Department of Lost and Found

by Allison Winn Scotch

  So like I said, Diary, it was a strange thing. Just before Leno came on, we were shooting the shit, I don’t really even remember what we were talking about. Something on the local news, maybe. I couldn’t believe that I’d stayed up that late, but with Zach, I wasn’t even tired. It’s like I wanted time to slow down, just so I wouldn’t have to notice that the clock read an hour that meant I’d be wiped out the next day. But anyway, after the news and just before Leno, I got up to use the bathroom, and when I came back, he had that look on his face again—the one that I’ve seen from him before—the one where a guy is thinking something really intimate and personal and perhaps over the line and debating if he should open his mouth.

  “Natalie. I have to be honest,” he said. “I know that Lila is your friend, and I know you’re with Jake, but the simple truth of it is that I think you’re amazing.”

  I didn’t know what to say back, so I just thanked him, sat back down, and folded my hands carefully in my lap. But he wasn’t done.

  “I know that you’re going through a lot right now, and I respect all of that. I’ve seen enough cancer patients to know that asking someone to make a big life decision right now isn’t fair.” I nodded and he continued. “So I want to say, and then I’ll leave this alone, that what I’m doing with Lila is biding my time. I know that makes me sound like an asshole, but I’ve told her that I’ve given her all that I can, so I don’t feel like I’m being unfair.”

  I didn’t ask him to elaborate, Diary, because we both knew who he was biding his time for. In the face of his honesty, I didn’t know if I should grab Manny and run, or leap across the couch and kiss him, but at that exact moment, Leno came on, so we both just turned our attention to the TV and sat in a sort of weird, anxiety-filled vacuum during his opening monologue. After the Misbees played, I told Zach that I should go. He insisted that he walk me home, which was sweet and kind and wonderful in the way that you want your boyfriend to be.

  When we reached my door, he kissed my forehead and told me to get some sleep. I watched him walk down the block, and when he turned to look back, I thought to myself, “If something is good enough the first time around, why would you ever let it go?”

  EIGHTEEN

  Natalie.” Senator Tompkins’s aide, Brian, sighed into the phone. “You know that this is a risky thing to attach ourselves to. Our constituents are from the Bible Belt, and they’re not sure how they feel about it.”

  “But it’s the right thing to do,” I replied, as I doodled on the list of names in front of me. Only three more to go, and with my newfound zeal for a cause I actually cared about, I was certain they’d crumble like stale cookies in an arid desert. (Not that stale cookies are often found in an arid desert, but you see my point.) “You know it, and I know it. Look at the national polls: People want to see funding for this research. If we get this bill to the president’s desk, he’s going to have to take a hard look at his policy. That’s what our jobs are all about, aren’t they?”

  “I’ll run some numbers and get back to you,” he said. “I can’t make any promises.”

  I hung up the phone and rubbed my eyes. Kyle was in D.C. for the day, so I was working from his (my) office. I surveyed the space. It’s a funny thing, how you can return to the exact same place that you’d spent so much time and yet nothing looks the same. My senior year in college, I went to Disneyland with Sally, Lila, and two other sorority sisters. We wove our way through the crowds, past Mr. Toad’s ride and beyond a live-action figure of Mickey. I looked back as we were exiting the gate to the park, and I remember thinking that it no longer felt like the most magical place on earth like it did when I was seven and my parents gave in to my relentless demands for a visit; now it was filled with whiney, dirty-fisted babies, sweaty, plump mothers, and struggling actors who donned Disney costumes while waiting for their big break.

