How to Be Lost (10 page)

W
HEN I WOKE
, the knowledge fell into my head like a stone. I was going to Montana. Like my mother, I needed to see what the world held in store for me. And if Ellie was alive, I was going to find her.

I headed into the city to tell my sister. Ron and Madeline lived on East 64th Street. It was still freezing cold in New York. Walking uptown from Grand Central, I bought a Kangol hat for ten bucks, and eyed a faux-alligator purse. “Fifteen dollars,” said a beautiful black man.

“Fifteen dollars?” I said.

He gave me a wide smile. “Thirteen dollars?”

“Deal,” I said. As I rummaged in my pocket, he opened a box.

“Label?” he asked.

I deliberated between Gucci and Hermès, but went for Kate Spade. He took out a glue gun and pressed the label on. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“Ghana.”

“Wow,” I said, “how’d you get here?”

“I fly, lady,” said the man, who was clearly finished with me.

So much for love in the afternoon. I kept walking.

Ron opened the door to the apartment. “Hey,” he said, “It’s Caroline from the ’hood.”

“What?” I said.

“Your hat,” he said. “Kangol, very ghetto.”

“Oh,” I said, patting my head. “Well, I bought it up here, actually.”

“They’re the rage with the Spence and Nightingale girls,” said Ron.

“Anyway,” I said, “can I come in?”

Ron stepped aside, and I took in the huge living room. High ceilings, pale blue walls, velvet couch big enough to live in. “It’s beautiful,” I said. Madeline had a gorgeous piano, though she didn’t play, and on the piano there were two pictures in silver frames. One was Madeline and Ron on their wedding day. Madeline smiled widely, and Ron looked shell-shocked. The other picture was taken on Christmas, many years ago. Under a big tree, the three Winters girls hugged each other.

“Maddy’s drying her hair,” said Ron. “You want some green tea?”

“Oh, come on,” I said. He shrugged, pointed toward the bedroom with his thumb.

“It’s good for you,” he said.

“How about a Bloody Mary?”

“Coming up.”

Madeline came into the room, her hair swept up and sprayed into place. Her face seemed rounder, and her stomach swelled just the smallest bit. But she looked tired, and her eyes were red, as if she had been up late, or crying. She was affixing an enormous diamond to her ear.

“Hi,” I said, “you look wonderful.” She leaned forward and kissed the air above my head.

“Hey,” she said, “what do you want?”

“Wow,” I said.

“Well, are you here for tea?”

“I just need some snowpants,” I said.

“Snowpants?”

“Yes,” I said.

“May I ask why you’ll need snowpants in New Orleans?”

I took a breath. “I’m going to Montana,” I said, “actually.”

“Montana? I’ve always wanted to go there,” said Ron, handing me a drink. “Good for you, Caroline.”

“Ron, honey?” said Madeline in a steely voice. “Could you excuse us for a moment?”

“Let her be, Maddy,” said Ron.

“You have no idea what’s going on here,” said Madeline.

Ron looked at me, and I nodded. “She’s right,” I said, “you don’t.”

“Fine,” said Ron. He went down a hallway and I heard a door slam shut.

Madeline sank into her fabulous couch. “We’re having problems,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll work them out.”

“Montana, hey?” said Madeline.

“Yeah.”

She shook her head. “I know why you’re going,” she said. She looked at me. “You think Mom wasn’t begging me to go?”

“The picture does look like her, don’t you think?” I sat down next to Madeline. As I expected, the couch was heavenly.

“It’s a girl. She’s the right age,” said Madeline.

“The smile, though. Don’t you remember Ellie’s smile?”

“I think you’re living in a dream world,” said Madeline.

“It could be her,” I said, “you don’t know.” I sounded petulant.

“Go the fuck to Montana,” said Madeline. “What do I care? But when you need some help dealing with reality, I might be too damn tired.” She blinked several times. “I guess it’s the hormones,” she said, “but things feel all mixed up.”

She looked like she was about to cry. I sat there awkwardly. Madeline said, “It’s my fault.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

Madeline sat back and looked me in the eye. “Ellie told me she was afraid,” said Madeline. “She thought something bad was going to happen.”

“What?”

“It was the night before we were going to run away. I was asleep. She was shaking me, crying from a nightmare.”

“Ellie was crying?”

Madeline took a ragged breath. “She was hysterical. She said…she had dreamed about shadows. About someone….” Madeline shook her head. “I was half asleep. I wasn’t listening to her! It was something about Blind Brook. Shadows in Blind Brook.”

I sipped my Bloody Mary. I wasn’t sure what to say. We all thought Ellie’s disappearance was our fault, it seemed. My mother’s obsessive search, my New Orleans vigil. And here was Madeline’s private torment: dreams about Blind Brook.

“Did you tell the police?” I asked, finally.

