“Yeah,” he said. “It’s something we can do together. It’ll be fun. It’s okay that I volunteered you, right?”
“I just don’t know if I’d be any good at it.” I craned my neck to see the boy turn the corner at L Street and walk out of sight. “Anyway, I have to go. I was only supposed to drive around the block. My parents are taking me out to dinner.”
“Mmkay. Call me later? After dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“Happy birthday again.”
I found myself driving down L, along Third, up M, zigzagging through the Avenues looking for the boy until my mom called wondering where I was and I headed back home.
We ate at our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant, where Mom and Alan discussed the likelihood that one of their tropical fish, Estella, had fin rot. Mom asked me about my day; I said it was fine, and told them about being sung to twice — first in homeroom by everyone, then at lunch by Gil. I listened to myself spin a story of birthday fun, crazy friends, and meaningful presents. The person whose day I was describing had not spent the majority of it fighting a sense of impending doom.
Mom gave me an envelope with two hundred dollars in it. “I was thinking clothes,” she said. “You’ve kept yourself in such good shape, honey, you never dress that body of yours to show it off a little.”
“Mom . . .” She knew I hated to talk about the way I used to look, especially in front of anyone else, even Alan.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, waving her hands. “Anyway, never mind clothes, because now you’ll need all of that for gas money.”
Alan snorted. “We might need to take out a second mortgage for gas money.”
They drank wine, held hands. I didn’t eat much. Mom’s comment, even though it had been a compliment, had put the Jennifer Harris cloud back over my head. I stared out the restaurant window at the street.
“Looking for someone?” Alan asked at one point, picking an olive off my plate.
I shook my head. “I was thinking about going over to Katy’s. . . .”
“You should,” Mom said, nodding. “Take the car. Go crazy.”
“It’s a school night.”
“It’s your birthday.”
“I’m just saying. You made the rule.” I pushed my plate away. “Maybe I will, though.”
I knew I wouldn’t, knew that the whole idea of me and Katy and Steph and a wild night out was part of the story I’d made up and told my parents about the birthday girl and her fun day at school. The truth was we’d go home and I’d sit in my room and do my homework and try not to think too much about the past, and go to bed hoping to feel more like myself — or, I should say, more like Jenna Vaughn — in the morning.
There was something in our mailbox when we got home. I saw it as we pulled up and the headlights skimmed over the porch for a second — the very edge of a white envelope visible against the black metal of the box. Neither Mom nor Alan noticed; they were talking about making baklava and whether or not it was okay to use almonds instead of walnuts. A note from Ethan, I told myself, or maybe something extra from Katy or Steph for my birthday.
Except I knew, even then, that it wasn’t any of those things. Not that I knew what it was. But in more than three years of having the friends I did, there had never been a note in my mailbox. Text messages, yes. Or e-mails. Not letters in envelopes on porches. Which is why I didn’t say anything about it as I went in the house with Mom and Alan. See, this is what I mean about me and my birthday. Any normal person would have been excited, grabbed the envelope, and ripped it open expecting to find something good. Not me. I sat there imagining all the bad or scary things it could be. It could have been something from my biological father, who I only knew as Don Harris and had not seen since age three. It could have been from someone who had known me as Jennifer Harris — Matt Bradshaw, maybe — reminding me who I really was and that I wasn’t going to get away with this Jenna Vaughn business for much longer.
Stalling, I got out my phone to call Ethan but ended up dialing Steph’s number instead.
“Hey,” I said, sitting on my bed. “I got a car.”
“Yes! It’s about time. When are you picking me up? Where are we going?”
“You sound like my mom.”
“Really, Jenna, it is your birthday,” Steph said. “Aren’t you at least going to go surprise Ethan or something?”
“I have too much homework.” Steph kept talking while I thought about the envelope. Maybe it was something for my parents. Maybe it had nothing to do with me.
“. . . reigning Miss Predictability,” Steph said, “proudly representing the fine state of Utah.”
