Friend Is Not a Verb (5 page)

I glowered at the manuscript. Robert Plant is a goofball? I wondered angrily. What about Gabriel himself? Could any
of this possibly be true? Could Sarah have really secured the deal to buy their off-kilter Balinese-drug-dealer getaway house?
Sarah Birnbaum: inept real estate mogul,
I said to myself. Forget it. Well, okay, I could believe the inept part. The only other part I could believe was that their other friends hated it. (Who wouldn’t? If it even existed.) I still hadn’t learned a thing. Well, I guess I’d learned that Gabriel liked Led Zeppelin, or at least knew some Zeppelin trivia. To his credit, it was a step up from the
Friends
theme song.

I scoured a few pages for any more mention of Sarah or any hint about why they’d run away. But there were no clues. Gabriel felt guilty, and he seemed to think that he’d talked the rest of them into doing something bad. I got that. But what about Sarah? She was mostly absent, as far as I could tell. After the bit about Raj Bhutto, the only name that seemed to pop up with any regularity was their friend Madeline’s—and mostly in the context of strange arguments with not-so-subtle sexual overtones. Gabriel was clearly a lot more interested in her than he was in my sister (probably a good thing). Maybe this was what he’d been talking about when he’d told me every single straight male thinks about hooking up with a friend—“maybe once, maybe a thousand times.”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember what Madeline looked like. I’d only met her three times before, up at Columbia. I definitely remembered that she was hot: tall and skinny, like a model (but less alien), with long curly brown hair and ivory skin that had obviously never seen a zit and never would. I also
remembered thinking that she
knew
she was hot—and she’d probably gotten away with a lot in life because of it, particularly with horny adolescents like me. She was nice enough, but she mostly kept grinning at me as if to say,
It’s okay if you’re imagining me naked right now. Run with it
.

It was weird, though. The harder I tried to picture her face, the less clear it became. The memory kept fading into a fuzzy jumble of lots of different girls from the past: random childhood friends of Sarah’s that she’d lost touch with, Emma’s older cousin Nadine, even the cute twentysomething chick who sometimes works the counter at Mr. Aziz’s deli. In the end, I could conjure up only a dim, tantalizing image of Petra, smiling sadly and saying, “I’m sorry, Hen. I still have feelings for you. It’s just that my band needs a real bass player now…. Okay, sweetie?”

“Hen! Open up. Come on. Stop giving me the silent treatment. I’m your sister.”

I bolted upright in bed.
Jesus.
I rubbed my bleary eyes, disoriented. The doorknob was shaking. Gabriel’s manuscript lay open beside me on the rumpled covers. I grabbed it and shoved it under my pillow.

“Uh, one second,” I croaked. My throat was dry. I blinked at the clock radio on my bedside table. It was 7:45
P.M
. When had I fallen asleep?

“Mom and Dad told me to tell you that they won’t start eating until you come down,” Sarah said.

I sniffed, catching a faint whiff of Indian takeout. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything since the egg sandwich
Mom made me this morning. “Did they order from Taste of Tandoor?” I asked, stumbling out of bed toward the door. I twisted the lock and threw the door open.

Sarah stood before me in a filthy, loose-fitting Columbia sweat suit—her old gardening and exercise clothes. A few wispy strands of black hair hung in her sweaty face. The rest was pulled back in a bun. Her hands were caked with dirt. She’d taken off her shoes, but aside from a pair of pristine white socks, she looked and smelled as if she’d just gotten into a mud fight. My nose wrinkled.

“Mom and Dad want us to start eating as a family,” she said.

I blinked at her, both exhausted and wide-awake.

A strange electric current surged through me. If Gabriel’s diary
were
true, then I’d been offered a glimpse of Sarah’s secret life—something I’d never experienced before, not even before the disappearance. (I’d never stumbled upon any diary
she’d
kept.) For the first time ever, part of me felt as if I truly were staring at a stranger. I resisted the urge to ask her if she’d found any Balinese demons in our backyard or if buying a Dominican beachfront mansion was easier than renting a loft in Chinatown.

“They want us to eat as a family, huh?” I finally said. “Does that mean they want us to eat together? Or do they want us to try to pretend we’re just like everyone else?”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Hen.”

“What have you been doing, anyway?” I asked.

“Trying to tackle the garden,” she said, sounding overwhelmed.

“Literally?”

She laughed and shook her head, plodding down the steps. “Just come downstairs, okay? We were getting worried. You’ve been up here for hours.”

“If we’re going to start eating as a family, shouldn’t you wash up?”

“Since when have you become such a stickler for hygiene?” she shot back. “You must have really matured while I was away.”

My jaw tightened. Sarah hadn’t earned the right to joke around with me about this past year. Not yet. Until she told me the truth about everything, I couldn’t foresee a time when she ever would.

