Straight into the ocean.
A wave rises up to greet him, and he dives under it, disappearing beneath the dark, foamy surf for what feels like too long. I stand, panic coursing through me.
What is he doing?
Should I call for help?
Should I dive in after him?
But then, a second later, his head appears above the water. It bobs there for a moment before Nico flips onto his back and floats, as though he’s perfectly ready and willing to let the ocean take him straight to the other side of the world.
The panic slips away, and all that’s left is a sad smile.
I think he’s been wanting to do this since we stopped at Glass Beach.
I sit back down in the sand and watch him. I wonder how cold that water is. I wonder if he even feels it. After everything he’s told me tonight, my guess is he feels nothing but relief.
Keeping someone’s secret is a lot of weight for a kid to carry around. Especially when it’s your parent’s secret. I know because I did it too. In fact, I’m still doing it. No one except Nico and June knows about the house foreclosure. No one knows just how deep our financial problems go. My mom doesn’t even know I’m here. Doesn’t know about the car. About the trades. About the money we almost had but lost.
Even after he’s dead, I feel like I’m still keeping Jackson’s secrets.
When Nico emerges from the ocean a few minutes later, the world looks different. But most important, he looks different. It’s as though all of his sharp edges have been smoothed down. Everything that I once thought was dangerous about him—that I once thought I had to protect my heart from—has been worn away. Polished clean. Transformed by the ever-forgiving ocean. Until he’s just another piece of sea glass washing up on the shore.
A treasure made with time.
Sometimes we throw things away and we never get them back. But sometimes, when we’re really lucky, they come back to us.
TUESDAY
There’s a man who’s lost his sanity,
He’s waiting for the sky to sing
He shouts into the void, “I tried to warn ya!”
But I’d still do anything, anything, anything for California
—“Anything for California,” from the album Anarchy in a Cup by Fear Epidemic
Written by Nolan Cook
Released July 19, 1998
2:05 P.M.
PORTLAND, OR
INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD CONVERTIBLE (1), CASH ($181.25), SEA GLASS (1 PIECE), LOST-KEY BUTTERFLY SCULPTURE (1), USELESS PHOTOGRAPH (1)
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nico asks as we pull up to the entrance of Hank’s Classic Garage in downtown Portland.
I nod and take a breath. “Yes. I’m sure.”
Nico parks the car and I unbuckle my seat belt, but I don’t make a move for the door. Not yet. For a moment, I just sit there, staring at the interior of the Firebird. Trying to take a mental snapshot of this journey so that I can store it away in a scrapbook in my mind and never forget it.
Hank Callahan was another one of the people who e-mailed me about the Firebird back when I first posted it on Craigslist. I called him earlier this morning and told him the whole situation: it’s not a 400, but I’m still interested in selling it if he’s still interested in buying it.
He was.
He even told me he could match Tom Lancaster’s offer of three thousand dollars. It’s not going to save the house, but at least it’s something.
I sigh, grab my backpack, and unzip the large pocket. “I guess we should clean out the car.”
“Okay,” Nico says, sounding uncertain. But he still helps. He steps out, tips the seat forward, and begins rummaging around the back.
I search the front—the glove box, the center console, and the floor. There’s not much. Some candy bar wrappers, a few water bottles, and a plastic bag that still has the empty box from the Sea-Bands Nico bought me. And of course, Kunjee, my butterfly statue. I place her carefully inside my backpack and crumple up the rest, stuffing it into the plastic bag.
I zip up my backpack and am about to get out of the car when my gaze lands on the radio. Or more specifically, on the tape player that Jackson installed. The cassette tape that I started listening to at the drive-in is still sticking out of the slot from when I hastily ejected it last night.
“I think that’s everything.” Nico leans in to the open driver’s-side door to speak to me. “I’m just going to check the . . .” His voice trails off when he notices me just staring vacantly at the tape player.
Suddenly I can’t help thinking about Jackson’s voice on that recording. Why was this tape in his car when he died? Why was it important to him?
“Are you okay?” Nico sits back down behind the wheel, following my gaze to the tape player. “Should I . . . um . . . like, give you a moment alone or something?”
I shake my head and grab on to his hand. “No. Don’t go. I need you here for what I’m about to do.”
Nico looks confused, and just the slightest bit terrified. “What are you about to do?”
Instead of answering his question, I take a deep breath, reach toward the stereo, and push the black cassette tape back into the slot.
This tape was the last thing Jackson ever listened to in his precious Firebird. It clearly meant something to him. It clearly had value. Even if it feels worthless to me, I owe it to Jackson—to his car—to hear it all the way through. To find out why he kept it.
The cassette clicks, and the recording resumes, picking up in the middle of the conversation that I stopped abruptly at the drive-in. I jab at the rewind button and back it up a few seconds so I can remember what was said.
When I hit play, the crudely recorded song that Nolan Cook was singing is just coming to an end.
“Well, that royally blew,” Adam French, the band’s drummer, says spitefully.
“Thanks, Adam. Way to be constructive. How about when you start contributing lyrics, you get to have a say?”
