Then my cell phone rang. It was on the desk, and rang and vibrated at the same time, buzzing and slightly moving across the surface of the desk.
“Oh, dear,” my mother said. “I hate those things.”
“Let me grab that,” I said, reaching for the phone. I flipped it open and answered, “Hello!”
“Are you alone?” Crank asked, his voice heavy, almost a growl.
“Hey there,” I said. “No, actually my family just arrived.”
I realized that not only was my room crowded with two parents, the twins, a four-year-old, a twelve-year-old and my seventeen-year-old sister, but they were managing to block any exit from around the bed, and they were all watching me as I talked on the phone.
“Can’t really talk right now, guests, you know?”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be sitting here alone. Imagining you without your clothes.”
I felt the blood rush to my head. My face and neck grew hot, even though I knew … or at least hoped … my parents couldn’t hear what he was saying. I’m fairly certain, however, that my face telegraphed some of it, because Carrie grinned at me, my father looked away, and my mother’s expression became grim. I turned away, toward the window, feeling almost naked.
I found myself hoping one of the twins would start bouncing again, or do something else to catch my parents’ attention. Maybe Sarah would break something?
“That sounds great,” I said, keeping my voice quiet. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
“Only one question: did you talk to Murray?”
“I did … or rather his assistant, Terry Woolard. We’re having lunch next week to hammer out details.”
“So, no deal yet?”
“No, not yet. We’re going to have some negotiating to do.”
“They made an offer, though?”
“Yes. But very low. I’ll fill you in on all the details later, but I’ve got to go now.”
“All right. Tomorrow,” he said.
“Bye,” I said.
“Bye,” he replied.
I didn’t want to hang up the phone, but I did. Slowly. I snapped the phone closed and turned around to face my family. “So … let’s go?”
Too good for you (Crank)
What do you do when there’s absolutely nothing you can do? I desperately wanted to call Julia back. Get all the details of her conversation with Murray’s assistant, every nuance of the conversation. What exactly did he offer? What did she mean by ‘we have some negotiating to do’?
I paced in my room in circles, frustrated as hell. Lunch next week? Why the hell was it going to take that long to hammer out a deal? I could go insane in a week.
Finally, agitated, I went downstairs to the studio and sat down in front of the keyboard. I’d been wrestling with the same song for nearly two weeks. Something just wasn’t working, and I hadn’t been able to even get started on anything else while this was still stuck in my head, there, but not quite there. I’d tried twenty different arrangements, but they all came down to the same thing. I needed four hands on that keyboard for this song to work.
Frustrating. I was stuck.
“Something’s missing.” Serena spoke the words from the bottom of the stairs. I’d been so occupied, playing through the chorus over and over again, that I didn’t notice her come down.
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“It’s almost there,” she responded. She was wearing a tight tank top with spaghetti straps and white capris. Enough to inspire lust in anyone, but she was safe with me. The band was more important, always had been. And now … Julia. That changed everything. Except maybe it didn’t, because the only thing Julia would commit to was confusing the hell out of me.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t look.
“What did you think of Julia?” I asked. Okay. That might have been a little passive-aggressive on my part.
Serena gave me a sour look. “You’re all tied up in her, aren’t you?”
I shrugged, trying to give away nothing.
“I didn’t want to like her,” Serena said. “I really didn’t. But I couldn’t help it. She’s smart. And I get the feeling she won’t put up with any bullshit from Mark. Or you.”
I sighed and pivoted around so I was sitting backwards on the piano bench. “What bullshit from me?”
She chuckled and looked directly at me. It was a seductive look. “You know what I’m talking about. I don’t think pulling girls on stage and grabbing their tits is in your future, Crank. Or taking them home afterward.”
“That was getting old, anyway,” I said. “What do you care?”
She shrugged. “I don’t. Except, as always, how it affects the band.”
I said, “The only way I can see it affecting the band is if you let it.”
She shook her head and gave me a wry smile. “You’re very full of yourself, aren’t you?”
I snorted.
“Seriously, Crank. It’s been amusing to pretend I had a thing for you the last couple of years. But don’t ever mistake me for being serious about you.” She walked closer and sat on the bench near me.
“How am I supposed to know what to think?”
“You aren’t, Crank. That’s the point.” She rolled her eyes as she said it.
“I don’t get it.”
“That’s because you know nothing about me.”
“You never talk about anything before you came to Boston.”
“And why should I?” she asked. “It’s not as if you ever asked.”
I leaned forward and said, “I’m asking now.”
She shook her head. “I don’t have any horrible sob story to tell you, Crank. My parents emigrated from India and had me. I ran away when I was eighteen to avoid an arranged marriage. And here I am.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Did you say arranged marriage?”
“Yes. My parents wanted me to marry this obnoxious pig from Lansing. It’s common in India, but not so much here.”
“So what happened, exactly?”
She shrugged. “I broke his nose. And bought a bus ticket for Boston.”
“You broke his nose? That’s actually hilarious,” I said.
