Lost and Found Read online

  Lost and Found

  by

  Chris Van Hakes

  Copyright © 2013 Chris Van Hakes

  Cover design copyright © 2013 Allie Gerlach

  Cover photograph copyright © 2013 Shutterstock

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-98605890-5

  CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  One

  Delaney

  I was locking my bike in the basement of my new apartment when I heard a roar from the laundry room. “Fuck you. Fuck. You.” I turned to see who was yelling at me, and bumped into the box of lost and found items near my feet.

  He stood there in the doorway, one hand in dark Einstein hair, sticking straight up, his face lightly stubbled and with the kind of cheekbones that could cut deli meats. He had a crooked, imperfect nose that could have made him unattractive, but somehow didn’t. His clothes were rumpled and his flannel shirt was missing a few buttons. He didn’t look like Cliff. Cliff had full lips and long eyelashes and a boyish, innocent charm as he smiled.

  This guy wasn’t delicate and beautiful. This guy was dangerous. My stomach fluttered as he stared past me. He didn’t see me, or that’s what I told myself when he yelled one last time into his phone. “FUCK. YOU.” Then he hurled it past my ear where it hit the CatEye headlamp, toppling it to the concrete floor.

  My mouth hung open. Emily, standing in the stairwell behind me, spoke. “Jackass.” He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even meet her eyes, but his cheeks were coloring a bright red. He brushed past her in the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time. She said after he retrieved his phone and disappeared upstairs, “Let’s hope Anger Management over there isn’t a tenant.”

  “Whatever. I’ll deal.” I bent down to pick up the broken light. When I rolled my bike wheel backward, a piece lodged into my tire and I sighed. “I’ll deal after I get a new tube for this tire.

  “I wonder what that was about,” I said as I threw away the headlamp in the laundry room trashcan and Emily answered, “He’s an asshole, that’s what that’s about.”

  “That’s your answer for everything. Cliff is an asshole. The cabbie that picked me up from the airport was an asshole. The key that didn’t fit the lock is an asshole.”

  “What can I say, there are a lot of assholes in the world,” she said. We made our way up the stairs to the top floor. The whole building was an old Victorian mansion painted bright purple and converted into apartments. All the other apartments in this section of Prairie Glen were also converted mansions.

  The Soviet-era concrete buildings never made it to the small town, along with every other architectural innovation after 1915, keeping it the pristine college town in the middle of a corn field.

  I was renting one of the attic spaces, and my little apartment was made up of angles and corners and slants, not at all a bland twenty-something apartment with IKEA furniture and drywall painted beige. It had a certain kind of beauty in its built-in bookshelves and glass doorknobs, plaster walls and dark mahogany baseboards and trim.

  Just as we were stepping through the threshold of my new apartment, my only neighbor on this floor, in the place across the hall, opened his door and stepped out onto the black and white checked tile landing.

  It was Jackass. He didn’t even look at us as he locked his door and went down the stairwell. Emily said, “Jackass!” to his retreating back, and he offered her a single finger in answer.

  She asked, “Still glad you got this apartment?”

  I stared across the hallway at the closed door for a moment before answering. “It’s cheap. It’s pretty. And I’m sure I’ll never see my neighbor. He seems like the kind of guy who won’t be home a lot.”

  She gave a snort and then said, “What now?”

  “Now we find the stand mixer. I need to bake some cookies.”

  Emily cocked an eyebrow. “You’re sure you’re okay? Because I can go kick that guy’s ass.”

  “Celebratory cookies, not stress cookies,” I said.

  “Then I want chocolate chips and walnuts.”

  “Done.”

  I waited until after Emily left to put a plate of celebratory cookies outside my new neighbor’s door.

  Oliver

  Michael sat on my sofa eating cookies while I opened the fridge and closed the fridge and opened it again. “What’s your problem?” he said around a mouthful of cookie.

  “Nothing,” I said. Then I added, “You. You should go home. I need to sleep.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you came to get me in a froth yelling about your family. Have a cookie.” He held out the plate to me.

  “You’d be in a froth if you had to talk to my mother.”

  “Anyone would be. Isn’t her nickname the Froth? But you should be used to it.” He took another bite. “I think there’s something salty in here. There’s a slight savory tang, in a good way.”

  “I will never get used to the Froth. I swore and yelled and she still acted like nothing happened. She’s invincible. She’s a robot.”

  “Robots sometimes grow hearts. I read that in a Vonnegut story once.”

  “Yeah, robots are warmer. She’s completely animatronic.”

  “You’re getting close to animatronic yourself. Your face is fixed in a permanent scowl. Aren’t you going to have a cookie?” he said.

  “I hate you,” I said. “Go away.”

  “No. Where’d you get these cookies? You couldn’t have made them. One of your ladies of the night?”

  “The new neighbor left them. She’s probably trying to poison me.”

  “Why?”

  “I threw a phone at her.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you a toddler? Are you testing out the word ‘why’?” I said, but Michael kept staring. “My mom wants me to go home for Brad and Mia’s rehearsal dinner.”

