Essential Maps for the Lost Page 16

  And then he finds her in the aisle. He sees where she’s standing, and which boxes she has in her hand. He knows that face. He knows exactly what she’s thinking. He can’t explain this, other than, when you know, you know. Maybe he was wrong when he saw her at the bridge and at the train tracks, but he wasn’t wrong in general.

  He was high on hope, just trying to decide whether he should get ribbed ones! The day was all about fantastic ribbed condoms or not-ribbed condoms! Now he’s so fucking angry. And scared. And upset. But mostly angry. It’s hard to whisper when you’re that angry, but he respects the fact of Ivy’s baby ears.

  “You have to promise, Mads. You have to. A person doesn’t just kill themself. They kill a lot of other people. A lot.”

  The doctor in his head folds his arms and tsk-tsks. This is not the right approach! Getting pissed at someone for how they feel does no good. You shouldn’t blame a person. You shouldn’t add more bad shit to the bad shit. But how can he make her hear? She doesn’t get this. Not from where he stands. “I don’t want to make you feel bad. Worse. But that’s no solution. That’s no fucking solution.”

  Fucking sounds like a breeze over a river when you whisper it. He doesn’t know how to say all of this strong enough. He knows, better than anyone, that people in that place can’t always listen, but they need to! They need to, because look what happens! He closes his eyes and hears Love ya, Billy. He closes his eyes and hears Mom, I gotta go. He drives past that place where they’d have breakfast, or the flower stand where he got the flowers for Mother’s Day, or a construction site where there’s a new building that wasn’t there a couple of months ago, and he hears Love ya, Billy and Mom, I gotta go. Mom, I gotta go. Mom, I gotta go. Every holiday, every birthday, every season, every triumph every tragedy every everything his whole life long, it’ll be Love ya, Billy and Mom, I gotta go. She jumped from the bridge that day, and he will fall and fall and fall from that bridge every day after.

  And it’s not just that—not just the effect it has on other people, in his case, on him and Gran and everyone who knew her or even didn’t know her but just heard about her that day. It’s more than the responsibility a person has to other people, like it or not. There’s the responsibility you have to yourself, like that or not, too. To life, yeah, fuck, whether you like that or not!

  “Mads, don’t ever lose hope, do you hear me? Because you don’t know what your life will bring. It’s going to look different. And every day, there’s something, Mads. Something to fight for. I mean, look around. There’s . . .” He points. Bartells has a rolling shelf of annuals, four for five dollars. “Look at those!”

  “Pansies?”

  Okay, they’re a little sad-looking, and someone needs to come out and water them, but still! A flower is a great thing. “There!” A bird. A bird is a miracle.

  “That crow pecking a candy wrapper?”

  So, these aren’t the best examples, but he can think of hundreds: a cloud, a leaf, snow falling, a baby in a car seat, packs of Starbucks coffee on sale two-for-one in the Bartells window, all the love that a person had in their heart for another person. Love, and a good day, and a shining moment, but not even just the corny shit. Not even babies and love and winter. But traffic. Yeah, hell yeah! Bad mistakes, flooded basements, heartache, loss, all of it. It all means you’re in the struggle. It means you feel, and that you’re part of the throbbing, beautiful fucking pulse of life. You’re in the broken glass, metal shards, bleeding and aching, soaring soulness of it. It means you are a warrior in Night Worlds, with your glowing scimitar and amulets, with danger around every corner, but with the light of the prize, too.

  Yes. This is too simple. The doctor in his head is shaking his head and sighing right now, because the You gotta have hope song is naïve. He knows that, okay? He knows depression can be a monster only felled by the most epic weapons. It’s a bully that winches your arm behind your back when no one is looking, that wears you out, and shouts stuff that sounds romantic but is never, ever romantic. But please, he wants to beg. Look at me! Look at all the destroyed people left behind. None of it is simple, but he needs to get this whole big, impossible story across to her, because there’s been too much wreckage already.

