Saving June (23 page)

Laney finishes up, kissing her fingertips and brushing them across the metal slat affixed to the tree trunk. We get back on the road, and the three of us sing along to the Beach Boys at the top of our lungs until we hit the Pacific Coast Highway, and then keep singing, even after that.

According to the atlas, it would’ve been faster to take the interstate up from Cholame and cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, but Jake said if we were going to be driving for so long anyway, we might as well take the scenic route. It’s a good call—what passes by outside our windows more than makes up for the time difference. The farther up Highway 1 you go, the more the scenery changes. The beaches down south are like the ones you see on television. Rippled golden sand and sparkling water and palm trees everywhere. I heard once that most of California’s palm trees aren’t even natural, just transplanted for the sake of tourists’ expectations. Up north the water still sparkles, but everything feels a little more wild, with dramatic jagged cliffs and lots of brush. I like it better. You can sort of pretend it hasn’t been touched by mankind.

Eventually we turn off the interstate and drive into San
Francisco. When we reach the city limits, Jake pulls out a folded-up piece of paper from his sun visor and hands it to me. There are directions written on it in his scratched-out scrawl.

“She doesn’t live too far from here,” he says.

Laney pops her head up from the backseat. “Who, exactly, is this ‘she’?”

“Her name’s Carmen.”

“And how do we know she’s not some crazy psycho who’ll kidnap us?”

“She used to date my brother.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Jake reaches one hand around to slap her shoulder playfully. “Carmen’s cool, I swear. I’ve known her since we were kids. She’s sort of like my surrogate older sister, you know? We still write and everything.”

I have a hard time imagining Jake sitting at a desk, pounding out a letter to a pen pal. Not to mention his handwriting sucks.

“She does know we’re coming, right?” I ask.

“Well…” He hems and haws a bit. “Not exactly.”

Laney immediately smacks the back of his head. “Jake! You mean we’re showing up unannounced? That is so rude!”

“What if she isn’t there? What are we going to do?” I smack him once, too, for good measure. “What is
wrong
with you?”

“Can we please stop with the abuse?” he says. He rubs a hand through his hair. “She’ll be there, okay? I promise. Relax.”

We follow Jake’s barely legible directions and end up in front of a beige apartment building with a terra-cotta roof. He parks on the side of the street, and we get out of the van and walk up to the building entrance. Jake squints at the intercom box before pressing the buzzer next to a label that says Delgado.

A minute or so passes, but no one responds.

“I am going to kill you,” I tell Jake. It’s sweltering out here, and we’re all going to die of heatstroke while we wait. Why couldn’t he have called?

He rolls his eyes and presses the buzzer three more times in quick succession, then takes a few steps back. Seconds later, a window on the third floor above us opens, and a girl’s head peeks out, her long black ponytail dangling over one shoulder.

“I already told you, I’m not gonna subscribe to your stupid magazine!” she yells.

“We’re not selling anything,” Jake calls back. “We just came to see my favorite
chula
this side of the Mississippi.”

The girl pauses and shields her eyes to get a better look. “Jacob? That you?”

“In the flesh,” he confirms with a broad grin.

She covers her mouth with both hands and emits something between a laugh and a squeal.

“Hang on a second,” she says, then disappears from the window and reappears moments later, something in her hand catching the afternoon light and flashing gold. “The damn buzzer’s broken. Let me throw you a key.”

Jake steps back and holds his hands above his head. She tosses the key down, and with a quick dive to the left, he’s able to snatch it out of the air. After unlocking the door, he steps aside so that Laney and I can pass through first, and then follows us up the three flights of stairs.

By the time we’ve reached the top, we’re all huffing a little. I try to catch my breath so I can ask which apartment is hers when one of the doors swings open. Out comes Carmen, sporting an old yellow polo and ratty jeans with holes at the knees. Both are covered in red paint. There’s a lopsided smear of it on her right cheek. Even so, she’s stunning, with her sleek black hair, smooth olive skin and wide-set dark brown eyes.

“Vato!”
she cries, making a beeline for Jake. She grabs him in a ferocious hug.

Laney and I trade silent looks. I know she has to be thinking the same thing as me: here’s another piece of the puzzle that is the eternal mystery of Jacob Tolan.

“I’m sorry, I’m such a mess—painting the living room—I had no idea—” Carmen releases Jake and wipes her palms off on her jeans. “What are you even doing here, Jake? Where’s your brother?”

