Saving June (11 page)

“Better at what?”

Crap. Did it again. Damn filter!

“Everything,” I say as I accept the damp washcloth he hands me.

“I highly doubt that.”

I wipe off my mouth and spit a little. “What do you know?”

“Well, you’re better at living,” he reasons. “You’re the one still here, aren’t you?”

For a second I think he’s trying to be purposefully hurtful, to throw that in my face, but when I look up at him, his expression is neutral. The way he said it, too, wasn’t mean. It was just…honest. Like he was merely pointing out an irrefutable fact. Technically he’s right, but that knowledge doesn’t make me feel any better. I might be living, but what have I done with my life? Nothing spectacular.

“Please tell me you’re not a weepy drunk,” he says, when I haven’t responded.

“No.” I fling the washcloth onto the floor. “I don’t cry.”

Jake looks at me, disbelieving. “Ever?”

“Never.”

I stand up slowly, clutching the counter for support. My legs feel all weird and rubbery. I know that the second I step away, I’ll probably fall over myself in a spectacular fashion and end up back on the ground in a heap of limbs. I look helplessly to Jake, who rolls his eyes and takes my arm.

“You’re like an old lady,” he teases as he half carries me into the guest room.

“Yeah, I’m sure you help old ladies cross the street all the time.”

“That is how I like to spend my weekends. That, and
luring stranded kittens out of trees.” He grins. “It’s a hobby.”

I make Jake look away while I struggle out of my wet jeans, then collapse onto the bed stomach first. I barely have the energy to kick and crawl my way under the covers. Jake steals the extra pillow, easing onto the floor.

“You’re sleeping there?” I ask, surprised.

“The couch is…otherwise occupied, if you hadn’t noticed,” he says.

I watch as he punches the pillow a few times and places it under his head. He tosses and turns, trying to arrange himself into a comfortable position on the hard wooden slats. It’s painful just to watch. I know I’ll probably regret this later, but.

I sigh and move over on the bed. “Get in.”

He picks his head up off the floor. “What?”

“Get in,” I repeat, impatient, patting the mattress. “Hurry, before my flash of temporary insanity dissipates.”

“How generous of you,” he says sarcastically, but he’s already halfway to his feet.

The bedsprings creak loudly as Jake settles in, his weight causing the mattress to dip a little. I haven’t shared a bed with anyone before, except during sleepovers with Laney, and my mother, when I was, like, five or something and got nightmares all the time. I definitely haven’t shared one with a boy.

Did June ever—with Tyler? Common sense would say
yes, since they dated for a pretty long time and all, and hormones make teenagers crazy. But still, I can’t see it. Would June really have sex? Would she have even told me if she did? She wasn’t like Laney, the kind to share details. And I wasn’t the kind to press.

I ball up on the other side of the bed, stare at the wall and breathe, slow and even, in an attempt to coax myself into sleep. The leftover tequila churns in my stomach, making my head pound, the room tilted in my vision. I close my eyes and try to push thoughts of June from my mind.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan of tequila,” Jake says.

So much for sleep.

“I’m not. It’s disgusting.” I roll onto my back and glance over at him. He’s gazing up at the ceiling with his arms tucked behind his head. “I didn’t know you could play guitar.”

He exhales a self-deprecating laugh. “Not very well.”

“Mmm. I didn’t hate it.”

At this, he turns his head toward me, one corner of his mouth tugged up into a smile. “How would you know? You’re totally wasted.”

“I’m not wasted.” I pause and suppress a smile into the comforter. “Okay, maybe a little.” A sudden wave of nausea hits me. I hold my stomach with both hands, take deep breaths and try to ignore it. “Um. And queasy.”

“If you throw up on me, I will kill you.”

“I can’t believe you saw me puke,” I groan, pulling the blankets over my head.

It’s too embarrassing to think of anyone seeing me like that. I’ve never gotten so drunk it made me sick. It was nice, I guess, of Jake to hold my hair back, instead of just leaving me there.

“It was a lovely moment,” he says drily. “Now there’s a band name for you—the Lovely Pukes.”

I poke my head back out to shoot him a withering look. “How about the Shut the Fuck Ups?”

“The Toilet Huggers.”

“The Imminent Castrations.”

“Yes, with our debut album—
Lorena Bobbitt, How Could You.”

“You know, the husband, John Bobbitt, he formed a band after that whole thing. The Severed Parts,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure he did a lot of porn, too.”