“If I recall, my face is still on the album covers, and my name is still on the copyright.”
“Well, you know what they say. Change a word, get a credit.”
“You know what, Nolan? Why don’t you go fu—”
“Guys! Guys! Calm down. You’re getting worked up over nothing.”
I freeze again at the sound of Jackson’s voice, the reaction almost as gut-wrenching as the first time I heard this. I must be squeezing Nico’s hand because he looks over at me and asks, “Who is that?”
I swallow. “That’s my dad.”
Suddenly, he understands what this is all about. Why we’re sitting in this car outside of Hank’s Classic Garage listening to an old cassette tape.
“It’s not nothing,” Adam French fires back. “It’s the whole future of the band, and if Nolan wants to ruin it with a bunch of whiny garbage on the third album, then I don’t want to be a part of it.”
“Shut up, French.” This is a new voice. I assume it must belong to one of the other two members of the band. Slate Miller, the bass player, or Chris McCaden, the backup guitar player.
“No, you shut up,” Adam shoots back. “Cook and his enormous ego are going to take us all down in flames.”
“That’s enough!” someone yells, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s Jackson again. The sound startles me. I’ve never heard Jackson yell at anyone. Even when my mother would be screaming at him to get his act together, grow up, get a job, pay some bills like a responsible adult, he would never raise his voice back to her. He might have had the maturity of a child, but he had the patience of a saint. “If you keep this up, there won’t be a third album.”
The group falls silent, apart from a low muttering sound, which I assume is Adam French grumbling.
“I’m so sick of hearing you guys argue,” Jackson goes on, his voice somewhat calmer now, but his frustration is still foreign. “Don’t you realize how much this band means to people? How much your music means to people?”
> A familiar knot forms in my stomach, and I feel the urge to reach out and eject the tape again. I don’t need to hear more of Jackson Collins professing his love for this stupid band. But I force myself to keep listening.
“You guys are the luckiest people I know,” Jackson goes on. “You get to live your dream every single day. With nothing tying you down or holding you back. And yet all you do is sit on this tour bus and rag on each other like a bunch of spoiled kids. Grow up!”
I snort aloud at that. Jackson giving people advice on how to grow up? That’s laughable.
“I’ll grow up when Cook here learns how to write some decent lyrics.”
“Hey! Cook’s lyrics have made you a lot of money,” Jackson fires back.
I blink in disbelief at the stereo. Did Jackson just tell off Adam French, the drummer of Fear Epidemic? He’s sounding a lot more like their manager right now than their roadie.
“That was years ago,” Adam reminds the group. “If you could hear the garbage he’s coming up with now, you’d sell your stock, Collins.”
There’s a rustling sound, followed by a bang. Someone is getting up—and not gracefully. “That’s it!” Nolan Cook bellows. “I’m not going to just sit here and listen to you insult me. Unless any of you losers have some better lyrics, you can all just shove it.”
There’s a long beat in which no one speaks and all I can hear on the recording is the sound of Nolan Cook clearly trying to move to some other room on the bus. I picture him clambering over legs and instruments, bumping into stuff. Is he drunk? Or is the tour bus just that cramped?
“Wait,” someone says, and once again, it takes me a moment to identify the voice as Jackson’s. He doesn’t sound angry anymore. He’s done a complete 180-degree turn. Now, he sounds almost afraid. “I might have something.”
Stunned silence fills the tour bus. Even the whoosh of the passing traffic seems to have died down.
“I didn’t know you wrote, Jack,” Nolan Cooks says.
“I . . .” Jackson hesitates. “I don’t normally. I just . . . it’s something that’s been weighing on me. So, a few hotels ago, back in Salt Lake City, I grabbed a pen and started writing down some lyrics.”
My throat goes dry.
Salt Lake City.
That was one of the last cities Jackson called from on the road. After I’d stopped answering the phone.
“Well, let’s see them,” Nolan says.
There’s a soft rustling of paper, followed by a long silence. “I don’t know if it’s any good,” Jackson says. “I just—”
“No,” Nolan interrupts him. “It’s good. It’s really good. Are these lyrics about her?”
Jackson doesn’t respond right away. My breathing grows shallow. Then, a moment later, in a quiet, tentative voice he says, “Yeah.”
Nico turns and looks at me. Like he just knows. Like he was there that day in that tour bus. Like he read whatever was written on that paper.
About her.
Her.
The word was said so casually. So knowingly. Like they’d had countless conversations about this elusive her.
“Let me see that.” It’s Adam again. There’s another rustling of paper as he evidently grabs the song lyrics from Nolan. Then a few seconds later, he says, “Damn, Jack. You’ve been holding out on us! These are good.”
Jackson lets out an embarrassed chuckle, and I marvel at how much he sounds like a little boy. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure you want to give us these lyrics?” Nolan asks.
“Yeah,” Jackson says immediately. “I mean, definitely. If you think you can use them, use them.”
“Oh, believe me, we can use them,” Adam says. “We need them.”
