The Lost Girls (5 page)

I knew I needed to put some kind of plan B into action. Common sense dictated that I update my résumé and scour career Web sites, but I found that I just couldn't bear the thought of interviewing for a job. The truth was, I felt completely unnerved by the possibility of landing another full-time staff posi
tion. If I accepted a job and failed to live up to expectations, the reason wouldn't be an insensitive boss or a miscommunication over jury duty—the problem would be me.

So I decided to blow off relative job security and guaranteed health insurance in order to give freelance writing a try, setting up shop with nothing more than my clunker of a laptop and some free business cards I scored from Vistaprint. I spent my wide-open days drafting e-mails to editors at other magazines to ask them if, by chance, they might have any small articles that needed to be written. I brainstormed ideas, wrote them up, and fired e-mails off into the ether. Several weeks went by without a single response or assignment, during which I started to become one with our futon. My roommates often returned home late at night to find me in the exact same position as they'd left me, eyes glazed over as I cradled the computer in my lap. Just as I was considering waitressing or temping or donating plasma—anything to avoid legitimate job hunting—I landed my first freelance assignment, a story for a kids' magazine on bizarre tales of heroism by family pets.

Shortly thereafter, a women's magazine editor asked me to write two pages on surprising ways your boyfriend could be making you sick (hint: friction is involved). Then a national newspaper assigned me a piece on how text messaging was transforming the face of dating and relationships. Within a few months, I'd secured enough work to keep me afloat and even put a chunk of cash away for a rainy day. I wasn't doing a ton of travel writing, but my freelance career had taken off.

So had my social life. For the previous two years, it had been on life support, barely breathing, but it made a quick turnaround once I left the office. For the first time since I could remember, I spent my free time catching up on friends' lives, rather than working through my bottomless to-do list. I accepted invitations to go to yoga classes and see movies. I arrived on time
for happy hours instead of making excuses for missing them. I sharpened my pool skills, played darts, and rediscovered how to flirt. I went out on dates with inappropriate men, then commiserated with my girlfriends about the futility of finding a decent guy in Manhattan.

My days were laid back and calm, my nights intense and unpredictable. I stayed out far too late too often but no longer had trouble getting out of bed in the morning. I felt as if I'd moved to New York City all over again. But though I fully embraced this newfound freedom and felt more certain than ever that I'd made the right decision not to boomerang back into another job, I knew this couldn't be the endpoint of my transition. There had to be some other destination, some reason things had worked out exactly the way they had.

Again and again, I found that my thoughts turned to travel, the vagabonding bug I'd caught from Baker and the plans I'd made with Jen and Holly back in Argentina. I allowed myself to consider what would happen if our idea to backpack around the world—a concept that had seemed so ephemeral months earlier—ever solidified into reality. Exactly what would it take to set the wheels into motion? Could I really leave the life I'd created in New York to go backpacking like a college kid?

In theory, I guess I could. My lease expired in about a year. I didn't have a full-time job. Despite plenty of social activity, I'd yet to meet a guy I wanted to get serious with. I wasn't sure whether to feel thrilled or depressed that, at twenty-six, I didn't have a whole lot more tying me down than I had when I'd graduated.

Considering my commitment-free existence, I knew there would be few times in my life when it made more sense to travel. And I might have decided to do it on my own—or at least gone to Central America for a few months to hike through the rain forests, go to language school, and eat as many
frijoles negros
as
my digestive system could handle—except that Jen and Holly sealed the deal for me.

The three of us had been meandering through the stalls at the 26th Street flea market, one of our favorite Saturday activities, when I asked them if they'd remotely consider making good on that wacky round-the-world idea we'd had at Iguazú Falls.

“Actually, I've been thinking about that a lot lately,” Jen admitted.

“Me too,” said Holly, looking up from a tray of garnet rings she'd been examining. “I was half kidding when I said I'd go, but for some reason, it doesn't really seem so far-fetched anymore. Would it really be so ridiculous to take a few months off before we all get tied down?”

“Not at all,” said Jen as we strolled past a rack of vintage dresses. “For argument's sake, even if we started planning right now, we still wouldn't be able to get on the road until next summer. By then Brian and I will both be twenty-eight, and if we haven't determined our status at that point, I'm running away for sure.”

“Oh, that's right…your age deadline.” I said. “Look, you and Brian will figure things out. You'll have been together for nearly four years by then. I'm sure he hasn't been with you this long unless he figures you're marriage potential.”

“That's the thing,” she said softly, an odd note creeping into her voice. “What if I don't
want
to be marriage potential? If it doesn't work out and I'm single all over again—then what?”

Holly, always the first to find the silver lining in every situation, spoke up.

