“Look, June, there’s a man living there. Okay? He was Finn’s . . . special friend. Do you see what I mean?” My mother grimaced slightly, though I could tell she was trying to hold it back. “I didn’t want to get into this. . . .”
Special friend? I stifled a laugh. Special friend reminded me of kindergarten field trips. It made me think of holding hands with Donna Folger and looking both ways before crossing streets.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“I think you know what it means. Now can we drop it?”
I was still laughing a little, but as the whole thing started to sink in, my smile faded. Finn had never told me that someone would be moving into his apartment when he died. Why wouldn’t he tell me something huge like that?
I felt for the note again. The only person who misses Finn as much as I do. That’s what it said. Toby. I knew the special friend’s name. And I knew he’d called me from the apartment, but I guess I figured he’d find a new place to live.
I would have asked my mother then and there why nobody had ever mentioned this special friend, this Toby, to me, but I couldn’t bear to do it. To embarrass myself like that. To make it seem like this was a big deal to me. For the last few years I’d considered Finn to be my best friend. The very best. Maybe I was wrong about that.
I nodded at my mother without looking her in the eye. Suddenly the thought of telling her that Finn’s special friend had come right to our front door, that Finn’s special friend knew that I was the only one who missed Finn as much as he did, that Finn’s special friend had asked me to meet him, seemed impossible.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll drop it,” I said, and although I held it back with every muscle in my body, what I really wanted to do was cry. Not only because Finn had never told me about this guy, but because there was no way to ask him about it. And until then I don’t think I really understood the meaning of gone.
Fourteen
“Remember that party?” Greta grabbed me and whispered in my ear as I came out of the upstairs bathroom. My hands were still wet and I rubbed them on my sweater.
“Ummm?”
Greta let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, you do. Remember I asked if you wanted to go to a party? Jillian Lampton? Remember?”
I hadn’t exactly forgotten. I think I just filed it away somewhere. Or maybe I thought it was all a joke in the first place. Some cruel thing Greta had said just to see what I’d say. I nodded anyway.
“Yeah, well, it kept getting put off, but now it’s tonight.”
“Tonight? But—”
“I told Mom they need help with the play.”
“I’m not in the play.”
Greta rolled her eyes and took a deep steady breath. “Yes. I know. You’ll be at the party.”
“Oh.” I’d never lied to my parents about where I was going. I’d never had anywhere to go before.
“You can bring Beans too. If you want.”
I hadn’t been friends with Beans for years. Not really. When Beans first moved here from Ohio in third grade, with her Dorothy Hamill haircut and her 4-H badges sewn on the outside of her backpack, she had no one. Back then we were best friends. For a long time, all the way through to the end of elementary school, Beans was my only friend. Because that’s how I’ve always been. I only need one good friend to see me through. Most people aren’t like that. Most people are always looking out for more people to know. In the end, Beans was like most people. After a while she had dozens of friends, and by fifth grade it was pretty obvious that even though she was my best friend, I wasn’t hers.
Somehow my whole family seemed to have missed the thing where Beans and I weren’t good friends anymore. I could call her up and she would be nice and everything, but it would be weird. No matter how many times I told my mother that Beans had tons of other friends, my mother couldn’t stop seeing it the way it used to be between us. Maybe I didn’t want her to, because then she would start nagging me to find some new friends. I didn’t want to explain to her who I was. That I was the weird girl who carried a worn-out copy of The Portable Medieval Reader in her backpack, the girl who only wore skirts, usually with medieval boots, the girl who got caught staring at people. I didn’t want to have to tell her that people weren’t exactly lining up to hang out with me.
Plus, once you had a friend like Finn, it was almost impossible to find someone in high school who came anywhere close. Sometimes I wondered if I might go through my whole life looking for someone who came even a little bit close.
Greta unzipped her purse. “Mom was so happy we were doing something together. You know what she did?”
I shook my head.