She grinned at me. “My parents didn’t think so. But we’ve been talking again recently. I may actually go see them soon.”
“So … how did you end up hanging with us? In the Pit?”
“Until Ewa was murdered, it was hard for me to imagine a safer place for a homeless eighteen year old to be. The cops didn’t mess with us much, and we had a safe group.” She shook her head then said, softly, “Safe.”
I took a sharp breath. Ewa. She and Serena used to hang out. “She was a good kid,” I said.
“I miss her,” Serena replied. Her eyes were dry, and she seemed to be fixed in place, her entire body completely still. “The first two years I was in Boston, she was my best friend. We watched out for each other, you know? But then when I joined the band and moved in with you guys, we started to grow apart. I tried to get her to move in with us, but she wouldn’t do it. Said she was happy down there.”
For a second, it looked almost like her eyes were going to water. Then she looked at me and said, “So there. That’s all you get. Talking about all that shit isn’t going to make it better.”
I shifted in my seat. I didn’t know the right thing to say. None of us in the old crew did. Ewa’s murder had left an open, gaping wound. It completely destroyed the notion we had that we could live day to day, making music, talking bullshit, getting drunk, and that nothing bad would happen as long as we stuck together.
“You know you can talk to me,” I said. “I may be an ass sometimes, but I’m still your friend.”
“You’re too self-centered to be a good friend, Crank.”
I shook my head. “Maybe,” I said. “But all of us learn as we go.”
“Well, I’m going to give you a little unsolicited advice. Friend. Don’t screw Julia over. Don’t have one too many and forget. If we’re on the ro
ad and some groupie crawls into your lap, throw her off, and quick. Because if you want to have any kind of life with that one, you’re going to have to respect her.”
“This conversation is pissing me off,” I said. My reaction was automatic. But the truth was, Serena wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t thought already. I didn’t want to screw this up, but I didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to women.
“Don’t like having the mirror pointed at you?” she asked.
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“Of course not, peckerhead. Are you so used to hearing what you want to hear that you can’t take it when someone says the truth to you?”
“Come on,” I replied. “This is me you’re talking to. What do you think I am?”
She shook her head. “I think you’re a mess. I think you’re a hollow man who grabs the nearest drink and the nearest woman the moment life starts to get you down. And I’m afraid that the moment things get hard, you’ll blow it with Julia. And despite all of your failings, I think you deserve someone like her.”
Her words sunk in, and I grimaced. It felt as if someone had just pelted me with little pellets of truth, and they hurt. Hollow man. Why would she say that? And the thing was—her expression told me she was telling me the truth. Exactly what she thought.
I responded with bravado … the only way I knew how. “Not someone like you?”
She raised an eyebrow and curled her lip up slightly at the corner. “I’m way too good for you, Crank.”
With that, she got up and walked away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Almost time (Julia)
It was a nice day with my family, despite the tension with my mother and the questioning looks from my father. We spent the day touring Boston, then returned to the Charles Hotel, where my father had rented a three-room suite on the top floor. At one point, Carrie and I chased Alexandra and the twins and Andrea into their room and tickled them. Alexandra got so overexcited she puked, but ten minutes later, she was changed into new pajamas and playing again.
I still found it hard to believe how much she’d changed … how much they’d all changed. Especially Carrie, who had shot up nearly a foot sometime in the last year. She was gawky, unsure of herself, but fantastically beautiful in a willowy way that made me think of a runway model. The twins, only toddlers when I left home, had grown taller and very different in personality. Jessica was quiet, almost bookish, and tended to stick close to Mom. Sarah was flamboyant, talking and laughing, running nonstop.
I enjoyed watching them, and I felt a certain satisfaction knowing that one day, Sarah was probably going to drive my mother completely insane.
After Alexandra and the younger girls were in bed, Carrie and I sat together on the floor, leaning against the bed in the room she was sharing with Alexandra.
“Something’s different about you,” she said.
I quirked an eyebrow.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know how to say this without being offensive,” she said.
I gave her a questioning look. “What did I do?”
“It’s not that. It’s that … you seem … well … happy. I don’t think I ever realized it before. But you don’t smile. Ever. But today, you’ve been smiling a lot. It’s nice.”
My eyes pricked with tears.
She leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to …”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “You’re right. I’ve never been a very happy person.”
“Because of you and Mom?”
“Why would you say that?” I asked, deflecting her question.
She bit her lip, looking unsure of herself, and then seemed to make up her mind about something. “Come on, Julia. I may be younger than you, but I’m not an idiot. You never came out of your room your senior year in high school, except when you two were screaming at each other. I’ve never seen someone so—desperately unhappy. It’s like you had a cloud over you, all the time. But something seems different now … I saw Mom giving you those looks, but you were just blowing her off. What happened between you two?”
I looked at my little sister then, for the first time. She was becoming a young woman—smart, self-possessed, and apparently far more aware of what went on around her than I realized. And maybe the bug of confession had gotten to me, or something, but I found that I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to have a sister I could trust, someone who could be a friend and confidante. And so I did something that really surprised me. I held out my hand, palm up. She took it, and I slid back my sleeve, and the bundle of bracelets I always wore.
