They gathered their money and courage and sent Lucy as far away as they could, to culinary school in New York, so that she would have a chance to escape the family curse. She was twenty-five, and she vowed to see them soon and threw her arms around both of them even as her mother pushed her away with a guttural cry.
“Don’t come back,” she said, afraid that the misfortune that plagued them would also spread to their daughter like a disease. Lucy could not—would not—make that promise until she saw the importance of it glistening in her mother’s eyes. She shouldered the burden and turned away, and that was the last time she saw them.
She forgot what the instructors taught on the first day, but the important part was that she stood in the kitchen among her white-capped classmates, smoothing out the chef’s coat she had ironed the night before, cheeks flushed pink, and she breathed in the smell of sugar cookies baking.
She became captivated by the pastry arts first and, later, by a calm, soft-spoken pilot with gray eyes like moons, simmering under the surface with delicious exotic dreams. When his plane became lost, it was my cry, raw with the desire to live, that made it possible for her to carry yet another impossible load, even as her parents stayed away for fear that they would tempt fate into bringing down a new calamity.
Lucy has found her way. She built this shop, our home, and defended me when I could not find a voice of my own, and when things got lonely, I knew I was never really alone. Remembering Lucy’s strength makes me feel stronger too, and gives me perspective. She bore those burdens and moved forward, and a lost Book can hardly compare to all of that, coaxing the shop to life and creating a world for me out of hard-fought victories and losses, days full of a certain kind of moment—small and sweet and distinct as a fluttering petal-bright macaron, a most ordinary and extraordinary magic.
On Wednesday, I search the last walk-in and alphabetize flavor compounds, and Milton dreams in the corner and the shop feels like a ghost town. Flora finishes knitting the body of a sweater, which normally takes her two weeks, and José drifts around the shop with a bottle of disinfectant and a towel, wiping down polished surfaces and untouched tables, no longer confined to the kitchen by throngs of customers. Lucy stays in the kitchen, though, whipping and folding and baking, springing out to the register when the front door opens. The sporadic tinkling of the bell becomes almost a mockery, a jaunty reminder of the dwindling crowds.
I have found a lot of things over the past few days—a rusted serving ladle and a box of leftover New Year’s sparklers and an amethyst brooch of Lucy’s—but no clues that point to the Book. I rack my mind and open my eyes as wide as they will go, and I see the sweat beading at Lucy’s temple as she works and the worried crease of José’s face when she tells him that he can head out early.
The street outside is buzzing with more energy than a wet November evening can typically muster. Mere blocks away, Jacques Pierre is celebrating his grand opening, and it is hard to concentrate. I finish my homework and enlist Lucy to help prepare Lost flyers to hang around the neighborhood. Maybe then the Book will turn up before Thanksgiving, so that we can be thankful for its return along with our family and turkey and good health and good fortune.
Lost Leather Book, she writes at the top of a blank sheet of paper. With my guidance, she makes a large sketch of the Book, the way it looks when it’s closed, shading the cover with patches of light and dark brown to represent the leather.
I lean back to study the page. The rendering feels incomplete although there are no other details to add. The Book is nondescript but you would know if you were holding it. I gesture at the fleece I am wearing and Lucy draws an arrow and labels the center of the Book sketch: Warm to the touch. Comfortable.
We move on to the bottom half of the flyer and she sketches the Book when it is open to the first page. We decide not to re-create the drawing with all its intricacies, and after a moment of thinking Lucy draws another arrow and labels it: A winter’s tale of lost love. I nod; that captures exactly the right image, and at the bottom of the flyer, we add, Seven pages, hand-drawn, and one-of-a-kind, and then we squeeze in, Priceless—no $$$ value! Please return if found!
The door opens and a man steps in and wipes the bottoms of his shoes on the mat. His friends crowd behind him and he looks around the empty shop and asks dubiously, “Is this Jacques Pierre?”
I shake my head and point to the left and they leave. Splaying my hand across the flyer, I count to five, and that is more than the number of times the door opened tonight. Lucy did not bake as much today and despite that, I know there will be even more untouched trays left to wrap when we close.
On Thursday, I wake early to post the Lost Leather Book flyers around the neighborhood, and throughout the day I shovel through time by thinking of the people who will have seen the flyer and the people who might come forward. When the bus drops me off after school, I barrel toward the shop and fall through the door and the space is completely empty, the crowds faded with the memory of the summer sun. Nothing moves; nothing stirs. I feel like I am in the wrong place until Milton rockets out of the kitchen, into my legs, and the sound of his excited breathing fills the room and warms the air and reminds me—You’re home!
We take up our post behind the window next to the oil lamp, my chin propped in my hands and his tongue lolling out, watching and waiting as shriveled leaves pile on the outside ledge and blow away and pile again.
Lucy is behind the register, doing some bookkeeping and shaking her head, and Flora is finishing up her sweater’s sleeves at a table, and I hear the sound of the mailbox closing and step out to retrieve the mail and walk straight into a customer on his way in.
I back away from the hanging belly, the elaborate stitching. The landlord flicks the corner of a letter and winks a beady eye and says, “Never trust a mailman. Personal delivery for your mother.”
