by Deb Caletti
He looked at me, stunned. Even then I could see the disappointment in his face. That disappointment—it cut through all the spinning and swarming, shot like a jet to the place that was me way down in there.
“Jesus, Cricket. What next? You’re losing it,” he said. “Losing it.”
I went to my room. Jupiter was there on her pillow. She lifted her head and watched me. I imagined, or didn’t imagine, worried eyes. Those white crescent rings under the milk chocolate as she looked up.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Go back to sleep.”
I got into bed. The room was spinning in circles. I wasn’t sure where I was, or, really, who. This is what happened too, when you cut the ropes. See? Here was proof. The balloon could get away from you. You could hurt and disappoint people. Home, it could drift far away. It would get tiny, and disappear. You could get lost.
It was worse when I shut my eyes. My stomach felt sick. It was swimming, and inside was a toxic mix of confusion and dread, and a very bad amusement park ride was happening in my head. The black lid of my laptop stayed closed on my desk. It kept its big mouth shut. You, I said to it in my whirling mind. So there.
chapter
thirteen
Dear Janssen—
All right. My turn.
The Ways Dogs Show Their Utter Devotion:
1. They stay close, even if that means they sometimes get stepped on.
2. They watch you, always. They keep their eye on you, waiting for a change in your weather. When you are upset, they look worried. They sit right next to you then.
3. They try their very best. They will run too far; they will sit and stay and wait forever, all because you asked.
4. They are happy to see you again. If you’re gone for five minutes, if you’re gone for days. Every single time, thrilled.
5. They guard you against anything bad. Even though they are small, so much smaller than what might harm you, they are there, ready to protect you.
Jupiter is watching me now. It’s morning, and she’s lying on that stinky pillow with her blankie and Rabbit. Her little black self, with her white spot on her back. The sun is coming through the window exactly where she is, so she didn’t even have to move to get there. It’s one of those times I love her so much, I can hardly stand it.
I just realized something. She doesn’t do that wild burst of insane running around anymore like she used to. You know, when it’s like the devil bit them in the ass? Out of nowhere, she’d race like a possessed demon, sprinting mad circles around the living room, shooting up on the couch and flying across, then back down for another and another crazed loop. But when was the last time she did that? When was her last good lightning-fast run?
Wait a sec.
Okay, I’m back. I just tried to clap my hands and get her going, but, nothing. I said, Come on! Let’s play, kid! Let’s go! But she just looked at me, like, Cricket, please. I’m tired, here.
Why do they do that, do you think? Why do they suddenly let go of their usual, respectable selves? Do you think they just need to be wild, and suddenly there’s no holding it back? They want to go, full speed. They want to let go. Feel. Feel the muscles in their legs and the wind on their back and their young, untamed selves leaping on some couch back of joy, flying.
Do you think we feel that too? Maybe when the music is on in the car and it’s a great day and you want to push down the accelerator just to do life at full speed … You can feel so hungry for life sometimes; you want it all, all at once, now. You want to drink it up, every last drop. I do, sometimes. But then, shit. What would that mean? How would that change things? You could get hurt, running along up high on the furniture like that.
You should see her now, Janssen. She’s still lying there, but her nose is in the air, sniff, sniff, sniffing, her little nostrils going in and out. I love that. I guess sometimes a dog needs to run like crazy, and sometimes a dog needs to stay still and try to understand what is blowing her way.
I noticed that you didn’t answer any of my pleadings from my last letter. And I hate to plead. You know that. What’s happening over there? What’s going on, Janssen?
You know what’s going on here? Me, remembering the Janssen and Cricket story, that’s what. When we last left off … The church lawn. I was about fourteen, and you were about sixteen, and there was something happening between us. We both knew it that day, right? But I was your best friend’s little sister, and I was young (your words). So you decided to forget about me (even if you never forget about me). You dated that girl! I hated that. I hated her. I didn’t know her, but still. I’m sure she was a fine person. Aside from that annoying laugh. But then, well, we know what happened.
My father.
And that’s when something huge shifted between us. It was right around when mom sold Monkey M. Monkey and then after that, Monkey M. Monkey Has an Adventure. She wanted to take us on a trip to New York, remember? Where she would meet her editor, and we would meet that tall chick holding a torch in the harbor. My mother gave notice to our father as required by the dreaded Parenting Plan (God, I hate those words), and then she bought the plane tickets. Ben promised you a snow globe with the Empire State Building in it, if I have that right. Maybe something else. But when it sunk in that we were actually going on a cool trip to celebrate my mother’s success, my father went nuts. He refused to let us go. He said it was illegal to take us on a plane without his permission. He actually said that. So, yeah, it got a little crazy.