“I want to hear about your bass lesson,” she added. “I couldn’t get much out of Mom or Dad. But Dad’s head is in his taxes.”

My veins buzzed. “Did Gabriel call you?”

“Nope. I haven’t heard from him all day. He’s lying low.”

I watched as she disappeared around the corner on the first floor—then I closed my door and dashed back to bed, fumbling for my cell phone. I yanked Gabriel’s manuscript out from under the pillow and punched in the number on the plastic cover. After four long rings, there was a click.

“Hello?” a groggy voice answered.

I wasn’t sure I recognized him. “Gabriel?”

“Madeline?”

I frowned. “No, this is Hen Birnbaum,” I said, deepening my voice. (Telemarketers made the same mistake. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d been called ma’am since I’d been old enough to answer the phone—but it outnumbered the times I’d been called sir by about four hundred to one, and it never failed to humiliate. Sarah was wrong: I couldn’t have matured
that
much.)

“Oh, hey,” he said, sounding amused. “Sorry, I didn’t look at the caller ID. I’m a little out of it.” He yawned. “I was just taking a nap. What’s up?”

“I…um—I just wanted to apologize for bolting on you this morning,” I stammered.

“Don’t worry about it.” He chuckled. “I probably would have done the same thing in your shoes.”

I held my breath, waiting for him to mention the missing manuscript. Calling him probably wasn’t such a great idea. What if he asked how I’d gotten his number? No big deal: I could always tell him that Sarah had given it to me. “I should have at least said good-bye,” I told him. “It was rude.”

“Well, I appreciate the call, but you don’t have to apologize. There isn’t exactly an appropriate way to behave given the circumstances, you know? I guess that’s why I offered you the Bloody Mary. You didn’t tell Sarah about that, did you?”

“No.” I wondered if this was a convoluted way of hinting that he knew what I’d done.

“Good. I mean—well, it’s cool if you did, too,” he said. “You can tell her whatever you want. I’m not in a position to set
boundaries or ask for favors.” He laughed again. “I’m definitely not in a position to judge abrupt departures.”

I chewed my lip. “Well, um…thanks. Would it be cool if we rescheduled? I could come back tomorrow.”

“You really want to take bass lessons with me?”

“Yeah. I think I do. At least for now.”

“Well, that’s great,” he said. “Tomorrow works. My schedule isn’t very booked at the moment. Want to say ten thirty?”

“In the morning?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yeah. I’m not so much of a night owl anymore.”

“Okay. That’s what I thought you meant. I’ll see you then.”

The conversation at dinner that night, our first meal together since Sarah’s return, revolved entirely around me, and how I should find a summer job in the music industry. I couldn’t tell if this was because Mom, Dad, and Sarah had reaffirmed their secret pact to avoid discussing Sarah’s disappearance at all costs (maybe while I’d napped?), or because they’d simply given up: Now that she was back, there was no longer any point in trying to pretend we
weren’t
lunatics. We should all feel free to act as deranged as we wanted. Life would be easier. It was liberating in a way, and I was too tired to question it.

Sarah recommended that I take the subway up to Columbia to look at something called the Job Board, which was where she’d found the gig at the homeless shelter she’d briefly had last summer. Mom agreed that this was a good idea and offered
to pack a lunch tomorrow for the long ride to Morningside Heights. Dad recommended that I talk to Emma’s father, as he was an entertainment lawyer with “notable musician clients, or so I’ve heard.” This propelled the evening to even more dizzying heights of absurdity, as Dad had never made any secret of the fact that he disapproved of Mr. Donovan Wood, Esquire—who drank too much, wore flashy suits, and was generally as loud and boorish as Dad was rigid and demented. Plus his “notable clients” were mostly lame emo acts.

I kept quiet, thinking about all the things I could have said. For instance, I could have mentioned that I’d never once expressed any interest whatsoever in working in the music industry. I could have also mentioned that being a musician and working in the music industry were two different things—and in fact largely unrelated—or that many musicians hated music industry types. But to point out the obvious would be to shatter the fragile, beautiful madness we’d established. Best just to play along. It was actually enjoyable—a truly surreal moment, and one worth savoring, as if I were watching a favorite sitcom and then somehow
poof
! I magically stepped through the screen to become a part of it. There were no longer any rules.

“You know, I think you may be onto something with this summer job idea,” I said later, as the four of us did the dishes together. “Did you know that every single member of the Beatles interned for a record company? It’s how they got their foot in the door. It’s part of why they became so famous.”

Sarah giggled.

“Is that true?” Mom asked.

“Yes, Mom,” I said. “Yes, it is.”

