Frannie and Tru (18 page)

Tru was right. We got back to the campsite and the wind had gotten worse. There was nothing to do but take cover in the tents. As Sparrow and I hunkered down into our sleeping bags, Kieran came over and lifted the flap. “Good night, ladies,” he said. Sparrow responded with a firm good night that I knew meant
Go to bed; don't even think about coming back
. Kieran flashed a big grin, and she giggled.

We whispered to each other for a bit about nothing at all, both of our minds elsewhere. Then we drifted off. Again and again, I woke in the night to the wind howling overhead, bending the tent down low, the shiny polyester rippling just over our heads.

By the next morning, the weather had calmed only a little, and we agreed to pack up early and leave. We said good-bye to Kylie,
Rachel, and Jeremy. He blushed and looked at the ground when he waved at Tru. Tru's smile was easy as ever.

We piled into the car, and this time I ended up in the wayback, between Devon and Winston. Soon we were over the bridge, back on the highway, music blaring.

Devon reached out to take my hand, and Winston looked politely out the window, pretending not to notice. Devon's thumb twitched against my thigh. There in the backseat, I felt fluttery and nervous, but happy. Really happy.

At least for now.

What would happen when we left the van? Was last night a one-time nothing that he'd forget about, or was this going to turn into something? And if it turned into something . . . then what? What would that something be?

My palm was growing warm against Devon's, and I found myself watching the back of Tru's head as he stared out the window. As long as he was here, I could ask him these things when I needed to, and yes, he'd laugh, but at least I'd be talking to someone, not just leaving all of it buried.

Soon, though, Tru would be gone. I'd have to learn how to navigate without him. I'd have to open up to other people, too.

Dad had taken a temporary construction gig on the eastern shore, so he was gone that last week of summer, staying with a family friend in a little town on the Chesapeake Bay.

The rest of us carried on. Monday dinner was unusually quiet. Mom asked Tru if Sparrow would like to come again, and he said,
“I don't know, ask Kieran maybe?” He managed to say it with an innocent face, while Mom turned to my brother with a look of surprise. Later, she asked for Kieran's help drying dishes, and I could hear them talking. “Well, do you even know how to talk to an older girl, how to treat her? No offense to your past prom dates, but I'm not sure they were quite that classy.” Embarrassed, I hurried away before they could catch me spying.

I'd given Devon the landline number, and he called me later that night. I managed to snag the receiver before anyone else got it. Then I ran to my room and curled up in a ball on my bed, stuffing my head under my pillow as we talked. I was terrified of having nothing to say, because I knew, I was absolutely sure, that Devon was right on the verge of realizing I was dull and plain and not worth his time. But nothing like that happened. First we talked about our days, about the school year to come, then a little about music. I asked about his family, and he told me more about his dad's work as a musician, his tour schedule, how he wanted to grow up and be like him, but at the same time he was mad that he was always away. He asked about my family, too, and I talked about my mom and dad, about what had happened with his work, how we were struggling. It was easier than I thought it would be, and Devon was a good listener, asked lots of questions. He wanted to know everything about underwater welding, at which point I realized just how little I knew—I'd never really bothered to ask.

I was waiting for Devon to say something about hanging out this week, but apparently he was totally booked the next
few days. The new school year was only two weeks away, and there was something intense going on with auditions, something about competing for placements in different groups and ensembles next year. He and P.J. were both swept up in that, and we wouldn't see them again until the weekend. He said he'd call me again later in the week, and I was starting to feel really good, until he ended by saying, “Good night, see you Saturday.” Then my heart went like a drum because Saturday was the jump-off, and I knew that I still wasn't ready. I was certain I'd be left there on the edge of the rocks like a scared little kid, while everyone else leaped down, sure and fearless.

Just after I'd hung up, Tru poked his head in my room to tell me that Friday we were going back to Siren with Sparrow. Nobody else, just the three of us. It was an eighteen-and-up night, and even Sparrow could only work so much magic.

“Who's playing?” I asked.

“That's a surprise,” he said. “You'll see when we get there.”

Normally Tru loved lording surprises over me, but right now he seemed too distracted. His phone was beeping with incoming texts and he was flipping through them quickly, annoyed and frowning.

I asked who it was and thought at first that he was going to ignore me.

“The ever-charming Richard!” he finally said, shoving his phone in his back pocket and running his hands through his hair. Just as I started to ask more, he cut me off.

“Since we're so close to our big trip to the jump-off, I'd really
like another recon mission. Maybe Wednesday? We'll say we're going to the mall, give it one last look.”

“I guess we should make sure the rope's still up?”

He crossed him arms and leaned against the door frame. “Actually, that's a really good point. We should do that. Mostly I was just in the mood to stare down at the water. You know, indulge in our forever feeling, Frannie. Taking on the infinite void.”

