How to Be Lost (11 page)

I
SET OUT
for Montana on Saturday. I had taken care of everything: my next-door neighbors would feed Georgette and water the plants, the car had new oil and a full tank of gas. I bought a road map of the United States, and a Polaroid camera (# 3 on the Essentials List in Be Your Own Private Dick). I had filled a cooler with beer, Fresca, and Moon Pies.

It was strange, driving past the Tastee, CC’s Coffee Shop, Whole Foods. I took a left at the enormous gardens that sheltered the art museum, feeding onto Carrolton (passing a sign that said fresh swimp) and then I-10. I would be on I-10 until New Mexico, unless I took a detour for thrills. I turned on the radio, and Johnny Cash sang.

On the third day of my trip, I picked up the hitchhiker. She was a teenage girl, not a hunk. She stood by the side of the road in a denim miniskirt and T-shirt, a duffel bag at her feet. This was in a dusty town in northern New Mexico; I was searching for a spot to eat a late lunch. At about the same time that I saw the sign for “Manuel’s Tacos Y Mas,” I saw the girl. I slowed down.

The girl watched me steadily as I neared her. I rolled down my window. “Are you a hitchhiker?” I asked. She had curly hair, brown eyes, and a flat nose.

“Pretty much yes,” she said.

“I’m going to have some lunch,” I said. “And then I can drive you.”

She looked at the ground. “Do you want something to eat?” I asked. She did not answer. But when I parked and went inside, the girl followed me, and slid into my booth.

When I said I’d have huevos rancheros, she said, “The same for me.”

We ate chips and drank ice water from red plastic glasses. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Roxie.”

“Where are you headed?”

She shrugged. Her shoulders were narrow, and I could see her bones through her T-shirt, which was worn thin as silk. She seemed gloomy. Her front teeth overlapped a bit, and this chipmunk-like attribute made her seem harmless. “I’m going to Montana,” I said.

“Oh,” said Roxie, “OK.”

“Are you from around here?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. I looked out the window at the scrubby landscape. Heat shimmered in waves above the parched land. The restaurant smelled like hamburger. Suddenly, Roxie seemed to focus. She leaned toward me. “How about Denver?” she said.

“What?”

“You can take me to Denver?”

I blinked, thinking of the road north. “Yeah,” I said, “I can take you to Denver.”

“Denver,” she said, nodding, as if making a decision. “Yes, Denver,” she said, emphatically. She placed her hand on the table, palm down. She looked up at me happily.

“What’s in Denver?” I asked.

“Everything,” said the girl. “Everything is in Denver.” I smiled. I was looking forward to getting there myself. The desert didn’t turn me on. It was scary, hot, and desolate. But mountains I felt I could go for.

Our food came, and as we ate I watched the girl. For someone who had been hitchhiking, she did not seem particularly hungry. She ate with small, rabbitty bites, expertly scooping up the runny yolk and sauce with a hot tortilla from the round holder in the center of the table. She used enough hot sauce to kill a man. I did not use any.

I ordered a Coke to go, which seemed to confuse the waiter, a squat older fellow. Roxie translated in rapid Spanish, and the man brought me a Styrofoam coffee cup filled with Coke and covered by Saran Wrap. “To go,” said Roxie, flicking her wrist in disdain. “We don’t do that here.”

As Roxie settled in the passenger seat of the Wagoneer, her duffel bag at her feet, I wondered what she had meant by “we.” New Mexicans? Hispanic Americans? Had she meant she was from this little town (“Chama,” it was called), or just that she was familiar with small Mexican restaurants? Was I taking Roxie away from her home? Roxie played with the radio, and landed us on a bouncy radio station where a man sang in Spanish.

“This is OK?” she asked, peering at me with those brown eyes.

“Um, sure,” I said. I had never actually listened to one of the Spanish-language stations before. All the seesawing music sounded the same to me. But what was a hitchhiker for, if not to broaden your horizons? After all, I didn’t like R&B until I started spending time at Bobby’s Bar.

Roxie leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes and singing vaguely along with the radio. I tried to figure out how old she was: sixteen? Nineteen? She seemed old enough to have had some trouble, but not to have been beaten by it. After a time, she fell asleep. I drove north, into Colorado.

The mountains sliced into the sky. I followed the ribbon of road, clinging to the steering wheel for my life. Roxie’s music really began to grate on me. The sun did not set slowly; it was in the sky, and then it was behind a mountain, leaving the road eerie and dim. I turned off the radio, and Roxie stirred. “What’s happening?” she said irritably.

“I need to sleep,” I said. The friendship I’d hoped would spring forth between me and Roxie, the confessions, the secrets revealed, none of it had come to pass. She was just a quiet girl who liked annoying music. I wanted to tell her—to tell someone—about my mother.

We were approaching Colorado Springs. On the map, it looked to be a sprawling city. I wasn’t in the mood, so I pulled into the Sleepy Time Motel on the outskirts. “I can sleep right here,” said Roxie, indicating the back seat of the Wagoneer.

