Juniper Lemon's Happiness Index

by Julie Israel

  I asked her what was wrong. First she said she didn’t want to talk about it—then she said she couldn’t. Don’t want to and can’t are two different things, and I was worried. I thought maybe Cam was in trouble.

  The next day, I called Melissa and Heather to see if they knew anything. Melissa said Cam’d been scarce for several months now; she didn’t know why. Heather said nothing.

  But Heather did tell Camie I was asking.

  Cam was furious.

  “Why would you do that?” she demanded when she cornered me in my room. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it. Why would you go behind my back and embarrass me like that?”

  “Like you’ve been going behind mine? Behind everybody’s?”

  Camie said her private life was none of my concern.

  I said it was if it hurt her.

  She said, Juni, some pains are beyond your power to spare.

  I said, Oh yeah?

  I told Mom and Dad about her secret outing. Mom and Dad took her keys away. I thought I was protecting Cam from something, or that whatever had happened, this would push her to get the help she needed. But all it really encouraged her to do was lash out at me.

  And I lashed back.

  “Nosy!”

  “Evasive.”

  “Sneak!”

  “Hypocrite.”

  She said to me, You don’t know anything.

  I shot back, And whose fault is that?

  Wasn’t I her sister? What couldn’t she tell me? I told her everything.

  Oh-ho, she said. So that’s what this is about. You just need me to need you and you’re sore because I don’t.

  I was wounded she’d keep a huge secret from me. Secrecy was half the issue. But I also felt insulted, and I wasn’t about to concede the point.

  What kind of sister are you? I asked her. Sisters don’t make each other feel this way.

  Then I told her I wished she wasn’t my sister.

  Then neither of us said anything at all.

  ***

  I didn’t approach her the next day.

  Or the next day.

  Or the next.

  In fact, for the last several days of her life, I was bitter and petty and prideful toward Camie: I slammed things; I stormed from the room whenever she came in; I got Mom and Dad to ask her to pass the asparagus at dinner.

  I waited for her to apologize.

  Camie acted in kind—until, after five days of fighting, she offered to take me to Shawn’s Fourth of July party (contingent on Mom and Dad’s approval, of course). I thought it was a peace offering. We all did. That’s why Mom and Dad ungrounded her for the occasion; why I accepted.

  I never suspected she had an ulterior motive.

  Was our sudden truce July Fourth just a ploy? A way for Cam to see YOU again, or else to give some messenger her final decision? I’m not sure why the letter wasn’t delivered; did he never show? Did she just say it instead? Was Cam actually having so much fun chaperoning me that she forgot? (Wishful thinking.)

  I may never know.

  I do know that I never said I’m sorry. That I never took it back.

  That now, I never can.

  ***

  Camie never told a soul her secret. But with the 3 Hall Project and owning up to Mom, I’ve finally said mine. It isn’t the “I’m sorry,” “I didn’t mean it,” or “I love you” I wish it could be—but whether or not Brand was right, and Camie knew those things, they’re true.

  Maybe that’s enough.

  - 258 -

  When I get home from school that Friday, I head straight for the freezer. It’s been five full days since 3 Hall and there’s still been no word from YOU. I should know; I’ve scoured the 1,001 secrets people have added to the Board religiously. Every day I check, and I hope, and I’m disappointed.

  So to hell with hoping.

  I want a Fudgsicle.

  I’m rummaging past some frozen broccoli for one when Mom appears in the kitchen.

  “Hey, you.”

  “Mom.” I turn, surprised. “You’re home early.”

  “I have my first session with Dr. Prasad today.” She holds up her purse as evidence. I shut the freezer empty-handed.

  “Nervous?”

  “A little,” she admits. “But it’s time to talk about it.”

  I nod. “I’m glad you are.”

  “Me too. I’m glad—we are.”

  Perhaps the greatest reward of 3 Hall: Mom and I are talking again.