Jake just lies there, staring at me. The teasing in his eyes has been replaced with a serious, assessing look.

“What?” I say. God, boys are so weird.

“How do you know that?” he asks. He actually sounds impressed.

“It’s called the internet. You might try living in the twenty-first century sometime,” I mumble. I yawn and roll back over to face the wall again, and if Jake has a snappy comeback for that one, I don’t hear it because I’m already asleep.

I wake up to a blast of raucous, thrashing punk attacking my eardrums. My initial reaction is to bolt upright with my eyes wide open, which is also my first mistake, since the sunlight streaming in through the windows only worsens the dull pain behind my eyes. I fall back and shove a pillow over my face to block it out.

Somehow I’m upside down on the bed, on top of all the blankets. When did that happen?

“Rise and shine!” greets Laney in a singsong voice.

I peek out at her only to be welcomed by a blinding flash of white, which causes me to gasp and tumble off the bed, blankets and all, landing on the wooden floor with an ungraceful
oof.
Laney starts laughing so hard she doubles over, my Polaroid camera in one hand. I pitch the pillow at her face.

“I hate you,” I say, flailing as I fight to untangle myself from the blanket. “Where did you get that?”

“Found it in your bag. I’m sorry…but…you should have seen…your face…” Between giggle fits, she helps me stand. “Come on. They want to hit the road in an hour. How’s your hangover?”

Like death warmed over, actually, but I ignore the question.

“The music. Who. Is playing. The music?” I grate out, blinking as my eyes slowly adjust to the light.

“The wake-up call is courtesy of Gwen,” Laney says with false cheer. “Who, by the way, will
not
be accompanying us to Chicago.”

This catches my attention. “What? Why not?”

“Because the negative energy of the protest movement is not conducive to her artwork? Because she’s an idiot? Who cares!” Laney makes a face. “I don’t know what that girl’s malfunction is. She and Jake already had it out this morning.”

“Really? What were they arguing about?”

“No idea, but it sounded vicious. After they were done, Jake walked into the room and told Seth that Gwen wasn’t coming, and then just walked right out. He was totally pissed. I thought for sure he’d freak and punch a wall or something. Weird, right?”

Definitely weird. I climb up on the bed and rub my eyes,
then look at her again. There’s a glaring hickey right on her neck. A souvenir from her night with Seth, I assume.

“So you and Seth. Did you guys.” I trail off because I’m not good at being casual about these things the way Laney is.

“What? No!” She looks mildly offended. “Seth doesn’t even
have
sex. He’s saving himself.”

“Saving himself? For what?”

“That’s what I said! He was all, ‘Oh, my body is a temple, blah blah blah,’ whatever.”

Laney goes to the mirror and applies her makeup, all the while gabbing away about Seth and his bizarre morals (drinking alcohol and smoking pot, apparently, are totally cool in his book, but having sex and eating any animal-derivative food products are totally not), and his kissing technique (very thorough, with lots of tongue usage—but not in a bad way). I haul my bag onto the bed and paw through the balled-up clothes. So Seth thinks his body is a temple? Maybe Jake adheres to that same belief system. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t drink. I mean, it isn’t a big deal—it’s not like I booze it up on a regular basis, contrary to the impression I made by my previous night’s behavior—but I’d pegged him as being…different.

I find Jake downstairs, sitting outside on the patio, gazing down the dune and out at the beach. The morning is still cool, a breeze whipping in off the lake. I zip my hoodie up to my chin and sit down next to him.

“You want?” He gestures to the loaf of bread and peanut butter jar positioned between us.

I take a slice of the spelt bread out of the plastic and dip it into the peanut butter. The combination is surprisingly tasty.

“Not bad,” I say through my chewing, licking an errant smear of peanut butter from my thumb.

I look out at the lake. It’s windier today than it was yesterday, the waves higher and cresting white more often as they roll in. Next to me, Jake stares at his feet and picks at his laces, rubs a thumb across the toe of his shoe.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says, “about California.”

I pop another piece of bread in my mouth and wait for him to elaborate.

“My brother has a friend in San Francisco,” he continues. “We could stay with her, probably. She’s pretty cool. She wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

At least that means we’re one step closer, right? Now we have an actual destination. Somewhere to pinpoint on a map. Where is San Francisco, anyway? Not in the middle, obviously, because it’s on the bay. And they have the trolleys, too, if my memories of the
Full House
opening credits are anything to go by.

