The Library of Lost Things

by Laura Taylor Namey

  Jase ducked around the curtain and clinked his water bottle against mine. “Cheers. You’re mind-blowing.”

  “Thanks. But I’m just, you know, trying to get it done.” I felt myself flush, and not from the spotlights. The last “good thing” was the language itself. The Shakespearean lines were the only part of my new role that made sense, giving me something to hold. I knew my part. Words had never failed me, but now they showed themselves stronger than ever. And I needed all the strength I could get. Sooner or later, I’d have to close my eyes and surrender my first kiss to the guy in front of me.

  Jase swiped his forehead. “Marisol’s out front with Mrs. Howard, but she was looking for you.”

  “Yay, I get to be her Beatrice Barbie. She loves this stuff.”

  “Well, after we block and run Act Five for you, that’s it. The whole enchilada.” He winked and fanned the script like a deck of cards. “It’s a good one. Alyssa and I had fun with the wedding scene. Big emotions and drama. Funny, too.”

  Oh, downright knock-you-over hilarious. And yeah, big drama, complete with big, long, dramatic kisses. Was today the day? Shivers pricked my arms.

  “Did someone say enchiladas?” Marisol buzzed over, waving Beatrice’s pink-and-blue bolero and nodding for me to remove my cardigan. “This piece has been a major bitch to redo, so I gotta see if I’m on track. Only one more day.”

  Oh, my sweet friend. “You know you’re amazing and incredible, right? And please tell Mama thanks again when you get home.”

  Huge grin, framed in burgundy. “I know, and I will.” She helped fit the floral jacket over my thin black tee. One eye squinted as she tucked and arranged. “Jase, grab the silver pin container from my sewing kit, yeah?”

  He obeyed, finding the item and thrusting it into Marisol’s outstretched hand. “I’ll check when Mrs. Howard wants to start up again.”

  Marisol rolled the cuffs to my wrists and pinned. “If you don’t hold still, you’re gonna bleed.”

  I tried, but still felt myself trembling a bit. “I can’t help it. Today we’re running that scene.”

  “Maybe I should just grab Jase and tell him to lay one on you right here to get it over with.”

  Horror. Blood rushed to my head. “Don’t you d—”

  “Relax, babe. Kidding.” She sighed heavily. “Mrs. Howard said you’re brilliant with the lines and the role. Focus on that, okay? The good you’re doing.”

  “Sure. Easy.”

  London came up with a box of granola bars, her mass of apparently enhanced red hair wound into a topknot. “Fuel? We’ve got a couple more hours left.” She shook her head in wonder. “I don’t know how you memorized all those lines so fast. Amazing. Maybe you can give me some pointers.”

  An unlikely scenario, but I still said, “Okay. And thanks.” She held out the box again, but I shook my head. “I’m good.” I couldn’t even think about food.

  London asked Marisol, “Could you fix a tear in the hem of my white gown? It’s on that rack in the green room. My fault. I snagged it on a set piece coming off stage last week. It barely shows, but since you’re here...”

  Marisol shrugged. “Sure thing.”

  London cracked a sideways smile and fled.

  “She’s actually been sort of...nice,” I told Marisol. Acting with London on set wasn’t nearly as awkward as I’d feared.

  Pin in her mouth, she made a low grunt. After one tuck, the sharp point pierced the elegant fabric. “For her, that translates to basket of fluffy kittens.”

  Despite my impending kissing doom, I snorted a laugh.

  The London working with Mrs. Howard and the Much Ado cast seemed more patient and helpful than I usually found her to be in class or at school events. She kept everyone motivated, and truly cared about the show and presenting our best to the audience. London and I would never be friends, but I had to admire that level of dedication.

  Marisol stepped back. “Done and ready to sew. Mama’s finishing up the blue gown right now. Then we have to try the bonnet over your new wig. Should be fine.”

  Fine or not, before I could answer, Mrs. Howard called everyone to the stage again. “Act Five,” I mouthed.

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Nah, might be worse.” I shoved out my hand. “I mean, not that I—” What did I mean? I heaved a weighted breath.

