Enthusiasm (11 page)

I threw myself into my schoolwork, the best way I knew to numb my mind. I took dawn bike rides and hikes in the hills among the ever-barer trees, sneaking out while Ash was still in bed. I spent long hours working in the storeroom and on the computer, attempting to straighten out the inventory and accounts of Helen’s Treasures. And holding my inner nose, I joined the staff—or, as Ms. Nettleton called it, the
crew
—of
Sailing to Byzantium
, our high school literary magazine.

The Nettle gave me the position of assistant editor and began smiling at me in class. My father was overjoyed. He rained down little pellets of smugness, like a squirrel shelling nuts overhead. “I’m glad you’ve started taking a real interest in your academic career,” he beamed. “Amy will be so proud.”

When Ashleigh expressed her astonishment at my extracurricular activity, I lied to her (a painful new habit), explaining that Dad had threatened to withhold my allowance unless I joined up. She generously offered to keep me company, but I told her it would only make the whole thing worse if she suffered too.

Even without her, I suffered. The worst was the loneliness. Though surrounded by people, I felt utterly isolated. I missed my friend, the only person who really understood me, yet in her company I felt lonelier than ever.

Early one evening, as I sat on my bed staring out the window at the pattern made by the oak branches—a lattice of bars between me and heaven—I heard a knock at my door.

“You in there, honey?” asked my mother.

“Uh-huh—come in.”

“It’s so dark in here! Why don’t you turn on a light? No, leave it if you like this better—listen, I want to talk to you.” She sat down on the end of my bed and curled her legs under her. “I’ve noticed that you haven’t been yourself for the last few weeks, and I think I know why.”

“You do?” I said. Had my secret somehow gotten out? A tingling alarm swept over me, accompanied by a soft cascade of relief, as if something tight had loosened. I felt tears well up in my eyes.

Mom put her arms around me and stroked my hair. “I’m sorry, honeybear. I’m so sorry. I know it’s been tough on you with your father gone and money being tight. You take it so hard—you’re such a grown-up kid. But it’s not your job to take care of everything. That’s up to me, I’m the mom here. And honey, I promise you it will all be all right. I’m not going to let us starve. And I’m not going to stay dependent on your father, either. I realize Helen’s Treasures isn’t working out the way I hoped, so I’ve been looking for a job. No, just listen. I’ve had a few offers I could have taken, but I held off because I was waiting to hear from the one I really want, teaching art. But even if I don’t get it, there are other things I can do, so you don’t have to take everything on your big little grown-up freckled shoulders. Okay, honey? Shh, shh—there, there. Better now? I was going to wait to tell you until I heard about this job for sure, but you’ve seemed so stressed that I thought I’d better talk to you now.”

As she spoke, I felt the relief and tension swirl around within me, trading places like a couple in a quadrille. My secret was safe! A reprieve!—yet a disappointment too, to find myself once again deeply alone.

I wiped my eyes and pulled myself together. “That’s great, Mom,” I said.

Next it was Amy’s turn. On Tuesday she cornered me behind the sewing machine, where I was doing my math homework. “I know why you’ve been so sad lately, sweetie, and I’m touched, I really am,” she said. “I know how disappointed you must be after all these years alone, and especially with all the help you’ve been giving me getting the room ready. I wish I had good news for you now. But I promise, your father and I are doing everything we can, and I’m sure we’ll be successful sooner or later.”

“You are?” I asked, not sure what she was talking about. I had a strong hunch it wasn’t anything good, though.

“Oh, yes, we’re doing everything we can. After we lost the baby, we went to see a new fertility specialist in New York who has an excellent track record with couples in our situation.”

I stared at her. What was she talking about? What baby?

“We’ve been following his instructions carefully—which, I must say, we’ve both enjoyed,” she continued, with a coy smirk that made my stomach lurch. “And on the plus side, at least until I get pregnant again, I can help you carry your things down to your new room in the basement. Have you chosen what color you want yet? I thought I’d paint this room a nice pastel yellow, since we don’t know whether it’ll be a boy or a girl. I always think yellow goes with everything. What do you say, should we stencil a border of ducks just under the ceiling, so your little brother or sister will have something to look at? Or stars on the ceiling?”

For a long time I was speechless. The I.A. didn’t notice—she was too busy planning where she would put the changing table and the bassinet. To lose in one stroke my status as an Only Child and my airy (if sewing-machine-ridden) bedroom! To be banished to the basement! So that was why she’d been emptying out that dark little room downstairs—not to hide away her sewing machine, but to hide away
me
!

And what could my father possibly want with another child, when he hardly bothered to talk to the one he already had?

Ashleigh caught me Thursday morning as I was exiting the window for an early run. “Hang on, Jules,” she said, climbing down to meet me at the tree’s roots. “I need to talk to you.” (Oh, no, I thought, Ashleigh too!) “Is something the matter?” she asked. “Are you okay? I almost get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me. Did I do something wrong? Is there any way I can make it better?”