They had some heated conversations. (You always accuse me of understatement when it comes to my dad.) Mom was crying and calling her attorney. Jupiter hovered nervously. Crying made her worry. Ben and I were ready to run away. We went to Dad’s for our usual weekend, and he was sullen. Pissed. He had some new girlfriend over for dinner (can’t remember her name), but it was awkward because he was preoccupied. He wasn’t always that way, Janssen. We had a fun time over there too, you know that. Camping, skiing, the kinds of things Mom would never do.
But that trip. See, when he first left home? He yelled this thing to Mom, right in front of us, out in the driveway, where I’m sure even Mrs. Washelli heard. A terrible thing. That she would never be able to make it without him. She’d end up in a tent in his backyard, he said. I don’t think I ever told you this, because it was an awful thing for him to say. It was scary, too. I was embarrassed—the mail lady was right there. But I also remember thinking—could that be true? Is that what was going to happen to us?
It wasn’t working out that way, though, and I think that’s what made him furious. He hated that her life was changing for the better. Ben had just turned seventeen like you, but he didn’t have his truck yet. So that day Dad had to drive us home. I think it’s funny, you know. How we’ve never talked about this really. Ever. But anyway, he drove in through the electric gate, which Mom had left open for us. The stupid Mighty Mule. He drove up our long gravel driveway and parked by the house. He pulled the parking brake, and then he just sat there. Didn’t get out, didn’t move. We didn’t know what to do. Ben opened his door, so I did too and we got our stuff out of the backseat. We said good-bye, but still he just sat there. We went inside. His car was still out there. Jon Jakes was living with us then—he was right upstairs! But there was no way he was going to get involved, after what our father did to him that time. There was some discussion about what might happen, who they should call or not call. Jupiter had been left out on the long front porch, and she was trotting back and forth, barking and barking, until Ben made her come in. There was that uneasy fear building. You didn’t know this part. The who-knows-what-might-happen again. It was … creepy. My mother didn’t want to call the police, she never did. Maybe she should have, but I was glad she didn’t.
She went outside to talk to him. It was stupid. Maybe dangerous. We heard raised voices. Then they stopped. All at once they stopped. Ben and I peeked out the upstairs window to see what was going on. We didn’t understand the sudden silence. We were scared, because, well, the
re could have been a lot of reasons for that. But … not the one we expected.
It was you.
Oh, my God, you were walking up the drive, all casual. You said later that you were just coming to see if Ben wanted to shoot some hoops. You said that nothing special happened to make you come down that day. But I still wonder. Because that day, and every day after, you were always there if I needed you. Always.
Dad was standing outside of his car with his hands on his hips. He was parked on the cement parking pad up by the house. Mom was several steps away from him. I can see it now. You walked up. You had a basketball tucked under one arm. There were casual greetings. My father, of course, had met you over the years. You’d been to his house for that birthday party he gave Ben. That cool party, where he had the Reptile Man.
When Ben saw you from the window of the house, he took off down the stairs, and out the front door. I think he wanted to go to your house, to get out of there. I followed, but I stayed on the porch as Ben went over to greet you. I listened. Dad still had that tight face, but he got his swingy BS attitude, where he was playing with you but was jabbing at the same time. Being good old dad, but cruel. Like the one time he saw Grandpa Shine after their divorce, at one of Ben’s baseball games, and he shook his hand and slapped him on the back too hard, friendly-like, but then said, “You’re sure looking old.” Joke, joke, as the skin is poked with the tip of a knife.
My father was in a tracksuit, I remember. He always thought he was a great jock, but great jocks don’t need to hurt their teammates on purpose in order to win. God, don’t ever tell him I said that. Forget I even thought that.
I stood there on that porch watching you, and I swear something changed right there. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I did then. You’d gotten broad-shouldered. You were right across from my father, and I saw that you’d gotten taller than he was. I could see it—you were bigger.
I knew Dad was still pissed. That was obvious. Mom was backing up farther and farther, heading into the house. You and Ben were standing there with him. And then it happened.
My father said, “What’s this, little man?” and he snatched that basketball out of your hand. He bounced it. I can hear it now—bank, bank, bank. So casual, so slow, but then you turned. You set your back against him in a block, and you snatched the ball back. You tucked it under your arm again. And then you did the thing that still gives me this feeling of thrill and fear when I think about it, even now.
You looked him in the eye. “Don’t fuck with me,” you said.
I know I sucked in my breath and held it, and I’m sure my mother did the same, and Ben, too. I shut my eyes in a protective flinch. But when I opened them again, my father had not done any of the things I had imagined—grabbed your shirt, hit you, pushed you down. No, he just stood there looking back at you, appraising, I guess. And he did nothing. Nothing. He got back into the car, and he drove out of there. Slowly at first. Those potholes, you had to drive slow. But when he was out of sight, at the place where our dirt road met the paved one, we could hear wheels spinning out, tires spitting rocks.
