Wherever Nina Lies Read online

  I’ve seen it since I was a little kid, on the backs of notebooks, on napkins, paper tablecloths, in an entire comic given to me once by someone whom I haven’t seen in two years, whom I try not to think about because I have no idea where she is or what she’s doing or if she’s even still alive, whom I’ve tried to convince myself to forget about, whom I’ve almost completely given up on ever hearing from again, whom a teeny, tiny part of me still believes will reappear, will send me a sign at some time when I am least expecting it.

  And this is the sign, and that time is now.

  Because this drawing is of me.

  I blink and turn toward Amanda, who is still standing there in her ridiculous outfit.

  “Amanda,” I whisper, “look…” And I hold the paper high up over my head so the light shines through and the drawing glows. “My sister.”

  Three

  For 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.

  Four

  Here 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.

  Five

  Sitting 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, “Hello.” 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.