Zip (21 page)

Then, just when Lyssa thought she was done crying, she thought of Michael searching for her along the abandoned highways that stretched between Utah and Washington, a glob of toothpaste stuck to his nose. She thought of Penn poofing her hair up while she waited for Lyssa to call and tell her that she was safe, and the Real Estate Corporation getting their wrecking balls ready—waiting for the day they could knock down her home. Tomorrow. Lyssa would never make it in time

She cried until no more tears would come. Then she curled up, and slept

W
hile Lyssa slept, she dreamed.

She was back home, in Texas, lying on her back in the garden. Sunflowers towered over her, swaying lazily in the wind, and ladybugs jumped from the ground to the leaves to the tip of Lyssa’s nose, making her sneeze.

She sat up, brushing the bugs from her face. Her mom was kneeling in the dirt just a few feet away, her back to Lyssa. Her hair hung over her shoulders in two thick braids, and she had a wide-brimmed straw hat perched on top of her head. She was digging in the dirt with a spade and humming under her breath

“Mom,” Lyssa called. She pushed herself to her feet and
started walking toward her mom. The garden was bigger than she remembered it being, filled with twisting vines and jagged rocks that made her stumble and trip. “Mom,” she called again

But her mom didn’t look up. She jammed her spade into the dirt a little more forcefully. The song she was humming seemed sad now. Lonely

“Mom,” Lyssa said. She started running, her bare feet kicking up dirt. When she reached her mom, she grabbed onto her shoulder and forced her to turn

But the face that stared back at her wasn’t her mom’s—it was Circe’s

Circe was wearing a wig with braids and Lyssa’s mom’s big straw hat. She held up a handful of tulips that she’d dug up by the roots

“The flowers we cut are fleeting,” she said. She opened her hand and the dead flowers tumbled off the ends of her fingers. “But the roots we plant are for life.”

Lyssa woke in the middle of the night to music: smooth and velvety, with notes that rose into the air and ended in a squeak, like a whistle. The tune started off wild, then became slow and soulful.

She sat up. She didn’t know where the music was coming from, but she felt something stirring deep inside
her. She didn’t know where else to go. She was going to follow it

She stood and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She gathered the pieces of her broken scooter and shoved them into her backpack

“Don’t worry, Zip,” she whispered. “I’ll find someone to fix you.”

She followed the music around the shore of the lake and came upon a dirt road. In the moonlight, she could see that it was crisscrossed with train tracks

An unmoving train curved along the tracks. One of the boxcars stood wide open, and there was an old man sitting inside it, his bare feet swinging over the edge of the car. He was playing a harmonica, and the sound was deep and sad and lonely. Exactly the way Lyssa felt

The man had long, tangled gray hair and eyes that were so blue it made Lyssa wonder if he had a bit of sky stuck inside them. His face was wrinkled and open and kind. It reminded Lyssa of her grandmother’s old leather handbag: soft to the touch and creased from years of adventures. The man wore a flannel shirt and corduroy pants covered in patches

“Where’s this train going?” Lyssa asked, shifting her backpack in her arms. The man lowered his harmonica and gave her a shy smile

“Where ain’t it going? That’s the question.” The man
blew into his harmonica again, sending a beautiful chorus of notes up toward the moon, which was high and full, like a spotlight. “I think it ends up in New Mexico.”

“New Mexico,” Lyssa repeated. The words made her think of sunshine and clay houses and turquoise jewelry. Hadn’t her mom told her that her dad had moved to New Mexico to pursue his music? Maybe he could fix Zip up—he was the one who put the scooter together in the first place. Besides, New Mexico wasn’t far from Texas. The talent show was tomorrow, but Lyssa could get lucky. Maybe the winds of change were blowing in her favor again. Bus tickets were probably cheaper down here—maybe $8 would get her a ride…

Wait—not $8. She was down to $6 after paying for that ice cream

“Why don’t you let me help you up?” the man said, setting his harmonica down on his lap. Lyssa handed him the pieces of her scooter; then he grabbed her arm and hoisted her into the boxcar

“We should be taking off anytime,” he said kindly. He held out one hand. “The name’s Oscar.”

