“Where are we?” I repeated.
“The park,” Jackson replied. He turned toward me, and even in the low light, I could see his face was pale.
“But,” I began uneasily, “I thought we were going to Tomato and Vine.”
Jackson smiled at me. A slow, vacant smile. “Change of plans!” He seemed to be trying to force energy into his limp voice, but the end result sounded strained. “We’re going to the park!”
I glanced at the decrepit swing set in front of us. “But I’ve never been to this park. I don’t like the way it looks. Can’t we just go to the restaurant?”
Jackson shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. Tomato and Vine is closed. The park it is.”
I bit my lip and looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was a little after ten. “But I thought you said it closed at eleven.”
Jackson turned his gaze back out the windshield, falling silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke, and the cold timbre of his voice sent another chill through me. “I was wrong, kiddo. I’m sorry.”
In that moment, I was suddenly overcome by a deep sadness. And I knew it was originating from Jackson. Emanating off of him like steam from a heated pool on a cold night.
I leaned forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. He startled again. “It’s okay, Daddy,” I told him. “We can just go home.”
He covered my hand with his. “Good idea, kiddo,” he replied, but once again, his voice was empty.
We didn’t just go home, though. Jackson told me we had to stay there and wait. He took out his cell phone and called someone. I heard a man’s voice on the other end. Twenty minutes later, that same man arrived in an SUV. I’d never seen him before in my life, but Jackson introduced him as a friend and told me he was going to drive us home.
I remember watching in confusion as the Firebird vanished outside the window of the strange man’s car. I remember thinking how odd it looked just sitting there, abandoned, left behind. Jackson had never left his Firebird anywhere.
When I asked him why we were leaving his car in the middle of that creepy park, he didn’t have an answer for me. And I never asked him again.
Because a week later, he was gone.
10:15 A.M.
EUREKA, CA
INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD 400 CONVERTIBLE (1), CASH ($564.72), SEA GLASS (1 PIECE), TOMATO AND VINE GIFT CARD ($50 VALUE)
The girl who answers the door of the one-story ranch-style house on Humboldt Hill Road is tall and lanky. She’s wearing faded ripped jeans and a gray T-shirt, and her blond hair is cut in a sleek and stylish A-line bob with pink streaks. She looks to be about fifteen years old.
“Hi,” Nico says, straightening up into his prim and proper Boy Scout stance. “We’re looking for Mack Polonsky.”
The girl doesn’t blink. “Yup. What do you want?”
Confusion flashes across Nico’s face as he attempts to look over the girl’s shoulder. “Is he here?”
The girl eyes me as if to say, Is he stupid or something? and then turns back to Nico. “Yes. She is.”
It takes me about two seconds to put the pieces together, and Nico about a second longer. “Oh,” Nico says, his whole body shifting slightly as though he’s trying to figure out what to do with this new information.
“You’re . . . ,” Nico begins, then stops himself and raises an eyebrow. “So . . . Jasmine Ramirez, huh?”
The girl’s face blooms red at the mention of the name, and I immediately know we’re in the right place. She looks between the two of us. “Oh my God! It’s you! You’re the famous ex-couple from Craigslist.”
“I wouldn’t call us famous,” I say uneasily.
“Well, you’re famous among my crew,” Mack explains, which doesn’t exactly make me feel any better. “I showed all of my friends your Craigslist ad after I responded this morning. And they were all dying to know what you looked like.”
I flinch when I realize she’s staring straight at me as she says this.
“Me?” I ask incredulously.
“Yeah,” Mack says, as though it’s obvious. “Brett thought you’d be hot. I swore you wouldn’t be. We made a bet.”
“Excuse me?” I say, looking from Mack to Nico, as if to ask, Did you have anything to do with this?
But Nico just shakes his head.
“No offense,” Mack is quick to add. “I just got a—I don’t know—not hot vibe from the Craigslist post.”
“You’re kind of obsessed with hotness,” I point out.
“So?” she asks, immediately assuming a defensive stance.
