Chapter 14 #2
I check my phone to see if Cash or Diya have texted and come on , how can there be zero service in this place?
! What felt like a wonderland has become a hellscape of informational isolation, and also some of the people walking around now look wet.
I’m too deep into the market to see outside.
If it’s started snowing, that would be way ahead of schedule. And bad. So very, very bad.
After realizing I’ve circled the same vendor for the third time, I bang my fist against my forehead.
That sudden anger sneaks up on me again.
With the market itself for being so totally overwhelming, then with the customers who are in my way, then the vendors who seem to have set up the most complicated floor plan.
But mostly, I’m angry with myself. Why do I always have to be such a tornado of chaos?
Why can’t I ever just keep my head in the game?
But then, how have my friends not found me ?
Are they even looking? Maybe they’re off eating hojarascas with Eve and having a good laugh that I’m still wandering around Williamsburg, cold and alone like Bean Bunny in The Muppet Christmas Carol .
A flash of irritation strikes—maybe they’re not as concerned about me as I am about them, just like they haven’t been concerned about all our traditions.
Is that what next year will be like? Out of sight, out of mind until we all start drifting apart?
This is the problem with having an active imagination—sometimes the feelings are so real, even if the story is hypothetical.
Just when I’m about to run myself straight into a brick wall and hope I come out the other side, my phone buzzes.
I must be close enough to the exit now to get a few bars.
I’m relieved, assuming it’s Cash or Izaac or Diya, but when I pull it from my pocket, I frown.
Naomi again. This time I read both unread messages.
From earlier:
Hey, Pop-Tart! Got your note. Hope you’re having fun with the gang .
And just now:
Any more thoughts on Friday? I really have to let the facility know .
I’m standing to the side of the aisle, getting jostled and bumped as I read the messages, when I hear, “Hey, aren’t you the girl with the camera?”
I look up, and it’s the jewelry vendor who pushed my camera away. The knot in my stomach becomes a gnarly rock.
I almost shout in her face, I’m sorry! I’m trying to get out of here!!
But I manage to keep it together and just say, “Um.”
“It’s cool. I’m not here to yell at you or anything,” she says, clearly sensing my anxiety. Her tone does seem to suggest that she’s also calmed down, at least. “I’m on my break and recognized your hair—which is fire by the way.”
“Oh, thanks…?” I say, now confused.
“I just want to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude before.”
“Oh,” I repeat, because that is even more unexpected.
“It’s just, I have been trying to get my business off the ground and I’ve had so many people filming who just post it on social for their brand, without tagging or buying anything,” she explains, and she wrings her hand as she continues.
“But that doesn’t give me a right to be so rude, or touch your property. ”
“It’s really okay,” I say, because I do appreciate it, and I can see she has her own anxieties to contend with. But also because I really need to keep moving.
“Well, I’m glad I found you. I wanted to give you this.” She hands me a small stone. It’s a brilliant blue that reminds me of Gonzo. It’s a little cloudy, like an iced over pond, and looking into its smooth surface has the strangest calming effect.
“For me?” I ask, and she nods.
“It’s blue agate. Opens up the throat chakra,” she explains, putting two fingers at the base of her neck. “Ya know, to communicate better. Like for an apology. That wasn’t my authentic self back there. It’s just this holiday stress, you know. Really fucks with my aura.”
“Totally,” I agree. “My throat chakra is, like, a mess this time of year. It’s all the, uh, peppermint.”
“Peppermint! You’re so right.” She nods enthusiastically. “Yeah. I don’t think it works with my dosha at all.”
“Hundred percent,” I say.
“?’Kay, well, as long as we’re good. Don’t want to have any karmic bullshit lingering out there, ya know?”
“For sure,” I say.
“Well, happy belated solstice!”
As she walks away, I look down at the stone. I can’t say I understood much of what she said, but I did feel her apology, and maybe it’s the stone, or slowing down to speak with her, but the exchange helped me find my breath again.
I stuff it in my jacket pocket and inhale, ready to resume my search. But before I breathe out, I hear a familiar voice.
“Ebenezer Alison Bosley!”
My name is not Ebenezer. It’s Bernice, a vestige of Naomi’s Southern heritage that I never, ever share with anyone.
But once, when Cash was trying to guess it and googled names that use Bennie for short, Ebenezer came up and naturally everyone found this hilariously appropriate.
The full name invocation usually indicates they’re pissed at me, but right now, I’ve never been so happy to hear it.
A body crashes into me and wraps me in a bear hug. Undeniably Cash. “I thought we’d lost you forever!” he says, though it’s tough to hear him, suffocated as I am.
“Cash… can’t… breathe…”
“Oh! Sorry.”
He spins me around, then releases me, and when I step back, there they all are—Izaac and Audra, too. I am so freaking relieved and happy, I want to jump on top of them and wrap myself around their heads like a cartoon cat.
“We’ve been looking for you for twenty minutes!” Diya says.
“And texting,” Cash adds, holding up his phone. “But…”
“Yeah, total dead zone,” I say, and they both nod.
Guilt twists in my stomach. How had I ever considered they wouldn’t have looked for me?
“Where did you even go?” Cash asks. “One minute you were at the candles with me and the next—poof, vanished!”
“Oh,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Let me tell you. It’s been a journey .”
“One that will make a great story, I’m sure,” Izaac says. “But for now, we’ve gotta move.”
“It’s snowing,” Audra adds, confirming my fears.
I look at Diya. “But how—”
“What’re you looking at me for?” she says. “I don’t actually control this stuff.”
“But it’s so much earlier than they said,” Cash adds, now clutching the boots he was wearing earlier.
“Well, it looks like at least one mission was accomplished,” I say, looking down at his feet, which are stuffed into some atrocious work boots.
Cash grimaces, but politely says, “Audra’s roommate, Billy, was very generous and does have similarly sized feet, as predicted.”
“Well, they do look functional,” I say brightly, even though I’m certain Cash would prefer the pain of blisters to bad footwear—especially this close to Broadway.
“Very functional.” Izaac nods. “Which is what matters.”
“And we’re reunited! Which matters most of all,” Cash says, looking like he’s trying to convince himself, too.
“Save the sentimental stuff for Bennie’s doc,” Izaac says. “For now, let’s just make sure we don’t lose anyone again.”
“Especially not our main character before we even find the girl!” Audra adds.
“Audra, are you sure you don’t want to stay here?” Diya says. “You’re basically home already, and the weather is going to get bad…”
I see and appreciate Diya’s point, but if she were closer, I’d give her a tiny, def-not-painful kick to get her to can it. I haven’t given up on getting Audra to come back with us later.
Thankfully, Audra shakes her head. “And miss the fireworks? I’m fully here to bear witness to Bennie Bosley’s grandest gesture yet.”
Cash claps his hands as Audra throws her arm around me. But even as I ride the relief of being reunited, my throat goes dry, and the doubts I felt lost in the labyrinth rush back in.
Because now I remember—the success of this mission relies on me .