Wake (82 page)

“How is he now?”

Elise sighs into the phone. “He’s locked in his room, blasting music
.
” I can hear it in the background but I can’t tell what song or even what band it is.

“He’s not playing Tchaikovsky, is he?” An alarming number of the tracks in Jem’s ‘To Hel With Everything’ playlist are by that composer.

“It sounds like Radiohead from here—I’m on the
porch
. He has such bad taste in music.” Elise sighs again like her brother’s musical preferences are a personal hardship. “So when are you coming over?”

*

Elise wasn’t kidding when she said Jem was blasting music. It’s so loud I can hear every word of “Creep” from the front yard. When I go upstairs I find Dr. Harper and Eric trying to dismantle the handle on his door.

“He locked it.” Eric has to yell his explanation over the music. He stops taking the door apart to let me knock and tell Jem that it’s me through the door, but I don’t think he can hear me. So I take an egg around back and throw it at his window. That gets his attention. Ivy isn’t too pleased, though.

“So, I guess the silver lining in this is that you get a long weekend?” I say when he lets me into his room. Jem just sits down heavily on the closest piece of furniture—his desk chair—and shakes his head.

“Don’t try to cheer me up.”

“Okay.” I step around Jem and take a seat on his desk. I rest my feet on either side of his legs, just on the edges of the chair. He takes this odd pose as an excuse to wrap his arms around my hips and burrow his face into my stomach.

“It was kind of my fault, you know,” I say.

“What?” He looks up at me but keeps his pale cheek pressed to my body.

“Remember when you came in for lunch and Chris asked me, ‘really, never?’ He said that because a minute earlier Paige was asking about us.” He gives me a look like he can’t see where I’m going with this. “She asked if I thought it was weird, about your hair and stuff. I said I’d never seen you without your hat on, and that’s where Chris got the idea to…” I gesture to his hat.

“To try to rip it off me?”

“Yeah.”

Jem bows his head back against my front. “It’s not your fault. Elwood has been a dick to me before.”

“He has?”

He nods against me. I put my arms around him and rub the stretch of back between his shoulder blades.

“Last fall , I was out of the hospital but still highly susceptible to infection. I’d missed a lot of school, so I needed to go. But I was in such rough shape I had to wear one of those blue surgical masks around people.” Jem snorts self-deprecatingly at the memory. “You remember how Michael Jackson used to walk around in those masks sometimes? Elwood started a joke that I was hiding a botched nose job.”

“No one would be dumb enough to buy that.”

“They didn’t
believe
it, they just thought the notion was funny. It was one big joke.”

“Could have been worse, I guess.” I stroke the nape of his neck. “Remember when Britney Spears shaved her head? You could have got saddled with that comparison.”

“Not funny, Willa.”

“well when it comes down to it, it’s just Chris Elwood, and who the hell gives a shit about him anyway?”

The corner of his mouth twitches up in a sort of smile. It always does cheer him up to listen to me bash Elwood.

“I still feel bad, though. I shouldn’t have been talking about our business with Paige. Elwood would have never got the idea.”

“Why was Paige asking?”

“She wanted to know if I feel deprived because I can’t run my hands through your hair,” I say with a laugh. It’s such a frivolous notion. Only someone like Paige would take it so seriously.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“It’s growing back,” he says shyly.

“Can I see?” I know he’s going to say no, but I guess I’m a sucker for rejection.

“Does it bug you that I insist on keeping my hat on around you?”

“No. It makes you comfortable. You don’t have to take it off.”

“What did Paige think when you’d told her you’d never seen me without it?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I think she was surprised that I’ve never seen your head.”

Jem reaches up and grabs the top of his toque. He pulls it off slowly, staring at the ground, and sets the hat on his knee. “Now you have.”

At first it’s shocking. The pale skin of his forehead just keeps going where I’m used to seeing the color and texture of a toque. I can see the bones of his skul and the veins beneath the skin. He doesn’t have a defined hairline yet, but what hair he does have exists in patches. The hairs are matted by his hat and stick to his head, a quarter of an inch long and spaced randomly. They’re baby fine and deep red, like the color of sweet potato skin.

