Now That I've Found You

by Kristina Forest

  I continue searching and hear some grumbles from the people behind me. The blue-haired girl raises an eyebrow. I drop into a crouch and pour everything out of my clutch and onto the ground.

  “They’re not here!” I cry. “And we spent so much money on these tickets!” I wipe at my eyes, careful not to smear my makeup. “Oh, this is just a nightmare! I promised Great-Aunt Belinda that I’d buy that framed photograph of Sidney Poitier for her! She’s in the hospital, dying, and I won’t be able to keep my promise!” I throw my clutch aside and burst into tears.

  “Wow, um, okay, wow,” Milo says under his breath. He drops down and scoops my clutch off the ground. He inches closer and rubs my back. “Evie, hey, maybe—ouch! Why’d you pinch me?”

  “Miss, it’s okay.” The blue-haired girl steps forward and helps me up. “Just go inside, all right?”

  I clasp her hands in mine. “Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to me.”

  She smiles and waves us on. Once we step through the doors, I check my makeup again and pat my cheeks. Taking a deep breath, I turn to Milo.

  “Okay, how do I look?” I ask.

  He stares at me. After a few blinks, he says, “Wow. That was … You’re good.”

  I smile. “Thank you.” At McKibben, my teachers loved that I could always cry on command during scene work. We were taught to think about the saddest moments in our lives and channel that grief. Conveniently, just now, I didn’t have to think that far back.

  Everyone stands in the large lobby, and servers maneuver through the thick crowd, holding drink trays. Signs hang from the ceiling that say THE CANDICE TEVIN FOUNDATION. I immediately scan the lobby for Gigi, even though I know she won’t be out mingling with everyone else. If she’s here, she’ll be in a back room somewhere, and the only person who can lead me to her is Candice Tevin.

  I loop my arm through Milo’s and begin pushing through the crowd.

  “Keep an eye out for Candice,” I say to him.

  “Wait, what does she look like?”

  Before I can throw up my hands and call him useless, Candice Tevin herself walks onto the platform and welcomes everyone. She looks the same as I remember from my eleventh birthday, except now her long dreadlocks are gray. She wears a loose-fitting burnt-orange dress and matching dangling earrings.

  “Thank you all so much for coming,” she says, smiling at the audience. “Your support means so much to me and young artists all over the world who will benefit from your kindness. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you. The exhibit is on the first floor only, so please have a drink and make your way down the hallway directly to your right.”

  The crowd starts to move toward the exhibit, forcing Milo and me in the same direction. I turn around, trying to keep my eyes on Candice, but I lose sight of her as she’s surrounded by her team and led away.

  “Oh shit,” Milo whispers as we walk.

  “What? Have you seen Gigi?” I angle my head this way and that.

  “No,” he says. “But that’s Viola Davis right there. And Mahershala Ali is only a few feet in front of us! This is wild.”

  “They’re just people,” I say to him. “You know Evelyn Conaway personally. How are you starstruck by anyone else?”

  “That’s different,” he says.

  I tilt my head. “How so?”

  “Your grandma doesn’t act like a famous person,” he says. “She has this warmth to her, you know? She makes you feel like you’ve been friends with her for years.”

  “Oh.” Well, his answer was a lot more endearing than I expected. I agree with him about Gigi’s warmth. I pat his arm. “Just relax. Okay, Michael Barclay?”

  “Yes, Katrina Ashley.”

  “It was Karolina Ains—you know what, never mind. Those names don’t even matter.” I point to the left. “I’ll go to this side of the exhibit, and you go to the right. We’ll meet back here in half an hour if we don’t see Candice or Gigi, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  We quickly exchange numbers. Milo walks away and pauses, blinking as Shameik Moore passes him. Then, as if he knows I’m watching, Milo glances back at me and smiles sheepishly before continuing on.