My friendship bracelet, made in middle school. My seventh grade year, Barry came back from leave in the States and brought me the kit to make them. I worked on them for what seemed like forever that winter and spring. I kept one, pink and white and very frayed now, because I never took it off. The watch he also gave me, the Christmas after eighth grade. I treasured them. But now, I slid them back, far enough up my wrist to show the scars.
She sucked in a breath when she saw them. People rarely notice them, mostly because of all the crap I wear on my wrist.
“That was my senior year of high school,” I said.
Her eyes had grown wide, and she looked at me and said, “It was that bad?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was.”
“What happened, Julia?”
And so, haltingly, in slow bursts of words, I told her the story. But first I looked over her shoulder to make sure Alexandra was completely asleep. It was one thing to discuss this with Carrie, who would be eighteen in a few more months. It was another thing entirely to discuss it with a twelve-year-old.
When I finished the story, she said, “I had no idea.”
“Of course not. I mean … what were you, nine years old? And my senior year, you were in middle school, and I was so … so isolated. After what Lana did to me, I didn’t think I could ever trust anyone again.”
She looked at me, seriously, and asked, “So why now?”
Crank had asked me the same question. Why now? The reason I’d given him seemed to still stand. I was sick of being alone.
“Well,” I said, “it’s going to sound weird. But I met a boy. He just turned seventeen a few weeks ago. He has Asperger’s. Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah, I know a couple Aspies at school.”
“Do they get bullied?”
Carrie grinned. “Used to. But we kind of have a … a posse. We don’t let anybody screw with them.”
I smiled back at her. “God, Carrie, I love you.”
“So what happened? Are you dating this boy? Isn’t seventeen a little young for you?”
I laughed. “No—not dating. I’m … well … I’m seeing his older brother. You’ll meet him tomorrow. But Sean—the Aspie I was telling you about—he’s going through a tough time, especially at school. And it’s a lot like what I went through in school. And somehow we got to talking. And I told him the whole story. This is going to sound crazy, but I feel—I don’t know. Free. Like I’ve never felt before.”
She put a hand on my shoulder. Carrie was so much taller than I was, she didn’t have to stretch at all to do it.
“Having people you can trust will do that,” she said. “So, Mom … she doesn’t know what happened, does she?”
“She thinks she knows. She knows about the abortion. But not the circumstances.” I sighed. “She never gave me a chance to explain, to talk about it. Just assumed the worst.”
Carrie grimaced. “Yeah, she can do that, can’t she?”
I snorted, and she asked me another question, one that shook me. “Do you ever wonder—about the baby?”
Oh God, did I? All the time. How could I not? I had to struggle to hold back tears as I said, “She’d be about the same age as the twins. And I’ll never know … what she would have been like.”
I started crying again, silently, and I said, “God, could I be more pathetic? I can’t stop crying! I did t
his with Crank last week, too.”
My sister pulled me tighter. “Maybe it’s overdue.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Promise me one thing, Julia?”
“What?”
“Let’s make a deal. If our sisters ever need us … like you needed Mom … we’ll be there for them. No matter what. Okay? She means well, but … she isn’t very good at that. But I don’t ever want them to go through this. Deal?”
Carrie had no idea that she’d just said and done exactly the right thing. I grabbed her in a huge hug and whispered, “Deal. We’ll protect them.”
I went to bed feeling good. Really good. What Carrie said about protecting our sisters had reminded me that there were four little girls who needed me. I’d done everything I could for the last few years to avoid being needed by anyone. I’d done everything I could to avoid needing anyone. But something in the last few weeks made me realize I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to be isolated, armored, on the defensive all the time and unable to connect to other people. And knowing that in Carrie I had a friend and ally in that? It made a big difference.
Mom and Dad insisted on an early breakfast the next morning in the hotel dining room. They hadn’t been happy at all when I told them I was having lunch with Crank’s family, but I hadn’t given them much option. They’d been even less happy when I informed them I was bringing a guest to Thanksgiving dinner. But again, I’d given them no option. If they wanted me there, they’d have to accept Crank being there, too. So breakfast was a little tense. But that was okay. Afterward, I walked to my car and drove to Jack’s.
It was almost eleven A.M. when I pulled the rental car up behind the house and parked. It was cold outside, the sky a steel grey, a few snow flurries falling from the sky here and there, not enough to matter, especially given the mounds of snow piled up on the sides of the road by the plows from the weekend before.
I got out of the car, being careful not to drag the hem of my dress in the crusted, week old snow, then reached in the car for the dessert I’d had delivered to the hotel that morning, a gluten-free cranberry coffee cake. I could tell I’d gain weight just from looking at it. And I wanted to look, a lot. It was a challenge finding it—I’d ended up talking to a specialty bakery in Brookline to get it made. But I wasn’t going to bring anything into the house that Sean couldn’t eat, if I could avoid it.
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