  My office was sort of like Disneyland, only without the ice cream stands and the carousels playing lullabies. I looked around: Kyle, like me before him, had chosen to cover the walls with his diplomas—Stanford undergrad, magna cum laude, Harvard Law—but nowhere in the room did he give any clues as to what he was really like. There were no pictures of his brother, the one I knew he had because he stood in the corner with a bored, blank expression at our last fund-raiser, or of his parents from whom our assistant, Blair, took repeated messages each week. There were only signs of what he’d achieved, not how he got there or who helped him achieve it in the first place. I stood up and walked over to his Stanford diploma, sticking my nose so close that it almost touched the glass. And from this view, the letters, the honors, the very name Stanford, all blurred together—none of it legible, none of it important. I pulled back from my blurry perch and looked at the diploma all over again. Only this time, the only thing I saw was the mark left from my hot breath and the way that with each passing second, the steam got smaller and smaller until you couldn’t tell that I’d been there at all.

  At that very moment, as I sat in rapt wonder gazing at arguably Kyle’s greatest achievement in life, Zach knocked on the door.

  “Hey, sorry to bother you.” He poked his head in. “I know that you work at about a million miles an hour during the day and probably don’t want to be interrupted. But I had a thought.”

  “No worries. Sit down,” I said, retreating back behind my desk and waving my hand to guide him to the chair in front of it. “I’ve wrapped up most of my doable work today anyway. What’s up?”

  “Wow, listen to you. Three months ago, I didn’t think that you’d ever wrap up work, like, ever.” He laughed. “Okay, now don’t read too much into this, but I have a few days off, and it’s almost the weekend, and I know that Jake’s away and Lila is out of town for work, too, and, well, I made a few calls and…”

  I squinted up my eyes and shook my head. “Where are you going with this?”

  “The question is really, where are we going together. Because if we leave here right now, we can be in L.A. by tonight and in the live studio audience for The Price Is Right tomorrow. Separate rooms, of course. I already checked out the Beverly Hills Hotel.” He smiled slyly. “And to our luck, there are rooms available.”

  I exhaled and reached for my calendar on my desk, flipping through the pages because, surely, they couldn’t really be blank. But they were. I scanned the stacks of papers on my desk, fighting the urge to create mindless busywork just for the sake of having mindless busywork to tackle. Then I pushed my chair back, bit my bottom lip, and grinned so wide that my eyes nearly filled with tears. And then I thought of a million personal reasons why I shouldn’t say yes. And then I realized that none of them mattered more than the fact that I didn’t want to say no.

  “I CANNOT BELIEVE that we’re doing this,” I said, as we stood in line outside the CBS studio on Beverly Boulevard, the crystalline Los Angeles sunshine bursting down on our backs. “This might be the most unlike me thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

  “Hey, you only live once, right?” Zach looked my way and smiled, his green eyes shielded by aviator sunglasses that made him look about one hundred thousand times hotter than he already was. As if that were possible. The line inched forward, and he placed his hand on the small of my back as if to guide me along. “Who do you think all of these people are, anyway?” We both swiveled our necks to check out the crowd.

  They were just like every audience of every game show that I’d ever seen, which, by this point, was far too many for any self-respecting, Ivy League, thirty-year-old senior aide to a powerful politician. A crew of sorority sisters in their green Kappa Alpha Theta sweatshirts squealed behind us; a gaggle of senior citizens stood in front of us just below eye level. The rest of the line was filled out with midwestern housewives, a few uniformed sailors, and several men who appeared to be in a bowling league: Their matching shirts tipped me off. I was quite certain that Zach and I were the only two young professionals from New York. So when The Price Is Right staff started filtering through the crowd—this was how t
hey assessed who would make their way to the podium down front (I’d read this online)—I debated wowing them into choosing sophisticated moi by playing up my hip New Yorker attitude. But I realized that dropping Senator Dupris’s name on national television (sometimes Bob asks you what you do! I gasped in excitement at the thought) was probably a major no-no for the New York voting contingent. I pictured the white-haired Park Avenue set cringing in horror, utter horror, at the classlessness of it all. Perhaps the only time that my elevated status in life would do me no good. That and keep you from getting cancer, I reminded myself.

