“After what?” Layla asked.
I downed the rest of my beer. I was drinking faster than I usually did. Layla replaced it, filling it to the brim and carefully setting it in front of me. I leaned over it and sipped it down. I said, “That thing that happened to us freshman year.” Layla nodded blankly and I wasn’t sure she understood what I was talking about. Or if she was confusing it with something else. “You know,” I said, “when we were kidnapped.” Layla looked at me askance, like I was any other customer telling a tall tale at the bar, but Sam had come back and caught part of our conversation and said, “Who was kidnapped?” I said, “I was. Me and my sister.” It was sort of weird that I was saying it, because I never talked about it, never told anyone, but I thought Layla knew. I thought everyone I went to high school with knew. I was the girl who was kidnapped freshman year. “Was it like a custody thing?” Sam asked. I said, “No, it was a regular, dark alley, bus stop, stranger-danger type of thing. It was in all the papers.” “Wow,” Sam said.
I suddenly felt nervous and had a cold sweat. I put my forehead in the crook of my elbow and wiped my brow with my newly acquired sweatshirt sleeve. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I always talk too little or too much, always end up feeling awkward about what I reveal about myself. “You could share more,” Noreen would often say to me after a dinner party where I barely participated in the conversation.
“So what happened? I guess you’re okay,” Sam said.
Layla poured us shots. “L’chaim,” she said, clinking my glass, and drank it down. I drank mine too. I didn’t feel cold anymore. “Yes,” I said. “I’m fine.”
Sam leaned against the bar between two stools. He looked at Layla lovingly and I guessed they were a couple and he was waiting for her to get off work. Hanging out here, getting a free drink, waiting for her. It was a ritual. Another bartender came out of the kitchen and Layla tossed her towel away and walked around to our side. She asked me what I was up to now, and I said, “Nothing.” “You’re not waiting for someone?” she asked. “No,” I said. “My car was being funny and I didn’t feel like driving.” I was worried they were leaving and I didn’t want to be alone. She asked me if I wanted to hang out. They were going to her apartment. Maybe smoke some grass and chill out. I said, “Sure.” I didn’t want to go back to my dad’s and I didn’t want to go back to New York and Suriya’s camp was way too far to drive with one windshield wiper out of commission. Maybe I could stay on Layla’s couch, or maybe she had an extra room. Sam said we could take his car, and I thought that was a good idea since I was already somewhat drunk. If I crashed The Camper I’d never hear the end of it.
I couldn’t tell how long we drove. I might have fallen asleep. We arrived at an apartment building that looked like an office park. There were clusters of parking spaces around entrances. There were entrances on all sides. Layla used a card to get in, like a hotel.
The apartment was a one-room studio with a kitchenette on one side and a mattress shoved into a corner on the other. There was something temporary about it. Like she had lived there awhile but never expected to stay long. Layla tossed her purse on the kitchen counter. The floor was parquet squares, and a lot of them were loose and they shifted and clacked as she walked around. “There was a game like that,” I said. “A wooden game.” Layla rubbed the top of my head, messing up my hair, as she passed me.
I collapsed in an armchair. I pulled my feet up under me, curling into it. I hadn’t eaten much of anything all day. I was sort of dizzy and wanted to stabilize myself in the chair. I thought if I was completely surrounded by something, encased in something, that would help. It did, sort of. I said, “Hey, do you have anything to eat?”
Layla moaned that I should’ve mentioned that before we left the restaurant. She could’ve gotten us whatever we wanted. She surveyed the messy room. Piles of books and magazines. Piles of clothes. There was a lot of makeup stuff on top of a dresser. Lots of tiny free samples you get from a department store or a hotel. Somewhere in the debris Layla found a bag of Cheetos and dropped it in my lap. I usually didn’t eat Cheetos, but I was hungry. Starving, in fact. I ate handfuls and licked the orange powder from my fingers. Layla poured us bourbons and sat down on the floor with her back against the mattress. Sam had taken off his shoes and propped himself up on one elbow. He nudged his stocking foot against Layla’s neck. “So I guess you had to escape to New York after the kidnapping,” Sam said. “And start over.”
