Whatever Happened to Janie? Read online

  The boy said, “Mom and Dad get pretty worked up if I’m not home by one A.M. on a Saturday.”

  “Then I guess you and my daughter had better be here by eight.”

  “Thanks,” said the boy, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

  Jodie was astonished. If Dad had said, “You can’t take her anywhere,” Reeve would have obeyed.

  Jennie was dancing in circles around Reeve, using him like a ballerina’s bar. Her fingertips traveled everywhere on his chest and back and arms. Jodie would not have recognized her.

  This is the sister we want, thought Jodie. This thrilled, laughing, happy, giddy girl is Jennie. We haven’t had this Jennie. She hasn’t given us this.

  Would Reeve’s visit break the ice? Would Jennie come home able to laugh and dance and parade? Or would Jennie miss him so much when he left that she would get even more somber and quiet?

  Was Jennie like this with her parents?

  Parents.

  Jodie caught the word in her mind. No letting herself think of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson as Jennie’s parents.

  Jodie watched through a slit in the front curtains as Reeve and Jennie went out to his Jeep. Reeve was big and solid. Jennie was small next to him, but a whirlwind—more energy in her this moment than in all the weeks she had lived with the Springs.

  She’s in love, thought Jodie, who had had crushes, but never what she would have considered true love. Jodie was waiting for love, thinking of it continually, hoping each new school day, dreaming before each new event, grieving every night, for true love had not yet arrived.

  “She’s in love,” said Mom, looking out the same curtain opening.

  Dad put his arms around Mom and hugged her hard. “So am I,” he said, kissing her on the lips. They had tears in their eyes.

  The Jeep drove away.

  “She’s so beautiful,” whispered Mom.

  Dad nodded. “At least we know what we’re aiming for. That laugh. That eagerness. That energy.”

  “We won’t get it,” said Stephen. “She’ll keep it for them.”

  Janie had not forgotten she was in love with Reeve, but so many worries had interfered. So much new business. So many strangers.

  The sight of him—so poised and at ease in the crowded living room, his dark complexion such a contrast to the fair, freckled faces of her new family—slugged her. Her boyfriend filled her whole horizon and her whole mind. “Reeve!” she shouted, although it came out a whisper.

  Reeve was here. He had driven five hours, through New York City traffic, paying tolls, buying gas, and ignoring the orders of three sets of parents: his, hers, and her second pair.

  To see me, she thought.

  And Janie, in turn, saw nobody but Reeve. The long bones and strong muscles, the lean face and immense grin of the boy she had loved all winter but had had to put in second place. First place was the milk carton. How could a folded piece of cardboard be strong enough to open and close whole families?

  “Reeve!” she said now, laughing wildly, unable to sit on her side of the Jeep, half in his lap, her kisses landing all over his face. They drove, not very safely. He had had a buzz. No more moppy sloppy hair to run her fingers through. She tickled her palm against his head.

  “So how’s the family?” said Reeve.

  “We’re not really a family,” she said. “Or at least, I’m not. I guess I need family lessons.”

  Reeve did not smile. “I’m told it isn’t lessons you need, Janie. Just a lot of practice.”

  “What!” She was furious. Had Reeve been sent on a parental mission to scold her? “Don’t you get on my case, Reeve Shields! Do you know what I’ve been through?”

  “I’m sorry. I do know. I just think you should have—”

  “Well, maybe I should have! But I didn’t. There isn’t an etiquette book for my situation, Reeve Shields. I did the best I could.” She had not done the best she could. She knew it, and certainly Jodie and Stephen knew it. Her cheeks went red keeping the secret.

  Reeve put his hand over hers. “Don’t call me both names. Reeve Shields. It sounds like my mother yelling at me.”

  Janie definitely did not want to sound like anybody’s mother. She tightened her fingers around his and examined the brand-new class ring. He was turning eighteen, and I didn’t so much as send him a card. He was applying to colleges, and I didn’t even know what ones. I was thinking often hundred other things. There wasn’t room in my head for anybody but—

  —but myself.

