I could still hear them downstairs, so I cranked the volume higher.
The phone rang and I leapt at it. I snatched the receiver up before the first ring even finished, knocked into the table, and landed on both knees between my bed and desk. “Hello?”
“Juliet? It’s Ginger.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temple where I’d bumped it. “Hey, Ginger. Mark’s not here.”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. His car’s gone.”
“Would you mind looking in his room? Just in case.”
“Okay. Hang on.” I put the phone down on top of my notebook and quietly unlocked my door. I tiptoed down the hall to Mark’s room. Even over Paul Simon singing about a woman who stayed in bed all day thinking about how things might have been different, I could hear them downstairs.
“So then I thought, why not purple? Jack’s secure enough in his masculinity to have a little purple in his office.”
Jack laughed. “I like the way you think.” He probably had his hand on her knee.
I knocked softly on Mark’s door, then peeked inside. Dark and empty, so I went back to my room and locked myself in again.
“Sorry, Ginger. He’s not here.”
“Okay. Thanks for checking.”
“Want me to leave him a message?”
She hesitated again. “That’s okay. I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“Do you want to come over?” Why am I inviting Mark’s girlfriend here? “I’m sure he’ll be back soon. He’d be surprised to see you.”
She laughed, in sort of a strange way. Not like her usual, sunny self. “I’m sure he would be surprised. But that’s okay. I don’t have a car anyway. Thanks.”
She’s a good ally. A good friend for you to keep.
“Wish you could come.”
“Thanks, Juliet. I mean it.” She sounded so sad.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course. I just wanted to ask Mark something. No big deal.”
“Okay. Guess I’ll see you this weekend?”
“Yeah. I hope so.”
I hung up the phone and it immediately rang again. I put it back up to my ear. “You still there?”
Silence.
Stupid ring-backs.
“Julie?”
“Yeah?”
“Hey. It’s me. Damon.”
I went hot and cold, then lightheaded. “Hi.”
“I made it.”
“Made what?”
“Home. I made it home. You wanted me to call.”
“Right.” I smacked myself in the forehead. “Okay. Thanks. I’m glad you’re home.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.” I took a deep breath to still the jitters. “There’s just a lot of weirdness here.”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Here too.”
Then neither of us said anything, and I searched my brain for something charming and funny.
He broke the silence first. “Do you ever wish you could go back to the best time in your life and just live there forever?”
“I don’t know if I even have one of those.”
Actually, they all happened during the last two weeks, and they all involved him.
“Really? Not when you were a kid? A time when everything was good and fun and easy?”
“I guess so,” I said. But as my mind churned over my childhood, the pleasant landmarks it stumbled on had less to do with good, fun, and easy than they did with escaping from bad, sad, and mad. “What’s the best time in your life?”
“Africa. With my mom. When Adam was normal and my dad knew how to have fun.”
“Adam used to be normal?” Nice, Juliet.
But Damon laughed. A lot. “Yeah. You haven’t seen the best of Adam.”
“What was he like in Africa?”
“Smart. And a clown. He’s a total practical joker. He used to do stuff like short-sheet the beds and put frogs in the toilet.”
“That sounds great.”
“Probably not to a girl, huh?”
“Not so much.”
He chuckled again. “Trust me. He made everybody laugh, all the time. Now he’s just messed up.” He sighed. “We’re all messed up.”
I sat down on the bed and twisted the phone cord around my wrist. “Because of your mom?”
Damon got really quiet and I wondered if I said the wrong thing.
“Adam and Mom were really close. It hit him pretty hard.”
“What about you?”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
My heart thudded and my ears felt hot. I didn’t know where to take the conversation from here.
He just needs to talk to someone. To you.
“Did I tell you that right after Mom died we lost everything in the house, too? The rainy season went on forever, and while Dad was in the states and no one lived at the house the roof collapsed. It was three weeks before anyone even knew.”
At least if I could keep him talking, I wouldn’t have to come up with words myself. “Tell me about her.”
“About Mom?”
“Is there some other ‘her’?”
He laughed again. And it was me that made him laugh. Me.
“Mom was great. Really beautiful.” He exhaled. “And fun. I mean, she had a temper sometimes, but you never took it very seriously, because that was just her.”
“My mom has a temper. Dad, too. But it’s never funny.”
“She had bright red hair to go along with the temper. Real, too. She never dyed it. She started getting this silver streak in the front, and Dad called it her moonbeam.”
I laid back on the pillow. “That must be where Adam gets his coloring.”
“Yeah. He looks a lot like her.” He paused and I heard him take a bite of something and chew a few times. “Mom made a better looking girl than guy.”
That cracked me up. “Don’t let Adam hear you say that.”
“I’ll say it to his face. He calls me a pretty girl all the time.”
“So not true.”
He coughed. “You don’t think I’m pretty?”
“Guys aren’t pretty.”
“You’re stabbing me in the heart here, Julie.”
I rolled over on my stomach and buried my face in the pillow to smother the giggles. “Stop it. And why do you call me Julie?”
