I eventually gave up on him and went to my room. I turned off the light, but for a long time couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining the reservoir, what it would be like to grab the rope and swing out over the void.
SEVEN
I woke up Monday with time to kill, as usual. I watched Duncan five days a week, but just for a few hours in the middle of the day. His father was some kind of foreman at a plant and worked long shifts, but his mother was a part-time librarian who was only gone from about eleven in the morning until three in the afternoon. Duncan was on summer vacation from school like the rest of us and needed somebody to be with, so I was it.
To be honest, watching Duncan barely felt like work at all. He was twelve and autistic, with very personal, intricate ways to entertain himself. I’d never said this out loud to anyone, but sometimes I really liked being with him. He was sweet and gentle and possibly the only human being who I never felt awkward or shy around. If I said something dumb or embarrassing, I knew he wouldn’t care. I’d babysat for him here and there this whole past year before I’d gotten the regular job this summer. He couldn’t really express himself or tell me what he needed, and that used to break my heart, make me feel helpless. But the more we were together, the more I understood all his likes and dislikes. Now I could almost always make him happy.
That morning everyone was on their typical schedule, Mom and Kieran leaving early, and Dad gone soon after. He almost always found somewhere to be during the day. Today he was doing handyman-type stuff for people a few blocks over. Our house was empty by nine thirty, after Tru had left for Latin class and Jimmy for the gas station. Once everyone was gone, I took a never-ending, scalding shower, singing the whole time. I dressed slowly, switching one shirt for another and another when nothing looked right, as if it even mattered what I wore to babysit. Then I went downstairs and turned on the television. Back when we had cable I used to watch MTV for hours sometimes, lulled by bad music and shameless people doing shameless things. Now there was no MTV, and not much to pick from. I just clicked nonstop, moving from local news to soap operas to courtroom shows. People squabbling over a few hundred dollars. I guess I knew how they felt.
By the time I walked over to the Harts’ place, the street was pretty empty of cars, people having gone off to work. It gave me the feeling that I was late even though I knew I wasn’t. As usual, Mrs. Hart was dressed and ready to go as soon as I got there. She left with a breezy good-bye, in a cloud of perfume. On the table was the day’s memo, which always told me what to make for lunch. Today it was microwave macaroni and cheese. Underneath, just like every other day, she wrote a Bible passage for the two of us.
I always read the passages out loud to Duncan, even though I didn’t think he cared. Today’s was a classic: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
I stared at it for a moment, wondering if it could possibly be true. Then I looked up at Duncan.
“Let’s skip the Bible today, all right?”
He gave me a half smile, soft and sweet.
After that, like always, I told him what we were having for lunch and that we’d eat in an hour. And then, just like every other day, he asked me his standard set of questions. I answered them the same way I always did.
“What’s your name?”
“Frannie.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Where do you go to school?”
“St. Sebastian’s.”
He’d heard the answers from me so many times, starting last fall, the very first time I babysat him, that I’d decided not to change the last answer. I was afraid I’d upset him if I said something else. And to be honest, the name of my new school didn’t sound right to me yet either.
After that, we passed the day like we did most others. He built a beautiful block tower that he didn’t want me to help with. He leaned protectively over a sheet of paper and drew his own mazes. I stole a few moments on their computer, unable to keep myself from looking at some of the photos that Mary Beth, Dawn, and Marissa had posted from Stix for Chix. In the afternoon, Duncan and I went down into the basement and played with his train set.
The train set was beautiful. Not a kid’s toy but an antique, his grandfather’s. Duncan could spend hours rearranging the cars and the tracks and all the pieces of the town. I watched from a little way off or sometimes helped a bit. My favorite part was the farmhouse and barn with all the miniature animals, cows and pigs and a chicken.
Duncan hated the chicken.
“The chicken is too big,” he said, holding it up for my inspection.
In the months I’d known him, he’d probably told me that hundreds of times, but I didn’t mind hearing it again. It always made me smile, because Duncan was right. It was too big, although it actually wasn’t a chicken. It was a rooster. A monster red rooster with a scarlet crest flaming from its head and one foot scraping the ground with fierce talons. It must have come from some different set from all the other pieces because it was completely out of scale, towering over the animals, half as big as the farmhouse.
It had no business being there at all.
The six of us reconvened at dinner, hungry, tired, and impatient. Kieran sweaty from camp, blowing his whistle to drive everyone crazy. Jimmy complaining about customers and sucking down the free slushie he got at the end of every shift. Mom clomping around in her heels, work ID still dangling from around her neck as she started to cook. Dad huffing through the door, disheveled and dirty and lugging a toolbox.
Tru came in last, with his messenger bag full of Latin books and neatly organized papers. The class lasted all morning, and afternoons he said he planned to stay in the library or at the coffee place on campus, doing homework and surfing the web.
We ate dinner together at the table, per Mom and Dad’s command. Then we watched whatever we could find on the five or six stations that still came in on the TV. The twins texted. Tru read. I flipped through magazines.
