The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Baggett

  So I spent eleven hours a day in a cubicle searching for those answers. I wrote stories like “Find Out What Drives You: Be Happier from 9 to 5” and “Boost Joy with a Gratitude Journal.” Soon my favorite moments at the office were those spent brainstorming ideas on how to turn your aspirations into reality and reading the latest studies in psychology journals.

  I’d stay at work long after the phones had stopped ringing and the lights had dimmed, rushing to meet deadlines for stories on five-minute stress busters. I’d research tricks for curbing emotional eating (“Take a bath!” or “Call a friend!”), neither of which I ever found time for myself. So I’d reach into my desk’s food drawer to soothe myself with Snickers and caramel corn.

  When I forgot what I was working so hard for, I tried to take the advice of the happiness experts I interviewed by thinking of all the reasons to be grateful. If I hadn’t moved to New York, I’d never have been able to work in one of the world’s largest publishing companies. I’d probably be filing boring office forms instead of getting paid to read the latest happiness literature (which I’d have done for free). Maybe I’d be reporting on a local fender bender, as I had when I’d interned for a small newspaper in college, rather than, say, interviewing women about what makes life meaningful or testing out guided meditation techniques on DVD.

  I was learning even more than I had in school, writing stories that reached millions of women, expensing my lunches, and riding black Town Cars to parties paid for by the company. Everything seemed right in my life, but a current of restlessness ran through my veins that nothing I did—from taking on extra writing assignments to occupy my mind to training for a marathon to push my body or going to a rooftop barbecue with friends to chill out—could extinguish.

  The person who most understood my drive to find a deeper meaning in it all was Elan, my live-in boyfriend. Just breathing him in made me feel more relaxed—when I actually saw him, that is. As a graduate acting student, he was in an equally demanding program with a class schedule that constantly changed. The fact that we both clocked long hours in an effort to achieve our individual dreams also served as a kind of glue to hold our relationship together. Most significant others might feel neglected by a partner who channeled more time and energy into launching his or her career than advancing the relationship, but Elan and I saw it as a necessary sacrifice at that point in our lives.

  Years earlier, I’d met him at a friend’s birthday party in a smoky club in the West Village. I remember it was a Friday night; I’d worked till 8 p.m. and hadn’t wanted to go out at all. My sister Sara, who lived with two of my college friends and me in a railroad apartment, had practically pulled me out by both hands because she thought I’d been spending too much time at the office. I glanced back at our lumpy futon as the door clicked shut behind us, wanting nothing more than to wear my favorite sweatpants and sink down into the couch eating popcorn. I hadn’t expected to make it until midnight, let alone meet a love who would take my breath away. But New York does that. It can wear you down, and then—just when you feel like collapsing—it’ll jolt you back with the best night of your life.

  Magnetized by Elan’s deep, soulful eyes and shock of anarchist curls, we ditched the friends we’d come with to spend hours huddled together in the corner of the dance floor. I remember our voices grew hoarse; we were spilling over ourselves to share our stories. I remember leaning in close to hear him above the music, catching the scent of his sweat in the humidity, and how it sent a charge through me that reached all the way to my toes.

  When he called three days later (which seemed like an eternity to me then), we spent the entire following weekend together. We kissed as if we couldn’t get enough on an empty bench in Central Park, sipped lattes at a sidewalk café in Little Italy, and lay on the roof of my Upper East Side apartment trying to find the brightest stars not eclipsed by the city lights. It took less than three weeks before he said he loved me. I felt the same way. It was instantaneous, a force I couldn’t fight even if I’d wanted to. It felt as though we’d known each other before we even knew each other.

