by E. R. Frank
“A tree branch,” I say.
“Your brother was really good Friday,” Seth tells me.
“That’s what I heard.”
I won’t tell them. I won’t tell anybody, except maybe Ellen sometime ten years from now. I won’t tell them that when we got out of the car, home from the hospital, Jack wouldn’t get up off his hands and knees. That he wouldn’t stop dropping earth into the grocery bag. That he was picking up a lot more soil and new grass than leaves, and that my mother talking to him softly and my dad jabbering at him and me wailing like some kind of animal wouldn’t budge him. I won’t tell them that my father finally had to pull my brother up by his armpits and drag him into the house.
They’re all staring at me. Seth puts his hand out like he’s going to touch my shield, but then he stops.
“Does it hurt?” he asks me.
“Just looks weird,” I say. “And my eye waters a lot.”
“It doesn’t look weird.” He pats my shoulder.
“Didn’t the bell ring?” I ask them.
Jason gives me a ride home. We’re quiet practically the whole way. I notice a bunch of books scattered all over his backseat. Something called I Am and something called Tragic Sense of Life. Also, there’s From Socrates to Sartre and Man and His Symbols. I’ve at least heard of that one.
“You’re into psychology?” I ask.
“Philosophy,” Jason goes. I know exactly nothing about philosophy.
“So, how did you and Ellen get to be friends?” I hate silence. It always makes me think there’s something wrong.
“I liked the way she says things,” he tells me.
“You mean the way she plays with words?”
“No,” Jason says. “Not that. That’s annoying, to tell you the truth.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“She just seems like she’s actually thinking some of the time.”
I kind of get what he’s talking about, and I kind of don’t. And I want to ask him if he thinks it seems like I’m thinking sometimes. Only, I already know that probably he doesn’t see me that way, and for some reason it matters, and I feel embarrassed.
“Thanks for the ride,” I tell him.
“Any time.”
When I walk into our house, my father’s Tumi suitcase is packed and sitting by the mudroom door. Everybody’s in the kitchen. I know Rob probably gave Jack a ride home, only Rob’s car isn’t out front, and Rob isn’t in here.
“What’s going on?” I ask them. My brother takes a gulp of chocolate milk straight from the bottle.
“Use a glass,” my dad tells him. My dad never comes home early from work.
“Jack’s going to California,” my mother says. “Will you be okay here alone for a few hours? We’re driving him to the airport.” My dad never lets anybody use his luggage, either.
“Why are you going to California?” I ask Jack. He takes another gulp, so my dad answers for him.
“Your brother wants to pay his respects.”
“Oh,” I say. “Should I go?” They all look at me. “Oh.” I guess not. Jack grabs the Tumi handle. “Are you coming back?” I ask him.
“Wednesday or Thursday,” my dad says. “Depending.” Depending on what?
“You’ll miss more school,” I say.
Jack doesn’t look at me. He wheels the suitcase though the mudroom and then lifts it down the three steps into the garage.
“Take care, Anna,” Jack says finally. It’s way worse than “Excuse me.”
Two weeks after Jack and Cameron started going out, I was sick. As a dog. My father thought it was food poisoning, and my mother thought it was the flu. My dad yelled at me for eating the half tuna sandwich he’d left out on the counter, which he’d forgotten to put in the fridge after he wrapped it that morning. He shook his head with amazement that anybody would eat a tuna sandwich not cold from the refrigerator. It didn’t help.
I was in bed with the wastebasket nearby, too wiped to get up, but thirsty and hot and miserable. And then Jack walked in.
“Hi,” he said.
“Where’s Cameron?” I asked. They’d been joined at the hip.
“Helping her mom shop for her little brother’s birthday party. You need anything?”
“Huh?” I just wasn’t used to him going out of his way to be nice. Even with how much more it seemed like he was trying with me since the summer. I was still suspicious.
“Do you need anything?” he repeated.
“Um … some ginger ale maybe. And crackers.”