I felt sick with guilt, and I felt dread, and I felt like cheering. But even more than that, I felt like getting inside your arms and staying there. And something close to that happened. You and Ben walked toward the house, and so did my mother, silent and shocked. You saw me, saw my face, and you put your arm around me. I turned my face toward your chest. I won’t forget, ever, the feel of your T-shirt against my face.
“Come on,” you said.
We all went in. And we didn’t talk about it. Not then, or even after that, probably because it sat too close to this fire, a house on fire, burning loyalty and love and fear and anger. Flames licking up, destroying the pictures and the walls and the furniture that hid the shame—shame because you loved, shame because you didn’t love, shame and guilt about wanting him to pay and wanting him to be forgiven.
Instead, Mom made cookie dough, and we sat around and ate it off of spoons. I don’t think she ever did make the cookies, did she? Jon Jakes was still upstairs, playing on his computer; after Dad drove off, he’d probably gone back to writing chatty letters to his children or reading Mom’s e-mail, which I caught him doing once.
And, of course, my father dropped his argument about us going on that trip. Here’s the confusing part. I felt guilty that she had “won.” It meant that we had won too. It made him seem small. He could be so cruel and you could hate him, but then he’d seem small and you’d feel sorry for him.
The guilt gave way to excitement then, though. The night before we left, Mom and Ben and I played New York songs and slid across the wood floor in our socks, arms out like Broadway dancers. We spent my fifteenth birthday on the airplane, and Mom snuck a cake in her carry-on bag and surprised me with a party. A little flame made out of paper for the candle. They announced it on the intercom. Birthday on aisle six, and there was a smattering of applause, and we shared cake with the passengers around us. Later you got your snow globe. I bought you a small Statue of Liberty. There seemed to be some metaphor in that.
And when we came back? Everything was different between you and me, wasn’t it? Katie what’s her name was gone.
We sat on that bench out by the library. I was waiting, and then it happened. You leaned in and kissed me. Your mouth—that was the mouth for me. Somewhere in those years I had kissed Josh Gardens after a homecoming dance, but I’d hated it. Have you ever accidentally put your slippers on the wrong feet? Your feet know in a second without looking that there’s been a mistake. But then you switch them around and everything is the way it should be. There’s that fit, a feeling of rightness.
“There,” you said.
There.
Love always,
Cricket
chapter
fourteen
Everyone had let me sleep, I guess, because the next morning I saw that Jupiter had been quietly let out of my room. Rabbit had been ditched a few feet away from her bed. He looked like I felt.
I saw something else on the floor. A small bit of paper folded in half. Shoved under the door, probably. I tried to reach it without getting out of bed, but that became one of those moments you’re glad no one sees. I got up (harder than it sounds) to look. It was a torn-off corner of a piece of notebook paper. It had only one word on it.
Tonight?
It was unsigned, but I knew it must be from Ash. I groaned. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing. Why I was doing. God, I was complicating things. I knew I was making a mess. It was like that time Janssen and I had one of our few big fights. I can’t even remember what it was about now. But I’d been so upset. I was stomping around, pacing. I’d gone into the garage and found a can of paint, and decided I needed a change. I started in on my room, and after one wall, I was tired of painting and the job seemed enormous and my mother was going to be shocked and the rug had been dripped on. But I had no choice; I had to finish what I’d started.
But wait. Another bit of paper? A wrapper, for some kind of nature-trail-hiking-bar thing called Aspen. Energy for the Outdoors. Also by the door. It was folded in half too, creased deliberately. I opened it. There was writing on the back.
I hope you’re feeling better, it said. Last night meant a lot to me.
I felt a sick hit of confusion. What? Totally different handwriting. Ash’s—even in that one word note, I could see that he had the kind of cursive that developed somewhere in the second grade and stayed that way. I should know—mine was just like it. Rushed, because recess was waiting. But the second note—I knew those careful squared-off letters that looked like they’d been written on graph paper. I’d always given Oscar a bad time about it. Old ladies took less time with their needlepoint.
Nothing monumental had happened with either of them the night before, right? RIGHT? Oh no. This is what they said would happen if you drank. It always went this way in the movies, too. Some stupid girl doing things she regretted and didn’t even remember.
There w
ere three people in the dining room when I got down there. Three beings. Cruiser and Jupiter and Amy. Jupiter was eating Cruiser’s breakfast out of his bowl as he sat there, crying and whining like a big baby. Amy was on the phone.
“Gotta go. Talk to you later,” she whispered when she saw me in the doorway. She shut the phone, set it on the table next to her. She stole glances at it like it might sneak off without her.
“Jupiter, what are you doing?” I said. “Now, this is just taking advantage.”
Jupiter finished crunching. The bowl was empty. I picked her up, found Cruiser’s bag of food on top of a nearby cabinet, and gave him another scoop.
“Hey,” I said to Amy.
“You look awful,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. Where is everyone?”
