The Geography of Lost Things

by Jessica Brody

  “Apps,” her husband corrects.

  She waves this away. “It’s almost as though human courtesy went right out the window, along with those travel guidebooks everyone used to use. We were written up in one, you know? They gave us four stars.”

  “You said that already,” Howie reminds her.

  “Now it’s all about the Rip Advisory. People can say anything they want about your business, and no one can argue.” She returns the chess piece to the board. “So, anyway, we’re trying to make room seven more family-friendly. Our grandson suggested we decorate it with a pirate theme. He’s seven. Don’t know how we got to the place where we’re taking business advice from a seven-year-old, but here we are.”

  Nico shoots me a look across the table, then turns to the couple. “Pirates are pretty cool.”

  The woman stares at him through her thick glasses. “Really?”

  “Oh yeah. And this chess set would make an excellent edition to a pirate-themed room.”

  She sighs wistfully down at the set. “Yes, it would. Maybe if you tell me where you got yours, I can go on the eBits and find one.”

  “She means eBay,” Howie chimes in.

  “Well, actually,” Nico says beaming up at her, “today must be your lucky day, because we were about to post this on Craigslist.”

  The woman frowns, confused.

  “It’s where people sell stuff,” Nico quickly explains.

  The woman looks like she just won the lottery. “Did you hear that, Howie?”

  “I’m standing right here, Blanche.”

  Blanche reaches into her purse and pulls out her wallet. “Well, tell me, how much do you want for it?”

  “Oh, we’re not selling it,” Nico says.

  “But you just said—”

  “We’re trading it.”

  Blanche looks to Howie, but Howie seems just as confused. “Is this what the kids are doing these days?”

  Nico chuckles. “Sort of, I guess.”

  “Oh!” Blanche says excitedly. “We just cleaned out the attic of the house and found a bunch of old stuff from when my son was a kid. We drove it down to him this morning, but he doesn’t want any of it. We were going to bring it to the Goodwill. Do you want to have a look and see if there’s anything in there you want to trade?”

  “Sure!” Nico says. He quickly packs up the rest of the chess set and hops out of the booth. He follows the old couple out of the restaurant, and I follow reluctantly behind.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper to him. “What makes you think we’re going to find anything of value in that car?”

  “Haven’t you ever seen Antiques Roadshow?” he asks. “People find junk in their attic worth thousands of dollars all the time.”

  We reach the parking lot of the restaurant, and Blanche opens the trunk of their hatchback, gesturing ceremoniously to the collection of open boxes.

  I cringe as it immediately reminds me of the house full of boxes waiting for me back in Russellville. At least our boxes are neatly packed. This stuff looks like it’s just been tossed in haphazardly. I catch sight of old ratty sweatshirts and useless trophies with cracked gold paint.

  “Wow,” Nico says, and I can hear the disappointment hiding under his fake enthusiasm. “This looks great.”

  Well, what did he honestly expect to find?

  He sets the box with the chess set down on the ground and picks through a few of the boxes, but I can tell he’s just going through the motions. There’s no way he’s trading our Pirates vs. British Royal Navy chess set for any of this junk.

  Nico flips through a dusty blue photo album, revealing old, blurry pictures of a bunch of kids in baseball uniforms. Half of them are out of focus.

  “Dennis took those with his first camera,” Blanche explains.

  “Cute,” Nico says, closing the album and setting it down. He pushes a few children’s books aside, and that’s when my gaze falls on something familiar. Painfully familiar.

  I know, even before I can see the whole thing, that it’s a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar. I recognize the black wooden surface and silver strings.

  “That,” I say quietly, pointing toward the object partially hidden in the back of the trunk. “Trade the chess set for that.”

  Nico follows the direction of my finger, and when he sees what I see, his head falls into a nod. “Good eye, Collins.”

  He reaches deep into the trunk and pulls out the guitar.