I took a small sip of bourbon. “I went to college there,” I said. Then I felt bad about it. I wasn’t sure if Layla had gone to college or not. I didn’t keep in touch with anyone from high school. When I moved to New York, I felt that was my real life and I lost interest in my past. I didn’t want to have a past. I only wanted to be who I was when I arrived. I only wanted to be who I became.
Layla squinted at me. “Do you want some dry clothes?” she asked. I said, “No, I’m okay.” Layla put her bourbon glass down on the floor and reached for my hand. She gently pulled me out of the armchair and walked me over to the dresser. She rummaged through some drawers and found a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She pressed them into my hands and said, “The bathroom’s over there.” I stumbled toward it. I didn’t know if I wanted the clothes or not. The bathroom was small, with a matted maroon bath rug. I hate the color maroon. I might have said that out loud. The bathtub had sliding glass doors. They looked frosted, but they might have been covered in soap scum. I called out, “I’m going to take a shower,” and I heard a distant “Okay” yelled back.
I stuffed the dry clothes into the wedge of space between the towel rack and the wall and lifted the sweatshirt off over my head and skinned off my clammy clothes. The tub was kind of gross. Someone had tried to clean off the layers of grime and then given up, and you could see the whisker marks left behind by the scrub brush. I stood under the hot water and it felt good. I leaned my head back and let the water run through my hair. Then I leaned my head forward and let it massage my neck. I felt dizzy in the steam so I squatted down in the tub. It was cooler there. I didn’t feel well. Maybe I was coming down with something. I thought I might throw up.
When I stepped out of the shower everything in the bathroom was wet. My borrowed, clean, dry clothes were wet. My old clothes were wet. The ugly maroon bathmat was wet. Maybe I hadn’t closed the shower doors correctly and the water had sprayed out. And now I was dripping on everything as well.
I wrapped a towel around my torso and wandered back out to the living room. Layla and Sam were sitting on the bed. I said something was wrong with the shower. The doors didn’t close. They leaked. Water got all over the floor and everything. I said I was sorry. I said, “Maybe you have a dryer? Or there’s a laundry room?” I asked Layla if she had something else I could wear. Layla stared at me. Her eyes were glassy. I think they were smoking something because the room smelled smoky and there was a draft like someone had opened a window. Layla got up and walked over to me. She smiled and cupped her hands around my cheeks and kissed me. And it felt warm. I felt warm. I was turned on. But also woozy. Like I might fall over. But I kissed her back and pressed the towel between us.
When Layla came up for air she let go of my face and went to get me new clothes. I looked over at Sam on the bed. He was rolling another joint, licking the paper. He smiled a glassy-eyed smile. “What do you do in New York, Hope?” he asked. Layla gave me some more clothes. I said I was a writer. “I told you she was smart,” Layla said, taking a puff of Sam’s joint. She passed it to me. I took a puff but didn’t hold it in too long. I took another. I passed it back to Layla.
I went to the bathroom and put on the clothes: green cargo pants and an oatmeal-colored hoodie that zipped up the front. Layla didn’t give me a T-shirt or anything to wear underneath and she didn’t give me any underwear. I didn’t want to put on my wet underwear so I didn’t wear any. I gathered all the wet clothes into a ball and went back to the living room.
The armchair where I had b
een sitting was wet. The faux leather glistened where my ass had been. I dumped the wet clothes on the chair. Layla had poured me some more bourbon and I drank it down and felt warm again. I crawled onto the bed since it was the only cushioned and dry place to sit. I leaned my head back against the wall. “Could I stay here?” I asked. “If you want,” Layla said. “Just for tonight,” I said. “If it’s too weird I can sleep in my van.” “Were you planning on sleeping in your van?” Layla asked. “Umm . . .” I said. I didn’t know the answer to that. “I don’t know,” I said.
“What are you doing here again?” Sam asked. “You had to find someone?”
I drank a large gulp of bourbon and let it burn my throat. “I’m using the van to find my sister.”
“Is she missing?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “No one’s heard from her in years.”
