IN THE BACKYARD, SHAYNA stares at the Jellymobile. “Um,” she murmurs. “Hmm.”
“Don’t you just love it?” I say to Shayna, brushing dust off the sexy jalapeño pepper in her cowboy boots. There’s a nick in her big red-lipsticked smile that we’ll have to paint over, and her crown of strawberries and red chiles could use freshening up, too.
“My God,” my sister says. “Is this for real? Is this real life?”
“Well, yes,” I say. “Mine. Five days a week in the summer. That’s how we make some money.”
“All day?” she asks. “Like, sitting in this truck. And people really buy this stuff?”
“Well, sometimes seven days, depending on how much we made. And sometimes we sit outside, under an umbrella, but yeah, mostly in the truck. We move around town, or over to Sierra Vista, week to week, change up our stops.”
“And it worked? Like, you made money?”
“Some. Enough. She drove the Bookmobile for the library, too, and worked at a daycare.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Shayna says hesitantly, “but here goes. Where are these mythical jams and jellies? And who, where, what, why, and when do they happen?”
I open the door to the outbuilding so she can see the shelves packed with jars, neatly lined up and waiting for a spritz of gingham around the lid, tied with bright yarn.
Shayna whistles.
“And your mom made all this? How long does it last?”
“She does it during the winter, mostly. At night. It can last for like two years if it’s sealed properly. We usually move it into the kitchen in the summer and store it in crates, because it can get hot out here.”
“Why didn’t she just sell it online? Wouldn’t that be easier than sitting in a truck all day?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. She seemed to like it. We hung out together. She met people. Sometimes, they’d buy more when they got home, wherever that was. I mean, she had business cards and stuff, and then she’d just mail it out after they sent her a letter saying what they wanted and a check.”
Shayna runs her hands over the truck. “You know, this thing would totally fly in Portland. They love any kind of truck that sells something you can eat or drink.”
“Well,” I say slowly, toeing the ground. “We don’t live there.” Is she really thinking about making us move?
Us. What a weird thing to think, that we are an “us” just because we’ve been thrown together. I feel like you need to earn “us-ness.” Or it’s built in. Like with a mom.
“Well, we have to keep some options open, right?” She walks around the Jellymobile, disappearing for a moment. “There must be a permit or something for this, right? Any idea where she kept it?”
“You can check inside. She kept stuff like that in the desk in the front room.”
Shayna’s phone vibrates. She frowns. “Shit.”
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Nobody. It’s just Ray. I have to take this. I’ll be back.” She pushes the latch on the backyard fence and walks down the alley.
I text Cake. I’m showing her the truck. We have no money. My mom wasn’t paying bills.
OMG. June’s Jams. The Jellymobile. Also, you were OUT COLD.
I know.
You must feel good being back.
Yes and no.
I’m not sure your sister is a jams kind of girl, but maybe?
Do you want to come over?
She texts me back a sad face. Can’t. I’m filming my performance video for that camp.
I thought you didn’t get in. There’s some violin camp in Massachusetts that Cake wanted to go to this summer for three weeks, but she got put on a wait list.
They had two kids drop out so they’re picking from the list. I have to submit a new piece, though.
She types, I was going to tell you, but then all this happened. I mean, I’m not going to go! I won’t leave you. I just want to do this video. It’s good practice for when I apply to music schools and stuff.
You should go. If you get in.
I don’t think I’ve ever texted anything so slowly in my life.
Oh God no. Hey, let’s hang out Sunday, okay? I’m thinking we could dig around the house, maybe see if your mom left something.
Okay.
Okay.
I sit down on a lawn chair, the sun warm on my scalp. Cake away for three weeks.
This is like a whole summer of leavings, all of a sudden.
Shayna comes back, her face grim. “Let’s do this,” she says with determination. “I need to work off some steam.”
I notice that her hands are shaking a little bit. “Are you okay?” I ask. “Who is…who is Ray?”
“Just a guy. It didn’t end well. Not even worth talking about.”
“Was he your boyf—”
“I said, not worth talking about. You got a tool kit or anything? We’re probably gonna need to get air in these tires, too.”
She leans down and feels the tires. She won’t look at me.
Ray. Something about this worries me. She doesn’t seem like a girl who would get upset about a guy, not the way she handled Pacheco. She seems like somebody who doesn’t take any shit.
“You gonna help or not? This was your idea, after all.”
I head into the shed to get cleaning supplies and the tool kit.
We spend a lot of time cleaning the truck off, which means I get to listen to Shayna swear. A lot. Completely and utterly transfixing combinations of words that I never even knew existed. Probably, if my mother knew her, she’d have found this hysterically funny.
Which makes me wonder: Did my mom know about her? Shayna was four when I was born. I watch her wipe beads of sweat off her forehead as she runs a sponge over the back bumper.
What would my mother think of her, of this? Of us, together. Was my mom ever going to tell me about all this…this stuff from her pre-me life?
And how much does my dad, Dusty Franklin, currently languishing in a minimum security facility in Springer, New Mexico, know about my mom’s life? I mean, don’t people in love share secrets? They must have been in love, right? I mean, there was me, after all.
Or maybe I was just an accident.
Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “Shayna, maybe we could call Da— Dustin, sometime? Would that be okay? I think he might know some stuff. About my mom. Like before she had me and all. She never…she didn’t really talk about herself all that much.”
I don’t feel right calling him “Dad” in front of her. After all, he did that, was that, with her, not me. I feel like she owns that part of him.
Shayna’s inside the front of the truck now, dusting off the dash. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea right now.”
“Why not? I mean, you must have the number—”
“It’s very complicated.” She winds the dust rag into a tight ball.
“Why? It’s not like he’s going anywhere soon.”
“Let’s just drop it. I’m here. Isn’t that enough for right now?” She’s getting annoyed.
“I don’t understand why you’re getting mad. I just want to ask him some questions about my—”
She throws the balled dust rag down and tightens the scrunchie in her hair. Her voice comes out fast and angry. “Maybe I don’t want him to talk to you, okay? Maybe there’s that. Maybe I don’t think he should get a damn reward for bad behavior, how about that? I’m already out here cleaning up his mess, just like I’ve always cleaned up—”
She looks at me.
My face is burning. I bite my tongue as hard as I can without drawing blood.
“I didn’t mean it that way.” She jiggles the Jellymobile’s keys and doesn’t look at me. Her voice is soft.
“I’m not a mess.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a little stressed. This is stressful on me, too, okay?”
“Do you even want to be here? Because you can just go. Really, just go.” My heart’s beating so fast I can hear it in my ears.
“Of course I want to be here. You’re my sister. Blood is blood.”
“I’m not a mess,” I whisper.
“No,” she says. “You’re not.”
She sighs. “I have a stupid quick mouth, okay? I’ll try to work on that. Let’s just get this going, all right? We’ll talk about Dad later.”
She sticks the key in the ignition, drowning out any answer I might possibly have mustered anyway. The Jellymobile spits and coughs but finally chugs to life, rivulets of smoke blooming in the tiny desert backyard, sending up clouds of dust.
The girl-bug blinks and blinks. A mess, she says. A mess!
Blood is blood.