Foreign Exchange (20 page)

“Actually, we haven’t had much time for sightseeing. We’re looking for this girl.” I point to Tristan and then
to Sawyer. “His sister.” I rub my thumb along the top of my key card nervously as all five girls’ attention move to the picture.

“Oh, I remember her!” Hoop Girl says. “She was staying here at the hostel
, yes?”

“Was?” Sawyer and I both say at the same time.

Hoop Girl laughs. “I don’t know, perhaps she’s still here. I’ve been here for two weeks, and I’m certain I’ve seen her around a few times.”

“So, like
, how long ago?” Sawyer asks.

She shakes her head. “I’m not
entirely sure. She isn’t in my dorm, so I haven’t paid a whole heap of attention. She’s in Milan though, yes?”

“We hope so,” Sawyer murmurs.

Hoop Girl goes on, this time about all the sightseeing tours she’s been on in the last week. At the end of her spiel, when she finally takes a breath, she adds, “As you can see, it would have been no trouble for me to have missed your sister, with all I’ve been up to.”

This doesn’t make me feel much better. “Which room are you in?” I ask, holding up my key card so she knows what I
’m talking about. At the very least I can narrow down one of the rooms Tristan has not been staying in.

Hoop Gir
l takes the card from me. “What is the 8B for?”

“It’s our room number. To let us in,” I tell her. “You don’t have your number on yours?”

She shakes her head. “The dorms don’t lock. I suppose with everyone coming in at all hours of the night it wouldn’t make much sense, would it? We do have cubbies though,” she adds as an afterthought.

Cubbies in unlocked rooms. Okay, there’s something I can work with. “And how do you know which one is yours?” I ask.

“I arrived during a slow patch, so they put me in room one. Only four beds in there.” She looks pleased with this, and I wonder how many beds are in the other dorm rooms.

“So there’s more than one girls’ dorm?” I ask, like I’m stupid.

She nods, and her hoops trail slightly behind the motion of her head. “Three in all. And I’ve heard they’re almost always packed to the gills. This is one of the safer areas in Milan for girls traveling alone.”

Another good reason for Tristan to have been here. To
be
here, I mean. To be here.

“Okay, well, thanks,” I say, reaching for my picture and pushing out
of my chair. “We should…” I look at Sawyer and motion toward our room. “We need to make a phone call before it gets too late,” I say. It’s true. We should probably try to call Matt and Amelia to make sure our cover will hold back in Barcelona, but my real reason to rush back, is to lay out my new-forming plan for Sawyer.

Chapter Nineteen

Fifteen minutes later, I’ve excitedly explained my plan to Sawyer. Looking for Tristan and her belongings suddenly seems so easy.

I
sneak down the empty hall toward Room Two. It’s not far from the office, and I don’t want Curly from the front desk to see me if I can help it.

I left my sneakers back in our room, so my socks move silently
past the closed doors. I put my ear to the door of Room Two. It’s only ten o’clock, so I suspect most people won’t be turning in just yet. When I don’t hear anything, I place my hand on the knob and turn slowly.

There’s a bit of a squeak when I push open the door,
so I still it for a second, holding my breath, but there’s no sound from inside. I give the door another shove, and thankfully, it's silent.

I don’t switch on the light. Instead, I brought my
international cell phone, and I click it on to give a bit of glow to the room. There’s a lump in one lower bunk and now that I’m inside and listening carefully, I can hear slow, methodic breathing. I move closer. Her hair is reddish brown. Not Tristan.

Deep breath
. I have to try and do this with someone else in the room.

I look around at the
six beds, plus a row of lockers at the far end—the cubbies Hoop Girl had told us about. There’s nothing telling about any of the beds—just the hostel-issued sheets and blankets on each one.

I tiptoe toward the lockers.

Sawyer gave me a combination to try. When I was in our room explaining my plan to him—to check out the other two rooms for Tristan or her belongings—he told me he knows her combination in case her things are locked up.

I hadn’t thought that far in advance. “How do you know her combination?” I had asked.

“Tris and I got locks for our gym lockers my first year of high school. Tris had been all adamant that she should have the first pick, because she has more problems remembering numbers. But both combinations turned out to be exactly the same.”

I head for the bank of six wide lockers, armed with my cell phone light and palm full of
neatly scrawled numbers. The first two locks are padlocks that require keys. I skip past those and try to ignore the thoughts that are telling me that Tristan could have easily picked up a new lock in Italy. How likely would it be that she’d remembered to pack her gym combination lock?

