APRIL, MAYBE JUNE
by Shalanna Collins
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Any person, place or location herein is portrayed in a fictional context. No part of this work may be copied, plagiarized, stolen, or borrowed without express permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations that qualify under Fair Use along with proper attribution.
Copyright © 2011 by Denise Gerneth Weeks
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1 *april and june*
My sister June and I are lounging in the treehouse when I spy the black-and-white police car.
"June, look." She ignores me as I point, my finger following the copmobile as it prowls the gentle curve down Buttonwood Tree Lane. She is busy checking out dishy Justin Fink, ninth grade sex god, as he suns himself beside his family's pool next door like a spoiled cat. "Is it slowing down?"
June finally swivels the telescope and points it out front. Even without it, from up here we can see all the way from our hilltop to the "Welcome to Renner, Texas--home of the Mighty Ocelots" billboard at the entrance of our ritzy subdivision. The crow's-nest view is the main reason we still use this kiddie perch, although I am thirteen and June is a large fourteen-and-a-half. "Two officers, looks like." She twists the focus ring. "Stopping right in front of our house."
"Oh, my God." I fall back against the tree trunk, shaking the ancient elm ever so slightly.
June punches my upper arm, where she keeps a perma-bruise going for easy control. "Get a grip, Cruelest." My name is April, but she thinks it's funny to call me that, out of some famous poem or another that Gary (our parents are progressive and believe that first-name basis relationships within the family provide for a level playing field and improved self-esteem) loves to quote. "They're probably going to the neighbors across the street." She closes her eyes as if indulging a hopeless idiot yet again.
"June. LOOK." I shake her by the shoulders. Finally my sister opens her eyes. She won't yield the eyepiece, but peers through the scope again. "They're getting out. Heading up the front walk. About to ring our bell." Despite the gravity of the situation, she snickers at the sexual allusion.
My heart skips a beat. "What could they want? Has Lynwood got that many unpaid tickets? No, it's Gary. Could he get arrested like Uncle Ray?"
"Shut up, Cruelest. You're hysterical." But she looks a bit perturbed.
"It’s something bad.” Surely it isn't about the many MP3s and torrents that June downloads daily from pirate sites. “Didn't he pay enough taxes?"
"Shut up, Cruelest. That would be the IRS, and besides, you're obsessed just because Ray 'forgot' to pay any for ten years." According to Lynwood, our cousin Arlene became a Fallen Woman because of her father’s ruin. "Gary has Lynwood sign the forms every year. I always hear her whining about having to read them, but he insists she mustn't sign anything she hasn't read. So he's filing. Now be quiet so I can think."
"Ever since he started working from home, I've been worried." I stick my index finger in my mouth and gnaw wildly at the cuticle. It's a habit I'm trying to break.
"Please." My sister reaches for my perma-bruise, but I scoot out of reach. "He's an independent contractor and he knows what he's doing. He wouldn't risk it all for some stupid deal. More like maybe there's been an accident, or somebody died."
This does not calm me. "Oh, my God." I swallow a shriek.
She looks worried, for once. "We're going in."
We sneak inside through the French doors to the master bedroom and creep up the hallway where we can hear what's going on in the front room. It’s freaky: June is a ninja who can do the stealth trick--she can creep up behind you like a wraith and startle your teeth out, which I don't understand because she's downright chunky where I'm slender--whereas I always knock something over and a klieg spot clicks on overhead.
So of course I get caught. The police turn their heads. But Gary just says, "We're busy, April. Go study."
"Just a moment," says the female cop. "Is this your daughter, ma'am?"
Don't you hate it when people look straight at you and then talk about you to someone else as if you're some kind of pet? I put on the uncertain-kid grin and blink a few times.
"Yes, my daughter, April Bliss," Lynwood says with a weak smile. She flutters her fingers. "Go on, now, hon."
The cop looks at me squinty-eyed. I know why: it's because I don't look like I could belong to her. Lynwood is so gorgeous, like some movie star. She finally asks Lynwood, "Other children in the house?"
"My older sister, June." Why shouldn't I be allowed to talk? I’m as good as anybody here.
The cop looks as if she might laugh, but bites it back. Good. People can make fun of our names being months and all, but it beats "Frances Marion," which is what Lynwood's was until she changed it. Lynwood Bliss. Sounds like a fairy princess.
“She idolizes her big sister,” says Lynwood in the moony voice of a simp. “I’m so glad my girls get along.”
I definitely do NOT idolize June. What I do is try to keep an eye on her and watch out for her. Because really, she’s very vulnerable.
"Why aren't you in school?" the male officer asks me. Nobody asks this about Justin Fink lazing away the afternoon by the pool--he's on work-study. Of course I look ten years old, so they ask.
"We're homeschooled," I reply, bracing for the knowing nods. At least Lynwood's not like the stage mothers who always tell people how precocious their Special Snowflakes are and what an advanced vocabulary they have. Even though I am and I do--but no one knows, as I usually don't get more than a few words in edgewise for some reason.
"All right," is all the cop says. Lynwood makes the sign for "go away" in American Sign Language (which looks like she's yanking her right eyebrow off with her right hand). She started teaching us last year so we'd all have a Secret Communication Skill in quiet places like museums and such, but June firmly pretended not to understand a finger-crook of it until Lynwood lost interest. Gary winks and waves me upstairs.
I guess I'm dismissed.
June has secreted herself somewhere and I can do nothing but slink away without outing her. She follows me, though, in a few minutes, after they catch and briefly interrogate her. She plops down on my bottom bunk and punches the intercom's LISTEN button. (Gary and Lynwood never remember that it's been fixed and is working again.)
Voices boom through the silver speaker, tinny but understandable.
