The Opposite of Loneliness Essays and Stories(30)

Haaya and I are going to try to start over. She wants me to pray more—maybe even five times a day. She says the land in the East is barely patrolled, barely settled. And in a few years, I’m sure they’ll forget about a CPA f*ckup and his translator anyway. Haaya has a headscarf now and she told me to put on dishdasha robes. We’ll live with her family for a time. They’re farming people, pulling whatever they can from the desert dust.

I’m going to see the world, Laura. I’m finally getting out of this damn garden.

Take care of yourself,

Will





Baggage Claim

Kyle dry-swallowed two aspirin as he entered the warehouse. It reminded him of a Walmart, only larger and more fluorescent. Mellow music hovered over the chatter that only 20 to 30 percent off could possibly inspire. It wasn’t his idea to go to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, or, as the women in the matching red polos at the door said, “The Lost Luggage Capital of the World.” The building boasted a solid fifty thousand square feet and stretched out like a giant cinder block, awkwardly planted on an island of asphalt in the middle of rural Scottsboro. Bridget had charted this visit into their itinerary long before they had left for Alabama and Kyle had decided he wouldn’t like it long before they arrived.

*

“Did you know,” she had said in the car, “that over one million lost bags come through there every year?” He grunted and looked back at the map. “It says here that one man found an original Salvador Dalí print in an old suitcase.” He wondered if she had planned their vacation so he’d finally propose. Wondered if she could sense the ring he had hidden in the cloth in the box in his Dopp kit in the second-smallest pocket of his backpack. Wondered why this somehow annoyed him, and why after all this time she somehow annoyed him. The way the foam collected on the corners of her mouth when she brushed her teeth, the way her clothes were always folded in squares, the way she eyed him when he didn’t eat his green beans. He didn’t bother asking what an “original” print was. Instead he faked a smile, squeezed her arm, and turned off at Exit 62.

*

Bridget stared up at the aisle signs hanging from the warehouse ceiling. “The deals here are going to be unbelievable.” She did a semicircle, stopping in front of him so their noses nearly touched. “I’m going to go look at those scarves.” She kissed him lightly and he noticed her cheeks were sunburned. Kyle nodded as she hurried toward a rack.

Despite the aspirin, a dull headache began to settle in on him. Supermarkets had the same effect—a type of pressure from the plaster above and the linoleum below. He moved down the aisle and emerged in front of a display of digital cameras. Atop the stack was a white-and-red sign proclaiming that ALL PREVIOUS PICTURES HAVE BEEN DELETED FROM THE CAMERAS, and below it was a yellow tag reading TWO-FOR-ONE SPECIAL! Kyle wondered whose job it was to erase the memories from someone else’s life. Some young guy who spent his days flipping through the pictures of an Indian couple at a ski resort or a family vacationing in Buenos Aires, monotonously deleting them one after another, perhaps pondering his own means of escaping Scottsboro, Alabama, and his job at its main attraction. It reminded him of a horror movie he had watched with Bridget on one of their first dates. A man received an eye transplant and began to see things from the donor’s life. These cameras, he decided, must function exactly like that.

Kyle was reminded of an arena as he wove through the stacks of aged leather cases, brand-new suits, and souvenirs from Taiwan, past ski boots and rain boots and a glass case full of watches. After a moment, he set out down an aisle of women’s bathing suits. He imagined tired employees marking and cleaning an endless supply of swimwear. Another tropical vacation, they would say as they unzipped a flap, another pair of flip-flops. The concept somehow repulsed him. Ninety days didn’t seem long enough to give up hope and sell someone’s belongings. He walked past an elderly woman and examined a floral bikini. He imagined Bridget standing hopelessly by an empty conveyor belt, robbed of her own possessions. He imagined himself comforting her and assuring her they’d find it eventually. The girl who lost the floral bikini had probably thrown a fit, but Bridget would have been calm, forgiving, and it would have driven him crazy.

“There you are!” She came out from behind a rack of golf clubs. “I think I’m going to buy this shawl.” Bridget pulled an antique-looking cloth around her shoulders and pointed her face up in a pose. “What do you think?”

“It’s nice.”

“Are you thinking of getting a new digital camera?” She folded the shawl back up and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Look, it’s two for one.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I’m going to go buy this before I change my mind,” she said as she shifted her brown purse higher up on her shoulder and walked to the left, “but I’ll come find you in a minute.”

“Hey, Bridget.” He didn’t know what prompted him to say it. She stopped and turned around, her brown ponytail swinging to her left shoulder. Kyle opened his mouth, then shut it. “Uh, did you know that some guy once found an original Salvador Dalí print in here?”

“Yeah, I did,” she said sharply, but he could see her roll her eyes and grin as she turned back toward the register.

Kyle looked up at the fluorescent lights and listened as their hum mixed with the distant music. She knows, he thought. She must have found it in the hotel. Kyle placed his backpack on a pile of black duffels and followed behind her. It wasn’t until they were back in the parking lot that he decided to run inside and buy it back for $4.99.