“Eli’s back in Michigan. Someone has to man the fort,
I guess,” he says. He glances over at Laney and me for a brief moment and then back to Carmen. “We’ve been road tripping.”

“Oh.” She gives him a studied look. “Any reason?”

“I have an aunt with a beach house in Santa Barbara,” Laney lies smoothly. “We thought it’d be fun. You only graduate high school once, right?”

Jake’s eyes dart to mine, surprised, and I half shrug, because it’s not like I had any idea Laney would say that. Her cover story is pretty brilliant, actually, simple in explanation, a touch of believable detail in mentioning the fictional aunt’s beach house, and a subtle implication that we’re all eighteen and thus legal adults with the graduation bit. Laney is a natural actress.

This explanation seems to satisfy Carmen, because she turns to Laney and nods, then swats Jake on the arm in a sisterly kind of way.

“Don’t be so rude!” she chastises. “Introduce me!”

“These are my…friends,” he says hesitantly. “Laney, Harper, this is Carmen Delgado, Carmen, this is Laney and Harper.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Laney says. “And, not to be rude, honestly, but please,
please
tell me you have airconditioning.”

Carmen laughs. “I do. Come in, come in.”

She shepherds us into her apartment. It’s small but cozy, with polished wooden floors and enough windows to
utilize the natural sunlight. The furniture in the living room is covered with plastic, and two paint cans sit open on the floor, next to a large foam roller and set of smaller brushes. Half of the walls are colored bright red, the other half still pale cream.

“Sorry about the disaster area. I’m redecorating,” explains Carmen apologetically.

I notice a black cat on the floor batting its paws at the bunched-up plastic draped over the couch. Another gray one eyes us curiously from its perch on the couch’s arm.

“Your cats seem to be enjoying it,” I remark.

“They’re menaces,” Carmen says with a good-natured eye roll. The black cat takes a flying leap and begins to wrestle with a ball of yarn on the floor. Carmen sits on the couch, scratching the gray tabby’s back as he purrs loudly.

“The red suits you. I like it,” Jake says. He flops down beside Carmen, the plastic squeaking underneath him.

“Me too,” she agrees. She pats him on the knee and looks to Laney. “If you want a snack to cool down, I have Popsicles in the freezer, right down the hall. Feel free to help yourself.”

Laney, never one to turn down such an offer, scurries straight to the kitchen. I settle into the armchair across from the couch. Carmen’s cat sits on her lap as she snakes its tail through her fingers.

“How’s your ma?” Jake asks.

“You know her. Nag nag nag. She thinks it’s crazy I haven’t married and popped out any kids yet.” She laughs. “So how’s Eli doing? He never calls anymore.”

Jake shrugs. “He’s fine. Busy running the store.”

“And what about you?” Her tone goes softer, more serious. “You sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes,” he says, “but—”

“Oh, here we go!”

“—we could use a place to crash. Just for a night or two.”

“What kind of trouble you in, Jacob? And be straight with me, or I’ll call your brother and find out.”

“You can’t call Eli.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t!”

“He even know you’re here?” When Jake doesn’t respond, Carmen presses the heels of her hands to her temples. “He doesn’t even know, does he? I know you think he’s a jerk—”

Jake snorts indignantly. “Only because he
is—”

“—but that’s a crap-ass move, leaving him in the dark. What are you
doing
here?”

I step forward. “It’s my fault.”

Both of them quit arguing and turn to stare at me like they’ve just realized I’m in the room.

“He’s here because of me,” I tell Carmen. “Actually, not me. He’s here because of my sister.”

And that is when I tell her everything. Well, not
everything
—but I explain how June died. Her dreams of California. The ashes. It’s weird how easily the story spills out of me; starting is the hardest part, but once I have, I don’t even have to think about it.

Carmen listens without saying a word the whole way through, and when I’m done, she comes over and puts her arms around me gently, which is a little embarrassing. And then she hugs Jake, and hugs me again. When all of this hugging business is finished, she steps back and tilts her head at us both.

“You can stay here. Of course you can stay here,” she says. “And I think my friend Tina can help you out. Her man Charlie works at a marina in Sausalito. She owes me one ever since I did hair and makeup for her, three bridesmaids and a flower girl at her wedding, no charge. I can call in a favor.”

My eyes go wide. “Seriously?” Could it really be that easy?

“Of course. It’s nothing,” she says with a smile, and then I look at Jake and he’s smiling, and I’m smiling back, and I feel like I might cry, even.