"I'm sure it's just a family misunderstanding." Lynwood sounds squeaky. "She's probably with one of her friends, staying at somebody's house, trying to scare her parents."
"Doesn't look that simple, Mrs. Bliss," says the male officer.
"Arlene knows better than to take drugs, let alone sell them to children," Lynwood says insistently.
Gary's voice holds that dangerous note as he orders her, "Just answer the detective's questions, dear."
"We've checked this out pretty thoroughly, ma'am, and it looks serious. If you hear from Arlene Bruce, will you call this number?"
"We'll be sure to let you know if we come across any information." Gary's voice sounds distant, as if he's escorting them out. "Always eager to help the authorities. But I'm sure this will all work itself out. Things like this usually do."
June's evaluation: "Bullshit. Something's going on."
# # #
The cops have left, and our parents are arguing louder in their bedroom now that they think we're asleep, Lynwood having quietly checked on us. June suggested we play possum and I went along with it, although I'm hungry. Dinnertime came and went and nobody acknowledged it but my growling tummy.
Gary's on now about Lynwood and how much she told the cops. "I wish you'd let me call that Perry Mason type from your office. We should never have talked to them without a lawyer present, not once we found out they want to take Arlene in." Gary sounds like he does when one of us screws up pretty badly. "If I'm gonna be questioned like that by police, I'm gonna have a lawyer. Doesn't matter, I just flat don't trust them. Not that they aren't doing a good job--overall, they are--and not that they aren't performing a much needed service, because they are. Still, mistakes are made and I don't want to be one of them." He always starts blathering when he doesn't know what to do.
"I don't care what you do, but I'm going to call my sister."
"Worst mistake you could make." Gary sounds firm. "If Odile wanted us to know, trust me, she'd have called you. You keep out of this, or they'll think you're involved. The police are already suspicious because you were too eager to answer."
"I'm worried. I wanted to cooperate."
"Never volunteer stuff they didn't ask," Gary practically shouts.
Apparently, before we could get there to overhear, Lynwood spilled her guts. Fortunately there wasn't much to spill. Lynwood starves herself to stay fashionably thin.
Lynwood is sobbing now and Gary is comforting her, apologizing for going off on her like that. That scene always ends in a make-out session, so I reach over to click the intercom off. I'm not THAT liberal-minded.
June muses aloud. "So what I wonder is, why does it always sound like the citizen is the bad guy when the cops show up to question you? If you say you want them to get a warrant instead of just letting them come in and toss your house, or demand a lawyer be present at an interrogation, or ask them if they're going to charge you and say that they have to release you if they don't, they look at you and at each other as if you are definitely a criminal. Does that make sense?"
"Not to me. But then I'm just a starving student." My stomach roars really loud. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Ravenous. Come on." She sits up, tossing her longish hair back over her shoulder, and we head to her room. June pulls out some of her contraband and I get a few bites, but most of it is snack food that I really don't prefer. Lynwood forgets that other mammals require actual sustenance. But she and Gary are too busy to think about us, so this is the best I'm going to get. I take a couple of sacks of chips back to my room and bed down with a new novel I've been wanting to start.
I'm sure this will all blow over soon.
2 *arlene steps in*
At four A. M. something wakes me.
I don’t just come awake a little groggy, but pop right to full alertness. My breathing sounds deafeningly loud. I lie there still as a stone, listening. Because I'm sure there was a noise.
I hear it again: a series of quiet pings off my window glass.
I'm not going to part the drapes or peek out the window. Okay, I am, but I have to be sure they can't see in though I can see out. I douse my night light and peel back the shade just at the corner.
My cousin Arlene is in the back yard, crouched over the breakfast room door, seemingly trying to pick the lock.
At least I’m fairly sure it’s Arlene. The last time I saw her, she was plump and blonde. Typical cheerleader type, sixteen and happy. But I know from my parents' supposedly secret conversations that she "went bad" over the past year and started "running with the wrong crowd"; my Aunt Odile has been threatening to send her to a Catholic boarding school or one of those disciplinary boot camps, which she would never survive, any more than I could. Things stink for her at home.
But I definitely am not prepared to see this waiflike Goth washing up on our doorstep like some abandoned jellyfish tossed out of the aquarium for being too scary. Her hair is spiky-short with bangs that come to a point over her nose like an inverted widow's peak, and it has been dyed a dull matte black like her clothing. Steel-toed work boots lace up around her calves. Overall, I'd rate her a ten in the Elvira look-alike contest. Except she totally lacks the wackily cheerful and appealing persona that the comic "Mistress of the Dark" projected. This is way more a Jane Eyre-drowning-in-the-sea vibe.
I shove the window upward. "Arlene! Up here," I call down as loudly as I dare. The wraithlike entity--evidently, it IS Arlene--jumps back as if startled, then looks frantically heavenward. "Wait a minute, and I'll let you in."
I creep downstairs as quietly as a trayful of silverware falling down a metal duct, but no one shouts out, so I’m good. Yanking the door open, I get a good whiff of her and instinctively rear back. She and soap have been estranged for a while.
"Are you gonna let me in," she rasps out, stubbing out a cigarette on the sole of her boot. One of her $2500-orthodontia front teeth is chipped. My aunt must’ve died twenty-five hundred deaths over that.
"Sure." I take another step back, and she advances like a predator. It’s like she’s used to barging into places now, before they can change their minds about admitting her.
This is not the old Arlene. This Arlene is an apparition wearing full metal jacket armor--on the inside. Nervously I smooth my hair back and briefly hold it gathered until I realize I don't have a ponytail elastic and release it to cascade over my face. But through the veil of mousy hair I can still see the apparition, which looks very determined.
