Where I Want to Be

by Adele Griffin

  When I was little, I used to head straight for Jane’s room whenever I heard thunder. She was totally unafraid of it. Her brave face made me feel brave, too.

  “Don’t worry, Lily,” she’d comfort me. “Storms are only angels having temper tantrums.” Then she’d tickle her finger up and down the length of my arm, like Augusta did, to help me sleep. “See? It’s a magic trick,” she told me. “It hypnotizes you.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, but magic seemed to live in Jane’s skin, as much a part of her as the games she would invent for us to play.

  Like Spying on the Hobhouses, where we eavesdropped on an imaginary family who lived in Granpa’s barn. Or Getting the Gold, where Jane would bury a sandwich bag full of loose change, and then present me with a map that would have me digging all day to find it. Or Wherever It Takes You, which was nothing more than following a bumblebee into the garden or woods, but mostly into trouble if we wandered off too far.

  I’d happily play along with any of Jane’s games back then. Jane enchanted my world. I thought my sister could do anything.

  Realizing that she couldn’t must have come on gradually, but I always pin it to one day. We’d been snapping string beans at the kitchen table at our grandparents’ house, which Jane had named Orchard Way. Jane loved renaming things, but “Orchard Way” was wrong. Too snooty for a small house plopped on a patch of Peace Dale farmland.

  I’d taken off my new bracelet, which was actually a bendable pencil, glittery pink. I was proud of it, and I could feel Jane stealing jealous glances.

  “Where’d you get that?” she asked me finally.

  “From the goody bag at Josie Hull’s birthday party.” Josie Hull was in Jane’s class, but I’d been the one invited to Josie’s tenth birthday party since we played league soccer together. Jane did not play soccer. She didn’t play any sports at all.

  “Granpa and Augusta’d get me one of those pencil bracelets if I wanted,” Jane said after a minute. “All I’d have to do is ask.”

  “They would not.”

  “Would. They love me. Actually, more than they love you.”

  “Lie,” I answered automatically. Then, “How do you know? Did they tell you that?”

  “Not in words.” Jane snapped a bean in half and checked it for spots. “But you can see from how they treat me.”

  It was true that our grandparents seemed to prefer Jane. They let her ramble on about her dreams, and they laughed at her unfunniest jokes. It had never really bothered me. After all, I had everything else, and I was slowly becoming more aware of that. Better looks and better grades and more friends. I had plenty. I had too much.

  But if my grandparents actually loved my sister more, well, that seemed just about illegal. I wasn’t a bad granddaughter. I said please, and I scraped my plate and put it in the dishwasher without being asked, and I never threw a Jane-style temper tantrum that swept through the house like a typhoon and bent everyone to its will.

  “Why? Why do they love you more?” I’d asked her bravely.

  “You know why.” Jane’s eyes fixed on me. “Because I have Special Needs. That’s why Mom takes me to Dr. Beigeleisen every Thursday after school, but not you. Because of my Special Needs.”

  I simmered. Jane made it sound so good, but I knew the truth. Jane’s Special Needs were nothing to brag about. As Mom had explained it, Special Needs meant extra help for Jane’s tantrums and bad moods. But I knew that Special Needs also put the worry in Mom’s and Dad’s forehead.

  Special Needs was a problem. It was no reason to get extra love. No way.

  “After Mom and I drop you off at Dr. Beigeleisen’s,” I said, “we go to Newport Creamery and get Awful Awfuls, with real whipped cream. Maybe Augusta and Granpa love you more, but Mom loves me the most.”

  Mom had sworn me not to tell about the Awful Awfuls. The clench in my stomach confirmed that I’d done something bad.

  In that second, though, it was worth it. Just to see the horror pop the smugness off Jane’s face.

  “Liar,” she whispered.

  I said nothing. I snapped another bean and stuck out my tongue.

  She pushed up from the table and slammed outside. I heard her calling to our grandparents’ mutt, Gambler. Who also loved her best.

  I snapped the rest of the beans by myself, although the job was too big for just me. But I was scared to ask a grown-up for help. Jane shouldn’t have told me that our grandparents loved her best, but somehow I knew I’d done worse.