  I head to the left, glancing every now and then at the large photographs adorning the walls: Diana Ross, Beyoncé, Prince. She’s even photographed Avery Johnson, the youngest Black man to start his own ballet company. Trying not to get distracted, I turn my attention back to the people around me, searching for Candice’s orange dress. There are a lot of famous people here tonight. To be honest, I can see why Milo felt so overwhelmed, but I stay focused and walk slowly, tilting my sunglasses down just enough.

  I move deeper and deeper into the exhibit, until I glance around and realize that the walls are now covered with photographs of Gigi. There’s almost an entire section devoted to her. I pause in front of a photo that must have been taken on the set of Every Time We Meet. She and James Jenkins stand side by side, his arm casually thrown over her shoulder. They’re both smiling widely for the camera, brown-skinned with bright-white teeth. Someone’s already bought this one. There’s a SOLD sticker in the corner of the photograph.

  I move on to a photo of Gigi standing by a pool. She’s wearing a white wrap dress, and my mom, who was a toddler at the time, has her arms around Gigi’s legs. My grandfather stands a few feet behind them, watching with a smile. I step closer and examine every inch of the photograph. Gigi and my grandfather were friends for years before they fell in love. I’ve always wondered how different Gigi’s life would have been if my grandfather had never died. Maybe she wouldn’t have married James Jenkins for a third time. Maybe her public blowout at the FCCs years later would never have happened. Maybe I could have grown up having her in LA.

  Someone calls Candice’s name, and I see a girl in all black rush past me down the hallway. Instinct takes over, and I hurry to follow her. A few feet ahead, the girl reaches Candice and whispers something to her. Candice nods, and they both make a sharp right down another hallway.

  How suspicious is that? What are the chances that they’re talking about Gigi?

  I push through the crowd and try to catch them, but when I make the same sharp right, I find myself at a dead end in one of the quieter corners of the gallery. Candice is nowhere to be seen.

  “Crap,” I mutter, turning around in a circle to see if they somehow ended up behind me. Then I notice a door in the corner, painted to blend in with the wall. On the front of the door there’s a tiny gold plaque that says PRIVATE: EMPLOYEES ONLY. Basically, a great potential hiding spot for Gigi.

  There’s only one other person in this section of the gallery, and she’s staring at the photos on the wall, completely engrossed. Glancing over my shoulder, I try the doorknob, expecting it to be locked, but I’m surprised when it opens easily. I brace myself, expecting to come face-to-face with Gigi, but the room is pitch-black. I switch on the light and see that it’s just a storage room filled with boxes that say Candice Tevin’s name. A framed portrait of Stevie Wonder leans against the wall to my right.

  Great, just great. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy to find her.

  I turn to leave, but my foot bumps into a tower of boxes. The top box tips over, and I’m suddenly showered with dozens of sharp-edged Polaroid photos. Startled, I quickly jump to the side, but I knock right into the Stevie Wonder portrait, and it goes crashing to the floor.

  “Oh no, Stevie!” I shout, struggling to stand. Mournfully, I pick up the cracked frame. Crap. Am I going to have to pay for this?

  Instantly, a voice calls out, “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing in here?”

  I spin around, and the same girl who rushed down the hallway with Candice is standing in front of me, holding the door wide open. Bewildered, her eyes dart between me and the cracked Stevie Wonder framed portrait.

  “Um, hi,” I say. From the corner of my eye, I see that the woman who had been engrossed in the photos on the wall just a few
minutes ago has moved on to another section. She glances back at us and quickly looks away, clearly wanting nothing to do with my mess. I look down at Stevie. “I’m really sorry about this.”

  “You’re not supposed to be back here,” the girl says, stepping forward, taking Stevie out of my arms. “Candice is going to kill me! I was supposed to hang this up in the musicians section, and now it’s broken.” With frantic eyes, she looks up at me. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Karolina Ainsley,” I blurt out. “I own an art gallery on Long Island.”

  “Um, okay?”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I clear my throat. “Again, I’m really sorry. I’ll just be going now—”

  “Harper, did you find the Stevie Wonder portrait?” Candice Tevin herself appears in the doorway. Her eyes widen as she takes in the scene. “What’s going on?”