"I am absolutely starved, kiddo." She brushes past me, heading for the fridge.
The lights wink on overhead. June stomps in, rubbing her eyes. "What the f--" she begins, but then she sees Arlene. "--Are you doing here?" she finishes, as if she'd meant to say that all along.
"That's about the size of it." Arlene scavenges among the leftovers, coming up with a cold chicken drumstick. She attacks it like a feaster at a Renaissance festival. My stomach feels hollow. “Turn the lights off,” she says, squinting as if the light hurts her eyes.
June complies, throwing us back into the half-darkness of the night lights and the refrigerator bulb. Grabbing a loaf of bread, she loads the toaster and sets out butter and two kinds of jam. "You ran away?"
"Let's just say I have better things to do with my life than go to one of those torture camps. My parents do not own me like some cow in their pasture. I can make my own way." She tosses her head, but her hair hardly moves. "I'm not doing too bad."
"I hear you. I can't wait to move out myself." June’s voice is full of fake eagerness, but actually June is full of shit. She won't leave home until she's old enough for the retirement village. I know my sister. She enjoys living the Rich People's Life way too much to go subsist in a garret. Or, more likely, a trailer by the Interstate.
"You look like you're ready to. You're getting a good figure," Arlene lies to my sister. She's currying favor for something. I merely don't know what yet. But anyhow June likes to hear how she's special--how she has really nice skin, shiny hair, and so forth.
I wish I had something special about me--like tiger-lily hair or even freckles that form a map of Europe. But I'm plain. Nothing special.
Arlene points at me. "You still do that math thing?" The toast pops up, smoking, black on both sides. She eyes it avidly, her gaze on lockdown. June pulls a dinner knife out of the silverware drawer and starts scraping a piece for her.
I’d almost forgotten that time I showed off “the math thing” for Arlene. My cheeks warm up. "Yeah, I guess."
"That's cool. People always want that." She seems to be musing to herself.
"Old Dumbsmart is taking accordion lessons, too." June hands her the scraped toast and a jar of strawberry jam.
"Oh, brother. That's one nobody'd ever want to buy." Then Arlene seems to realize that what she's saying doesn't make any sense and waves it away. "Anyway. You keep it up. Maybe it'll be worth something to somebody, who knows."
Arlene's upward-tilted nose means she always seems to be looking down her nose at you. June has this as well, but she doesn't give off the snobby effect so much, maybe because her face is so plump. They both look down their noses at me as they bite into their jamfests.
I've never understood people who can eat while smoking (or in the presence of anyone who is), but Arlene can do both at once. I’m hoping the cigarette odor will dissipate by the time Lynwood gets down here to start breakfast. I can’t exactly open the back door in the middle of the night to fan the smoke out. Surreptitiously I switch on the Jenn-Aire's exhaust fan, but it doesn't seem to help much.
June gets the peanut butter out and starts making herself a sandwich. Arlene is licking grape jam off her fingers when Lynwood sweeps in, rubbing her eyes.
"WHAT is going on down here at FOUR o'clock in the MORNING? I can smell burned toast all the way upstairs." Lynwood flips on the overhead lights.
Arlene blinks innocently up at her, jam-handed (but not ham-fisted), wreathed in a cloud of smoke, her head tilted, navy pea coat loose on her protruding collarbone. A moment’s silence tells me it takes Lynwood that long to recognize her.
"OH-ARLENE-HONEY!" It pops out all one word as she rushes over to envelop my cousin in a hug. "I didn't expect . . . how did you . . . what are you doing here?"
It occurs to me that it's the better part of valor not to tell Arlene about the visit from the cops. I keep my mouth shut, and neither of the other two mentions it either. Arlene is very adamant that we must not call her parents, that she's getting her head on straight and needs help from her favorite aunt. Said aunt falls for it, as always, whereas as a mother Lynwood gives no quarter.
"This will remain our little secret," Lynwood croons as she leads Arlene towards the back stairs, squeezing her around the shoulders. "We'll talk tomorrow. Now let’s get you on up to bed. You can have June's room for the night, all to yourself.” June pokes me in the perma-bruise on my arm, as though it’s my fault she doesn't get to double up with Vampyra. “And we'll discuss what you need in the morning, all righty?"
# # #
We are treated to a full quadraphonic broadcast of the knockdown-dragout in progress between Gary and Lynwood about whether to call the cops (Gary) or Arlene's parents (Lynwood), but Arlene seems oblivious.
She is sitting on the pink carpeting in June's bedroom sorting through her huge hobo purse and smoking yet another nasty-smelling cigarette. June is still somewhat sulky about not getting to sleep in here at the guru’s feet, but June will be fine on my bottom bunk. My room still has the old bunk beds we got at a garage sale when we first moved here; Lynwood painted them peach so I could have my Girl Scout friends over, except I quit the Scouts before I knew very many people and I never had those sleepovers.
Our cousin is mightily changed indeed. The old Arlene would’ve charged in here and started teaching us some new cheer (“Victory is our battle cry”) or would've pulled out an Uno deck for a raucous game. Instead, she's counting out baggies of what looks like dried oregano but which I know must be pot, and sorting various evil-looking plastic containers with colored powders inside. She finishes and ties it all back up in a bandana that she shoves to the bottom of the purse. "Shit," she explains with a heavy sigh.
"What do you do all day? I mean, so you have a job now?" My sister can be so clueless.
Arlene half-smiles. "I'm in sales, you might say. We buy and sell things people want and need." She flaps a hand nonchalantly. "Not drugs, of course." She grimaces at the thought. "Just . . . important things. We're unique in our field. About to have a major breakthrough, and the world will hear from us. You can bet."
