“I already knew that,” I said.
He laughed, but only a little.
“So, come on. Say yes.”
He laughed again, but this time it was bigger. More real.
“Yes. Yes, all right. I’m being stupid.”
I told him I would make sure not to have any really smart thoughts while we were watching the movie, and then he joked some more about being stupid, and before I knew it we were both cracking up on the phone.
I said I’d call him soon, when I found out where it was playing. That’s how we left it. I stepped out of the pantry and into the kitchen, holding the phone, my face all hot from laughing, thinking about what a good job I was doing looking after Toby.
It’s almost slow motion the way I remember it. My arm stretching to hang up the phone. The sound of someone clearing their throat behind me, and me twisting around to look. I can see it frame by frame. My smile disappearing as I saw her, as I took in the whole scene. Greta. Sitting at the kitchen table in her silky Victoria’s Secret pajamas. In front of her, every single thing from the back of my closet. The blue butterfly wrapping paper. The paper bag holding the Requiem tapes. The tapes themselves spilled out over the table. The Elizabethan photo of Toby and me, staring up in those big dumb ruffs. The teapot with the string of a tea bag hanging out. And, worst of all, the notes from Toby, unfolded and obviously read by Greta.
Greta sat there with no expression on her face.
“You’re home,” I said, trying for some crazy reason to sound innocent and casual. I realized she must have waited until she heard me come in. She must have been lurking somewhere, waiting for the moment I got home.
“Sick,” she said. “Stomach flu.” She shook her head back and forth, dragging the whole thing out as painfully as she could.
“Do you even know how much trouble you’re in?”
I didn’t move.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble Toby will be in when Mom and Dad find out that he’s been luring you out to see him?”
“It’s my business, Greta,” I said, but she just went on.
“Nobody will care that he’s gay. He’s an adult. That’s all. He’s an adult and you’re a kid, and that’s all anyone will see. He’ll be arrested for being a pervert, and then they’ll find out he gave AIDS to Finn and he’ll go to jail. He. Gave. AIDS. To. Uncle. Finn. Don’t you even care about that? What is wrong with you?”
What is wrong with me. What is wrong with me?
“He wasn’t luring me . . .”
“So it was all your idea, then? This is your boyfriend?” Greta laughed.
“No. That’s not what I mean. I mean—”
“I knew you were lying. I knew it,” Greta said, smiling. “As if you actually had a boyfriend. What was I thinking? You are the biggest loser, June.” Her voice was shrill and scary.
“I . . . He . . .”
“He what? He’s your new best friend? I heard you on the phone. Laughing your head off. Fawning all over him. As if, June. As if he wants to spend his time on the phone with you.”
“You don’t know anything about it. You’re so stupid. You’re such a complete idiot.” I wanted to blurt out everything I knew. I wanted to tell her about Finn’s note and how neither of them knew anything about AIDS. How it wasn’t Toby’s fault. But I knew Toby wouldn’t want me to do that. And maybe I was afraid Greta would tell me things I didn’t want to hear. That she would turn the story around until I didn’t know what was true anymore.
Greta didn’t say anything for a few seconds. She stared me down, that smile still fixed on her lips. “It’s obvious, June.”
And before I could stop myself, I played right into her trap. “What’s obvious? What?”
“You’re just a way to make him feel less guilty. He told you he didn’t, right? That’s what he said? But he knows he gave Finn AIDS, and now he wants a ticket out of the guilt. Why else would he waste his last days on the planet with you?”
Sometimes what Greta said was so sharp I could actually feel her words cutting up my insides, slicing their way through my stomach and my heart. I knew she’d be looking at me, reading my face, so I tried to harden up as quick as I could. But, still, she’d already seen my reaction.
“You know it’s true,” she said.
“You don’t know a thing about us,” I said, but my voice was shaky, unsure.
She cocked her head and looked at me. “So it’s ‘us,’ now, huh?”