  Harper’s voice is shaky. “Um, this Caroline woman found her way into the storage room. I think she was trying to steal the Stevie portrait.”

  “It’s Karolina,” I correct, because of course I would say this. “And I wasn’t stealing!”

  Candice blinks. Harper opens her mouth to say something else, and in a split second I make either the best or worst decision.

  “That’s actually not my name,” I quickly say. “I’m Evie Jones, and I’m looking for my grandmother, Evelyn Conaway—Peggy, your friend.”

  This time Harper blinks as if I just said I’m here to see the aliens.

  Candice looks me up and down from head to toe. “You don’t look like Evie Marie. Why should I believe you?”

  I take off my sunglasses and push my bangs to the side. “It’s me, I swear.”

  Candice walks closer until she’s standing right in front of me, and she peers at my face. “The last time I saw you in person was your—”

  “Eleventh birthday,” I finish. “We had a photo shoot.”

  Candice starts to smile. She opens her arms and pulls me in for a hug. “Well, just look at you. All grown up.” After all I’ve been through today, this feels like the best hug I’ve received in years. Candice takes a step back. “Now, why are you dressed like this?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here, and I don’t want anyone to see me.” She raises an eyebrow, so I add, “It’s a long story.”

  She glances back at Harper. “I’ll be out in a few minutes. Close the door behind you, please. If anyone asks for me, say I had to take a phone call.”

  “What about your wife?” Harper asks. “She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Tell her I’m on a very important phone call.”

  Harper nods, shooting a glance at me.

  “Please don’t tell anyone I’m here,” I beg.

  She nods again, quickly, like the thought of keeping my secret makes her nervous. She quietly closes the door behind her.

  “Is my grandmother here?” I ask, now that we’re alone. “She left this morning without much explanation, and I don’t know when she’ll be back. You said in your voice mail that you were looking forward to seeing her tonight, that you had something for her.”

  “She was here,” Candice says. “She came by tonight before the gala started. She bought something that wasn’t for regular sale.”

  “What was it?”

  Candice shakes her head. “I’m afraid I can’t share that with you.” My eyes widen, and she quickly adds, “It’s just a portrait she’s wanted for a long time.”

  I guess I’ll have to settle for this answer. “Around what time did she leave?”

  “A little before eight,” she says.

  My stomach sinks. If we hadn’t wasted time so that Milo could borrow an actual tux, I could have spotted her.

  “She was in such a rush, she forgot to take this with her,” Candice says, brushing past me and grabbing a small envelope from one of her boxes. She hands it to me. Inside, there are two old photos and a USB drive. The first photo is Gigi sitting on her front stoop in Brooklyn when she was a little girl. She’s wearing a white-and-yellow church dress, with matching yellow ribbons tied at the ends of her pigtails. She’s smiling at the camera in a slightly mischievous way, like even back then she had a plan to go far, far away. The words Peggy, 1958 are written on the back.

  “This is one of the first photos that I ever took,” Candice says. “We spent so much time playing in front of that old apartment.”

  The other photograph is of Gigi when she was older, at least my age. She’s standing in a bar with a waitress’s apron tied around her waist, holding a microphone in her hand.

  “I took that back when she worked at Don & Jake’s, where she used to sing sometimes. This was a few nights before she met your grandfather. I told her she would be completely mad if she went with him to California, but she left anyway. She was restless living here, unsure of where to go or what came next. When the opportunity to move presented itself, she left without giving it a second thought or saying where she’d gone. She never listened to anybody.”

  I nod because I know this to be true.

  “Weeks after she moved out there, she called and told me she was going by the name Evelyn Conaway,” Candice continues. “She asked me to visit her and said I should bring my camera, so I did. Everything changed for us within a couple of years. Funny how life works, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I say softly, staring at the picture of Gigi. The expression on her face is serene yet flirty, as if she knew in just a matter of months her life was going to change majorly. “She’s never cared what people think about her, not even when she was my age.”

