Let's Get Lost (2 page)

“General tune-up,” Hudson replied. “Filters, fluids, spark plugs. A new V-belt.”

“I can finish up for you. You should get some rest for tomorrow.”

“I'm almost done,” Hudson said, already sensing the discomfort he felt any time he had to ask his dad about something Hudson knew his dad wouldn't approve of. “There's just...” He looked back to see whether the girl was within earshot. “Well, this girl, she wants me to show her around town.” He waited to see if his dad would run a hand through his graying hair, his telltale sign of disapproval. “I promise I'll be back for dinner,” Hudson added.

His dad glanced at his old Timex. “One hour,” he said, adding a reminder about how early Hudson would have to get up tomorrow to drive the fifty miles to the University of Mississippi campus in Jackson. “We don't want you to be too tired.”

“I won't be, I promise,” he said, tiny fantasies of the next hour with the girl already flooding his head. The back of their hands grazing against each other—not entirely by accident—as they walked; her leg resting against his as they sat somewhere together, getting to know each other. Already racking his mind for places where he could take her, Hudson thanked his dad with a quick hug and then went back to the front of the car. The girl had a hand resting on the hood, staring vaguely at the engine block. “I just have a couple more things to do, and then we can get going,” he said.

“Great.” Her lips spread into a warm, genuine smile, and she held out her hand. “By the way, I'm Leila.”

He wiped his hand off on his work pants and said his name as he shook her hand.
Months
, he thought to himself, his fingers practically buzzing at the touch of her skin.
I'll be thinking about her for months.

2

AFTER HE WAS
done fixing Leila's car, Hudson went to the back of the shop to change out of his work clothes while Leila settled the bill with his dad. When he came out, he saw her sitting in the front passenger seat of her idling car.

“I'm driving?” he asked as he opened the driver-side door.

“You're the tour guide,” she said, making a sweeping gesture with her arm as if to indicate that the world beyond the windshield was vast and unexplored. “Guide me.”

She smiled at him, and he thought to himself that she was exceptionally good at smiling. He shifted the car into drive and pulled out onto the street, wondering where to take her, how to get her to smile more often. The obvious treasure was the oxbow, but it was too far away. Everything that was nearby held fond memories—the Coca-Cola museum he'd gone to on every birthday until he was twelve, the ice cream shop that invited its customers to suggest new, strange flavors and had once taken up Hudson's request for Bacon Chocolate—but the only way to transplant memories onto places and make them feel like treasures to her was to talk. He usually didn't have trouble talking to girls, even beautiful ones, but while he didn't quite feel tongue-tied around her, he didn't know how to begin. “It's very red in here,” he said at last.

“I know. It's pretty much why I bought it. It was love at first sight.”

“So I'm going to go out on a limb and assume red is your favorite color.”

“I like red—don't get me wrong. But I have a deep appreciation for anything that is willing to be totally and utterly itself. If you're going to be red, well, then, be red, goddamnit. From your steering wheel to your hubcaps, be red.”

Hudson could only nod to himself. He'd never met anyone who talked this way, the way he thought. The brakes chirped loudly as he slowed for a stop sign, and he assured Leila that they worked fine. They just liked to sing. He turned left on Maryland so that the sun wouldn't blind him while he thought of something to show Leila. “What about you?” he asked after completing the turn. “What are you?”

“Me?” she said, feigning innocence. She kicked off her flip-flops and put her feet up on the dashboard. Hudson imagined what it would be like to be her boyfriend, which was the first time he'd ever had such a thought without immediately dismissing it. To go on long drives with her as she sang along shyly to music, to lie on the grass somewhere and confess things to each other, find ways to cuddle around movie-theater cup-holders. “I am a treasure-tourist. And my tour guide has yet to show me a single treasure. Where are we going?”

Hudson took her toward downtown. They passed a couple of motel chains off the highway, a spattering of restaurant and fast-food places, everything flat and that shade of beige that felt duller than gray. Nothing felt like enough of a treasure to show Leila.

Afraid that she'd grow bored, though, Hudson turned the car into the parking lot of the bowling alley as soon as he saw it. Through the large windowpane he could see that the place was full, fluorescent balls rolling down the eighteen lanes in varying speeds, ending in silent white explosions of pins.

“When I was a kid, I came to a slumber party here,” he said, looking out at the squat, sky-blue building. He was flooded by warm memories of the night and wished there was a way to share them with Leila, to show her just how special it had actually been. “We bowled until two in the morning and then set up our sleeping bags on the lanes. Any time I drive by here, I wonder how many other kids have had the chance to sleep in a bowling alley before.”