“I don’t know. Juliet’s too tragic.”
“What? Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story.”
He flopped down on something. “No, it isn’t. They both commit suicide in the end.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. Haven’t you ever seen it?”
I hadn’t.
“We’ve got a copy around here somewhere. You should read it.”
“I should read Shakespeare?”
“Isn’t that what you’re named after?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
He took a drink. “So is it okay if I call you Julie?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think I like it.”
We fell silent again and I wondered if anything I said helped.
It did.
Shut up, Voice. I took the gum out of my mouth, wrapped it in its paper and tossed it in the trash.
“Well… I guess I probably better let you get to all that homework,” he said.
“Yeah. I guess so.” I untwined myself from the phone cord. “So I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Definitely.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t hang up, and neither did he. Did he not want to hang up as badly as I didn’t?
“Julie?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for listening. For letting me talk.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
Seriously. Absolutely anytime. Call me absolutely anytime at all. Really.
“Okay. Bye, then,” he said.
“Bye.”
We hung up and I stretched out on the bed again. I di
dn’t get any homework done, because I fell asleep in my clothes, whispering, “Damon and Julie. Julie and Damon.”
And the names fit together like a key in a lock.
CHAPTER 20
My eyes snapped open in the dark, the kind of awake when you’ve slept till your body won’t have another second of it. I rolled over to check the clock.
The number one glowed in the center of the display.
I blinked several times and looked again.
John.
I rubbed my eyes and squinted at it.
4:18.
I shook my head to throw off the fog of dream-sleep.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten up so early. I rolled off the bed and went to the window. A raccoon skittered across the end of the driveway under the streetlight’s yellow glow. A few seconds later three babies followed. Their mother led them into the tall grass in the ditch beside the road.
A fat white moth fluttered up and landed on the screen outside my window. Beyond him, another light caught my eye. Pam’s.
My stomach rumbled like thunder.
I crept to the door and pressed my thumb against the lock, so it wouldn’t pop out when I turned the knob. I checked the hallway doors. All closed.
I tiptoed downstairs, slipped into the kitchen, and peeked around the corner into the living room. Good. Neither Mom nor Jack Pierson spent the night on the couch.
I looked in the fridge for something fast and easy to quiet my hunger pangs. Eggs. Too much work. Ketchup and bread. A head of wilted lettuce. Ick.
The only thing ready to eat in the pantry was a bag of Mom’s favorite marshmallow cookies. It hadn’t been opened, and I didn’t dare. She counted those.
A plate of cookies left over from Mom’s baking day sat on the counter. I pulled back the plastic wrap and grabbed several. I snarfed down two on the way to the front door, then held the last one between my front teeth as I shoved my feet into my Keds.
Outside, dew beaded the grass and leaves like crystals, and the tiny sliver of moon tipped over to kiss a star beside it. When I got to the road I looked back at the house. A faint tinge of pink surrounded the roof and filtered into the bruise-purple sky. The scent of chilled roses mingled with the old smell of damp earth and fallen leaves.
I finished the last cookie as I crossed the road and climbed up Pam’s sun porch.
Pam sat in her armchair beside the bed, wrapped in an afghan, a large book on her lap. She stared at it for a little bit, then laid her head back, closed her eyes and smiled.
I tapped my fingertips on the half-open window and called her name.
Her head snapped up, and she waved. I pulled up the screen and squeezed inside.
“Why are you up so early?” she asked me.
“Woke up. Why are you up so early?”
She made a face. “I’ve been sick since Saturday night. I puked all day Sunday and yesterday. I’ve done nothing but puke and sleep, and I just can’t sleep anymore.”
“Oh. Good.”
She scowled at me. “Really?”
“When you didn’t show up at school we were afraid your parents actually murdered you.” I sat down on her bed. “I thought I should check.”
“At 4:30 in the morning?”
“Why not? We’re both up.” I reached over and lifted the cover of her book. “What are you reading?”
“The Vinton yearbook.”
“Where did you get a high school yearbook?”
“Dale borrowed it from his sister for me.”
I leaned over to see it. “You’re drooling over Mark’s yearbook picture. Ew. Pam, you’re sick.”
“He kissed me,” she whispered. “He kissed me at the party. Everything was so worth it.”
“I saw.”
Her eyes popped. “Really? You came?”
“You didn’t know? I was only there a few minutes, but I saw it.”
Her grin looked like it might crack her face in half.
“Pam, I need to tell you something.” I scooted around to face her. “I made Mark kiss you.”
“What?”
“The whole drawing thing. Remember? I sketched it. Last week.”
Her smile melted and her entire face drooped.
“That’s why I left so fast. I was that freaked. Then Damon wanted to get out of there.”
Her eyebrows bounced up. “You left with Damon?”
I pressed my lips together to squish down the smile, but it didn’t work.
Pam lit up again. “Oh. My. Gosh. You and Damon?”
I shrugged and shook my head. “We just went to the lake and talked.”
