The Legacy of Lost Things

by Aida Zilelian

  In the distance there was a restaurant and outside the entrance a large sign displaying the breakfast menu. She tried to remember the last time she had eaten and realized that aside from the bag of chips she’d had before leaving to go to the bar with Lori and Vanessa, it had been almost two days. She walked towards it, trying to straighten her posture to avoid raising suspicion.

  “How many will you be?” A hostess appeared in front of her holding several menus in her hand.

  “I’m actually joining some people,” she said, surprising herself by being able to think so quickly. “May I walk in to find them?”

  “Of course,” the woman said, standing to the side.

  Araxi walked in and slowly looked around the large expanse of the restaurant, hoping to seem as if she truly was looking for her party. She turned around briefly to see if the woman was watching her, and to her relief she was standing behind the reservation desk answering a phone call.

  The smell of food made her stomach ache. The air was filled with the scents of bacon, cinnamon, and coffee, and they drifted toward her as if taunting her senses. Very casually, she approached the buffet, took a plate and stood behind the small line of people ahead of her. At first she thought to take a few rolls and sneak them in her pocket and walk out as nonchalantly as she had walked in.

  “Would you like some French toast?” There were servers in white uniforms standing behind each tray of steaming food.

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly.

  The man put two pieces of French toast on her plate and sprinkled powdered sugar on top. He laid an artfully carved strawberry in the shape of a rose on the side of the plate and offered some bacon as well. She nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  By the time she sat down, her plate was brimming over. She ate slowly, trying not to attract attention. When she was finished she stood up and walked away from her table toward the bathroom. As she washed her hands and face she looked at her reflection. Her scalp was oily and it was obvious that she needed to wash her hair badly. She touched her torn earlobe again, surprised that it didn’t hurt, and then pulled her hair toward her ear to cover it. Her side was throbbing. A deep breath. Her palms were perspiring. She hoped to walk out without being noticed. Walk slowly, she told herself, and don’t make direct eye contact with anyone. Her first impulse was to run, but knew it was physically impossible and that she needed to resist the urge to leave if she wanted to remain unnoticed.

  A waiter smiled as she passed him by. She smiled back and continued walking slowly. To her relief, the hostess who had greeted her wasn’t standing by the reservation booth. She exhaled.

  “Excuse me, miss,” she heard behind her.

  Pretending not to hear, she continued walking towards the entrance of the restaurant.

  “Miss, excuse me,” she heard again.

  Standing behind her was neither a waiter nor the hostess, but a tall man dressed in a suit, most likely the manager.

  “Yes?” she said, looking at him curiously, as if he had a pressing dilemma that she would do her best to help him with.

  “You ate and didn’t pay,” he said flatly, and stood over her.

  “No, I didn’t,” she said. “I was with several people. I’m feeling a bit sick so I left early and they’re taking care of the bill.”

  “What people exactly?” the man said. “I’d like you to show me where they are sitting.”

  “They may have left already,” she said.

  “Miss, please come with me.” He stood behind her and put his hand on her arm and guided her away from the tables towards the back of the restaurant.

  They walked into an office similar to the principal’s office at Seton. The man went to sit in a leather swivel chair behind a large cherry wood desk.

  “Please,” he said, motioning for her to sit down.

  “I don’t know how old you are,” he began. “I’m guessing still in high school. You came in here and ate and tried to run off.”

  “Are you going to call the police?” she asked. There was no use in lying.

  He snorted and gave a small, condescending smile. “No.”

  “Are you going to let me go?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “But I’m going to ask you to leave the Venetian. If you want to go to the other hotels and try your luck there, by all means. You can leave now.”

  She felt as if she had been exiled. Without thanking him, she rose and walked out of the restaurant and out of the doors of the hotel. A hot wave of air greeted her as she started walking down the strip. She kept walking, unsure of what to do or where to go. She had no money and only a few clothes left in her bag. In the midst of such a seemingly glamorous city, the irony of having to beg in order to eat seemed too ironic. She thought of doing so, but couldn’t muster the nerve. Instead, she spent the afternoon walking through one hotel after another, one more unique than the next, yet somehow the same. It had been so easy meeting people when she had been traveling with Cecile. They had driven through such remote towns, and here in Las Vegas, crowds of people surrounded her, yet no one noticed or spoke to her.

  By the evening she found herself sitting on a bench watching the full spectacle of the city come to life with its gargantuan buildings and bright lights. She was finally hungry again, and knew it was a matter of time before she had to devise another way of finding food.

  Across from where she was sitting, a man stood by a lamppost smoking a cigarette. Every so often she would catch him looking at her and several times it seemed he had walked away, but somehow he was still there. After a long while she noticed that it was the same man who had been watching her earlier in the day. Slowly, she stood up and started walking. When she turned around she saw that the man was now following her. She wished she could break into a sprint and dash down the strip. Too scared to turn around, she continued walking as quickly as she could muster, bumping into several people and almost falling on the pavement. Now she was crying and the feeling of helplessness made her shake with fear, knowing he would catch up to her. Suddenly, she felt a hand grab onto the back of her shirt and pull her back.

