The Lost & Found by Katrina Leno Read Free Book Online

certainly don’t eat them.”
    â€œShe takes them to her book club,” I offered.
    â€œSometimes I think there’s no book club,” Arrow said.
    â€œSo where does she go all the time?” I asked.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMaybe she takes them to your mom,” Arrow said softly.
    â€œOh.”
    For some reason, picturing my mom eating veggie plates in a mental hospital was the last straw.
    We cried together for hours, and when we were done crying we went and ate the veggie plate Aunt Florence had left on the kitchen counter, not even because we particularly wanted it but because it felt, in a weird way, like a tribute.
    When we were finished, Arrow went to take a shower and I snuck into my aunt and uncle’s room. I took the photo album from Aunt Florence’s vanity. Arrow and I used to look through this album when we were kids. It was pictures of the two of them, Florence and my mom, when they were younger.
    I didn’t have any photographs of my mother. She had burned them all one afternoon right before I went to live with my grandparents. We sat in the backyard and she put amatch to every single one. Burning pictures smell terrible. Like something poisonous and wrong.
    I removed a photo from the album—a picture of my mother by herself, her hand held in someone else’s hand, a man’s hand, his arm cut off by the edge of the photo so it was just my mom being led somewhere by someone without a body. He wore a thick silver bracelet with a chunk of turquoise in it. My mom looked up at the camera and laughed, laughed, laughed more than I had ever seen her laugh in real life.
    I took the photo and put it into my pocket.
    But when I looked for it later, it was gone.

SIX
Louis
    I t was hot, even for Los Angeles. We were in the middle of a heat wave, one hundred and five degrees in June.
    â€œYou need a shot of Freon,” Willa informed me, leaning close to the air ducts in my car. “This is like bathwater. This is like someone blowing on my face. It isn’t cold at all.”
    â€œIt just needs a second.”
    â€œWe’ve been driving for ten minutes. How much longer does it need? A shot of Freon is three dollars. Go to Jiffy Lube. I’ll treat.”
    I didn’t know what Freon was or whether I wanted it in my car, but I didn’t say anything to Willa. She was one of those people who seemed to know everything abouteverything, but I never saw her online or reading books or the newspaper so I wasn’t sure where she got her information. It was like it appeared, magically, in her brain, and that was annoying, because everything I read or studied or learned, I forgot. She had a better grade point average than I did, and I don’t think I’d ever even seen her crack a textbook.
    â€œYou don’t know what Freon is, do you?” she asked.
    â€œOf course I know what Freon is,” I said.
    â€œWhat is Freon?”
    â€œI don’t have to tell you what Freon is.”
    â€œBecause you don’t know. I mean, that’s fine. Some people don’t know what Freon is.”
    Freon is a word that sounds less like a word the more you say it.
    Freon.
    Freon.
    â€œAre you hungry?” I asked. “We have time to stop, if you want.”
    â€œI thought you said we were going to be late. Isn’t the appointment at eight? It’s five of eight.”
    â€œIt’s at eight thirty.”
    â€œYou lied to me?”
    â€œFor your own good. Sally’s?”
    â€œFine, but I’m not going in, because that was deceitful. I want an egg sandwich with avocado. And tater tots.”
    I pulled into the diner’s parking lot a few minutes later.We went there a lot. They were fast and clean and close to our apartment.
    Willa reclined her seat and closed her eyes. I left the car on for her and stepped out into the blazing sunlight. The air conditioning was definitely working; it was easily twenty degrees