Wake (23 page)

“Oh, crap, it’s
you
.” Jem laughs at me. “What do you want?”

“Isn’t this your bedtime?”

I look over at the clock on my nightstand. It’s half past ten, the approximate time when I usually go to sleep. “I’m pulling an all -nighter.”

“Whatever,” he says with a smile. “Who were you expecting a call from this late?”

“My mom. She keeps odd hours.” I’m not sure why I’m lying to him.

“I thought of another song that reminds me of you.”

“What?”

“You know that one ‘beautiful Girl’?”

“Did you just compare me to a Beatles song?”

“It’s just George Harrison.”

“You’re dead to me.”

Jem snorts softly. I don’t know what to say next. “Are there any songs that remind you of me?” he asks suddenly.

“Maybe.”

“Play one for me?”

“Hold on.” I flop down on the bed and scrol through my playlists, looking for an appropriate tune. It takes me a few minutes to settle on one, and then I set the phone up next to my earphone and press play. Tonight he gets “Troublemaker” by Weezer. Perfect for him.

Wednesday Frank is volun-tel ing me for stuff again. Mr. Thorpe has been asking his sons to spend some time with their bratty sister, and according to Frank we can’t let our friends suffer Briana’s shenanigans alone. As it stands, on Saturday Luke, Briana, and I are going to the movies.

Jem calls promptly at ten-thirty. I skip the hello because it’s irrelevant and open with, “Do you have nothing better to do with your night?”

He ignores my question, I guess because he finds it irrelevant. “Have you ever heard ‘The Gambler’ by Kenny Rogers?”

“Country?”

“Yeah. It reminds me of your demons spiel.”

“Sorry, I don’t have any Kenny Rogers.” He’s got me thinking, though. “Do you know ‘Hard Road’ by Sam Roberts?”

“No.”

“It reminds me of my demon spiel too.”

I skip the headphones tonight and prop my phone up next to my laptop speakers. While it plays we both listen to it and I quietly compile a playlist of other songs that might come up one night—the ones that remind me of Jem. Just for comparison, I do a ‘Luke’ playlist too. He has a lot more happy songs than Jem does.

“Don’t bring a lunch tomorrow,” I tell Jem before we say goodbye.

“Why?”

“I’m bringing soup.”

“Really?” He sounds so excited. “A new one or an old one?”

“A new one.”

“What kind?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Jem whines my name and I tell him to shut up and let it be a surprise. So he just says, “Thanks. You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“I want to.” I want him to eat. When he eats he’s happy, and when he’s happy he can really be himself.

The real Jem Harper isn’t as big a drag as the starving, bitter boy who takes over his body periodical y.

“And you won’t even give me a hint?”

“Lentils.”

“Lentils?”

“Yes.”

“And I’ll get it before school tomorrow?”

“No, you’ll get it at lunch, you greedy bastard. I’m not going to give it to you in the morning so you can eat it all too early and be a hungry, cranky jerk by Soc.”

Jem chuckles at my rant and puts on that persuasive tone, trying to sway me to his way of thinking.

“No. You get it at noon.”

“Fine.” He manages to make pouting audible over the phone.

“Don’t make me regret this,” I threaten him.

“Noon is fine,” he agrees with newfound cheerfulness. He really wants a new soup. We say goodnight —he reminds me not to forget the soup—and hang up.

Downstairs, the ingredients are already chopped and measured, ready to be boiled down tomorrow morning before school. I think he’s really going to like this one.

Jem has such simple pleasures.

Thursday When the bell rings at the start of lunch, I make my way to my locker and find Jem already there waiting for me, arms folded and tapping his toe impatiently.

“Can I have it
now
?”

I pretend to consult my watch. Lunch period technically goes from 11:45 to 12:30, and we agreed on noon.

“well …”

“Kirk.”

I open my locker and give him the thermos of soup. Jem unscrews the lid immediately and takes a sniff. He smiles and sips right out of the thermos neck.

“Care for a spoon?” I offer him one, and although he takes it, Jem keeps sipping right from the source as we walk to the cafeteria.

