Out of the Box (2 page)

“Nope, no choice,” Jeanette says now, pulling on strappy sandals that lace halfway up her calf. I try to picture Mom wearing something like that, but she'd say they're too young for her, although she's eleven years younger than Jeanette. It's hard to believe Mom and Jeanette are sisters. Even though they are both small and blond, Jeanette is fit and strong, while Mom just looks thin and tired. They both have curly hair, but Mom wears hers short and straightened, while Jeanette either lets her curls billow behind her or gathers them all up into a messy bun, fastened with chopsticks from Chinatown. They could never share clothes.

My aunt grabs a red bandanna from a shelf and ties it on me like a headband. “There's no dress code, but the more folksy, the better, no?” She hesitates, her hand on the doorknob. “You can borrow a skirt or a scarf too, if you want. And I've got some big clip-on hoop earrings.”

“Nah, that's okay.” I'm willing to try new things this summer, but I draw the line at wearing a full-on costume to the park.

“Suit yourself.” She opens the door, and I step outside and take a breath of cool, salty ocean air.

Jeanette lives on a dead-end street with a tiny park at one end and Beacon Hill Park at the other. Her garden is a riot of blossoms; roses climb up the front of the house and peonies as big as my head crowd the path. I'm so busy looking at the flowers that at first I don't notice the girl sitting on the steps of the house next door.

“Hey, Sarah,” Jeanette says to her. “It's folk-dancing night. Want to come?”

I cringe. I should have warned my aunt that no other teenager on the planet would be caught dancing with a bunch of crazy adults in a park, but how was I supposed to know that this girl would be sitting outside tonight?

I was excited when Jeanette told me a girl my age had moved in next door. I'd imagined us becoming friends, but one look at her tells me we'll never find anything to say to each other. Especially now that she thinks I'm some sort of folk-dancing enthusiast.

Sarah's obviously not the folk-dancing type. For one thing, she has what I can tell is an expensive haircut. Wisps of black hair frame her face, and her green tank top hugs her in all the places I cover with baggy T-shirts. What gets me most is the huge sunglasses. She looks like a model.

My silly bandanna feels hot and itchy on my head. I prepare myself for her scowl. I'm ready to glare back, link arms with my aunt and sweep us away from rejection.

But Sarah is grinning. She jumps up and grabs the door handle. “I'm there! Just let me tell my dad. Back in a flash.”

I raise my eyebrows.

Jeanette only says, “She hasn't missed a single Thursday since they moved here last month.”

“Bye!” Sarah calls over her shoulder as she slams out of the house. I've already got goose bumps from the ocean breeze, and she's pulled on a black sweater flecked with silver. I consider running back to get something warmer, but don't want to draw attention to myself. I'll warm up as I dance anyway.

We hurry along the street, past old houses with lush gardens and a fancy new place whose entire front yard is paved over with beige bricks. The rich scent of the park reaches my nose, and I smile. It smells like warm earth and happy plants.

Beacon Hill Park is my favorite place in the whole world. I love the creek by my school too, but this park goes for blocks and blocks, with flower gardens, fields, a hill that sweeps down toward the ocean, and even a petting zoo. We cross a little bridge over a brook, and a peacock's cry slices the evening air. The first time I heard that sound, years ago, I thought someone was being attacked. I'm used to it now. The peacocks are always jumping the fence in the petting zoo and rambling around the park. You can hear them for miles.

“Sounds like George is on the prowl again,” Sarah says as we cross the little stone bridge.

“George?” I ask.

“The peacock. He's the one that makes the most racket.

The others try, of course, but there's no comparison.”

Before I can ask how model-girl knows all this, Jeanette answers my question. “Sarah volunteers at the petting zoo. She's on a first-name basis with all the animals.”

I snort, unable to picture her surrounded by smelly goats or mucking out a pigsty. Sarah catches my smirk before I can wipe it off my face.

“It was my parents' idea,” she says. “When we moved here, there was only a month of school left. There wasn't much point going for just a few weeks, so I became a petting-zoo volunteer instead. I like it, actually.”

“Cool,” I say. I mean it. My parents would never let me miss a
day
of school, never mind a whole month.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “but it's not gonna make September any easier. I hate starting all over again.”

“You've done it before?” I ask. I never have. Mom moved around a lot when she was little, and she's always made a big thing of staying in one spot while I grow up.

“Seven times,” Sarah says. “My dad's a professor. He's always getting jobs at different universities.”

Seven?
“How old are you?” I ask.

“Thirteen,” she says as we come to a clearing in the trees. A handful of adults has already gathered, and their get-ups make my aunt's outfit look almost conservative. I'm suddenly thankful that Sarah is here, making me stand out less. “I hate it,” she says. “Moving, I mean. I'm glad
you're
here for the summer though. At least I'll have someone my own age to hang out with.”

The look in her eyes reminds me of kindergarten, when kids ask each other,
Will you be my friend?
It's funny how, at some point, we know we're not supposed to ask that question directly. And it's funny that this girl, who looks like she would be instantly popular at school, is giving me that hopeful look now. I'm not someone that other kids flock to. I don't really see very many kids outside of school, and I never know what to talk about, yet Sarah's looking at me like she'll be disappointed if I don't want to be her friend. “Jeanette's told me all about you,” she says. “Did you bring your violin?”

I flinch. I'm not surprised my aunt has told Sarah about me, but did she
have
to mention the violin? It's one of those instruments that isn't very cool, unless you're some sort of child prodigy, which I'm definitely not. “I left it at home,” I say. “I'm taking a few months off from practicing.”

