Wherever Nina Lies (2 page)

F
or three nights after Nina vanished, I didn’t sleep. I just lay in my bed, my head inches from the open window, the thick, humid late June air blowing against my skin like hot breath. Waiting.

When I would hear the sound of a car in the distance, approaching the house, my heart would start thumping so hard I could feel it throughout my entire body. I would imagine my sister inside this car, and that at any moment I would hear the sounds of her coming home: the faint click of a car door opening and the sudden rush of all the noises from the inside of the car coming out, laughing, whispering, the thump of music with a heavy bass line, loud for a split second before someone turns it down, a pause, car door slam, the quick
slap, slap, slap
of flip-flops against driveway, the crunch of a key in the front door, and the slow creak of the door opening. And then the almost soundless padding of my sister tiptoeing up the carpeted stairs. I would bite my lip and squeeze my hands into fists, hoping, hoping, hoping
to hear this, but every single time the car would drive past without even slowing down, and I would feel the weight of disappointment, so heavy I’d almost stop breathing. The adrenalized high of hope, the crush of losing it, over and over thirty times a night. Exhausting, sure, but never enough to let me sleep.

During those three days, I wandered around in a haze. Time stopped meaning anything, faces all blurred together. I forgot words. A serious lack of sleep can feel a lot like a drug but a bad drug that no one would ever do on purpose.

Finally, on the fourth night, all that adrenaline was trumped by the feeling of wet cement coating my eyelids and filling the inside of my skull. As soon as I lay down, I was sucked through my bed into the center of the earth where my brain finally released the thoughts I could not allow it to have during the day. At first it seemed like I hadn’t fallen asleep at all, because my dream started off with me awake in my bed. I got up, to use the bathroom, and saw a clump of Nina’s hair, the bright ocean blue she’d dyed it a week before she vanished, wet and matted at the bottom of the tub. I felt a flood of relief so huge it almost knocked me over, because this meant Nina was here, had been here all along, and, silly me, I just hadn’t noticed her. I laughed. And then leaned down, picked up the hair—it felt heavy, like wet rope in my hand. I held it up, but only then did I notice the ragged
chunk of skin clinging to the end of it, like raw meat. And I didn’t have to wonder, I knew exactly what this meant.

Then everything went black and I heard only a high-pitched animal scream until I woke up, the sound ringing in my ears, unsure whether it came from inside me or from outside.

H
ere are the facts, just the facts, everything I know, which is barely anything at all: Two years ago, on the afternoon of June 24, Nina Melissa Wrigley disappeared. She’d gone out in the late afternoon, and then, she just never came back.

When she was gone, she was
gone.
She didn’t have a MySpace page or a Facebook account or a cell phone. All her stuff remained in her room exactly as it always had been—clothes in piles on the floor, tubes of hair dye on the nightstand, sketch pads and drawing pencils and pastels and pots of ink scattered everywhere. The only thing in her room that was in any way notable was the graduation gown hanging in her closet—Nina had graduated from high school a week before. She’d turned eighteen two months before that.

Nina was an amazing artist. That might sound like an opinion, but I think it’s fair to say it’s a fact because no one who saw her drawings ever disagreed. She could draw a photographic reproduction of absolutely anything. But real skill, her
skill, wasn’t in drawing things that were obviously there, but noticing and capturing things that weren’t—the weird angle of the sunlight in late winter, the slightly scared expression on a person’s face that even they’re not aware of making.

Nina made everything into art. She inked elaborate landscapes onto the soles of her Converse, and covered her tank tops in portraits of the people she saw on the street. Every few weeks she’d dye her hair a different bright crayon color to match whatever was going on in her life at the time. Two weeks before she disappeared she’d decided to dye it blue, “graduation-hat blue,” she’d called it. I remember sitting in the kitchen with her, watching from my seat at the table, as she squeezed the dye onto her head, swirling it around like someone squirting ketchup onto a plate of fries. “There’s some left,” she’d said when she finished. She’d held the bottle up and shook it around. “You want a streak, Belly?” And I’d nodded, thrilled to be included, even though my stomach was already filling with anxiety about what my mother would say when she saw it. Nina chose a chunk behind my left ear and coated it. I remember exactly how the dye felt on my head, cold and heavy. I’d put a paper towel on my shoulder to catch the drips. And then we just sat there, just the two of us while the dye did its thing, making jokes and laughing and dancing along with some song she put on the stereo. I remember thinking this was a sign that finally, finally, I was old enough for Nina and I to really be friends, not older-sister/younger-sister friends, but real friends who
just so happened to be related and I was so happy. Nina hadn’t been home much around then, and when she was it was like she was there and not there at the same time. But I remember thinking that day, as we sat there surrounded by the sweet smell of chemicals, that this was the start of something new, that everything would be different after this. And it was, just not in the ways I’d imagined.

