The Voice on the Radio (8 page)

“What did you do during my last two classes, Reeve?”

“Found the yearbook adviser. Told her she can’t allow a milk carton page. She promised. It’s not gonna happen.”

Last year Janie would have wept all over him. This year she burst into laughter. “Oh, Reeve, you make everything so simple! I can’t stand it that you’re a million miles away.”

“It’s not even two hundred miles.”

“Light-years, then.”

They skipped lunch.

They found the far rear of McDonald’s parking lot instead, and Reeve said, “You are wearing very heavy-duty clothes, Janie.”

“We trail walkers have to fend off attacking mosquitoes and grizzly bears.”

“Just don’t fend
me
off,” said Reeve.

CHAPTER
SIX

“I want to drive up to Boston, Mom,” said Jodie.

Mom, Brian and Jodie were at Home Depot, tracking down window blinds and kitchen-cabinet knobs. Brendan’s team had practice, of course; Brian had hardly seen his twin for days.

“There are six colleges I want to look at in Boston,” said Brian’s sister. “Friday we have a teachers’ workshop, so there’s no school; I can drive up to Boston Thursday after school, have Friday and Saturday to tour campuses and do interviews, and then drive back Sunday.”

“By yourself?” said Mom doubtfully. Not as if she were going to lash out and shriek
NO, NO, NEVER
! but as if Jodie were brave to take on traffic and navigation all the way to Boston. “Maybe if you had company it would be okay.”

Jodie nodded. “I’d like company, but Caitlin and Nicole are going south, they’re looking in Virginia for colleges.” A year ago, Brian thought, Jodie would not have dared mention going to a city at all, never mind alone.

Their mother said, “But your father and I want to go along when you visit campuses, Jo. And that weekend we’ll be so busy. Brendan has
two
games.” Their parents had never missed a game, performance or concert in which one of their children had participated.

“Mom, I’m running out of time!” said Jodie. “I have to decide where I’m applying in only a few months.”

Brian was not eager to see Brendan triumph twice in one weekend, and Boston sounded great, plus he was mildly fond of his sister, so he said, “I’ll go with you, Jodie. I can read the maps and hand you change for the tolls.”

“That’s wonderful!” Jodie hugged him right there in the store. Brian shrank out from under her grasp and took refuge on the far side of the cart.

“But Brian,” said his mother, “Brendan has a big game on Friday afternoon, and another one on Saturday. He’s your twin,” she added, as if Brian, of all people, might have forgotten this.

“Mom, I’ve seen Brendan play. I’ll see him the rest of my life. But I haven’t been to Boston with Jodie.” Boston is history, he thought. Ben Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere. Maybe I’ll go to college in Boston, too, and study history.

He had never had a long view of his life. His life was in short takes: a practice, a game, a shower, a brother. Now he could see it, his own personal calendar years spread like computer printouts.

One day last week, when Bren had practice and Brian didn’t, Brian had gone to the town library and wandered through the adult American history section. He had never entered the adult division of the library before. He’d felt like a trespasser. The collection was immense. He didn’t know where to begin. How did you figure out which of those thousands of books you wanted to read?

He settled for reading the spines, just exploring titles. The books were arranged like geography, starting with European explorers crossing the Atlantic, moving into settlers of New England, and advancing toward the Ohio River, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi.

He came home after two hours in which nobody had known where he was. And when he got home, nobody asked. It was a first in Brian’s thirteen years.

He wanted to thank his parents. He wanted to shout
Yes! It’s about time
! but he said nothing, because maybe they hadn’t realized the freedom they had allowed, and maybe they wouldn’t allow it again.

He resolved that next time, he would actually sit in one of the cozy armchairs in the adult section and read the first paragraphs of some of those books, and even take one home.

“We could stop off at the Johnsons’,” said Jodie eagerly, “and see Janie.”

Any idea that they had a new, easy, upbeat life vanished.

Their mother’s face sagged and she looked blindly at her shopping list, swallowing hard as she checked off an item they hadn’t yet bought.

Brian was becoming the person he should have been, but his mother could never be the person she should have been.

The damage had been too long, and too terrible.

Oh, Hannah, he thought. What you did to us.

Derek Himself loved to talk about fame. “Did you see me on
20/20
last night?” Derek liked to ask. “I’m America’s newest shock jock, syndicated in a hundred and seventy-two stations. They had to interview me, or their ratings would tumble.”

Reeve, listening, thought: I’m the one here who might actually accomplish those things. And now I have to back off.

He’d been so surprised by his visit home. Nothing had changed. His life was so different that he had somehow expected everybody else’s life to be different, too. The same pots were stacked on the same stove. The same pile of bills waited for attention on the same counter. He had forgotten high school, too, but there it sat: same halls, teachers, lights, sounds, smell.

And Janie.

He’d forgotten the silk of her hair.

Forgotten what it was like to be the physical center of someone’s universe.

Forgotten, here among other young men pushing and shoving for ratings, what it was like just to be loved.

He’d felt so great, saving her from the yearbook assault.

That evening Reeve and Janie sprawled on the sofa in his parents’ living room, Janie half in his lap, leaning back against his chest, holding his arms locked around her, while he rested his chin on her head. If he relaxed his hug, she’d pull his arms tight again, for that combination of love and safety that she required of him.

