Dreamland Social Club(75)

“So you don’t hold it against me?” Jane said, almost crying with relief.

“Of course not.”

Jane reached into her bag and took out her keychain and isolated the one labeled “Bath.” She held it out and a smile crept across Beth’s face.

“Do you know what it means?” Jane’s heart thumped wildly.

Beth sat back in her chair. “I know this is going to seem terribly cruel of me. But your mother had a thing about secrets and keeping them.”

Jane wasn’t sure she understood what was happening. “Do you mean that you know what it is and you’re not going to tell me?”

Beth seemed to be considering what to do one more time. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said finally, and then she fake-zippered her mouth shut.

“Please,” Jane said. “You have to.”

Beth unzipped her lips and said, “As your mother would have said, where’s the fun in that?”





CHAPTER six


JANE HAD NEVER PLAYED HOOKY BEFORE, but when she woke up Tuesday morning, head throbbing, she told her dad she felt sick and wanted to stay home. He had better things to worry about and so said only, “I’ll call it in.”

She crawled back into bed, and soon the house was quiet and then it turned out she couldn’t sleep. She had the “Bath” key on her night table and she kept turning it over in her hands, as if it might suddenly develop a mouth and tell her what it opened.

Eventually, she pulled on some clothes and went out into the yard and down to Birdie’s Bavarian Bar and started to pull out costumes while also setting aside a few things that would go on her museum list.

Looking at the bird getups, it occurred to her that maybe cutting them up and using them to make a mermaid costume wasn’t the best idea. To help her decide, she put one of them on. She picked a green one—the same color as the mermaid doll’s fin—and then she found the matching headpiece, a feathery plume—and stood in front of the old mirror. She looked ridiculous. And so it was decided that she’d set aside one costume to save for the family—maybe for a Halloween party somewhere down the line—and then another for the museum, just in case they’d want that sort of thing. That left her three costumes to work with. Green. Orange. And yellow. Perfect.

It was possible the whole mermaid funeral would never happen, of course. But if it did she wanted to be ready. She wanted to prove to anyone who ever doubted it that she could be a mermaid.

And a damn good one.

So she put on some old records and found some scissors and pins and grabbed the mermaid doll from her room for inspiration and got to work. Eventually, she moved the operation out to the yard when it was clear that the sequins and glitter could not be contained. Soon the small lawn—which was actually beginning to turn green—sparkled in the sun.





Marcus stepped out into the yard after school and slumped into a metal chair that was covered with a layer of green seeds that had fallen off a tree behind the bait-and-tackle shop. Jane had quickly bagged up a lot of the dead vines and leaves in order to have more room to work in and had uncovered, in the process, a white swan, a birdbath, and a two-headed gnome. Marcus rested his hand on the gnome head closest to his chair, as if it were a pet dog.

“So what’s the deal with the Dreamland Social Club?” he said after he watched her work for a while.

“How should I know?” She was cutting a fin, this one out of the green sparkling costume. She’d already made most of the bodice and only prayed it would fit when she actually tried it on.

“I thought you belonged,” he said.

“I don’t know why you’d think that,” she said, and it felt sort of wrong, since her mother was his mother, too, and she wanted him to know, but it was also sort of fun.

“Whatever,” he said. “It’s not like I really care.”

After a pause during which Jane’s scissors could be heard splicing fabric, he said, “I got my first letter.”

Jane stopped cutting and looked up, eyebrows questioning.

“NYU,” he said. “I’m in.”

“That’s awesome,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“I was thinking of living on campus.”

Jane nodded and went back to cutting. “You should.”

Marcus said, “You’re happy we might be staying, aren’t you?”

“I guess,” she said.

He took a tree seed off the arm of the chair and split it and tried to get it to helicopter though the air, with moderate success. “I see it,” he said. “The thing with Leo.”

“What do you see?”

“Hard to say,” he said. “But something.”

“Well, it’s not that,” she said, wanting to move on. “Or it’s not just that. Not that that is ever even going to happen. I’m sick of moving. It’s getting boring. It’s nice to feel like I have roots here. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

“I’ll tell you one thing, though.” He patted the gnome’s head. “If you’re staying, you can’t go on like this. With all this old crap around.”

“I was thinking of giving some of it to the museum,” she said. “I started a list.”