Department of Lost and Found Page 23

  “Lila, slow down. You’re going to trip and break your neck.” I pulled back my arm, the one without which she truly might have fallen to her peril. Stilettos, 100-proof rum, and unpaved streets do not mix. When she stood upright, I asked her again, “What’s the problem?”

  “Men. They’re the damn problem. Fucking men,” she said, as she plopped down on a concrete stair leading up to a storefront.

  “Zach?” I asked. “Is something wrong with Zach?” Oh please let there be something wrong with Zach! I secretly prayed.

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  “What happened?”

  “Dunno. Dunno, Natalie. Things were okay, not great. Okay though. A warm body and all of that. He said he’d been telling me how he felt for a long time but that I wasn’t listening. As if I don’t listen! I listen, Natalie, don’t I listen? That’s crap!”

  I didn’t think it was the right time to point out that she was, in fact, among the worst listeners I’d ever encountered, so bad that I sometimes wondered if I were having conversations with myself when she and I were chatting, so I just nodded and kept my mouth shut.

  “Anyway, we’re done.” She sighed. “Done. Split. Kaput. Over. Finito. I think he’s already into someone else.” She kicked off her heels and started rubbing her feet, and I felt blood rise in my cheeks. He’d obviously never mentioned our trip to Los Angeles, nor my brush with fame on a game show.

  “You’ll be okay, Lila. You will be. You didn’t love him.”

  “True,” she said, as she wagged her pointer finger in the air. “Very true, my brilliant friend, Natalie. But…” Her voice trailed off. “He was someone, you know? He was someone. He filled in the empty spaces.” And then she started to cry.

  Crap. I am a terrible, conniving, underhanded person, I thought as I rubbed her back. Though maybe I should have already known this, given that I aspired for a lifelong career in politics.

  “Maybe Zach didn’t want to be someone who just filled in empty spaces,” I softly suggested, trying to erase my momentary lapse into self-hatred. “Maybe that wasn’t enough.”

  “It’s true. I know. We didn’t love each other. Not anymore anyway.” She wiped the mascara from her eyes. “But still. It sucks. I hate fucking weddings where I’m single.”

  “Well, have you checked out two of Drew’s groomsmen? Not bad, I’d say. Not bad at all.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” She laughed. “If I recover from the hangover that this rum is going to leave, maybe I’ll hit that situation tomorrow night.”

  “That’s the Lila I know and love,” I said, as I coaxed her shoes back on and pulled her to her feet.

  “What about you, Nat? Now that you gave Jake the old heave-ho? I’ll take one, you take the other? You’re looking remarkably great these days.”

  We started walking down the street toward the Blue Parrot, my second-best friend and me.

  “No,” I said, thinking of Jake’s heartbeat, wondering if he’d already made it to London. “I think a warm body isn’t enough for me anymore. I think I’d rather hold out until something is so big, so encompassing, that I’ll have forgotten what just enough feels like in the first place.”

  “You’re lucky, you know.”

  “Not really.” I mulled over my past six months and figured that Lila was still too toasted to make much sense.

  “No, I mean, I know that you haven’t been lucky and that your life recently has been relative shit, but when you say that—about finding someone, about getting more than enough—I hear it in your voice. The hope. The belief that you will. Maybe that’s what I’m missing: Once you make the decision to settle for anything less than that, it’s easy to lose sight of something better.”

  I thought about my diary and of the paths that I’d stumbled down, bruising myself along the way. It dawned on me that I still had one entry left to write: one about Jake. And then I realized that I didn’t need to bother because I already knew what he’d given me, why we’d ended, and what was left to still chase down. It was that hope. Because now that I’d caught wind of something better, there wasn’t a chance in hell that just enough would ever be just enough ever again.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  When we met at the spa for hair and makeup the next morning at noon, Lila practically had an IV of coffee and water plugged in.

  “Christ, what do they put in their rum around here?” she muttered, as she pushed her black sunglasses back on her nose after kissing me hello.

