that had crumbled away. Half the roof was missing in here, and the screen was sagging on one side. Willa found two seats that were relatively clear of debris, and we sat down. She clicked off the flashlight and when our eyes adjusted, there were the stars.

“I've never seen this many before,” she whispered.

“When we went to Joshua Tree,” I said.

“This seems different. This is like . . .” She settled back in the seat.

“Like what?”

“You're still having panic attacks?”

I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting something about the stars, something about the sky. I turned to look at her, but it was too dark to see anything other than the outline of her head, the curve of her ponytail. Maybe it was easier that way.

“I don't know what you mean,” I said.

“Louis, you're my brother. Why do you keep lying to me?”

“I'm not . . . I'm not lying.”

“I know you've been counting. I know you left the diner counting. I know they're happening again, or . . . maybe they never went away?”

“Willa, I don't . . .”

I didn't know how to finish that sentence, so I let it hang in the air until the echo of it had finally faded away.

“We used to tell each other everything.”

It was true. We did.

“What else do you know?” I asked.

“I know what a
propensity for self-harm
means,” she said.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. And nobody had to explain it to me. I can feel when you do it. Just like I know you felt it when they cut my legs off.”

“It was just like a tickle,” I said.

“Only you would call a double amputation a tickle.”

She flicked the flashlight on and aimed it at my face.

“Hey!” I said, pushing it away.

“No more secrets,” she said. “I mean it. I'm so sick of it.”

“No more secrets, fine.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“How can I help you?”

“Geez, Willa, calm down. I'm fine.”

“It's worse than I thought. You can't even keep a promise for a minute,” she said.

She turned the flashlight off. We stayed in the movie theater for a while longer. If anyone had seen us, they'd have thought we were waiting for the movie to start.

W
hen I woke up the next morning, Arrow was doing her meditations on top of the sleeping bag. She'd already showered, and her hair was wrapped in a towel she'd brought from her house. I got out of bed and took a quick, hot shower. When I turned the water off, Arrow stuck a fresh towel into the shower. I wrapped myself in it and stepped out of the tub.

“How are we going to wash these?” I asked.

“First of all, you're welcome from saving you from whatever flesh-eating bacteria is living on these motel towels. Secondly, we'll go to a laundromat, Frannie. Obviously. We're not hooligans.”

She left me alone to blow-dry my hair with the dryer she'd brought from home, and by the time I was done, she had already packed up her stuff and was sitting on the corner of the bed, playing on her phone.

“Are you hungry?” I asked her.

“Starving. There's a breakfast place nearby that's supposed to be good.”

“I'll hurry.”

I got dressed and met Arrow by the car. Arrow had already loaded Kathy up with our things and was behind the wheel waiting for me. The diner was only a few miles down the road, and Arrow drove there quickly, ignoring most street signs for a more do-it-yourself approach to driving. I don't recommend it, but to be fair we were kind of in the middle of nowhere and seemed to be headed only deeper in.

There were a few pickup trucks in the diner's parking lot. Arrow parked Kathy in the shade and we headed inside, our stomachs rumbling audibly the closer they got to food.

The boy behind the counter gave Arrow a particularly interested look when we walked in. He was about our age, and he wore a Rilo Kiley T-shirt that was old and faded and looked suspiciously out of place in the setting.

“You can sit wherever you'd like,” he said. To Arrow. I'd turned momentarily invisible.

“Thanks,” she said brightly, leading us over to a small booth near the window. The table was wood and covered
with a thick laminate that showcased a number of local business cards and flyers.

“What if she changes her phone number?” I asked Arrow, pointing to the business card of a realtor. “Do they order a new table?”

“Probably nobody changes their phone numbers around here,” Arrow said.

The boy followed us over and handed us each a menu. “Coffees?”

“Yes please,” Arrow said. She hadn't yet noticed that the boy seemed to have forgotten how to blink.

“You have an admirer,” I said when he walked away.

“Hmm? Oh, him? He's cute. You know, I think I like Hank Whitney. We seem to have similar priorities.”

“Hank Whitney?”

“You stole his handkerchief,” she explained.

“You know I didn't steal it,” I said. “What kind of priorities?”

“Well, we both like to run. And I've seen him use hand sanitizer, so I'm fairly certain he would never wear a pair of sunglasses he found in a motel room.”

I took the glasses off the top of my head now (what? I'd been wearing them) and twirled them around in my hand.

“So . . . about these sunglasses,” I said.

“What about the sunglasses you stole? Like you stole Hank Whitney's handkerchief?”

“Actually, I didn't steal them. I had permission to take them.”

“Did the previous owner leave a note?”

“No, the previous owner texted me and asked me to bring them back to him.”

“You've lost me,” Arrow said, turning her attention to the menu.

“Louis. These are Louis's sunglasses.”

She looked up at me, poised for some smart comeback, but she was interrupted by our server. He put our coffees down and cleared his throat awkwardly. Arrow looked up at him.

“So my name's Penn, and I'll be taking care of you this morning. Have you had a chance to look over the menu?”

“Are the hash browns like shaved potatoes? Or are they more like a patty?” Arrow asked.

“They're, uh, shaved,” he said.

“Perfect. Can I have those with the garden omelet, but can you make sure the hash browns are really well done? Like, burn them. Do not be afraid to make them virtually inedible.”

Poor Penn looked virtually about to pass out, but he jotted her order down on his pad. I got a breakfast sandwich and an orange juice.

“So, come again?” Arrow said as soon as Penn had left. “You said these sunglasses are Louis's sunglasses?”

“I did. They are.”

“Okay. I'm actually very excited to hear how you think Louis's sunglasses ended up in our motel room in Bluntville, Tennessee. Take it away.”

