Adi Alsaid - Let's Get Lost

He stood in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, trying to get over the shock of seeing her leave so suddenly. When he became aware of the sound of rushing water, he noticed his dad standing at the sink doing the dishes. “Pop, need any help?”

His dad turned, the bottom of his shirt stained dark with water. “No, thanks.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be upstairs. Night.” But he didn’t move for a while, just stood there staring at the front door.

“G’night,” his dad called back. “I’ll be by your room at six to make sure you’re up. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

“Right,” Hudson said. When he broke out of his daze, he climbed the stairs with measured effort and went into his room, plopping down onto his bed and pulling out the stack of papers he’d printed off the internet full of possible questions he might be asked during an admissions interview. He leafed through some pages, more aware of the sound they made as his fingertips pushed them aside than of the words on the paper. He eyed the outfit he and his dad had picked out for the interview—his blue pinstriped suit, white shirt, jade-green tie. It was hanging on the closet’s door handle, the dry-cleaning wrapper keeping the suit from wrinkling.

A couple of minutes later, Hudson heard his dad coming up the stairs, and the lights in the hallway turned off. Hudson realized he hadn’t read a single word, so he rose from his bed and walked over to the windowsill. He sighed deeply, as if thoughts of Leila rested in his lungs and all he needed was to breathe her out. As his breath rattled the venetian blinds, he noticed that Leila’s car was still parked outside. He stepped to the window and looked through the slats. He could see her sitting inside, one elbow resting against the window, the other hand on the wheel. She pulled her elbow away and looked up at him, her eyes brilliant even from that distance. He thought about the oxbow, about wandering its entire perimeter with Leila by his side, the Mississippi River providing a roar of background noise to their conversation.

Not tonight , he told himself as he poked his head out his bedroom door to make sure the lights in his dad’s room were off. I’m not going to stay home tonight, not when I have the chance to spend time with her. He went back into his room, pulled the cords that drew the blinds up, and slid his window open. He climbed slowly onto the roof of the porch, then eased himself onto the grass of the front lawn, looking back to make sure his dad’s lights were still off.

Then he jogged over to the car. Leila had rolled the window down and watched him approach without saying anything. He leaned toward her open window. “Scootch over,” he said in a near-whisper. “I’m driving.”

“What about getting some rest?” She raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged and said, “I promised to show you a treasure.”

4

IT WAS PITCH-BLACK on the drive, nothing on the country lane but their headlights illuminating the occasional reflectors at the edge of the road. They glowed yellow and then faded back into darkness.

Hudson kept stealing glances at Leila’s profile, trying to figure out what made her so attractive, but the only intelligible thought he came away with after each stolen glance was: I like her face. I really like her face.

“So, how’d you find this treasure?”

“It’s a local tradition. There’s always a group of kids that lays claim to it. Then, when they move on—school, babies, getting old, whatever—some new group moves in. One of my friends’ older brothers used to hang out there, and when his friends all got jobs in Jackson and Biloxi, my friends took over.”

Only after he said this did Hudson realize he and Leila might not have the oxbow to themselves. Friday night in Vicksburg, what else was there to do? He hoped his friends had gone to the bowling alley instead.

“What do you do over there? Dumb guy stuff?”

“Pretty much.” He signaled and turned the car onto another indistinguishable country lane. “Toss a football around, light bonfires. Have some drinks. I’m not a big drinker, so I’m usually the designated driver.”

“Hmm, too bad we don’t have anything to drink. It’d be fun to get drunk with you.”

Hudson let the comment hang in the air and pretended to focus on the road as he turned off onto an unpaved street. The car rumbled over the uneven surface, kicking up pebbles that struck the undercarriage and chimed like a children’s toy.

“How far away is this place?”

“We’re almost there,” Hudson said, pointing lamely at a patch of darkness beyond the reach of the headlights.

When he parked the car, Leila was quick to open the door and get out, letting in a vibrant sound. It wasn’t the river itself, the current mostly calm, but everything surrounding it: the nocturnal wildlife, the insects, the flora moving in the breeze, almost like lungs expanding and contracting. Impossible to prove, but Hudson felt that the whole length of the river was contributing to the sound, the casino boats a few miles down, the current crashing into the Gulf of Mexico in New Orleans like a jazz cymbal. It all came together to create this wall of noise that felt somehow tangible.

“This way,” Hudson said, starting to head around the trees and into the ravine.

She stepped to him, and before he could realize what his fingers were doing, he took hold of her hand. “Okay,” she said, squeezing his fingers back without much fanfare, “lead the way.”

Thankful for the darkness hiding his uncontainable smile, he took them around the trees. A couple of times he almost lost his footing, too distracted by Leila’s touch to pay much attention to the terrain. They reached the river’s edge and started walking downstream. He was hoping that the boat was there. If the rowboat was there, then it meant he and Leila would have the oxbow to themselves and his friends were off doing something else.

“I like this scenic route,” she said. “It feels like an actual treasure hunt.”

“You’ll love this place,” he said, spotting the low-hanging branches where they kept the small rowboat hidden. It was there. He let go of her hand to kneel down and pull the boat out of its hiding spot. It was little more than a worn-out canoe, its wood knotty and cracked, its white paint darkened to green by the river.

“Oh, I see it,” Leila said, looking out at the river, her hands in her back pockets, that world-changing posture again. “How far is that?”

“Not too far. About sixty, seventy yards, maybe.” He put one foot in the boat and turned to offer a helping hand.

She looked over at Hudson and then back at the island. A mischievous smile spread across her lips. She stepped toward him, but instead of taking his hand and getting into the boat, she knelt down and stuck her hand into the river.

“It’s chilly,” she said. “But the current isn’t too bad.” She stood back up to her full height, which, admittedly, wasn’t very much. “Let’s swim across.”

She kicked off one of her flip-flops and stuck her foot into the river.

Hudson gave her a look.

“Haven’t you ever done it before?”

“No.”

“Yeah, we’re definitely doing this, then.”

“What about our clothes?”

“They’ll get wet, and then some time after that they’ll get dry.”

“And our phones? The car keys?”

“Leave them in the car.” She walked over to him and pulled him out of the boat by his hand. “Hudson, you’re swimming across this river with me.”

He resisted for a few steps, dragging his feet. But then he remembered that he’d climbed out his bedroom window and left his house because he wanted to immerse himself in fun for once. “It’s very hard to say no to you.”