“How come you waited so long to look for her?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“That means it’s interesting.”
“No,” I said. “Not really.” I yawned.
“Was it the kind of thing where you lived with your mom but she lived with your dad?” Layla asked. I looked at Layla. Maybe she didn’t remember. Maybe she thought I was making up the kidnapping story. Maybe she thought I was crazy. “No,” I said, “we both lived with my mom and then she went to a boarding school for a little while.” “Boarding school or rehab?” Layla asked. “Boarding school,” I said. “So it’s not that kind of complicated,” she said. I closed my eyes, rested the bourbon glass in my lap. “Don’t you remember?” I said and yawned again. “Everyone knew.”
I think I fell asleep.
It always felt like Eden and I were a unit when we were kids. The way all our parents referred to us as “the girls.” I always wanted one best friend whom I could tell everything to, more than I wanted a big group of friends. I really was a loner. I isolated myself, as Noreen said. In New York, lots of people became friends doing plays together and kept up those friendships and called each other, but I never did. I always felt so alone after a production closed. Like the cast and crew all went into the forest together, but we each came out separately.
My eyes drifted open. I looked across the disheveled room with its mounds of dirty laundry. The room Eden and I stayed in at our dad’s was never messy because we didn’t keep much stuff there. We always dutifully brought our clothes and our toothbrushes every other weekend. But we had a room there. And a cheap stereo in our room because my dad hated the music Eden listened to and he didn’t want her to play it in the living room.
I sat up in bed. The apartment was empty.
I wondered if I had slept through the night, but when I looked at my phone and saw that it had only been an hour, I walked to the bathroom and knocked softly on the door. “Layla?” I called. I opened the door slowly. No one was in there, just the soggy maroon bathmat still on the floor. I lifted it up and hung it over the edge of the tub so it would dry more quickly. I went back into the main room and poured myself another glass of bourbon. Maybe they ran out somewhere. Maybe they went to pick up food. I drank some more bourbon. I picked up the Cheetos bag but I had already emptied it. I wandered over to the kitchen counter to look for a note. Layla’s apartment was such a mess, as if she never cleaned, as if she did laundry once a year, as if she hated being here and came home only when she had to. I wondered what had happened to Layla. She was always so smart, so tough. I always thought she could walk right out into the world and do whatever she wanted. But maybe she didn’t want anything. Maybe she wanted nothing and to be nowhere.
I looked out the window and the view was of the parking lot.
I thought, This place is so depressing, I could never live here. But then, I’m not really living anywhere right now.
I sat down on the bed. I leaned over my knees, my face in my hands. I felt shaky. I suddenly felt so alone. My mother had died. Eden was gone. I had just ripped a huge hole between me and my dad, or he ripped it. Suriya and Luce each went on their merry or not-so-merry ways. I slid my fingers over my forehead and into my hair, which was still damp from the shower. I had nothing.
I started to cry but shook it off. I thought about taking another shower. I thought about drinking more, though I was already drunk. I could drink until I fell asleep again. Or I could leave.
I needed to leave.
I found my shoes. I didn’t know whether to change back into my own clothes. They were still wet. They would feel horrible. I decided not to. I balled up my jeans and my jacket and held them under my arm. I walked to the door. Layla and Sam hadn’t locked it. The knob turned easily in my hand as if it had been waiting for me all along.
I walked out to the parking lot and found my way to the main road. A car blew by, honking at me. I didn’t see any signs of civilization so I picked a direction and started walking.
It was cold. It was late. A random cab slowed beside me and the driver lowered his window and asked if I wanted a ride. Maybe it was a cab or maybe it was just a car. I didn’t answer. The driver asked if I wanted a lift to a Metro station. He asked if I wanted to go somewhere else. If I wanted a free ride. I didn’t answer. I didn’t get in. I walked a long time. Ignore it, I said to myself. Ignore the cab. Ignore the empty street. Ignore the night. Ignore the fact that you are lost. You can walk anywhere. You can be from anywhere. You can be anyone. You can be no one at all.
