“Not now, dear, we have a mission. I’m just going to ask someone who works here if they know an Ethan.”
“You do that. I’ll wait here.” Josh plunks himself down into a comfy chair and pulls an art book off a shelf with an artistically (but really, not so much) naked woman on the cover. Darling.
I leave Josh to his porn and approach an older man at an information desk. He wears glasses on a beaded chain perched on the tip of his nose, a bookstore cliché in the flesh. He does not look up from the catalog he reads, either because he doesn’t notice I’m here or doesn’t think I look distinguished enough to break his concentration. Do I tap my fingers? Clear my throat? I opt for picking up a nearby tale of nautical fiction (and yes, they do have a section dedicated to that) and plop it lightly on the counter. No response. I pick up the sea shanty and drop it higher and harder onto the counter. Still nothing. I sigh loudly and dramatically, but this catalog must be a literary delight because the old man and the specs aren’t budging. Maybe he’s a statue, I think for a skeptical moment, and then I take my book of ships and fish and bang it on the counter with a whump! Old Man Withers looks up. “Yes?” Is he seriously annoyed that I interrupted his catalog time?
“The sign above you says ‘information.’ Am I correct in assuming that I may ask you a question?” I don’t mean to be a whipper snapper, but come on. I get more respect from my gym teacher on days when I claim to have my period so I don’t have to run. And that’s for the third time in one month.
“Yes?” Now he just sounds like a confused old man, and I feel guilty for being sassy.
“Um, I was wondering if you could tell me if a guy named Ethan works here.”
“Kent?” he repeats.
“Ethan,” I correct.
“Ethan?”
“Ethan.”
Please don’t ask me again.
Big sigh.
Look at the ceiling.
Bigger sigh.
“Full or part time?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say. I was just hoping, with the information label, that this desk might have all the answers. Because I am still relatively answer free.
“I don’t know the names of a lot of the part-timers, particularly if they work in the evening. I’ll have to go and check with someone else. Can you wait here?” It seems that once the man has revved up his engine, he moves at a decent clip. I watch him walk into another room and wonder if he’ll be able to find his way back to me with the information. Not because he’s old, but because there are so many things to distract him. The simple question of “full or part time?” has me wondering if my sighting of the “Don’t Stop Now” mantra was as much of a sign as that random paper P.
I look over at Josh, who now has his “art” book turned sideways, and I turn away, grossed out by the imagery. I wonder what kind of books Skater Boy Owen is into. Manga? Or high fantasy? Maybe old lady murder mysteries.
I’m shaken out of my bizarre book selection process for Owen when the grunchy man returns to his post. This time I notice his name tag, sol, and the earring in his right ear. I make a mental note of him for a possible future book character.
“Here’s what I’ve got for you,” he says, and he hands me a scrap of paper that reads, “Friday 7–close, Monday 7–close, Thursday 7–close.”
“This is someone’s schedule,” I say, assuming he gave me the wrong piece of paper.
Big sigh.
“That is correct. Ethan’s schedule.”
“Oh! So Ethan does work here. And this is his schedule.” I marvel at what could be a huge bit of luck, if it weren’t for the fact that this could really just be anyone named Ethan. Or not? There was that possible skater connection. I look over the schedule again. “Is that this coming Friday?” I ask Sol.
He nods and croaks, “Mmmhmm.”
“So that’s still two days away.”
“That is correct. Such a bright young lady.”
I smile at him quickly and sarcastically. “I need to see him before then. Is there any way I could get his phone number from you?”
“Sorry, sweetie, but that’s against our policy.”
“You guys have a policy about giving out employee phone numbers? Really?”
“How do we know what you’d use it for? You could be a stalker. Or a jealous ex. Or a serial killer. One never knows.” Sol smiles in a disturbingly fake manner.
“No. One doesn’t, does one?” I’m starting to wonder if Sol would have told me had I just been a tad nicer, but the look on his face is resolute. At least I think it is. Hard to tell under all those wrinkles. “Well, thank you anyway.”
I start to walk away when he asks, “Would you like to leave a note?”
I consider it but decide that if he won’t be here for two days anyway, I have those two days to decide whether or not to write the note. I shake my head no to Sol.
Discouraged, I force myself over to Josh with the hopes that he has moved on to literature less graphic. Thankfully he has, although the title, Lucky Lydia, suggests pervier content might be inside. At least there aren’t any pictures. That I can see. It must be engrossing enough because he doesn’t notice me. What’s with men not noticing me at this bookstore? I seemed to get noticed pretty quickly at the skate park…. I kick Josh’s shoe harder than intended, and he jumps as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. Which he is, in my opinion. What is it that gives guys the right to look at skanky women whenever they want? Oh, right, it’s the fact that skanky women are everywhere, à la Victoria’s Secret whore house window displays, so why would men think any differently? Really, men are just poor, innocent victims of our advertising media. I kick Josh’s shoe again, and he gives me a what-the-hell? look. I glance down at the book he holds, and he gives an embarrassed shrug, then a nod of acknowledgment.
“Any leads, detective?” he asks, putting the book down and pushing himself out of the chair.
