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  “The tragedy reinforced my belief in God,” she said, smiling warmly at the strangers in the audience. Her voice definitely sounded coached. It was raspy and low, and she breathed deeply after all the important thoughts. “Her death made me realize that I cannot control everything around me. Thank God I have my faith. I do my best work when I take time to know God. Every night, I hear her talk to me. She is at peace.” Then she mentioned her newest project. Wild applause and a short clip of the new show followed. Studio audiences loved it when people shared their private business with the world. They loved it even more when lemons became lemonade.

  “Is it just me, or is the entire world talking about God?” Politicians. Actresses. Sports heroes. Former pilots. “Since when did religion become news?”

  “It’s always been this way,” Lo said, “at least since 9/11.” She rolled onto her stomach and pushed up into a cobra pose. After twenty seconds of deep breath, she sat back and rested on her knees. I flipped the channels, in search of anything inoffensive, entertaining, or objective. No sports. No talk shows. No self-improvement. Lo said, “If it upsets you, turn it off.”

  I settled on a rerun of The Simpsons. “It’s not upsetting— I’m just sick of it. I don’t get why people get so wrapped up in telling people what they believe—why anyone cares.” Faith wasn’t news. It was a personal topic. It should stay private, not public, and that actress should have stayed home and taken care of herself. She shouldn’t want to risk being known as a person who used her sister’s cancer to maker herself more famous.

  I turned off the TV.

  I wanted quiet. But I didn’t get it.

  Now there was nothing to drown out the Dave Show outside. He said into his microphone, “I’m here today to tell you: I don’t believe in coincidences. Ten years ago, I was not just in the right place at the right time. God had a plan for me. And today, that continues. I knew it then, and I still know it now.”

  I stood at the window. He looked and sounded like one of those bad fortune-tellers that come every year to the annual fair. They ran their fingers over your palm and told you how successful you were going to be. As he talked, I tried to get Abe’s attention. He was standing by himself—his parents were standing closer to Dave, where there was nothing to lean on. Abe needed the rail, a step from the front porch. About four feet away. I took my chance.

  I rapped on the window until Abe turned around. “Come in. Now. I’m not mad.”

  It was a lie, but I was worried. He looked sick, and when he came inside, I could see his toes were blue and swollen. I grabbed him by the good arm and helped him to the closest chair.

  Lo grabbed a bag full of ice. “Put your leg up. Or do you want us to take you back to the hospital?”

  He scooted his chair next to the window. “If you don’t mind, I really want to hear what Emma has to say.”

  “Who’s Emma?”

  “This girl who belongs to Dave’s congregation. She came with him to visit me.” I pinched his arm on a purple spot, just to remind him how annoyed I still was. He didn’t flinch. “You have to meet her. Everything she says makes sense.”

  I looked at the girl he was pointing to. She stood next to Dave and wore silly saggy pants, an oversized sweatshirt, and a big floral scarf tied around her head and chin. She looked like she came from another time. Or planet. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  He wasn’t kidding. “Just wait. Her philosophy about faith is very challenging. As soon as Dave finishes up and the press leaves, she’ll have something to say.”

  I was a skeptic. “She has a ‘philosophy.’ How impressive.”

  Abe did not appreciate my sarcasm. “Janine, before you make fun of her, you should try listening to what she has to say. Her story might change how you see things.” He said, “In a lot of ways you are alike. She doesn’t like publicity either. She says she doesn’t want the story to ever be about her. She wants the cause to be the star.”

  I laughed. “I guess Dave’s good with that.”

  It took a while, but after the crowd thinned out, Dave introduced her. He called her “his good luck charm” as well as “an angel sent from heaven.”

