“If she was so good, what was Sandra Lee talking about?” I asked.
“How I know what that child got in her mind?” Nini said crossly. “You just get your rest. Eight whole hours your Aunt Eveline says. Your Aunt Eveline knows what’s good for you.”
If anyone in this house knows what’s good for a girl practically thirteen, they’re keeping it from me. My secret life as Jane Whitmore is absolutely the only thing that saves me from going mad. Every night after I go to bed, I block out my pencil figure, the straight black bangs, the Family Nose . . . I am Jane Whitmore. I smooth my golden curls and run my hand over my little turned-up nose, down my well-developed bust to my tiny waist. My favorite scene is Jane Whitmore in the Hurricane, in which, against incredible odds, Edmond Hilary de St. Denis rescues me from the giant waves. As he swims for shore, holding me half dead in his arms, I whisper in his ear, “Edmond, I cannot leave you! Your love is the bridge over which I trod back to life and to you!” His tears of joy are saltier than the waves.
Another good scene is Jane Whitmore Defies Death, in which I miraculously recover from a near-fatal disease, but not before I have soaked my pillow with real tears. I love the line, “Jane, my darling, you have returned to earth like Spring following Winter!”
After I finished seconds on the lost bread, I went upstairs and did my homework. After that, I went straight to bed to do Jane Whitmore Returns. I got so deep into it, I didn’t hear Aunt Eveline come in. In this new scene, Edmond does not know I have come home after my two years of studying art in Florence, and he wanders into my one-man show by chance.
“Masterly,” he murmurs, admiring my landscapes. Then, he sees my self-portrait and recognizes me! “Jane!” His manly voice breaks as he gazes at my likeness and realizes how much he wants to see me.
“Edmond!” I say, coming up behind him and placing one small hand on his arm. “I hardly knew you! You’ve grown a mustache!”
“What?” cried Aunt Eveline, making me jump a mile. “I may have a few hairs on my lip, but certainly not a mustache! Why is your hand dangling in the air?”
“My hand? Oh. I was half asleep. Talking in my sleep!”
“You’ve been crying!” Her voice softened. “Is it your mother, dear?”
“Yes.” I produced more tears.
“Poor angel!” Aunt Eveline prepared to sit on the edge of my bed. “How could you help mourning your loss— that lovely girl, so young and beautiful! Her career and life in front of her! What a tragedy! If only she were in—”
“I’m all right now, Aunt Eveline,” I said hurriedly. “I’m just fine now. I’m sure I’ll sleep.”
“We’ll visit the Delgado, tomorrow, dear. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Eveline!” Aunt Eveline knows I like going to the museum with her. She tells me about the lives of the artists and their paintings, because she used to be the art and debate teacher at Allen School until she retired to look after me. She still paints dog portraits, but they are pretty awful, even though they look like the dogs and make the owners happy.
“Well, good night, then, dear.”
“Good night, Aunt Eveline.”
Jane Whitmore doesn’t work after interruptions, so when Aunt Eveline left, I tried to sleep, hoping I would not dream of the tidal wave that swept me, my mother and father, and our whole house into the Gulf of Mexico.
Help! Mable, hel-up, ’m ch-chokin’! May-ble! Tom, get that critter outta here!”
“I’m coming, Malvern!” Tom’s mother answered as Tom crashed through the hedge between our houses, tripped up my steps, and landed on the porch. He was clutching a mangy dog, even skinnier than he is.
“What in the world was your Uncle Malvern yelling about? That dog didn’t bite him, did it?”
“Pumpkin wouldn’t bite anybody! Uncle Malvern is allergic to dog hair. Stopped breathing when he saw Pumpkin—he says.”
“He can still yell pretty good. That is the skinniest dog I ever saw.”
“You’d be skinny, too, if the SPCA man had taken your mother away and gone after you with a net. Poor little Pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin? Why don’t you call her Ribs?”
Tom ignored the insult. “She’s almost the right color for a pumpkin, and Halloween’s coming,” he said. “Pumpkin’s so smart, she hid until the SPCA left. I crawled under the house and rescued her, huh, Pumpkin, old girl? I rescued you!”
“What are you going to do with her?”
“Addie, what would you do if somebody gave you a choice between what you want most in the whole world, but you had to leave home forever to have it, or, you could never have that one thing, but you could stay at home and have almost anything else?”
“Well, if all you want is that dog you’re holding, I wouldn’t bother to leave home, even though you have to put up with your uncle and his beer.”
“I don’t want to leave. But I will if I have to. Unless . . . unless . . .” Tom and Pumpkin were looking at me.
“Tom, I can’t keep that dog for you! Aunt Eveline would have a fit. And Aunt Kate! Why, Aunt Kate’d die right on the spot. Honest. I can not!”
I noticed Tom’s hair and freckles matched Pumpkin’s coat. There is definitely no resemblance between Tom and Edmond Hilary de St. Denis.
“Addie, just for a while! I’m right next door, and I’ll be the one really taking care of her—until I talk my mother into keeping her. I’ll do anything you want. What do you want most in the world?”
“You can’t give me what I want most in the world.”
“Aw, come on, Addie! Aunt Eveline will let you keep good old Pumpkin if you beg her. Just for a while.”
“No.”
“Well, Addie, so long, then! I’m leaving,” said Tom, not going. “Good-bye.”
I knew he was still working on me, but I didn’t want a mangy dog. Pumpkin didn’t look anything like my mother’s cute little Fifi.
“I’ll be seeing you, Addie.”
“That’s crazy. Where will you go?”
“North Carolina.”
“What’ll you do there?”
“Live there. With my dog.”
“Tom, your mother needs you to help with your uncle. Besides, Pumpkin isn’t all that great a dog.”
Tom’s freckles changed color and his mouth turned thin white.
“Now, Tom, I didn’t mean Pumpkin wasn’t a good dog!” Tom’s eyes were making holes right through me. “It’s just that I know what Aunt Eveline would say—”
“Good-bye, Addie.”
“Tom, now listen, Tom!”
Pumpkin let out a bark that sounded like good-bye.
“It’s been great knowing you,” Tom said.
“Wait, Tom!”
“Ah-de-la-eed!” Aunt Eveline was calling me. “Addie, dear!”
“Tom! Listen!” I was looking at the back of Tom with the back of Pumpkin tucked