The Geography of Lost Things Read online

  “What are you doing here?” Mom asked, stepping up to stand beside me, creating our usual unified front. Her voice was calm, reasonable. A result of years of practice. You didn’t raise your voice at Jackson. Or get too worked up. Because he had this mysterious talent for always making you feel like you were the unreasonable one. Like life was one big joke and you just lacked the sense of humor to get it.

  “Just thought I’d come see my daughter on her birthday,” Jackson responded, winking at me. “It’s not every day a girl turns sixteen.”

  Mom stiffened beside me. I knew why. She was surprised. Surprised that he had not only remembered the date but had also gotten the age right. It was little things like that that poked holes in your anger. That made you second-guess—for even a split second—your silent promises to never let him back in.

  Something jangled in Jackson’s hand, pulling my gaze downward. It was his key ring with the single silver key dangling off of it. The same nondescript key ring he’d had for as long as I could remember. The same jangling sound that populated my sporadic childhood memories.

  He nodded to the Firebird idling behind him in the driveway. The very vehicle that had taken him away seven years ago ironically kept bringing him back. Never on a consistent basis. Never with any warning or phone calls or texts. Always just showing up, the roaring engine audible from the top of the driveway, the polished chrome wheels blinding all passing traffic.

  The top of the car was down, and the white leather appeared freshly conditioned. Jackson looked like he hadn’t bathed in days, but the car, per usual, was immaculate.

  “Want to take her for a spin?” Jackson asked.

  Mom answered for me. “She doesn’t have her license yet.”

  “Well, let’s go down to the DMV and take care of that right now,” Jackson said with the enthusiasm of a father pitching a trip to Disneyland to a small child.

  “She’s not going anywhere with you, Jack,” Mom replied tightly, setting her hands on my shoulders.

  Jackson rubbed the dark scruff around his jaw and smiled back at my mother. That same disarming, charismatic smile that she’d fought to break free from since high school.

  He tossed the key ring straight up in the air. I imagine he had every intention of catching it. But the alcohol had affected his coordination. I watched the sparkling metal twirl and dance before falling to the asphalt next to his feet with a clank.

  It made him laugh so hard, he nearly fell over. Marylou—or whatever her name really was—laughed too.

  That’s when Mom sent them away. She bent down, scooped up the keys, thrust them into Marylou’s hands—the decidedly more sober one—and told them to leave. I didn’t argue. I’d stopped being that kid who gave her absent father the benefit of the doubt years ago. I’d stopped blaming my mother for making him leave. I knew exactly why he left.

  He left because that’s what Jackson did.

  The knock comes again. This time, more urgently. My stomach caves in on itself as I push my back further against the door, like I’m trying to literally hold the visitor at bay. Although it feels more like I’m holding back an insurgent army.

  Go away.

  There’s no one it could possibly be who I would want to see right now. Ever since that last visit from Jackson two years ago, the only surprise visitors we’ve been getting around here are the collecting kind. The kind who pin notices with big red dates to your door.

  And yet, the knocking doesn’t stop. The visitor won’t leave.

  Finally, I get so fed up, I turn and yank the door open, ready to take out all of my anger and frustration on whoever is standing there. I don’t care who it is. A debt collector, the UPS man, the Pope. Whoever is pounding on my door deserves everything that’s bubbling to the surface right now, ready to stream out of my mouth like a river of hot lava.

  But it’s the object in the man’s hand that stops me short. That clamps my lips shut. That pushes everything back inside. It’s the first thing my gaze lands on. Not the hand holding it. Not the strange man the hand is attached to.

  The large yellow envelope with my name scribbled across the center.

  The moment I see it, I know that it’s from Jackson. Not just from the lazy handwriting—the incomplete Os and undotted Is that reminded me of burning sauce on the stove and stacks of unopened final payment notices stuffed into boxes. But because Jackson is—was—the only person who still uses that name.

  The room does a full rotation, causing me to look away and then look back at the envelope just to make sure I’m not imagining it.

