A Face in Every Window (19 page)

"Yeah, but you shouldn't just let people walk all over you. You should have given it to me."

"What good would that do? Anyway, I don't let people walk all over me."

"You let me," I said.

"You think so? I've practically got you eating out of my hands." Jerusha grinned and tossed me another roll.

I laughed. She was right. She'd made friends with the enemy, bringing me the food and sending Pap down with the blankets—but Larry and the others, that was different I couldn't let Larry just take over the whole place. I had to at least put up a good fight No casserole would settle our differences.

Pap held out his plate. "I'm finished with that much, but I want some more."

I grabbed the serving spoon and dug into the casserole dish. I scooped out another helping for each of us; checked Jerusha's plate, expecting to see it still full, and was surprised to find it almost empty.

She held out her plate and I scooped some more chili onto it She took the plate and hunched over it. "You're a good cook, JP, you should do more of it"

"And I can make soda bread with raisins," Pap said.

I nodded. "It's good, too. We'll have to cook you up a real special dinner one of these days."

"With a chocolate cake," Pap said.

"All right, that's a deal," Jerusha said, taking a sip of the peppermint tea she'd brought us in the Thermos.

I thought again about what Jerusha had said. I thought about making a dinner for everyone, the whole crew. Would they say they hated it just to make fun of me? Would Larry get angry and think I was taking over the kitchen—his kitchen?

I shook my head. "We're all fighting over the stupidest stuff. Maybe we're all just bored. You know? Nobody's doing much of anything around here. It's just a lot of posturing and posing. Larry and his scarf and English accent and..." I stopped. I'd forgotten about Jerusha and her suits and ties.

"We're all just trying to find our way, JP, that's all. Even you. Even Pap and your mother. You need to give people a break, give yourself a break." Jerusha took another sip of tea and set her cup down and looked at me. "I look at this house as the great incubator, and all of us—your mother, Larry, Harold, Bobbi, all of us—we're all eggs waiting to hatch. We're trying out different ideas, trying on different hats to see which one fits. That's why I took a year off from college. I wanted time to figure out what I really want to do with my life. It's great how your mother has opened her house to all of us. JP, it's great that she's willing to share all this with us."

I set my plate down on the blanket. "I guess so. I just wish she'd be a bit more picky about who she lets in."

Jerusha shook her head and set her plate down across from mine. "Then it's too predictable. Predictable gets boring."

"Then I guess I'm boring," I said, hoping Jerusha would contradict me.

Instead she nodded with her upper body and took another sip of her tea. "On the outside you are, because you're holding it all in, playing it safe. No one with a brain like yours, though, could be boring on the inside. You just have to let more of that out."

"I'm interesting," Pap said. "Lots of people say I'm very interesting because I'm different, is what they say."

Jerusha leaned forward and tapped Pap's leg. "You're the most interesting person I've ever met, Pap," she said, and I found myself wishing she'd touched my leg and said those words to me.

"I know that already," Pap said.

Jerusha took one last sip of her tea and then started cleaning up. I scrambled to my knees and helped her, wondering at the same time how I could be more unpredictable.

Jerusha paused and looked about the cabin. "It's nice here," she said. "The lamplight's nice, all the shadows. I like it here, don't you?"

"Yeah, it's really nice, especially with you here." I said it without thinking, then realizing what I'd said, I felt myself blush and hurried to pick up the rest of the dishes.

"Hey, I wasn't through with that tea, ya know," Pap said when I grabbed his cup.

"Sorry," I said, setting the cup back down. Then I had a thought, an idea, an unpredictable idea.

Jerusha stood up and held open the plastic bag the rolls came in. "Here, stick the dishes in here," she said.

I slipped the plates in and said in as nonchalant a tone as I could deliver, "So, since you like it here, why not stay the night here with me?" I glanced at her, felt myself blushing again, and turned to Pap. "You too, Pap. Let's have a sleepover party out here."

"All right!" Pap said, getting to his feet and spilling his tea on the blanket.

I turned back toward Jerusha.

"Sounds good to me. I'll go take these dishes up and get some more blankets and pillows. Pap, you can help."