“Anything interesting?” Lucy calls, coming to the door, and her voice pitches higher with surprised recognition. “Hello.”
“Take a seat,” he says, and we sit and Milton sniffs his ankles and José eyes him distrustfully.
The landlord hands Lucy the letter. She scans it and he blows his nose and the legs of his chair creak and then the letter is traveling through the air with graceful swoops, landing on my high-tops. I pick it up and when I straighten, Lucy is bloodless and fragile as the last leaves clinging to the skeletal trees outside.
“You’ve made a mistake,” she says.
“Hmm? No mistake,” he says, and I try to read the letter but Flora clinks her knitting needles and José pumps his spray bottle and the landlord’s armpit stains are growing bigger and I am embarrassed for him.
“It’s a mistake,” Lucy insists. “It says here that the rent’s going to be doubled next month. That’s in two weeks.”
The knitting needles slip; a fine mist settles over the two-top. I force my gaze away from the armpit stains, struggling to catch up with the conversation.
“Yes. I understand that you and Albert were operating on a month-to-month basis?” The landlord checks his watch, looking exceedingly pained to see the seconds slipping away.
“We’ve been good tenants here for over a decade. There was no need—he must have told you we had a mutual understanding—”
“I have no doubt, but surely you can look around and see that times are changing. We have to keep up to survive, and I have to ask for what the space is worth. Actually, if a luxury label comes along, they’d offer many times that number there, so don’t let it be said that I’m not a fair man.”
Lucy stares at the letter and the landlord places his hands on the table and pushes his chair back. “I’ll expect you to clear out by the end of the month,” he says, and Lucy’s head snaps around.
The landlord regards the unoccupied tables and his voice turns soft as the ointment Lucy smooths over my cuts when I am careless with the knife. “It’s obvious that you c
an’t afford to accept these terms,” he says, almost kindly, like putting down a lame horse.
Lucy opens her mouth and closes it and I hear a fragile crack like an egg dropping onto the floor, the sound of her heart breaking. The landlord eases back in his seat to button his jacket and gives her a courteous little nod. I silently urge Lucy’s hair to darken and crackle, unnerved by this limp, disheartened version I have not seen before.
In my uneasiness, a voice tells me to stand. Now it is my turn to become her voice, after all the other times she stood up for me; I will stare down the landlord and tell him that we will accept the new rent and we can pay and the shop is not for sale.
The landlord stands instead and his shoulders fill the room and he could reach up and touch the ceiling and bring it all crashing down. He starts to walk away. I look down at the table and pick at a patch of chipped paint and then I hear a chair toppling over—Flora rushing forward with her flimsy apron askew, racing him to the door.
“Where are your manners? Lucy has something to say.” She puts her hands on her rounded hips.
Lucy glances at Flora and José, looks at me, and locks her shoulders. “Yes,” she says, her voice gathering strength. “Give us more time. We’ve had an . . . unexpected setback.”
The landlord lifts his arms and crosses them behind his head and I stare at the ripe orbs of sweat, tempted to pull his arms down over them.
Lucy takes a step forward. “If you can give us a few more months, we can meet your terms.”
The landlord is firm. “Property taxes are through the roof. I can’t keep absorbing the losses.”
“We’re talking about losing our shop,” Lucy argues. “Give us time.”
He taps a finger to his chin and José reaches for my shoulder and none of us breathe.
“Tell you what—since you’ve been a longtime tenant in good standing, I’ll give you one day to think about it. Tomorrow, go through your books. Assess the alternatives. Do what you need to do to let reality sink in. I’ll need your decision by Saturday.”
He reaches for the doorknob and smiles graciously. “People are always blowing things out of proportion, protesting and pointing fingers, but let it be known—I’m not unsympathetic to your situation.”
He leaves us with the letter. Lucy covers her face and says into the silence, “We’re going to lose the shop.”
At that, I am steamrolled by the enormity of what is happening and it cannot happen, not for any of us, and this is what I know: without a home, things get lost. I grasp at Milton’s fur and gasp for breath, and I know that this is the last chance to save my world.
I have one day to find the Book.
On Friday morning, I freshen my oil lamp and put on my black fleece and lace up my high-tops. I fold the one remaining Lost Book flyer into my notebook and slide the notebook into my pocket next to my MetroCard and an old packet of cashew brittle I unearthed in the back of a drawer. I leave my backpack behind because wearing it will remind people that I am supposed to be in school, and I say good-bye to Milton and he licks me on the nose because everything else is bundled up, and he trots me to the door.
I head toward the bus stop but do not stop there. From a distance, I watch the city bus come and leave, and then I am alone on the sidewalk with people flowing around me from all directions and the day stretches ahead of me like an empty highway, racing into the horizon.
11
I flash the flyer at several passersby but the morning rush hour is not a good time to ask for their attention; they push my arm out of the way or regard the picture with unfocused eyes or try to take it, mistaking it for a handout. I persist anyway because there is no time to waste and no room to fail. I realize that I am not alone when a heavy breathing begins to follow me at knee-level. A soft body bumps against my leg and Milton’s brown eyes meet mine and his eyebrows squirm, excited and pleased—You forgot me. It’s a good thing I remembered.