  “It’s worth at least four hundred,” I whisper to Nico as he holds the guitar by the neck and admires its design.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod, unable to look directly at the instrument. “I’m sure.”

  Nico turns to Blanche. “We’ll take this.”

  “Oh, splendid!” says Blanche. “Dennis just had to have that guitar. He swore he would take lessons and practice every day. He played it for about a month before giving up. I’m happy you spotted it.”

  Nico picks up the box with the chess set in it and hands it over. “I hope everyone who stays in room seven will enjoy this.”

  Blanche beams. “Thank you! I’m sure they will. And hey, if you ever want to stop by the inn, we’d love to have you! No charge. On the house!”

  “Wow,” Nico says. “That’s very generous. Thank you.”

  After Blanche and Howie get into their car and pull out of the parking lot, Nico and I head back to the Firebird. He rests the guitar against the side of the car and snaps a few pictures for Craigslist before storing the instrument in the back seat.

  “How did you know how much this guitar was worth?” Nico asks as he gets in behind the wheel.

  I shrug. “Antiques Roadshow.”

  Nico gapes at me as he starts the engine. “Really?”

  I turn and look out the window. “No. Not really.”

  I was seven years old when I found Jackson’s secret stash. Hundreds of hundred-dollar bills rolled up and rubber-banded, hidden beneath the spare tire in the trunk of the Firebird.

  The day I found it, Jackson was in the garage, his head and torso hidden beneath the front of the car, only his legs visible. I was looking for a stuffed rabbit that I’d sworn I left in the trunk after Jackson picked me up from a sleepover at June’s. The rabbit was nowhere to be seen. But the stash seemed to jump out and bite me.

  “What is this?” I asked Jackson, standing next to his legs.

  Jackson rolled out from underneath the car, a wrench dangling in his grease-stained hand. He looked at the wad of cash, and a chuckle of sorts trickled from his mouth. He sat up and patted the ground next to him, asking me to sit down. I happily obliged. Back then, I coveted any and all attention I could snag from Jackson. Maybe some part of me just knew that it wasn’t going to last forever. That I should store it up.

  The truth was, I was enamored with Jackson. Everyone was. Including Jackson. Especially Jackson.

  He took the wad of cash from me and ran it under his nose, closing his eyes as he inhaled. “This,” he said, his eyes popping open, “is my escape fund.”

  “What’s that?”

  He laughed and pressed his forehead against mine. His face was so close, his piercing blue eyes so full of mischief. “It’s what we use to buy ice cream when your mom’s at work.”

  “Mommy’s at work now,” I pointed out.

  He tweaked my nose, making it feel like the most important nose in the world. “Exactly. So let’s go.”

  We went to the Frosty Frog, and Jackson bought me a triple scoop. I couldn’t even finish a third of it. He finished the rest.

  As he chomped on the last bit of cone and tossed his napkin into the trash, he explained that whenever we took money out of the escape fund, we had to put money back in. So we wouldn’t ever run out. When I asked how we do that, Jackson drove me to the other end of town, to a shop I’d never seen before. They seemed to sell all manners of used and old things.

  Jackson had clearly been a regular at this place because the man behind the counter smiled
and greeted him by name when we walked in.

  “Got anything new for me?” Jackson asked.

  “Right over there.” The man pointed to a beat-up-looking black electric guitar sitting in the corner of the shop, crammed between an old video game console and a dusty toolbox, and said, “Sounds like crap but—”

  “I’ll fix it,” Jackson said before the man could finish. “How much?”

  The man seemed to balk, afraid to commit to a number.

  Jackson arched his eyebrow. “Don’t try anything, Rick.”

  Rick sighed. “Fine. Two hundred.”

  Jackson seemed satisfied with this, and I watched him lick his fingers before counting out two hundred-dollar bills from the wad of cash in his pocket and handing them over in exchange for the guitar.

  “I don’t understand,” I told Jackson as we left the shop. “I thought you said we were going to put money back in the escape fund.”

