Read Online Re Jane by Patricia Park - Free Book Online Page A

after-school activities. Mondays she had art club. Tuesday was violin. Wednesday was swim team. For so young a person, Devon had a very busy schedule.
    On the fourth day of my Brooklyn sojourn, the phone rang. Sang’s voice blasted through the receiver. “Why you not come home!”
    â€œHow did you know I was here?” No one had any way of calling me—I had not included a phone number in the note I’d left on the kitchen table. That note had read,
“I’ll call when I’m ready.”
It did not read,
“Call
me
when I’m
not
ready.”
    â€œWhat that matter? Uncle keep waiting you come back. But you too stubborn to know you doing stupid thing.”
    â€œI
told
you that
I’d
get in touch with
you.
” My tone was tinged with a whine; I sounded like Devon.
    â€œWhy you act like baby?”
    â€œI’m
not
acting like a—”
    â€œFine,” Sang interrupted. “Uncle come get you. Even though is inconvenience. Where you are?”
    â€œI’m not telling you.”
    â€œI already know. You in Brooklyn.” His tone became quieter, more solemn. I could hear his mind conflating those three B’s.
    â€œI’m not coming home, Uncle,” I said.
    â€œWhy you throw away everything to be nothing but the baby-sitter? Make no sense!” he said. “What kind of people they are, getting stranger to watching their child?”
    Sometimes Sang had a way of putting things so plainly it only made you feel stupid to try to defend yourself. But he was always black and white, with no gray in between.
    Then I remembered what Beth had said the night before at dinner, about wanting to do a tour of Queens neighborhoods. She found Flushing in particular
fascinating—
and not only because she was a Mets fan. I’d demurred, not wishing to risk running into Sang and Hannah, or anyone else in Queens.
    â€œWhat if I introduced you to the family I work for?” I said to Sang. “I can bring them by the store. That way you can see them for yourself. The parents went to
Columbia.
They’re
professors.
” Well, really only Beth was the professor. But my uncle was such a sucker for name-brand colleges.
    I heard him softening over the phone. “When?”
    We made plans for the coming weekend. But after we hung up, the rest of the day felt a bit off, thrown from its natural rhythms. That afternoon, when Devon and I returned home from our now-routine Italian ices, I finally reached a chapter of the primer called “In Matters Vegetable, Animal, and Mineral.” And there, under the subheading “Forbidden Foods,” was the following entry:
    Devon is absolutely forbidden to eat refined sugar; artificial sweeteners, colorings, or flavors; products with high-fructose corn syrup; and others (see footnote). They are toxic to the system. Such “food” products are permitted only on weekends on a case-by-case basis (e.g., a classmate’s birthday party).
    And that was the afternoon Ed Farley came home early from school. He spied my mouth, stained with artificial everything; then he spotted his daughter’s. “What’s going on here?” Devon let out a guilty yip before scurrying up the stairs. Then Ed and I were alone.
    For the past four days, Ed had been polite but curt with me. I couldn’t tell if he was just a distant and somewhat sour man or whether my particular presence irked him. His temperament was such a contrast to his wife’s, whose effusiveness made you feel instantly welcome. In the rare moments when it was just Ed and me—when we were passing in the hallways or on the stairs—his cold eyes would alight on me for an instant before dismissing me. In short: Ed Farley made me uneasy. I took to bowing my head to the floor, averting his (however brief) gaze.
    â€œAre you responsible for this?”
    â€œYes,” I said. It was my fault that I hadn’t finished the primer.
And if