Postcards from a Dead Girl (4 page)

The postcard I receive next has a photo of a sunset. It's the kind of image travel magazines use on their covers to lure readers into discovering the location of the miracle light. I catch myself looking over this one a few seconds longer than I did the other postcards. Something about this image, the pure energy of the rays cutting through primeval clouds, the authoritative tone of all things majestic. It's Biblical. Prophetic.

The postcard came from New Jersey.

The back has a coupon for a free oil change from the Sunny Smiles Garage in Hoboken, and I feel like I've been there before. Maybe when we visited Manhattan? I figure I must've been put on a mailing list, but then I see my name's been written by Zoe's hand.

So I do the only thing I can do. First, I make sure Zero has food and water. Then, I get in my car and drive. I figure if I'm in the car driving, I can always argue myself out of going all the way to New Jersey. I'll have twelve hours to make my case. Even if I lose the debate, all that time won't be lost on the road.

After four hours of arguing with myself, I realize I'm two states away. I succumb to the rest of the drive. About eight hours
into my journey, I feel guilty for having left Zero alone. He'll be okay; there's a two-way dog door to the backyard, and I'll be home soon. But something else is bothering me. It's the hum of the highway, the false feeling of security everyone has as they smoke cigarettes, eat cheeseburgers, drive with one finger. The way they don't pay attention to what's in their peripheral vision, and how they listen to talk radio and laugh at invisible voices as the divider lines slip by them one by one—dash, dash, dash.

When I finally find Sunny Smiles, I'm not smiling and it's not sunny. A thunderstorm has just passed through, leaving the pavement steamy. The air is muggy and thick, and the pregnant black clouds have been reduced to light gray clouds. Wet tires hiss past me as my car crawls up the street.

The building itself looks more like a mall or an amusement park than an automotive garage. The quick oil change is connected to a car wash that is connected to a Laundromat with an arcade inside and coin-operated circus animals to ride outside. Connected to that is a bar. I guess something for the whole family was the thinking behind this little oasis. The outer wall is painted with a mural of a smiling cartoon sun floating in a bright blue sky with happy clouds and twittering birds. It all seems out of place. I'm already disappointed.

The postcard's image is nowhere to be seen. Clearly the picture on the garage wall is not the same as the photograph, and from the looks of the weather, there won't be any miraculous sunscapes manifesting anywhere nearby. Which also makes me think that there will be no Zoe nearby. I have driven nine hundred miles to get an oil change.

I park, get out of my car, and walk over to the Laundromat. I insert a ten spot in the change machine, fill my pockets with quarters, and get a Cherry Coke from the vending machine. A miniature dolphin ride waits empty only a few feet away, and I figure why not, there's no harm in riding a little dolphin every once in a while. As I rock back and forth, I study the car wash adjacent to the garage. It's a stop-and-spray manual deal, just not the same as the old touchless, so no laps today.

A voice from above tells me I'm a clown. I look up. “Excuse me?”

“What are you, a clown? That ride's for kids. You're going to wreck it.”

An irate mother has descended from the land of the laundry. She isn't amused by my occupation of her son's coveted dolphin. I stand up and offer the ride to the boy. They both study me cautiously, like I might be setting a trap.

The loud woman holds her arm in front of her son. I step back, armed with my diabolical Cherry Coke. I decide it's time to go talk to the mechanic.

Corey is the garage clerk, a small man with close-set eyes and messy black hair, and he offers to extend the expiration date on my oil-change coupon after I tell him my story and how far I've driven. He seems to feel genuinely bad that the coupon is a year overdue. That, and he's very concerned about being honest with me.

“To be honest with you,” he keeps saying.

“So you don't remember ever seeing me here with a girl?” I ask.

“To be honest with you, I haven't been here that long. I wouldn't remember you or your girlfriend.”

I wonder what he's being when he doesn't preface his sentences with this. I think about pulling out the photo of Zoe I've
brought along, but decide to keep it in my pocket after his last answer.

“Couldn't you look me up on your computer?”

“They're down. We're doing all paper receipts today.” Corey holds up a notebook with greasy fingerprints on it.

I try to engage Corey in shop talk to get away from my embarrassing situation. I ask him about starters and ignition systems.

“To be honest with you,” he says, “Tom over there is the mechanic, I just run the register and manage phones. Honestly though, I've been learning a lot by watching.”

Now Corey is embarrassed for being a garage clerk instead of a mechanic, while I stand there feeling like an idiot for driving to Hoboken over a postcard. Corey chews on his thumbnail while I feign interest in Tom's handiwork.