And with that he turned around and was gone.

Mom was standing in the doorway to my room, and I was looking at her like she'd lost her mind.

“You're taking us to
what
?” I asked. “With
who
?”

It was Tuesday, one night before the Prettyboy recon mission. Three nights before Siren. Four nights before the jump-off. We'd just finished an early dinner, and I'd been planning to spend at least one evening holed up peacefully in my room, getting ready for it all. I'd said I was going to do my summer reading, but really, I was going to blast a New Wave mix Tru had made for me at my request, while I tried on clothes. I had to figure out what I should wear to Siren to not look like a child, and what I should wear to swim in a forbidden reservoir and still look okay for a boy who was “on the surface” a little out of my league. If I actually worked all that out, then maybe I could
decide what the hell to wear to a special new-student orientation that was looming on Monday.

But here was Mom was standing in my doorway, having just announced that she was taking Tru and me to some theater thing with her friend. I asked when, and she said right now. I was still looking at her like she was insane, and she was looking at me like I was the most annoying, ungrateful child who'd ever walked the planet.

“It's a storytelling show, all right? They pick a theme, and people tell stories based on that theme. It's supposed to be a lot of fun. My friend from work has four tickets. We're going.”

“Your friend Maria? With the roof deck?”

I hadn't meant to, but I still sounded skeptical. She was completely fed up.

“No, not Maria with the roof deck! Nancy, okay? I have more than one friend at work, you'll be shocked to know. Go put on your shoes!”

It wasn't that the plan sounded all that awful, I just wasn't used to my mom having mysterious friends who invited us on cultural outings. But she was telling, not asking, and ten minutes later she'd loaded Tru and me into the van. We flew down the highway, pulled into a parking garage, and jogged up the block, hoping not to be late.

I hadn't been here since a field trip in eighth grade, but the lobby looked the same as I remembered. Soaring ceilings, rich carpet. A little concession stand with T-shirts and candy and wine served in plastic cups. We got there with five minutes to
spare. Just enough time to meet Nancy, who was perched on a bench, excitedly waving at us.

She was younger than my mom, maybe thirty-five or so. Pretty and petite with a pixie haircut, and even though I felt bad about jumping to conclusions, I saw her and I just knew. Even before I spotted the little rainbow pin on her canvas bag, I knew. And it was immediately, painfully obvious what Mom was doing. I wanted to drag her aside and tell her she was an idiot, that she didn't know Tru at all, that this was exactly the kind of gesture he would hate.

Except as we were all getting introduced, he had his mouth scrunched in this kind of half smile, clearly not pissed. Certainly not excited or grateful, but at the very least amused.

And with Truman,
amused
was sometimes the best you were going to get.

“Well, hello, Nancy,” he said as he shook her hand, and a minute later, the four of us were heading inside the theater, grabbing the last of the programs from the usher, and taking our seats as the lights dimmed. I squinted in the dark at the cover, looking for the title of the show. When I found it, I almost groaned out loud, ran for the exit, hid under my seat.

The theme for the night was “Coming Out.”

I thought the storytellers were going to be actors, but they weren't. There was a lawyer and an AIDS research scientist and a guy who ran a homeless shelter. Just regular people, telling regular stories, which somehow seemed to make them sadder or funnier than
they would have been otherwise. Some of the stories were devastating and some of them were hilarious and then there were kind-of-devastating stories that were told as if they were hilarious stories, and those might have been the best. Like the librarian, who described the time she made out with her college roommate, the first love of her life. “Which was really unfortunate,” she explained, “because she was most definitely straight, just really horny and in the immediate vicinity of me, who looked conveniently like a dude as long as my pants were on.”

Nancy was laughing a lot. Tru was laughing a little. My mom and I were too busy leaning away from each other, pretending we hadn't both heard the word
horny
.

The last storyteller of the night was a big, handsome guy with a shaved head. He talked about growing up in Cleveland and being a loud, obnoxious kid always grating against his superconservative family. To save money, he went to college at the Catholic school down the road from his childhood home, worked part-time all the way through. He majored in business, and probably would have stayed there his whole life if he hadn't gotten an unexpected job offer in Baltimore. Before he left, he sat down with his dad, because there was something they needed to talk about, something he couldn't leave without saying, something that he hoped his dad would understand. Sometimes, he said, you have to find your own way. Sometimes the path is unexpected. Sometimes you go against the way you were raised.

“And my dad is sitting there under this creepy picture of Jesus, so it's like they're both staring at me, I shit you not. Dad's got his
bifocals on to read the recap of last night's Browns game, and he slowly puts down the paper. He takes off his glasses. Something crosses over his face, and he says to me, ‘Brandon, you are my son. There is nothing more important to me than your happiness. I want you to find someone to love the way I love your mother, whether it's a woman or a man.'”

