Frannie and Tru (14 page)

“The dog park? He said he's seen you there?”

I wanted to downplay everything right away. I wanted to take back everything I'd said, because seeing Tru worried was making the whole thing seem creepier, which was bringing back everything I'd felt that night. Revulsion. Fear. Guilt.

“He didn't say what park. There are tons of parks. I think he was full of shit.”

Tru's jaw was clenched, and he ran his hands through his hair, then pointed at me when he spoke.

“If you see that asshole anywhere, you tell me, okay? At the park, on the street, in a fucking church—I don't care where he is, you tell me. He's a creep.”

He found my eyes with his, to make sure I understood.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay, okay. I got it.”

“He's worthless, you have to know that, and you can't let him get to you. He's a piece of shit, and you're golden. He doesn't deserve to speak another word to you.”

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was too busy turning my head the other way, pretending to look at something off in the trees.

For the second time in two days, Tru had made me cry.

And the summer blazed on.

I began a campaign to have Duncan spend a little time outside every day. At first, I had to coax and convince, but soon he accepted it as part of our routine. I would take him around the block or down to the park, pointing out the different kinds of flowers and trees, describing to him how they worked, the quiet ways they grew and thrived. He smiled sweetly and sometimes held my hand. I was never sure how much he liked these little excursions, and sometimes his arms flared with bug bites or his face flushed pink from the heat. Still, I didn't stop.

Our house, meanwhile, seemed to be shrinking, or maybe we were all growing within it. Always there was something to grumble or yell about. Jimmy obsessively shaved his head and left the aftermath in the bathroom sink, a defiant pile of short, sharp
hairs. Kieran went crazy from being cooped up with Jimmy and took up residence on the couch most nights, smashing the cushions out of shape and sweating all over the fake leather. Dad got a temporary gig at a car repair shop down the street and he never could seem to get the grease and oil off his hands, leaving fingerprints everywhere. The hot water heater began an ominous dripping, a sure signal of coming death, and twice I caught my mother down in the basement just staring at it.

The days got hotter and hotter, and still we didn't turn on the air-conditioning. Tru, meanwhile, was still running in the mornings, going for longer and longer stretches as the weeks passed. Nothing stopped him. Not rising heat. Not humidity. Not rain.

After the thunderstorms and all the delays, fireworks finally came that year, the third week in July. Mom still insisted that we watch them as a family, so we went to visit her friend Maria from work, the one who had a house with a roof deck looking over the water. It was the kind of place that made me think if only I could be a grown-up with a roof deck, then everything else in my life would be fine. Maria lived alone, so it was just the six of us and her. We sat there together on high, in a collection of sagging beach chairs. Mine was in front, and I had a clear view of the night sky exploding in neon wonder. I felt the reverberations in my chest, and imagined that each glowing asterisk sent out a shock wave that traveled in a direct line toward me, fizzling and finishing somewhere near my heart. But of course that wasn't really how it was. Everyone else must feel them just the same.

I turned briefly around right as the finale was reaching its
peak, fireworks on top of fireworks, color raging, the air acrid with smoke. Jimmy and Kieran were staring up, but Dad had his arm around my mom. He was whispering in her ear, and she was laughing. I noticed that Tru was watching them, too. The darkness hid his face.

There were nights when Tru went out with Jimmy and Kieran and there were nights when he went out with me, Sparrow, and the band. We would listen to them practice or go to the movies or eat pancakes at the diner in Towson, Tru always finding some way to pay for the two of us without actually asking me and without anyone noticing. Every time we hung out with them, I got nervous about P.J. At home, when I was alone, I'd been picturing what it would be like to be his girlfriend, to finally kiss someone. I thought maybe I wanted that, because he was pretty nice, and even more so, just because I wanted to finally have the experience of it all. But then when then he was actually there, I'd change my mind. I'd hide or slip away, avoiding him. Avoiding whatever might come if we got too close.