“Hold up,” Nolan interjects. “Jack, think about this. If we use these lyrics—if we record this song for the album—these words will be heard by millions. Are you sure you want that?”
This time, there’s a pause before Jackson speaks. “I’m sure. I don’t care if millions of people hear it. The only person I care about hearing it is her. I need her to know, and this is the only way I can think to tell her.”
A chill runs over me, causing me to tremble. I jab my hand against all the stereo buttons at once until the tape finally stops playing.
“Do you think . . . ?” Nico begins to ask, but I hastily shake my head before he can even finish the thought.
“No. No way.”
I can’t bring myself to believe it. There’s no possible way Jackson is talking about me. It must be about some other her. Some random groupie he managed to charm on the road. Another bleached-blond Marylou in a tight leather skirt.
“But what if—” Nico starts again.
“I would have known if Jackson had written a song about me,” I say with certainty. But then, a soft voice in the back of my mind crashes right through that certainty.
Not if it was never recorded.
I shiver again. Fear Epidemic broke up before they could record their third album. Whatever lyrics Jackson wrote on that paper were never set to music. They were never given voice. Never saw the light of day.
Unless . . .
My gaze drifts back to the stereo again. The tape is still inside. Just waiting for me to find the courage to listen.
Just waiting for me to ask the question.
Just waiting for me to push play.
After Jackson left the second time, there were no phone calls from exotic places. There was no bragging about all the exciting things he was doing on tour with his favorite band. That band was long gone, and Jackson seemed anchorless without them.
No, when Jackson left that second time, he left without a trace. For a while, we actually did wonder if he was dead.
Then my mom got a bill for another credit card in her name, maxed out with charges from hotels, bars, restaurants, and auto-supply shops.
And that was the final straw.
It took the private investigator my mother hired an entire month to track Jackson down just to serve him the divorce papers.
Two days later, we heard the Firebird zooming down the driveway once again.
That’s when he came back for the second time.
With the nerve to ask Mom what this “nonsense” was all about.
“Divorce, Janie? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
My mom showed him the box where she kept all of the unpaid bills.
Jackson smiled his same disarming smile. “Janie, c’mon.” The way he said my mom’s name set my teeth on edge. “We can work this out. I’ll stay. I’ll get a job in town. I’ll help you get this all settled. I’ll fix everything. There’s no need for a divorce.”
I wanted to believe that was true. That there was no need for them to break up now that he was home. But I also knew how distressed my mother had become over the past few months. Over the past few years, really. How could we ever be sure he would stay this time?
The sensation that streamed through me as I stood by and watched my mother yell and my father defend was so powerful, so debilitating, I could barely breathe.
As Jackson said those words, “C’mon, Janie, give me another chance,” I felt like a giant gash in the earth was spreading right beneath my feet, and I had to choose a side.
Please, say yes, Mom.
Please, say no, Mom.
Please, let him stay.
Please, tell him to go.
And I knew whichever side I picked, I would have to leap. And I would have to stay. It was now or never. There was no going back. There was no time. The crack was too wide. The chasm was too deep.
“Jackson,” Mom began, and I heard the brokenness in her voice. I heard the sounds of walls crumbling. Her heart caving yet again. Her last ounce of forgiveness bubbling up.
And I leaped.
“No,” I told him. The authority in my voice was too old for a thirteen-year-old. Too resolved. Which, I guess, made sense. I didn’t feel thirteen in that moment. I felt infinite. “You can’t stay, Dad.”
; The questions that had been bubbling up in my mind since the first day he walked out on us started to pop one by one, like pins to a room full of balloons.
Is he ever coming back?
Pop.
Why did he really leave?
Pop.
Did he ever care about either of us?
Pop.
Mom blinked, as though coming out of a trance. A trance she’d been stuck in for the past sixteen years. She glanced hesitantly between me and Jackson, like she, too, was feeling the chasm open beneath her.
Then she walked over to me and put her arm around my shoulders.
“No,” she repeated. “Ali is right. I think it’s best that you leave.”
That was the moment that unified us for good. Those words solidified the adhesive that would keep us locked together for the next six years.
That was the day we made a silent pact. To close that chapter of our lives. To stop wondering. To stop searching. To stop hoping for magical explanations that would fix everything.
After that day, there were no more questions asked about Jackson Collins.
I push play.
The tape clicks.
I hold my breath.
Then clicks again.
Silence.
“What happened?” I ask, looking desperately from the stereo to Nico.
Nico flashes me a pained expression but doesn’t respond.
I lunge for the controls again, hitting fast-forward, then play, then fast-forward, then play.
More silence.
My breathing grows shallow. My vision blurs. I feel that familiar rage building inside of me. It’s a rage that has only ever come from Jackson. From letting him in only to have him disappoint me again. And again. And again.
“I think that’s the end of the recording,” Nico finally says.
“No!” I shout at the cassette player. “No! You can’t do that! You can’t come this close to telling me the truth and then take it away!”
Fast-forward.
Play.
Fast-forward.
Play.
Nothing but silence.
I dared to ask one more question.
But Jackson didn’t answer.
The Geography of Lost Things Page 30
