Missing (15 page)

But having spent these days with her in Paris, with this rare chance to talk to her, to listen to her, unencumbered by Loki's presence— I've come to realize that her mind is the most wondrous part of all.

Yes, I taught her certain skills. I've given her the technique and the fighting knowledge and the sharp reflexes. But those were just seeds. And now that the trees have grown . . . well, it's mind-boggling. With her gloriously wry sense of humor and her gentle compassionate soul, she's more of an adult than half my colleagues. And her beauty . . . this refined, stunning mixture of power and grace . . .

You see, all her most remarkable qualities, I've discovered, are her gifts from you. All
you
, Katia.

And now they are your gifts to me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sam was whatever one called the ideal level of intoxication between shit faced and fall-down drunk.

 

“THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN HIT
that shot, my friend,” Sam Moon hollered. He could barely make himself heard—or hear himself, what with the din of screaming college students and pounding beat of some rapmetal band.

“You will now be eating those words, Mr. Moon,” Josh shouted back as he leaned over the pool table. That look on his face . . . he was like a panther ready to pounce.

Sam held his breath. His brain was swimming with drink and noise and just the sheer
fun
of the moment. Josh's eyes narrowed as he lined up an impossible bank shot with the nine ball. A hush fell over the crowd—the crowd being the flock of women that had formed around the table.

Not that Sam particularly noticed any of them. Crowds of college girls were par for the course at this place—The Naked Stump, an NYU hangout in a raucous black-box basement on Eighth Street. Sure, they were pretty.
Some of them were stunning, even.
But hey, they could all be single and willing supermodels, for all he cared. He was attached. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. Never again . . .

Josh took a few practice motions with his pool cue. Then he let loose—
pow!
The cue ball exploded from
the end of his stick and cracked against the nine ball, forcing it to ricochet into the opposite side pocket.

Sam just shook his head. He couldn't believe it. Josh had to be a hustler. Nobody was
this
good at pool.

“Driiiink!”
Josh and the girls cried in thunderous unison, pointing their fingers in Sam's face and mocking him joyously.

A drunken smile appeared on Sam's face.
Another drink? Oh, boy.
Unfortunately, this had been going on for hours: Sam versus Josh in any number of drinking games. This game was something Josh called A Shot for a Shot. One man simply had to hit a shot set up by the ladies to make the other man drink. The only problem, of course, was that Josh was a
flawless
pool player. And the more Sam lost, the more drunk he got and the more
flawful
he became.
Wait a second. Is that a word?
Flawful?
Hmmm. Probably not.
Sam giggled. His vocabulary was getting worse, too.

Actually, there was one more problem: Josh had insisted they drink tequila for the entire evening.
He said it was the only liquor that was guaranteed to obliterate Sam's depression and take his mind off his problems.
Sam had agreed at the time (he'd been too tired, surprised, and out of it to protest)—the time then being five-thirty.

The time was now nine twenty-two, and Sam was whatever one called the ideal level of intoxication between shit faced and fall-down drunk.

Sam staggered over to Josh and patted him on the back. “This is a hustle, isn't it? Are you tryin' to hustle me?”

“Oh, you know I am,” Josh replied in a wicked whisper.

Their self-appointed female fan club burst out laughing. Sam stared down another shot of tequila. He didn't even see who had put it into his hand. Whatever. Who cared? He ignored a mild lack-of-balance-meets-nausea and poured the burning liquid down his throat as fast as he could—bobbing his head back into an upright position and pumping his arms up triumphantly. He was met with a rush of loud, adoring applause. A waitress (who referred to herself as the Lime Lady) shoved a fresh section of lime into Sam's mouth.

Sam backed away from the Lime Lady and the pool table, swerving a little. He grabbed a pillar for support. The music seemed to swell. He couldn't make out any of the lyrics. It was all screaming, distorted guitars, over-amplified drums. But he didn't care.
Sheer cacophony was what he needed.
At this moment, this music was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard.

“Listen to this!” he shouted, pointing up at the ceiling. “This is my song, man! This song is about me!”

“What the hell are you talking about, dude?” Josh asked with a laugh. He grabbed Sam by the shoulders and jokingly tried to shake some sense into him.

“Who is this?” Sam asked. His voice was a little slurred.
Who izz-iss?

Josh shrugged. “Some local band, I think.” He
glanced over at the Lime Lady. “Hey, who is this band?” he shouted.

“They're called Fearless,” the Lime Lady answered with a smile. “What do you think?”

“Iss-a greatess thing I ever heard,” Sam answered, giving her a shaky thumbs-up. His eyes wandered over to the bar. A couple of kids from his dorm were there, staring at him with a look of what could only be described as contempt.
Vicious contempt.
Screw 'em. He was happy.

Step right up and see the real live smack-head murderer! It's free!

Yup, Sam's faith in humanity had seriously dwindled in the last few days. Had
anyone
ever heard of that little thing called innocent until proven guilty? What a joke. Everyone in this country was instantly guilty—unless you were incredibly rich or incredibly famous—and Sam Moon was most definitely neither.

But that's why this band was his new favorite band. He was just like them.
He was fearless.
Bring on the stares, the threats, the accusations! Bring them all on! He would survive! He would triumph—

“Hey, are you all right, man?” he heard Josh ask.

Sam turned to him. “Course I'm all right,” he stated. He lifted his hand. “You know what, dude? I wanna make a toast.”

Josh smirked. “Don't you need a drink to make a toast?”

“In a sec,” Sam answered. He tried to stand as steadily as possible but ended up swaying in front of Josh's face. Oh, well. Better just spit it out. “Here's to you, man.”

