Unclaimed Baggage

by Jen Doll

“Where do you think Grant fits into all this?” Nell asks. “Is he a Southern person who’s racist … or one who isn’t?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “We should find that out before Ashton visits,” says Nell, and then she looks at me with a smile, like she’s planning something. “And then we should find you a boyfriend. There must be someone worthy! We could double-date.”

  “My aunt Stella always told me ‘Never get stuck on one guy—men will break your heart,’” I recall. “Better to play the field and do all the things you really want to do. I need to get into college! I have to get out of this town. Out of this state, ideally.”

  “Well, you can have a boyfriend and also leave your state,” says Nell. “Look at me.”

  I laugh.

  “It’s embarrassing, but before I had a boyfriend, I wanted one so much. Nisha and Morgan and I would talk about it constantly—who we liked, what we imagined kissing them would be like, how we could get them to like us,” she tells me. “We’d ask the Magic 8 Ball questions about it! And when I first started hanging out with Ashton, I couldn’t believe it. That he actually wanted me.”

  “You are kind of a secret nerd,” I say, patting her on the back.

  “I know!” she says, laughing. “He doesn’t even know how much I love detective fiction, or that I want to learn how to code, or anything. Why do we do that, hide our true selves?”

  “Because the scariest thing in the world is showing someone who you really are. Because then if they don’t like it, it feels like your fault! How did you meet him?” I ask.

  “I first noticed him freshman year. I played field hockey, and he played baseball, and we practiced in adjacent fields. But we didn’t talk until sophomore year. He said he’d wanted to ask me out the whole year before; he’d been so distracted by my ponytail swishing around that his game had suffered. But he was too nervous to say anything, plus, he needed to have a car to actually take me somewhere. That day he’d finally gotten his driver’s license. We went to a movie the next night, and the rest, I guess, is history.”

  I smile, because this is all pretty romantic, and she smiles, too.

  “He chose me, and that felt so good. It made me feel like I was a different person. More interesting than before. Beautiful. Cool. The kind of person who deserved a boyfriend.”

  I nod. I can see that, I guess. Having someone else value you means you don’t have to work so hard to do it yourself—or at least, it can feel that way, even if it shouldn’t. “But, Nell, you are interesting, on your own. You are choosable! I know that, and I’ve never even met your boyfriend.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes. I would choose you! I do choose you.” I reach out and squeeze her hand for a second, and she squeezes back.

  “I choose you, too,” she says. “I’m really glad we’re friends.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  She smiles and leans close to me. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  I nod.

  “I thought leaving Illinois was the worst thing ever to happen to me. I was so angry, but I also felt like my heart was broken. And then I met you. I’ve kind of started to like it here. I never thought that would happen. Now he seems so far away. He is so far away. I try to picture his face, and it’s there for a second and then it kind of fades away. I miss him, and I really do love him, but can it ever be the way it was? Do we even have a chance? We’re sixteen!”

  We’re done with the Lauren, so I pick it up and walk it over to the empty baggage stash. Next I grab the purple leopard suitcase that Nell named the Daphne. I lug it over and set it down in front of us, but I don’t unzip it yet. I’m thinking.

  “Maybe you do,” I say. “My parents started dating when they were sixteen, got married at twenty-one, and they’re still married. Or maybe Ashton gave you something in one place, but it no longer applies. Not every relationship is meant to last forever. I mean, we’re only in high school.”

  “Maybe,” she says. “But that breaks my heart.”

  “Just like Stella said,” I tell her, smiling. “But, you know, when people aren’t in your world, sometimes you lose their place, I think. They don’t quite fit anymore. Or it hurts too much to think about them not being there. Like with my aunt. I’m scared my memories of her are fading, but sometimes I don’t want to remember—”

  “You can’t forget!” says Nell. “That’s how you keep her alive!”

  “But she’s not alive. She’s dead.”

  Nell flinches. I forget how people react to that word. But what am I supposed to say? It’s the truth.

  “What if the whole ‘keeping her alive’ thing hurts too much?” I ask.