“I can't tell if you're making a joke, but it's Blountville,” I said. “And I have no idea. Truly. None. But Louis lost his sunglasses. And I found them.”

“And he lost them in . . .”

“California.”

“And you found them in Tennessee. Okay. Definitely one possibility. Another possibility: they're not the same sunglasses.”

“He said they were the same sunglasses.”

“They could be the same brand. Same model, whatever. That doesn't mean they're the same pair. It means it's just a weird coincidence.”

Maybe that should have been the first possibility that occurred to me, but it hadn't. I felt slightly let down by the prospect that these weren't actually Louis's sunglasses.

“Oh,” I said.

“I don't mean to bum you out,” Arrow said. “I'm just trying to keep you honest.” She took a sip of her coffee, then squinted at me. “Why do you seem like you care so much? They're sunglasses. You're gross for wearing them, by the way. But they're just sunglasses.”

I put them back on the top of my head, using them like a headband to push my hair out of my face.

“You know how . . . I lose things?” I asked, instinctively
lowering my voice. Like anyone in this restaurant might care about my history of misplacing objects.

“Yeah,” Arrow said. “I know.”

I ignored the skepticism in her voice and said, “It happens to Louis too. The same way it happens to me. Things just disappear for us.”

“Okay.”

“Disappeared,” I said, tapping the sunglasses.

“Reappeared,” Arrow said.

“Exactly.”

“Your omelet and very burned hash browns,” Penn said, placing a plate in front of Arrow. “Your breakfast sandwich and orange juice.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the juice. Penn didn't move.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

“No, I think we're good, thanks,” I said.

He still didn't move. He watched Arrow take a bite of her hash browns.

“This is perfect,” she said. “These are a masterpiece. Compliments to the chef, et cetera.”

“I'm glad you like it,” he said, breaking into a wide, cartoonish grin.

He still wasn't moving, so I cleared my throat and said, “Is there something we can help you with?”

“Sorry, no,” he said, suddenly flustered. “I was just, uh . . . I'm glad you like the hash browns.”

Arrow smiled at him. He left in a hurry.

She widened her eyes at me. “So the sunglasses have magically traveled two thousand or whatever miles to end up, magically, on your head.”

“You said magically twice. But that is the general theory I'm going with, yes.”

“Okay. I mean, like I said, that is one possibility,” she said.

“You don't believe me, fine. That's fine.”

“I just don't see the point. What would the universe be trying to tell you, you know? You need those sunglasses more than Louis does? Presumably it's pretty sunny in Los Angeles. It's sunny here too.”

“I don't know what the universe is trying to tell me,” I said. “That's the main problem with my life. I never know what the universe is trying to tell me.”

“Allow me to be the voice of the universe this morning.” She lowered her voice: “Eat your egg sandwich, Frannie. Drive to Austin. Be kind to your cousin.”

“Can we make it to Austin by tonight?”

“Negative. It's still about a seventeen-hour drive. We should have done more yesterday. We're not great at road trips.”

“Don't be too hard on us. We're beginners.”

When the bill came (Penn placed it in front of Arrow gently, then backed away directly into another table),
Arrow took out her debit card. We were taking turns paying for meals so we didn't have to split everything.

Penn reappeared in an instant and took the check and Arrow's card.

“Maybe he's never seen an Asian person before?” Arrow wondered aloud.

“He just thinks you're pretty,” I said.

“He has good taste in music. But he lives in Tennessee, and I do not.”

He came back a few minutes later with Arrow's receipt. “So, uh, cool name,” he said. “Arrow. Are you, uh . . . I mean, what is your . . .”

“Vietnamese,” she said, putting her card into her wallet.

“That's cool. I mean, it's cool you have a Vietnamese name too.”

“It's not a Vietnamese name. It's not even a name. It's a weapon. It's not even a Vietnamese weapon. I should have been called Dao.” Blank face. “It's like a sword,” she said, making a slashing motion through the air. She signed the receipt and handed it back to him. “And your name is Penn. That's not a name either. It's a writing implement. Frannie was stabbed with a pen. Enjoy the rest of your day!”

We left the restaurant quickly. I wondered how long it would take that poor boy to stop thinking about my cousin. Not that I could blame him. Arrow had the natural energy and intrigue I lacked. I'd have a crush on her, too, if she wasn't related to me and I wasn't largely heterosexual.

“I'll take first shift,” she offered, heading over to the driver's side.

I was reaching for the door handle when I heard Penn's voice behind us, somewhat frantic and out of breath. I groaned inwardly and turned around.

“Sorry! Ladies! Sorry!” he said, sprinting toward us. He carried a ream of fabric in his arm. Literally. A bolt of blue fabric like you'd get at the craft store.

“Penn?” Arrow asked.

“You ladies forgot your, uh . . . fabric,” he said. He looked appropriately confused. He held the bolt of fabric out to me.

“That's not ours,” I said.

“It is! I mean, it has to be. It was right in the booth where you were sitting. I went to clean off the table, and it was right there. I'm glad I caught you.”

He pushed the fabric into my hands, bowed his head, and jogged back into the diner. I turned the bolt lengthwise and read the sticker on the end of the cardboard.

Linen. HQ. Cerulean blue.

$44.95/yard.

Johar Fabrics.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said.

“I didn't say anything!” Arrow said.

“Look at this. Look!”

I handed the fabric over the top of the car. Arrow read the label. “That seems really expensive for linen,” she said.

“Johar Fabrics,” I said.

“It's not our fabric, Frannie. What do you care where it came from?”

“Louis Johar,” I said.

Arrow looked back at the fabric, her forehead knotting in delicate lines. I saw her mouth the words aloud to herself, and then she looked at me and said, “Shut up.”

I took the sunglasses off my head and held them. “Do you believe me now?”

Then I slipped them over my eyes and got into the car.