  I was a little disappointed (but not totally surprised) when she said absolutely nothing I hadn’t heard a million times before. How God was with us when we needed help—that we needed to not be afraid to access our own spiritual strength. The whole thing was as rehearsed and fake as the talk shows on TV and even more woo-woo than Lo’s yoga pals, but Abe was impressed. The believers totally bought it. They said “Amen” and “That’s right.” When she said that we all needed to accept the bad with the good, that faith and God were most important when we were suffering, that we should be humble and not conceited, Dave picked her off the ground and embraced her like she was God’s gift to the religious universe.

  “You think she’s amazing?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” I told Abe to close the window. I had never bought into the holy sufferer routine before, and I wasn’t about to start now. “She’d be more convincing if she wore something that fit.”

  He never understood why clothes were so important to me. “Emma is modest. She doesn’t care about clothes. She thinks that greatness is fostered from within.”

  This made me laugh. “That’s so untrue. Just some people think that ugly clothes make them look smart. Or sincere. Look at Dave. He dresses for authority.” I pointed to Abe’s leg. “Why did you go for the colorful cast? I’m sure you could have gotten a white one.”

  Abe ignored the dig. “Well, Emma is better than that. She cares about people. She doesn’t run away from who she is. She doesn’t need all the superficial things that most people”—he meant me— “seem to live for.” Before I could ask him what that was supposed to mean, he pulled out his phone and typed.

  I grabbed his phone and read the text. He was such a hypocrite. “Listening to gospel with Janine Collins. You’re posting that to Facebook?”

  He wasn’t embarrassed. “If you haven’t noticed, people follow me, J. A lot of people wait for my status reports.”

  I waited for him to laugh, but he wasn’t joking. “Abe, you really should think about how much you want to share.” Fame wasn’t as great as he thought it was. Especially that kind of fame.

  He should understand that.

  He put down his phone. “Janine, you saved my life. You made a miracle.” He got up and stood close—too close—like boyfriend close—like he-wanted-to-kiss-me close. I took a giant step back. “Why can’t you accept it? I’m alive because of you.” He turned back to his phone. He started to sing, then stopped. “It would be a crime to keep something like that a secret.”

  When his mother barged in the front door, I tried to talk some sense into her. But she had no time to sit down. “Come on, hon,” she said to Abe. “Your friend just called. We have to go.”

  “Your friend?”

  “She means Roxanne,” he said, in a not-very-guilty way. “Janine—just try and see this from my point of view.”

  I prepared myself. If he told me that the world needed to know what I did, I was going to strangle him right here, right now. “I thought you already spent two hours with her.”

  He looked away. Now he was guilty. “I held out for a lot. I gave her a lot of conditions. For you.”

  I said, “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “Janine is right,” Mrs. Demetrius said. She didn’t recognize sarcasm. “We better go. Roxanne is a very busy woman.”

  “Then go ahead.” I paced back and forth. I didn’t want to scream at him in front of his mother. “Tell your story. Make a ton of money. But when you’re famous and no one will leave you alone and you hate it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  When they were gone, I went to the kitchen and ate three brownies. Lo told me to slow down. “It would serve all these people right if they never got better.” It was a terrible thought, but I understood. She was scared.

  Outside, the believers began to
leave. From the window, I watched the boy in the wheelchair. His mom helped him toward a car. Before he got into the car, he looked at me and waved.

  My hands tingled. I was scared, too.

  TWENTY

  First I called Miriam, but she didn’t answer. She was probably still saving the farm with Samantha. I hung up.

  Five minutes later, I called again and this time, I left a message in my most casual voice. “Hi. It’s me. Sorry I didn’t make it, but I need to talk to you. You’re not going to believe it, but Dave Armstrong was at my house. So was Roxanne. Abe’s talking to her right now.”

  I could just imagine her sitting there with Samantha, listening to my message after having tried all day to figure out how to attract the very people I wanted to get rid of. I tried to sound neutral. “It was a madhouse. Call me when you can.”

  I stared at the phone and willed it to ring. Maybe she was busy. If she was screening calls, she’d listen and call me right back. I looked at my phone. “Ring now.” I counted to ten. But it didn’t work; she didn’t call. Her phone was probably in her purse. She’d hear my message later. But just to make sure, I picked up the phone to see if it was working.

