Today's Reading
"Hi," the boy said, setting a piece of paper down in front of us. Only, it wasn't a petition. It was the same flyer that Paul had given me. The dark-haired girl. The one who was missing. "Anyone with any information should call this number," he said, pointing at the page with a fluorescent green nail.
I studied the flyer as he moved onto the next table.
The girl's name was Lucia, which I mistakenly pronounced "Lu-see-ah."
Jack corrected me. "Luchia. With a ch." His eyes were glued to the page. When he looked up, I was staring. "What?" he said defensively. "It's Italian. Lu-chia, not Lu-see-ah."
He finished his Diet Coke, and we headed outside. It was late March, and the sun burned high in the sky. All around us, campus was abuzz. There were students in the quad, a couple of frat boys playing hacky sack. Jack was quiet, distracted.
"You all right?" I asked him.
"You bet," he said, patting my shoulder. "Get some writing done, Professor. I'll catch you tomorrow."
We parted ways, and I lit a cigarette. Smoked it down to the filter. Disgusting habit. I was planning to quit. Outside the parking lot, there was another student handing out flyers. The missing girl again.
"Already got one, thanks," I said, tapping my bag.
Later, I would look back and marvel at the day. When Lucia was just the name of a girl I did not know. Soon, of course, she would be everywhere. On the news, in the papers, whispered about in the hallways, and I would struggle to remember a time when Lucia Vanotti did not consume my every waking moment.
CHAPTER TWO
LUCIA
THEN (A YEAR AND A HALF EARLIER)
People do things for all sorts of reasons. Because it's hot. Because they're bored. Because what's the worst that can happen when the worst has already happened? That night, I did it because he had a nice smile.
His name was Eric, and I saw him while I was waiting in line for the bathroom.
"Where do I know you from?" he asked.
We were at a frat party. People moved in eddies around the furniture and congregated in the halls. Music drifted upward, Kendrick Lamar pumping through the house. Downstairs, the line for the bathroom was monstrous, so I came upstairs looking for another. Now the boy with the smile was squinting, trying to place me.
"Macroeconomics," I said. "Last year."
'Be humble. Sit down', said Kendrick Lamar.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah," Eric said. Full lips, straight teeth. "You're that pretty girl who sat in the back."
Other people's flirtation is cringeworthy. Less so when it's your own.
"Your hair's longer," I noted.
"Yeah, I'm growing it out." He ran a hand through it. I could picture his bedroom, down to the didgeridoo in the corner. It would be one of those expensive ones, aboriginal, first-class from Australia.
I stood with my back against the wall. Eric moved closer so we didn't have to shout over the music. When the bathroom door opened, I smiled and pushed past him. He was still waiting there when I came out.
"You want to see my room?" he asked.
I took a sip of my beer, let the bitterness sting my tongue and run down my throat.
"Yeah, sure."
As we passed the stairs, I glanced down at the crush of people. A boy was pumping the keg. There were beer cans everywhere and a three-foot bong on the table. I followed Eric into his room. No didgeridoo, but a djembe drum, hand-carved with little elephants along the bottom. I watched him rifle through a drawer and pull out a bag of pills.
"You down?" he asked.
I shrugged, then opened my hand. "Don't you want to know what they are?"
"Not really."
He laughed. "You're crazy." He placed two pills in my palm, and we clinked our beers and swallowed them.
...