  She rested the jacket on a table and braced my shoulders. “I get it. Quick, let’s be you for just one second. Not Beatrice, only Darcy. Word of the Day—go.”

  Instantly I said, “Bobsy-die.”

  Marisol tapped one finger on her chin, a cheery grin splitting her round face. “Bobsy-die sounds all fussy, like ruffled collars and bridal trains that are way too long. Hmm, a real diva of a word. I think it must mean a huge, stupid deal of trouble. What?” she added when my jaw dropped open.

  “You...the definition. You got it right.” For the first time, ever.

  * * *

  My limbs had steadied by the time I set my parking brake hours later, half a block from my apartment complex. But my insides still quivered, mainly and especially from Act Five.

  As promised, I grabbed my bag and called Marisol as I walked the rest of the way home.

  She picked up immediately. “Tell me everything.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Just go.”

  I wound around a group of neighborhood kids shooting hoops. “After you left, Mrs. Howard dismissed everyone who wasn’t in Act Five, so it was a small group.”

  “And?”

  I halted at the entrance to 316 Hoover. “You have got to be kidding me.” I’d smelled it first. The scent of razed, exposed earth and pulled roots and concrete dust.

  “Darcy, what? It was that bad? I knew I should have stayed.”

  “N-not the play,” I stammered.

  “What’s going on?”

  I narrated the scene to Marisol. The complex courtyard was half-demoed, sections of weathered pavers ripped from the ground and replaced with temporary plywood walkways. Flowers and hedges were uprooted, leaving empty dirt rectangles and scattered leaves. And then, the worst part of all.

  “Marisol, our table. They took our table away.”

  Her gasp strangled the connection.

  I hovered over the empty spot—sacred to both of us. Tears welled, scratching the back of my throat with dry salt. God, it was just a table. An old piece of furniture. I knew why they’d removed it, of course. Thomas probably ordered a new, sleek model to go with the refurbished railings, the snazzy gray paint. But I didn’t want new and modern. I wanted those mosaic tiles. The faded chips and broken pieces. I’d gotten used to them and made them mine. A tiny black heart, a little black star, drawn in permanent ink.

  My hand flew to the golden pendant around my neck. Was Marisol doing the same a few miles away?

  Finally, she said, “It’s okay, D. We’ll find a new spot, right?”

  “Yeah. We will.”

  “And they can have their table. Yup, they can totally take their shitty, ugly-ass tiled monstrosity and shove it where...wherever you shove the nastiest, tackiest stuff of all time,” she said. But her voice had dropped with raspy emotion, though I’d never call her on it.

  I laughed despite my own emotions—ill fitting and mismatched, like my friend’s designs would never be.

  “All right.” I heard Marisol’s cleansing breath. “Okay, then. Back to the play. I’m dying here.”

  My vision circled, lost and aimless. I didn’t know where to go. Finally, I folded my impossibly long legs over a low staircase step. “When we got to the Benedick and Beatrice kissing part, it didn’t happen after all.”

  “How come?”

  “Jase was all up in my personal space while we were doing the bantering scene. That part was fun, even though I thought I was going to puke from nerves about the end. But right after Jase delivered his stop your mouth line, Mrs. Howard yelled cut.”

  “No! Did you run out of time?”r />
  I told Marisol the rest as I remembered the Jefferson stage, how it had looked and felt an hour ago. Asher’s romantic Italian garden set with yellow jeweled lights like stars. Jase’s Act Five lines—his mouth so close, I’d smelled chocolate and oats from London’s granola bars on his breath. Then...

  Cut. That’s a wrap. Darcy, amazing. You’re going to be spectacular tomorrow night.

  The next scene was all real. It opened with my eyes stuck wide, Mrs. Howard’s cues ringing in my ears, and my lips arranged like I thought they should be if I was about to be kissed. However that was.

  “Oh,” Jase muttered softly. “Sorry. Someone should’ve told you. We save the real kisses for the shows. Alyssa and I, um, pretended until last Friday.”

  “Of course.” I hoped my smile looked like I couldn’t care less.

