The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Baggett

  Men wearing beach shorts and thongs (flip-flops) and women in sundresses waved money above their heads as if bidding at an auction and yelled, “Twenty on heads!” or “Fifty on tails!” A guy with a microphone stood in the inner circle, balancing large coins atop a small paddle.

  Tension crackled and silence ensued as the announcer tossed the coins high into the air. Acting as a single organism, the circle pushed forward, straining to see how the coins would fall.

  “We have heads!” he yelled, and groans from the losers and howls from the winners erupted like thunder.

  Just then, I heard Amanda apologize to a blue-eyed guy wearing a baseball hat she’d apparently bumped into.

  “No worries. I like your accent. Where are you ladies from?” he asked.

  “New York,” she said.

  “New York? Like Sex in the City New York? Like Carrie Bradshaw?”

  At this point in the trip, we were accustomed to men linking a group of female friends from New York to the infamous HBO series and Amanda to Carrie with her lioness-like mane of curls.

  “Something like that,” Amanda said.

  Suddenly a few men formed their own circle around us, probably curious about a group of Americans out to celebrate the Australian holiday. The funny thing is, travel had taught me as much about my own country as it did about the ones I visited—mostly because it let me see what Americans looked like through foreigners’ eyes. We’d quickly learned that there was a bonus to having an accent, because Australian males were quick to buy us rounds of drinks and have a chat whenever we’d ventured into a local pub. Either that or chivalry still survived and thrived Down Under.

  “Would you like to play two-up?” asked a guy with spiky blond hair who’d introduced himself as David.

  “I’d love to, but I have no idea what I’m doing.” I wanted to join the Australian tradition but didn’t want to look like the silly foreigner that I was by making all the wrong moves.

  David explained that two-up involves waving a bill in the air, finding a partner who is holding up the same amount, and betting on whether the coins will land on heads or tails. If you guess right, you get to keep your partner’s money.

  It sounded easy enough, as if it were all luck and no strategy. “So I have a fifty percent chance of winning?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Bets start at five dollars. I’ll bet against you for your first time if you’d like. Heads or tails?”

  “Tails!” I said, pulling out a fiver and following him to join the outer edge of the circle.

  The announcer recruited a volunteer to toss the three coins. One landed on heads, the other two landed on tails.

  “I won! I won!” I screamed, waving for Amanda and Jen, who were talking near the bar, to come watch. “I doubled my money!”

  The announcer heard my American accent, despite the ear-rupturing clapping. He pointed to me and asked where I was from.

  “New York!” I yelled. More cheers erupted—quite the easy crowd to please.

  “We have a New Yorker here! Would you like to toss the coins?” His voice resonated from the microphone. It seemed as though practically everyone in the bar screamed even louder, and I pushed through the masses to walk self-consciously into the center of the circle, all eyes on me. Amanda followed, video camera in hand, recording my first ANZAC Day and fifteen (or five) minutes of fame.

  The announcer hammed it up for Amanda’s video recorder, raising his hands in the air as he yelled, “Woooo!”

  “You’re on Candid Camera, baby!” she said.

  He turned to me. “All right, are you ready?”

  I nodded, placing one hand on my thigh, lowering the paddle with a deep breath, and then releasing the coins in a giant arc. They landed as if in slow motion, then seemed to speed up, spinning erratically. The people in the first layer of the circle jumped back, their eyes following the coins as they rolled away before scattering outside the bounds.

  The crowd groaned impatiently. I definitely wasn’t going to be cheered on for my lack of hand-eye coordination. “We’ll have to roll again,” the announcer said.

  He whispered a few quick tips about tossing the coins lower so they’d stay within the circle as another player collected them to hand back to me. I took another deep breath and gingerly flipped the coins off the paddle. They landed cleanly this time, front and center.

  “We have tails!” he announced, and the crowd was awash in the rustling of money exchanges and guzzling of beers.

  “Nice job, New York,” David said, patting me on the back.

