13 Gifts (24 page)

“What a strange coincidence,” she says, shaking her head.

“There are no coincidences in Willow Falls,” I tell her.

She smiles. “Maybe not.” Then she says, “What’s that? Is someone singing?”

I listen for a second, and then I hear it, too. I motion her back into the bathroom with me and we look out the window.
“It’s David, in the pool hole. His bar mitzvah is tomorrow, and he likes to practice down there.”

“It’s really beautiful,” she says, opening the window wider.

I step next to her and look out. “I know.”

She turns to look at me. I can see her smiling from out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t turn. “The lip gloss looks pretty,” she says.

I smile. We stand there listening for a few more minutes. As great as he was in the play today, it still doesn’t compare to how he sounds in the backyard. It’s too bad the bar mitzvah isn’t outside. And then it hits me! Why
can’t
the bar mitzvah be outside? Could I possibly pull it off in time? “Mom, I have to go make some calls, okay?”

“Of course,” she says, closing her eyes as David slides effortlessly into Shalom Rav.

Emily has changed out of her costume and is already back at her desk like she didn’t just star in a play and have a Broadway producer invite her to audition. I have to laugh. “That was fast.”

She turns around and I laugh again. She hasn’t taken off any of her stage makeup. She grins at me. “I’m planning on keeping it on for the bar mitzvah tomorrow and the premiere.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” I tell her. “You’d have to sleep sitting up!”

“It’s not like I haven’t done that before.”

“True! Hey, I know you and Rory and Amanda were planning something for my birthday tonight, but I have another idea….”

It’s almost eight o’clock by the time we pull into Apple Grove. The sun is still lingering above the horizon, turning everything grainy, like a sheet of gauze is stretched over the world. Emily climbs out of the backseat easily, only because she’s used to it and knows the best angles. Dad turns off the engine. “A thing of beauty,” he says, stroking the dashboard.

“You heard what Uncle Roger said. Don’t get too attached.”

He sighs.

“Are you sure you can get out?”

He had to move the seat back as far as it would go in order to fit in the first place. Mom took Aunt Bethany’s SUV to Polly’s house. She said she was going to stop at the diner first to get bubblegum ice cream to bring with her. Apparently the smiley-face tradition started with them.

Dad tries three times before he figures out how to shift his body in the right position in order to get out of the tiny sports car.

“Jimmy!” Rory’s dad calls out, striding over to us. They shake hands, then embrace.

“Wow,” Rory says, “your dad’s tall!”

“Yup.” I look around the grove while the men slap each other on the back. “Where’s Amanda?”

Rory points to the end of the row of trees. Amanda is kneeling behind the last tree, which is also the largest tree. And by large, I mean it’s taller than my waist, but not as tall as my shoulders. “It’s impossible for her to be here without tending to her trees,” she explains.

“Hey, Tara,” Dad says. “Did I ever tell you I used to be in a band?”

“Some other time, okay, Dad?” I pull Rory away and we run over to Emily, who is climbing on top of what I can only assume is a huge stack of folding chairs. I lift the blue tarp. Yup, folding chairs!

“All of these fit in the back of your dad’s truck?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at the truck with the words
A PUZZLE A DAY KEEPS THE BLUES AWAY
printed on the side.

“We took two trips. And Leo’s dad dropped off the podium. He snagged it from the conference room at his office.” She points to a large wooden podium, which looks like it will be big enough to hold all the things David will need. Before we drove out here, I’d checked online to see what you need for an outdoor bar mitzvah, and learned there has to be a Torah, a rabbi, ten people over the age of thirteen, and something called a
tallit,
which I found out is like a white shawl with fringes that the bar mitzvah boy wears, and a yarmulke, which is that little round hat like a beanie that I know David has because he wears it sometimes when he’s practicing. The ten people part is easy, and I’m assuming the rabbi will have all the other stuff.

Amanda comes over and hands a rake to each of us. “This is for loose grass, dirt, things like that. I wish we had time to plant more grass….”

“It’s going to be fine,” I promise her. “Once the chairs are out and the podium’s set up, and we’ve cleaned the fountain, and the lights are on the trees, no one will notice the ground.”

“Still,” she says, her face crinkling with concern. “I want it to look perfect for Bee Boy.”

“Hamburglar,” Rory and Emily insist.

