A Sad Story of Lost Keys on a Toasty Afternoon in Eau Gallie, Florida

Forty years ago, Lot, my ex-boyfriend of a few months, gives me a key ring from Serbia. It is a silver metal disc with an etched design, a surface both rough and smooth to the touch. It has heft and takes up space. It will not be easy to lose, so I think. I transfer my keys from the old, beat-up ring to this outstanding specimen of a key ring and start to use it immediately. It’s a miracle he gives me anything since I broke up with him shortly before we were scheduled to go on that European trip together.

Forty years later, on a recent Saturday, I pick up that key ring and my car key (too fat to put on the Lot key ring) and drive to the Eau Gallie Library to attend the Space Coast Writers Guild monthly meeting. It is the first time I’ve been back to the Guild since before Covid, and I look forward to seeing familiar faces and hearing the featured author.

The Eau Gallie Library is hands-down the prettiest branch in the larger Brevard County Library System. It is on the banks of the Indian River in a walkable neighborhood that also includes the Civic Center and what used to be two of my favorite places in the county: Joan’s Perfect Pies and the Foosaner Art Museum. I still mourn their closing years later.

Parking is a nightmare. The lot at the library is full. The lot at the adjacent playground is full. The lot across the street at the Civic Center is full except for one space two rows over. I force myself not to drive like a crazy person and slide into the opening.

I gather up all my belongings (so I think). As is my habit, I unbuckle my unstylish black fanny pack from around my waist and shove it down beside the seat. I pick up the key ring in the console, which has on it: the house key, the mailbox key, my husband’s spare car key, and my gym admission, as well as the electronic key to my car. I shove them into the front compartment of my purse and pull the zipper shut (so I think).

I cross the street to the library and skip a shortcut through the shrubbery. The library doors whoosh open. I step out of 91-degree heat (not counting humidity), and into blessed coolness. Before I turn right into the conference room for the meeting, I turn left into the Ladies Room, do my business, and pause for a minute to soak in the view of the river before joining a long line to sign in for the meeting. It is crowded. It is loud.

I walk to an empty seat in the front row and take note of the snacks on a table along the wall, including chocolate chip cookies from Publix. I’d love to have one now, but as I scan the room, I see no one is eating, so I guess I’ll have to wait until the meeting is over.

The Guild President starts right on time with a brief business meeting before the main speaker. Twenty-five minutes in, the past president who has spent umpteen hours revamping the organization’s website is telling us (not showing us because of tech issues) about highlights of the new site. Fifteen minutes later, she is still talking, and I’m getting antsy (and hungry). I glance down at my purse and notice the front compartment is unzipped. That’s weird, I think to myself. I stick my hand in just to check for my keys, and the compartment is…empty.

What?!?!? If I’d been wearing a heart monitor, I guarantee you it would register a big spike in my heart rate. Sweat prickles my armpits, although, since it’s over 90 degrees, I’ve rolled on Ban after my shower and not one of my organic deodorants, which work about two months out of the year here in the sub-tropical climate of Cocoa Beach. Trying to appear cool, calm, and collected, I gather my belongings and sidle along the side wall to the exit. The door creaks as I push it open and slams as it shuts.

In the main room of the library, I find an empty chair facing that gorgeous view of the river and the Eau Gallie Causeway, and dump everything out of my purse. There is a lot in it. I’ve not emptied it from a recent trip to D.C., so I have even more than usual: pantiliners, eye drops, hand sanitizer, moleskin for my bunions, sunglasses, shoestrings, pens, pencils, and an obese wallet that rivals George Costanza’s on the 45^th episode of Seinfeld (see the fifth episode from the fourth season, “The Wallet”). You get the idea. I carry a purse packed for every possible thing that could go wrong (or right). I often joke that my superpower is living in the wreckage of the future.

The dump yields no keys. I go to the desk, “Has anyone turned in keys?” No one has. So as not to disturb library patrons, I go out the whooshy doors to call AAA. I tie the sweater I needed for the chill of the library around my waist. In minutes, sweat pools there, joining the sweat I feel at my bra line.

Before I call AAA, I retrace my steps: cross the street, up to the car, back to the library, into the bathroom, into the conference room. No dice.

I pull out my phone. Miracle, AAA answers. “Are you safe?” the woman asks. I assure her that I am, and then I hear a faint click. While I can still hear her, she can’t hear me. I call back and sputter out, “I’m upset. My phone is wonky. Please call me back if you can’t hear me. I’ve lost my keys.” She says she will. She does.

I ask for the services of a locksmith because I am holding out hope that I put the keys in the fanny pack before I shoved it down beside the front seat – and the fanny pack is in the locked car. “The locksmith will call you when he is on his way,” she says. I ask, “How long will it be?” “About 30-40 minutes,” she replies.