Of course there were nights when the boys were busy with their own jobs and music lessons and other friends. And then, Devon and P.J. disappeared at the beginning of August to spend ten days at a music camp in the woods of Virginia. So a few times, it was just Sparrow, Tru, and me, which was both disappointing and a relief. Once, Sparrow took us to a party with some friends she'd made at MICA. There were four of them living in an enormous open loft on the top floor of a crappy building in a crappy neighborhood. They'd painted a beautiful mural on the wall, a bunch
of famous paintings all mingled together. I kind of recognized them, but Sparrow could name them for me. DaVinci's
Mona Lisa
in Van Gogh's café. Michelangelo's god reaching toward Adam on a background of Jackson Pollock paint splatters. Sparrow's friends drank wine and played music that sounded like nothing but noise, and the whole time Tru shot me looks. He mocked things with nothing but a single glance in my direction, and I was proud to realize that we shared that much understanding between us.

When you know someone, you can say so much without saying a word.

Marissa actually invited me to her birthday party the second week of August, or maybe her mom made her—just as my mom made me say yes. We slept over at her house in the basement, eight of us, all St. Sebastian's girls except for me. We were a bit too old for that, and I think we all knew it. I could see more clearly than ever before just how far my group had been lagging behind. Those girls still weren't friends with boys. They didn't do cool things. I asked them about SSR and they talked madly for minutes and minutes on end, seeming to have loved it even though I was pretty sure they hadn't done anything bad in the woods. I was a little surprised to find that I wasn't even jealous of the retreat anymore. Maybe just the softest twinge. When they asked about me, I was vague, said a little about meeting someone from my new school, about the battle of the bands, but mostly I kept quiet. In the morning, I neatly rolled up my sleeping bag and went home.

The heat hit a fever pitch. On a particularly miserable night, when the whole house turned into an oven, Mom and I escaped to the library. While she stocked up on new mysteries and romances, I wandered by a table of “suggested summer reading,” saw some of the books we'd done in English last year—
Romeo and Juliet
,
Lord of the Flies
. There were also books we hadn't read, but that I wanted to. All the Jane Austen ones, because everybody said they were romantic.
Atonement
, because one of the AP classes at St. Sebastian's had been assigned it, and some parents got mad about the sex. Ever since, I'd been meaning to pick it up.

And then there was
Gatsby
.

The cover had the same shadowy blue face as Tru's copy. I took it tentatively, skipping over the strange poem and reading the first couple of paragraphs again, then on through the first couple of pages, embarrassed by how long it took me. Every line seemed cloaked in so much meaning, and I had to go slowly, consider each word. Then I hit a part that stopped me dead.

                           
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him . . .

I pictured Tru cocking an eyebrow, lighting a cigarette, driving our van with just the lightest of touches to the wheel. I remembered clever jokes and cutting insults, told with equal charm. I thought of every time he'd said the right thing, just when I'd needed him to.

My insides prickled, though I couldn't say exactly why. What
was wrong with being gorgeous? I read a little further, feeling almost guilty. Like I'd found Tru's diary or something. I knew I could take the book with me, but I hesitated. I imagined some cold winter day a few months from now. Snow would be falling. Tru would be long gone. But I could sit in my room or in a coffee shop or in the library at my new school and make my way through these pages. Look for secrets. Maybe feel like he wasn't really gone.

I put the book back and went to go find my mother.

The next day Tru was home from Loyola earlier than usual, and we took a blanket over to the park. I'd finished with chemistry and moved on to some algebra prep work that arrived last week, and he of course was reading
Gatsby
.

“Do you understand it any better now?” I asked him. “Better than you did at the beginning of the summer?”

He put the book down, rubbed his face with his hands.

“Yes, Frannie. I think so. And let me tell you, I'm really starting to think that Daisy and Gatsby are just a couple of assholes.”

Still, he picked the book back up and kept reading, murmuring to himself every once in a while. His Latin books sat next to him, unopened.

I looked toward the bridge and knew that beyond it was the safe, the vodka inside. I still liked thinking of it, hiding there, waiting for me to surprise Tru. Like a secret weapon of sorts, tucked away like a promise. As long as I didn't use it yet, didn't drink it yet, then I felt like good things were still waiting, like some epic night lay ahead.

A packet arrived that day in the mail, full of information about my new school. I kept opening it up to look at the same photo—a fancy science classroom, kids in goggles doing serious-looking experiments. I was instantly over my old fantasy of my basketball boyfriend and his sister. A new one emerged of me in a white coat with a girl like Tara as my lab partner, someone smart and outgoing and funny. Someone who would want me as a sidekick. I'd sit with her and Winston at lunch. They'd introduce me to all my new friends. My mind kept inserting Devon into the picture, although I knew he wouldn't be there. After a while I didn't fight it. I just let him hover there. I thought about how soon I'd be in school.