  That day marked the beginning. Not because it was our first big fight, but because it was the first time I realized that I could hurt my sister if I chose. She might be half magic, but she was also half glass. It scared her to be shut out of my world of pink glitter bracelets and sleepovers and streams of friends and, later, Caleb. And I didn’t mean to shut her out, but sometimes I did it anyway. I liked having power. Power is its own kind of magic.

  The rocker squeaks me back and forth, lulling me to sleep. I imagine that Jane is with me again. In the next moment, knowing that she isn’t, that she never will be, seems almost too much to bear.

  In a determined push, I bounce to my feet and stretch. Then I leave Jane’s room for the second time in one night. Heading back to the couch, back to Caleb’s warm body, and the comfort of his skinny arms.

  7 — RIGHT-SIDE-UP WORLD

  Jane

  Morning sunshine warmed the breeze through the window curtains. Last night’s rain had made the world damply fresh.

  Jane flipped back the covers and smiled.

  Outside, she heard Granpa whistle to Gambler, who was barking at something. The harder Jane listened, the more she was sure that Gambler was speaking to her.

  “Jane! Get going!” he barked. “Jane! Put on your bathing suit and join us!”

  But dogs didn’t talk, Jane reminded herself. Gambler could speak only because she wasn’t taking her medication. Her meds had kept her planted in a world where dogs barked and birds sang and yesterday seemed connected logically to today and tomorrow.

  This morning, even without the pills, she felt all right. She felt free.

  In a perfect world, a dog could talk, and it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  “Jane! Hurry!” barked Gambler. “Sleepyhead!”

  On the closet door hook, Jane reclaimed her favorite bathing suit. It was a red-checkered one-piece, an old favorite that she thought she’d lost forever but now once again fit perfectly. In the mirror she saw herself. Flat edged and lanky. Like in her ballerina years, before she’d been padded down into a body that she’d never gotten the hang of.

  She could not feel any of that chunky softness now.

  “I’m the right shape again,” she said to her reflection. “I’m me again.”

  She danced down the stairs and through the dining room. She spun in perfect pirouettes. Once her parents had taken her and Lily to Boston to see The Nutcracker. Sitting upright and trembling from her seat in the audience, Jane had watched Klara swoop across the stage in her lace nightgown and pink slippers. White-hot footlights were mirrored in her eyes, and her muscles flexed with every leap and turn. Jane could sense it all exactly. It took nothing for her imagination to spin it all into memory.

  “Why are you telling kids you were in The Nutcracker ballet?” Lily had confronted her a week later.

  “Because…” Jane faltered. Hadn’t she been?

  “Kids think you’re the biggest liar in the school. They say you lie about tons of things.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  But Jane saw the suspicion in Lily’s face, and the shame. It wasn’t true, then? She hadn’t danced in The Nutcracker? Not for real? Not just a little bit?

  Because the difference was important. For Lily, for real was like a green light and not for real was a red light. Opposite colors that blinked separately and did not interfere with each other. But somehow, Jane seemed to see only one color. And sometimes that color shone very, very brightly.

  Now Jane leaped in her best imit
ation of Klara. She jolted against the china cupboard, rattling Augusta’s prized collection of handmade Mexican plates.

  In a perfect world, nothing fell, and nothing broke.

  She danced into the kitchen. It was empty. Her grandparents must be down by the pool. She took a plate from the cupboard. Five round scoops of cantaloupe for the mouth. Two pads of butter for eyes. A toasted roll nose. She smiled back at her smiley-face breakfast, tucked a napkin through the strap of her bathing suit, and trotted outside.

  Swallowtail butterflies and yellow jackets swooped and dropped in the air. Augusta’s impatiens was sprayed with purple and white blooms, but the azalea bushes were crumbly brown and the hydrangeas looked parched.

  Her grandparents were lounging in lawn chairs. The green-striped table umbrella was cranked up. Augusta was filling in her morning crossword puzzle. Granpa’s tackle box was open in front of him. He was rethreading his baits.

  “Good morning,” sang Augusta.

  Granpa patted the chair between them. “So we can share you.”