I almost let her—after all, she could have been a serial killer, but then I said, “Oh please. Don’t be a dope.” I rented us a room with two big beds, both of which were bolted to the floor. We went across the street to Bob’s Big Boy and ordered some burgers to go. I lugged the cooler, which still had plenty of Dixies, into our room. I was ready for HBO and a comfy bed.

Roxie ate her burger daintily, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the yellow napkin. I pulled a Dixie from the cooler, which was no longer cool. I fished around for the bottle opener. “Damn,” I muttered.

“What’s the issue?” said Roxie.

“I think I forgot my bottle opener in my motel room in Texas,” I said.

“No problemo,” said Roxie. She held her slim fingers out for the beer, and I handed it to her. She lifted the bottle to her mouth, inserted it, and snapped the cap off with her teeth in a clean motion, then handed me the bottle and smiled sweetly. “I did this for my mother,” she said.

“Thanks.” I took a long sip, and then said, “My mother’s dead.”

Roxie looked at me steadily. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Me too,” I said, and I felt tears in my throat.

“You miss her,” said Roxie. I nodded. Roxie watched me sympathetically. Then she opened the cooler, pulled out a Dixie, and cracked it open between her molars. She set the second beer on the table between us. “Now one is waiting,” she said.

We watched the television—an HBO special about pimps—and I cried quietly. The world was so gray now, without my beautiful mom.

At the sight of Denver, its towering buildings and wide highways, Roxie seemed to balk. “What about Montana?” she said, when we stopped to get gas.

“Sorry?”

“What’s in Montana?” she said. “Your husband?”

“No,” I said, “my sister.”

“Is she a cowgirl?” asked Roxie.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I don’t know who she is. She’s missing.”

Roxie raised her eyebrows. “Missing!” she said.

“Yup.”

She let this percolate while I went inside to pay for the gas and some gum. When I got back in the car, Roxie was looking at my map. “Well,” I said, “this is Denver. Here we are.”

“Oh no,” said Roxie. “Let’s go Montana.”

“Let’s go Montana?”

Roxie sighed, rolled her eyes. “Let’s go to Montana,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, turning the engine over, “OK.”

We drove in companionable silence, the road like a snake, the mountains jagged and awesome. When the last of the Spanish-language radio stations faded, Roxie propped her feet on the dashboard and turned to me. “How are you going to find the cowgirl?” she asked.

“You mean my sister?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t answer for a minute. “Well,” I said, finally, “I have a picture of her. I’m going to show it around.”

“Show it around?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure. I’ll get it out at the next stop.” Roxie nodded. She rolled down the window, closing her eyes and letting the cold air spill over her face. Finally, I asked her to put the window back up.

I pulled into the Teton Mart, and while the car was filling with gas, I rummaged through my bag. I took out the folder and opened it on the hood of the car. Roxie leaned in and peered at the photo. “Well, which one?” she said. I pointed to the smiling girl in the picture.

“Oh,” said Roxie, visibly disturbed.

“What do you mean, oh?”

Roxie looked up at me, and shaded her eyes from the sun. Her hair blew around her face. “That girl is not missing,” she said.

“She…she disappeared. When we were small. Everyone thinks she’s dead…but that’s her. It has to be.” I sounded like a mess, even to myself. I sounded desperate.

Roxie looked again at the picture, traced her long fingernail along the side of Ellie’s face. “That girl does not want to be found,” said Roxie. She looked up. “I know,” she said, “she’s like me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” said Roxie. It was true; I did. “Can I have a Big Gulp?” said Roxie. I gave her a five, and she walked toward the log cabin store. The gas tank filled, and I unhooked the pump. I screwed the cap on, and then flicked the gas cover closed. I was holding the folder with trembling fingers.

I knew what I had to do. I took Roxie’s duffel from the back seat, and I placed it on top of the gas pump. I got behind the steering wheel and started the car. I put the car in first.

It was not Roxie: she was a nice enough girl, who had problems of her own. It wasn’t even Ellie, or the painful knowledge that surely awaited me. It wasn’t me, or my mother. It was just loss, pure and simple. Loss—its heavy ache—made the tears run down my cheeks as I pulled out, leaving Roxie behind.

T
HE
T
HUNDERBIRD
M
OTEL
in Missoula, Montana, beckoned to me. It was crowned by an enormous pink sign. I pulled the Wagoneer into the parking lot and went in the door marked “Office.” The man at the front desk looked like Elvis in his later, haggard years.

“All booked up,” he said, not removing the cigarette from between his lips.

“Oh,” I said. I looked around the lobby, taking in the coffeepot, the faded green chairs.

“Amway convention.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You on your honeymoon?” he asked.

I turned back around. What about my unkempt appearance could have made him think I was well loved, satiated, and celebratory? “I’m sorry. Did you say honeymoon?”

He nodded, finally taking the stub from his mouth and dropping it in the metal ashtray on the counter. “Reason is,” he said, “I still got the honeymoon suite.”

I blinked. After a series of shoddy hotel rooms and days spent sitting up in a car, back aching, I was ready for a treat.

