The Geography of Lost Things Read online

  “I have to sell it. End of story, okay?”

  But it’s clearly not “end of story.” Not for Nico, anyway. “But it’s a relic. A piece of history. Even if you had a bad relationship with your dad—”

  “No relationship,” I correct him. “I had no relationship with my dad.”

  “Even so,” Nico goes on, undeterred. “You still shouldn’t just throw it away because you don’t like what it stands for. It’s too valuable.”

  “It’s not valuable to me,” I snap. I don’t like the direction this conversation is heading. It feels too personal.

  7. No psychoanalyzing each other.

  “But that’s the thing,” Nico argues. “It could be valuable to you. I just don’t think you should make this decision so rashly. I’m afraid you might regret it one day.”

  “I thank you kindly for your concern,” I say bitterly, “but I think maybe you should worry about your own regrets.”

  I know it stings. It’s supposed to sting. It’s supposed to feel like salt water in a wound because that’s how every single second with him for the past two hours has felt for me. A constant reminder of the gash that’s been left open. That tries to heal but can’t because he’s everywhere. In the computer lab, in the parking lot, in the car next to me.

  “Ali,” he says, an edge to his voice. Like a warning. For a second I think he’s actually going to do it. He’s going to bring it up. He’s going to address head-on the very thing we’ve been dancing around for the past month.

  But he doesn’t.

  Instead, in a tight voice he says, “I just think maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to get rid of it.”

  I clench my fist around the sea glass in my palm. I wait for it to dig into my skin, to cut my flesh. But it doesn’t. The edges are too soft. The ocean has been too merciless against it for too long. It’s lost all of its sharpness. All of its bite. Everything that makes broken glass dangerous has been stripped away, until it’s just this sad, defenseless little stone.

  I open my palm and peer down at it, quietly seething.

  Your ex-boyfriend won’t stop prying into your personal life. What do you do?

  A Stand up and walk away. You’re tired of fighting.

  B Scream at him until he finally stops asking questions.

  C Tell him the truth. Maybe that will shut him up.

  “I have to sell the car. Otherwise, the bank is going to take away our house.”

  I drop the truth like a bomb. It works. Nico visibly flinches, clearly not expecting the situation to be this complicated. I hope that puts an end to this topic, but in case it doesn’t, I add, “Besides, some things just aren’t worth keeping around.”

  Nico’s surprise instantly flashes to anger. He opens his mouth to say something but is cut off by a tongue. Literally. A long pink tongue whips out and licks him across the cheek.

  “What the . . . ?”

  We both turn to see a dog panting behind us. He’s long, with wiry white-and-brown fur and the cutest, shortest little legs. He glances worriedly between Nico and me, as if to say, Don’t fight. It’s stressing me out.

  At the sight of him, all of my previous frustration melts into the sea air. “Well, hello there. Where did you come from?”

  I grab on to the green leash that the dog is dragging behind him.

  “He’s cute,” Nico says, patting the dog’s head. “Is he a Newfoundland?”

  I roll my eyes. “You think every dog is a Newfoundland.”

  “Only because I’ve never actually seen one in person. I’m starting to wonder if they really exist.”

  “This,” I say authoritatively, scratching the dog under the chin, “is a Pembroke Welsh corgi.”

  Nico gives the dog an apologetic look. “Yikes. That’s a mouthful. Sorry about that.”

  The dog licks his face again.

  “They’re called corgis for short. And they’re very affectionate and smart.”

  The dog dutifully sits, as though to prove my point. Nico and I both laugh. It’s the first time we’ve actually laughed. At the same thing. In more than a month.

  We used to laugh all the time. When Nico and I were together, everything was funny to us. Then the comet came and shifted the stars, and after that, nothing was funny anymore.

  “We should keep him,” Nico says.

  I scoff. “We can’t keep him. He clearly belongs to someone.”

  “I’ll hide him under my sweatshirt. No one will notice.”

  I chuckle before realizing I’ve just broken another Rule of the Road. We both have.

