Saving June (14 page)

“I
can’t,
okay? I can’t.” With a sigh, I turn, bow my head and lower my voice. “Tell Laney’s parents that she’s fine.”

“Your sister…” Mom’s voice wavers and breaks, and she pauses for a painfully long time. “The
urn…”

She starts to cry, low and keening, the same kind of wailing she did at June’s memorial. The lump in my throat grows a few sizes bigger, but before I can figure out what to say, the sound of it is suddenly muffled, farther away, background noise.

“Harper. Tell me where you are, right this second.” Aunt Helen has commandeered the phone. This is worse than the crying. “I mean it!” she yells when I remain silent.

“Would you stop?” I snap. “I’m only calling so you know we’re okay. Just don’t, you know…worry.”

“Don’t
worry?
“ Aunt Helen shrieks loud enough to make me flinch. I hold the phone away from my ear. “You disappear without warning, refuse to tell anyone where you’ve run off to, and that’s all you have to say for yourself? To
not worry?
“

“I’m just—”

“Do you not see how
SELFISH
you are being?” She plows on, clearly intent on riding her high horse all the way to the winner’s circle. “This is so typical of you, to
ignore the needs of this family. To not consider anyone’s feelings but your own. If you wanted attention, you should have—”

“This isn’t about that!” I shout. My head pounds like it’s about to explode. “If you’d just
listen
to me for a second—”

Aunt Helen sighs heavily, a sigh I recognize all too well. Of course. Of course this is what my family would think of me, because it’s the same as what they’ve always thought. This is what I am to them: a failure, a mistake, second best. A constant disappointment. It doesn’t matter if June is dead, if June loathed herself and her life enough to off herself in our garage; I’m still the disappointment of the family. Always will be. Nothing’s going to change.

Nothing ever changes.

“I don’t understand how you can behave this way, Harper, I really don’t. You need to hang up that phone right now and come home. You need to—”

I am so tired of people telling me what I
need
that I could puke.

I lean my forehead against the plastic siding of the booth and trace a fingernail across the grimy pane. My throat constricts. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to go.”

Before Aunt Helen can protest further, I slam the phone down on the hook. A few seconds pass as I just stand there and stare at it, imagining her on the other end, entreating
to an unresponsive dial tone. The idea of it is disproportionately satisfying. If that thought makes me a horrible person, well. So be it.

I close my eyes and listen to the mosquitoes buzzing around my head, the hum of the nearby rickety ice machine. I know without looking that Jake is right behind me—he hovers close enough for me to smell his aftershave, kind of tangy, and his cigarettes; it’s a little weird, mostly because it
isn’t
weird. It feels perfectly comfortable to just stand there, breathing in his smells without speaking.

Someone slams a door somewhere above us, jarring him out of our mutual silence.

“How’d it go?” he finally asks.

This time I draw my gaze up to meet his. His hair looks kind of slept-on, sticking out in different directions, his eyes darker in the dim light thrown off by the streetlamp. The same lamp allows me to notice that his black T-shirt clings to him in all the right places.

At first my stomach twists, and I feel vaguely ashamed, or guilty, or something, for noticing that. But then I think—so what. So what if he’s hot, sometimes. Like every time I look at him. Besides, annoying he may be, but he’s had his shining White Knight Moment, what with the whole saving-me-and-my-best-friend-from-a-brawl-and-probable-jail-time thing. Even if I’m no damsel in distress and he’s miles away from Prince Charming, such displays
of gallantry, combined with his not-bad-okay-actually-pretty-good looks, make my strange lusty feelings completely justified. Practically obligatory, even.

So really, it isn’t as if noticing something like his well-toned biceps or his seriously long eyelashes
means
anything—other than a confirmation of the fact that I’m not blind. Still, I shouldn’t be thinking about him, like that. Especially with Anna’s cryptic comments lingering in the back of my mind. I take a deep breath and focus instead on my annoyance with Aunt Helen.

“Oh, it went wonderfully,” I say sarcastically, glaring at the phone. I tick off Helen’s talking points on my fingers as I list them. “Let’s see. I’m selfish, I’m a disappointment, I don’t care about anyone but myself, and my aunt is convinced I’m systematically destroying my mother’s life. You know. The usual.”

He smiles with half his mouth. “She sounds like a lovely person.”

