Frannie in Pieces (6 page)

In the morning
I push the eight cardboard storage boxes against the wall. I need space to roll out the puzzle board, plus enough extra area for the wooden box. The box lid, inside up, holds the border pieces that I cull from all the jigsaw pieces in the box bottom. My bureau is partially blocked. I can reach my underwear drawer (the top one) by climbing over the boxes and can get into my closet by edging sideways. This turns out to be fine, not because I decide to spend all day in my bra and undies, but because of this thing I discover: I'm
happier in Dad's clothes. And would I have any idea of this if the route were direct? No.

I was contorting around a box to get to my T-shirts when I noticed, bulging out between the cardboard flaps, a bit of blue fabric: one of his shirts. It was there, accessible, easy, so I put it on. The shirt, limp from many washings, felt especially soft on my skin. Digging farther into the box, I unearthed his old beige sweater and layered it over. They are both so huge that, while I'm wearing them, I can pull right out of the sleeves and wrap my arms around my naked body. The clothes double as a tent. I assume tent pose whenever I take a break from working the puzzle, which is almost never.

When I extracted his shirt, his baseball cap flew out too. Dad was a Yankees fan—the cap is black with NY in white lettering. It fits just fine. I can even pull my hair through the hole in the back.

Dad's jeans would have fallen off me—too bad. I have to wear my own, which are lying where I always leave them, on the bathroom floor.

When I arrive in the kitchen, around eight thirty, Mel is puttering. I putter past, grab the Cheerios box and a few more supplies to keep me fortified: raisins, orange soda, and a jar of peanut butter that I like to eat off my fingers. I've got Mel trained. He's used to my not talking, but this morning I act tired and make a lot of noise yawning so he doesn't dare to tell me what serfs ate for breakfast. This summer he's writing a book about serfs, who were slaves in the Middle Ages. You don't want to say the word
serf
around him. Not that it would ever come up, but you don't even want to say the word Nerf, as in Nerf ball, because he might say, “You know what Nerf rhymes with? Serf.” And he'll be off and running with arcane facts about serfs, like how they had no napkins.

Mel won't bother me because 1) of the aforementioned training, and 2) once he makes a pot of coffee and transfers it to a thermos, he retreats to his office and doesn't emerge until Mom comes home.

I'm able to work the puzzle all day and the next.

At dinner Mom complains. “I called you, Frannie—why didn't you answer?”

“I got rid of my cell phone. I don't want one, and I don't go anywhere, so don't tell me you have to be able to find me.”

If you want to freak a parent out, tell them you don't want your cell phone. If you want them to fall off their chairs in a dead faint, that's the way to do it. The color drains from Mom's face. She looks positively wobbly.

“What were you calling about?” I ask as I struggle to cut a lamb chop with a plastic knife.

She doesn't answer. I glance up again, still busy sawing. She and Mel are transfixed by my struggle. Transfixed (you know what it means, but for emphasis I'll remind you: to render motionless as with terror). I pretend not to notice. “What did you want?”

“Nothing. Just to see how you were.”

I reach for some ketchup, and Dad's billowy shirtsleeve lands on the spinach. “Oops.”

Mom and Mel appear gripped by that, too. Here's what else I notice: As we continue eating, all you can hear are knives and forks scraping plates. Qualification: Since my utensils are plastic, you can't hear them. You can hear only Mom's and Mel's. Still, I guess we're having a movie moment.

The next day I finish the border, an awesome thing, and measure the puzzle: thirty by twenty-one inches.

After stowing everything under the bed, I attempt to straighten up. My joints pop and creak. It's necessary to shake out my limbs before descending the stairs.

I poke around in the refrigerator: coleslaw, yogurt, tortillas. Boring. Rummage through the crisper. Would you ever want to snack on celery? Isn't that the definition of desperation? What's this? Sliced ham, practically vacuum sealed. That's another way the frenemies were opposite: food storage. I unpeel the Saran wrap and, before eating, fold a ham slice into quarters. While chewing, I
begin to wonder about Saran wrap. I read the writing on the box.
The film in Saran Premium Wrap does not contain chlorine.
That's good, I guess, but what film? No indication of what this plastic wrap actually is, just what it isn't. No warnings like
Do not wrap food with this for more than a week.
That would be typical. Wrap less than a week, keeps fresh; wrap more than a week, kills you. But apparently not. Safe to swallow, so I do. Peel the fat off another piece, tilt my head back, and drop it in my mouth.

