The Lost Girls (18 page)

I should have been prepared for the consequences of my online snooping, but I hadn't steeled myself for that broomstick-in-the-solar-plexus sensation. Forcing myself to stop rubber-necking the remains of my relationship, I mashed down the power button. The evidence that Jason had moved on tunneled out into an empty gray screen.

I felt like slapping myself. What was my problem? Jason had every right to date some new (significantly less cool) chick now that I'd checked out of his life. But the fact that he'd forgotten me so quickly stung like a second-degree burn.

I stalked into the kitchen and yanked open the freezer, pushing my way through the tinfoil tundra to find the one thing that could offer immediate relief. I located the box of cigarettes behind a shrink-wrapped slab of meat and yanked one out even before I'd walked outside. Wait. Matches. Phone. I found both and went into the backyard to light up.

“No way! He's already got a new girlfriend?” shrieked Holly as I sucked on the end of the American Spirit. “Wow, that man must really have been crazy about you.”

“How in the world do you figure that?'

“Well, he clearly had to fill the void you left as quickly as possible.”

Holly always had a truly impressive way of spinning the truth to make me feel better.

“Look, Amanda, he adored you—there's no question about that. But he knew you were leaving for an entire year. Most guys
wouldn't have hung in there for as long as he did. Not unless they really cared.”

“Even if that's the case, it didn't take him very long to get over it.”

“Trust me, he's not over you. If he were, he'd have no problem grabbing a beer for old times' sake, now, would he?”

Thank God for Holly. She spent a half hour talking me off the ledge, refusing to let me descend into total depression. But it was only after she considered me stabilized and in no danger of causing harm to myself (other than chain-smoking, of course) that she released a bombshell of her own.

“So you remember my editor at
For Me
, Meghann, right? Well, she just called me about an hour ago, really upset.”

“Oh wow, is everyone having a bad day? What happened?” I selected another thawed-out cigarette. I already felt nauseated, but lighting another one seemed like the right thing to do.

“Apparently, the magazine folded today. It's finished. They're not going to run any more issues after this one.”

I stopped in my tracks and let the lighter fizzle out. “Wait…what? They're folding the magazine? What's going to happen to your column?”

“The column is done, too. I won't be getting more checks after my next one.”

“God, Holly. Are you okay?” I raced back inside. “Do you want me to come over? I can leave right now. What's your subway stop again?”

“No, no, it's fine. Don't come over,” she said firmly. “I'm already here with Elan, and we've been figuring things out since Meg called. It'll be fine.”

“Holly. Are you sure? I can be there in ten minutes. It's no problem.”

“Yeah. I'll be okay. I just don't know what to do about money, because that column was really my only source of income for
the trip. I've only got about six thousand in the bank, and we haven't even bought our round-the-world tickets yet.”

Holly was referring to the string of tickets that we'd secured through a San Francisco–based travel agency called AirTreks—international flights starting in Kenya, then connecting through India, Dubai, Southeast Asia, Bali, New Zealand, and Australia. The $2,200 price tag was a bargain—unless we couldn't actually come up with the money to pay it.

I could barely ask the next question. “Can you still come on the rest of the trip?”

“I don't know. Of course I
want
to come with you guys. But is it really smart to fly all the way to Africa without knowing if I can afford to fly back again?”

The answer was probably no, but I couldn't even imagine continuing at this point without Holly. The three of us were a team now, a force. There was just no way two of us could face the world without our third.

“Well no, but, Holly,” I said, scrambling to think of a creative solution. “Whatever you do, don't decide to stay just yet. There has to be something else we can do to make money on the road. Could we work at one of the hostels? Pick fruit somewhere?” I joked that we could all sell our eggs to a fertility clinic for cash—I'd actually spoken with one traveler who'd done as much and pulled in about eight grand in the process.

My brain was racing on all cylinders, trying to calculate how much money I had left in the bank. I'd made some decent money while freelancing, and I had some savings I was using to fund my own travels. Could I afford to lend Holly the money for her round-the-world ticket? Would she accept?

“Holly, just promise me one thing. No matter what you ultimately decide to do, just say you'll still meet us next Monday to get the visa for India. You can always decide later not to come with us, but you should at least apply, just in case.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“I'll come meet you guys,” she said. “But I can't promise anything.”

I didn't need her to. If she showed up, that would be enough. As soon as Holly and I said good-bye, I clicked the receiver to get a dial tone, then immediately called Jen.

 

A
few days later, I found myself back across the East River, laptop bag slung across my body and pillow lines crosshatched across my face. I'd opted to reenter the city a couple of hours early, hoping the quick pace and frenetic energy would kick-start me back into writing mode. Jen, Holly, and I weren't meeting at the consulate until 11 a.m., so the idea was to grab a cup of coffee and get cracking.

Standing with the restless mob at the coffee pickup counter, I felt my anxiety level rise. Man, I'd forgotten how hostile a Midtown Starbucks could be when people desperately needed a $5 attitude adjustment. The smell of stress percolating in the room was enough to make me appreciate the moments of relative calm and stillness the girls and I had experienced while sipping freeze-dried Nescafé in Latin American hostels.

In the back seating section, the air vibrated at an even higher anxiety level. People jammed elbows to get their laptops plugged in at the single four-man workstation, and others were hovering intently over two-tops, trying to command the space even before the current occupants had finished their coffee. The situation triggered my fight-or-flight response, and I just didn't have the energy right now to duke it out for a sticky table next to the bathroom.

Jostling past the business suits, wayward tourists, and posh media girls, I pushed my way outside into the milky September sunshine and felt a brush of chill against my skin. Fall was a
whisper away. I prayed Holly wouldn't have to stick around New York to usher it in.