“I like it.” He practically inhales the soup and scrapes the sides of the thermos with his spoon when there’s no more left to drink. It’s satisfying to make someone’s day, especially with something as simple as homemade soup.

“You’re annoying as hell, Harper,” I tell him. “But I like you. Sort of.”

He grins and tells me the feeling is mutual.

*

Tonight is a big night for music. I get to sleep in tomorrow, so I stay up later than normal, listening to pertinent songs with Jem. Tonight the focus is on songs that remind me of him: “Imaginary Bars” by Great Lake Swimmers; “Here’s to the Halcyon” by The Old 97’s; “Barrett’s Privateers” by Stan Rogers.

Jem is barely awake by the end of that last one.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he mumbles sleepily.

“Life didn’t go the way he thought it would. The guy got screwed over hard and was permanently disfigured by it.”

“And that’s how you think of me?”

“
Your
physical state isn’t permanent. Hair grows back. Severed legs don’t.”

“No,” he says quietly. “Time won’t fix it all. I’ll always be scarred. You’re right.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Go to sleep, Willa,” he says sadly. Jem hangs up and the line goes dead. The hell ? That’s a new level of moody sensitivity for him. I call him back immediately—he can’t just hang up without letting me explain.

Jem answers on the second ring and skips the hello. “You know, when people hang up on you, it’s because they don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Dude, stop wallowing. It’s just a song.”

“Just forget it.”

“Jem, I don’t think of you as scarred and disfigured,” I say slowly and clearly. He’s playing dense, so I might as well play along and talk to him like a simpleton. “You know what I think of you.”

“That I’m a narcissistic, boring asshole.”

“You forgot beautiful.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Right now you’re like the man on the dock: there’s hope in front of you but you can’t see it. So quit wallowing.”

This time, I hang up on him. He doesn’t call back with a snarky riposte. Either he’s wallowing, or he’s sleeping on it. Smart money is on wallowing.

Friday Frank is acting funny. When he got home from work he changed out of his uniform into black jeans and a nice button-down shirt, of all things. That’s about as dressed up as Frank ever gets, but he keeps insisting that he has no plans when I ask. The question of my plans, however, is one in which Frank is very interested. He encourages me to go out—immediately, if at all possible.

“Do you have a date you don’t want me to know about?”

Frank sidesteps the question. “It’s a Friday night, you should go do something.” He’s been saying that for the better part of an hour.

“Why do I have to leave? So I won’t see you leaving for your date? Or are you meeting here?”

Frank gives me a disgruntled look and I ask if I should spend the night at Oma’s house. “You know, in case your date comes home with you.” I swear, my brother’s eye twitches at the offer.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Your date lives alone, eh?” Yep, his eye definitely twitches. Frank grabs his jacket and marches out the front door.

“Cal me if you go out,” he says.

“I won’t wait up,” I call back. Frank slams the front door behind him. It’s weird, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen my twenty-five year-old brother go out on a date. Maybe it’s an anniversary.

I take out my phone and send a text to Luke:
Warn your brother to expect a cranky boyfriend tonight.
It’s slightly satisfying to receive,
Lol, will do,
from Luke. Apparently I’m not the only one who suspects a relationship; or maybe Doug is out to his family. I don’t think Frank will ever do that. He values his privacy too highly.

still , he could be a little less obvious.

Saturday Today could have gone better. Mr. Thorpe is looking for good influences for his daughter, because by the look of her, she has plenty of bad ones. Briana’s barely into high school and just a hop, skip and a jump away from solving her problems with meaningless sex and substance abuse, if she isn’t there already. She reminds me of myself, and I’m a little peeved that her dad thought an afternoon at the movies with ‘wholesome’ people would help her. I could see uneasiness written all over Frank’s face too, but he kept his mouth shut. That’s my brother’s specialty.

My annoyance with the situation keeps me awake long past my usual hour. It’s nearly midnight when Jem call s, which is unusual. If he’s going to call , he usually does it by ten-thirty.

I really have to change Jem’s ringtone. “Pick up, it’s me” is starting to get annoying.

“Why are you calling so late?” I say, because ‘hello’ has ceased to become a part of our phone conversations.

