Among Friends (22 page)

I have a good coat, my scarf and gloves, my purse with six dollars left, my diary, three magazines, and half a bag of potato chips my last seatmate left. For lunch I had a candy bar and water from the drinking fountain at a station where we had fifteen minutes.

I don’t look out the window. Ever. I look into myself.

I don’t see good things.

What is the point in being born good if you hate yourself?

She’s right. I hate my sister.

I forgive my biological mother for coming back and
wanting us again, even though we didn’t hear from her for ten years. I forgive Dad for not being able to stand the stress of his first wife taking his child away from his second wife, and vanishing. I forgive Mom for collapsing. I forgive Mom for caring more that Candy left than that I stayed.

But I can’t forgive Candy.

I hate her.

Admitting it is half the battle.

It’s not classified now, even to me.

And so I feel better toward Candy.

I still haven’t said “thank you” to anybody. I thanked Mr. Lowe for the clothes. I thanked Mrs. Lowe for dinner. I haven’t thanked Emily. I haven’t thanked Jared for taking me in as if he liked me. I haven’t thanked Ansley for going to visit my mother, too.

And I haven’t thanked Jennie.

I learned something from Jennie. Never be jealous. Never believe that somebody else’s life is perfect.

At lunch on Saturday I said to Mrs. Lowe, “Do you think Jennie is all right?”

“A girl without money has to figure out some way to eat, Paul. I tremble when I think what she might decide to do.”

I changed buses. The bus driver was starting to talk to me. He knows I’ve run away from home. He told me
Greyhound gives free rides home to runaways. He would arrange a free ride home.

A free ride.

My whole life has been a free ride.

That’s what happens when you’re smart and talented: you go everywhere for free. But I don’t want to anymore! I want to be just like everybody else, and fail some and be ordinary some, and be okay some. I don’t want to shine all alone!

The Awesome Threesome.

We weren’t awesome one by one.

We were awesome because we had two to share with.

The bus driver said, “You could share a few things with me, kid. Like your name and your parents’ phone number.”

So I got off the bus. I sat half the night in the station until another bus came. I cried the whole time.

We’ve talked so much about Jennie lately. My mother said we all have to forgive Jennie for having everything.

My father said if Jennie really and truly had everything, she wouldn’t have run away, and it just goes to show you a family can look all shiny and perfect on the outside and be rotten on the inside. He said nobody runs away from a nice family.

For a minute I felt good, saying out loud the Quints aren’t nice.

But then I remembered all of it: every tuna-fish sandwich Mrs. Quint made for us, every trip to the beach, every Band-Aid she put on my knee because I was always the one who fell down.

I’ve never liked Mrs. Quint. And after all these years, I still hardly know Mr. Quint. But I could at least go over there and tell her I’m sorry it all happened to them.

My father said, “Well, I’m sure I’m the crummiest person around, but I for one am glad that the Quints finally fell down in public.”

“You’re not the crummiest one, Dad,” I told him. “The whole school said that the first day.”

“And what did they say the second day?” Dad wanted to know. “And the third, and fourth, and fifth?”

Suppose I went home and was nothing.

Just me: a girl with brown hair.

Would they still love me?

They can’t frame what I am today in this bus station.

I don’t even know what town it is.

I don’t even care.

I lie awake at night sometimes and wonder where Jennie’s living.

Hey! Star of the East, come back!

All those places where you should be shining—you’re not!

All those things you could be starring in—you’re not!

As for Paul, I’m glad this house has lots of bedrooms and bathrooms. He’s a very polite guest, but he and my mother are endlessly Questing for Answers: talking Life, and Truth, and Morality. If I say something like, “So—what’s for supper, Mom?” they both look at me as if I’m their local resident mental defective. Twice I have gotten supper for them, and they took this meal as if they deserved it, and Mom even said it was good for me to be the servant for a change.

Paul’s servant.

I do not care for this change of events.

However, the other night Ansley was here, and Hillary and Emily came over because they were depressed about Jennie, and we all played Monopoly half the night, and Paul actually laughed. Out loud and everything. Ansley congratulated him and made up a little Laugh Chart. She says every time he laughs she’ll give him a gold star. That made him laugh, too, so she licked a little gold star we found in the back of the crayon box my mother’s had since I was a little kid, and she pasted it on his forehead.

For a minute I got jealous of Paul, because Ansley’s never pasted a gold star on my forehead, but Ansley kissed me good night later, when I took her home, and she said, “But Jared, darling, you are just one solid spectacular gold star.” So I decided not to be jealous of Paul Classified.

I could call home.

I have a Calling Card.

But they’ll yell at me.

Because they’re going to feel responsible. They’re going to be failures. They were parents who didn’t do it right after all, just when they thought they were perfect.

They only loved me because I was perfect.

I was the trophy on their wall.

They won’t love me now that I’ve ruined it.

So I can’t call home.

Who could I call?

Not Emily, not Hill, not Paul, not their parents, not Miss Clinton, not anybody I can think of.

I’m sitting here in this bus station and now, at last, I am alone.

I only thought I was alone before.

Now it’s real.

I said, “What do you think made her run away, Mr. Lowe?” I asked him because I had this sense that he had all the answers to everything. He laughed. “I haven’t had a conversation with Jennie in years,” he told me, “but if I had to guess I’d say that endless perfection and achievement can be as horrible for a person as endless failure and pain.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Jared, just before I did.

First time I ever had anything in common with Mr. Preppy Jared.