“Sean!”

“Dad?” I whirl around.

My mom, outside, gapes at me through the kitchen window. Ever heard the expression “jaw-dropping”? Well, Mom's jaw was on the driveway right next to the car wheels. “My God,” she says. “I thought you were Sean.”

“Me?”

She opens the back door and totters in.

“The clothes, the hat. I don't know, I thought…”
She dumps her grocery bag on the table and sinks into a chair.

I see him again at that moment, crumpled on the floor, one leg in one direction, one in the other. Startled. Mold on his face.

“We have to take those clothes to Goodwill. Pack them up.”

“I'm wearing them.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I was wearing them yesterday and the day before. It's not my fault that you're out of control. These are mine, he was mine. You got rid of him.”

“Frances Anne, this is out of hand!”

“You mistook me for a dead man.”

I don't wait to see her reaction. I hope her jaw hits the floor and stays there. I hope her eyes pop out and bounce off the walls like pinballs. They're no good to her anyway, because she surely can't trust them.

For one second I believed he was alive again. Furthermore, thanks to her, I referred to Dad as a
dead man. Like that's all he is.

On my way upstairs, I pass Mel. “Is your mother okay? Honey,” he calls, “are you all right?”

I lean over the banister to watch their reunion. Mom is still collapsed in the kitchen chair. She tilts up her head for a kiss. “Hi, Booper.”

“Wake up, Frannie.”

Mashing my face into the bed, I utter agonized throaty moans.

“Frannie.”

She shakes my shoulder.

My head feels like lead, it has to be four in the morning. No, four in the morning was when I went to sleep. “What time is it?”

“Seven. You're going to work.”

My eyelids refuse to obey signals from my brain,
but I manage to prop myself up on my elbows. “What?”

“You're going to work.”

Now I can see her—this whirlybird hauling boxes away from the bureau, opening drawers, flinging a T-shirt, bra, and underpants onto the bed. “Hey, watch out,” I shout, because she nearly bangs the shelf where I have artfully displayed Dad's beloved objects: the wavy bird and all the dump treasures. “I won't work in your flower shop. I hate flowers.”

At that moment her cell phone rings, and in the middle of forcing me out of bed into work slash jail, Mom snaps instructions to Carmen at the flower market. “Three dozen in apricot. Six flats of pansies. Same with ranunculus and petunias. Assorted.” She opens my closet and tosses my Nikes on the bed.

I lie back down.

“Lilies? Let's see, yellow and white. You pick the roses, whatever looks good. Thank you, Carmen.” She yanks the blankets off me. “I mean it, Frannie. Up.”

“No.” I pull the blankets over my head.

Suddenly the bed sags, so I guess she's sitting on it.

I flop the covers down. “I don't want to go to work with you. If I do, I'll just sit there, and if the phone rings, I'll tell them, I don't know what, you're closed or something. I'll make them hang up.” I have to stay here. I have to do this thing that Dad left for me, but I can't tell her that. I won't tell her. It's not her business. It's mine. I'm going to do the puzzle today and every day until it's finished.

My mom taps the phone against the bedstead. She stares at the wall as if she's never before seen my amazing Paul Klee poster of
Dream City
. Her silence gives me the creeps. All I hear is a leaf blower blasting, but far away down the block. I'm not breaking the silence. I'm not working at her stupid store, either.

“Not at the store,” she says finally.

What is she talking about? She's tricking me to get me to talk, and if I talk to her, she thinks she
can talk me into something.

She goes to the bureau and takes a tissue from the box. In the mirror, oh God, not really, I see her blot her eyes and blow her nose. She's crying. My mom is crying. “I don't know what to do for you,” she says. Her shoulders shake and little piglike noises squeak out, I guess from trying not to cry and failing.

I have never seen my mom lose it. Not even when the oven didn't light, and, like an idiot, she looked inside—did Hansel and Gretel teach her nothing?
Whoosh
, the oven fired up, singed her, and for a month she walked around with no bangs or eyebrows, looking like an egg.

An hour later, I am on a yellow school bus. I'm the oldest person, the only teenager. Everyone else is between the ages of five and ten. I have my lunch in a brown bag. Fact, not opinion: If your mom cries, she can get you to do anything.

“You have to ride
with the campers,” Mom tells me as a final zetz. A zetz is a zap spiked with extra nasty. “I have to go to work.”