He left and came back five minutes later with a tray. “Provisions,” he said, putting the tray over my legs. I smiled. At the beach, when we were little, we used to play sailor underneath the houses. We’d pack plastic bags of crackers and pretzels and butterscotch candies, and we’d have bottles of water. Those would be our provisions—we loved saying that word—and we’d fight pirates and sea monsters and starvation on desert islands.
“Thanks.” I sat up a little on my pillows and took a sip. “It must stink in here.”
“Kind of,” he said. “Want me to open some windows?”
“Yeah.”
He started with the one over my desk. The fresh breeze felt good. When he was done with the other two, at the head of my bed, he sat on the floor with his back against my dresser.
My cell rang. I grabbed it and flipped up the top. It was Ellen. It kept ringing.
“It’s Ellen,” I told Jack. He just looked at me. Normally I’d answer it and forget all about my brother. But there he was being so decent to me, so instead I snapped the top down and let the cell drop onto my bed somewhere in the covers.
“Jack,” I said. “I’m not trying to be mean or anything.” I took a sip of ginger ale. He waited. “But … why do you think Cameron went out with you, in the first place?”
He sighed and looked out the newly opened window. I knew what he was seeing: a telephone wire, that big maple tree, and the streetlight. He started humming.
“What?” I wasn’t trying to be rude. I was really wondering about it.
Jack stopped humming. “Nothing.” He shrugged. “But you are really superficial.”
I felt my face get hot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Listen,” he said. “You just implied that there’s something about me that is lesser than Cameron.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept talking. “That’s what I mean. You think about things that aren’t important. Like who’s got more status than the other person.” I started feeling nauseous again. “And you make your decisions about that based on things like clothes and friends and where people sit in the lunchroom and who people hang out with. And if people aren’t just like you, you think they’re not worthy and that nobody else who matters to you thinks they’re worthy. And so you write those people off” I thought I might throw up. “I remember when you weren’t like that. I remember when you cared about things that mattered and when you weren’t always sizing everything and everyone up all the time. And I liked you a lot then.” He stayed where he was, leaning against my dresser, butt on the floor, knees up.
He wasn’t giving me that disgusted look. He didn’t have that disgusted tone of voice. He was really talking to me. Trying to tell me something. I sat there a long time, feeling smelly and nauseous and awful. I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there. And so did Jack. We sat there and sat there. My phone rang again. I rummaged around in my sheets and flipped up the top. It was Ellen again. I didn’t answer it. We sat there some more.
“So, how old is Cameron’s brother?” I finally said.
“Nine on Thursday.”
“Does Cameron like him?” I asked.
“A lot,” Jack said.
“Do you like him?”
“He’s a cute kid,” Jack said.
We got quiet again.
“What are her parents like?” I asked.
“Her mother’s really hyper all the time,” Jack told me. “But not like Dad. She doesn’t have to have everything be a c
ertain way, and she doesn’t yell at the drop of a hat. She just hovers a lot.”
“Hovers?”
“Yeah. Hovers.”
“Maybe because she knows you two are in love,” I said. “Parents worry about that, right?”
Jack smiled. That big, wide smile. The one I used to know really well, which looked totally the same on his face now as it did when we were little.
“Yeah,” he said.
8
“I’M CALLING ELLEN,” I TELL JASON AND SETH AND LISA. WE’RE in the lunchroom.
“Again?” Lisa asks. “She’s going to have about fifty messages from you the first time she checks her cell.” It’s Tuesday. Ten days since the accident.
“I don’t think anybody would mind fifty phone calls from their best friend after they’ve almost died,” Jason goes. He stares at Lisa with this look of his. It’s not exactly a nasty look, just one that commands respect. Lisa blushes and bites into her pizza slice.
I dial the hospital number first. I’ve never gotten Ellen on that phone, but a couple of times a nurse answered and told me Ellen was too doped up to talk. This time it rings forever again, so I hang up and dial her cell. Call number seventy-three or something.
