I stand there for a minute more and then say, “Just a few more minutes, then bed. It’s getting late.”
He doesn’t respond, so I gently close the door, but before it shuts all the way, I hear him mutter something. It sounds a lot like “I hate it here.”
The door latch clicks in place and I take a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to swallow the guilt that I feel and reminding myself, It’s only for six months.
ON SATURDAY, I’M supposed to be getting ready to take Aja to the animal shelter—even though a dog is the last thing we need right now—but I can’t stop thinking about Ellie.
I read the journal. I know I shouldn’t have, but when I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering if it had some magical insight into Ellie’s mind that would help me understand why she’s so angry—why she won’t speak to me—I got up and opened the drawer where I stashed it. Before I could convince myself that what I was doing was wrong, I reached in, picked up the spiral notebook, opened the front cover, and started reading. And here’s the thing: it’s not really a journal, which must be why Ellie’s not freaking out about where it is. I mean, it is a journal, in that it’s her thoughts written down on paper. But it must have been some kind of school assignment, because there’s a grade and handwritten comment on the inside front cover: “A, Great job!” (That’s my girl. Or that was my girl, until she started hanging out with Darcy and her grades nose-dived into the C and D territory.) And each page is devoted to a different book—presumably books that she read and then discussed her opinions of in this journal.
But still, to be fair, I texted her immediately afterward.
Found your book journal assignment. OK if I flip through it? Dad What’s that saying about how it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission? OK, so maybe this is more like asking for permission after you’ve already done the thing you want permission for, but same principle. Kind of. Regardless, I took her silence as approval.
I’m rereading her entry on The Catcher in the Rye (a book I think I read in high school but don’t remember much about) when Aja appears in the doorway to my room.
I drop the journal, as if it’s a porn magazine I’ve been caught looking at. (So, maybe even with her silent approval, I still feel a little guilty.) “Are you ready?” he asks. “You said we were leaving for the animal shelter at nine.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I say, glancing back at the journal. Suddenly I have an idea. A way to try to make inroads with Ellie. “We just have to make a quick stop first.”
“Where?”
“The library.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, when I reach for the handle on the door of the Lincoln County Library, I spot a sign affixed to the glass.
JOIN US NEXT SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31
HALLOWEEN STORY TIME FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES
WEAR A COSTUME (BOOK CHARACTERS ENCOURAGED) FREE CANDY!
I glance over at Aja and he’s grinning at me, his face a lit-up Christmas tree. “Told you I’d find a place to wear it,” he says.
I sigh, and open the door.
seven
JUBILEE
“DON’T FORGET TO wear a Halloween costume, dear!” is the last thing Louise said to me as I was leaving on my fifth day of work.
“A costume?”
“Tomorrow’s Halloween,” she said. “We always dress up at the library.”
I’ve only worn a Halloween costume once in my life. I was nine and my one and only childhood friend, Gracie Lee, and I dressed as the twins from The Shining. “Why on earth would you want to go as that?” Mom asked, snuffing out a cigarette on a paper plate. “It’s morbid.” Gracie Lee took out her bulky blue hearing aids and wore a pair of gloves to match me, even though the girls in the movie didn’t wear them. But nobody really got it—maybe because we looked nothing alike in the face—and one woman even commented how “cute” we were. Gracie Lee couldn’t hear her, so I told her the woman said we looked creepy and she smiled. And then another memory from that Halloween bursts through. As we were sorting our loot at the end of the night, Gracie bit into a Baby Ruth, not knowing it had caramel in it. She hated caramel, so she handed me the candy bar. Before I could get it to my lips, my mom slapped it out of my hand. “Are you trying to kill yourself?” she screamed. “Do you want to die?” That night I had seen vampires and ghosts and a boy in a terrifying mask that looked like it had real blood dripping down its face, but that was the most scared I’d ever been. I was still shaking when I went to bed.
Now, staring at my mom’s closet, I finger the sleeves of each suit and blouse, hoping inspiration will strike me. But so far, I can only think of Business Executive Barbie in Mom’s bubblegum-pink suit that I have yet to wear, because it’s bubblegum pink.
My fingers reach the end of their journey at the back of the closet and land on something soft to the touch. I pull the garment off the hanger and bring it out into the light. It’s a long, white gown—not like a wedding dress, but more like something to sleep in. I have no idea why my mom owned this unflattering, way-too-much-coverage-for-her-taste getup, but it’s perfect.
I’m going to be Emily Dickinson. In the latter part of her life, when she didn’t leave her house and only wore white and talked to her friends and family through her front door.
I peel off my sweatshirt and flannel pants and tug the gown over my head. Like all of Mom’s clothes, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but it will do. I go to the bathroom and release my hair from the rubber band that’s been holding it hostage on top of my head. Even though Emily Dickinson wore her hair tightly smoothed back in a conservative bun in all the portraits I’ve seen of her—and I’ve been wearing mine pulled back every day at the library—I decide to let it be loose and wild today. If she holed up in her house for years and didn’t accept visitors, it stands to reason she wouldn’t fix her hair. I glance in the mirror one last time and then go downstairs to get my gloves and keys.
WHEN I WALK into the library, Louise looks at me. “Oh dear, did you wake up late?”
“No,” I say.
She frowns. “Why are you wearing a nightgown?”
“This is my costume.” I slip my bag behind the circulation desk.
She’s got on a black cap and aviator sunglasses, so I feel rather than see her narrow her eyes at me.
“Are you that weird pop singer? That Lady Gaga or whoever?”
“No,” I say. “I’m Emily Dickinson.”
“The poet?”
“Yeah.”
I can see she’s still trying to figure it out.
“Toward the end of her life, she was kind of a hermit and only wore white.”
“Huh.”
She turns her body to face me, and I notice the silver handcuffs hanging from Louise’s belt loop. She points to the paper she’s taped to her chest. It reads: GRAMMER POLICE.
“You spelled ‘grammar’ wrong.”
“I did?” She looks down. “Well, damn.”