Believe (12 page)

TWENTY-TWO

The second she saw me, Lo jumped up out of her chair. “Are you okay? Do you have any questions?”

“No. I don't.” I motioned to the TV. Roxanne Wheeler was sitting in the pretty blue-and-green studio of the Philadelphia news team from the ABC affiliate. “Turn up the sound.”

She and the weatherman were talking about her upcoming special report in honor of Easter and Passover (and I guess all the other springtime religious holidays). She called it “The Power of Faith.” She was sure the viewing audience would love it.

In that report, she was going to look at how faith has entered every corner of our world. Religion and faith in God had become a part of sports. At every awards ceremony, from the Grammies to the Oscars to the People's Choice, winners always thanked their Savior. I stared at her as she talked about how she knew she had to do this story after hearing that Dave Armstrong would be speaking in her hometown, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She talked about meeting him outside the home of Janine Collins, whom, of course, everyone remembered was the Soul Survivor, blah, blah, blah. She said, “I promise you. When you hear what these people have to say, you will change the way you think about prayer.”

I turned the TV off, flung the remote across the room. Lo wanted to comfort me, but I pushed her away. “You could have just burned it.”

I didn't want her to tell me it was going to be okay—that soon I was going to be fine. Because I wasn't. I would never accept this. Or understand it. “Why did you save it? Do you hate me that much?”

“Of course I don't.” She rambled a bit about my mother's intentions, some conversation that she had with my parents at the Dead Sea right before they died. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I couldn't destroy it. She
was
my sister. I didn't save it to hurt you.”

“Well, you did. You all did.” I walked out the door.

The sun was still up, but the air had begun to feel like night. It was cooler. At times, the wind gusted. I swung my arms and took very large steps, and waited to warm up. When my cell phone rang two, three, four times, I ignored it, kept moving.

There was nothing Lo could say.

I couldn't believe that for ten years, she hid this from me. She let me believe in a fantasy—a happy family—a mother who loved me. But that was a lie. My mother wanted to leave us. She didn't want to change the world as much as she wanted to be the person who told everyone else that the world was changing. She was no different and no better than Dave or Roxanne Wheeler or any of the other reporters who've plagued me over the years.

M and J will have to understand.

She was everything I hate.

I walked faster, down the main streets. The only thing still open was the coffee shop/used bookstore—the one Lo liked. On the door was a sign. It said DREAM in swirly blue letters with sparkles and stars. In smaller letters: Love. Peace. Hope. In smaller letters: If you can picture it, it can come true.

At least it was warm inside. I had enough money to get something to drink.

But the cappuccino machine had its own sign: out of order. The store was practically empty. A guy with a way-too-long beard sat on a table, talking to a woman wearing about fifty bangle bracelets. She looked old enough to be the guy's grandmother. “Can I help you?” she asked.

I turned away. Reflex. Even though I would bet a million dollars that she was the yoga lady. “I'm just looking,” I said.

I scanned the shelves. Literature. Travel. History. Politics. I picked up an extremely fat book about Lyndon B. Johnson—which I had no interest in, but I felt like I had to look at something—when I saw a familiar girl standing underneath the word HEALTH.

It was Emma.

She didn't see me.

I watched her read. She turned the pages fast—with enthusiasm. A few times, she smiled and jotted something down in a notebook. But she didn't buy it. She put the book down, said thank you, and walked out the door.

I couldn't stop myself—I wanted to see what she was reading. I walked over to the table where she had been sitting. There was only one discarded book. It was fat and technical looking. I picked it up:
Current Medical Practice and Diagnosis.

That was too funny. Little Miss Faith Healer was reading a book about medicine. Which meant she was sham. And a fraud. If she was reading a book like that, there was no way she believed any of that crap about trust and God and healing.

I wondered if Dave knew. Did he suspect that she didn't buy his “Pray for a cure” philosophy, or was he a fraud, too? His whole mission—maybe it was all an act. Maybe none of them believed a word they stood for.

It meant that she didn't believe in me. It was all a joke. I was a joke.

Not for long.

I bought the book. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. I knew it was mean, but I couldn't wait to show this to Abe, to tell him that this is what Emma had been reading. His hero was a hypocrite. I couldn't wait to expose her. She wasn't going to make a fool out of me.

I walked faster, down the road, toward home. I passed the school and, of course, the farm. When I got there, I tried to see what Miriam saw.