“She gave me ten bucks.” Greta grinned and pulled out the ten-dollar bill from her purse, flashing it in front of me. “She said I should take you out for ice cream after. So we’re set. Are you still up for it?”
“I guess.”
“Good. Bring boots. And dress really warm. It’s in the woods.”
“Greta?”
“Yeah.”
“You know that guy at the funeral?”
“Yeah.”
“He was Finn’s boyfriend, right?” I was trying my best to act like I didn’t care one way or the other.
Since that day with the teapot, I thought I saw Toby all over the place. I couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like, just the shape of him, which made it worse. There were tall lanky men everywhere, and on first glance any one of them could have been Toby.
For the past few days I’d been waiting to catch Greta off guard. I thought if I asked her something when she wasn’t expecting it, she might tell me more than she meant to. What I’d learned over the years was that playing dumb was the best way to do it. As soon as she thought I didn’t know something, she’d jump in with everything she had.
“Congratulations, Sherlock. That only took you a few centuries to figure out.”
“That’s not all I’m trying to say.”
“All right, then, what?”
“So he’s living in Finn’s apartment now?”
“That’s right. Life ain’t fair. You kill a man and end up with a great apartment on the Upper West Side.”
“So you think he definitely gave Finn AIDS. You’re sure.”
“Not just sure, I know he did it on purpose. That guy knew he had AIDS when he met Finn. He knew it.”
“How can you know that?”
“I just do. I’ve heard things.”
“So he really is like a murderer?”
“Exactly.” Her tone had changed. She seemed suddenly pleased that I was interested in what she knew. I thought that maybe I could tell her about the teapot and the letter and about the train station on March 6. Maybe she’d listen and be impressed that I had my own news for once. But I couldn’t get the words out. The letter said not to tell anyone, and maybe Toby was right. Maybe even a murderer can be right sometimes.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“That’s all. I just wanted to make sure.”
“Whatever, June. Grow up. It’s all over now.”
“Yeah. I know it is.”
I called Beans. I guess I thought I should make the effort, but she said she couldn’t get out. So it would just be me. Me and a bunch of Greta’s friends.
Later, on our way down the stairs for dinner, Greta poked me on the shoulder, then slipped a note into the back pocket of my jeans. Party canceled. It turned out a lot of people couldn’t get out. But Greta had already lied to our parents, so I had to go to the play rehearsal with her anyway. I would have to sit there in the back of the auditorium on those red velvet seats, watching her turn into Bloody Mary over and over again.
Of course, I was relieved that the party was canceled. It wasn’t only the shy thing, the total social retardation. It was more than that. I wasn’t interested in drinking beer or vodka or smoking cigarettes or doing all the other things Greta thinks I can’t even imagine. I don’t want to imagine those things. Anyone
can imagine things like that. I want to imagine wrinkled time, and forests thick with wolves, and bleak midnight moors. I dream about people who don’t need to have sex to know they love each other. I dream about people who would only ever kiss you on the cheek.
That night I sat in the school auditorium and watched Ryan Cooke, with all his golden charisma, singing about enchanted evenings. Mr. Nebowitz, the director, kept stopping Ryan, making him sing certain parts of the song over and over again, telling him to let the words show on his face.
“We should be able to read your face like a poem. Even if you don’t say a word, every person in that audience should know exactly how you feel.” Mr. Nebowitz was young, with lots of dark curly hair. It was the end that he wanted Ryan to get right. The part about holding on and never letting go.
Ryan tried again and again. I couldn’t see much difference, but Mr. Nebowitz said, “Better. Getting better.” He let Ryan go off and then called Greta to the stage.
“‘Happy Talk,’ okay?”
Greta nodded and walked onto the stage without any makeup or costume. Just her, in jeans and T-shirt. She didn’t even take her glasses off. She pulled her hair back with one hand and closed her eyes for a second. Mr. Nebowitz started on the piano.
“Straight through,” he said, nodding at Greta.
