Part 1 (1/2)

Josie and Jack.

Kelly Braffet.

This is for my parents, Jim and Theresa, and also for Casey, who put Bunny on the roof.

When the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked them all up. Hansel said to Grethel, ”We shall soon find the way,” but they did not find it.

-”Hansel and Grethel,”

JACOB AND WILHELM GRIMM.

1.

THE WORST HANGOVERS come on the sunniest days. Even at sixteen I knew enough to expect that. The day when Jack drove me into town to buy aspirin, the sun was s.h.i.+ning and the sky was the brilliant blue of a crayon drawing. Late summer in western Pennsylvania is muggy and oppressive enough to make your head spin even on a good day, and the air conditioning in the truck hadn't worked for years. My stomach rolled with each curve and dip in the road, and my head was impaled on a hot hard spike that made my eyes throb. I felt weighed down by the heat and barely alive.

”Josie,” Jack said. ”Okay?”

”There's a jackhammer in my head,” I said. ”Other than that, I'm fine.”

”Someone's grumpy.”

”You're not helping.”

”I'm driving you to get aspirin, aren't I?” he said.

We turned onto the highway, the sun hit us head-on, and I didn't bother to answer. Jack took a pair of sungla.s.ses from above the sun visor. He had the radio on. The beat was jarring and obnoxious and the announcer's voice sounded like metal on asphalt. The glare off the road made my eyes hurt, and underneath the sourness of my whiskey-burned stomach the old familiar dread was taking shape.

I hated going into town. Town people stared.

Meanwhile, there was Jack, undamaged and cool as you could possibly please behind his sungla.s.ses, just as if we hadn't been up till dawn drinking everything but the drain cleaner under the sink. That was my brother: it was like he was his own species, one that had sneaked a couple thousand extra years in while evolution was looking the other way.

”You never feel a thing, do you?” I said.

”Not like you do,” he answered.

I leaned my head back against the rear window and closed my eyes. The truck hit a pothole and my head bounced hard against the gla.s.s.

”I want a pair of sungla.s.ses,” I said.

Which was how it came to pa.s.s that instead of getting the trip to town over with as soon as possible, the way we usually did, I found myself wasting precious time at the revolving display rack in the drugstore, picking up and discarding one pair of sungla.s.ses after another as I tried to find some that would hide me from the world and still leave me able to recognize myself in the mirror. Jack was standing by the paperbacks, reading the back covers of the novels.

There had been a woman standing at the cash register when we came in. The bell over the door jingled as she left, and Jack was suddenly standing at my elbow.

”You've got an audience,” he said, and I froze, the pair of gla.s.ses in my hand halfway to my face. I thought he meant the woman. Like I said, people in town stared.

”No, it's okay,” he said. ”The kid behind the counter.”

I put the gla.s.ses on, turned the rack slightly so that I could see the boy in the mirror, and looked.

The boy behind the cash register was about my age, with longish hair and thin, rangy limbs. He wore a black T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans underneath his blue store ap.r.o.n. Jack was right, he was staring; but as I turned my head to get a better look he bent hastily over the magazine that lay open on the counter in front of him, as if he'd been reading it all along, and started flipping through the pages too quickly to see what was on them.

”So?” I said to my brother, who looked so easy by comparison in his old stained s.h.i.+rt and sleep-twisted hair.

Jack turned back to the rack of gla.s.ses and started to spin it lazily. ”He's been looking at you since we came in.”

”That's ridiculous.”

Jack said, ”We're undeniably charismatic,” and picked a pair of sungla.s.ses at random. Then he told me to go ask my new boyfriend where the aspirin was. I said I knew where the aspirin was, but he squeezed my elbow and said to trust him, so I did.

When the boy saw me coming, he pushed his gla.s.ses up his nose and ran his hands through his hair.

”Aisle five,” he said when I asked about the aspirin. I noticed, almost clinically, that his gla.s.ses hid a nice set of eyelashes, for a boy. They weren't as thick as Jack's, but they were straight and dark. His long, thin fingers, tapping on the counter, were tanned to a rich golden brown.

He was making me nervous, this boy, watching me too closely. I realized that I was turning the sungla.s.ses Jack had given me over and over in my hands, and stopped.

”They'll look good on you,” the boy said shyly.

I knew I was supposed to say something in return, but I didn't know what. So I just smiled. The smile felt strained on my lips.

Jack saved me by coming up behind me. ”I found it, Jo,” he said and held up the bottle of aspirin. He took the sungla.s.ses and put both items on the counter. The look on his face was distant and bored.

The boy's movements were studied, too casual, as he rang us up. His eyes kept darting up at one or the other of us. Usually me.

”You're those Raeburn kids, aren't you?” he asked as he gave us our change.

”No, we're the other ones,” Jack said and handed me the sungla.s.ses as we turned away.

As the door jangled behind us, the boy called, ”See you around?” as if it were a question.

Back in the battered blue truck, Jack used his keys to break the seal on the aspirin. He pulled out the wad of cotton stuffed in the top of the bottle and threw it out the window. Shaking out four tablets, he handed two of them to me and took the other two himself.

I wished that we'd thought of getting something to wash the pills down with and dry-swallowed them.

”What was all that about?” I said when I could talk.

Jack stretched his arm across the back of the seat and tugged lightly on my braid. His green eyes were amused. He said, ”He likes you.”

”You're still drunk,” I said.

”He couldn't take his eyes off you,” Jack said. ”But he could barely talk to you, and he was afraid to look you in the eye.” He winked. ”Broadcasting loud and clear, little sister.”

I pulled my knees up and braced them against the dashboard. I could still feel the pills in my throat.

”He doesn't like me,” I said. ”He doesn't even know me.”