“You know what, Greta? You don’t know everything. You think you do, but you are so far from knowing everything—”
“I know that I saw Ben go off with Tina Yarwood last night.”
I looked away quick. What she said stung more than I would have expected. “Oh,” I said after a while.
It wasn’t like I’d been sitting around fantasizing about Ben Dellahunt. It wasn’t that I even liked him particularly. He was smug and nerdy and he had nothing on Finn or Toby. But still, when Greta said that, about Tina Yarwood. When I thought of that kiss. How I’d blushed after, like it meant something. When I thought of all that, it hit me right in the throat. Nothing had changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people.
Greta held my gaze for a second, smirking. She could see that she’d hurt me. I could tell. And even though I knew it was the worst thing I could do, that Greta was the worst person in the world to say anything to, I looked back at her hungover face and said, “Ben’s nothing, Greta. I have a boyfriend in the city. He’s older than me. Older than you, even. I go to the city by myself all the time, and we smoke and drink and do whatever we want.” I almost kept going. I almost mentioned my plan about England, but I didn’t.
“Liar,” she said. She said it with so much viciousness that I knew she thought it might be true.
I shrugged. “Believe what you want.”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
It had taken every last bit of concentration to sound so confident, and I sat on the swing, shaking for a few minutes, thinking about the stupidity of what I’d just done. About all the trouble it might lead to. Not only for me but for Toby. I got up and started to walk away, but then I thought of something.
“How do you know about that place in the woods, anyway?”
She smiled. “I’ve seen you, June. The hills have eyes. . . .”
“What do you mean?”
She looked so full of power right then that I started to worry about what she would say. But I had to know.
“Tell me,” I said.
“I followed you. I saw you heading down to the woods after school one day, at the beginning of the school year, and I followed you. I stayed there all afternoon, watching you play your weird stuff. Talking to yourself. Wearing that dumb old dress. Those special boots of yours.”
“You spied on me?”
“Lots of times.”
I stood there staring at Greta. I should have been embarrassed, but all I felt was rage. I turned and walked away without saying another word. I was still shaking, and I clenched my fists to stop it. I squeezed the blue die tight in my hand and thought about Ben again. Then I hurled the die across the Ingrams’ lawn. In a few months it would end up shredded by their lawn mower. Good. I walked over to the picnic table and sat down with the adults. I pretended I wanted to play Trivial Pursuit until it was time to go home.
Forty-Three
The next Wednesday was April Fools’ Day. President Reagan was on TV, giving a big speech about AIDS for the very first time. Apparently he’d known all about it for a while but he’d decided to keep quiet on the subject. What he said was that everyone—especially teenagers—should stop having sex. He didn’t say it exactly in those words, but that was his main point. It didn’t seem like too bad an idea to me. I mean, why did sex have to be so important? Why couldn’t people live together, spend their whole lives together, just because they liked each other’s company? Just because they liked each other more than they liked anyone else in the whole world?
If you found a person like that you wouldn’t have to have sex. You could just hold them, couldn’t you? You could sit close to them, nestle into them so you could hear the machine of them churning away. You could press your ear against that person’s back, listening to the rhythm of them, knowing that you were both made of the same exact stuff. You could do things like that.
Sometimes, if you’re standing close enough to another person, you can’t even tell whose stomach is growling. You look at each other and then you both apologize and say, “That was me,” and then you laugh. You don’t need sex for that kind of thing to happen. For your body to forget how to tell if it’s hungry or not. For you to mistake someone else’s hunger for your own.
Once, right after I’d turned thirteen, that happened at Finn’s apartment. Finn and I were leaning out one of his big windows, watching for my mother to come back. She was out shopping at Bloomingdale’s that day, some kind of wedding present for someone my parents knew through work, and we expected to see her all bundled up, scuttling across the street in her long puffy coat, with a big Bloomingdale’s shopping bag. We both liked that. Seeing someone from up above without them knowing you could see them. We both understood that you could sometimes get a glimpse of who a person really was when you saw them like that. So even though it was cold, we leaned out the window, our shoulders almost touching, Finn giving my back a warm-up rub every once in a while. He had on a blue wool cap almost the exact same color as his eyes, and he’d wrapped his knitted red scarf around my neck.
“Hey, Crocodile,” he said.
“What?”
“Your mom, she said she talked to you. About me. About what’s happening with me.”
A couple of months had passed since that day at the Mount Kisco Diner, but I never said a word about it to Finn. I never acted like I knew anything at all. I couldn’t. I was sure it would ruin all the time we had left. I took the scarf and looped it around my neck one more time.
“Can we not talk about that?”
I felt Finn’s hand land on my back. He nodded. “Just, you know, if you want to ask me anything—”
“Okay,” I said quickly, cutting him off. I could tell he was about to go on too long. That if I let him he’d start stumbling around, telling me everything about being sick, and I didn’t want to hear it. I pointed out the window. “Isn’t that Barbara Walters?”
Finn leaned out even farther and angled his head. Then he smiled and bumped his shoulder against mine.