“Yes. They said it was nothing.” Madeline gripped my hand. “I rolled over,” she said. “I told her we’d talk about it in the morning. She wanted to sleep with me, but I said no. She said she was scared….”

“We were kids,” I said. “Kids just say things, Maddy.”

“But then…,” said Madeline.

I finished it for her. “Then she was gone,” I said.

“B
E YOUR OWN
Private Dick?” yowled Winnie. “Now that’s a book I could use!” She sipped her Budweiser. It was still light outside, yet here we were at Bobby’s Bar. I had flown back to New Orleans to get ready for my trip.

“It means Private Investigator,” I said.

“I know,” said Winnie. “I’m just playing you.”

“Oh,” I said.

“So you’re going to put all these private investigator books in that beat-up car of yours and drive to Montana?”

“Basically.”

Winnie drained the rest of her can. The jukebox was loud: Gonna kiss you where I miss you…. “So what are you going to do when you get there?”

I shrugged.

“Good plan,” said Winnie.

“Well, what are you doing next week?” I said. “Why don’t you come with me?” Winnie ran her palms along the thighs of her red skirt. “You think I’m leaving that man alone?” said Winnie, jerking her thumb at Kit, who appeared to be dancing with a metal chair.

“Someone would steal him?”

“You don’t think so?” said Winnie. She sighed. “Well anyway,” she said, “I’m getting my nails rhinestoned.”

Winnie and I pored over a gas station map, anchoring it on four sides by beer cans. “Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana,” said Winnie incredulously. She took a long swig of her beer. “I’ve never been anywhere,” she said. “Well, Mississippi.”

Later, we talked about the chances that I’d pick up a hitchhiker like Brad Pitt. “Or maybe you’ll fall in love with a cowboy,” said Winnie.

“Or a cowpoke,” I said.

“What’s a cowpoke?” Her voice was blurred from the beer and whiskey.

“I don’t know,” I said. We dissolved into laughter.

“Sounds dirty,” said Winnie. “Damn!”

By the time I realized I’d spend more than a plane ticket on gas to Montana, I was already committed to the idea of a road trip. I don’t know what I hoped I’d find out there in the mountains, but as I drove drunk home from Bobby’s, almost hitting a woman as I turned into my driveway, I hoped I’d find something more than what I had.

On my bedside table, I had a pile of books from the library. I sat in bed that night, and read a book about Patty Hearst and the Stockholm Syndrome, which occurred when an abducted person stopped believing he or she was abducted and started believing what their kidnapper told them was true. It was often less painful than understanding the real situation, the book said. If your real story was too terrible, the book said, you made a new one for yourself. Then you willed yourself to believe it.

I couldn’t sleep, and watched the shadows on my wall as cars drove by. Outside, someone yelled, “You stabbed me! You stabbed me!” I realized that instead of being an out-of-work cocktail waitress with a murdered sister, no parents, and cellulite, I was going to Montana, trying to find a new story of my own.

from the desk of
AGNES FOWLER

Dear Johan,
I have not heard back from you, but I gather the mail service might be very slow. It’s a clear night here in Montana, but winter is in the air. I suppose I should enclose the
AlaskaHunks.com
Personality Plus! Profile. OK, I will.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Agnes

AlaskaHunks.com
Personality Plus! Profile

1. Fave color
Hm. This should be an easy question, shouldn’t it? But I’ve never known what my favorite color was. I used to say “purple,” but I think I was trying to be exciting. I do like the deep green color of my living room. After my father died, I went to Kmart and bought cans of paint. I believe it was the Martha Stewart line. Let me find the color, might as well do this right. Hold on. It’s ivy afternoon. I’ll go with that.

2. Fave music
Oh, dear. Where is “fave book,” I’d like to know? (It’s Madame Bovary, by the way.) Don’t Alaskan Hunks care about books? I listen to moody pop music, like Phil Collins on a station called “Kiss 95.” I like songs about love ending, though I hope that doesn’t make me sound morbid. I’m all for show tunes, as well, like Anything Goes.

3. Fave sport
Is reading a sport?

4. Fave hobby
I wasn’t really allowed to get out very much, so I tended to take up my father’s hobbies, like making flies for fly-fishing. I also enjoy step aerobics and salsa dancing, though it’s tough to find a spicy salsa partner in northwestern Montana.

5. Fave smell
What? This is a very strange question. Am I supposed to say I like the smell of new snow? I do. Also: tacos, gasoline, and soap.

6. Fave food
I do love food. Besides blueberry pancakes and various penny candy, I love shrimp scampi. Also, Entenmann’s Raspberry Twist coffee cake.

7. My motto
“I can help any library patron!”

8. My worst nightmare
I’m going to skip this question.

9. My greatest hope
Sometimes, I wake before the sun has come up, and I feel that I am all alone in this world. I would like to not feel that way anymore.