Two weeks later, Nina was gone, a dye-stained towel left in a ball on her floor. I never did show my mother the streak in my hair, or anyone else for that matter. I wore my hair down until it faded away so Nina and I were the only two people who ever saw it.

Here’s another thing about my sister: Nina did what she wanted. She wasn’t reckless, but she didn’t worry about things other people worried about—getting in trouble, getting laughed at, looking stupid. She pool hopped late at night and cut class and talked to strangers. She was the type of person who, if she saw a guy wearing a big cowboy hat that she liked, would say, “Hey, cowboy! Can I try on your hat?” And he’d probably end up letting her keep it.

When she was sixteen, she started sneaking out at night. She’d go to bed like regular, and I’d only know she snuck out because I’d hear her tiptoeing back up the stairs just before the sun came up, smelling like a mix of alcohol and smoke and her ginger orange perfume. What she was off doing, I don’t really know. She was never barfing drunk, just at most a little giggly. And when I’d ask her where she’d been, her
response would usually be a wink or a grin. Nina was an expert at dodging questions.

For a while my mother tried to stop her from sneaking out, but my dad had left us by that point and our mother was working nights most of the time and so there was not much she could do. Besides, Nina was always, always, always home by morning. Well, except until she wasn’t.

I wish this next fact weren’t true, but it is and there’s nothing I can do about it now: The very last time I ever saw Nina, I yelled at her. She’d been about to eat one of the ice-cream sandwiches I’d asked our mom to get from the store. And I stopped her, shouted something about how it was my ice cream and if she wasn’t going to be around then she wasn’t allowed to eat it. It was incredibly petty, and terribly stupid. I was just hurt because she hadn’t been around much, and I wanted her to be sorry about it. And I thought somehow yelling was the best way to make that happen. But she just looked up at me. “Okay, Belly,” she said. “I’ll go put it back, okay? I’ll just go put it back.” And I remember the exact expression on her face then, not angry, just a little confused and a little hurt, like she just couldn’t figure out why I’d been so mad. For months after she was gone I would replay this scene over and over in my head, imagining a different version of this story in which I let her eat the ice-cream sandwich, in which I gave her the entire box of them, as though somehow that could have prevented what happened next.

Another unfortunate fact: When Nina first vanished, my mother barely seemed to notice. I guess when you spend all night working at the hospital and have seen some of the things she’s seen, your worry bar is set a little higher than most people’s. “Your sister’s not missing” is all my mother had said. “She’s just not here.” And any argument on my part, that Nina would never just leave us like that, that Nina would never leave
me
like that, she barely seemed to register. I wanted my mother to be concerned, too, so I didn’t have to carry this all on my own. But all I got was my mother’s somber exhaustion. And what, I swear, seemed like the tiniest hint of relief. Certain lines in my mother’s face seemed to soften, like she’d been clenching her jaw for eighteen years and only now could finally relax.

I gave up on the idea of my mother doing anything and took matters into my own hands. I printed
Have You Seen My Sister?
signs on Amanda’s parents’ fancy color printer and Amanda and I hung them up all over town. I called as many of her friends whose names I could remember. I even called our father (who left us when I was seven), who I had not spoken to in over two years. The connection was bad and I had to yell my name three times before he understood who I was. Finally, I called the police. But when they arrived at our house, my mother sent me out of the room. She talked with them in hushed tones in the kitchen over glasses of weak iced tea she’d made from a mix. They left about twenty minutes
later looking rather unconcerned, while my mother rinsed their glasses out in the sink.

But then the phone calls came. First a few, and then a flood of them, all at once. I don’t know if they were from one person or from many because my mother instructed me to stop answering the phone. I remember one night, it was very late and I was supposed to be in bed and the phone rang, the phone had been ringing all day. I went to my mother’s doorway and watched her through the crack between the frame and the door. She was sitting on her bed in her bathrobe. I could only see her back. “Nina’s not home,” my mother was saying into the phone. Her voice sounded funny, like she was talking under water.

“No.” Pause. “No, I haven’t.” Pause. “I don’t know.” Pause. “Nina’s not the kind of girl who informs her mother of her whereabouts.” Pause. “So stop calling here.”

Then she hung up. And she just sat there for the longest time after that, phone cradled in her lap, head hanging down, shoulders shaking as she wiped her face over and over with her hands, barely making any sound at all.

S
itting on the floor of Attic, I’m trying to remain completely still, which somehow feels necessary and important, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I know how fragile things can be, and if I move, I’m afraid I’ll pop the bubble of this moment and it will turn out that I’ve imagined the entire thing. I will look down and the doodles will be someone else’s doodles, or gone entirely. I’ve had this happen before…thought something meant one thing when really it meant nothing at all. But I have waited too long for this to let go so easily.

I don’t know how much time passes before Amanda says, “Oh shit.” And I look up.

