Where We Belong (6 page)

On the walk home, I passed a bookstore. New and used, both. It was called Nellie’s Books, and it looked kind of nice inside. Not like the big, new, modern kind of store with an espresso bar. Just books.

I went inside.

The woman behind the counter looked up at me and smiled. For some reason, that smile was almost like what I’d been looking for in Norway, except that didn’t make sense, because I could never travel to somebody’s smile. Then again, I’d never get to Norway, either. Who was I kidding?

“Are you Nellie?” I asked. “Or is that just a name for the store?”

Then I stood there dwelling on what a stupid thing that had been to say. Why did I even care? I didn’t, I’d just felt like I had to say something. But then I didn’t even know why. I thought, “Hi” would have been good.

“In the flesh,” she said. “What can I help you with?”

“I was wondering if you had any of those big, nice coffee-table books that are about travel.”

“Any special place?”

“Mountains are always good.”

She looked at me a little funny when I said that. I guess because most people travel to a country, not to a shape of the ground.

“I had something nice in the used section about the Himalayas,” she said. “Let me see if I still have it.”

My heart jumped. If it was used, maybe I could even get it. But it was just one of those split-second thoughts. Those books cost big money, even used. Besides, they were way too nice to bring into my house.

I followed her down a couple of aisles, watching her, but more from the corners of my eyes. So in case she looked back at me, it wouldn’t look like I was staring. She had hair like Sophie’s but a little browner, and her eyes were brown. I liked her nose, but I didn’t really know why. I couldn’t tell you one thing that was wrong with my nose, except for a few freckles, but all of a sudden, I wanted to trade it in for hers.

Then she stopped and took a book off the shelf and held it with the cover toward me. I swear, my knees turned to butter. I felt like I might fall over. It had a picture on the cover that was so much like the first picture I’d ever seen of Tibet, it made my head feel foggy and far away, like this wasn’t really happening. It was like the place had followed me, and found me. It had the white temple with the fancy roof, the incredibly craggy and snowy mountains behind that, the smiley children in bright clothes, the prayer flags blowing in the wind. Well. It was a still picture, of course, so the prayer flags weren’t blowing. Except they were, and you could tell.

Children in Tibet are always smiling in pictures. I think that might be part of how all this started.

It had the word
Himalayas
really big on the cover, and in smaller letters it mentioned Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Northern India, and Northern Pakistan.

“Can I see it?” I reached my hands out. They were shaking, and I think she noticed.

I held the book in my hands for a minute. It was huge and heavy. I turned it over and looked at the price sticker. Fifty-five dollars, used. But you would really never know it was used. Except for one bumped corner, it was perfect.

“Can I sit down and look at it?”

“Of course.”

She showed me to a nice stuffed easy chair. It was pretty far away from her counter, but I could see her from there, and she could see me. I sat down and slipped off my shoes and sat cross-legged in my sock feet, because I didn’t want to get her chair dirty. I opened the book between my knees.

I looked up to see she was behind the counter again, reading.

I turned one page at a time, my eyes mostly drawn to the snowy mountains. I’d never seen snow in my life. Not once. But I didn’t want to see it half plowed off a city street. I wanted to see it like that. Blowing off the top of a high mountain, or in cornices, or settled into the crags on those incredible peaks. I even wanted to see an avalanche. But only from a long, safe way away, of course.

“Are you going to go there when you’re all grown up?” She didn’t even look up from her book when she asked it.

I looked up from mine and stared at her for a minute.

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s not the answer I was expecting.”

She looked at me. I quick looked away.

“I have to stay and help my mom.”

“Forever?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“I hate to be a downer, but your mom won’t live forever.”

“Oh. Then I’d
really
have to stay. Because if my mom wasn’t around to take care of Sophie, I’d have to.”

Then I kicked myself hard, and waited for her to ask me who Sophie was and why I had to take care of her. She never did.

I went back to turning the pages. The next one had monks in those orange robes.

“Maybe you’ll make a lot of money and can pay someone to help your mom while you travel.”

My eyes came up again. “I like the sound of that,” I said.

I was hoping she’d say more, but she didn’t. So I looked through the book. It was exactly where I wanted to go that day. It was exactly where I wanted to go every day. I was already starting to feel like I didn’t want to put it down. I didn’t want to leave it here. What if somebody came in and bought it? I felt like it was mine. Or meant to be, anyway. It already felt really bad to think of it being someone else’s.

“What draws you to the Himalayan countries?”

Her voice made me jump.

“Well. I saw this picture when I was little. It was a lot like the one on the cover of this book. It was just so different from any place I’d ever been. And everything that was different about it seemed better. I’ve never been in the mountains or seen snow. I don’t know. Everything was just right about it. Or maybe I just liked it because it’s on the other side of the world from here.”

Then I sat there for a minute, wanting to erase that last sentence. I couldn’t, so I decided to add more.

“Have you ever seen a Tibetan fox? It doesn’t look like any other kind of fox in the world. I swear, it looks like a cartoon. It doesn’t look like a real fox. It looks like a talking-fox character somebody would draw wearing a smoking jacket, smoking a big pipe. Its face looks very sophisticated.”

She smiled. That was good.

I plunged on.

“Did you know that half of all the different kinds of plants you can find anywhere in China are in Tibet? Four hundred kinds of rhododendrons. Not four hundred different kinds of flowers. Four hundred different kinds of
that one
flower. Over five hundred species of wild orchids. Four thousand different plants, and over thirty percent of all the birds you can find in the whole India subcontinent. And four hundred different kinds of butterflies. Did you know that?”