  Sally was remarkably calm for a bride who was seven hours out from her big moment. “We slept in separate rooms last night,” she joked. “And I hope this isn’t a sign, but it was the best damn night’s sleep I’ve gotten since we got engaged.”

  Sally’s mom, her future mother-in-law, and Drew’s younger sister, Lacey, joined us in front of the mirrors, and the stylists got to work. I’d told Sally that I didn’t need them to do anything to my wig, that makeup would be just fine.

  I was done first, and when Ricardo, my makeup guy, twirled me around in the mirror, I almost didn’t recognize myself. His artistry brought out my deep blue eyes, which normally faded into my pale skin; the strokes of his brush highlighted my cheekbones that now protruded more so than they used to. The light bounced off the charm on my neck, and I wondered if I’d ever been so beautiful.

  “Holy crap,” Sally said, when she turned to look my way. “You’ve never looked better.”

  “Good Lord,” Lila agreed, as she nursed her bottle of water. “You’re definitely landing one of the groomsmen looking like that.”

  We passed around tiny sandwiches and cookies, and the rest of us, Lila excluded, sipped wine and Diet Coke. Those three hours weren’t so much about making ourselves more beautiful as they were about marking time before everything changed. Not changed for the worse, but changed nevertheless. When your best friend gets married, you’re so filled with love and joy and hope for her that you really don’t stop to mourn the fact that life is moving on. And I don’t mean mourn in a bad way. But marriage changes things; it’s undeniable. It ushers in the next chapter and throws the state of equilibrium in your friendship slightly off-kilter. Until you readjust and find a different, not worse, but different, level of equilibrium on which to operate. It wasn’t unlike my cancer.

  So for those three hours, we sat and absorbed the moments, and I wondered how I almost so cavalierly risked it all. For a wishy-washy politician. Or maybe because I didn’t know how not to put it on the line for the wishy-washy politician.

  Sally gave us our bridesmaids’ gifts—pearl earrings—and I gave her one of my own: a framed picture of us from over a decade past, a month after Sally plunked down next to me in our freshman year creative writing seminar and asked if I had an extra piece of gum. “It’s amazing how life works,” I said aloud at some point. “How fate and how faith and how destiny just all come together. How if you hadn’t sat down next to me or if I’d decided to go to Princeton, how we probably wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “You know, I almost didn’t ask you for the gum that day. I remember thinking that I looked so lame trying to make conversation. Funny looking back on it now, right?” Sally said, before her stylist asked her to pucker her lips and stay quiet. “What a tragedy that would have been. But I guess that’s how it works. Life dishes it out, brings you together, pulls you apart, whatever. It’s up to you to figure out the intended course.”

  I smiled at myself in the mirror. Good fortune, I thought. I’m pretty sure that I already have it.

  THE PHONE WAS ringing as I unlocked my door, so I dropped my bag by the bed that the maids had already made up and lunged for it.

  “Natalie,” Senator Dupris said over the line. “I’m sorry to call, but Blair has sent you repeated e-mails, and you haven’t responded.”

  You’re not sorry to call at all, I thought before I spoke. “Sorry, Senator. No BlackBerry service down here.”

  “Hmmm, yes, I see. Well, I know that you’re on a vacation of sorts, but I need your
help crafting a statement. Some research assistants from the New York Times Magazine have been hounding our office about my position on the stem cell bill, and I’d like to finesse a statement about my stance.”

  I sat down on the floral-patterned comforter and leaned against the decorative pillows piled against the headboard of the bed. “And what is your stance, Senator? I’m afraid that I don’t know.” I took in my breath, knowing that in her answer my future was held. Even if she wasn’t aware of it.

  “Natalie, dear. You do know my stance. It hasn’t changed since Wednesday. I’m sorry, I know how important this was to you.” She broke the news in a sorrowful tone, though I knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t regretful in the least.