Mr. DeAngelo, the driver, invites me to “sit wherever,” so I collapse in the first available seat, which happens to be right behind him, after a quick alarming glance at the maniacs farther back. Kids bounce up and down, scream, snatch things. One boy dives over a seat back and ends up with his legs poking into the air.

Mr. DeAngelo pulls the bus over. “Rocco, get your ass in the seat.”

I don't think Mr. DeAngelo is supposed to use the word
ass
when addressing the kids. Rocco's legs fall sideways, causing another kid, not visible, to howl—presumably Rocco's legs have clubbed him. A second later Rocco's head bobs up. He has a pudgy face, cheeks like fat peaches, and enormous round black eyes. I had a stuffed dog once with exactly the same eyes, only the dog's eyes were made of felt. “You're holding up the bus.” Mr. DeAngelo talks to him without turning around. He observes him in the rearview mirror.

“Sit down, dodo.” A girl with pigtails yanks Rocco's arm, and he plops down out of sight. Now, I assume, he's sitting. I also assume, because she used the term
dodo
, that the girl is his sister.

“You can keep driving now, Mr. DeAngelo,” she says.

“Thank you, Lark.”

As the bus continues on, the kid behind me kicks my seat.

I will never forgive my mother for this. Never, as long as I live.

“Why don't you teach them a song?” Mr. DeAngelo is addressing me via his rearview mirror.

I should teach them a song? How astonishing. Maybe he'll forget he said it.

“Aren't you a counselor?”

“Yes.”

“Teach them a song. They like that.”

“I don't know any.” I close my eyes. Maybe I can nap. Another kick. I swing around. “Don't kick the seat.”

Two little girls clutching Barbie dolls cease all motion. “Sorry,” one whispers. “I didn't mean to,” says the other barely audibly, and she sticks her thumb in her mouth. Good grief. I've made her revert to infancy. I should have been nice. I should have asked, “Is that Malibu Barbie? I see she has a surf board and is dressed for the beach.” Or at the
very least, “What's your doll's name?” Although aren't all Barbies named Barbie? I don't know—I was never a doll person.

The bus rumbles along out of Hudson Glen and a half hour later turns down a road with a carved wooden sign: a bear pointing with one paw, Lake Winnasaki. And a few minutes later another bear sign, Camp Winnasaki.

With a bullhorn Ms. Thornton booms a greeting. “Welcome, campers!” All the kids crowd over to one side of the bus to see who's talking. “Hel-lo, how-de-do, hi there, and a hocus-pocus.” She finds nearly twenty ways to let them know they've arrived while the bus crunches down the gravel road and parks in front of a small log cabin, the kind Abe Lincoln was born in.

Ms. Thornton teaches biology at Cobweb. That's how Mom knows about this camp. She probably conned Ms. Thornton into hiring me without an interview by reminding her that I was dadless. I wonder if Mom told her that I love little
kids, a big lie. Ms. Thornton's classroom is full of slimy creatures like garter snakes, which she lets slither up her arm (“and God knows where else,” Jenna says). When she dissects a frog, she displays the severed legs on her bare palm. Ms. Thornton always mashes down her voluminous, screaming-red hair with a wide, white headband. The result is not quite a hairdo, more like she went to the hospital and got bandaged. She is covered with freckles, even her legs, which I notice through the bus window because she's wearing baggy plaid shorts.

“Here you go.” Mr. DeAngelo swings the kids out, one after another. When Rocco's turn comes, the kid declares, “I'm going to leave the bus backward with my eyes shut.” Mr. DeAngelo grabs him anyway. As soon as he lands, Lark shoves Rocco's lunch box right into his chest so he has to hold it, no choice. “Carry your own lunch, dodo bird. And don't talk to me again in public.” She is definitely his sister.

Ms. Thornton and several counselors wear white
T-shirts that say
CAMP WINNASAKI
. All the counselors look to be my age. Well, I look old for my age in my opinion, because of my awesome maturity and possible air of tragedy. Maybe they're older than me. One counselor, a guy with a buzz cut, is doing push-ups. He springs up, performs a few jumping jacks, and shakes his arms to loosen up. I guess you need to be in good shape to handle a bunch of kids under the age of ten.

“Hey, I'm Simon, who are you?” He jogs a circle around me as I trail everyone onto a tennis court that has weeds growing around the edge and cracks in the asphalt, perfect for tripping and falling.