“Lyssa,” she said, shaking his hand. He sat back down and started playing his harmonica again, staring into the night sky. The notes rose up toward the moon and disappeared among the stars

Lyssa pulled her sweatshirt out of her bag and bundled it up in a ball under her head, using it as a pillow. By the time the boxcar started rocking on the tracks, carrying her south, she was fast asleep again

When Lyssa woke up, for a second she didn’t know where she was. It wasn’t until she pushed herself into a sitting position that she remembered she was in a boxcar. She looked around for Oscar, the man with the harmonica, but he was gone. She stared up at the sky outside and determined from the position of the sun that it was around ten in the morning.

The boxcar was parked just inside a huge, adobe train station with whitewashed walls. Outside the station were streets filled with organic grocery stores, coffee shops, and jewelry stands. The air, Lyssa was relieved to find, was toasty warm and dry—just like Texas.

She tied her sweatshirt around her waist and put her backpack on. The scooter was a little too big for her backpack, though, and a few metal pieces stuck out of the top and jabbed Lyssa, painfully, in the neck

Lyssa sighed, her stomach rumbling. “Well, Zip,” she said to the broken bits of scooter sticking out of her backpack. “We should probably head out.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lyssa saw a flash of white.
There was a poster attached to the outside of the boxcar, fluttering in the wind

Lyssa felt as though she’d been dipped in ice-cold water. But when she scrambled out of the boxcar and pulled the poster down, she saw that it wasn’t a missing person poster at all. It was a band flyer. It looked a lot like her dad’s old band flyers, but it was for a musician named Leonard the Bard. She couldn’t help examining the lead singer’s face just a little closer. There was something familiar about the line of his jaw and the way his nose drooped a little at the tip

Her heart started beating faster. Musicians changed their names, right? When Lyssa’s dad and mom were together, her dad had been called the Great Lenny. And Lenny was short for Leonard…

Lyssa shuffled around in her backpack, finding her purple water bottle. She had a sticker from one of her dad’s bands on the water bottle and, even though it was faded, she could still see his face. She held the water bottle right next to the poster and, as she examined the two photos side by side, tingles shot through the tips of her fingers and scurried into her arms, like there was a team of ants racing through her veins

The man in the poster might have been a bit older and weighed a little more than he did in Lyssa’s band sticker, but it sure
looked
like the same man.

This was fate—a sign. Yesterday she’d felt so lost and alone, ready to stop believing in magic and the winds of change entirely. But today the universe—her mother?—had led her to her father. According to the flyer, he played at a coffee shop called the Angry Cherry every Wednesday night. If Lyssa could find out where the Angry Cherry was, she’d just explain who she was to the coffee shop manager and ask him for her father’s phone number. Her dad would want to know that she was here. He’d want to meet her. He’d probably even offer to fix her scooter!

Folding the flyer back up, Lyssa stuck it in her pocket and headed toward the coffee shops and jewelry stands across the street

Even though Lyssa had never actually met her real dad, she knew all about him. Her parents had met during a Texas Talent Show performance. Lyssa’s mom had been dancing around onstage with her tambourine, her braids whipping around and around as she spun. Lyssa’s father, Lenny, was in the audience, and he fell over the moon in love with Ana Lee before she sang a single note. He ran up onto the stage in the middle of her song and kissed her—right in front of everyone

After the performance, Lyssa’s mom and father walked around the fair hand in hand, talking about their dreams. Lenny, Lyssa’s mom told her, had wanted to be a famous
musician. But at that point in the story, Lyssa’s mom always got quiet. She’d lean over and kiss Lyssa on the forehead, like the story was over.

