by Jandy Nelson
“Lennie, I’m worried about you.” Here goes.
“I’m all right.”
“It’s really time. At the least, tidy up, do her laundry or allow me to. I can do it while you’re at work.”
“I’ll do it,” I say, like always. And I will, I just don’t know when.
She slumps her shoulders dramatically. “I was thinking you and I could go to the city for the day next week, go to lunch—”
“That’s okay.”
I drop my eyes back to my task. I don’t want to see her disappointment.
She sighs in her big, loud, lonely way and goes back to the crust. Telepathically, I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I just can’t confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don’t know how to bridge it.
Telepathically, she tells me back that I’m breaking her broken heart.
When the boys come back they introduce the oldest Fontaine, who is also in town for the summer from LA.
“This is Doug,” Marcus says just as Joe says, “This is Fred.”
“Parents couldn’t make up their mind,” the newest Fontaine offers. This one looks positively deranged with glee. Gram’s right, we should sell them.
“He’s lying,” Marcus pipes in. “In high school, Fred wanted to be sophisticated so he could hook up with lots of French girls. He thought Fred was way too uncivilized and Flintstoneish so decided to use his middle name, Doug. But Joe and I couldn’t get used to it.”
“So now everyone calls him DougFred on two continents.” Joe hand-butts his brother’s chest, which provokes a counterattack of several jabs to the ribs. The Fontaine boys are like a litter of enormous puppies, rushing and swiping at each other, stumbling all around, a whirl of perpetual motion and violent affection.
I know it’s ungenerous, but watching them, their camaraderie, makes me feel lonely as the moon. I think about Toby and me holding hands in the dark last night, kissing by the river, how with him, I’d felt like my sadness had a place to be.
We eat sprawled out on what is now our lawn furniture. The wind has died down a bit, so we can sit without being pelted by fruit. The chicken tastes like chicken, the plum tart like plum tart. It’s too soon for there not to be one bite of ash.
Dusk splatters pink and orange across the sky, beginning its languorous summer stroll. I hear the river through the trees sounding like possibility—
She will never know the Fontaines.
She will never hear about this dinner on a walk to the river.
She will not come back in the morning or Tuesday or in three months.
She will not come back ever.
She’s gone and the world is ambling on without her—
I can’t breathe or think or sit for another minute.
I try to say “I’ll be right back,” but nothing comes out, so I just turn my back on the yard full of concerned faces and hurry toward the tree line. When I get to the path, I take off, trying to outrun the heartache that is chasing me down.
I’m certain Gram or Big will follow me, but they don’t, Joe does. I’m out of breath and writing on a piece of paper I found on the path when he comes up to me. I ditch the note behind a rock, try to brush away my tears.
This is the first time I’ve seen him without a smile hidden somewhere on his face.
“You okay?” he asks.
“You didn’t even know her.” It’s out of my mouth, sharp and accusatory, before I can stop it. I see the surprise cross his face.
“No.”
He doesn’t say anything more, but I can’t seem to shut my insane self up. “And you have all these brothers.” As if it were a crime, I say this.
“I do.”
“I just don’t know why you’re hanging out with us all the time.” I feel my face get hot as embarrassment snakes its way through my body – the real question is why I am persisting like a full-fledged maniac.
“You don’t?” His eyes rove my face, then the corners of his mouth begin to curl upward. “I like you, Lennie, duh.” He looks at me incredulously. “I think you’re amazing…” Why would he think this? Bailey is amazing and Gram and Big, and of course Mom, but not me, I am the two-dimensional one in a 3-D family.
He’s grinning now. “Also I think you’re really pretty and I’m incredibly shallow.”
I have a horrible thought: He only thinks I’m pretty, only thinks I’m amazing, because he never met Bailey, followed by a really terrible, horrible thought: I’m glad he never met her. I shake my head, try to erase my mind, like an Etch A Sketch.