  So instead, I told the interviewer, “This show is the only thing that made me feel normal when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer.” I saw her face move from shock to horror to admiration all in a split second. “I’d sit on my couch and scream out the answers, and for an hour, my chemo and everything else that came along with it didn’t matter. As to what I can blame my continued addiction to, I guess I’d have to say that Bob Barker is a hottie. Even if he’s 857 years old.” The interviewer chuckled and jotted down my name on her notepad.

  “Nice work,” Zach said, as she moved on to the nearly hyper-ventilating college crew behind us. “Play that cancer card when you need it.”

  “Why the hell not?” I shrugged and adopted the MC’s voice. “Maybe I’ll win a new car!”

  It wasn’t until we were seated inside the studio that I started to get nervous. I looked around and noticed that the space seemed much smaller than on TV. The room couldn’t hold more than 150 people, which meant that my odds of getting called down were about one in fifteen. Despite the frigid air-conditioning, sweat began to pool in my armpits, so I tried to inconspicuously lift my elbows in the air to provide some ventilation.

  I nudged Zach while the warm-up guy was telling painfully cringe-worthy jokes. “What if I blank out? What if I totally bomb?”

  He laughed. “Well, this is assuming you get called. And if you bomb, I’m pretty certain that no one we know will be watching.”

  All of a sudden, the lights went dark and spotlights started circling the audience.

  “WELCOME TOOOOOOOO…THE PRICE IS RIGHT!” The MC’s voice boomed into the overhead speakers. “AND NOW, HERE’S YOUR HOST—BOBBBBBBBBBBB BARKER!!!!”

  Zach and I stood up and applauded with the rest of the crowd, and I threw my fists in the air and whooped. I grabbed his arm in the excitement and thought that I might faint. But there was no time for that.

  “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET’S GET THINGS STARTED! JOANNE PORTER FROM PORTLAND, OREGON, COME ON DOWN! SEAN WASHINGTON FROM TUSCON, ARIZONA, COME ON DOWN! ADAM CART-WRIGHT FROM SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, COME ON DOWN! AND NATALIE MILLER FROM NEW YORK CITY, COME ON DOWN! YOU’RE THE FIRST FOUR CONTESTANTS ON THE PRICE IS RIGHT!!!”

  The cameraman rushed over and caught me midscream with my hands waving in the air, like I was doing some wild African dance. I looked over and saw Zach clutching his sides and literally doubled over in laughter. I kicked his shin and kept screaming and shaking my arms as I ran down the aisle, flipping the long locks of my wig behind my shoulders as I went. I was nearly out of breath by the time I reached the podium and landed in my spot on the end. Looking up to the stage, I saw Bob, skinnier than I would have thought and wearing far too much foundation and blush, but still utterly dapper. Yum, I thought. Still on my list. Before I even had time to respond to his hellos, the first prize was on display: a patio set from some southern furniture supplier. Shit. Patio set? I’m a New Yorker. We don’t do patio sets.

  I breathed deeply though my nose and out through my mouth—Janice would have been proud—and tried to recollect the prices that I’d seen on the Internet when Jake and I played along. Joanne started the bidding with $1,050, and the audience tittered. Sean undercut her by $80 with $970, and Adam went even lower with $900.

  “So, Natalie, what’s it going to be?” Bob said into his pencil-thin microphone and cocked an eyebrow in my direction.

  I swiveled around to the audience, just like I’d seen people do a thousand times before. “One dollar! One dollar!!! One dollar!!!!!!” Every last person in the crowd screamed as if by telling me the right bid, they’d actually be the ones to get the damn patio set. I caught Zach’s eye and watched as his face crumbled into hysteria once again, and he wiped tears off his face.

  I turned back to my microphone. “Bob,” I said with the gravity of a funeral director, “I’m going to go with one dollar.” The crowd exploded with volcanic applause.

  “One dollar it is, from Natalie Miller of New York City,” Bob said, as he winked at me. He swung his arm around and said, “Diana, just how much is that lovely patio set?”