“David!” I exclaim.

“David’s a boring name,” Amanda says, “it’s Bee —”

“No, I mean David’s
here
!”

They whirl around and we all watch in horror as David strolls up the path from the mall. I can see his mom’s car parked in the closest parking lot, which is where all the guests will park tomorrow. I had tried to call her before we left the house to tell her our plan, but there was no answer. David sees us and stops short in surprise. Then he hurries over. “What’s going on? What are you guys doing here?”

The others look at me to respond. I hand Rory my rake and pull David aside. They go off to begin the cleanup.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” I tell him, suddenly nervous. This could have been a huge mistake. What if he didn’t want to have his service at Apple Grove? Who am I to think I know what’s best for him? What if his mother gets mad? I swallow hard, unable to continue.

He takes in the surroundings. The stack of chairs half hidden under a tarp, the podium, the girls frantically raking. Then he turns back to me and whispers, “Is this for my bar mitzvah?”

I nod meekly. “Just the service. The party would still be at the community center. I mean, if you even want the service here. And we were going to put up a webcam so your dad could see and, well, I just thought, you know, how you said singing outside makes you feel closer to him and —”

“Are you sure you’re not Jewish?” he asks, cutting me off.

I shake my head. “I’ve learned a lot about my family today. That probably would have come up. Why do you ask?”

“Because of what you’re doing.” He reaches out and takes hold of my arms, just above my wrists. “You’re doing
tikkun olam.
You’re repairing the world.”

“I am?”

He nods. “It’s what I’m going to talk about in my speech tomorrow, after all the Hebrew stuff. It’s about how the world is broken up into pieces, and how it’s up to everyone to help put it all back together. It’s about recognizing the spark of life in everyone and everything, and gluing these shards back together.”

“And I did that? How?”

“Supposedly when you reach thirteen, you can see the different pieces better. There’s an old teaching that says that, at thirteen, your soul gets stuck into your body. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“Me, too,” I say softly.

“Really?” he asks, tilting his head at me.

I nod and whisper, “I think it might be true.”

“Me, too,” he whispers back.

We stand there in silence for a minute, him still holding on to my wrists. I’m suddenly acutely aware that my dad is watching us. “Um, see that tall guy over there giving us the stink eye?”

He glances over his shoulder. “The guy with Rory’s dad?”

“That’s the one.”

“Who is he? Did he help bring the chairs or something?”

I shake my head. “That’s my dad.”

“Not in Madagascar anymore?”

I shake my head. “And if we stand here any longer he’s going to come over and say something really embarrassing, inappropriate, or both. Probably both. So if you care about me at all, you’ll say something like ‘Let’s go hang up the lights, Tara, before it gets totally dark.’”

“Let’s go hang up the dark, Tara, before it gets totally light.”

“Close enough, let’s go.”

Thankfully, Emily’s presence in the backseat means that Dad can’t grill me about David. We make a quick stop at the community center to put up signs directing bar mitzvah guests to Apple Grove. David’s mom (who, fortunately, is willing to go along with the last-minute change but is probably not my biggest fan right now) also said she’d try to reach as many people as possible.

As soon as we get back to the house, I dash out of my seat, ignoring Dad’s claim that the car has shrunk and that he is now stuck. I trust Emily will help pull him out.

I run up to the bedroom, hoping to get a minute or two alone. I haven’t gone into my suitcase in at least two weeks, as most everything has been moved out by now. Everything but the hatbox of letters sitting on top of the bag of glass, which is what I have come for. When I pick up the hatbox to move it out of the way, I can tell right away that something feels different. It’s
much lighter! I yank off the cover and gasp. It’s completely empty except for a yellow Post-it note on the bottom. I lean in to read it.

Hope you don’t mind, I mailed these.
And if you do mind, well, it’s too late now!
Love, your cousin and friend, Emily

I sit back, letting the hatbox cover slip from my hand. All those years. All those letters. What is Julie possibly going to think when she gets those? I wonder if she’ll write me back or if she’ll think I’m just totally insane. In a way, though, it feels kind of freeing to have my past winging its way across the country right now. Like it’s freeing me up for the future. I stay on the floor until the initial shock wears off, and then I put the hatbox back together, and leave it on Emily’s desk. Looks like my little cousin is doing her own part to repair the world.