“Tell you what,” I say, “if you or your mechanic remember anything or find anything on your computer, give me a call.” I write my cell phone number on a Sunny Smiles business card and hand it to him.

He seems grateful, like he wants to give something back. “Hey, you like calendars?” he asks, and bends down behind the counter. He pops up with a Sunny Smiles Garage calendar emblazoned with the portentous light I saw on the postcard. “You can have one. Give you something to look at in the meantime. The oil change should only be about twenty minutes.”

“Thanks.” I walk outside and turn the calendar in my hands. On the back are twelve squares: a month for every smiling girl. They are all bikinis and bright eyes, brilliant white teeth and slippery skin, every photo full of glossy luminescence.

A hydraulic press exhales and groans behind me, a car rising on the lift. I turn to see if it's mine, but it looks like I'm next. I catch a whiff of oil and metal, and then some unexpected smells:
peanuts, chips, cigarettes. It's the bar attached to the Laundromat attached to the garage. I've got time to burn, so I continue my investigation.

The front door is mostly glass, with the name
MICKEY's
etched across it. A shamrock punctuates the design, but the interior doesn't resemble any Irish pubs I've seen. There are no fireplaces, no massive wooden beams. It's merely a big square room full of tables and chairs, booths against the walls. The bar itself is pushed off to one side. An Irish flag hangs behind it, a weak attempt at homeland pride. The bartender is a tiny man, his shoulders barely clearing the bar's counter. He washes dishes with great intent, hardly noticing I've arrived. The three patrons on the other side of the room don't seem to notice either.

I walk up to the bar and fish out the photo of Zoe from my pocket. It's a Polaroid picture, the self-portrait of me and Zoe taken on one of those days we were bored and decided to screw around and make something zany. She knew how to scratch at the film as it developed, and she created some wild squiggly designs around our faces—strange glyphs that punctuated our mood of the day. Not the most normal image, but still the clearest photo I have of her face.

“What can I do you for?” the bartender asks.

I'm startled by his sudden appearance. My peripheral vision didn't catch his approach. I spin the photo toward him. “I was wondering if you remember seeing the girl in this photo?” I realize I'm acting like a TV cliché, showing photos to bartenders, but it seems to be working.

“You a cop?” he asks.

“No. Does it matter?”

He smiles and shrugs. “Not really. Just always wanted to say that.” He picks up the photo and gazes at it, his expression full of
forced contemplation. He nods slowly and scratches his chin. I get the feeling he's milking this episode for everything it's worth. Probably not much excitement going on at the Mickey's Laundro-Garage-Bar.

“So, does she look familiar?”

He bites his lip and raises his eyebrows. “Oh yeah, I remember this girl,” he says, and brushes a thumb across the scratch designs.

I take the photo back. “You sure you've seen her here?”

“Looks like that one over there,” he says, and nods across the room where a young, dark-haired woman sits. She's fair-skinned and thin, like Zoe. I can see how this guy might make the comparison. I put the photo back in my pocket and study the bartender's eyes. They are alive, glassy, like a woodland creature: tender, afraid. I wonder if he notices this when he looks in the mirror, if he's at all aware of his fragile nature.

“How long ago did you see her?” I ask.

“Maybe a year ago sometime, I can't remember.”

“But not recently?”

“No.”

“A year is a long time,” I say. “How can you be sure?”

“I remember those freckles,” he says, and taps his nose. “Very nice.”

He's right. The nose freckles are one of a kind. Splashed across her face like a constellation of stars: five large, twelve small. I know the numbers because I used to count them. When I couldn't sleep, I would stare at her for hours while she was lost in slumber—mouth open, drooling on the pillow, like a child sleeps. I used to imagine a connect-the-dots game on her face, creating my own Zoe Star Systems. Crescent Major was the three large freckles on her left cheek, and the Tear Twins sat directly under
her right eye in perfect alignment with the path her tears would follow. The other Minor Freckles I thought of as distant, mysterious suns never to be visited or understood by anyone—not even Zoe, not for several lifetimes. I used to wonder if even she understood what a marvel she was, lying so peaceful there in the dark, her eyes twitching with dreams.

“She dead?” he asks.

I hold my breath at this question, and wonder: is she? It's a good question, although not one I would ask a man searching for a missing person, especially if he was in the photo with her. “Missing,” I say, and turn away so as not to catch his reaction.

Outside, the cloud bank has broken up. Giant fingers of light reach down to touch the earth. The rain has transformed the parking lot into a steaming slab of asphalt, a fog and light show. And although I'm on the edge of New Jersey, it feels like somewhere else.