I stepped over the drooping warning tape. I walked across the soft, tilled plots. Little signs with pictures of carrots and beets lay strewn on the ground. Twine that once divided land was now a scramble.

I stopped at the tree.

The trunk was huge. I had to tip my head back to see the place where the lightning hit it. From here, it looked clean and white. Maybe Samantha and Miriam would get what they wanted. It didn't look like the tree was going to fall down by itself.

It looked strong. But what did I know? It was also alone. There was nothing big enough to help stabilize it.

I sat with my back against the trunk and paged through the book, wondering what disease she had been studying. Then I called Dan. Even though I hated to admit being wrong, I knew I'd acted like a jerk. I needed to make it up to him. When his phone went straight to voicemail, I tried his home phone, too, but his mom said he was out. “Try his cell,” she said. When I told her I already had, she said, “Funny. I guess I thought he was with you.”

Next, I tried Miriam. This time, she picked up on the first ring. “Janine! It's you! I'm so glad you called back.” I could tell she was flying high on the power of grassroots organization.

I sighed with relief. She wasn't mad. “Oh my God,” she said, “the meeting was amazing. A ton of people showed up. Not just kids either. I am so excited.”

I said, “That's so great. I should have been there.”

She told me not to worry at all. She knew I was thinking about her. I could hear Samantha talking to her in the background. She yelled, “We missed you,” but I was sure she really only missed the people she thought I could bring.

I told Miriam everything: how I fought with Dan, touched a guy in a wheelchair, and that I read the Book of Death.

That got her attention. She had never understood why I wouldn't read it. “What did it say?”

“My parents were splitting up.”

“Oh.” She said she was sorry, that that must have been a hard thing to read, but before I could tell her more, she changed the subject to Roxanne and Dave. “I can't believe they were at your house. Did you tell them …”

“No. Are you serious? I stood my ground and said no comment. Talk to your friend Abe, though. He and his mom left my house to meet her.” I hated that after all the years we've been friends, she still didn't realize how hard this was for me.

I must have been on speaker, because I could hear Samantha groan. “Listen,” she said, her voice getting louder, “we were thinking … if you call Roxanne and tell her to meet you tomorrow … or maybe even the next day … we'll have plenty of time to set up everything.” She sounded confident, like this plan was a done deal.

(Like we were friends.)

I said nothing.

She kept talking. “Miriam told me you don't like attention, but this really isn't about you.” She begged me to help—which just made me feel more stubborn. “If you did us this favor, we would be so grateful. We would owe you big time.”

I wasn't an expert, but for being hit by lightning, this tree still seemed pretty stable. The trunk looked sturdy. It was only missing one big branch. I said, “This tree can live without one branch. I think it's going to be fine. You won't need me.”

Miriam came back to the phone. She said, “Please Janine. Just tell her about us. See if she'll write one story. That's all we need.”

We went back and forth. Between “please” and dead air. Between “I can't risk it,” and “Just this once. Use your fame for something good.”

She was not going to let me say no. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

Miriam yelled, “She'll do it!” She said “thank you” about twelve times. “This means so much to me.” She held the “so” just the way she did when we were young.

I pictured her sitting on my bed. I could hear her voice.

“He is sooooooooo cute.”

“That game was sooooooo unfair.”

For a moment, I was sort of happy. Excited. “What are you doing? Maybe should we all go out? Get a smoothie?”

She wished we could, but “We have to get ready.” She squealed again. “This is so amazing.”

That was three amazings. Two giggles. And one ugly truth: The only reason I was doing this was because I was jealous. I was jealous they were laughing. I was jealous they were becoming friends. I was so jealous I'd do what they wanted me to do, even if it was against everything I stood for.

TWENTY-THREE

When I woke up the next morning, Lo sat on the edge of my bed. She held the hamsa in her open palm. “I would really like you to put it back on.”

I jumped out of bed and tripped over
Current Medical Diagnosis
. “Did I oversleep? Is there a crowd outside?” I stood at the window seat and made sure no one was outside waiting for me.

My room was bright. Lo had removed the shade screen from the skylight. I smelled coffee. Next to my sewing machine sat my favorite mug.

“No. Not yet.” She paused. “I just wanted to … I don't know … I wanted to offer a truce. And talk.”

When I told her that I didn't want to talk about the Book or wear the hamsa or forgive my dead mother, she lightened her voice. “Well, we at least need to discuss our schedule for next week.” When I didn't look excited, she said, “Your college tour. Am I missing something?”