All this time, part of me has doubted our ability to pull this off. But now it looks like we’re really going to. My sister is going to get the goodbye she deserves.

“Now I gotta clean up the spare room,” Carmen says
with a sigh. “I’ve been using it to store all my junk. There’s no space to hardly breathe in there.”

“I’ll help,” I volunteer. I feel such a rush of gratitude toward her that I would do anything she asked. I would scrub her toilets, change her kitty litter, become her indentured servant. Whatever she needs.

Carmen smiles. “That’s sweet, but I got it.” She turns to cuff Jake upside the head. “You know, a heads-up would’ve been nice. Christ.” She glances upward and makes the sign of the cross over herself on her way out of the room.

Just as she leaves, Laney reappears, sucking on a half-eaten cherry Popsicle. She pulls it out of her mouth and looks at us curiously.

“Did I miss anything?”

Carmen is basically made of awesome. I figure Eli Tolan must be the biggest idiot alive to have ever let her go. She’s gorgeous, funny, smart and makes a mean quesadilla. The two of us sit outside on her balcony eating from paper plates while Laney takes a shower and Jake works on painting the living-room wall. There’s a nice view of the neighborhood from here. The cool night air smells a little salty, like the ocean. I wonder how far we are from the bay.

I look over at Carmen, her profile silhouetted by the moonlight. “Can I ask you something?” “Sure,” she says.

“What was it like, growing up with Jake and Eli?” I want to more about the Tolans. I want to know what Jake won’t tell me—about his past, why his mom isn’t
around, what really happened to make him so…hardened. People aren’t born that way; I know I wasn’t. If anyone knows, Carmen does.

“The Tolan brothers,” she says wistfully. She shakes her head with a little startled laugh, like she’s remembering something she hasn’t thought about in ages. “Well, I lived next door. They were good kids, you know? Eli and I, we dated for a while. He was so different. I really cared about him. Broke my fucking heart when it ended.”

“Why didn’t it work out?” I ask.

“We were young. I guess I thought I could save him. I was sixteen. What did I know?” Her smile is thin. “He was always talking about leaving—he wanted to go to New York and be a starving artist or something. Me, I love California. I’ll never leave. I know they’d lived in a lot of other places before then. Their mother…” She stops, uncertain. “Has he talked about her?”

I look down at my feet. “I don’t know the whole story, but I get the impression she was…unstable.”

Carmen drags one manicured hand through her thick hair. She puts her elbows on her knees and clasps her hands, pressing her mouth to her fists, staring somewhere into the distance in front of her.

“She loved those boys,” she says firmly. “But she couldn’t take care of them. She never could. It was always them having to fend for themselves. Eli hated her for that, he really did. They lived here for a few years, and then as soon
as Eli graduated school, he split for good, and their mom dragged Jake all over the place. He wrote me letters all the time. Mostly about music. Bands and songs he liked, that kind of thing. I had no clue what was really going on.”

I want to push for more, but I know if I’m patient, if I wait, she’ll tell me the rest. I can see in her eyes that it’s hard for her. She twists the silver ring on her thumb around and around and around, evading my gaze.

“She left,” she says finally, in a voice so quiet I have to strain to hear it at all. “One day she just walked out and didn’t come back. Jake was alone for over a month before anyone realized. She’d done that before a few times—taken off and not told anyone, then showed up days later. I think he thought she would come back eventually.”

“So that’s how he ended up with his brother.”

“Eli’s been taking care of him for the last three or four years, yeah.”

“And their mother?”

Carmen sighs, a sad, heavy sound. In the moment she takes to pause, I hear the cacophony of crickets below us, buzzing in the humid evening air, filling her silence.

“People like that. People who don’t want to be found? They’re usually really good at staying lost.”

I fall asleep thinking about mothers. About what it would feel like if mine just up and left without warning. I don’t know what would be worse: being an orphan by
accident or being abandoned by choice. My mom is far from perfect—she tried too hard with June and not enough with me. But at least she cares, in her own dysfunctional way. At least she was
there.
I don’t appreciate that the way that I should.

I wake up in the morning before anybody else and decide to fix breakfast for everyone. Mom used to make eggs Benedict all the time. I’ve never made it on my own, but I’ve seen her do it, so it can’t be too hard. Carmen’s kitchen is well stocked. I pull out the ingredients I recognize and turn on the stove.

Of course, me being me, I somehow end up burning my hand on the stove pan before I’ve even cracked a single egg.