“My inability to be spontaneous is part of my charm.”
“It’s true. You wouldn’t be you otherwise.”
“Katy said . . .” I stopped myself, and reached across my bed to close the window curtains.
“Katy said what?”
“That I didn’t seem like myself today.”
“Katy says a lot of things you needn’t pay attention to.” She paused. “You were a little out of it, though.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. The fact that I hadn’t hidden myself as well as I thought made me nervous. But then, having friends who noticed when I acted out of the ordinary — that was good, right?
“J.V.?” Steph said. “Still there?”
“Yeah. Birthdays are stressful for me,” I said. “That’s all.”
“Why? You get presents!”
“This one time . . .” I swallowed, hardly able to believe that I was considering telling.
“One sec, potential hookup calling . . .”
Maybe I’d just say, I had a bad birthday once. I could say that I was at a friend’s house, and his dad was mean and yelled at us. That was enough of an explanation, really, and it might help to say even that much.
“I’m back,” Steph said. “I told him I was in the middle of something and I’d call him later. Which I won’t, then he’ll call me and I’ll pretend I forgot, and —”
“Have you ever thought about just . . . being honest? ” I was one to talk
She laughed. “Oh, Jenna. How little you understand. Anyway, you were saying?”
The moment, if there ever really was one, had gone. “Nothing. Just that birthdays involve a lot of attention and I’m glad it’s over.”
“In Jenna’s world, Attention Bad. I forgot.” Her call-waiting clicked in again. “Ooh, I want to take this one. Go do your homework. See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
I went out of my room, through the dark kitchen, and stood quietly where I could see into the living room. Mom and Alan were watching a nature show. They were on the couch, Mom’s feet in Alan’s lap, his hand absentmindedly petting her toes. I had an impulse to join them, to wedge myself in there and feel Alan on one side of me and Mom on the other and the TV in front of us and the solid wall of the house behind us. I’d like to fall asleep like that, hemmed in, and wake up and have a better day in front of me.
Then Mom sat up and kissed Alan and I felt like a spy, and also a little grossed out, so I went back through the kitchen, through the front room, and, finally, out the door and into the cold dark. Our porch light had been out for weeks, giving the yard and the walkway an eerie sort of feeling, like anyone could be out there, watching. I pulled the envelope out of the mailbox quickly, stuck it in the pocket of my jeans, and went back to my room.
Jennifer Harris.
Is what it said on the envelope. Not Jenna Vaughn or J.V., like my friends sometimes called me. Jennifer Harris, a person I had not been for more than four years. How could whoever it was have found me with my new name? It’s not like I’d sent a change of address to Jordana Bennett and Matt Bradshaw. The printing was neat, precise, the envelope a little lumpy like there was something in it.
Even before I opened it, my mind was already racing ahead, gathering facts and retrieving memories and putting together bits of information into what I suddenly realized was the truth. It was like when yo
u see a movie, a mystery, and you make assumptions based on what you see until the very end when you get one piece of information that makes you realize that everything you thought, everything you assumed, was wrong, and you wonder how you ever could have believed what you did. And the truth I came to as I opened the envelope was this: Cameron Quick was not dead. Or I should say, I had no proof that he was dead, and I never had.
I had Matt Bradshaw and Jordana Bennett — just kids, kids who hated me — telling me a story.
I had a mother saying I’m sorry, comforting me, then encouraging me to move on.
My most convincing evidence was that I’d never heard anything from or about Cameron again, and I believed he would have contacted me if there was any way he could, but he hadn’t.
Until now. I knew it as I ripped open the envelope, my heart stretching.
The card had an abstract art sort of picture on it, painted in sweeping strokes of blue and gray and purple like a movie sunset. When I opened it and saw what was inside, my palms tingled. A note to a dead person, from a dead person. Still holding the card, I ran to the front door, outside, down the walk. Where was he? I jogged up to the corner, looking up and down the street, but there was no one. I stopped at the top of the hill, looking down at the lights of the valley, knowing he was out there somewhere.