“Hi, Daddy. It’s me, your favorite daughter.” Laney’s chipper voice drifts through the door as she steps outside to join us. Her cell phone is pressed to her ear. “I’m just
letting you know that me and some friends are going on this little spur-of-the-moment road trip thing—just for a few days. The house is locked and everything, and Martha knows where the spare key is, so she can get in and clean on Tuesday. My phone might be off for a while, but don’t freak, I’ll call you in a day or two. Have fun with your golf and wine tasting or whatever. Love you. Ciao.” She snaps the phone shut and looks at us. “Oh my God. Tell me there is something to drink in this house besides water, wheatgrass juice and soy milk.”

“I drank the last of the pop this morning. Sorry. Such are the perils of living in a vegan household,” Jake says with a grin. “But we’ll have to stop at a gas station before we get out of town anyway.”

“I cannot imagine being vegan. I mean, being vegetarian is hard enough. Did you know that gelatin is made out of, like, boiled animal bones? And that they put that shit in Jell-O?” She shudders. “I had to give up Jell-O shots. Greatest tragedy of my
life.”

“And yet somehow you persevere,” I say sardonically.

The door slides open again, and this time Seth’s head pokes out. “Has anyone seen my gas mask?”

Why the hell does he need a gas mask?

Jake brushes off his jeans and stands. “I think that’s my cue to go inside. Be ready to go in a half hour or so, all right?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Laney says with a mock salute. She
takes his seat and fishes a piece of bread from the bag. “Did you need my phone? To call your mom, I mean.”

Oh, God, my mother. My stomach jumps. I am so not prepared to face her yet, even over a phone call. Maybe I will be ready when we’ve put a couple hundred more miles between us. Or a thousand.

I shake my head. “Not yet.”

“I can talk to her first. If you want.”

“No.”

“Harper…” She hesitates, tucking behind her ears strands of her long hair blown loose from the wind. “You know I’m a strong advocate for bucking the system and embracing juvenile delinquency and all that jazz, but soon your mom’s going to be boarding the train to Spazzville. Don’t you think you should, I don’t know, give her a heads-up? She’s already dealing with a lot right now—”

“And what about me?” I say angrily. “Does anyone care what I’m dealing with?”

Laney’s mouth falls open. “I care. Of course I care. Harper, you have to know that.”

She looks so desperate for me to see it. I know she’s trying—maybe it isn’t exactly the support I need, but I don’t know
what
I need, or even what I want, from her or from anybody. There’s no way to tell her the truth, because the truth is that my heart is broken, and I don’t think there’s any chance of it being sewn back together. This is permanent. It can’t be fixed.

I can’t begin to explain it all to her. I can’t even explain it to myself.

“I know,” I say, more softly. “And I’m going to call. I promise. Just…not this very second. Knowing Aunt Helen, she’d probably pick up and send a bounty hunter after me so I can be dragged back for an exorcism.”

Laney looks mollified by my answer. Good. She bites off another chunk of bread. “Your aunt’s a fucking nutcase. No offense.”

“None taken. Trust me.”

For the ride down to Chicago, Danny and Anna take Danny’s little teal Honda, and Laney, Seth, Jake and I pile into Joplin. Before we leave, Anna gives me a CD.

“Ani DiFranco,” she says at my quizzical look. “She’ll change your life. I know Jake’s a tyrant when it comes to what music he plays in his van, but if he gives you any grief, just ask him how many ABBA albums he owns. That never fails to shut him up.”

“Thanks,” I say, looking at the picture on the front. It’s of a woman with long dreads and an acoustic guitar.

“No problem.” Anna shrugs, smile softening. “Hey, by the way. I never told you how sorry I am.”

I look up. “What?”

“About your sister,” she explains. “I heard what happened.”

“Oh,” I say, and then, because it seems only appropriate, “Thank you.”

“She was a really nice girl.”

I open my mouth to regurgitate some polite line, but then I realize what she’s said. It’s almost enough to knock the wind out of me.

“You—you met her?” I ask. It comes out sort of strangled.

“Well, yeah,” she says slowly. “I think that’s why Gwen was being rude to you guys last night. She liked June a lot, and I think maybe she thinks it’s weird, that Jake is bringing you around, after—”

Anna stops and bites her lip. She’s thought better of whatever she was about to say.

“After what?” I prod. I swallow. “Anna—”

“Ask Jake,” she says, walking backward. “I mean, I don’t really know anything.”

