Where You End (19 page)

forty-three

The Mall is quiet for a Sunday, and I can hear my boots shuffling against the wet gravel. The sound comforts me. I drag my feet a little, so they'll keep me company. The carousel is done for the day. It's getting dark, and I walk over to the sculpture garden holding my cell phone. The security guard barely fits in her glass hut, and she seems to be busy reading.

i am here.

I don't care if she doesn't know what I mean. Maybe that will make her write me back. She has my Bogart. My knuckles sting. It's November. It's windy and cold. Winter is coming. The steps to the sculpture garden are still shiny from yesterday's rain. The first sculpture is a little man on a horse. They are both leaning back, as if I startled them still. The man has no eyes, just a nose, and the horse is screaming, but I can't hear him. I used to like horses. I used to go to the Rock Creek Park stables with my dad on weekends, and he'd pick me up, so I could reach their faces, and we'd touch the spot between their huge nostrils and feel how soft.
Miriam, gentle …
We laughed when they farted and flinched, and when they swatted a fly with their tail.

After the horse, I make a right and, although my mind can remember the rage, my body stays put. It's busy with other things. I miss the girl who was mad about her boyfriend leaving her behind and wandering the streets at night, looking for a house with the light on. From where I stand now, it looks like all she had to do was be sad until she wasn't anymore. I look up at the surrounding walls and imagine where Eva would have been sitting that day, with her bag, her gold fish, and her black hair.

I recognize the other sculptures, but mine is nowhere to be found. No bronze woman, no plaque with the name and artist and the date of his birth and death. Even the pedestal is gone. Nobody's left a note saying they have taken it away and whether it will ever be back. There is no trace of the thing I pushed over. It seems unfair for the people who come specifically to visit her, who expect to see her. It seems unprofessional for the museum to leave us in the dark.

they took it away.

I thumb the letters into my phone.

Picasso's gone.

Send. No reply. I take a picture of the empty spot.

I start to run toward the Metro. I don't know why I'm running. Maybe because I'm tired of waiting. Maybe because all that open space is making me panic. The phone loses service halfway down the escalator to the Metro and, by the time I get to the platform, it'
s too late to call Mom and let her know I'll be late for dinner. This shouldn't take too long. The red line is mobbed at Metro Center; I have to guess where the doors will open so I can wait in the right spot. I pick a cluster of ladies in suits. They smell like birthday cake.

A few clusters over, there's a group of loud dickheads pretending to push each other onto the rails. Most people ignore them, or quietly shake their heads, until this old guy with a suitcase on wheels just yells “Hey” and they stop and shut up for a second. But as soon as they locate the yeller, they burst out laughing and take turns yelling “Hey.” I feel sorry for the guy, probably because he reminds me of my dad. I try to make eye contact with him, so he knows we aren't all little shits.

While I'm getting pushed around in the car, I get really scared someone is going to steal my phone, because I need my phone in case she calls, so I take it out and hold it, but my hands are sweating like crazy. At every stop the car leaks a few people, but there are still no seats left and I am starting to feel the panic. I breathe deep and try singing something in my head to distract me. All I need is a little air. I get off at the next stop, so I can sit down and breathe. I'm still pretty far from home, and I don't know this area well. The elevator is broken and it takes forever to surface.

I find a bus bench and the cold air feels good on my face. It'
s been exactly nine days since this all started. Everybody hurries home. The stores are lit and still open, the phones all hot from making weekend plans. Maybe Eva forgot her phone somewhere, or someone stole it on the Metro. Even better, she went back home and got tired of me calling her, so she changed her number altogether. I press the green button, and it goes to her voicemail. I hang up and write the last text:

I need you.

Then I go buy myself a pack of gum.

Chewing three at a time, I walk north toward a cab because I want to sleep tonight, and Eva is standing in the way. She's my last secret. It takes about half an hour, but that gives my stomach time to settle and all that's left is a steady pounding in my head. I spit out the gum, punch out two new ones, and pop them in my mouth before I get out of the car.

The lights are off, and the driveway is empty. Adam's camera is still in my bag. The plan was to take it over after Elliot and apologize. It was a bad plan. I sit down on Eva's front steps and think of the scenarios, of how this could all play out. A few cars roll by, a few heads nod in my direction, but no one who seems to belong in this house.

My phone lights up. One new text message. It's from Eva.

I AM STARTING OVER.

I dial the number but it goes straight to voicemail again. I text back immediately.

Where are you?

Phone lights up.

WITH MY MOM.

Are you okay?

I DON'T KNOW.

I have no idea what to do, so I call my mom, but when she answers and says she's on her way home, it seems impossible to tell her everything. I tell her I'll be later than I thought. She asks me where I am, and I tell her I'm at Elliot's, which is not exactly a lie. It works. She'll wait. I stay at Eva'
s house, on Eva's doorstep, and wait for someone to come home.

After a few minutes, an SUV slows down and pulls up toward the curb. I can't see who is in there. The driver steps out.

“
Un segundo
,” he says before he shuts the door.

My ass is stuck to his steps.

“Hello,” he says. I can hear a little accent.

“Hi.”

“Are you looking for someone?”

“Uhm, sort of.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. The man is confused, but he doesn't seem mad. He seems nice. He must be the uncle. She never talked about a father. He notices the phone in my hand.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes.” I sigh. “No. Look, I'm really sorry. I'm just … I know your niece.”

His eyes get real big, and he puts his hand on his mouth, and then he looks back at the car. It feels so good to share it with someone that I just want to keep going. No mercy.

“I met her a week ago.”

Uncle Eva shakes his head.

“I'm sorry to just show up at your house like this, but I'm sort of looking for her. She borrowed something from me.”

“Do you know where she is?” he asks, frantic.