There are so many questions bouncing around inside my head, each trying to get turned into words first. But I make myself take a breath, as much as part of me wants to GO GO GO, part of me needs to slow this down, to hold onto this moment for just a second longer, because right now whatever’s going to happen next hasn’t happened yet, and
moments of thinking
maybe
are so much better than stretches of knowing
no
. But I can’t wait any longer so I take another breath and say, “Now what?”

I’m not even sure who I’m asking.

I look back down at Nina’s drawing, at my own face. And then I flip the card over. On the other side, the little piece of cardboard has been printed to look like a credit-card—Bank of the USA at the top in blue letters next to a little blue and white symbol,
Your Name Goes Here
in a typewriter font under a fake card number at the bottom. I flip the card back again.

And then I gasp because all of a sudden, for the first time since my sister disappeared two years ago,
I know exactly what I’m supposed to do next.
Swirled in with the leaves and vines next to my face is a phone number.
303-555-6271.
I know the number must have been there all along and I just didn’t notice it before, but part of me feels like the number didn’t even appear until just now, like I willed it into existence by wanting it so badly.

“The phone,” I say. “I need the phone.”

Amanda takes the phone off Morgette’s desk and hands it to me.

And somehow I manage to dial.

The phone is ringing.

Someone picks up. First there’s loud music, a guitar, heavy drums, and a second later, “
He
llo.” It’s a guy. Southern maybe.

“Hi.” My heart is pounding.

“Hey there.” He’s definitely Southern. He sounds amused.

“Hello.” My mouth is suddenly frozen.

“Can I help you with something?”

I should have planned this out.

“Do you know a girl named Nina Wrigley?” The words tumble out fast. My heart squeezes when I say her name and I realize this is the first time in a very long time that I’ve even said it out loud.

There’s a pause. “What’s that now?” Someone has turned the music down in the background.

“Nina Wrigley.”

He doesn’t say anything. I close my eyes. “Do you know her?” I hold my breath. I don’t want him to answer too fast. I want just half a second more of not knowing, of getting to hope.

“Am I supposed to?” The guy sounds suspicious, like he’s being set up for something.

“She wrote your phone number down on a piece of paper, maybe a long time ago. So you at least met her at some point. You don’t remember her?”

“Sorry, sugar.” He snorts a laugh. “If I remembered every girl who has my phone number, I wouldn’t have enough room left in my brain to remember to wipe my ass after I took a dump.”

I feel my heart starting its slow descent toward the floor. “I’m sure you do meet a lot of people, but she’s the type of girl people usually remember. She’s really pretty, about five foot six, always had her hair dyed crazy colors…”

He doesn’t say anything.

“She definitely got your number from you at some point.”

“I told you I didn’t know her.” His tone is less friendly now. He pauses again. “Deb put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“No,” I say. “Who’s Deb?”

“
Who’s Deb?
Yeah, right.” He curses under his breath. “Listen, sugar, I don’t know
Nina
and I never gave my phone number to any girls, okay? So you can just go tell your little buddy Deb that she should leave me the hell alone. Tell Deb I broke up with her for a reason and that reason is that she’s a crazy jealous stalker, and if she and all her friends don’t quit calling me, I’m going to get a restraining order…” He stops talking and I hear a woman’s voice in the background, “Who are you on the phone with?!” And then a quick whispered “I swear I’ll fucking do it,” and then he hangs up.

Amanda has crouched down next to me on the floor. “What happened?”

I have to turn away because I don’t want to start crying. “Just some guy who has no idea who she is.” I try to say this matter-of-factly, force a shrug. After two years of this you’d think I would be used to it—the thrill of getting to
hope, the black pit of knowing there is no point in hoping. Maybe this is just not something people are designed to get used to.

Amanda nods and puts her arm around me, because she’s heard this story about a thousand times before, because she’s been here with me for all of this. Because she is the closest thing I have to a sister now.

I let my head rest against her shoulder, breathe in the smell of her expensive hair products.

“Oh, El,” Amanda says. And we sit there like this for a moment and then I start lacing up those silly gold sandals because I’m just not sure what else to do. I crisscross the gold straps around my ankles and try to focus on the fact that I really have a pretty good tan already this year. It’s nice to have a good tan. And it’s nice to have a nice pair of shoes and these are the things I am going to think about right now. I turn to Amanda and force a smile, stick my foot out in front of me and shake it around.

“I mean, no matter what happens, at least my feet will look fashionable, right?”

Amanda smiles back, and I can tell she’s relieved that I’m trying, that I’m not letting myself sink into that familiar pit. But then before she can say anything, I realize something. And I almost let out a laugh because it is so obvious. I get up and run.

“Seeing my day like this is such an eye-opener,” Amanda says, grinning. It’s a few minutes later, and Amanda and I are sitting in Morgette’s office, watching the Attic surveillance tape on fast-forward. “Because I kinda thought I actually did some work during the day sometimes, but as it turns out…nope!”