  Amanda and Jen held up their bills and walked across the crowd to exchange bets, making half a dozen new friends in a matter of minutes. Online dating has nothing on playing two-up—it’s the simplest, least awkward way to meet new people that I’d ever encountered.

  It was warm inside the beach bar, but a comfortable, cozy kind of warm. As the sun sank lower outside, the stakes grew higher inside.

  “How are you doing, David?” I asked, eyeing the growing wad of cash in his hand.

  “I’m up $750.” He grinned when my eyes widened in shock. “It’s a very good ANZAC Day indeed.”

  Mundane stuff that once felt like a chore, such as grocery shopping, washing dishes, and folding laundry, became unexpectedly comforting as Jen, Amanda, and I had settled back into domestic life at Simone’s apartment. We stocked the freezer with cookie dough ice cream, carefully hung the few items of wrinkled clothing we had in a closet, organized by color, and arranged our sunscreen on the bathroom shelf as if displaying pieces of fine art. There was even a mirror above the sink, where I’d placed my hydrating eye cream, vanilla-scented lotion, and strawberry-flavored lip gloss.

  Shamed by my extravagant nonessentials, I had long let those goodies remain in the crevices of my backpack. The girls had staged repeated load-lightening interventions at airport weigh stations, their purist packing approach clashing with my philosophy: you should carry whatever brings you comfort on the road. For me, that’s books and toiletries. (The girls did manage to wrangle my rather ironic copy of How to Pack from my bag’s zippered pocket, which shaved off approximately two ounces.) There was just something about brushing a stroke of emerald liner near my eyes or a dab of peachy shimmer across my cheeks that makes me feel clean and pretty—no matter how dust-covered I might be. And now I didn’t have to hide them anymore. Simply being able to wake up and brew coffee with our very own coffeemaker (well, Simone’s coffeemaker) and then to cup a steamy mug in our hands while watching the morning news felt as special as Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter all rolled into one.

  After all the times I’d exercised in a windowless gym after a day spent inside the office—only able to dream about running on a beach or hiking in the mountains—I was surprised I’d wanted to convince Jen and Amanda to sign up for a gym membership at the Westfield mall near Bondi Junction. I mapped out a weekly schedule of classes and taped it to the refrigerator as a reminder. Joining the groups of exercisers in the mirrored classroom, with its rows of yoga mats and ruby-colored exercise balls neatly lined up against the wall, felt safe to me rather than confining. Our return flight to New York was taking off in just six weeks, and I was shocked to discover that I wanted to do “normal” stuff when my “normal” life loomed so close. I hungered for the normalcy that I’d so gleefully bid good-bye to when we’d first embarked on this around-the-world journey.

  And it was with the same desire for the familiar that the girls and I enthusiastically accepted an invitation to join Simone’s friends for their monthly book club party. It was one of those sparkly Sundays that seemed typical in Sydney. The water in the harbor shimmered under a butterscotch sun. We sat at a wooden picnic table on the deck of the yacht club in Rose Bay, which offered surprisingly cheap food and drinks despite the fancy-sounding name.

  I couldn’t tell you the name of the book the women were meeting about, because it was never actually discussed. We arrived with Simone to find half a dozen women in the
ir late twenties seated on the opposite sides of two picnic tables. They were wearing sunglasses with lenses so large they covered their entire cheeks. Two bottles of wine were chilling in gleaming silver buckets.

  After Simone introduced us, Jen, Amanda, and I took our places in the empty spaces between the women. Rather than sit together, the three of us dispersed, each easily falling into conversation with the new person next to us.

  For the greater part of a year, our social circle had consisted of the lucky number three. And in a way maybe similar to a marriage, we’d fulfilled roles for one another that went well beyond the frivolity of casual courtship. Traveling through foreign countries had morphed us into one another’s accountants, counselors, organizers, nurses, and bodyguards. We’d also become slightly codependent.

  This became clear once our “real” lives loomed close, as each of us tried to absorb the fact that, soon enough, we’d return to making choices solely for ourselves, not based on the good of the group. Even the most mundane decisions, such as what to make for breakfast, would again become solitary activities with no need for group compromise.

