Where I Want to Be (9 page)

“Good Lord, you almost gave me a heart attack!” With a hand to her heart as if to prove it. Her voice had been relieved but blaming. “It’s just a
splinter
, Jane. I thought something awful had happened to you. And why are you sweeping the porch? There’s loads more helpful things you can do. We need to clear out this whole house before the movers come—”

“First things first. Let me take a look at your foot, Jane.” Her father had suddenly appeared, a stack of mail in his hand. “Seeing as I’m the family splinter expert.” He had exchanged a private look with her mother, who had nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Upstairs, in Granpa and Augusta’s bathroom, Jane had sat on the toilet. Her father had kneeled before her, swabbed her foot with disinfectant, and filled a bucket with hot water for her foot to soak in. Then, using a needle and
a pair of nail scissors, he’d extracted the splinter, tugging it through her skin like floss.

“A warning sign,” she had said. “Like the bird.”

Her father had looked perplexed. “A warning sign of what, Janey?”

She didn’t know exactly, so all she had said was, “Of changes.”

“Sweetheart.” Her father’s voice had been gentle. “Changes are going to happen whether you want them to or not. The best thing to do is to learn how to pace yourself alongside them. There’s a whole life out there for you to live, and it’s a heck of a lot bigger than this house.” But his eyes had looked sad. Jane realized he had loved his childhood home, too. The way he’d stand in each room and breathe it in, as if he were trying to take some of it into himself.

“Maybe we could buy the house,” Jane had suggested. “Then we wouldn’t have to make all the changes all at once.”

But her father had started shaking his head before she’d finished her sentence. Jane could see the double rolls of skin in his neck. One day, he would look a lot like Granpa. “Your mom and I don’t have the money. Besides, what would we do with another house so close to our own home?”

“I could live in it.”

“Instead of finishing high school? Instead of heading out
into the world and pursuing the happiness you are entitled to, courtesy of the U.S. Constitution?” He had winked.

“I
would
be happy,” Jane had answered. “I hate school. I hate out in the world. I’m not the right fit for out in the world. I don’t even like school spirit day. Being around other kids just makes me feel…more alone.”

Stupid words. Her father wouldn’t want to hear that. Her dad would do anything to make her happy. When she’d wanted her dream dollhouse, he’d spent a month building her one from a drawing she’d made of it. When she’d wanted to learn how to ride a bike, her dad had practiced with her until she could. And her mother was the same. It must have been exhausting for all of them, pursuing her happiness.

“You’re going through a tough spell, Jane. You’re a junior in high school, and you’ve just lost someone you love. That’d be stress enough for anyone. Don’t underestimate that. Dr. Fox thinks you should step up your appointments to three times a week to get you past this transition time.” He had paused, then continued, “She says you’ve dropped Group, too. Look, Janey, it’s not mandatory, but there was a time you liked Group.”

“Group is for losers.” She knew it was true. A few months earlier, when Lily had caught the flu and had had to stay in bed all weekend, Jane had been delighted that she could keep Lily so entertained with stories about people in Group. People like Mrs. Samuels, who thought she was a
doctor and handed everyone fake prescriptions. And Mattie Boyard, who wore weights taped to his sneakers because he thought computers were destroying the Earth’s magnetic field and he was scared he’d float away.

The stories made Lily laugh hard, and that’s when she’d said it, her hand coming to rest lightly on the small of Jane’s back. “Oh, Janey, what a pack of losers! I don’t see why you keep going to Group. You’re not like them.” This was true in some ways when Jane mulled it over later. She wasn’t like them. Then again, Mattie’s fear of drifting up to the sky felt shiveringly real when he explained it. And Mrs. Samuels had spent a lifetime in conversations with doctors and maybe her thoughts had just gotten a little bit mixed up with theirs.

“Group has been good for you, Jane,” her father had continued, as if reading her thoughts. “And you have to admit that, along with the medicine, it’s helped. We need to trust that it’ll keep helping. Dr. Fox says it’s a matter of staying with and modifying the right combination. Remember, you have a big network of people who love you.” He’d squeezed her knee and stood. “What the hey. Maybe you should let your little sister give you a hand in the school spirit department. Who knows, you might learn a thing or two from her.”

Jane had made her eyes go glassy-starey so that her father wouldn’t think she’d been hurt. After all, he hadn’t meant for it to be the worst thing he’d ever said to her.

