Frannie and Tru (6 page)

I smiled, feeling a little bit better, starting to think that last
night wasn't a fluke, and that I did have reason to hope this summer wouldn't be a miserable bust. Tru was here, and Sparrow, too. And there was her cousin who played the violin. His friends. The coming weeks didn't have to be a dead end. They were wide-open with possibility—I just had to make sure that Tru remembered I was here, that I was the kind of girl who said clever things about sculptures and helped him sneak into bars. A girl worth knowing.

He had turned to the trees again, leaning against the table.

“We should go to the jump-off,” he said, his back still to me. “We should go before the summer is out.”

“Okay,” I said. “We'll do it.”

But even as the words came out of my mouth, I was hoping the day would never come.

We were quiet on the ride home, all of us rubbed a bit raw by our first real day of summer. Skin was tinged red, hair damp and matted, feet gritty with sand and soil and broken blades of grass. I leaned against the window and watched as clouds moved in. Drained by the sun, I drifted in and out of sleep, falling into half dreams about the Prettyboy Reservoir.

I'm not sure I could have found it on a map, but I knew it was north of the city, somewhere down a lonely county road, tucked away in a thicket of wood. Prettyboy was a twisting snake of deep water, the currents swift and dangerous. Swimming there was forbidden, which was exactly why people went. There was a special spot where a rock ledge jutted out over the water, the perfect diving board. Next to it a rope hung from a high branch,
always pulled down by park rangers, always replaced. From that rope, kids would fling themselves like stones into the reservoir below. That was the jump-off. We used to whisper about it during middle school sleepovers, making stupid dares about going there, dares we couldn't possibly fulfill for years, not until we had cars and boyfriends and ways to get beer. Always when we talked about it, we talked of the two boys who'd died there, years and years ago. St. Sebastian's boys, I was pretty sure.

And that was why I'd never really wanted to go to Prettyboy. Not then and not now.

I didn't want to go, because I knew that I'd freeze there on the edge, unable to jump at all. I was always the one who chickened out in line for roller coasters and water slides. Those were things that I actually knew were safe. The jump-off was the opposite.

Half-awake in the back of the car, I tried to think exactly what I knew about the boys who had died, but couldn't remember a thing. Eyelids heavy, mind floating again toward sleep, I kept seeing the two boys leaping, then flailing, the pair of them faceless as they sank down below.

That evening we ate hot dogs and corn on the cob at the plastic table in the backyard. Afterward we gathered in the dining room to sort out our work hours for the coming week, fighting over who got the new-ish sedan, who got the ancient minivan.

Just the night before, as I'd walked back from Siren with Tru, the coming weeks of summer had seemed like they might be one long stretch of magic nights, music and bars and who knows
what. Now reality crowded back in. I was babysitting Duncan Hart three doors down. Kieran was a counselor at a sports camp. Jimmy was working a regular weekday shift at the gas station a few blocks away. That afternoon, Tru had received word from his parents that they'd had him squeezed at the last minute into an intensive, five-days-a-week Latin course at Loyola, the Catholic college about a mile and a half down the road, the one his father had gone to.

I wondered if my parents would let him have a car and how that would go over with the twins, but then Tru jumped in and said that he would walk. It would take twenty minutes or so each way, but he insisted he didn't mind, and frankly that was easier on everybody.

Meanwhile Jimmy was trying and failing to control the look on his face. His mouth puckered in amusement.

“Intensive Latin?” he asked. “Sounds . . . intense.”

Tru just laughed.

“My dad's idea. Or rather, his command. I've been taking Spanish for the last three years, which makes sense to me since half the country speaks it. But who cares about that when you can conjugate a bunch of verbs that only matter to dead guys?”

My father seemed to take a strange delight in this, giggling loudly. Mom shot him a disapproving look as she started cleaning up the plates.