  “Senator, please,” I sat up on my bed, making my plea. “Hear me out. This research, what they’re doing in the stem cell field, it is unprecedented. It’s opening up paths in medicine that doctors didn’t even realize existed—offering potential cures to Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cancers, and a litany of other diseases. Who knows what they can accomplish? To refuse to negotiate with Tompkins, not to mention refocus your energies on education, is effectively closing the doors to these paths, and it sends a signal to the president that we’re okay with his refusal to fund these ventures. Quite simply, there’s nothing more important than this. At least not right now. Nothing.” Maybe I should have added that there was nothing more important to me, but I left it at that. The truth of the matter was that my vote, other than when I pulled the lever to cast a vote for the senator, didn’t much matter.

  I heard her pause and for a second, I thought that she might reconsider. That she might see beyond her faceless constituents and raw ambition, and instead just see me, someone who might need this research one day not too far in the distant future.

  “Natalie. I understand your position. I do.” She exhaled. “It’s not that I don’t care about stem cell research, because you know that I do. But I’ll reiterate exactly what I said the other day: I’m not backing down from education. Period. It’s going to be my legacy. Andrews firmly believes so, so I’m standing behind it.”

  “But your education package is shit!” I cried, though I couldn’t believe it when I said it. I stood up and looked in the mirror: My cheeks were flaming red, despite the immaculate makeup from just an hour before. “It’s shit, Senator. It’s not going to make one fucking bit of difference for the kids who are still trapped in crappy schools and for teachers who don’t have the proper resources to provide adequate education. You know it. It’s shit, and yet you’re crushing something potentially life-changing because it’s the goddamned party line.”

  I heard her inhale sharply and compose herself. “Natalie, this is my decision. I’m here for the long run. I’m in it to win it. And so, this is what I have to do to come out on top.” She paused. “So I’d like to get back to crafting this statement. Put your feelings aside and let’s move on.”

  “What if it’s not about winning?” I asked, ignoring her request and moving closer to the mirror to stare myself in the eyes. “What if this has nothing to do with coming out on top? I thought for you, this was about making a difference.”

  “It’s not up to me, Natalie. I don’t have a choice.” I heard her take a sip of her coffee.

  Before I spoke, I thought about Mrs. Roberts’s fifth-grade class in which she spoke of good men, and I thought about Susanna Taylor who actually was one. I thought about Sally and how I’d almost pushed her away. I thought about all of Dupris’s other broken promises, I thought about Jake’s, and then, finally, I thought about mine.

  “With all due respect, Senator,” I said quietly, “you always have a choice.”

  I heard her start to balk, but I’d already made my way back to the desk, where I placed the cordless phone back where it belonged. Namely, hung up.

  I sat on the cushy bed and stared at my shaking hands, wondering if I’d regret it, but as I examined the deep lines in my palms and traced my fingers over a scar from a paper cut I’d gotten when I was ten, I felt no remorse. So I took the phone from the cradle once again and dialed Sally’s room.

  “You want scoop? You want exclusive scoop on the senator?” I asked her. “You’ve got it.”

  THREE HOURS LATER, Sally was the first one who saw me. And she gasped. She was standing near the beach, and when she caught a glimpse, she broke into a glowing smile and ran over, grabbing her veil as she went so that it didn’t get caught in the rosebushes that lined the brick path.

  “Do you mind?” I asked. “Because if you do I absolutely won’t go through with it.”

  “Mind? Why would I mind? You look amazing.”

  “I don’t want to ruin your pictures.” I shrugged. “You’ll have them for a lifetime.”

  “How on earth could you ruin my pictures? If anything, you’ll only be standing me up.” She hugged me, as the photographer called us into our places.

  I wasn’t planning on doing it, on leaving my wig behind, when I got ready that afternoon. But once I clicked good-bye to Dupris, I sat on the floor and stared into the mirror until it was time to pull on my dress. Sally and Lila were right: I did look amazing. Better than I might ever have looked. It didn’t matter that my head was covered in nothing more than light peach fuzz, and it didn’t matter that my arms were still too skinny and that my nipples were still slightly unnaturally pink. What mattered was that beyond all of this, I saw what I was truly made of. And that was hope.