  With an all-too-white toothy smile, Diana pulled back the slab of cardboard to reveal that the actual retail price was $795. I heard surround-sound dinging, and the cameramen rushed over next to me.

  “Natalie Miller of New York, New York, you get on up here,” Bob said, just as I felt my breath leave my chest. But I made it to the top of the stage, where Bob put his arm around my shoulder and guided me to the right side of the set. “And now, Natalie,” he said in a grandfatherly tone, “we are so thrilled to have you here today, all the way in from New York City! And we think you’re going to be pretty thrilled to be here with us, too. Because, Mark, can you show her what’s behind this curtain?”

  “Gladly, Bob,” the MC responded. “Natalie, how would yoooouuuu like to win…a NEW CAR?!?!?!” The lights on the stage flashed, and the music blared, and the crowd raised the decibel level even higher. And even though I absolutely didn’t need a car, and in fact, a car would most likely be an incredible inconvenience to a New Yorker, I jumped up and down uncontrollably until my whole body was almost limp, and I’d nearly worked myself up into tears.

  The game, it turned out, was one of my favorites. Out of a group of twenty numbers, I had to pick the two numbers that, when paired together, would give me the total price of the Ford Explorer. I’d played enough at home that I managed to win all six chances of picking numbers by correctly guessing the prices of various household cleaning products. When Bob walked me over to the numbers board, guiding me with his hand on my back just like Zach had done not two hours earlier, I felt my hands start to shake and worried that my armpits must have resembled Louisiana swamplands.

  “I’ll take the $197, Bob,” I said, as I pointed to one of the numbers on the board. My stomach nearly rose through my throat, as the crowd clapped behind me.

  “All right then. Diana, what’s behind that tile, please?”

  In an instant, the lights flashed and a dinging noise went off, and Diane whipped up the tile like a bullfighter would a cape, and I saw the picture of the back of the car. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” I screamed, and jumped up and down in my Nikes. All that was left was to find the first two digits to the price of the car, Bob explained, and it would be mine.

  This proved more difficult in real life than from the safety of my couch. With each guess, I was more sure that I was correct, and yet four tries later, I’d accumulated $256 in cash, but no front of the car. I turned back toward the audience.

  “19482650179204,” they screamed. Ha! I thought as I turned back toward Bob and shrugged. I think I got the world’s stupidest audience!

  “Okay, Bob,” I said, my voice shaking, as he put his arm around me. “I’m going to go with…yes, I’m going to go with $21.”

  “Well, Natalie Miller from New York City, let’s see if you just won a new car!” But the lights didn’t go off and no dinging noises played, and within seconds, the audience started groaning. Diane had pulled off the tile to reveal more cash, and no front end. So Bob kissed me on the cheek—he kissed me on the cheek!—and congratulated me on my cash winnings of $277, and I was ushered backstage until I gained my chance at the Big Wheel. I felt my BlackBerry vibrate in my bag.

  From: Goodman, Maureen

  To: Miller, Natalie

  Re: Reporter and stem cell story

  Hey Natalie—

&nbs
p; I tried you at the office, but they said you were out for the day. Lucky girl! I just got off the phone with a friend of yours—

  Sally Fisher. She’s doing a big piece for the NYT Mag on the politics behind the stem cell bill, and she was referred to our offices. When I mentioned that we were working on this together with Dupris, she was surprised…she mentioned you were best friends but that she didn’t realize you were helming the bill. Will this be a problem? I got the sense that the story would be positive, but you know journalists…one day they’ve

  put us up on a pedestal, the next, they’re happy to chop us down. Thoughts?

  —Maureen

  I finished reading and Sean from Tucson wandered in. I could tell by the glum look on his face that he hadn’t lived up to his armchair quarterback expectations, either. Crap, I thought. Holy fucking crap. So this is Sally’s big story. We’d been so focused on my cancer, and on Zach, and on Jake, that really, we never discussed work anymore, both figuring it was the same old, same old. But this definitely was not the same old, same old. Not at all.