Back home, Zero is not impressed with my travels. I tell him about Corey the garage clerk and his propensity for talking about honesty, but Zero gazes sadly out the window, his eyes glassed over on the verge of tears. Total drama. Pure melancholy.

“I did not abandon you,” I say, and point at him for emphasis.

Zero glances over to the refrigerator calendar, then studies his empty bowl.

“That bowl was overflowing with food when I left. You gorged yourself to make me feel guilty.”

His tail thumps defiantly.

I go to the answering machine, which blinks with a bright red number one. I push the button, and a robot lady voice tells me I have a message. It beeps and Natalie's voice comes out of the box: “Hi Sidney, I got word back from X-Ray. They said they could set up a CAT scan for you tomorrow. Give me a call and we'll make it happen. Remember, it's nothing to worry about.”

Zero sighs heavily. First the abandonment, now this.

“It's not that kind of cat,” I tell him.

I open the fridge and grab some leftover chicken, toss him a chunk as a peace offering. He warily sniffs at it, as if I've just thrown him poison. But ultimately he can't help himself and inhales the meat.

“It's really not what you think,” I assure him, and wonder what the hell it is exactly, in my head, that's so messed up it needs to be scanned.

They keep telling me it's almost over.

I'm lying face-up on an ice-cold gurney, entombed inside a massive humming machine. An electric eye slowly spirals around my head, pausing for contemplation and an occasional blip or whir.

“It's almost over,” they say again, muted voices from outside the tomb. “Don't move your head, just another minute.”

The truth is, if I could buy tickets to this ride, I would. The only thing missing is the pink foam. I feel strangely calm here, with the electric eye blinking its meditative trance signal. I breathe in and out and the eye blinks in unison, and we come to an understanding, the eye and I. If it weren't so damn cold, I could lie here all day.

“Twenty seconds,” someone says.

Good-bye electric eye, I think. It blinks back at me.

After the test, I sit in my green gown and wait for Dr. Singh's arrival. I study the black-framed diplomas on his wall: a bachelor's degree, a master's, an MD. Others describe specialties and boards, procedures and licensing. They're all ornately written in unreadable calligraphy, but they look impressive. One is perched
unusually high on the wall but I can't read it. I'm about to stand on my chair to check it out, but Dr. Singh makes his entrance.

He sketches mad notes on my chart, short, dark hieroglyphs that are illegible maybe even to him. He doesn't look up. I sigh and drum my fingers on my knees. He mumbles some words to himself, flips a page back and forth, then looks up at me as if I'd asked him something. “You can get dressed. We'll have someone call you.”

“Any chance you know when the results will be in?” I ask.

“We'll let you know when you get weak, probably right before you die,” he says, and tucks his chart under his arm.

“Okay,” I say, and hop off the ice-cold steel table onto the ice-cold tile floor. He leaves the room and I change back into my civilian attire. A giant calendar hangs on the door, decorated with illustrations of myriad microscopic diseases. I wonder how many of those four-inch-by-four-inch days it will be until I'm consumed by the little dots that clump together, or sunk into a coma by the long stringy things that interweave. The doctor walks by, and I wave him down. “Doctor?”

He stops and looks up from another patient's chart, this one full of jagged penmanship. “Yes?”

“Could you say that again?”

“About your results?”

“Yeah.”

“As long as a week, probably closer to a day?”

“Thanks.”

The doctor searches my eyes back and forth, back and forth, like the manic expressions of soap opera actors on Univision just before they shed tears. He talks softly then, but forcefully. “Let's not worry about anything until we see what we've got, okay? It might be nothing at all.” His face changes then, possibly into
what he feels is a compassionate smile, but it comes off as slight dental discomfort. He looks back at his chart and continues his purposeful walk down the hall.

I want to tell him that I'm sure it's really nothing too, and that I'm not worried about it. I want to assure him that the wild lilac bush in my head randomly blooms because of something unrelated to the medical field, and that whoever has a chart with extra dots on the
i
's is probably in more dire need of his help. But I keep my mouth shut.

Outside the weather is gray and cold, much less pleasant than inside the giant humming machine. I walk to my car, and inside is the bag of postcards. I pick one at random. London Bridges, it says. It's as good as the rest of them, I think, and immediately know that a Wanderlust #15 will do the trick. I congratulate myself on selling one more vacation package. It's time to cash in on my flex-time privileges, and make use of that employee discount. I'll tell Steve I'm doing some guerrilla-style vacation research; he should be thrilled.