She was furious now too, and now my aunt was coming over to break this up.
“When Eddie comes back from the Philippines,” Jane said, picking up her tiny dog and stowing it under one arm, “he told me we’re going to find our own place at the lake this summer.”
“What?”
“So when he moves out, you’re welcome to make up with your father and move back in. Life is short. Stop being so angry.”
“Not a chance,” I said, feeling hot all over and more alive than I’d been in months. Were my eyes welling up with angry tears? I didn’t care. Let her see me cry. “He’s made a wreck of my life, and I will lay waste to anything that brings him joy. You tell him that.”
“I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, Fen,” she said in a small voice.
“And I’m glad you’re not dead, Jane Marlow. But if you’re with Eddie, then you’re my enemy now. You’ve haunted me for far too long, but I will not allow any of this shit to defeat me anymore!”
Any pity she may have been feeling was now erased by confusion. It was all over her face and in the rigid lines of her body. I had that effect on people.
“What do you mean by I’m your enemy now?” she asked.
“I mean in a metaphoric, poetic sense.”
“I don’t know you,” she said, just as upset as I was. “What kind of person says this stuff to a stranger?”
“You aren’t a stranger. But maybe you should ask yourself what kind of personyouare to not know that the person you’re dating might be lying to you?”
That struck a nerve. I’d gone too far and immediately regretted it, but I was afraid to admit it. She was riled up, fuming. She backed away from the display case, protecting the barking dog from me. “You are unbelievably screwed up, you know that?”
“Hell yes, I am,” I agreed. “No one’s more dangerous than the person who thinks he’s pure of heart.”
“Now you’re quoting James Baldwin to me?”
“I…” She wasn’t supposed to know that. It threw me off that she did, but I shut it out and refocused. “I’m saying IknowI’m not, Jane. My heart is impure, and my mind is screwed up. But I think if you search your memories, you’ll remember why. Because you may have forgotten me, but I’ve never forgotten you.”
She bumped into a man behind her. And before Aunt Pari could make it over to us and play referee, Jane jogged through the shop and out the door.
Not exactly the reunion I’d pictured in my mind.
Track [6] “Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying”/Belle and Sebastian
Jane
Early-summer sun warmed my faceas I exited the beauty salon with Velvet’s shampoo, delicately nested in tissue at the bottom of a bag that dangled from one arm. My head was a tangle of credit card receipts—so Norma didn’t chew me out back at the lodge—and worry over trying to meet up with my dad on time, and why Frida was being whiny, and—
FEN FUCKING SARAFIAN.
I remembered him. Of course I did. Now that I could put together the image of the wild-haired hothead in the record shop with the memory I had of him from past summers at the lake. The geeky boy who was all sandy-brown arms and legs and a beak-like nose that was a little too big for his face.
Fen hung back when Eddie stepped forward. Was quiet when Eddie spoke up. He was my age. The last time I spent any time with him, when I was fifteen, we talked about music.
He said he was at the dam that night.
My horror night.
I couldn’t remember his face there. Then again, I couldn’tremember much of anything at all from the dam. If I tried, I could still feel myself falling off the railing. The terror. And a moment where I gave in to it because I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. Yes, I remembered that. Then nothing. Not until the next day, when I was in the hospital, long gone from the lake.
But that wasn’t entirely true. Therewasthe tiniest, tiniest image tumbling around in my head of that night. Fractions of images that I couldn’t piece together.
Maybe my brain didn’t want me to.
Regardless, it didn’t matter now. I was getting upset over nothing. So I’d seen Fen. So what? Eddie had warned me that his little brother was an ass. I wished I could tell Eddie that I’d met Fen. In fact, I’d started to text Eddie several times in the hair salon but stopped myself. He’d landed in the Philippines already, but he said he’d be “off the map” for a couple days while he traveled to a remote island. So I didn’t want to bombard him with texts about his black-sheep brother that would be waiting for him for days.