I knew that when Greta got like this, she would be able to instantly transform whatever I said. It was like she was a master sculptor and my words were the ball of clay in her warm palm. A million possibilities waiting to be formed. I could say anything and Greta would turn it stupid and naïve. But maybe she was right. Maybe it wasn’t that she could change my words; maybe it was that she was able to strip away all the layers until only the truth was left. Ugly and skinless and raw.
My shoulders slumped, and I thought I might cry in front of Greta for the first time in years. There were all my secrets, spread out on the table. Like someone had taken my insides and scooped them out for everyone to see. Look, here are her stupid hopes! Look, here’s her dumb soft heart!
But then I watched Greta pick up the teapot and pour tea into her mug. It poured out smooth and neat, and not a single drop spilled. She set the teapot back down on the table, running a finger around the lid before picking up her mug.
Her hands were on my teapot, my teapot from Finn, and in that moment everything else disappeared. I stared at her finger resting on the spout, and the anger swelled so big in my chest I really thought I could kill Greta right then and there. She blew across the top of her mug, then took a little ladylike sip, and I thought I could punch her again and again. I stepped toward her, then stopped in the middle of the kitchen. Then I screamed as loud as I could. Every mean thing Greta had ever done was wrapped up in that scream. Every snotty remark. Every sneer. Every threat made it louder and louder, until I could see I’d finally scared her.
“Get your hands off my stuff,” I yelled, in a voice that came from someplace I didn’t know I had. Greta slowly put the mug down on the table and stared at me, stunned, but only for a second. She ran a hand over her hair, then reached back to tighten her ponytail.
“Big, big trouble,” she said, shaking her head.
“I hate you,” I shouted. Then I lunged at her. I didn’t care about anything anymore. I grabbed her hair and she kicked hard at my knees. I jumped back, still holding her hair with one fist. She squealed, then grabbed hold of her own hair and yanked it from my grip.
“Stop,” Greta said, putting a hand in the air. “Shh. Mom.” We both froze.
I heard the car door slam, and I realized that Greta had won again. She would love every minute of my mother walking in on all this stuff. She’d enjoy every second of watching me try to explain. I didn’t know what to do. I turned, expecting to see Greta perfecting her innocent face for my mother, but instead I saw that she was as panicked as I was.
“Quick,” she said.
She ran to the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a black garbage bag. She shook it open, and in one sweep of her arm she had most of the stuff off the table. I grabbed the teapot, splashing tea out of the spout as I went. I ducked into the downstairs bathroom and closed the door behind me. I slammed down the toilet lid and sat there, hunched over the teapot.
I could hear the muffled words of my mom and Greta in the kitchen. Then I put my ear against the door, and I could hear everything clearly. This was the spying bathroom, and for once I was going to be the spy.
“. . . really feeling much better . . . giving my room a big cleanup,” I heard Greta say. I pictured her holding up the garbage bag.
“Ooh,” my mother said. “Wonderful. I need to have a look at that.”
“When it’s done,” Greta said without even a second’s hesitation.
Then I heard the door open and close.
I dumped the tea down the sink and looked ar
ound that tiny bathroom for someplace to hide the teapot. There was nowhere. I opened the door just a crack and peeked. Clear.
I bolted up the stairs to my bedroom with the pot under my arm, closed the door behind me, careful not to slam it, and slid the teapot under my bed. I took a few long slow breaths, calming myself.
At least the Book of Days was in my backpack, but as soon as I had that thought I realized that I’d left my backpack right in the middle of the kitchen floor. I ran down the stairs three at a time.
My mother had piled her briefcase and coat on the table and was staring at the trail of tea that went out the kitchen and into the hallway. My backpack was where I’d left it, and I quickly scooped it up.
“Oh, Junie, I didn’t know you were home already. I managed to get away early to check in on Greta. She was a real mess this morning. Do you know anything . . .” She pointed at the mess of tea.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That’s mine.” I ripped a handful of paper towels off the roll and started to wipe it up, following the trail all the way to the bathroom.
