Whatever Happened to Janie? (5 page)

Get a grip, Janie told herself over and over.

She tried breathing deeply, she tried meditating, she tried lecturing herself, she even tried praying, which she had never come across before. Her family was not religious. But the Springs were. They prayed every night before supper, a lengthy grace, during which they held hands.

Who were these people? They could not be her family.

Mrs. Spring was very talkative. Stories about her day poured out of her. She laughed, teased, and interrogated her kids about every quiz, ball game, and book report. She was revved up at high speed, whipping through her own workday, charging into her kids’ afterschool activities. She was always out of breath and halfway into her next move.

Mr. Spring was very physical with his kids. He picked them up as if they were still toddlers. He wrestled with the boys, he bear-hugged, he threw pillows at them, he raced them to see who would get the TV remote control. Janie shrank back, keeping herself near a wall or large furniture, lest he hoist her into the air, too.

The house even smelled different. The scrubbed quiet of the Johnson home was such a contrast to
this house full of boys’ sneakers and athletic jackets thrown on the floor while baseballs, bats, and mitts were left for anybody to trip over in the hallways.

Nothing was right. Even breakfast was wrong. The Springs had apple juice, not orange juice. Anybody knew you had to start the day with orange juice. They had instant oatmeal, the flavored kind in individual envelopes. It tasted like cedar chips for hamsters. She wanted cinnamon toast and half a grapefruit. They didn’t even have bread in their house! Nobody ate sandwiches. How could you get through life without sandwiches?

Homesickness actually made her sick. Her stomach hurt. Once with Reeve, who had in mind driving around to find a dark secluded spot to be alone with his girl, Janie had gotten so sick from what she was starting to understand that she made Reeve pull over so she could throw up in the bushes. She felt that way all the time here.

I’ll never be able to swallow again, she thought, so what difference does it make if they don’t have sandwiches?

There was only one bathroom.

Janie had had her own bath all her life.

She could not believe she had to share a bathroom with six other people! They had a timer you had to set before you took a shower. You could use hot water for exactly three minutes, then you had to get out. Three minutes! Janie couldn’t even get wet that fast.

Nor was there room in the bathroom to keep anything but your toothbrush in there. Everybody
had a plastic pail in which to carry their shampoo and shower cap and stuff back and forth.

People were always lined up for the bathroom. And if Janie got in, they grilled her. “What are you going to do in there?” they demanded. “Hurry up. I have to do my makeup.” “I have to leave in five minutes.” “You wait for me instead, Jennie.”

This family did not know what leisure was.

They were stacked up like planes for landing.

When they were not studying her, or in line ahead of her, or serving her food that was completely different from the food she had grown up on, they were asking her trick questions.

“Would you like to look at your baby pictures?” said Mrs. Spring.

On the one hand, Janie would love to see her baby pictures. On the other hand, that was one of the things that had forced Janie’s back against the wall in Connecticut: her parents had no photographs of Janie as a little girl. After a pause in which Janie weighed the possibility of looking at these baby pictures, and seeing herself among these people as a family, in their arms, in their high chair, in their car seat, she pressed her lips together and shook her head no.

“It isn’t being disloyal to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson to start liking us, Jennie,” said Mrs. Spring softly.

Janie began to cry.

“I know you’re not ready to call me Mom, or call your father Dad,” said Mrs. Spring, beginning to cry herself. “I know those are precious syllables. I know this is going to take time, and it’s going to hurt. But
it’s okay to relax here, Jennie. It’s okay to have a good time, or laugh, or even let somebody hug you.”

I’m not
Jennie!
she thought. I’m
Janie!
She managed a nod. She managed to let Mrs. Spring put both arms around her. She stood very still inside the hug and could not imagine that she would ever hug back. But she was able to receive one.

“Whew!” teased Brendan. Or Brian. “Wipe the sweat off your brow, Jennie. You survived a hug! Give that girl a medal!”

She did have to laugh.

“Pretend it’s overnight camp,” said Jodie. Jodie had the same large brown eyes as the twins. She tossed her head in the same teasing stance as her mother. “So you’re a little homesick the first week. Pretty soon it’s the best time you’ve ever had.”

The best time she had ever had? Janie choked. She had been there only one weekend, and it felt like a hundred abandoned years. Her thoughts were so chaotic they did not even feel like thoughts, but a jumble of nightmare that meant nothing and went nowhere.

This time it was Mr. Spring who tried to hug her. He was so big and his red beard so foreign and intrusive. She backed away from him as if he were a grizzly bear. Behind the curling mustache, his face collapsed. She had hurt him. Stephen and Jodie exchanged looks that Janie could not read. Only the twins seemed disinterested. As for Mrs. Spring—Janie could not look at her. How could your mother—the most important person in your childhood—turn out to be somebody else? She could never, never, never use the word “mother” on Mrs. Spring.

Be our good girl. Make us proud. Show them we were good parents to you.

“I’m sorry,” Janie said. “I’m trying. I really am. But it’s—it’s hard. I’ve been taken away from my real family
twice.”
She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want them to see how scared she was.

“Except the Johnsons weren’t your real family,” said Mr. Spring carefully. “They were wonderful people, and we will always be in debt to them, because they took care of our daughter for us. But you’re
back
with your real family, sweetie.”

She didn’t want strangers calling her sweetie.

“Anyway,” said Jodie, getting mad, “we didn’t take you from the Johnsons.
You
called
us.
You’re the one who recognized yourself on the milk carton. You wanted to come here.”

“I
didn’t
want to come,” Janie mumbled. “I just wanted you to know that I was all right. I wanted you to stop worrying.” Now it was her parents in Connecticut doing the worrying. They too had lost a daughter twice.
Oh, Mommy!
she thought, her lungs flaring up like bonfires. I can’t even breathe here, Mommy. I want to go home!

