“Liv,” I said, reaching for the phone in my pocket. “I totally forget about Liv.”
I looked down, and, sure enough, I had four messages.
Where RU?
UR LATE.
I’m leaving now.
Thanks a lot.
I sighed, texted Sorry, and set my phone down on the table. “Ugh,” I said. “I was on my way to meet someone. I said I’d run with her. This girl I know.”
“Oof,” said Jasper, closing her magazine and looking up at me. “Sorry if I screwed it up with my crazy laundry situation.”
“Eh, it’s okay,” I said, sliding back down into my chair. “It’s not like it’s the end of the world. I’d way rather be doing this. And Liv will be fine.”
“Yeah,” said Jasper. “Not like someone died, or something.”
“Umm, yeah,” I said. “Nothing like that.”
Then there was a funny pause, and Jasper said, “Are you sure it’s okay? Do you need to go and meet up with her? Because if you’re just being polite about this, we can go and I can come back later for my stuff.”
I shook my head quickly. “No, no, no . . . seriously. It’s no big deal. Sorry if I seem weird. I’m fine.”
“Everyone’s late sometimes,” said Jasper. “I’m sure your friend will forgive you.”
“Sure,” I said. “I guess. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter much. Liv isn’t a very good friend.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jasper.
“Just . . . ,” I said, reaching for a banana and peeling it slowly. “You know how sometimes you have backup friends? People you hang out with when your real friends are gone?”
Jasper nodded. “I think so.”
I broke the banana and offered half to Jasper. She took it. “Well, Liv is one of those. I’ve known her a long time, and she lives nearby, but I don’t really like her very much. I mean, I don’t dislike her. She’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just not my real friend. And I’m not hers either. She called me because she didn’t have anyone else to hang out with, I’m sure. She’s like . . . an acquaintance. Someone to fill in the gaps.”
I took a bite of banana and thought about what I’d said.
Jasper chewed her banana too. “Ah, yeah. I know what you mean. I know exactly. In fact, I have a lot of gaps myself right now.”
“Really?” I asked. It was the first real thing Jasper had said about her own life since we’d met.
“You have no idea,” said Jasper.
That was true. I didn’t have any idea. But I wasn’t sure what to say in reply, so I just said, “So . . .”
Jasper looked at me funny, squinted one eye, like she was measuring something. “Honestly,” she said, “it’s been a while since I had much of anything else. Sometimes it feels like my life is all gaps.” Then she stopped squinting, and her eyes were clear and sharp on me. Intense. “Does that sound strange?”
Right away I shook my head, hard. “No,” I said. “Not at all. It sounds . . . familiar.”
And that was the truth. Though I hadn’t realized how true it was until the words were out of my mouth.
“But then,” said Jasper, holding my gaze. “Then there are also people who fill the gaps when you really need them to. The big gaps. When it matters. Once in a while, I meet someone like that. And I can just tell we’ll be friends. Real friends. You know what I mean?”
For one long moment we were staring at each other, and she was right, of course, and we both knew it. Then the sun shifted outside the window, and the kitchen was full of light, bouncing golden off the walls.
I blinked. I almost wanted to cry. But I wasn’t sad at all. My eyes were aching in a happy way. My bones felt looser. It was like a spell had broken, and the whole house felt brighter, better. So I nodded.
“Yes,” I said.
Suddenly Jasper jumped up from the table and grinned, big and goofy. “Hey, Leah, while we wait for the laundry, can we maybe . . . watch a movie? Would that be okay with you?”
“Are you serious? Of course!” I said, and grinned back at her. Just as big. Like I was a mirror. It felt so good to grin like that. To mean it. “That would be great,” I said, and I stood up too, started for the living room. Jasper followed.
Of course we could. We could watch a movie, like normal people do, like friends do. We could sit on the old gray couch, in a pile of pillows and blankets. We could paint our nails if we wanted. We could sip fizzy water and stop the movie periodically to joke around. We could watch two movies, if we felt like it. We could make nachos later. Or ramen.