10. My perfect date
Oh! This is the best question. First of all, I would be just the slightest bit sunburned. I love taking a shower and getting ready when my skin is a little—but not too—pink. I would use expensive shampoo, conditioner, and lotion. I actually have a Burt’s Bees Sampler Pack with all sorts of creams and lotions that I got from my Secret Santa at the library. It’s my perfect date! I’d use them all.

I would wear a beautiful shimmery skirt and a cream-colored wool sweater. (Or cotton, depending on the weather.) I would wear my mother’s necklace, which would be cool on my sunburned neck.

Depending on the weather, I would wear sandals or snug boots.

My date will arrive smelling good, like pine trees. He will bring me flowers or a snack. I put the flowers (or snack) away, and we steal into the night. I roll down the window of his car (or sleigh) and feel cold air on my sunburned cheeks.

We go to dinner somewhere candle-lit and lovely. Across the table, he gazes at me. We talk about what books we have been reading and about how great we look. We eat lobsters.

After dinner, we’re in a bed with silk sheets. He has slipped me out of my clothes, and now it’s just me and my expensive lotion. He runs his
hands
tongue over my breasts and then my inner thighs.

Wait one minute while I refill my Chardonnay.…

He has oils on his fingers, and he runs them along my skin. (Though still his tongue is running over my breasts and inner thighs.) He kisses me and he smells of safety and he tastes like butter from the lobsters but NOT like lobsters, which are delicious but not sexy. Maybe we had some chocolate mousse for dessert, so he can taste like that.

He is skinny but strong. Not too much hair, esp. not on his back. He takes off his shirt and pants and socks. (Though still his tongue is running over my breasts and inner thighs.) Now he is moving inside me and saying my name again and again.

I am hot and wet and the sunburn makes my skin warm but I’m not so sunburned that I hurt at all. I don’t hurt at all. Inside me, he moves back and forth and back and forth and I say his name, too. This goes on. When we climax, we do it together, or if not together, then nearly at the same time, that’s OK. Then we lie in the silk sheets and fall asleep.

When I wake up, the sun is still not out, just the moon. But I am not alone.

W
HEN ISABELLE TOOK
the bus to New York and left him, Bernard thought it was the end of the world. He awoke every morning, and for just an instant, he thought of her: her soapy smell, and the way she touched his ear with her lips. Her breath, which smelled like the toffee candies she carried with her everywhere. Her tongue, warm caramel in his mouth.

But then it descended, like a curtain closing out a colorful stage. She was gone. She left him a vague letter and all the presents he had ever given her, sealed up in a shoebox. I feel that I am destined for bigger things. I will carry you in my heart always. You will find someone who will love you the way you deserve to be loved.

Clichés, one after another, and now his mother’s sapphire ring was back in the vault. Isabelle married a Yankee, he heard. Hadn’t even come home for the wedding.

“Black coffee,” said Bernard, looking at his watch. He was late again, not that anyone would say a word about it. His enormous mahogany desk, shining, empty of any real work. The solicitous smirks of his father’s employees as they passed his office, trying hard not to covet his picture windows, his grandfather clock.

“Black coffee, please,” said the girl behind the counter. Bernard looked up at the blond girl, who offered him a smile. It was a flirtatious smile, and Bernard felt his neck growing hot. His tie was too tight.

“Sorry,” he said. “And a blueberry muffin. Please.”

She was too young for him. Her hair was braided in two pigtails, like a blond Pocahontas. Her voice was pure Yankee, a little too loud, sharp. “Toasted?” she said, and Bernard nodded. He watched her movements, which were quick and decisive. She sliced the muffin in one stroke of a large knife, and slipped it on a metal tray, opening the oven door at the same time. Underneath the apron, she wore a tank top and men’s pants. She was tan, with freckles across her shoulders.

“It’s gonna be a minute,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. Bernard nodded, and she cocked her head. “You can wait right over there,” she said.

“Sorry,” said Bernard. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said the girl.

He waited for his muffin. It was not in his nature to wait. Usually, his secretary fetched his breakfast, or he skipped the meal altogether, waiting until afternoon to eat anything. Maybe he’d take this brazen girl to lunch, Bernard thought. She might enjoy The Oglethorpe Club, its sunny garden room.

He felt a stirring, and it took him a while to place it. Desire. He’d been with ladies, of course, but nothing like this, not since Isabelle. He had lovers now, but he did not have someone to love.

“Black coffee, blueberry muffin!” the girl’s voice rang out over the sipping and the toasting and the steaming and the footsteps of people outside. Bernard walked to the counter, where the girl held a white paper bag, the top folded over cleanly.

He took the bag, and their fingers touched for a second too long. “Thank you,” he said. Then he said it again: “Thank you.”

The girl laughed. “I’m Sarah,” she said.

“Sarah,” repeated Bernard.

“Are you just going to stand there,” said the girl, “or are you going to ask me out?”

“Please,” said Bernard.