Wherever Nina Lies (8 page)

T
he rumble of the road beneath us becomes the soundtrack for a very long movie about cars on a long flat highway under a giant sky. I am lulled into a trance watching it.

Except for the road sounds, the car is silent, no music, no talking, but it’s the kind of comfortable silence that only occurs between two people who are secure in the fact that they have plenty to say to each other. Which is funny because Sean and I have barely spent two hours in each other’s presence.

Time passes strangely in the car, marked mainly by the changing color of the sky, from blue to deep blue and finally to black. And there is nothing but tiny car lights up ahead, and giant stretches of flat land on either side of us. Each time a car or a truck passes, I feel a little poke in my chest, like we are all part of some special club of people who are up late doing secret things, and I can’t help but feel like somehow all of them must be looking for my sister, too.

Around one o’clock in the morning, I spot a sign on the side of the highway showing a big slice of cherry pie with
Sweetie’s Diner, All-American Roadside Favorite Open Round The Clock Since 1953. World’s Best Pancakes. Next Exit
written below. I look at Sean and he looks at me and we both break into huge, giant, ridiculous grins. I cannot quite believe that we’ve really just done this.

Sean gets off at the exit and circles around and then there, in the dark Nebraska night, is an enormous pink and silver diner with sweetie’s written in orange neon lights at the top, the brightest thing for miles around. Sean pulls into the large parking lot, there are two other cars, three eighteen-wheelers with
Interstate Heavy Hauling
printed on the back, and one large bus with
MidAmerican Busline
written on the side and a big white 257 sign behind glass up above the windshield.

Sean parks. We get out.

The air feels cool and clear out here, and when I look up at the star filled sky I remind myself that those tiny pinpoints of light are larger than I can ever even imagine, and that all that menacing blackness is actually nothing at all.

We walk toward the door, and push through.

Sweetie’s Diner feels instantly familiar the way all good diners do: It’s all big giant booths and scratched chrome stools up at the counter and whirring fake-wood ceiling fans blowing the smoky scent of bacon, slightly burnt coffee, and warm pie all around the room. We stand there blinking under the bright lights like two people who have just been born.

She was here once, I think. Nina. My sister was in this
very room. I breathe in deep, as though some part of her is still here, and if I can catch it with my breath I’ll know all the answers I’ve been looking for. But all I get is the smell of food. My stomach grumbles and I am suddenly very aware of the fact that Sean and I drove straight through dinner.

A woman with gray hair pulled back into a bun walks by with two plates balanced on each arm. “Wherever you like, kids,” she says and motions toward the back of the diner with her chin, like a woman who is used to having her hands full.

Sean starts walking toward a booth in the back, slowly, looking around as he goes. Up at the wooden fans on the ceiling, down at the f lecked linoleum tile floor. We pass a woman in her late twenties with a toddler in a Chicago Bears T-shirt sleeping in her arms, an older couple sitting next to each other, sipping cups of tea, a man in his early thirties, slumped ever so slightly in his seat, his hand poised on his fork, his eyes closed, as though he’s taking a nap but doesn’t want anyone to know about it. Sean sits down in a booth and I slide in across from him. He opens his menu but stares out at nothing. “Sean?” I say.

Sean shakes his head and looks at me. “Sorry.” He smiles again.

A waitress approaches. She’s big and mushy-looking, in a friendly and comforting way, like she’d be nice to hug.
Rosie
is printed on her name tag. “Hi there, what can I get for you, honeys?” Rosie says.

And I want to answer, “My missing sister, please!” but instead I just reach in my pocket for her photograph. I am suddenly nervous. Sean is staring right at me with his beautiful slate-colored eyes, and when his eyes meet mine, I feel that same flash, now familiar, but still surprising in its intensity and the knot in my stomach loosens. Just a little.

I look up at Rosie. I hesitate for one more second, resting in this moment before I know what she is about to tell me, in this moment where anything is still possible, and then I open my mouth. “I was just wondering if you or anyone who works here might have ever seen this girl.” I put the photograph on the table. Rosie looks down. “I’m trying to find my sister,” I say. “And so I was wondering if you’d ever seen her before. She was here at least once, two years ago.”

As soon as I hear myself say the words, I feel a squeezing in my chest. I got caught up in the excitement of the moment, in the thrill of finding a piece of new information in the credit card statement, in finding someone willing to help me. Coming here, putting all that effort in, really made me feel like we were
doing
something and therefore were guaranteed to find the next clue. But just because you have sat in the car for hours and hours does not mean you’re going to find anything if there isn’t anything to find. We’re at a diner in the middle of Nebraska where Nina once came
two entire years ago. What did I
think
we’d find? Before Rosie even opens her mouth, I know what the answer is going to be.

“I wish I could help you, hon.” She has taken her glasses from a chain around her neck and put them up on the tip of her nose. She stares down at Nina’s picture, then back up at me. And I feel something inside me sinking. “I can’t say that I remember her. We don’t attract much of a regular customer base out here on the highway. Back when this place first opened, the head waitress was dating one of the bus drivers, so he’d stop in to see her whenever he was passing through, and then it just became tradition for the bus company that does this route to use us as their rest stop. I dare say the only repeat customers we get are the bus drivers and the truckers.” Rosie looks at Nina’s picture one last time and hands it back to me, shaking her head. “It’s a shame. Real pretty girl. Your sister’s missing or something?” She asks this like someone who won’t be surprised at the answer.

“Yeah,” I say. “For two years.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, hon,” Rosie nods. “You two really look alike, you know? If I didn’t know you were looking for her and I saw this picture, I might think this was you. You don’t know where she was headed or anything?”

I shake my head.