  (It was.)

  Lo said, “You know, if you didn’t want Abe to make a statement, you should have said so.”

  I didn’t want a lecture. I said, “He wouldn’t have listened. He’s got stars in his eyes.” I asked her if she thought he was jealous of me—if all this time, he had wanted to be my friend just so he could get his name in the press—if perhaps, he saw this opportunity and took it.

  “Janine. He got hit by a car.” She encouraged me to refocus my energy. Nothing was going to improve if I sat around imagining the worst.

  Sharon nudged her. “You’re forgetting something.”

  Lo smiled. “Why don’t you go upstairs?” she asked in a slightly coy voice. “Do something productive. Make yourself a dress.”

  “Not today.” Neither one of them understood anything about the creative process. I couldn’t just sit down and start sewing. Before I could make anything, I needed to sketch. And buy material and notions. I needed to be in the mood. (I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.) “You really expect me to sew after everything that’s happened?”

  Lo reminded me that throughout history, life’s distractions had inspired a lot of great art. “I think this would be a perfect time to start something ambitious.”

  That sounded a lot like Ms. Browning’s advice. But still … I didn’t know. I had no ideas, no vision, no motivation. “I don’t have the right material.” After the critique this afternoon, I doubted myself.

  My fingers were stiff. I hadn’t stretched them all day.

  Lo told me to lift my arms and stretch my chest muscles to open up the heart chakra. When I just sat there, arms at my sides, she reminded me that I always felt better after I’d spent some time working. “Please, Janine. Take my advice. Play around. Experiment. You don’t have to make anything. Just practice. You know that’s how we improve. A little bit each day.”

  Yoga wisdom. Blah. “Nothing is going to make me feel better today.” I considered telling her about the critique, but I didn’t need any more pity. Not now. “Maybe I shouldn’t bother applying to art school.” I stepped back. That kind of talk always pushed her buttons. She hated quitters.

  “Janine. Just go. Stop whining. Get over yourself. For once in your life, be humble. Do what I say. Get out of here and go make something. Don’t set out for perfection. Just play.”

  I trudged up the stairs to my room and dragged my remnants basket out of the closet. There was some nice silk, but there wasn’t enough to make more than a shirt. I found some corduroy and a long swatch of gold taffeta that some day was going to make a great dress for a wedding. I rummaged through a small bag of notions. I had sequins, black buttons, and a million zippers.

  Lo was wrong. I was drawing a blank.

  Completely uninspired.

  I didn’t want wool. Denim was too stiff. Usually, one of my personal sewing goals was making something great with material that didn’t cost a lot, but today, I wished for something magnificent and expensive.

  I wanted to play with something beautiful.

  I didn’t want anyone to say I got into school for being the Soul Survivor.

  Lo called up the steps. “Did you find it?”

  “Find what?”

  “Look under your desk.”

  There was a package wrapped in silver paper with a card that said: “I remember how much you loved this cloth” followed by twenty x’s and o’s. I opened my door and yelled to Lo, “What did you buy?”

  “It’s not a hand,” she said, laughing.

  I almost cried when I ripped open the paper. The bolt of fabric was lush blue/purple and slightly distressed. I remembered this. There was no way you could forget fabric like this.

  I caressed it. I rubbed it against my cheek. The cloth was silky and soft. Even better—it was just this side of unexpected. I spread it out over my bed. Then I grabbed my sketchbook. I closed my eyes and envisioned my mother.

  This dress was going to be serious. It was going to make a statement. It was going to be exciting and different. If I could just get it together in time, Ms. B. wouldn’t be able to do anything but change her mind and give me the thumbs-up—and every school I apply to will say yes.

  I draped it across the dress form. I pulled it off and draped it again. It was never smart to jump in and start cutting. First you had to get to know your cloth. You had to see how it moved. You had to see how it sat on a body. You had to make sure that it could really truly become exactly what you wanted it to be. You had to see your creation before you made it.