“Whatever,” I mutter, pushing my hair out of my eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”

And “whatever” truly does sum up my opinion on the whole matter at this point. I am really, really over it. I’m tired, tired of everything, but tired especially of being held solely responsible for everyone else in the world’s unhappiness. Trying to keep a handle on my own is hard enough as it is.

So I’m going to do this. I am going to go to California and spread June’s ashes in the Pacific like she would have wanted, like she
deserves,
and that is it. Period. End of story.

When we return to the room, Laney’s already passed out on the bed, having not even bothered to pull back the covers. She doesn’t stir when we open and close the door or when Jake switches on the television. His conversation with his brother was short and sweet. He didn’t let on what they’d talked about as we walked back to the motel room, and I wasn’t about to ask. I couldn’t glean much from my one-sided perspective—mostly what I heard was, “Hey, not much, okay, yeah, sure, uh-huh, no, not yet, yeah, all right, you too, ‘bye.”

The room itself is minimally furnished—two single beds, both looking like they’ve seen better days, a nightstand between them, and the television. There’s nothing here that can’t be nailed down, except for the Bible in the drawer. I thumb through its thin yellowed pages.

“What was that passage that that one guy with the sign was yelling at the rally?” I ask. “Something starting with an L…”

“Leviticus 20:13,” he answers without hesitation.
“‘If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination, let them be put to death: their blood be upon them.’”
A small, grim smile tugs at his mouth. “That one’s kicked around a lot. Of course, they never tell you that Leviticus also forbids eating shrimp or cutting your hair. If you run into people who know their stuff, they’ll at least refer you to Corinthians 6:9, or something else from the New Testament.”

I slam the book shut. For a second I’m worried it’ll wake up Laney, but she remains zonked out, sleeping the sleep of the deeply unconscious. “I hate organized religion. I hate that people use it to justify their crappy, bigoted beliefs.” “I know,” Jake agrees softly. “But it’s not all bad.” “Really?” I say, skeptical.

“Look.” Jake sits down beside me, takes the Bible from my hands and flips it open. “Some of the Psalms are nice. And this one—” he skims the pages, hunting for a passage “—is one of my favorites.

He pauses and looks directly at me as he speaks the last line.
“‘And though in the sight of men they suffered torments, their hope is full of immortality.’”

I’m silent for a minute, absorbing these words. Finally I say, “I thought you didn’t believe in God.” His face doesn’t change. “I don’t.” “Then why do you have the Bible memorized like—like some kind of Mormon?”

“Have you ever even
met
a Mormon, Harper? I was raised Catholic.”

“Seriously?” I can’t help it, I’m full-on gawking. Jake, Catholic? I wouldn’t have guessed, and now I’m totally curious. “Like with confession, and…everything?” I ask.

He nods. “Confession, rosaries, Hail Mary, the pope. the whole shebang, pretty much.”

“That’s weird. I mean, it isn’t weird, but it’s weird trying to picture it. Trying to picture you.” I’m stumbling over my words, trying not to sound like the world’s biggest moron. “In a church.”

“Well, let’s just say I wasn’t exactly the ideal church-going child,” Jake says wryly. “Still, could’ve been worse. I could’ve pissed off a nun—trust me, you do not want to do that.” He drops the Bible and sighs. “You know, I’m an atheist, but I get it. I get why people have faith in a higher
power. Some people need it. They need to believe they’re not alone.”

I have a sudden flashback to a reading from my firstsemester religions class. “Opiates for the masses?”

“Maybe,” he says after some thought. “But you can’t judge everyone by what you believe.”

“You don’t think that way about music,” I point out, remembering his earlier argument with Laney.

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?” I demand. “You know, just because you think bubblegum pop on the radio represents all that is wrong with society, that doesn’t mean there’s not someone out there who needs that shitty pop song. Maybe that shitty pop song makes them feel good, about themselves and the world. And as long as that shitty pop song doesn’t infringe upon your rights to rock out to, I don’t know, Subway Sect, or Siouxsie and the Banshees, or whichever old-ass band it is you worship, then who cares?”

He shifts on the bed and looks over at me. “Okay, you may have a point,” he concedes, a little reluctantly. His lips curl like he’s trying not to smile. “Does this mean you actually listen when I talk about music?”

“Did June?” I counter, feeling bold. I’m sick of this tiptoeing around the subject. I want to know what he knows. I want to know everything about her I missed out on.