That night, we all half watched a movie in the living room, a goofy comedy about mistaken identities, miscommunication. Mom folded laundry and Dad slept in his chair. The twins texted
and cruised the internet on their phones. I had nobody to text and no phone to play with either, because I'd dropped mine down a sewer grate three weeks ago. I couldn't get a new one until I had enough babysitting money or until my contract renewal kicked in at the end of the summer. So far I didn't really miss it, since I barely heard from the girls anymore—not having the phone meant I didn't have to look at my empty inbox. Instead, I sat flipping through magazines, hardly seeing what was on the pages. Truman was sitting in the corner under the floor lamp reading
The Great Gatsby
, looking absorbed and content.

“Ugh,” Jimmy said when he saw it. “We were supposed to read that last year. Couldn't do it.”

Kieran threw a pillow at his head. “Dude, you're seriously pathetic. It's short and the whole thing's just drinking and car wrecks.”

Jimmy did his well-worn act of pretending to fall asleep.

I thought I might get a chance to talk to Tru before bed, to ask him when we might see Sparrow, and to feel out how serious he was about Prettyboy. But he slipped downstairs early when his dad called his cell, and he never came back up.

I eventually gave up on him and went to my room. I turned off the light, but for a long time couldn't sleep. I kept imagining the reservoir, what it would be like to grab the rope and swing out over the void.

I woke up Monday with time to kill, as usual. I watched Duncan five days a week, but just for a few hours in the middle of the day. His father was some kind of foreman at a plant and worked long shifts, but his mother was a part-time librarian who was only gone from about eleven in the morning until three in the afternoon. Duncan was on summer vacation from school like the rest of us and needed somebody to be with, so I was it.

To be honest, watching Duncan barely felt like work at all. He was twelve and autistic, with very personal, intricate ways to entertain himself. I'd never said this out loud to anyone, but sometimes I really liked being with him. He was sweet and gentle and possibly the only human being who I never felt awkward or shy around. If I said something dumb or embarrassing, I knew he wouldn't care. I'd babysat for him here and there this whole past
year before I'd gotten the regular job this summer. He couldn't really express himself or tell me what he needed, and that used to break my heart, make me feel helpless. But the more we were together, the more I understood all his likes and dislikes. Now I could almost always make him happy.

That morning everyone was on their typical schedule, Mom and Kieran leaving early, and Dad gone soon after. He almost always found somewhere to be during the day. Today he was doing handyman-type stuff for people a few blocks over. Our house was empty by nine thirty, after Tru had left for Latin class and Jimmy for the gas station. Once everyone was gone, I took a never-ending, scalding shower, singing the whole time. I dressed slowly, switching one shirt for another and another when nothing looked right, as if it even mattered what I wore to babysit. Then I went downstairs and turned on the television. Back when we had cable I used to watch MTV for hours sometimes, lulled by bad music and shameless people doing shameless things. Now there was no MTV, and not much to pick from. I just clicked nonstop, moving from local news to soap operas to courtroom shows. People squabbling over a few hundred dollars. I guess I knew how they felt.

By the time I walked over to the Harts' place, the street was pretty empty of cars, people having gone off to work. It gave me the feeling that I was late even though I knew I wasn't. As usual, Mrs. Hart was dressed and ready to go as soon as I got there. She left with a breezy good-bye, in a cloud of perfume. On the table was the day's memo, which always told me what to make
for lunch. Today it was microwave macaroni and cheese. Underneath, just like every other day, she wrote a Bible passage for the two of us.

I always read the passages out loud to Duncan, even though I didn't think he cared. Today's was a classic: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

I stared at it for a moment, wondering if it could possibly be true. Then I looked up at Duncan.

“Let's skip the Bible today, all right?”

He gave me a half smile, soft and sweet.

After that, like always, I told him what we were having for lunch and that we'd eat in an hour. And then, just like every other day, he asked me his standard set of questions. I answered them the same way I always did.

“What's your name?”

“Frannie.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“St. Sebastian's.”

He'd heard the answers from me so many times, starting last fall, the very first time I babysat him, that I'd decided not to change the last answer. I was afraid I'd upset him if I said something else. And to be honest, the name of my new school didn't sound right to me yet either.

