I wake slightly when I feel the bed sink down. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he lies quietly beside me. And we both sleep.
In the morning, there’s an indent on the pillow where he lay. I rise, shower, and dress and head to the kitchen, where he usually is in the morning. Only Claire is there, perched on the counter, scrounging through a bag of airline peanuts. “He left again,” she says. “I don’t know why you want the Missing Man back. Don’t you want to stay with me? Don’t you like me?” She has tears on her long eyelashes.
I hug her and feel as if my heart is shattering. “Of course I like you.” I have a burst of inspiration. “Maybe when Peter finds the Missing Man, he can send you back with me.”
Claire wipes her eyes with her fist. “Really?”
I hesitate but only for a few seconds. I don’t think she notices. “Yes.”
She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes, and I’m sure I said the right thing. At least I think I’m sure. We can make it work. Mom would like having a little girl around. And maybe we can find Claire’s family. In the time since Claire was lost, the police could have located them. They could miss her as much as I miss my mother. Leaving her could have been a mistake they regret, or an accident. They could be mourning her, and her return would be a miracle.
I look at her, and I swear I see a soft white glow framing her face. If I look directly at her, it vanishes, but it teases the corners of my eyes. My heart beats faster. “Claire—”
Outside, I hear the clatter of tin cans.
Our alarm.
Claire and I look at each other. We don’t speak. We each know our roles. Keeping low, I scoot into the kitchen, and I take one of the knives from the kitchen drawer. There are plenty of lost guns around Lost, but we don’t have any of them. I can’t practice with them—they’re too loud, and they’d draw attention—so at best they could only be used against me. Knives, though...we have knives. Knife in hand, I creep to the dining room window.
The tin cans were strung over the front gate. It could have been something as simple as a squirrel that set them off, or it could have been a feral dog. Or it could have been a person. Claire scrambles out the back window. She’ll climb up on the roof. If necessary, she has a brace of knives up there by the chimney, as well as slingshots and a few miniature catapults that she and Peter built out of scraps. She can attack from above while I handle the ground.
There’s a knock on the front door.
That’s...odd, I think. I peer out the window. Victoria and Sean are on the porch, waiting by the door. Using oven mitts, Sean carries a Crock-Pot.
“Oh, hi!” Claire calls from the roof.
I march over to the front door and yank it open. “Seriously? Do you know how many people could have followed you? Did anyone follow you? What do you want?”
Sean holds out the pot. “Breakfast!”
“Glad you’re home.” Victoria sweeps inside, oblivious to the knife in my hand, perhaps because she has a gun in her Gucci purse or something. I flinch at the word home.
Claire drops onto the porch. “Please say that’s hot oatmeal!”
“It is,” Sean says gravely.
“With brown sugar?”
“And honey.”
Claire drags him inside and into the dining room. She then fetches bowls and spoons for everyone. I hang back by the door. “What do you want?” I repeat. “Did anyone follow you?” I think of telling them that Peter is out looking for the Missing Man, but I don’t.
“You’re a suspicious one,” Victoria says. “I like that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Guess you’ll just have to trust us.”
“Or I could leave.”
“Lauren!” Claire whines. “Brown sugar and honey!”
“And fresh fruit,” Sean says.
I don’t know why I can’t make myself feel friendly. I’m the one who said I wanted allies, and here they are with breakfast, a clear peace offering. But Victoria is smiling too brightly, and Sean’s face is flushed.
“We may have told a few people about you,” Sean says. I feel my heart thud faster. “But you can trust them. They know what you did for us.”
Every muscle in me is tense, ready to run. My feet want to scramble out the door. But Claire is happily scooping oatmeal into a bowl. “Oh?” I say.
“We wanted to, you know, give you a heads-up,” Sean says. “Also, oatmeal.”
“Uh, thanks. Claire, pack what you need.”
“No!” Victoria says. “Please. Stay. That’s why we came—to tell you not to run.”
