The Luster of Lost Things

by Sophie Chen Keller

  Maybe Junker notices the change, because he moves out of the dawn light and assumes the lead again. I take a breath, my mind clear. “I need a shorter way back.”

  “You want a shortcut, to leave as quickly as possible,” he says, which I can’t deny, and his face droops. “There’s a broom closet in the hall.”

  We climb up the fire escape and return to the hall, and he sits on his molded chair.

  “Climb,” he says, pointing at a door to his left.

  “Thank—”

  “Climb—climb—” he says gruffly, flapping a feathery arm at the door, and so I say instead, “Good-bye.”

  He hunches over the tape recorder and refuses to look at me. As I slip around him, he depresses a button and stares into the spokes of the tape as it rewinds.

  I step into the closet and gaze up at the staircase spiraling into the darkness, and the hall fills with my recorded voice, grainy and resolute, and I shut the door behind me and begin to climb, gripping the railing, grateful that I can’t see the ground shrinking below me.

  17

  My legs are heavy, my knees numbing, by the time I reach the top of the staircase. I fall against the door and it swings open and I stumble out into the tunnel, and the door swings shut and I see the cheerful canisters of processed products littering the ground, the rows of shelves—the pantry and now, I know, a hidden door too.

  The tunnel is empty but I don’t want to take any chances, and I set off at a brisk pace, alert for signs of rats or the rat-couple. Up the rusty ladder and through the crawlspace, I swim through the darkness until I spot a pair of glowing amber eyes. Milton barks and I swim faster for the opening and he wriggles himself out of the tunnel and I clamber out after him. By the time my vision adjusts, he is already rolled over on his back, squirming and flailing about, and I scratch around a shaggy armpit and his left leg beats the air. From somewhere not too far away, a train whistles.

  “Five minutes,” hollers the tour guide, and it takes me a moment to place his voice and another to understand that I have landed less than an hour from my point of departure.

  Milton and I emerge from our passage and join the tourists buzzing and converging on the platform. The leader waves us onto the train and I twist and watch the station slip back into the shadows amid the amiable hum and chatter.

  We get off at Broadway-Lafayette because I know there is a library down the block where I can look up Ruby Fontaine’s school.

  “No animals,” the inspector at the door says, and I stop and do not say anything until he waves me inside, where it smells like warm sleep and the computer has fingerprints on the screen and the clock reads 12:19. Lucy definitely knows by now that I never made it to school and she would not waste any time in reporting me missing, and because of my age and my disorder the responding officer might escalate the case quickly—and what if an alert has already gone out?

  I search for my name and my face blossoms across the screen. A shock of fear jolts through me—a block of text, fire-engine letters screaming MISSING—and I scramble to close the window before anyone sees.

  I stare at the keyboard, waiting for the fear to drain, my hand twitching with aftershocks. It is critical to evade that search while I conduct mine, and I have to stay invisible and keep my eyes open for idling cruisers and lingering gazes. It bothers me that Lucy might think I ran away, and I hope she knows that I am searching and will be home as soon as I can, and I send her a telepathic update that I am not hurt.

  Without wasting any more time, I look up Rudolf Steiner School and write in my notebook, 79 AND MADISON, and then Milton and I catch the next 6 train going uptown and I am disappointed when the voice over the intercom does not belong to Sally Fields, singer extraordinaire. I sit and observe the car, and first it’s the rounded noodle-laces of a man’s running shoes, and then the pacifier rolling down the aisle, and then the shiny lining of a forgotten beret and a sunny bottle of juice and a tube of lip balm—the yellows jumping out at me, reminding me of Junker’s dandelions, and I think of Junker planting them in tidy rows and setting cups to three o’clock.

  Standing there with him in the dawn light, I felt conviction for my bold choice to change, and I gather that conviction as the train stops at Seventy-seventh Street and we climb out of the station. It is the beginning of my second chance.