  “Ah. The Froth got to you.” I nodded. “So, you going?” he asked.

  I pulled out a Corona and closed the fridge a little too hard. “I told her no, and then she told me I was a disappointment and a general loss as a person—”

  “And then you threw the phone?”

  “Pretty much. There was also some gratuitous swearing, which didn’t faze her at all.” I sat next to him on the battered brown leather sofa I’d gotten off Craigslist. When I picked it up, Mia had laughed and said, “I can’t tell if this is brown because it was made that way or because it became that way, but I think it’s the latter.”

  Next to me, Michael took a deep breath. “Listen, I know you’re upset about Mia, and you’re a general pain in the ass since you’ve been on night float, but I think you should go. Not for your mom. That woman is useless.”

  I nodded and gripped the longneck. “For Mia.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her, anyway?”

  “Mia? Just before the engagement.”

  Michael chewed a cookie and then reached for another, shoving half of it in his mouth before he spoke again. “These are r
eally good. She’s probably attracted to you.”

  I swiveled my head and glared at him. “What?”

  He swallowed. “Sorry, I meant the neighbor, not Mia. The neighbor girl probably has a crush on you.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “She was mousy-looking and wore weird clothes.” Michael eyed my ripped jeans and my shirt with a few missing buttons. “She had weird clothes?” he said.

  “Fuck off.”

  “But even so, maybe she was attracted to you.”

  “No. She was really young-looking. And I threw a phone at her. Not happening,” I said.

  “Yeah, but the young ones love you. Plus, girls love a bad boy,” Michael said.

  “You sound like an ad for a teen movie.” I tipped back the beer. “And I’m not a bad boy.”

  “Girls seemed to think you were in high school.”

  “That was because I didn’t really go to high school. Unless smoking pot in the parking lot counts for attendance.”

  “I was jealous. I couldn’t get Andi Nichols to look at me, and she slept with you when you didn’t even bathe.”

  “Twice.”

  “Exactly,” Michael said with disgust.

  “It’s not me. In high school and college it was because my parents had money. They all wanted to marry a rich guy, even if I was a loser. Now it’s because I’m not a loser, and not being a loser is rare these days.”

  “You’re just barely not a loser.”

  “The medical degree is my only non-loser quality.”

  “It’s sure not your charm, or this apartment.”

  “Nope.” I took a sip, and Michael said, “Still, it doesn’t help that you look like you look.”

  I shrugged. “It didn’t work on Mia.”

  “Mia’s with the right guy,” Michael said without malice.

  “Thanks for bringing that one home. Got it. Don’t worry. I’m done with trying for a relationship. Lesson learned.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a wince. “I didn’t mean it like that.” After a pause he asked, “When’s this rehearsal dinner?”

  “Day before the wedding.”

  “Yeah, I get that, but when?”

  “September 29th,” I said as I wiped a bead of perspiration off the bottle, and then put it down when my phone buzzed. “Shit, here.” I handed Michael my drink. “I forgot that I’m on backup call. Stupid. Stupid.”

  “You really need to sleep more. You’re going to lose it.”

  “It’s not the sleep. It’s my mom.” I wiped a hand over my face, aggravated that my mom could make me forget something so vital. “I can’t drink this.” I picked up the phone with its newly shattered screen and hoped they’d ask me to work a very, very long shift, so I wouldn’t have to come home to my empty apartment until I was too exhausted to care about Mia.

  Delaney

  I bumped into him again while I was wrangling my bike up the stairwell from the basement. I looked up and there he was, scowling at me in ugly green hospital scrubs that somehow made his blue eyes bluer.

  “I’m not attracted to you,” he said, hands in his hair again as he frowned. “If that’s why you left the cookies. I’m not dating you.”

  My hand automatically went to my forehead, and his eyes followed. Stupid move. “That’s okay.” Then I added, “I don’t date,” averting my eyes, feeling even uglier as he stared at me.

  He looked at me for a long minute and then said, “Right. Sorry. I tend to say things before thinking them out.”

  I forced a smile and then lifted the bike up the flight as fast as I could. “I was just being neighborly. About the cookies,” I added once I was on the landing. “I don’t try to attract men with my baked goods.”

  “Because you don’t date?”

  “Yes. Well, I did, but I don’t expect it.”

  “So you only date unexpectedly?” he said, raising both eyebrows, and I finally looked him right in the eyes and had to look away again when my head felt like it was floating. He followed me outside and onto the sidewalk. “You dress very…” He gestured up and down, and I looked down at myself. I was wearing polka dot gray ankle boots with yellow laces, maroon tights, and a lime green corduroy shirtdress. He exhaled and finished his sentence. “You dress very interestingly.” The way he said it, I knew it wasn’t a compliment.

  I nodded. “I know.” Then I gave him my brightest, fakest smile as I stuck out my hand. “I’m Delaney.”