  He winked at me. “We are.”

  Jackson spent the rest of the day in the garage. He took that guitar apart and pieced it back together as easily as if he’d made the thing himself. I sat on the hood of the Firebird and watched, marveling at how I never knew Jackson could fix a guitar. Car engines, yes. But not musical instruments.

  When he was done, he gave it a good polish and played a few chords. “See? Now it’s worth double.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “You can’t take anything for face value, kiddo. Everything’s got the potential to be worth more if you’re creative enough.”

  Jackson snapped a few photos of the guitar and created a listing on eBay, and for the next few days, we watched the bids go up and up, until the instrument finally sold for nearly five hundred dollars.

  “And that’s how it’s done,” Jackson said in the parking lot of the bank, as he added the five new, crisp hundred-dollar bills to his stack, rolled it up, and secured it with the rubber band. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  I nodded. Because it was pretty cool. Jackson made it look so easy. I immediately wanted to go back to that shop and do it all over again. But Jackson laughed and guided me back to the Firebird. “Maybe next week, kiddo. You gotta be patient. The big finds don’t come along every day.”

  On the way home, Jackson made me promise never to tell my mom about the escape fund. When I asked why, he told me it was because she would get mad. She would make him give her all the money he’d made so she could spend it on boring things like mortgage payments and insurance. I didn’t know what either of those things were, but they certainly sounded boring to me.

  “I’d much rather spend it on ice cream, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

  I nodded, because this sounded perfectly rational to my seven-year-old brain. And I was a rational person. Of course, that was before Post-it Notes and broken dining room tables and made-up chess rules and Jackson walking out on us not once, but twice. That was back when I thought I had a dad who would be around forever.

  So I kept my promise. I never told my mom. And Jackson continued to buy me secret ice cream when she was at work, making the escape fund pretty much my favorite thing ever.

  It wasn’t until my ninth birthday that I first learned what an escape fund really was.

  5:20 P.M.

  HIGHWAY 101

  INVENTORY: 1968 FIREBIRD CONVERTIBLE (1), CASH ($529.10), SEA GLASS (1 PIECE), GIBSON ELECTRIC GUITAR (1)

  According to the map on Nico’s phone, we’ll be in Oregon in only thirty-three minutes.

  We received a trade request for the guitar quickly. A man up in Brookings, just across the state line, wants to trade it for a vintage typewriter that he swears is worth more than five hundred dollars. Nico searched the model number online to confirm this, and that was that.

  We’re heading to Oregon.

  I feel a small rush of excitement at the thought of leaving the state for the first time in my life. But I also feel uneasy about the direction we’re so obviously heading. Oregon is only one state away from Washington. Technically we’re supposed to be going where the trades take us, but there’s no doubt we’re on a clear path north. If we keep going the way we’re going, eventually we’ll end up . . .

  There.

  Tacoma, Washington.

  The last place Jackson ever ate. The last place Jackson ever ordered a drink. The last place Jackson ever stumbled out of a bar, ranting about Fear Epidemic and how important he was to their success. And did you know that they were formed right here? In Tacoma?

  Poetically, like a bizarre circle of life, Tacoma, Washington, was where Fear Epidemic began and Jackson ended.

  “Do you want to listen to something?” Nico asks, interrupting my thoughts. The top is back down, so the car is quiet again.

  “Sure,” I say, swiping away from the map on his phone and opening the podcast app. “I think I downloaded an episode about emojis.”

  “Actually,” Nico says, gently removing the phone from my hand. “I created a playlist last night. Can we listen to it?”

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  Nico cranks up the volume on his phone, presses play, and drops the device into the compartment in the driver’s-side door. Like he’s purposefully trying to hide it from me.

  “What is this new playlist?” I ask, but a second later the familiar hard-hitting guitar riff of the first song comes on, and the blood freezes in my veins.

  I know this song.

