Missing Pieces Page 9

  “I wish you could. I wish I could! She was the best friend I ever had. She was living in Thailand last time I heard from her. She married an English guy, I don’t know what he does, but she’s around the world—Amanda!” She took off after the terrible Amanda. “That’s all I know, anyway,” she yelled back to me.

  We walked again. Everywhere we went I thought of James Wells. Had he stood on this street? Had he lived in this house? Had he had friends in that house?

  At a corner, there was a small cinder-block building. The sign said ICE CREAM HOMEMADE. “My treat,” Jack said, opening the door.

  “No, mine,” I said.

  “Jessie—” He got that pink look again. “You’re a girl.”

  “Jack. Surprise, I know it.”

  Inside, an old man sat on a box, bent over and staring down at the floor. “Can we get some ice cream?” I said.

  “Ay-uh.” The old man got up from the box. He was permanently bent over, like an upside down L, his back nearly parallel with the floor. He went behind the counter. “I got vanilla and I got chocolate.”

  “Vanilla for us both,” Jack ordered.

  “I’m trying to find out about someone named James Wells,” I said to the old man’s bent back. “Maybe you can help me. He’s my father, and he used to live here in Myrtle.”

  He dipped the ice cream. It took him a long time.

  “I talked to somebody who thought he was on the school wrestling team,” I said.

  He tilted his head up toward me. “Oh, ay-uh, I know.”

  “You knew James Wells?”

  “Ay-uh, I sure did. Wrestling team, uh-huh. Strong boy. He always came in for ice cream. He liked my ice cream. He liked the raspberry best.”

  “That’s my favorite flavor!” I looked at Jack. “No kidding, I always get raspberry.”

  The old man handed us our cones, then shuffled over to the box and sat down again. “The family used to live out back behind the Hudlen place.”

  “The Hudlen place?” I said. “Where’s that?”

  “Gone now. Hudlens are all gone. Like the Wellses. Farm’s all gone. Land was sold to some city people. Back then, the Hudlens lived in the house and the Wellses lived out in the trailer. He was the help, you know, the hired hand.”

  “James? He was the hired man?”

  “His father. Rawson, his name was. And Janice, that was her name.”

  My grandparents. I leaned against the wall, watching the ice cream soften in the cone. How strange that I had never thought about James’s parents before. It was as if I’d been looking through a slit in a wall and believed I was looking through a window. I had thought only about him, James Wells, as if he were an actor stepping onto a bare stage to perform in the story of my life. As if his story—like my mother’s, like Aunt Zis’s, like my own—wasn’t knotted up into so many other stories.

  The old man looked up at me. “They never was steady. Too much drinking, both of them. When the man drinks, it’s bad, but when a woman drinks—” He spit into a can next to the box. “Pitiful people. The boy had to go live with other folks. They locked him out one time. He was ten, eleven. Strong little boy, though.”

  “I heard that he left Myrtle when he was sixteen,” I said.

  “Doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Told you what I know.”

  “Thank you. Could I come see you again sometime?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  We went out. “Your ice cream,” Jack said.

  It was melting. I handed it to him to eat. I was numb. My whole face was as numb as if someone had hit me. Always before, I had thought this way about James Wells: He left me, he disappeared without a trace. Now it came to me that it wasn’t the whole truth. He had left me his eyebrows … his voice … a taste for raspberry ice cream … Little things, but there they were. And here I was—the trace of him in the world.

  We went back to the grocery store to wait for the bus. Lights were coming on in the houses. I stood on the concrete apron near the gas pumps. “Well, I found out some things,” I said.

  Jack stood next to me. “Did you find what you wanted?”

  “Yes and no. I still don’t know why he left us.” The wind was blowing and there was a chill in the air. “I don’t know why he never cared about me.”

  Jack took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders.

  “Just let me warm up, then I’ll give it back,” I said.

  “No, you keep it.” He put his arm around me, and then he kissed me. I closed my eyes and thought, Jessie, kiss him back. But really I didn’t have to tell myself anything. I was doing it as I thought it.