Summer was suddenly nine weeks gone.

Tru came into my room that Sunday to tell me he had set a date for the jump-off: his very last Saturday. I couldn't believe how quickly the summer was going—how quickly it was almost gone.

“Before the big jump, we need to get away, Frannie. This weekend. Me, you, Sparrow, and the boys. We need to go camping. I heard there's some island that has wild horses. Do you know what I'm talking about?

“Assateague? You want to go to Assateague? We camped there when I was little.”

He looked at me incredulously.

“
Assateague?
ASS-ateague? What genius came up with that?”

He picked a dirty T-shirt off the floor, balled it up, and tossed it, hitting me square in the face. I threw the shirt back at him, but he leaned easily out of its path. I rolled my eyes at him, then answered in my best imitation of the way he talked. Slow
delivery. Bored tone. Punctuated by sighs. “I'm pretty sure it was the Native Americans. You know, the ones who lived there before we killed them all or kicked them out.”

It was a pretty half-assed impression, but it still got him. He laughed for real.

“How do you even hear about these things?” I asked him. “How do you know about everything around here?”

He gave me the eyebrow. “I talk to people, Frannie. I'm a very sociable person.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, Mom and Dad will never let us go. The two of us with the car, and a bunch of people they don't know? Dream on.”

“What if your brother comes? Jimmy's picking up a couple of extra shifts this weekend, but Kieran is free, and I've planted the idea. Your mother is easy to persuade when she thinks we're all happy and having fun together.”

I'd never thought of that before, but as soon as he said it, I knew it was true.

“Kieran won't be into it,” I said. “He'll feel like he's babysitting me.”

Tru shrugged, almost gracefully. His nonchalance was an art form.

“Maybe something will change his mind,” he said.

He turned around and left abruptly. Just as I was digging my algebra work and calculator out of my nightstand, he called to me from the top of the stairs.

“Did I mention that Sparrow is coming for dinner? Tonight?”

Because the weather that day was blistering and mysterious company was coming, we finally, finally, finally turned on the air-conditioning. It rumbled to life very slowly.

I was setting the dining room table while Mom, Jimmy, and Kieran fumbled around one another in the still-sweltering kitchen. Mom was in her heels and apron, rustling through the pantry. Jimmy was inhaling pretzels, on his usual rant of “Who eats
this
in the dead of summer,” this time about a massive pot of chili. Kieran was filling the water glasses while the two of them traded insults in one of their fevered and furious wars that none of us could penetrate. In the middle of it all, we had missed the light knock and Dad opening the door.

Sparrow had just stepped inside.

“Oh!” he said, with an uptick of surprise. “Well, hello.”

I swear the boys heard something in his voice and composed themselves. Jimmy walked into the dining room first, rubbing his head, and Kieran followed him, gripping four glasses, water sloshing out the sides, his fingers rudely touching the rims. I trailed after them, and all three of us could now see Sparrow, standing just inside the front door in a patch of waning evening light. She had the black-and-white dress on again, the one she wore the first time I met her. She told my dad that she heard we were having chili, so she made jalapeño corn bread. She held up a pretty little basket, covered with a bright yellow dish towel. He took the basket from her and whistled appreciatively.

“Jalapeño corn bread? I didn't know Martha Stewart was coming.”

Sparrow laughed, genuine and sweet, while I stood there gripping the silverware, absolutely certain that I would not survive even an hour of this. I would die first, painfully, of complete and absolute humiliation.

The twins, meanwhile, were frozen beside me. Jimmy's mouth was hanging open, literally hanging open, while Kieran had this distant, awed look on his face like he'd just stumbled, completely unprepared, upon the pyramids.

Sparrow came over and introduced herself to them in a breezy way, all smiles, then threw her arms around me as she always did, warm and welcoming. Jimmy and Kieran looked on in disbelief until she released me and disappeared into the kitchen to help my mother.

In her wake, something passed between my brothers and me.
For years the twins and I had shared not only a house, but the same school hallways, the same bus, the same playground, always aware of where the others stood, who they were at home and outside. But here was Sparrow, a spectacular friend I had that they knew nothing about. That meant we had secrets from each other now.