  Jase stepped back. “So, after I do the stop your mouth line, I’m going to throw both arms around you and tilt you back a little.” A short laugh. “I promise you won’t fall. And I’ll, um...press a little hard, so it looks passionate. But no tongue or anything.”

  Oh my God.

  Marisol screeched in my ear. “He said that? He actually said that? No tongue?”

  “Down to the letter.”

  We hung up after a few or ten more freak-outs and heart attack moments. And when I finally entered my apartment, I found my mother leaning over the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal.

  I dropped my things at the doorway and cut my eyes to the dining nook. Disturbed plastic tubs circled around the table. Items filled the top, not a centimeter of clear space left. My stomach cramped, and my throat parched.

  The makeup. She was obsessing over Elisa B. product.

  I gathered clever excuses and desperate rationales with each step, but they snapped away when I realized her sorted objects du jour were only office supplies. She’d grouped pen boxes, staplers, paper clips, and rolls of tape, probably counting and fussing over them. One look underneath the nook window told me her Elisa B. tubs—the ones I’d carefully pinched from—were still stacked.

  “Darcy, you’re not ill, are you?” Mom rested her spoon in the bowl and laid her palm across my forehead.

  I panted away the last thirty seconds. Could she feel the guilt, the lies underneath my heated skin? “I’m...” My heartbeat caught up to my sweet relief. Slow down. Breathe. It’s fine.

  Mom poured me a glass of water, handed it over.

  I gulped, almost too fast, and had to right myself again. “I’m okay. It’s...it’s just the play. I’m beat.”

  Mom nodded on a sympathetic smile. “Rehearsal went well?”

  London and the almost kiss and Asher was coming to see me. “It...went,” I said, feeling myself come all the way back to my body. Another breath. “I guess I’m all set for tomorrow.”

  “They’re lucky to have you.”

  But I was staring at the office supply overflow on our table, the opened tubs. Behind me, I heard, “Stressful workday. Quarterly reports are coming, and I just...”

  I whirled around. A risk, but I said the next words anyway—not only for a sick mother, but for a daughter who had to steal to survive. I had to get her to curb the need to rummage through boxes. To count and catalog. “I found a place nearby.” I bit the inside of my cheek, waiting for her attention. “A place you could go to talk about...” Don’t say hoarding. Not now. “Um, to talk to other people who...shop a lot. I read it’s really positive and nonthreatening.”

  “I can’t,” she said after a pause.

  “But maybe you—”

  “No one will understand me. I’m not like them.”

  Why had I expected any other answer? I’d found a place to help with her issues, but I didn’t know how to reach through her sense of denial. Not yet. I abandoned my wish to the layer of dust she’d disturbed, and spoke no more lines from the script of our messy life. I said nothing more about my real play, either. She probably wouldn’t come; Shakespeare had been a favorite of my father’s, and watching might dredge up bad memories.

  For the next few hours, I did my normal things. I made a ham sandwich, and scrubbed off the day in an extra-long, hot shower. I even managed to throw two focused hours at my homework.

  But then I did one totally abnormal thing. I put down Anne of Green Gables, resting it on my comforter next to my new-old Peter Pan copy. Then I rose and opened the Dickens hardback, drawing out my father’s letter. I scanned each word carefully. I hadn’t read it since that first night.

  Of course, I had to be the one to decide. Should I tear him to shreds and forget his existence forever? Or should I try to be someone I’d never really been before—a girl who had a father? One call or letter, and I’d transform him from legend into flesh and blood, a towering cage of bones. But when I did, who would I end up turning myself into?

  For years, I’d been a happy granddaughter to Grandpa Wells. But nothing I’d ever read, nothing in the books lining my walls, had ever shown me how to be David Elliot’s daughter.

  My eyes caught the glossy blond of my new Beatrice wig—plumped and brushed for my new role tomorrow—along with an idea.

  A role. A character. Not real, just pretend.