"That is SO cool." June's eyes shine in the half-dark like a prowling tomcat's. It creeps me out.
Arlene is unbelievably worldly, and I realize that behind my sister's affectation of blasé knowingness she is awed. That’s what I mean about needing to watch out for June. It’s kind of tiring, actually.
Finally the voices in our parents' room die down and a couple of slammed doors lead to quiet. June reaches up to douse the lamp, and the only light in the room is the glowing end of Arlene’s ciggie. She stubs it out and fires up another with the flare of a sulfurous, old-fashioned wooden match out of her jeans' watch pocket.
In the dark, Arlene becomes expansive. "For old times' sake, let's do a visualization. I'll lead." She takes a deep drag and smoke forms a cloud around her head. June eats this stuff up; she adores pretend games.
Ever since we were really little, Arlene has always played make-believe with us. You could really see things when Arlene got going and began to intone something unreal like, "We have landed on the planet Xmorth and now our spaceship glows pink like a ball of Play-Doh lava and transmits messages of peace to the gathering crowds as our staircase opens up and unfolds down into their waiting open arms." Under her spell, you believed six impossible things before lunchtime as she pulled you along in the red Radio Flyer or pushed you back and forth in the rusty swing with your eyes closed and your mind open so wide your brain sometimes flew out.
Arlene leads us in a hypnotic exploration with her sultry voice, as if she wields a cauldron and theremin, and for the moment I forget I'm lying on the pink bedroom carpet and truly believe I'm aboard a ship floating in a warm salty sea, surrounded by sea monsters and drifting ever closer to the Sirens who want to eat us and steal our talents. At last Arlene's voice fades away as she evidently tires of us and the game. "All right, come back to here and now. And then go away. I'm sleepy."
She still "has it." In fact, she was so convincing that it’s scary. June's eyes remain glowing with admiration and hero worship.
Somehow I drag June out of there after several "wow"s and reluctant "okay, goodnight"s and get her settled in my room, but I get nervous and (on the pretext that I have to tinkle) sneak back to make sure that Arlene has put out the cig. Instead I catch her hiding something behind the dresser drawer, the one that doesn't fit quite right, where June used to keep her fan fiction stashed before she graduated to illicit cosmetics and music.
As they say, silence gives a better chance for survival. I sneak quietly back to my bottom bunk without getting caught, wondering.
# # #
In the morning Arlene is gone.
Gary is the first to mention it at the breakfast table, where our usual parakeet-chatter has yielded to a serious silence. "Well, that solves our problem. Now we don't have to worry who we are betraying and why. She's gone on her merry way, and nobody needs to be any the wiser."
"But what's going to happen to her?" June says in a dangerously whine-like tone. I've seldom seen her show such concern for anybody short of the sexy Justin Fink.
"She'll be fine." Gary watches his eggs staring up at him and pinions them with a fork, as if they might slither off the plate.
"She's only a child." Lynwood swirls her spoon in her iced tea glass until it rings.
"She looked like a perfectly capable grown-up woman to me," Gary says darkly. When did he glimpse her? I don't like the look in his eyes.
"What if the cops come back?" June ventures to ask in a mild, nonchalant tone, but I feel the tension crackling beneath the surface of her question.
"Then we have to tell them." He shrugs. "I'm not putting my family’s butts on the line just to keep her on the streets instead of back home where she belongs."
"We can't. I know my sister, and I'm certain they're not being fair to the child at home." Lynwood's lower lip pops out, and it looks just like June's when she pouts.
Apparently, Arlene is a Major Sinner. She has (allegedly) stolen money from her dad's cookie jar, and was (supposedly) caught in flagrante delicto by her mother with some new boyfriend they don't care for. Then, they claim, she got in with this drug crowd and somebody was killed over a deal that went bad, and that's theoretically why the police are sniffing around for Arlene, to question her. All of this is hearsay, I want to remind them, but I do have the sense to keep quiet.
"Maybe she should go to Toughlove Camp and get straightened out," Gary says in what some might assume was a reasonable tone.
"My God," Lynwood squeaks in what most would agree is a tone of hysteria. "In those horrid places, untrained guards supervise defenseless children and beat them for hiccupping. It's completely out of the question. We have to protect her any way we can. I only wish she had confided in me before all this happened."
They continue to fight over this until Gary slams out of the house. If this were a movie, he'd be going to a bar, but since it's him I expect he's just running to SuperAceTruValu Hardware, where he will pick up a few light bulbs before slinking quietly home through the back door.
With all the distractions, I almost didn't notice that June kept her left hand hidden under the table.
# # #
We're lounging in the treehouse when a yellow Hummer pulls up across the street. After scrutinizing it with the telescope, June announces that she's going out front to get the mail. I scramble down the rope ladder after her because there is no way I am going to let her sneak a bad boy right under my nose.
Up close he's a James Dean clone: dark glasses, white tee with cigarette pack rolled up in one sleeve, faded Levi's tucked into Frye motorcycle boots, blond hair slicked straight back in a ducktail but with one unruly forelock that flips over the right lens of the glasses. I didn't know June went for that type, but she seems duly impressed.
The guy acts happy to see us. He says he is Arlene's boyfriend. I have my doubts, because when I challenge him he "doesn't remember" her favorite color, puce, nor her fave musical group, which I know is still Deathtöngue. He suggests we go for a little ride and I tell June we shouldn't go and she says nonsense and jumps into his cadmium yellow deathtrap.
I cannot let her go alone, and I have never ridden in a Hummer. So after a moment I hop in with a prayer that we aren't found dead in a field next week. Or tomorrow.
All he wants, it turns out, is to cruise the neighborhood while cross-examining us about Arlene.