  “This. There could be this.” He leans forward and kisses her so long and hard that she drops the Bartells bag with the pacifier in it. Her mouth is warm and he can taste salt from her near-tears. He makes that kiss full of planets and stars and storms and twilight and every single thing that is offered among every other thing.

  He pulls away. She looks shocked. Her lips are wet.

  He isn’t stupid. He knows a kiss doesn’t solve anything, but he needs her to see.

  “Billy.” She wipes her mouth. He wants to hold that narrow wrist with the bracelet on it.

  “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Sad people are good at hiding stuff. She said she didn’t want to sell real estate, but it’s more than that. The look on her face in the drugstore aisle means she thinks she’s out of options.

  “I can’t talk about this now.”

  She’s right. They’re in the parking lot, and an old Honda pulls up next to them, and a big Coke truck maneuvers to make a delivery. A woman is poking around the pansies now, probably listening to their every word. Ivy squirms and gritches in her seat.

  Billy pops his head in the car to check on Ivy. He’s thinking he might hand her a toy or something, though what does he know about babies? Dogs, you can distract them with a rubber ball, and maybe it’s the same idea.

  That’s when he sees the bags in Mads’s truck. This is more than just ordinary baby stuff. There are a couple of brown grocery sacks and a few of those reusable kind, jammed full. There’s the small sleeve of a coat drooping from one, and it’s the middle of summer. An entire package of diapers sits on the floor.

  Mads’s eyes are guilty. Billy knows guilty eyes when he sees them—he sees plenty, working with Rocko and Bodhi and Runt. Dogs have a delicate conscience.

  It is dawning on him (dawning, he realizes where the word comes from—the slow rising sun) that Mads is more complicated than she looks. Way more. Every person is. That’s what you love, though, Billy thinks, the whole complicated person. Not some pretty, perfect idea. He wonders if Mads even gets that. A person needs to realize that their whole imperfect self can be loved, goddamn it.

  “What is all this stuff?”

  Did she have these bags with her before? Did he not notice? He sees exactly what this is. All at once, he does.

  She just stands there, her eyes blinking. She told him about Suzanne and Carl, but now he feels bad, because maybe he didn’t really hear her. There’s the listening, but then there’s the listening behind the listening.

  “I was just—”

  “I know what you were ‘just.’ ” He does know, because of Jasper, and Olive, and Casper, still behind that fence. He knows it like he knows his own breathing self. “You want to take her.”

  “I could never do that,” she says.

  “Of course you couldn’t. But you want to.”

  She just keeps blinking. “I never heard it said right out like that. But I could never really do it.”

  “No. But you would if you could. You’d run away with her. You’d take her from here. Because she’s screwed where she is.”

  “I never even thought it right out like that.”

  He suddenly understands something else. “In the truck. Out by the ferry. How many times?”

  “I don’t know.”

  How many times has it been for him? How many dogs? He’s lost count. “You better get her back. It must take a while to put this stuff away.”

  She doesn’t say anything more. She just reaches inside the pocket of her shorts for the keys. “Well.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying good-bye. I’m going to wait for you. Until work is over.”

  “You can’t. You can’t wait on my street. My aunt . . . I already told you.”

  “I’ll wa
it down the block.”

  “You don’t need to. I’m fine. I am. It was a passing thought, Billy. I can’t even believe you noticed. I feel bad. Especially with your mom and all—”

  “A passing thought.”

  “Just an idea that came and left.”

  “Yeah, until it comes again and comes again unless you do something to stop it. I’ll be behind you in the truck. We’re going to meet after work, and you can talk your head off. You can talk for years.” You should hear how in-command he sounds. Like you can solve this by deciding.

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I want to show you something, then.”

  • • •

  The doctor in his head is pissed. The real-life ones don’t really get pissed from what he’s seen, but the one in his head does. He’s tossing off dire warnings like flares. What is Billy thinking, getting involved with this kind of girl? It’s a big damn Freud picnic, falling for a girl that’s sad as ol’ Mom. What a cliché, the doctor spits. Running in to save the day. The doctor rolls his eyes, even though they’d never roll their eyes in real life, either.