  After almost an hour, I was ready. I had a plan. My fingers were as limber as they were ever going to get.

  I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

  I transferred my vision to a pattern. When I was sure that it was right, I pinned. Then I sharpened my shears and began to cut. When I needed a break, I put on some loud music—a playlist meant to help me concentrate. The fabric was delicate. I had to cut slowly and carefully. A dress could be ruined with shoddy cutting.

  Another hour later, I switched playlists and began to pin. Usually, this was the boring part. But today, I didn’t mind.

  There were some dresses that felt like work. Others felt like they were copies of other peoples’ work. This felt original. This one practically made itself.

  This was going to be beautiful.

  I was going to get in to Parsons. And RISD. And FIT.

  I imagined meeting the admissions director at Parsons. She’d look at my finished work and applaud, confiding in me that she had had low expectations for me—my celebrity and all—but that in person, my work was impressive and sophisticated—and I might as well pack my bags now. I could just hear her saying, “I can’t wait to get to know more of the real you.”

  The authentic me, just like Ms. Browning wanted.

  At least I hoped so.

  I’d known Ms. Browning long enough to know that she’d want me to sit back and slow down. That the day of a bad critique was not the day to make a dream dress. But she was wrong. I was sure of it. I was sure there were plenty of people who hadn’t taken all her advice and had still gotten into great schools and had great careers. Why did she think she knew everything? Just because she had experience didn’t mean she was the only authority.

  I was a designer. My work was good. This was the real me. I went to the closet, got out the iron and board, and set it up. I ironed some seams. Then I sewed them. On the dress form, the collar looked good. Two hours later, so did the bodice.

  I had no doubts. Then I had a few doubts. Then I snagged a seam. I could hear her telling me, “This isn’t authentic. Why do you think this dress has anything to do with your mother? What were you actually trying to say?”

  I gripped the hamsa. Now I wasn’t sure. Maybe I knew nothing. Maybe I had just wrecked this amazing fabric.

  (Sometime
s I hated my imagination.)

  Heart. Soul. Mind. World. Protection. I started to wish, then I stopped. I could do this.

  Maybe this didn’t have to be so hard.

  My grandparents waited a long time to give me this piece of her. It must mean something. That’s why I had that dream. That’s why I was hesitating now. It must mean that there was something else I needed to know now. About my mom.

  It was a sign. A clear one.

  I put down my work and found Lo. “I want to see it,” I said.

  She hated it when I talked out of context. “Want to see what?”

  “The Book of Death.” I sighed. “My mom’s last journal.” Now that I’d said it, I could hardly wait. I needed to read it. Before I could finish the dress, I needed to know what she wrote before she died.

  Lo hesitated. “Today? Now? Haven’t we had enough excitement already? Why don’t you wait? We can read it next weekend. After all this nonsense is over.”

  “No,” I said. “I need it now.” When she started to argue, I told her it was mine. “You said I could have it whenever I wanted.”

  “It’s in my closet. Top shelf.” Before I turned away, she added, “If you change your mind, I can tell you what it says.Or we can read it together. You don’t have to do this alone. Some of it will upset you.”

  I paused. “Of course it’s going to upset me.”

  We stood eye to eye. She blinked first. “Make sure you read every word. All the way to the end.”

  I was pretty sure she was still talking when I went upstairs and found the book. I brought it to my bed and opened it to the first page. On the inside cover, it said, “You can’t demolish the rules until you know them by heart.”

  I liked that. Already I felt my ideas coming into focus.

  In the margins, unlike every other journal, there were no doodles.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The phone call came at 3:04 P.M.

  The man on the line asked, “Is this Karen Friedman Collins?” He said he was calling from the network—the network also known as my fantasy workplace, the pinnacle of my profession. He said, “We were hoping to talk you into working for us as a correspondent.”