“I don’t expect you to.”
Alice waits a moment, like she’s trying to choose her words wisely. I don’t think she intends to piss me off with her comments. She wets her lips and lets out a long sigh.
“I want to help you, Nora, but you’re going to have to give me something here. I don’t have any idea what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. There’s that whole true love, love at first sight, soulmate bullshit, but I think it’s become far more than that. I don’t even think you know what you’re doing anymore.”
Processing what Alice just said I know there’s some truth to her words. There are times I don’t know why I’m still searching for Elliot, yet I still do it.
“Alice…” I start, but her name falls from my lips in almost a reprimand.
I start again, lessening my tone and reminding myself that Alice means well. “Before I met Elliot, I knew exactly what I wanted out of my life. There was no doubt in my mind that I would go off to NYU, finish school and become a writer. And it wasn’t like that all changed after I met Elliot, I just felt lost, suddenly.” I stop and swallow trying to dislodge the lump that forms in my throat. “There was a brokenness inside me and there still is. This helps ease some of it.”
Before Elliot, I could be alone, alone with my thoughts, alone in my home without feeling like I was missing something. But after Elliot, I began to feel less alone. I began to feel lonely.
At this point, I’m not sure if Alice wants to help me find Elliot or if she just wants to help me move beyond the obsessiveness of searching for him. She won’t be the reason I give up. I won’t be swayed by her annoyance over my need to accomplish this every year.
“Does it really?” she asks incredulously.
I don’t bother responding to her, I can tell she’s looking to argue with me and I won’t give her the satisfaction.
But I understand why she asked. I’m not certain it helps anything, besides making me feel further and further away from Elliot and that day on the beach. I like to think it does me good to search the country for him, like it quells my need to find him just a little. But it doesn’t really work like that.
We arrive back at the hotel and without telling Alice, she begins to pack up her things. I figure she’s packing so she can leave this runaway train she boarded with me. But she turns to me and asks if the car is unlocked, and then adds, “Windy City, here we come.”
I smile, grateful that she doesn’t want to bail. As much as she’s driving me crazy, it feels good to have her along. Rarely do the two of us spend any time together. We were never close growing up, only spending time together due to the fact we were sisters. We’ve always been opposites and I found it hard to relate to her. I imagine she felt the same way.
But our relationship is strange. She’s always known she could rely on me, even though I’ve never felt that in return with her. Maybe this is her way of making it up to me for all those years she took advantage of my kindness.
The drive time from Pittsburgh to Chicago is brutal. The traffic is relentless, but Alice offers to drive somewhere in Ohio and the time passes just as slowly, but at least without the road rage.
“Tell me more about Elliot,” Alice says, a sweet tone to her voice, a realistic happiness that is rarely present. Alice is happy almost all the time, but it’s a fake happiness, one you can tell is forced. She has always felt the need to present herself in a certain way, but with me, I see the real Alice.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, understanding she doesn’t know much and really neither do I.
“What did he look like?”
“He was handsome in that California surfer boy way,” I say smiling at the memory. “He hit on me at that frat party and you know that kind of shit does nothing for me. But with him,” I stop as I feel my heartbeat accelerate at just the thought of his voice. The fact that his memory can still elicit this response makes me think all this time I’ve spent searching for him hasn’t been in vain. “I don’t know. There was something about him that I was drawn to, like I was meant to find him.”
I stop again as I look over at Alice, knowing how she thinks all of this is bullshit, but I see a smile form on her lips.
“I know you think all this love at first sight shit is just that, but that’s what it felt like. He had messy sun bleached hair and a deep tan and the most amazing blue eyes. As cliché as this sounds, they were the color of the ocean, strikingly beautiful.”
“I don’t think it’s shit. I’ve just been jaded by life,” she responds, yet still smiling. “I guess I’ve felt something like that too, but what makes me think it isn’t entirely real, is that it all faded for me. I married too quickly based on what I thought was love, but looking back it was always lust. Never what you describe with Elliot.”
“It can be good to live in the moment and not worry about what the future might bring,” I say, trying to make her feel less guilty for her poor life choices.
“Fuck off,” Alice says with humor in her voice. “You’ve always been the voice of reason, yet you can still somehow make me feel alright with the fact that I continually fuck up.”
“I’m not going to come right out and say you have issues. We all do. Look at me. I’m driving cross-country for the twelfth time searching for a guy who probably remembers me as a crappy lay on the beach. If he even remembers me.”
Alice laughs a little and adds, “It makes you human. Without this weird flaw in your life, you’re fucking perfect.”
We talk more about Elliot and what I remember about him. While I feel like my memory of him is as clear as the day we met, I know things are probably embellished or remembered with a fondness that makes them slightly unrealistic. Eventually they will vanish or fade into something they were never meant to be. I think time has a way of adjusting your memories to fit how you’re feeling, and with Elliot, I know that while they’ve stayed clear for twelve years, they will ultimately disappear. Leaving me with nothing more than twelve years of wasted time.
We hit Chicago around seven that evening with both of us exhausted from driving, but me feeling more emotionally drained than anything. I’m not sure how long I can carry on and not find Elliot.
We’re staying in the suburbs, about twenty miles outside of the city, and so far the plan is to go by this Elliot’s house. It’s late July and tomorrow is Saturday, so the hope is that he’ll happen to be outside. If not, I’ll end up having to ring his doorbell. Something I’ve grown more comfortable with, but it’s still not ideal.
The information I have from the PI, says he’s been living in the Chicago area for the last ten years and is now married. He works as an accountant in the city, which, to me, doesn’t sound like something the Elliot I met would have chosen as a career. The description fits him, but that’s about all. I have already set myself up for the fact that it isn’t him and I have even debated about having the PI just email me a picture to save myself the hassle and the stress of finding out.
But the next morning Alice and I are following the directions the GPS has mapped out and we’re about to find out what I already know.