I carefully pick up the bag of glass and head back downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs I peek around the corner to make sure the coast is clear. It sounds like everyone is in the kitchen, so I creep down the hall toward Ray’s room. Hopefully he’s in there. The radio’s on, which is a good sign.

I knock. “Ray? It’s me, Tara. I need your help.”

Even in the bright sunshine, the tiny lights we strung on the trees and along the edges of the podium glitter like diamonds. A chair right in front of the podium holds a laptop that Connor
rigged up not only to broadcast David to his father, but to bring his father to David, too. About a hundred people have come to watch David become a man.

Mom and Dad are sitting next to me, in borrowed clothes that are about a zillion times more glamorous than anything they own. Mom hasn’t let go of Dad’s hand once. I think finally knowing how he really feels about her has been the best gift he could ever give her. I have a feeling the jewelry boxes will stop flowing in now. The rabbi starts talking about love and responsibility, and the worst thought creeps into my head — what if Dad lied last night? What if he hadn’t actually spilled out the juice? Isn’t that exactly what someone who was in love would
say
they did to make the other person happy?

I look over at their hands, so tightly entwined it’s hard to tell whose fingers are whose. Well, it
would be
hard if Dad’s weren’t twice as large as a normal human’s. Maybe it doesn’t matter how their love began. Still, I wish I knew for sure.

There are so many people in suits and dresses that the service is almost over before I notice Angelina sitting in the back row, wearing that same purple scarf around her head that she wore on the train. I’ve gotta hand it to her. Root canal and painkillers. The woman knows what she’s doing. I still don’t know how she managed to steal my stuff.

Our eyes meet. She mouths something, and as clear as if she was sitting next to me, I hear her say, “Look in your bag.”

Confused, I reach under my seat for the beaded purse Aunt Bethany loaned me. I was going to bring the little backpack Dad gave me for the train, but one look at Aunt Bethany’s horrified face this morning and I knew that wasn’t going to cut it. I open
the drawstring to find a small package with a note wrapped around it.

Happy Birthday to the girl who thought she wanted to sit this one out.

Tell your mother her debt is repaid.

After I read the note, I turn around to find Angelina’s seat empty. Figures. I open the package as quietly as I can, and find Mom’s iPod with the headphones still wrapped around it. I lean across Dad and place the iPod on her lap as though I just remembered I had it.

“Oh, that’s okay,” she whispers, putting it back on my own lap. “I was going to let you keep it anyway.”

Sigh. That figures.

David starts singing Shalom Rav and I wouldn’t be surprised if every apple tree in the place started to bloom. I’m so focused on listening that I don’t notice the birds until the whispering around me finally catches my attention. Max and Flo, the two hawks, have landed on the edge of the fountain, only a few feet away from David and the rabbi. They sit and listen to him sing, heads tilted toward each other, talons entwined.

Dad suddenly squeezes my hand to get my attention. He and Mom are silently laughing so hard that their faces are bright red and their eyes are bulging. “The birds,” Dad gasps. “I think they drank the love potion!” My eyes almost bug out of my head. He’s right! Leo had said Max and Flo had been around since our parents were teenagers. They are the proof that my dad didn’t lie. He really
didn’t
drink it!

Halfway through the song, David is joined by Bucky on the violin and Mrs. Grayson on the keyboard. By the time it’s over, there’s not a dry eye in the grove.

David’s mother had the caterers bring the appetizers here to keep people busy while the chairs and equipment are on their way back to the community center. Everyone mills around talking about how wonderful a job David did, and how they didn’t know he could sing like that.

I nosh on a pizza bagel and sneak over to the table full of presents. I want to make sure mine is still on top so it doesn’t get crushed. With Ray’s help, I had made a picture frame out of the shards of glass. I finally understood why I hadn’t been able to part with them. They were just like the shards that David had told me about, like little pieces of life. Ray showed me how to glue them back together in a funky kind of design. Then I printed out one of the pictures Aunt Bethany took at the play last night and stuck it inside the frame. David spent so much time helping me with everything this month that he hasn’t gotten to spend any real time with Connor, who had been the one person to reach out to him when he first moved here. So the picture I chose is one of David and Connor stomping around the stage singing “To Life” and being really goofy and joyous, pretending to toast each other with fake wineglasses.