“Dammit!” Frustrated, I throw the pan down, suck on the stretch of skin between my thumb and index finger. It hurts like a bitch.

“Is this a bad time?”

I whirl around to see Jake lingering in the doorway, shoulder pressed against the frame, arms crossed and mouth curved in that patented half grin. He looks sleepy and rumpled and I didn’t realize anyone could make bedhead look so sexy.

“Apparently all my hours logged watching the Food Network were in vain,” I pout, shaking out my hand.

Jake comes forward, takes hold of my wrist in order to
inspect the burn mark. The skin there is already blooming an angry red.

“Here.” He turns on the faucet and guides my hand under the tap. “Stay put.”

“Yes, sir,” I retort mockingly, and then twist my head around to watch him as he sets the pan back on the stove. “What are you doing?”

“Finishing what you started,” he teases.

He surveys the array of ingredients assembled on the counter: eggs, ham slices, ground pepper, four English muffins, yogurt, mustard and low-fat mayo.

“Um…” He glances over at me, baffled. “What exactly were you planning on making?”

“Eggs Benedict,” I sigh. At his look, I shrug. “What? My mom used to make it all the time. I thought I could wing it.”

“Yeah…ambitious though you may be, we’re gonna go a little old-school and try French toast instead.”

He puts everything away except the eggs and the jar of mayo. He rummages through the refrigerator and pulls out a half gallon of milk, a stick of butter and maple syrup, then kicks the door shut with one socked foot.

I raise my eyebrows. “You use mayonnaise to make French toast?”

“The mayo is for you. It’ll help the burn.”

I keep my hand under the cold water as he works. He
cracks an egg into a wide bowl, whisks it up with a fork and lets pieces of bread soak in it for a while.

“You make French toast a lot?” I ask.

“Nah. But cooking’s kind of like riding a bike, or having sex. You never really forget.” At least he has the decency to look sheepish after catching his slip on the last part.

“Where’d you even learn how to make it?”

He starts to slice some fruit on the counter, avoiding my gaze. “You know, you grow up…. Ma’s always busy scrounging up money and teaching the neighborhood henna class…. Good old Dad’s never around, because he’s looking for ways to illegally fund his drug habit, and even when he
is
there, he’s not really since he’s using…. Eventually the prospect of mac-and-cheese every night loses its charm.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “If it matters.”

“It does.” He sets the knife down and wipes his hands off with a dishcloth. “Look, I’ve learned that the only way to prevent being a product of your environment is to at least be honest about what that means—your sister taught me that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the reason I graduated,” he says. “Honestly, I always planned to drop out. It’s not like I ever cared about school. No one in my family ever expected any different. And then the school set me up for tutoring with June, and…I don’t know. Somehow she convinced me to try.
Said pulling up my grades and passing would piss off the administration more than anything else.” He smiles a little to himself. “She made me promise to get my shit together—no drinking, no getting in trouble, no blowing off school. So I did. Because she believed I could do it.”

“Wow,” I say carefully, “that’s really…” Sad? Weird? No. Not weird. It’s exactly the kind of thing June would do. The kind of thing that made me both proud to be her sister and ashamed that I was never able to be so naturally
good
the way she was. “I mean, I’m glad,” I tell him. “That she could help you.”

Jake drops the dishcloth and leans on his elbows against the counter next to me. “I’m really sorry she died,” he says. He tucks his chin into his chest. “If it matters.”

It does, but I don’t know how to tell him that without feeling like I’m putting too much on the table. Which is stupid, because it’s not like he hasn’t seen me vulnerable. Hell, he’s seen me naked. And if I was a better person—if I was June—I would recognize this vulnerable moment of his, this olive branch he’s holding out, and extend one of my own.

Except I’m not June. I’m just me.

I look at the running water and say, “My hand is numb.”

He reaches across my shoulder and turns off the faucet. For a few seconds we stay that way, his front pressed against my back. His entire body brushes mine, and I can feel the
heat of his skin radiating through his thin cotton shirt; his mouth is in my hair. I shiver.

When I turn to face him, Jake’s crowded me so close to the sink that I have to lift my chin to look him in the eyes. That boyish vulnerability has been replaced by a heated look. I think about how it felt to kiss him before, and I want to kiss him so badly, those kisses that were so consuming. Melting everything else away.

“You know what’s really weird,” I finally say, when the silence is too much. “Mix CDs.”