  “Juniper . . .” Mom sets down her purse and crosses the kitchen to lean against the counter beside me. “I know I haven’t really been there for you in a while, but I’m going to work on that. And I want you to know that you can always talk to me. About anything.”

  I know without her saying that she’s thinking of Camie and her letter. It was hard to miss her other daughter’s handwriting beside 65, after all; I could see on Mom’s face how much it hurt to learn what Cam had been keeping from her.

  “That goes both ways.” My eyes stray to the pantry where the baking soda used to be. Mom reads this and nods with a shaky breath.

  “Good.”

  She smiles at me softly. Then she checks her wristwatch and returns to her purse. She almost picks it up, but then stops and turns around again.

  “How was school today, Juniper?”

  My heart staggers a beat. It still gets me when she asks.

  But I recover:

  “You mean ISS?” As penalty for 3 Hall, I was given a week of in-school suspension. But I haven’t minded too much; no one’s taken down the display yet—that will be part of my punishment later—and today, “It was interesting, now that you mention it. A guy from Polaris came and gave me his card.”

  “Polaris?” Mom takes the card I produce from my pocket.

  “It’s an experimental arts school. The guy who gave me that teaches there. Ms. Gilbert mentioned 3 Hall to him and he dropped by to see it, and I guess he was impressed, ’cause he came and found me and introduced himself. He said they have a special summer program, and if I’m interested, to give him a call—he’d be glad to arrange a tour or put my name in for a scholarship.”

  Mom’s eyes go wide. “That’s great, honey!” She bites her lip, then adds, “Your sister would be so proud.”

  That makes me flush with pride.

  “Why don’t you look into it? You can tell us more about it over dinner.”

  “I will. That sounds good.”

  “Okay, honey. See you.”

  Mom smiles, and this time actually grabs her purse and keys and starts for the door. But just when she steps out, she ducks back in and yells, “Oh, Juni! I almost forgot. You got mail today—it’s on the table.”

  “Thanks!”

  She heads off with a wave. I watch her pull out of the driveway and wave back, then turn my attention to a manila mailer on the table.

  MS. JUNIPER LEMON

  it says, in plain block letters in marker.

  Suspiciously plain block letters.

  I snatch the parcel up and turn it over. No return address.

  But there’s a bulge at the bottom.

  Yanking scissors from a drawer, I turn it seal-side up and slash the end. Whatever’s inside is so small and deeply wedged in a bubbled corner that I have to turn the package over and shake to get it out.

  Then it falls in my palm: a small wooden horse, cadmium red with painted white reins and a colored saddle. A golden star glints on its belly.

  My jaw drops open.

  Bristol.

  I rip the rest of the package apart, this time revealing a small white envelope. Inside it is a photograph—Camilla throwing up her arms to the colors and lights of Times Square. YOU is in her smile, her shining eyes.

  With shaking hands, I tur
n it over.

  Thank you.

  says the back in YOU’s thin cursive.

  From both of us.

  - 266 -

  At the coast eight days later, six bottles rise, their dark shapes glinting with firelight against the night.

  “To us,” I prompt. “Go Team 3 Hall!”

  “Team 3 Hall!”

  Bottles clink and Brand, Kody, Angela, Nate, and Sponge and I all drink from our vanilla cream sodas.

  Today is March 26: the end of spring break, Brand’s last day in Oregon, and the first in two hundred and sixty-six that I have purposefully not filled out an Index card. After dismantling 3 Hall by myself the last few days, I’m not so sure I need to anymore.

  “Wow,” says Kody, smacking her lips as she lowers her bottle. “The lemon really gives it a zing.”

  “You should try it with some of these.” Brand holds up an open sack of gummy bears. “Well?” he prompts when she does.

  Kody tips her bottle down quickly. “It’s, um.” She clears her throat, not quite concealing a laugh. “Fruity.”

  “Told you, gummy bears,” I tease.

  “NO REGRETS.” Brand loads gummies into his own as if to prove the point. “Anyway,” he says, “I’m guessing you didn’t ask us here to settle the best way to drink a soda.”

