The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found

by Karina Yan Glaser

  Isa looked up at her friend. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  Allegra planted both hands on the table and leaned toward Isa. “Say again?”

  “I just passed his apartment building, and he was hanging out with a girl.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “You must be mistaken,” Allegra said, pulling a chair out and sitting down. “It was Benny’s evil twin brother. A look-alike. A doppelganger. That definitely wasn’t your Benny.”

  “It was definitely my Benny,” Isa said, then rolled her eyes. “I mean, not my Benny. He’s just . . . Ugh, I’m just trying to say that it was him. He doesn’t belong to me. He’s Benny. Our friend.”

  “Uh-huh,” Allegra said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “I don’t know why you’re worried. He only has eyes for you. Anyway, you’re going to homecoming with him, right?”

  Isa looked away. “I thought so, but the thing is, I don’t think he ever asked me. And I definitely never asked him.”

  “You’ve gone to every dance together for the past two years,” Allegra pointed out. “It’s always been Isa and Benny, Benny and Isa.”

  “We’re only friends,” Isa insisted. “We don’t have to go to every dance together. He can go with someone else.”

  “You’re not just friends, you’re best friends,” Allegra said. “Which, by the way, I don’t understand at all. I can be friends with boys, but I can’t imagine being best friends with a boy.”

  Isa tried again. “He’s Benny. We’ve known each other forever. I don’t think of him as a boyfriend.” Allegra raised an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me you have no romantic feelings for him at all.”

  “I don’t think so,” Isa said. “There are lots of things I want to do. Violin, orchestra, school. Having a boyfriend never seemed important.”

  Allegra looked disappointed. Thinking about boyfriends had always been a big part of her life. “Well, that stinks. I’ve already spent a lot of time designing my bridesmaid dress for your wedding with Benny. You’re going to ask me to be a bridesmaid, right? My dress will be long, of course, with sparkly beading all over it so it will shimmer in the light . . .”

  Isa listened halfheartedly as Allegra went on to describe what she envisioned the groomsmen wearing. At least listening to Allegra kept her from admitting how much it bothered her to see Benny with another girl.

  * * *

  That night after dinner, Hyacinth and Laney headed up to Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie’s apartment. Laney had brought supplies to decorate Orlando’s room, and she was ready to learn everything there was to know about football. She was even wearing a Yankees cap for the occasion, and Hyacinth had tied a blue-and-orange scarf—Mets colors—around Franz’s neck.

  They brought a dozen assorted cookies from the café, which Oliver, in an heroic feat of sacrifice, had insisted they give to Orlando rather than eat for dessert. Oliver was, after all, in charge of making sure Orlando had all the food he wanted. Papa had figured out how to get Orlando’s phone reconnected and had put him on the Vanderbeeker family phone plan so he wouldn’t have to worry about the bills. Jessie had ordered everyone to keep Operation Save Orlando (OSO) under wraps, which meant Laney wasn’t allowed to say anything about it to anyone but her siblings.

  Hyacinth knocked on the door, and Ms. Fran, the nice nurse, opened the door. Laney gave her a hug.

  “Hello, Hyacinth. Hello, Laney,” Ms. Fran said in a whisper, opening the door wide. It was dim inside the apartment, with only one small kitchen light on.

  “Is Mr. Jeet already asleep?” Hyacinth whispered back.

  Ms. Fran nodded. “Miss Josie went to a church meeting. She’ll be back in an hour. Orlando is in his room.”

  Hyacinth and Laney crept through the living room, peeking at Mr. Jeet as they passed him. Their neighbor was so still, multiple blankets covering him. Under the hospital bed lay Billie Holiday, her eyes roving around the room. Mr. Jeet looked as if he needed lots of sleep, so Hyacinth and Laney left him alone. Laney knocked on Orlando’s door, and he opened it and let them in.

  “I’m ready to watch football and decorate your room!” Laney said once the door was closed behind her.

  “Right, football. So the first thing you should know is—” Orlando began, then said, “Wait, you want to decorate this room? Why?”

  “To give it some pizzazz, of course!” Laney said.