“We love you, Jennie,” said Mrs. Spring. She ran her fingers through Janie’s hair as if she owned Janie. As if she were Janie’s mother. “And we’re very, very glad to have you home.”

“
T
he first day of school,” said Mrs. Spring, “will probably be difficult for you, Jennie. There’s been a lot of publicity.”

Janie had always loved Mondays, because she had always loved school. School was where your friends waited for you, where your boyfriend waved to you, and where your teachers thought you were terrific.

A new family on Friday and a new school on Monday. It was too much!

What is it like to be a foster child? thought Janie. And have new families all the time?

She could not find a safe place to look. There were so many staring eyes in this big family. She refused to let herself start at a new school with tears running down her cheeks. She hung on to her thoughts and was painfully grateful to be handed a notebook to hold also. JENNIE, it said in big white letters embossed on the slick blue front.

These people were in love with their own names. So far they had given her not only a mug emblazoned
JENNIE
, but also a juice glass, a spoon, and
a dozen pencils. Even her pale blue pillowcase was embroidered in lacy, loopy white script,
JENNIE
.

I’m Janie. Janie, Janie, Janie.

She held the notebook upside down so she would not have to look at the lettering. She forced herself to look at Mrs. Spring. Chunky and going gray, Mrs. Spring was not interested in clothing. She had yanked on a skirt and blouse that didn’t quite match and a sweater that didn’t quite hang right. She wore a utility watch with a plain black strap.

Janie and her mother both had Swatch collections, and liked to choose a watch for the day that matched earrings and other accessories.

Jodie had helped pick out clothes for the first day of school that would be just like what the rest of the New Jersey kids wore. She was amazed at the size of Janie’s wardrobe. “There’s nothing you don’t have,” Jodie said, fingering the thirty Swatches and the growing tower of sweaters. Jodie had graciously cleared drawers and hangers, but the space did not hold a fraction of Janie’s possessions. The girls looked at each other uneasily and Janie was embarrassed by the collection that only a few weeks ago she had thought was skimpy and needed replenishing. “I guess we’ll just shove the rest of this under the beds or something.”

“They’re rich, aren’t they?” said Jodie.

Jodie meant her parents. Should Janie say—Yes, my parents are rich—in which case she would be told—They aren’t your parents? Should she say—Well, not rich in comparison to Reeve’s family;
Reeve’s family is really rich. Then she’d have to explain Reeve.

Reeve.

There would be no boy next door to give her rides to school. No boy to swagger down the hall with his arm around her, boasting with his walk that he dated this girl. There would be no grin across the cafeteria, no snack sharing at Janie’s after school, no phone call at night.

Three months before I can talk to Reeve again, thought Janie. I can’t believe we agreed to three months of silence!

She forgot to answer Jodie’s question about the Johnsons’ money.

“Time to go,” said Jodie in a funny voice.

Janie took a quick look in the long mirror fastened to the back of Jodie’s bedroom door. First-day-of-school horrors hit the pit of her stomach. She could never tell, on the first day of school, whether she was attractive and likable, or geeky and pathetic, doomed to be ignored and taunted.

“You look great,” said Jodie eagerly. “You look just like a Spring.”

Janie did not want to look like a Spring. She wanted to look like a Johnson. Reflected in the truth of the mirror, with Jodie’s pixie face behind her, Janie knew once and for all there had been no error. She was a Spring.

“I’ll stay with you as long as I can,” said Jodie, “but you’re in a different grade. You’ll have different classes. But each teacher has assigned you a buddy. You won’t ever have to go anywhere alone.”

Janie nodded.

Mrs. Spring drove them, so Janie didn’t have to face the bus yet. When the girls got out of the car, she said, like a mother, “Be brave, honey. It’ll be a long day, but each day will be easier.” Jodie gave her mother a good-bye kiss, but Janie got out of the car quickly and faced the next torture.

It was a generic high school. Vanilla-painted cement block. Black-and-gray-speckled vinyl floors. Fluorescent strip lighting. Art projects trying to lighten the place up.

She tried to blend in. She tried to be anonymous, the way new kids were supposed to be. But they knew her. It was equal parts romantic and hideous. The other students were fascinated and yet repelled, as if her kidnapped state might be infectious. I don’t have to worry about being ignored, she thought ruefully.

A sort of home video played in Janie’s mind. She saw not the new faces around her, but the old ones she should have been with on a Monday. Her real parents, friends, teachers, and neighbors surrounded her in a cloud of loss.

Miranda Johnson would be getting ready for her day at the hospital. Although volunteers wore repulsive salmon-pink jackets, Janie’s mother nevertheless dressed beautifully. She had an entire wardrobe that would look terrific with that ugly half-red. Janie imagined her mother, going through her silent routines, in her silent house, heading for the hospital.

But what if her mother could not pick up the routines? What if she just sat home, frozen in an empty house?
Oh Mommy! Please be all right!

General Chorus was on Janie’s new schedule. They’d been able to duplicate all her Connecticut subjects except one: silversmithing. Janie was not artistic and had never succeeded at any craft from cross-stitch to cake decorating, but she had always wanted to make her own jewelry.

General Chorus instead. Wonderful.

Janie could not sing. She had roughly a four-note range, considerably lower than female voices ought to be. The choir director back home used to yell at the altos, “Somebody get out of the basement!” The somebody was Janie, and she could not get her voice out of the basement. Although she loved music and wished passionately for a voice, she had dropped chorus years ago.

Knowing what her voice would do to the harmony, Janie did not even attempt to sing. It was nice to have a black music folder though. It was nice to be in a room of eighty kids whose attention was on somebody else—the conductor.