Yes, I Know the Monkey Man Read online

  “I really am going to cut my hair,” she said when she noticed me standing in her doorway. “I’m going to cut it all off!”

  “Okay,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  She looked at me. “Do you think I should?”

  I shrugged. “If you want shorter hair.”

  “I don’t know.” She gathered all her hair in one hand and pulled it away from her face. “I’ve never had short hair.” She peered at her reflection.

  “I’ve never had long hair,” I said.

  “Yes, you have. When you were little. We both had long hair when we were little.”

  I took two steps into her room. Was it once my room, too? I bet it was. But I couldn’t remember.

  “Do you remember when we were little?” I asked as I stepped over a pile of clothes on the floor.

  “Sort of. It’s not hard to remember what you looked like, though. There’s always been a picture of you hanging in the hallway.”

  “There has?”

  “Yeah. The last one we have of you. You were three. But we took all the pictures down last weekend and packed them up. You know, because we’re moving.”

  “Oh.” I tried to hide my disappointment. It was hard to imagine there was a picture of me hanging on a wall in this strange house. A picture I’d never seen.

  “I know where your photo album is, though,” Sam said.

  “My photo album?”

  “Yeah. You want to see it?”

  “Okay.”

  I watched as Sam slid a pile of clothes off one of the boxes and onto her bed. She lifted the flaps on the box and pulled out a couple of photo albums. A postcard fell out of one of them and fluttered to the floor.

  I bent to pick it up. It had a picture on the front of a monkey from the San Diego Zoo.

  “Hey, we used to live in San Diego,” I said. “Joe took me to this zoo.” I turned the card over and almost had a heart attack. For my Sammy Bear. With love from the Monkey Man. It was definitely Joe’s handwriting.

  I looked up at Sam. “Joe sent this to you?”

  She yanked it out of my hand and tossed it back into the box.

  “When did he send it?” I asked.

  “A long time ago.”

  Obviously Joe had thought about her once or twice during those ten years. And I never even knew she existed.

  “Do you want to see your photo album or not?” Sam asked as she sat down on her bed. A bound photo album with a white cover rested in her lap. “I found it in the basement a few weeks ago. It’s all pictures of you.”

  I sat down beside her. “How do you know they’re not pictures of you?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve seen all my pictures. These are different. Plus my mo—I mean, our mom, told me this was your album.” Sam opened to the first page and I saw four pictures of a really tiny baby. It looked like the pictures were all taken in the hospital. One showed the whole baby; the next zoomed in on the baby’s face. It was sleeping with its little fist curled beside its mouth. The baby was awake in the third picture, though, and in the last one it was crying. Was that baby really me?

  “Mom always wanted us to have separate identities,” Sam explained. “You know, because we’re twins. So she started two photo albums. One for you and one for me.”

  A whole album just for me? It was thick, too. Much thicker than the photo album Joe and I had. And it only had pictures from the first three years of my life.

  I turned the page and saw pictures of that same baby lying on a blanket, bundled up in a car seat, sitting on a couch with a younger version of Joe, sitting on a couch with a younger version of Suzanne, squeezed between Joe and Suzanne. Together. They looked … happy. All I could do was stare.

  “What are you two doing?” Sam and I both jumped when Suzanne appeared in the doorway. “I told you we need to leave in—” She broke off when she saw what we were looking at.

  “I-I’m sorry,” I said, snapping the album closed. “I just—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

  “She wanted to see what she looked like,” Sam said. “When she was little.”

  “It’s okay,” Suzanne said, her voice softening. She came all the way into the room. “Would you like to—”

  “No, I think we’re done,” I said. I didn’t want to look at that album with Suzanne. What if she started crying again?

  I really meant to call Joe after I saw that photo album, but I didn’t have a chance. As soon as we’d had breakfast, it was time to go shopping. Suzanne put their cat in the basement this time so he and my dog wouldn’t get into things while we were gone. Then we headed out.