Before I can corner her for more, she disappears into Danny’s car, leaving me standing there with about a million unanswered questions. On top of the five million unanswered questions I already had.

True to Anna’s word, the second Jake starts to object when I replace his Frank Zappa with Ani, all I have to do is ask whether he prefers “Dancing Queen” over “Fernando,” and the protest dies on his lips. I suspect that secretly he doesn’t oppose the music change, though, considering the way he drums his fingers on the steering wheel along to
the song, which is folksy and sharp, just a girl and a guitar. It’s hard to get into. The kind of music you have to listen to for a while before you really get it.

We’ve been on the highway for about half an hour when Laney says, “We should play a game.”

Seth, having discovered a deck of playing cards somewhere in the backseat, has spent the last fifteen minutes shuffling them idly. At Laney’s suggestion, he stops sorting the cards in his hands and looks up, curiosity piqued. “What did you have in mind?”

“How about Top Three?”

Top Three is a game Laney and I invented when we were thirteen—we’d come up with various topics, ranging from the deeply personal to the philosophical to the downright dirty to everything in between, and the other person has to list their Top Three in that category. Past notable categories include Top Three Worst Childhood Traumas, Top Three Things You Would Say to President George W. Bush If You Faced No Legal Repercussions, and Top Three Places You Would Like to Have a One-Night Stand With Ryan Gosling. Over time, we liked to try to top each other with the craziest, most creative answers we could come up with. Laney claims that Top Three is the best way to reveal a person’s soul, inside and out.

After Laney explains the rules (which doesn’t take long, since really, the point of the game is that there are no rules; coming up with the most no-holds-barred categories is half
the fun), Seth immediately agrees to play. Even Jake, when prodded, grunts in a way that seems to express consent to being subjected to a round of questioning.

We take turns, and the game kills two hours of driving.

Top Three Alternatives to a Bong
(for Seth)

1. A gas mask. (“Dude, it’s
hardcore.
Not for the faint of heart. That’s all I can say.”)

2. Cut-up aluminum can. (“Just make sure it’s not from Coca-Cola. Do you know about how they treat factory workers in Colombia? The human rights violations are so screwed up.”)

3. Pot brownies. (“Two birds, one stone. The other bird being munchies. Duh.”)

Top Three Celebrities You Would Lunch With Given the Opportunity
(for Laney)

1. Cary Grant. (“What? You didn’t say they have to be
alive.”)

2. Kathy Griffin. (“Imagine the catty gossip you could exchange. We’d rag on Barbara Walters and Ryan Seacrest over Caesar salads.”)

3. Brangelina. (“They count as one unit. I want them to adopt me. Or I could be their nanny. They have, like,
what, eighteen kids? I’m sure they could always use another nanny.”)

Top Three Favorite Albums of All Time
(for Jake)

1.
Quadrophenia,
The Who. (“Their peak album. Nothing after ever lived up to it.”)

2.
Doolittle,
the Pixies. (“Nirvana, Radiohead—they wouldn’t exist without the Pixies. The Pixies are the shit.”)

3.
A Love Supreme,
John Coltrane. (“The first jazz album I listened to all the way through. I never got jazz until I heard this. Coltrane is—he’s like a
god
when it comes to this stuff.”)

Tie for third:
ABBA,
ABBA. (“Fuck you. I know Anna said something. I refuse to be ashamed. They rock, period, end of story.”)

Top Three Things You Want To Be When You Grow Up
(for me)

1. The person who names nail polish colors. Wouldn’t that be cool? I’ve already thought up some possible names, brainstorming most of them during the snooze fest that is biology class: Strawberry Shakespeare, Mauve It or Lose It, Green With Envy, et cetera.

2. An inner-city school teacher, inspiring those with the odds stacked against them to make something of their lives and break the vicious cycle of poverty—that is, until I remember that even as a kid I hated kids. Plus, school is a nightmare, so why would I want a career that requires me to spend every day there? So that one can get scratched off the list.

3. Happy.

Funny that of all my answers, the last one seems the most unlikely.

“What about that?” Jake asks. When I look at him, confused, he nods to the camera resting in my lap. “What? You think I should be a photographer?” “Do you?”

“No. I don’t know.” I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. But I don’t harbor any delusions of grandeur—I’m no Annie Leibovitz. Just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean it’ll work out as a career. “It’s not a really practical dream to have, is it?”