  Jane set her plate down next to the tackle box.

  “Well, look at that. You made a face.” Augusta nodded approvingly. “That’s as pretty as something in a restaurant. Such a talent with crafts, Jane.”

  Jane smiled back. She stretched her legs. Her toes brushed against Gambler, who was collapsed under the table between them. She dropped him a piece of her roll.

  “Delicious, thanks,” he panted. Then he rolled on his back for a stomach rub. Obligingly, Jane nudged her toes over his tummy.

  With Jane at the table, Augusta didn’t seem much interested in her puzzle anymore.

  “Sleep well?”

  “I woke up from the thunder.”

  Granpa was listening, too. It had never been hard for Jane to hold her grandparents’ interest. Their eyes were shiny on her. Their smiles wanted more.

  “And then I dreamed I was a rock climber,” Jane told them now.

  “A rock climber? Oh, you do beat all,” drawled Augusta.

  “Tell us,” said Granpa.

  So Jane told them her dream, taking her time and adding details. Her grandparents were her best dream listeners.

  She swallowed her cantaloupe and used her fingers to spread the butter on her roll. After she finished eating, she lolled back in her chair. Her mouth and hands were hot, buttery, sticky. She could eat melon and buttered rolls every single day and never be tired of them.

  And she didn’t need to say this to her grandparents, because they already knew.

  “Maybe I’ll water the plants,” she said. “They look thirsty.”

  “Why, that’s a good idea,” said Augusta.

  “The sprinkling can’s under the porch,” added Granpa.

  Yes, she’d water the plants. Maybe weed out the dandelions. And then she’d skim the leaves out of the pool after rescuing any stray daddy longlegs from the surface. Summer had always been Jane’s favorite time at Orchard Way. Lazy days, but with the most odd jobs.

  Lily never treasured Sundays like Jane did. By the time she was in sixth grade, Lily was making other weekend plans. Right from her first invitation, Lily had loved in-line skating and sleepovers and roaming in packs of kids at the mall where she could spy on boys and run up mile-high bills on her emergency cell phone.

  “Come with me to Orchard Way,” Jane had implored her once.

  “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s boring. There are no neighbors,” Lily answered. “There’s nothing to do. Know what I mean?”

  No. Jane didn’t know. She didn’t understand why Lily always wanted fun and parties and people. Orchard Way had everything. But Orchard Way wasn’t as fun without Lily. That was the truth. No matter how much Jane hated to admit it. That was the truth.

  8 — HALFWAY HUMAN

  Lily

  Morning. I groan. Wriggle my toes and fingers to get the blood flowing again. Careful not to wake Caleb, who sleeps with one arm flipped over his head and the other curled around me. His T-shirt’s crinkled up around his chest. I can see his belly button, a semi-outie. I press my finger against it. Softer than the tip of his nose, but firmer than his earlobe. I can’t keep my hands off Caleb. He jokes that I make him feel like a science experiment.

  Sometimes it seems like I’ve waited my whole life to grow up and fall in love. The night of my first date with Caleb was the first time I felt completely, wholly alive. The details are as sharp as an etching in my mind. October 10, fall of my sophomore year, dry with a bite of cooling air. We took a train into downtown Providence and explored, checking out the head shops and tattoo and piercing parlors. At some point we wandered into an all-night grocery store and bought a bunch of green grapes. Each grape popped so juicy and fruity in my mouth, it was like I’d never tasted grapes before. In no time, I was drunk on them, just as surely as I was intoxicated by the grip of Caleb’s fingers laced through mine when we crossed the street, or the surprising bark of his laugh, or the way the blades of his shoulders stood out like fins through his clothes. I could have told Caleb right then that night that I loved him.

  Cay looks different asleep, like a marble sculpture of himself. A blue vein runs up the vertical length of his temple. I can see a scar that runs parallel to his lower lip, and another scar extending from the outer edge of his eye, Egyptian-art style. He has yet another scar in the back of his head, visible through his summer swimmer’s buzz cut. Then it appears, long and pale as a shark’s tooth, white-puckered and nubby to touch.