“I . . .” I struggle for something to say. “Nothing. I just . . .”
“You just thought a teenage lesbian from Eureka would be less superficial than that?”
“What?! No! I . . .” But once again, I can’t find the words. My tongue is completely tied.
Nico smirks at me. “She kind of got you there.”
“Shut up.”
Mack looks between us. “So, who broke up with who?”
“I broke up with him,” I say quickly, although why I feel the need to clarify this to a perfect stranger, I’m not sure. Nico snickers next to me, and I make a mental note to murder him later.
“It’s true,” Nico says. “She did break up with me. And I’m sorry to say you lost that bet.”
I cut my eyes to Nico, but he doesn’t look back at me. He’s too busy sharing a consolatory look with Mack.
“Yeah,” Mack says with a laugh. “I guess I did. Which sucks because that means I have to let him borrow my Knights versus Zombies for a whole month.”
“Sorry about that.” Nico puts out his fist to her, and she bumps it.
I can’t believe this is happening right now. Is there a person out there who doesn’t end up liking Nico? Is the boy simply incapable of offending anyone?
“So, are we doing this or not?” Mack says, glancing between us again. “Do you have the gift card?”
Nico pulls the plastic card from his jeans pocket and holds it up, like he’s doing a commercial for a new low-interest, high-perks credit card. “Your date with Jasmine Ramirez is secure.”
Mack’s face brightens with a smile so big, it makes my chest ache a little. Because it reminds me of the smile I wore for most of my relationship with Nico.
“You guys have no idea how much you’ve saved me right now!” Mack says, reaching out and touching the gift card as though it were a magic pony. “I’ve never met anyone like Jasmine before. She lights up rooms. And, well . . .” Her voice trails off, like she’s not sure if she wants to continue. “I mean, I know all teenagers deal with the torment of not knowing if someone you like is going to like you back. But it’s different for . . . people like me. It’s almost like you’ve got two hurdles to jump over.”
When I look at the lightness in Mack’s face, I’m hit by another pang of longing. To feel that way again. To bask in that glow again. There’s really no better feeling in the world than knowing that someone you like feels the same way. And for a moment, I wonder if Nico was right to insist that we come. This girl is going to go on a date with the girl of her dreams because of us.
Then, a second later, the voice of reason hits me. The one that tells me it won’t work out. Jasmine will break her heart. Or vice versa. Because they’re in high school, and that’s how high school relationships end. With broken hearts. With shattered dreams. With awkward silences in computer labs.
People like June and Tyler are the exception, not the rule. They’ll probably be together forever. I have no doubt I’ll be a maid of honor at their wedding within the next five years.
People like my mom and Jackson, and me and Nico? We’re the rule. We’re the norm. I’m not one of those teenagers who is naive enough to believe that people who fall in love in high school will ever end up together.
“C’mon!” Mack says, opening the door wider. “Come in! I’ll show you my room. Like I said in my e-mail, you can have anything in it except—”
“Your Battle Royale, we
know,” I interrupt, now eager to get this over with.
Mack gives me a What’s your problem? look that I promptly ignore, and follow her into the house. She leads us down a long, narrow hallway and into a room that literally makes me blink in disbelief. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.
The room looks like a museum. More specifically, a chess museum. There are at least twenty different chessboards set up on every available surface. Three on the desk, one on each nightstand, two on the dresser.
I shiver at the sight of all of them. Memories flicker through my mind like a phone call with a bad signal, fading in and out, swallowing giant chunks of the full picture.
“Of course I know how to play chess. Don’t you?”
“Holy crap,” Nico says, stepping in behind me. “Let me guess. You like chess?”
Mack guffaws. “Very funny. You couldn’t tell from my e-mail?”
Nico and I exchange a baffled look. “No,” Nico says.
“Battle Royale?” Mack prompts.
“We thought it was a video game,” Nico replies.
Mack’s face scrunches up. “Ew.”
She walks around the foot of the bed and stops in front of a chess set stored inside a glass case with a spotlight pointed at it, like it’s the crown jewels of a small country or something. Mack gestures to it with a grandiose flourish. “This is Battle Royale.”