  “No.” The fire, wind, and rush of waves in the distance all press closer as the group quiets and turns to me. “I didn’t.”

  With a breath, I reach for a paper grocery sack beside the cooler.

  “What’s that?” asks Angela.

  “A couple of things. First—” I reach in and withdraw a collection of papers: rectangles and scraps, some torn, some creased, all weathered and stiff with old glue. I gather them up like a pile of leaves and stand, setting the bag in the sand. “Some returns.”

  I think I see recognition alight on a few faces.

  “Kody.” I cross the circle to where she sits on a sun-bleached log and hand over her scribbled-out index card. Her eyes widen. For a moment I fear it brings bad memories, but then she crumples it in her palm and pulls me into a hug.

  After Kody, “Angela.” I remove the letters to Leo and Oscar and press them into her hands. Angela smiles, then squeezes mine in hers.

  “Sponge.”

  Sponge lifts up his frames as I hand him the folded sheet with his poem, then raises a bag of Reese’s Pieces to me in thanks. The deal he struck for his lines with Muffin Wars, not to mention the street cred he gained as a poet after the Shaker, may or may not have had something to do with his quickness to forgive me.

  “Nate.”

  Beside Sponge, Nate blinks up at me. What could I have for him?

  “Nate . . . you understand me in ways I think maybe nobody else ever will.” I take his hand, and in it, I plant 65.

  Nate looks for a moment like he might fight me on this—on accepting what he’d so long kept from me, on accepting my forgiveness and his own—that it wasn’t his fault. But then he just looks down at the sand, and nods.

  Lastly, I turn to Brand.

  “Brand . . .” I turn up his palm, place the Life Savers wrapper in it, and clasp my other hand on top. “You foxy nuisance.”

  Amused indignation. “How come I’m the only one who gets called a name?”

  I kiss him on the lips, earning several hoots and a bow chicka WOW wow!, mostly from Angela and Kody.

  Brand says, “Apology accepted.”

  “And now,” I continue, ignoring him, “I want to show you all a secret of mine.”

  I return to the sack and lift out one of two things left in it: a narrow shoebox.

  “Is that—?” asks Nate.

  I remove the top, displaying the stash of perfectly fitted cards, and file back to the one that would have been today’s. “See the number on top?”

  Everyone cranes closer. You can just make out

  266

  in the firelight.

  “That’s how many days since Camilla died. I’ve kept track, a card a day, every day. It used to be something I did to acknowledge the good things—something Camie suggested, actually.” I exchange looks with Nate. The fire crackles and a log snaps in two. “I’ve tried to honor that since she’s been gone, but it’s been . . . really hard to live with her more positive outlook. My Index has been kind of a lifeline to that. To her.

  “But then, when I was taking down 3 Hall and looking over some of the things we put up—” I take a breath. Brand touches my back. “I realized that I have been. Retaining her influence. The Dala horse prints were from the art class she suggested; my ‘portraits’ frame the holidays in good memories; when I thought I’d never find YOU, I made a list of what mattered instead. Even 3 Hall itself was a pretty Camie move.”

  There’s a wet spot on my cheek before I even feel tears in my eyes. I smile apologetically and wipe at them.

  “All this time, I’d been afraid I was losing Camie, but now—” Breath. “I realize I can find her anywhere: in places, in the memories that belong to them . . .” I catch Nate’s eye again. “In people and situations . . .” Brand’s ability to feel a song. “In fact I think, directly or indirectly, Camilla’s the reason I’ve gotten to know each of you.”

  Everything ties back to her: If I hadn’t found her letter, I would’ve filled out 65 on time. I wouldn’t have taken it to school with me and lost it. Nate wouldn’t have read it and wanted to help me grieve; I wouldn’t have struck up a haphazard friendship with Brand, found Kody’s notecard, Angela’s love letters, Sponge’s poem.

  “So . . . tonight I’m letting go. Not of my sister, but of the fear that I won’t remember her. Because . . .” I exhale. “Because I know she is with me.”