  Nell gulps. “I’m sorry. I’m such a jerk. I mean, I still have my boyfriend, and your aunt Stella…”

  “It’s OK,” I say. “Ashton is alive, and he’s coming to see you. Unlike Stel, which is good, because as much as I really, really miss her, I’m not down with ghosts. Hey, have you told your parents he’s coming to visit yet?”

  “No. I’m scared my mom is going to tell me he can’t come,” she admits. “Part of me is also scared that if he does come, and I feel the same way about him, it’s going to be too hard to let him go again. Or … what if he gets here and it turns out I don’t feel like I used to? What if I can’t stand him?”

  “That probably won’t happen,” I say. “But either way, you’ll know.”

  “I just wish it wasn’t all so hard.” She looks at the Daphne. “Ooh, yay, I’ve been waiting for this one,” she says. “I’ve decided she’s a PR executive and was on her way to Bermuda or Miami or Paris for a big meeting, and all her stuff went missing, so she just bought a whole new wardrobe and decided whoever found this would be better off for it.”

  I unzip the suitcase. “Um,” I say.

  “Not another dildo,” says Nell, leaning to peer inside.

  “Even weirder.” I feel around in the empty suitcase.

  “There’s … nothing in it?”

  I turn the bag upside down and tap it, expecting sand or rocks or anything to emerge, but there’s really nothing. I shake it, and there’s a rattling sound. “What’s making that noise?”

  “Did you check all the pockets and zippered compartments and everything?” asks Nell, so we do that, too, but the search is fruitless. In all of my time working at Unclaimed, there’s never been a suitcase that arrived with absolutely nothing in it.

  “Witness protection!” says Nell. “She had to change her identity midway through her trip and took her clothes and left the suitcase behind.”

  “Amnesia,” I suggest. “Not only did she forget to pick it up, she forgot to put anything in it!”

  “She’s a PI, and she’s being tailed, and she left this suitcase at baggage claim to put everybody off her trail. It’s a MacGuffin!”

  “What’s a MacGuffin?” I ask.

  “It’s a thing that moves things forward in a story but isn’t really the thing that matters at all,” says Nell as Grant walks in. “It was used famously in The Maltese Falcon. This statue was the MacGuffin all the characters wanted, but it was really a symbol for other things, like greed and temptation and money and stuff.”

  “Hellloooooo, ladies,” he says. “What have we found today?”

  “Emptiness,” says Nell.

  “MacGuffins!” I say, and he gives me a blank look. “The Daphne is full of air,” I add. “And we want to know why.”

  He leans over to see and shrugs like only Grant Collins can. “Maybe someone brought a second suitcase with them because they wanted to do a lot of shopping at their destination. My mom has done that before, but she usually puts the smaller suitcase in a bigger one. Then they forgot it because it didn’t have anything important in it.”

  “Wow, you really know how to ruin fun,” I say.

  “Can’t you at least humor us?” says Nell. “This is a matter of intrigue, not Packing Tips 101! Like: Why does it make a rattling noise?”

  “That’s the
sound of the spinner wheels moving around on their axes?”

  “You’re why we can’t have nice things,” Nell tells him.

  “Sorry,” he says, though he’s clearly not. “Maybe she realized the suitcase was totally last year and upgraded for a new one, midtrip. Or all the clothes were so expensive they were stolen by TSA. Or everything fell out and got run over by a plane. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because we’re never going to know.”

  He’s probably right. Still, when I lift the suitcase to put it in the rack of sorted luggage, I can’t shake the feeling that it contains some secret we have yet to discover. What’s the noise about? And it seems heavier than it should be if there’s really nothing in it. I think about opening it up and searching again, but Nell’s moved on to a hunter green Samsonite and Grant is breaking into one of the cardboard containers of miscellaneous goods left at airport security and never reclaimed, so I push the Daphne to a far corner of the room behind a bunch of other bags and get back to work, too.

  A few minutes later, Red comes in to say hi. “Just checking on the gang,” he says, but he sits down at the table like he plans to stay awhile. “What do y’all know about this thing people are doing, ‘social media’?”

  We stop unpacking and look at him. Grant stifles a laugh.

  “My parents only just upgraded my flip phone!” I say. “Don’t ask me!”

  “Did it give you a direct line to the 1900s?” Grant asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “They called and told me they want their jokes back.”