"Right," I said, feeling the grin on my face move through my whole body—a whole delighted body grin. I could get used to this unpredictability.

While they were gone I busied myself with arranging three places to sleep. I made a pallet out of one of the blankets and set it next to the sleeping bag. I spread the other blanket out over Larry's table, making sure the wet spot from Pap's tea didn't touch it. I knew when Pap saw the tentlike setup he'd choose it instead of one of the other two, and then Jerusha and I would be side by side.

When I heard Pap's voice outside, I opened the door to wait for them. I looked up and saw three people coming down the slope—Jerusha, Pap, and Leon. Leon carried Jerusha's cello in one arm and a foldout chair under the other. Pap and Jerusha carried blankets and pillows and two rafts.

"Leon suggested some music," Jerusha said when they reached the door.

"It's going to be a real party," Pap said.

"Sure is," I said without enthusiasm, stepping back to let everyone in. I hadn't figured on unpredictability being a two-way street.

"Hiya," Leon said, stepping into the cabin. "Place looks bigger on the outside," he added after looking around.

"That's because of all the people inside," I said "Be careful of the heater."

Leon scooted out of the way and moved to the other side of the room.

Jerusha set her blankets on the table and unfolded the chair Leon had leaned against the wall. Then she grabbed her
cello and said, "I'll have to tune this thing up again. All these changes in temperature aren't good for it."

"Jerusha's going to play," Pap said, and then discovering the tent I'd made him, added, "Hey, neat. I call I get the tent to sleep under." He grabbed a pillow and a couple of blankets and crawled under the table.

"I can hear you, Jerusha," he said. "I can hear you playing your music instrument all the way from under here."

Leon and I fixed up the other beds, placing rafts under two and just folding a blanket under the sleeping bag I had brought down.

Leon chuckled. "I don't know what everyone else is going to do tonight, I think we got all the blankets." He crawled onto one of the rafts and spread out on his back, folding his arms behind his head. "If music be the food of love, play on," he said to Jerusha, quoting Shakespeare.

I sighed and climbed into my sleeping bag. At least Jerusha would be sleeping between us.

Jerusha warmed up with some scales and I realized I'd never paid much attention to her playing before. I thought her scales sounded pretty good. Then, before she finished with the scales, we heard voices outside, and then loud knocking on the door.

"Fee, fi, fo, fum," Susan called out. "We're going to huff and puff and blow your house down."

"Hey, it's Susan," Pap said, rising from under the table and banging his head. "Ouch!"

The door opened and in paraded Susan and Harold. Harold had a large bowl of popcorn in his hands and Susan had her guitar and another folding chair.

"Impossible," I said. "We'll never fit."

"O ye of little faith," Susan said, stepping over me and setting her chair in front of Jerusha so she'd be facing her when they played. Harold stepped over me and sat down on Jerusha's bed, lowering himself in one movement so that he ended up cross-legged, the bowl of popcorn held high in his hands. He lowered it and Pap came out from under the tent and joined him on the blanket. Both of them blocked most of my view of Jerusha. I sat up. Jerusha tapped the edge of Susan's chair with her bow and said, "Quiet, please. I will now play Bach's Prelude, Suite number one."

And just like that, we hushed and Jerusha played. Her whole body moved with the music. She kept her eyes closed, and as she moved her hair swung into her face and away again. Then she came to a place in the music where the notes escalated, climbing and climbing, and her torso moved in circular breaths and I found my own breath changing to fit her rhythm.

When she had finished I had no breath left; I just held it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want anyone to move or speak. I wanted her to play it again, but I didn't want to have to tell her, I didn't want to interrupt the spell with words. Then Susan began the same piece on her guitar and Jerusha joined her and they played it through again. Susan didn't play as well as Jerusha, but still it sounded beautiful. Jerusha was beautiful and I found myself falling in love again, in love with Jerusha and Bach's Suite no. 1.