  All three scars are the result of the same accident. Back in sixth grade, Caleb was attacked by a pit bull. His face caught the brunt of the violence. The dog lunged straight for it, tearing the skin from the corner of one eye and ripping the flesh from his chin. But the real damage happened when Caleb fell onto the concrete sidewalk and split open the back of his head. The surgeons had to drain the fluids from his brain to relieve pressure. For seven days, he was in a coma. He lost so much blood that Mr. and Mrs. Price had signed organ donor release forms. A chaplain was called.

  I heard these snips of news because Caleb, Jane, and I all went to Peace Dale Middle Magnet School. Back then, I knew Caleb only slightly. He was in Jane’s class. I was one grade lower. All I could have said about him then was that he was a sporty kid with long, gangly legs and a mean-sounding recess yell: “C’mon! I’m open, ya bum!”

  When word of the dog attack got out, the whole school thrilled with rumors. From her privileged place in Miss Wrightman’s class, Jane had way better information than I did. Every night at dinner, she’d give us an update.

  “Caleb Price is in critical condition.”

  “Caleb Price is as good as dead.”

  “Caleb Price might pull through, but he’ll be a vegetable forever.”

  “Caleb Price might not be a vegetable, but he’ll definitely be a retard.”

  Each grade made Caleb a batch of get-well cards, but that wasn’t enough for Jane. The facts of the accident obsessed her. How many pints of blood, how many teeth, how many days of school Caleb had lost. How many stitches had been sewn into his scalp, his lip, his chin, his eye. She began to talk about how much she missed Caleb. Telling stories about what great pals they’d been. How they’d picked each other to be lunchroom cleanup buddies. Slowly, somehow, Caleb turned into one of Jane’s pretends. A character she had created for one of those games that continued to twirl endlessly inside her head.

  And then one weekend Jane finagled Mom to take her to the hospital to visit the real Caleb. She got all dressed up in her best party clothes. I dragged along.

  In the pediatric ward of St. Christopher’s, I looked at the metal hospital cot and saw a kid whose features were too purple and swollen for me to compare them with the boy in the baggy sweatshirt who was the second-fastest runner in the school. This boy was wearing babyish, dancing bear pajamas. He was hooked up to a jungle gym of plastic cords and tubes and wires, and I could see the bag where his pee went. He was awake, th
ough. When I stared down at him, his fury crackled back at me.

  I knew exactly why. What boy would want to be spied on by two girls who’d then go give reports about his pajamas and his pee?

  Jane didn’t seem to get this. Or, if she did, she didn’t care.

  “We brought cookies,” she announced, dropping the ribbon-tied bakery box on his bedside table. She leaned up on the tips of her squeaky buckle shoes. Her hands gripped the bedrail and her eyes were greedy. I could hear Mom and Mrs. Price chatting in the corner. “…don’t mean to impose, but Jane seemed so troubled,” I heard Mom say, apologetic, because Jane didn’t look as troubled as she did shamelessly curious.

  Caleb was glaring at Jane. From deep in his throat, he managed a throttling growl. He sounded a little like a pit bull himself. My sister was not put off that easily. She reached down and flicked the tips of her fingers across Caleb’s forehead.

  “Did you see that dog coming before he almost bit your face off?” she whispered, but not so quietly that the rest of us couldn’t hear. “Were you scared? Did you think you might die? Did you know where you were when you were in that coma? What did you see?”

  “Jane!” By now, Mom had snapped to Jane’s side to drag her away. To Mrs. Price she said, “I am just so sorry!” Then back to Jane, with a shake. “I don’t know what gets into you sometimes.”

  “Aw, that’s okay.” Mrs. Price looked a lot younger than Mom, and her excited, girlish voice didn’t remind me of regular, Mom-aged moms, either. “Blood and guts is a natural curiosity with kids.”

  But Mom’s hand had clamped like a clothespin around Jane’s neck, ready to haul her off.

  On the drive back, Jane said that when she’d touched Caleb, he hadn’t felt real.

  “Not human real, anyhow. More like a wet snake,” she said. “Like he was breathing through all of his skin, instead of just his mouth.”