After that, we passed the day like we did most others. He built a beautiful block tower that he didn't want me to help with. He
leaned protectively over a sheet of paper and drew his own mazes. I stole a few moments on their computer, unable to keep myself from looking at some of the photos that Mary Beth, Dawn, and Marissa had posted from Stix for Chix. In the afternoon, Duncan and I went down into the basement and played with his train set.

The train set was beautiful. Not a kid's toy but an antique, his grandfather's. Duncan could spend hours rearranging the cars and the tracks and all the pieces of the town. I watched from a little way off or sometimes helped a bit. My favorite part was the farmhouse and barn with all the miniature animals, cows and pigs and a chicken.

Duncan hated the chicken.

“The chicken is too big,” he said, holding it up for my inspection.

In the months I'd known him, he'd probably told me that hundreds of times, but I didn't mind hearing it again. It always made me smile, because Duncan was right. It
was
too big, although it actually wasn't a chicken. It was a rooster. A monster red rooster with a scarlet crest flaming from its head and one foot scraping the ground with fierce talons. It must have come from some different set from all the other pieces because it was completely out of scale, towering over the animals, half as big as the farmhouse.

It had no business being there at all.

The six of us reconvened at dinner, hungry, tired, and impatient. Kieran sweaty from camp, blowing his whistle to drive everyone crazy. Jimmy complaining about customers and sucking down
the free slushie he got at the end of every shift. Mom clomping around in her heels, work ID still dangling from around her neck as she started to cook. Dad huffing through the door, disheveled and dirty and lugging a toolbox.

Tru came in last, with his messenger bag full of Latin books and neatly organized papers. The class lasted all morning, and afternoons he said he planned to stay in the library or at the coffee place on campus, doing homework and surfing the web.

We ate dinner together at the table, per Mom and Dad's command. Then we watched whatever we could find on the five or six stations that still came in on the TV. The twins texted. Tru read. I flipped through magazines.

When a call came through on his cell, Tru left his book on the arm of the couch, and I grabbed it as soon as he was gone, opening to the first pages. There was a little poem in the beginning, something about a gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover. I had no idea what that meant—was it supposed to be silly or sexy?—but it made me blush just the same. Then I read the first couple of paragraphs, where a dad gives advice to his son. He told him not to criticize others, because they don't come from families with as many advantages. I wondered if it was the kind of thing Uncle Richard would say to Tru, and I decided to stop reading, putting the book back exactly as I'd found it.

Tuesday came, and I kept waiting for Tru to invite me somewhere, to tell me we were meeting Sparrow again. Or maybe he would talk to me more about Prettyboy. About
anything.
But he didn't. He went out with the twins instead—going to play video
games at their friend Drew Pipkin's house. Wednesday they went to swim in Michael Donovan's backyard pool, and Tru went with them again.

I was quickly going from disappointed to depressed, so on Thursday I finally caught Tru alone in his room and asked him how Sparrow was doing, but he just made some joke about how she was busy trying to set the world on fire with her digital artscapes. I even brought up Prettyboy, because I thought it would get his attention. But when I asked if he was really serious about going, he just said “deadly serious,” then took out his phone, ignoring me completely.

That night I didn't sleep well, and I woke up early, too early, on Friday morning, chasing the tail end of a bad dream.

I couldn't remember much of it, only that I was back at Siren alone, and the man was behind me, holding fistfuls of my hair.

I wondered again if it was a big deal, what he'd said, about my age, my hair, seeing me around. I was pretty sure that the guy was full of it. He didn't say what park, and there were a million around here.

I rolled out of bed and looked out my window, convinced the weekend would bring better things.