“What?” He reaches his hand to my face, brushes his thumb slowly across my cheek. His touch is so tender, it startles me. No one has ever touched me like this before, looked at me the way he’s looking at me right now, deep into me. I want to hide from him and kiss him all at the same time.
And then: Bat. Bat. Bat.
I’m sunk.
I think his acting-like-a-brother stint is over.
“Can I?” he says, reaching for the rubber band on my ponytail.
I nod. Very slowly, he slides it off, the whole time holding my eyes in his. I’m hypnotized. It’s like he’s unbuttoning my shirt. When he’s done, I shake my head a little and my hair springs into its habitual frenzy.
“Wow,” he says softly. “I’ve wanted to do that…”
I can hear our breathing. I think they can hear it in New York.
“What about Rachel?” I say.
“What about her?”
“You and her?”
“You,” he answers. Me!
I say, “I’m sorry I said all that, before…”
He shakes his head like it doesn’t matter, and then to my surprise he doesn’t kiss me but wraps his arms around me instead. For a moment, in his arms, with my mind so close to his heart, I listen to the wind pick up and think it just might lift us off our feet and take us with it.
The dry trunks of the old growth redwoods creak and squeak eerily over our heads.
“Whoa. What is that?” Joe asks, all of a sudden pulling away as he glances up, then over his shoulder.
“What?” I ask, embarrassed how much I still want his arms around me. I try to joke it off. “Sheesh, how to ruin a moment. Don’t you remember? I’m having a crisis?”
“I think you’ve had enough freak-outs for one day,” he says, smiling now, and twirling his finger by his ear to signify what a wack-job I am. This makes me laugh out loud. He’s looking all around again in a mild panic. “Seriously, what was that?”
“Are you scared of the deep dark forest, city boy?”
“Of course I am, like most sane people, remember lions and tigers and bears, oh my?” He curls his finger around my belt loop, starts veering me back to the house, then stops suddenly. “That, right then. That creepy horror movie noise that happens right before the ax murderer jumps out and gets us.”
“It’s the old growths creaking. When it’s really windy, it sounds like hundreds of doors squeaking open and shut back here, all at the same time, it’s beyond spooky. Don’t think you could handle it.”
He puts his arm around me. “A dare? Next windy day then.” He points to himself – “Hansel” – then at me – “Gretel.”
Right before we break from the trees, I say, “Thanks, for following me, and…” I want to thank him for spending all day moving furniture for Gram, for coming every morning with dead bugs for Big, for somehow being there for them when I can’t be. Instead, I say, “I really love the way you play.” Also true.
“Likewise.”
“C’mon,” I say. “That wasn’t playing. It was honking. Total face-plant.”
He laughs. “No way. Worth the wait. Testament to why if given the choice I’d rather lose the ability to talk than play. By far the superior communication.”
This I agree with, face-plant or not. Playing today was like finding an alphabet – it was like being sprung. He pulls me even closer to him and something starts to swell inside,
something that feels quite a bit like joy.
I try to ignore the insistent voice inside: How dare you, Lennie? How dare you feel joy this soon?
When we emerge from the woods, I see Toby’s truck parked in front of the house and it has an immediate bone-liquefying effect on my body. I slow my pace, disengage from Joe, who looks quizzically over at me. Gram must have invited Toby to be part of her ritual. I consider staging another freak-out and running back into the woods so I don’t have to be in a room with Toby and Joe, but I am not the actress and know I couldn’t pull it off. My stomach churns as we walk up the steps, past Lucy and Ethel, who are, of course, sprawled out on the porch awaiting Toby’s exit, and who, of course, don’t move a muscle as we pass. We push through the door and then cross the hall into the living room. The room is aglow with candles, the air thick with the sweet scent of sage.
DougFred and Marcus sit on two of the remaining chairs in the center of the room playing flamenco guitar. The Half Mom hovers above them as if she’s listening to the course, fiery chords that are overtaking the house. Uncle Big towers over the mantel clapping his hand on his thigh to the feverish beat. And Toby stands on the other side of the room, apart from everyone, looking as lonely as I felt earlier – my heart immediately lurches toward him. He leans against the window, his golden hair and skin gleaming in the flickery light. He watches us enter the room with an inappropriate hawkish intensity that is not lost on Joe and sends shivers through me. I can feel Joe’s bewilderment without even looking to my side.