She sang it the whole way through, and I couldn’t see or hear a single mistake. When she finished, Mr. Nebowitz clapped and turned to the rest of the cast, who were sitting out in the audience, and said, “This is the standard I’m looking for, people.” Then he looked back at Greta on the stage and thanked her for all the effort she was putting in. Something like that would have embarrassed me beyond belief, but Greta just took an exaggerated clownish bow, the top of her head nearly grazing the stage, and got a big laugh from the other kids. I laughed too, because that was the first time in so long that I’d seen her loose and jokey like that. It made me glad I’d been forced to go to the rehearsal.
Greta left the stage and I thought about Toby again. I thought that special friend could mean anything. It didn’t have to be a big deal. Maybe Finn never mentioned him because he was nobody. It was my mother who used the word special. Finn would never call someone that. Not with a straight face anyway. Maybe it was just luck that the guy had ended up with Finn’s apartment. Maybe Finn felt sorry for him.
The rehearsal ended at around eight-thirty. I stayed put in my seat and watched Greta and Ryan and a bunch of other kids from the play sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling, laughing. These were the kids Greta hung out with now. The smart kids. The ones who weren’t only smart but popular too. The ones who could do anything. Ryan Cooke and Megan Donegan and Julie Contolli. Greta looked happy up there. Relaxed. Like this really was some island in the South Pacific. But she also looked younger than the rest of them. Lined up like that I didn’t know how everyone couldn’t see how obvious it was. Ryan had a little mustache. Megan’s and Julie’s legs were women’s legs. Full and shapely. Greta’s thin legs hung from the stage and made her look like a kid on a swing.
Mr. Nebowitz said good night to everyone and asked Greta if she had a minute. One by one the kids jumped off the stage and grabbed their coats and bags. Greta followed Mr. Nebowitz out of the auditorium. I stayed in the back row, waiting, thinking I shouldn’t leave without Greta.
“Hey, you there. I’m shutting the lights.” I could see it was Ben Dellahunt, who was a junior and the assistant stage manager for the play.
I nodded in the shadows.
“I’m just waiting for my sister,” I said. “I’ll go in a minute.”
Ben was one of those kids that you thought might be rich when he grew up. Not because there was anything that great about him, but more because he was the kind of guy who always seemed to have a plan. He always had his hair in a ponytail, and there was a rumor that he’d actually invented a new computer language, but that probably wasn’t true. He wasn’t the best in his class, but he was pretty smart. Smart enough. He put a hand above his eyes and squinted at the back row, like he was looking way out to sea. Then he started walking up the central aisle. When he got closer he looked me over, zeroing in on my feet.
“Hey, you’re the girl with the boots.” He smiled and nodded like he’d solved some kind of puzzle. He was about to sit down next to me, but before he did, Greta came back through stage left. She stood onstage, looking out over the rows of seats.
“Are you coming or not?” she called, already turning to leave.
“Yeah. Coming,” I called back. I said goodbye to Ben, then jogged to catch up with Greta. She stormed ahead, leaving me paces behind for the whole walk home. When we finally got there, she didn’t say a word. She just ran up the stairs, straight into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.
Fifteen
Since Finn died, I’d been spending a lot of my weekend time in the woods. My parents would go to the office to get in a few extra hours of work, Greta would go to extra rehearsals, and I would head to the woods. Sometimes I’d take my coat off and tuck it behind the stone wall so I could feel the pain of the cold right through my body. Sometimes it was good to feel like a wretch of a girl who didn’t have the right clothes to keep her warm.
It wasn’t like I used to do something with Finn every weekend, but there was always the possibility. The phone could ring early in the morning—usually on a Sunday—and Finn would be on the other end, asking if anyone wanted to go out someplace. He always did that, asked if anyone wanted to go, but I knew he really meant me.
“You’re in love with Uncle Finn,” Greta said one Sunday after he called.