  “I’m pretty good with that stuff,” Nell tells Red. “Ashton and I Snapchat a lot.”

  “Well, Cat is leaving us to go back to school in August and get her combination business degree–MFA,” Red says.

  “Cat’s leaving?” I say. “No!”

  “I can’t convince her to stay, even with the promise of first pick on doughnuts,” says Red glumly. “So I need some savvy person to manage the Instergum for us.”

  Even I’m finding it hard not to laugh at that one, though it’s mixed with the sadness of finding out about Cat’s impending departure.

  “Don’t mock an old man,” he tells us as we giggle. “Y’all are the digital generation! It’s like breathing for you.”

  “I don’t know if it’s like breathing,” mumbles Grant.

  Nell’s eyes are wide and excited. “I’d love to do it!” She turns and looks at me and Grant. “If you all—y’all—will help me.”

  “Sure,” says Grant, shrugging.

  “I can try,” I say. “Wait, was that your first y’all?”

  “Yes!” says Nell. “How did I do?”

  Red gives her a thumbs-up. “Y’all are true heroes to an old man who doesn’t even have a Tweetster account.”

  We manage to keep straight faces as he gets up from the table. “I’ll send Cat back after lunch so she can give you a tutorial and get you all the passwords you need,” he says. “And stay tuned. Heather’s planning a little going-away party for Cat in August—everyone’s invited.”

  “We’ll be there,” I say.

  Red gives us a wave and is out the door, but when we burst out laughing, he pokes his head back in. “I know you’re having a hoot at my expense, I just wanted you to know that I know.” He waves again. “Later, taters.”

  “That guy is really the most cheerful person in the world,” marvels Grant. “I wonder what he was like when he dated my mom.”

  “Red dated your mom?” Nell opens her eyes wide in surprise. “Oh my God. I can’t imagine.…”

  “Small-town life,” I say, just as Grant says exactly the same thing. He looks at me, and I look at him, and we say the same thing next, too, that silly joke from when we were kids playing together and football and popularity and puberty hadn’t changed anything yet: “Jinx. You owe me a Coke.” He gives me a big smile, and I find myself hoping that maybe, just maybe, Grant isn’t just like everyone else in this town. Maybe deep down he’s a little bit like me.

  16

  Nell

  It’s my day off work, but after I send a MISS U U CAN’T WAIT TO C U!!!! text to Ashton—he may not have access to his phone, but when he gets it back, I want him to know I’ve been thinking about him—I spend the morning checking the store’s Instagram account from bed. Cat’s not officially gone until August; I’m her trainee until then. We met the other day, and she gave me free rein to post as I see fit. So far I think I’m nailing it. I upload a photo of the disco leggings and sparkly platform shoes that were in the Natasha, and I throw on a quick caption: Who’s ready for a DANCE PARTY? #summervibes #discosensation #baggageclaimed.

  I can’t believe my luck in getting to run this account. Unlike my personal Instagram, which is basically just my friends back home, it has thousands of followers already. The experience is going to look great on my college applications. Plus, it’s fun.

  I spend some time reading all the new comments. Everybody loves the skeleton from the inventory closet; I posted his picture with the caption Meet the official new Unclaimed Baggage mascot. Who wants to name this guy? Options range from Mr. Lost ’N’ Found to Skele-Store to Unclaimed Bag-a-Bones. Where do people come up with this stuff?

  After I finish ’gramming, I lie in bed a few more minutes, trying to psych myself up to tell my parents about Ashton and his plane ticket. When I finally go downstairs, my mom is reading the paper and wearing, for the love of God, a bikini. It’s actually kind of embarrassing how good she looks, given that she’s closer to fifty than she’d like anyone to know. Dad is next to her in a T-shirt and swim trunks, finishing a stack of pancakes. “Are you two going to the beach or something?” I ask, grabbing a plate for myself.

  “We thought we’d check out the water park,” says my mom.

  “It’s practically in our backyard,” Dad adds. “We have to go at least once this summer. What if it’s so great we want to go twice?”