  Hyacinth looked around. The room still had lots of Miss Josie and Mr. Jeet’s things in it, including multiple wall hangings, a heavy wooden desk as big as a taxi, a large vinyl chair, and lacy curtains.

  Orlando raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Yep,” Laney said, standing up on the bed and taping a purple crepe-paper streamer as high up the wall as she could reach. “We want to fix up your room so you’ll be happy to live here.”

  “I’m happy to be here, but I’d rather we leave the room the way it is,” Orlando said. “I don’t want to move their stuff around. I’m just here temporarily.”

  “Oh!” said Hyacinth. “I almost forgot. Papa got your phone connected again. He put you on our family plan.”

  Orlando frowned. “He didn’t have to do that. That’s expensive.”

  “But if you don’t have a phone, how will we contact you?” Hyacinth asked. “What if your mom needs to call you?”

  Orlando shook his head, but he pulled his phone from his small outside pocket. He turned it on, and the reception bars popped up. Hyacinth looked over his shoulder and saw a few text messages flash on the screen, all of them from Jessie.

  JESSIE: Hey, my dad said he got your phone working again.

  JESSIE: No ignoring me now, ha. Not that you would ever do that. Wait, would you ever do that?

  JESSIE: Let me know when you get this so we know it’s working.

  Orlando typed a short message back to Jessie, then shoved his phone into his pocket. Laney put up another streamer, a pink one with unicorns galloping across it.

  “Are these streamers from your birthday party?” Orlando asked.

  “Yes,” Laney said. “I had them hanging up in my room, but I thought you might need them more.”

  He cleared his throat, then looked at Hyacinth. “Do you want to learn about football too?”

  Hyacinth shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Orlando’s favorite team is the Hawks,” Laney said with authority.

  “Not the Hawks, the Falcons,” Orlando said. “The Atlanta Falcons.”

  “Yep,” Laney said, nodding knowledgeably.

  “Bad news, Laney Bean,” Orlando said. “The only TV is in the living room, and Mr. Jeet is sleeping.”

  “Let’s go to our apartment,” Laney said.

  “You guys don’t even have a TV,” Orlando pointed out. “But there’s another game later this week. We can watch it then.”

  “Okay,” Laney said. “I want to watch them make home runs.”

  Orlando rubbed his temples with index and middle fingers. “Home runs are for baseball. In football, they score by making touchdowns or field goals. But it’s fine . . . we’ll cover all that. Hey, since you’re here . . .” Orlando said, looking at Hyacinth, “maybe we should work on your mission: making friends.”

  “Ooh,” Laney interjected. She was done hanging the streamers, but she continued to bounce on the bed, her pigtails swinging from side to side as she jumped. “I love making friends. It’s my favorite thing to do.”

  She glanced at her sister, but Hyacinth looked less than thrilled.

  “Tomorrow is Tuesday,” Hyacinth said quietly, “so we don’t have to go in early. I don’t have to worry about talking to people until Wednesday.”

  “So we’ll practice tomorrow,” Orlando said. “I’ll walk you to school.”

  “Do I have to talk to complete strangers?” Hyacinth asked, biting her pinky finger. “I don’t think I can talk to complete strangers.”

  “Tell them you like their shoes,” Laney suggested. “People love it
when you compliment their shoes.”

  “You’re a six-year-old genius,” Orlando said to Laney before turning back to Hyacinth. “It won’t be scary at all. I’ll be with you the entire time.”

  Hyacinth did not look convinced. “Now I’m more worried.”

  Orlando turned to Laney. “Tell your sister there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Laney said, falling to the bed and rolling around so Orlando’s comforter wrapped around her like a taco shell. “You should trust Orlando. He knows a lot. Especially about football and home runs, but about other things too.

  The thing was, Hyacinth did trust Orlando. She just didn’t trust herself.

  Twelve

  Jessie sat at her desk in her bedroom, staring at her phone and willing Orlando to call or text. She had received a brief “Thanks” after the texts she had sent him that afternoon. But after that, nothing.

