The Geography of Lost Things

by Jessica Brody

  Oh my God.

  Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

  I immediately feel my lungs fill with air. Beautiful air. I feel like I’m breathing for the first time ever.

  Thirty-two thousand dollars!

  It’s enough. Enough to change everything. Enough to fix everything. Enough to tear those atrocious red-ink notices off our front door forever.

  Enough to finally erase all of his mistakes.

  Because there’s no way this car is not in top condition. It was the only thing Jackson ever cared about. The only thing he never neglected. His wife, his daughter, his overdue bills—those were just minor details in his life, easily put off.

  The car, however? That was important.

  And now that same car—the one I’ve come to loathe, the one that represents everything that’s ever been flawed about my life—is being valued at thirty-two thousand dollars. Suddenly the years of neglect, abandonment, lies, lost jobs, missed payments, scribbled Post-it notes stuck to the fridge—I’m sorry, I have to do this—it all seems to fade into the background. It all crams together, tighter and tighter, a universe contracting, a lifetime shrinking, until it’s nothing more than a tiny black dot. A decimal point.

  A decimal point on a check worth $32,000.

  I hastily click through the rest of the e-mails. There are a few offers from people in Portland, Oregon; one from someone in Seattle; and two from down south near San Francisco. Each one of them commends me on such a beautiful car, but Tom Lancaster’s bid is definitely the highest.

  Before I can blink, I’m on Google Maps, calculating how long it will take for me to drive the car up to Crescent City. Google spits out a distance and a time. Two hundred seventy miles. Five and a half hours. I can do that. I can leave right after school. I can get there tonight.

  I google “Tom Lancaster, Crescent City” and immediately find his classic-car restoration shop. It looks nice, but most of all, it looks reputable. He has almost all five stars on Yelp, and many of the reviews mention him by name.

  This is legit.

  This is really happening.

  I can drop off the car, find a cheap hotel, and take a bus back tomorrow morning. I’ll have thirty-two thousand dollars in my pocket. I think I can afford a hotel room and bus fare. I’ll be able to pay the bank before Mom even gets back from Sacramento. I might even have time to unpack all the boxes!

  I can only imagine the look on her face when she walks in to see everything as it was, everything as it should be.

  I quickly hit reply to Tom Lancaster and start to type. But my fingers halt when I swear I feel Nico’s eyes on me. I glance furtively over at him, but he’s staring straight ahead, typing something onto his keyboard.

  I finish my e-mail to Mr. Lancaster, letting him know that I would very much like to sell him the car and that I can have it to him by nine o’clock tonight. I hover the cursor over the send button.

  This is really it. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life. Waiting for, but never daring to expect would ever happen. This is Jackson finally paying us back. Finally shoveling dirt back into the hole instead of out from under our feet.

  It’s really happening.

  Then why in the world can’t I bring myself to push send?

  My finger shakes over the mouse button.

  Do it, Ali, I command myself.

  He means nothing to you.

  This means everything to you.

  This is the answer. This is the solution. This is the “but” I’ve been looking for.

  My breathing grows shallow. I close my eyes and force myself to think about every time he left. Every time that car was an accomplice in his getaway scheme. Every notice in the mail that my mother received, alerting her that he had opened another credit card in her name. Every time the phone rang and another cold, emotionless voice informed us that unless payment was received soon, actions would be taken. Every dollar he stashed away, hidden from my mother, so that he wouldn’t have to grow up. So that he could continue to live his immature, carefree life without consequences.

  But there are always consequences.

  Someone always pays.

  And it was usually us.

  Then, as if on cue, my phone dings with a new text message. I glance at it and my stomach immediately contracts.

  You currently have 10% of your data plan remaining. We have not yet received payment for . . .

  It’s another low data warning from our cell phone provider. I’ve been getting them all week. I angrily delete the message, turn back to the computer, and click send.

  “Last-minute assignment?” Nico asks, startling me. When I look over at him, he nods toward my screen, which thankfully is showing my inbox again. The last thing I need right now is Nico asking questions.

  “Something like that,” I mutter.

  I glance at his screen and see that his inbox is open too. And for the first time, this strikes me as odd. I can’t remember Nico ever coming to the computer lab before. He has a gorgeous MacBook that he takes everywhere, like an extra appendage. I’ve never seen him without it. I used to tease him that he probably slept with the thing at night. It even became an inside joke between us. We named it Snuggles.

  I gesture ambiguously toward his screen. “What are you doing in here? Where’s . . .” I fight the urge to call it by its nickname. “. . . your laptop?”

  He turns his attention back to his e-mail, and I watch his Adam’s apple pulse as he swallows. “It’s . . . in the shop. I dropped it.”

  I can tell instantly that he’s lying. When you grow up with a father who’s a professional perjurer, you start to pick up on signs. You start to see them on everyone. Mom likes to joke that we should both start playing poker.

  I feel the familiar rush of heat flood to my cheeks. The frustration simmering just under my skin. The scream bubbling to the surface.

  And then suddenly that’s all I can hear.

  The screaming. The sobs. The sound of the car door slamming.