Hudson stared out the windshield, admiring how the bowling alley's façade matched the cloudless sky, the tacky and faded window art that had been there since his childhood. He noticed Leila glancing around and realized he'd been quiet for a while. “C'mon, I'll show you around.”

* * *

The place was loud with the usual sounds: balls rolling down the lanes, crashing into pins. A little boy tried to prevent a gutter ball by shrieking at it, and groups cheered a strike. The interior was painted the same baby blue as the outside. A “wall of fame” was on display by the shoe counter. The tiny snack bar practically dripped with pizza grease.

“This turns into a salsa club on Tuesday nights,” Hudson said. “The lanes make for a great dance floor.”

Leila smiled and gave him a light shove, letting him know that she wasn't falling for it. But she looked around the room as if searching for clues that it might be true. As she swiveled her head, Hudson caught a glimpse of a scar poking out from her hairline behind her ear, just the tiniest sliver of damaged flesh. Then she turned back to him, combing a tress of hair over her ear and hiding the scar. “There's no way that's true.”

“Please don't argue with your tour guide,” Hudson said, leading them to the shoe counter. Unlike other bowling alleys that invested in cubbyholes, Riverside Lanes had a much different storage system for their shoes.

“This is ridiculous,” Leila said, staring at the massive pile of shoes, more than a few of which had fallen off the counter. A group of junior high girls came by, chatting excitedly about weekend plans, each of them tossing a pair of shoes haphazardly onto the pile. It shifted, and Hudson saw Leila brace for the pile of footwear to come tumbling at them.

“No, this is awesome,” Hudson corrected. “Whenever the pile falls, an employee yells out, ‘Avalanche!' and then everyone in the house gets a free game.”

“Wouldn't people just knock it over, then?”

Hudson shook his head, as if no one had ever considered that before. “Where's the fun in that?” He crossed his arms over his chest, admiring the sight of all those separated pairs of shoes, the laces sticking out everywhere, like arms seeking salvation from a pile of rubble.

Hudson glanced at Leila, trying to get a sense of whether she was enjoying herself. Then a couple in their twenties came up to the pile and began to rummage. “The tour will continue this way,” Hudson said, touching Leila briefly on the shoulder as he led her through the bowling alley. He walked backward, like an actual tour guide. “On your left you will spot the snack bar, which still advertises freshly made pretzels despite being sold out for the last twelve years. On your right in lane six you can see the local bowling legend known as The Beaver, who's bowled three perfect games and has never smiled at anyone but fallen pins. Please, no flash photography,” Hudson cracked, pointing out a hefty man in his sixties whose gut drooped over his belt.

“Our next stop is the men's bathroom,” Hudson said, thinking of the chalkboard over the urinals. It was always adorned with a mix of inane vulgarities, doodles, and the occasional heartfelt message, scrawled in sloppy handwriting that indicated its author was either drunk or his focus was split with another task at hand. “You can really see some lovely things there.”

There was a pause before Hudson realized what he'd just said. He turned to Leila, who raised an eyebrow at him. “That didn't come out right. I meant that some people really show parts of themselves that usually stay hidden.” He tensed a fist closed, stopping himself. “Nope, that didn't clear anything up. What I meant was—” Hudson said, but he was interrupted by Leila bursting into laughter.

Hudson smiled nervously. “There's a chalkboard in there,” he started to explain, but he was too enraptured by the sound of her laughter to keep going. It emptied his thoughts, that laugh.

“Don't worry. I assume it wasn't what it sounded like,” she said, catching her breath.

Hudson shook his head at himself and turned to the bathroom and pushed the door open. “Tour group coming through!” he announced.

When no one responded, he held the door open for Leila and made a sweeping motion of welcome. “After you, ma'am.”

“This is the strangest tour I've ever been on,” Leila said, entering the bathroom and giving him an inquisitive look with just a hint of a smile to it.

“Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times,” he said as she passed by.

Two urinals, a stall, and a sink was all there was to the bathroom. An automated hand-drier that barely whirred hung from one wall. Leila looked up at the chalkboard over the urinals. Hudson followed her gaze, trying to guess which bit of scrawled handwriting she was reading.