“Well, then, you
could
spend your time planning the biggest adventure of your life,” she said, plopping a floppy hat with a massive brim on Jen's head. “I mean, what would you rather spend the money on—rubbery chicken cutlets for a hundred and fifty guests and a white wedding dress, or a round-the-world plane ticket?”

“Do I have to answer that now?” Jen laughed as she frisbeed the hat back at Holly. She placed it atop her own burgundy-streaked bob and flashed Jen a silly tilted-head grin.

“Well, maybe if we play our cards right, we can have the chicken cutlets
and
the world,” I said, putting the hat back on the stand. “Just not in that order.”

We shopped our way through the market and eventually emerged into the late-afternoon sunshine.

“Hey, guys,” said Jen, walking between us. “About this trip. You know, I'm pretty sure I want to do it. Maybe not for a whole year, but I'd love to go back to South America. And maybe Kenya? You guys don't have to do it with me, but I've always wanted to volunteer there.”

“Of course we'll do that with you!” Holly jumped in, her jade green eyes flashing. “I've always wanted to see Kenya too! And Tanzania. And Rwanda. Do you think we could go visit the gorillas while we're there?”

“Wait, are you being serious?” I asked, turning around so I could see the expression on both of my friends' faces. “Is this really an option? We're talking about a major life change here. As in quitting jobs. Leaving boyfriends. Living out of a backpack and sleeping in bunks and washing out your thongs in some grungy hostel sink. Not to mention staying together for months on end. Are we really ready to sign up for all of that?”

There was a long pause, and my heart started its downward descent. Hol and Jen glanced at each other, then back at me.

“Well, I'm totally serious,” said Jen. “We've all traveled before and know what we're up against, underwear washing and all. And it's not like we're running away forever to, like,
live
with the gorillas or anything.”

“All I know is, we'll never get another opportunity like this,” said Holly. “I've backpacked on my own. I've done it with a boyfriend. I don't see how there's any way I could pass up the
chance to travel with the two of you. I mean, if we don't decide to take a leap of faith and do it now, then when?”

“Well, if you're in,” I said, almost afraid to believe what I was hearing—or saying. “So am I.”

“Me too,” said Jen, an irrepressible smile spreading across her features as she looked back and forth between Holly and me. “So I guess the only real question now is…when should we leave?”

NEW YORK CITY
MARCH, THREE MONTHS PRE-TRIP

A
manda was already waiting in the doorway of EJ's Luncheonette for Jen and me, shielding herself from the March winds that whipped between the buildings with enough force to push grown men backward.

“Holly!” she squealed, looking up from the celebrity gossip magazine she was reading and throwing her arms around me in a hug. Amanda has a way of making you feel like you're the most important person in the world simply by acting really, really excited to see you.

I loved that about her almost as much as I admired how she was so, well, ballsy. She was one of the only assistants who threw out her ideas in story meetings right along with women way higher up on the masthead, while I often kept mine to myself for fear of being shot down. She'd be the one to tell the guy who'd wedged a bar stool between us at happy hour that we weren't interested, while I'd fumble to make polite conversation.

Even though Amanda and I no longer shared an office, we saw each other more now than when we'd worked together, becoming closer friends who met every weekend for a yoga class or Sunday brunch.

As we dropped our arms, I asked, “So what do you think Jen's voice mail meant?”

Amanda's hazel-blue eyes clouded with worry. “Her message just said to come here for an emergency meeting about the trip. Oh, God, I think she changed her mind. Maybe we're not really going.” My chest tightened. I hadn't even considered that.

It'd taken me a long time to get to the place where I'd felt I was really ready to pack up my life to explore the world. Soon I'd be moving from town to town and country to country, and the only home I'd know would be my backpack. If home is truly where the heart is, as the old saying goes, what did that mean for me? Is home a physical place, a familiar spot where you can stay in your PJs until noon and eat peanut butter straight from the jar? Or is it more of a feeling, like knowing where to find safety in an unpredictable world?

For the past four years, I'd considered New York my home. So in a way, home for me wasn't a specific address. The reason New York felt so right was that it was like a hundred countries squeezed into a single island. It was a land where Wall Street brokers bumped up against Mexican busboys on the subway; the scent of falafel mixed with dim sum in the East Village; and horse-drawn carriages shared the road with racing bikes in Central Park. I'd fallen in love with the energy in Manhattan. And then I'd fallen out of love with it. And then I'd fallen all over again. New York was like an addictive relationship—when it was good, it was really, really good. But when it was bad, it made me feel like I was on sensory overload, threatening to pull me under until I lost myself. Even the places I'd typically retreat to for solitude—parks that smelled of fresh-cut grass or the lumpy futon that took up my entire living room—felt crowded and confining. Sometimes I just needed more space.