  “Ha! Now what makes you think that?” Candice asks, raising an eyebrow.

  I think of the photo shoot I had with Candice on my eleventh birthday, and a slideshow of Gigi’s red-carpet photos flips through my mind.

  “Well, you just said yourself that you’ve been taking her picture since you were kids,” I say. “She’s always been confident.”

  Candice laughs softly, shaking her head. “No, she hasn’t. If you knew how many times she needed to be pep-talked before a photo shoot or an audition, you wouldn’t think that at all. Everything isn’t always as it seems. Peg got confident over time, but it took her years to not care about what other people thought.”

  And now her resolve is unshakable. So much so that she doesn’t feel the need to accept a lifetime achievement award.

  I place the photos back in the envelope. “What’s on the USB?”

  “Just some videos I found on an old camera. I thought she’d want to have them.”

  I look down at the items in my hand and feel more lost than ever. “Do you know where she went?” I ask. “If you do, please tell me.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.” She has a weird look on her face. As if there’s a lot more that she just isn’t saying.

  “This is really important,” I stress.

  “Truly, I don’t know. I didn’t have a reason to think she wasn’t going home. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, sighing. “It’s not your fault.”

  What am I supposed to do now? This was the only lead I had. What will my parents say when they find out?

  “If you’re looking for her, why don’t you get in touch with Esther?” Candice says, as if this should have been my first thought.

  “But Esther isn’t her assistant anymore—she retired. Why would she know?”

  “Just because she’s retired doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what your grandmother is up to. I’m pretty sure she still schedules all of Peggy’s doctor appointments and such. Now she just does it from home. You should give her a call.”

  “I will,” I say, feeling a new sense of hope. I hold the envelope close to my chest. “I’ll make sure my grandma gets this.”

  Candice nods, eyeing me closely. “Even with the wig and all the makeup, I still see so much of her in you.”

  I wish I saw some of Gigi in me.

  I wish this situation, and everything that caused it, wasn’t happening at all.
>
  The door suddenly opens, and Harper pokes her head inside. She looks a little frazzled. “Candice, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re needed out front.”

  “Excuse me,” Candice says to me, following Harper out into the hallway.

  I walk a few paces behind them. I need to find Milo and get back to Gigi’s, and I need to figure out a way to get in touch with Esther. Gigi probably has her address and phone number written down somewhere.

  We reach the lobby, and a wave of whispers spreads through the crowd. People begin to part like the Red Sea. Who the heck is here, Michelle Obama?

  I stand on tiptoe, tightly holding on to the envelope, straining to see what’s going on. Then I see who all the fuss is over: James Jenkins.

  He’s in his early seventies, but he still has a dashingly handsome way about him. He walks confidently and upright, smiling and shaking hands with everyone. He’s wearing an impeccable suit, and it reminds me of how stylish he was when I was younger. I wonder if Gigi would be annoyed to see the way he’s swaggering through the lobby right now.

  I knew I’d have to come face-to-face with him this week, but I’d hoped it would be under better circumstances. That our first time seeing each other again in eight years would be about me, him, and Gigi discussing my role in the Every Time We Meet remake. I didn’t plan on running into him here.

  He’s not only in New York for the FCCs. A new Aliens Attack Earth movie comes out this weekend, and he’s probably here for promotion. He’s making his way toward Candice … toward me. Oh no. Now isn’t the time for a family-but-not-really-family reunion.

  When we make eye contact, his walk slows, and he blinks. Can he see right through this silly disguise, unlike Candice? I take a step backward and search for an alternate route.

  Quickly, I turn to Candice. “It was nice seeing you again.”

  “Likewise,” she replies. “And don’t forget to give her the envelope.”

  Nodding, I back away and turn in the opposite direction. I hurry to the meeting point, expecting to see Milo, but he’s not there. I pull out my phone to text him, but I see that he’s already texted me multiple times, and he’s called twice.