She’d been watching me from the other side of the kitchen. Watching my face light up as I listened to Finn saying it was a good day to go to the Cloisters. After I hung up, Greta stood there for a second and smiled. Then she said that thing to me, about being in love with Finn, and I could have punched her. I clenched my fists and shoved them deep into my pockets and walked out of the kitchen, but she followed.
“Everybody knows it.”
I stopped and closed my eyes, my back still to Greta.
“You know what I heard Mrs. Alphonse say?” she said.
Mrs. Alphonse was a friend of my mother’s from the garden club. My mother didn’t even like gardening, but she still went to garden-club meetings one Thursday night a month, to drink coffee and talk to other moms who probably also didn’t do much gardening.
My back was still to Greta, my fists pulling tighter and tighter.
“I heard her asking Mom about you and Finn. ‘It’s a bit strange for a girl to spend so much time alone with her uncle, isn’t it? Not that I’m saying there’s anything funny going on. I don’t mean that at all.’ That’s what she said, but I could tell she meant that she thought something was very wrong with it. And I could tell she’d been talking about it with other moms. And poor Mom, she didn’t know what to say. . . .”
My fists had started to loosen because I was listening so hard to Greta. But then I thought about Mrs. Alphonse with her stupid tightly permed hair. Why did Mrs. Alphonse even need to think about me and Finn at all?
“Just letting you know, that’s all. What you’re putting Mom through and that everybody knows.”
“Which everybody?” I asked, though I hadn’t meant to say a word.
“Well, if you think that Mrs. Alphonse wouldn’t talk about it with Kimmy, you’d be wrong. And if you think Kimmy wouldn’t tell, like, everybody she knew, then, well, whatever.”
Kimmy Alphonse was a girl in my class who seemed pretty average. I’d never even thought about her until now.
“So go on and meet up with your precious uncle Finn. Enjoy yourself.”
I couldn’t let Greta get away with all that. Let her yank every bit of joy from my Sunday without saying anything.
“There’s nothing gross, because Finn is gay and everyone knows that.” I turned to see if I’d gotten Greta, if her smile would fade. But it didn’t. It got wider.
S
he waited a second and then said, “I said you were in love with Finn. I didn’t say Finn was in love with you, did I?”
And what could I say to that? Nothing. As usual.
That day I did go out with Finn. I took the train down and met him in Grand Central, and then we went to the Cloisters, which was our favorite place. Ever. Usually we went when there was hardly anyone around—really early or really near the end of the day, when they were about to close. At those times the Cloisters were better than any gallery or that movie theater in the Village that shows all those old movies. Even better than the Horn & Hardart cafeteria, where you can put money in a machine and get a real plate of hot food like on The Jetsons.
The Cloisters are the best because they’re like a piece of another time right at the top of Manhattan. And I’m not just saying that. They’re actually made of huge chunks of French medieval monasteries that were shipped to New York and stuck together. Even the view from the Cloisters is perfect, because Rockefeller bought all the land on the other side of the river in New Jersey just so nothing could be built there. Maybe even Rockefeller needed to leave his time once in a while.
I tried hard to forget everything Greta had said, but it was there anyway, polluting the whole day. I tried not to stand too close to Finn, tried not to smile too much. But it didn’t work. Maybe Greta was right. Maybe I was gross.
We didn’t say much that day. Finn or me. We walked through the stone passageways without really seeing anything. I thought that it would have been good to be a monk. The kind who isn’t allowed to speak. I thought of sitting with Finn in a great stone room filled with other monks, all silent, all busy illuminating manuscripts with the thinnest flakes of gold leaf. Finn and I would look at each other all the way across that room without saying a single word. And we’d hear each other. That’s the kind of love I imagined with Finn. That’s what I told myself. The kind that’s not gross, because it’s in another time and I’m not really me.
But being a monk is just one more impossible thing, like traveling to the past or having Finn here forever, because to be a monk you’d have to be a man and you’d also have to believe in God, neither of which was ever going to happen. I don’t think God would create a disease just to kill people like Finn, and if he did, then there’s no way I’d ever even consider worshipping him.
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