She was looking into my face, so I looked away.

“Are you reading that off to me?”

“No, ma’am. That’s not in this book. I mean, not that I’ve gotten to yet. I just know it.”

“Well, to answer your question, I think the only people who know that are people who work in Tibetan travel bureaus and you. And… please… I know I’m old compared to you. But I still think of
ma’am
as somebody more like my mother. Nellie. Please.”

“Nellie. Sorry. I never know who knows stuff like that and who doesn’t.”

She didn’t answer for a while, but she didn’t go back to her book, either. She was looking out the window. It was off to her left, and I couldn’t figure out if there was something out there or if she was just thinking.

Then she said, “You know, it’s not what it used to be before the Chinese invaded.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And tourism isn’t helping. Well. It helps. But it hurts, too. I heard the rivers are actually flowing with garbage.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s just a dream. I’ll never get there, anyway.”

I folded the book closed and started to get up.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t go.”

“It’s not your fault if there’s garbage in the rivers.”

“It’s my fault I brought it up while you were dreaming.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I just have to go home. I can’t travel, and I can’t afford this book, and I have to go home now.”

“You could come back again and look at the rest of it.”

“Well… yeah. Maybe. Maybe I will.”

I brought it up to the counter, because I couldn’t remember where it was supposed to go. You should never put a book back on a shelf unless you can remember where it’s supposed to go.

“I have a big inventory to do soon,” she said. “I’d let it go for four hours of hard labor.”

I set it on her counter and looked away. Out the same window she’d been looking out. There was nothing out there.

I didn’t figure she really needed the help. It felt more like charity. Which… I mean… I know she meant well and all. But I didn’t like the feel of it.

“That’s a nice offer, ma’am. I mean, Nellie. But I can’t bring that book home, anyway. It would only get ruined.”

“There’s no safe place in your house to keep a book?”

“Well… I have this metal chest that locks. But I’d have to take it out sometime, or what’s the point of having it? And I’d feel too awful if it got ruined. It’s too good for that. You know?”

“Want me to put it behind the counter, and you can think it over?”

“Um…” I thought again about the way it would feel if I came in to see it and somebody else had bought it. Somebody who had lots of money and didn’t have to think twice about fifty-five dollars, and didn’t have to care about the book, because what it cost wasn’t too much for them to waste. “That would actually be nice. Thanks.”

“What’s your name?”

I just stood there like an idiot for a minute. Because I was trying to figure out why she would even care.

Before I could sort through that, she said, “If I’m going to hold a book for you, I have to put your name on it.”

“Oh. Right. It’s Angie. Do you need my last name, too?”

“No. Just your first name and phone number will do.”

“Oh. I don’t know my phone number.” Then I winced, hearing how incredibly dumb that sounded. “We just moved in with my aunt, day before yesterday. I haven’t memorized the number yet.”

“That’s okay. Just bring it the next time you come in.”

“I will. Thanks.”

I watched her write my name in this big, loopy handwriting on a yellow sticky note. When she stuck it to the cover of the book, I thought, See? You knew that book was meant to be yours.

Except I still didn’t really believe it ever would be.

Then I walked out onto the street and blinked into the light and realized I hadn’t even killed two hours yet, walking included. It wasn’t really true that I needed to get home. I didn’t need to, and I didn’t want to. It was that woman. I liked her, but she made me feel like I didn’t have skin. Like there was nothing to protect me from someone seeing in. Or even getting in.

I walked around for an hour, and sat in a park for another hour. I’d say what I was thinking, but honestly, I don’t know. I don’t even know that I was.

When I got home, my mom and my sister were in the closet. That was never a good sign. I found them by following the sound. I could hear Sophie, but her voice was just this raspy little leftover. It would be gone soon. Which meant she’d been at it for a long time.

I opened the closet door.

My mom looked up at me. She looked kind of startled. Then her face got soft, like she was glad it was only me.

“You got the egg cartons up,” I said.

While I was away, my mom had emptied the closet in Aunt Vi’s spare room, the room we were all supposed to somehow fit into, and lined the closet walls with empty egg cartons. She’d brought them all over in a cardboard box from our old soundproof closet in our old place.

“Yeah, thank God that guy next door was gone long enough that I could do that much.”

I stepped into the closet and closed the door behind us. I’m not really sure why. There was just barely room for me to sit cross-legged on the floor. My knee was up against Sophie’s side, but she didn’t seem to mind.

My mom was brushing the hair back from Sophie’s forehead, over and over. Stroking her forehead more than anything else, I guess. Sophie doesn’t really like to be touched, but sometimes, when she’s really tired and worn down, it seems to hypnotize her. Her face was red and sweaty. It was a little warm in the closet, so I wasn’t surprised.

Her voice was so weak that my mom and I could talk right over her without straining our throats.

“Where’s Aunt Vi?”

She didn’t answer for a long time. Whenever my mom waits a long time to answer a question, the answer is not going to be good.

“At a motel.”

“She went to a motel?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“We chased her out of her own house?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, kiddo.”

“For how long?”

“I have no idea.”

Then we just sat there for a minute. It was getting too hot, and I was about to let myself out of there.

Then she asked, “Where’d you go today?”

Not like I had to report in. More like she wanted me to know she was interested. She always bent over backwards to make the point that she was interested in everything I did. I guess because Sophie was such an attention sponge. But really, nothing would have made me happier than if she mostly looked after Sophie and let me do what I do with no one watching. It always made me uneasy to feel like someone was watching me do the simple, weird stuff I did every day.