  “Araxi!”

  She was sputtering with tears, her arms flailed hysterically and she heard her name again, “Araxi!”

  The man spun her around to face him and gripped her shoulders. “Hey!”

  He stood in front of her wearing a look of bewilderment. “I hope I’m not wrong,” he said much more softly. “Araxi, right?”

  “How do I know you?” she asked. She was shaking uncontrollably. The more she tried to stop her body from shaking, the harder she shook.

  “Nate,” he said, and waited for her to digest this. “Nate.”

  The last time she had seen him was years ago at her house for Thanksgiving. She had been six or seven at the time and he was in college. He sat through dinner quietly, obviously feeling out of place among strangers whom his mother had referred to as “family,” yet there had been long gaps of time since he had seen any of them. Even from then she remembered his long narrow face and full lips and the unusual way he avoided eye contact. Now she saw that his features were very much the same, but his beard and longish hair had made him unrecognizable and he looked older than his age.

  “What—? Did they send you?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who sent me?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “You have a beard,” she said, knowing how obtuse she sounded.

  “Yeah, well, it’s been years,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. She stared at him. “Does Aunt Lucine know you’re here?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “And I’m assuming your parents don’t know you’re here either. What are you doing here?” he asked again.

  “I left,” she said. “About three months ago. How did you recognize me?” she asked before continuing.

  “Don’t take this the way it’s going to sound, but it’s not easy to forget your face. You look exactly the same as
when you were a little girl, just taller and … more filled out,” he looked away briefly, his discomfort obvious. “You were saying …” he said, prompting her to continue.

  “Yeah, I drove with my friend. We ended up in Santa Fe, and then she went back to New York, but I wouldn’t go with her. This woman who I hitched a ride with took the rest of my money. I ended up taking a ride with these two other girls, and that was a total mess … They drove me all the way here. I still have no money, and I got thrown—”

  “Out of the Venetian,” he said, finishing her sentence. “I know. I saw as much as I could.”

  “You followed me,” she said.

  “I wasn’t sure it was you. It’s a pretty odd place to see you,” he said.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be living in California?” she asked. “Your mother tells my father how well you’re doing. She said you’re in real estate.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “I wish.”

  A hot wind blasted through the air. The two stood staring at each other and Nate watched Araxi as her mind began to sort through all the years, all the details, until finally she was able to decipher the truth. “You gamble,” she said simply, as if the riddle had been solved. “That’s where the money goes.”

  Again, he averted his eyes and ran his hand over his face.

  “Your mom has been sending you money all this time. They thought you were a drug addict or a moocher,” she said. “Holy shit.”

  “I don’t want to be here,” he said.

  “So why are you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know where else to be,” he said.

  “Are you broke?” she asked.

  “That’s a helluva question,” he said. “No. Not quite.”

  “Do you want to leave?” she asked.

  “Yes and no,” he said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Do you want to leave?” he asked.

  She gave a fake laugh. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t believe we’re driving in this,” Tamar said for the third time, as the windshield wipers flipped back and forth furiously against the monsoon-like downpour. Levon peered through the windshield trying to make sure he wasn’t weaving out of the lane. Sophie sat in the back, pressing her entire body against the seat and feeling anxious.

  “We couldn’t do this another day?” Tamar asked. “My shoes are going to be filled with mud by the time it’s all over.”

  “Listen,” Levon said, trying to not to sound as hostile as he felt, “I told you she needs me to look at the roof and then we’ll go to the cemetery.”

  “Look at the roof!” Tamar said. “Are you kidding? You’ll fall and break your neck. Is she kidding?”

  “This isn’t going to last,” Levon countered. “It came out of nowhere and it will disappear just as quickly.”

  The sky was thick with gray clouds and no patch of light was coming through. Luckily, given that it was early Sunday morning, the Long Island Expressway was mostly empty.

  “She has some nerve,” Tamar continued. “She couldn’t wait until next Sunday?”

  “Listen, she needed me to look at her roof and the cemetery is two exits away from her house. It’s been one year almost to the day. The roof couldn’t wait. Stop complaining,” Levon said.

  Sophie listened, quietly agreeing with her father this time. Their arguments were tiring to watch. It seemed like an endless battle, and eventually it was difficult to remember the reason for the argument. Sophie sighed with audible annoyance.

  “What’s going on with you back there?” Tamar’s voice was sharp.

  “I hate listening to you guys,” she said finally. “It’s always something. Can’t you just not fight?” She wanted to continue by saying that they had driven Araxi out of the house and that if her disappearance hadn’t made them realize they were the culprits, then there was really was no hope for them.

  Levon and Tamar were silent, both feeling chastised by her words and how easily they had slipped out of her mouth. In the past she would have never dared speak to them so flippantly. Sophie sounded weary and bored with the predictability of their constant bickering.