Meanwhile, I am now imagining roots growing out of my feet so I don’t fly across the room into Toby’s arms because I have a big problem: even in this house, on this night, with all these people, with Joe Fabulous Fontaine, who is no longer acting like my brother, right beside me, I still feel this invisible rope pulling me across the room toward Toby and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.
I turn to Joe, who looks like I’ve never seen him: unhappy, his body stiff with confusion, his gaze shifting from Toby to me and back again. It’s as if all the moments between Toby and me that never should have happened are spilling out of us in front of Joe.
“Who’s that guy?” Joe asks, with none of his usual equanimity.
“Toby.” It comes out oddly robotic.
Joe looks at me like: Well, who’s Toby, retard?
“I’ll introduce you,” I say, because I have no choice and cannot just keep standing here like I’ve had a stroke.
There’s no other way to put it: THIS BLOWS.
And on top of everything, the flamenco has begun to crescendo all around us, whipping fire and sex and passion every which way. Perfect. Couldn’t they have chosen some sleepy sonata? Waltzes are lovely too, boys. With me on his heels, Joe crosses the room toward Toby: the sun on a collision course with the moon.
The dusky sky pours through the window, framing Toby. Joe and I stop a few paces in front of him, all of us now caught in the uncertainty between day and night. The music continues its fiery revolution all around us and there is a girl inside of me that wants to give in to the fanatical beat – she wants to dance wild and free all around the thumping room, but unfortunately, that girl’s in me, not me. Me would like an invisibility cloak to get the hell out of this mess.
I look over at Joe and am relieved to see that the fevered chords have momentarily hijacked his attention. His one hand plays his thigh, his foot drums the ground, and his head bobs around, which flops his hair into his eyes. He can’t stop smiling at his brothers, who are pounding their guitars into notes so ferocious they probably could overthrow the government. I realize I’m smiling like a Fontaine as I watch the music riot through Joe. I can feel how intensely he wants his guitar, just as, all of a sudden, I can feel how intensely Toby wants me. I steal a glance at him, and as I suspected, he’s watching me watch Joe, his eyes clamped on me. How did we get ourselves into this? It doesn’t feel like solace in this moment at all, but something else. I look down, write help on my jeans with my finger, and when I look back up I see that Toby’s and Joe’s eyes have locked. Something passes silently between them that has everything to do with me, because as if on cue they look from each other to me, both saying with their eyes: What’s going on, Lennie?
Every organ in my body switches places.
Joe puts his hand gently on my arm as if it will remind me to open my mouth and form words. At the contact, Toby’s eyes flare. What’s going on with him tonight? He’s acting like my boyfriend, not my sister’s, not someone I made out with twice under very extenuating circumstances. And what about me and this inexplicable and seemingly inescapable pull to him despite everything?
I say, “Joe just moved to town.” Toby nods civilly and I sound human, a good start. I’m about to say “Toby was Bailey’s boyfriend,” which I loathe saying for the was and for how it will make me feel like the traitorous person that I am.
But then Toby looks right at me and says, “Your hair, it’s down.” Hello? This is not the right thing to say. The right thing to say is “Oh, where’d you move from, dude?” or “Clover’s pretty cool.” Or “Do you skate?” Or basically anything but “Your hair, it’s down.”
Joe seems unperturbed by the comment. He’s smiling at me like he’s proud that he was the one that let my hair out of its bondage.
Just then, I notice Gram in the doorway, looking at us. She blows over, holding her burning stick of sage like a magic wand. She gives me a quick once-over, seems to decide I’ve recovered, then points her wand at Toby and says, “Let me introduce you boys. Joe Fontaine, this is Toby Shaw, Bailey’s boyfriend.”