Because that was what you did, when you didn’t go to camp in the summer. You had a friend over. That was a regular thing to do, if you were thirteen and you had the house to yourself and it was summer vacation and your parents weren’t going to be home for hours. You had fun. I’d forgotten, but now, suddenly, I remembered.
Jasper had reminded me how to be.
Sealed Up Tight
In the living room, Jasper flopped onto the couch and leaned back into the unmatched throw pillows to stretch. When she did, I noticed that her legs were scratched and covered with mosquito bites. Like little-kid legs. Elementary school legs.
Jasper caught me looking. “Ugh,” she said. “This shirt is so stupid.” She pulled her knees up inside it, to cover them. “It used to be my sister’s, a long time ago. I’m not even sure why I still wear it. Have you ever seen anything so awful?”
“Actually . . . yes,” I said. “In fact I have. Wait here a minute.” I ran from the room.
“Leah! Where are you going?” Jasper called after me into the hallway. But I didn’t answer.
When I reentered the room a minute later, I couldn’t help singing out, “Ta-DA.” I was rewarded with a big laugh from Jasper at the sight of my pajamas. My footie pajamas. My one-piece bright yellow footie pajamas. With orange cuffs. They were getting too small, but I could still wiggle into them.
“Yow!” Jasper shouted. “You look . . . amazing!”
“Don’t I just?” I turned in a slow circle. “They were a Hanukkah present from my grandma when I was a kid. I think they make me look like a duck. A big, insane duck.” I stuck my thumbs into my armpits and flapped my wings.
Jasper burst out laughing again. “Yes, you do. You look exactly like a duck.” She pulled the old red blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over her legs. “Much appreciated. I feel less alone in my idiocy now.”
“You’re very welcome,” I said, settling in beside her on the couch and clicking the TV on. “Happy to be an idiot whenever you need one. So, what are you in the mood for?”
“Oh, whatever . . . ,” said Jasper.
“No!” I insisted. “You’re the guest. You pick. Do you have a favorite movie?”
“Well, if you really want to know,” Jasper said, “I do, actually. I’m pretty much always in the mood for . . . Harry Potter.”
“No way!” I shouted. “Me too. Even though I’ve seen them all about seventeen times.”
“Really?” asked Jasper.
I nodded. “Totally. Best movies ever. Books too.”
“I don’t know why,” Jasper said with a sigh. “But no matter how old I get, nothing else ever seems quite as good. Even if the effects are kind of dumb.”
“It’s the magic for me,” I said. “The idea that all the impossible things might be possible, right there, at the other end of my chimney.” I looked at the cold fireplace that nobody had used in a year. “That the world isn’t only . . . this.”
“Exactly!” said Jasper. “For years, I seriously hoped I’d get a letter when I turned eleven. And then I’d leave for Hogwarts. You know? Run away from everything . . .”
I nodded. “I do. I really do.”
“I just feel like everything would make more sense if we all had spells and wands and we could fix things with magic, and there was another world, where things were different than they actually are in this world.”
“Right?” I said, surfing around unt
il I found the first movie, and clicked to rent. Then I held the remote out like a wand and waved it in the air dramatically. “Accio Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone!”
The movie started, and for a little while, we were quiet, just watching and occasionally mouthing the words to the movie together, and laughing. Until the washer dinged, and Jasper got up to move her stuff to the dryer. I paused the movie.
After a minute, she came back with a big fat square of lint draped over her head. “What’s the deal? Does nobody change the lint trap in this house?”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, like I said, my mom forgets stuff sometimes.”
“Fair enough,” said Jasper. “But you should keep this one. I think maybe you broke a world record for lint. Look at it! It’s truly amazing.” She held it out to me.
“Ha,” I said, rubbing the thick square of felt. “It is pretty ridiculous. But if I said anything to my mom, her eyes would get all sad and her forehead would crease, and she’d run her hand through her hair. Then she’d murmur something about trying to do better, and add lint trap to a list somewhere and then lose it. In her purse. And I’d feel guilty. All because of this tiny little thing I said. It isn’t worth it.”
