“Let’s find a hostel first,” I suggest, trying to remain patient. “We’ll want to put our bags down, right?”
“I just wonder how long we can expect this lead to last. My parents are going to know where we are soon, and yours probably will too, since we’re using your card for everything else. We’re going to run out of money in, like, two seconds, and this address Anand gave us could lead nowhere or Dane could be gone by the time we get there.”
“Lena,” I say, speaking slowly, “I know you like to make quick decisions, but I need to finish my food, take a shower, and put down my stuff. My shoulder is killing me. I can’t carry this bag forever.”
“We’re not on a shopping spree,” Lena snaps. “We’re close. So close. I can feel it. And tomorrow is eight-eighteen. Do you want to blow this?” Her voice rises the way I’ve learned it does when she’s getting anxious that things won’t go her way, when she thinks everything in the world hinges on this moment. And she believes that if this particular moment doesn’t work out, she won’t be okay.
“All right,” I tell her, though part of me thinks she’s this way from a lifetime of getting whatever she wants. “Let’s do it. How far?” As Lena spouts off directions I can barely comprehend and I gather my bag in a half haze and I stumble after her in the direction of the busy highway, flanked on all sides by people hawking illegal DVDs and foot massages and plastic helicopters, I realize that I’m not giving her enough credit. It’s purpose that drives Lena. We walk through the busy market and she sticks out her hand for a taxi and I see the way she squares her shoulders, where a minute ago they were slack. I see the way her eyes light up and the nod she gives the cab driver as she slips into the back seat and reaches to prop the door open for me. The thing Lena fears most is being without direction.
Now I understand why she needs to find Charlie.
I haven’t allowed myself to think we might really find him here. Anand’s crumb might just lead us to Charlie’s estranged brother, who’ll confirm what we already know by now: Charlie was one messed-up guy who in all likelihood is dead. Anand has painted Charlie as a drug addict and maybe a dealer; Adam has painted him as a misfit; Charlie has painted himself as a liar. Maybe Dane will just illuminate one more side of the turmoil that was Charlie and lend a little more credence to his suicide.
I haven’t thought about what will happen if we actually find Charlie, because ever since Lena told me about the suicide note, it’s seemed impossible. But watching Lena in action has confirmed for me what makes her tick. She only went to Bangkok once as a kid, she claims, and yet she’s handling it like a pro. As I follow her around and watch her squint at the GPS device she’s activated on her phone while alternately squinting at street signs—looking wholly unflappable—I wonder what Lena and the way she is means for me and the way I am, and what it says about each of us that Charlie dated us both. It’s almost like together, we’re a weird, symbiotic entity that hinges around the common nucleus of Charlie.
I don’t want to be hinged anymore.
The recognition hits me in a rush. I’ve traveled to Paris, London, Mumbai, and now Bangkok only to realize that I don’t want my identity to depend on someone else’s idea of me, an idea that’s probably pretty inaccurate. I’ve been half removed from Charlie for the past four months, maybe longer. Now I want to cut myself off altogether, watch myself float and see what happens and where I wind up. Lena doesn’t want that, because she’s been a free spirit—alone in boarding school, after boarding school, and now in college—for way too long. Thinking about it makes me furious. It makes me angrier than ever with Charlie, the way he put us each into a box. The congested streets of the city whiz past us and the traffic carries us forward in a steady stream, each vehicle part of a greater, more purposeful path, each containing within itself the option to veer off at any time. I watch Lena as she watches the cars beside us, then urges our driver forward, faster, faster, her lips pressed together in a thin, grim line—and I determine to fix this thing before we crash.
19
Charlie