“Dolly Parton’s grandmother, more like.”
I laughed. Mostly because I was glad I’d found a way to change the subject. That’s when it happened—one of our stomachs gave out a great bubbling grumble. I looked at Finn, all embarrassed because I was sure it was me. But then he said he was sure it was him, because all he’d had for lunch was a cup of coffee. After going back and forth about it, Finn pulled me into the kitchen and said it didn’t matter.
“My stomach’s your stomach, Crocodile,” he said. He opened a cabinet and pulled out a box of Wheat Thins, then got this fancy cheese with a thick layer of maroon wax around it from the fridge, and we leaned up against the counter eating until my mother buzzed up from the lobby.
I had to be careful on April Fools’ Day because Greta usually had some kind of trick waiting for me. It wasn’t always like that. Up until a few years ago it was Greta and me doing tricks on our parents. They weren’t usually the best tricks—salt in the sugar container, ketchup as fake blood on a finger, that kind of thing—but we were in it together. Then, a few years ago, it changed to Greta against me. Sometimes it would be the kind of trick where she’d say something really good was going to happen, like we were getting the day off school to go to Great Adventure or something, and then as soon as I started to get excited about it she’d laugh and say April Fools. Other years she’d do the opposite. She’d pretend something really bad had happened—like that the hamster I used to have had run away—and she’d let me get all the way to crying about it before she’d show me that she had the hamster hidden in a shoe box under her bed.
Last year she came into my room first thing in the morning with the saddest look on her face and told me that Finn was dead. She waited for me to wake up completely. She waited until her news sank right into the marrow of my bones. She seemed to be waiting for my reaction, waiting for me to break down or run over to her for support. But I was numb. I sat on my bed, frozen. She stood there awhi
le longer and then finally gave up. “April Fools,” she said, sounding disappointed.
Usually I had no idea it was April 1, but this year I remembered, so I was waiting for Greta to pounce.
But she didn’t. Breakfast was normal. It was just the two of us because our parents had left for work early. I stared at Greta’s back as she leaned over the counter spreading grape jelly on her toast. When she turned around, she saw me staring at her and gave me a “what’s your problem?” look before picking up her cup of coffee. I looked away and ate a spoonful of Cookie Crisp. The little disks that were supposed to taste like chocolate chip cookies had turned slimy in the milk, but I didn’t mind.
“You want this other piece?” Greta said, holding out her second piece of toast and jelly.
“Okay.”
She threw it on the table next to my bowl, then left to get ready for school. I had a good close look at it, then sniffed it, thinking this must be her trick this year. There must be white pepper or chili flakes or something on there. I felt relieved to get it over with. To have spotted her trick so easily. I lifted the toast to my mouth and let my tongue touch the surface, waiting for the heat to start. But there was nothing. I took a whole bite and waited again. But, no. No trick.
I decided to walk to school that morning, because I didn’t want Greta to get a second chance while we waited for the bus. It was early, and it was a bright warm morning, so I walked through the woods.
The thawed leaves made the whole place smell sweet and syrupy. We had only a handful of spring days in Westchester. Usually things went from winter right to hot humid summer like a flipped switch. It could still snow in April, but then May hit and everything went hot. And that was the end of my season in the woods. You can’t pretend to be in the Middle Ages when it’s ninety degrees outside. In my version of the Middle Ages, it’s always fall or winter. Things are always cold and damp. Coats need to be worn. And boots. Always boots.
But for now it was okay. I took my time walking to school that morning. I knew I had the woods to myself. I hummed the Requiem and pretended to be a girl branded across the chest for begging.
At school, I opened my locker slowly, thinking maybe the trick would be in there, but nothing. I looked out for Greta all day. Every corner I turned in the hallways. On the line in the cafeteria. In the bathroom stalls. But, again, no sign of anything.
April Fools’ Day 1987 passed with not a single mean trick from Greta. When I got home there was a small padded envelope in the mailbox, addressed to me from the Consortium for the Preservation of Unsleeved Records. For just a second I thought maybe that was a Greta trick, but of course it was from Toby. He’d sent the tape of his guitar music. I’ll teach you this was scribbled on the insert.
At dinnertime Greta and I ate the beef and vegetable stew my mother had left for us, and then I watched Room with a View before going up to bed.
I lay in my bed that night, trying to understand why Greta would take a whole year off. I thought maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe she would try something a few minutes before midnight, but I peeked into her room at a little bit after eleven and she was fast asleep. Not me. I lay in bed, awake, thinking, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe Greta hadn’t taken a year off after all. Maybe she understood that the work had been done all those other April Fools’ Days. She didn’t have to do a single thing anymore. I’d ruin my own day looking for the trick. All Greta had to do was sit back and watch.
Or maybe she just didn’t care anymore. Maybe I wasn’t worth the trouble. I went to sleep with that sad thought in my head, and when I woke up in the morning it was still there, like a cool black hole right in the middle of everything.
Forty-Four
I like the word clandestine. It feels medieval. Sometimes I think of words as being alive. If clandestine were alive, it would be a pale little girl with hair the color of fall leaves and a dress as white as the moon. Clandestine is the kind of relationship me and Toby had.