(Last night, she and Sharon probably took bets about whether I'd made appointments with schools. They probably determined that a week of tours and brochures and shopping would be the antidote to all this attention.)

“I don't want to go until I have a portfolio in hand.” When Lo looked confused, I told her the bad news. “Ms. Browning wants me to go back to the drawing board.” I got back into bed and faced the wall. “She says my work looks inauthentic.”

Lo tried to hug me. “Did she really say
inauthentic
? I think your work is great. Maybe she's not as smart as you think she is.” She got up from the bed and picked up the half-finished dress. “This is gorgeous. I say let's throw caution to the wind and see if we can't crash their open houses.”

Ms. Browning was opinionated for a reason. She was not the enemy. Dave was. My mother was. Lo didn't know that FIT and Parsons don't make last-minute appointments.

Looking at the dress, I got it. Nothing I made was original. Even this dress—I was pretty sure I could find a Vogue pattern for something just like it in five minutes. It didn't look anything like me. Anyone could have made it. “She thinks I should plan to wait until this summer. Or fall.” I looked away. “And I agree.” This dress was supposed to be a tribute, but now that was the last thing I wanted to make. “It doesn't matter anyway, because I'm not going to finish it.”

Lo picked some lint off her skirt—a too-long, overpleated number that I'd begged her to donate to Goodwill at least a hundred times. She walked across the room, folded two shirts, and lined up the three bottles of perfume. Then she shook out the dress-in-progress and laid it across the bottom of my bed. “Just tell me you're not giving up because you're feeling sorry for yourself. Or trying to hurt me. Because that won't get you anywhere. You'll only hurt yourself.”

“It's just a dress.”

Lo looked irritated. “I want to talk about your mother.”

“Well, I don't.”

She didn't defend herself. She didn't beg for my forgiveness. She didn't even bother pretending that all this talking about process was anything more than an icebreaker. “Janine, look at me.”

I looked at my basket of remnants, my bookcase, and the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of my bed.

“Janine?”

I looked at some dried flowers, still hanging upside down, next to the skylight.

She stood over me and waited for me to look at her. Then she actually compared what I was going through to a really hard yoga pose that it took her two years to accomplish. “You have to dig in your heels and …”

“This is not about effort.” I tried very hard not to freak out or laugh. “Yesterday, I wanted to read the Book because this dress was going to be a tribute to my mom. I wanted to feel close to her.” It was so ironic. “I thought her last words would inspire me.”

“I wish you had told me.” Lo put the hamsa on my bedside table, sat back down, and took each of my hands, one at a time, into hers. She pressed into the scars, and when they felt a little warmer, she pulled on each of my fingers, one at a time. She loosened each joint without cracking them, so that if I held them very still, there was no pain whatsoever.

I didn't move. I imagined normal, ordinary, scar-free hands. No reporters. No Book of Death. Living, breathing parents.

This wasn't Lo's fault. I knew it. Still, I had to blame someone, and she was the only one here. I said, “I can't help thinking you wanted to hurt me. That maybe you even resented that you got stuck raising me.” I said what I'd never been willing to say out loud before. “That this wasn't your choice either.”

Lo brought my hands to her lips. “You know that that is not true or fair. I have always been honest with you. I wanted this life. At the time, I almost felt guilty—I wanted it so bad.”

“So you could get away from your parents?”

She sighed, like this was a conversation she never wanted to have. “So I could get away from everything. Including my parents.” Lo stroked my hair. “Maybe I was wrong to keep the Book, but I thought it was important that you have the chance to read your mother's last written words. I knew it would hurt, but I trusted you wouldn't ask for it until you were ready.”

That made no sense. “Trusted what?”

She scratched her head. “Fate? Destiny? I'm sorry your mother wasn't a perfect person. I'm sorry she wrote those hurtful things. But she was also a hero. A champion. She had a mission, and you can't resent her for that.” She took the Book from me and put on her “I'm here for you” smile. “Over break, let's go somewhere fun, eat some good food. Shop till we drop. In not too long, you'll be gone—off to school. We should seize the moment. Have a little adventure.”

Frankly, I was tired of excitement. “I just want to forget everything about her. I never want to think about her again.”

Lo's lips turned flat. Her skin drained of color. She got up and walked to my stairs. In a flat tone she said, “Go get ready for school. I'm happy to talk, but don't ever say that to me again. Your mother was my sister. She loved you, and I loved her. Now she's dead, and we won't get anywhere trashing her memory.”

When I went downstairs, she was gone.