  On the bus, Jack and I held hands. We sat close, and he dozed off. I was warm inside his jacket, half-sleepy myself, but thinking about James Wells.

  Once there’d been a prince in a leather jacket … and a man who wanted a home, a big house … and a man who made my mother cry. But before all that, there’d been someone else, too. A boy living with his parents in a trailer … a boy who didn’t talk much … a boy locked out of his home … a boy who had to live with other people. I felt so sorry for that boy.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Little Pearls

  “Myrtle,” My mother said, for about the tenth time. And Aunt Zis chimed in, “You went to Myrtle? Why did you do that?”

  “Coming home at eleven o’clock at night?” my mother went on. “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going! Myrtle,” she said again, as if she hated the taste of the word in her mouth. “Did you like it?”

  “Not particularly.” We were in her bedroom. She was in bed, Aunt Zis was sitting on the edge of the bed near her, and I was standing in the doorway—hovering there, just waiting for her to have her say and release me.

  “Your aunt was frantic,” she said. “We couldn’t imagine where you were. If you didn’t think about me, at least Zis. You scared the life out of her. We called your friends, we called Meadow, we called Diane, no one knew anything.”

  “All right, you said that already. Aunt Zis, you should go to bed,” I said. “You look exhausted.”

  “I am. I’m very tired.” She held her robe close around her. As she left, I whispered, “I’m sorry, Auntie.”

  She patted my arm and went on down the hall to her room.

  “Why didn’t you at least call?” my mother said.

  “I didn’t think of it.”

  “You didn’t think of it. Is that supposed to be an apology or an excuse?”

  “Neither!”

  My mother twisted the sheet as if it were a chicken whose neck she’d like to wring. Me. My neck.

  “What is happening to you? I don’t recognize my daughter standing there, she’s like a heartless stranger.”

  My legs felt leaden, too tired to hold me up. My eyes wanted to close. Why hadn’t I called? I’d never thought of it, not once, never thought of my mother or Aunt Zis, only of myself and what I wanted.

  “I didn’t mean to upset Aunt Zis. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry is not enough.” My mother’s voice rose. “Do you have any idea how I felt when I got home and found out you’d been missing for hours? Do you know what I thought? I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” I said.

  “No, it’s not crazy … it’s happened before.” She was crying, deep shuddering sobs. It was more awful than if she had leaped up and hit me in the face. Her crying petrified me. I had never seen her like this.

  All my life, in the story I knew so well, I had heard her say, I cried for three days.… It had never seemed an awful thing to me. I had loved those words, they were familiar, they were part of the story. I’d imagined her tears like little pearls decorating her face. I’d imagined her, after three days, springing from the couch and going off to work like one of the seven dwarfs, singing and merry.

  “I can’t stand it,” she sobbed. “You’ve changed s
o much. I don’t know you anymore. You’re breaking my heart.”

  I told myself to go to her, but something held me where I was. I wanted to do it—go and put my arms around her, the way I’d done so many times before. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t move.

  TWENTY-THREE

  A Bizarre Layer Cake

  In some ways, the next day was the strangest or maybe just the most intense day I’d ever lived through. I woke up early, with the alarm clock, because I had a seven o’clock dentist appointment. Although usually I really hate going to the dentist, I was so happy thinking about Jack that I didn’t even care. That was the good stuff, and it lasted about one minute. Then my aunt came into my room. Crept in, is more like it. She was holding her back, making little moaning sounds with every step.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, alarmed.

  “I could hardly sleep last night thinking about you and your mother.” Her cheeks were deeply creased, and her eyes had that dim, cloudy look they got when she was agitated.

  She sat down on the side of my bed and took my hand. “Jessie. I know I’m old. I know I forget things. But there are some things I know and you don’t. You should know that your mother hasn’t had an easy life. And she doesn’t deserve to be treated the way you’re treating her.”