She had decided then not to go back to Group, or to tell Dr. Fox about the warnings. During most of that fall, Dr. Fox had been advising Jane to try new things and make new friends. New, new, new. Whenever Jane listened too long, the pressure grew inside her, as if she were being overfilled with polluted water and the thinnest crack of anger would make her burst.

She had not wanted changes. And she had not wanted anyone’s help in making her change, either. Especially not Lily’s. Her sister hardly had time, anyway, with all her friends and clubs and everything attached to being a popular sophomore at North Peace Dale High. And, of course, there was Caleb. Lily and Caleb. They hung around the house like a pair of lovebirds that could turn into a pair of hawks.

It was Lily-and-Caleb who’d reminded Jane most how it had been in the old days. Back when it was Jane-and-Lily. Her heart sank when she saw Caleb’s coat hooked next to Lily’s on the pegboard by the kitchen door. Her body went rigid when she heard Caleb’s voice rumbling in the walls, and Lily’s answering laugh that guarded a world of private jokes. He seemed to steal more room than he needed. Caleb had made the house feel crowded, and he had turned Jane into the odd one out. And with no Orchard Way to run to, she didn’t know where she belonged.

“You made it!”

Alex and her boyfriend, Kevin Verdi, whoop down the Tuzzolinos’ lawn to run beside the car as we pull around back of the driveway. Cars are already crammed in everywhere, and I have to squeeze for a space. Nobody misses a Tuzzolino event. It’s not just because everyone knows the family, since Alex is the eighth Tuzzolino kid to graduate from Peace Dale High, with two more Tuzzolinos still to go—Tim Tuzzolino in my class and then baby sister Renee, who’ll be a freshman. And it’s not just because the house itself is a circus elephant of a Victorian, with four floors and six bathrooms and an all-tile pool along with a barbecue pit and a roofed gazebo. I think the main reason people congregate here is because everyone always feels so completely welcomed. There hasn’t been a single time I’ve stopped by when there weren’t at least half a dozen other
people hanging out. Other towns have the local diner or pub. We have the Tuzzolinos’.

“Doth mine eyes deceive, or is it really Lily and Caleb?” Alex flattens the back of her hand to her forehead as I brake.

“’Tis us, fair maiden,” I answer. “We come in search of barbecue.”

“Never thought I’d see you guys before I left.” Alex looks approvingly at Georgia as we climb out of the car. “So how’d you pry them out?”

“I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” says Georgia.

“Which was?” Kevin asks.

“The joy of my company the whole way over.”

Alex jabs a thumb over her shoulder. “So go spread the joy. Everyone’s around back. Same old same old.” She swings me into a quickie hug and plants a kiss on my ear. “Missed you,” she whispers. “How’re you doing?”

“Okay.” I’m used to being touched in the aftermath of Jane. People want to reach out. In a small town like Peace Dale, loss belongs to the whole community. More than once it’s crossed my mind how unpleasant it would have been for Jane if I’d died, and she’d been the one to be hugged and consoled. Jane, who gave birthday presents by dropping them off on the kitchen counter because she cringed from that cozy moment of thanks.

Alex is tan and strong from coaching summer-league
softball. One brown arm is draped over Kevin, who is at least half a foot shorter than she is. When they first started dating back in eighth grade, they stood eye to eye.

The height imbalance might have come as a curveball, but Kevin and Alex have the rest of their lives mapped out straight. This fall, they’re both starting at Fairfield College, and they’re already looking at off-campus housing for sophomore year. After they graduate, they’ll have a yearlong engagement followed by a wedding in the chapel at Portsmouth Abbey and a reception on the Tuzzolinos’ front lawn. (I’m already invited, the band is picked, the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses will be French blue.) Precisely three years from the wedding date, they’ll start for kids.

At school, they got stuck with the nickname Kevex, because of the way they seemed to operate as a single unit. But it always made me itchy to hear Kevin and Alex talk about their future. Like life was just a timeline to punch in with anniversary bullets. Seeing them tonight, though, I’m envious.

“I’ve been dying to tell you. I got a twelve-string guitar for my birthday,” Alex says shyly to Caleb. “I’ve had almost three months of lessons. If you promise-promise not to laugh, I want you to hear me sometime.”

“Now’s a good sometime,” suggests Caleb.