She filled him in on the reporter who had tried to barge into her house on Lipstick Day. It was good that she could not see Reeve’s face. He was doing exactly what Tyler and the reporter had tried to do, except they had failed, and Reeve hadn’t.

Reeve’s answers, therefore, required detour after detour. It was like the streets of Boston: one pit after another. Every sentence led to WSCK, and he couldn’t even mention it, let alone brag. How he wanted to tell her: Janie, I’m the
best
, I’m a fad, people tune in just for
me
.

He wanted Janie to light up, the way she did, all the way to her fingertips, laughing her wonderful laugh, and kissing him before she got her laugh done.

On the train returning to Boston, it was an easy decision: back off, skip radio.

But here in the studio…

Derek had put on the Fog, had a tape by Slow Burn ready to play back to back. Plenty of time for Vinnie, Cal, Derek and Reeve to talk. Talking was what they liked best. There were no strong, silent types in radio.

Back off didn’t mean quit. Back off meant still here, but not as deejay. Or as deejay, but not doing janies.

If I’m here, listening to Derek Himself, can I stand it? I’d rip the mike out of his hands and do a janie anyway. I’m not gonna back off. So I have to quit. Cold. The way people who have quit smoking have to throw away their cigarettes.

Not come down here again.

Not hang out with these guys.

Find a new set of friends.

“Vinnie,” he said, and he found it surprisingly hard to get enough air beneath his sentence, as if this were his first time on the radio all over again, “I’m going to quit.”

“No, you’re not. You love this.”

“I do love it. But Janie is a real person. This would upset her. So I’m quitting.”

Vinnie was amused. “You won’t quit. You love the sound of your voice. You love the numbers, how you’re up every week. You’re an addict.”

I am not. I am in control and I’ve made a decision. I won’t do another janie.

The music was fading out. Derek Himself talked over the last chords. Reeve hated that, when they cut out the final lyrics in order to have more time for their own voices. He wasn’t going to be that kind of deejay.

Derek surprised Reeve by giving him a janie cue, swinging the adjustable arm of the mike into Reeve’s face.

The air was empty and waiting.

I won’t say a janie, he ordered himself.

He didn’t.

He swung the mike back to Derek and walked out of the broadcast room.

There. For Janie’s sake, he’d quit.

He was proud of himself. He felt tall and strong and good for people. Maybe he’d run for President.

In the big Dodge coming back from Home Depot, Jodie needed to be private, so she let Brian have the front seat with Mom and she sat way in the back, slumped down, her face hidden by the middle seats.

Unbelievable. Her mother was going to allow it! Jodie would be permitted choice, and independence, and risk.

Risk.

It had never been allowed in the Spring family since Jennie had vanished.

Stephen, out there in Colorado, told them nothing when they were on the phone with him.
Nothing
. Was he being dull and good, going to class, getting eight hours of sleep, being friends with suitable people?

Or was he taking risks? Hitchhiking? Skydiving?

Jodie hoped he was taking risks.

Jodie, like the rest of the family, had hair that glinted red and gold. But unlike Janie, whose chaotic curls were airborne in the humidity of New England, Jodie’s was thin and straight. She wore it in a soccer cut.

If she went to college in Boston, she’d probably dye it blue. Shave some off. Have earrings in her scalp. Scare normal people by sitting down next to them. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d wear long black skirts and vests with a zillion glitter beads. Or she might rip down the city streets on her Roller-blades, with her leather jacket and her gang bandanna.

What do I want from life, thought Jodie, now that I have choices?

Well, I don’t want a family. That’s more risk than I’m willing to touch. I don’t have daydreams with little kids in them. I don’t want babies I could lose.

I’m going to have money, and answering machines, and a staff to order around, and jets, and travel, and great clothes. After my shaved-skull-and-earrings stage, that is.

And Jodie was happy, thinking: It’s over.

It was cold out, the kind of cold Reeve liked. He was in shirtsleeves, but the cold felt good. He loved his bare arms in winter.

Reeve often rehearsed the janies in the dark. In front of people, he couldn’t even rehearse inside his head. Alone in the dark, he could move his lips, or even whisper, getting the flow.

I have to stop that, too, he thought. I’m doing this for Janie and I don’t even get to tell her what a great guy I am. No fair making sacrifices when the sacrificed-for doesn’t know.

His physics professor walked by.

The science building was next door to the administration building, but still, this late—Reeve was a little surprised. “Hi, Dr. Brookner.”

“Reeve,” said the professor with pleasure.

Considering there were five hundred students in the lecture, the labs were run by assistants, and tests were corrected by grad students, it was remarkable that Dr. Brookner knew who Reeve was. “Doing a janie tonight?” asked the professor. “My wife and I have been fascinated by those.”

Adult listeners? Professors? Reeve was stunned and pleased. “It doesn’t seem like your kind of station,” said Reeve.

“We put up with so-called music from losers like Visionary Assassins so that we can hear the janies. I admit I’m confused. I hope one of these days you’ll clarify how the whole thing happened. My wife has a chart by the radio so we can keep track of the tidbits you dole out.”