  Her first day at Seton was not nearly as disastrous as she had thought it would be. Her parents had been mindful enough not to reenroll Araxi for her senior year, and explained the situation to the principal, asking him explicitly not to discuss the matter with any of the faculty. One of her teachers had recognized Sophie’s last name and asked if Araxi was her sister, to which she had simply answered, “Yes.” Her classmates seemed to be just as nervous about junior high school as she was, and there was an unspoken camaraderie among them. She missed her sister and hoped that eventually she would return, but had also come to accept her absence.

  “Thank God,” Tamar mumbled when Levon got off at the exit.

  After a few blocks he pulled in front of his sister’s house. The rain had not desisted.

  “We can wait until it dies down,” Levon offered, hoping his suggestion would brighten Tamar’s mood.

  “Oh, why bother,” she said. “I’m not even going to use an umbrella. What would be the point? We’re going to soak either way,” she said and gave him a half smile.

  The three of them got out of the car and walked up the steps to Lucine’s house. It felt as if they were standing in the shower with the water going full blast. Levon rang the bell and waited several moments.

  “It better not be broken,” Tamar joked. “But at least you’ll be here to fix it.”

  Lucine opened the door and swung it open. “I’m sorry,” she said, “the bell is broken. I could barely hear it. The rain is damn loud.”

  Levon and Tamar looked at each other and smiled. They took off their coats and hung them on the railing that led to the living room.

  “I’m so glad you came, Levon,” Lucine said. She seemed jittery, speaking faster than usual. “I’m really glad. Come into the living room. I’ll get you something to drink.”

  “And some towels!” Levon called out after her. He was wringing out his shirt while Tamar and Sophie pushed the wet hair off their faces.

  Lucine returned with some towels. “Come into the living room,” she said. “I’m boiling some water for tea.”

  As they walked toward the living room, Levon sensed that the house was oddly quiet. Usually the television or radio was blasting from one of the rooms. He always dreaded visiting Lucine. There were never the same tenants living in the house, and they all looked homeless or drunk. For this reason, he had avoided bringing his family over, despite Lucine’s rare invitations for them to visit.

  “I found something, Levon,” Lucine said, ushering them into the living room.

  “Hi,” they heard.

  There sat Araxi on the couch. Standing a few feet away was Nate. No one spoke.

  “Nate found me,” Araxi said. “He brought me back.”

  It had not taken much convincing. After finding her, Nate had brought her to his apartment and let her stay there for several days, hoping he would be able to persuade her to return home. Luckily, none of her ribs were broken, and although he tried to drive her to the hospital, she had refused. He had let her take a much-needed shower and made her dinner, and they had sat down and talked.

  “So now what?” she had asked. “You’re going to call up your mother and drag me back to New York, right?”

  “No,” he had said. “Because you’d turn around and leave again. You have to want to go back. Do you want to?”

  “No, not really,” she said. “There’s nothing to go back to. Except for Sophie, who I promised to get in touch with and never did …” Unexpectedly, she started crying, feeling ashamed for disappointing her sister, whom she had left behind defenseless and alone.

  “Isn’t it obvious to you that you have no future like this just bouncing around from one place to another? You’re not so much living a new life as you are avoiding going back. You’re smarter than that,” he said, knowing how cliché his words sounded. He couldn’t t
hink of anything original or moving to say that would somehow spark her desire to return. “I can’t make you go back,” he said, “but you’ve been gone for three months and you’ve ended up homeless and broke in Las Vegas. And let’s not forget the lovely gift your friend left for you,” he said, referring to the stranger at the bar. “C’mon. I know this shit is all obvious to you.”

  “I’ve been waiting for a turning point,” she said after a moment. “Something enlightening that would give me a purpose to either stay or go home. And neither has happened. At least out here I don’t know what’s going to happen next. At home I know my parents are going to fight, my mother is going to hole herself up in her room and ignore us, and my father is going to pretend he’s not an asshole. And with my grandmother gone, I can barely stand it.”

  “You’re not going to be happy here,” Nate said. “You’ll be spending years just getting by. Trust me, I know,” he said.

  All those years of speculation about him had been true. Lucine had tried filling the void of his father’s absence by giving him more than he could have asked for or needed. Eventually, he had taken it for granted and never came to understand the value of money. He had spent his teenage years getting thrown out of boarding schools and inevitably never graduated with a degree. From there, he had decided to become an actor. Again, his mother had paid expensive tuitions for various schools in New York City. Sometimes he attended, but often he stayed out late drinking at dive bars and missing classes. Finally, he thought he would become involved in real estate. Perhaps his handsomeness coupled with his charm would help him sell expensive homes in Los Angeles, where he had moved a year ago. He was never able get himself into the office long enough to interest any buyers. He told his mother the market was very competitive, that he’d accrued some debt by living in a pricey apartment and needed more rent money. It was when he took his first trip to Las Vegas with some friends that his life became what it was now. He had never been to a casino before then, and when he won over two thousand dollars playing his first game of roulette, he thought he could finally support himself with his newfound luck.