  8. No use of the word “we.”

  My hand brushes up against a dog tag hidden beneath the corgi’s rough, sand-matted fur. “Let’s see, what’s your name?”

  “His name’s Gizmo, and thank you so much for finding him.” I glance up into the sun to see a middle-aged man approaching us, looking winded. He has a dark, scraggly beard, ripped jeans, and a T-shirt that reads HUG DEALER.

  “We didn’t find him,” Nico tells the man. “He found us.”

  The man laughs as if this is an inside joke between him and the dog. “Yeah, he’s good at that.”

  I hand the leash over to Gizmo’s owner, and as he bends down to take it, his gaze falls to the sand next to me. “Wow. That’s a good one. Did you find that?”

  “Excuse me?”

  The man nods toward the amber-colored sea glass that I’d evidently dropped when Gizmo showed up. “I haven’t seen one that big in a while,” he says.

  “Oh, yeah. It just washed up in front of me.”

  “Nice. You used to be able to find big ones out here all the time, but then the tourists started coming and picked the place clean. They should change the name, right? Can’t really call it Glass Beach anymore, can they?”

  “This place is called Glass Beach?” I ask.

  He sighs and looks up at a craggy cliff to our left. “Yup. Used to be a dump site. From 1949 to 1967.”

  “A dump site?” Nico repeats, sounding shocked. “Like, for trash?”

  “Oh yeah,” the man says emphatically. “Residents of this area had been dumping their trash in the water at various locations up the coast since 1906.”

  “That’s horrible.” I peer at the ocean, trying to imagine anyone ever staring out at that beautiful blue water and thinking, Looks like a good trash can to me.

  “Yeah, pretty horrible, all right,” the man says. A seagull lands a few feet away, and I watch the man’s hand instinctively tighten around Gizmo’s leash. A split second later, Gizmo lunges at the bird with a gleeful bark. “The ocean pounded most of the trash into oblivion, but not the glass. It’s been spitting that back out ever since. Smoothed into pretty little pieces like the one you got there. Used to be you couldn’t even see the sand underneath with all that glass. Now there’s barely any left. People take it home as souvenirs.” He nods again at the amber pebble in front of me.

  I scoop up the glass from the sand and examine its unusual shape, trying to figure out what it resembles. A teardrop? A giant tooth? A mountain? “So this little thing was once a piece of trash from the fifties?”

  Gizmo continues to strain against his leash to get to the seagull. “Fifties or sixties, most likely.”

  I flip the piece of glass over in my palm, remarking on how beautiful it is now. Smooth and polished. Like a little amber-colored gemstone.

  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Nico says, plucking the thought right out of my mind.

  “That’s sort of cool,” I muse quietly. “Even if it’s also sort of awful.”

  The man guffaws at that. “That’s certainly the rub, isn’t it?” I peer up at him and notice he’s turned slightly away from us and is now gazing into the water. It has that effect on people. It sort of pulls you in. Mesmerizes you. Like a lullaby. “The ocean forgives,” he says absently, like he’s speaking more to himself than to us. “Even when we can’t.”

  I glance at Nico to find he’s already looking at me. For ho
w long, I couldn’t say. But something in his eyes tells me it’s been a while. We both immediately look away. Him to the water, me to the sea glass in my hand.

  I swallow. “Thanks for the history lesson,” I tell the man.

  He smiles. “Anytime.”

  “Can I keep this?” I ask him, proffering forward my treasure.

  “Of course,” he says. “Mark it down as part of the cleanup effort.”

  I laugh. “Thanks.”

  The man gives me a salute before turning and taking off down the beach, pulling a reluctant Gizmo behind him.

  At eight years old, I didn’t know what “too drunk to drive” meant. I just knew that Jackson was acting like a lunatic. Like someone I had never met before and never wanted to meet again.

  After the Fear Epidemic show at the Black Bear Saloon was finished, the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk, still singing and shouting and high on the music that adhered them all together.