“You’re on.” Alex drops her arm off Kevin’s shoulder to hook Caleb by the elbow. “Do you mind?” she asks me. “I’ll bring him back in a few minutes. My guitar’s down in the
family room. Soundproof, so nobody can hear how much I suck.” She rolls out her tongue and crosses her eyes.

I don’t mind. I wriggle my fingers to wave them off. But Kevin, who never has a clue what to do with himself when Alex leaves his side, gazes worshipfully after her, glances at Georgia and me, mumbles something about checking on the barbecue, and disappears.

“Um, by the way,” says Georgia as we make our way toward the house, “Jonesy and Danielle might be here.”

“Holy awkward, Batman.” I groan.

“Maybe not,” says Georgia in a way that’s not really convincing to either of us.

“Why would Danielle want to bring Jonesy to a high school party?”

“Danielle’s too much of a social butterfly to pass up a party. I swear she’s been out every night this summer.”

“So what’s the deal with them?”

“Aw, Jonesy’s not so bad. You were pretty harsh about him with her. There was a time when he was considered really hot.”

“There was a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth,” I respond.

“C’mon, you know how this works. I stand right next to you, we play nice to Jonesy, then Caleb comes up and Danielle gets her turn to be nice. And then,” she concludes, brushing her hands together, “we no longer have a situation.”

“Ugh, but fine.”

She smiles. “Well put.”

The backyard is crowded. Kids are hanging out on the patio, by the barbecue, and in and around the Tuzzolinos’ swimming pool. The volleyball net stretches across its middle. Teams are being formed. I hear familiar voices shouting familiar names. Even in the soft light of Mrs. Tuzzolino’s Japanese rice-paper lanterns, the darkness makes it hard to recognize all the faces, but I wave and smile whenever my name is called. Everyone’s here. All of Jane’s classmates. It takes me back a little, realizing that Jane will never join in a reunion, or be noted in the North Peace Dale High alumni newsletter, or be talked about as anything but that girl who died during graduation week. I’d bet most kids know Danielle Savini better than they ever knew Jane, and Danielle doesn’t even go to North Peace Dale.

I never liked the saying
Life goes on.
There’s something heartless about the second, implied half of that expression.
Life goes on, even if your life doesn’t.
But looking at all these kids, the truth of it hits me hard.

The Tuzzolinos have my dream kitchen. It spans a full half of their downstairs and is the beating heart of the house. The back is a lounge area furnished with plump, plaid chairs and couches plus a brick pizza oven. Tonight, the eat-in table is fully loaded with chips, dips, cookies, and soft drinks. Kids mill around it, picking and grazing, while others lounge out in front of the television.

“Lily!” Marianne Lombardo, from my class, is the first to grab me. Soon I’m hugging all the girls, while the guys hang back, acknowledging me with half waves and raised cups. It’s an unexpected thrill to be surrounded by old friends, but at the same time I’m acutely aware of how separate I’ve been from them this summer. Thankfully, Georgia is quick to hustle me off to the buffet.

As we dig into a bowl of orange-dusted cheese chips, she nudges me. “J and D at your six o’clock. Don’t look now.”

I turn anyway, and see Jonesy and Danielle sharing a chair in the lounge area.

“Hi, kids!” Danielle squeals. I catch Jonesy’s crawly eye, and know in a second that Danielle’s tattled what I said about him earlier. His pug face tightens and he sucks in his bottom lip. Jonesy’s not a big one for subtlety.

Danielle exchanges some private words with him, then slides off his lap and hops over to us.

“Poor Jonesy. It’s a total kindergarten scene for him, but so what for an hour or two, right?” Now Danielle signals him over. He stands up, reluctant. “Anyway, I wanted to say bye to everyone. Hasn’t this been the funnest summer ever?” This time, she doesn’t realize what she’s said. No widened eyes, no apologetic look thrown in my direction.

It takes Jonesy a while to cross the room on account of his ridiculous, extra-pointy-tipped cowboy boots.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my flavey-fave strawberry shortcakes.” Jonesy delivers this line with the smile of
someone who thinks he’s said something witty. I risk a smile back and hope it looks halfway genuine.

Danielle starts talking to Georgia about some shop in the Wakefield Mall that is selling the exact same tweed-pattern hoodie jacket Georgia has been craving, and how cute Georgia would look in it, and how maybe they should stop over tomorrow.