Juniper Lemon's Happiness Index Read online

  KATHY DAWSON BOOKS

  PENGUIN YOUNG READERS GROUP

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Julie Israel

  “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in).” Copyright ©1952, 1980, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust, from Complete Poems: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

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  Ebook ISBN 9780735228191

  Design by Jasmin Rubero

  Jacket photo © Inna Mosina / Trevillion Images

  All other images courtesy of Shutterstock.com

  Version_1

  With hugs to my sisters.

  Stef, Darina, if you’re reading this—YOU MADE IT!

  Fame by association!

  “and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”

  —e.e. cummings

  DAYS WITHOUT HER:

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  65

  66

  “Holes”

  Falling

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  74

  75

  Extra Credit: Time

  New Units of Time

  90

  102

  103

  Time

  Things I just LOVE about Valentine’s Day

  105

  109

  110

  Instructions for Remembering Your Sister

  117

  119

  121

  133

  134

  138

  145

  Portrait of Thanksgiving Using Negative Space

  150

  168

  173

  174

  Portrait of Christmas in Past Positives

  180

  181

  210

  211

  230

  231

  245

  Reminders

  247

  248

  249

  254

  Things Unsaid

  258

  266

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  - 65 -

  The girl in the picture doesn’t look any different.

  Things you see: brown eyes. Honey hair to the shoulders. Natural eyeliner.

  Things you don’t: stitches. A neck brace.

  The sleep rings hidden beneath her makeup.

  I lower my new student ID card. My throat is tight with all the changes I carry, but don’t find there. Still, I’m grateful not to wear them like a flag on my forehead: Ask me about my tragedy!

  There’s talk enough without advertising.

  Even as I stow the card and cross the cafeteria, I catch two girls sneaking glances at me from a nearby table.

  Girl #1: “Do you think she saw it happen?”

  Girl #2: “Uh, yeah? She was there.”

  Girl #1: “No, I mean—” (She lowers her voice.) “The moment when Camil—”

  That’s when Girl #2 knocks 1 in the ribs and 1 sees me watching, and both shut up and look quickly away, in opposite directions.

  I scrunch Camilla’s bag closer. It still smells faintly of her dark vanilla rose spray. I haven’t used it all summer because I’ve wanted to preserve it, to keep its last little proofs of her intact, but today I had a feeling I would need it.

  It’s hard to keep close a person everyone keeps telling you is gone.

  Whispers follow until I duck into an alcove beside the stairs. Alone at last at a tucked-away table, I cross “ID Card” off my Back-to-School Orientation List and resume doodling at the edges. Normally I’d have bounced from this fun house by now, but alas—today Dad had Plans. These involve me “hanging out” with my peers before class starts tomorrow, which is why he left me here to die socialize while he ran errands.

  Great Plan, Dad.

  I finish a garden of curls and accents around my name, and have just paused to add tallies to

  PEOPLE CAUGHT STARING

  llll llll llll llll lll

  when a backpack crashes down into the chair across from me.

  “Oh!” The redhead it belongs to startles when she sees me. “I—I didn’t think anyone else would be here. Sorry.” Fumbling, she yanks it up again to leave.

  Is there someone here more flustered than I am?

  “Wait! You don’t have to—Kody?”

  There are only so many people at this school with long red waves.

  Called by name, she freezes and turns to face me. “Hi, Juniper.”

  Kody Hotchkiss. Now there’s a girl who looks different. “Kody, you look—wow.”

  Kody smiles—modest, but clearly pleased. “Thanks. I . . . switched to contacts and started running this summer.”

  “It shows. I mean, not that you didn’t look awesome before; you’re lovely, you’ve always been—”

  I stop before I can embarrass myself. Kody grins at my ineptness.

  Maybe Dad had a point about that social practice.

  “Seat’s open if you want it.” I gesture at the chair and Kody, still smiling, indulges me. I can’t get over the change in her. Forget glasses or contacts; this Kody carries herself.

  Confident.

  “So,” I prompt when she looks comfortable, “what brings you to my hiding place?”

  Her smile falters. “Morgan.”

  I don’t have to ask if she means Morgan Malloy: the school bus bully who turned “Hotchkiss” into “Hershey’s Kiss” in middle school. There’s no way she’d miss her old mark’s transformation.

  My eyes widen. “Did she . . . ?”

  “No, it’s just—” Kody closes a fist. “She was ahead of me in the picture line. I thought, if I hung out for a while—”

  “Less chance of running into her at IDs?”

  Kody nods.

  “Well, you’re welcome to lie low here with me.”

  A sigh. “Thanks.”

  Then: “Who’re you hiding from?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘hiding place.’ Who’re you hiding from?”