“It’s Ellen. Leave a message. If this is Anna, try me back in five minutes.”
“Hi, Ellen. I’m sitting here with Lisa and Seth and Jason at school. We’re missing you and we want you to call as soon as you’re feeling up to it. I snuck in—sorry, sneaked in—to see you the other day, and you were in your new room with practically no tubes or machines, and somebody had washed your hair and you didn’t look too bad, and I wanted to write you a note or something on your cast, only there was no pen anywhere. Anyway …” Lisa and them are looking at me like I’m nuts. “The Ashleys keep saying hi to me in the hall, and Kevin and Trace called to ask how you were doing, and then they broke up and then got back together again. Lisa’s getting a Mac instead of a Dell, and we’re waiting for you to get out of the hospital so we can start an SAT study group, and did you know that Seth eats a different candy bar each week, like all week, and this week’s is Caramel Crunch, and I’ve seen him eat three already, and it’s not even twelve thirty? And there’s a rumor starting that Jason and Sleev-eth are going out, only Seth swears he’s not gay, and Jason swears that even if Seth was gay, Jason wouldn’t date him for a million dollars, which is an interesting question. The question being, What would we each do for a million dollars?”
I hold my cell out to everyone. “Anybody want to leave a message?”
Lisa takes the phone. “Anna is crazy, Ellen, but you must already know that. Get better! We miss you!”
She hands it to Jason. “The only way out,” Jason says, “is to simply observe.” Then he passes the phone to Seth.
“Get well soon. We need you for vocabulary.” Seth hands the phone back to me.
“Bye,” I say.
“The social worker at the hospital suggested we get some counseling,” my mother tells me.
I’m in the family room, channel surfing. I’m used to having one eye right now, only I’m just a little worried it’s making me bend my head in a weird way.
“You don’t need counseling, though, right?” my dad adds. They’ve sat down on the L of the couch next to me. They never sit on the couch in here.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“I think it’s a good idea,” my mother says.
“Really?” I’m not even sure what counseling would be like. “Why?”
“Right,” my dad tells my mom. “That’s what I think.”
“The social worker thinks differently,” my mom says.
“Did the social worker suggest Jack get counseling?” I ask.
“She suggested it for all of us,” my mother goes. “But especially for you and Jack.”
“Dad doesn’t think we need to, though,” I say. “Right?”
“I don’t really see the point,” my father says. “We go through difficult times. We live. We learn. We move on.”
“If she wants to go,” my mother says to my father, “she’ll go.”
“Right,” my dad says. “If she really wants to.”
“Does Jack want to?” I ask.
“We haven’t asked him yet,” my mother says. “We’re waiting until he gets back.”
I stay quiet. I’ll do whatever they tell me to do. But I don’t really care.
“All right, then.” My father stands up.
“I think we should talk about this more,” my mom says. He makes this huge, exaggerated sigh.
“It’s fine,” I say to my mom. To keep them from arguing. To keep him calm. “I don’t really want to go.”
Besides music Jack loves movies. Films, he would say.
“We’re not watching this,” I went one afternoon, years ago, as soon as I saw words on the bottom of the screen.
“But it’s a classic,” Jack said. “It’s The Four Hundred Blows.”
I was too young then to make an obscene comment about that title. But I was old enough to know it wasn’t going to be as good as the top countdown on MTV.
“It’s in French,” I said.
“So?” Jack argued. “The French make really good movies. Just give it a chance.”
“Watch it in your room, then.”
“My screen’s too small in there,” he told me. “You have to see this stuff on a big screen.”
“Mom!” I yelled. “Jack’s hogging the good TV again!” Which wasn’t even fair of me, because we’d already made a deal about whose day was whose.
“Work it out,” she yelled back from her office upstairs.
“It’s Thursday,” Jack reminded me. Thursday was his. We’d agreed.