  The traffic light turns green and triggers a torrential outpouring of yellow taxis. It’s the middle of the day and people cross the streets in tailored neutrals and running shoes with their earphones and backpacks and totes, and a lady with pinned hair and a walker stops by the fruit cart next to us and examines a bunch of bananas.

  Even though I know it is too early—it will be two hours before the Steiner bell rings and Ruby Fontaine can leave for the day—I orient myself and head uptown, because I also know that she is somewhere inside the school building and I can’t stand to wait for the bell while the minutes thicken and stretch like saltwater taffy.

  I picture her leaning over a test sheet, filling in the bubble for D, None of the Above, and glancing at the clock to see how long she has left, and that will be my chance to catch her attention through the window, pull her out of a class for just a minute to tell her why I am there, or there is a possibility it won’t come to that and I will roam the hallways and stumble across some sign that points me to her locker, and the Book pages stashed inside, without needing to ask any questions at all.

  I duck under a scaffold draped in orange netting, mulling over the possibilities of the case as I peer into shoebox-sized restaurants serving up green curries and baba ghanoush and sushi rolls. I think of other natural places for the Book pages to be, so that I will have a plan by the time I arrive—if not her locker, then her backpack, around her desk—and I pass by a gap between the buildings, an abandoned lot with a flea market that has squeezed itself into the space.

  Lucy likes to slow when we pass one of these, to give the tented stands a chance to catch her eye, and out of habit my steps drag a little as I walk past.

  Ruby could have left the Book pages at home, I think, and then I notice a brief ripple of light, something rolling underneath a display of vintage nutcrackers, catching the sun, and quick as a hiccup I sharpen my focus but there is nothing more to see, and someone bumps against my elbow and says, “Keep it moving,” but it was there and I am sure of it, the shimmer-bright cascade and the rapid fade.

  I step forward off the sidewalk and the person stuck behind me rushes past, his relief descending around my shoulders like a peppermint mist, and I get on my hands and knees and pat around under the nutcracker display, feeling asphalt roughened like tree bark, and then my hand closes around a smooth weight.

  I pull out a chess piece, a king marked by the simple silhouette of its crown. I turn it over in my palm and again there’s the reflective ripple like it is made of melting mirrors instead of ivory plastic, and that means I have picked up the trail but it is not where I expected it to be, and where does it lead and how can that be? Ruby Fontaine is supposed to have the Book pages and she is also supposed to be in school a few blocks away. Is she here, skipping school like me?

  I study the nutcrackers, looking for any other lingering clues, and they chitter at me with their teeth clenched halfway shut, and I roll the king between my palms, unsure of veering off the path I have already carved out. I look down at Milton and he thrashes his tail—What’s the holdup?

  We follow the sign, I decide. Milton shakes himself off and trots into the flea market, and we pass a stand displaying photographs of people wearing helmets slicing through chilly elements—snow, air, water—and next to that a tent housing two plastic picnic tables and people playing chess. I squeeze the king and bright light shudders down one side, and I follow the clue to the chess tent.

  I scan the first table, two games in progress and bystanders leaning over the boards and rubbing their chins, and they don’t seem to be looking for a
ny pieces but there is a woman at the second table setting up a third chessboard, and if I were the kind of person to place bets I would bet a dozen mice and a handful of marzipan dragons on her missing a king.

  She picks a piece out of a small heap on the table and rubs it under her collar, and a tattoo of a proud lion tears into the folds of her neck, and next to her is a small boy wearing dark glasses who slouches on the edge of the bench, as far away as possible from the mound of her shoulders. The boy taps a white cane on the ground, staring ahead with his features glazed in disinterest. I approach the table as the woman places the polished piece on the board.

  “You got the cojónes to face off with Center Sammie and Roman?” she says without looking up from her task, and I hold out the king. She glances at it and says dismissively, reflexively, “Don’t need it,” and then she bares her teeth and stops to think about it. She raises a meaty arm and rakes through the pile on the table, four pieces left and one knight has some dirt smeared into its mane, and no king.

