Tell the Wolves I'm Home: A Novel

by Carol Rifka Brunt

  “All righty,” he said. He looked at his watch. “We close in . . . well, we’re about to close now, so—”

  “I guess we’ll have to leave it until next week,” I said, in a voice that was probably a bit too pleased.

  My mother flashed me a stern look.

  “We need to take it with us anyway, Dave. So I guess we’ll just have to skip the viewing session.”

  My mother started to walk out with the whole box.

  “I’m afraid we can’t let the box itself go out. You’ll have to take the painting.”

  “Oh,” my mother said, and then I saw her give Mr. Zimmer the same sad look that Finn could put on. The very same sad look he’d given me when he was trying to get me to agree to the portrait in the first place. She put on a little half smile and I could see Mr. Zimmer changing his mind, right there in front of us.

  “Oh, what the hey,” he said. “I’ve known you for years.”

  “Thanks, Dave. It’s just,” she lowered her voice, “well, it’s quite valuable.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Get it back when you can.”

  And so we rode home with the portrait in the backseat, and the whole way I couldn’t stop wishing for miracles. I imagined that somehow the painting might swallow up everything we’d added to it. I called on the ghost of Finn with my mind, staring at the sun until I couldn’t get rid of the black spots on my eyes, thinking if there was a ghost Finn he could slip his vaporous self right into that box and erase everything we’d done. I looked out between the trees and across the front yards of strangers. I looked under cars and up at the bright blue sky, like the answer to everything might be there, but there was nothing. Only shadow and bright. Shadow and bright, over and over again.

  I went straight to my room when we got back. I closed my door and put the Requiem on really loud and waited for whatever was going to happen. Ever since that day on the train when my mother said she was the one who’d shown Finn the Requiem, it felt weird to play it. Like it was some kind of conversation between Finn and my mother, like it was Finn trying to say that he still remembered everything that had been between the two of them. I hated playing it after that. I didn’t like being used like that. But I couldn’t help myself. I’d been aching to hear it again, and that afternoon I gave in. I pulled out the card I was making for my mother. I’d drawn the outlines of butterflies, colored each one in, and delicately put glitter in just the right places on their wings. I opened my case of colored pencils and took out three shades of blue. Then I started furiously coloring in the sky. So hard I thought I might go right through the construction paper. And for a moment I believed that even if time travel was impossible, doing kid stuff might have the power to slow time down. Stop it just long enough to make everything okay.

  Fifty-Five

  There was thunder. Way off somewhere. I’d fallen asleep, and when I woke up that’s what I heard. Other than that, the house was quiet. My alarm clock said four-thirty. When I peeked out my window, I saw that the sky had turned darker and that both cars were in the driveway. I had to check, because day-sleeping is like that. When you wake up, you feel like you could be anywhere.

  I moved quietly through my room, then out my door to the top of the stairs. I stood there for a while, hoping I might somehow hear whether my parents had seen the portrait yet. Would they have woken me up if they’d seen it? Dragged me right out of bed?

  I tiptoed down the stairs, listening. No TV. No radio. No lawn mower or food processor. Not even the flicking of pages. When my feet hit the floor at the bottom, I stopped again, barely breathing, trying to sense where my parents were. Trying to catch a glimpse of the safety-deposit box. Nothing.

  I popped my head into the kitchen, which was empty, and then into the living room.

  There it was. The portrait. Out of the box, propped up on the mantel. There was still no sign of my parents, which felt strange. Just the portrait and me, alone in that room. No magic had erased what we’d done. Our hair glowed gold, making us look like girls from a story. Girls who knew everything there was to know. Greta’s lips were even redder, even more pouty than I remembered them. The skull on her hand was more obvious, and her nails looked like the claws of some kind of mythical cat. Even the buttons, which used to be almost invisible, seemed intense. Bright and dazzling compared to the stuff Finn had done. It was almost like we’d made Finn invisible with all our clumsy brushstrokes.

  Then there were footsteps on the stairs. Soft. Slippered. My mother’s feet. I sat on the couch, facing the portrait. Waiting. I heard her go into the kitchen and open the fridge. I heard a cabinet open, the sound of a glass against the counter. A drink poured. I heard thunder again, still low and far away. Then the swish of my mother’s slippered feet came toward the living room until I could see the shadow of her in the doorway. She was in her bathrobe. Clean white terry cloth.

  “I know,” I said before she could start.

  She walked over to the sideboard and put her glass down. She didn’t even bother to use a coaster. “I’m not sure you do know, June. I’m not sure you know even the most basic rights and wrongs anymore.” She cinched the tie on her robe tighter and walked slowly over to the portrait. With her eyes she traced along the strands of our illuminated hair, lingering for a moment on Greta. “What upsets your father and me most—more than the fact that this painting will have lost at least half a million, half a million, dollars in value because of your childish acts—is that you seem to have particularly gone out of your way to deface your sister.”

  “How do you know it was all me? Why am I always the one to blame?”

  My mother huffed and shook her head. “Greta’s been so busy with that play, do you really think I’m going to believe that she would have time, would want to spend her time, going to the bank to deface a valuable piece of art? That’s the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. She has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours—”

  “I thought Finn might like it.”