  Her bedroom door opened, and Oliver appeared. He entered without an invitation, heading straight toward her and plucking the phone from her hand.

  “Hey!” Jessie said, swatting him to get it back.

  Oliver plugged in the password to unlock her phone, then started scrolling through her photos.

  “How do you know my password?” Jessie exclaimed.

  “I’ve known it forever,” Oliver said. “How do you think all those photos of the inside of Franz’s ear ended up on here?”

  “Those were Franz’s ears?” Jessie asked. “That’s disgusting.”

  “I prefer ‘artistic genius,’” Oliver said, continuing to scroll.

  “Oliver, seriously, give me back my phone. I’m expecting a call.”

  “I just need . . . Aha! I’m going to send this off and . . . done.” Oliver handed the phone back to her.

  “You didn’t just hack into a government computer or something, did you?” Jessie asked suspiciously.

  “Nope,” Oliver said. “I was looking for that football video of Orlando so I could send it to Coach Mendoza. He’s going to show it to the coach of the Harlem Jets and get Orlando on the local football team.”

  Oliver left her bedroom, and Jessie checked her phone again—no messages—and considered whether she should text Orlando again. She didn’t want to seem pushy, but on the other hand, she wanted to make sure he was okay. Had he heard from his mom now that his phone was reconnected?

  Jessie drummed her fingers on the desk. It was quiet in the brownstone. With the exceptions of Oliver and Isa, who was practicing the violin, her siblings had headed to bed, and her parents were downstairs watching a movie on Papa’s computer. She could hear faint violin music drifting up from the basement. Jessie’s homework was done, and there was nothing to distract her from worrying about Orlando.

  Jessie stood up and paced, then looked at her phone again. Nothing. This is stupid, Jessie thought. She had never worried about contacting Orlando before. If she wanted to talk to him, she was going to talk to him. And now that he lived in the apartment above her, she could go up and visit him whenever she wanted.

  Not wanting to disturb Miss Josie and Mr. Jeet, Jessie decided to go the fire-escape route. She grabbed a hoodie and climbed out her window. The metal creaked as she stepped onto the platform, and she held the slim handrails as she went upstairs to the second floor. The window outside the living room was dark, but there was a light on in Orlando’s room. His window was closed and the curtains were drawn, but there was a slim opening in the curtains where she could peek through to see if he was there.

  Jessie crouched and looked through the curtains. Orlando was sitting at Miss Josie’s big wooden desk, its drawers so stuffed with papers they didn’t close all the way. A crystal vase of dusty silk flowers stood in one corner, a stack of Orlando’s schoolbooks in the opposite corner. Orlando wasn’t studying, though. He was just sitting there, staring at his phone on the desk. He wasn’t flipping through it or writing an email or a text; he was just gazing at the dark screen, the way Jessie had been gazing at hers just a few minutes earlier. At the sight of him so forlorn, Jessie felt her heart squeeze. She decided then and there that she was going to stop being mad at Orlando for not telling her about his situation. Instead, she would be the best friend she could.

  Jessie gently tapped her knuckles against the glass. A few seconds later, the window creaked open.

  “Hey,” Orlando said.

  Jessie smiled. “Just checking in. Can I come in?”

  “Actually, let’s go outside,” Orlando said. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Sure,” Jessie said, moving aside to give him space.

  Orlando bent down and squeezed through the small window and onto the fire escape. “Let’s go to the roof; this fire escape won’t hold me.”

  Jessie rolled her eyes. “I have no idea why you worry so much about the fire escape, but sure, let’s go upstairs. The Adirondack chairs are more comfortable anyway.”

  On the roof, they settled into their favorite chairs: orange for Jessie and green for Orlando. It was chilly, so Jessie pulled her hoodie up, leaned back, and looked at the starless sky.

  After a few minutes of silence, Orlando started to talk.

  “I tried calling my mom’s number,” Orlando said. “I called eight times. It went to voicemail every single time.”

  Jessie turned to him. “Maybe she tried calling you when your phone was disconnected? Now that it’s working again, I’m sure she’ll get in touch soon.”