From here on out, we always would.

I hurried to finish setting the table, and heard a rustle then from below—the sound of Tru coming up the stairs. He opened the basement door with a slow creak, revealing a face that was eager, delighted. He came to see his act in motion.

Truman the magician.

Mom and Dad had put the leaf into the dining room table to give us more room. Why they hadn't done this before, so that we didn't bump elbows after Tru came, I had no idea. But now everything opened up. We could move. We could breathe. We asked nicely for things to be passed, handing spoons and bowls carefully, no one spilling.

Under Sparrow's gaze, we seemed to have remembered ourselves as polite and thoughtful people. The family became a bunch of chatterboxes, everyone talking at once, having loud, overlapping conversations. Tru was telling my mom about Sparrow's aunt, how she was a professor, and how excited she was that I was going to the science and engineering school. Meanwhile, my father was asking Sparrow if she rooted for the Patriots. Her eyes got all wide and excited.

“I do! In fact, this is so crazy: my mom was a cheerleader for
them, just for a year. In between when she stopped doing ballet and when I was born. She has a photo of herself in uniform that she keeps in our dining room. Our dining room! It's mortifying! I'm always trying to make her put it away. So yes, I like the Patriots, but I'm more of a basketball girl.”

When she said this, Jimmy and Kieran resumed their idiot looks, Jimmy all slack-jawed, Kieran silently worshipping some wonder of the world. Sparrow looked up at them.

“Frannie told you about P.J., right? My cousin's friend?” she said. “How he remembered you two from basketball games?”

But I hadn't told them. I'd been so wrapped up in myself that it hadn't occurred to me. Now Sparrow explained the whole story, complete with the part about P.J. standing on the chair, and my whole family was laughing.

After that the conversation lulled for a moment as we all turned to our bowls, and I was afraid that we might descend back into the same kind of grumpy, halting dinner we'd been having all summer. But then Kieran jumped in and with stories about camp, and we all listened and looked happy and reminded him to tell the funniest ones.

“Frannie, have you told Sparrow about Duncan?” Kieran asked.

“Ugh,” Jimmy said. “No more Duncan stories. It's the same thing every day.”

“Well, I haven't heard it,” Sparrow said. “Tell me about Duncan. Is he the kid you babysit?”

So I started to talk all about him, how sweet he was, but how
hard it was sometimes, too, and my parents listened quietly, smiling. Looking proud. Meanwhile Kieran was just openly staring at Sparrow, who was looking at me and pretending not to notice all the attention. And as I talked about the mazes and the blocks and the chicken, I looked over to see Tru, who'd been so quiet for the last few minutes, you could almost forget he was there. He was tipping his chair back, twiddling his thumbs, and looking completely satisfied.

What a trick he had pulled, right before our eyes.

Sparrow washed the dishes and I dried while my mother for once just stood by, letting others do the work. She thanked Sparrow for introducing me to new friends, someone from my school, and Sparrow was gracious and humble, saying that it was no problem at all.

Halfway through the pile of bowls and spoons, Sparrow broached the camping trip, emphasizing that it was one night only and that she would be in charge, that she was terribly serious about watching over Devon. She added that Tru had talked to Kieran about coming and keeping an eye on everyone, too. She somehow made the trip sound like a playdate, a bunch of kids goofing around. She explained that we wouldn't be off in the woods alone, that the camping areas were packed, that we'd be on top of a million other people on an island that was patrolled day and night by park rangers. My mom listened carefully, nodded tightly a couple of times, saying that we'd been there years before and she remembered what it was like. A nice place.

I couldn't believe it—she was charmed into saying yes.

The next day I was a wreck. I was anxious about what would happen, with beer and boys and who knows what, and I was just as afraid that my mother would come to her senses and say we couldn't go. I couldn't focus on anything in my workbooks. I gave up forever on my summer reading. I lost my patience with Duncan, and had to stop and breathe, regain my composure. Setting the table, I broke a glass.

That week The Mack's parents had disappeared to god knows where, and Tru was over there Monday and Tuesday with the twins. Wednesday we met Sparrow, P.J., and Devon at the diner, where we talked about who had tents and coolers and sleeping bags, making all the final plans. After that, the boys relayed what had happened at music camp, Sparrow talked about her final art project, and Tru told the best stories from all the St. Sebastian's parties he'd been to with my brothers.