  “Are you the daughter of Jackson Collins?”

  The voice forces me to look up. Up, up, up. Until there’s a face. An unfamiliar face I’ve never seen before, but I immediately distrust. Not because he looks like a distrustful guy, which he doesn’t—he’s clean-cut, with pressed khakis and a friendly, toothy grin—but because he’s now associated. Just saying Jackson’s name—just holding an envelope with Jackson’s handwriting on it—will forever stain him in my memory.

  My head feels heavy, thick with possible reactions to the very simple question of “Are you the daughter of Jackson Collins?”

  Shut the door.

  Tell him to leave.

  Play dumb.

  Anything to avoid the real answer. Because the real answer has never served me. Not when Jackson was alive and, I am certain, not now that Jackson is dead.

  But somehow, the real answer is what comes out. “Yes.”

  “I’m Pete. I knew your father before he died. He rented a room from me up in Tacoma.”

  Tacoma.

  So that’s where he died. We didn’t know. When the call came from the hospital, there was no information on the caller ID. Mom didn’t ask, and I didn’t blame her. But now, I find the name of the city tumbling around in my brain like metal screws in a dryer.

  Tacoma.

  I guess it makes sense. He went back to them. To the band he loved. The music that inspired him. Fear Epidemic was formed in Tacoma. All the members were from there. Jackson always liked to say that he made that band. That he discovered them and told all of his friends and that’s why they became famous.

  “It’s just south of Seattle, Washington,” Pete explains, clearly interpreting my silence as confusion.

  “I know where Tacoma is,” I say quickly. Rudely. But I don’t care. I don’t want to talk geography with this stranger holding an envelope with my real name on it. I want him to get to the point. Tell me what’s inside. Because unless he does, I’m not sure I’ll actually be able to take it from him. I’m not sure I’ll be able to open it on my own. I can’t handle any more of Jackson’s surprises.

  I thought his last surprise was the final one.

  Death usually is.

  Pete clears his throat. “Right, well, anyway. He wanted you to have this. He made me promise I’d bring it to you.”

  He smiles and holds out the envelope, looking like a dutiful Labrador retriever delivering a Frisbee, waiting for praise. I stare at the name. Jackson’s handwriting, even messier than usual.

  Did he write it when he was sick?

  While he was dying?

  Was it the last thing he did?

  “What is it?” I ask, my gaze darting suspiciously between the man and the envelope.

  The saying “Don’t shoot the messenger” flutters through my mind, but I ignore it.

  He looks confused for a moment, as though he were under the impression that I already knew he was coming. He must not have known Jackson very well if that’s what he assumed.

  He glances behind him and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “That.”

  I follow his gaze, and that’s when I see it. I’m actually not sure why I didn’t notice it before. But there it is. Just like I remembered. Jackson’s most prized possession.

  Why didn’t I hear it pull up? Why didn’t the sound jolt me to attention like it always did?

  Maybe it was never the car that was so deafening, demanding attentio
n. Maybe it was Jackson.

  I flounder for words, glancing between Pete and the blue 1968 Firebird convertible parked in the driveway, waiting for him to tell me that this is all a big joke. Haha! What a funny prank. One final rug for Jackson to pull out from under me.

  Because the alternative is just too hard to believe. Jackson never left behind anything valuable. Jackson left behind messes. He left behind deep holes that can never be filled.

  “A-a-are you sure?” I finally manage to get out.

  Pete laughs at my reaction. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Real classic, that car. You’re a lucky girl to have a father like that.”

  A lucky girl.

  Never in my eighteen years of life have “lucky” and “father” ever been so close together in a sentence.

  “Well, I gotta run,” Pete says. “A friend is picking me up and driving me to the airport.” He thrusts the envelope into my hand. “Paperwork is all in here. Oh, and here’s the key.”

  Pete reaches into his pocket and pulls out a simple silver key ring.

  The breath hitches in my chest.