  “Did you love it?” Jackson asked me. He spoke too loudly for how close I was standing. “Did you love them as much as I love them?”

  I nodded because I was afraid if I said no, he would somehow make me go back inside and listen to that angry noise all over again.

  “I made those guys, you know?” He was mumbling now, slurring words together until they barely even sounded like words. “Fear Epidemic is famous because of me. I got them a gig right here in Fort Bragg. Back when they were nobodies. And after that, they skyrocketed.” He shot his hand into the air, simulating a rocket ship bound for the stars. Then he fell very quiet, his head bowed like he was either praying or falling asleep. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever really been proud of.”

  He stood there for a long time, and I studied him, trying to make sense of this strange statement that somehow seemed more cohesive and significant than anything else that had tumbled out of his mouth that night. But before I could dissect its meaning, a voice broke into my thoughts.

  “He’s too drunk to drive.”

  I looked up to see the waitress who had brought me my chocolate silk pie earlier. Wendy. She was talking directly to me, a serious expression on her face. I remember thinking it was a grown-up type of expression. And in that moment, I didn’t feel eight years old anymore. I felt like I had aged twenty years in the blink of an eye.

  “Do you have someone you can call to come get you guys?” she asked.

  I nodded, and the woman pulled a cell phone out of her apron and handed it to me. I dialed the number for the house. Mom picked up, and I told her where we were and that Jackson was acting strange. She warned me not to get in the car with him. She would be there soon.

  Wendy invited us back inside and fed my father water and coffee for the next few hours until my mom showed up. Rosie dropped her off so that Mom could drive the Firebird home.

  She yelled at Jackson the whole way back to Russellville. He was the only person she ever raised her voice to. He just seemed to bring out the worst in her. I sat in the back seat trying to drown out the sound.

  “. . . eight years old, Jackson! EIGHT YEARS OLD!”

  “. . . a grunge rock concert? Seriously?”

  “. . . that stupid band again . . .”

  I remember the one-sided conversation in bits and pieces. But what I remember the most is the look Jackson flashed me as he turned around in the passenger seat and our eyes met in the darkened car.

  “Your mom doesn’t understand how much this band means to me. How much I need this right now.”

  I offered him a weak smile. Not because I was taking his side. Or because I wasn’t mad at him for dragging me into this. I was.

  But because I truly did hope that whatever it was he needed from that night, he got.

  I stand up and brush sand from the back of my pants. “We should go,” I tell Nico. “We need to get back on the road if we’re going to get to Crescent City by nine.”

  Even though this is technically true, mostly I’m just anxious to get out of this town. It feels too much like Jackson’s town. I know he lived here at some point before he died. He told us that when he showed up on my sixteenth birthday. But more than that, I can’t stop thinking about that night he brought me here.

  I hear the soundtrack of his choices echoing off every surface, like too-loud music in a too-small club.

  Run away, go away

  Hide away, sneak away

  There’s got to be

  An easier way

  To face each day

  Jackson took that easier way. He always took the easier way. He never stuck around for the hard stuff—the bills, the collection notices, the foreclosure.

  And now all that’s left of him is that car, and I can’t bear for it to be in my life for a second longer than it has to.

  Nico stands but doesn’t take his eyes off the water. It looks like he’s scanning the coastline for something. Something important. And for a moment, I find myself wondering about his ghosts. Does Nico have a haunting soundtrack that follows him around, reminding him of the past? Does he have a Jackson in his rearview mirror that he’s anxious to drive away from?

  But when he finally tears his gaze from the water, I don’t see someone haunted by the past. I see someone excited about the future. Nico’s eyes are all lit up, like he’s just had the idea of the century. “What if you didn’t have to sell the car?”

  “Huh?”

  All this time he’s still been thinking about the stupid car?

  “What if I could get you the money another way?”

  Heat floods my cheeks as splinters of shattered memories flash through my mind.

  Glove boxes and unanswered phones and mud caked on the bottom of my shoes.