I stare at her as if she has three heads or sprouted feathers or just said something shockingly absurd like not to run when homicidal townspeople could be on their way to visit me with scythes and pitchforks and a shitload of lost guns.
“Look, we’re on your side now. Our plan worked! The void retreated!” Victoria gestures wildly. “You saw it, right?”
I nod. It had withdrawn by over a mile.
“So please, trust us. Stay here. Make new friends.” I think of Claire and the ridiculous balloon animal and wonder if I can trust them. “Tell me what you would have scavenged for today. We will fetch it for you.”
“Um...more toothpaste? A decent amount of shampoo?”
“All right, then. We’ll see what we can do. Come on, Sean. Leave the oatmeal.”
He snaps to attention as if on a leash and trots after her. I follow them as far as the porch and watch them leave, and then I restring the warning cans.
I want to flee to the art barn. But I make myself walk into the house and sit down at the dining room table with Claire.
“It’s good oatmeal,” Claire says.
I nod.
“Are we going to run?”
I want to. But if I’m going to be safe here, I need friends. Or at least allies. Peter can’t protect me every second, especially if he’s out looking for the Missing Man. “No,” I say, and I scoop up a spoonful of oatmeal. Listening for the cans, I watch the window.
I don’t put away the knife. Neither does Claire.
* * *
A few hours later, we have our first visitor: the girl from the motel. Her name tag reminds me that her name is Tiffany. She’s in Goth clothes and has a fake tattoo drawn on her neck with a black marker. I think it’s supposed to be a sword piercing a human heart. Or a deflated red volleyball. Either way, it’s been smudged by her shirt collar. She’s carrying a suitcase that she drops on the porch. It lands with a thunk. “Dude, you have to do something about the landscaping.”
“It’s supposed to keep away unwanted visitors.”
“Yeah, that’s not working so well, is it?” She smacks her gum, then blows a bubble. It pops. “Brought you some trinkets.” She unsnaps the suitcase. Inside is a wealth of travel-size toiletries, including the toothpaste and shampoo that I’d wanted, as well as a toothbrush still in its package. An unused toothbrush!
I pounce on the toothbrush and cradle it to my chest as if it’s a beloved family heirloom. “I think I have a granola bar to trade—”
She’s shaking her head. “I don’t want that.” She takes a breath, and I see her veneer of coolness flicker for a second. I picture her putting it on each morning: shirt, check; shoes, check; makeup, check; permanent sneer, check. “I want you to help me. Like you helped Victoria and Sean.”
Oh.
Of course.
Gently, I say, “I don’t mean to disappoint you, but I don’t even know what I did.”
Tiffany plants her hands on her hips. “You went into the void, and you found what they needed. I want you to do the same for me. Or no toothbrush.”
It’s such an absurd threat that I have to resist laughing. She’s intensely serious. “Can’t you find whatever you need outs
ide the void? I’m happy to help you look—”
Tiffany shakes her head vigorously. “I’ve looked everywhere in Lost. The answers aren’t here. They’re in the void. Someone needs to go in and bring them out. If the Missing Man were here, I’d ask him. But he’s not, so I’m asking you.”
Claire hops up and down. “You can do it, Lauren! I know you can!”
I shoot her a look. She can’t be serious. I barely escaped last time. It took Peter and a train that is still embedded in the living room wall.
Swinging on my arm, Claire looks up at me with her bright eyes. “You can! You entered and left before. In your car. I saw you!” Her eyes are wide and earnest. She believes every word she’s saying.
She is right. I did drive into and out of the void, and I did find the star sapphire ring. But still, I’m not the Missing Man, or even a poor knockoff of him. I kneel beside Claire. I want her to understand this is serious. “Claire, if I go in there again, I might not come back.”
“Then I’ll send Peter in after you again!”
“Peter’s not here.”