  Three years had gone by so fast. We were still together and sharing an apartment in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We’d go on long bike rides, stopping on a cobblestone street near the Manhattan Bridge at Jacques Torres, my favorite chocolate shop. We’d spend five hours on a Wednesday night spooning on the couch and watching Lost DVDs before I’d fall asleep in his arms. We’d pick tomatoes from the garden he grew on our patio to cook dinner on Sunday nights (which we’d divide into Tupperware containers to use for lunches during the week). We fought, too, over typical relationship issues, like his staying out late and not calling or one of us blowing off a date to work. Sometimes I wondered when we’d stop making our careers the thing we focused on the most and when our relationship would come first. Still, the mundane stuff, those little ordinary moments, seemed deeper with Elan next to me.

  Have you told Elan about the trip yet?” Jen had asked a couple months before. I’d trekked into the city from Brooklyn one slushy afternoon to meet her at the Adventures in Travel Expo at the Javits Center for yet another trip-planning expedition. Since getting promoted at another women’s magazine, I had finally mastered the art of work-life balance. I was as in love with Elan as ever. But still I went.

  “Of course I’ve told Elan!” I’d said in surprise—it hadn’t occurred to me not to. But when I glimpsed Jen’s crestfallen face, I’d hoped I hadn’t been too insensitive. “Um, I mean, yeah, we’ve talked about it. Have you told Brian?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, nervously scratching her arm. It was the first time Jen and I had been alone without Amanda, who was out of town, and it felt as if we were on a first date. But instead of gauging whether we would upgrade from drinks to a full-fledged dinner, we were both weighing whether we could commit to talking, eating, and sleeping with this new person for 365 consecutive days.

  “I’ve hinted that I may want to travel to South America this summer with you and Amanda,” Jen continued. “But I haven’t told Brian I’m actually going on the trip—yet. How did Elan take it?”

  “Surprisingly well.”

  “Seriously? How’d you break it to him?”

  Telling Elan about the trip hadn’t been easy, of course. I’d brought it up one lazy Sunday morning when he was lying next to me in our bed, an arm thrown over his brown eyes to shield them against the light filtering in through the plastic blinds. All sharp angles and smooth skin like one of those Roman statues I’d studied in art history classes, his face still mesmerized me. I could look at it a million times, try to etch his features permanently into my mind, but then he’d turn and the shape of his nose or curve of his lips seemed to shift and I’d see him again as if for the first time. It was always like that with him: just when I thought I knew him, I’d suddenly glimpse him from a totally different vantage point.

  I’d wanted to stay silent and keep my head buried in that safe haven on his shoulder. It was one of those beautifully simple moments where the way I wanted things to be and the way they actually were were one and the same. I felt the rise and fall of Elan’s chest as he breathed rhythmically and heard the hissing of the radiator straining to heat the icy air that penetrated the thin walls of our apartment.

  Mustering up the courage to tell him about my extended trip plans, I’d braced myself for the high probability of a breakup. Or, more likely, the knowledge that if he truly wanted me to stay, I would. But he didn’t dump me; the two traits I admired most about Elan—his independence and open-mindedness—shone through. “It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. I think it could be one of the best things you could ever do,” he’d said softly after a few torturous moments of silence, my hand tightly grasping his beneath the blanket. For a microsecond a doubt flashed through my mind: If he really loved me, he wouldn’t let me go. Then it vanished just as quickly as it had come. Was I completely nuts? My boyfriend was actually supporting my big adventure, and her
e I was second-guessing his love.

  “Hol, if two people are meant to be together, going after your dream is not going to change that,” he’d said, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me closer. He’d said that someday he might accept a role that’d take him away. And there’d probably be many more times in life when one of us would want to chase a big goal. He stopped for a second as my body relaxed against his in relief. He rationalized that, in the end, it’d just make our relationship stronger because we’d really understand who we were and what we wanted to do.

  I fell a little deeper for him then, completely grateful for granting me the opportunity to explore without taking back his love. In fact, we’d decided that my time on the road would be the perfect shot for him to go after his own dream by temporarily moving to L.A. to pursue his acting career. It felt as though everything made perfect sense.

  As I tried to explain the winding path Elan and I had walked to come to that understanding, Jen was uncharacteristically mute. It made me realize that, until that moment, she hadn’t let a millisecond of silence hang between us—not even pausing to breathe between sentences. I let it hang.