I'd been mostly quiet, fiddling around with my pancakes. Tru started smiling at me, and I knew I was in trouble.

“Frannie, you've barely said a thing. Maybe you can walk us through some of the chemistry equations you've been working so hard on this summer.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, pouring more syrup on my plate.

“What?” he said, with that wicked smile of his. “Winston's not here. That makes you our designated dork, right?”

I righted the jug, clicked the top closed, and set it down on the table.

“This from the spelling bee king of Connecticut?”

Sparrow did one of her head-back, deep-throated laughs, while P.J. and Devon went wide-eyed, turning from me to Tru.

“I'm sorry,” Devon said. “What was that?”

I picked up my fork and knife, resumed eating like it was no big deal.

“Tru was in the National Spelling Bee. The one on ESPN.”

P.J. absolutely lost it, shaking his head wildly, rubbing his eyes and looking at Tru like he was seeing him for the first time.

“You were not one of those kids,” he said to Tru. “Those kids are mental. They are not right in the head. You were not one of those kids.”

Meanwhile Devon was looking at me like I'd just done something surprising. Impressive.

“I can't believe you've been hiding that from us,” he said, and I noticed that he seemed to be talking just to me, not to anyone else.

Then he smiled his killer smile, and I ducked my head, not sure what to say.

When P.J. had finally calmed down, Sparrow confirmed what I said, and that's when I glanced at Tru, looking to see if I'd thrown him off even a little. He was staring down at his plate, then looked sideways at me, gave me a little smile. He appreciated that I'd tried to get him, I could tell that he did. But this wasn't a real secret. I should have remembered from earlier this summer, at the dinner table. This was a piece of the past that he already owned.

He'd challenged me, and I'd deflected. I challenged him, and he was ready to revel in it. Looking up, he pushed his omelet out of the way and folded his hands together, gazing at the boys.

“Indeed, I was one of those freak-show kids. Let me spin you a tale of spelling and woe.”

Thursday was cooler than it had been in weeks, and that night after dinner, the twins went to play basketball. Tru wanted to go for another run, even though he'd been that morning as usual, and asked if I wanted to come. I said sure, and we both got our shoes and headed out the front door, started jogging down the sidewalk without bothering to stretch.

“Should we race?” he asked.

“Race? I don't think it's racing if we know who's going to win.”

“Well, sure. With that attitude you're never going to beat me.”

I thought for sure he was going to tear off down the block, but instead he kept moving at a leisurely jog. We passed an old couple walking a pair of poodles, a young couple pushing a pouty toddler, a tired guy in a suit, laptop bag slumped heavy on his shoulder. Tru didn't seem to notice any of them. He had his head craned up at the cloudless blue, a white moon stamped unexpectedly on the not-yet-dark sky.

“Are you ready for our big camping trip?” he asked. “There's going to be stars and a fire and everything. Very romantic, you know.”

I knew, of course, that he was about to mess with me. I tried to veer the conversation away.

“Porta-potties and bug spray and sleeping on the ground,” I said. “Totally romantic.”

He fought a smile then, as I knew he would. He always liked when I was sarcastic.

“I just want to make sure you've thought about, you know, everyone who's going to be there. Maybe there's a certain someone you're excited to see.”

I refused to look at him. I kept my eyes straight ahead, took a second to tighten my ponytail.

“Well, I do have a crush on Sparrow,” I said. “But who doesn't?”

Just at that moment we were rounding the corner, the basketball courts coming distantly into view.

“Who doesn't indeed?” he said, with a jerk of his head in the twins' direction.

I laughed a little, and for a moment we were quiet. I thought he was actually going to drop it. Then he sighed.

“So you're not going to tell me anything? About how you might be feeling? All these weeks we've spent together, I just thought I could help prepare you for a big night.”

“I'm quite prepared,” I told him. “I've already packed my toothbrush and everything.”

He smiled again, and then kept quiet the whole jog home. A couple of times I thought he was going to say something more, but he always stopped himself, as if thinking better of it.

We both knew what I was doing, after all. That I was practicing the kind of game he had taught me to play—the shield of clever answers, or rude ones, when you didn't want to talk. In this case, of course, it wasn't really working, because I wasn't fooling him at all.

Still, he seemed amused enough that he decided to let me be. At least for now.