  I sensed we were each branching out, trying to sink our roots deeper into our individual worlds and stake out a plot of land that was uniquely our own.

  I planted myself next to Leonie, a dark blonde with steel blue eyes and a raspy voice that sounded both effervescent and sexy. “Would you like a glass of wine, love?” she asked. “I usually prefer red, but we ordered white because it’s so warm today.”

  I nodded, and she pulled a bottle from the ice bucket, filling an empty glass with the pale liquid. “We have heaps of wineries in Australia. You should visit Hunter Valley for a wine tour,” she said.

  I told her that the only distinction I’d been able to make between types of wine pretrip was whether one was red or white. While biking through wineries in New Zealand, though, I’d discovered what an art form it was to grow grapes ripened to just the right sweetness and to blend different varietals.

  “I was in New Zealand when I went backpacking, too,” she said. “I didn’t go on any wine tours while I was there, but I did shag a hobbit.”

  She said this just as I took a sip, resulting in a coughing fit. Leonie calmly handed me a napkin.

  Leonie quickly explained that her liaison hadn’t been with a real hobbit, but with an actor playing the role. She’d just happened to be on the North Island when The Lord of the Rings had been filming, met a worker from the set at a bar, and agreed to help with costume fittings to earn extra cash on the road. It was probably her charisma that had gotten her invited to the wrap party afterward, where the hobbit had invited her back to his hotel room. “That was after many glasses of wine, of course,” she said.

  “The free wine at wrap parties can be a dangerous thing. My boyfriend is an actor,” I said, thinking of Elan at the first mention of acting.

  It was Leonie’s turn to pepper me with questions: How long had we been dating? Did we live together? How were we getting along with the distance between us? What was he doing now?

  “He was supposed to go to L.A. while I was traveling because there’s more acting opportunities there, but things didn’t work out as planned. He ended up doing a play in Boston and filming a football movie in Chicago,” I said, knowing as I spoke just how much I’d lost touch with Elan, with his daily life, with who he was becoming (and vice versa). A wave of sadness made me shiver despite the heat from the sun overhead.

  Was I wrong to follow my dream of traveling the world, leaving behind the man I loved? Had I abandoned him when he needed me during that transition from graduation to working in the real world? Or was giving us time apart something that might make our relationship more resilient in the end?

  It was then that Simone, who’d been tied up in conversation with Amanda, leaned across the table to refill Leonie’s wineglass. Then she paused and announced, “Ladies, I’d like to make a toast. Leonie and Mike are engaged!”

  I glanced down to see a diamond glinting in the sun on Leonie’s ring finger. She grinned broadly as we raised our glasses and took a swig, then set them on the table to clap our hands in congratulation.

  “You’re going to be such a yummy mummy!” Simone exclaimed, the decibel level of her enthusiasm ten points higher than the average person’s. It was infectious, actually. There was no way you could see the glass as half empty with Simone around spreading her cheer.

  Jen asked to look at Leonie’s ring. “Would you like to try it on?” Leonie asked.

  Jen’s eyes sparkled brighter than the diamond itself as she took Leonie up on her offer, sliding the gem onto her ring finger and holding it at arm’s length to admire. “I used to want a princess cut, but now I’m thinking maybe a cushion cut would be better.” It always amazed me how Jen could speak as if she were directly quoting from Modern Bride.

  “What’s a cushion cut?” I asked. Jen glanced my way and laughed.

  “Hol, you crack me up! You’ve really never thought about what kind of diamond ring you want?” she said.

  “I don’t really want a diamond,” I admitted, and Jen’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. I realized I hadn’t given it much thought, but it just didn’t make sense to me to spend thousands of dollars on a piece of jewelry when that money could be spent exploring the world—and my partner—on a honeymoon adventure. Or could be invested in a down payment on an apartment. I wouldn’t necessarily turn down a big ring, but I didn’t need one to impress my friends or as proof of a man’s love for me.