Someone had doodled an impressive dragon.
Joan slept with The Beaver!
was scrawled in block letters across the top of the board. And below that, in tiny script, as if the author had meant it as a whisper,
You have been relentlessly on my mind.
Lyrics to a Johnny Cash song, a Bible verse, and a drawing of a penis were scattered across the wall. Hudson couldn't help but smile at the collection of escaped thoughts captured in chalk. He looked back at Leila and saw that she was smiling, too, her hands behind her as if she were appraising a piece of art.

“You see the treasures?” he asked.

She nodded, her lips spreading into a smile, her gaze passing over the smudges of white and blue chalk. “That's my favorite Vonnegut quote,” she said, pointing at the line
I urge you to please notice when you are happy.

Hudson felt himself blush, wondering whether to confess that he'd been the one to write it on the chalkboard a week ago. “This is fantastic,” she said. Then she reached for one of the inch-long pieces of chalk sitting on the metallic ledge of the board. Taking only a brief moment to gather her thoughts, Leila stood on tiptoe to reach a blank spot, her neat handwriting standing out against the rest of the words on the board.
People of Vicksburg, you live in a special place.

Silly, how rewarding just that one comment from her was, how it made Hudson want to keep on babbling, to take her to every single place that he'd enjoyed for even a millisecond.

Hudson led them back to the car, eager to show her anything else at all. They went to the church that had burned down and been rebuilt by the town, the Capture the Flag field at the park by his house, the closed-up candy shop where a dead body had once been found, making the lone remaining bag of root-beer–flavored candy Hudson had in his house feel very much like a treasure.

“You know what? Why don't I take you to go see it?”

“Your house?”

“Yeah,” he said, surprised by his own boldness but thankful for it. “You know, for the root-beer candy.”

Leila considered him. He held up an understanding hand. “I'm acting purely as a treasure guide here. It might not be the most interesting place to everyone, but it's a place that I know well enough to know where all the hidden details are. Don't you want to see the room that Hudson the famed mechanic has been sleeping in for seventeen years?”

She tilted her head back and squinted as if she were examining him. He worried he'd messed things up until he realized she was mock-scrutinizing him, saw the hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “Do you have one of those race-car–shaped beds?” she asked.

“I do not,” he said, pretending to be offended as he switched his foot to the gas pedal. “I got too big for it last year.”

Leila burst out laughing again. For fear that he would giggle with pride as soon as he opened his mouth, Hudson kept quiet on the short drive to his house.

* * *

Hudson parked Leila's car in front of his house and handed her the keys as they walked up his lawn onto the narrow porch. His dad's car wasn't in the driveway yet—probably out shopping for groceries for dinner.

“This is the porch,” he said, gesturing redundantly with one arm as he jiggled the keys out of his pocket. “We don't use it much.”

“How come?” Leila asked.

“Our next-door neighbor is quite the talker,” Hudson said, looking around the block at the cars and pickup trucks parked in open garages, the American flags drooping like undrawn curtains in the still air, the bicycles lying on the driveways in after-school abandon. “My dad and I actually missed a movie once because she insisted on filling us in on neighborhood gossip. Someone's cousin had adopted an Asian baby, and that seemed to require a thirty-minute, slightly racist speech.” He turned to the door, having finally fished the keys out. “The true treasure of Vicksburg lies in its people.”

He turned over his shoulder to smile at her and then led them inside. They went fairly quickly around the house, living room to bathroom to kitchen. He showed her the backyard, the modest plastic patio furniture set up around the barbecue grill. The lawn was big and green, stretching out between the neighbors' fences until it hit a line of trees. After a few moments, when the sun had all but dipped beneath the branches, Hudson led her back inside to show her the rest of the house.

The staircase was just wide enough to allow them to climb side by side. Hudson asked, “So, what are you going up north for?” He honestly didn't really have a strong desire to know, since it would affirm that fact that she
was
going, possibly very soon.

“Haven't I mentioned it? I'm going to see the Northern Lights.”

“Oh, nice,” he said, his heart dropping a little. “How far north do you have to go to see them?”

“Well, it kind of changes. I'm going up as far north as I can to give myself the best chance.”

“Wow. I'm jealous.”

“Yeah, I'm pretty excited,” she said, but her voice didn't quite convey that excitement. “I'm just hoping that...” She trailed off.

“That what?”

“No, nothing,” she said, as they reached the landing at the top of the stairs. She held her arm out across his chest. “Wait.” She looked at the four closed doors that made up the second floor. “Let me guess.” She pointed at the door closest to them. “Master bedroom, bathroom, your room,” she said, pointing at each door from left to right. “And, I don't think that's another room, because you've got an only-child air about you, so I'm gonna say that's the linen closet.”