“I'm Frannie.” I give him a Mona Lisa smile. The
Mona Lisa
is a famous portrait by Leonardo da Vinci of a woman with long brown hair, wearing a scoop-neck top. Dad showed me a picture of it. The important thing isn't her hair or her clothes—which are nothing to write home about—but her smile. It's mysterious, no teeth showing, lips pressed together but they go up the tiniest bit at the edges.
Dad argued that her smile is mysterious because of her eyes, not her lips. Man, he never shut up about eyes and how they're the key to everything, but I digress, which means to ramble off on a side track giving other people either anxiety or utter boredom. Jenna and I practiced Mona Lisa smiles in front of the mirror. When someone bugged us at school, we would say, Give him (or her) the MLS. With the MLS, it's not clear if you're smiling, being secretive, or, in the case of me with Simon right now, acting superior.

“Frannie,” he repeats. “Frannie-bo-banny.”

Forget the MLS. A total snub is in order.

“Simon. Simon, raise your hand,” calls Ms. Thornton. “Simon teaches canoeing, nature, and sensitivity training.”

“Yo, dudes,” says Simon.

Sensitivity training. Of course sensitivity—Ms. Thornton teaches at Cobweb. She introduces all the counselors except me, then, in a roll call, divides the campers into groups according to their age.
Everyone should call her Harriet, Ms. Thornton announces. Whichever group stands in the straightest line will get s'mores at the end of the week, she promises.

Lark raises her hand. “Rocco can't eat sugar, he's allergic.”

“We'll find something else for you to eat, won't we, Rocco?”

“Me eat flies.” Rocco beats his chest.

“That's nice. We'll find you some juicy ones,” says Ms. Thornton.

“I rode on a cloud,” he adds.

“He did not,” Lark calls loudly.

“If I eat sugar, my mom blows a gasket,” says a girl wearing a tiara. “It makes me hyper. Except carrot cake. Are we going swimming?”

A bunch of kids start carrying on about how they had carrot cake for their birthdays. I guess it's a popular cake type. Ms. Thornton blares through the bullhorn. “Silence, please.” The counselors all put their fingers to their lips to indicate that their
campers should obey. Ms. Thornton then disperses the groups to various activities—hiking, canoeing, folk dancing, archery, swimming. I'm the only one left on the tennis court when Harriet notices (it's going to be hard to get used to calling her Harriet) and claps her hands. “Frannie, I forgot you were coming, and we need you desperately. You'll set up in there.”

She waves toward a ramshackle barn over near some trees. One side sags, causing the whole structure to tilt—Dad would love that; maybe he would even have appreciated the tarpaper patches dotting the roof. The side windows must be missing or cracked, because the panes are partially sealed with plastic. Harriet rambles on, “I assume you've got it all worked out. Your mother says you're a complete genius.”

At what am I a complete genius? That I would like to know.

Should I admit I'm clueless about the exact nature of the job? It slipped Mom's mind to tell me,
probably because she was so busy crying. And it slipped my mind to ask, because I was so busy being agreeable so she'd stop crying.

At that moment Ms. Thornton, aka Harriet, discovers a bird feather. “My goodness, look at that.” She snatches it from the ground and holds it out. “Can you make use of this in your arts and crafts program?”

So I am the arts and crafts counselor.

A revolting discovery. I don't know anything about arts and crafts. I draw. D-R-A-W. Art is serious. Arts and crafts—that's making-potholder time. Trust Mom not to know the difference.

I consider screaming. Can I simply open my mouth in the middle of Camp Winnasaki and howl? For the next eight weeks I'm expected to ride here every day in a bus full of shrieking brats and teach them arts and crafts, something about which I know nothing, when I should be home doing the puzzle.

I leave Harriet Thornton and walk to the barn.

“I'll send over your first victims in an hour.” She honks a laugh. Her laugh is famous at Cobweb for resembling the call of an elephant.

The barn door refuses to budge. Shoulder first, I throw my weight against it, and it creaks open a few inches, revealing a glimpse of the impediment: a gigantic bale of hay. I squeeze in and then, using my nonexistent muscles, inch the bale away from the door.

