What Janie Found (5 page)

CHAPTER
FIVE

Reeve flicked the chain saw on.

He was the new guy at a tree company, pruning branches and clearing the scrub that had grown up under a power line. Reeve loved the noise and kick of his chain saw. He loved the paycheck. What he didn’t love was having no car.

His punishment for poor grades at college was to pay his own car insurance and he hadn’t come up with it. Every morning at six
A
.
M
., he had to jog to the corner where the crew picked him up.

He liked getting up early, though, standing at the kitchen window to eat his cornflakes, looking out over Janie’s backyard.

His latest peace offering was tickets to come see him race. Well, he didn’t actually race, he wasn’t the driver. He was pit crew. Here too he was the new guy who knew nothing. Reeve was lucky, though, he never minded knowing nothing. He didn’t get embarrassed. He just said, “Show me once and then I’ll know.’” That usually worked. If it didn’t, he said, “Show me again,’” and that did work.

He was so happy that Janie had agreed to come.

Mr. Johnson had improved slightly, and Mrs. Johnson was able to smile a little, and Janie felt free to be out of reach for a day.

The topic of file folders had not come up again.

Reeve ran branches through the wood chipper and puzzled over Janie’s reaction to that folder. But he got nowhere, and his thoughts turned to cars and engines, a short oval track and Janie laughing.

His failures and stupidity were clearing away like a bad storm going out to sea. The sky was bright, he wasn’t so crummy after all, and he had his own chain saw.

Janie had never been to a car race. Occasionally, flicking the remote, she passed through car races on sports channels while she searched for interesting television. Who would go sit on bleachers just to watch cars travel in circles? It wasn’t a sport, it was traffic.

She wanted Sarah-Charlotte’s burbly chatter at the races. Nobody was as reliable for being silly as Sarah-Charlotte. How nice it would be to giggle and act twelve, instead of watching death draw close and pull away, like tides rising and falling around her father. All week she had tried to love Dad again and forget the papers in the folder. But the tug of going west got stronger and deeper.

“Hi, Mrs. Sherwood,’” said Janie into the phone. “May I speak to Sarah-Charlotte?’”

Besides, with Sarah-Charlotte along, a day at the races would not be a date with Reeve.

“Janie,’” said Mrs. Sherwood in her comfort voice. “How’s your father doing? We’re so worried.’”

“He’s a little better, thanks. We had a scare the other day, but he’s back out of Intensive Care and the doctors are more hopeful.’”

“Your family has suffered so much,’” said Mrs. Sherwood. “It’s unfair that any of you should suffer again.’”

As if there were a referee on the sidelines to keep life fair, calling foul during kidnaps or issuing penalities for family-destroying lies.

If I go back into that folder, Janie thought, I’ll be hostage again, kidnapped again, a three-year-old again. But if I don’t, I’ll never know what’s really there.

She swallowed. “Reeve gave me tickets for the car race on Saturday,’” she said brightly. “I was hoping Sarah-Charlotte could drive up with me for the day.’”

Hoping? Needing.

Mrs. Sherwood laughed out loud at the idea of Sarah-Charlotte having time. “Sarah-Charlotte’s at work, Janie. Last week she had three articles in the paper. We’ve started a scrapbook.’”

During the school year, Sarah-Charlotte had started covering school sports for the local weekly. This summer she was so busy rushing from field to pool to court, Janie had not seen her since the last day of school.

How young Janie felt. Sarah-Charlotte had become a woman with a career, while Janie was just a kid living in the past. “Thanks anyway,’” she said lamely. She tried not to think of the summer job at the stable she’d had to quit because she was needed at home.

She phoned Adair next.

“I don’t know when she’ll be home,’” said Adair’s brother. “She lifeguards every day, you know, and waitresses at night.’”

Janie did not usually have to beg for a girlfriend. “Is she working Saturday?’”

“Sure. Always.’”

Only a few weeks ago, the girls had been phoning back and forth constantly. She’d known every hour of their schedules. Now she knew nothing.

I like knowing, she thought. I like knowing phone numbers and plans and what everybody’s wearing. I want all my knowing settled around me like blankets on a bed. And here I am again, and I know nothing and I never have.

She tried Katrina, who was a day camp counselor and despised it. “I’m never having children of my own,’” Katrina had told Janie after the first week of camp. “It turns out I’m a monster, and I like only polite clean people, and there’s no such thing if you’re eight.’”

“Hi there!’” cried Katrina’s answering machine. “Nobody can—’”

Janie hung up, speaking quickly before the sense of exclusion could drown her. “Well, Brian,’” Janie said to her brother, who was hovering on the far side of the room, “it’s you and me.’”