After dinner that night, I went and sat on the front porch alone, my summer reading ignored in my lap as I stared at the sky. I'd been hoping to see the sunset or the first glint of stars, but all of that was lost behind a shifting mass of thunderheads, the rain starting to come down in big, fat beads that burst on the road. It
was the Fourth of July, and Mom had been planning to drag us all out to watch the fireworks together at the house of someone she worked with, a lady who lived downtown and had a roof deck. Of course the twins had moaned and whined that they weren't twelve, that they had better things to do, and couldn't she just take Frannie and leave them out of it. Then this storm crept in, so much worse than expected, and the city had to postpone the show until tomorrow. Jimmy and Kieran were freed. I was freed, too, but of course, I had nothing else to do. Lightning cut the sky overhead, and instead of counting until I heard the boom, I turned and ran inside.

I had to go see Tru.

Tiptoeing down the stairs, I saw the door was closed tight. He answered my knock with a loud, happy “Come in!” and I found him dressed in his standard plain T-shirt and jeans. He pointed at his watch.

“Leaving in a minute,” he said. “Going to a party with Jimmy and Kieran.”

An “Oh” escaped my lips, sounding pathetic, and he looked at me, amused. He explained that he was fairly certain Jimmy and Kieran didn't want me around while they chugged beer and tried to make out with girls.

“Well, yeah. I know.”

“Jimmy kept saying that the party is at ‘The Mack's,' like that was something I should be able to understand. Can you translate?”

He wasn't even looking at me, too busy instead clicking around on his phone.

“Beau Womack,” I said. “He's a big, dumb football player. His parents are never home. He's The Mack.”

“How charming!” Tru said, pulling his sneakers from under the bed. “Frankly, I was a little surprised they've been inviting me out so much, but then I overheard Jimmy telling Kieran that I'm excellent girl bait, which I suppose means he wants my scraps and rejects? I think I should be flattered, don't you?”

I said nothing, tried to force a smile. I now had a vivid picture of Tru with all the St. Sebastian's upperclassmen. He was handing out carefully rolled joints. He was pumping the keg perfectly. He was standing there, smiling, at the center of everything.

And Jimmy was right. He would be girl bait: handsome and funny and, best of all, he was new. A mystery. Watching as he pulled on his socks and his shoes, I got some small pleasure from thinking of the dumb, drunk twits who would flirt with him and have no idea. . . .

And that's when I thought of Jeremy Bell.

“There's, um, there's a guy who will probably be there,” I said.

Tru was tying his laces, but paused to look up at me.

“Jeremy. Jeremy Bell. He's, ah. He's just . . . He's cute. You might . . . I just thought you might want to talk to him.”

Turning back to his shoes, Tru snorted dismissively.

“Well, thanks so much,” he said. “Maybe the two of us can go for ice cream and hold hands.”

A blush hit my face like a slap.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said. “That was stupid.”

I fled up both flights of stairs and buried myself in my bed. I was sure now that Tru and I would never do anything all summer. I'd either have to crawl back to Mary Beth, Dawn, and Marissa, or suffer through the coming months completely by myself. I'd been okay, I'd been getting by before Tru got here. Then I'd said that thing in front of the sculpture, and suddenly everything was different. I'd felt smart and funny again. I'd met Sparrow, who actually seemed to like me. I thought she was going to introduce me to her cousin, his friends.

Now that was all starting to seem like a hopeless dream.

Scrunched in a ball, sheets pulled up over my head, I tried to remember how I'd been surviving just a week ago, back when I was a tightrope walker, alone and focused, keeping my balance by blocking everything out. I couldn't get that feeling back. I wanted something else now.

I wanted to fall.

I heard the twins tell my mother that they were taking Tru to play video games at Drew's house again. There was a long pause, and I could practically feel her looking at them. With suspicion hard and heavy in her voice, she told them when to be home. She told them they better behave. After they left, she yelled up and asked if I wanted to watch a movie with her and Dad.

Part of me did. Part of me wanted to be with people, to laugh or cry at something imaginary, or to look at perfect faces on a screen and just not think. But I yelled back, “No,” in a snotty
voice. I shut the door loudly. Sitting at my vanity, I confronted my angry, blotchy face in the mirror. Then I found the most melancholy music I could and turned it up high, attempting to reach a whole new state of misery.

I thought if I sank low enough, my sadness might achieve a kind of grace.