When I came back in the house, Mom called from the family room, “Jenna? Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
I wasn’t fine. I lay on my bed and looked at the card over and over and over again. When Ethan rang my cell, I didn’t answer. What I wanted to do was cry — with happiness, sorrow, confusion, fear. But it all gathered in my throat and stuck. I sat up and opened the curtain so I could look out my bedroom window, as if I might see him hiding there in the dark, looking at me with his big eyes, seeing me the way I hadn’t been seen since he left — the real me who was still there under the layers of my new unfat body and acceptably stylish clothes, my nice house, my nice stepfather, my new car. I stared at the card forever, opening and closing it, trying to believe what I was seeing:
Happy Birthday, Jennifer
And a pencil-line drawing of a house. And under a piece of Scotch tape a ring, just a cheap ring with a blue glass stone.
I’m back, it read.
Love,
Cameron Quick
CHAPTER 4
ETHAN PICKED ME UP THE NEXT MORNING, SINCE WE HADN’T discussed how we’d alter our routine now that I had my own car. Regarding Cameron, I’d decided that the best thing was to go forward with my regular life until I knew more. The best thing was to keep on being Jenna Vaughn; stay on the map, follow the plan. I’d tried my hardest not to look like I’d been awake most of the night, but still, Ethan did a double take when I got in his car.
“I know,” I said. “I had trouble sleeping.”
“You should have called me or IM’d. I was up until, like, one.”
“I just . . . didn’t feel well. Like maybe I ate something at the restaurant last night that wasn’t entirely good for me.”
“You said you were going to call me, though,” he said. He got like that sometimes, not picking a fight or anything but wanting the last word or making sure everyone knew he was right.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I stared out the window while we drove to school, looking at every male we passed and thinking it might be Cameron. Ethan didn’t notice. He fiddled with the radio and told me about his ideas for The Odd Couple and how excited he was to be assistant director.
I’d almost told Alan about Cameron that morning. As soon as I heard him up and making coffee, I went to the kitchen to get a cup. Something about the early hour and Alan looking so harmless in his checkered robe made me feel like maybe I could say it. I could tell him all about everything that happened. But then he’d tell Mom and I’d have a million questions to answer that I couldn’t, and besides, I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell anybody anything. Still, that was twice in a twenty-four hour period I’d come close to talking about things I never had — first with Steph, then Alan.
“We have five minutes till first bell,” Ethan said, pulling into a corner of the student lot. “Wanna make out?” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. What could I say? Not really. No thanks. Instead I leaned into him and we kissed. He pulled back a little to slip his hand up my shirt and then stopped. “Your eyes are open.” He laughed, looking over his shoulder in the approximate direction my eyes had been fixed while I watched kids go into the school building, so sure somehow that I’d see Cameron among them. “What are you looking at?” Ethan asked.
“Nothing.”
“You never kiss with your eyes open.”
I shrugged and straightened my shirt. “We’re going to be late.”
He leaned back in his seat and took a few deep breaths, then asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired.”
While he gathered up his backpack and coat, I reached into my sweater pocket and closed my fingers around the ring. My heart pounded.
“You coming?” Ethan asked from where he stood outside the car.
“I really don’t feel so good,” I said, suddenly afraid to move. If Cameron Quick was alive, what else was out there that I didn’t know about? “Maybe you should take me home.”
“I hope you’re not sick sick, since you just transferred about a billion germs into my mouth.”
Cootie girl, came a voice in my head, the kind of voice I hardly ever heard anymore. You and your gross germy self . . . you’re lucky anyone wants to kiss you at all. “No, not like that. Just. I don’t know. Not good.”
“You’ll feel better in a couple hours, I bet,” he said. “Anyway, we have a test in physiology, remember?”
“I know.” We heard the first bell ring. I got out of the car and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder. “You’re probably right. I’ll probably feel better soon.”