Actually, I had wanted to leave him behind for Lucy, but when I hold his swinging tail I feel my limbs solidify like bravery. At the end of the day, he’ll lead us back; his compass points to home.
I find a spot on the corner by a trash can and Milton settles back onto his haunches and lifts his face toward the thin colorless expanse above. I open my eyes wide, scanning the bustling intersection for signs of the trail a lost thing might leave—a chunky silver-blue thread like an unraveling sweater, or a slick sheen like a passing snail, or the distinct rush of a smell like home.
I don’t know where the trail will start or what it will look like until I spot it, and so it helps to have an idea of where to focus. That is why I like to ask questions and gather information, and that is why I made these flyers. But I have yet to find anyone who has seen the Book, who can give me a clue, and so I am faced with the staggering task of having to look everywhere and notice everything at once, the banks and eateries and smoke shops, the rush-hour faces, the fenced triangle of park.
Over there is the coffeehouse where Walter Lavender Sr. had noticed a man crying in the street. You couldn’t miss it, Lucy said, and that’s what made it horrible, not the grown man sobbing but everyone too uncomfortable to do anything.
Walter Lavender Sr. held out his handkerchief, which had embroidered planes rolling like sea otters across the top. “Can I help?”
The man clutched the handkerchief to his nose and sniffled and shook his head.
“At the least, you look like you could use a hot coffee.”
They went into the coffeehouse and as they nursed their drinks, Walter Lavender Sr. learned that the man’s mother had died last week, and then the lights in his apartment blew out and he had been sitting in the dark for the past two days. Today he had been going to pick up the death certificate, and when the door of a deli opened and exhaled warm cinnamon onto the sidewalk, it smelled just like the monkey bread his mother was forever pulling out of the oven when he was a kid and now on visits with his own kids—and that was finally what did it.
“One of those things I can help with. I almost became an electrician,” said Walter Lavender Sr., and he went to the man’s house later that day and fixed the lights.
That night, Lucy had kissed her husband and was grateful her own mother was still alive even if they could not see each other. She told me kindness was like a code Walter Lavender Sr. lived by, ever since his father died and hardly anyone came to the funeral because somehow, as he’d turned, turned, turned through the wheel of his life, the only person who had gotten to know him at all was his son. Standing in the cemetery, Walter Lavender Sr. had seen how his own life would go—just like that, one day here running an electrical shop and the next day gone, like he was never there, never mattered.
When he packed up the few things worth taking from his father’s house, he picked up the portrait the mermaid had given to him on the beach, and he wondered who and where she was and if she knew how she had changed his life with that gesture. He was going to college, after all, and after that he would be a pilot, and in that instant he realized that by showing a little kindness to the people he came across, he could make his life a little brighter and it would matter that he was there, everywhere he found himself.
After that, he was never content with looking away and letting it be. He had a fear of living without meaning, Lucy said, and he knew he didn’t have forever to make his mark.
Now, as I turn away from the coffeehouse, the street becomes busier and my flyer passes under more eyes. A man wearing a suit coasts by on his skateboard and says, “Nah, dude,” and a woman with damp hair and serious eyes asks thoughtful questions and purses her mouth as she tries to remember, and two women jog in place and fawn over Milton and a man puts his head down like walking into a hurricane and a woman trips over the curb and mutters, “I’m fine, I’m fine, no, no,” in her haste to escape.
After a while I sit on the curb and watch the traffic light change colors. My
eyes ache from searching and not finding any pulse of light or flash of radiance. Classes will have started and Lucy will be pouring coffee and replenishing the croissants and I am out here, wasting the one day that we have left before Lucy has to sign the new lease or make the closure official.
I look at Milton. What if I end up standing here all day with no plan and no leads, failing? I need to be doing something, getting closer, but the more I tell myself this, the more helpless I feel.
In reply, Milton bumps me with his nose and I stand again and hold up the flyer. I try not to think of what will happen if I fail and that becomes all I can think about, and the fear is paralyzing.
I hear the rattle of an approaching shopping cart. Mechanically, I raise my flyer and turn to see a swaying mountain of white and blue trash bags stuffed full of cans, piled two and three bags deep on all sides, and the mountain keeps veering to the right as it comes closer.
I crouch to scrutinize the bottom of the cart, wondering if a wheel is stuck, and that is how I spot the sparking underneath the back right wheel, which is indeed broken, blue-white light zinging every which way like shooting stars. At the sight of it a spray of light ignites in me too, and my chest swells with pictures of the shop filled with customers and the Book in its case and I could cry out because the shop could be safe and there, there—a sign, at last, to go by!
The cart stops in front of the trash can and an elderly Chinese woman inches out, not noticing how her pant leg glows briefly where sparks land. She cuts a diminutive figure next to the towering piles and I bound toward her with my flyer outstretched, feeling like I am flying now that I have picked up the trail.
The Luster of Lost Things Page 8