[In consideration of a flashback while in the airplane bathroom right after takeoff.]
In her freshman year at Lamesa High School, Rosa-Alethea discovers a diary (or memoir) in the form of a published book. The only missing piece is the copyright page. Rosa-Alethea drops it into the lost-and-found bin as she leaves for the day. [Two minutes…] Two years later, in her junior, she registers as a junior librarian and is allowed to work in the school library during the last period of each day. One of the first tasks assigned to her, was to clean out the lost-and-found bin. The librarian was quite strict and implemented her own system of organizing the lost items. Each item in the bin was tagged with a date/time on the day it was dropped off. Florence sorts the items by date and places all items a year or older into a box destined for the Lubbock family shelter. To her surprise, she discovers the book that she had placed there two years ago. She decided that it wouldn’t seem useful to the shelter, so she decides to keep it for herself.
She decides to pick it up and read from it. What she discovers is life-changing. The book is written from the first person perspective but addresses a single reader, in the same manner a parent would address a child. The narrator relates stories from her past and her place in the future. In it Rosa-Alethea learns of a girl named Florence and her life in Lamesa, Texas. Additionally, she learns of Florence’s plan for the future. Her plan to leave Texas and travel to Egypt so that she may marry a man named Nasseem. Her pen pal of twelve years.
Rosa-Alethea has sort of an emotional/physiological reaction to the book. She puts it down and wishes to never see it again. She considers throwing it in the trash, but the librarian in her resists the urge. Instead, she decides to place it in a section of the library that she’ll never see again. (What section?)
However, the book remains. Rosa-Alethea continues to think about it each day. It doesn’t haunt her, but continues to preoccupy her thoughts and heart. She begins to wonder who this Florence is and what she may be doing now in Egypt.
She decides to begin a search for Florence. She initially tries the police station but Officer Truitt can barely hold his laughter as he tells her there’s nothing he can do. No one had ever reported a missing diary and they certainly won’t come to me to find it. On her way out, the cleaning lady Marisol is singing a Bracero song to herself. That’s when Rosa-Alethea decides to speak to her. The cleaning lady “Maria Isabel” recognizes her from Sunday mass and asks her if she’s looking for a relative. Because if you are, I don’t anything but I might know someone who does. Rosa-Alethea tells her that she’s looking for the owner of this diary. “Her name was Florence” and she may have run away to Egypt. I want to give this to her family because they may be wondering where she is. “Florence is a Catholic name. You should know this. Go to the catholic church. The priest will know what to do.
The priest is no more helpful than than Officer Truitt. He doesn’t know of any parishioners named Florence and no one from his parish has ever mentioned Egypt. “They don’t tell me if they keep a diary. They just confess or confide. No one talks of going to Egypt. They ask for safety and good health. They pray for their children and family here and back home. Maybe someone in Midland or Lubbock, but I’ve never heard of anyone going to Egypt from Lamesa. As he was finishing his sentence, Rosa-Alethea noticed the folded newspaper on his desk. On it she noticed an ad for “Mexico Up Close,” then a new idea came to her.
“I’d like to take an ad out in the paper please.” Rosa-Alethea said as she stepped up to the clerk’s desk at the Dawson County Newspaper.