The Julian Game

by Adele Griffin

  It had to happen. It would happen. It was the right thing to do.

  forty

  I didn’t send the letter. But I didn’t delete it, either.

  I cut it, logged out, and pasted it into a Word document. Then I marched myself through the different scenarios. I had exactly one month before Ella changed her password. And if I ever sent this letter to Julian, I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist showing it to Henry and Chapin and the guys. From then, it would be public property. And then, an avalanche.

  Or he’d confront Ella and she’d be on to me. And I had no doubt that even if this letter was the dynamite that blew up the bridge, it would also create a new, dark void for Ella to fill with another wrong. A worse one. Because no matter how I tried to justify why I’d done it—to avenge myself and Natalya, to outsmart Ella and Julian, to expose the Group’s false unity—there was actually no such thing as revenge.

  Two wrongs make a right. That’s what I’d told Ella. But I also knew, as I read and reread what I’d written and fantasized about the letter hitting all the various inboxes, that all these wrongs were adding up and creating an unending domino effect of wrongs.

  I went downstairs, taking Ella’s gloves and Elizabeth’s blue wig with me, stuffing them both deep into the kitchen trash. If I did send that letter, I’d do it as myself. Not as Elizabeth, and not as Ella. I was done with tricks and disguises.

  “You think I’m through the worst of this year?” I asked Natalya tentatively the next day when I joined up with her outside at our usual place for lunch. She’d been Spock-like and inscrutable when I’d told her my decision. If I’d let her down, it wasn’t a friendship deal-breaker. Natalya was too flesh-and-blood nuanced, and revenge was a heartless act, best left to cyborgs.

  She leaned back and rolled her neck. “You gotta hope so, right?”

  “After all, I could send that letter anytime this month,” I mused. “It’s just a password away.”

  “You said it. But,” she added after a minute, “I think I’m glad you haven’t.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Ella gets a lot out of a fight. You do the most damage when you don’t do anything.”

  “What about ‘time for a little push-back’?”

  She thought. “It’s a different kind of push, if you make yourself impenetrable.”

  “You know what I like about being friends with you, Tal? When you say something true, I know you’re not quoting it off a Snapple lid.”

  “Oh, yeah, right. ’Cause I’m so wise.” Compliments always mortified Natalya, and this one was no exception.

  I crunched my pickle (because why not? Because I wasn’t going to stop living my life, and that started with eating what I wanted for lunch) and lifted my face to the warm day. Balmy, sunny, with a perfect, cloudless blue sky.

  Mom’s last picture blue. Kilgarry blue.

  “This sky’s right out of our History book. El Greco blue,” said Natalya, her voice serene to fit the day. “Are you feeling that?”

  I nodded. “Totally.”

  forty-one

  Stacey and Dad took the last Saturday in May because every other weekend at Wayne Unitarian was booked. Apparently Wayne was teeming with marrying-minded Unitarians. Stacey’s hair looked extra-curly with nerves, and Dad had opted to wear his lucky cranberry pants that many years ago had stopped having anything to do with the color cranberry, and now were more like a burnt orange. Stacey didn’t seem to mind that she was marrying a guy who owned lucky burnt orange pants. In fact, they both seemed delirious with joy. Or maybe just delirious.

  The reception was in the church’s backyard, where most of our neighborhood plus a few local Exchange artists had braved the light rain to show up for the celebration. Dad was flushed and sweetly boyish as the congratulations poured in around him, and for the first time, I saw him from another angle—as a person who might have lost his love, but was determined to keep his heart open.

  I gave Stacey the wedding gift that I’d bought off eBay—a vintage Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness 1996 North American Tour T-shirt. “A reminder that you used to have better taste in music before you started hanging out with Dad.”

  “Let me tell you something about Barry,” said Stace. “He’ll get inside you. Maybe not this year. But we’ll be playing ‘Weekend in New England’ at your wedding one day.”

  “Never,” I declared. “But thanks for marrying us, and taking on the whole widower slash partially orphaned stepdaughter thing.”

  “Don’t make my mascara run.” Stace shook out the shirt. “I think I’ll put it on now. It’ll be my something old, since these heat lamps aren’t getting it done. What is up with this weather? It’s almost June.”

  “I’ll run home and get you a cute jacket,” I offered. “I need one, too. And I wouldn’t mind a little break from shaking hands.”

  “The Exchange is closer,” she said. “Just grab something off the racks. That kimono thing that came in from Mrs. Yatzany. I seem to remember from her note that it’s waterproofed.”

  “Back in two seconds.”

  Halfway there, the rain stopped, and a few braver birds were telegraphing the good news. When I ran past Avenue Cheese, I didn’t look in. Hard but getting easier—and when I thought I heard someone call my name, I didn’t even turn my head.

  At the Exchange, I headed straight to the kimono. Then I pushed back even farther for my caramel cardigan, which I’d long ago returned to inventory after Ella had insulted it. When I tried it on, it was like a warm hug from an ugly dog.

  At my recent suggestion, Dad had installed some overhead bells. Hearing them jingle after so many years of a non-bell atmosphere made me jump.

  Henry Henry was standing in the door frame. Hedgehog hair, bring-it-on grin. In his hand, half a Muenster on rye while the other half seemed to be lodged in its entirety in his cheek.

  He swallowed, painfully.

  “Hey, Raye.” And there was a look on his face like he knew exactly the next two words out of my mouth before I’d even spoken.

  “Hello,” I said, “hello.”

  forty-two

  “Idea. Let’s blow off Duncan tonight.” It was Saturday evening at the Zawadskis’ and I was in the mood to be experimental.

  “Seriously?” Natalya stared at the box of Duncan Hines brownie mix. “But he’s such a quick, convenient path to deliciousness. And Midnight Planet starts in thirty minutes. We could have almost-homemade brownies warm on the rack by then.”

  “Or,” I countered, “we watch Midnight Planet while inhaling the delicious aroma of one hundred percent homemade brownies baking in the oven.”

  “You don’t think these would taste as good?”

  “Not even,” I told her. “Actually, I think I could tell a mix from scratch in a blind test.”

  Natalya scoffed. “Liar. You have the taste buds of a baby snail.”

  “I’m serious. I swear I can.” I crossed my heart.

  Natalya rolled her eyes but put down the box. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be tonight?”

  “That would be tomorrow.” Henry and I were going into Philly, for the McQueen festival at the Bellevue. “Let’s find a recipe online.”

  “Okay.” Then a sly smile crossed Natalya’s face as she logged on to the kitchen laptop. “But first, you need to check out what happened to Elizabeth.”

  “What?”

  “Terrible thing. Turned out she was a spy. And she’s been deported back to Poland.”

  I nudged in to look at Elizabeth’s Facebook page that Natalya had imprinted with a phony red-letter notification from the FBI. “‘Anyone with information on Yelena Klutrova aka Elizabeth Lavenzck should come forward, as she might present a security risk.’ Ha, and look how fast everyone ran.”

  Because everybody had unfriended Elizabeth right down to zero, with a few also compelled to write that they had no idea who Elizabeth was, or how she’d ended up as a Facebook connection.

  “I was jus
t ripping off a Midnight Planet plot,” said Natalya, “but I think I really scared some kids. Not that Net friends add up to more than a handful of pixel dust.”

  “Poor Elizabeth. All alone in her hour of treason.”

  “Yes, it’s very sad. Now find me something cool. Like a chocolate soufflé.” Natalya was taking out the bowls and mixer from the cupboard, cruising headlong from a simple mix recipe into a crazy complicated one. You never could tell what sort of random project might catch Natalya’s interest.

  Which was, of course, one of my favorite things about her.