have anything to barter.”
“I used to think there’d still be stars in the sky,” Julie said. “In the country, I mean. We used to spend summers in the country with Fresh Air Fund families, and there were always stars. I had a postcard once of a painting with big crazy-looking stars.”
“Starry Night,” I said. “Vincent van Gogh painted it. I saw it in a museum in New York. You’re from New York, aren’t you, Julie? Did you ever see it?”
“No,” Julie said. “But I’ve been to museums. I went on a school trip to the Natural History Museum once. We looked at the dinosaurs for hours.”
“The dinosaurs are gone,” I said. “Just like the stars.”
“The stars are there,” Charlie said. “Hiding behind the ash clouds, but they’re still there.”
“I don’t believe in anything I can’t see,” I said.
“You don’t have to see God to believe in Him,” Julie said. “You can feel Him and la Santa Madre and the saints. Like you can feel the sun, even though we can’t see it anymore.”
“I can’t see the stars and I certainly can’t feel them, so I’ve given up believing they’re there,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, they no longer exist.”
“Look at it this way,” Charlie said. “Do you think there’s life on other planets?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I hope they’re having a better time of it than we are.”
Charlie laughed. “Okay, then,” he said. “Picture Princess Leia on her planet, or a Klingon, or some eight-eyed thing with four brains. And whatever it is, it’s outside on a hot June night, looking at the ten thousand stars in its sky. Our sun is one of them. It can see our sun better than we can, and it has a name for it, like we have names for the stars. But Princess Leia doesn’t know we’re standing here looking up to where the stars used to be. Does that mean we don’t exist just because she can’t see us?”
I had never thought about that before: all the life on all the other planets throughout the universe as unaware of our lives, our suffering, as we are of theirs.
I wondered how many teenage boys there were out there and how many of them planned on becoming monks, and I laughed.
Charlie laughed with me and Julie did also. We were probably all laughing at different things, but that was okay. We were alive, we were together, and somewhere in the June sky there were stars.
Moving day.
Naturally it poured.
Mom stayed in and watched over Gabriel while the rest of us lugged stuff over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s. Food, blankets, sheets, the clothes we’ve been sharing with everyone else. Lots of books.
I didn’t believe it until Dad came back for Gabriel. But they really are gone. Even if it’s just down the road.
There are only five us now, and it’s so quiet.
Chapter 12
Lisa came over this morning, distraught.
“Alex says he’s taking Julie away tomorrow,” she said. “Miranda, you’re the only one he listens to. Please talk to him.”
I don’t know where people have gotten the idea that Alex listens to me. Matt listens to Syl and Jon listens to Julie, but that seems to be where the listening ends.
Still, I told Lisa I’d give it a try.
I walked outside to where the guys were chopping wood. “I was wondering if I could borrow Alex for a few hours,” I said, nice and casually. “I’d like to do some house hunting, and Mom doesn’t like me to go alone.”
“Good idea,” Matt said. “Alex, you don’t mind, do you? You and Miranda had great luck last time.”
“Sure,” Alex said. I get the feeling chopping wood is one thing he isn’t going to miss at the monastery.
We walked back to the houses and got our bikes. It was as warm a day as I could remember, almost muggy, and we biked slowly.
“No country this time,” I said. “Let’s do Fresh Meadows instead.”
“All right,” Alex said.
Well, that was easy. Maybe he was in an agreeable mood. Or maybe he didn’t like looking at half-eaten bodies any more than I did.
When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about living in Fresh Meadows. It’s at the other end of town from us, five or six miles away, and it’s where the doctors and lawyers live. Or lived before everything happened.
“These are nice houses,” Alex said as we climbed our way through an already shattered window. “The rich kids lived here, huh?”
“No one was rich in Howell,” I said. “But the richer kids lived here.”
“I like your house better,” Alex said. “It reminds me of home. All the people stepping over each other. We were pretty crowded.”
I pictured Alex and Julie and Carlos living in a filthy tenement, with everybody yelling in Spanish and hitting each other. “Where was that?” I asked.
“West End Avenue and Eighty-eighth Street,” Alex said.
There went my tenement fantasy. Actually, there went most of my ideas about Alex and Julie and where they came from. It costs a lot more money to live on West End Avenue and Eighty-eighth Street than it does to live in Fresh Meadows.
I guess Alex sensed my surprise. “My father was the super,” he said. “Not much salary, but they let us live in the basement apartment, by the laundry room and the furnace.”
“Oh,” I said. “No wonder our house reminds you of home.”
Alex laughed. “It’s better than I made it sound,” he said. “It was a nice apartment. But crowded and noisy.”
We walked through the house together, taking whatever pickings we could find. I taught Alex the cosmetic bag trick, and he admired the travel-sized shampoos and soaps. We went through three houses that way, all of them previously ransacked, probably more than once. But each had a little something we could use, and we both enjoyed the quiet and the nice furnishings.
“No food today,” I said. “No misers in this neighborhood.”
“No,” Alex said. “The rich don’t starve.”
“Are there special places for rich people, do you think?” I asked. “Did you ever see any?”
“There are safe towns,” Alex said. “But they’re hidden. Even Carlos couldn’t find one.”
Syl had mentioned trucks going to safe towns. Truckers must know where they were located even if the Marines didn’t.
“We’re safe enough where we are,” I said. “We have food and shelter. Julie would be safe, too, if you let her stay with us.”
“No,” Alex said. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“But why?” I cried. “Charlie’s staying. He’s no more a part of the family than you are.”
“Did you hear yourself?” Alex asked. “That’s exactly why Julie has to go. No matter how much you say you love her, she isn’t a part of your family. She’s Carlos’s sister and mine, not yours.”
“Carlos isn’t here,” I said. “We are. You could be, too. You could both stay with us.”
“No,” Alex said. “Carlos told us what we should do, and we’re doing it.”
“You really will make a great monk,” I said. “You have the obedience thing down pat.”
“I have no idea what kind of monk I’ll be,” Alex said. “Or even if the order will take me in.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “You’re dumping Julie with some nuns and then you’re going to Ohio on the off chance you can become a monk? Are you serious?”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you,” Alex said. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