When a call came through on his cell, Tru left his book on the arm of the couch, and I grabbed it as soon as he was gone, opening to the first pages. There was a little poem in the beginning, something about a gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover. I had no idea what that meant—was it supposed to be silly or sexy?—but it made me blush just the same. Then I read the first couple of paragraphs, where a dad gives advice to his son. He told him not to criticize others, because they don’t come from families with as many advantages. I wondered if it was the kind of thing Uncle Richard would say to Tru, and I decided to stop reading, putting the book back exactly as I’d found it.
Tuesday came, and I kept waiting for Tru to invite me somewhere, to tell me we were meeting Sparrow again. Or maybe he would talk to me more about Prettyboy. About anything. But he didn’t. He went out with the twins instead—going to play video games at their friend Drew Pipkin’s house. Wednesday they went to swim in Michael Donovan’s backyard pool, and Tru went with them again.
I was quickly going from disappointed to depressed, so on Thursday I finally caught Tru alone in his room and asked him how Sparrow was doing, but he just made some joke about how she was busy trying to set the world on fire with her digital artscapes. I even brought up Prettyboy, because I thought it would get his attention. But when I asked if he was really serious about going, he just said “deadly serious,” then took out his phone, ignoring me completely.
That night I didn’t sleep well, and I woke up early, too early, on Friday morning, chasing the tail end of a bad dream.
I couldn’t remember much of it, only that I was back at Siren alone, and the man was behind me, holding fistfuls of my hair.
I wondered again if it was a big deal, what he’d said, about my age, my hair, seeing me around. I was pretty sure that the guy was full of it. He didn’t say what park, and there were a million around here.
I rolled out of bed and looked out my window, convinced the weekend would bring better things.
After dinner that night, I we
nt and sat on the front porch alone, my summer reading ignored in my lap as I stared at the sky. I’d been hoping to see the sunset or the first glint of stars, but all of that was lost behind a shifting mass of thunderheads, the rain starting to come down in big, fat beads that burst on the road. It was the Fourth of July, and Mom had been planning to drag us all out to watch the fireworks together at the house of someone she worked with, a lady who lived downtown and had a roof deck. Of course the twins had moaned and whined that they weren’t twelve, that they had better things to do, and couldn’t she just take Frannie and leave them out of it. Then this storm crept in, so much worse than expected, and the city had to postpone the show until tomorrow. Jimmy and Kieran were freed. I was freed, too, but of course, I had nothing else to do. Lightning cut the sky overhead, and instead of counting until I heard the boom, I turned and ran inside.
I had to go see Tru.
Tiptoeing down the stairs, I saw the door was closed tight. He answered my knock with a loud, happy “Come in!” and I found him dressed in his standard plain T-shirt and jeans. He pointed at his watch.
“Leaving in a minute,” he said. “Going to a party with Jimmy and Kieran.”
An “Oh” escaped my lips, sounding pathetic, and he looked at me, amused. He explained that he was fairly certain Jimmy and Kieran didn’t want me around while they chugged beer and tried to make out with girls.
“Well, yeah. I know.”
“Jimmy kept saying that the party is at ‘The Mack’s,’ like that was something I should be able to understand. Can you translate?”
He wasn’t even looking at me, too busy instead clicking around on his phone.
“Beau Womack,” I said. “He’s a big, dumb football player. His parents are never home. He’s The Mack.”
“How charming!” Tru said, pulling his sneakers from under the bed. “Frankly, I was a little surprised they’ve been inviting me out so much, but then I overheard Jimmy telling Kieran that I’m excellent girl bait, which I suppose means he wants my scraps and rejects? I think I should be flattered, don’t you?”
I said nothing, tried to force a smile. I now had a vivid picture of Tru with all the St. Sebastian’s upperclassmen. He was handing out carefully rolled joints. He was pumping the keg perfectly. He was standing there, smiling, at the center of everything.
And Jimmy was right. He would be girl bait: handsome and funny and, best of all, he was new. A mystery. Watching as he pulled on his socks and his shoes, I got some small pleasure from thinking of the dumb, drunk twits who would flirt with him and have no idea. . . .
And that’s when I thought of Jeremy Bell.
“There’s, um, there’s a guy who will probably be there,” I said.
Tru was tying his laces, but paused to look up at me.
“Jeremy. Jeremy Bell. He’s, ah. He’s just . . . He’s cute. You might . . . I just thought you might want to talk to him.”
Turning back to his shoes, Tru snorted dismissively.
“Well, thanks so much,” he said. “Maybe the two of us can go for ice cream and hold hands.”
A blush hit my face like a slap.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “That was stupid.”
I fled up both flights of stairs and buried myself in my bed. I was sure now that Tru and I would never do anything all summer. I’d either have to crawl back to Mary Beth, Dawn, and Marissa, or suffer through the coming months completely by myself. I’d been okay, I’d been getting by before Tru got here. Then I’d said that thing in front of the sculpture, and suddenly everything was different. I’d felt smart and funny again. I’d met Sparrow, who actually seemed to like me. I thought she was going to introduce me to her cousin, his friends.
Now that was all starting to seem like a hopeless dream.
Scrunched in a ball, sheets pulled up over my head, I tried to remember how I’d been surviving just a week ago, back when I was a tightrope walker, alone and focused, keeping my balance by blocking everything out. I couldn’t get that feeling back. I wanted something else now.