  But he’s wrong. Yeah, Billy is parked a street away right now, watching videos on his phone to stay amused until seven o’clock when she’s off work, but he won’t save this girl, either. You know why, Doc? Billy says as the doctor cleans his glasses with one of the Kleenexes from the box in his office. Because she’ll save herself. He can tell by all those bags. It’s a desperate, pointless move, but it’s a move that says something. She’s trying to take action. Even if it’s the kind of action that’s pointless, it’s a strike back. Action equals hope.

  And you know what else, Doc? Here’s what else. She’s not like his mom as much as she’s like Billy himself. Who’d have thought it, a girl that pretty with a house that nice, a girl with freckles, a girl who reads books and who’s so smart, and whose dad is some big-shot journalist in Amsterdam, and not a drunk who installed cable whenever he even had a job. But it’s true. They’re so much alike, they could be siblings, Claudia and Jamie, only without the sibling part. Only without the perfect childhood and the hot fudge sundaes. And with some fabulous, fantastic, futuristic kiss. Two people who need the same things and see with the same eyes, only you’d never think that at first. They could be a team, Billy realizes. A great team. She might not know that yet, but he does.

  His phone’s losing juice, so he stops watching videos he’s not really watching anyway. Those people, Suzanne and Carl, one of them will be driving up any minute. He should call Gran and tell her he’s going to be really late, but he’s still pissed at her, and bugged about the ugly shit weirdly growing between them. He tosses his phone on the seat beside him. Stares out the window. Looks around at the yards and living room windows, making sure everyone, every dog everyone, is okay.

  Two kids ride up the street on their bikes. One is Mads’s cousin, the kid who took his picture. Harrison. Harrison, right? He thinks he has that right. He’s mad at himself—he should have at least listened well enough to remember her cousin’s name. There’s a smaller guy, too. His hair is so blond, it’s almost white, and his matchstick legs pedal like crazy. They both have playing cards in the spokes of their bikes. Kids still do that, who knew.

  They hit their brakes hard in front of his mom’s truck. That kid, the cousin, his tires make a sweet black track. Nice one, boys. They drop their bikes on the ground, run around the truck like they’re cops surrounding it in a sting.

  Billy sticks his head out the window. “Hey. What’re you kids doing?”

  “What’re you doing, more like it. Are you Pluuggg?”

  “Huh?”

  “Told you,” Harrison says to the second little dude. He takes out a small notebook from his sock. He takes a pen out of the other sock.

  “Jesus, kid. You shouldn’t put a pen in there like that. What if you fall? That pen’ll jab a hole through your leg.”

  “You got more to worry about than my leg, mister,” the kid says. He flips open the notebook like he’s writing up a ticket.

  “Yeah, mister,” the other little guy says. He has big bug eyes with those glasses, which makes you feel sorry for him. It’s good he has at least one friend, because he looks like a paste eater who never gets a valentine unless the teacher makes sure he does.

  “I’ve got more to worry about? Like you, tough guy?”

  “We have a few questions for you,” Harrison says.

  “Does your mother know you’re out here?”

  “I can go as far as that stop sign.”

  The thing about kids, you have to be careful not to encourage them, or they’ll never go away. You’ll be sitting in your booth at Red Mill, and some kid’ll pop his head over the seat, making a face, and if you make one back, it’s over. The parents, hell, they never seem to notice, or care. They’re just glad the kid isn’t opening sugar packets and playing with the hot sauce bottle.

  “I’ll give you a buck if you show me how fast you can ride home.”

  “I want a buck,” the paste eater says.

  “We’re not dumb. Nothing less than a ten.”

  “Talk about a business-minded little dude.” Ah, excellent. It looks like a car is pulling up to the Bellarose house. He’ll do the kid’s interview to make him happy and then they can get out of here. He’s Mads’s cousin. Even if he’s giving Billy a Gaze Attack, Billy wants the kid to like him.

  “Name?”