I nod and smile, even though I’m not really listening. All my attention is focused on the tiny little people zipping around on the tiny little TV: There’s Amanda putting on lip-gloss, there’s a girl walking in, there are three girls going through the clothes racks, there’s a couple who seem to be fighting, there’s a girl around our age popping a zit in the mirror when she thinks no one is looking. There’s Amanda experimenting with many different hairstyles.

“It’s kind of hypnotizing,” Amanda says, shaking her head. “I should have stopped at the high pony, that one looked best.”

A few people come to the counter with bags of stuff to drop off, but so far no one has appeared with the big white box. The big white box that contained the book that contained the drawing that just might somehow lead me to Nina. Some guy walks in carrying a big box. I inhale and hold my breath. But he puts it down near the door, tries on a belt, goes to the counter with the belt, discusses the belt with Morgette, picks up his box, and leaves.

Amanda takes a deep breath, she lets it out. “El, I’m not trying to be a bitch here, and you know that I would do
anything that I could to help you, but what exactly do you think watching this is going to do? Even if we see someone dropping off a box full of what looks to be books and
maybe
one of them is the book that you found Nina’s doodle in, then what? You’re going to track him down how? Because unless he has his name and address tattooed on the top of his head, it’s going to be pretty impossible…”

But I tune her out completely then because
there he is
.

Stop. Rewind. Play. He looks a few years older than us, wearing longish cargo shorts and a white T-shirt, pale blond hair, skinny arms covered in tattoos, holding a big white cardboard box up at the counter. I stop the tape and put my finger over the tiny guy on the screen, pressing so hard my finger turns white. I hit play and watch as he puts the box on the counter, says something, Morgette nods, he hands the box to Morgette, she takes it to the scale, weighs it, comes back to the counter, hands him some money. And then he starts walking toward the door and then, right past where Amanda is trying on hats, then turns back and…this is the perfect part—he goes over to this community bulletin board that Morgette has hanging near the door, takes something out of his pocket, and sticks it up on the board. And then he’s gone.

I turn toward Amanda who is looking at me with her eyes wide. “Oh!” I say.

I run through Morgette’s office, out into the main room, and stop in front of the bulletin board. Amanda is at my side.

“Ellie?” Her voice sounds strained. She puts her hand on my arm and when I turn toward her she’s looking at me with such concern that for a second I think she’s maybe about to cry. “We don’t have any idea how her drawing got into that book, or when she drew it, or how the guy who brought the book here even got it, I mean he could have bought it at a garage sale or found it on the street or…something.” She stops herself and shakes her head. But I don’t let it hurt me. I know why Amanda is saying this. We’ve been down this road before.

When Nina first vanished, finding her was all I talked about and all I thought about. And there were at least a dozen times when I was sure I was
this close
to finding her. Like the time I saw a girl on the street with hair the exact blue color Nina’s had been when she left and spent an hour following this girl so I could ask her questions, as though maybe she and Nina were part of some Girls With Blue Hair club and by locating one member I’d be led to the rest. (The girl turned out to be visiting from Russia and didn’t speak a word of English.) Or the time I found a crumpled-up ad for an art supply store in the pocket of an old pair of Nina’s jeans and spent three hours each way on the bus going to this store, only to find that they’d gone out of business. For each of these occasions and the dozens like it, Amanda was always right there with me, as supportive as a best friend could be. And each time when the “clues” led nowhere, as they inevitably did, and I was newly crushed as though Nina
had just vanished all over again, Amanda was right there helping put me back together. As time went on, the possibility that one of these mazes might actually lead to my sister seemed smaller and smaller. And I guess eventually Amanda decided that helping me wasn’t actually helping me at all anymore.

So I know what she’s trying to say, but I’m also not going to listen.

I turn back to the bulletin board. I feel my face spreading into a smile.

“Ellie…”

I reach my hand out and take the flier off the wall. I’m not sinking anymore. I’m floating up, up, up, because
here it is.
Bright red paper covered in bold black handwriting. This is so obviously his. And I know there can be only one explanation for this—this is fate. So whatever happens next, it’s going to work out, and it’s going to be perfect. I’ve waited far too long for it not to be.

YOU HAVE HEREBY BEEN CORDIALLY INVITED TO A HOUSEWRECKING PARTY AT THE MOTHERSHIP (349 Belmont Ave) Come help us tear this sucker down.

For 15 years we’ve been home to a rotating band of musicians, artists, transients, travelers, angels, devils, do-gooders, and ne’er-do-wells.

But we’ve lost our lease , an era is ending, the time has come to say goodbye.

Bring your hammers, your crowbars, your spray paint, and your cameras, because after tonight your pictures and your memories will be all that’s left.

Friday, June 27th, from dusk til dust