“But the top ten is a special today,” I complained. “This month’s mystery host is going to be on.” I wanted to relax before dinner the way I wanted to relax. I couldn’t explain why exactly, but I was in a bad mood, and it mattered.
“That’s not a special,” Jack said. “That happens every month. And it’s never a mystery anyway. It’s whoever won last month’s vote. Just watch this with me. You might like it.”
I hated those old movies. I hated subtitles. They make you work too hard. I didn’t want to work.
“If I wanted to read,” I told him, “I’d get a book.”
And then I went to my room, mad at him and mad at the small screen on my dresser and just mad.
Later, at the kitchen table, my father said, “So, tell me something you learned today, Anna.” Ever since I’d woken up, I’d had a feeling he might ask that night. You never knew exactly when he would, but it had been a bunch of days. You always had to be prepared. Only somehow, no matter how prepared you were, it never went well.
“Fractions,” I said.
“What do you mean, ‘fractions’?” my dad asked. “There’s a lot of different elements to fractions.”
“I learned that if you add fractions, you have to find the same numerator.”
My father was serving himself rice. He stopped with the serving spoon in mid dump. “I hope you didn’t learn that,” he said.
My brain started blinking. “That’s what we learned.” I was pretty sure I was right, even though my father was already making it seem like I was wrong.
“I hope not,” my father said. “Think about it.” He put the serving bowl back down on its hot pad.
I felt my mind go fuzzy. “If you add fractions, you have to find the same numerator,” I said again.
My father placed his fork on his plate, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and glared at me. “Why are you repeating the same incorrect information?” He had that irritated tone of voice. The tone that comes right before the mad one, and the yelling.
“That’s what we learned,” I insisted, only now I wasn’t so certain, and the fuzziness got fuzzier.
“Harvey,” my mom said.
“Think about it again, Anna,” he ordered. “Put down your glass, straighten yourself up in your seat, and take a mi
nute to think.”
So I put down my glass without drinking, and then I couldn’t think at all. I was sure I had it right. I remembered learning it and practicing it and planning that it was what I would say if he asked the question that night. Only, now it wasn’t right.
“I’m thinking,” I said. Was it a trick question? “But that’s what I learned.”
“She meant denominator,” Jack mumbled.
“Why?” my father asked him. Jack looked down at his plate. The vein in my father’s temple pulsed. “Why do you do it?”
Jack kept looking at his plate. I was so thirsty.
“You could see that I was trying to help Anna figure something out for herself, couldn’t you?” my dad asked, only it wasn’t a question. Jack looked up at him and then back down again. “Why did you interfere?” With my dad looking at Jack, I figured it was safe to pick up my glass. I did. I drank.
“Is this really necessary?” my mom tried. But Dad never listens to her.
“Well, what did you learn today?” my father asked Jack. “Since you’re eager to share what you know.”
I took another drink, glad he wasn’t on me anymore.
“I learned that sometimes a script is better if there’s not very much dialogue in it.”
My father stared at Jack. “What?”
“Did you ever see The Four Hundred Blows?” Jack asked. “I learned that less dialogue is better from watching The Four Hundred Blows today, plus from watching some other films this week and thinking about it a lot.”
“You watched another movie?” my dad said. “What have I told you about watching all that TV?”
“It wasn’t TV,” Jack said. “And I did my homework first.”
“Did you watch it on a TV screen?” my father asked him. Jack nodded. “Then, it’s TV”
“No,” Jack said quietly. “It’s not.”
“Don’t argue with me,” my dad said. So Jack shut up.
I don’t recognize the number on my cell caller ID. But I answer it anyway.
“A million dollars?” Her voice is soft, and the edges of it don’t quite meet.
“Ellen!” I yell. I’m sitting in front of the TV on the L-shaped couch in the family room, not doing my SAT prep handbook.
“The problem with a million dollars,” she tells me in that voice, “is that after taxes it’s really only half a million.” She still sounds like her, only way, way tired.