  So after I zipped myself into my light-blue, tea-length gown, the one that once hung on me like a used burlap sack, the one that I could barely stomach to look at back when I was but a skeleton of my old self, I decided that wearing hope, my hope, was accessory enough. I closed the lid to the toilet and sat down, brushing out the strands of the wig until they were shinier than they’d ever been. Then I grabbed its travel bag, tucked it in, and put it away for safekeeping. It had given me enough, but now I was ready for more.

  I DIDN’T SEE him until after I’d walked down the aisle. As Sally’s maid of honor, I was in charge of (a) ensuring that her train and veil didn’t run into any snags, (b) holding her bouquet when she clasped Drew’s hands and pledged herself to him, and (c) maintaining and overseeing any and all last-minute crises once we were under way. So it was easy to see how I overlooked him in the seats as I walked by. And I was so damn focused on walking to the beat of the slow Puerto Rican music that I didn’t make much eye contact with the guests anyway.

  I was fiddling with Sally’s train while the judge was explaining the difficulties of marriage when I first saw him. Four rows back and to the left. I felt someone staring and, at first, merely assumed that it was another guest who wondered what on earth Sally was doing with a bald chick in her wedding, but then the gaze didn’t move. So I finished adjusting her dress, stood upright, and looked over.

  And there he was. Zach. How I hadn’t noticed him before, I didn’t know, because once he smiled and gave me a little wave, it was nearly impossible not to keep staring.

  Sally and Drew said their vows and kissed the way that people do who are starting out their lives together and let out some whoops, and when I handed her back her bouquet and pulled her into an embrace, she said with a smile, “Surprise.”

  “I don’t get it. He’s not with Lila anymore.”

  “I know. He called to say that he didn’t feel right coming down with her. He felt bad that he was canceling at the last minute, so wanted to speak with me directly.” Drew tugged at her to walk down the aisle, so she started speaking quickly over her shoulder. “I told him to come anyway. That it might end up being worth it, even if things hadn’t worked out as originally planned.”

  “Aha.” I grinned.

  “Aha, indeed,” she said, as the quartet broke into a salsa, and she took off down the aisle toward her married life.

  THEIR RECEPTION WAS big and boisterous and busy. A thirteen-piece band played from the stage on the patio, spotlights created dancing shadows from the palm trees, and
candles flickered on the orange silk tablecloths. Guests leaned into one another to make themselves heard over the din of the music and celebration. Not only was I required for postceremony pictures, but as the maid of honor, I also had to play semihostess, meeting and greeting family members, old friends, and random people whom I’d never see again after that night.

  By the time I had the chance to grab my name card—Table 2—off the place-card table and make my way to the bar for a drink—piña colada, nonvirgin—the band was already on its second set, and the dance floor was full of New Yorkers and Iowans (Drew’s home state) who were making wholehearted attempts at Latin dancing without much luck. I surveyed the ballroom, looking for the only person who mattered. But all I saw was a sea of pulsing limbs moving to the music, and Lila over in the corner, pressed up against one of those handsome groomsmen. Good for her, I thought. At least she knows what she’s getting into.

  I didn’t much feel like dancing, though I knew that I had plenty to celebrate, and Sally had already told me that dinner wouldn’t be served until 9:00. Party first, eat later, she said, when we were getting our nails done the day before. So fill up on the hors d’oeuvres at the cocktail hour, she’d advised.

  I grabbed three miniquiches and headed toward the sign that read exit. Pushing open the side doors, I felt a cool, salty wind blow in from the ocean, and I made my way down the stucco stairs to the beach. The sun had long since set—Sally and Drew timed their vows so that the glow of dusk would hover over them during the ceremony—so mostly, other than a few lights provided by the resort and the bulbs from the security station, the sand was covered in darkness.

  I left my shoes by the concrete’s edge and walked toward the water, the cold beachy grains sticking to my soles as I went. Plunging my feet in, I stared up at the night: Plane lights blinked overhead as they made their way to the nearby airport. I looked up and thought of my grandmother who hadn’t been able to beat back the same cancer, of whether or not she was looking down on me, and of whether or not I’d made her proud. I’m not sure how long I stood there just gazing up at the sky. I heard the echo of the band behind me and the rush of the waves in front, and it was hard not to be hypnotized.