  I hate this song.

  The lead singer launches into the first verse in his annoyingly scratchy voice. “Phone ring. Voices meander like waves. Beating up the air.”

  This is “Nearly a Saint” by Fear Epidemic. Their first big single. And the first song on their debut album.

  “The playlist is called ‘What’s Her Name?’ ” Nico explains.

  I grit my teeth. “Turn it off.”

  “Can’t,” Nico says innocently. “Gotta keep my hands on the wheel.”

  I click off my seat belt and lean over him, reaching for the phone in the driver’s-side door. He pushes me back. “Hey! Hey! Do you want to run us off the road? Sit down. Put your seat belt on.”

  I plop back in my seat and fasten my belt with a groan.

  “Since you still won’t tell me which song you’re named after—and I’ll admit it wasn’t entirely obvious when I scanned the list of their titles—I figured I’d just download them all and we’d make it a little road trip project!”

  “Shut it off, Nico.”

  “Well, technically, I only downloaded the first album. I figured you probably weren’t named after a song that was released in 2009. Did you know Fear Epidemic went on a reunion tour? When we were nine.”

  “Shut. It. Off.”

  He grins at me. “Fine. Tell me your real name and we won’t have to listen to it.”

  I fall silent and look out the window.

  The song reaches the end of the first verse.

  She’s nearly a saint

  And no one notices

  When she scrapes the ground

  She never has the time

  To hear pleasant sounds

  “Your name is Saint!” Nico says with sudden inspiration.

  “No,” I mutter.

  “Your name is Pleasant Sounds.”

  “No.”

  Nolan Cook launches into the chorus.

  Run away, go away

  Hide away, sneak away

  There’s got to be

  An easier way

  To face each day

  “Your name is Hideaway?” Nico scrunches up his nose.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Will you at least tell me when I guess it?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm,” Nico muses. “That does make it a bit more difficult. I’ll have to read it on your face.”

  “You can’t read it on my face.”

  “I can read a lot on your face. After all, I’ve spent many hours studying that face.” His eyebrows lift. “Among other features.”

  11. No comments about m
y face . . . or any other body parts.

  Nico laughs at my expression, which I’m sure is beet red, and reaches into the door compartment to switch to the next song. I immediately recognize the opening guitar riff as “Sleep,” and I breathe out a sigh of relief. He’s playing the songs in album order. Which means I’m safe for a while. But I also know Nico won’t give this up. He won’t stop until he finds the song. The title. The name.

  And now it’s only a matter of time.

  “I was doing some research about this band last night,” Nico says. “They’re kind of fascinating.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  Nico ignores this. “They only recorded one album before they broke up, but it was a pretty big success. Four of their singles went gold. Their first single, ‘Nearly a Saint,’ was released in 1998, only four years after Kurt Cobain of Nirvana killed himself, putting an end to what music buffs call ‘real’ grunge rock. Fear Epidemic was labeled as ‘post-grunge.’ ”

  I close my eyes, trying to drone out the sound of his voice. But with the music blasting and Nolan Cook screaming in my ear, it’s too much. I can’t block out everything. I have to listen to something.

  “Then, get this,” Nico goes on. “They break up, and nine years later, they get back together. They record a second album, they go on tour, and then they break up again.”

  I fight the urge to put my hands over my ears and sing one of my favorite bubbly pop songs at the top of my lungs.

  Nico keeps talking. Like an oblivious tour guide who doesn’t realize his entire tour group has deserted him in the middle of the museum. “Also, did you know that Fear Epidemic was writing a third album when they were on their reunion tour? But they broke up before they got a chance to go back into the studio to record it. Apparently all the fans were livid. And I also read that—”

  “Track nine!” I finally explode, unable to take it anymore.

  “What?”

  I sigh, resigning myself to my fate. “Track nine,” I repeat, keeping my gaze out the window. If this is what will shut him up and make him turn off this stupid album, then so be it.