18
I woke up in the woods. I didn’t know if it was the same day or the next day. It was light out, a cloudy gray day. I wondered if Eden was awake. I was scared about calling her name or making any noise. I wanted Larry to forget about us and drive away.
I tried to move my hands. There was a piece of bark stuck between my wrist and the rope. I twisted my hand and tried to break it off. It was soft and it crumbled away. After it did, the rope was looser. I narrowed my fingers together like a tepee and was able to slip one hand out.
Eden was still asleep. I was pretty sure she was. Her head drooped toward her knees and she wasn’t moving. I looked around but I couldn’t see where Larry was or if he was coming back. I lowered my hand to the ground and shook it out, trying to get some feeling back into it. My whole arm felt numb. I had to consciously think to flex my elbow, to make it move. It flooded with sensation rushing back in, and all at once it felt like it was being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. I tried to shrug it off. The prickly feeling stopped and it felt numb again, but not so much as before. I slowly twisted my body around to my other hand and tried to undo the knot. But then I heard footsteps against dead leaves. I didn’t want Larry to see because he might tie me up again tighter and then I would never get out. I wrapped my free arm back around the tree the way it had been. I held on to the rope in the back.
Larry went over to Eden and untied her. Eden was skinny and she was always cold. She was the kid at the pool whose lips turned blue and who shivered under a massive beach towel when she got out of the water. When Larry untied her she could barely stand up. He put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder like they were old friends and pulled her deeper into the woods. She could barely walk. She kept tripping and falling to her knees and Larry had to pull her up. And Eden sort of gave up and collapsed and Larry had to drag her along.
I dropped the rope and reached around to try and undo my other hand. My fingers were still numb and my joints didn’t work right and it was taking so long to loosen anything. I heard someone coming and straightened up. I put my free hand behind the tree like it was still tied up.
But it wasn’t Larry and Eden. It was a group of boys, younger than me. They had big nets and backpacks and handmade walking sticks. One of them had a canteen hanging off his belt. They were just boys out in the woods playing camp or war or doing their own version of Boy Scouting. They stared at me. I stared back at them. I didn’t know what to say. I was wearing only underwear and a bra. They were younger and had probably never seen a live teenage girl in her underwear before. I thought I might pee in
my pants. One of them coughed and laughed and then his friend hit him in the arm and whispered, “Stop.” “You stop,” the laugher said and pushed him back. The friend tried to push the laugher’s arm out of the way and then the two of them jumbled themselves in a shoving match. “Cut it out,” another boy said.
Finally, I said, “Help me,” in a low voice and went back to trying to untie my hand. I looked at them over my shoulder. “Help me,” I said again because they hadn’t moved. “A man kidnapped me and tied me up here.” Something about the word “kidnapped” snapped them out of their play. It was a word their mothers had drummed into them. It was what happened to the kids who had their pictures on milk cartons and Have You Seen Me? posters at bus stops. They dropped their camping things and came over to help me.
One of them had a pocketknife and he started sawing at the rope. He said he was worried about cutting my hand so he sawed a foot over. When he had finally cut all the way through the rope, he had to untangle it before I was free.
I stumbled a few steps away from the trunk that had supported me for almost two days. I turned around and looked at it. It looked like a person. Like someone who was sad to see me go. But even trees could be evil. Nothing could be trusted. Not these boys. Not this tree.
The boys picked up their gear and started walking into the woods, away from the clearing. “It’s this way,” one of them said. “This is the way out.”
I followed behind the boys. My legs were bare and I didn’t have any shoes. I let them stomp down a path ahead of me. I was a good head taller than all of them. The laugher boy used his walking stick as a machete, hacking leafless saplings out of the way. I let the boys’ calm manner take over the situation. There was nothing unusual about it to them. They had gone hiking in the woods one day and freed a girl who had been kidnapped. And now it was time to go home for a snack. I didn’t encourage them to run. I didn’t explain anything. I went along with their game, not to keep them from being frightened, but because I preferred their game. Because at the end of their game was a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of juice. There was no man pulling off your pants and tying you to a tree. Their game had none of that. It had an ending that was happy and familiar.
Eden Page 17