  “Aunt Zis, stop.” I threw off the covers. “I don’t want to hear this, please! I didn’t go to Myrtle to upset you or Ma. I’m not doing anything because I mean to ups—”

  “You don’t know what it means,” she went on. “You’re still young, you don’t know how people suffer.” She was trembling, her hands and her arms were trembling slightly and constantly. “You shouldn’t be making it harder for your mother. That’s not right.”

  My throat was tight. I wanted to tell her she wasn’t being fair. I wanted to ask why she was taking my mother’s side against me. I wanted to defend myself, and I wanted to throw myself into her arms for the love and approval she’d always given me.

  All day long, not one thing went the way I thought it would. Every moment brought another mood. I was depressed, sad, hopeful, anxious, ecstatic, self-reproachful, and even, at moments, thinking about Jack, happy again. If the day had been a cake, it would have been a layer cake—a bizarre layer cake with sweet parts and poison parts.

  My appointment with the dentist, for instance, ended with my running out of the office, my cavity unfilled, my jaw swollen with Novocain, and everyone calling my name.

  While I was sitting in the chair, waiting for the shot to take effect, I read a magazine story about a girl who had cancer. The night she was dying, she wanted her mother with her, but she begged the nurses not to call too soon. “My mom needs her sleep.”

  I read that as if it had been written expressly to reproach me for my selfishness, to point out how I not only didn’t think of my mother before myself, but I cruelly tormented her. I yanked off the pink paper bib. Then I was down the hall and out of the office with people calling after me, “Jessie! What’s the matter?”

  Why do people always ask that question? What’s the matter? As if, when you do something impulsive, you could calmly list the reasons. Impulsive means that you don’t know your reasons, or if you do, you don’t care! Not at that moment. All you know and all you care about is what you’re feeling, and what you’re feeling is the impulse.

  One thing that was not impulsive was my decision to talk to Meadow. I caught up with her in the hall, between classes.

  “Hi,” she said. “Where were you yesterday? Your mother called three times to see if you were at my house!”

  “I know. I have to talk to you, Med.”

  “You sound grim.”

  “No, just my stomach’s sort of queasy.” I almost felt nauseated. I’d made up my mind to tell her about Jack before I got in any deeper. Maybe not all and everything—I couldn’t exactly see myself reporting the kiss—but something.

  “You’re sick?” She put her arm around me. “You want to go to the nurse? I’ll go with you.”

  She was so sweet I lost my nerve. I caved in and didn’t even mention Jack. Instead, I told her about James Wells. Which was something else I’d neglected to do. We walked up the stairs together. We didn’t have much time before the bell, but I managed a kind of condensed version of the story.

  “I can’t believe I never knew any of that,” she said. “I always thought your parents were, well, divorced or separated.”

  “They are,” I said.

  “You know what I mean, sort of more normal.” She hit herself on the forehead.

  “Don’t worry about it, Med. I never wanted to talk about it.”

  The bell rang then, and it saved me from making another big mistake. I’d been on the point of blurting out that she wasn’t the first person I’d told this story to. Great. My best friend, and she’s the last to know. Maybe I could set up shop in how to hurt everybody’s feelings.

  That afternoon, I finished off my wonderful day with my family history report. Several people presented theirs before me. Kevin Mock brought in a turntable and played songs from Greece. They were on old 78 RPM records, and even Mr. Novak got excited about that. “Those are classics!” he said.

  Heather Lo had a decorated vase that her great-grandmother had brought with her from China. She told a family story about her great-grandmother’s sister who had drowned in a well when she was a teenager. “It was called an accident,” Heather said, “but there’s a good chance that she committed suicide. The family was poor, and they had arranged to marry her off to someone old, who would give them money for her. Females have never been valued as much as males in that society.”

  “Dynamite stuff, Heather,” Mr. Novak said. “Jessie?”

  I put the tape deck on his desk and turned it on. Mistake number one. I should have introduced what I was doing. Mistake number two—my editing. The first thing I heard was Aunt Zis saying, “Don’t start making jokes.”

