Let's Get Lost (19 page)

The weight of the rings somehow increased in her pocket, as if somehow aware that they were now an impossible world away from where they should have been.

3

SONIA AND LEILA
sat in a twenty-four-hour McDonald's in a duty-free shopping center near the border. Sonia was gently knocking her head against the window, looking out at the highway, begging for a solution to suddenly occur to her. Leila was resting her chin in her hand, her elbow propped up on the table, a bag of fries cooling between them. The McDonald's employees chatted casually to pass the time, awaiting the next late-night traveler. Every now and then they'd cast strange looks at Sonia in her tuxedo jacket, shorts, and somewhat exposed bra.

“I'll drive the rings back myself,” Leila said after a while, already rising from her chair. “I still have my passport.”

“You don't have to. We can think of another way.”

“No reason to think of another way when we already have a solution. You sit tight here, and I'll give you a call when I'm on the way back,” Leila said, handing her phone over for Sonia to program her number in.

“You are a bottomless well of kindness, Leila. Thank you.”

“I'll be back soon,” Leila said with a smile, speed-walking out of the restaurant with the rings in hand.

Although Sonia would have preferred to avoid giving herself any more reasons to feel guilty, she lied to Jeremiah, sending him a text message saying that she was on her way.

okay
,
he texted back, the lack of capitalization somehow feeling unique to him.

She typed out responses and then deleted them, locked her phone and then immediately brought the screen back to life, only to turn it off again.

Sonia buried her face in her hands, pressing her palms into her eyes until she saw those little explosions of light in the darkness. She ruffled her hair, then caught a glimpse of her reflection on her phone. The auburn mass above her head barely resembled hair, so she raked her fingers through the knots. When she was done, she picked up her phone again.
I don't know about anything else, but I love you
,
she typed out, staring at the words for nearly a full minute before deleting them.

Right when she started doing the math on how long it would take Leila to make it there and back—a couple of hours, at least—the door of the McDonald's swung open with a creak, and Leila sheepishly entered.

“What happened?” For a brief moment, Sonia imagined that everything had somehow magically been resolved, that the rings had been tele-transported into Jeremiah's possession.

“Border patrol wouldn't let me through,” Leila said, biting her lip, her eyebrows drawn together in a near-caricature of sadness. “They found it suspicious that I just went through and I'm trying to get back in.”

“Into Canada? Since when are Canadians fussy about letting people in?”

Leila looked down at the floor, shrugging. “I don't know, but they searched my car, went through all my stuff. Maybe they thought I was smuggling drugs or something, I don't know. The guy said I was lucky they weren't detaining me, but that customs agents can deny entry to anyone as they see fit.”

Sonia slumped down in the hard plastic bench. She pictured Jeremiah having to tell Liz and Roger that he didn't have the rings, the truth coming out, even if Jeremiah tried to hide the details. She wondered who would be more heartbroken in that scenario: Liz, for her ruined wedding; Martha, for Sonia's betrayal; Jeremiah, for Sonia's indecision; Sonia herself, for creating such a mess of everyone's life.

“Don't worry. We'll think of something,” Leila said, although her voice lacked conviction. She looked around the empty McDonald's. “Maybe someone will come in who's going in that direction and wouldn't mind dropping off the rings?”

“I wouldn't trust anyone with them,” Sonia said, suddenly realizing how easily she'd trusted that Leila would indeed take the rings to Canada and come back to pick her up. She wondered if this was due to Leila's kindness, or whether it had been unloading her sorrows that did it. Perhaps it was simply because Leila seemed to care.

“What if we wait until the shift change at the border? Maybe I'll get someone who's nicer and won't give me any trouble.”

Sonia gave it some thought, feeling skeptical. “If they flagged your passport, which they probably did, no one will let you through.” She grabbed the jewelry box with the rings inside and spun it on the table, trying to resist the urge to throw it right across the McDonald's. Outside, in the shopping center, bright yellow signs announced special discounts on chocolates and liquor.