When I'd first moved to Manhattan from Marcellus, New York, at the age of twenty-four, I'd accepted a position as an assis
tant “happiness” editor at a national women's magazine. Though I'd always had an interest in psychology, I was suddenly required to research and write about self-fulfillment all day, every day. My job was to examine happiness and to ask, what exactly
is
happiness? Is it something you should allow to happen naturally, without thought, like breathing or your heartbeat? Or is it something you should search for, like a dream job or the love of your life?

So I spent eleven hours a day in a cubicle searching for those answers. I wrote stories like “Find Out What Drives You: Be Happier from 9 to 5” and “Boost Joy with a Gratitude Journal.” Soon my favorite moments at the office were those spent brainstorming ideas on how to turn your aspirations into reality and reading the latest studies in psychology journals.

I'd stay at work long after the phones had stopped ringing and the lights had dimmed, rushing to meet deadlines for stories on five-minute stress busters. I'd research tricks for curbing emotional eating (“Take a bath!” or “Call a friend!”), neither of which I ever found time for myself. So I'd reach into my desk's food drawer to soothe myself with Snickers and caramel corn.

When I forgot what I was working so hard for, I tried to take the advice of the happiness experts I interviewed by thinking of all the reasons to be grateful. If I hadn't moved to New York, I'd never have been able to work in one of the world's largest publishing companies. I'd probably be filing boring office forms instead of getting paid to read the latest happiness literature (which I'd have done for free). Maybe I'd be reporting on a local fender bender, as I had when I'd interned for a small newspaper in college, rather than, say, interviewing women about what makes life meaningful or testing out guided meditation techniques on DVD.

I was learning even more than I had in school, writing stories that reached millions of women, expensing my lunches, and riding black Town Cars to parties paid for by the company.
Everything seemed right in my life, but a current of restlessness ran through my veins that nothing I did—from taking on extra writing assignments to occupy my mind to training for a marathon to push my body or going to a rooftop barbecue with friends to chill out—could extinguish.

The person who most understood my drive to find a deeper meaning in it all was Elan, my live-in boyfriend. Just breathing him in made me feel more relaxed—when I actually saw him, that is. As a graduate acting student, he was in an equally demanding program with a class schedule that constantly changed. The fact that we both clocked long hours in an effort to achieve our individual dreams also served as a kind of glue to hold our relationship together. Most significant others might feel neglected by a partner who channeled more time and energy into launching his or her career than advancing the relationship, but Elan and I saw it as a necessary sacrifice at that point in our lives.

Years earlier, I'd met him at a friend's birthday party in a smoky club in the West Village. I remember it was a Friday night; I'd worked till 8 p.m. and hadn't wanted to go out at all. My sister Sara, who lived with two of my college friends and me in a railroad apartment, had practically pulled me out by both hands because she thought I'd been spending too much time at the office. I glanced back at our lumpy futon as the door clicked shut behind us, wanting nothing more than to wear my favorite sweatpants and sink down into the couch eating popcorn. I hadn't expected to make it until midnight, let alone meet a love who would take my breath away. But New York does that. It can wear you down, and then—just when you feel like collapsing—it'll jolt you back with the best night of your life.

Magnetized by Elan's deep, soulful eyes and shock of anarchist curls, we ditched the friends we'd come with to spend hours huddled together in the corner of the dance floor. I remember our voices grew hoarse; we were spilling over ourselves to share
our stories. I remember leaning in close to hear him above the music, catching the scent of his sweat in the humidity, and how it sent a charge through me that reached all the way to my toes.

When he called three days later (which seemed like an eternity to me then), we spent the entire following weekend together. We kissed as if we couldn't get enough on an empty bench in Central Park, sipped lattes at a sidewalk café in Little Italy, and lay on the roof of my Upper East Side apartment trying to find the brightest stars not eclipsed by the city lights. It took less than three weeks before he said he loved me. I felt the same way. It was instantaneous, a force I couldn't fight even if I'd wanted to. It felt as though we'd known each other before we even knew each other.

Three years had gone by so fast. We were still together and sharing an apartment in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We'd go on long bike rides, stopping on a cobblestone street near the Manhattan Bridge at Jacques Torres, my favorite chocolate shop. We'd spend five hours on a Wednesday night spooning on the couch and watching
Lost
DVDs before I'd fall asleep in his arms. We'd pick tomatoes from the garden he grew on our patio to cook dinner on Sunday nights (which we'd divide into Tupperware containers to use for lunches during the week). We fought, too, over typical relationship issues, like his staying out late and not calling or one of us blowing off a date to work. Sometimes I wondered when we'd stop making our careers the thing we focused on the most and when our relationship would come first. Still, the mundane stuff, those little ordinary moments, seemed deeper with Elan next to me.

