Frannie and Tru (19 page)

Devon called again on Wednesday just after dinner, right before Tru and I were leaving for our recon mission to Prettyboy. I took the phone upstairs and talked to him curled up in bed, heard all about his audition that day. It had gone well, he thought, but he'd have to wait until next week to hear the official outcome. He asked if I was nervous about starting at my new school. I told him that I was, but that Winston had told me I could sit with him at lunch, and that it had meant a lot to me. He said that Winston was the best. He told me it was worth it to be patient and really get to know him, that he was worth the wait.

“You, too, Frannie,” he said. “You're kind of like that, too.”

After I hung up, there was a knock at the door, and Mom poked her head in, asked me if she could grab the receiver. I handed it to her, and she moved back to the door, but lingered there.

“Who was that, if you don't mind me asking? Was it one of the boys who went camping?”

I pretended to be very occupied with smoothing out my blankets and sheets.

“Yes,” I finally said. “It was Devon.”

“Sparrow's cousin?”

“Yes.”

She looked at the phone, studying it at least as hard as I was studying the bed.

“Is he . . . Are you dating?”

I could have lied or dodged this at the very least. But I didn't want to. Not anymore.

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe almost? But not exactly. Not yet.”

It was oddly relieving, to say all that out loud. Mom laughed a little.

“I guess that's how things are now. He seems very nice. He must be talented and hardworking, with music. He's cute.”

I gave her a look that said
Stop while you're ahead
, and she laughed again.

“Okay, okay. If you do start officially dating, will you tell me? Please? Moms like to know.”

I thought for a second, then shrugged.

“Okay. I'll tell you.”

She turned to leave, then stopped again. She stood there with the door ajar, hand nervously twisting the knob. She looked uncomfortable, and I knew that whatever she was about to say
was hard for her. But I could tell that she was bracing herself to say it anyway.

“Maybe you'll think this is ridiculous, old-fashioned, but there are still people in this world who won't like seeing the two of you together. I like to think it's not a lot of people, but . . . I know that they're out there. I'm sorry to say that Devon probably already knows that. But you . . . I'm not sure that you do. Not really, at least. It's something to be aware of. You can hate it, but you still have to be aware of it. You have to know that it's there.”

I stared at my hands, face burning, not sure yet what to say or think.

“Do you think I'm being ridiculous?” she asked.

I looked up at her, then, saw how she was still wedged uncomfortably, half-in and half-out of the doorway, looking intently at my face.

“No,” I said. “You're not being ridiculous. I just . . . I feel bad. I feel bad that there are things like that I never used to think about.”

She gave me a sad sort of half smile.

“Well,” she said, “that's probably the right way to feel.”

Then she slipped out the door and was gone.

Because Tru and I would be out until after dark, we told my parents we were going to the mall again, and then took off for Prettyboy. We parked in the same spot as before, the one close to the jump-off. The last shafts of sunlight were streaking through the woods as we walked, illuminating all the million dust motes floating slowly to the ground. Tru was holding
Gatsby
in his
hand. I listened as dry leaves crinkled beneath our feet, turning to confetti on the forest floor. Just like last time, we heard the rush of water first, then saw the rocky ledge.

The rope was still there.

We settled down on the rocks again, but this time the evening was mild, felt almost like fall, and they were cool to the touch. We both lay down on our backs. I stared at the sky. Tru stared at his book, flipping pages mindlessly.

“How's Devon?” he asked, but seemed distracted.

“Good, I guess. I think we're good.”

“But are you
a thing
?”

“Maybe? I mean, he calls me.”

“Well, in that case, I'll reserve the chapel, you pick out the cake.”

I covered my face with my hands, thought about Assateague. Devon's shirt slipping down during his handstand, showing that flash of skin. Then later, lips. Tongues. My hand on the back of his neck. His hand slung low on my waist. I rolled over, trying to clear my mind, searching for the right way to ask Tru about Jeremy and get a real response, not a sarcastic deflection.

