A minute later the three iced coffees arrive and a few minutes after that, our food.
Sean’s phone starts vibrating on the table in front of us. He looks down at it. “Leave us alone!” he says. And he smiles at me. I try and smile back, but I can’t. It’s late at night and we’re so far from home. And our mission has failed. And now we are just two people sitting in a diner in the middle of Nebraska for, as it turns out, no reason at all. I just want to get back so I can pretend like none of this ever happened.
“Attention passengers on bus two fifty-seven.” A short man in a navy blue uniform is standing up at the front of the diner. “We’ll be leaving in five minutes. Five minutes! Anyone not on the bus will get left behind so I suggest if you haven’t already settled up your checks that you do that right now.” Everyone starts moving.
We continue eating in silence. Or rather, Sean eats and I just stare at my plate. The place is emptying out. I look up at Sean and ask what is at once the most pointless and obvious question of all: “Now what?”
“Now we pay, and then we go find somewhere to crash for the night. And in the morning we figure out the next step.” And Sean looks so determined and so hopeful, that all I can do is nod even though I’m thinking that there is no next step. The next step is we go back home and I try and forget that I ever found Nina’s drawing in the first place. “We’re going to find her, Ellie,” Sean says. He looks me straight in the eye. “There’s going to be another clue, okay? There just will be. I know it. But if you give up now, you might not be able to see it even if it’s right in front of you.”
I look down at my plate. I am suddenly very, very tired. I could fall asleep right here with my grilled cheese sandwich as a pillow. Sean takes the last sip of his second iced coffee and puts the cup back down. He points to the third one. “There are ideas in there. Brilliant ideas that are going to blow your mind, I just have to drink it and then I will tell you what they are.”
I try and smile. This trip was a failure and we both know it. It’s sweet that he’s being so positive but that doesn’t change the facts. I feel like I’m about to cry.
“I’ll be right back,” I say. I get up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
I can feel Sean watching me as I walk toward the back. I push against the wooden door. Every bit of the bathroom is covered in graffiti—the walls, the sinks, the floor, the ceiling, the toilets, the paper towel dispenser, the trash can, the windows. Jack loves Sarah is written on the outside of one of the stalls in thick black marker. And there’s AJ and CJ forever in pink right near my foot. There’s Lindsay and Jeanine next to a picture of two sets of lips, kissing on one side of the garbage can. And on the other side of the garbage can there’s SP would never toss TM in the trash!
A woman comes out of one of the stalls, sniffling, her eyes red and puffy. “Don’t believe any of it,” she says. I turn around.
“Excuse me?”
She blows her nose loudly on a piece of toilet paper.
“All that crap people on those busses say about that first bus driver and the first diner waitress when this place first opened and their special love and blah-blah-blah and how because of them this bathroom is all magical and shit, and how people love each other forever after they write their names together on the wall? Don’t believe any of it.” She bends down and points to a spot on the floor, which reads Desmond loves Annie. “It’s all bullshit.” She reaches into her back pocket and produces a dark-purple Sharpie. She crosses out the loves Annie and replaces it with has a skinny penis. She looks up at me. “It’s true, you know. Like a Twizzler.” Then she puts the cap back on and walks out.
I am alone again, staring at the wall. I pee. And then while I’m washing my hands, I look at the mirror, which is entirely covered in scribbles.
And right there in the center of the mirror above one of the sinks is a simple line drawing of a guy’s face—strong jaw, wide mouth, big eyes—and right there in Nina’s graceful curved script, Cakey ?’s J.
I reach out and touch the mirror. The glass is cool, but the letters feel hot under my skin, like they’re alive.
I race back to our table where Sean is draining the last sip of coffee number three.
“I found something.”
And I grab Sean’s hand and drag him toward the bathroom.
I go inside first and bend down to make sure no one is in any of the stalls. I motion for Sean to follow me in.
“Nina did this,” I say and point to the spot on the mirror. “So I guess I know why she left.” My voice is shaking a little.
Sean is just staring, not saying anything. My sister had an entire life I knew nothing about, apparently. An entire life and an entirely different name to go along with it. So that’s it. She left to be with some guy. Now I know.
“People in love do crazy things sometimes, I guess,” Sean says quietly.