Leila pulled out her cell phone from her purse, as if suddenly remembering she had one.

“You know,” Leila said, swiping her finger across the screen of her phone. “I'm looking at it on the map, and...I mean, I always knew Canada was big and that the Canadian border was long. But it's really freakin' long.” She handed Sonia her phone. “You think there's any possible way that they have enough manpower to keep an eye on all of it all the time? Every single bit of it? There's no fence or anything, right?”

The map showed a few major entry points along highways. Little bubbles popped up suggesting duty-free stops like the one they were in. Between those highway entries were miles and miles of greenery. The only thing to be found between those checkpoints was an imaginary line that someone long ago had decided would separate the two countries.

“Am I crazy,” Leila said, “or could we just simply walk across? I mean, if people get through the Mexican border, which is much more guarded, it shouldn't be that hard to sneak across here.”

Sonia sniggered, studying the map a little closer. “That'd be a hell of a story if we did.”

“I don't see why not,” Leila said, excitement in her voice.

“What about your car?”

“We'll leave it parked somewhere near the highway. Somewhere like a motel parking lot that won't look too suspicious. We'll walk into the woods and head north. I have a compass on my phone, and this thing that tells you how long you've been walking in case the GPS doesn't get a signal. Then all we have to do is get to the highway and hitch a ride back to Hope. There should be enough truckers coming through that it won't be a problem. I have a friend who spent months hitchhiking across the country, and she said you'd be surprised at how easy it can be on the right highway.”

“Are we on the right highway?”

“I have no idea. But it's worth a shot, right?”

Sonia zoomed in on the map on Leila's phone. “I wonder whether you could see border patrol agents if you zoomed in far enough.” She handed the phone back to Leila. “How would we get back to your car?”

“We'll just do the same thing coming back. No big deal.”

“No big deal,” Sonia repeated, trying to connect the words to the act of sneaking across an international border. She thought about the scribbled-out beginnings of sentences in her notebook. She wondered if her writer's block might be undone by a night like this. “Okay,” she said, grabbing another fry and tearing it in two, the mushy insides oozing out as if she'd just squished a bug. “Let's do this.”

* * *

According to the feature on Leila's phone, they'd walked half a mile west into the woods. Sonia could barely see in front of her, so she and Leila trod carefully, thankful for the full moon shining through the spaces between trees and the light from Leila's phone saving them from complete blindness.

Sonia was nervous but giddy, her heart lighter than it had been in hours. “We are actually walking into Canada,” she said, not knowing whether it was necessary to whisper. Every step they took, Sonia kept expecting someone to pop out from the darkness. Each crackle in the forest sounded like the white noise of walkie-talkies; every branch her arm brushed against felt like someone ready to apply handcuffs.

“What if we run into a SWAT team?”

“I don't think there'll be SWAT teams. Maybe Mounties or something.”

“That'd be worse,” Sonia said, reaching out to put a hand on Leila's shoulder, not wanting to lose her in the dark. “I'm terrified of horses.”

“Horses? Why?”

“As a rule, I don't like things that could kick my head off.”

“What was that?” Leila said, stopping suddenly, causing Sonia to bump into her.

“What?”

“You didn't hear that?”

Sonia stood perfectly still, waiting for the sounds of sirens or a helicopter approaching. There was the barest rustling of leaves as an overhead wind blew through the treetops. She could hear herself breathing, far-off crickets, but nothing else.

“You didn't hear that neighing?” Leila said.

“You are a bully.” Sonia smacked her arm as they resumed walking, trying not to give away how afraid she'd been that they'd been discovered. Her heart was racing, and though she was terrified, she couldn't wait to make it through, to tell Jeremiah about this little adventure. If he still wanted to talk to her.

“Okay, I think that's far enough,” Leila said. “We can turn north now. It should be about a mile to the border; we'll walk two to be safe, then rejoin the highway.” Her face was lit up by the glow of the screen, and Sonia once again caught a flash of something melancholy in her expression. “The highway stays straight for a bit after the border, so it shouldn't be hard to find.”