  It shouldn’t have taken as long to find a dress as it did. The mall they took me to wasn’t very big. But Suzanne and Sam had to look at every single dress in every single store in the whole mall. Well, every single dress in my size, anyway. They had a system. Suzanne started at one end of the size 7s and Sam started at the other, and whenever one of them saw something they liked, they held it in front of me. If they still liked it, they set it aside for me to try on; if they didn’t like it, they put it back. I didn’t have to do anything except stand there. Until the pile of dresses got too tall. Then I had to go try them all on.

  Suzanne and Sam had something to say about every single one.

  “That’s a nice cut.”

  “Yes, but I don’t like that shade of green with her eyes.”

  “This one is close, but … too long … too short … what do you think of this bodice … too lacy … not lacy … enough … too old … too young …”

  “What do you think, T.J.?” they’d ask me now and then.

  I hated them all equally.

  “How many more stores are there?” I asked. It boggled my mind that some people actually thought this was fun.

  “Not many,” Suzanne said. Worry lines creased her forehead. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t find you something. You’ve got to have a dress, but we haven’t seen anything.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “We’ve seen all kinds of dresses. Let’s just pick one.” What was the big deal?

  Suzanne stopped. The way she looked at me I figured I’d said something wrong. She took my hand, led me over to a bench, and gestured for me to sit. “Let me ask you something, T.J.,” she said as she sat down on one side of me and Sam sat down on the other. “Would you … like to be a bridesmaid in my wedding?”

  “What?” Where did that come from?

  “Sam’s a bridesmaid,” Suzanne said. “I know you and I don’t know each other very well yet, but you’re still my daughter. It just doesn’t feel right to leave you sitting in the congregation.”

  It felt right to me. “I really don’t think—” I began, but Suzanne talked right over me.

  “I wanted to ask you to be a bridesmaid a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it,” she said. “And Bob’s mother already made all the bridesmaid dresses. It took her weeks. There’s no way she’d have time to make another one for you. But who says bridesmaids all have to wear the same dress?”

  “Nobody,” Sam said, getting into the spirit of things. “I think it’s a great idea.”

  She and Suzanne both looked at me expectantly.

  I didn’t know what to say. Like Suzanne said, we hardly knew each other. I didn’t want to be her bridesmaid. But somehow Suzanne and Sam took my silence to mean yeah, I’d love to be a bridesmaid.

  “We need to start over and look at more formal dresses,” Sam said.

  Start over?

  “Von Mauer had some nice formal dresses,” Suzanne said. “Let’s go back there.”

  “Don’t we have to go to the airport?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Suzanne said. “So we’re going to have to do this quick.”

  We hustled back to Von Mauer and made a beeline for their formal section. This time I just stayed in the dressing room while Sam brought me a new pile of dresses to try on.

  “Nop
e,” Sam said after each one.

  Nope. Nope. Nope.

  I was about to tell her that some people just don’t look good in dresses and that we probably were never going to find one, when all of a sudden she squealed, “That’s it! That’s the dress!”

  I looked down at myself. I was wearing this shiny hot pink thing. Hot Pink.

  “Let me go get my mom,” Sam said.

  Suzanne had two more dresses draped over her arm when she came back with Sam, but as soon as she saw me she stopped. “Oh, my,” she said, her eyes fixed on me. “I think you’re right, Sam. We found the dress.”

  Whatever. At least we were done.

  “Hey, Mom?” Sam said in a small voice.

  “Hmm?” Suzanne walked slowly around me, checking out the dress from all angles. I wasn’t sure she was even listening to Sam.

  “There’s another dress just like this one out there,” Sam said. “Could we get it for me?”

  Was she kidding? She actually wanted to wear this dress?

  Suzanne looked at Sam. “For the wedding?”

  “Yes. Then T.J. and I will match.”

  Oh, boy. We could be … twins!

  “I don’t know,” Suzanne said. “Bob’s mother made you that other dress. She worked very hard on it.”

  “Well, it’s not like I’m going to throw it away. I’ll wear it some other time. Don’t you think it would be nice if T.J. and I wore the same dress?”