  Finally she said, “Um, that’s really highly evolved of him. I know Brian won’t be that supportive.” She hoisted her now-overflowing bag of brochures higher on her shoulder.

  “How’s it going for you two?” I asked, accepting a flyer from a tourist operator for safaris in Kenya.

  “Honestly, we’ve been fighting so much the past few months I’m not even sure if we’ll make it to the summer,” she said, her blue eyes growing darker and her eyebrows drawing together in worry.

  “Oh, Jen, I’m so sorry,” I said, biting my lip. “Is it because of the trip?”

  “It’s just everything! I’ve been with this guy for over three years and love him to death, but how do you know when you find the person you’re supposed to spend forever with? Everyone keeps asking me when he’s going to propose!”

  I was silent for a second myself, not really knowing what to say. Though I never lusted after the proverbial white dress and wedding bells, I could definitely relate to the pressure she was feeling. My own mother was questioning my motives after I had signed a second lease with Elan without the security of a ring on my finger. “Why would he step up to the plate when you’re already giving him everything for free?” she’d asked. I’d told her that the rules of love and marriage had changed since her generation, and I was living my life as I wanted. Since I didn’t know what to say to Jen, I said nothing and instead reached out to squeeze her shoulder to let her know I understood.

  Somehow it didn’t seem strange to launch right into such a personal topic with Jen, who wasn’t one to hold back whatever she was feeling when she felt it. Before our vacation to Argentina last year, I’d seen Jen only a few times at group happy hours. She kept her golden brown hair blown out straight, usually wore at least one item in a shade of pink, and almost matched my height of 5 feet 4 inches (okay, 5 feet 33/4 inches) without her three-inch heels. But she also didn’t seem like the typical girly girl: she laughed hard, spoke loud, and tended to voice the uncensored version of her thoughts. Since then I’d learned a bit more, like that Jen was a film addict with a flair for the dramatic herself. With her resonant voice and sweeping gestures, she struck me as a modern-day Katharine Hepburn. While Amanda was definitely ballsy, her quicksilver emotions gave her an air of vulnerability, while Jen’s tendency toward total openness made her come across as almost fearless to me. So it also seemed fitting that she’d committed to such a big adventure.

  “Come to India!” a woman with henna-stained hands and a scarlet sari beckoned, waving a brochure with an “Om” symbol.

  “I really want to go to India!” I said to Jen excitedly.

  “Have you ever been before?” she asked.

  “Yeah, once in college during this study-abroad program called Semester at Sea. But I’ve only seen the southern part and really want to go to yoga school near the Himalayas.”

  And so the endless possibilities of the open road began weaving their way down almost every pathway in my mind as we continued walking through the labyrinth of exhibits. I listened to Jen tell me how she and Amanda had met in their freshman dorm and hit it off instantly, but it wasn’t until departing on a postgrad backpacking trip through Europe that they had truly bonded. And after an incredible six-country tour in four weeks, they’d vowed to be travel partners for life.

  Jen rattled off all the misadventures they’d shared—getting hopelessly lost on the outskirts of Venice, attacked by killer gnats on a bike ride in Bruges, stranded at a station in Antwerp after boarding the wrong Eurorail train, and caught pilfering hotel rolls and jam after breakfast hours by an irate Frenchman.

  “I always said that we could never go to Thailand together or we’d likely get thrown in jail accidentally, like Claire Danes’s and Kate Beckinsale’s characters in Brokedown Palace—and even our friendship isn’t worth that,” Jen joked, dramatically flipping her hair.

  I’d imagined what it would have been like if I’d met them back then on my own postcollege backpacking tour of Europe. Then my mind fast-forwarded to the three of us taking on the world, seeing wildebeest while hiking in the Serengeti or sitting next to monks in a Buddhist temple in Tibet.