  The last time I saw that key ring was more than two years ago. On my sixteenth birthday. It’s exactly as I remember.

  It’s funny how time can weather a man, fade a memory, change a name, but it seems to do nothing to objects. They’re like little time capsules buried in your life, digging themselves up all on their own, regardless of whether or not you’re ready to see them again.

  “Well, enjoy her,” Pete says. “She’s all gassed up.” He tosses me the key. Somehow, despite the numbness that has invaded my entire body like a plague, I manage to catch it.

  Pete turns and jogs down the front steps. I stare dazedly at the key ring in one hand, the envelope in the other, and then finally, the car in the driveway. I still can’t bring myself to believe that it’s mine. That Jackson actually left me something. But then I open the envelope, ripping through the tape that sealed it, and pull out the piece of paper inside. I take in the ornate blue border, the faint “State of California” watermark, the words CERTIFICATE OF TITLE printed in all caps across the top. And my name—my full legal name—typed in a crisp black font.

  Jackson’s handwriting may have been sloppy, untrustworthy, and barely legible, but this piece of paper is clear enough.

  Suddenly, a very different sensation travels through me. An unfamiliar sensation. It’s so foreign, I can’t even be sure I’m correctly identifying it.

  But it feels a lot like hope.

  FRIDAY

  Run away, go away

  Hide away, sneak away

  There’s got to be

  An easier way

  To face each day.

  —“Nearly a Saint,” from the album Anarchy in a Cup by Fear Epidemic

  Written by Nolan Cook, Slate Miller, Chris McCaden, and Adam French

  Released January 2, 1998

  7:42 A.M.

  RUSSELLVILLE, CA

  INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD 400 CONVERTIBLE (1)

  The next morning the Honda won’t start. I can hear it trying, like it really doesn’t want to be another item in the long list of things that have let me down in life. I give it a few words of encouragement. I find that sometimes helps. I mean, it’s not that I can really blame the car. It’s almost as old as I am.

  “Come on, old girl,” I say, as though I’m trying to coax a tired horse that doesn’t want to leave its stall. I rack my brain for every cheesy motivational cliché I can think of. “You can do it. I know you can! We’re in this together! A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Don’t be the weakest link! Teamwork makes the dream work!”

  For some reason, that one does the trick. The engine turns, and the car revs with a newfound optimism for life.

  “Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” I shout as I pump the gas.

  The optimism must be contagious.

  When I get to school, there’s an electrical charge in the air. And it’s not just from all the seniors anxiously shuffling their feet on the carpet, counting the seconds (21,600) until we’re out of here for good. It’s a frenetic energy. A mix of relief and total panic. Most of the people in my class don’t know what happens after graduation next week. Including me.

  I thought I knew.

  I thought I had it all figured out.

  Then those hideous notices started appearing on our front door.

  The computer lab is jam-packed. Every seat is taken, mostly by underclassmen trying to finish up papers and turn in assignments. They still have a week left of school.

  I crane my neck, scanning the three rows of terminals, and notice a freshman girl signing off and gathering her things. She stands, and I immediately start moving in her direction. But I skid to a halt when I see who’s sitting at the computer right next to the now-vacant seat.

  My throat goes dry and I consider turning around, waiting for another station to open up, or perhaps even waiting until my first free period to come back. But before I can make any sort of decision, he glances up, and our eyes meet.

  For a long time, we just stare at each other, a stream of awkwardness passing between us like electricity running down a wire. It feels strangely like a standoff between rival gang members. He looks away first, but only to peer down at the empty seat and then to peer back up at me, his mind putting the pieces together, his eyes judging the distance between his chair and the one I will soon occupy. I notice his body visibly stiffen.

  Uh-oh! You’ve just run into your ex-boyfriend in the computer lab. What do you do?

  A Turn around and run out the door like a pack of Rottweilers is chasing you.

  B Grab the first guy you see and start making out with him.

  C Sit down right next to him. Because you’re totally, 100 percent over it.