Not that I ever needed an excuse to drop by Emma’s after dinner, but I was glad to be able to claim the urgent necessity of speaking to Mr. Wood about summer job opportunities—
right away
. He wasn’t at home: even better. Ironically, he and Mrs. Wood were at something called the Indie Rock Awards to see one of his has-been emo clients accept a statue for Lifetime Achievement. (For what? Whining?) I flopped down on Emma’s bed and rubbed my eyes. Maybe I should just crash here for the night. I’d never spent the night before, but weird times called for weird measures.

“My God, classic,” Emma said, after I’d described the dinner conversation in all its twisted glory. “That’s one for the
Best of the Birnbaums
holiday DVD. But you know what? Your parents are right.”

“About what?”

Emma sat down at her desk and clicked onto the internet. “A job is just the thing to keep you from stewing about Petra and Sarah.”

“Stewing?” I glared at her. “
Stewing
?”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “You need a full-time distraction. You need a boss to complain about, a Xerox machine that never works, an office floozy to crush on. You need water cooler banter. Routine, Hen. Routine and normalcy.” She swiveled around and looked me in the eye. “Speaking of which,
please tell me you didn’t read that manuscript you stole.”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“You’re lying.”

I closed my eyes, wishing I were a narcoleptic. The ability to slip instantly into a comatose state suddenly seemed liked the most enviable condition God had ever seen fit to bestow upon humanity. I wondered if there were any pills that would trigger it.

“You’re going to give it back first thing tomorrow, right?” she asked.

“Jesus, Emma!”

“Sorry, sorry. I won’t nag. I won’t ask you to tell me about it, either. You’ll tell me when you’ll tell me.” She turned her attention back to the computer. “Now let’s get started on this job hunt. It’s a good thing my dad isn’t home. Trust me, you don’t want to talk to him about this. He’ll just hold you back.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “From what? Becoming an entertainment lawyer?”

“Come on, Hen. Asking my dad for a favor is like volunteering to have a circus clown throw a pie in your face.”

She had a point. Mr. Wood was always cackling—laughter that verged on the mildly horrific, as he had no chin, just a vast, blubbery neck. Whenever he spotted me on the street schlepping my bass somewhere, he flashed the heavy metal horns and shouted “Disco sucks!” Other than that, he preferred not to address me directly. The first time we’d ever met, in fact, he hadn’t even said hello. Emma and I were six years old, playing
hopscotch in front of our houses. He’d just smirked and asked her, “Who’s the skirt?” Yet hardly a day had gone by when part of me hadn’t wished
he
were my father instead of my own.

“I’m going to get a job, too,” Emma announced out of nowhere.

“You are?”

“If you are, yeah. Solidarity, my friend. Power to the people. As long as you come to this Journey concert with me. It’s only three weeks away. The clock is ticking.”

“I’ll come, I’ll come,” I groaned.

“Good. Hey, if you want to know the truth, I was planning on getting a summer job anyway.”

I sat up straight. “Really?”

“No. But times are tough all over. My parents stopped giving me an allowance. Now I have to beg for money when I need it. You know what Dad said the other night, and not as a joke? ‘Using the law to screw people over may be recession proof, but nothing is Depression proof.’ He was on his third cocktail.” She leaned forward, squinting at the screen and sliding the mouse around. “I think I want to find something in conflict resolution…” Her voice trailed off. She’d clicked on a site called referee.com. From across the room, I couldn’t see anything other than the logo and a picture of a bald guy in a striped shirt with a whistle in his mouth.

“You want to work for the NBA?” I asked.

“I’m weighing a lot of different options. This is for your benefit, Hen. If you get in a fight with your sister, I want to be there to stop it.”

“Yeah, well. Good luck with that.” I lay back down again.

Maybe we
did
need a referee. I hadn’t had a normal conversation with Sarah since she’d gotten home. It was all bickering and frustrated silences and obtuse hints at huge mysteries. But what had I expected? On other hand, we didn’t use to fight. Before she’d disappeared, Sarah and I had always pretty much gotten along. Of course we had: We’d been allies, united against our parents’ relentless neurotic onslaught. But now it seemed that they were on the same team, united against
me
.

I sighed, listening to Emma clicking away.

Now that I thought about it, the only time I’d ever gotten into a real, honest-to-God fight with the old Sarah—aside from that babysitting debacle with Emma—was early last summer, when she told me she was worried that I didn’t have enough “guy friends.” After assuring her that I wasn’t gay, I reminded her that if Emma were a guy, I would have had a “guy friend.” Emma just happened to be female. And it wasn’t like I was an angry loner or anything. I got along fine with “guys” at Franklin—just not to the point where I could show up unannounced at their homes and hog their TV remotes. It had pissed me off that Sarah could be so stupid. She’d just graduated from an Ivy League college. And look where “guy friends” had gotten her: a rat hole in Chinatown.

“Wow,” Emma muttered in the silence.

“What?” I said.

“Some of these job sites are really amazing. Did you know that you can earn two hundred bucks an hour as a topless housecleaner, plus tips?”