The Sky is Everywhere(9)
Author: Jandy Nelson

the same clothes,
the same thoughts at the same moment.
These two sisters did not have a mother
but they had each other.
The older sister walked ahead of the younger
so the younger one always knew where to go.
The older one took the younger to the river
where they floated on their backs
like dead men.
The older girl would say:
Dunk your head under a few inches then open your eyes and look up at the sun
The younger girl:
I’ll get water up my nose
The older:
C’mon, do it
and so the younger girl did it
and her whole world filled with light.

(Found on a piece of notebook paper caught in a fence up on the ridge)

Judas, Brutus, Benedict Arnold and me.

And the worst part is every time I close my eyes I see Toby’s lion face again, his lips a breath away from mine, and it makes me shudder head to toe, not with guilt, like it should, but with desire – and then, just as soon as I allow myself the image of us kissing, I see Bailey’s face twisting in shock and betrayal as she watches us from above: her boyfriend, her fiancé kissing her traitorous little sister on her own bed. Ugh. Shame watches me like a dog.

I’m in self-imposed exile, cradled between split branches, in my favorite tree in the woods behind school. I’ve been coming here every day at lunch, hiding out until the bell rings, whittling words into the branches with my pen, allowing my heart to break in private. I can’t hide a thing – everyone in school sees clear to my bones.

I’m reaching into the brown bag Gram packed for me, when I hear twigs crack underneath me. Uh-oh. I look down and see Joe Fontaine. I freeze. I don’t want him to see me: Lennie Walker: Mental Patient Eating Lunch in a Tree (it being decidedly out of your tree to hide out in one!). He walks in confused circles under me like he’s looking for someone. I’m hardly breathing but he isn’t moving on, has settled just to the right of my tree. Then I inadvertently crinkle the bag and he looks up, sees me.

“Hi,” I say, like it’s the most normal place to be eating lunch.

“Hey, there you are—” He stops, tries to cover. “I was wondering what was back here…” He looks around. “Perfect spot for a gingerbread house or maybe an opium den.”

“You already gave yourself away,” I say, surprised at my own boldness.

“Okay, guilty as charged. I followed you.” He smiles at me – that same smile – wow, no wonder I’d thought—

He continues, “And I’m guessing you want to be alone. Probably don’t come all the way out here and then climb a tree because you’re starving for conversation.” He gives me a hopeful look. He’s charming me, even in my pitiful emotional state, my Toby turmoil, even though he’s accounted for by Cruella de Vil.

“Want to come up?” I present him a branch and he bounds up the tree in about three seconds, finds a suitable seat right next to me, then bats his eyelashes at me. I’d forgotten about the eyelash endowment. Wow squared.

“What’s to eat?” He points to the brown bag.

“You kidding? First you crash my solitude, now you want to scavenge. Where were you raised?”

“Paris,” he says. “So I’m a scavenger raffiné.”

Oh so glad j’étudie le français. And jeez, no wonder the school’s abuzz about him, no wonder I’d wanted to kiss him. I even momentarily forgive Rachel the idiotic baguette she had sticking out of her backpack today. He goes on, “But I was born in California, lived in San Francisco until I was nine. We moved back there about a year ago and now we’re here. Still want to know what’s in the bag though.”

“You’ll never guess,” I tell him. “I won’t either, actually. My grandmother thinks it’s really funny to put all sorts of things in our – my lunch. I never know what’ll be inside: e. e. cummings, flower petals, a handful of buttons. She seems to have lost sight of the original purpose of the brown bag.”

“Or maybe she thinks other forms of nourishment are more important.”

“That’s exactly what she thinks,” I say, surprised. “Okay, you want to do the honors?” I hold up the bag.

“I’m suddenly afraid, is there ever anything alive in it?” Bat. Bat. Bat. Okay, it might take me a little time to build immunity to the eyelash bat.

“Never know…” I say, trying not to sound as swoony as I feel. And I’m going to just pretend that sitting-in-a-tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g rhyme did not just pop into my head.

He takes the bag, then reaches in with a grand gesture, and pulls out – an apple.

“An apple? How anti-climactic!” He throws it at me. “Everyone gets apples.”

I urge him to continue. He reaches in, pulls out a copy of Wuthering Heights.

“That’s my favorite book,” I say. “It’s like a pacifier. I’ve read it twenty-three times. She’s always putting it in.”

“Wuthering Heights – twenty-three times! Saddest book ever, how do you even function?”

“Do I have to remind you? I’m sitting in a tree at lunch.”

“True.” He reaches in again, pulls out a stemless purple peony. Its rich scent overtakes us immediately. “Wow,” he says, breathing it in. “Makes me feel like I might levitate.” He holds it under my nose. I close my eyes, imagine the fragrance lifting me off my feet too. I can’t. But something occurs to me.

“My favorite saint of all time is a Joe,” I tell him. “Joseph of Cupertino, he levitated. Whenever he thought of God, he would float into the air in a fit of ecstasy.”

He tilts his head, looks at me skeptically, eyebrows raised. “Don’t buy it.”

I nod. “Tons of witnesses. Happened all the time. Right during Mass.”

“Okay, I’m totally jealous. Guess I’m just a wannabe levitator.”

“Too bad,” I say. “I’d like to see you drifting over Clover playing your horn.”

“Hell yeah,” he exclaims. “You could come with, grab my foot or something.”

We exchange a quick searching glance, both of us wondering about the other, surprised at the easy rapport – it’s just a moment, barely perceptible, like a lady bug landing on your arm.

He rests the flower on my leg and I feel the brush of his fingers through my jeans. The brown bag is empty now. He hands it to me, and then we’re quiet, just listening to the wind rustle around us and watching the sun filter through the redwoods in impossibly thick foggy rays just like in children’s drawings.