“What did you wish for?” Lyssa would ask. Her mom looked down at her and smiled

“I wished for you,” she said, every time

Lyssa’s dad had stayed with them for a few years—he even built Lyssa her scooter, although she was too young to remember it. Then he’d had to follow his dreams and become a famous musician

Lyssa thought she understood that. Dreams were important. But by now, he had to be famous. Maybe he’d let Lyssa stay with him and they could play music together. And he’d definitely want to know about the demolition. He’d probably even offer to drive Lyssa over to Austin so they could protest together

Lyssa stopped people on the street, asking if they knew where she could find the Angry Cherry coffee shop. She had to stop twelve different people before someone could direct her. A man wearing an enormous sun visor told her to keep going straight and turn left at the third stoplight

The Angry Cherry was at the end of the block

Lyssa lugged the bits of scooter all the way to the coffee shop, barely noticing the extra weight in her backpack. Her mouth was dust dry, but her palms were
sweating. She was going to meet her father. She could hardly believe it

The coffee shop was tiny and there was a large cherry stenciled on the door. Lyssa pressed her face against the window and looked inside. She couldn’t tell if it was open. She hesitated there for a long moment

“Can I help you with something, little miss?”

The voice came from a large, silver trailer parked in the street just next to the coffee shop. A man leaned out the front door. He had shaggy, graying hair that hung over his face, but, when he pushed it away with the back of his hand, Lyssa saw that he was, unmistakably, Leonard the Bard.

His nose looked a lot like the one she saw in the mirror every morning. He had ears that stuck out from his head a little—just like hers. She walked toward him, her heart thudding in her chest. Her father. It was him. It had to be him.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice cracked and she bit down on her lower lip and fought the urge to put her braid in her mouth. “I mean, hello. My name is Lyssa.”

Lyssa had assumed her father would recognize her immediately, but he just narrowed his eyes and for almost a minute there was complete silence

“Lyssa?” he said, finally. “Ana Lee’s daughter?” He shook his head, causing a few gray strands of hair to stick to the sweat on his cheek. “Well, now. Wild.”

Lyssa shifted her gaze down to her feet. The way her father looked at her made her feel uncomfortable, like her skin was too small or like the air was pressing in on her. Something was wrong and she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. Didn’t he know that he was her dad? Didn’t he
feel
it?

“So, um, you’re my dad,” Lyssa said

“That’s right,” her dad said, leaning against the doorframe. “Hey, now. I was sorry about what happened to your mom. I heard about it. That’s awful.” He paused. “You look pretty tired. Want to come in and put your feet up for a second?”

“I’m actually here because there’s an emergency,” she said, so fast that her words tumbled over one another. “See, my mom’s house was supposed to be turned into a community center, but there was a law that it couldn’t be and now they want to build condos so I need to get to Texas by…”

Lyssa paused, counting back the days in her head. Then she counted them again and one more time after that. Every inch of her skin felt suddenly cold

“Today,” she croaked out, as the realization hit her with the force of a concrete wall. “They’re knocking down our home today.”

Her father chuckled under his breath and shook his head. “Slow down there,” he said, running a hand through
his hair again. “Why don’t you come inside and sit down for a minute?”

“But we don’t
have
a minute,” Lyssa protested. “Please. We have to go
now
.”

“How about we get you a bite to eat first?” her dad said, still smiling. It was as if he wasn’t listening to her at all

“But—” Lyssa tried again

“Come on in,” he said in a lullaby voice, as though she was five and not eleven. “And then you can tell me all about it, okay?”

Lyssa didn’t see what other choice she had. So she swallowed and tried to give him a little smile. “I
am
a little hungry,” she admitted.

The man who was supposed to be her father nodded. “Alrighty then. We’ll find you something to eat.”

Lyssa followed Leonard up the stairs and into his trailer It was dark inside, even with the light on, but there were plants everywhere—hanging from the ceiling, crowded around the furniture, and even sitting on the countertops. The effect, Lyssa thought, was like being in a dark, cool jungle.

The trailer was small, though, and despite the fact that there wasn’t much furniture, it felt cramped—probably because of all the plants. The front room held only one
chair, a lamp shaped like a beer can, and a turned-over milk crate that was being used as a coffee table. The carpet was orange and shaggy, and wood paneling covered the walls

Lyssa looked around, confused. Was this where her father lived? Was this what his dreams had brought him?

Her father crossed the room and pulled open his refrigerator. Immediately, Lyssa was hit with a strong, pungent smell—like feet. She glanced over her father’s shoulder and saw that there were only a few things in the fridge: a hunk of moldy-looking cheese, some jars of mustard and ketchup, and a few cases of beer. Her father scratched his head, then shut the fridge door