“Isn’t that a Jewish thing, guilt? I’ve read about that.”
“I didn’t think guilt was only Jewish. But how’d you know we were Jewish?”
“You just mentioned Hanukkah, you goof,” she said, punching me lightly on the arm. “But also that doohickey on your door. What’s it called?”
“Oh, the mezuzah, yeah.”
“Yes, the meh-zu-zah,” she said, repeating it carefully after me.
“Anyway, I guess it’s not just Mom’s job to do laundry. I could help too, with the dumb lint trap. I guess we’ve all been pretty lazy . . . lately.”
“For real?” said Jasper, peering around the room. “This does not look like the house of a lazy family. Everything in the kitchen is so shiny and neat.”
“Oh, well, Olga cleans it,” I said. “The kitchen and the bathroom, and the floors and stuff, so things don’t ever get too gross.”
“Wow, you have a maid?” asked Jasper.
“Not a maid exactly,” I explained. “Just a lady who comes and mops and vacuums and stuff. Every couple of weeks.”
“Where I’m from that’s called a maid.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I guess. It’s been a new thing this year. We used to have a chore chart. And mostly we kept up with it. Dad did the bathroom. He called himself King of the Throne.”
Jasper laughed. “That sounds like a dorky TV-show dad thing to say.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “And Mom did the floors, and I did the dishes and . . . well, anyway we divided it all up. But then things changed. . . .”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Just, things changed. Mom and Dad started having trouble keeping up with the house. And I tried to help, some. But then I spilled a bottle of shampoo, and tried to vacuum it up, and it turns out you can’t vacuum up shampoo. Just in case you ever wondered. . . .”
“Uh, yeah,” said Jasper, with a grin. She wasn’t even trying not to laugh at me, but that was okay. The whole thing had been pretty stupid.
“So now Olga comes,” I said with a shrug. “But little things like the lint trap . . . we forget about them, I guess. Everyone has been sort of . . . distracted this year. Olga doesn’t do lint traps. Or cat boxes. I hate cleaning the cat box.”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?” said Jasper as she settled back down onto the couch and snuggled under the blanket. “But cats are nice. I haven’t seen yours!”
“He comes and he goes,” I said.
I turned the movie back on, and we watched some more, until the dryer buzzed. Then Jasper got up, and I heard her futzing around in the office. She came back in, holding a basket full of laundry to fold. She was wearing shorts and a Star Wars T-shirt with Princess Leia on it.
“Much better,” I said.
“You’re telling me,” said Jasper. “Hey, while I’m hanging out here anyway, I want to wash my stupid nightshirt, if that’s cool. Do you have any laundry to run with it?”
“Sure,” I said. “I think so. . . .” I paused the movie again and stood up, yawning.
Jasper followed me to my room, where I scrounged dirty leggings, shorts, and a sundress from the floor and dresser top. “Here, this should make a load,” I said. I reached out and took her pink shirt from her, then headed for the office.
I’d just assumed Jasper was following along behind me down the hall, but as I neared the office door I heard her say, “Hey, mind if I use the facilities?”
“Of course not,” I called back, over my shoulder, but when I turned, I realized that Jasper didn’t actually know where the bathroom was. “No, wait!” I called out, as she reached out for the knob of a closed door.
But it was already too late. Jasper swung the door wide, and it creaked on its hinges. Like a door nobody had opened in a long time. Like a door that had been sealed up tight for a year.
“Uh,” she said, peering in.
“Wrong room,” I said. What else could I say?
“Oh,” said Jasper. And then she whispered, “Oh, Leah . . .”
She said it like she already knew. Everything. I joined her, backtracked the few short feet to stand beside her. Clutching my armload of laundry, I stared into the room. For the first time in a long time. For the first time in a year.
It was dark. All the lights were off, and the curtains were closed. Even so, you could make out the layer of dust on everything. Dust and shadows, floating in the air. The room was a memory.
“Olga doesn’t clean this room,” I said. “Nobody cleans this room.”
“I get it,” said Jasper somberly.