The next time I saw Toby, which was two days later after school, I brought him a bonsai. Only it wasn’t a real bonsai, just a twig from the Japanese maple tree in our backyard that I’d stuck in some dirt.
“For you, Toby-san,” I said, bowing. I was afraid he wouldn’t remember the joke. I always remember jokes, but some people forget right away and then I end up looking like a weirdo for still remembering something so small.
“It is a wise student who learns from her master,” Toby said, with a bow and without any hesitation at all. Then he launched into a goofy impression of the crane technique, which, with his long gangly shape, made him look not like a crane exactly but like some strange species of bird that had yet to be discovered.
I laughed and gave him a shove, but he was stronger than he looked and he didn’t budge.
I’d taken the train down, as usual, and Toby made tea, like he always did. It looked like he’d been trying to keep the apartment cleaned up, but there was still a shabbiness about it. I didn’t say anything, because I could see he’d been making an effort. Toby brought out a box of Oreos and I took one. I pulled it apart and scraped the white cream out with my teeth. Then I dipped the two cookie halves into my tea. Toby didn’t eat anything.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “About what you were saying. About how we could do anything.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’m still working on it. I haven’t figured it all out yet.”
“The suspense, June. The suspense.” Toby widened his eyes and smiled. “I’d like to say take your time, but . . .”
“Ha-ha,” I said, even though I knew it wasn’t really that much of a joke. “And—”
“Yes?”
“Well, I was also thinking that maybe, if you want, we could look at those paintings. The ones in the basement.”
“Are you sure? You think you’re ready?”
The truth was, I didn’t know if I would ever be ready, but I nodded anyway.
I led the way this time, straight to the cage, without any hesitation at all. I waited while Toby opened the sticky padlock, and then I stepped in first.
There were two piles of painted canvases on top of the wooden pallet. Maybe thirty or forty paintings in all. I turned to look at Toby.
“These are all Finn’s?”
He nodded.
“But that article. Did you see that article in the Times?”
Toby shook his head. “I don’t buy newspapers.”
“There was an article and it had a picture of our portrait in it. . . .” I stopped, waiting to see if he would confess to sending it in.
“Yes?” he said, with no hint at all that he knew anything about it. I tried to catch if he was hiding something, but he only looked slightly confused.
“Well, it said Finn stopped painting. Like ten years ago or something.”
Toby shook his head. “No, no. He just stopped showing his work, that’s all. Could you imagine Finn not making some kind of art?”
Again, I felt stupid. Like I didn’t know Finn anywhere near as well as Toby did.
“No, I guess not,” I said. “But why would he stop showing it?”
“He said the whole circus of it bored him. So he sold a painting here and there when he needed money, but that was it. ‘I don’t have to prove anything anymore.’ That’s what he said.”
That all made sense to me, but I knew my mother would think it was ridiculous. That Finn was a fool to let all that opportunity swim away from him.
Toby pointed to the paintings. “I can leave you if you want. Give you some time with these by yourself. Lock up and come back up when you’re done.” He held the key out to me.
I didn’t say anything and Toby turned to go. Behind my back I heard him closing the cage door. I wanted to look at the paintings all on my own. I didn’t want to be afraid, but my mother was right. The place was like something out of a horror movie.
“Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“You could stay . . .
you know, if you want.”
He smiled, and before I knew it he was back in the cage, stretched out on the chaise longue, pouring a drink from one of those fancy crystal bottles.
“I won’t watch you,” he said. “Pretend I’m not even here.”
I sat myself down cross-legged on the floor and looked at the paintings one by one. Most of the canvases were small as far as art goes. Maybe the size of a microwave door. The first few were of abstract stuff. Shapes and colors. I didn’t want to find them boring, but I did. I knew that if I were smarter, those would probably look like the best paintings in the world, but I am who I am and I want to tell the truth, and the truth is that I thought they were pretty boring. Still, I took my time looking at each one, in case Toby was watching me. I didn’t want it to look like I didn’t like Finn’s work. But once I got past those abstract ones, it wasn’t a problem. After about ten of those abstract paintings there was a piece of white paper with Finn’s old handwriting on it. Not the scrawly handwriting he had when he was sick but the neat firm writing he used to have. WISHING YOU HERE (23). That’s what it said.
After that I was 100 percent hooked.
The Wishing You Here paintings looked like oversize old-fashioned postcards of places all around America. They each had intricate painted stamps and postmarks and pictures in colors that weren’t quite real. The water was more turquoise, the skies so blue they were almost hard to look at. Taos, Fairbanks, Hollywood. But the weirdest thing about those paintings was that in each and every one there was some kind of picture of Toby. Not like the real Toby exactly, but like he was transformed into something else. There’s one of Mount Rushmore, where Toby’s face is carved into the mountain alongside the presidents. One in Alaska, where there’s a grizzly bear with Toby’s face. Another in the Everglades, where it took me ages to even find him, because Finn had painted him as a gnarled old swamp tree.