“Let's do it.” Sonia motioned for Leila to lead the way. Her phone buzzed inside the tuxedo pocket as they continued their way through the woods. Cupping her hand over the screen to contain the light, Sonia brought the phone out.

where are you?

Sonia shut off her phone, not quite sure how to respond at the moment.

“Is that the boy again?”

“Yeah,” Sonia said. “Just checking in.”

Something crunched under Sonia's feet as she stepped past a branch. The sounds they made walking through the woods seemed like the only sounds for miles, and the thought was both a comfort and deeply frightening. “Do you...” Sonia started, feeling silly asking. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Leila continued to lead them north through the trees. Her steps were short, cautious, her arms out in front of her in the dark. “Nope,” she said after a moment. “There was this guy. I thought maybe something could happen with him. But that doesn't look likely anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Ow!” Leila cried out. “Watch out for those bushes. They're thorny.” Leila held them aside with her sleeve so Sonia could pass. “We had a big fight.”

“Do you still talk to him?”

“I send him postcards,” Leila said. “But I haven't heard from him in a while. Since I last saw him, actually.”

“How long ago was that?”

“For as long as I've been traveling. Almost two months now.” They walked for a few more measured steps, trying to avoid tripping on a branch or stepping into bear crap.

Leila stopped again suddenly. She held up a hand, motioning for Sonia to be still. Sonia looked around, trying to determine what had made Leila stop but seeing only the rich blackness of the forest.

“Leila, if you say something's neighing again, I swear—”

“All right, ladies,” a deep voice bellowed, making them both jump. “You've had your fun. Time to turn around now.”

Sonia couldn't see him right away. In fact, until Leila pulled out her phone and pointed the screen in the agent's direction, Sonia hadn't really grasped who had spoken or from where. The officer wore a baseball cap and was leaning against a tree. He seemed bulky, and when he clicked on his flashlight, Sonia realized it was on the bulletproof vest he was wearing, with all the little contraptions attached to it. He shone the light on their faces, and for a moment he disappeared behind the glare as Sonia's pupils adjusted to the light. Sonia waited for a team of officers to cuff her, her stomach tying itself into a knot. Any minute now, someone would start yelling the Miranda rights at her.

“You're Americans?”

“Yes,” they both answered.

The border agent had barely shifted from his relaxed stance against the tree. It almost looked like he was on a smoke break.

“Okay, good. Thank you for attempting to visit Canada. Please have a safe trip back home. In the future, please come through an approved entry point, where border patrol services can properly document your visit.”

Leila turned to look over her shoulder at Sonia. She looked just as confused as Sonia felt. “Sir, we're really sorry, we just—“

He stepped away from the tree, and Sonia was shocked to see that he was smiling. “I think my wife is getting tired of my ‘you'll never believe what they told me' stories.” He put his hands on his hips. “Did you really think you were just going to walk across the border?”

Neither of them offered up an answer.

“Unfortunately, you guys decided to walk right past my bathroom,” he said, pointing at a tree and chuckling to himself.

“So, you're letting us go?” Sonia squeaked out.

“Have you ever filed paperwork this late at night? It's awful. Whatever your reason for trying to walk across the border, I don't want to hear it. You look like nice girls.” He paused, seeming to recall something. He pointed the flashlight back at Sonia's attire, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe a little strange, but nice. Just go back home to your parents.”

He didn't have to tell Sonia twice. She grabbed Leila's arm and turned them around, speed-walking back the way they'd come, thankful that they weren't in handcuffs.

“I can't tell if I'm more relieved that we're not in jail, or pissed that we didn't make it through,” Leila said.

“Let's go with relieved,” Sonia said, although, with the rings pressing against her chest through the breast pocket of Jeremiah's jacket, she wasn't so sure. At first, they rushed through the woods, using their cell-phone screens to light the way back. But little by little, their pace slowed, maybe as they simultaneously realized that they would reach Leila's car in the motel parking lot with the same unsolved problem. With every step Sonia took, the rings grew heavier in her pocket.