  For now, I could play a second character: Darcy Jane Elliot. I left the wig on my dresser but imagined myself in another story. Me, as another me, and my bedroom as another kind of setting. I crafted my scripted response:

  “Dear David Elliot,” the actress-me said out loud. The lines rang clear and smooth. “I’m your daughter, Darcy. I just turned eighteen. You’ve never met me, and I’ve never met you. But did you know your letter L looks just like mine in print? I know you love books. It’s why my mother hates them so much. I just wonder if you love them half as much as I do.”

  I stopped when I felt the character begin to fade into the real me. I wasn’t ready for that, not yet. Maybe I would be soon—or maybe never.

  I folded the letter again. I slipped it into its Dickens home and pushed the volume back onto my shelf. Then I tucked myself between my own clean ivory sheets.

  Twenty-Two

  Act Five

  “‘It’s like this.’ She He kissed him her.”

  —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, and Peter Pan Mystery Scribbler

  Robin’s egg blue fabric swished over my ankles, the fanciest dress I’d ever worn. Marisol tugged the thick brocade around me until it draped like a dream. Underneath the elegant folds, nerves and adrenaline teemed through my blood.

  “You did eat, right? Actual food?” Marisol asked as we entered the cast makeup area.

  “Yes, Mom. An entire cinnamon bagel and cream cheese.” Which was currently rolling like a disaster in the pit of my stomach.

  “Yay for carbs.” She helped me into the reconstructed floral bolero for Act One and fastened the ivory buttons. Then she tucked my hair under a nylon cap and slipped the Beatrice wig, arranged into an elegant twist, onto my head. “You’re a precious angel flower, babe.” Stepping back, she grinned. “The prettiest girl I know.”

  My lips turned up in a shaky smile. Those words in that particular combination rarely seemed to follow me. But my friend never lied.

  “Now it’s time for...” Marisol peered over my shoulder.

  I turned, not to something, but someone. “Mom?”

  Andrea Wells stepped in from the green room doorway, wearing a navy blue dress and tall, chocolate-brown boots. “I’d like to help with your makeup.” She held up a portable kit. “I’m sure Marisol has everything figured out, but I do know stage application.”

  Marisol glanced at me, and I nodded. She directed my mother to a spot on the vanity table. “Awesome. You can set up right there, and my work here is done.”

  While Mom unpacked her kit, I pulled Marisol aside. “I couldn’t have gotten through this week without you.”

  She winked. “I know. Wait, is your grandma coming?” she asked, and mouthed the word awkward.

  “Thankfully me, onstage, is all the awkward I’m facing tonigh
t. She’s in Cancun with her book club friends. I told her I’d get a video of the play for her to watch.”

  Marisol nodded, then exhaled a barely there sigh, eyes boring into mine.

  “Don’t,” I whispered, holding out my palm. “Not right now.”

  Leave the kissing scene on the page. Saying it makes it real.

  “Okay. Well, the fam’s saving me a seat.” Marisol wound her arms around me. “Oh, Darcy, I won’t tell you to break a leg. That’s not good enough. Break an entire body.”

  But hopefully not my heart.

  * * *

  My only job was to sit absolutely still at the vanity table. Mom finished a dramatic cheek contour, then filled in my brows with a golden tan pencil. “This is fun,” she said, more brightly than I’d heard her speak in months. “Remember when you were little and you liked painting my nails all different colors?”

  I had to keep my face frozen, but made a tiny sound of acknowledgment. When she pulled the brush away, I said, “And you always kept the messy rainbow polish on even when you left for work.”

  Mom smiled into the mirror. “I redid my manicures at the Elisa B. counter before opening time so you wouldn’t see.”

  My chest throbbed, heart warming. It was so different here, outside of our apartment. It felt normal, just a mom and daughter playing with makeup. I ached for the day when we could be this way inside our own house. Would Mom ever find enough freedom to make our space clean and free, too? I hoped so. But after so many years, I knew what to do with hope. I held it an arm’s length away.

  Running line after line in my head helped, too. The language steadied me.

  With my eyes done, lipstick was the final touch. Mom swiped on a nude-pink color. “Do you like this one? I think it accentuates your skin tone without interfering with the period look.”