  “Don’t lie to me, Nico! Stop lying!”

  I shake my head, chasing the memory away, and focus back on the computer, reminding myself that it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Nico can lie to whomever he wants now.

  “I’m sorry about your laptop,” I mutter politely. “I hope they can fix it.”

  “Thanks,” he murmurs, and that’s that. End of conversation. End of obligatory small talk. Maybe now he’ll actually stick to the pact.

  2:32 P.M.

  RUSSELLVILLE, CA

  INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD 400 CONVERTIBLE (1)

  The final bell of my high school career rings, and I gather my stuff and head to my locker. Classes today have been a joke. I just left English, but it might as well have been Martian for how much anyone—including the teachers—are taking today seriously.

  The whole thing feels like a huge formality. Finals are over. All the assignments have been turned in and graded. We’ve all been measured for our caps and gowns. I’m honestly not sure why we seniors are even here today. Except maybe to say good-bye to our classmates. Although that feels like a formality too. Hardly anyone ever leaves this town. If our class is anything like Mom’s was, we’ll all still be here, living the same lives, working the same jobs two decades later.

  On my way to my locker, I check my phone to find an e-mail response from Tom Lancaster.

  Excellent! I’ll stay late at the shop tonight to meet you. Here’s the address. And my phone number is below, in case anything happens. I can’t wait to see the car in person.

  Well, there’s no turning back now.

  With a sigh, I pocket my phone and dial in my locker combination. I open my locker for the last time and stare into it for a good thirty seconds, like I’m trying to memorize something. Take a snapshot of what high school feels like so I can store it away and never look at it again.

  I close the locker door and nearly jump out of my skin when I see June standing there. Like she’s just been waiting to scare the
bejeezus out of me.

  “June!” I say, clutching my chest. “Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry,” she says with a giggle that tells me she’s not at all sorry. “But I have something for you. I’ve been waiting to give it to you all day!”

  She swings her backpack around and unzips the main compartment.

  “Voilà!” June says, pulling out some kind of thick booklet made out of multicolored construction paper. She holds it out to me in the palms of her hands, like an ancient offering ceremony.

  On the cover is a picture of June and me when we were really young, standing together in front of Russellville Elementary. I recognize the photo. It was taken on our very first day of school. In the picture, June is wearing what can only be described as a collage—a bathing suit, a pink tutu, Converse high-tops, and a bejeweled denim jacket. I, on the other hand, was going for a bit more of the basic look—jeans and a T-shirt. Although June’s sense of style has calmed down a bit over the years, mine is pretty much exactly the same.

  Right underneath the photo, in silver puffy paint, June has written our names.

  “It’s a scrapbook!” June announces with a beaming smile. “I’ve been working on it all week! It’s a graduation present!”

  “June-bug,” I say, my voice cracking. “I can’t believe you did this. I didn’t get you anything.”

  She waves this away like it’s an annoying fly. “Oh, please, you’ve been a tad bit busy.”

  June is the only one at school who knows about the foreclosure. It’s not exactly the kind of information you want advertised on the school marquee.

  Holding back an embarrassing gush of tears, I flip open the scrapbook and literally jump back as a splattering of glitter puffs up like an A-bomb cloud, coating the front of my shirt in a dusting of sparkles. I should have known better than to open the book so close to my clothing. June is obsessed with glitter.

  As I flip through the pages, I’m instantly sucked into a vortex of happy memories. June has somehow managed to capture our entire friendship in this one booklet. Everything from ticket stubs for movies we’ve seen to the board game we made together. She even included the angry letter we wrote (but never had the guts to send) to the author who ruined our favorite book series.

  “You’re not going to throw it away, are you?” June asks, pulling my attention away from the pages.

  I glance up at her in surprise. “What? No! Of course I’m not going to throw it away! Are you crazy?”

  “I just know you,” she says. “You’ll keep it for, like, a few months, and then you’ll go through one of your decluttering phases and throw it—”

  “June,” I interrupt. “I’m not going to throw it away. Ever. I love it.”

  “That’s right,” June says, giving me a pointed look. “And you don’t throw away things that you love.”

  Well, I walked right into that one, didn’t I?

  I give her an equally pointed look back. “June. Don’t start.”

  June opens her mouth to start, but I cut her off before she can get going. “Please. I don’t want to go through this again.”

  “But maybe if you just let him explain . . .”

  I sigh. She’s going to go through this again. “I did let him explain. And he blatantly lied to my face. It’s over.”

  June’s mouth puckers up the way it always does when she’s mad. She’s a classic Staffordshire bull terrier. Loyal, wiggly, playful, but don’t piss her off.

  “Let’s just drop it, okay?”

  She seems to relax. “Okay. But you’re coming over tonight for the party, right?”

  I busy myself with unzipping my backpack and placing the scrapbook inside so I don’t have to look her in the eye. “Actually, I just got a text from my mom. She’s asking me to come up to Sacramento this weekend to help her with a catering job. I have to leave right now.”

  June’s shoulders sag. “Oh. Well, do you want me to come with you? We could road-trip it.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. You stay here. Have fun. Celebrate the last day of school. I’ll text you when I’m back.”