“Huh.” I pull off a glove and run my hand over the smooth skin, feeling the slight tickle of his fine hairs.

“What do you think?” His eyes are still on the floor and his tone is laced with something resembling dread.

“Do you really want to know?” For a split second his face shows absolute pain, and then goes stony blank as he pulls his hat back on. Jem buries his face in my front and wraps his arms tight around my hips and waist.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” he says softly. That almost makes me laugh. How could I leave, held in a vice grip like this? Or maybe he means that I should leave him altogether.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” I pet the wool around his scalp. When I push his hat back again, Jem flinches and presses his face tighter against my front, hiding.

“Do you really want to know?” I ask again.

Jem shakes his head. The hairs under my hand feel as fine as a newborn’s. I pet his head against the grain and the slightly damp strands stick up like feathers. I shape a little Mohawk with what’s there and giggle at my fun.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not. Let me have my fun, damn it.” I bend my face down to the top of his head and nuzzle him. His hair tickles my lips and nose. “You feel like a kitten.”

Jem snorts. “A freaking kitten.”

“Was it always this dark?” I remember it being brighter red in the picture downstairs, but it could have been the lighting.

“Yeah.”

I slide my butt off the edge of the desk and step down onto the floor. Jem lets go immediately, like I’m trying to leave. I’m only moving from the desk to sit on his lap facing him. I fold him into another hug and he rests his head on my shoulder with a sigh.

“I know you don’t really want to know, but I think this change in you is beautiful. You’re really getting better.”

“It’s gross,” he whispers.

“It’s cute.” I like the feel of his hair, all soft and fluffy with newness. I run my hand over the bare patch at his crown and find that it isn’t actually bald—the hair there is just shorter than the rest and very pale blond. It’s the first growth. Those hairs will fall out eventually and grow back in with color. The other bald patch—which really is a bald patch—is behind his left ear. I wonder if that’s a radiation burn or just a cluster of fol icles that are slow to wake up.

“Maybe Paige was right,” I say as I play with his wisps. “This is pretty fun.”

“Oh shut up,” he scolds me softly.

“Will you leave the hat off more often?”

“Not here,” he says, and shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. “It bugs Mom. And I don’t want
anyone

else to see.” His own admission troubles him and he frowns. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I give him a kiss. “It’ll be our thing.”

The bedroom door opens suddenly and Dr. Harper walks in, already speaking. He stops mid-

sentence and stares at us while we stare back, each of us dumbfounded and unsure of what to do or say. Can we write this compromising position off as he-tripped-and-I-fel ?

Finally, without saying anything, Dr. Harper turns and closes the door behind him.

“Crap,” Jem mutters. He pulls away a little and reaches for his hat. “We should go downstairs.”

“I didn’t get you in more trouble, did I?”

“No, I think it just surprised him. He’s used to this kind of thing from Eric, not from me.” Jem smiles shyly at that, and takes my hand for the walk downstairs.

*

“Do you want food?” It’s only four-thirty and I don’t have to be at work until six. Jem accepts and Elise scurries in from the living room. “Me too?” she pleads.

Jem goes to his cell o, which is a much healthier method for venting, and Elise and is start peeling apples from the bag in the fridge. We’re making applesauce—with a side of frozen yogurt, if the mood strikes. I use honey instead of sugar for Jem’s sake, and try to teach Elise how to taste-test over heat without being a wimp about the temperature.

“Rol it on your tongue.”

“That just burns more of the tongue,” she whines.

“Wuss.” Her brothers must have conditioned her to that word, because she takes it as a chal enge and tastes the next stage of the sauce without even making a face.

“Good girl.”

As soon as the smell of cooking apples becomes obvious, Eric appears. He tells us it smells good and hovers obnoxiously close to the stove, trying to sneak a taste.

“Go away,” Elise shoos him. “We’ll call you when it’s ready.” The idea bulb flashes over Eric’s face and he announces that he’s running out to the store to buy Oreos. Apparently they go with applesauce.

The food conversation draws Jem away from the front room, probably out of paranoia that Eric will hog whatever Elise and I make. He wraps his arms around my waist from behind and asks what’s on the menu.