T
HE SIX OF US
stayed up most of the night. Jerusha and Susan played a mixture of classical, folk, and jazz. Then Susan strummed the guitar while Harold recited one of his poems about his father, a father he never knew, and about how he planned to be there for his own children, be responsible, capable, accountable. I liked it because it came across as more powerful, more personal than some of his other poems. I decided I liked Harold better after hearing it.

I thought about it again later that night, or really, the next morning, when we had all settled down and were falling off to sleep. His poem revealed something about him, just the way Bobbi's singing and Jerusha's cello playing revealed something about them. They were sharing something of themselves with their art and it made me understand them a little more. It made me like them, and I wondered what I had to share. What could I do to reveal who I was? I had already tried with computers and the Game of Life, but they weren't interested. Why was it I could listen to their poetry and
music, but they couldn't care less about my interests? How could I make them care? I didn't have any idea, and I fell asleep thinking about this, lying on my opened-up sleeping bag, sharing a pillow with Harold, who shared a blanket with Leon and Susan, who shared a pillow with Jerusha. All six of us lay spread out across the cabin floor, sharing blankets and pillows and breathing in the kerosene fumes.

Just a couple of hours later my watch alarm went off. I groaned. I had to get ready for school. I left the others sleeping and lumbered up the slope toward the house, hoping Larry would still be asleep and I could get dressed and eat breakfast without running into him. I made it through my shower and got dressed and was halfway through making breakfast when Larry shuffled into the kitchen. He squinted in the light and, catching me standing over the stove, paused. He scratched his head, then shuffled forward again, over to where I stood.

"Smells good. What you making?" he asked.

I thought about saying,
What does it look like, stupid?
but I changed my mind and said, "My grandmother's pancakes. I know I used some of your buckwheat flour, but that's the only flour we've got."

Larry dug a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket and nodded. "We don't have any syrup," he said, lighting up the cigarette and shuffling to the table and sitting down.

"I know. I made some sauce with a couple of your oranges and your cinnamon and—"

"Okay, cool it with the
my
oranges stuff. We were just fooling around. You have a right to the kitchen if you want it."

I didn't say anything. I flipped my pancake, one large one
that filled the skillet, just the way Grandma Mary's always did. It looked a lot darker than hers, from the buckwheat flour, but it smelled the same. I lifted it out of the pan and put it on a plate. Then, feeling a mixture of excitement and embarrassment, I took it over to Larry and set it down in front of him.

He looked up at me and I said, "It might not be so good made out of buckwheat. Try it and see what you think."

I grabbed the sauce I'd made off the counter and handed it to Larry. He stubbed his cigarette out in a coffee mug left over from some other day and pulled his chair up closer to the table. "Thanks," he said.

I handed him a fork and knife and he cut a slice and ate it While he chewed he nodded. "Excellent," he finally said, cutting another piece. "Excellent."

"Want coffee or what?" I asked. "I've boiled some water."

He glanced up at me, then back down at the pancake. "Well, normally I have herb tea, but since I'm eating this, why not go whole hog—sure, hit me with some coffee."

I went back to the stove and ladled some pancake batter into the skillet for myself. Then I fixed Larry's coffee, smiling to myself. Maybe I could share this with the others. Maybe I could cook up more of Grandma Mary's recipes.

I sat down with my own pancake, and while I poured on the sauce Larry said, "Sorry about yesterday. That was stupid."

I shrugged. "What are you going to do with that table?" I asked. "Sell it?"

"Nah." He took a sip of his coffee and poked in his pack for another cigarette. "I thought I might, I don't know, give it to my family."

Larry's face got red. He shook his head so that his hair fell into his face. He lit his cigarette, took a drag, and closed his eyes. "Wonder what they're all up to these days."

"Why don't you go find out? Why don't you take them the table as a ... as an Easter gift? Easter's coming up soon."

"Yeah, I could do that," Larry said, but his voice sounded uncertain.

I took a bite of my pancake. Even buckwheat couldn't destroy Grandma Mary's recipe. "I'll go with you," I offered, hoping I'd be in just as generous a mood when the time came. "I could visit your brother," I added.

Larry nodded. "Okay, we'll see. Thanks." He turned to me and gave me a light punch on the arm. "It's complicated, but we'll see."