I take a step toward the box, careful not to touch it in case I trigger some kind of sensor alarm. I bend down and peer through the glass at one of the most exquisite chessboards I’ve ever seen in my life. The pieces are hand-carved out of stone—the kings in the shape of fat Henry the Eighths, the queens in the shape of Anne Boleyns, and the rooks in the shape of little Towers of London.
“Wow,” I say, smiling. “This is amazing. Are you a fan of Tudor history?”
Mack shrugs. “I could take it or leave it, really. It’s more that my dad left me this set when he died. He was a world-champion chess player. He was the one who taught me how to play. Although I don’t dare play on this one.” She taps the glass with a fingernail. “Nope, this baby stays locked up tight.” She gestures to the rest of the room. “But seriously, any other set, you’re welcome to have! Well, except Wizards versus Zombies, obviously, because now Brett gets that one for a month.” She points to a chess set on her dresser with an army of various robed men and women, staged and ready to take on an army of the undead.
I return my gaze to the Battle Royale set walled off behind the protective glass, and it makes me think of the blue Firebird parked outside. The thing my own dad left me when he died. Mack won’t even touch her inheritance, and how long did it take me to list that car on Craigslist? A few hours?
A rush of guilt clobbers me, but I quickly push it away. Our situations are completely different. Mack’s dad was a world-champion chess player who actually stuck around long enough to teach her how to play the game. The only thing Jackson taught me was how fast people can disappoint you.
“Are these made out of wood?” Nico asks.
I glance over to see he’s bent down, studying an adorable Alice in Wonderland–themed set on Mack’s desk. The pieces on one side are painted in blues with Alice as the queen, the Mad Hatters as bishops, and eight little White Rabbits as pawns, while the pieces on the other side are painted in red hues with the Queen of Hearts leading a court of playing cards.
Mack beams. “Yes. Hand-carved. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Astonishing,” Nico replies.
Of course he would gravitate toward the set made out of wood. Watching him examine the piece suddenly brings me back to the night of my birthday. When we spent the evening alone in the woodshop at Russellville High, his hands guiding mine over the sanding block, turning rough into smooth, splintery into soft. Skin on fire, lips searching . . .
“But trust me, you don’t want that one,” Mack says, thankfully interrupting my thoughts.
“Why not?” Nico asks.
“It’s . . . um . . .” She looks around. “One of the pieces went through my dog.”
I cough. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah,” she says quickly. “The Tweedledee rook. Dog ate it, and we had to wait two days to get it back, if you know what I mean.”
Nico slowly backs away from the board. “I think I do.”
Despite how horrified I am, I kind of like how each of her chess sets has a story of some kind. They feel like pieces in her life.
“Are you sure you want to trade one of these sets?” I ask. “Aren’t they all kind of special to you? Plus, they look like they’re all worth more than fifty bucks.”
“Oh, they are,” Mack says proudly. “Most of them are worth at least two hundred.”
“Two hundred?!” I repeat, baffled. I’m really not understanding the logic of this trading-up thing. “Why would you trade something for a lesser value?”
“Trust me,” Mack assures me. “Jasmine Ramirez is not a lesser value. She’s worth all of these chess sets combined.”
“But,” I argue, “if the chess sets are worth that much, why not just sell one on Craigslist and use the money to take Jasmine on a date?”
“I tried that,” Mack laments. “I’ve had a few of them listed all week, but the only takers were too far away. No one wanted to come out to Eureka. Which is why I’m so desperate.” She gives me a pleading look. “Seriously, you can have any other set. Just pick one.”
I glance around the room, feeling strange about this whole arrangement. My eyes land on Mack’s sliding closet door, which hasn’t been closed all the way. Through the small gap I can see the corner of another chess set. One that’s been banished to the closet for some reason.