At the bathroom door I turned around. My mother was watching me. She shook her head and walked back into the kitchen.
Greta made me clean her whole room so she wouldn’t be caught lying. I sorted through all the clothes piled on her floor and draped over the desk chair while she shifted papers around on her desk. I would have loved to ask her why she saved me, why she’d gone through all the trouble of showing me what she knew, just to get me off the hook in the end, but I didn’t bother. I knew she wouldn’t tell me a thing. Plus, she had her Walkman on. I could hear the tinny echo of Bon Jovi shrieking out “Livin’ on a Prayer” at the top of their stupid lungs.
Later, while my parents were watching the news, Greta tapped on my door, then pushed it open before I answered. She slipped in and stood with her back pressed against the door. She stared at me, then let her eyes flit from thing to thing in my room.
“What?” I said.
“I just wanted to let you know that you’re hanging out with a jailbird.”
I was lying in bed and I reached behind my pillow for Celia, my old stuffed seal. She was the one stuffed animal I still kept in my bed. I put my fingers on the place in her neck where all the stuffing had worn thin, making her head loll to one side.
“What are you talking about?”
I caught the tiniest glimmer of a smile on Greta’s lips. She’d gambled and she’d won. She took her time, gazing around my room, letting her eyes catch for a moment on my closet door.
“Toby. Your special friend. He’s been to prison. He’s an ex-con.” Her face looked almost like the way it did in Finn’s portrait. Full of the pleasure of letting a secret out.
“I . . .” My face was hot. I rubbed my thumb back and forth against the seal’s fur. My dad said Toby had been in trouble, but I didn’t think it was that kind of trouble.
“There’s nothing to say, June. It’s the truth. He met Finn in prison.”
“Finn has not been in jail. There’s no way—”
“No duh. Finn was giving an art workshop. Toby was in it. That’s how they met.” Greta pulled a book from my shelf and leafed through it, like she was planning on standing there all night, like she’d just popped in to do a little light reading.
“How do you know?”
She didn’t answer. She lowered the book, laid it on my desk, and raised her eyebrows. She stood there shaking her head and tut-tutting at me. “I know friends are hard to come by, June, but an ex-con riddled with AIDS is sinking pretty low. Especially one that murdered your own uncle.”
“You’re such a liar,” I said, but I knew she wasn’t lying. Greta was tiny, but she seemed huge when she had information. She seemed huge then. One and a half times life size, at least. Even the way she was standing—straight, back pressed against the door again, arms crossed over her chest—was filled with truth.
“Whatever,” she said.
I thought she would leave then, but she didn’t. She stared down at my carpet like she was thinking something over. Then, in a voice that sounded less sure, she said, “You know . . . you know, June, why don’t you just promise not to see him anymore and then I’ll leave you alone.”
I pulled Celia under the covers. I heard the TV go off downstairs, then the sound of my parents talking and dishes clattering in the sink.
Greta stood there, and for a second I thought she might cry. Her eyes were bulging, but she didn’t look away. She kept staring right at me, like she wanted me to see that she was on the edge of tears. Like she was waiting for my answer. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t make her any promises about not seeing Toby, because I knew they would be promises I couldn’t keep. After a while Greta’s whole body seemed to sink a little, like all of it, this whole mean plan, had somehow backfired. Like she had no cards left to play. Then she pulled herself back up. She lifted her head and stared at me.
“You know . . . I thought once Finn was gone . . . I thought you and me . . .”
“You thought what? That you could torment me full-time?”
“No, I . . .” Then she did start crying, and in a voice filled up with shaky wet disappointment she said, “Jail, June. Prison,” and she made her way to the door.
“I don’t care,” I said to Greta’s back as she slipped out of my room.