  June gives me a hug and tells me to drive safe before disappearing down the hallway to find Tyler, her boyfriend (and ride home).

  I swing my backpack onto my shoulder and head toward the parking lot. I know I should probably tell June where I’m really going. Or tell someone. I realize driving off to the northern tip of California all by myself to meet a strange man from Craigslist is the stuff that horror movies are made of, but I don’t want to have to explain it all. I don’t want anyone to argue with me, try to talk me out of it, make me walk through a list of pros and cons. There are no cons. There’s just one pro.

  We need that money.

  And I need that car to be out of my life for good.

  I hurry to the third row of the parking lot where I parked the Honda this morning, but I stop abruptly when I notice someone sitting on the hood of my car.

  No, not just someone.

  Nico.

  He has one leg propped up, the other dangling off the side. His backpack is lying on the ground next to the tire.

  And for just a split second, I’m not here. I’m there. Two months ago. Before it all fell apart. Before I opened the glove box and discovered that everyone keeps secrets. Even him.

  This is where I could always find him. Every day after school. Waiting for me on the hood of my car. His favorite Russellville High hoodie zipped halfway up. His dark blond hair mussed from the wind, his blue-gray eyes focused somewhere far away. It’s his trademark look. Whenever he’s not talking directly to you, he’s looking at that indistinct point in the distance.

  Back then, I thought it was because he was searching for something. Always searching. Never finding.

  Now I know it was because he was hiding something.

  When I spot Nico sitting on my hood, my first thought is to wonder if he’s hit his head and now has amnesia. Or if perhaps I’ve time-traveled two months into the past. Because those are the only two explanations for why he’s suddenly slipped back into our former routine. Our abandoned routine. A routine that now lives in the same box where I packed up every single thing that reminded me of him, including the birdhouse—especially the birdhouse—and hand-delivered it to the nearest landfill.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask tightly.

  He doesn’t smile. Not like he used to do whenever he saw me approach. His expression looks hesitant, guarded. And that’s when I know that this is not our former routine. This is something new. Something unfamiliar and uncharted.

  Which means I don’t know what to do with my hands. So I stuff them into the pocket of my sweatshirt, jangling my keys between my fingers.

  He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he asks one of his own. “Where are you rushing off to?” I marvel at how much he sounds like a detective catching a wanted criminal who’s about to skip town and head for the border.

  “Nowhere. June’s, maybe.” I shrug, averting my gaze.

  When I dare to look back at him, he’s staring at me, his eyes intense, like he’s trying to see right through my skull. Read my thoughts.

  “No, you’re not.”

  Anger instantly flares in me. “What do you mean, no, I’m not?”

  “I mean, I know you’re not going to June’s.”

  “What’s it to you where I’m going?” I fire back. “What are you even doing here? Do you need a ride or something? Is your car in the shop too?”

  He flinches. He can hear the sarcasm in my voice. He knows I know about the lie. I have no idea where his laptop is, but I know it’s not being repaired. As far as I’m concerned, everything Nico says now is a lie. And who knows? Maybe it always has been. All the way back to the beginning. To the time he told me I was the first face he noticed in the crowd.

  Maybe even further than that. How much do we really know about the boy who moved to town? Is he even from Reno? It’s anyone’s guess at this point.

  Nico slides
his foot down so that both legs are now dangling off the side of my car. He leans forward, holding my gaze so tightly, I almost feel it again. That flicker, that beautiful uneasiness. But I chase it away with the truth.

  “You do realize,” Nico says smugly, resting his hands on the hood like he’s going to propel himself straight into outer space, “that you’re never going to be able to drive that car to Crescent City by yourself?”

  Russellville is the type of town that very few people ever move to and even fewer people ever leave. But Nico was an anomaly from the beginning. He moved here three weeks after the start of senior year. A mysterious stranger appearing out of nowhere and with seemingly no past. At least, not one that he openly talked about. We knew he’d moved from Reno with his mom and dad. We knew he lived on Clover Street in a small two-bedroom house with a patchy brown lawn and a gate that didn’t always latch. But no one had ever actually been inside his house.

  I spent the entirety of our three-month relationship trying to figure out what breed of dog Nico was. He was always surprising me. Always jumping right out of every box I tried to put him in. At the beginning, I swore he was a golden retriever—happy-go-lucky, quick with a joke, and eager to please—but by the end, I knew I’d been deceived. He was clearly some kind of terrier. Cute while they’re around, but don’t turn your back on them for a second or they’ll dig up your entire life.

  I open the door to the Honda. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Nico slides off the hood and turns to face me. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I saw the e-mail. And then I found the Craigslist ad.”

  I groan. I knew he was looking at my screen. I should have just waited for another computer to open up.

  “I know what you’re planning,” Nico goes on, “and you shouldn’t do it alone. It’s not safe.”

  I roll my eyes. Good old protective Nico. Everyone’s favorite Boy Scout. Won’t even let me stand on the side of the road by myself after I’ve broken up with him. Too bad the one part of me that did end up needing protecting was left wide open.