Then again,
she seemed to think of so many things that wouldn’t have occurred to me.

The third lock is sticky, but I dial the numbers twice and surmise that this one is definitely not it. Number four is a black comb
ination lock, and Sawyer had specifically said Tristan’s was silver.

I’m just dialing the third number on locker number five when the door
swings open behind me. The sliver of light from the hallway allows me to find the third number quickly, and I don’t turn back to see who it is, hoping she’ll just ignore me and get into bed.

But just as I’m pulling at the lock, she’s there. Right over my shoulder.

“What the hell are you doing with my lock?” It’s American English, but I’m not happy to hear it.

She’s a big butch of a
girl with frizzy blonde hair and an angry face. I’d seen her in the common room, but I was guessing Sawyer would leave her for questioning last. The lock doesn’t pop open, obviously, and this is clearly not Tristan standing over me.

I
cough, trying to buy some time. Then cough again.

“I asked you a question, honey.” The cutesy name sounds anything but sweet
coming from her.

I stumble back a bit. “Oh…sh
hhhooot,” I say, slurring the word. “In the dark, I guesssss I got thhhe wrong one.”

She stands there staring, but the door has shut and my cell phone eventually goes to black. I have to click it back on to see anything
. The girl doesn’t move. She’s waiting to watch me get into my own locker. Obviously.

There’s one
locker left. Otherwise I have to fake that I’m so drunk that I wandered into the completely wrong room, and I suspect American Butch Girl won't have the patience for that story.

I fumble with my cell phone, trying to get the light to stay on, and hop
e she’ll take my clumsiness for drunkenness. I have to glance at my hand for the numbers, and so she doesn’t get suspicious, I mumble the words, “New lock.”

My hands are slippery
with sweat as I dial in the first number. I have to hit my cell phone light again, but in the process, it slips out of my hand and clatters to the floor. I scramble to pick it up. This whole fiasco makes Butch Girl sigh and back away toward her bunk. I can still feel her watching me, but at least she’s not hovering.

Thankfully I didn’t kill my cell phone and the light still works. I check the combination numbers and dial them in as quickly as I can, wanting to get this over with. But before I pull the lock, I
think of what to say when it doesn’t open. Will she believe me if I say, “Isn’t this Room Three?”

I doubt it, but it’s the best I’ve got. I close my eyes
, say a little prayer, and yank on the lock.

The thing is
… it opens.

I can’t believe it. My hands are around Tristan’s lock. Tristan has been here
! In this room. In this very spot. Butch Girl seems to have lost interest, but not me. I’m riveted.
What will be inside?

I slowly, silently, lift off the lock, and ease the door open. It’s not empty. There’s a large red duffel bag inside. The same one
Tristan’s dad had lugged into their car two weeks ago.

I wonder if Butch Girl will notice that I have the exact same bag as the last girl from this locker. I’m not sure how to ask
about Tristan, but I know somehow I have to. I try to keep my slurry voice going.

“Um
mmm, do you know who had thissss locker beforrre me?” I ask in a loud whisper, still trying to sound drunk, but also not wanting to wake the other sleeping girl. I’m not very good at it, but I push on. “I sense her aura or sssshomethingggg,” I add. Might as well add flaky to drunk, if it’ll get me an answer.

Butch Girl doesn’t say anything, just lies back on her bed. I know I can’t force an answer out of her, so I turn back and pry the red bag out of the locker. I need to search it, and I’m not going to do that in front of
this girl.

Once I get the
bag out and on the floor, I pull a pre-prepared note from my back pocket. It tells Tristan to call me on my international cell, the moment she gets this, even if it’s the middle of the night, and that I’m on her side no matter what. Sawyer and I had argued about it, but I finally convinced him that we should just put my name and number on the note, hoping she’ll trust me enough to call if she thinks I'm alone. I slip it into her locker and snap the lock back on.

I heft the bag over my shoulder and walk for the door, but Butch Girl’s sudden voice stops me in place.

“There was a girl with long, dark hair. Can’t tell you anything else about her or her
aura
.”

I
'm not sure if she’s being serious or mocking. But Tristan has long, dark hair. I try to ask when she'd last seen her, but Butch Girl just turns away from me and sighs.

When I get back to
room 8B, my hands are too shaky to reach for my key card. I give two quick knocks, and Sawyer must be standing right near the door, because he flings it open a second later.

He looks at me, looks down at the red bag,
then looks at me again. His eyes are wide and instantly teary. He pulls me into a hug, squeezing me so tightly I can barely breathe. But I don’t want him to let go either. I can feel his hope coursing through me, as if his veins are connected to mine.