It's nice inside. How unexpected. Sunlight seeps in between loose shingles, and the whole effect is mellow yellow. Straw on the floor, musty smell, old things. To me, comfort food. There's a large metal windmilly thing—maybe part of a thresher. Although I'm not sure what a thresher is, for some reason that word comes to mind. Dad would have popped his cork over its lovely shape of interlocking circles. He'd have leaped around, viewed it from every angle. The only eyesore—a metal table, quite long, leaning against the wall with a few stacks of folding chairs—must be for my
nonexistent arts-and-crafts program. I look around for shelves or a cabinet. None. No supplies as far as I can tell. What is the Honker thinking?

The table, all rusted, makes skin-shivering squeaks as I unfold the legs. Several times it crashes over. That's my klutzy fault. I set up the chairs around it—now I'm wiped from the most exertion I've had in months. I collapse in a chair and stare half-wittedly at the floor, an activity I highly recommend for brain dulling. Soon the floor begins to seem inviting, and the next thing I know—the urge is too compelling—I lie down on it.

Straw prickles my neck, the hard wood chafes my shoulder blades. Gazing up, I notice spiderwebs in the crossbeams, a jagged lightning bolt of a crack in the ceiling, a certain musical quality to the shifting light patterns. I swear there is melody in light. What I mean is, you can think of the wind and the sun and the clouds, even time—all the elements that combine to affect color and the nature of light—as an orchestra playing different tunes in
different combinations every second of the day. Dum, de, dum, dum.

I almost cease to exist lying there.

The ground vibrates. How bizarre, although interesting. Then I realize why. Small feet thundering in. Seven-year-olds peer down at me, and looming over, Harriet the Honker. Her forehead crinkles, eyes narrow, probably wondering what sort of weirdo she has on her hands.

“I'm getting horizontal,” I offer by way of explanation. Her forehead furrows until there's a crease you could dive into. I am freaking the lady out.

I stand and brush off the straw. Harriet picks a few bits out of my hair.

“What's horizontal?” asks a boy, scratching his sides.

“Are you itchy?”

“I have twelve mosquito bites.” He lifts his T-shirt. “One, two, three…” He counts nine red spots on his stomach, two on his arm, and one on his ankle.

“What's your name?”

“Brandon.”

“Well, Brandon with the twelve bites, getting horizontal is an official art term. It means lying down.”

“I'm Pearl. Who are you?” says the girl in the tiara.

“Frannie.”

Rocco is using the thresher-sculpture as a jungle gym.

“Please get down from there, Rocco,” I say.

“No.” He leaps, grabbing at a higher bar.

“Rocco!” I might have shrieked, I'm not sure. I grab his legs and hug them to my chest. “Let go, right now.” He flops over my shoulder, and I deposit him back on the ground. He waves me to come close.

“What?” I ask.

He cups his hands around his mouth. “The moon is a marble.”

“Who told you that?”

“Me. I can cut the sky in two.”

“Oh, well, okay. Stay down here, do you understand? Stay off that, whatever it is.”

“Have fun,” says the Honker, suddenly satisfied, and she splits.

I chase her. “Ms. Thornton. Harriet.”

She stops.

“I can't do this, I don't want to do this. This was my mom's idea.”

“Aw, Frannie.” She puts her arms around me. “Hug time.” My face smashes into her shoulder. She pats my back as if prompting a burp.

This is so embarrassing. So embarrassing to be someone anyone can make cry. I mean, one hug from Harriet Honker Thornton is all it takes. How humiliating. To avoid a flash flood, I have to freeze my face, make it rock solid, a difficult thing to accomplish. Fortunately she releases me.

I focus on her freckles. “But what am I supposed to do?”

“I have no idea. Do whatever you want.” She
blows a piercing blast on her whistle. “Hey there, Jesse, wait up.” She signals another counselor and strides off.

“Excuse me.”

I turn.

She must have been here all along but I hadn't noticed. An extremely neat person: an ENP. Her Camp Winnasaki T-shirt is tucked into pressed khaki shorts. As for my obsession, hair. Hers (in a ponytail) behaves: Not one strand escapes from the velvet scrunchee. She's at least eighteen years old—I can tell from her poise. I don't know anyone my age who is truly confident. Not even Sukie Jameson, in spite of her curves and straight-A average. When Sukie gave an oral report on the African-American Civil War Brigade, her voice trembled. The reason I know the ENP has poise to burn is that she asks a question as if it wasn't one. She says, “I'll come back later, do you mind?” But she implies, “I'll come back later, tough noogies if you mind.”