  Not that I wanted to be Sam’s twin, but if I had to be in this wedding, it would be better if I wasn’t the only one wearing a dress that was different from everyone else’s.

  “Bob’s mother would understand,” Sam insisted.

  I looked at Suzanne. I could tell she was thinking about it. “Well, let’s see if it fits,” she said. “Then we’ll decide.”

  Sam ran over to get the dress and was back in record time. I moved away from the dressing room so she could get changed. About seven seconds later, she slid the curtain open. “It’s perfect!” she declared.

  “All right,” Suzanne said. “We’ll get both of them.”

  Then there was the matter of the shoes. Apparently, when you bought a hot pink dress you needed hot pink shoes to go with it. Who knew stores even sold hot pink shoes? But Von Mauer sold them. And they had two pairs that fit Sam and me.

  “See? This was meant to be,” Sam said as she paraded in front of the mirror in her new shoes. I’d already taken mine off and put them back in the box.

  “Perhaps we should get you a new pair of tennis shoes while we’re here, too, T.J.?” Suzanne said as I slipped back in to my old ones.

  “Why?” I asked. There was only one little hole in my right shoe. In fact, it was so small it had to be raining really hard before my foot got wet. “I don’t need any,” I said. I certainly didn’t need Suzanne to buy me new shoes.

  “Oh, I think you do,” she said.

  “Totally,” Sam agreed, scrunching up her nose.

  “What brand do you like, T.J.?” Suzanne peered closer at my feet. “Are those Nikes? That’s what Sam gets.”

  Nikes? Was she kidding? “They’re whatever was cheap at Wal-Mart last September,” I said.

  “Well, why don’t you go pick out a pair of Nikes that you like?” Suzanne said.

  “I really don’t—”

  “Please, T.J.” Suzanne put up her hand to stop my arguing. “Let me do this for you. Let me buy you some shoes.”

  She was already buying me shoes. And a dress.

  But whatever. If she really wanted to buy me some Nikes, I would let her. That would be twenty bucks Joe wouldn’t have to spend on shoes before school started. I went over to the tennis shoe display and picked out the cheapest pair of Nikes I could find. They were still sixty-five bucks. I found my size and brought the box over to Suzanne.

  “Don’t you want to try them on?” Sam asked.

  All of a sudden I remembered another pair of shoes. Pink shoes with little flowers all around the top and a strap with a buckle. And a lady’s voice: I know you want these, Sarah, but we have to try them on first. We have to make sure they fit.

  The Nike box slipped through my fingers and clattered to the floor.

  “What’s the matter?” Sam asked, looking at me curiously as she picked up the shoes and handed them to me.

  “Nothing,” I said, feeling a little shaky. Did that really happen? Did I really want a pair of pink shoes with flowers when I was little? Was that Suzanne who told me I had to try them on first?

  “You should try them on,” Suzanne said, nodding at the shoes in my hand. “Nike’s sizes sometimes run a little different than other shoe brands.”

  Did I ever get the pink shoes with the flowers?

  I sat down on the floor and tried on the Nikes. Suzanne was actually right about the sizes. I always wore a size 6 in shoes. But the size 6 Nikes did seem a little tight. The size 7 felt good, though. In fact, they were the most comfortable shoes I’d ever had on my feet. I wasn’t sure I’d actually be able to save them until school started next month.

  “Thanks for buying me all this stuff,” I told Suzanne while she paid.

  She smiled at me. “Thank you for letting me buy you all this stuff.”

  Chapter Ten

  I didn’t believe Sam when she said the Cedar Rapids airport was in the middle of a cornfield, but that’s exactly where it was. Out in the middle of nowhere, south of town, surrounded by cornfields.

  We parked and went in through the sliding glass doors, then rode the escalator up to a big lobby. Various ticket counters lined the room. Northwest Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Airlines, Hertz Rent-a-Car. There was even a restaurant and a gift shop that sold Iowa souvenirs.

