As if wishing a thing can make it come true.
Yeah, yeah, Lukas, I know you think it can’t.
Still, I’m only wishing for something small.
I am wishing that no one is sitting at our booth. I wish no one is sitting at our booth. I wish. No one. Is sitting. At our booth.
I open my eyes.
Presto, magic.
No one is.
Getting out of the house had been easier than I expected, but mostly because when Davy was jumping off the arm of the couch, his cape got caught under his foot and he hit his cheek on the coffee table. It wasn’t that big a deal. It sure wasn’t out of the ordinary, but it did divert everyone’s attention long enough for me to announce that Mrs. Rogers, the lady I babysit for, wanted me to stop by to give me a birthday gift, which wasn’t a lie because it was true. It’s just that it had happened last week.
Natalia looked up from her computer long enough to give me a deadpan look that I couldn’t exactly read, but I knew she wouldn’t say anything because that’s kind of our sister bond.
My dad was holding a bag of frozen peas and trying to get Davy to stay still while he pressed it to his face. Isabel was standing on the arm of the couch, re-enacting exactly what had occurred, while Mom was telling her to stop.
They both looked up and waved at me, and I was out the door.
I slide into our booth, third one on the right, and I tell myself to pretend that this is just any other day. That I’m not here to find a clue that may, or may not, have been left here for me 366 days ago. If I don’t worry and get anxious, maybe I’ll remember something; if I just open my brain and let it come, maybe it will come to me. My dad always says a watched pot doesn’t boil.
Yeah, yeah, I know a pot will still boil even if you are watching it. Very funny.
Outside the window is the too-blue sky, and gulls swooping past. If I changed places and sat on the opposite side, I’d be able to see the seawall and the Sound. But this is my side, my seat. The one I always sat in, while Lukas sits across from me, pizza goo stuck on his face. Tomato sauce on his shirt.
I know, right?
Always tomato sauce on your shirt.
But none of that matters right now; right now I have to take my time and try to sort things out, prepare myself that the clue isn’t here. Or prepare myself that it might be.
No one is going to bother me. It’s not that kind of restaurant. I can sit here and think. If you want to order, you have to walk up to the counter.
“Can I help you?”
I look up. “Huh?”
I guess it’s a waitress because she’s wearing a uniform and holding a pad of paper, a pen poised in her fingers. “Can I get you anything, sweetie?” I must be looking at her funny because she adds, “To eat?”
A waitress? That’s new.
So I look around—I mean, really look around. I see that the big mural on the wall of the Roman Colosseum is different, mainly because there never was one there before. And there is a red-and-white-striped half-umbrella thingy that stretches out over the place where you used to stand and order, and there are waitresses now, too, I guess.
So many things are different. Is anything the same?
Maybe this isn’t the right table after all.
But I’m sure he meant Vincent’s Pizza, right?
No, it’s right. And I’m sure he meant pi.
As in 3.14, Archimedes’s constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
Or did the clue have to do with the time, like 3:14 in the afternoon, and pi was a red herring that was supposed to throw me off?
Hey, what time is it? Shoot, I forgot my cell phone, and I’m starting to panic a little. What if I never figure this out?
And now I’m not breathing so well, either.
“Sweetheart? Do you want anything to eat?” The waitress is still standing here.
I am having one of those weird out-of-body experiences, like I’ve lost track of my own body and maybe I’m in the wrong moment or the wrong place. Everything gets blurry and freezes. I know what I’m supposed to do: Count my inhale. Count my exhale. Make them longer.
I place both my hands down on the table to calm myself.
The table.
I’m sure it’s the right one, but something is different. The surface is smooth and feels polished—I don’t remember that. I lean closer.
It even smells faintly of shellac.
Of course, it’s different. It’s been a year.
Yes, I know. I’m using my brain. I’m trying, Lukas, I really am.
What could have changed in a year? What could be the same? Where could he have hidden the first clue? I look around.
The basic structure of the room is the same. The layout. The open wood fireplace. The windows and doors and booths. It looks like it’s just been redecorated: the painting on the wall. Maybe it’s even the same owners and they just wanted a little lift. Spruce the place up a bit. Add a striped awning, and a waitress or two.
“Are you waiting for someone?”
Oh right. She’s still here.
Now I feel something new. Anger. Angry at this waitress who won’t leave me alone when I’m trying to concentrate.
Angry.
And then at Lukas.
I’m mad at you. You really need to ask why?
For leaving me here. For not being here to explain things. We were supposed to help each other when the clues got too hard. We always did this together. That was the whole fun of it, watching the other person running around, trying to figure it out. Enjoying the hide-and-seek of it.
When we were little kids, we did the whole hunt in one place, of course, like the library or the Dolphin apartments, which was good that one year it rained all day. The wind blew the waves against the seawall, crashing so loud we could hear them. But we were warm and safe inside. I put one clue in that old, dried-out wreath that Mrs. Clemson never took down from her front door. When Lukas reached up to find it, the whole thing disintegrated and crumbled into pieces of dried twigs and gray, papery leaves.
We could hear Mrs. Clemson’s shoes clicking on her wood floor inside her apartment, coming closer, so, of course, we ran.
Now, where is your clue, Lukas? Where did you leave it?
I’m so mad at you.
For leaving me here to notice all these changes and not have anyone to talk about them with. I can imagine Lukas’s voice, the funny things he’d have to say about that butt-ugly mural.
“No,” I snap back at the waitress.