  “Have to is a strong word,” I say as Jack walks into the room. His little-boy barrel chest emerges from the waist of baggy neon yellow trunks, which engulf his skinny legs. On his face there’s a bright-yellow mask, and he’s pretending to put his face in the water as he walks, his arms churning imaginary waves at the sides of his body.

  “Mmmrph,” he says, from behind the mask, which I lift off his face. “Hey!” he yells, pulling it back down over his eyes. “Do I just rip things off your face when you walk into a room?”

  “Sorry,” I say, laughing. “I wanted to see who the merman was.”

  He lifts the mask on his own and fixes me with a fierce, presumably mermannish, look. “Have to is two words,” he says.

  “What?”

  “You said have to is a strong word. Have and to—that’s two words. Just sayin’.” He grins and puts the mask back on his face. My brother. Sometimes it’s nice to have an adorable baby brother who’s way too smart for a seven-year-old. Sometimes it’s annoying as hell.

  “Go put your suit on,” my mom tells me, and I make a face. “Come on!” she pleads. “We haven’t had a family outing since we moved here! Spend some time with us! You’re so busy working all the time.” She smiles and winks, but a surge of anger rises in me. First she makes me get the job, then she tells me I’m doing too much of it? And what about her relationship to work?

  “Mom,” I say, but Dad gives me a look, and I know I can’t argue. “Fine, fine, fine. Can I ask a friend to come?”

  Their eyes light up in unison.

  “Why, sure,” says Dad, and Mom smiles as Jack spins around in a circle wearing his dumb mask and sing-chanting, “Have to, have to, have to!”

  The talk about Ashton will have to wait.

  17

  Doris

  I used to love my days off, especially Sundays. But ever since Aunt Stella died, I’ve sort of dreaded them. She’d been a Buddhist since she was eighteen, so she never went to the church in town. And then I stopped going, too. Instead, we’d binge-watch teen dramas, or she’d tell me about what it was like to fall in love,
or she’d read me poetry from one of her favorite writers, Mary Oliver, who was “spiritual,” she explained, but not “religious.” We’d cook and eat lunch together, and she’d listen to whatever I had to say. Sometimes we’d even sit and meditate together. My parents would come home and call us two peas in a pod, and we’d look at each other and smile because we knew it was true.

  My parents didn’t like that I decided to stop going to church, but Aunt Stella defended me. She said it was my choice and that no belief should come out of being forced to do something. And they listened to her, though I could never figure out why. I’m surprised they haven’t changed their tune now that she’s gone, but maybe they think I’m too far gone, too.

  Today, I’ve already read Stel’s favorite Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese,” twice, and then reread Maya’s last postcard, wondering what’s happening with her and her crush at camp. I’m bored and sitting in the living room by myself, flipping channels on the TV, when my phone beeps. I’ve got a text from Nell.

  What r u doing? it says.

  Hi, I write back. Not much, u?

  My parents r INSISTING we go 2 water park. Come w? PLS? she writes.

  I don’t think I can, I type. I have been to the water park, and the results were disastrous.

  Why not? she writes. Please please please please?

  I don’t write anything for a minute, and she sends a string of sad-face emojis.

  My parents will pay for your ticket! she writes. Seriously, they’re so excited I have a friend … PLS?

  I look at the phone, remembering our conversation about choosing each other from the other day. And before I know it, I’m writing, quickly so I can’t change my mind, OK! I can be there in 45

  My phone buzzes back immediately. Yay! I’ll b out front

  I get up from the couch and run upstairs; I need to keep up the momentum if I’m going to go through with this. I dig through my dresser drawers to find the two swimsuits I own. One is a conservative navy one-piece, the kind of bathing attire you might rely on if you were a practical, sporty type who really liked doing regular laps in pools, which I do not, but my mom bought it for me when she decided—without asking—that I should join swim team as an extracurricular to help me make more of the “right kind” of friends. I shudder at the idea of being near naked around so many people, plus, I hate getting water up my nose, so that never happened. The other suit is a bikini. I bought it myself on a whim from the store; it was such a good deal, and it seemed like the kind of thing I’d eventually want to wear, or become the sort of person who wears. It’s black and strappy and so new it still has the sticker on the bottoms that says FOR YOUR PROTECTION.