  The extent of her selfishness stretched to Connecticut.

  “Janie,” said Reeve hesitantly. “I’ve been thinking about—well—your real age.”

  “We’re sticking with my fake age,” said Janie.

  He laughed and squeezed her hand. “I’m eighteen now and it turns out you’re a whole year younger than we thought. You’re little. You’re just a little girl, Janie Johnson.”

  “Yeah, well, I can whip you, big guy.”

  “Oh, yeah, the way you used to whip me in tennis, huh?”

  They both laughed. Janie had no arm strength. Just lifting the tennis racket wiped her out for the day, never mind hitting the ball over the net.

  Reeve looked at her through his long lashes. When he had had long hair as well, every sideways look from Reeve had been flirty and adorable. Adorable just wasn’t a word Janie could use with quarter-inch-high hair. But she still loved his lashes.

  “Remember tennis lessons?” he said softly.

  “How could I forget?”

  “You know what else I could give you a lesson in?”

  She knew the topic immediately. “On whom,” she said, “have you been practicing?”

  He just grinned. The grin went on and on until she had to deflect it. “Reeve, I’ve been so selfish since I came here!”

  “I knew it,” he said, flopping back against the seat. “I knew you would want to talk instead.”

  “I was selfish, though.”

  “I happen to love the self that you are. And I want to get to know it better. Lots, lots better.”

  She was starved for love. What a contradiction, considering that she had two families who loved her so much it put them all in agony.

  What is love, anyway? thought Janie. “Reeve,” she said, “what do you think love really is?”

  “Love,” said Reeve firmly, “does not involve talking.”

  They were back early. Jodie was surprised. But she was really surprised when Reeve stayed until eight o’clock, his deadline for the drive home. He wanted, he said, to get to know the family.

  It should have been the most awkward evening of the year, but it was not. Everybody had fun. Reeve was a doll. Jodie was crazy about him. And she was crazy about the girl that Jennie was while Reeve sat next to her.

  Reeve was somebody the twins would want to go camping with and Dad would want to work on cars with and Mom would love cooking for. Reeve was the kind of boy Jodie wanted herself.

  Reeve even succeeded with Stephen. The physical contrast between the boys was major, but the contrast in confidence and experience was even greater. Reeve was the youngest in a big family, and his parents had obviously relaxed and let him go early. Stephen was the oldest in a big family, but nobody had ever relaxed here, and Stephen had not been let go for anything. Jodie saw her older brother suddenly as homebound, a little too young for his age. She hoped Stephen didn’t see that. His anger would just get angrier.

  “Mr. Spring?” said Reeve. For the first time he looked apprehensive.

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering—I mean, I didn’t ask the Johnsons about this. Or my own parents. But I was …” Reeve looked fast and hot at Janie and then at the ceiling and then at Dad.

  He wants to elope, thought Jodie, ready to giggle or applaud.

  Everything poised and sure in the eighteen-year-old evaporated. He staggered through the next sentences like a four-year-old on his first bike. “It’s my senior year and the senior prom is June second and I want to take Jan
ie and I guess I need permission because I’d have to come get her and she’d have to stay the night, or maybe two nights, and I’m not sure—like—where she’d stay over, at night, that is, if you don’t want her at Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s, but they’re great people, except she could stay at my house, my parents would love that—but—well, what I’m asking is—”

  “Sure,” said Jodie’s father, grinning.

  Reeve stopped floundering. “She can come to the prom?”

  Dad nodded. “Of course she can. She’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “I can?” cried Janie. “Really? You’ll let me? You’ll let me go to Reeve’s prom?”

  “Yes,” said Dad.

  Jodie did clap. “Ooooh, we can shop for a prom gown! I’ve always wanted to shop for prom gowns.” She got permission all around. “Can’t we, Mom? Can we, Jennie? Can we buy a prom gown with you?”

  Jennie was crying.