When we
hear two male voices behind us in the hallway, he pulls me inside, and picks up Tristan’s heavy bag. And it
is
heavy. I can hardly believe Tristan hauled it around Milan by herself.

“She must have stayed in one place,” I say, thinking out loud.
“She couldn’t have hauled this with her.”

“She also had a rolling
carry-on when she left,” Sawyer says. “No sign of that one?” When I shake my head, he says, “I bet she keeps her modeling stuff with her.” Sawyer hoists the red bag up onto our bed.

Our bed.
Just thinking those words makes me shiver involuntarily. It’s getting late. Are we actually going to stay here tonight?  Together?

But I’m distracted
from those thoughts when Sawyer pulls the zipper open to Tristan’s familiar clothes. I let out a little noise from the back of my throat.

Sawyer lifts out a purple silk scarf of hers.

“She’s really been here,” I say, more to myself than anything. I walk over to pick up her favorite ratty cardigan. But when I look over at Sawyer, I suddenly have this sense that we’re treasuring the leftover belongings of a dead girl.

I drop the
cardigan like it’s on fire. “We need to see if there’s anything significant in here. Any papers or anything.” My curt tone surprises me.

Sawyer pulls the scarf to his face. I can’t tell if he’s squeezing his forehead with it to release tension or if he’s wiping his eyes, but a second later, he drops the scarf and simply says, “Yup.”

We pull out all the clothes. I have a quick thought of wearing her pajamas to bed, but that thought collides with the idea of being in bed with her brother.

In the front pocket, Sawyer finds some papers. He fans them out on the bed. “Even her passport is here,” he says. “She
wouldn’t have left Italy.”

I’m surprisingly relie
ved to hear this, even though the thought of her leaving the country hadn’t occurred to me.

Sawyer is still
scouring the rest of her papers, and says, “Look! I think it’s another modeling agency letter.”

I pick up an envelope with a return address of simply “Modeling.”

It’s already opened, so I pull out the letter from inside. It has the exact same wording as the letter we looked at in the last modeling agency, only with a different header. I make a mental note, in case we need to check that one out tomorrow.

Tomorrow.
It seems forever away. Things will certainly be different by then.

I scan the letter once more, and stop on that last paragraph
, talking about breaking in at a local fitness festival. It’s circled in blue pen on her copy.

“I think she entered this
,” I say, pointing to the Venice date.

Sawyer doesn’t respond, and looks skeptical. “Read it to me again,” he says.

I do, translating it the best I can. When I get to the last bit, I can’t help emphasizing the words that I think would have drawn Tristan in. “Many agencies in the country regularly
scout
the fitness festivals and it can be a great way to
break in
.”

When I’m done, he still
doesn't look convinced. But I know this is it. I know it.

“I left the note,” I tell him. “In her locker.”

He brightens a little, so I go on.

“
Or maybe she’s still trying the agencies around Milan. Maybe she’s actually been modeling and that’s why she’s had to keep her phone turned off. She’ll probably get back here later tonight and call me, and it’ll all be fine.” Except, I add to myself, that she may want to stay in Europe, while Sawyer will want to try to take her back home. Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to any of us until she has something solidified. As much as I care about Sawyer, I still really feel for Tristan. As long as she’s safe and okay emotionally. Those are the important things right now.

And by the look on Sawyer’s face, I think I may have convinced him she
is.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, his shoulders com
ing down with it. For once, neither of us needs to tell the other one everything’s going to be okay. We can feel the calm that’s washing over both of us. I drop the letter on top of the rest of her papers.

Sawyer
reaches up like he’s going to touch my face, but his hand hovers there for a second before pulling it away.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. It’s more than okay. I want him to touch me, to comfort me, to hold me. We’re finally in a place where we can concentrate on each other. I’ve made sure my cell phone is on and working. Tristan will call when she gets my message
. She’ll need her passport and the eight hundred American dollars we found in her luggage. Eventually she’ll need them, even if she is angry or hurt. Until then, Sawyer and I can just think of…this. Us.

“Are you sure?” he asks in barely a whisper.

I blink, but my eyes feel like they’re moving in slow motion. “I’m sure.”

He reaches out again, this time with purpose, but his touch on my face is gentle. He just holds his hand there, so softly, and I’m confused why he thought he had to ask permission for this. It feels so good, his warm hand resting on me, his thumb stroking my cheek, and I just want to melt into him.