  All the anger slipped from my mother’s face then. Her brow furrowed and she looked scared. Like she might cry. “What’s happening to you, Junie? Huh?”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Your uncle made that painting for you and your sister. The last painting he ever made. Did you even read the articles? In the Times, in Newsweek? Do you understand who Finn was? And you come along, a fourteen-year-old girl, thinking you can improve on his work?”

  The kitchen door opened and slammed shut. My father came into the living room in torn sweatpants, his gardening hat, and muddy hands, which he was holding away from his body. He looked from my mother to me, then lifted his hands. “I’ll just wash up, then be right down.”

  “Do you see? Look at your father. He works more than full-time, plays golf, and still has time for gardening on the weekend. And Greta. And me. We all find ways to stay busy. From now on your time will be booked. I’m signing you up for after-school activities every day of the week, and I’ll be checking if you’ve been attending. We haven’t kept you involved enough. Too much time on your own. Too much time filled with nonsense. I see that now.”

  There were many things I could have said about keeping busy. About filling your life up with stupid clubs and sports and plays where people start singing for no reason at all. But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t say a word.

  My mother kept going. “And on top of that, you’re grounded. Anything outside of supervised, structured activities is off limits to you until we can see some improvement.”

  The implications of this flashed through my mind. Toby came to me first. Then, after a few seconds, Greta.

  “I told Greta I’d be at the cast party.”

  “You will not be going to any party of any kind tonight. Do you understand?” My mother threw her hands up. “It’s like you really don’t understand the magnitude of what you’ve done here.”

  “But I promised her . . .”

 
My father came back into the room. He’d changed into fresh clothes. “She’ll get along just fine without you,” he said.

  “What you don’t realize is that you’ve hurt yourself more than anyone else. That man, the one from the Whitney, he said if the painting all checked out he’d be willing to offer ten thousand dollars to include the painting in an exhibit. And do you know what we were planning to do with that money? Do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “We thought we’d take a trip. All of us. Europe, England, maybe Ireland. We knew you’d had a rough year and we thought, You know, June would love that. June would love to visit castles and all that kind of stuff. So there you go. Sit with that for a while.”

  I couldn’t look at either of them anymore. I stared at the light blue rug, my eyes catching the patterns of flattened and fluffy strands of yarn.

  “Now it’s just going to be an embarrassment. That man’s going to think we’re all nuts.”

  My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Look, June, if this is some kind of cry for help, we’re hearing it. Okay? Loud and clear.”

  I sat there listening to a long list of things that were wrong with me. And I listened to several more repetitions of the half a million dollars figure, which, for something that wasn’t the most important thing, seemed to be pretty close to the most important thing.

  After a while my dad put his hands up and said, “Okay, enough now. Head on upstairs and start getting ready.”

  They’d decided that I should still go to the play. They said it wasn’t fair to Greta not to have her whole family there supporting her.

  I shut my door and sat on the edge of my rumpled bed, listening as hard as I could to my parents arguing downstairs. But I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I could still hear the thunder, though, grumbling and grumbling from somewhere far across that dim Saturday sky.

  Fifty-Six

  The play was sold out, like it was every year. This year Mr. Nebowitz specifically told the cast that he’d invited a few of his actor friends from the city to watch. He wouldn’t say who exactly, but he said they might be recognizable and if anyone did recognize them in town or at the performances they were specifically requested not to harass that person. Maybe these were the same people who would be watching Greta. The ones who would decide if she was good enough for Broadway.

  I sat in the back on the drive to the school, and nobody talked. When we got there, I saw that someone had put colored cellophane over the lawn lights so the grass glowed red and orange and yellow. My mother gave me a warning look as we went inside, then I saw her switching herself back to normal mode. Chattering with other moms, saying how proud she was of Greta.

  I tried to slip away, because I thought that at least if I found Greta, I could tell her about the portrait and let her know that I wouldn’t be at the party and then maybe she wouldn’t pull the whole burying act. She’d know she had to take care of herself, because nobody was going to go looking for her in the woods.

  My dad and I stood against the wall near where the PTA was selling cups of bright red punch and home-baked brownies and cupcakes. I turned to walk away down the hall, but my dad held on to my shoulder.

  “I don’t think so. Strict orders from your mother. You’re staying with me.”

  “What could I possibly do wrong here?”

  “I don’t know, but this is Greta’s night, and we’re not taking any risks,” he said. Then he gave me the most disappointed look I think he’s ever given me and he said, “You’ve broken our trust, June.”

  “I know,” I told him.

  I stared back and forth down the hall, hoping to see somebody I could send the message with, but there were only parents and little kids, who were no use at all. Then the lights flashed on and off a few times and we all filed into the auditorium. She’d be fine on her own. That was probably true. She’d have to be.

  There was a live professional orchestra in the pit, and as the lights dimmed they started to play the overture. The overture is by far the most boring part of the show. It’s the most boring part of any show, and I don’t think anyone knows why it even exists. I was wedged between my mother and father and I glanced around, trying to see if there really were any famous actors there. I noticed one man who I thought looked like Danny DeVito, but then I realized that it was just Kelly Hanrahan’s dad.

