Tell the Wolves I'm Home (11 page)

Beans and her mom picked me up for the mall right after lunch. I told Beans I didn't mind sitting up front with her mom. I didn't want to end up squashed in the backseat between a bunch of girls I hardly knew. When we got to the mall, I told Beans I'd meet her back at the food court later. I lied and said I had to pick something up from Sears for my dad. What I really did was go straight down to the basement level to the movie theater, so I could go see the movie
Amadeus
by myself. I go to the movies whenever I get the chance, because the movie theater is like the woods. It's another place that's like a time machine. Beans didn't seem to care.

“Do whatever you want,” she said. “I know you only came because your mom made you.”

“No … I …”

“It's okay. I get it. Just meet us at the food court at three.”

Amadeus
is one of the best movies ever. Finn liked it as much as I did, but he said that they messed up the whole
Requiem
story. Nobody thinks Salieri commissioned the
Requiem
and poisoned Mozart. Still, if Finn was around, we probably would have gone to see it together again that afternoon. Just for the music and to drop into another time and because we were both suckers for movies with tragic endings.

My mother came home right after I got back from the mall. Just in time to cook dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread. The main topic of dinner conversation was who might have submitted the portrait to the
Times
. Every time Toby's name came up, I leaned in closer, eager for any new information. In the end we all pretty much agreed that it must have been Toby. My mother didn't say anything. She still didn't want to talk about the article, or Toby, but she seemed to have given up on stopping us from talking about it.

“It could have been Mr. Trusky,” I said. “He had it overnight.”

“No way,” Greta said. “Why would Mr. Trusky bother with something like that?”

“Maybe he just likes art. Maybe he wants to make sure everyone has a chance to see Finn's work.”

“Yeah, right.”

I shrugged, but I knew Greta was probably right. Toby was the only one it could have been. Because of the title. None of us had any idea the painting was called “Tell the Wolves I'm Home.” Only Toby might have known something like that.

“What does that even mean? ‘Tell the Wolves I'm Home'?” Greta asked.

No one said anything, because none of us had any idea. It was just one more mystery Finn had left us with. One more thing I couldn't call and ask.

Seventeen

I went to the library after school the next day, which turned out not to be the best idea. I thought I would find the article and make a photocopy of it for myself. Then I would go to the woods to read it, maybe twice, maybe a hundred times, maybe more. What I didn't know was that the copier on the library floor was broken and I'd have to ask someone behind the desk to copy it. If I'd taken it to the upstairs librarian, who didn't know me, it probably would have been fine, but I was stupid enough to go downstairs to the children's section. I still loved the children's section, with all its bright colors and books that are real stories. But it was stupid because the children's librarian is Mrs. Lester, who's known me since I was about five, and as soon as she saw the article her face lit up.

“Oooh, Junie. This is a lovely painting of the two of you.”

I nodded.

“You both look so … grown up. So wise.”

I nodded again.

“And beautiful. Pretty as, well, as a picture.” Mrs. Lester giggled. “We've got the big copier down here now. I can get most of this page all on one sheet of paper.”

“Great,” I said. I must have looked anxious, because Mrs. Lester scuttled off behind the counter double quick. When she came back out, she was holding two copies of the article.

“Oh, I only need one.”

“I know, hon', but we need one for the board.”

“The board?”

“The display board. You and Greta are famous. You're a work of art.

It's nice to have a little bit of local celebrity around here. If you've got it—”

“No. Really, no. We—neither of us likes a lot of attention.”

“I insist. June, you've been discovered. Don't hide your light and all that.”

I knew that the only way to prevent Mrs. Lester from hanging up the article would be to tell her that the painting was by my uncle Finn who had just died of AIDS and that my whole family was a little bit touchy about the subject. Hearing the word
AIDS
would probably be enough for Mrs. Lester, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't stand there and pretend to be embarrassed about Finn.

I took my copy, folding it so the picture was on the inside, and went back upstairs, into the browns and grays of the main library. I walked to the display board to see if there might be a way to pull the article down once she'd put it up. When nobody was looking. But it was impossible. All the notices were behind a locked glass sliding door.

I took the copy of the article into the woods. I folded it small so it fit in my coat pocket, and I walked until I could hear the wolves. There wasn't much more about Finn, just this:

I guess that should have been a big deal to me, that the painting was worth a fortune, but it wasn't. We'd never sell it, so it didn't really matter. What did catch my eye was that there were no buttons. In the paper my T-shirt was plain, just a plain black T-shirt with no buttons at all.

When I got home, the portrait wasn't hanging over the mantel anymore. My parents had put the painting back in a black garbage bag and driven it down to the Bank of New York and got them to put it in a vault somewhere in the basement of the bank. I thought of our faces, mine and Greta's, staring out into that dark vault. And I thought that at least I wasn't alone in there. Even being with Greta was better than being alone in such a dark dark place.

