Tell the Wolves I'm Home (9 page)

I hadn't exactly forgotten. I think I just filed it away somewhere. Or maybe I thought it was all a joke in the first place. Some cruel thing Greta had said just to see what I'd say. I nodded anyway.

“Yeah, well, it kept getting put off, but now it's tonight.”

“Tonight? But—”

“I told Mom they need help with the play.”

“I'm not in the play.”

Greta rolled her eyes and took a deep steady breath. “Yes. I know. You'll be at the party.”

“Oh.” I'd never lied to my parents about where I was going. I'd never had anywhere to go before.

“You can bring Beans too. If you want.”

I hadn't been friends with Beans for years. Not really. When Beans first moved here from Ohio in third grade, with her Dorothy Hamill haircut and her 4-H badges sewn on the outside of her backpack, she had no one. Back then we were best friends. For a long time, all the way through to the end of elementary school, Beans was my only
friend. Because that's how I've always been. I only need one good friend to see me through. Most people aren't like that. Most people are always looking out for more people to know. In the end, Beans was like most people. After a while she had dozens of friends, and by fifth grade it was pretty obvious that even though she was
my
best friend, I wasn't hers.

Somehow my whole family seemed to have missed the thing where Beans and I weren't good friends anymore. I could call her up and she would be nice and everything, but it would be weird. No matter how many times I told my mother that Beans had tons of other friends, my mother couldn't stop seeing it the way it used to be between us. Maybe I didn't want her to, because then she would start nagging me to find some new friends. I didn't want to explain to her who I was. That I was the weird girl who carried a worn-out copy of
The Portable Medieval Reader
in her backpack, the girl who only wore skirts, usually with medieval boots, the girl who got caught staring at people. I didn't want to have to tell her that people weren't exactly lining up to hang out with me.

Plus, once you had a friend like Finn, it was almost impossible to find someone in high school who came anywhere close. Sometimes I wondered if I might go through my whole life looking for someone who came even a little bit close.

Greta unzipped her purse. “Mom was so happy we were doing something together. You know what she did?”

I shook my head.

“She gave me ten bucks.” Greta grinned and pulled out the ten-dollar bill from her purse, flashing it in front of me. “She said I should take you out for ice cream after. So we're set. Are you still up for it?”

“I guess.”

“Good. Bring boots. And dress really warm. It's in the woods.”

“Greta?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that guy at the funeral?”

“Yeah.”

“He was Finn's boyfriend, right?” I was trying my best to act like I didn't care one way or the other.

Since that day with the teapot, I thought I saw Toby all over the place. I couldn't remember exactly what he looked like, just the shape of him, which made it worse. There were tall lanky men everywhere, and on first glance any one of them could have been Toby.

For the past few days I'd been waiting to catch Greta off guard. I thought if I asked her something when she wasn't expecting it, she might tell me more than she meant to. What I'd learned over the years was that playing dumb was the best way to do it. As soon as she thought I didn't know something, she'd jump in with everything she had.

“Congratulations, Sherlock. That only took you a few centuries to figure out.”

“That's not all I'm trying to say.”

“All right, then, what?”

“So he's living in Finn's apartment now?”

“That's right. Life ain't fair. You kill a man and end up with a great apartment on the Upper West Side.”

“So you think he definitely gave Finn AIDS. You're sure.”

“Not just sure, I know he did it on purpose. That guy knew he had AIDS when he met Finn. He knew it.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do. I've heard things.”

“So he really is like a murderer?”

“Exactly.” Her tone had changed. She seemed suddenly pleased that I was interested in what she knew. I thought that maybe I could tell her about the teapot and the letter and about the train station on March 6. Maybe she'd listen and be impressed that I had my own news for once. But I couldn't get the words out. The letter said not to tell anyone, and maybe Toby was right. Maybe even a murderer can be right sometimes.

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“That's all. I just wanted to make sure.”

“Whatever, June. Grow up. It's all over now.”

“Yeah. I know it is.”

I called Beans. I guess I thought I should make the effort, but she
said she couldn't get out. So it would just be me. Me and a bunch of Greta's friends.

Later, on our way down the stairs for dinner, Greta poked me on the shoulder, then slipped a note into the back pocket of my jeans.
Party canceled
. It turned out a lot of people couldn't get out. But Greta had already lied to our parents, so I had to go to the play rehearsal with her anyway. I would have to sit there in the back of the auditorium on those red velvet seats, watching her turn into Bloody Mary over and over again.

Of course, I was relieved that the party was canceled. It wasn't only the shy thing, the total social retardation. It was more than that. I wasn't interested in drinking beer or vodka or smoking cigarettes or doing all the other things Greta thinks I can't even imagine. I don't want to imagine those things. Anyone can imagine things like that. I want to imagine wrinkled time, and forests thick with wolves, and bleak midnight moors. I dream about people who don't need to have sex to know they love each other. I dream about people who would only ever kiss you on the cheek.

That night I sat in the school auditorium and watched Ryan Cooke, with all his golden charisma, singing about enchanted evenings. Mr. Nebowitz, the director, kept stopping Ryan, making him sing certain parts of the song over and over again, telling him to let the words show on his face.

“We should be able to read your face like a poem. Even if you don't say a word, every person in that audience should know exactly how you feel.” Mr. Nebowitz was young, with lots of dark curly hair. It was the end that he wanted Ryan to get right. The part about holding on and never letting go.

Ryan tried again and again. I couldn't see much difference, but Mr. Nebowitz said, “Better. Getting better.” He let Ryan go off and then called Greta to the stage.