  The play was old news to me, because I’d already seen it so many times. The main fun was trying to spot any mistakes. The only one I saw was when Gary Jasper, the kid who played Luther Billis, started to laugh a little bit during one of his lines. That was no huge surprise though, because Gary Jasper was not just class clown, but the whole school clown which is why he got that part in the first place.

  Greta came on, and my dad reached over and squeezed my hand as if I might not have noticed her otherwise. There she was, looking fantastic. All made up and in character. Both my parents were smiling. They looked so proud of her, and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time they looked like that over something I’d done. She had to prance around on the stage while a bunch of the scruffy sailor guys led by Gary Jasper sang that song “Bloody Mary,” where they tell her that her skin is like a baseball glove and she doesn’t use toothpaste but she’s the girl they love. It’s not a very nice song, and on top of that, the school made Mr. Nebowitz take the “damn” out of the chorus lyrics, so now they sang ain’t that too darn bad, which doesn’t sound nearly as good.

  It was only when Greta sang “Bali Ha’i” that I started to think there was something wrong. That song’s got a kind of dreamy quality. Bloody Mary is trying to make Lieutenant Cable imagine this amazing island, so at first I thought Greta was swaying around because she was in character. But then I watched her and listened to her singing about a place somewhere where you’d never have to be lonely. It starts out being about a place, but by the end you start to realize that Bloody Mary is talking about herself. She’s the island. She’s the one floating way out in the middle of the ocean waiting to be found.

  It was like she was thinking about the words she was saying. She slowed down, so the orchestra was out of synch with her singing, the instruments trying to follow her, and I thought, I don’t know if this is true, but I thought, she might have been looking out into the audience for me. For a couple of seconds, when she was singing those words, I thought she could have been singing them just to me.

  And I could tell that she was drunk. Right up there onstage in front of everyone.

  I glanced over at my parents, but they didn’t seem to notice anything. Nobody did. Bloody Mary was a weird character, and I guess people thought that’s how Greta was playing her. Like an old drunk lady.

  After the intermission, I watched Greta do “Happy Talk,” clicking her fingers together like her hands were having a cute little chitchat, and I could feel myself getting angry. It felt like a tightening all through my body. When I looked down, I saw my own hands clenched. Greta thought she could do whatever she wanted, get drunk as anything, and I’d be there to carry her home. She thought after everything she’d done, ruining all my Finn stuff, making me look stupid again and again, that she could rely on me. Well, she couldn’t. This time she’d find that out. I wouldn’t be there to rescue her, and that was that.

  As we were leaving, I saw Ben in the front lobby, dressed in his all-black backstage clothes and buying a cup of Hawaiian Punch at the PTA snack table.

  “Hey,” I said as I passed.

  “Oh, hey, June.” He smiled. “You going to the Reeds’?”

  “The Reeds’?”

  “You know, the cast party. You’ll be there, right?”

  My parents were behind me, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Farley, but my dad must have been ready to go, because he tapped my shoulder and nudged his head toward the door. I nodded. Then I turned back to Ben and whispered, “So the party’s not in the woods?”

  “The Reeds always do the cast party. Have you seen their house?”

  I shook my head.
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br />   “It’s this awesome modern thing with huge windows. You know, it’s one of those up on Woodlawn Court.” He pointed toward the window, where the wind was shaking even the sturdy school windowpanes. “Look at the weather anyway. Who’d want to be out in the woods?”

  “Yeah. Right. I . . .”

  “So you’ll be there?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.” I rolled my eyes and glanced at my parents.

  “Ahhh, I see.” Then he smiled even bigger. “So I can borrow your boots, then, right?”

  I started to tell him that there wasn’t a chance, but then I saw that he was joking. “Ha-ha,” I said, smiling.

  As I left the school, flanked by a parent on either side, all I could think about was Greta. Was she actually going to the woods by herself? Waiting for me? Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it was just another trick. Maybe she wanted to send me off on a stupid chase through the woods at night by myself. But, no. I didn’t think she would do that. Not after everything we said that morning. I looked at the school, then at my parents, and in a flash I turned and ran.

  “I’ll be right back,” I shouted over my shoulder.

  I stumbled up the steps and through the doors and charged up to Ben, slapping my hand on his back. A splash of his bright red punch spilled over the edge of his paper cup and onto the floor.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Sorry, sorry. Look—I need you to go tell Greta I can’t come to the party, okay? Please. It’s important.”

  “Hey, calm down,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I would if I could, but Greta left as soon as the curtain closed. She didn’t even change out of costume. She went right out the green room door and cut through the woods.”

  My whole body slumped. “Oh,” I said.

  “If I see her . . .” Ben started to say.

  As I turned to leave, my parents stared up at me from the bottom of the stone stairs outside the school. Both of them had their arms crossed tight across their chests. But all I could think about was Greta. I shouldn’t have cared, it wasn’t my problem, but still, I couldn’t get the picture out of my head. Greta’s beautiful face shining up from the ground. Waiting. Waiting for her sister to come and find her.