I snorted. Sharon was the fiercest cougar in the complex. I was surprised she hadn’t cornered Alex before. “What did you tell her?”
Alex closed the door behind him. “Same thing I told you, I don’t date.”
“How’d she take it?”
“The same way most women do. She was devastated.”
“Trust me, Sharon gets her fair share of younger men. I doubt you put a damper on her night.” I eyed the boxes. “It’s late,” I sighed. “You don’t have to stay. I can handle the rest.”
Alex settled himself on the floor across from me. “And exile myself to the teen girl lair? No thanks. Besides, you still haven’t eaten dinner, and I’m not leaving until you do. The only thing standing between you and the best lasagna you’ve ever had are those two boxes.”
I took the top off the box I’d just wiped the dust from and peered inside. It was cluttered with souvenirs from the places I’d traveled while on charter: blank postcards, and museum ticket stubs, and business cards from restaurants and bars. I pulled one of the postcards from the box. It readI’d rather go to Hell than to school. Hell, Grand Cayman Island B.W.I.against a background of flames.
“I meant to send this to my sister,” I said, passing it to Alex. “She wanted me to go to college, but I never did.”
“Plenty of people have told me to go to Hell, but I’ve never actually been there,” he said, then passed the postcard back to me. “Joy, or no joy?”
I closed my eyes. I had a hard time imagining letting the postcard go, letting any of these things go. To a stranger, maybe even to Alex, these things were junk. But for me, each postcard, brochure, and business card was a reminder I’d been out there in the world, living an adventurous life. It was proof I was making something of myself, even if I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
“Joy,” I said, handing it back to Alex, who set it in the designated area.
After we spent far too long picking through my travel mementos, all that remained in the box were the remnants of my many on-again, off-again hobbies.
“Okay, I’m going to need you to explain this,” Alex said, pulling a gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled with random metal odds and ends from the box.
I took the bag from him. Coins, rings, and pieces of metal I couldn’t identify rattled against one another, glinting in the light. “I had a metal-detecting hobby a few years ago,” I said.
“Buried treasure. There’s that pirate side of you.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” I opened the bag and found a tarnished silver ring with three small sapphires set into it. “This is probably the best thing we found.”
“We?”
“Oh, well, I only got the metal detector because my nephew... When he came down with Mia and Kitty a few summers ago, he said he was sure someone could make a lot of money selling lost things they found on the beach. Nina found a metal detector on Craigslist, and I bought it the next day. We spent their entire trip metal detecting and geocaching.”
Alex gave me a confused look. “What’s geocaching?”
I looked down at my hands, realizing how dorky all this would sound. “There’s this community of people who... hide things. And they give you coordinates. And you use those coordinates to find the hidden cache.”
“More treasure hunting.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sam had had us out and about for hours, with both the metal detecting and the geocaching. Sometimes we did both at the same time. It was one of the best summers we’d had, and I’d been just as caught up in the excitement as the kids. I handed the ring and bag to Alex. “Keep the ring, toss the rest.”
“You’re sure you don’t want the rest of this?”
“I’m sure,” I said. I looked back into the box. “I’ve had non-treasure-related hobbies too.”
“Such as?”
“These are all for the donate or trash pile, by the way.” I stuck my hand in the box and pulled out a ball of yarn. “Knitting.”
“In Florida?”
“In Florida. But I only ever finished half of a hat.”
“Impressive.”
“Oh, here’s a fun one.” I handed him a ceramic coaster covered in blue sea glass. “A failed attempt at mosaic making. I found all the sea glass myself.”