June is all too happy to oblige. She's usually too sharp to fall for this kind of thing, but they're together in the front seat and he's flirting with her and pinching the ends of her hair and stroking her cheek so that she is completely lost in him, whereas I keep my head about me and remain adamantly circumspect (to put it in terms that Lynwood and the SAT Word of the Day Committee would applaud.)
He keeps asking, "Did she leave anything with you? Give you something for safekeeping?"
Of course I flash on whatever it was I saw Arlene hide, but I keep my expression passive and do the slackjawed kid act and he doesn't pay me no never mind, which for once is a Good Thing. June blathers on about this and that. And I get a look at what she was hiding at breakfast.
Apparently Arlene slipped June a ring to keep for her at some point when I wasn't looking, and he persuades her to take it off her finger and hand it over. The dark one duly examines it, but it's just a dull old piece of junk, without even a stone, just the end of a spoon handle bent around into an adjustable ring and he can see it's tarnished and scratched, so he hands it back and squints. "Anything else?"
"No, nothing else. Hee hee," says June, and I realize she is tilting her head coquettishly because she’s trying to flirt. Oh, spare me.
We park at the edge of our development's landscaped greenspace-slash-play-area and suddenly a police car pulls up beside us. Darkman freaks, but before he can hit the ignition there's an officer next to his window. "Step out of the car, please," the officer says, the beam of his Maglight in our faces.
The police routinely patrol rich neighborhoods like ours. One of our busybody neighbors probably called in a "suspicious vehicle" because of our aimless prowling, and the cops ran the plates. A grown man should've known better than to park near a swingset in a fancy ride.
Next thing I know June and I are riding home in a cop car. June leans forward asking them questions about stakeouts and police work she's seen on television, not bothering to hide her enthusiasm, but I’m panicky. My fingernails dig dents into my palms. I hate being on the other side of the chicken wire, even though we're only getting a courtesy ride home so the cops can scold our parents.
Sure enough, they lecture Lynwood when she answers the door. "You need to keep a better eye on your daughters, ma'am. They were found associating with a known felon."
A felon! June's gaze searches out mine and we both goggle. I can see she's turned on by the idea. Great.
Although now what seems odd is that I didn't catch his name.
Gary is angry and Lynwood hysterical. "You know better than to go off with a strange boy."
"He's Arlene's boyfriend, Mother," says June in Arlene's coolly sarcastic tones, and I suddenly know she is changing. My sister is Becoming A Woman. Soon she'll be like Arlene and start drawing away from me. I can feel the gulf opening up like an abyss and I stare down at my shoes, terrified.
Lynwood's voice in my ear brings me back. "And what about YOU? I would've thought you knew better. You should have run for us, and we could've had your sister rescued."
I try to play the Arlene card. "Motherrr!" But it doesn't work for me any more than a nun can shinny up a stripper pole, and I end up whining. "I couldn't let her go off alone and there just wasn't time to come get you."
"You could have called on your cell phone."
The thought hadn't entered my mind. But I lied. "Battery’s dead."
"Well, you'll have plenty of time to charge it."
We are grounded. Possibly forever.
3 *books can be deceiving*
June does not take discipline well. She stomps off to the treehouse (we're allowed to stay inside the fence ONLY) with the magazines she got the last time we went to the mall, a sundry collection of "How To Get A Teenage Boy And What To Do With Him Once You Get Him"-type advice books and music fan magazines. Possibly a biker mag in the mix somewhere. She drags me out there (thumb on perma-bruise) to show me what I should be wearing from now on, all of which is lace-up leather with predrilled grommeted holes.
Gross. Just looking at that stuff makes me happy that I could probably squirm out of bondage leathers if I had to. It's because my right shoulder is double-jointed, which means I can change its position and wriggle out of someone's grip. Sometimes. Sometimes not. And sometimes the joint bothers me. Today it's kind of bugging me.
When she gets out the scope and starts spying on Mr. Feenster (because Justin is taking a well-deserved break from roasting himself), I say I need to potty. Instead, I sneak into June's room and pull the bottom dresser drawer out.
In the hidey-hole is a book. Black leather cover. Inside, it has blank pages like a sketchbook. As I stare at the first page, a drawing appears of me and June in the treehouse, looking through the telescope at the cops driving away with the boyfriend. It can't be appearing as I watch. I must've just missed it originally. Didn't I?
How could Arlene have known in advance that would happen? Besides, she can't draw flies.
"April?" Gary's voice, right behind me. I slam the book. With an ominous Sense of Purpose, he reaches around to snatch the Porn out of my hands. He takes one look at the drawer and its contents spilled at my feet and gasps out, "Your sister's diary?" But then he looks at the book that he has grabbed and says, "Oh," like he's confused, and then flips through a few pages. "I loved this as a kid. Why would you two be hiding this?"
He's waving it around as if it's a long-lost book from his childhood. He is trying to make me doubt my senses. I wonder what's going on. In a moment it becomes obvious that he's completely unhinged. He thinks it's a novel.
Bear in mind that when Gary says, "It's Miller time," he means Henry Miller. The writer. Dirty old man writer, if you ask me. Although of course we are not allowed to read him "until college," Gary warns with a waggling index finger. If you want to read porn, I always say, you ought to go for the best, and Miller's reportedly the best perv writer around. Anyway, my POINT is that Gary is way into novels and literature and the classics. I am saved.
He beams down at the book. "My old copy of Howard Pyle's Adventures of Robin Hood. Why would your sister have this hidden behind her drawer?"
He knew about June's secret hiding place all along, of course.
I blink innocently. "I guess she doesn't want me to read it."