“He’ll be back tonight. He comes back to you every night,” Claire says confidently. “He thinks you’re beautiful and clever and everything.” I feel myself blush, as if I’m back in high school and Claire has told me that the head of the basketball team thinks I’m the cat’s meow, which would never have happened because I was “artsy” and he wasn’t. His name was David, and the girls in my class used to call him “Dreamy David,” one of the stupidest and most apt nicknames I’d ever heard. His locker was next to mine senior year, and he said hi to me every day, but that was the extent of our relationship. Wish I could have told my high school self to suck it up and talk to him—worst that could have happened was a total rebuff and public humiliation, which would have ended with graduation anyway, and then I could have consoled myself with the knowledge that anyone who peaks in high school is doomed to have a miserable adulthood...unlike my oh-so-stellar one. I think of how Peter slept in my bed last night—and how he left again to search for the Missing Man.
Tiffany crosses her arms, clearly trying to look tough. “If you refuse to help me...I know a lot of people who’d like to know where you are.”
Standing, I raise my eyebrows and look at her. It’s easier to face her than to think about Claire’s assessment of Peter’s feelings, which may or may not be true, and my old high school insecurities, which I wish I’d left behind in high school. Ah, emotional baggage—the only kind of luggage I bet no one ever lost. “Blackmail? Really?”
“Just making a deal.” Tiffany drops her arms. “It’s what we do in Lost. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Barter system.”
“If you turn me over to the mob, then I can’t ever help you,” I point out.
“I could bribe you,” Tiffany says.
I shake my head. “I don’t need anything that’s worth—”
“I know where Claire’s parents are.”
Words die in my throat. I look at Claire. She’s paled. Her tiny hands clutch each other, balling up the hot pink satin skirt. Her lower lip quivers. The white glow skitters over her skin. “Where?” I ask.
Tiffany smiles. “Go into the void, find me what I lost, and I’ll tell you.”
“How do I know you know?”
“Wow, you are suspicious. Can I say a little bird told me?”
I cross my arms and glare at her. “No.” Claire is looking back and forth between us as if watching an intense tennis match. I think she’s holding her breath.
“Okay, then, I saw the newspapers from when she disappeared. Lots of newspapers show up in Lost. I skim them for anyone who might be here, and there was the cutest little picture of our cutie-pie in several of them. Her parents had given a tear-filled press conference.”
Claire’s eyes are huge. “They did?”
“Claimed it was a mix-up. Your dad thought you were with your mom, and your mom thought you were with your dad, and they didn’t compare notes until the end of the day. By that time, you’d wandered out of the police station and poof! You were gone.”
I reach over and hug Claire’s shoulders. “See, I knew it was an accident!”
“Or they said it was,” Tiffany corrects.
Squeezing Claire, I say to her, “They miss you!” She seems numb, limp like a cloth doll. I shoot a glare at Tiffany. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell her this sooner.”
“Because it gets bad. Here’s the kicker—for a while, your parents were suspected of killing you. No proof was ever found, of course, since, you know, you’re here. But must have sucked because they moved. One paper even said where.”
Claire’s mouth forms a perfect O.
“Where?” I ask.
Tiffany shakes her head. “That’s for me to know and—”
“You have to tell us,” I say, my arm still around Claire. She’s trembling now. “You can’t torture a little girl like this. Where are they?”
“Help me, and I’ll help you.”
“She’s a kid! You can’t—”
“I’m a kid, too, or I was,” Tiffany says. “I don’t know why I’m here. Until I know why I’m here, I can never leave. Do you know how that feels, to know that even if the Missing Man were to return tomorrow, I can’t leave? I have to spend eternity in this dead town with these dead people in the same dead job...” She sucks in air. “Please. Please, try!”
Claire clutches my hand. “Lauren. She knows about my parents.”
