Where Lost Girls Go

CAELA

“Happy birthday!”

“Ugh. What time is it?”

“A little after five in the morning,” he said, as if this was a completely reasonable time to be waking up his fifteen-year-old daughter.

“The sun’s not even out,” she whined. “Why are you waking me up?”

“Because it’s your birthday, and I’m too excited to wait any longer to give you your present. You’re lucky I wasn’t in here two hours ago, at the time of your actual birth. Here, shield your eyes, honey.”

She threw an arm over her face as he turned on the lamp on the nightstand.

Then she felt his hand on her shoulder, giving her a gentle nudge.

With a grumble, Caela scooted across the little twin bed, toward the wall, to make room for him to sit down.

It wasn’t until she pulled her arm away from her face that she saw the box—messily wrapped in lavender paper and with a black bow—clutched between her dad’s hands.

“You know,” she said, “I’m pretty sure I, as the kid, am the one meant to be so excited about presents that I wake you up before dawn.”

“Shush and open it.” He placed the box next to her as she sat up. He was grinning, his smile stretched wide across his face as he bounced slightly on the mattress. Between that and the forgotten smear of blue paint on his cheek, her dad looked a bit like an overgrown child.

Caela tore into the paper, revealing a plain cardboard box that gave nothing away.

Peeling the tape off the flaps, she opened it up and gasped.

Inside was the video camera she had been staring at online for a year.

It was beautiful: matte black with silver buttons.

It felt wonderfully heavy in her hands as she gingerly lifted it out of the box.

“Dad …”

“You like it?”

“Of course I do, but …” Caela looked up at him, biting her lip. Because she had stared at this camera enough times to know how painfully expensive it was. “Are you sure you can afford this?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about that. I took on a few extra shifts at the store, sold one of my recent paintings, put my kidney up for auction on the black market …”

“Dad.”

“I’m kidding! I didn’t sell a painting.”

“Dad!”

“Really, it’s all right. Leave the stress about money up to me and enjoy your birthday. You’ll have plenty of time to worry about finances when you’re an adult.”

She placed the camera on the nightstand, as carefully as one might handle a newborn, and leaned over to wrap her arms around her father. “Thank you.” Her voice was muffled against his flannel shirt. “I love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, Caela.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just promise me that when you’re off in Hollywood winning Oscars and hanging out with Spielberg, you won’t forget about your dad.”

“I promise.”

He patted her on the back before pulling away from the hug. “Good. Now come on.” He stood up from the bed. “Let’s have pancakes.”

“You don’t know how to make pancakes,” she pointed out as he made his way to the door.

“I know. That’s why you’re going to make the pancakes.” He smirked over his shoulder at her before turning and heading into the hallway.

“You’re the worst!” Caela called after him as she pushed off the blankets and stood up to follow him to the kitchen.

“What can I say? The tree doesn’t stand far from the apple.”

“That is not the saying.”

“Mmm. Pretty sure it is.”

There was a small stack of brightly colored envelopes on the kitchen counter.

Caela glanced at them, spotting the names of a few of her dad’s friends and her grandparents in the return addresses.

He must have seen her looking, because he gave Caela an apologetic look as he stepped past her to fill his coffee mug.

“She didn’t send one, honey. I’m sorry.”

“Not surprising.”

“She probably just lost track of the day,” he offered. “Maybe it’ll come later this week.”

“Along with the cards for the last two birthdays she forgot?”

He grimaced and didn’t answer.

Caela had stopped expecting anything from her mother a long time ago.

She was five years old when she first understood that, though she was never cruel, her mother hadn’t really wanted kids.

She and Caela’s dad had been young—barely twenty and halfway through their junior year of college—and had only been dating for a few months when she got pregnant.

To say Caela had been unplanned would be an understatement.

“A happy surprise,” her parents would call her. And while she thought her dad meant it, Caela somehow knew her mother hadn’t. Maybe there was a time when she almost believed it, but by the time Caela started kindergarten, that delusion had passed.

Her mother was never awful to her. She was just …

distant and, on occasion, irritable. Her dad was the one who helped her with her homework and took her to T-ball practice, the one who read stories to her before bed and sent her to time-out when she misbehaved.

He was the good guy and the bad guy, all in one.

And her mother was just there. Distracted, disinterested, only chiming in when asked.

She left when Caela was nine, moving down to Kentucky with a whole host of unkept promises. Absence, it seemed, had not made her mother’s heart grow fonder.