"Let's get her drawer put back like it was. But you tell her that I said you should both read this. It's practically a family heirloom." He grins and shakes his head. "She doesn't have to hide BOOKS from us, for goodness' sake. Certainly not this. I know you'll take good care of it. Have you ever torn up one of her books?"
Of course I haven't; I never dog-ear pages or even lay one on its face to keep my place. I am the original dead-tree-book preserver and defender. "You know I'm obsessive."
"Well, then. You two both read this and do me a book report. It's a classic."
So anyway, it appears that he's either testing me or he's crazy. Probably both.
By this time I know that June must be hugely suspicious. It's about time for her to come find me. Sure enough, she appears in the mirror behind my head like some apparition.
"What are you two doing in MY ROOM?" she shrieks.
Gary pats her shoulder. "Just talking, sweetheart. Your sister's going to read this on my recommendation, and you don't have to hide it. You never have to hide great literature from us. Well, you girls keep getting along now." With a smile he begins humming a tune, a somehow familiar tune, but I can't quite place it; it's some old jazz standard. He practically skips down the bedroom hall like Happy Bunny, probably thinking of how literary his children are.
June marches over and snatches the book out of my hands. In preparation, she levers her thumb over my perma-bruise. "What was that all about and what is he talking about? Oh. . . ." She looks confused and flips through the pages bemusedly. Her grip on my arm loosens. "I thought you had something of mine. I can't believe you kept a baby book like this one. I'd have thought you'd read the King James, or at least some respectable translation." From the way she talks, she seemingly thinks it's the Children's Bible that I won in Vacation Bible School years ago as an award, stuffed with various little ribbons that they gave me and tracts that I saved. She snorts and tosses it back, and I clutch it as it bangs into my chest. "What were you in here for?"
"You know Gary. Just nosing, trying to get me to reveal your hiding places and all your secrets. Don't worry--I didn't."
For some reason, she buys this and I don't get punched. "Who can ever understand that man." She turns to go, but thinks better of it. "You may precede me out," she says, turning back. "Bring that babyish book with you."
Something's way fishy about this. I evaluate the chances that they are in cahoots to make me crazy. Probability is, in reality, fairly low.
I test this theory by carrying the book into the kitchen where Lynwood is making some kind of lowfat no-carb lunch out of dust and vitamins. Setting it down on the countertop next to her work area, I wait for her to snatch it up because "library books have so many germs."
True to form, she does. "Don't put things where I'm cooking." Then she frowned, looking confused. "Oh, look at this . . . aw. How sweet." She evidently thinks it's a book out of our school reading list. "I had to read this in school. I know it's boring at first, but stick with it and it'll reward you. I can't believe you are already reading into the ninth-grade language arts list. You are such a good student."
I give her my best Miss Priss smile like that mean blonde girl out of "Little Whorehouse on the Prairie" and simper forth with, "I want to read all the ninth grade books this semester and get ahead so I can do Early Decision admission to Stanford. I finished the eighth grade list last month." That much is actually true.
That really pushes Lynwood's button, as Stanford is her alma mater. She beams. "Super! That's my April." Forgetting that I'm supposed to be on a low-sugar regimen (she read something about yeast proliferation and the anti-candida diet to control it, and decided she'd put me on it to see what happened, not because I'm fat like June), she cuts me a brownie--the health food version, of course. "Run along and read. Keep it up."
The brownie is made of organic dust and a new artificial sweetener. After one bite I ditch it in a potted plant that I'll probably find wilted tomorrow. I retreat to my room to contemplate what this double-crossing tome actually is.
Prolly something of the Devil.
I decide to open it again anyway.
Now it's like a journal with rainbow pages: the first is pink, the next is yellow, etc. But the pictures I saw aren't there now, just blank pages.
I flip a few more pages and they all turn black. Solid stone pitch black. The lights are out and no one's home.
Apparently the book has nothing to say to me at the moment, so I find a great hiding place in my own room for it and then go back out to see what June is doing in the treehouse.
4 *hair today*
June has black rings around her eyes.
Of course, I have to ask. "Whoa. What's that all over your face?"
She grabs a cracked old hand mirror of Lynwood's and glances in before she realizes how dumb I am. "Cru, you idiot. It's makeup."
She has on black eyeliner about an inch wide. She doesn't look at all like Arlene, though. She looks as if she's been pranked with one of those pairs of trick binoculars.
"Well, I don't think it looks good."
She rolls the accused eyes. "That's YOUR opinion," she says, leaving no doubt about what she thinks of its quality.
Turning away from me, she continues to count out the change from our huge plastic Dallas Cowboys bank we got at the State Fair one year (it's in the shape of a beer bottle, complete with bottle cap). We must have a thousand dollars in dimes and quarters in there, or we would if they were dimes and quarters, but it's mostly pennies. She's sorting out the silver.
"What are you doing?" Immediately, I wince. What I mean is, "what are you going to buy," but I ask the dumb version of the question. When will I become quick-witted like June?
She doesn't even look up. "I think I have enough. C'mon, if you want to go to Wacker's."
I follow her down the rope ladder and onto our bicycles. Mine is a yellow BMX in great condition that Lynwood got at a garage sale, but June's came from an expensive bike shop and is almost worn out; go figure.
It'd be nice in one sense if June were old enough to drive, but in another way I dread that day. She'll jump into the extra car, Lynwood's old Green Hornet, and speed away. I'll probably never see her again. For now, though, she's slow enough on a bike that I can tag along.
At least I can when we're only going as far as the shopping center at the nearest large intersection.
Wacker's is a dollar store that never took down the old sign from the sixties when it was a classic five-and-dime. Dollar stores are today's five-and-dimes, according to Gary, who praises God for them whenever Lynwood needs cheap-but-nice ceramic cat vases or similar gifties for clients. We breeze through to the cosmetic aisle. I start to reach for a pair of false lashes, thinking June's just going for the painted-tart look, but then I realize she's going for the full Arlene. Because she's sorting through boxes of hair dye. Black.