I managed to find an empty seat in a public atrium nearby, popped open the laptop, and willed myself to do something useful. Unless you could count draping myself across the futon, eating processed snacks from the corner bodega, and forcing Pete to give me free therapy sessions, I'd done absolutely nothing of value in the past few days.

Despite the high-octane Starbucks latte and my best intentions, I didn't fare much better in Manhattan. I procrastinated, sifting through the photos we'd taken during the first part of the trip, before giving up on working altogether. I decided to stroll a dozen blocks uptown to the consulate and wait for the girls.

I was surprised to find Jen already there, slumped against the porous stone face of the building as if she might keel over without its support. Her normally vibrant, amber blond hair hung limply around her face in strings, and behind her sunglasses, her expression looked flat, utterly deflated. As I stood next to her against the wall, I suspected that this had much bigger implications than Holly's pending status on the trip.

“Jenny.” I searched her face, trying to figure out what was happening on the other side of her dark lenses. “What's going on? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” She sounded hollow. I could now see the streaks where tears had been hastily brushed aside.

“You sure?”

“Well, not exactly.” She adjusted herself, pressing her shoulder into the wall and letting her bag drop to the sidewalk. “I just…I know that when we leave for Africa, things with Brian and me are over.”

“Oh, Jen. I'm so sorry.” I moved in to give her a hug.

“It's okay. I knew this was coming, but now that it's here…well, I'm just so sad.”

“Well, you know you don't have to go,” I said, trying to sound strong, convincing. “If you're having doubts, you could stay here, try to salvage things…”

In a flash, I envisioned Jen dashing across the city to reunite with Brian while I tried to navigate through Africa and India without either of my friends.

“No, that's the problem. I really don't have any doubts. I want to keep going—but that will mean it's totally over.”

I was just trying to figure out what to say, whether or not to suggest that there might be hope for the two of them, when Holly came bounding down the block.

“Ladies, I made it on time! I made sure to leave twenty minutes early so I could…” Holly was instantly alarmed once she got up close. “Oh no, Jen. What's wrong?”

“I promise that I'll explain everything later, but right now I just don't feel like getting into it,” she said softly as she slid the strap of her bag back onto her shoulder. “Can we just go inside?”

“Of course, yeah,” said Holly, sounding stronger than the last time we'd talked. “We don't have to discuss anything right now. Let's just go in.”

Despite our varying states of crisis, I felt a tremendous sense of relief to be with both girls again. We pushed open the heavy black door and went inside. The scene at the consulate made the Midtown Starbucks look as chill as a Buddhist monastery. People in every manner of dress were absolutely everywhere, crammed onto lines that appeared to go nowhere, sitting on the floor to fill out forms, shouting across the room with no concept of indoor voices. But even the chaos couldn't distract from the tightly wound American woman at the front of the line who was shrieking about some papers she'd faxed in but that had apparently been lost.

“Who is your supervisor? This is absolutely ridiculous! I
took the time to get those forms signed and notarized and faxed in. Where are they?”

We couldn't hear what the guy on the other side of the glass was saying, but he didn't look ruffled. He motioned for her to move aside, and a smallish Indian man approached, shoving his papers through the slot in the window. The woman started shouting again, whirling on the guy who'd dared cut her off before she was done.

The three of us gawked at the scene for a minute, then glanced at each other.

“Holy shit, you guys,” said Jen, sounding both shell-shocked and thrilled. “Are we really doing this? Are we really going to India?”

The moment she posed the question, I could sense a shift in the mood between us. Jen wasn't just asking whether or not we were headed to India. She was asking if we were ready to commit ourselves to this journey all over again.

When we had first agreed to go around the world, the three of us had had no real concept of what it would be like to spend every single day, hour, and minute on the road with two other people. We'd never tried compromising on every single decision. We hadn't yet experienced the gravity of our choice to leave behind the people we loved.

Now, with South America behind us and the consequences of our actions as real and in your face as the shrieking woman before us, we were confronted with yet another decision: Could we commit to several more months of travel? Were we ready to leave New York City yet again in order to find something unknown and intangible on the road?

In that moment, the goals I'd been focused on all week seemed utterly trivial. The only thing I wanted now was to ensure that my best friends would continue on this adventure with me; that we'd see the world together, with no woman left behind.

I turned to Holly and shared what I'd been thinking from the moment I'd heard her column was going under.

“Look, I know you're probably going to think this is a crazy idea, but please just consider it. If you're willing to take it, I'd like”—I swallowed hard—“I'd like to lend you the money to buy your round-the-world ticket.”

Holly's jade green eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

“Just think about it,” I said. “You don't have to decide now. It's not going to be enough to cover your daily expenses, and you probably don't want to mix the whole friends and finances thing. But even if you take a year or two to pay me back, it's okay…”

“Amanda,” she said softly. “You'd really do that for me?”

“Yeah, I would. I just know there's still so much you want to do. Like getting your yoga certification at an ashram. Learning to scuba dive. Bungee jumping in New Zealand.”

“I never said I wanted to do that!”

“Oh, wait. You're right. That was Jen. But still, consider it. This trip won't be the same with just two of us. In fact, it probably wouldn't work at all without you. Jen and I have talked about this—we might actually kill each other if you weren't around.”

“Yeah, it's true. You're the buffer,” said Jen, smiling but still serious. “Three's always supposed to be a crowd, but in this case, it's really the perfect number. We all contribute something to the mix, balance out each other's good and bad traits. Like, Amanda's the motivator, I'm the planner—”

“And Holly, you're the peacemaker,” I said. “What's more important than that?”

We all descended into a rare silence as we snaked our way up through the long, painstakingly slow line. Nearly an hour passed before we handed our paperwork over to the Indian guy behind the glass.