The Never List

in her life reported her missing. She could just be out of town, after all.
    I had never been happier to see my building, after a six-block walk from the subway. I lugged my suitcase across the threshold and felt my whole body begin to relax. It was only at that moment that I realized how much the stress of this search was wearing on me.
    Then I noticed Bob. He was gesticulating to me furiously. He put his finger to his lips and pointed to the back of a woman standing in the corner with a cell phone to her ear. Before I could comprehendwhat Bob was trying to tell me, she turned around and saw me.
    “Sarah?” she said, hesitating as she clicked her cell phone off. I could tell Bob was puzzled by the name.
    “Tracy! You came,” I replied, stunned.
    Bob looked at me, then her, unable to disguise his shock. I’d lived in the building for six years and never had had any visitors other than my parents, my shrink, and Jim McCordy. And here, standing in the lobby of the building, was a petite punk rocker, with dyed black hair streaked with hot pink, a leather-studded jacket, black tights, and black lace-up boots, with tattoos and piercings all over her face. And I knew her.
    Seeing Tracy for the first time in a decade made everything come back to me at once. I had to lean against the wall for support. A flood of images flashed in my mind. Tracy’s eyes, as she hunched in the corner, recovering from pain. Tracy’s eyes, as she laughed quietly during those long hours when we had no one but each other to stimulate and entertain us, when our conversations were the only lifeline to the real world, and we were the only things keeping each other from losing our minds. And then the final image, as always when I thought of her, of Tracy’s eyes gleaming with rage when she found out what I’d done.
    Was that look there in her eyes now, lost somewhere behind her glassy stare of incomprehension? I imagined she was struggling with her own memories as well, as we stood there in the polished lobby, on a bright May day, in the middle of millions of people oblivious to the monumental event occurring there. In my head, I ran the numbers on how many other great and meaningful reunions were taking place in the city at the same moment. But could anything else matter quite as much?
    “Sarah,” she finally said again, her eyes slitting, with what kind of energy I could not tell.
    I walked up just close enough, but not too close, to her so that Bob couldn’t overhear, and said quietly, “Caroline. I’m Caroline now.”
    Tracy shrugged, threw her cell phone into her bag, and said, as if there were nothing extraordinary going on, “So can we go up?” She tilted her head toward the elevator.
    I could sense Bob approaching on my left, ready to take a stand to protect me from what he clearly deemed to be some criminal element. He’d come out from behind the desk braced for battle.
    “It’s all right, Bob. She’s an … old friend.” I stammered out the word and, without looking, could feel Tracy wince. I led the way to the elevator rather reluctantly. I’d hoped to meet somewhere on neutral ground, but it wasn’t working out that way. Bob returned to his post, but I could tell he was not comfortable with the situation. And neither was I.
    We stood in silence listening to the old mechanism clink as we slowly rose to the eleventh floor, then Tracy said very quietly, almost to herself I thought at first, “I brought them.”
    I knew exactly what she meant and felt a quick, sharp pang of regret for asking for them in the first place.
    When we reached my apartment, Tracy walked around, looking at everything. Whether she liked it or not, I couldn’t tell. She smiled slightly as she dumped her bag on my coffee table.
    “Overcompensating much?” she said with a smirk. Then she relented and added without looking at me, “Really it’s very nice, Sarah. Very … calming.”
    Without sitting down, I gave her a quick recap of my trip to Oregon and my search for Sylvia. I skipped the fact that it had been my first trip anywhere in years and that I had specifically vowed never to return to that state.
    Tracy took it all in stride, as usual. She clearly thought I was being overly dramatic about Sylvia’s disappearance.
    “She’s probably on a trip,” she said as soon as I’d finished. “And if you really think she’s missing, isn’t the correct course of action to go straight to the police?”
    “I’m not quite ready to trust my