“I'm not sure. Isn't she here?” I say.

“No. Eva hasn't been home in more than a week.”

“But I just spoke to her. She said she was with her mom.”

His eyes get watery. “
Dios mio
,” he says.

He bites his thumbnail and then looks at me like I am a child he should remember to protect.

“What's your name?” he asks.

“Miriam.”

“You really know Eva?”

“Yes, sort of, yes.”

“How do you know where we live?”

“Because she told me.”

“What else do you know?”

“I know her mother is sick, and that she has a little brother. She was really worried about her little brother.”

The man's eyes start to water and he bites his knuckle to make himself stop.

“What?” I beg.

“
Miriam, I have to talk to my wife. We have to find Eva.”

“Have you called her?”

“She does not answer. We thought she was at her boyfriend's house.”

“She has a boyfriend?”

“He is a stupid guy, a mean guy, but sometimes she went back. He is the father.”

“Whose father?” I ask, but within two seconds, the look on the uncle's face shuts me up. Pablo is not Eva's brother. I look over at the car, where a boy is sitting quietly in his car seat.

“Is that Pablo?”

“Yes,” he says.

“And where is Eva's mother?” I ask.

The man shakes his head. “
Se mat
ó
,” he says.

“I'm sorry. I don't understand … ”

“She's dead,
hija
. My sister, her mother, killed herself.”

My head is reeling from too much truth, all at once, and so much pain. I think of the way Eva begged for a picture of her son, of how guilty she felt, how she spoke of her mother. Was she giving me clues? Everything is mixed together: the book of poems, the greasy hair, the gold fish, the altar. I think of the woman in the silver frame, surrounded by candles, and how Eva refused to look at that photograph. She was trying to tell me something, goddamnit, and I was not listening.

The car window opens and a little head leans over and yells, “Tiiiiiiiooooo. Can we go inside?
Tengo hambre
.”

“
Ya voy, mi amor. Un rato, por favor
.”

“So that's Pablo … ” I say.

“Yeah, that's Pablo,” he says.

“We have to call the police,” I say.

He motions for Pablo to wait, and Pablo huffs and grabs a bag of little plastic dinosaurs from the seat pocket. I am sure Eva put those there for him.

“I know what to do,” I say.

I got Pablo. He is okay.

Eva's uncle talks to his wife on the phone. He looks lost. I pray for Eva to write back. I promise God everything if he does me this one more favor. The thought crosses my mind that maybe I'm being punished, maybe this is my punishment for pushing the sculpture, for having sex without a condom, for lying to my parents. I beg him for a different punishment, one that does not hurt Eva, Pablo, and this man standing in front of me.

“My wife says we cannot go to the police, because maybe they take away Pablo.”

“They would not do that.”

“My wife says we need to find her,” he says.

I look at Pablo in the car and think of places where his mom might be. His hair is black like hers, but more curly, all over the place. He smiles, and I smile back.

With my mom
, she said. To find Eva, we have to solve the ultimate puzzle—where the fuck do people go when they die?

“When did you see Eva?” he says.

“The last time was at the zoo,” I tell him.

“How many times? Where else?”

“At the park, at my school, at the Cathedral.”

He presses his temples to think.

“She was bad?” he asks.

“Bad?” I say.

“Not bad. Sad? She was sad?”

I don't know how to answer. She was everything. She was sad, she was angry, she was funny, she was smart, she was worried, but she did not seem done. I don't believe that. She was the one who helped me. She was hopeful
.

“She had hope,” I say, wishing that didn't sound so vague and unhelpful.

The man, who looks older by the minute, sighs. “How did you know her?” he asks.

“She found me,” I say. “We met at a museum last Friday.”

“Last Friday?” he says. “Are you sure it was last Friday?”

“Yes. Why?”

“That's when she left,” he says. “She said she needed to get out for a little bit, and my wife took care of Pablo, but Eva did not come back.”

He starts shaking his head again, and I'm afraid he's going to cry and I won't know how to comfort him. It strikes me I don't know so much about his niece after all, not as much as he does at least, not as much as his wife does. I see how this was a dangerous game we were playing, how there were parents and children and mourning aunts and uncles involved.

“I'm so sorry to ask you this, but was her mother buried?”

“No. She was burned,” he says, a reminder that English is not his first language, that Spanish is, as Eva said to me once, stronger.

I take out the only thing I have that belongs to Eva—the Neruda book—and look for clues as to where she might be. Someone has underlined some phrases or words and there is the occasional comment or star in the margins. All of the scribbling is on the Spanish side of the page. I had assumed that was Eva. I hand the book over to Eva's uncle, hoping he will be able to decipher it better than I can.

“
This was Eva's,” I say. “She gave it to me when I met her.”

He takes the book and looks through it, then turns to the first page and smiles the saddest smile I have ever seen.

“
Por mi hija, la grande poeta de mi vida, para que no tenga miedo,”
he reads.

I wait.

“Her mother gave her this book before … ”

I don't wait for him to finish the sentence. It's too horrible. Before she died, Eva
's mother left her a book of poems. But poems can't save your life, can they? People do. We have to find her.

“She said her mother liked to take her to the Cathedral. Is that true?” I ask.

Her uncle shrugs. “I don't know. I have never been there.”

I try Eva's phone, but it's going straight to voicemail again. She's probably turned it off.

“We have to try every place, one at a time,” I say.

“Do you know where to go?” he asks.

“No, but we can try.”

The uncle opens the passenger door, and I look back at Pablo, who waves his hand and asks for a goldfish. The irony. The uncle points to a bag and Pablo holds out his palm, where I drop a fistful of orange crackers.

“Thank you,” the little guy says.

“You're welcome,” I say, and I'm so relieved I finally got him. I have Pablo, Eva. You stay put.