“Where were you today?” Jem’s short tone surprises me. My automatic reaction is to become defensive, just like I did whenever Mom and Dad asked me that question.

“What’s it to you?”

“Tell me.”

“I was out with friends, you ass.”

“Paige?”

“No, some friends from Port Elmsley. We went to a movie.”

“Why didn’t you invite me?”

“We had a full car already.”

“Did it completely slip your mind that we had plans today?”

“We did?”

“Just forget it.” Jem sighs and hangs up on me, and I’m left wondering what the hell just happened. He and I never made any plans this weekend. The only mention of anything weekend-related was the text he sent me days ago:
I reserve the right to monopolize your attention next Saturday.
That does
not
count as making plans. What’s in it for me? And I never agreed.

I drop my phone on the nightstand, roll over, and hope that he gets over his hissy fit by Monday.

Sunday Frank and I head over to Oma’s house after breakfast. Doug is meeting us there, and we’re going to surprise Oma with the new greenhouse. We still have to assemble it, and there’s the issue of putting shelving on the inside, but she should have a place to keep her seedlings within the month.

My phone keeps chirping with texts from Paige, and Frank is annoyed by the sound. He’s been annoyed with me in general since I mouthed off on Friday night, and tells me to turn off my phone. “You’re with family today, all right? Be present, for once.”

I stand there with a framing hammer in my hand and stare at him. “For once?” I was more present for the big events in our family than he has been for the past four years. I picked up my whole life and moved for our sister, to say nothing of what happened after. Framing a greenhouse doesn’t compare, and if he’s annoyed by my ringtone he can just say so.

Frank looks away uncomfortably and mumbles an apology.

“I’ll turn my phone off.”

“Okay then.”

Compromise doesn’t have to be
that
hard.

*

Erecting the greenhouse takes all day, and Oma invites us to stay for dinner. On the way home I ask Frank if I can turn my phone on, and he has the good grace to look chagrined when he tells me yes. My phone starts buzzing with backlogged texts, and they’re not all from Paige.

The first one from Jem came at eleven:
I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday. Can we talk?

And fifteen minutes later:
Please answer your phone. This is childish.

I leave my inbox and check the log for missed call s. I have four. Al from him. Needy or what?

At twelve:
I’m on my way over, since you won’t answer.

And at twelve-thirty:
I can see your car in the driveway, genius. Answer the door.

I chuckle humorlessly. Of course my car is still in the driveway; I drove to Oma’s house with Frank in his car. I can picture Jem standing on my porch, hammering on the door with his usual lack of patience, thinking himself ignored.

He clearly gave up on my door sometime between twelve-thirty and three, because the next message is:
Call me at home when you get this, please. I left you a voicemail.

I wait until Frank and I get home to dial into my voicemail inbox. I take my phone up to my room first and close the door for privacy.

Jem wasn’t precisely truthfull when he said he left me a voicemail. He left two. The first one begins without a hello: “Look, I know you’re mad at me. I shouldn’t have snapped on you like that. I was just mad that you made plans and didn’t say anything when we usually do stuff on Saturdays. I know I shouldn’t have assumed but… Okay, will you just answer your phone? I feel like an idiot talking to your answering machine. And—” The message ends abruptly. I press play on the second message. “Shit reception,” he says by way of explanation for the way his last message ended. “I was going to say we should make plans. If you want to. I could make up for being rude to you the other night.”

There’s a long pause where he doesn’t say anything.

“Did you really have a full car yesterday? No, never mind, it’s not important. Sorry.” The message ends.

well , at least he apologized. I don’t like the way he thinks he can put dibs on my time, though. We hang out on a few Saturdays and he thinks he owns that day now? His over-sensitive temper is troublesome, too. Jem picks fights more than I do.

One of my sister’s favorite phrases was,
If you didn’t want trouble, why did you invite it?
Did I give Jem the impression that he could treat me like this? As far as I can tell , I didn’t give him the impression that he could boss me around, but I did give the impression of availability and accessibility. I take entirely too much interest in him, and he took that as an invitation to insinuate himself fully into every aspect of my life. If I’d known he would become possessive, I would have been on my guard from the first. I’m in no state to have anyone lean on me.