Eighteen

My parents specialize in doing the books for restaurants. That's why the Elbus family gets free meals in places all over Westchester. We get a table even when there's a line to get in. I guess that should make me feel like someone famous, but actually it has the opposite effect. It's obvious that we're regular people, so it just looks like we're jerks who are cutting in front of everyone else. Even Greta thinks it's embarrassing. And my father. It's only my mother who likes that little bit of celebrity once in a while.

Between the funeral and tax season and Greta's rehearsals, we'd missed my father's birthday dinner completely. Almost a month had gone by since his birthday. My mother finally put her foot down and said she didn't care that it was a Tuesday in the middle of tax season. We'd put his birthday dinner off long enough and that was that.

He chose Gasho of Japan, which was perfect because my parents don't do its books and also because, if you're in the right mood, Gasho is a very cool restaurant. The person who started it took apart a whole sixteenth-century farmhouse in Japan, brought all the pieces to America, and rebuilt them and turned the place into a restaurant. The chefs cook on hot grills that are right in the middle of the tables, and in the back there's a Japanese garden with a stream and arched bridges and benches that nestle in peaceful little corners.

If you're in the right mood, it's a good place to go. But nobody was really in the right mood.

The thing was, Finn always came out to dinner with us on our birthdays. Always. Sometimes we would go into the city and Finn would arrange it. Other times he would come up here. This was the first birthday he wouldn't be there. My mother tried to suggest that we ask the Ingrams instead, but nobody thought that was a good idea. Not even Greta.

“Lookin' good, girls,” my dad said as we climbed into the van. Greta and I glanced at each other for a second, then we both rolled our eyes.

Greta sat in the row of seats in front of me, in a pair of pinstripe jeans with holes in the knees. I wore a black skirt and a giant sweater. I didn't wear my boots from Finn. I couldn't bear to wear those boots that night.

The drive to Gasho was quiet except for the sound of my father's
Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits
cassette. All my parents' music came from greatest hits albums. It was like the thought of getting even one bum track was too much for them to handle. As we drove down the highway, I thought of all the other birthdays we'd celebrated. My dad's thirty-fifth, in that dark Moroccan place Finn knew in the Village. Greta's tenth where we got Il Vecchio to write
Happy Birthday, Greta
in peppers on top of all the pizzas. My twelfth, when Finn reserved a dining room in an old hotel and made us all play these Victorian parlor games he'd read about. He showed up in a top hat and tails and spoke in an English accent the whole time. By the end of the night we were all talking like that. Even Greta. It was all “pardon” and “would you mind terribly much” and “swimmingly” and finding excuses to call each other cads and bounders.

Then there was my mother's fortieth, with me sitting next to Finn at this fancy restaurant that had a jazz piano player in one corner and candles in these thick square glass candleholders on the tables. I was ten and Greta was twelve, and I watched the candlelight flickering against my mother's cheek as she peeled back the wrapping paper from Finn's present. That was something about a present from Finn. You always kept the wrapping paper because it was always more beautiful than any you'd ever seen. That particular wrapping paper was a deep dark red that looked like it was made of real velvet. My mother opened it slowly, careful not to tear the paper, and then, when she had one side open, she gently slid out a black sketchbook.

That sketchbook ended up on a bookshelf in Greta's room. Inside, Finn had written a little note that said,
You know you want to
 … next to a tiny pen sketch of my mother with a pencil in her hand. What was amazing was that even though the sketch was only half an inch high, you could tell instantly that it was my mother. That's how good Finn was.

That night everyone else was talking. My dad was having a quiet argument with Greta because she didn't want to put her napkin on her lap. The whole time, Finn sat next to me, folding and twisting his napkin until all at once he lifted it out from under the table and we saw that he'd folded it into a butterfly. We watched as he flew it over to Greta and said, “Here, I have somebody who needs a lap to rest on.” Greta giggled and took the butterfly from Finn's hand and put it straight on her lap, and my dad looked over at Finn and gave him a smile. I remember thinking that I wanted a butterfly napkin too. I wanted Finn to fold something for me. I was about to ask him, but when I turned I saw that he was staring across the table at my mother. She had the sketchbook open to the inside cover and she was gazing down at that little drawing of herself. After a while she looked up at Finn. She lifted her head slowly, and she didn't smile or say thank you like you normally would if somebody gave you a present. No. She just sat there, giving him a kind of sad, hard look then shook her head at him, her lips pressed together tight. Then she slid the book back into the wrapping paper and shoved it under the table. That's one of those snapshot moments. I don't know why some memories are like that, where everything is perfectly preserved. Frozen. But that memory—Finn's eyes locked on my mother's, my mother slowly shaking her head—is exactly like that.