  I reached over and turned off the tape. “Sorry. What you’re going to hear is in the form of a radio interview.” I gave some background about Aunt Zis and started again.

  Meadow called me later to find out how it had gone. “Not too bad,” I said, and I told her some of the things I’d said at the end. “I said it was amazing to think that Aunt Zis was born at a time when telephones were still considered a wild innovation, and today she reads and watches everything she can about the space program. Mr. Novak liked that.”

  “You’ll probably get a better mark than I will. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “No!” I said, but of course there was. Jack Kettle.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Disobedience, Disorder, and Defiance

  A patrol car was parked in front of school, with a cop standing beside it. He was talking to Peter Krill, a boy I knew from math class. Peter pointed to me, and the cop nodded.

  For one blindingly weird moment, I thought my mother had called the police to arrest me. The charge was clear—disobedience, disorder, and defiance. And while she was at it, she could add deceit. Welcome once more to the D zone.

  I walked slowly over to the patrol car.

  “You Jessie?” the cop asked. “I’m Sergeant Wells. Dennis Wells.”

  “Hello!” I wanted to shake, but he kept his hand resting on the baton hooked to his belt. Such a cop thing to do. And he looked like my idea of a cop—big, balding, and overweight. His eyes surprised me, though, large and dark, with long lashes. Pretty eyes, like the eyes of one of the horses at the stable.

  He studied me. “Yeah. You look like Jimmy,” he said.

  “The eyebrows,” I said.

  He nodded. “What are you, Jessie, sixteen, seventeen?”

  “I’ll be fifteen next month. I’m big for my age.”

  “You didn’t get that from Jimmy. Short little guy.”

  “I know, my mother told me.”

  “What’s her name again?”

  “Maribeth. She said she met you.”

  “Yeah? Maybe with Jimmy.
”

  “And me,” I said. “When I was a baby.”

  “I don’t remember. Could be. I got something for you, Jessie.” He took an envelope from his pocket.

  Inside was a snapshot of a boy standing on the steps of a house. “Who is it?” I asked, but I think I knew right away.

  Heat ran through my hands straight up into my eyes, turning them hot, almost gluey. It was the first picture I’d ever seen of James Wells.

  I smoothed out the photo. I almost didn’t want to look at it. I’d tried to imagine his face so many times, and every time it had been shadowy, hidden. I checked out what he was wearing—chinos and a plaid shirt. I looked at the house with its peaked roof, and the porch, and the two tubular metal chairs on the porch. I saw the tree by the side of the house, and I saw that it was a summer photo.

  And finally I looked at him. His shirt was open at the neck … hair blowing across his forehead … a little smile.

  I put the picture carefully back in the envelope and held it out to Dennis Wells. “Thank you for showing it to me.”

  “Keep it,” he said.

  “Keep it?”

  “It’s no use to me.” He got in the patrol car and turned on the ignition.

  I bent down to the open window. “Well, thank you. Thank you, Sergeant Wells.”

  “You don’t have to call me Sergeant, you know.” He gunned the engine. He looked faintly disgusted. “What’s wrong with Dennis? I thought we were cousins.”

  I stuck the picture in the frame of my mirror, opposite the ones of Aunt Zis and my mother. I spent a lot of time looking at it. Every morning, while I was dressing, I studied it, and every night, before I went to bed. Who had taken the picture? Maybe someone he was living with—a friend or a foster parent. Maybe a girlfriend. James. Jimmy. My father. I thought he was so handsome, so attractive. A hero! He must have been wonderful. Smart and good-looking. I loved his smile. For about two days, I was in love with him.

  Then I became unsure. I began to see other things, that he looked a little superior and a little scared and a little flashy, too, all of it, all at once. There was more than one boy hidden there. Up front was the kind of boy who would always have a girlfriend. A mantelpiece boy—almost too good-looking, the kind of boy who needs girls hanging around, admiring him.