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TWELVE

M aybe he should stop trying. Maybe the key is just, like the note suggests, to wait. Wait and let him find you. That’s what the note said, didn’t it? Let me find you. It didn’t say Find me .

How long is that going to take? And what if he never does?

The last thing Eddie wants to do right now is go home, so he walks over to Central Park. He wanders past the Heckscher Playground and up through Strawberry Fields. He winds past the carousel, the mall, and the Sheep Meadow, passing hot dog vendors, paleta carts, buskers, and ice cream trucks. He threads through cyclists on the West Drive, gets chased by angry swans at Turtle Pond, and nearly trips over a couple making out in the Ramble. Eventually he finds himself on the verdant Great Lawn. There, near the Jackie Kennedy reservoir, he lies down in the grass to think. Or maybe not think.

The grass is so lush, so soft, and Eddie’s more tired than he realized. With heavy eyes, he watches the sky above him, electric midsummer blue with lazy white clouds. One cloud snakes through the sky like a feather boa. It reminds him of Cookie’s marabou collar. Another looks like one of Cookie’s berets. Another forms a ring, almost like one of her jangly bangles. He sees Cookie everywhere in the sky. He aims the Polaroid and shoots, just to see what happens.

But the picture doesn’t come out. The sky is too bright, overexposing the image and leaving just a big, bright, blank space. Oh well. He tucks it into his pocket. He’ll throw it out later. He’s so tired now. He’s had so little sleep lately.

He’s not sure if he falls asleep or not, but when he opens his eyes and sits up, there’s a boy standing over him, not two feet from Eddie, in jeans, Nike sneakers, and a flat-bill baseball cap that looks like it could have been bought yesterday. And peeking out from under that bill: those eyes, like stars.

“Hello, Eddie,” the boy says, his voice clear and confident. “I’m Francis.”