  “We’ll have to wait here,” Suzanne said. “They won’t let us go through security without boarding passes.” So we found three chairs in the middle of the lobby. Sam and Suzanne sat down next to each other; I took a chair across from them.

  Sam pulled out her comb and started messing with her hair. Suzanne smiled uneasily at me. I watched the clock.

  I wouldn’t say I felt nervous sitting there. Just out of place. Like I had somehow been planted in the middle of someone else’s life. Here I was at a strange airport, sitting with a mother and sister I hardly knew, waiting for grandparents I didn’t know at all. How many other strangers would I have to deal with over the next couple of days?

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked Suzanne.

  “No,” Suzanne said. “I’m an only child.”

  Oh. Like Joe, I thought.

  “You didn’t know that?” Sam asked.

  How would I know that? “Do you know how many brothers and sisters Joe has?” I shot back.

  She turned to her mother.

  “He doesn’t have any, either,” Suzanne told Sam.

  “Really?” Sam’s eyes widened.

  I was also a little surprised that neither Joe nor Suzanne had any brothers or sisters. Even if we had all been one big happy family, Sam and I still would never have had any aunts, uncles, or cousins. How many people in the world have zero aunts, uncles, and cousins?

  “Well, he used to have a sister,” Suzanne said suddenly.

  “What?” I said. No, he didn’t.

  Suzanne looked surprised. “He didn’t tell you about Katie?”

  Katie? “Oh, sure,” I said with a shrug. I didn’t want Suzanne to know there was something else Joe had never told me. “I just forgot.”

  “Wait a minute. Who’s Katie?” Sam asked, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Suzanne.

  “I just told you.” Suzanne shifted in her chair and something changed in her voice. “She was your dad’s sister. She died when we were teenagers.”

  “How?” Sam asked.

  I wanted to know that, too.

  But before Suzanne could respond, a woman’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Announcing the arrival of Northwest flight 671 from Minneapolis at gate C.”

  Suzanne rose from he
r chair. “I’ll tell you about it later,” she told Sam.

  “Why can’t you tell me now?” Sam asked as we joined the crowd that was gathering in front of the security area.

  “Because now is not the time,” Suzanne said tightly. “And whatever you do, don’t bring Katie up in front of Grandma and Grandpa Sperling.”

  “Why not?” Sam asked.

  Suzanne looked tired. “Just don’t, okay?”

  “O-kay!” Sam said with a heavy sigh.

  My eyes met Sam’s for just a second, but then I turned away. Inside, though, I was wondering the same thing she was. What was the big deal? Why couldn’t Suzanne just quick tell us how Katie died? And why did she warn Sam not to bring Katie up in front of Grandma and Grandpa Sperling? It wasn’t like she was their daughter. She would’ve been Gram’s daughter. And Gram never mentioned her, either.

  People were starting to come down the stairs and the escalator on the other side of the security gate now. I saw Suzanne take a deep breath and paste a fakey-looking smile on her face when this lady in a yellow pantsuit who had hair the color of Suzanne’s waved at us from the stairs. She wasn’t carrying anything except a purse, but the mostly bald guy behind her had an overnight bag in one hand and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  Grandma and Grandpa Sperling?

  Apparently.

  “Hello, Mom. Dad,” Suzanne said stiffly. She and the woman in yellow sort of air hugged.

  “How are you, Sam?” The guy with all the luggage held out a hand for her to shake.

  “I’m fine, Grandpa. How are you?” Sam asked.

  Grandma Sperling sidestepped over to me. She was about half an inch shorter than me and she reeked of hair-spray and perfume. “You must be Sarah,” she said as she inspected me from head to toe.

  “Actually, I go by T.J. now,” I said. She didn’t offer her hand to shake, so I didn’t offer mine, either.

  “Hmph,” Grandma Sperling sniffed. “Your name is Sarah. That’s what your birth certificate says, so that’s what I’m going to call you.”

  “Mother,” Suzanne said sharply.

  But I didn’t need her fighting my battles. “Lots of people go by names that aren’t on their birth certificates,” I pointed out.