“Sort of, but nothing helpful. Someone named Ethan does indeed work here, but not for another two days. I mean, we could just hang around Portland, but what if it’s not even him? And what if it is, but we can’t find him in this giant bookstore? Or what if he’s in the business of protecting Penny, too, and he lies to me just like I’ve been lying to the FBI? Hopeless.”
“Hopeless? We have landed in a city, population: um, something million, and in less than a day you have found three people who know someone named Ethan. Pretty good.”
“Three people who know someone named Ethan? How is that anything? That’s nothing! That’s a joke! That’s me being pathetic and pretending there is something when there is obviously nothing.” I pause. Pretending there’s something when there is obviously nothing. That’s what I was doing with Josh for the last four years. But then it turns out that there is something. That there was something there all along. And I saw it. And now he sees it. Maybe you just have to believe in something really hard to find it. Even when it’s right in front of you. Maybe I thought Penny needed my help, but she knew how to help herself all along. “Huh,” I say.
“Huh?” Josh looks confused.
“Yeah. Huh. I think I’ve figured something out.”
“You know where to find Penny?”
“No. But, I think I might be done trying to help her. I don’t even think she needs my help. I think she knew what she was doing when she left home. She was smart enough to fake a kidnapping and confuse her parents, the police, and the FBI. Not to mention us…”
“Which is more impressive than the three of those put together,” Josh interjects.
“Most definitely. We have clues. And leads. And when we buy that phone charger, we’ll have her contact info. Then, I can call her, tell her I know she’s OK, that she needs to call her parents and the police and straighten this whole thing out. She is totally capable and strong enough to do it. I mean, she managed to come out here all by herself, didn’t she? Even if it was in the most jacked-up, roundabout way imaginable.”
“I think it would hav
e been more jacked-up if it involved circus clowns.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Clowns would have been the cherry on top of the crazy cake.”
“Speaking of crazy cake—can we get something to eat now?”
I take Josh’s hand, and we head out to find food and a cell phone charger. And hopefully no circus clowns.
I got the letter. I threw up because I was so nervous, and then I flushed it down the toilet with my puke. But the toilet clogged, and I had to plunge it. Mom came around the bathroom to ask what was happening. I told her nothing, that I had a big lunch, and it was fine. Just using the plunger. She asked if I needed help. I yelled no, and that made her mad and she walked away. The puke and the letter went down finally, and I sat on the lid. I can’t believe it’s going to work. It’s going to happen. I’m going to do it. Portland, here I come. I hope this bruise on my stomach goes away before I get there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Across the street from Powell’s is Rocco’s Pizza, where Josh orders a whole pepperoni pizza instead of just shelling out for two slices. He whips out the credit card, and adds two Cokes to the bill. I plop down at a small table by the window so we can look out on the street.
“You know, slices would have been fine,” I tell Josh when he joins me, hands full of napkins and our drinks.
“I know. But the whole pizza costs more.” Josh taps his straw on the table to remove the paper wrapper.
“And that’s a good thing?”
“I’m going to burn out this credit card until my dad cuts me off.”
“Josh, I don’t think your dad’s going to cut you off. He just wants you to be more responsible.”
“I’m responsible,” he defends himself.
“Really? Like, by not telling your dad that you left town? By using his credit card to pay for hotel rooms? Food? A cheese-shirt wardrobe?”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
“True, but that’s not the point, is it?”
Josh curls his straw wrapper into a ball on the table. “The bite is that he won’t even notice, Lil. I could buy a football team, not that I would, and he would just write the check and seal the envelope. He’s too busy with his twelve-year-old girlfriends to give a crap.”
“He’s not really dating twelve-year-olds, is he?” I ask, disgusted.
“No, but his newest girlfriend is twenty-one. Three years older than us.” Josh caps his straw with his finger and pulls it out of his cup.
“That’s pretty gross. From her end, too.”
“No kidding. I’ve seen the man with his shirt off. Middle-age man boobs.” Josh shudders.
“But what is it you want? Do you really want your dad hanging around you all the time? Up your butt, telling you to clean your room, brush your teeth, iron your shoes?”
“Well, no, but—”
“I think you just don’t want to deal with the fact that we’re getting old. Not man-boob old, but old enough. It kind of sucks that we have to, you know, be responsible and stuff, but it’s also kind of cool. We get to be responsible. For our own lives. Instead of relying on people and being disappointed, we get to rely on ourselves. You can’t do that when you’re mooching off your dad and playing music in his basement.”
“When the band takes off—”
“Yeah, I know. But that could be a really long time. Or not. But what are you going to do until then?”
“I don’t know.” Josh drips Coke from his straw onto the bunched-up straw wrapper, and it wriggles and grows like a newborn snake. “Can’t you and I just drive and drive and pretend like there is no future? We can go to Canada. Mexico. Russia.”
“I don’t think we can technically drive to Russia,” I interject.
“But we can see it from Alaska.”
It’s truly a gift how Josh can swerve a conversation away from responsibility as easily as he can his own life. That may be fine for him, but I’m kind of looking forward to this new chapter of responsibility in my life. The freedom of my future, in college, in a new state, is more enticing to me than the freedom of a perpetual road trip. Because it’s real.