“We had a deal,” he explains. “I listened to her yap
about math and books and whatever, and she’d listen to my music.”

“Do you know if she liked any of it?”

The halfway smile on his face fades. “Only the sad songs,” he says.

For a second I can’t catch my breath. Jake must take my silence as the end of the conversation, because he picks up the remote and flicks through the channels. He stops on
Skye Desmond: Wild at Heart.
Skye is one of those wildlife gurus with a show on one of the nature channels. The premise involves him being dropped in various geographical backdrops with a camera crew, surviving the rough wilderness via dramatic tactics such as drinking his own urine and disrupting bee colonies in order to forage their honey.

It’s actually one of my favorite shows, too—though, granted, it has less to do with the nature stuff and more to do with the fact that Skye has cheekbones you could sharpen knives on, a yummy Australian accent and washboard abs. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he almost always finds an excuse to take off his shirt at least once per episode.

As I settle back in to watch Skye trek across the snowy Alaskan tundra, I think about everything Jake said. He’s right; some people
do
need that faith in a higher power, like Aunt Helen, who depends on her religion for every answer to every question, no matter how trivial, and Laney, who
believes every life has a predestined path. Part of me wants to have that—but wanting is not the same as needing. And then I think of June, and wonder what she would have to say about all of this.

She would’ve understood. She would’ve known what to say. I wish I’d talked to her about what she believed before she died. If only we could have had one conversation like that, just one, instead of the countless petty fights and tiffs. Now I’ll never know what she thought—about that, or anything.

There is so much I’ll never know.

“Tell me what
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
means,” I say.

Jake doesn’t look away from the television. Skye Desmond is stripping off his parka and sweater layers—something about conserving body heat. “You already know what it means.”

“I’m not talking about the translation. I’m talking about what it means—meant—for you and June.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Of course it’s my business!” I explode. “She was my sister, I have a right to know!”

“Trust me,” he insists, “it really isn’t a big deal.”

But I don’t believe him for a second. “Then why do you keep clamming up?” I ask. “Why was it on the CD you made her? Did you know that CD was playing in her car
when she—” I can’t say it. Why can’t I just say it?
When she killed herself.
The words refuse to come out.

“Wait, what?” Jake’s eyes widen. He looks away from me, and then back, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “Look. It’s just something I read in a book for my lit class, and she thought I could relate to it. She told me to say it every time I wanted to blow off studying. It was just a joke, okay? A stupid inside joke.”

“What about—”

“No. The Jake Tolan Inquisition portion of this evening’s entertainment has come to a close. Go to sleep.”

He hits the mute button, throws the remote onto the nightstand and yanks the lamp chain off. I fall back against the pillows next to comatose Laney and glance at the screen. Skye Desmond is flashing a dazzling-white smile at the camera, waving a knife around in his hand as he talks, answering every question I could ever have about how to slice up and prepare a raw salmon.

The first thing Jake does the next morning is buy a map from the closest gas station. The second thing he does is drive to a diner for breakfast, since we’re all starving, and Laney’s always catatonic until her first cup of coffee. We stop at the first place we come across, a greasy spoon that pulls out all the stops as far as clichés go: a lunch counter at the front, red vinyl booths, Formica tables, black-and-white checkered floors, waitresses wearing pale pink uniforms.

We order—coffee, Belgian waffles and French toast with strawberries for Laney, hash browns, pinto beans and bacon for Jake, and a blueberry short stack with a side of poached eggs for me. While we wait, Jake spreads the map out on the table, holding down the corners with salt and pepper shakers.

“We’re not going through Indiana again, are we?” Laney asks. She dumps a sugar packet into her second cup of coffee, her eyes hidden behind those huge pink sunglasses. “Indiana is boring and full of Amish people.”

“You won’t have to worry about the Amish,” Jake says. “At least, not the ones in Indiana. We’re going through Missouri first.”

She raises the cup to her mouth and frowns. “What’s in Missouri?”

“St. Louis,” I tell her. “They have the arch thing. And Jefferson City is the capital.”

“I’m glad one of us paid attention in sixth grade,” she grumbles, turning her gaze to Jake. “So what comes after Missouri?”

He squints at the map. “Well, it depends. If we go north, Nebraska.”

“Ew. Pass. What’s south?”

“Oklahoma.”

“Those are our only options? Lame!”