I look in Claire’s eyes and know I can’t say no. I’ll be careful this time. I’ll...think happy thoughts. If I’m trapped in the void again, I won’t panic. I’ll listen for the train. Or maybe I’ll walk out of there myself. I did drive in and out of the dust several times... And Peter will be back by nightfall. He always is. I’ll have a few hours to find what Tiffany needs, and then if I can’t leave myself, Peter will fetch me. So long as I don’t lose hope, he can find me.
Tiffany’s smiling. She knows she’s won.
I invite her inside and usher her into the living room. I offer her some water and some cookies—we have plenty of cookies. We even have some juice boxes, though I’d rather save those for Claire. “Do you know what you lost?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“My memories.” She taps her head. “I remember my life absolutely perfectly up to right before I came here. But I don’t remember how I ended up here.”
“Tell me what you do remember.”
“Well, it was prom. May 17, 1986.”
“1986? But you don’t look...” I trail off. “Sorry. Continue.”
“I had a hot-pink dress. Stiff satin. Sequins. Puffed miniskirt. Painted my nails to match, also had hot pink eye shadow. My parents took about a zillion photos of me and my date on the front step. He wouldn’t put his hands on my waist. Way too terrified to touch me in front of my dad. His name was Robert. My date, I mean, not my dad. He’d borrowed his parents’ car to drive me and Michelle and her date...what was his name?” She pauses, chews on her lower lip. “Lloyd? Can that be right?”
“Lloyd Dobler?” I ask.
“Yes! How did...” Her eyes narrow. “That’s from a movie. Are you testing me?”
“Sorry.” I’m not. She’d waxed poetic over the details of a dress that should have faded from memory by now. I don’t feel guilty for being suspicious. I’ve never met a teenager who’s older than I am. “You went with Robert, Michelle, and Lloyd...”
“Or whatever his name was.”
“And then?”
“We had the radio up, and we were laughing about...I don’t know what. I know we were having a great time. But I can’t remember the prom itself. I remember every little detail leading up to the big event. But I don’t remember the arrival or taking the cheesy prom photo that ev
eryone takes or if anyone spiked the punch or if ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was the last song or if the gym teacher was chaperone and if he danced or if the DJ played the ‘Electric Slide’ or any of it. I was in my prom dress when I came here. I still have it.” She opens the suitcase again and pulls out a brown paper bag. It’s stuffed with pink satin. She pulls out a dress and shakes it so the skirt hangs down: hot pink, sequins, puffed skirt, exactly as she’d described. Wrinkles crisscross the entire dress, and it’s yellowed under the armpits. It could easily be from 1986. It’s not proof, but...does it matter how old she is or isn’t? She’s lost, and there’s a nonzero chance that I could help her like I helped Victoria and Sean.
Seeing the dress, Claire claps her hands. “Ooh, can I try it on?”
Tiffany tosses it to her.
Squealing in delight, Claire squirms out of her princess dress and pulls on the 1980s prom dress. It hangs loose around her. She twirls, and the satin flaps. “Can I have it?”
Tiffany looks at me. “She hasn’t said yes yet.”
Claire turns her puppy eyes toward me.
“Fine. Yes.” For Claire. For her to find her parents. For her to have what she lost. And for me, to know if the star sapphire ring was a fluke or if I really am, as Peter would say, “interesting.”
“Yay!” Claire throws her arms around my neck.
I hope I don’t regret this. “If I’m not back in a few hours, tell Peter to save me. Maybe without the train wreck this time.”
Chapter Sixteen
I walk into the ocean.
I could walk east or west and enter the dust on foot, but I can’t resist the pull of the water. Tiffany has brought me a bathing suit. Even though the motel’s pool is cracked concrete coated in algae and filled with scummy water, she says she still finds new swimsuits, tossed into the bushes, draped on the diving board, bunched on the rusty deck chairs. She thinks they’re drawn there, and she isn’t interested in any theories why. She presented me with several sizes and styles, and Claire insisted that I try them on and fashion-model them for her. She selected a hot pink bikini, but I vetoed it in favor of an athletic-looking blue one-piece with a green racing stripe on the side.