“What?”
He smiled, speaking into the phone. “Yes, please tel him now’s good.” He glanced at me again.
“Monday morning.”
“Is this censorship?”
“No. Prudent behavior.”
I headed for the door, not sure what to say.
In the hal way, I passed Derek.
“You okay?” he asked, touching my arm.
My anger and frustration flowed away like water running through my fingers. “Yeah,” I said through what was surely a dopey smile. “Better already.”
“Good,” he whispered. “That’s why I’m here.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
During our regular service learning assignment Pietr avoided me. Jaikin, Hascal, and Smith welcomed me back into our social y awkward clique, flirting with me as Pietr sat at the van’s front, his back straight and stiff.
They marveled at what the addition of makeup did to a girl’s face, whereas I couldn’t wait for the day I wouldn’t need it and could unclog the junk I’d jammed into my pores.
Pietr ignored us. Especial y me. Determined to make him react, I flirted more boldly.
But if my playing bothered him at al , it never showed.
Twice I escorted a lizard around Golden Oaks Adult Day Care and Retirement Home with Hascal and Smith. Due to al ergies Hascal carried a goldfish in a baggie on our missions to enliven Golden Oaks.
Smith carried a huge torch for me.
The situation was difficult. At best.
The highlight of those trips was visiting Mrs. Feldman on the fourth floor. She taunted Smith with the uncanny way she pul ed cards from her strange and colorful deck, tel ing him things no one could have known.
Hascal also took a turn at having her pul cards, stupefied each time she said something that was dead on. He spent a lot of time speculating as a result of Mrs. Feldman’s cards, and I loved seeing two bril iant minds blown at the same time.
I was tempted to have her pul cards for me, but I didn’t want to know what my future held if it continued without Pietr. And I couldn’t afford for her to blurt out the odd truth of my recent past. So I smiled and shrugged, passing up the opportunity whenever she offered.
Missing out on even trivial things like that made my days drag. At least Smith seemed interested in me
—okay, maybe a little obsessed. With Pietr, every conversation (when I could weasel words out of him) was weather and homework.
I didn’t know what to do.
I stopped Cat in the hal one morning to ask about things and she threw her hands into the air in frustration. “I do not know anything about it, Jessie. He is ignoring me nearly as much as he ignores you.”
She gave me a quick hug and loped off to class, leaving me just as confused.
Pietr made sure he avoided being anywhere alone with me—anywhere I could ask him what had gone wrong between us. I dreaded how awkward my birthday would be if this kept up.
* * *
By Saturday afternoon I’d lost my mind. Pietr fil ed my thoughts so often I’d poured grain for the dogs and nearly fed Rio kibble. Returning to the house I found everyone outside. The orange safety flag of our shooting range snapped in the breeze, and the sound of gunfire proved Dad and Wanda had gone for target practice.
Some people went to the movies. Or dinner. Dad and Wanda? They preferred punching paper with bul ets. “Annabel e Lee?” I yel ed, poking my head in each door. Nope. Probably in the barn’s loft reading.
Now was my chance.
Stealing the phone, I tapped in Pietr’s number. Dad didn’t al ow it in speed dial, but I knew the digits by heart.
Cat picked up.
“Cat, it’s me.”
“You’re grounded.”
“Yeah, I need to be fast. Is Pietr there?”
There was a moment of hesitation and I heard: “Pietr.” In a demanding voice: “It’s Jessie. Da. On the phone now. Da. She’s stil grounded. She needs to talk to you.” Then, more softly, as if she’d covered the receiver with her hand, I heard her plead: “Puzhalsta, Pietr. She doesn’t understand. I do not understand.”
Another pause.
Downstairs our front door opened and closed. My heart raced, but I couldn’t bring myself to hang up.
Not yet.
Through the phone I heard the distinct sound of pounding on a door. “Take. The. Phone. Pietrrr,” Cat growled.
Silence.
“Jessie,” she whispered. “Eezvehneetyeh. I’m sorry. He says … he says he doesn’t want to talk to you.
I’m so sorry.…”
I hung up.
What had happened to us?
* * *
I finished my chores early Sunday morning and decided to see if Dad left any coffee on the counter. Not sleeping wel and being stressed out was wearing on me. Caffeine kept me going when nothing else pushed me forward.
I paused in the kitchen doorway.
Dad was seated at the breakfast nook (what he cal ed the “cheap seats” whenever he would tease Mom), listening to the radio. Not his normal station, but a special weekly show. I recognized it immediately.
In Junction smal businesses often crossed into different venues. Karate studios had Chinese buffets.
Whole foods stores had bookstores. And one restaurant had a radio show.
It just happened to be hosted by the owner of the Italian restaurant where Mom and Dad went on their first date. Every Sunday the owner broadcast Italian music sung in Italian, sprinkling Italian phrases and news throughout the broadcast and proclaiming, “You don’t have to be Italian to love my music—you just have to love good music.”
To Dad, it was more than a way to contact a culture other than our own. It was a way to contact the memory of Mom.
He sat, shoulders stooped, cradling something in his hand. A photograph.
Mom.
I swayed, and the linoleum floor crackled beneath me.
“Oh.” He looked my way, startled, and swept his big hand across his eyes. “Hey, Jessie.”
He tucked the photo into the pocket of his flannel shirt, twisting the dial on his old boom box. “No one plays the eighties on Sunday.”
I crossed the floor and stretched my arm around his shoulders.
He sighed. “I miss her, Jessie.”
“I know.” But I hadn’t known. Not real y. I’d presumed he was forgetting her, pushing her memory away to make room for Wanda. Words strangled in my throat, but I managed “I miss her, too” as Dad’s arms wrapped around me in turn.