  Everyone. But mostly—

  “Lauren.” Lauren is my real fear today: that the one person I actually want to talk to doesn’t want to talk to me. Maybe what I’m really hiding from is finding out. “You haven’t seen her, have you?”

  I shouldn’t hold my breath; Lauren has a history of avoiding awkward situations. The last time she was dodging someone—a guy she only dated for a month because she didn’t know how to break up with him—we spent weeks taking long ways at school and carrying scarves and sunglasses around for snap disguises.

  It had actually been kind of fun then.

  “No. But I’ll help keep an eye out for her
.”

  “Thanks.”

  This time, our smiles are sly. Conspiratorial.

  Hiders in crime.

  “So how long does it take our IDs to print, anyway?” She leans back, but her eyes flick to the table. “You look like you’ve been here a while.”

  “Hm?”

  I follow her gaze to the doodles on my Orientation List.

  “Oh—not that long. I already got mine. I’ve just been killing time until my ride gets here.”

  “Cool designs.” She leans closer, inspecting something. “What are all these little notes in between?”

  The tallies.

  “Nothing,” I say too quickly. I pull back the sheet before she can read Number of times I’ve heard Camilla’s name: 21. Number of times I’ve heard mine: 17.

  People who have offered condolences:

  0.

  “Oh,” I cover, gathering my things, “I think I just felt my phone buzz. That’s probably my dad. Do you mind?”

  “Sure. I mean—” Kody composes herself. “I’ll be fine. Don’t let me keep you.”

  “I’ll see you around. You really do look great,” I add.

  Even as I pass her, I feel terrible. Kody did nothing wrong.

  I walk toward a row of vending machines, for once today not counting the stares. Would Camilla coming up be such a bad thing? Surely everyone won’t just shut down on me like Lauren has.

  When I reach the Diet Coke machine, the least popular in the strip, I have no interest in actually buying a bottle—but I figure I should look like I’m considering something, so I get out my wallet and some bills.

  “Could I trade you some change for—”

  The voice beside me breaks off. I know before I turn that it belongs to—

  “Lauren.”

  We both go cardboard. Lauren sees Camilla’s purse on my shoulder and I see that she’s holding her phone: not about to answer the text I sent her this morning, or one of the dozens I sent all summer for that matter, but playing Candy Crush.

  Even Lauren—the friend who held my hand when I got my ears pierced, who took the fall for me when I dropped her sister’s snow globe, who’s surprised me with Juniper- and Lemon-flavored candies ever since Morgan called me Cough Drop in fourth grade—doesn’t know how to talk to me anymore.

  For several long, terrible moments nothing happens; we both just stand there looking at each other. Then a really weird thing happens.

  “Heeey.” Lauren shuffles the last two steps over and hugs me hello.

  Oh god. This is worse than I imagined.

  “How’s it going, Juniper?”

  How’s it going?

  How’s it GOING?

  “Good,” I answer automatically. “You?”

  A breathless nod. “Good.”

  We stare at each other. Time stretches painfully between us, a gulf of the dozen things we must both be thinking, but leave unsaid. Once it looks as though Lauren might say something, but then she presses her lips together so hard, I think she’s cut off her air supply. Oh my god, is she actually turning blue?

  WARNING WARNING

  AWKWARDNESS AT CRITICAL LEVELS

  Employ emergency exit strategies

  I open my mouth to say something—“Better grab a free lanyard,” “I have to use the bathroom,” “YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK I LEFT THE STOVE ON”—but before I can fake a fire or an aneurysm, an actual miracle occurs:

  My phone rings.

  “That’ll be my dad,” I gush, gratefully pawing through my bag. “I should—”

  Lauren nods. “Of course.”

  We stare a moment longer.

  “I guess I’ll . . . see you tomorrow,” I finish lamely.

  An overwarm smile. “Tomorrow.”

  I lift a hand goodbye. Lauren does the same, and after more impossibly long fake smiles I turn in mortification. Conversations ended gracefully today: two for two.

  When I find my phone, I see the dollars I’m still holding and wince before answering.

  “Hey Dad.”

  “There you are,” says his voice in my ear. “I was beginning to think you might actually be having fun in there.”

  “Ha.”

  “I’m right out front, Juni. Can’t miss me.”

  “Okay. See you in a minute.”

  I stash my phone in my jeans and put the money away. But this time, when I drop my wallet back, something crackles in the bottom of the bag. I pry it open to see what.

  An envelope.

  Curious, I pull it out. Then I nearly drop it, too, because when I turn it over, there are three things that I know in a heartbeat:

  1) I didn’t put this in the bag.

  2) I am holding a letter.

