Tell the Wolves I'm Home (40 page)

Toby got out of the car and walked around to my side. I forced myself to act like nothing had happened. Like it was no big deal. I forced myself to look at him with a pasted-on smile. We made plans to meet the next Tuesday. He said he thought he was still okay to drive. I told him to park in the Grand Union parking lot, in the back where it slopes off, where it's overhung with trees, next to the Goodwill bins. They were just numb words spilling out of my mouth. They didn't mean anything. I said I'd be there at three-thirty. Toby nodded. That's what we arranged. That's exactly the way we left it.

Fifty-Four

There was the smell of cinnamon French toast, and there was my mother humming “Some Enchanted Evening” and the sunshine billowing into my bedroom window and the thump of Greta's stereo coming through the wall behind my head. There was my father clunking around in the closet at the bottom of the stairs, and there were two chickadees on the branch outside my window. This is how that Saturday started, and I lay in my old, warm bed, smiling because there was no Toby, there were no secrets, there was nothing but home. Nothing but normal things, and that made it feel like it might turn out to be a really good day.

That night was going to be the first performance of
South Pacific
. Opening night. We all had tickets, and Greta already told us that we were supposed to have flowers sent to her at the school. She told us that usually kids sent each other a carnation and parents sent roses or even a whole bunch of flowers. My mother nodded and told her not to worry.

“Promise you'll remember, okay?” Greta said.

“Honey, you'll get flowers. You need to calm down. Stop worrying about everything. You'll look like a wreck by the time the show starts.” My mother put a hand on Greta's shoulder and gave it a rub.

I didn't say it, but the truth was that she already did look like a wreck. Her skin was dry and flaky, and her hair looked coarse instead of shiny and smooth like it usually was. She didn't even bother to do
her fingernails anymore. It looked like she'd been biting them ragged.

My mother smoothed her hand over Greta's hair.

“You'll do great. I know you will. Sit down, have some breakfast. You too, Junie.”

She brought over great heaping plates of French toast with maple syrup. After wiping down the counters and washing a few dishes, my mother left to go into town, and Greta and I were alone together for the first time since the day she raided my closet. Greta pushed most of the French toast over to one side of her plate, then cut up the one piece that was left. We didn't say anything to each other. I could have sat right through that whole breakfast without saying a word, but I looked over at Greta cutting her French toast into the tiniest of pieces, I looked at my small, tired sister, and I thought what a big day this was for her.

“So … are you, like, nervous?” I said.

At first I thought she was going to ignore me, but then her brow furrowed and she shrugged. “I don't even want to do it,” she said without looking at me. “I wish I'd never auditioned. I wish I was an extra. Or nothing. I wish I was nothing.”

The kitchen window was open and I could hear the echoey thump of Kenny Gordano dribbling his basketball in his driveway next door.

“You'll be great.”

She pressed the back of her fork into a piece of French toast. “Maybe I don't want to be
great
. Maybe I want to be average. At everything. Maybe I want to be like you.”

“Trust me. You don't.”

“No, June. You trust me. You know what being great means? It means having a year stolen from your life. There's a whole extra year in there that's lost. And, you know, I want my year back. I want second grade. I'm only sixteen. And now … now I'm supposed to be leaving home for good? Does that seem right? You know, I used to love
South Pacific
. It was like this little place in my life where I could just hang out and sing. No pressure or anything. And then next thing you know it turns into this huge chance of a lifetime. Why is everything like that for me? All my life I've listened to Mom. Opportunities. Chances. And
I don't want to be ungrateful. I don't want to miss out, but sometimes I lie in my bed and I look around at my room and I can't believe I'm not supposed to be a kid anymore. What about that opportunity? Where's the second chance for that?” Her voice had gone shaky, like she was about to cry. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out one of those tiny bottles of vodka. She didn't even try to hide it from me, she just opened the top and poured half of it into her orange juice. She drank half the glass, then leaned in to me and said, “I'm not going to
Annie
, June. I don't care what I have to do. I won't go.”

“I'll help you. We'll figure something out. Tell Mom you changed your mind or something.”

Greta finished off her juice and laughed. “Yeah. Right. Whatever. So, are you coming?” she asked. “Tonight?”

“Of course I'm coming. I have a ticket.”

“Not the play. After. The cast party.” The combination of everything she'd said and the vodka and the matter-of-fact way she'd just asked me to the cast party left me stunned. I sat there staring at her.

“You've got to be kidding.”

“No. No, I'm not. I'm asking you.”

“You spy on me in the woods. You go into my closet. Destroy all my private stuff—irreplaceable stuff. And then you sit there like I'd actually consider going to a party with you again? I mean, I feel bad about the whole overachiever thing, but—”

“But Ben—you know, maybe …”

“Ben went off with Tina Yarwood. You said so yourself. Remember?”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly looking sad. “Yeah.”

“I'm not part of the cast or crew, and—” I cut myself off. Why should I explain?

Greta didn't say anything for a few seconds. She gently set her fork down on the edge of her plate. “You still go to see him?” she asked.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Why should I tell you anything? You sit there … You sit there like we're best friends or something. Inviting me to parties, always in my business. Well, I've had enough. The. End.” I twisted my chair to
face away from Greta. Upstairs, my father was singing “Younger Than Springtime” in his booming voice.

“Two words, June. Ryan. White. Okay?”

“Yeah, whatever, Greta.”

