The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  I walk back to the booth. Will they make us scrub the floors with a toothbrush? Wait tables? I tell my mother we are out of luck. “Wait,” she says. “There’s five dollars in the glove compartment.”

  This gets me all excited—can you imagine, going crazy over five bucks? Then I realize I’ve been using that money for tolls. My mother glares at me and counts the change in her purse. We have one dollar and thirty-seven cents.

  My mother closes her eyes and wrinkles up her nose, the way she does when she is creating A Big Plan. “I’ll go out first, and then you make an act out of coming to get me. That’ll look natural.”

  Sure it will, I think. What kind of mother are you, to leave your kid behind when you are stupid enough to run out of cash? I scowl at her as she stands and peers into a compact mirror. “I’ve left my lipstick in the car,” she says in this bird-chirpy voice to all seventeen Elvises. “Diana?” She stomps on my right foot, just in case I haven’t picked up my cue.

  “Yes, Aunt Lucille?”

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  She smiles at the waitresses on the way out. I drum my fingers on the formica. I slurp my empty Coke. I count the rows of glasses behind the counter (twenty-seven) and try to invent names for the waitresses. Irma and Florence. Delia and Babs. Eleanore, Winifred, Thelma.

  Finally I sigh. “I don’t know what she’s doing but we’re going to be late for ballet class,” I say loudly, wondering if Idaho girls take ballet lessons. I approach the waitresses. “Could you just watch our stuff for a minute? I think my aunt’s gone and gotten lost!” I smirk a stupid teenage smirk and put my hands palms up, What can you do?

  “Sure honey. No problem.” I walk out the door, blood pounding behind my knees. I wonder how you get a criminal record. I wait until I think I am out of sight from the diner door and then I run like hell.

  My mom has the car pulled up and I jump in. She screeches out of the parking lot. For a few miles I lean forward in my seat, my eyes wide. Then I relax. My mother is still paralyzed with fear, panic, I don’t know what. I touch her hand where it rests on the radio dial, and all the air goes out of her like a deflating tire. “That was close,” she says.

  My mother wipes her upper lip with the collar of her shirt. I don’t know if she’s laughing or crying. I unroll the window, wondering what comes next. I smile, but only because this keeps the wind from hurting my eyes.

  61 JANE

  That night I have my flying dream. I have had it often: when I was a very little girl, when I first married Oliver, days before I gave birth to Rebecca. The dream is always the same: I run as hard as I can, and then I jump up high with both feet, and I can fly. The higher I get the more scary it is, but I always make it just above the tree line. Below, people look tiny and cars seem like toys, and just at that point I start to lose control. I worry about how I am going to land and sure enough I crash through the trees at an astounding pace, hurtling towards the ground, and land a little too hard. But it is a wonderful dream. When I was little I hoped each night I would have it. I figured if I dreamed it often enough, eventually I would learn how to land.

  “Hello,” Sam says as I’m waking, and it’s the most beautiful word I’ve ever heard. He comes into his room with a wicker tray, balanced with melon and cereal and fresh-picked raspberries. “I didn’t know if you like coffee.”

  “I do,” I tell him. “Cream, no sugar.” He holds up a finger and disappears, then returns with a steaming mug and sits on the edge of the bed. He watches me while I am drinking, and under his gaze I wait for embarrassment, but nothing comes. In fact I’ve never felt better. I could climb a mountain today. I could hike forty miles. Or I could just follow Sam around, that would be fine.

  “Did you sleep all right?”

  “Fine,” I say, “and you?”

  “Fine.” Sam looks up then, and catches my eye, and turns red. “Look, I wanted to say something about last night.”

  “You’re not going to apologize, are you? You don’t think it was a mistake?”

  “Don’t you?” Sam says, looking at me. I can’t concentrate when he does that; he takes my breath away.

  Those eyes. My God. “I think,” I say, halting, “I think I love you.”

  Sam stares at me. “I’m taking the day off.”

  “You can’t. You’ve got an orchard to run.”

  “I’ve noticed lately that when I’m near you—fighting or kissing, it doesn’t matter—I don’t give a damn.”

  “Everyone will start talking. Rebecca can’t know.”

  “She’ll find out. She isn’t stupid. Besides, I deserve a break. That’s what I’ve got Hadley for. What good is hiring someone to be second in command if you never leave the post?” He leans over me and kisses my forehead. “I’ll tell them we’re going back to bed.”

  “Sam!” I call out, but to my surprise, I am not upset. I want the world to know I feel like this; that I am capable of it. I move the tray onto the floor, picking at the fruit. Then I stretch across the tangled sheets of the bed. My nightgown—that pretty silk from North Dakota—is on inside-out.

  There is a knock at the door. I slide off the bed and open it. “Sam?” I say, and there is Rebecca, her voice chiming with mine, asking for him too. She does a double take, checking to see if she has the right bedroom. I pull the neck of my nightgown closed, feeling the telltale tag inside-out on the collar. “Sam’s not here,” I say quietly.

  Rebecca keeps looking around the room like she is searching for evidence. Finally she meets my eyes. “I was looking for you, actually. I wanted to know if he knew where you were. Apparently,” she says, “he does.”

  “This is not what you think,” I say too quickly.

  “I bet it’s exactly what I think.” I feel a stab in my heart, and this makes me feel better—isn’t that what I have been waiting for? “I came to tell you Hadley and I were going into town this afternoon. I wanted to know if you’d like to come.” She peers over my shoulder again. “I guess you have better things to do.”

  “You can’t go into town. Well, Hadley can’t. Sam was going to tell him he’s in charge of the place today.”

  “Is that so?” Rebecca says, hands on her hips. “Straight from the boss’s mouth?”

  “You’d better watch it,” I say quietly.

  “I’d better watch it? Me? I don’t think I’m the one who’s got the problem. I’m not the one who is cheating on my husband.”

  Instinct: I raise my hand to strike her. Then, shaking, I bring my arm down to my side. “We can discuss this later.”

  “I think you’re disgusting!” Rebecca yells, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I can’t believe you’d do this to Daddy! I can’t believe you’d do this to me! Whatever you think, he still loves you. He’s coming here, you know. And then what are you going to do?” She turns around and thunders down the stairs.

  Sam finds me in the open doorway. “She came in here,” I say. “Rebecca. She hates me now.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. Give her a little time.” But nothing he says can keep me from crying. He puts his arms around me, he rubs my shoulders—all of which worked wonders last night, but this is different. This is a rift between my daughter and me. This is something he could not possibly heal.

  Eventually Sam leaves me alone for a while. He says he’s going to make sure Joley knows what’s getting sprayed with what today. He kisses me before he leaves, and tells me I’m beautiful. On his way out he turns around. “Your nightgown’s on wrong.”

  I move to the window that looks out onto the brick patio in front of the house. When my cheek is pressed against the sill my face doesn’t feel half as hot. I’ve been so selfish. All right, Jane, I think. You’ve had your moment in the sun. Now just put it behind you. You have to work with your loose ends and see what you can make of them. When Sam comes back, I’ll tell him this. I will say that it might have worked in another time or another place. If I was ten years younger; if he worked behind a desk. And th