Now that the door was open, I couldn’t look away. I stared around at everything, at the rumpled striped bedspread that had been pulled up quickly, the very last time Mom ever said, “Samuel Aaron Davidson! Are you sure you made your bed today?” I took in the low Lego table, covered in half-built robots and starships, and the desk cluttered with junk of all kinds—pipe cleaners and broken chunks of Styrofoam.
Worst of all was the familiar orange backpack, slung over the desk chair, hastily half zipped and abandoned, untouched since the last day of school. How many times had I trudged along behind that stupid backpack? Twice a day, every day, for years. Sam had always been in a hurry. He ran everywhere. I remembered, so clearly, how Dad would bellow after him, at every single intersection, “Full stop, kid! Look both ways!” I hadn’t heard Dad raise his voice like that in a long, long time.
When I tore my gaze away from the room, I found Jasper staring at me. Probably waiting for me to undo what she’d done. Make it okay. And I wanted to. I wanted to close the door and go back to five minutes ago, but my arms were full of laundry. I didn’t have a free hand.
I opened my mouth. “Jasper, I . . .” but the right words weren’t there.
She looked nervous, hesitant.
I cleared my throat. “Jasper,” I said again. “Can you please . . .”
“Leah? What is it . . . ?”
I made my voice louder. I tried to make it sound normal. “It’s just . . . I need you to pull the door closed. Can you? My arms are full.”
“Oh!” said Jasper, shaking her head. “Of course. Sorry!”
Then she reached out and pulled it shut. She didn’t slam it, but she didn’t close it softly either, exactly. She closed it with a firm, even click.
Once the door was closed, I found I could move again. My feet came unstuck, and I turned away from Jasper without a word. I left the hallway, headed straight for the office, where I busied myself with shoving the dirty clothes in the washer. I added the soap, measuring more carefully than usual. I pushed the button. I took a breath. I took a few breaths.
When I got back to the living room, Jasper was waiting on the couch. She was holding the clicker and had the red blanket back over her lap, even though she didn’t need i
t anymore to cover herself. Her eyes peered up at me, worried.
I sat down beside her, and she didn’t say anything, just spread the red blanket over my legs too, and gave me a funny little pat on my knee. I guessed she felt terrible, but I wasn’t mad. Not really. I wasn’t really sure exactly how I felt. A little bit like I wanted a glass of water. A little bit like I might hiccup.
Finally I turned to her. “Go ahead,” I said. “You can ask. It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
“Really?” she said. “Because it seemed very . . . private, that room. It seemed like a kind of secret.”
“It is, I guess,” I said, picking at the blanket on my lap. “I don’t know why, really. But it is . . . a kind of secret. Even though everyone knows. Can something be a secret if everyone in the whole world knows it? If you just don’t talk about it, ever?”
Jasper’s eyes were on me—huge and soft and full of questions. But it was okay. I could handle it. Though after a year of definitely not being able to handle it, I wasn’t sure why I could handle it today. Maybe because she hadn’t ever known him. Maybe because she was someone new. And maybe just because she was Jasper.
“You can ask me,” I said again softly. “I promise it’s okay.”
We were silent a minute longer before she opened her mouth. “What was his name?” she asked.
“Sam,” I said. Now there were tears in my eyes, but they felt warm and right. Good, even. I could handle this. “His name was Sam.”
Jasper blinked, and I could see that she had tears in her eyes too. I was grateful. They made it easier, somehow. Made my tears feel okay. I wiped at my eyes with the ugly orange cuff of my stupid footie pajamas. I was still dressed like a duck. Why was I still dressed like a duck?
“Sam,” she said. “Sam. It’s a nice name.”
“Yes,” I said. “He was a nice kid. I mean, he was a regular kid. So sometimes he wasn’t nice. Sometimes he made me crazy. I guess that’s what little brothers do. But mostly he was nice.”
“And he . . .”
“He . . . died,” I said softly. “Drowned. In a lake. It was . . .” I wanted to keep going, tell her more, but I just couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. One heavy tear rolled down my cheek. “I . . .”
My Jasper June Page 4