“I like that one,” I say, walking over to it and pushing open the closet door a smidge so I can see the rest. It’s an exquisite set. Pirates vs. the British Royal Navy. And as soon as I see Mack’s face brighten, I know I’ve made the right choice.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “That’s an amazing set. You should totally pick that one!” She glances back at Nico for a moment and gives a shrug that I suppose is meant to look casual. “Or whichever. Honestly, I don’t care.”
“Why is this one in the closet?” I ask.
“It’s a long story,” she says dismissively, refusing to meet my eye. “There was this other girl . . . at chess camp last summer . . .” She trails off for a moment. “Let’s just say she didn’t make it over both hurdles.”
I flash her a warm smile. Because I get it. Mack and I are suddenly more alike than I realized. That chess set is her equivalent of everything I threw away that reminded me of Nico. Every item I packed up in a box and drove to the dump.
I suddenly picture this girl at camp, falling in love over that chessboard, stealing furtive glances across the table at her opponent, hoping and praying that she’ll look back.
And she didn’t.
You keep the things that give you good memories. You throw away the rest.
“We’ll take it,” I say.
“Awesome!” Mack claps her hands. “It’s a deal, then?”
Nico offers her the gift card, which she takes with the delicacy of a white-gloved archivist. “It’s a deal.”
12:22 P.M.
CRESCENT CITY, CA
INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD 400 CONVERTIBLE (1), CASH ($564.72), SEA GLASS (1 PIECE), PIRATES VS. BRITISH ROYAL NAVY CHESS SET (1)
Tom Lancaster is not what I expected. I’m not sure why, but I pictured him as a large, burly brute with a beard and maybe a hook for a hand. I realize how ridiculous that seems now as I watch the lean, middle-aged, clean-faced man tinkering around under the hood of the Firebird.
We’re standing inside the spacious, well-lit professional garage in his classic-car shop. There are about ten other old cars surrounding us, in various stages of restoration. One car has been stripped so far down, it looks like a metal skeleton. Another is in the process of being repainted from white to orange.
Nico stands next to
Tom, pointing at stuff and asking questions. Tom seems to like the attention and the opportunity to spread his obviously extensive knowledge about Firebird engines. For a minute, you could almost believe the two were father and son, sharing a mutual passion.
I don’t know why, but watching Tom poke around in there, I suddenly feel nervous. Like I’m waiting for a doctor’s diagnosis.
Tom closes the hood with a bang and wipes his hands on a red rag that’s hanging from the pocket of his jeans. “Beautiful car,” he says, smiling a wolfish smile.
I feel my tightly wound stomach start to slowly unclench. “Thank you. My dad took good care of it,” I say.
“I can tell. She’s really well kept up.” He pauses, pressing his lips into an unsettlingly straight line. “Unfortunately, she’s a clone.”
“Excuse me?” I say, not understanding.
Tom points to the small 400 emblem on the hood of the car. “This was not put on in the factory. This was added years later. And according to the VIN—” He catches my confused expression and explains, “That’s the vehicle identification number.” Tom walks around the side of the hood and taps his finger against the corner of the windshield.
I walk over and squint at the series of twelve numbers etched into the metal.
“It’s like a code,” Tom explains. “It tells you about the car. Like these two digits—twenty-two—mean it’s a Pontiac. Obviously. Then this number—eight—tells you it was made in 1968—okay. Good. But here’s where we get into some trouble.”
That word—“trouble”—causes my gut to clamp up again.
“If it’s truly a Firebird 400, it would have an eight-cylinder engine. This number right here—six—indicates it’s a six-cylinder engine.”
Tom looks at me, as though I’m supposed to be following.
I’m not following.
“So?” I ask.
“So, according to the VIN, this car was never a 400. It’s a base model. The car does have an eight-cylinder engine installed—a good engine—but I’m afraid it’s not an original Firebird engine. Someone installed it more recently.” He walks to the back of the car and gestures to the other red 400 symbol, affixed to the trunk. “Whoever owned this car last—your father, I guess—obviously slapped on a few of these emblems to make it seem like it was actually a 400. It happens a lot. You can buy the emblems online pretty easily.”
The Geography of Lost Things Page 15