What Janie Found (12 page)

It was her New Jersey mother she meant.

She felt like a person in a cartoon, straddling cracks in the earth where quakes had torn apart the land. She had to keep a foot in New Jersey, a foot in Connecticut, a foot in Colorado, a foot in revenge, a foot in—

But nobody could do that. You fell through the cracks instead.

“Isn’t the Arsenal a little close to the taco stand?’” said Reeve. “If there
is
poison leaching—’”

“Eastern wimps worry about this stuff,’” said Stephen. “We Westerners, we’re tough. We shrug. We’re real men.’”

It turned out that real men didn’t use the cement-block bathrooms, either. They walked up to the fence and peed through the chain links, joking about fumes that would suffocate fellow racers. There seemed no end to the stupid jokes Reeve and Stephen could make about this.

Boys being friends always attracted Janie. Their friendships were so different from girls’ friendships. Now she was just glad their minds were occupied.

She planned what to write in her letter to Hannah. She unzipped the purse just wide enough to thrust her hand in and make sure her writing supplies were there. On top lay her cell phone.

Back home, Janie called her mother constantly. She called if she was next door, or at Sarah-Charlotte’s, or at school. Now she was two thousand miles away and not calling.

Distance was so real. You could feel it.

All two thousand miles stood fat and sturdy between Janie and that hospital bed. From this distance, the man and woman in that room were dots, not people. You didn’t have to worry about dots.

Stephen said, “Come on, Bri, let’s you and me hike around, see what there is to eat.’”

When they were behind the stands and the roar of cars had diminished, Stephen said abruptly, “Tell me about your worthless twin. Is he still being a jerk?’”

“He’s not worthless. He’s an incredible athlete, Stephen. He—’”

“He’s worthless,’” said Stephen. “Last week on the phone I talked to Mom and then Dad and then Jodie. They had to force Brendan onto the phone. He tells me, this jerk starting ninth grade in September, that he’s already chosen his college. Duke. He says he isn’t smart enough to get in, but as long as
you
write his papers for him he’ll be okay. Have you been doing that, Brian? Admit it. Are you cheating for him?’”

Brian was helpless. “He’s my twin.’”

“Brian, I’m telling Mom and Dad—’”

“No!’”

“—to put you in a different school. There’s a Catholic boys’ school, it’s very academic, just right for you, and you’d be away from your worthless twin.’”

“You would have taken a garbage route before you’d have gone to Xavier, Stephen,’” said Brian. “And don’t call him worthless, he’s your brother.’”

“Many brothers are worthless,’” said Stephen. “Yup. This is the solution. It’ll untwin you. Brendan already untwinned, the skunk, and it’s time you did the same.’”

Brian nodded, although he would never untwin; he couldn’t have if he’d wanted to; birth bound him too tightly.

“Bri, lighten up,’” said his brother. “Is it Bren you’re upset about? Janie? Reeve? Reeve with Janie?’”

Brian imagined the kidnapper contaminating Janie or Stephen, as the Arsenal was contaminated.

“You’re acting like I’m a threat,’” said his brother. “What’s going on?’”

Brian’s head swam with unfamilies. Hannah had been an undaughter. Stephen wanted Brian to untwin.

“I guess I got too close to Janie’s other family,’” he said at last. “I’m worried about Mr. Johnson dying or being a vegetable. I’m worried about Mrs. Johnson being by herself and I’m worried about Janie making stupid decisions.’”

“Like what?’” said Stephen, who had never been slow. “What stupid decision does she have in mind right now?’”

Reeve was not surprised when Kathleen jumped up after five minutes and said she thought she’d go find Stephen.

Girls who want you for themselves, he thought, even when you go off with a kid brother you haven’t seen in months—they’re trouble.

He turned to share his thoughts with Janie and got her hair in his face. Today it was the approximate size and shape of a bushel of apples. How he wanted to run his fingers through the mass of her hair.

She had opened her purse and was digging around in it. It would have made Reeve crazy to carry that thing around.

She pulled out the checkbook.

The hot sun suddenly blistered him. He did not want her writing Hannah Johnson’s name, with her own fingers curled around her own pen. Hannah Johnson didn’t even exist! She was a falsehood. There was only Hannah Javensen, kidnapper.

But in Janie’s life, H. J. was a force stronger than gravity.

Reeve felt frantic and yet heavy; his thoughts impossible to pin down, his body too thick to respond.

He had agreed to this! He had even suggested the format for coming.

“Janie, forget it,’” he said. “Let Hannah float downstream without you. Grown-ups have to take care of themselves. Cut her off.’”

He himself might once have cut Hannah off.

Reeve had gotten involved in his college radio station, narrating a soap opera: a nightly episode of Janie. The kidnapping, the milk carton, the courts, the birth family, all audience-pleasers. He’d blatted about Janie’s tears and failure of spirit. It entertained his listeners just fine until one night his listeners included Janie.

Trust and love were dead in minutes.

But what Janie didn’t know—nobody else knew—was that a phone call had been made to the station late one night. When he picked up, Reeve expected the usual band request, but the caller said she was Janie Johnson’s kidnapper. Without thinking—a frequent problem for Reeve—he disconnected. Stupid move, because the woman didn’t call back.