  I blink, coming out of my momentary trance, and approach the chair. As I walk, I mentally calculate how long it will take for me to log in to my e-mail, check my inbox, and get the hell out of this room.

  If there’s one thing to look forward to after today, it’s that there will be no more awkward encounters like this one.

  I sit down. He clears his throat. I flash a weak smile. He flashes one back. I lunge for the keyboard. He stares hard at his computer screen. Neither of us speaks.

  Until . . .

  “Hi,” he says tightly.

  I fight the urge to close my eyes, wishing I could rewind the last sixty seconds, catapult myself back in time, back to the moment I decided to sit in this seat.

  “Hi,” I say back, keeping my gaze trained on my screen as I log in with my student ID and password.

  “How have you been?” he asks.

  No, Nico, I think as my stomach caves in on itself. Don’t do that. Don’t make idle conversation. Don’t try to chitchat. Don’t acknowledge my existence. Just don’t.

  I should have known. I should have known Nico Wright is incapable of just pretending nothing happened. Of just going back to being the comfortable strangers we once were. Isn’t that the unspoken rule between people like us? The unspoken pact we made after that dreadful night one month ago?

  Erase each other’s numbers.

  Destroy all the evidence.

  Ignore each other in the hallways.

  Try to wipe the memories from our minds—the good and the bad. Especially the bad.

  I did all of those things. I kept my end of the silent pact. But Nico is too polite for that. He probably couldn’t ignore someone if he tried.

  “Fine,” I say coolly. “You?”

  “Fine,” he replies.

  I nod. Is that it? Is it over? Pleasantries exchanged? Boxes checked? Obligations fulfilled?

  “How’s your mom?” he asks.

  Apparently not.

  Another fleeting smile. “She’s great. How are your parents?”

  He shrugs. “The same.”

  I’m not sure if he meant “the same” as in they’re also doing great, or “the same” as in they haven’t changed since
we . . .

  Well, since we changed.

  I decide it doesn’t matter. I never knew Nico’s parents anyway. We always spent most of our time together at my house while my mother was at work. Or at Chateau Marmutt, surrounded by slobbering dogs. Or taking long drives along Route 128 in his truck. In fact, I never even realized how little I knew about Nico’s life until it was all over. And by then, there was no reason to ask any more questions. Besides, I think I already had all the answers I needed.

  I turn away from him and focus back on my computer screen.

  I can feel Nico’s gaze linger on me for a few seconds before he, thankfully, turns away too. I log in to my e-mail account and hold my breath. There are ten new e-mails in my inbox. The subject lines of all of them read:

  Re: 1968 Firebird 400 Convertible for Sale

  Last night at Chateau Marmutt, as soon as I finished filling water bowls and taking all the dogs out to go to the bathroom, I used the front desk computer to draft a Craigslist post for the Firebird.

  I added a few pictures of the car that I’d snapped before leaving for work, and I set the price as “Best offer.” As I worked on the description, I could hear Jackson’s voice in my head. Like years of listening to the same song on repeat.

  “This baby’s not the base model. It’s the 400. It’s worth much, MUCH more.”

  As I stare at the responses in my inbox, I instinctively prepare myself for the disappointment. Maybe it’ll be nothing. Maybe the car was only valuable to Jackson. Like a ratty old stuffed animal you’ve had since you were a kid. It means the world to you, but everyone else looks at it like it’s diseased and flea-ridden.

  I click on the first one, and my heart lurches in my chest. Actually, I think it might have just skipped several important beats.

  Hi, my name is Tom Lancaster. I own a classic-car restoration shop up in Crescent City, CA. We buy and sell classic cars. Your Firebird is a beauty. I realize Crescent City is a bit of a haul for you, but I can offer you $32,000 if you can drive it up to me. Of course, I’ll have to inspect the car, but from the pictures, it looks like it’s in immaculate shape. You must have taken good care of it throughout the years. Please respond ASAP and let me know if you’re interested.