  As Leonie’s ring passed around the circle of women, each trying it on for size and examining it in the light, I thought about how something so small could carry such powerful symbolism. But what it symbolized, exactly, was different for different people. For many it symbolized love. It might also represent belonging and the achievement of arguably adulthood’s biggest milestone. A ring could mean a promise. It could mean commitment. It could mean security. It could serve as a placeholder in a relationship. I’d encountered women who wore rings given by their boyfriends in an effort to buy time after years of dating, not ready to walk down the aisle or to let go. One woman’s ring might mean a lifetime of freedom found in someone’s arms, another’s might be a shackle that holds her back from becoming who she might have been.

  The ring had come full circle and was now to me. I tried to hand it back to Leonie, but Jen said, “Holly, you have to at least try it on!”

  I can’t explain why, but a wave of panic washed over me as I slipped it on, as if one of the women had handed me her newborn baby and I didn’t know exactly what to do with it. I didn’t know if I was ready to have all that meaning fitting snugly around my finger or if sliding on that ring felt so funny only because it wasn’t meant for me. Mike had given it to Leonie, and Leonie alone.

  I leaned against the metal pole of a streetlight, hoping to absorb some of its coolness while waiting for the guy with frayed shorts and a beer can to finish using the pay phone. I hadn’t thought anyone besides me used pay phones anymore.

  It’d been almost a week since I’d spoken with Elan, and calling him on Skype from my laptop in Simone’s apartment resulted only in static. I didn’t mind walking down the street to buy a phone card from one of the minimarts near the beach. The early evening was warm, and I wanted to take myself out of earshot of my roommates (as I liked to refer to Jen and Amanda now that we were stationary) so I could have a little privacy.

  The sun had already sunk below the horizon, but surfers continued to bob up and down as dusk fell, floating on their boards on an ocean that stretched beyond the skyline—maybe even stretched on forever. I watched sea foam frost a wave as it crested, then spill over itself, spreading thinner along the sand like beach glass until the larger force of the tides sucked it back to rejoin the body of water from which it had come.

  I’d watched a similar scene, but with a different ocean and different sky, while sprawled in the sand next to Elan in Hawaii three years earlier. Or maybe the ocean a
nd the sky were all the same. I remembered them as being the same color—the water midnight blue and the sky canary yellow and dotted with darkening clouds as dusk fell. The surfers had looked just as serene back then, floating on their boards, comfortable in their solitude, waiting patiently for the right wave.

  We’d flown from New York to Oahu for Elan’s mother’s wedding and celebrated afterward by camping on the beach. Her new husband, Randy, was an expert fisherman. He’d built us a fire with pieces of driftwood we’d helped him collect before he grilled his day’s catch, seasoned with garlic. We’d eaten it sitting in lawn chairs with plastic forks and paper plates, and it was better than any dish I’d ever eaten on fine china in a fancy restaurant.

  Elan and I had walked off our dinner on the beach and plopped down in the sand to watch the waves roll in. We’d stretched our legs out in front of us, and he’d grabbed my hand.

  I’d looked down to see that our skin was washed bronze by the sun, but our nail beds remained white. I’d looked up at him from the corner of my eye and smiled, his dark curls matted with salt water from a day spent body surfing. When I’d tilted my face back, the warm wind had touched my skin as it traveled across the ocean and over the land.

  “Elan?” I’d said.

  “Yeah, Hol?”

  “I’m really happy right now.” He’d just smiled in response and put his arm around my shoulders, his sun-scorched skin radiating heat and giving me goose bumps.

  The first stars had been popping into the sky, like points of light pushed through blue velvet by a needle. One light had broken free and blazed a path in the darkness. I’d squeezed Elan’s hand and made a wish while it grew fainter before it disappeared. I wondered where it had gone. Then we’d sat there and looked at the sky in silence, together.

  Bang, bang, bang. I turned to the source of the noise and saw the phone receiver dangling limply from its cord in the breeze and hitting the metal booth. The man had abandoned his conversation, and I’d been too caught up in my daydream to notice.