  3) I recognize the writing on the front, but not because it’s mine.

  Because it’s hers.

  ∞

  The drive home is quiet. At first Dad asks me questions, but after having to repeat himself and receiving only grunted answers, he eases off, and the strip malls, front yards, and fir trees blur by in silence. Or what would be silence, if it didn’t somehow magnify the ringing in my ears.

  Once home, I make a beeline for the stairs. Not that Mom is stopping us to chat—even when she isn’t “resting” these days, she’s not particularly awake—but if I don’t open that letter now, I’m gonna burst.

  On the way to my room, I pass Camilla’s. The door is shut. I don’t know who shut it or when exactly. Is it easier this way? The closed door sort of gives the illusion that she is in there: on the phone, sleeping, playing guitar. That she’ll be out in a few minutes for dinner, come downstairs to watch a movie, or barge unannounced into my room, plop down on my bed, and make me watch the latest bad lip-reading or stupid cat video.

  Part of me likes that.

  Part of me hates it.

  Part of me is afraid of what I’d see if her door was open.

  I hurry past and shut my own door behind me.

  When it’s closed, I rip the envelope from my purse.

  You

  it says, in Camie’s buoyant, cursive bubbles.

  Goose bumps.

  I turn it over. It isn’t sealed.

  With shaking hands I remove a single, folded page and open it. At the top—

  July 4

  My throat closes.

  The day it happened.

  I sink onto my bed and read:

  Dear You,

  Brevity is the only way to deliver a sting, so here goes—

  I’ve been thinking about what you said and I’ve decided that you’re right: It would be better for both of us this way. I know I could handle the distance, but part of college, like you said, is opening yourself up to new experiences—and I’d be sealing myself off to those if I kept my heart in a jar for someone I left in high school.

  Still, I hate, hate to think of this as a breakup letter, because I hate to think of this as an ending. It isn’t an ending; it’s the start of another chapter. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that it doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t change what we’ve shared. Your life has touched mine: I’m a better person for having known you, loved you, and been loved by you—and wherever I am in the unknown ahead, you (in the pocket of my heart) will also be.

  So call it an end, if you must, but I love you—today, yesterday, and always.

  Yours,

  Me

  I lower the page. Cam was seeing someone. Is this what she couldn’t tell me that night?

  Is this what came between us at the end?

  I read it again. And again, and again, and again. Clearly the letter was meant for someone else—but even so, I see “You” at the top and feel like parts of it are talking to me. The future doesn’t change the past. It doesn’t change what we’ve shared. Yo
ur life has touched mine—

  I look up to quell the wave I feel rising in my chest. I can’t keep doing this. School starts tomorrow. I can’t just gallop off and bawl for an hour every time I remember Camilla: the way she piled her hair on top of her head to do her makeup, how she hummed when she did the dishes, or that she always ate cookie dough by the spoonful even after we’d added the eggs.

  Suck it up.

  I fall back against my bed and stare. It’s just been in her bag this whole time. Waiting. I mean, I never thought to look; even this morning, when I swapped out Camie’s wallet for mine, I just assumed that was all that was in there.

  I hold the letter between me and the ceiling. She couldn’t have meant to mail it; the envelope was open and unaddressed, much less stamped. There’s barely even a recipient—just “You.”

  But who on earth is that?

  The last guy Camie dated (well, clearly not, but the last guy I know about) was Shawn Parker, and they broke up more than a year ago. They’d remained friends—good enough for her to go to his big Fourth of July party—but nothing more. At least, not to my knowledge. Besides, they both graduated in June; she wouldn’t have “left” Shawn in high school. Couldn’t have. He, like the boy before him, was the same year as her.

  So who else was there?

  I grab the envelope again and study it. You, it says, a lone word in the blank. Who are you? I want to ask it. How did you know my sister? Why don’t I know you?

  What did you mean to each other?

  Did you love her?

  I trace the letters of YOU’s name. If he loved her before . . .

  Could he still?

  - 66 -

  I wake the next morning with a start. I know it’s morning because the light has changed, and there’s drool on my pillow, and someone’s pounding on my door like the fire department.

  “Juniper!” Dad calls from the other side. “Five minutes! You awake in there?”

  I groan and twist away from him. Something crinkles and floats off my chest. I open my eyes enough to glimpse my own handwriting and recognize the list I scrawled early this morning:

  PEOPLE WHO MIGHT KNOW SOMETHING

  1. Melissa

  2. Heather

  3. Shawn?

  Melissa, one of Camie’s closest friends, already told me what she knew when I asked her about Camie’s weirdness back in June. But Heather—Lauren’s older sister and Camilla’s best friend—said nothing when I asked her the same questions.