I wanted to fall.
I heard the twins tell my mother that they were taking Tru to play video games at Drew’s house again. There was a long pause, and I could practically feel her looking at them. With suspicion hard and heavy in her voice, she told them when to be home. She told them they better behave. After they left, she yelled up and asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her and Dad.
Part of me did. Part of me wanted to be with people, to laugh or cry at something imaginary, or to look at perfect faces on a screen and just not think. But I yelled back, “No,” in a snotty voice. I shut the door loudly. Sitting at my vanity, I confronted my angry, blotchy face in the mirror. Then I found the most melancholy music I could and turned it up high, attempting to reach a whole new state of misery.
I thought if I sank low enough, my sadness might achieve a kind of grace.
EIGHT
Lying a certain way on the corner of my bed, tilting my head back just so, I couldn’t see the brick of any houses or the dull gray metal of any streetlamps. Not one hint of the city. There was only the crisscross of branches, leaves twitching in the wind. Beech leaves, I knew. I always knew which trees were which.
Maybe that explained why it was the weekend and I had nothing to do.
It was now seven days since Tru arrived and we went to Siren. Six since we’d been to the quarry. I was back to being alone. Breathing quietly, I tried to focus on the leaves and only the leaves. My seventh-grade health teacher had taught us to meditate, which everybody mocked and hated, no one really trying, the boys falling asleep or pretending to, the girls peeking at each other through eyes that were supposed to be closed. But like always, I’d listened and done what I was told. The lesson had stuck with me. I went home and tried it on my own, and years later, I still did it—at least my own version, here on the edge of the bed. I always kept my eyes open, losing myself in the green, and on good days I could almost forget where I was.
But today, instead of trying to drift away, I was writing a simple speech. I would tell Tru that I wanted to see Sparrow again. Not wanted to, needed to. I had to meet her cousin and his friend who went to my school, because otherwise—come September—I’d be walking into the building a hopeless nobody who knew no one. I’d add something at the end about needing Tru’s help, maybe point out that he’d been a little mean to me. But I’d make that part quick. Nothing desperate.
I got up and hurried down to the basement.
It was just past noon. The twins were stirring, but not actually up, since on the weekends, we weren’t forced to eat breakfast together. Tru I found wide-awake. He was in his room, making his bed, and his hair was still wet from the shower, slicked back, like an actor from some old movie. I was ready to blurt out my whole canned speech, but as soon as he saw me, he smiled and pulled a set of keys from his back pocket. My mom’s keys. He gave them a jingle.
“You need to get dressed,” he said. “We’ve been invited to band practice, and I’ve even been given permission to drive. While you were sleeping the morning away, your mom and I did a test run around the block.”
I stared at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, band practice?”
“Remember Sparrow’s cousin, Devon? Kid who plays the violin all day? Guess he has a little rock band, too, with a couple of his friends. They’re doing a show soon, and they need to practice for an audience. I already told your mom that Devon’s friend goes to your new school, and she’s very excited for you to make friends at your new school, Frannie. Very excited.”
This was exactly what I’d wanted, but I was still sort of annoyed. I had things to say about what I needed, about how he’d been treating me. But even as I tried to hold on to my anger, I felt it receding. I now suspected that when it came to this summer, to Truman, I had two distinct choices. I could choose my dignity, or I could choose Tru’s world.
“Are we leaving now?” I asked.
Tru raised the keys again, jingled a �
�yes.”
We got into the minivan and Tru looked through the CDs in the glove compartment, this time picking U2. As soon as the van was out of the neighborhood, he rolled down the windows and turned on the music. He made some ugh noises, flipping past a few tracks, finally settling on “Bad.”
“So I saw the famous Jeremy Bell last night.”
I waited for him to say more, but he said nothing. As he pressed on the gas, the van became an unbearable wind tunnel, warm air whipping our faces and tangling my hair. The bass bumped brokenly from the old speakers, creating a humming under my skin.
“He was at the party?” I asked dumbly.
“Yes, he was.”
The car rolled on. The wind blew on.
“So did you talk to him?” I asked. “What happened?”
“What happened?” Tru got that sneaky look, the one that was all in his eyebrows. “Veni, vidi, vici.”
I was pretty sure I should know what that meant, but I couldn’t remember, and when he offered nothing else, I finally had to ask.
“Was that—was that Latin? From class? How did you learn that so fast?”
Tru looked out his window and laughed.
“Well, that was some Latin I already knew. It’s a famous quote? Julius Caesar? It means ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’”
“Oh, right.”
And I had known that. I’d heard it somewhere, I was sure, I’d just forgotten. I looked out the window, feeling stupid and trying now to commit the phrase to memory. Veni, vidi, vici. Veni, vidi, vici. The words tumbled around in my head, poetic and sharp. A whole minute passed before I actually thought about what he meant.
When I finally did, my head swiveled back to him in an instant.
“You and Jeremy . . . ?”
He rested an elbow on the open window, the fingertips of just one hand delicately directing the wheel.
“Does that surprise you?” he asked.
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