13 Gifts Page 27

  The others look at me to respond. I hand Rory my rake and pull David aside. They go off to begin the cleanup.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise,” I tell him, suddenly nervous. This could have been a huge mistake. What if he didn’t want to have his service at Apple Grove? Who am I to think I know what’s best for him? What if his mother gets mad? I swallow hard, unable to continue.

  He takes in the surroundings. The stack of chairs half hidden under a tarp, the podium, the girls frantically raking. Then he turns back to me and whispers, “Is this for my bar mitzvah?”

  I nod meekly. “Just the service. The party would still be at the community center. I mean, if you even want the service here. And we were going to put up a webcam so your dad could see and, well, I just thought, you know, how you said singing outside makes you feel closer to him and —”

  “Are you sure you’re not Jewish?” he asks, cutting me off.

  I shake my head. “I’ve learned a lot about my family today. That probably would have come up. Why do you ask?”

  “Because of what you’re doing.” He reaches out and takes hold of my arms, just above my wrists. “You’re doing tikkun olam. You’re repairing the world.”

  “I am?”

  He nods. “It’s what I’m going to talk about in my speech tomorrow, after all the Hebrew stuff. It’s about how the world is broken up into pieces, and how it’s up to everyone to help put it all back together. It’s about recognizing the spark of life in everyone and everything, and gluing these shards back together.”

  “And I did that? How?”

  “Supposedly when you reach thirteen, you can see the different pieces better. There’s an old teaching that says that, at thirteen, your soul gets stuck into your body. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

  “Me, too,” I say softly.

  “Really?” he asks, tilting his head at me.

  I nod and whisper, “I think it might be true.”

  “Me, too,” he whispers back.

  We stand there in silence for a minute, him still holding on to my wrists. I’m suddenly acutely aware that my dad is watching us. “Um, see that tall guy over there giving us the stink eye?”

  He glances over his shoulder. “The guy with Rory’s dad?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Who is he? Did he help bring the chairs or something?”

  I shake my head. “That’s my dad.”

  “Not in Madagascar anymore?”

  I shake my head. “And if we stand here any longer he’s going to come over and say something really embarrassing, inappropriate, or both. Probably both. So if you care about me at all, you’ll say something like ‘Let’s go hang up the lights, Tara, before it gets totally dark.’”

  “Let’s go hang up the dark, Tara, before it gets totally light.”

  “Close enough, let’s go.”

  Thankfully, Emily’s presence in the backseat means that Dad can’t grill me about David. We make a quick stop at the community center to put up signs directing bar mitzvah guests to Apple Grove. David’s mom (who, fortunately, is willing to go along with the last-minute change but is probably not my biggest fan right now) also said she’d try to reach as many people as possible.

  As soon as we get back to the house, I dash out of my seat, ignoring Dad’s claim that the car has shrunk and that he is now stuck. I trust Emily will help pull him out.

  I run up to the bedroom, hoping to get a minute or two alone. I haven’t gone into my suitcase in at least two weeks, as most everything has been moved out by now. Everything but the hatbox of letters sitting on top of the bag of glass, which is what I have come for. When I pick up the hatbox to move it out of the way, I can tell right away that something feels different. It’s much lighter! I yank off the cover and gasp. It’s completely empty except for a yellow Post-it note on the bottom. I lean in to read it.

  Hope you don’t mind, I mailed these.

  And if you do mind, well, it’s too late now!

  Love, your cousin and friend, Emily

  I sit back, letting the hatbox cover slip from my hand. All those years. All those letters. What is Julie possibly going to think when she gets those? I wonder if she’ll write me back or if she’ll think I’m just totally insane. In a way, though, it feels kind of freeing to have my past winging its way across the country right now. Like it’s freeing me up for the future. I stay on the floor until the initial shock wears off, and then I put the hatbox back together, and leave it on Emily’s desk. Looks like my little cousin is doing her own part to repair the world.

  I carefully pick up the bag of glass and head back downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs I peek around the corner to make sure the coast is clear. It sounds like everyone is in the kitchen, so I creep down the hall toward Ray’s room. Hopefully he’s in there. The radio’s on, which is a good sign.

  I knock. “Ray? It’s me, Tara. I need your help.”

  Even in the bright sunshine, the tiny lights we strung on the trees and along the edges of the podium glitter like diamonds. A chair right in front of the podium holds a laptop that Connor rigged up not only to broadcast David to his father, but to bring his father to David, too. About a hundred people have come to watch David become a man.

  Mom and Dad are sitting next to me, in borrowed clothes that are about a zillion times more glamorous than anything they own. Mom hasn’t let go of Dad’s hand once. I think finally knowing how he really feels about her has been the best gift he could ever give her. I have a feeling the jewelry boxes will stop flowing in now. The rabbi starts talking about love and responsibility, and the worst thought creeps into my head — what if Dad lied last night? What if he hadn’t actually spilled out the juice? Isn’t that exactly what someone who was in love would say they did to make the other person happy?

  I look over at their hands, so tightly entwined it’s hard to tell whose fingers are whose. Well, it would be hard if Dad’s weren’t twice as large as a normal human’s. Maybe it doesn’t matter how their love began. Still, I wish I knew for sure.