Whoosh – I see it: a waterfall of relief pours over Joe. I see the case close in his mind, as he probably thinks there couldn’t be anything going on – because what kind of sister would ever cross that kind of line?
“Hey, I’m so sorry,” he tells Toby.
“Thanks.” Toby tries to smile, but it comes out all wrong and homicidal. Joe, however, so unburdened by Gram’s revelation, doesn’t even notice, just turns around buoyant as ever, and goes to join his brothers, followed by Gram.
“I’m going to go, Lennie.” Toby’s voice is barely audible over the music. I turn around, see that Joe is now bent over his guitar, oblivious to everything but the sound his fingers are making.
“I’ll walk you out,” I say.
Toby says good-bye to Gram, Big and the Fontaines, all of whom are surprised he’s leaving so soon, especially Gram, who I can tell is adding some things up.
I follow him to his truck – Lucy, Ethel and I, all yapping at his feet. He opens the door, doesn’t get in, leans against the cab. We are facing each other and there’s not a trace of the calm or gentleness I’ve become so accustomed to seeing in his expression, but something fierce and unhinged in its place. He’s in total tough-skater-dude mode, and though I don’t want to, I’m finding it arresting. I feel a current coursing between us, feel it begin to rip out of control inside of me. What is it? I think as he looks into my eyes, then at my mouth, then sweeps his gaze slowly, proprietarily over my body. Why can’t we stop this? I feel so reckless – like I’m reeling with him into the air on his board with no regard for safety or consequence, with no regard for anything but speed and daring and being hungrily, greedily alive – but I tell him, “No. Not now.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. After work,” I say, against my better judgment, against any judgment.
What do you girls want for dinner?
What do you girls think about my new painting?
What do the girls want to do this weekend?
Did the girls leave for school yet?
I haven't seen the girls yet today.
I told those girls to hurry up!
Where are those girls?
Girls, don't forget your lunches.
Girls, be home by 11PM.
Girls, don't even think of swimming—it's freezing out.
Are the Walker Girls coming to the party?
The Walker Girls were at the river last night.
Let's see if the Walker Girls are home.
(Found written on the wall of Bailey’s closet)
I find Gram, who is twirling around the living room with her sage wand like an overgrown fairy. I tell her that I’m sorry, but I don’t feel well and need to go upstairs.
She stops mid-whirl. I know she senses trouble, but she says, “Okay, sweet pea.” I apologize to everyone and say good night as nonchalantly as possible.
Joe follows me out of the room, and I decide it might be time to join a convent, just cloister up with the Sisters for a while.
He touches my shoulder and I turn around to face him. “I hope what I said in the woods didn’t freak you out or something … hope that’s not why you’re crashing…”
“No, no.” His eyes are wide with worry. I add, “It made me pretty happy, actually.” Which of course is true except for the slight problem that immediately after hearing his declaration, I made a date with my dead sister’s boyfriend to do God knows what!
“Good.” He brushes his thumb on my cheek, and again his tenderness startles me. “Because I’m going crazy, Lennie.” Bat. Bat. Bat. And just like that, I’m going crazy too because I’m thinking Joe Fontaine is about to kiss me. Finally.
Forget the convent.
Let’s get this out of the way: my previously non-existent floozy-factor is blowing right off the charts.
“I didn’t know you knew my name,” I say.
“So much you don’t know about me, Lennie.” He smiles and takes his index finger and presses it to my lips, leaves it there until my heart lands on Jupiter: three seconds, then removes it, turns around, and heads back into the living room. Whoa – well, that was either the dorkiest or sexiest moment of my life, and I’m voting for sexy on account of my standing here dumbstruck and giddy, wondering if he did kiss me after all.
I am totally out of control.
I do not think this is how normal people mourn.
When I can move my legs one in front of the other, I make my way up to The Sanctum. Thankfully, it has been deemed fairly lucky by Gram so is mostly untouched, especially Bailey’s things, which she mercifully didn’t touch at all. I go straight over to her desk and start talking to the explorer picture like we sometimes talk to The Half Mom.