“Heart-shaped Jacuzzi,” he said.

“Tempting,” I said.

“Amway convention,” he said, “took up all the rooms in town.”

“Wow.”

“I’ll give you a discount: fifty bucks.” I stood before him, trying to decide if renting a honeymoon suite alone was pathetic or empowering, when he added, “Bottle of champagne included.”

“Deal,” I said.

The room was truly amazing. The heart-shaped tub was just the tiniest bit scummy, and the enormous bed was made up with shiny red sheets. There were faded silk roses strewn willy-nilly around the room, and a dusty copy of The Joy of Sex on the night table where the Gideon Bible should have been. It was open, and I wandered over to peer at the line drawing: a ponytailed man entwined with an ample lady, her arms thrown up in ecstasy, hairy armpits exposed. I was startled by a knock at the door.

“Yes?” I called nervously.

“Got your champagne, lady,” said the man from the front desk.

I opened the door. He held out a bottle and two glasses. “It’s pink champagne,” he said. “I’m Al, by the way.”

“Oh thanks,” I said. “I just need one glass, though.”

“Me, too,” said Al. He gazed around the room forlornly.

“I’m just here on business,” I said, hoping I sounded important.

“Do you like the room?” he asked, and then went on before I could answer, “My wife, she decorated it herself. She was always reading those home and garden magazines.”

“It’s very nice.”

“I told her the roses were too much,” he said. He looked up at me. If you ignored the hairdo Al had sculpted out of Brylcreem, he looked sort of sweet. His eyes were watery. “Do you think the roses are too much?” he asked.

“I think they’re beautiful,” I said.

“She died last year,” said Al. “Cancer took her.”

I nodded. “My mom, um, just died,” I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me.

“She was blond until the end,” said Al. “You know who she said I looked like?”

“No,” I said.

“She said I looked like Elvis. Elvis the Pelvis, she’d call me.”

“Al,” I said, “would you like some champagne?”

He pulled his cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “Why not?” he said.

We popped the cork, and shared the bottle right there, Al and I. We sat at the faux-marble table, on the velvet chairs. We talked about Al’s wife, and my mother. Al said I could call him Elvis if I wanted to.

My plan to find the girl in the photograph was simple. I would start looking in Missoula, where Elvis assured me all the young kids lived, and then I would fan out to Arlee and the surrounding towns.

I made copies of the picture at Bitterroot Copies. With the help of an energetic boy named Stan, I blew up Ellie’s laughing face to life size. Step One in Be Your Own Private Dick was: “Visit local watering holes, supermarkets, and Laundromats with your photograph. be aggressive!” I got a cup of coffee at Food for Thought and set out with a folder of photocopies. I felt my mother cheering me on.

By four, however, I was exhausted and dispirited. Nobody had seen Ellie, and it seemed that a missing person in Montana was no occasion for excitement. In fact, in a shop window I saw a T-shirt that read: montana. The last, best place…to hide! The Laundromat workers and supermarket clerks sighed when I pulled out the grainy picture, and directed me to bulletin boards already filled with faces of lost friends, husbands, children, and dogs. I tacked Ellie’s picture up over other, older posters. I wrote my hotel and room number on the bottom of each copy.

I saved the watering holes for last. By nightfall, they were packed with students and drunks. I ordered a Scotch at Al & Vic’s, my first stop. The bartender was a genial man named Lew, and the bar was attached to Fran’s Hi-Way Café, from which I ordered a fish sandwich. Lew had not seen Ellie.

“Sort of looks like a lot of girls,” he noted, lighting a Pall Mall.

I scrutinized the photo. “I guess so,” I said.

“Dark hair, nice smile,” continued Lew. He added, “They all start out that way.” He gestured to a woman who appeared to be asleep in the corner. “She started out that way.”

“She still has dark hair,” I said.

“True,” said Lew. “Haven’t seen her smile in some time, though.”

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Goes by Lorna.”

I nodded. Yet another worn woman, a redhead, brought my fish sandwich to the bar. I showed her Ellie’s picture, and she brought it close to her face. “Sort of looks like that stripper,” she said.

Good Lord. “What stripper?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

“I wouldn’t know no stripper,” said Lew, looking jumpy.

“She comes in for eggs, some mornings,” said the red-haired woman. “Hangs out at Charley B’s. And Mulligan’s, ’course.”

I looked around frantically for a pen. Lew slid a dull pencil over the bar, and I wrote on my napkin, “Charley B’s. Mulligan’s.” The red-haired woman pulled a cigarette from behind her ear and lit it. “She owe you money?”

“No,” I said. “Who’s Charley B?”

“Dead,” said Lew. “Good man, but he had a temper.”

“Charley B’s is his bar,” said the woman. She pointed through the dirty front window. “Right down Higgins,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. I ate my sandwich quickly. It was terrible: salty and overcooked.

“Charley B,” said Lew, “he liked his rum and Cokes, I’ll tell you that.”

“Shut up, honey,” said the woman, and Lew did.