  There are so many people in suits and dresses that the service is almost over before I notice Angelina sitting in the back row, wearing that same purple scarf around her head that she wore on the train. I’ve gotta hand it to her. Root canal and painkillers. The woman knows what she’s doing. I still don’t know how she managed to steal my stuff.

  Our eyes meet. She mouths something, and as clear as if she was sitting next to me, I hear her say, “Look in your bag.”

  Confused, I reach under my seat for the beaded purse Aunt Bethany loaned me. I was going to bring the little backpack Dad gave me for the train, but one look at Aunt Bethany’s horrified face this morning and I knew that wasn’t going to cut it. I open the drawstring to find a small package with a note wrapped around it.

  Happy Birthday to the girl who thought she wanted to sit this one out.

  Tell your mother her debt is repaid.

  After I read the note, I turn around to find Angelina’s seat empty. Figures. I open the package as quietly as I can, and find Mom’s iPod with the headphones still wrapped around it. I lean across Dad and place the iPod on her lap as though I just remembered I had it.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” she whispers, putting it back on my own lap. “I was going to let you keep it anyway.”

  Sigh. That figures.

  David starts singing Shalom Rav and I wouldn’t be surprised if every apple tree in the place started to bloom. I’m so focused on listening that I don’t notice the birds until the whispering around me finally catches my attention. Max and Flo, the two hawks, have landed on the edge of the fountain, only a few feet away from David and the rabbi. They sit and listen to him sing, heads tilted toward each other, talons entwined.

  Dad suddenly squeezes my hand to get my attention. He and Mom are silently laughing so hard that their faces are bright red and their eyes are bulging. “The birds,” Dad gasps. “I think they drank the love potion!” My eyes almost b
ug out of my head. He’s right! Leo had said Max and Flo had been around since our parents were teenagers. They are the proof that my dad didn’t lie. He really didn’t drink it!

  Halfway through the song, David is joined by Bucky on the violin and Mrs. Grayson on the keyboard. By the time it’s over, there’s not a dry eye in the grove.

  David’s mother had the caterers bring the appetizers here to keep people busy while the chairs and equipment are on their way back to the community center. Everyone mills around talking about how wonderful a job David did, and how they didn’t know he could sing like that.

  I nosh on a pizza bagel and sneak over to the table full of presents. I want to make sure mine is still on top so it doesn’t get crushed. With Ray’s help, I had made a picture frame out of the shards of glass. I finally understood why I hadn’t been able to part with them. They were just like the shards that David had told me about, like little pieces of life. Ray showed me how to glue them back together in a funky kind of design. Then I printed out one of the pictures Aunt Bethany took at the play last night and stuck it inside the frame. David spent so much time helping me with everything this month that he hasn’t gotten to spend any real time with Connor, who had been the one person to reach out to him when he first moved here. So the picture I chose is one of David and Connor stomping around the stage singing “To Life” and being really goofy and joyous, pretending to toast each other with fake wineglasses.

  “Nice dress,” Amanda says, joining me at the table. “It fits you perfectly.”

  “Please thank your sister again for me,” I tell her, smoothing down the light blue silk skirt.

  “That would imply I’d asked her in the first place.”

  “I better not spill anything on it, then.” Amanda’s wearing her blackboard on top of a really pretty pink dress. “Couldn’t you leave that home today?”

  She shakes her head and starts chewing on a fingernail. I’ve never seen her do that before. She looks around to make sure no one can hear us, then says, “Today’s the day. We can’t take any chances. Especially because we have no idea what we’re doing.”

  My eyes widen. She’s never talked about all this before. “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I wish I could tell you,” she says. “But you know when Angelina is involved there are things you can’t talk about.”

  “I sure do.” One day I’ll tell them all about everything with my parents, and about why I’m really here in Willow Falls, but I want to keep it to myself for a while.

  “The weirdest thing?” she says, standing even closer to me. “Is that for the longest time, we figured whatever was going to happen today had to do with David. Then we thought it was about you, but that doesn’t feel right anymore either. So we’re totally lost.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I can see the gears turning in her head as she decides how much to tell me. “When a full year passes without Leo and me talking, something’s going to happen. I can’t tell you what, but it will give us a chance to fix something. Or do something. Or undo something. We really have no idea.”

  “And that day’s today?” I ask.

  “Yup.”

  One of the servers comes by with a tray of mini hot dogs and holds it out for us. I take one. Then another. I feel so grown up. Amanda says she’s too nervous to eat.

  Leo and Rory join us, and judging by all the crumpled-up napkins in one hand and pile of mini hot dogs in the other, Leo doesn’t have the same problem. His blackboard is slung over the shoulder of his blue suit.

  “Hey, has either of you seen Connor?” Rory asks. “He was going to take down the computer and we don’t want to mess anything up.”

  We shake our heads. “I saw him earlier setting up,” I tell them. “He was here with his whole family.”

  “I saw them, too,” Amanda says. “Grace said, ‘Hi, Mommy,’ when they walked in because she was my daughter in the play yesterday. It was pretty funny.”