Please let that be true. A previous experience with AAA did not go well. I called for a tow, and after waiting at attention for 3½ hours in a gas station, I called Junk Man’s Towing, a local company with good reviews, who showed up in 25 minutes. Now, AAA did reimburse me for the tow, but that experience left me less than confident about AAA’s responsiveness. Would the locksmith show up in a timely manner?

But what if the keys are not in the fanny pack in the locked car? Then I’ll need the spare key, which I hope I’ve left on the windowsill going up the steps. My organizational skills have been particularly shabby of late, so I’m not positive it’s there. I call my husband Jim. He is biking in Cocoa along the river. I doubt if he’ll pick up. He is the opposite of me in so many ways, including the use of his phone. I wear mine in that fanny pack I mentioned. Jim does not wear his phone. He probably has it in his bike bag, but I’m not sure about that. Combine his casual phone attitude with lousy cell service along his route, and I’m not sure he’ll even hear the call. I record two voicemail messages in a shaky, quivering voice. I know he’ll feel my distress.

He calls right back. Another miracle. My phone drops the call. We connect again. Here’s the plan: he’ll bike five miles back to his car, drive home, get or look for the key, call me, and drive down to the library. It’ll take an hour and a half, at least.

I walk back into the library to cool down and calm down. I hear laughter coming from the meeting. The speaker must be good.

Troy, the locksmith, calls. My phone drops the call. We reconnect. He is 10-15 minutes out.

I pace in front of the library. Man, it’s hot. A homeless guy plops down on the bench, leaves his backpack, and goes into the library for a drink of water. I check the garbage can just to make sure my keys aren’t in it.

What if my keys aren’t in the fanny pack in the locked car? What if Jim can’t find the spare key? What if…?

I call the Mazda dealer. A gregarious receptionist sends me to Parts, and I start to explain my situation and desire to get a replacement key if needed. My phone drops the call. I call back. The parts guy is a tad impatient – it’s $500 and requires an appointment. “Thank you very much, I say.” I call our local Ace Hardware and speak with Damian. “It’s about $250,” he says. “You come in, pay, I order it, it arrives, and then you bring the car back and I program the key.” “Thank you very much,” I say. If Jim can’t find the spare, the car will have to be towed to the key maker.

“What an expensive mistake,” I mutter to myself. My internal dialogue turns savage: How could I be so stupid? So careless? I swirl in ugly thoughts I’d never say to my friends. Nothing like fanning the fire in what feels like Hell. I think of a recent Course in Miracles lecture I listened to by Marianne Williamson when she was talking about a friend who screwed something up, and she was all judgy about it. Another friend said to her, “Marianne, he made a mistake. That’s all he did. He made a mistake.” That’s all I did. I made a mistake.

And then Troy calls. I see his AAA van in the parking lot. “I’m walking towards you. I don’t want to scare you,” I say. I direct him to the car. He pumps up the space between the window and the convertible top, sticks in the equivalent of a high-tech coat hanger, and voilà, I hear the lock flip open. That’s the good news. The bad news is, yup, you guessed it, there are no keys in the fanny pack.

Then I see Jim’s blue Toyota drive by. It’s easy to spot since his bike is on a rack on the roof. He has the spare. There is much joy in the land. Yet, I can’t shake a nagging feeling that something is off. Why am I so upset? Is it really just about the keys? Or could it be about that key ring from a boy in Chevy Chase, Maryland, that younger me once loved? After our breakup and an initial mourning period, we remained good friends and kept in infrequent touch over the decades. He’d call me out of the blue, and we’d laugh together for thirty minutes or so. He wasn’t for me as a mate, but I loved him still.

Then I didn’t get a call from him for a long time, so I called him. When I got no answer, I did what I do when I don’t hear from folks for a long time – I search the Internet for their obit. My record until then was 0 obits for my missing friends. Not this time. Lot died on January 18, 2020. That news torpedoed my heart down to my toes. How could I not know that? Why didn’t his long-term partner let me know?

One good thing about aging is that I’ve learned stuff. Here’s one learning: most things in my life can be fixed. I know deep in my bones that I am beyond fortunate (“blessed” as my mother-in-law would say) and most days I feel genuine gratitude for the full life I live – and especially the friends I have and for the kindness of strangers. Keys can be replaced and are in process ($370.16). However, a key ring from Serbia from an old love cannot. And that’s the part that stings. Of course, Lot lives in my heart forever, but I really loved having that tangible reminder of him to hold in my hands every single day.

Reader’s Questions: Can you relate? What have you lost that is irreplaceable?