Jake and Lily (13 page)

I
must have been grogging around my room for a couple minutes before I saw the sign. It was Scotch-taped on the closed door. Mom does it every year. Now that my sister and I have our own rooms, I guess she did one for each of us. Homemade. White paper. Red letters sprinkled with glitter:

Happy Birthday

That’s when it hit me:
I just woke up in my bed—not the train station!

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wondered if my sister was there. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she’s outgrowing that magical twin stuff
too. Maybe it was nothing more than that favorite word of grown-ups: a phase.

No party this year. Just family, which now includes Poppy. Of course Dad had to set up the stepladder in the driveway and plant the adorable twins next to it and take our picture to show how we’re growing up the ladder year by year.

“You’re way past the fourth rung now,” said Dad.

“Heading for the top,” said Mom.

“Need a bigger ladder soon,” said Poppy.

My best present was five stones from Poppy. He collected them in his travels, just for me.

Lily got a Gray Shadow Crimestoppers kit. She didn’t exactly look thrilled. She slept till noon. We were supposed to go to the water park, but we didn’t because she said her stomach hurt. She didn’t say a word to me all day.

Whatever. I have my own problems. How was I supposed to enjoy my birthday when all I could see was Ernie’s eyes? Those grown-ups grinning at me—I wanted to say,
You wouldn’t be grinning if you knew what a rat I am.

In my room at night a question came in the dark:
Why do you even
care
what a goober thinks about you?

There was no answer.

I
haven’t written in this journal for a week. I’m too depressed to do anything. I don’t go to Poppy’s. I don’t want to be around anybody I know. I ride my bike. I wander the mall.

My birthday was Crap City. I got the Gray Shadow Crimestoppers kit. It has a hat and magnifying glass and handcuffs and whistle and Crimestoppers manual, and I couldn’t care less. I just wanted the day to be over. Poppy whispered that he was never so nervous in his life as he was sneaking me back into my room. If I thought my parents wouldn’t make me get up, I’d still be in bed.

I
can’t sleep. Those eyes hang over me in the dark, like burning stones. Eyes might not speak louder than mouths, but they speak deeper, the terrible name:
Jake? Jake?

We meet in the hideout. We get takeout and eat lunch there. We ride. We hang. We goof off. We spit-bomb cars from the bridge. We still laugh, but not as much as before. Sometimes I wonder if the others can see those eyes following me. My pumpkin seeds don’t taste so good anymore.

M
y first thought was:
I don’t believe Mom is dragging me out of bed so early. It’s summer freaking vacation!
Then I opened my eyes. It wasn’t Mom. It was Poppy. “Let’s go,” he said. He tickled my feet. I shrieked. “You’ve been a zombie long enough. I’m off work today. You’re spending it with me.”

We went to used car lots, and by noon we were riding home in an old Malibu.

“Wish it wasn’t red,” he said. “But the price was right.”

“Red’s okay,” I told him.

After lunch we went for a spin. Back home, he went for the cards. “Ready to lose millions?” he said.

“Nah,” I said. “Don’t feel like it.”

He snapped his fingers. “Bummer. I guess my strategy’s not working. I figured if I kept you busy all day, maybe I could drag you out of your mood.”

We were at the kitchen table, our usual card-playing place. “I’ll never be out of this mood,” I said. I slumped in my chair.

“Sure you will,” he said. “Bad moods don’t last forever.”

“It’s not even just a mood,” I told him. “It’s my life. It’s me. You don’t understand.”

He shuffled the cards over and over. “I understand time passes. Time heals.”

I stared at him. “Poppy, you’re not a twin. You don’t know what it’s like to lose half of your self.”

He stared back at me for a long time. His eyes were shining. He smiled—a sad, remembering smile. He nodded. “Oh yes I do.”

It took me another minute of staring, and then I got it.
Grandma.
I felt rotten. I reached out. “I’m sorry, Poppy. I forgot.”

He patted my hand. He sniffed. “It’s okay. You’re allowed.”

I looked at Poppy’s white ponytailed hair, at
his eyes, at his face. I thought,
Wow—love lasts a long time.