Before I could, he let out a long, terse sigh.

“I was wrong, Frannie. Last time we were here. Looking at the water. I was very wrong.”

“About what?”

“About
Gatsby
. The romance isn't real. It's just sad, pathetic adults inventing meaning where there isn't any. Screwing each other to escape their pointless existence. Which means the
tragedy is just that. Tragedy. Ruined lives and destruction. No beauty or meaning behind it. What a load of shit.”

I didn't know what to say, so I turned and stared at the rope, studied the knot that tied it to the tree branch, wondering how strong it was. How safe.

“You know, last summer I did this same thing with
The
Catcher in the Rye
,” Tru said. “And the more I read it, the sadder and more pathetic it got. But that was okay, because it was about being a kid, and being a kid . . . well, it ends. You're just surviving to make it to something better.”

Tru stood suddenly, wound the book back like he was a pitcher on the mound. I sat up quickly and actually gasped a little. Maybe it was silly, but I didn't want the book to fall that long way down. To disappear.

But Tru didn't throw it after all. He dropped it at his feet.

“And that whole ‘cardinal honesty' thing? The line you read? I'd been missing the point there, too. Nick's a goddamn liar. Everyone's a goddamn liar. We're all just telling stories about ourselves, and we're all full of it.”

He nudged the book with his foot, moved it an inch or two. Not quite far enough to fall.

“Maybe not you, Frannie. I've gotta say, you might be my last great hope.”

Tru turned and headed for the woods. We'd barely been there five minutes.

Before I followed him, I walked to the edge and looked down one more time into the glittering water. I was thrown off-kilter
as I did, tilting forward for one terrifying second before I got my footing. I backed up slowly and carefully. Then I grabbed the little paperback copy of
Gatsby
, with its tattered pages and broken spine. I had to jog to catch up with Tru. When we were back in the car, I placed it between us on the console, not sure if he noticed or cared. We rode home with only the sound of Bruce, not speaking at all until he was pulling the van up in front of our house.

“Can I take you somewhere tomorrow?” I asked him. “It's just a short walk. Please? It's something special. I promise.”

A little of his old self returned. He raised his eyebrow just a bit.

“Now
you're
taking
me
on a secret errand? How the tables have turned. I'll go, but if you're not getting a tattoo, I'll be very disappointed.”

In fact, I was worried that my secret errand was going to be a disaster. I'd been planning it for week—going back and forth on whether Tru would love it or just think it was silly—and now I wasn't sure at all. Assateague had been everything I'd wanted, it seemed like it had been everything Tru had wanted, but now he was clearly so upset, unsettled. Soon he would be gone, and I didn't yet know what that meant for me here in Baltimore or what it would mean for him back in Connecticut, with his parents.

Still, I decided not to give up on what had once seemed like a grand idea, hoping the magic I'd planned might still come off okay.

I whispered a quick thanks, and Tru just nodded. Then he shut off the ignition, flipped off the lights, and grabbed the book, heading inside without another word.

We left after dinner Thursday night, walking past the lacrosse field, moving toward the big brick buildings of the Johns Hopkins campus. It had that eerie ghost-town emptiness of a school in summer. I got lost, crossed the street too far down, had to circle back. Tru was beginning to lose patience, and I thought that maybe I had the wrong block or maybe the thing was gone or maybe I'd totally imagined it. I wasn't even sure if he'd want to see it, not anymore, but I just had to try. . . .

And then there it was. I stopped short, and he bumped into me.

“That's it!” I said.

“A gross college dorm? Stunning!”

Ignoring him, I approached the building, and placed a hand on what I'd come to show him: the plaque. He came to it skeptically, with his arms crossed. But as soon as he started reading, his posture changed. He loosened up and leaned in. I stood close by his side and read the words along with him, feeling that same little thrill as when I'd first found them a couple of weeks ago on a walk with Duncan.