"Raven," she reads off the back of a battered box. "Ebony. How do you tell. . . ."
"There's a nylon swatch on the shelf." I know this because Lynwood used to dye her hair Mercurochrome color when that was all the rage. "Except it shows what your hair would look like if it got bleached completely white before you dyed it. So you might not get exactly that shade."
My sister looks shocked that I know anything useful. She brandishes "Deep Ebony." "This one is fine."
"What are you going to--" I stop myself before I ask YASQ (Yet Another Stupid Question) and change it to my real question, "Why?" We both have mouse-toned hair in a sort of no-style style that used to be a Buster Brown-type bob, but which is now kind of a nondescript pageboy-flip. I usually wear mine in a ponytail or like Alice in Wonderland with half of it up, now that it's finally gotten long enough, just past my shoulders. But June does a lot of upsweeps and braids using the BeautyBraids book Lynwood got us years ago when that was popular. Who needs the upkeep of matte-black Goth hair?
Apparently June has fallen prey to the Arlene monster. She heads for the checkout and is contemplating which candy bar she'll get as I stand there like a turkey drowning in the rain. Spoon ring flashing on her thumb, she counts out the change onto the countertop. Then she heads for the door.
I start to follow and run headlong into a tall, lean swimsuit boy barging in through the exit.
It's Justin Fink. He smiles. "Hey, April. Lookin' good. What're you buying?"
"Um." My hand shoots out on its own and grabs a cola-flavored lip gloss off a hook near the register. I hold it up, but words won't form in my dehydrated mouth.
He winks. "Good choice. I love the taste of that stuff. I mean, on girls." With a toss of his shaggy dark hair he turns and heads down towards the auto parts aisle.
For some reason, I have not fainted. Yet. The clerk holds out her palm, giving me a hard stare. "That be all?" She thinks I'm a shoplifter, I guess. But Justin likes me--I think.
I snatch up some cinnamon gum and slap it down for her to ring up along with my prize. I'm not a fan of candy bars--it's true, I don't like chocolate, and yes, I know there's something wrong with me. June thinks there's a sort of bitterness that's built into my saliva so it freaks up my taste buds. I used to eat SweeTarts and acidic sour patch bears and Smartees (which June calls Dumbees) until I got tired of having all the skin peel off the roof of my mouth.
It's easy to catch up with June. Unlike in other things, June is a slow pedaler, and I'm pretty good on a bike. Especially when I'm floating, Justin-hello-powered. I'm pretty good on the climbing wall at Geddy's Athletic Supplies, but I've never gotten quite this high solely on endorphins.
When we get home, I can sense the Tower is about to fall. June commandeers the upstairs bath that connects our two bedrooms and immediately spreads out all of Lynwood's white towels. White on the theory that "they'll bleach out fine." I am thinking that they'll bleach up to a spotty gray at best and that we should use the old, worn-out dark blue ones and then throw them out and play dumb if and when we're asked what happened to them. June, as always, gets her way and proceeds heedlessly on to mix the Super Secret Solution.
"Gag," I croak, throwing open the window. "That stinks."
"You don't have to be in here," she says, rationally enough. But I am the kind of person who likes to watch a pair of locomotives rushing at one another and say "Oh no oh no oh no" without being able to do anything to prevent the trainwreck.
"You're supposed to have the plastic gloves on already." I peel them off the reverse of the unread instruction sheet. "And you'd better take off that silver ring first. The fumes alone might turn it black." This stands to reason, but she shoots me a murderous look. Still, she slips the ring off--actually, she tugs on it and then she pulls hard and then she winces and finally she twists the ring rather viciously, but it does slip off her swollen flesh with effort--and secretes it somewhere on her person. If it's too tight, she ought to adjust it.
June pauses to lock the doors--not just to the bathroom, but also the doors to both our bedrooms. If Lynwood or Gary should come up here, we're in for it over that, as there is a rule in our house that one never locks one's bedroom door, on the theory that we might be choking to death in there or having a séance, but June has done it anyway to give her advance warning of the beatings to ensue.
I can't figure out this voluntary act of self-uglification. Lynwood likes only blonde children. (In this respect she's like Joan Crawford, who reputedly also said that of herself.) We have been a disappointment to her since the onset of puberty and the accompanying darkening of our towhead locks. Ever since, she has constantly been after us to let her bleach our hair. I never wanted to be a phony, while June was just being contrary when she said she liked the color of dead leaves. I don't have any idea what Lynwood's reaction is going to be. She wouldn't let June shave her head, either, which is the only way I can imagine getting rid of this industrial-strength dye.
The ammonia fumes are choking me and I hang my head out the window, meaning I have to pop the screen out and let it land on the grass in the front yard again. But then if June wants to make a quick escape she'd do that anyway: she has one of those fire escape ladders stowed in the linen closet, and she HAS used it a couple of times when she locked herself in her room and Lynwood was working on her doorknob to continue their fight. I can envision her doing that again now, frankly.
I can also see Arlene's "boyfriend" (or whoever he really is) sitting at the end of the block, but he isn't in that Hummer. There's no way he could be inconspicuous in that, and of course now the heat is on to him. But why he is here in a blue Chevrolet Landbarge, a real junker, is pondersome. I do not personally believe that he is at all interested in my sister, although it may serve his purposes to have her believing that. It's probable that he's keeping surveillance on us--surveilling?--to see if Arlene comes back. She must have really dumped him hard.
I think he sees me. Oops.