“We need to get back to reality, Josh,” I tell him.
“But why?” He looks into my eyes, and I know he’s thinking about us. I am, too.
“Because this can’t last forever.” I know it’s true.
At that moment, a voice from the counter calls our order number.
“Pizza’s ready.” Josh smashes the snake with his palm, and it turns from living creature to wet paper. He slides out of his seat and picks up the pizza. We eat in silence. I watch passersby through the window, then change my focus to the reflection. A windowpane divides my view of me and Josh. My eyes relax, and I watch as our two reflected images float farther and farther apart.
Outside, the sun begins to melt the cold air between me and Josh.
“What do you want to do now?” he asks.
“Maybe we should just go home. Say screw it, and just chalk this up as a road trip. Nothing more.”
“No quest?”
“I’m starting to think quests are for knights and dragons and ladies with tall pointy hats hanging out tower windows.”
“You could do that, you know. Buy a pointy hat. Hang out a window. I’d save you.”
I want to add, “With your dad’s credit card?” but that seems harsh. He’s just trying to be sweet, and he is.
“Let’s ride the dragon over to a cell phone store and buy a charger,” Josh says, and takes my hand tentatively. I hold his.
“Technically, I think we’re supposed to slay the dragon, not ride it.”
“Not in my world.” Josh grins. “Now where exactly did we park?”
We walk in the direction from which we think we came, but with a lot of time and distance between us and our parking spot, we end up wandering for almost an hour. We pass a million little shops and eventually find a Radio Shack to sell us a cell phone charger.
Once we’re outside, I look at the little plastic bag in Josh’s hand. “Now what?”
“Now what what?”
“So we’ve got a charger, but we don’t have a car. Or an outlet.”
“Yeah. That could be a glitch.”
“You could be a glitch. Who says ‘glitch’?”
We laugh. We walk. We pretend that it’s just a normal day in a normal city. But the truth floats around the back of my brain, pushing its way to the front. Penny is here somewhere, and I still want to find her.
I envision finding the Eurosport, plugging the phone into the lighter, watching the face light up. Would I instantly call Penny’s parents and turn her in? But what happens to her then? What happens when she has to go home and deal with Gavin and her mom and dad? Is Gavin really some abusive psycho? Is her mom really just a QVC-obsessed, self-absorbed bitch? Is anybody just one thing? Penny sure isn’t. For so long I thought she was just this pathetic soul who needed saving. And then she goes and does this—she didn’t just run away or fake her own kidnapping; she made it possible for me and Josh to, well, do whatever it is we’re doing. It’s hard to be mad at her for that.
I wish I could have found her. Talked to her. Actually heard her side. What she wanted to do, not what she thought other people wanted from her. I wish I could have known who the real Penny is. She’s got to be in there somewhere.
My feet are sore and I’m losing steam. We still haven’t found our car, although our surroundings do look familiar. Or maybe that’s just because we’ve passed the same corner five times. As we search for the perfect café to rest, through and around Chinatown, we marvel at the full duck bodies hanging in butcher shop windows.
“I prefer my bird as un-poultry-shaped as possible,” Josh declares. “Optimal form: nuggets.” I nod in agreement, my head heavy from the mass amount of walking and minimal amount of caffeine. My eyes scan the surrounding storefronts, hoping to find our salvation.
Instead of a café, I spy something else. A sign.
“Josh. Look,”
I say, pointing.
“What? ‘Twenty-Four Hour Dry Cleaning’?”
“No. The other sign.”
Josh reads from a small hanging hand-painted sign on a nearby building: “Twenty-Four Hour Church of Elvis.” Elvis has been with us the whole journey. Elvis knows something.
Josh looks at me with a questioning tilt of his head. “Do you think it’s a sign?” he asks.
“The sign is a sign.” I nod. “We need to go in there. Now.”
We enter the building, which looks like a regular old office building, and spot a sign indicating the church is on the second floor. I’m usually afraid to use office-building stairwells, worrying about predators lurking in the cinder-block walls. But this time I whip open the door marked emergency exit, and Josh follows me as I run up the stairs with abandon.
The church is clearly marked with an open entryway, where we see a room filled with multifarious objects, loads of them, displayed haphazardly. I assumed the focus would be all Elvis, all the time, by the name, but the church is crowded with cardboard cutouts of hack movie stars and old instruments, scribbly, unique artwork, and various model heads with wigs. A group of people huddle around an older woman, who by the sound of it, is a wacky tour guide of sorts, explaining the origins of the random artifacts.
This place makes no sense. There’s nothing church-like about the room, which reeks of Mars’ Cheese Castle charlatanism, while the collection of oddities is reminiscent of a much-smaller-scale House on the Rock. It really is a small world after all.
It gets even smaller when I spy a familiar face among the tour takers. “Penny?” I call incredulously.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The person turns around.
And it’s her.
It’s Penny.
“Lil?” she asks, excited. She runs over and stops in front of me. Her awkward arms say she wants to give or get a hug, but that’s not quite how I’m feeling at the moment. “Your hair looks so cool! Ethan said you called. I tried to call you back, but it went straight to voicemail. Did you get my message?”
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