“Applesauce.” I take a potato masher out of the drawer and start pulverizing the cooked apple chunks.

“Applesauce?” I can’t quite measure his tone. I look over my shoulder in time to see him swallow and clamp a hand around his mouth and nose. He bolts down the hall toward the downstairs bathroom.

“Shit.” I cover the pot with a lid and open the kitchen window to vent the smell of cooked apples. I didn’t know it would nauseate him.

“Aw, crap,” Elise mutters, and smacks her palm to her forehead. “Applesauce.” She looks genuinely worried.

“What’s with applesauce?”

“There was a…thing, with Meira and applesauce. I’d forgot all about it.” Elise looks over her shoulder toward the bathroom. “Otherwise I’d have suggested something else.”

I sigh and pull out the kettle to start mint tea for when Jem gets out of the bathroom. I owe him an apology and something to settle his stomach.

“He was like that even before he got sick, you know,” Elise says quietly.

“What?”

“Anything big put his gut in knots. He used to be sick to his stomach before every music recital, even though once he was on stage everything went beautiful y.” I’m not sure why, but his insecurity is almost endearing.

“I’ll finish the sauce for Eric,” Elise says. “You’ll keep Jem occupied?”

“Of course.”

When Jem comes out of the bathroom he’s startled to see me on the other side of the hall , waiting for him. “How long were you standing there?”

“Only a moment.” I hold out the mug of mint tea. “For your stomach. It’s lukewarm.” I only wish I had a bit of ginger syrup to add to it.

Jem accepts the mug and shifts uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sure the applesauce is really good.”

“I didn’t mean to make you sick.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’ll come to the funeral tomorrow, alright?”

Jem sighs and folds me into a hug. He buries his face in my hair and takes a steadying breath.

“Please keep that promise.”

“Of course I will .” Someday I will need something from him, and I have no right to ask unless I’m there when he needs me. “You could have asked.”

“You didn’t know her.” Jem’s finger winds a lock of my hair behind my head.

“Funerals aren’t for the dead.”

Jem snorts like my remark is somehow funny. “What was your sister’s like?” he whispers. No one has ever asked me that before, and I don’t have an answer because I didn’t attend the funeral. But I don’t want to think about my own woes at the moment.

“Come on.” I pull back from the hug and take Jem’s hand. “I’ll tell you some other day. Enough sadness. Time for music.”

*

Work is a little bit tense. I’m delegated the task of manning the front desk tonight while Chris handles the back room tasks—washing dishes, mopping the kitchen floor, etc. Al in the interest of hiding his freshly swollen lip, of course. His parents wouldn’t let him off work for the night. I think they just wanted to punish him for picking on the kid with cancer.

“How was detention?” I ask.

Chris has a hard time frowning with a busted lip, so he narrows his eyes and curtly replies, “Fine.”

I eye his lip and tell him, “It probably wouldn’t have swollen up so bad if you hadn’t broken the fall with your face.”

“Thanks,” he says dryly, and turns around to mop the pantry. “Tell Harper to learn to take a joke.”

Because shame is simply hilarious.

*

Frank is still awake when I get home, sitting in front of the evening news. He asks me how work was and then starts to complain about too much
sun
in the five-day weather forecast, for crying out loud.

Frank has been around more often lately, and I think boredom is wearing on him. There was no get-

together with Doug this weekend. He hasn’t been down to Doug’s place once, and I haven’t heard them talking on the phone either. I guess it’s awkward since he confronted Luke about coming on to me. I’ve screwed up someone else’s life all over again.

I wonder if Doug said Frank was unwelcome, or if he’s staying away of his own volition. Maybe he doesn’t know how to handle the tension, or maybe he’s got some misguided notion of solidarity with me, victim girl.

Regardless, his constant presence is driving me crazy. My brother is easiest to live with when he’s never home.

“So, since it’s going to be a nice weekend,” I hint, “got a hike planned?” Frank just grunts noncommittal y. That’s a no. I’ll have to make plans to stay out of his way this weekend.

“I’m going to bed.”