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The envelope is waiting on the kitchen counter when August steps inside Friday afternoon, finally free from class and work until Sunday. All she’s thought about the whole walk home is mainlining YouTube eyebrow tutorials and passing out next to a personal pizza.
“You got something in the mail today,” Myla says before August has even taken off her shoes in observance of Myla and Niko’s strict No Shoes Indoors policy.
Myla’s head pops up from behind the pile of mousetraps she’s been disassembling for the last three days. Unclear if this is for the same sculpture as the frog bones. Her art is maybe beyond August’s scope of appreciation.
“Oh, thanks,” August says. “I thought you had work?”
“Yeah, we closed early.”
By “we” she means Rewind, the thrift store responsible for her share of the rent. From what August has heard, it’s extremely musty and extremely expensive and has the best selection of vintage electronics in Brooklyn. They let Myla take whatever doesn’t sell home for parts. There’s half a Nixon-era TV next to the microwave.
“Fuck a dick,” Myla swears as one of the traps snaps on her finger. “Anyway, yeah, you got some huge envelope. From your mom, I think?”
She points at a thick plastic mailer next to the toaster. Return address: Suzette Landry, Belle Chasse, LA.
August picks it up, wondering what the hell her mom could have sent this time. Last week, it was half a dozen pecan pralines and a key chain mace.
“Yeah, for a second, I thought my mom sent some stuff for Lunar New Year?” Myla goes on. “I told you my mom is Chinese, right? Anyway, she’s an art teacher and this year she got her kids to make Lunar New Year cards, and she was gonna send me one with some fah sung tong from this place—Whoa, what’s that?”
It’s not pralines, or self-defense paraphernalia, or a festive little Lunar New Year treat made by second graders. She doesn’t have to open the manila folder to know it’s full of archival documents, like the millions back home in August’s mother’s apartment, stuffed with public records and classified ads and phonebook entries. There’s a note paperclipped to the front.
I know you’re busy, but I found this friend of Augie’s who may have ended up in New York, her untidy scrawl says. Thought you might be able to look into it.
“God, seriously?” August grumbles at the folder. The tattered edges peer back at her around the sides, impartial.
“Uh-oh,” says Myla. “Bad news? You look like Wes when his dad sent the thing about cutting off his trust fund.”
August blinks dumbly at her. “Wes has a trust fund?”
“Had,” Myla says. “But, you…?”
“I’m fine,” August says, trying to shrug her off. “It’s nothing.”
“No offense, but it doesn’t look like nothing.”
“It’s not. I mean, it is. Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Myla says. “But if you want to talk—”
“Fine, okay, it’s my stupid dead uncle.” August clamps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that—sounded fucked up. I just, uh, it’s kind of a sore subject.”
Myla’s face has gone from curious to gentle and concerned, and it’s almost enough to make August laugh. She has no idea.
“I didn’t realize, August. I’m so sorry. Were you close?”
“No, I’m not, like, sad about it,” August tells her, and a look of faint alarm crosses Myla’s face. God, she’s bad at explaining this. That’s why she never tries. “I mean, it is sad, but he didn’t die, like, recently. I never met him. I mean, I don’t even technically know if he’s dead?”
Myla sets the mousetrap she’s been toying with down. “Okay…”
So, August guesses now is when she finally figures out how to tell someone what the first eighteen years of her life were like. This is where the whole charming single-mom-and-daughter, best-friends-forever, us-against-the-world bit breaks down. It’s the thing that started August’s cynicism, and she doesn’t like to admit it.
But she likes Myla. Myla is surprising and funny and generous, and August likes her enough to care what she thinks. Enough to want to explain herself.
So she groans and opens her mouth and tells Myla the thing that’s governed most of her life: “My mom’s older brother went missing in 1973, and she’s spent almost her whole life—my whole life—trying to find him.”