The place had grown absolutely hushed. I didn't dare look at Tru, who I knew must be thinking of Richard. Instead, I just hung there in the silence with everybody else, waiting.

“And that's a beautiful thing. A really beautiful thing. It touched me to the bottom of my heart, to know that he felt that way. The only problem is, I'm totally straight. I was trying to tell my dad that once I moved to Baltimore, I'd have to root for the Ravens.”

The entire room lost it.

Mom was laughing harder than anyone. She put a hand on my shoulder and a hand on her chest, little tears in the corner of her eyes. I was laughing, too, feeling like I'd let go of something I'd been holding in all summer, though I couldn't say exactly what had been released or why. I just knew it felt good to be here together, listening to people open up.

My mother turned to me and mouthed the words,
I love you
.

By the time the show ended, it was pretty late, so we talked to Nancy only briefly. We all said that the show was great and thanked her for the tickets, and she asked Tru and me about when we were heading back to school. She told me I had great
hair. Nothing groundbreaking. No indication of why we were all there. After that we headed back to the car.

For the first few minutes we drove in silence—not awkward silence, just thinking silence. My mind was on my mother, the fact that she brought us here, that she'd done so with such deliberation and confidence and meaning. I wondered if something had changed in her these last long months, because she'd had to shoulder so much for our family. Or maybe what I was seeing tonight had always been there, I just hadn't been looking for it.

While Mom still hadn't spoke, there was a tension in the air, and I knew she was going to say something. I started to think this whole night had been an excuse to break the quiet.

Tru, though, was the one who spoke first.

“Aunt Barb,” he said, with that naughty little sparkle in his voice, “you never told me you had such hip friends.”

“Ha-ha,” she said. “There are all kinds of things you don't know about me.”

Tru loved that, I could tell, and we drove on for a few more minutes without talking, though I could sense my mom wanted to say something. Eventually she did.

“That last story actually reminded me of your mom,” she said, glancing over at Tru. He stiffened a bit, but she kept going.

“When she was eighteen, she could vote for the first time, and my god, she'd never cared or thought about politics ever. But all of a sudden, it was all she wanted to talk about. Our parents were devoted Republicans. Old-school, or whatever you kids call it now. This was when Bill Clinton ran against George Bush, the
first George Bush. So Debbie makes this big, grand announcement about it, just like the guy did with the Ravens, only hers was serious, and our parents were mad. After that, there's Debbie, wearing this ‘I'm with Bill' button every day, yammering about who knows what, I can't even remember. It doesn't matter, to be honest, because she didn't have a clue what she was talking about. She just wanted to have her opinion and say it loudly. And she did. Over and over.”

“Sounds like it made for lovely family dinners,” Tru said.

“Well, it was a tricky time in our lives,” she said. “Our parents wanted us to find nice boys and settle down, the sooner the better. They'd done it so late in life, and they wanted us to have all that right away—they thought it was the most important thing. Don't get me wrong. I think so, too, but I would never push my kids the way they pushed us. Anyway, her yelling about politics was just her yelling at Dad to back off. She was my little sister, but I admired her. I never could have done it. I always stayed quiet, did what I was told.”

“But so did she, in the end,” Tru said. “She got married really young. And to someone conservative. Popped out a kid pretty fast.”

“I suppose. But maybe that's just what she wanted to do. I've never seen her as happy as when you were born. I was six months pregnant with the twins, and I came to Connecticut to see her, to meet you. I stayed for a week. Everything seemed so magical. We just stared at you endlessly.”

“How entertaining,” he said.

“It was,” she answered. “Anyway, my point is that she acted out, with all the political talk, and a lot of it was silly, some of it was mean, but it was important, too. We were growing up; we were going to be leaving. Our parents were so overbearing, especially our father. He needed to be pushed away a bit. To start the break. It's hard to explain, but I think you know what I mean. She was such a pain, but what she did was right in some way, or maybe just needed. We were kids. It was all she knew how to do.”

“So there's a right way to be an asshole sometimes?” Tru asked. “Or is it only okay when you're young?”

A gentle rain was starting, and my mom sighed. Put on the wipers.

“You don't have to talk like that, you know. You're better than that.”

“Well,” Tru said. “It's nice that somebody thinks so.”

“I do,” Mom said. “I hope you know I do.”

Tru started shuffling through the CDs in the glove compartment, picked Bruce, as he so often did. At least two times out of three. He put it in and pressed play.

“Does Debbie still love Springsteen?” Mom asked.

There was a pause while the music started to rise.

“Of course,” Tru finally answered.

“Is Richard still the only kid from Jersey to ever hate him?”

This time Tru said nothing, but he leaned his head against the window, and I could see his face reflected in the glass, wearing the trace of a complicated smile.