“Just think about it.”

I turned to face Greta again. “What about Ryan White?”

All I knew was that Ryan White was some kid somewhere in the Midwest, who'd caught AIDS from a blood transfusion.

“Someone shot a bullet through his house. People canceled their newspapers because they didn't want him delivering them. Paper, June. They thought they would catch AIDS from paper.”

“So what? I'm not afraid. Toby has nobody, okay? And to me—unlike to some people—that actually matters. So just stay away from me. If you hate me so much, if you hate Toby, why didn't you take the opportunity to get us in trouble when you had the chance?” I was almost shouting at Greta, but at the same time I was feeling sorry for her. Here was this person who wasn't a big sister at all anymore. Drinking vodka at breakfast?

Greta didn't say anything. She slurped the last sip of her orange juice, then stacked her glass on top of her plate and started to stand. She stayed like that for a few seconds, then she put her plate back on the table and sat down again. Her eyes were wet, and she reached out and took my hand in hers. She rubbed her index finger over each of my fingernails, then she tapped her own and smiled. “I like the gold,” she whispered.

For a second I didn't understand, but then I did, and it felt strange and explosive to have her mention what we'd done to the portrait right at the kitchen table. I gave her a little smile back, and after a while I whispered, “I'm glad,” and right then, right at that moment, I felt the wall between the world of secrets and the real world start to collapse. I felt the girls from the portrait becoming us and us becoming them, and I felt my eyes welling up. I nodded hard. “I'm really, really glad.”

We sat there, quiet. Kenny's basketball kept thumping, and I wanted to go out there and grab that ball away from him and throw it right over the top of the Gordanos' cedar hedge.

“I shouldn't have gone in your closet.”

“Why did you have to spill everything out? You could have just—”

“I know.”

I looked at Greta's plate. All the French toast was still there. “You should eat something.”

She shrugged. “So … will you come? Tonight? To the cast party? We'll talk, okay? You're the only one …”

We looked at each other. It was like she hadn't heard a word I'd been saying.

“Why can't you talk to me now?”

She shook her head.

“Same place,” she said, and she looked at me long enough to make sure I understood that she meant the woods. “Promise me, June.”

“No.”

“Promise,” she said again, and this time she squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. So tight it was like it was the only thing saving her from falling. “Promise?”

She didn't let go until I gave a little nod. “Okay. I promise,” I whispered.

Greta stood to leave. She got as far as the doorway, then turned. She didn't look at me.

“Toby, he has nobody, right? Right, June? Well, who do you think I have?”

Then, before I could say anything, she was gone.

My father had his golf bag slung over one shoulder when he came into the kitchen. This was at about ten-thirty, an hour after breakfast. I was washing the dishes because I told my mother I would. My father grinned at me as he leaned his golf bag up against the refrigerator. “I've got it, June Bug. This year I've finally got it.”

“What?” I said.

“Mother's Day's only two weeks away. We're all going to the champagne brunch at Gasho. Reservations are made.”

“Good job, Dad,” I said. I hadn't even remembered Mother's Day. Usually I was really good at stuff like that. Greta and I used to go out into the backyard and pick flowers and try to cook scrambled eggs.

“She's had a rough year. Let's make this a good one for her, okay?”

“Yeah, good idea.” And maybe it was a good idea. Maybe if I tried to see my mother exactly the way I used to see her—hardworking, smart, kind—I could forget what I knew.

“Greta,” he shouted. “Let's go.” Mr. Nebowitz wanted all the cast and crew at the school by noon, and my father had said he'd drop her on his way to golf. After a couple of minutes, she came down the stairs with a big bag of stuff she needed for the show.

“See you later,” she said to me as they went out the door.

After they left, the house was empty, and even though Mother's Day was two weeks away, I went up to my room and started to make my mother a card. Like I used to. With construction paper and markers and colored pencils and glitter. And right then it was almost impossible to believe that there was a whole other me, who drank Volcano Bowls and smoked cigarettes and took care of people who used to be strangers.

About a half hour later my mother knocked on my door.

“Honey?”

“Yeah?”

“Come out here a second.”

I stashed my card-making stuff under a few books and stuck my head out the door.

“Yeah?”

“You can come with me into town.”

“Why?”

“We need to stop at the bank. Bring your deposit box key.”

The panic must have been all over my face, because my mother smiled and said, “Don't worry, we're not selling it or anything. The man from the Whitney, he's coming to see it on Thursday evening, and I won't have time to pick it up during the week.”

“I'm kind of busy.”

“June.”

“I'm working on something. A project.”

“Just get the key and get dressed, okay?”

I started to close the door, then popped my head back out. “I could
get it for you. On Monday,” I called after her. I didn't know what I would do on Monday, but it would give me time.

“Stop this, June. There's nothing to worry about. I expect you downstairs in fifteen minutes, and that's that.”

I got dressed as slowly as I could, trying to think of some kind of plan. I thought if Greta was there she'd know what to do, but maybe not. Maybe even she couldn't get us out of this one.

In the kitchen, my mother was leafing through papers in her purse.

“The car's open. You do have the key, right? I honestly wouldn't put it past you to leave it behind.”

I nodded.

“Show me, then.”

“Mom—”

“I'm sorry, June, but you're making it very hard for me to trust you this morning.”

“Well, maybe I'm finding it hard to trust you too,” I said.

“June, I have no idea what's gotten into you, but I want to see that key.”