  “Huh,” she says. She holds up a finger and roots around in her pockets.

  She digs out a handful of coins and a hardened cake of napkins and receipts and drops them on the table, and from the other pocket she digs out a set of keys and a pair of nail clippers and tosses them on the table too, and finally from her breast pocket a folded piece of paper, unusually thick and tinted with age and ragged on the edges, and this she removes more delicately and weights down with the nail clippers.

  “Not on me, either. I didn’t notice I dropped it.” She stretches forward to take the king and says begrudgingly, “Gracias, niño.”

  She plunks it down next to the nail clippers and I can’t leave or turn away because my vision is contracting around the folded piece of paper and it is all I can see, that and the king sitting beside it, unmoving, light strumming across its surface.

  “What is that?”

  She wiggles the folded paper out from under the nail clippers and unfolds it.

  “A reminder of what I’m playing for,” she says, laying it flat on the table, and I jump forward and my knee slams into the frame and I grab the edge of the table like it is everything keeping me upright because right there—across the table, next to the radiant king—is a page from the Book.

  I whip out the flyer, almost tearing it in my haste to unfold it, and I push it toward Sammie. That page is part of the book, I say, and the air rushes out of me too quickly and I run out of breath for speaking. I slow down and say, “That is lost. I am looking for it.”

  She looks down at the page and then at the flyer and lastly at me, and her mouth hardens.

  “Your mistake,” she says. “A friend gave this to me a few days ago.”

  A rubber band snaps around my lungs. “Who?”

  “A girl named Ruby. I taught her to play chess.”

  So Junker gave the pages to Ruby, and for whatever reason, she gave one to Sammie. I reach for the Book to prove that the page is part of it and when I show Sammie the pages I have already found, she stretches and scratches her tattoo, gives her head a quick shake like a mosquito has landed on her nose.

  “I see. But I’ve already become attached to it. It’s still from my friend, and I still need my reminder.” My heart sinks and she sees it, and she gives the boy a sidelong glance and looks back at me and the proud lion dips its mane and its eyes soften in an almost motherly way.

  “All right, I’ll consider it. But I always say, the things you want, you have to earn.” Her eye twitches so quickly I am not sure if it is a wink. “So how are you going to earn it back?”

  I think of what else I have in my pocket—a chocolate bar, a MetroCard, a notebook. Nothing she would want, and my throat dries, the warmth leaking out, and I cup the edges of the table tighter, trying to hold on to some of it. “It is my lost—”

  “You said that already, niño. Unless you have something else, I have a game to play . . .” Sammie trails off and I realize that she is waiting for me to ask her to play, and I am silent and Sammie snorts with distaste and the lion puffs its chest and holds its head higher, its neck a proud, powerful curve.

  Sammie shields the page with her arm and looks away to end the conversation, but that would mean the end of the shop and how will Walter Lavender Sr. find his way then, and the rest of us too?

  I think of the rat-couple waiting for a child to find them; I think of me waiting on the sidelines for an invitation to join. I realize that I have to be the one to extend the invitation, to make the first move. I curl my hands into fists and take a seat across from Sammie. The corners of her mouth turn up and she drums her fingers on top of the clock, da-da-da-dum, and the chess board in front of her is flimsy and black and white like a test.

  I will not be very good at this game, any game, because I have only ever watched. But I cannot run away like this is another dodgeball game and I am Beaver’s moving target. I need to convince Sammie to part with the page she has grown attached to, and the only way to do that is to earn it through her chess game.

  I take a steadying breath and offer to play her for the page, but my words do not come out straight and she’s frowning, stiffening, and I feel the old fear winding through my mind and freezing over the pathways of my brain.

  But I made another choice in the tunnels. Giving up and retreating is no longer an option, and there is nothing to it but to keep trying. There are worse things to be afraid of now, and instead of scattering in panic, I redouble my efforts, narrow my focus, and I announce, “I will play you for it.”