“Come on.” Josh shook his head and waved off Sam's words.

“No, I'm totally serious,” Sam insisted. “To you, Josh. I didn't even know I needed to get good and drunk tonight . . . and you were
there.
You were there. To good friends and mass obliterating quantities of booze!”

Josh smirked. “Uh-oh. You know what I think? I think you need to get outside and get some fresh air—”

“No, no,” Sam interrupted. “I need to dance.”

“Dance?”

Sam nodded vigorously. He felt like he was watching someone else as he broke into a wild jig, shaking his arms and hopping up and down.

Josh burst out laughing. So did the Lime Lady. Even the people at the bar grinned. Without a second thought Sam leaped onto the pool table. The girls around him gasped. But Sam was too blissfully smashed to care.

“Hey, everybody!” he shouted, as if he were about to start the world's drunkest and most sordid pep rally. “Guess what? Since I have
no idea
where the
hell
my girlfriend is . . . I'm starting a new dance in her honor!”

“What's it called?” Josh hollered.

“Well, thank you for asking, sir!” he called back. “It's called The Gaia. And it goes a little somethin' like
thee-us.
”

With that, Sam exploded with an impromptu display of karate chops, sweeping roundhouse kicks, and the occasional disco hip swivel.

“Awesome!” Josh shouted, jumping up on the table and joining in.

Now people were starting to look away in embarrassment. But that didn't stop Sam. Oh, no. He and Josh came within inches of ripping each other's heads off with each kick. Sam couldn't stop laughing. Sweat poured down his face. The room spun around him.
It was truly amazing: He had no idea who he was at this moment.
He'd been transformed into some tequila-swilling butthead. But he definitely wasn't Sam Moon. And what a relief that was.

His mission had been accomplished.

 

Walking
through Paris— especially at night—is like walking right into an impressionist painting. Specifically a Monet. (My dad taught me about art history, too.) There must be a hundred cafés along the Boulevard St. Germain, and each one has its own rich colors: slabs of dark forest green and velvety maroons, iron tables and Old World glass facades. And everything seems so much more colorful than reality. More vibrant. More romantic. You can almost feel the emotions of the people buzzing through the entire street.

But at the same time everything is strangely fuzzier when you get up close. That's really why it's like a Monet. You can't really zero in on anything—not a single condensation or glass clinking. The scene is clearest when you take it in at a distance. It's totally surreal in that same way. No wonder impressionism started in France.

And reading my father's letters was like that, too.

I couldn't really zero in on one specific thought, one specific message he gave me. I could only take in the whole thing. The whole package. Five years of correspondence. And to sit there, to go back through time with him and imagine all those moments when he was thinking of me, talking to me as if I were with him . . .

Well, to be honest, it was a little too intense. He loved me so much. More than I could have hoped for. More than I would ever let myself imagine. Sitting folded up in my hands were all the “I love yous” I'd missed all these years. All the “I miss yous” crammed together in one envelope. But they were there. They were all there.

And then it hit me: I'll never get that time back. It's gone. All that's left from the last five years are these beautiful letters and my horrible, crappy,
empty memories. All that time without him. All that time to practice hating and bitterness and cynicism. All that time to gorge myself on Krispy Kreme doughnuts and wallow—

Oh, yeah. That reminds me. I am never going to eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut again. No, it's not because I'm turning over some lame new leaf because I'm so happy. It's because I've discovered chocolate crepes. The French serve them at pretty much every single café, and one single crepe contains about the same amount of chocolate and sugar as an entire box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

But back to the letters. Actually, I lied: There is one that I'm able to single out. It's a perfect little pill to cure the misery of the last five years. And it isn't the most eloquent, or the longest, or the most emotional. It doesn't have the most “I love yous” or the most “I miss yous.” Actually my guess, from
the way it was scrawled in the corner of the paper, was that it was jotted down in about thirty seconds. But still, it's really the only one I need to read.

Hello again,

Mission in Paris. So beautiful here. Someday I'll bring you here with me. I promise.

Love,
Dad   

Something struck his head, and he went toppling to the floor— right smack into the puddle of blood.

 

GAIA COULDN'T REMEMBER A
moment when she'd ever been more exhausted. Of course there were her postcombat blackouts. After any fight her body would usually give out on her so completely that she felt like her heart had simply stopped pumping blood.

But this feeling wasn't like that. It wasn't a “dark” tired. It wasn't the unbearable drain that came with having to will herself to survive in spite of the odds . . .
or that gloomy, empty hamster-wheel feeling of going nowhere fast.

No, this was the kind of tired she hadn't felt since she was a kid. It was a birthday party kind of tired . . . the kind of tired she would get after running and screaming for hours—stopping only for soda, cake, and candy. It was the sugar crash. The feeling of being finished. The feeling of absolute completion.

Of course, it was natural that she'd have a sugar crash, though. She'd eaten about nine crepes. Her stomach was bloated to the point of agony. And sitting at this dessert café wasn't doing much to ease her pain.

Where was everybody, anyway?

Gaia glanced down at her watch.

Three forty-five. Oh, man . . .

She'd actually used only the streetlights to finish
her last letter. Her table was bare—bused clean without her even noticing. The café lights were turned out, a locked metal gate obscuring the beautiful windows. They'd probably reopen for breakfast in just a few hours. But right now the street was empty. Just a long row of dark stone buildings, black cobblestone, and lifeless cafés. Not a soul in sight. Not a sound but the wind bouncing off the buildings and down the endless street—

Footsteps. Gaia glanced around the corner. Two young men appeared. They paused when they saw her. Then they took a seat at her table. As if she'd been waiting for them. As if every other table were packed—and this wasn't the middle of the night.