“I think we should go south,” I say. “Call it a gut instinct.”

Our thirtysomething waitress—Dottie, if her name tag is anything to go by—comes to the table, balancing two trays. She fills out her pink uniform in every way, looking round and soft and puffy. Dark roots show through peroxide-blond hair—the kind of dye job a single mother does with a home kit, bent over the bathtub, scrubbing it in while her kids take a nap.

Dottie sets down my blueberry pancakes and eggs and Laney’s waffles and French toast. “I’ll be right back with yours, sugar,” she tells Jake.

Jake pulls his spoon out of his coffee mug, licks it and says, “Thanks.” And then he winks, tipping back on his chair and watching her legs as she saunters to the kitchen.

I reach out with my feet and slam his chair back down. “You’re a pig.”

“What, I’m not allowed to say thanks?”

“Not like that, you aren’t.” I spear a piece of pancake and stuff it in my mouth. “So we’ve got Missouri, Oklahoma, then…Texas, is it?”

“Yup,” he says. “But only a little part of it. See?” He draws a line across the map with his finger. “After that, New Mexico, then Arizona. I’d say we should make a side trip to Nevada and hit up Las Vegas, but what’s the point in going to Vegas if you can’t gamble? So that’s out. We can cut straight through Arizona to California, drive up the coast to San Fran.”

Dottie returns with Jake’s food, flashing him a smile that dimples her round apple cheeks and crinkles the corners of her tired eyes. “Here you go. You need anything else, you just holler.”

Jake looks up at her as he bites into a piece of bacon. “Do you happen to know how far St. Louis is from here?”

“I got some cousins down in Kirkwood, right around those parts,” she says. She taps her finger on her chin, considering. “I’d say it’s about a two-hour drive, ‘pending on traffic.”

“And the famous arch thingamabob—can you, like, go on top of it?” asks Laney hopefully.

I can’t believe she wants to play tourist. We already wasted hours of travel time going to the protest. Then again…maybe dragging this out isn’t such a bad idea. Last night’s phone call just reminded me of how much I do not want to go home yet.

“The arch? Sure can! One year I took my baby girl Pearl on the tram. Course, she just ‘bout screamed her head off all the way to the top.” Dottie laughs and tilts her head at us curiously. “Where you kids from, anyway?”

Laney tells her we’re from Michigan, and that we’re on our way to California. I kick her shin under the table as subtly as I can—why does she feel the need to give our exact destination?—but she just sticks her tongue out at me like a two-year-old. Jake doesn’t seem to mind that she’s said anything, though, so maybe I’m just paranoid.

“California?” Dottie’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “I’ve never been. I bet you’ll see movie stars!”

Laney’s face lights up. “You think?”

“I imagine the place is crawling with ‘em. Now, you do me a favor. You run into George Clooney, you let him know Dottie sends her love all the way from the best damn breakfast diner in the state of Illinois. Tell him he needs to swing by and try one of our peach crumb pies—they’re legendary. World’s best. And you can quote me on that!”

“Hey, Dottie, could I take your picture?” I grab my camera out of my backpack and hold it up. “I’m trying to document our trip.”

She smiles nervously, hands twisting her ponytail. “Me? I don’t know, I’m such a mess—”

“Come on,” Jake needles. “You can write your message to George Clooney on the back. If we see him, we can pass it on. Once he gets a look at you, he’ll be booking the first flight to Illinois.”

“Aren’t you sweet?” she says with a laugh. “Deluded, but sweet. All right, take your picture if you must.”

I peer one eye through the viewfinder. When the picture has been taken and materialized, it shows Dottie, her cheeks flushed, one hand cocked on her hip and the other balancing a tray. She writes,
Dear George, You should get your cute butt down to New Sun Diner in the fine state of Illinois,
ASAP. Call me!!! Love always, Dottie,
on the back. She dots all of her i’s with little hearts.

As we finish our breakfasts—admittedly, the food
is
really delicious—we decide that the best course of action is to drive to St. Louis and spend the day there. Riding in the car for so long makes Laney restless, plus she’s really into the idea of visiting the arch, and Jake mentions wanting to stop by some jazz clubs or something. I’m not interested in any of it, but they can drag me along, if they want. Otherwise I’ll end up just sitting around and thinking about how sad I am. Might as well do that and the touristy stuff at the same time. Yeah, I’m multitalented that way.