Junonia (11 page)

 

The next day was so foggy it seemed as if everything would always look milky and be obscured. But on the day following the fog, the sky was so clear, so blue, it was as though every cloud had been driven from the world for all time. Thoughts of Mallory were like that—they'd come and go.

Since she'd thrown the necklace from Mallory into the ocean, Alice had gotten into the routine of running down to the water's edge, alone, with her parents' permission, several times a day. She'd go when she woke up in the morning, before breakfast. She'd go right before dinner. And she'd go between those times. Down and back, quick as could be.

Often Mr. Barden would be outside his cottage, sitting in his chair. No words had been spoken between Alice and Mr. Barden about the party. He seemed older than ever to her now, unpredictable. Sometimes Mr. Wishmeier would be with Mr. Barden. They'd nod and wave, and Mr. Wishmeier would always hoist his walking stick in greeting.

Alice had not been allowed to go to the beach alone in all the years she'd come to Florida, unless she was within her parents' sights. This new independence was exhilarating to her. She was not an adventurous person. She'd only slept over at one person's house—her best friend Libby's. And she'd only done so three or four times. Once, when she was six, she'd gotten lost in a grocery store, and the feeling of hopelessness that had flooded her whole being was still fairly raw if she thought about it deeply enough. But
this
kind of being alone was different, and safe, and made her feel free.

Alice was starting to experience the familiar sensation she always did toward the end of a trip—the sad, empty, lonely feeling that sat in her stomach like a block of ice. Each time she'd run to the ocean, she'd wonder how many more times she'd do this before she went home to Wisconsin. One of them would have to be the last time.

She also wondered where the necklace was. She thought it would be incredible if someone invented special glasses that allowed one to see beneath the water's surface. Wouldn't it be amazing to see exactly where the necklace had ended up, to see the things people had lost, the shipwrecks, all the shells, and all the creatures that moved and lived under the water? It was like trying to envision all the important things—hundreds of them—that happen inside your body when all you can see is the outside of your skin.

It was on the afternoon of the clear, blue day that something extraordinary happened. Alice had taken a straight, deliberate course to the ocean. She waved in a businesslike fashion to Mr. Barden, who was planted in his chair. She waved to Mr. Wishmeier, too. He was up the beach, not far from the spot where Alice typically turned around. She reached the water. Sun glinted like silver stitches fastening the sea to the sky. She turned to run back to the cottage, and froze.

A junonia. It was up near the tideline, off to the side, close to where Mr. Wishmeier stood. Alice's vision narrowed until all she saw was the shell. A great shiver ran down her back. As she rushed toward it, she felt a sense of levitating from the beach.

“No.” She heard the word, but it seemed far away, background noise. “No. Stop.”

She stooped and reached for the shell. And it was beautiful. The curve of it. The way it wound into a spiral. The brown markings. The impressive size—almost as big as her fist.

Her fingers touched it, and so did the tip of Mr. Wishmeier's walking stick.

It was a heart-sinking moment. Confused, Alice peered up at Mr. Wishmeier. At first he just looked at her without speaking. He took off his hat. The sunlight behind him darkened his face and shone through his thin ears, turning them red. “I'm sorry,” he finally said in a mild voice.

Alice didn't understand what was happening. But the happiness she'd felt was as thin as an eggshell, and as easily broken. Was Mr. Wishmeier trying to say that the junonia was his, that he'd seen it first? She stood up and shifted her weight from one leg to the other.

Mr. Wishmeier's eyes probed Alice's until she had to look away. He said, “Take it, it's yours. It's for you.” He paused. “I knew right away it was a mistake, the wrong thing to do. And I'm sorry, so sorry.

“I've watched you coming and going the last couple of days. And I know you've had some disappointments lately. I also knew how badly you wanted a junonia, so I thought that finding a real one would cheer you up.”

He regarded her with an expression she couldn't describe. “I bought it at the shell shop,” he admitted. “I should have known better. I feel punished just looking at you.”

Alice finally understood, and the weight of understanding made her cry. She tried to disguise her tears by coughing. She licked her lips.

Mr. Wishmeier dropped his hat onto the sand and laid his walking stick beside it. He picked up the junonia and placed it in Alice's hand, pressing her fingers around it with his fingers. “Let's go tell your parents,” he said.

While her parents and Mr. Wishmeier talked on the porch, Alice went to her room. After a few moments filled with hushed voices, she heard the rise and fall of regular conversation, and laughter. She didn't want to be mad at Mr. Wishmeier. She didn't think she was. She had a junonia, a real junonia, even though she hadn't gotten it the way she'd always imagined getting one.

She moved the shell around her bedspread, treating it almost as a puzzle piece, seeing how it blended in here, trying to make it fit the pattern there. The junonia looked like an unopened flower or something ancient from China or Egypt or another faraway place.

Alice wondered what made something rare. The alphabet cone she'd found last year was just as pretty as the junonia, if you really considered it. And so was a tulip shell.

She sat up on the bed so she could see herself in the mirror on the wall. Here I am, she thought, Alice Rice, holding a junonia. She ran the shell up and down her cheek. The junonia was so smooth. She slid it along her chin. It struck her, with the suddenness of a sneeze, that the speck near her mouth looked very much like the markings on the junonia.