“Awesome!”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
She closed the yearbook and leaned forward. “Did he kiss you?” she whispered.
“No!” I leaned back on her bed pillow and closed my eyes. “And I don’t even know if I want him to.”
“Excuse me?” She put the book on the floor. “Are we talking about Damon Sheppard? The total fox who Amica Aldridge wants for herself? You’re not sure you want him to kiss you?”
I rolled on my side and propped my head up on my hand. “Sometimes I do. Then other times I’m totally terrified. I don’t even know how to kiss.”
“I can help you with that.”
“I am so not kissing you. Not even for practice.”
She stuck out her tongue. “I wouldn’t kiss you either. I mean I can show you how to get ready.”
“How?”
She made a fist and held it up to me. “Do this.”
I sat up and balled my hand.
“Right here,” she pointed to the side where the thumb and index finger met, “is Damon’s mouth.”
“I’m supposed to kiss my hand and pretend it’s Damon?”
“If you want to be ready.”
I looked at my hand. “Seriously?”
“It was in Teen Girl. So it’s totally legit.”
“And how much real kissing experience have you had?”
She smiled. “Dale. Mark. And Tony Lovitz kissed me once in fifth grade.”
“Back to the Mark thing.” I folded my arms.
“I don’t care. I don’t care if you did draw it. It happened, and it was amazing.”
“Pam.”
She bit her lower lip. “Can I have the drawing?”
“Mark’s totally in love with Ginger.”
“Then why did you do a picture of him kissing me?”
“Because I’m still trying to figure out why this thing works sometimes and doesn’t work other times.” I tapped my foot on the floor. “I did what you said. I drew something that I didn’t think had any chance of happening.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Sorry.”
“So have you figured it out?”
I shook my head.
“There must be something you’re doing differently when it comes true. A different pen? A certain place you’re doing it?”
“I’ve thought about all that stuff. I can’t find the thing.”
“Are you saying something special? Like an incantation?”
“I don’t say anything.” Do I? I looked at her.
“What is it?”
“Let me think.”
I sketched Pam and Mark in art class. Tammy asked what I was drawing, and I told her.
“I can’t think of anything special or unusual that I said.”
“There has to be something.”
The one before that was Amica and the alligators. Half of that came true. What was I doing when I drew it? Mark came in my room. He asked me about it. What did I tell him?
“Anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t remember now.”
“Okay, so do another one.”
“And say what?”
“Anything. Whatever comes to mind. Just keep track of what you say.”
“How should I do that?”
She got up and went over to her closet. Behind the door lurked a pile
of junk up to her waist. She plunged into it, throwing things this way and that till she found what she wanted.
“Here it is.” She pulled a tape recorder out of a box and handed it to me. “Just push these two buttons when you want to record. It might need new batteries.”
“Tape myself?”
“It’s research.” She sat down and picked up the yearbook again. “Now go home, draw Mark proposing to me, record everything you say, and when you’re finished, practice kissing Damon.”
I carried the tape recorder over to the window. “I have to do homework before school. I spent last night on the phone with him instead.”
“Juliet’s in love,” she sang.
“Shut up.”
I slipped out the window and closed the screen behind me, tucked the tape recorder under my arm, then slid down the roof as quietly as I could. When I got to the ground a pair of headlights washed across my path. I ducked into the shadow where the porch met the corner of the house.
Mark’s car turned into our driveway. He cut the engine and rolled to a stop. The door opened and Mark climbed out. He grabbed onto the frame of the car with one hand and the steering wheel with the other and pushed it up the drive. Then he closed the door so gently I doubted it went all the way shut, and he slunk around the back of the house.
As I returned across the road the sun bled warm pinks into the sky and the streetlight flickered. Somewhere an enthusiastic rooster crowed.
Mark’s passenger window hung halfway open, and I peeked inside. A sweater lay crumpled in the corner of the back seat. I pulled it out and held it up. A black cardigan with silver buttons. I took it up the roof with me.
As I closed the window and locked it, I glanced back down at the driveway. Something didn’t look right.
Oh, yeah. Dad’s car wasn’t there.
* * * * *
Mark came downstairs just as I sat down for breakfast. “Morning, kiddo.”
I stared at him as he dropped into a chair, but he didn’t really look at me. Yet. “Good morning. Late night?”
“Not really.” He grabbed the box of cereal and ate a handful. “Pass the milk.”
The pitcher left a ring of condensation on the tablecloth when I handed it to him. “Liar. The newspaper is under the back tire of your car.”
He cursed and jumped up from the table.
When he came back he tossed the paper on a chair and grinned at me. “Thanks. I owe you one.” He raked his hand through his hair and sat down. Then he really saw me. His grin evaporated.
Mom’s footsteps came down the stairs and I put another spoonful of cereal in my mouth.
“Ginger called last night,” I told him between bites. “She didn’t leave a message, but I thought you’d like to know.”
He cursed under his breath again.
“Morning.” Mom went into the kitchen for her cup of coffee, then came back to the table. “How’d everyone sleep?”