“ ‘Happy Talk,' okay?”

Greta nodded and walked onto the stage without any makeup or costume. Just her, in jeans and T-shirt. She didn't even take her glasses
off. She pulled her hair back with one hand and closed her eyes for a second. Mr. Nebowitz started on the piano.

“Straight through,” he said, nodding at Greta.

She sang it the whole way through, and I couldn't see or hear a single mistake. When she finished, Mr. Nebowitz clapped and turned to the rest of the cast, who were sitting out in the audience, and said, “This is the standard I'm looking for, people.” Then he looked back at Greta on the stage and thanked her for all the effort she was putting in. Something like that would have embarrassed me beyond belief, but Greta just took an exaggerated clownish bow, the top of her head nearly grazing the stage, and got a big laugh from the other kids. I laughed too, because that was the first time in so long that I'd seen her loose and jokey like that. It made me glad I'd been forced to go to the rehearsal.

Greta left the stage and I thought about Toby again. I thought that
special friend
could mean anything. It didn't have to be a big deal. Maybe Finn never mentioned him because he was nobody. It was my mother who used the word
special
. Finn would never call someone that. Not with a straight face anyway. Maybe it was just luck that the guy had ended up with Finn's apartment. Maybe Finn felt sorry for him.

The rehearsal ended at around eight-thirty. I stayed put in my seat and watched Greta and Ryan and a bunch of other kids from the play sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling, laughing. These were the kids Greta hung out with now. The smart kids. The ones who weren't only smart but popular too. The ones who could do anything. Ryan Cooke and Megan Donegan and Julie Contolli. Greta looked happy up there. Relaxed. Like this really was some island in the South Pacific. But she also looked younger than the rest of them. Lined up like that I didn't know how everyone couldn't see how obvious it was. Ryan had a little mustache. Megan's and Julie's legs were women's legs. Full and shapely. Greta's thin legs hung from the stage and made her look like a kid on a swing.

Mr. Nebowitz said good night to everyone and asked Greta if she had a minute. One by one the kids jumped off the stage and grabbed their coats and bags. Greta followed Mr. Nebowitz out of the
auditorium. I stayed in the back row, waiting, thinking I shouldn't leave without Greta.

“Hey, you there. I'm shutting the lights.” I could see it was Ben Dellahunt, who was a junior and the assistant stage manager for the play.

I nodded in the shadows.

“I'm just waiting for my sister,” I said. “I'll go in a minute.”

Ben was one of those kids that you thought might be rich when he grew up. Not because there was anything that great about him, but more because he was the kind of guy who always seemed to have a plan. He always had his hair in a ponytail, and there was a rumor that he'd actually invented a new computer language, but that probably wasn't true. He wasn't the best in his class, but he was pretty smart. Smart enough. He put a hand above his eyes and squinted at the back row, like he was looking way out to sea. Then he started walking up the central aisle. When he got closer he looked me over, zeroing in on my feet.

“Hey, you're the girl with the boots.” He smiled and nodded like he'd solved some kind of puzzle. He was about to sit down next to me, but before he did, Greta came back through stage left. She stood onstage, looking out over the rows of seats.

“Are you coming or not?” she called, already turning to leave.

“Yeah. Coming,” I called back. I said goodbye to Ben, then jogged to catch up with Greta. She stormed ahead, leaving me paces behind for the whole walk home. When we finally got there, she didn't say a word. She just ran up the stairs, straight into her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her.

Fifteen

Since Finn died, I'd been spending a lot of my weekend time in the woods. My parents would go to the office to get in a few extra hours of work, Greta would go to extra rehearsals, and I would head to the woods. Sometimes I'd take my coat off and tuck it behind the stone wall so I could feel the pain of the cold right through my body. Sometimes it was good to feel like a wretch of a girl who didn't have the right clothes to keep her warm.

It wasn't like I used to do something with Finn every weekend, but there was always the possibility. The phone could ring early in the morning—usually on a Sunday—and Finn would be on the other end, asking if anyone wanted to go out someplace. He always did that, asked if
anyone
wanted to go, but I knew he really meant me.

“You're in love with Uncle Finn,” Greta said one Sunday after he called.

She'd been watching me from the other side of the kitchen. Watching my face light up as I listened to Finn saying it was a good day to go to the Cloisters. After I hung up, Greta stood there for a second and smiled. Then she said that thing to me, about being in love with Finn, and I could have punched her. I clenched my fists and shoved them deep into my pockets and walked out of the kitchen, but she followed.

“Everybody knows it.”

I stopped and closed my eyes, my back still to Greta.

“You know what I heard Mrs. Alphonse say?” she said.

Mrs. Alphonse was a friend of my mother's from the garden club. My mother didn't even like gardening, but she still went to gardenclub meetings one Thursday night a month, to drink coffee and talk to other moms who probably also didn't do much gardening.

My back was still to Greta, my fists pulling tighter and tighter.

“I heard her asking Mom about you and Finn.
‘It's a bit strange for a girl to spend so much time alone with her uncle, isn't it? Not that I'm saying there's anything funny going on. I don't mean that at all.'
That's what she said, but I could tell she meant that she thought something was very wrong with it. And I could tell she'd been talking about it with other moms. And poor Mom, she didn't know what to say.…”

My fists had started to loosen because I was listening so hard to Greta. But then I thought about Mrs. Alphonse with her stupid tightly permed hair. Why did Mrs. Alphonse even need to think about me and Finn at all?