  “So where are they?” Rory asks. “They shouldn’t be this hard to find. They’re the only family in Willow Falls with bright red hair.”

  We’re about to spread out in four directions, when Emily comes hurrying over to us. “Are you still looking for Connor?” she asks.

  “Yes,” Rory says, “do you know where he is?”

  “David’s mother just told me the whole family had to leave right before the service started. They had to take Grace to the hospital! She doesn’t want to worry David, so she told him they had to leave for a family wedding that Mr. Kelly had forgotten to tell them about.”

  Leo chokes on his hot dog and spits it out. The rest of us jump back to avoid the bits. He and Amanda grab their boards, yank them off their necks, and start furiously attacking them with the chalk. White dust flies everywhere. They’ve been intense before, but nothing like this.

  “Did they say what was wrong with Grace?” Rory asks Emily.

  Emily shakes her head. “I’ve never heard of a kid being rushed to the hospital before.”

  “I haven’t either,” Rory says, “except for a broken bone, or the flu or something like that. But she couldn’t have broken anything sitting in a chair, and she seemed fine last night.”

  I look from one to the other. “What do you mean? About kids not going to the hospital?”

  “We get really bad colds sometimes,” Rory says, “and rashes and bronchitis. I even knew one kid with asthma. But we don’t get hospital sick.”

  I can’t imagine that’s true, but it’s not like I can argue it.

  “And it’s Grace’s birthday today, too!” Emily says. “She told me at the play.”

  “That’s right!” Leo says, turning white.

  He and Amanda share one last look. “Please tell David we’re sorry to miss his party,” Amanda says, slinging her board over her neck, “but we’ve got to go.”

  “Where?” Rory asks. “What about the premiere tonight?”

  But they’re already running through the crowd. Amanda turns around and shouts, “Tara, will you explain? We really have to go.”

  “But I don’t understand, either,” I shout back.

  Leo replies instead. “It wasn’t about you after all! It’s about Grace!”

  “Grace?” I shout in response. But they’re too far away now to hear, all the way on the other side of the grove. We watch them run over to Ray, who is manning the drinks table. A few seconds later the three of them run toward the path that leads to the mall parking lots. As Leo passes the last server, he grabs a handful of whatever was on the platter. Amanda smacks him with her board.

  Emily shakes her head. “Told you those two are weird,” she says and heads off to intercept her math crush, who is apparently making a few bucks on the side by working the bar mitzvah.

  “Spill,” Rory says.

  I tell her everything Amanda had said earlier.

  After I’m done, she says, “Well, if Amanda and Leo have been planning for this day for a whole year, they must know what they’re doing, right?”

  I don’t answer. I know she doesn’t need me to remind her of how things with Angelina don’t usually turn out like we expect them to.

  David is still swarmed by relatives and well-wishers, so I’m going to have to wait till the party to talk to him. I won’t tell him about where Connor went, though, or about Amanda and Leo. Maybe with everything going on, he won’t notice for a while.

  As I head over to rejoin my parents, I spot a red envelope on the ground right where Angelina had been sitting. At first I think it must be a card for David that she dropped by mistake. But when I pick it up, I see Angelina’s name written on the outside, not David’s. The envelope has already been opened. I slide the card out just enough to recognize the valentine I’d picked out for Bucky on my first trip to the store for him. Well, well. Isn’t that interesting. I push the card back in, and drop the envelope in my bag. I’m sure Angelina will want this.

  Even though we could all have squeezed i
nto the SUV, Dad insisted on driving Uncle Roger’s sports car again. So when it’s time to leave for the party, I contort myself into the backseat and wait for Dad to join the line of cars leaving the parking lot. But one by one, people pass us.

  “Um, Mom?” I ask. “Why isn’t Dad pulling out?”

  She turns around to face me. “He’s stalling. We want to ask you something, but we’re not sure how to bring it up.”

  I cringe. Here it comes. They’re going to ask about David. I guess it was inevitable. They’ve never even seen me talk to a boy before. I take a deep breath to steady myself. I figure I’ll just be honest and tell them how I feel.

  “All right, here goes,” Mom says. “I know —”

  “We just held hands!” I blurt out. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to get married! I mean, who marries the person they date at thirteen? Wait, don’t answer that!”

  My parents share a puzzled look. Then my dad laughs. “Thank you for sharing, but that’s not what we wanted to talk to you about.”

  I sink down into the seat and cover my face.

  “Tara?” Mom says. “Do you want to say anything else about … what you just said? I mean, we’d be happy to talk to you about it.”

  I shake my head, still covering my face.

  She reaches over and gently pulls my hands away. “It’s okay, honey. David seems like a wonderful boy.”

  I have to force myself to leave my hands in my lap. “Can we just go back to talking about whatever you wanted to talk about?”

  Mom takes a deep breath, and with one last glance at Dad says, “I know we made a deal that we wouldn’t move again …”

  I groan. “Are you serious, Mom? Angelina isn’t looking for us anymore. She said your debt is repaid.”

  “I know,” Mom says, fiddling with her seat belt strap, “but there’s a house for sale down the street from Bethany’s, and we made an offer on it this morning.”