THE AUTHOR F. SCOTT FITZGERALD LIVED IN AN APARTMENT ON THE TOP FLOOR OF THIS BUILDING FROM THE FALL OF 1935 THROUGH THE LATE SPRING OF 1936 WHEN HIS WIFE, ZELDA, WAS A PATIENT AT THE SHEPPARD PRATT HOSPITAL. DURING HIS STAY IN THIS BUILDING, THEN KNOWN AS
THE CAMBRIDGE ARMS APARTMENTS, HE WROTE HIS FAMOUS MEMOIR ESSAY “AFTERNOON OF AN AUTHOR,” PUBLISHED IN 1936.

Side by side, we stared at the dull bronzy sign. He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, but didn't look at me. He didn't say anything, didn't need to.

“Sheppard Pratt—is that the local loony bin?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “How did you know?”

“Because. Zelda was
fucking insane
.”

After a minute of quiet, I moved to leave, but Tru didn't follow me.

“So,” he said, hands on his hips. “How are we going to get inside?”

The lie he spun to the security guard was truly a thing of beauty—an elaborate tale about how this had been his freshman dorm, and his little sister here had never seen it. Now he'd had to leave school because his parents couldn't afford the tuition anymore, his father a marine welder who was running out of contracts, and he just wanted to show her where he'd lived that first year.

“Sorry,” he said, as we slipped inside the stairwell and shut the door. “Didn't mean to borrow your dad, but it's always the true details that really sell.”

I said nothing, not even sure how I felt about it.

“Should we try to find a kegger?” he asked.

“It's not that kind of school,” I told him. “They're
nerds.
And they're not even here. It's the summer!”

He shrugged, and then he was off, sprinting up the stairs while I followed, the fluorescent lights flickering and buzzing. He climbed all the way to the top floor and we exited the stairs into a large common room. The door banged loudly behind us, breaking the stillness. A soda machine hummed. Nothing else seemed to move. We were surrounded by empty bulletin boards and shut doors. Without hesitating, Tru stepped forward and tried a handle. It swung open, no resistance.

We walked into the room and saw two stripped beds, two empty desks, two shut wardrobes. Tru sat on the floor and pulled out a joint. I sat next to him, and we both faced the window and stared out, even though we couldn't see much from that angle, just a patch of sky.

“So,” he said with a flick of his lighter. “You've had a drink now. Are you interested in some of this?”

I thought for a moment and went with my gut.

“I don't think I'm ready.”

He gave me a smile that looked almost proud. Then he took a deep drag.

“Are you worried about going back?” I asked.

He shrugged, exhaling a smoke ring. “Sort of. Did you see that perfect circle? I've really been working on this. You should take stock and appreciate my skills.”

“How have your parents sounded lately? Are they acting any different?”

Tru stood up, walked over to the window, and looked down at the earth below.

“Thanks for rescuing my book,” he said.

I thought about pressing him, decided this wasn't the time. We had a whole weekend ahead of us when we could talk.

“No problem,” I said. “It just didn't seem right to leave it there. I mean, even if you really hate it now.”

He inhaled slowly, exhaled another ring. “I don't hate it. I think I love it.”

I watched the ring dissolve, read his face to see if he was serious. “You do? You love it?”

“I do. Because it's true. About people. About life. All the harshest, grimiest, dirtiest parts. But there's beauty in the way it's told. I don't know. For some reason, that makes it better.”

He drummed the fingers of his free hand on the glass, while I watched from the floor, feeling distant from him, wishing there were some way to pull him back to me.

“So you can still use
Gatsby
to sleep with people?” I asked him. “At cocktail parties?”

He didn't move, just shifted his eyes in my direction. “I've taught you well this summer. And yes, of course. I've got my favorite line all ready.”

He ground the mostly unfinished joint into the windowsill, still gripping it as he spoke.

“‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made.'”

He directed the words out the window, not to me in the least,
and I said nothing more. A minute later we left. We walked back through an inky twilight. When we got home, he went inside while I stayed on the porch, staring off into the park, remembering the safe for the first time in days.