Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
“Good for you. Congrats.”
“Thanks. I’m excited about it.” It’s not the truth, and I know it the second the words come out. But I have to believe, after the pain of this sad farewell has faded, the words will become true. Excitement will be mine. In fact, with a little time and distance from the sadness of tonight, I’m sure I’ll hardly ever think of Auggie, and his beautiful smile, and even more beautiful heart, ever again.
30
CHARLOTTE
Seattle
Two days later
I’m hungry.
Eagerly looking forward to chowing down on the two chicken tacos I’m carrying in a small paper sack. But even more than that, I’m excited to finally get to see what’s on Lloyd’s final cassette—the one that was stuck in his old video camera until about fifteen minutes ago. At least, that’s what I think it is, since it’s the only one not labeled. My hunch is Lloyd used to label his cassettes after filling them up and taking them out of his camera. Hence, my assumption he never got the chance to do that with this one, since its label is blank.
After finishing up all my packing and cleaning at the condo today, I decided to head out to my favorite taco place nearby, one last time—the one Auggie introduced to me; and on my way out my front door, I got the bright idea to grab Lloyd’s nonfunctional video camera and take it with me. There’s an electronics store a few doors down from the taco place, and I figured I could ask someone there to take a look.
Lo and behold, it took all of two minutes for the guy behind the counter to extract that stuck cassette, unscathed. And now, here I am, mere moments away from finally getting to watch it.
I reach my front door, fumble with my keys briefly, and head inside—and when I step foot into the empty space, my shoulders droop. There’s no Lucky greeting me. He’s still at Tessa’s for the week while Auggie’s in California. And worse, there’s no Auggie. No Auggie coming home any minute from school. No Auggie lighting up every room he enters with his bright smile and sparkling blue eyes. No Auggie making my heart go pitter-pat and setting my lady parts on fire.
I place the tacos onto my card table, along with the unstuck cassette, and run off to grab the functional video camera. The guy at the electronics store bought Lloyd’s broken camera from me earlier and said he’d buy the working one from me, too, so I’m planning to bring it to him tomorrow before leaving for the airport. Probably right after the building manager comes for this card table and chairs and my air mattress. As far as the stuff in the storage unit goes, I sold all of it yesterday to a scavenger dude—a guy who buys storage units, sight unseen, picks through them, and then sells whatever he can at flea markets. More power to him.
And that’s that. I’m all done with my chores and planning, other than the appointment I’ve got later today with a real estate agent recommended by Tessa. So, with nothing else to do before my meeting, why not spend some time watching the final cassette? Maybe even the whole cassette collection again, if the mood strikes me. With Auggie in California and Tessa busy being a mommy and wife and running her empire, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands until my meeting. What better way to help me feel less lonely and blue on my last day in Seattle than watching Althea making Lloyd feel less lonely and blue?
I quickly wolf down my tacos while scrolling mindlessly on my phone, and then wash my greasy fingers in the kitchen sink before returning to the card table. Without further ado, I pop in the newly unstuck cassette into the working camera, and eagerly press the play button.
A clip of Althea playing Lloyd’s piano and singing to him pops up. Nothing new there, although it’s a pleasure to watch. I always love hearing Althea sing and play.
Abruptly, the scene cuts out and a new one begins. As I watch the next clip, a feeling of panic crashes into me.
No.
This can’t be happening.
No, no, no.
The clip is only a couple minutes long. But it rocks my world. When it’s over, the screen turns blue. And when I fast-forward on visual mode to the end of the cassette, there’s nothing else to see. The rest of the cassette is blank.
Panting, I rewind to the beginning of the second clip and watch it again. And after my second viewing, I feel even more panicky and anxious. No wonder Lloyd insisted on Althea making that video about the peephole! Because he foresaw doing this very thing, even back then.
“Oh, god,” I blurt, suddenly remembering the current location of that box of Lloyd’s documents we brought back from the storage facility. This very morning during my cleaning binge, I tossed that box into the large recycling dumpster downstairs. I scanned its contents a few days after bringing the box home and easily surmised it was filled with a bunch of random, pointless stuff—bills, old letters, receipts, handwritten lists, blank forms, medical records. And then, when we got the new camera and confirmed Lloyd wasn’t a pervy creep like we initially thought, I never looked at the documents again. Is that box still downstairs? God, I hope so, because now that I’ve seen this last video of Lloyd’s, I need retrieve it, pronto.