Feeling like Harriet the Spy, I pull my head back in to see a completely ridiculous-looking June, with her hair piled on top of her head all sticky and purple. Her skin is so pale that this contrast will make her look like an albino wearing a Beatles mop. But I suppose that is the point.
Also, she's holding up a pair of scissors she found in the drawer. "I've decided to cut bangs. But I don't want to mess up, so you'll have to." She pinches a wad of hair from her front hairline and twists it, then holds the twisted strands at her nose. "You cut at the end of my nose to make them the right length."
I don't think bangs are a good idea at all, remembering how long it took to grow ours out last time and how bad her porcine face had looked with them. But, of course, Arlene has them.
This is definitely going to end badly.
I grab the shears. But for once, I shake my head. "Not while that goop is in there. Finish the dye job first and then I might think about it. That gunk is running down your forehead, by the way." Behind my back, I try to toss the shears out the window. They can't do any more damage landing in the grass than they will in here.
"I don't care. Give me those." She grabs them away from me just as the pounding on the doors begins. It's both Gary and Lynwood, one per bedroom door.
"What are you girls up to, and what is that smell?" I can hear Gary shout as the door to June's room pops open.
Gary has gotten a key made.
We look at each other. I shove the scissors back into a drawer just as the bathroom doorknob yields and the door slams flat against the wall. An incredulous Gary stands there goggling.
"We thought the house was on fire," shouts Lynwood from just over his shoulder. She heard him getting in and circled back, I guess. Her eyes are kind of wild. I suppose she might have thought that, as it does smell like burning hair in here. Although burning hair smells very little like burning house. June gets her tendency to exaggerate from Lynwood. "And when I saw the screen falling out of the window, from where I was standing at the sink, I thought you were climbing out to get away. I remembered you have that escape ladder, but then I didn't see you coming down."
I can almost buy that scenario as very panic-worthy. But why is Lynwood suddenly getting all parental? It must be the influence of having seen Arlene.
Then the situation registers. "Oh, my God. What have you done to yourself?" Lynwood screeches.
The dye has been on for long enough that she can't just wash it out and expect no effect, yet Lynwood marches my sister into the tub and turns on the shower, heedless of the fact that she's wearing jeans and an old halter. "Get out," she commands us, and Gary runs out of there as if he'd been caught peeping. Evil cursings ensue through the door as she and June go at it. I don't think even Gary's special dandruff shampoo is going to take that color out.
I sigh heavily as Gary asks me in a subdued voice, "So does she really think black will look good on her? Or is she doing it for some reason?"
I look at him blankly. Everyone always has a reason for what he or she does, and June has a long rationale for most of her actions, but in this endeavor she had given me no explanation at all. However, it would be fairly obvious to any woman what was going on. I have to feel sorry for Gary, as the only guy in the household.
When I don't answer, he prompts me. "For a boy . . . because of her peer group . . . to join a gang."
I laugh out loud.
"Okay, I know she's not a joiner."
At least he has that right. Still, I'm not about to share with him how alarmed I am. I don’t like the direction this is heading. I mean with my sister Growing Up and Rebelling all of a sudden. Yes, I knew it would happen someday. But I think this is accelerated, and that it's all related to that ring from Arlene and the guy who keeps showing up trying to steal it, and that's what really makes me nervous. Of course I can't say to Gary that I think my sister is coming under the influence of witches or magicians or whatever, unless I want to be fitted for one of those jackets with the long sleeves that buckle together in back. I could be reading too much into this or just being a wild-eyed idiot. Maybe.
"It's normal," I tell him in the most nonchalant tone I can manage. "Like, she's turning into a typical teen. Apparently a Goth version, or whatever. Like Arlene." I shrug. Surely he can figure it out; he is smart. "You know."
"Oh, God." He sinks onto June's bed and drops his face into his hands.
Somehow I feel kind of sorry for him. And for me.
5 *goon tomorrow*
Lynwood takes us both to her hairdresser, Lancelot. "He works wonders. I've already phoned and he knows what I want. It's just as well that he had two appointments open in a row; you look shaggy anyhow," she tells me as June climbs haughtily out of the BMW.
I don't really want anything crazy done to my hair. It's finally long enough to look halfway decent in a ponytail instead of like a horse whose tail was stolen by bandits, and if it were up to me I would just keep it longish and straight and visit the local SuperChops for a minimal maintenance trim every couple of months or so. But you don't argue with Lynwood when she talks of Keeping You In Fashion, so I get out of the car. She isn't coming in with us; the salon is close to the Galleria and she wants to pop into NeedlessMarkup for a cosmetics update. "See you in a couple of hours. Be good."
She gives June the credit card, so I know that if June has a mind to, she'll buy shampoo and nail polish and for all I know we'll emerge with shiny fingertips and toes. That's all right, as I feel a little rebellious myself. All makeup has been scrubbed off and June is back to normal, if a bit paler than usual. I mean, in the face, because her hair definitely isn't. The coal tar has done its work magnificently.
Lance-a-roo is aghast. "So you're going to join the Emo movement? It's quite out of date now." He clucks and hands her immediately off to his colorist. I am duly wet down and lounge on the all-metal torture rack they call a sofa to page through dingbat magazines ("Ten Most Wanted Midlength Styles") until he waves me into his evil chair of havoc-wreaking.
I agree to a "trim"--or what HE considers a trim--bringing my hair "up" (they euphemistically say "bringing it up," although they are chopping OFF) to the bottom of my earlobes, exposing the back of my neck to the cold. I squeeze my eyes closed, but I can still feel him working away, whistling some tuneless sonata. "Too bad you don't have enough to donate, but we're not going to let this get that far out of hand, are we?" he chirps out.
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