 

H
ave you told Elan about the trip yet?” Jen had asked a couple months before. I'd trekked into the city from Brooklyn one slushy afternoon to meet her at the Adventures in
Travel Expo at the Javits Center for yet another trip-planning expedition. Since getting promoted at another women's magazine, I had finally mastered the art of work-life balance. I was as in love with Elan as ever. But still I went.

“Of
course
I've told Elan!” I'd said in surprise—it hadn't occurred to me not to. But when I glimpsed Jen's crestfallen face, I'd hoped I hadn't been too insensitive. “Um, I mean, yeah, we've talked about it. Have you told Brian?”

“Not exactly,” she said, nervously scratching her arm. It was the first time Jen and I had been alone without Amanda, who was out of town, and it felt as if we were on a first date. But instead of gauging whether we would upgrade from drinks to a full-fledged dinner, we were both weighing whether we could commit to talking, eating, and sleeping with this new person for 365 consecutive days.

“I've hinted that I may want to travel to South America this summer with you and Amanda,” Jen continued. “But I haven't told Brian I'm actually going on the trip—yet. How did Elan take it?”

“Surprisingly well.”

“Seriously? How'd you break it to him?”

Telling Elan about the trip hadn't been easy, of course. I'd brought it up one lazy Sunday morning when he was lying next to me in our bed, an arm thrown over his brown eyes to shield them against the light filtering in through the plastic blinds. All sharp angles and smooth skin like one of those Roman statues I'd studied in art history classes, his face still mesmerized me. I could look at it a million times, try to etch his features permanently into my mind, but then he'd turn and the shape of his nose or curve of his lips seemed to shift and I'd see him again as if for the first time. It was always like that with him: just when I thought I knew him, I'd suddenly glimpse him from a totally different vantage point.

I'd wanted to stay silent and keep my head buried in that safe haven on his shoulder. It was one of those beautifully simple moments where the way I wanted things to be and the way they actually were were one and the same. I felt the rise and fall of Elan's chest as he breathed rhythmically and heard the hissing of the radiator straining to heat the icy air that penetrated the thin walls of our apartment.

Mustering up the courage to tell him about my extended trip plans, I'd braced myself for the high probability of a breakup. Or, more likely, the knowledge that if he truly wanted me to stay, I would. But he didn't dump me; the two traits I admired most about Elan—his independence and open-mindedness—shone through. “It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime. I think it could be one of the best things you could ever do,” he'd said softly after a few torturous moments of silence, my hand tightly grasping his beneath the blanket. For a microsecond a doubt flashed through my mind:
If he really loved me, he wouldn't let me go
. Then it vanished just as quickly as it had come. Was I completely nuts? My boyfriend was actually
supporting
my big adventure, and here I was second-guessing his love.

“Hol, if two people are meant to be together, going after your dream is not going to change that,” he'd said, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me closer. He'd said that someday he might accept a role that'd take him away. And there'd probably be many more times in life when one of us would want to chase a big goal. He stopped for a second as my body relaxed against his in relief. He rationalized that, in the end, it'd just make our relationship stronger because we'd really understand who we were and what we wanted to do.

I fell a little deeper for him then, completely grateful for granting me the opportunity to explore without taking back his love. In fact, we'd decided that my time on the road would be the perfect shot for him to go after his own dream by temporar
ily moving to L.A. to pursue his acting career. It felt as though everything made perfect sense.

As I tried to explain the winding path Elan and I had walked to come to that understanding, Jen was uncharacteristically mute. It made me realize that, until that moment, she hadn't let a millisecond of silence hang between us—not even pausing to breathe between sentences. I let it hang.

Finally she said, “Um, that's really highly evolved of him. I
know
Brian won't be that supportive.” She hoisted her now-overflowing bag of brochures higher on her shoulder.

“How's it going for you two?” I asked, accepting a flyer from a tourist operator for safaris in Kenya.

“Honestly, we've been fighting so much the past few months I'm not even sure if we'll make it to the summer,” she said, her blue eyes growing darker and her eyebrows drawing together in worry.

“Oh, Jen, I'm so sorry,” I said, biting my lip. “Is it because of the trip?”

“It's just everything! I've been with this guy for over three years and love him to death, but how do you know when you find the person you're supposed to spend forever with? Everyone keeps asking me when he's going to propose!”

I was silent for a second myself, not really knowing what to say. Though I never lusted after the proverbial white dress and wedding bells, I could definitely relate to the pressure she was feeling. My own mother was questioning my motives after I had signed a second lease with Elan without the security of a ring on my finger. “Why would he step up to the plate when you're already giving him everything for free?” she'd asked. I'd told her that the rules of love and marriage had changed since her generation, and I was living my life as I wanted. Since I didn't know what to say to Jen, I said nothing and instead reached out to squeeze her shoulder to let her know I understood.