“Too bad,” Sarah says, brushing her perfect hair from her forehead. “I was hoping we could get a duet going.

Did Jeanette tell you I play the piano? Jazz mostly, but I'm sure we could work out some kind of violin-piano duet. My uncle has a fiddle you could borrow.”

“Cool,” I say. I'm trying hard not to gush too much, in case she changes her mind about me, but I can already feel myself hoping we'll be friends. Sarah looks like she lives in a magazine, but anyone who spends her days feeding donkeys and her spare time playing jazz piano would be fun to hang out with.

I smile, and she grins back.

A blast of saxophone and fiddle music makes me jump. One of the full-skirted, hoop-earringed women is herding the others into a circle. Sarah grabs my hand and pulls me into the ring, and soon we're galloping around, bellowing the words to
Hava Nagila
and laughing with all the others.

T
HREE

“S
arah's fantastic!”
The night after Israeli dancing, Jeanette's sitting in the rocking chair on the back porch, staring off into the garden. I've just come back from Sarah's, and I plunk down in the deck chair next to my aunt. “She plays like a professional, and she's got an entire shelf full of sheet music. None of it's classical. All jazz and blues and honky-tonk. I wish Alison could have met her.”

Alison loved music. She listened to stuff from all over the world, and I wouldn't know half as much about music if it hadn't been for her. Last summer she discovered the accordion. She immediately went out and got twenty
CD
s of accordion music, and when she played them for me, she acted like a kid who had just won first prize at a talent show. She even took Jeanette and me to a tango festival, where dancers and musicians talked about the instruments. I didn't expect to be interested, but I loved it all, and I learned that tango isn't just background music for a certain kind of dance. It's a whole kind of music on its own, and you don't need dancers to enjoy it. I've been listening to tango ever since.

Sarah's the only other person I've met who gets that excited about music. Tonight she told me all about Billie Holiday and Fats Waller, and I told her about two of my tango heroes: Ástor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel. “She's going to lend me a bunch of
CD
s,” I tell Jeanette. “I can hardly wait!”

Jeanette smiles and nods, but she doesn't say anything. I suddenly wonder if I interrupted something, if she came out here to be alone. “How was your afternoon?” I ask.

“Good,” she says. “I did a bit of weeding, made a few phone calls, and then came out here to sit for a bit. I was missing Alison.”

I wince, wishing I hadn't barged in and started talking, especially about the music Alison adored. I've been missing Alison too, but how can my grief possibly compare to Jeanette's? I've been thinking about Alison ever since I got here, but until now, I haven't mentioned her unless Jeanette does first. I don't want to make my aunt feel worse than she already does. This time, though, I got so excited about the music that I slipped. I place my hand on Jeanette's. “You must miss her a lot,” I say, then kick myself for being so obvious and unhelpful. According to Mom, I'm here to support my aunt this summer. Fat lot of good I'm doing her so far.

She doesn't look at me like I'm an idiot though. In fact, she doesn't look at me at all; she just wraps her hand around mine and gazes out into the garden. There are no tears in her eyes, and her voice doesn't catch in her throat when she speaks. “It's when I do our favorite things—picking raspberries or walking by the ocean or sitting here—that I miss her most, but that's when I feel closest to her too. Funny, isn't it?”

I squeeze her hand, and we sit like that for the longest time.

Alison's death was kind of sudden. Not like car accident sudden, but she died within a few months of her diagnosis. I'd always thought leukemia was a thing that kids got, not adults, but Alison was fifty-five, the same age as Jeanette, and she'd seemed healthier than most adults I know. She and my aunt were always kayaking around the Gulf Islands, or cycling through the Rockies, or climbing some mountain or other. Last summer, I got to go with them on a couple of their trips. Alison had seemed the same as ever. It wasn't until October that she started getting sick. By January, she was gone.

The funeral was huge, and Jeanette cried more than anyone I've ever seen, even more than Mom on one of her bad days. But when we got back to the house afterward, Jeanette dried her tears and started telling her favorite Alison stories. Funny things that had happened while traveling or in the years they'd lived together. Pretty soon she was laughing again.

Mom stayed with her for a week after the funeral, and they've talked on the phone two or three times a week ever since. Mom used to take the calls in our kitchen, but lately she's taken the phone up to her home office. When she told me Jeanette wanted me to stay for the whole summer, and that she and Dad thought it would be a good idea, I was stunned. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but I'm certainly not complaining.

“I'm happy you're here,” Jeanette says, breaking our long silence on the porch.

“Me too,” I say. “I love spending time with you.”

It starts getting chilly, and we go inside. She makes some of that instant hot chocolate with the shriveled little marshmallows in it, and I drink it all, pretending it isn't too sweet. Alison used to make it from scratch, thick and rich with cream and melted chocolate, but of course I'd never mention that to Jeanette. Her cooking—which is terrible—is the only thing she has no sense of humor about.

As we sip, we chat about stuff we could do this summer. She grins like a kid, grabs pen and paper, and makes a list for the fridge: canoeing on Thetis Lake, kayaking along the Gorge, cycling to Matticks Farm for ice cream. Jeanette is a big believer in lists. She has lists all over the house, for everything from groceries to home renovations to books she'd like to read. Alison used to tease her about her lists. She said they took all the spontaneity out of life, but Jeanette says they do just the opposite: they help keep her focused on what's most important to her. Sure enough, by the time we go to bed, she seems as excited about life as ever.