  “Don’t cry!” said Reeve, making a terrible face and shaking Jennie’s sleeve. “I hate crying,” he said to Mr. Spring, as if they were buddies.

  “It does get old,” agreed Mr. Spring.

  “She isn’t crying-crying” said Jodie. “She’s happy-crying.”

  Janie agreed, nodding like a sister. She smiled at Jodie, who felt as if she had just won a thousand dollars. “Prom shopping. It’ll be great.”

  “That’s what matters? That’s what this is about?” said Reeve. “Dresses?”

  “Did you think it was about love or something?” said Dad.

  The trembling expression between Janie and Reeve was explicit; clearly, they had thought it was about love or something.

  Jodie tried to imagine Mom sitting down with Jennie to talk about Safe Sex or (much more likely from Mom) No Sex. It might be late for that, or it might not. Jodie couldn’t tell. She wished Jennie would tell her tonight, but doubted it would happen. Still, they’d shared something good. They’d been sisters there for a moment.

  The kiss Reeve and Jennie exchanged when they parted was almost chaste. They were intoxicated by seeing where they had touched, but mostly thinking of where they had not.

  “Wow,” muttered Stephen.

  They watched their sister watching her boyfriend go.

  And the great good gift that Reeve left behind was that when Jennie turned around, she was still smiling. And she kept smiling.

  * * *

  Reeve could not wait to tell Mr. and Mrs. Johnson how wonderful Janie had looked, what a great time they had had together, how terrific Mr. Spring had been about the prom, what fun the whole family was.

  First thing Sunday morning he crashed into the Johnson house, the way he always had, and Mrs. Johnson offered him French toast, the way she always did, and Reeve accepted of course, because only mental cases turned down Mrs. Johnson’s food.

  “Janie looks fabulous,” he told them. “We had the greatest day!” He recounted every moment except of course the one that counted: the one between himself and Janie.

  It never occurred to him when he bounded out of the house, full of plans for proms and visits, that Mrs. Johnson wept again. But this time, for the daughter who could be happy in another mother’s home.

  CHAPTER

  12

  How much easier to follow rules when she’d been ordered to! And maybe easier, too, because they were written down, and Janie could refer to them, like commandments.

  But mostly it was easier because she had Reeve again. His visit stayed with her, encircling her like some wonderful twenty-first-century weapon. She could say his name, like a talisman, and be swept up into the same delight she’d felt when his presence slugged her there in the Springs’ living room. She could look around the high school that had overwhelmed her so badly and see interesting people who posed no threats. She could relax again.

  The unlikable qualities of this family had been her problem. She’d been as prickly as a porcupine. When they got mad, she held them responsible, not herself. She counted the days of her goodness: Saturday (Reeve Day), Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

  Mrs. Spring—she could not yet say Mom—was actually kind of fun. Mr. Spring—whom she had come very close to calling Dad—was definitely fun. He was forever concerned that his kids would be limp, useless couch potatoes and insisted on family exercise, like Rollerblading. Like somebody rolling socks, Mr. Spring pushed at his family to make them move.

  Brendan and Brian turned out to be nice kids. Maybe a little dull. A quality of being wrapped up in each other that she had never run into before. Their brand of twinness was interesting to watch, but nothing she coveted. Stephen turned out not to be sulky, just sharp-edged.

  Jodie was harder, maybe because the two girls were together so much more. And yet Jodie seemed worth more than any of the boys. Every now and then Janie knew they were sisters; she could feel the bond of it and it was surprisingly precious.

  “There’s a school dance next week,” said Jodie. “Let’s go. We’ll stick together. You’ll have a good time.”

  Janie loved dancing. She could let go with her body the way she could never let go with speech. She loved being in a big gym or cafeteria, the DJ turning the volume up high—higher!—highest!—until the drums seemed to be living in her heart. “But won’t you each have a date?” she said.

  Stephen looked horrified.

  Janie had to laugh. “If that isn’t typical,” she said. “Reeve used to look like that when you mentioned girls. He’d gag all over the floor, and pretend to go into violent convulsions, and maybe die of some terrible poison.”