“Yeah,” Rosie says. “Guess not or she wouldn’t be missing.”

I look down at the beige Formica tabletop, at the white and green paper Sweetie’s place mat, and I feel my insides squeeze again.

“Is there someone else we could talk to?” Sean asks. “Someone else who might have seen her?”

“Don’t think so,” Rosie says. “Most of the other girls just started. People don’t usually last too long here.”

I nod.

“Can I get you kids anything?”

“Three large iced coffees,” Sean says. “And a grilled cheese.” He closes the menu.

“For you, hon?” I shake my head.

“You sure?” Sean says. “You must be hungry by now.” His voice is soft and sweet, as though my hunger is his concern. He reaches out and takes my hand.

“I’ll have a grilled cheese, too, I guess,” I say. Rosie nods and then walks away.

Sean leaves his hand on top of mine, squeezing rhythmically like a beating heart.

A minute later the three iced coffees arrive and a few minutes after that, our food.

Sean’s phone starts vibrating on the table in front of us. He looks down at it. “Leave us alone!” he says. And he smiles at me. I try and smile back, but I can’t. It’s late at night and we’re so far from home. And our mission has failed. And now we are just two people sitting in a diner in the middle of
Nebraska for, as it turns out, no reason at all. I just want to get back so I can pretend like none of this ever happened.

“Attention passengers on bus two fifty-seven.” A short man in a navy blue uniform is standing up at the front of the diner. “We’ll be leaving in five minutes. Five minutes! Anyone not on the bus will get left behind so I suggest if you haven’t already settled up your checks that you do that right now.” Everyone starts moving.

We continue eating in silence. Or rather, Sean eats and I just stare at my plate. The place is emptying out. I look up at Sean and ask what is at once the most pointless and obvious question of all: “Now what?”

“Now we pay, and then we go find somewhere to crash for the night. And in the morning we figure out the next step.” And Sean looks so determined and so hopeful, that all I can do is nod even though I’m thinking that there
is
no next step. The next step is we go back home and I try and forget that I ever found Nina’s drawing in the first place. “We’re going to find her, Ellie,” Sean says. He looks me straight in the eye. “There’s going to be another clue, okay? There just will be. I know it. But if you give up now, you might not be able to see it even if it’s right in front of you.”

I look down at my plate. I am suddenly very, very tired. I could fall asleep right here with my grilled cheese sandwich as a pillow. Sean takes the last sip of his second iced coffee and puts the cup back down. He points to the third one. “There are ideas in there. Brilliant ideas that are going
to blow your mind, I just have to drink it and then I will tell you what they are.”

I try and smile. This trip was a failure and we both know it. It’s sweet that he’s being so positive but that doesn’t change the facts. I feel like I’m about to cry.

“I’ll be right back,” I say. I get up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

I can feel Sean watching me as I walk toward the back. I push against the wooden door. Every bit of the bathroom is covered in graffiti—the walls, the sinks, the floor, the ceiling, the toilets, the paper towel dispenser, the trash can, the windows.
Jack loves Sarah
is written on the outside of one of the stalls in thick black marker. And there’s
AJ and CJ forever
in pink right near my foot. There’s
Lindsay and Jeanine
next to a picture of two sets of lips, kissing on one side of the garbage can. And on the other side of the garbage can there’s
SP would never toss TM in the trash!

A woman comes out of one of the stalls, sniffling, her eyes red and puffy. “Don’t believe any of it,” she says. I turn around.

“Excuse me?”

She blows her nose loudly on a piece of toilet paper.

“All that crap people on those busses say about that first bus driver and the first diner waitress when this place first opened and their special love and blah-blah-blah and how because of them this bathroom is all magical and shit, and how people love each other forever after they write their
names together on the wall? Don’t believe any of it.” She bends down and points to a spot on the floor, which reads
Desmond loves Annie.
“It’s all bullshit.” She reaches into her back pocket and produces a dark-purple Sharpie. She crosses out the
loves Annie
and replaces it with
has a skinny penis
. She looks up at me. “It’s true, you know. Like a Twizzler.” Then she puts the cap back on and walks out.

I am alone again, staring at the wall. I pee. And then while I’m washing my hands, I look at the mirror, which is entirely covered in scribbles.

And right there in the center of the mirror above one of the sinks is a simple line drawing of a guy’s face—strong jaw, wide mouth, big eyes—and right there in Nina’s graceful curved script,
Cakey
♥
’s J
.

I reach out and touch the mirror. The glass is cool, but the letters feel hot under my skin, like they’re alive.

I race back to our table where Sean is draining the last sip of coffee number three.

“I found something.”

And I grab Sean’s hand and drag him toward the bathroom.

I go inside first and bend down to make sure no one is in any of the stalls. I motion for Sean to follow me in.

“Nina did this,” I say and point to the spot on the mirror. “So I guess I know why she left.” My voice is shaking a little.

Sean is just staring, not saying anything. My sister had an entire life I knew nothing about, apparently. An entire life and an entirely different name to go along with it. So that’s it. She left to be with some guy. Now I know.

“People in love do crazy things sometimes, I guess,” Sean says quietly.

I shake my head. “That’s not an excuse.”

Just then I hear the slow screech of the bathroom door creaking open. “Shit,” Sean says. He grabs my arm and in one swift motion pulls me into one of the stalls and shuts the stall door behind us. I can smell him, the warm scent of his skin, the slight saltiness of the grease on his lips. I look up, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen someone’s face from this close. I stare at his dark lower eyelashes, at the smooth curve of his cheekbones. His body is radiating heat. I can feel his heart pumping against mine. I start to laugh for no reason at all. Sean clamps his hand over my mouth.