I was a zombie all morning. When anyone asked what was wrong, I used the “I’m tired” excuse and changed the subject. I watched the door of every classroom waiting for Cameron to walk through. At lunch, I sat where I could see both cafeteria entrances, while Steph and Katy and Gil and Freshman Dave and Ethan all talked about the play. Freshman Dave asked Steph if she was going to try out for the lead.
“There are two leads,” Katy said. “Both for girls. That’s the beauty of it.” She turned to me. “What about you, J.V.? There are some small parts, you know.”
“She’s stage manager,” Ethan said through a mouthful of cafeteria spaghetti. “She doesn’t like to be onstage.”
Steph watched me from across the table. “Since ‘she’ is sitting right here, maybe ‘she’ could speak for herself. Just an idea.” Steph was not one to put up with anything and kept the boys in line.
I chewed my dry sandwich, wishing for a nice big chocolate shake to wash it down. Ethan’s thigh nudged mine. I guessed I was supposed to say something. “Oh. No, it’s okay. He’s right. I don’t want a part,” I said. “Stage manager is fine. It’s great.”
Steph rolled her eyes. “I’m so convinced.”
They might have said more after that, I don’t know, because right then I noticed Ethan’s car keys in the unzipped outside pocket of his backpack. He was talking to Gil and Katy, the three of them reliving something funny that had happened during the junior year play. When he jumped up from the table to act out part of the story, I slid my hand into his backpack, pulled out the keys, and hid them in my lap before he turned back around. Stealing was easy. I’d had lots of practice as Jennifer Harris, who needed a steady supply of snacks to get through the day. Sometimes that meant taking from stores, other kids, even Mrs. Jameson’s desk drawer once when she let me stay after school to help organize the reading corner.
This time it was all for a higher purpose, not just to stuff my face. I needed to get out of there and do something, find him. Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.
Steph saw me. I knew it when
her eyes met mine with a questioning sort of look. Then Ethan’s story was over and he was sitting again and Steph opened her mouth. I looked down, expecting to hear something like, “Ethan, did you know Jenna just jacked your keys?” But what she said was, “We haven’t had a movie night since school started. When can everyone come over? My dad just put in surround sound for the flat-panel.”
I got up to throw my trash away and slipped the keys into my sweater pocket. When I returned to the table, I collected the rest of my stuff. “I left something in my locker . . . have to get it before fifth.”
Steph stood. “I’ll come with you.” She ran her hands through her hair while Freshman Dave watched, mesmerized. “If that’s okay.” I couldn’t exactly make a scene about it, so I said sure, she could come, and thought quickly about what I’d tell her when she asked why I’d swiped Ethan’s keys.
“I want to take his car to get washed and detailed.” I sorted stuff from my locker into my backpack — what I needed for homework, what I could leave. “As a surprise.”
“Nuh-uh. Jenna Vaughn would not cut class to do that. I know you.”
I faced her. “Sure about that?”
Her eyebrows went up and her lips curled into a smile. “Sex? Sex! You’re taking his car to run home, spread flower petals all over your bed, and chill the champagne. You’re finally giving it up. Today. Right after school. Does he know? Let me help set it up. Please please please.”
“Steph.” I closed my locker and started down the hall. “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not it. I just have to do something.”
“Something you don’t want Ethan to know,” she said, following me. “Something that’s worth ruining your flawless attendance record for. Come on, Jenna, let me in on it. I don’t want to go to class, either. We’ll have an adventure! We haven’t had one in a long time. Not since flamingo flocking sophomore year . . .”
I stopped walking. The postlunch hall crowd was starting to thicken, as much as any crowd could thicken at Jones, and I wanted to get out of there. Alone. But I also didn’t want Steph to get mad and blab to Ethan. And . . . I was about to cry. In public. Which was something I strictly did not do anymore. “This isn’t like that,” I said, my voice starting to wobble. Crybaby. Just hearing the name in my head was enough to keep the tears from coming. “This is something serious. I don’t even . . .”