And then he was talking. About the old days in California. Him and Grandma. How they used to dig for clams on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean. How they stomped on grapes and scrubbed the purple off each other’s feet and made their own wine. How sometimes Grandma would suddenly bust out laughing and he would look around but he couldn’t see anything funny. “Why are you laughing?” he would ask her, and she would say, “Who needs a reason?” and pretty soon they were both doing it. “We’d look at each other and just out of the blue bust out laughing.”

I watched his hands shuffle the cards. I knew he wanted me to play. I knew I should. But I couldn’t.

When I looked up, the same smile was on his face, but the eyes were different. A minute ago they were reaching back across time and miles to California and Grandma. Now they were only reaching three feet—thirty-six inches—to the other side of the kitchen table. To me.

“Poppy, what?” I said.

He was wagging his head now.

“What?”

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you. You know…the sleepwalk, the train station, all that.”

“Okay. So?”

“I mean, if I didn’t believe you, I wouldn’t have been there that night. Would I?”

It was feeling a little heavy. I tried to lighten it. “Even if you
were
a little late.”

He chuckled. “Right on that. But then…then…seeing you with my own eyes, standing there on the platform in the dim light, in your bare feet and pajamas,
all by yourself
”—he wagged his head some more—“touching you—remember that?—I touched you, I
poked
you, remember?”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

“Lily…I’ve been around the world, I’ve seen it all, but that night…you…”

I rushed to him. I dived into his lap. There were no more words. Just being close. And I think it was not just Poppy who was squeezing me. I think it was Grandma too.

L
indop.

That’s his last name. I had to give the eyes a name. The face I dream about every night, it had to have a name. A full name.

I rode to Meeker Street. I didn’t have to worry about him because today was Wednesday and that’s when he goes to his art lesson. That left his mom, who actually scared me more than him. I didn’t go straight to the house. I parked my bike a block away, sat on the curb, and watched. I must have waited two hours before the mailman finally came along. As soon as I saw him stick mail into the box by the front door, I took a deep breath and started walking. I wore a dorky shirt I never wear. I wore my sister’s Pennsylvania Railroad hat. And
sunglasses. It was the best disguise I could come up with. Every step of the way I was ready to run if I heard somebody yell, “Hey!”

I turned up the walkway to the porch. I was never so terrified in my life. I kept my head down. I prayed she wasn’t looking out the second-floor window. I prayed she wouldn’t come out just as I was reaching into the box. I grabbed the stack of mail. My hands were shaking. I looked at one letter. It was addressed to Mr. Raymond Lindop. Another letter. Another. Each one with the same last name: Lindop. I stuffed the mail back into the box and took off straight across the yard. Lily’s hat flew off but I was too terrified to go back for it. I climbed onto my bike and flew. I was sure somebody saw me. I tried to remember if looking at somebody’s mail was a crime. I didn’t calm down till I was out of town.

I kept repeating it. Silently at first, then out loud:

“Lindop…Lindop…Ernest Lindop…”

“I
was wrong.”

That’s what Poppy said when I walked into his kitchen tonight. He looked up from the sink and said, “I was wrong.”

“About what?” I said.

He turned from the sink. He was holding a cantaloupe. He held it out to me. “What can I do with this?”

I groaned. I grabbed the cantaloupe. I slammed it on the counter. “Jeez, Poppy, don’t you know
anything
?” I yanked open the counter drawer. All I saw were a couple of butter knives, forks, and spoons. “Where’s your long knife?” I said. “For cutting big stuff?”

He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. “Long knife?”

I glared at him. “How do you expect to cut a watermelon? Slice bread? Cake? A turkey?”

“I’ll get a long knife,” he said.

I stared at the pitiful drawer. I shook my head. “You’re not even civilized. You don’t even have an ice-cream scoop.”

“I don’t eat ice cream,” he said.

I snapped. “Well,
I
do!”

“Okay—okay,” he said. “I’ll get a long knife and an ice-cream scoop.”

“And fudge ripple,” I told him. “Every time I come to this house, I want there to be fudge ripple ice cream in the freezer. You know what a freezer is, don’t you?”

He saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

I poured myself an OJ from the fridge. “See, you got me all worked up.”

“Must be Bite Off Grandpa’s Head Day.”

I snicker-snorted. “Sorry. I’m in a crappo mood.” I flopped into a chair. “So what are you so wrong about?”

He sat down. “My advice to you. Telling you to get a life. Origami. Gardening. All that.”

“Why’s it wrong?”

“It’s wrong because—” He stopped, stared at me. “Look—what’s the bottom line here? What are we trying to accomplish?”

I didn’t have to think long. “Get me back with my brother. Get our goombla back.”

He smacked the table. “Exactly. And listen to the word you said—
get
.”

“So?”

“So, goombla, twin magic—whatever you want to call it—it’s not something you can chase after, reach for,
get
. You’ve been trying too hard. You’re forcing it.”

This time
I
smacked the table. “Well duh, of
course
I’m forcing it. I
want
it.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. It’s like love. You can’t
try
to love somebody. Either it’s there or it’s not.”

I felt a chill. “Are you saying our goombla isn’t there? It doesn’t exist? I might as well give up?”

He patted my hand. He laughed. “It’s there, all
right. Once entangled, forever entangled. You have to trust that.”

I was getting dizzy from all this fancy thinking. “So I just wasted the last couple of weeks—because I was trying too hard?”

He nodded. “Right.”

“So what am I supposed to do now?”

He smiled. “Stop trying. Give life a chance to just happen.”

“Poppy,” I whined, “you’re driving me crazy. First you say try. Now you say don’t try. First you say get a life. Now you say don’t get a life.”

He nodded, like I was making perfect sense. “Right. Because
life
will get
you
. Took me awhile to figure that out.”

“But what about my brother? What about us? Our goombla?”

He flicked his hand. “Walk away from it. Turn your back on it.” He smiled. “Forget it.”

I pounded the table. “Never!”

He took both my hands in his. “Listen, your goombla is a gift. You didn’t ask for it and you can’t give it away. But you’re smothering it. It can’t
breathe. You need to back off. Let go of it.”

I cried, “I can’t!”

He stood. He got the cantaloupe. He sat it in the middle of the table. He patted it. “Now stand up and turn around.”

“Poppy—”

“Do it. Stand up and turn your back on the cantaloupe.”

I stood up. I turned around.

“Can you see it?” he said.

“No.”

“Okay, now turn back.”

I did.

“And what do you see on the table?”

“A cantaloupe.”

“It didn’t disappear when you turned your back, did it?”

“Poppy—”

“Did it?”

“No.”

He patted the cantaloupe. “Think of this as your goombla. Every day from now on it’s going to be right here, whether you give it attention or not.”

I sighed. “I don’t know, Poppy.”

He came over and hugged me. “You don’t have to know. That’s what grandpas are for. All you have to do is trust me. Trust life to find you.”

I looked up into my grandfather’s eyes. “I trust you,” I said. “It’s life I don’t trust.”

R
iding my bike, eating breakfast, tying my shoes, in my dreams—he’s there, slumping, wonderstruck….
Jake?…Jake?

He hates me. Ernest Lindop of Meeker Street hates me. I’ve never been hated before. It’s like sunburn on my heart.

I
’m trying. I mean, I’m trying not to try.

As I was leaving Poppy’s yesterday, I said, “What exactly does that mean, let go of it?”

“Erase it from your mind,” he said. “Don’t think about goombla. Don’t care about it.”

How do you not try to get something you want?

How do you stop caring about the thing that you care about the most?

How do you erase the other half of your own self?

I
was wrong. Ernest Lindop doesn’t hate me.

He’s disappointed.

That’s what it is. Disappointment. Not hate. I wish it
was
hate. Hate is easier.

It sounds pretty innocent, doesn’t it? You hear parents say it all the time. Teachers. “I’m disappointed in you.”

That’s nothing. When somebody who was always laughing suddenly stops—when you look in a kid’s eyes just at the moment when it hits him that you haven’t been his friend after all—when you see somebody so sad that you know a hundred sucker punches to the gut couldn’t hurt him as much as the words you just said—
that’s
disappointment.