And yet, while Caela had stopped expecting anything from her mother, she hadn’t quite stopped hoping.

“Are we going to the BMV today?” Caela asked, eager to change the subject so that her dad would stop looking at her with that sad, apologetic expression he always wore when her mother came up.

“Not today. I have to work one of those extra shifts I told you about.”

Caela let out a loud, pointed sigh.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” he assured her. “The car will still be there. I can’t believe you’re so excited to drive that beat-up old thing.”

“Hey.” Caela turned away from the cabinet with the pancake mix pointed at him. “That beat-up old thingis Jennette. Put some respect on her name.”

“Oh, my apologies. Jennette will be there tomorrow, once you have your license.”

“Fine,” Caela said as she started making the pancakes. “But we’re going first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He didn’t have to work for a few hours, though, which meant they had enough time after breakfast to engage in one of their favorite weekend rituals.

“All right. So what is this one about?” her dad asked as he settled onto the massive red couch in the living room.

“A group of adult orphans who are best friends.”

“Okay. Doesn’t sound too bad so far.”

“They do martial arts and are in a rock band where they sing about being best friends and doing martial arts.”

“Ah.”

“No, wait! It gets better!” Caela flopped onto the cushion beside him and hit the play button on the remote. “They have to fight drug-dealing, motorcycle-riding ninjas. Also it all takes place in Florida.”

“Of course it does.” He sighed. “I swear, Caela, I don’t know where you find these terrible movies.”

“The internet. Obviously.”

“Maybe the internet was a bad idea, actually.”

“Considering the crap Grandma and Grandpa post on Facebook, I might have to agree with you.” She leaned back against the cushions as the film started to play. “But this? This is a masterpiece.”

They spent every Saturday morning that way, watching the worst movies ever made and laughing until they cried. Then they’d quote the films to each other for weeks or months after. It was a secret language no one spoke but them.

“What are you going to do when we run out of bad movies?” he asked as he bobbed his head along to one of the movie’s full-length musical numbers.

“Never gonna happen,” Caela said. “The great thing about terrible movies is there are more and more being made all the time. I’ll be coming to visit you in the old folks’ home with a new gem every week.”

“Old folks’ home?” He looked outraged. “You’re going to make your dear old dad live in a home?”

“Heck yeah I am. I’m gonna be too busy going to red carpet events with my hot wife to make you pancakes.”

“Wow. After all I’ve done for you? This is how you’ll repay me?”

“It’ll be a nice home. And I’ll thank you in my Best Director acceptance speech at the Oscars.” Caela ducked, laughing, as her dad tossed one of the couch’s throw pillows at her head. “I’m kidding!”

“You’d better be. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Caela’s phone buzzed and she swiped it from the side table, cheeks heating up and a smile stretching across her face when she saw it was a message from Eliza, wishing her happy birthday and telling her to be ready to go by eleven.

“Well, looks like you’re off the hook for working on my birthday,” she told her dad. “I’ve got plans now, too.”

“Excellent. Tell Eliza and Grady I say hello. But be back by seven? I’ll bring home dinner for us.”

“Thai?”

“Anything for the birthday girl.”

“Sweet. I’ll see you at seven, then .”

After the movie, Caela tossed on a tank top and ripped jeans, threw her long hair into a ponytail, put on some lipstick, grabbed her new camera, and headed out the door to go meet up with Eliza.

She took the long way, through the building’s parking garage, to say hello to Jennette, the old red Mustang her dad had stopped driving when he’d gotten his motorcycle, which now belonged to her.

“One more day,” she said, patting the hood affectionately. “Just one more day.”

Eliza was waiting outside, sitting behind the wheel of her mom’s Jeep. She leaned out the window, dark brown eyes peering over the frames of her oversized sunglasses. “Hey, you.”

“Hey!” Caela hopped in the passenger’s seat, glancing in the back, where Grady, wearing his usual backward ball cap and Bengals jersey, sat scrolling on his phone. “Hey, Grady.”

He raised his hand in greeting without looking up.

“I told him you get shotgun since it’s your birthday,” Eliza said. “He’s sulking.”

“Not sulking,” Grady argued. “Looking for inspiration.”

It’s then that Caela notices the open duffel bag full of spray paint cans lying on the seat next to Grady. “You tagging somewhere today?” she asked.

“The brick wall behind the old movie theater,” he said.