  “When was that?” said Jodie. “Not recently.”

  “When we were in junior high.”

  “Were you in love with him when you were in junior high?”

  “Get real,” said Janie. “When I was in junior high, I thought boys should live in a zoo and have keepers.”

  “Wait’ll you go to a dance here,” said her sister. “You’ll still think that.”

  The bus jerked violently to a stop. They had forgotten they were even on the school bus, let alone jammed three in a two-person seat. Now Stephen remembered his resentment at not being offered a car ride home. Jodie remembered the weight of the homework. Janie wondered if there would be a card from Reeve. He had discovered Hallmark. He had sent her a card a day for five lovely days.

  It was remarkable how soul-restoring a piece of mail—a funny greeting card—could be. Maybe I should send Mommy and Daddy cards, Janie thought. But even Hallmark won’t observe my special occasion.

  Janie got off the bus first. Up and down High-view Avenue were signs of spring. Red buds on twigs. Daffodils emerging. Southern New Jersey got spring earlier than Connecticut. Good. Because spring was more romantic than winter.

  Stephen jabbed Jodie in the ribs and pointed.

  The driveway was full of cars. Mom’s. Dad’s. The one that had to be Mr. Mollison’s. Two Jodie did not recognize by driver, but easily recognized by model. State troopers’ unmarked souped-up sedans.

  Slowly they followed Jennie off the bus.

  How would she handle this? What would happen now?

  Brendan and Brian were leaping around on the sidewalk, belting each other, having gotten off the middle-school bus moments earlier.

  “Don’t you have practice?” snapped Jodie.

  “Canceled. Anyway, we didn’t want to miss the fireworks.”

  “What fireworks?” asked Jennie.

  “Mr. Mollison is here,” said Brendan, jabbing the air like a boxer.

  Mr. Mollison had gotten a new car, of course. Jodie would have recognized the old one. He had probably had several new cars in the years since they had seen each other. For a while, Mr. Mollison had almost been a member of the family. There he was now, in the picture window, waiting for them to come in. He waved. Jodie did not wave back.

  “Who is Mr. Mollison?” Jennie asked.

  I want to be your sister, thought Jodie, not the person who tells you who Mr. Mollison is. And definitely not the perso
n who tells you what he is going to do.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The living room and the dining L of the Springs’ house shared a long, windowless wall. The couch was pressed up against the living-room end and the sideboard against the dining-room end. The wall above the couch was completely covered with framed photographs of the children. One was the picture that had found its ultimate use on a milk carton.

  It showed a laughing toddler, bright red hair yanked into pigtails high on each side of her head. Her dress—the famous summertime dress—was white with vivid dark polka dots.

  She wanted to run, but the Spring family blocked the stairs and the hallway. Police filled the chairs. Janie could not seem to hear what the police were saying to her, nor find the vocabulary to answer them. Her head spun around as if it were popping off, the way Barbie-doll heads popped off if you dressed them too hard.

  “Let’s sit down, Jennie,” said the biggest policeman. He held out his hands as if to show her that they were empty, that he held no weapon.

  She wanted her mother, the one who had loved her and brought her up. But of course it was her New Jersey mother who crossed the carpet, circled the coffee table, and tried to touch her. Janie backed away. She could not back any farther. The room was not large enough.

  The world was not large enough. How was she supposed to stay loyal to Mommy and Daddy during this? But she had promised to keep her Family Resolutions, too. What would the police find out in this interrogation? Janie did not want to know one single thing more than she already knew.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jennie,” said the policeman. “We just want to talk. Nobody is going to get hurt.”

  “Do my parents know about this?” she said. “Are they okay?”

  “We’ve talked to your parents.” He knew she meant the Connecticut ones. “They’re okay.”

  They were not okay. They had not been okay since the news broke. How could she trust a person who lied like that?

  The policeman said softly to the Springs, “I think we might do better if all of you went into another room, okay? This is going to be hard on everybody and maybe we could talk a little easier without you.”