  As we walked, Jen and I collected brochures to plan our dream itinerary and took turns asking the country reps questions, such as what time of year was best to visit and whether the country required a visa for entry. Every booth we passed represented another new adventure we might actually get to experience on the road. My imagination started circling the globe at warp speed—Peru, the Seychelles, China! I wanted to see them all. As I was plotting how we might take a ship from South America to Antarctica, Jen placed a hand decorated with a dainty pink ring on my shoulder, and for the first time in our brief acquaintance she struck me as maternal. “Um, how ’bout we narrow it down just a bit. Is there anywhere you don’t want to go?”

  I smiled sheepishly. Okay, we were back into first-date territory, but I sensed we were in it for the long haul. When Jen and Amanda had first thrown out the idea to go on a yearlong trek around the globe, I knew they’d somehow change the way I saw the world, even if I didn’t fully believe we’d all be crazy enough to actually circle it together. Even after telling Elan about the trip, I’d still feel torn about leaving a life of comfort and security for the great unknown. But as Jen and I roamed the expo hall vibrating with exotic music, food, and flags, I began to believe the journey could actually happen. It ignited the wanderlust that often simmered underneath my skin. There’s a Buddhist saying that goes “Leap, and the net will appear.” I didn’t understand what the restlessness was that was driving me, but I was compelled to take the leap. I could only have faith that there would be a net to catch me if I fell.

  Now, seeing the worry in Amanda’s eyes as the March wind whipped around us outside EJ’s, I convinced myself in a matter of seconds that the trip wasn’t going to happen and that it had all seemed way too good to be true. Then Amanda gazed past me, and I spun around to see Jen approaching, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

  “You’re backing out of the trip, aren’t you?” Amanda wailed as soon as Jen got within earshot. Suddenly I was just as concerned about Amanda as I was about Jen because she was wringing her fingers in panic. Amanda could be like a kaleidoscope of emotions, shifting from excited to nervous to feisty in a single moment.

  Jen let out a little laugh, but there wasn’t any joy in it. “No, the total opposite, actually.” She slid off her sunglasses, and I could see that her eyes were puffy and face was splotchy red. “Brian and I had a big fight. I told him about the trip, and he lost it,” she said.

  “I’m so sorry, Jen.” I instinctively put my arm around her.

  “What happened? What did he say?” Amanda asked, putting her arm around Jen’s other side. Jen resignedly leaned into us but then straightened resolutely and motioned toward the restaurant entrance. “Let�
�s grab a table so we can sit and talk.”

  As we pushed through the double glass doors and the doorbell clanged to announce our entrance, we were blasted with warm, cinnamon-scented air. Once inside the booth, I glanced at Jen. I noticed that her clothes were uncharacteristically wrinkled and imagined her slipping into them after grabbing them off Brian’s floor in a hasty getaway. Her eyes had that pained, bloodshot look of someone who knew she was about to lose her best friend. I didn’t want her to feel the inevitable emptiness that comes after a man—who has been the last person you’ve spoken to before falling asleep each night for years—has exited your life. Though I hadn’t been there when she and Brian had first met, I sensed how much she cared for him.

  I gripped the edge of the padded seat, preparing for Jen to start crying, but she surprised me. Rather than rehashing every minute detail like usual, she gave us the CliffsNotes version of her past twenty-four hours with Brian. After a sleepless night filled with tears and talking (and some shouting), they’d both decided to take things one day at a time and see how they felt after she traveled for the first two months. And until then, they weren’t going to make any rash decisions.

  “Taking it day by day is probably the best thing to do,” I said, squeezing her hand and thinking that a gradual phaseout might be less painful than a quick break. Travel would give Jen and Brian both physical and emotional distance, and that might help them figure out what they really wanted.

  Then I gave her the same advice I’d given myself many times: “You can always change your mind and come home if you decide that’s best once you’re on the road for a bit.”

  Amanda quickly broke in. “And it sounds trite, but if it’s really meant to be with you and Brian, you’ll figure something out. Even if you do stay on the trip the full year. He could come visit you. You could come back here a couple times if you had to. Or maybe you could meet somewhere halfway.”