Junonia (10 page)

Alice was glad that the Wishmeiers stayed to play cards. First they all played Go Fish, and then the adults taught Alice how to play Hearts. When it was Mr. Wishmeier's turn to deal, Alice's eyes were cemented to his sun-coarsened hands. He could shuffle expertly. He'd form a bridge with the cards, and the cards would snap into place perfectly, like soldiers. To Alice's astonishment, he could cut the deck with one hand. And when he dealt, he'd flick the cards around the table, as though they were being spat out of a machine set at its highest speed.

Alice was just starting to understand Hearts, to grasp the strategy of the game, when Kate walked in and stood on the threshold with her arms extended and both of her hands on the door frame.

“This just isn't working,” said Kate. Her voice was tired and exasperated. “This isn't really working for anybody. I think we'll all feel better if we leave. This wasn't a good idea.”

“You're going
now
?” asked Alice's mother.

Kate looked around the room sheepishly, nodding.

Alice's father rose and turned off the air conditioner. Alice thought he did this because what was happening was important. With the door open and the air conditioner off, Alice could hear various sounds, including the rumble of Ted's voice, the car trunk slamming, footsteps on the crushed shells, and the whimpers and wails of Mallory.

“I want to live in France,” Alice heard Mallory say. And “I hate living in Florida.”

Kate straightened and smoothed her shirt, as if she were stalling the departure.

“Is everything all right in France?” asked Alice's mother.

“Yes,” said Kate. “Nothing's changed. Talking to her mother just upset Mallory more. Ted thinks Mallory will be happier if we drive back now. Get her home.”

“I forget,” said Alice's father. “How long a drive is it?”

“A few hours,” said Kate. “The traffic will be light at this time of night.”

There were offers of cake and pie and other snacks for the road, all declined by Kate.

“Next year,” said Kate. “Next year will be better.” She came forward for hugs. “Maybe I'll be alone.”

Enfolded within Kate's tight clasp, Alice felt as if she had only a dim understanding of adult life. “Bye, Aunt Kate,” she whispered into Kate's shirt. “I love your presents,” she added, nuzzling the inside of Kate's arm so that her new headband rubbed against Kate. It was a way of saying “I especially love the headband” without using words.

They all followed Kate outside.

Mallory was already buckled into the backseat of the car, slumped against the door. A wedge of yellow from the light attached to the cottage roof fell right across her. It seemed to Alice as if Mallory's face had shut down. She looked hopeless, homeless. As Alice forced her lips into a grim smile and slowly waggled her fingers in a halfhearted attempt at a wave, she thought, Mallory's the messiest mess of a kid I've ever seen.

Something selfish and something peevish gained strength in Alice as she watched Mallory. But then Mallory tried to look covertly at Alice, and Alice—her shoulders set high—saw it, and Mallory's eyes stayed on her. A change occurred in Alice. The selfishness and the peevishness wavered and lifted. Her shoulders softened.

Alice could tell that Mallory was fumbling around, struggling with the knobs on the door. Seconds later, the window rolled down and Mallory reached out through the charged air and lightly touched Alice's arm. Mallory quickly pulled her hand back and wiped her runny nose. She spoke; her voice was tremulous, but by the time she'd finished, it was strangely serene. “When I was littler and my nose was dripping, I'd say my nose was crying. Mama told me that.” Then she rolled up the window and tucked herself into the mottled shadows, using Munchkitty as a pillow.

The rest happened as if in a dream. The car stuttered ahead. It stopped a short distance away, idling, while Ted ran in and out of the office. Then, with a jolt, the car sped into the heavy darkness as if something awful were chasing them.

After saying good night to the Wishmeiers, Alice found herself back inside the cottage by the kitchen sink, flanked by her parents. She was glad that her parents weren't discussing Mallory, Kate, and Ted. She figured they'd do that privately once she was in bed. Alice pressed her finger onto some crumbs on the cake platter and brought her finger to her mouth.

“Do you need a bed supper tonight, Pudding?” asked her father.

“No,” said Alice. “Just this.” Again she pressed her finger onto some cake crumbs.

“Do you need one last birthday gift?” asked her mother.

“Ah!” Alice said with a quick intake of air. “I forgot.”

“I'll get it,” said her father.

Alice tore into the gift, standing up. There was an envelope with her name written on it inside a cardboard box. She opened the envelope. It took her a minute to understand the enclosed letter. She twisted her neck and looked up at her parents. “So this means that a sea turtle is being adopted for me?”

“That's right,” said her mother.

“You can even choose a name for it,” said her father.

“I love it,” said Alice. All of a sudden she felt drained to emptiness. Her legs wobbled. She sighed.

“We'll clean up in the morning,” said Alice's mother, steering Alice toward her bedroom.

Alice took one last look at the balloons and the remains of the cake and the crumpled wrapping paper and the little pile of dirty gelato spoons beside the stacks of dishes needing washing. Her birthday was over.

In bed, the events of the day fluttered about her mind like the butterflies on her bedspread. Her imagined birthday, the perfect one she'd wished for, had stayed just out of reach. She'd experienced true happiness and its abrupt reversal. And then things had taken a turn for the better and ended up happy again. What a day!

She was too tired to say good night. “I'm ten. . . .” she whispered, her voice slow and sleepy. The dark room shrank around her, swallowing her up till morning.

 

Alice had been dreaming as she woke up. In the dream she was stretched out on the beach in her bathing suit, and Mallory was bending over her, drawing spots on Alice's arms, legs, and face with a brown marker. “What are you doing?” Alice had asked calmly. To which Mallory had replied, “I'm making you into a junonia.”