And now he’s just confused. “Mix CDs?” he says skeptically.

“Think about it. With technology and everything, compact discs are going to be, like, vintage soon, right? The way vinyl is now. Like, if I ever have kids, they’re going to look at CDs and think, ‘What is this crap, geez, how clunky.’ By then everyone will have the fiftieth edition of iPods—or maybe they’ll just have music downloaded directly into their brains, like with microchips, or something. And I’ll be the old lady in the corner going, ‘Back when I was a kid, we had mix tapes, and floppy disks, and gas didn’t cost twenty bucks a gallon, and oh, yeah, MTV actually played music videos, if you can believe it.’ And they’ll probably say, ‘Oh, Mom, you and your
stories,
we’re jetting to the oxygen bar, see you later,’ and take off in their flying cars. You know there’ll be flying cars, it’s only a matter of time.”

Jake tilts his head to one side. “You’re rambling.”

“I know,” I say. “I do that when I’m nervous.”

“And when you’re drunk.”

“You’d know better than me on that one.”

“Yeah,” he says, and laughs. “Well. Personally speaking, mix CDs will never go out of style. I like having something tangible, you know? And making mixes is a craft. Like storytelling. It has to flow. I mean, you can’t follow up a Sam Cooke ballad with Black Sabbath. It’s gotta build, have the right climax and ending. Like a book.”

I remember the first time I listened to the CD he gave June, how that was exactly what I’d thought.

Jake reaches for the mayonnaise jar and unscrews the lid. “You don’t have to be nervous. It’ll all work out.”

“It will?” What is he referring to? The two of us?

“Sure,” he says. “Later today we’ll go to Sausalito and meet up with this Charlie guy, and after that, it’ll be smooth sailing. Terrible pun intended.”

The final stage of the plan. Of course.

Jake gently smears some mayonnaise over the burn mark and wraps it with saran wrap. His grip on my hand lingers; our mouths are really close together. “Good as new,” he murmurs.

And then we make out.

Except not really. We could. I want to, and I’m pretty sure he wants to, too, but kissing him will change this from a fluke to a habit, and the last thing I need is a bad
habit. Couldn’t I just start biting my nails or something? Or maybe I’ll just start smoking on a more regular basis. Surely emphysema or lung cancer or whatever horrible disease I’d be inflicted with would be a preferable fate to making out with Jake and then having to talk about our
feelings.

“I should…” I untangle our hands and gesture past him.

He steps back, and I start to rush out of the kitchen. Except then I see an open shoebox sitting on the table, and when I pause to look inside, I realize it’s full of my Polaroids.

Jake notices me looking. “I brought those in last night. Didn’t want them to get all bent.” He pauses, wiping his hands off with a dishcloth, and smiles a little. “You know, they’re really good.”

“You looked at them?” I’m sort of embarrassed. The only person who ever looks at my photographs is Laney, and even then she never really has anything to say about them except that she thinks they’re good. I love Laney, but I don’t exactly hold her opinion on art too high.

“You’re really talented,” he says. “Have you thought about doing something with your photography? I mean, really doing something. You could, if you wanted.”

“That would be, like, impossible.”

“Not any more impossible than being the person who names nail polish colors,” he teases.

Later, while I’m in the shower, I think about it. Could Jake be right? Am I good enough to even attempt photography as a real career? I feel like he wouldn’t just say that if he didn’t mean it—he has no reason to give me false praise. And I do want to. I guess I always assumed there was just no way, so why even try? Better to make myself want something else within reach.

But what else is there? I don’t have any passions. I’m not particularly good at anything else. Why should I have to settle? Maybe…maybe Jake isn’t so off base. Maybe it’s okay for me to want something more.

When I finally emerge from the bathroom, Carmen and Laney are at the kitchen table, polishing off the French toast. I’ve barely sat down before Carmen is on her feet, downing the last of her coffee and reaching for her purse. She explains she has to get to the salon for a morning appointment, and that she’s booked most of the day, but she’s written out directions to the marina in Sausalito on the back of an old grocery list and stuck it on the front of the fridge. She wishes us luck and ruffles Jake’s hair before she leaves.

“And then there were three,” Laney intones solemnly. Jake and I roll our eyes at the same time.

There are a few hours to kill, so we decide to burn off our nervous energy by surprising Carmen with a second coat of paint on her walls. Jake and I grab the foam rollers as Laney commandeers the stereo.

“I’m tired of listening to nothing but old white guys,” she says.