His twin was robust and brawny, but Brian was still thin; thin bones, thin chest. Still a child. “Are you sure you want me?’” he said uncertainly.

This is how Hannah fell into the cult, Janie thought. Nobody wanted her. Like me today, or Brian tomorrow.

She flung her arms around her brother. “You’re the best thing in my summer. Of course I want you. I was just calling people so we’d have a crowd. But you and I can party by ourselves.’”

“Without Reeve?’”

“He’ll be in the pits. We’ll be in the stands.’”

Saturday was toasty and gold, a light wind lifting clouds in a sky of blue. Janie drove while Brian stared out the window. He felt ageless, as if being fourteen meant nothing; he was as old as the world and as young as the day. He was happy.

Reeve was waiting for them at the ticket window, where he got Janie a pit pass. It was a bracelet made of heavy paper in an orange-and-black checkered flag pattern. “I’m pit crew?’” said Janie happily. “I don’t even know how to change a tire.’”

“It’s just identification so you can hang out with me some of the time,’” said Reeve. “Brian, I’m sorry, but you’re under sixteen and you can’t be in the pits. You have to stay on the bleachers.’”

“It’s okay. I brought a book,’” said Brian, who always brought a book. He had gotten hooked on the Trojan War. After he read
The Iliad
—a wonderfully violent book; did any other author dwell so affectionately on stabbing people’s eyes out?—he began collecting pictures of the Trojan horse. He photocopied everything in the library and downloaded everything he could find on the Net.

He was fascinated by the idea of giving a present to the enemy. A present so magnificent they forgot you were the bad guy.

But now he was just hungry. It was hollow screaming hunger, as if ten hamburgers couldn’t fill him up. Maybe, thought Brian hopefully, I’m about to grow. This is pre-tallness hunger.

He pictured himself six feet tall like Reeve or Stephen. Passing Brendan.

The back of somebody’s pickup truck was filled with coolers and bags of food and six-packs of soda for the driver, crew, girlfriends and boyfriends.

“I packed a separate cooler for you,’” Reeve said to Brian, “so you won’t run out of food and be lost up there without us.’”

Rats, thought Brian. I knew this would happen. I’ll like Reeve again.

Brian and Janie tried numerous bleacher locations.

High. Low. Facing the sun. Backs to the sun.

They settled on the topmost row, the only seats where you could lean back and get comfortable. The races were immensely more fun than either of them had expected. Brian had not opened his book.

They had no money with them to place bets so they divided their sandwiches into quarters and bet with food. Brian had lost his entire sandwich, and Janie was keeping it.

“Some sister,’” said Brian.

“It was a bet,’” said Janie. “You lost.’”

“I’ll starve to death.’”

“Oh, well.’”

“Please can I have half my sandwich?’”

“Pick a winning car, it’s your only hope.’”

The dirt track was cracked and dry, beaten down by tires that scoured its surface. Dust filled their eyes. Reeve had instructed Janie to wear crummy old clothes and she was grateful. She and her outfit were turning gray. Grit sifted into her hair and settled on the back of her neck.

Crowds yelled, loudspeakers shrieked, engines roared. Janie and Brian had little foam wedges in their ears so they wouldn’t go deaf and insane.

Covering his movements with his body, Brian tried to get some sandwich quarters.

Janie snatched them first. “Think I’m too tired to guard my winnings?’”

And then Reeve was there, laughing. “I have sisters like that,’” he told Brian. “Luckily they’re much older than I am and they were out of the house most of my life. Here. I saw what was going on, I brought reinforcements.’” He handed Brian a pack of sandwiches.

Brian checked to be sure they were good ones. He didn’t want some squashed baloney reject. Reeve had brought the best: roast beef and ham. Food to reach six feet by.

“Are we up next?’” said Janie, bouncing on the cement seat, which Brian rather admired.

Reeve glowed when Janie referred to the team as
we.
“Race after next.’”

“I can’t see you very well,’” said Janie crossly, “no matter where Bri and I go.’”

“Come back down with me,’” said Reeve. “You can see great from the pits.’”

Brian knew he was dying to show Janie off. Janie had the Spring family hair: sprawling masses of red. Even dusted with track grit, she was beautiful.

“Go on, Janie, I’ll be fine,’” said Brian.

Look at me, he thought, helping him get Janie back.

Reeve installed Janie on a folding chair up in the truck bed so that she could watch but wasn’t in the way. It was dangerous. Stock cars coming off the track whipped in and out. Crews swung wrenches and jacks and even wheels.

Janie could see only a slice of track from here, but the sound was immense. She put the foam wedges back in her ears. The dulling of sound turned her into a spectator instead of a participant; everything slid over a space. It was soothing to be slightly deaf. She watched Reeve work.