  Why can’t he just let this go?

  “How much do you need?” he presses.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars. By next Friday.” I say it like a challenge. Like a trump card. Let’s see you come up with that.

  I hope this is enough to shut him up. I don’t know where he is going with this conversation, but I don’t like it. It feels slippery and dangerous. Like a water balloon filled with gasoline, being tossed back and forth over an open flame.

  But Nico doesn’t even flinch. “I think I can get you that.”

  “What?” I sputter, unable to believe what I’m hearing.

  “If I can get you twenty-five thousand dollars by next Friday, would you consider keeping the car?”

  For a moment, I’m too flabbergasted to even speak. I just stand there gaping at him. “You’re talking nonsense right now. You can’t just get twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “But if I could,” Nico challenges, “would you think about keeping the car?”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t get it. Why do you even care? Why would you even want to help me?”

  “I like the car,” he says defensively, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that tells me he’s lying.

  Always lying.

  “Well, forget it. I don’t want to get involved in whatever shady illegal money scheme you’ve got going on.”

  Nico pauses, looking contemplative. “Wait, is what you think—?” He stops himself, thankfully choosing not to go there. “Trust me, it’s nothing shady or illegal. It’s perfectly legit.”

  Trust him?

  Is he serious?

  I did that already. I fell for that trap. And look where it got me.

  I try to walk around him, but he holds out his hand. “Just hear me out. If we do it right, it should take less than a week to get the money.”

  I sigh. “So, you want me to be your gigolo and hire you out to the Desperate Housewives of Fort Bragg?”

  He scoffs. “I’m being dead serious.”

  I cross my arms. “Okay, Mr. Dead Serious. How do you propose to make twenty-five thousand dollars in a week?” And then I quickly add, “Legally.”

  He smiles. “We trade up.”

  “Trade up?”

  “Yeah,” he says, as though it’s obvious. “You can take the smallest, ch
eapest item in the world—like, say, a pen or a Q-tip or a battery—and you can pretty much exchange it for anything you want. A car, a motorcycle, a house. Something worth twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  I give him another dubious look. “Who is this person stupid enough to trade a Q-tip for a house?”

  “Not one person,” Nico says. “Several people. Several trades. You’d be surprised what people are eager to get rid of. Valuable stuff. But they won’t just give it to you for free. They want to feel like they’re getting something in exchange.”

  I squint, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “But if you’re just trading a bunch of things of the exact same value, how do you trade up to something worth twenty-five thousand dollars?”

  “See, that’s the catch. You don’t trade things for the same value. At least not the same monetary value. You always trade for something bigger and worth more money.”

  “Again, who would do that? Who would trade a Q-tip for something worth more than a Q-tip?”

  “Someone who really needs a Q-tip,” Nico says.

  I let out a bitter laugh. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “No, I swear it works,” Nico insists. “You see, it’s all about supply and demand. If you can supply something someone demands, then the monetary value is irrelevant. The item just has to have value to them. And you’d be surprised what people value. And what people are willing to throw away.”

  I shake my head and continue toward the parking lot. But Nico stops me. “Wait. Watch.” He glances up and down the beach, his eyes zeroing in on something.

  I turn to see he’s looking at a woman with thick, wavy hair standing by the edge of the water. Her face is hidden behind a professional-looking camera with the longest lens I’ve ever seen. It’s pointed out to sea, at something beyond the reach of my simple naked eye.

  Every few seconds, she lowers the camera to brush away her wild straw-colored hair, which is whipping furiously in the wind, flying into her face and across the lens. Nico turns to me and grins. “Bingo.”

  And then suddenly his hand is on mine, hovering at the edge of my sweatshirt sleeve, sending a tingle of fireworks up my arm. But Nico seems oblivious to the chemical reaction. He’s too busy pushing up my sleeve to reveal the rubber band I always keep secured around my wrist. It’s a necessity for anyone with curly hair. You never know when your hair is going to stop behaving and need to be put in ponytail jail.