Cradling the junonia against her chest, she hopped from the bed and moved so close to the mirror her breath fogged it. She turned the shell. It was astonishing how similar some of the smaller spots on the junonia were to her speck. Same size, same color, same shape. She wouldn't have been able to put it into words, but somehow this discovery made her happy. She smiled at herself, then huffed and puffed at her image so that it disappeared behind a bleary cloud.

Alice joined the adults on the porch. She brought the junonia with her. Mr. Wishmeier told Alice funny anecdotes about his pet cats back home and about the dog he'd had growing up. Then he told her that when he was a boy, his father let him put maple syrup in his milk on special occasions. His stories seemed to be random, just filling space, but then, in a halting manner, he got around to what Alice guessed he really wanted to say. “I couldn't go through with it, because if you'd found out . . .” He sighed. “I didn't want you to feel tricked. I didn't want you to think I tricked you.”

“It's okay,” said Alice.

Mr. Wishmeier nodded. His face loosened. He appeared to be relieved.

“Let me see it again,” said Alice's father.

Alice passed the junonia to him.

He whistled. “It's a beaut,” he said, lifting it slightly for all to see.

“It is,” said Alice's mother. “It really is.”

Alice matched her mother's tone perfectly. “It really is,” she repeated.

 

On the evening before their departure, Alice and her parents started packing their bags. They wouldn't be leaving until around noon the next day, but Alice's parents wanted to get as much done as possible so they wouldn't be rushed in the morning.

Alice put most of her birthday gifts in her lavender backpack so that they would be with her on the airplane. When she placed the nine gelato spoons into the backpack, she felt a burst of anger directed at Mallory. It seemed that an invisible thread bound them together, and always would.

Alice practiced wrapping the junonia in a T-shirt and wedging it carefully and securely among the other things at the top of the backpack. Then she unwrapped it, because she knew she would be looking at it many times before tomorrow. Alice's mother had taken care of the rest of the shells and the sea urchin from Mr. Wishmeier. They were in a box, safe, labeled, ready to be checked when they got to the airport.

Alice's mother decided to do some laundry. Next to the office, in an open-sided shelter with a thatched roof, there was a washer and a dryer for the guests' use. Both machines were coin operated; they were rusty and noisy, too. “I want to wash one load of the smelliest things,” she said, sorting through a heap of dirty clothes in the small hallway off the kitchen. “Who's got quarters?” she asked. “I think the washer and dryer only take quarters.”

“I don't have any,” said Alice. “Just dimes and pennies. And dollars.” She knew this because she'd counted her money after she'd organized her backpack.

“I have some change,” said Alice's father. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. “Here,” he said, “let's see what we've got.” He dumped the coins onto the kitchen table, very near the edge. A few of the coins fell onto the floor.

“There's a quarter,” said Alice. She watched it roll across the floor and disappear under the tall cupboard. “I'll get it.”

“I'll get these,” said Alice's father. He followed two of the coins as they wheeled around and hit the baseboard near the sink. “One quarter and one nickel,” he said, bending down and snatching them.

Alice flopped onto the floor and reached blindly into the shadows beneath the cupboard. She felt around, sweeping her hand back and forth. “I know it's here,” she said. “I saw it go under.” She squinted into the darkness but couldn't make anything out. Then she held her breath and tried to flatten herself so that she could extend her arm as far as possible. She made one last giant sweep with her hand. Out from under the cupboard, among swirls of dust, slid the quarter, a piece of dried macaroni, and—the blue gelato spoon.

Alice's eyes widened. It couldn't be. But it was.

A wonderful-horrible feeling crept up her neck. She was glad to have her spoon back, but regretful of all the terrible thoughts she'd had about Mallory. She turned red in the face and had the peculiar sensation that the whole world was watching. She picked up the spoon and the quarter and the macaroni and got up off the floor.

“Hey, isn't that your spoon?” asked Alice's father.

“It is,” Alice murmured.

“It must have fallen during the commotion with the spilled milk,” said her mother. “I can't believe it.”

“I can't either,” Alice said in a hollow tone. She slipped the quarter into her mother's hand. “I was so mad at Mallory because I thought she stole it.”

“But now you can be happy because you know she
didn't
,” said her father.

“And she never knew you were mad at her, anyway,” said her mother.

“I guess.”

Alice fingered the spoon, thinking. The perceptions that she had trusted had already been replaced. She wished that she hadn't thrown the necklace into the ocean. She crossed the kitchen and tossed the macaroni into the wastebasket. “I think I'll send her one of the spoons when we get home,” she said quietly.

“That would be very nice,” said her mother.

“You're a good kid,” said her father. “Did we ever tell you that?”

Alice nodded and flashed him a jack-o'-lantern grin.

Her father narrowed his eyes playfully. “Now don't get a big head.”

Alice's mother was counting quarters at the table. “I think we've got enough,” she said. “Who wants to help me do laundry?”

Alice went to bed early, but it was always difficult for her to sleep well on the night before a trip—coming or going. Absently she worked her finger through a threadbare spot on the bedspread, creating a small hole. She was thinking about Mallory and the spoon. She not only would send a spoon to Mallory, she decided she'd send one for Munchkitty, too. And she'd send the blue and the orange spoons, because they were the ones Mallory had chosen the night of the party. There was only one blue spoon and one orange spoon, but it seemed worth it. It seemed to be the right thing to do.