One or two questions, and he’d have known whether it was Hannah from a pay phone or a silly college kid hoping for airtime.

A thousand times he had wondered: Am I the only one who ever actually spoke to the kidnapper?

That would have placed her in Boston last fall, and not in Colorado.

But she had enough money from Frank to get on a bus and visit friends. If you could imagine Hannah having friends. Ex–cult members, maybe. Reeve didn’t think Hannah would go to Boston to see Paul Revere’s house.

Reeve hadn’t done the right thing once in his entire freshman year. The only good things about his eighteenth year were the things he hadn’t done: He hadn’t murdered anybody or sold drugs.

I have to do the right thing this time, Reeve told himself. And what might that be?

The super stocks went round and round, mud covering the names of their sponsors.

“I’m scared for you, Janie,’” said Reeve.

Janie watched the race. “She’s not going to attack me.’”

“Janie, no matter how sweetly you remember it, with the ice cream and the twirling stool and skipping along the sidewalks, kidnapping is a violent crime.’”

But they were out of time for private conversation and she wasn’t listening to him anyway. The others were returning, Brian walking by himself, kicking at clods of dirt thrown up by the race cars. Kathleen had Stephen by the hand.

They were coming up the bleachers as Janie wrote the check, capped her ball pen and dropped pen and checkbook back into her purse.

The check horrified him. Her casual attitude horrified him.

And then Reeve figured it out. The check didn’t matter because she was going to talk to Hannah. All that mattered to Janie Johnson right now were her questions and her answers. The check was just a way to get hold of Hannah.

He threw it all away, every minute and every month of trying to win Janie back. He said fiercely, “Janie.
Stop it.
You find Hannah, and you’re betraying your father and mother as badly as I betrayed you.’”

How dare you? thought Janie. How dare you compare your nasty little radio trick with what I am facing? I am not betraying my father. He betrayed me! And I deserve answers.

Stephen sat down next to her, with Brian on his other side, so that Kathleen was left to sit wherever. Kathleen did not like this. Stephen did not appear to notice. “What’s the stupid decision Brian was telling me about?’” he said, smiling at Janie.

Stephen’s eyes were their mother’s eyes. Her New Jersey mother. Her real mother, who would be so disappointed in her right now. Make us proud, they had said to Janie when she left them for good.

“I didn’t tell him anything,’” said Brian quickly. He jerked his head toward Kathleen, saying as plainly as words that she had shown up and ended their talk.

Janie thought of a way to deflect Stephen that was not actually a lie.

“There was this file in my father’s desk,’” she told Stephen. “Old papers. The police report on Hannah Javensen and stuff.’”

She could feel Brian’s fear that she was going to tell everything. She hoped he held together.

“There was this sentence in the police report,’” she said to Stephen. “
The subject was last seen flying west.
That sentence crawls around under my skin like a tropical disease. I love the idea of being last seen. Ditching the whole thing. Disappearing. Think about it, Stephen. You disappear, you have the power of a god. If you vanish, you control your family forever.’”

Reeve tilted away from her, his spine stiff as a chair, his big warm features growing long and thin with surprise and distaste. Good. She felt the same toward him.

“
You’re
not the one who has to be the good guy, Stephen,’” Janie said. “
I’m
the one. You guys thought I was the bad guy when I left New Jersey and went home, but I was just being the good guy for my other family. And when Reeve was a jerk last year, I was supposed to be the good guy again. And when my father got sick, I
really
had to be the good guy. And my stupid decision is: I’m sick of being the good guy. I could be last seen flying west too, you know.’”

Brian looked ill.

Reeve looked away.

Kathleen was mesmerized.

Stephen just grinned. “I totally understand. I was last seen flying west, Janie, and I’m not going east again. I made sure nobody else was kidnapped. I did dishes, I mowed the lawn, I washed the car, I finished my homework. If I had to swear at my teachers, I did it under my breath. That’s all the good guy I’m going to be.’”

And that’s all the truth I’m going to tell, thought Janie. Because on Monday, I will be the bad guy. I will meet Hannah.

She made a topknot of her hair and swished her forehead with it.

“You already vanished from our lives twice, Janie,’” said Stephen. “You can’t do it again. Got to stomp on that one. What you can do is work around the edges. Distance is good. You like it in Colorado? Come here next year. Your parents would go for it.’”

Distance was good. It was easy to do what you wanted when you didn’t have to show up for dinner with the people you were hurting.

“But what did Reeve do to be a jerk?’” said Kathleen, tugging at Stephen’s shirt. “Tell me, I love stories like that.’”

Reeve gazed at the Arsenal, obviously picking a spot for Kathleen to soak up poison.

“Beats me,’” said Stephen. “When Reeve came to New Jersey at first everyone loved him. He made things easier. But then nobody talked about Reeve anymore. Mom made a face every time his name came up. Janie wasn’t going out with him, and when I mentioned him, Jodie stuck her finger down her throat and gagged. So my wild guess was that we hated him.’” Stephen laughed. “I’m a good hater, I joined up.’” He smiled and said gently to his sister, “But I liked Reeve, so when you were seeing him again, it was fine with me. I unhated.’”