Late that night I snuck out to the garbage cans. I was hoping Greta had laid the bag of my stuff on top, but she hadn’t. She’d opened it up and pulled each thing out. It looked like she must have reached way down and stuck it all under the slop of a week’s worth of dinners. She must have gotten filthy doing it. She’d done a good job too. The only thing I could rescue was the Playland picture. And even that was ruined. Spaghetti sauce was smeared all over Toby’s side of the picture. There I was, sitting all prim and old-fashioned next to a gruesome smudge of red. Even though I said I would never do something like that, in the end I did have to cut Toby right out of the picture.
I went upstairs and checked the back of my closet. Everything was gone. Every single special thing. I moved some stuff around to see if she’d accidentally left anything behind. But, no, nothing.
Except the black bracelets. The ones she’d brought back from the city that Sunday. The ones she said she got for me. Those she’d hung neatly on one of the metal hooks on the back wall.
All that was left was the Book of Days in my backpack and the teapot. And the money Toby gave me, which was in my underwear drawer wrapped in a babyish white vest I never wore. I pulled the teapot out from under my bed and cupped my palms around it. At least I still had that. I still had the best teapot in the world. I traced the dancing bears with my finger. Each one teetering on only two legs, paws flailing out, clutching at the air. I stared at them and suddenly I could see that they weren’t really dancing at all, just stumbling around. Like great clumsy creatures about to lose their balance.
Forty-Seven
“I can’t come today.”
“Why?”
“Journal. A term and a half’s worth of journal entries due in English.”
“You turn in your journal to be read by the teacher?”
“Yeah, and I haven’t written a single entry yet.”
“That’s ridiculous. The whole point of a journal is—”
“Yeah. I know. It’s just how it is. It’s not like anyone writes down their deepest secrets. It’s not like I’d write anything about you.”
I sat on the floor in the pantry, leaning up against the wall, but I angled myself so I could see if anyone came into the kitchen.
“So do it after,” Toby said. I thought his voice sounded hoarser than usual, ragged.
“There’s four months of entries. That’s, like . . . I don’t know, fifty. Maybe more. I guess I’ll see you next week or something.”
I didn’t want to say the rest. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about everything that had happened with Greta. And it was true. I did have to write the journal. It was 25 percent of our grade i
n English, and I couldn’t afford to mess it up.
Toby was quiet. After a while he said, “I could help you. If you think that would work. Keep you company.”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, go on. I promise it’ll be better than sitting home on your own.”
I hadn’t expected Toby to offer to help.
“You don’t have to do that. It’s okay.”
He sighed. “I want you to come.”
I paused. Why was I letting Greta get into my head? I could hear the way I was talking to Toby, and I didn’t mean to be that way. It felt like I was testing him. Seeing how easy it would be to get him to give up.
“Well . . . help as in making cups of tea and finding some good tapes to play, or help as in luring me out to drink Volcano Bowls?”
“The former, of course, June. What do you take me for?”
I paused. I thought about telling him that I knew he’d been in prison, but I couldn’t do it.
“Okay. But you have to absolutely promise you won’t be a distraction, okay?”
“Okeydokey,” he said, in some kind of a bizarre attempt at an American accent.
When I got to the apartment, Toby had on some mellow jazz and he was sitting in a chair, pretending to read a book. It was easy to tell when someone was pretending to read, because their eyes moved too much. Up and down and all over the page. Somehow the fact that he was pretending to read did not seem like a good sign. I was glad that I’d gotten a head start on the train.
“I brought something for you,” I said.
“Really?”
I handed him a small box, clumsily wrapped in pink “new baby” wrapping paper, which was the only kind I could find in the house. He put his book down, which I saw was an old battered copy of The Canterbury Tales, and took the box.
“It’s dumb,” I said.
“That’s all right. I love dumb things.” Toby shook the box lightly near his ear.
“Open it later, okay?”
He nodded and put the box on the mantel.
I pushed the coffee table to the side, threw my journal down on the floor, and sprawled across the carpet on my belly.
Tell the Wolves I'm Home: A Novel Page 24