  Orlando shook his head. “I don’t know. I keep waiting for her to contact me. I sent a text to your mom and dad, though. Guess how long it took them to respond?”

  Jessie waited.

  “Ten seconds.” He stood up and walked to the edge of the roof and faced south. A glow of lights from Times Square and the tall office buildings of Midtown illuminated the night. “It was like they were waiting by their phones, hoping to hear that I was okay.”

  Jessie got up, made her way to Orlando, and put her arm around his waist. “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not saying it to make you feel bad.”

  “Do you think she’s okay?” Jessie asked. “Maybe she’s sick or in the hospital.”

  Orlando shook his head. “She just . . . disappears sometimes. Do you know what she said to me once?” He paused and looked up. “She told me she never wanted to be a mom.”

  Jessie stared at him. His profile was dark against the night sky. “Wow.”

  Orlando nodded.

  Jessie leaned her head on his shoulder. “Any mom would be lucky to have you as a son.”

  “Yeah,” Orlando said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  Later, after Jessie had said goodbye to Orlando and slipped back into her room, her parents poked their heads in to say goodnight.

  “Good night, honey,” Papa said, stepping inside to give her a hug.

  “We love you,” Mama said, putting an arm around her.

  Jessie wasn’t a big hugger, like Laney, Hyacinth, and Isa were; she merely tolerated her family’s displays of physical affection. They called her the Leaner: someone who leans into a hug but doesn’t actively participate in it. But tonight, she opened her arms wide and hugged her parents close to her heart, feeling grateful to be held tight on that chilly autumn night.

  Tuesday, October 22

  Twelve Days Until the New York City Marathon

  Thirteen

  Isa woke up on Tuesday and looked out the window. It was gloomy and cloudy, the kind of day that made her want to burrow under warm covers and listen to music on her headphones all day long. She did not want to get out of bed, she did not want to go to school, and she certainly did not want to come face-to-face with Benny Castleman. Somehow she felt as if nothing between them would ever be the same.

  Willing herself out of bed, Isa glanced at her sister. Jessie was still sleeping, her comforter on the floor, her head under her pillow. “Jess, time to get up.”

  “Urghmf,” Jessie replied.

&nb
sp; Isa shrugged and headed down the hallway. Laney, wearing a pair of black cat ears, was hopping from foot to foot in front of the bathroom.

  “Who’s in there?” Isa asked.

  “Oliver!” Laney squeaked as she bounced. “And I really, really, really have to go!”

  “Use the downstairs bathroom.”

  Laney shook her head vigorously. “Papa’s taking a shower.”

  Isa rapped her knuckles on the door. “Oliver!”

  “What?” yelled Oliver.

  “There’s a line out here,” Isa yelled back. “Hurry up.”

  A few seconds later, the toilet flushed and the faucet turned on.

  “It’s a ’mergency!” Laney yelped.

  Finally, the door opened and a rumpled Oliver came out with a copy of The Serpent’s Secret in his hand. Laney raced past him into the bathroom, and Isa closed the door for her. Then she turned to Oliver.

  “Really? Reading in the bathroom?”

  “I was at a good part,” Oliver said with a shrug.

  “No reading in the bathroom!” Isa scolded him just as Mama came out of her room, her hair as disheveled as Oliver’s.

  “I agree with Isa one thousand percent,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Oliver said, shuffling into his bedroom and closing the door.

  Laney emerged, looking infinitely more relaxed. She had her toothbrush in one hand and Isa’s toothbrush in the other. Isa squeezed a small glob of toothpaste onto both of their brushes. As they brushed, Isa examined herself in the mirror. Her hair was stringy and flat against her head, and for a moment she wished for Allegra’s beautiful, voluminous hair. There were bags under Isa’s eyes and a red mark on the left side of her neck, right under her chin, where her violin had rubbed against it over the years.

  Isa had never spent a lot of time thinking about her appearance. Allegra was the fashionista, and Isa was a residual beneficiary of her friend’s expertise. If Isa needed something to wear for a special occasion, Allegra was always ready with multiple suggestions from her own closet. Now, however, Isa wondered if she should be paying more attention to how she looked.