While Alice lay in bed, the dream retreated from her memory, splintered and faded to nothing more than a strange aftertaste. Then the thing she was most aware of was sound. Rain rattled on the roof. It was pouring. She didn't feel so bad about it. In fact, the weather was perfect, Alice decided. She'd stay inside and really look at her birthday gifts. Sort them, rank them. She hoped the sea was rough, so that later, when the weather cleared, there might be great things to find—maybe even a junonia. She smiled at the ceiling, then she emerged from the covers as if from a shell and padded to the kitchen.

“Morning,” said Alice.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” said her mother. She was leaning forward over the sink, up to her elbows in suds.

“Where's Dad?”

“He drove to the store to get the newspaper. He peeked in at you to see if you wanted to go with him. He whispered to you, too, and said it seemed that your eyes were sewn shut. Dead to the world.”

Alice yawned. “I'm not hungry yet,” she said, “but can I have cake for breakfast when I'm ready?”

Her mother nodded.

“I'll help you with the dishes,” Alice offered.

“I'm almost done,” said her mother. “You can dry.” She bent toward Alice, keeping her hands in the sink.

Alice took the towel that was slung over her mother's shoulder. It was as though her thoughts were braided together with her mother's, because Alice remembered the gelato spoons just as her mother said, “I washed your little spoons from Helen Blair. They're in the dish drainer with the silverware.”

Her mother hummed, and Alice sorted through the silverware, separating the gelato spoons and arranging them in a neat row on the counter. Alice couldn't believe it. She rifled through the silverware again and combed through the plates and cups in the wire mesh drainer. She counted the gelato spoons once more and made sure none were stuck together. Her face reddened. A sharp, gruntlike exhalation escaped her lips.

Her mother stopped humming. “What?” she asked absently.

“She took one of my spoons.”

“What?”

“Mallory stole one of my spoons. The blue one. The one she used last night. There was only one blue one, and it's gone.”

“Are you sure? It must be here somewhere.”

Again Alice pawed through the drainer. Her mother emptied the water from the sink and sifted through the suds. Nothing.

“Let me look here,” said her mother. Alice waited impatiently, rocking on her heels, while her mother unballed the crumpled tablecloth. Her mother shook her head. “Sorry,” she said.

They checked every logical place, including the floor around the table and the porch. Then Alice threw on her bathing suit and ran out into the chilly rain to search the area where Ted's car had been parked.

When her father returned minutes later, Alice was back inside, soaked, shivering, wrapped in a towel. The disturbance she'd felt inside her had bubbled into full-blown anger.

“She's a thief!” said Alice.

“Who's a thief?” asked her father.

Alice explained the situation.

“You still have nine of them,” said her father.

“But I had
ten
. And just because I have nine doesn't make what she did right.”

“If she
did
take it,” said Alice's mother, “I agree it's wrong. But try to put yourself in her place. And maybe, maybe, she thought it was okay to keep it. That no one would care. That we'd just throw them away.”

“
No
,” Alice exclaimed. “No. She knew. She knew they were a present.”

Her father said, “If one little spoon makes her happy . . .”

Her mother said, “She's such a sad little girl.”

The silence that descended upon them was heavy. Alice took the nine gelato spoons and went to her room. She looked at her gifts, but her anger clouded her vision and clotted her thoughts.

When the rain stopped, she hid the kitten's paw necklace from Mallory in her fist and asked her parents' permission to run down to the ocean.

“I'll come right back,” Alice told them. “Please. I just want to see if there might be good shells.”

Her parents exchanged a glance.

“I'm ten,” said Alice.

“Seeing as you're ten,” said Alice's father, “how can we say no?”

“Come right back,” said her mother. “And you still need to eat breakfast.”

The drenching rain had yielded to steamy, rising temperatures. The air rippled. Waves of heat undulated all around as Alice ran to the ocean. The water was flat, like a sheet of glass.

Alice advanced until the water was lapping at her ankles. She threw the necklace. It didn't go far, but far enough. The necklace sank, disappearing beneath the smooth surface without a trace.

When she turned around to go back to the cottage, her face must have revealed the depth and nature of her feelings, because Mr. Wishmeier, who had appeared out of nowhere, surprising her, looked at her sympathetically and, with a hopeful note in his voice, said, “It gets better.”

Alice didn't know what to say. Silently she fled. She didn't slow down until the door of the cottage had slapped shut behind her.

For the rest of the day Alice thought about what Mr. Wishmeier had said. What gets better? she wondered. The weather? It had already stopped raining when she'd seen him. The day, in general? Life?

It—whatever it was—did get better, and it didn't. The day was mixed up. Alice had a nice time with her parents—shelling, reading lazily at the beach, splashing in the ocean. But Mallory's ghostly presence hung around like mist. Alice ripped up and threw away the birthday card Mallory had made, but the phantom was not to be rid of so easily. All at once, when she was scrutinizing her birthday presents, the missing blue gelato spoon was the one she liked best, and she longed for it.

Alice didn't find a junonia that day, and she decided that it was a silly waste of time to think about a god named Junonia. Obviously she, Junonia, didn't exist. She hadn't saved Alice's party from being spoiled, and she hadn't stopped Mallory from becoming a thief. However, Alice came up with the idea of officially calling her adopted sea turtle Junonia. And that seemed exactly right.

Another one of the things that did not get better was the sand heart on the beach. It had taken a beating from the rain. “It's worse for wear, but it's still here,” said Alice's father.

“But it's not the same,” Alice replied sadly. And even though she knew it was ridiculous, Alice felt that this, too, was somehow Mallory's fault.