  Sammie’s expression flickers with understanding and then gratitude and then her mouth tugs up into a competitive smirk—and I did it! A phrase coming out of my mouth that I have not practiced, words that are not tied to finding, words meant for trying and joining, hearing and understanding.

  My world explodes with possibilities. What will Lucy say? When I return home and I open my mouth and she hears my voice telling her, for the first time, that I love her and missed her—what will she say? What will she do?

  “Now you’re talking,” Sammie says, and I stay seated at her table, still shivering with the excitement and the exertion and a profound relief like popping in a dislocated shoulder. I am really here, about to play her game.

  Under the table, Milton turns two circles, preparing to hunker down, and I shuffle my feet away surreptitiously but he redirects, crushing my toes with a long-suffering sigh, and soon enough the creeping numbness will come but in the clear golden planes of his mind he is protecting me from freezing or disappearing. I keep my feet where they are.

  Sammie slaps the clock and it resets with a flat click. “They call me Center Sammie because a bullet got lodged in my sternum and I got the scar to show it. A little to the left of center and there would be no Sammie. This is my grandson, Roman.”

  Roman scowls at the mention of his name. “I don’t want to play. I want to go home,” he says, and even if he cared to, he can’t see how the words sting Sammie’s fierce leathery face.

  “I want to share with you while I still can, nieto. It’s the only thing I have to give you,” she says.

  Roman makes a sour expression but stays quiet, tapping with his cane until it jabs Milton in the side. Looking into the distance, he gropes under the table. Milton stretches his head forward and bumps it against Roman’s hand—Over here—and Roman grasps his ear and stretches it.

  “Roman and I are still getting to know each other,” Sammie explains, watching Roman brush Milton’s ear. “His parents and I—we weren’t close for a long time.” She starts to drift away and the game reminds her to come back. “So how do you want to open?”

  She starts the clock and wraps a large paw around Roman and pulls him closer. Roman squirms away and feels tentatively around his side of the board with his right hand.

  Sammie is quiet and attentive, watching him make his move, and a brash voice rises from another sta
ll—“You look like a windsurfer. How about a kite pump?”—and I glance at the neighboring extreme sports tent.

  A short man with army fatigues and a head like a shiny dome is circling around someone who has stopped to browse. He picks up an even shinier helmet and says, “Skydiving gear?” His voice is too loud, like he is worried everyone will miss the important things he has to say. A delicate clatter draws my attention back to the board, where Roman has knocked over a few pieces in the process of pulling himself up to his knees.

  “That’s easy to fix,” Sammie says, reaching to tidy the pieces.

  “No!” Roman shouts, and he shoves Sammie’s arm out of the way and pats wildly around the table to recover the fallen pieces himself.

  He replaces the pieces one by one, taking the extra time to line them up in scrupulously straight rows. He pulls back to begin again but his hand sweeps too low and once more the pieces clatter onto the board like dominoes and that is the wrong game. His lip trembles and his face turns white and red with rage.

  “I told you this game is stupid and I hate it! I hate you! I can’t wait to go home.” Roman picks up a knight and hurls it at the ground and Milton interprets it like he interprets any object galloping along a different path—that it is meant for him—and he bolts out from under the table to fetch it.

  I look at Sammie, worried, and her face is as white and red as Roman’s under the saddle-brown of her skin but she says, “That’s okay. I know—he’s just frustrated. I should have patched things up earlier with his parents. He was born, holidays, birthdays—I was too proud to ask to be a part of their lives. I thought, they should come to me. They should earn my forgiveness.” The lion on her neck constricts and her immense shoulders bunch helplessly.

  “So stupid. Stage 4 lung cancer—that doesn’t leave a lot of time. But we’ll get to know each other. By the time I’m saying my good-byes, he’ll have a few good moments to remember his abuela by. I guarantee you.”