I was overcome with guilt. My best friend had taken the trouble to get out of bed before her alarm went off just to express her concern about me. She had even used ordinary speech, rather than her high-flown Austenish. She heaped blame on herself—blame that belonged to me. I sternly resolved to take myself in hand. My period of pouting must cease. What were my feelings for a guy I had spoken to only one night, compared to the chief friendship of my entire life?

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a pill,” I said. “Of course it’s not you. Family things, and other stuff like that. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Ashleigh looked at me keenly. “Other stuff like that, hmm? I think I know what’s wrong. It’s Ned, right? You’re depressed because you can’t see him. I know exactly how you feel. I wish I could see Parr too. E-mail helps, but it isn’t enough. I wish we could be together in person! Under that dignity of his—that beautiful athletic bearing—he has such depths of kindness and strength, such good humor, such true manliness . . .” For a long time she continued in that vein, brushing twigs from her pajamas, as I forced myself to listen, and even to smile.

Chapter 10

Et tu, Samantha?
~
An Encounter with a Pirate
~
We prepare Speeches
~
Forefield again
~
Disaster
.

A
nd where was Samantha during my period of grief? Not around very much, especially after evening gymnastics practice got moved to Tuesdays, the time when I was most likely to see her. In my worst moments I considered hunting her down and laying my troubles at her feet, but in the end I always balked. My pain felt too raw.

So when she firmly straightened the drooping feather on my flapper hat as we were helping set up for our fathers’ Halloween party and said, “Cheer up, Julie, I know how you feel, but it’s not worth breaking your heart over,” I almost dropped my bowl of gummi syringes.

Halloween may seem like a grisly theme for a pair of pediatricians to choose for their annual party, but it’s very popular with their young patients. The greatest draw, I think, comes from the possibility that if they chose, Dad and Dr. Liu could spike the tomato juice with real blood.

“What’s not worth what?” I stammered, thinking, Not Samantha too! Was everyone in my life hell-bent on interpreting my pain to suit their own needs?

“Cute blond princes up on a hill. Not worth crying over. The world’s a big place—even Byzantium’s a big place, comparatively—it’s crawling with guys if you really want one. You don’t need to get stuck on one particular unavailable guy. Unless you enjoy the melancholy, of course.”

Sam is uncanny. It’s as if she reads minds.

Ashleigh arrived before I could answer and dragged me off to help her arrange the jack-o’-lanterns to mimic the lighting effects of early-nineteenth-century candelabras. Then other guests arrived and kept her busy explaining that she was Jane Austen—Jane
Austen
, the writer—not a witch, a ghost, or Martha Washington.

Was Sam right? I wondered. Did I enjoy the melancholy? This was certainly a good time of year for it, with gusts of autumn wind blowing the storm clouds around and slapping the fallen leaves wetly against one’s knees. I decided to take Sam’s remarks to heart. When Ashleigh and I went to Emily Mehan’s Halloween party the next night, I even tried flirting with Seth Young from my English class, the managing editor of
Sailing to B
. He was wearing a pirate costume, which made him look almost palatable. The red bandana he wore on his head gave his olive skin an appealing glow, and his blousy pirate shirt made him look lanky instead of skinny. An eye patch completed the romantic picture; I noticed for the first time that he had a nice nose. But his self-importance kept popping out from beneath the dangerous swagger he affected, and when he put his arm around me in the Mehans’ backyard, I shrugged it off. Sam’s advice might be good, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

Ashleigh’s mother came to pick us up before Seth could make any further moves, so I was spared having to reject him definitively and make future
Sailing
meetings awkward. At the lunchtime meeting the next day, he sat next to me but would not meet my eye. His face retained traces of pirate makeup, principally eyeliner, which I found obscurely embarrassing. When the fourth-period bell rang, I left quickly to avoid any possibility of conversation. He got up as if to follow, but evidently changed his mind when he saw Ashleigh waiting for me outside Ms. Nettleton’s room.

“You’ve got to see this,” she cried, grabbing my elbow and pulling me downstairs to the announcement board, which the Gerard twins were inspecting in postures of excitement (Yolanda, I assumed) and mild interest (Yvette).

“Look!” commanded Ashleigh with a sweeping gesture.

“What?” I asked. The twins’ beaded heads blocked my view.

“Auditions,” answered Ashleigh joyfully.

“Auditions?” Why would Ash care about auditions?

“At Forefield, for their musical,” she elaborated.

“Forefield, get it?” said Yolanda. “The boys’ school. That means not a lot of people auditioning for girls’ parts. Wholly crisp—no Cordelia Nixon or Michelle Jeffries, ’cause they’re in
West Side Story,
and who else from here is going to bother? I bet if we just show up, we can get parts, and if you can carry a tune, you can be a star. How about it, you want to be the heroine?” she asked her sister.