  “You said. In your note with the cookies. You also said you just moved here?” He looked deeply suspicious as he shook my hand. His hand was warm and calloused and there was a tingle that ran up my arm, down my spine, and into my toes. He let go and I shivered. “Cold?” he asked, and I shook my head.

  “I did just move. From LA. But I’m not from LA. I was just out there for a few years. I’m from Prairie Glen.”

  “Why’d you move back?”

  I shrugged and told him I liked being in a college town.

  He stared at me some more, like he was trying to figure me out. Or maybe he was just looking at my patch, or my streak of gray. “That’s interesting hair. Do you dye it?”

  “No.” Then, to avoid the subject, I strapped on the bike helmet that had been dangling from my handlebars and said, “I have a question.” He looked wary but I continued. “Why did you throw your phone that day? What happened?”

  His eyebrows knit together and he simply shook his head. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

  “Really?” This was the wrong thing to say, as his face went beet red and he said, “REALLY.”

  I stepped back a little, my hand still on my bike frame, and nodded, knowing a guy like him was never going to tell someone like me anything, and I realized I didn’t really want to know. I wanted to know as little about him as I could, and keep a cordial distance from him and his moodiness.

  “Well, I have to go,” I said, waving to my bike. “Nice to meet you, uh…”

  “Oliver.” He scowled again, and then walked in the opposite direction.

  ***

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a douche.” Ursula sat on the desk in my cubicle, beautiful blonde waves cascading across the shoulder of her black and white striped blazer. “I mean, ‘interestingly.’ You dress ‘interestingly’? Who says that? To a stranger! To a neighbor!” She chewed on a nail and looked at me, her legs bare and crossed.

  “I don’t know that there’s anything technically wrong with interesting. It could be a compliment.”

  “Was it?”

  “No.”

  “Douche. Douche Nozzle,” she said.

  “Is it sexist to use the word ‘douche’ as an insult?” I said to Emily, who was swiveling in an office chair across from us.

  Emily said, “Yes. Absolutely. Is there an equivalent insult based on a men’s product? Are people going around calling each other Viagra faces? No. It’s demeaning and we should insist on getting rid of it as an insult.”

  “At the same time,” I said, “it’s not like douche is a good thing. Did you know it increases the risk of STDs? And ectopic pregnancies? It’s not like Ursula’s calling him the Bic Pen for Her. Or something else inherently feminine. Like—”

  “Zooey Deschanel? Cursive handwriting?” Emily said, and Ursula said, “Hey, I like Zooey Deschanel. She’s cute!”

  “She’s adorable,” I said with a nod.

  Emily said, “I think we should just call him Jackass. It’s all encompassing.”

  “Fine,” Ursula said, crossing her arms and pouting. “I still like Zooey.”

  “Tell us more about Jackass,” Emily said, poking me with a sharpened pencil. “Ow,” I said.

  “Talk,” she said. “I have 37 minutes before I have to go back to work.”

  “Fine. I think he might have some issues,” I said, trying to stare at the email on my monitor. “He was pretty blunt. Not in his words, but in the way he looked at me.”

  “And he thought cookies were a form of seduction,” Ursula said.

&
nbsp; “My cookies are pretty good.”

  “Well, you should bring some to me,” Ursula said.

  “Next time I bake I will.”

  She leaned over and hugged me. “I’m so glad you took this job. This is so fun. Well, not talking about mean Jackass, but sharing an office? Working with you? It’s like college again. Well, college before you left.”

  “I know. This is so much better than any other job I’ve ever had.” I was working as a reference librarian at the university like Ursula. We’d both gone to library school at the same time through an online graduate degree, across the country from each other.

  She’d scored a great academic job right away in Prairie Glen, but I’d struggled to find anything more than part-time work in California, maybe because of my less than illustrious academic career. I’d dropped out of Prairie Glen University as a junior before going back to school through community college, and then later a subpar four-year school in California, before I’d applied for my Master’s in Library Science. Being a college dropout didn’t sell my résumé very well.

  So when she told me there was a tenure-track opening back home, I’d jumped at it, crossed my fingers, and told Ursula to talk me up to the Dean of Libraries as much as she could.

  It wasn’t my dream job, but it was something. Plus, Prairie Glen University housed the diaries and papers of my favorite author, Jenny Edmonton. She’d written sweeping Regency-era romances that sucked me in, showed me how much fun reading was, and had bonded me with Ursula, another Jenny fan. It wasn’t high art, but it was good art, a public good, saving me from myself most days. Plus, she was so prolific and a local author, so I had an unending supply of Edmonton fiction in high school.

  “If I could get a job in Special Collections, it would be even better, but that’s not going to happen,” I said.

  “Why?” Emily said.

  “I’m not an archivist. I’m not an historian. I’m not even that experienced as a librarian. I have no background, and the Edmonton collection is really valuable, apparently, since she passed away and it was discovered she was really the heiress to that smut magazine.”

  “Spread Uncensored,” Emily said with a shake of her head.