Luca
Anne reads the letter over my shoulder. “What the hell is bologna?” she asks, pronouncing the word incorrectly.
“It’s a type of deli meat, and it’s pronounced like baloney. Didn’t you ever see the Oscar Mayer commercials growing up?”
She shrugs. “My parents were vegetarians and I didn’t have a TV for most of my childhood. My family was all about exploring the great outdoors.” She rolls her eyes.
I start singing the jingle from the commercials, but she shushes me as if this is more embarrassing than talking about sex at work.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” she asks, returning her attention to the letter.
I think about it for a moment. If he gives me his return address, I won’t have to spend hundreds of dollars traveling to all the places his past letters came from just to find clues about where he might be now. If I could just write back to him, maybe I could get him out of my head. “Why not? It would sure make things easier.”
She frowns. “How are you going to fit bologna into your report?”
“I’m sure I can find a way.”
“This is ridiculous,” she says. “If you do what he says, you’ll just be letting him win.”
“He’s already winning.”
“Not if we go to Georgia this weekend and find someone who knows him.”
“And what if no one knows him?”
“Then we keep looking. Don’t even entertain him. He probably just wants you to say it so that he can make sure you’re getting his letters. Let him keep wondering.”
“You’re probably right.” With a sigh, I read over the letter again, then stuff it in my purse. “Let’s go get lunch.”
We grab lunch at a Greek restaurant, and then we plan the logistics of our trip to Georgia. We won’t need a hotel, because we’re flying there and back the same day. We shouldn’t need more than a few hours to visit Luca’s old address and interview his neighbors.
“This is so much fun,” Anne says as we use our phones to buy our plane tickets. “Luca’s going to be waiting all week for you to say bologna on national television. Meanwhile he has no idea that we’re heading to Georgia to track him down.”
“It’s a little bit weird that you’re so obsessed with tracking him down.”
“Says the girl who’s upset that she didn’t get to sleep with a guy she barely knows.”
“When you say it like that, I sound pretty pathetic.”
“You are.”
I press my hand against my chest. “Wow. I can’t believe I’m friends with you.”
“Wait. We’re friends? I thought we were just coworkers.”
I throw my napkin at her. “I don’t have to take you on these trips with me, you know.”
“Too late. Plane tickets are already bought,” she says. “I’ll be picking you up bright and early Saturday morning. And don’t you dare say bologna on national television.”
“I promise I won’t.”
We go our separate ways after leaving the restaurant. I park my car in the parking garage next to my building, and then I walk around to the front. I spot Caterpillar Kid sitting on the sidewalk, using crayons to color the pages of a coloring book. I look around, searching for a responsible adult. Once again, it appears this kid is alone.
I kneel down to check out the artwork. Caterpillar Kid smiles up at me. It turns out my nickname is spot-on, because the kid is coloring in a book full of images of caterpillars.
“What kind of caterpillar is that?” I ask.
“This is a monarch caterpillar.”