  Said the poet: i carry [her] heart with me(i carry it in my heart).

  I lift my bottle of vanilla cream. “To Camilla.”

  “Camilla!”

  The bottles chime, everyone drinks, and I throw the Index—all 266 numbered cards, plus the originals, still in the box—into the fire. The flames lick slowly up the sides, devouring it from the bottom like a gnarled log. In my pocket, I clutch the first card. I’ve long since memorized its contents in Cam’s loop cursive:

  February 14

  1. orange sweet roll

  2. that I get to spend time with loved ones

  3. that I am here right now with a sister who makes me smile and laugh and keeps me grounded

  —but her words mean too much to me to burn, so I’m keeping them.

  “Me too.” Brand follows suit and crushes the old Life Savers wrapper, lobs it into flames.

  After him, Kody creases her lined card and lays it on; Angela crumples the notebook love letters into balls and shoots in two baskets.

  Sponge, eyeing his poem, asks Brand: “I burn the original, I still get royalties, right?”

  Brand nods.

  Sponge dispatches the poem.

  Nate, staring at 65, reads its shameful words a final time. Then, with a breath and a last glance at me, he tosses it on.

  I wait a beat, letting the flames do their work. When the moment is right, I reach into the paper Lauer’s sack for the third and final time.

  Kody’s eyes go wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

  The paper is thick in my fingers. I grip it in both hands.

  “Camie’s letter.”

  The circle is silent. I feel a sudden squeeze in my chest and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m remembering YOU’s answer, or because this is really it. Brand reaches for my hand and it’s more than I need; I close my eyes, press his once, and let go.

  Then I hold the letter out against the fire.

  For a while no one says anything. Once the letter has caught I drop it into the pit and we all just watch the secrets burn, our own and Camilla’s, now browning, now shrinking, now crackling in a shower of
sparks. I know among them is July 4, the night of the accident, and as the Index is swallowed and bits of ash begin to flake into the night, I can’t stop a hitched sigh from escaping. Brand puts his arm around me and I lean into him.

  Kody and Angela look on in silence. Nate and Sponge hold hands.

  “Told you,” Brand whispers in my ear.

  “Told you,” says Angela, nudging Kody.

  ∞

  After s’mores, Brand pulls me aside for a walk.

  Down by the shoreline, where the waves gush and grate back, we fall into pace side by side.

  “How’d your coffee with Lauren go?” he asks me.

  “Good.”

  Another perk of taking down 3 Hall by myself: I got to see and consider, in my own laugh- and tear-bespattered time, every last Polaroid and memory Lauren collected from the community. I counted 49 in all, each with notes to Camie on the back; she must’ve spent the whole week taking more and putting them up. I also discovered some of her own pictures: Han & Lemon sisters shenanigans like pajama parties and snow forts and day trips to Portland.

  When I finally reached out to Lauren a few days ago, she actually answered on the first ring.

  “It was still a bit awkward, but . . .” I smile and shrug. “I think we’re gonna try to start over.”

  Brand smiles back. “That’s great, Juniper.”

  The wet sand sucks at our shoes. Feeling light, on the high of a special occasion and knowing it’s something Camie would do, I steel myself and kick off my sneakers, allowing the muck to rush between my toes. The sand is cool: a balm, unexpectedly smooth. Brand, not one to be out-machoed, does the same.

  “Cold!” he gripes.

  I toe a few sinking steps in front of him, smirking.

  “What?” he asks.

  “Nothing. Just—making a memory. This is your last day here, so I need something to laugh at when you’re gone.”

  “Shut up.” He play-shoves me toward the water. I yelp and barely dodge a reaching wave.

  “But seriously,” I say from his other side, guarded against further attempts. “This is it: your last night in Oregon.”

  “And this is how I spend it.”

  Now I shove him. Brand laughs and stumbles away, grinning until he trips on a deposit of seaweed and face-plants. This is hilarious until he lunges and pulls me down, and we both roll shrieking and wrestling through the sodden pulp.