  “Billy Youngwolf Floyd. Need help spelling that?” It takes Harrison like five years and two pages to write it out.

  “Mind if we get a picture?”

  “Honestly, kid?”

  Harrison takes his phone out of his sock. “You got a sandwich in there?” Billy says. “I’m starving.”

  “Smile,” Harrison says.

  Billy leans on the window frame, tries to give him a casual, confident-guy-in-a-booze-ad-without-the-booze look.

  “Nuts,” Harrison says.

  “Not working? No surprise. That phone is a hundred years old, my friend.”

  Harrison holds it up, tries again. “Ughhh!”

  “You probably dropped it in the toilet,” the other kid says. He starts cracking up, and then he accidentally farts, which sends him into hysterics.

  “Gross,” Harrison says.

  “Bathroom humor won’t get you anywhere, okay?” Billy says. The little man seriously needs lessons in how to be socially acceptable.

  A woman gets out of the car in the Bellarose driveway. Must be Suzanne. She rests her back against the car door, talking on the phone.

  “You need some help?” Billy says to Harrison. “Lemme see.”

  Harrison hands him the phone. It’s all hot and slick from his small, sweaty hand.

  “This thing weighs a ton.” Billy examines the old screen. It’s funny about devices—what seemed so great back then is now mostly lame.

  “We can conduct the interview, regardless,” Harrison says.

  “Fire away.”

  “Do you know a Miss Madison Murray?”

  Billy looks up for a sec from the blocky green letters on the screen. Suzanne’s heading inside.

  “Yep, I do.”

  “Where did you meet Miss Madison Murray?”

  “I first saw her outside my old house.” Wow. Technology sure has improved. The graphics alone. The icons on the screen look like cartoonish fuzz blobs.

  “Your old house.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you know what she was doing there?”

  “Yeah, I think—”

  “I do.”

  “I do,” the other kid mimics.

  “I think it’s working now,” Billy says.

  “Give it,” Harrison says.

  “Please. Buddy, you’ve got to remember your manners. Give it, please.”

  “Give it, please.”

  The front door of the house opens. Mads is out on the porch, and he can see Suzanne, blab, blab, blabbing at her.

  “You want to try that aga
in?” No harm letting him take his picture.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you can tell me all about why Mads was on my street.” He shouldn’t use the kid like this. Mads never said much about J.T. and her. He kind of likes that. You don’t want someone to go on and on about another guy, but he does want to know what she ever saw in someone like that. He and J.T. are pretty different people.

  “Smile.” Harrison lifts the phone, steps back.

  And then, right at that second, Mads flies down the street, and he means flies. Things are practically jumping out of her purse, and her sandals slap the street hard and she’s out of breath. She yells Harrison’s name, and it throws the kid off, because he’s not looking at what he’s doing, and he takes another step back and falls over his bike. His ass lands right on the handlebars, and that’s got to hurt. The second kid starts laughing. He’s cracking up and holding his crotch like he might wet his pants. Billy forgot how much boys that age are all about poop and farting and peeing and other people’s bad luck.

  “Harrison,” Mads breathes. Man, she’s fuming right then. She grabs his arm and twists. It’s kind of harsh. He’s just being a kid, and falling over that bike seems punishment enough. Still, when you’re in the dark corners of Night Worlds like Mads is, everything’s out of proportion. He’s had years of that kind of stuff with his mom. She’d drop an egg or burn a pot of rice and she’d be pissed. Even in her car, her capsule of freedom where she was usually happy, she’d honk or hit the accelerator with fury because someone took her parking spot or cut her off. She’d zoom past the person, just so she could give the I’ve got to see how stupid you look look.

  “I. Will. Kill. You,” Mads says.

  “I’m not doing anything!” Harrison cries.

  “If you so much as say another word to a single person, if you so much as look at me or follow me or use that stupid phone or notebook—I will. Kill. You. Understand?”

  “Ow.” He yanks his arm back.

  “Do you hear me, Harrison? You, too, Avery. This is not funny.”