Jenny Rose turns and walks up the stairs, still clutching the postage stamp. Her feet on the stairs make no sound and her legs are as white and thin as two ghosts.
Hildy collects lipsticks. She has two that her mother gave her, and a third that she found under the seat of her father's car. One is a waxy red, so red that Hildy thinks it might taste like a candy apple. One is pink, and the one that she found in the car is so dark that when she puts it on, her mouth looks like a small fat plum. She practices saying sexy words, studying her reflection in the bathroom mirror, her mouth a glossy, bright O. Oh darling, she says. You're the handsomest, you're the funniest, you're the smartest man I know. Give me a kiss, my darling.
She wants to tell Jenny Rose that if she – if Jenny Rose – wore lipstick, maybe people would notice her. Maybe people would fall in love with her, just as they will fall in love with Hildy. Hildy kisses her reflection; the mirror is smooth and cool as water. She keeps her eyes open, and she sees the mirror face, yearning and as close to her own face as possible, the slick cheek pressed against her own warm cheek.
In the mirror, she looks like Jenny Rose. Or maybe she has watched Jenny Rose for too long, and now Jenny Rose is all she can see. She leans her forehead against the mirror, suddenly dizzy.
Myron won't come over to the Harmons' house anymore. He goes to the Y instead, plays basketball, until his mother comes to pick him up. He avoids Hildy at school, and finally Hildy calls and explains that she needs him, that it's an emergency.
They meet in the gazebo, of course. Myron won't go inside the house, he says, even to pee.
"How are things?" Myron says.
"Fine," Hildy says. They are formal as two ambassadors.
"I'm sorry I called your cousin a communist."
"That's okay. Look," Hildy says. She presses the heel of her Ked against a loose board until the other end pops up. In the hollow there is a stack of white envelopes with square holes where the stamps have been cut out. She picks up the top one, dated July 19, 1970. "It's her secret place. These are her letters."
"I hope you didn't read them," Myron says. He sounds prim, as if he thinks they shouldn't read other people's letters, not even letters from spies.
"Of course I did," she tells him. "And she's not a spy. She just misses her parents."
"Oh. Is that all?" he asks sarcastically.
Hildy remembers the cool surface of the mirror, the way it almost gave way against her forehead, like water. "She wants to go home. She's going to disappear herself. She's been practicing with the light switch, moving it up and down. She's going to disappear herself back to Indonesia and her parents."
"You're kidding," he says, but Hildy is sure. She knows this as plainly as if Jenny Rose had told her. The letters are a history of disappearance, reappearance, of travelling. It is what they don't say that is important.
"Her parents always tell her how much they love her, they tell her the things that they've seen and done, and they ask her to be happy. But they never tell her they miss her, that they wish she was with them."
"I wouldn't miss her," Myron says, interrupting. Hildy ignores him.
"They don't tell her they miss her, because they know that she would come to them. She's the most stubborn person I know. She's still waiting for them to say it, to say she can come home."
"You're getting as weird as she is," Myron says. "Why are you telling me all this?"
Hildy doesn't say, Because you're my best friend. She says, "Because you have terrible handwriting. You write like an adult."
"So what?"
"I want you to help me steal her next letter. I want you to write like them, write that she can go home now. I can't do it. What if she recognized my handwriting?"
"You want me to get rid of her for you?" Myron says.
"I think that if she doesn't go home soon, she'll get sick. She might even die. She never eats anything anymore."
"So call the doctor." Myron says, "No way. I can't help you."
But in the end he does. It is December, and the R.M. has canceled two conferences with Jenny Rose's teachers, busy with her church duties. It doesn't really matter. The teachers don't notice Jenny Rose; they call on other students, check off her name at attendance without looking to see her. Hildy watches Jenny Rose, she looks away to see Myron watching her. He passes her a note in class on Tuesday. I can't keep my eyes on her. How can you stand it? Hildy can barely decipher his handwriting, but she knows Jenny Rose will be able to read it. Jenny Rose can do anything.
This morning the R.M. almost walked right into Jenny Rose. Hildy was sitting at the breakfast table, eating cereal. She saw the whole thing. Jenny Rose opened the refrigerator door, picked out an orange, and then as she left the kitchen, the R.M. swerved into the room around her, as if Jenny Rose were an inconveniently placed piece of furniture.
"Mom," Hildy said. The R.M. picked up Hildy's cereal bowl to wash it, before Hildy was finished.
"What?" the R.M. said.
"I want to talk to you about Jenny Rose."
"Your cousin?" said the R.M. "It was nice having her stay with us, wasn't it?"
"Never mind," Hildy said. She went to get ready for school.
The three of them sit in the boat. The water is green, the boat is green, she is surprised sometimes when she opens her eyes, that her skin isn't green. Sometimes she is worried because her parents aren't there. Sometimes there is another girl in the boat, bigger than her, always scowling. She wants to tell this girl not to scowl, but it's better to ignore her, to concentrate on putting her parents back in the boat. Go away, she tells the girl silently, but that isn't right. She's the one who has to go away. What is the girl's name? The girl refuses to sit still, she stands up and waves her arms and jumps around and can't even see that she is in danger of falling into the water.
Go away, she thinks at the girl, I'm busy. I blew the roof off a prison once, I knocked the walls down, so I could look at the stars. Why can't I make you go away? I can walk on water, can you? When I leave, I'm taking the boat with me, and then where will you be, silly girl?
Hildy loves her mother's preaching voice, so strong and bell-clear. The R.M. and Hildy's father fight all the time now; the R.M. stays in the kitchen until late at night, holding conversations in a whisper with Mercy Orzibal, Myron's mother, over the phone. Hildy can't hear what the R.M. is saying when she whispers, but she's discovered that if she stands very quietly, just inside the kitchen door, she can make herself as invisible as Jenny Rose. It is just like hiding under the Ping-Pong table. No one can see her.
At night, when the R.M. screams at her husband, Hildy covers her ears with her hands. She sticks the pillow over her head. Lately Hildy never loses at Ping-Pong, although she tries to let her father win. The skin under her father's eyes is baggy and too pink. Next week, he is going away to a conference on American literature.
The R.M. stands straight as a pin behind the pulpit, but this is what Hildy remembers: her mother sitting curled on the kitchen floor, the night before, cupping the phone to her ear, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Hildy waited for her mother to see her, standing in the doorway. The R.M. slammed the phone down on the hook. That bitch, she said, and sat sucking smoke in and looking at nothing at all.
Hildy's father sits with the choir, listening attentively to his wife's sermon. This is what Hildy remembers: at dinner, the spoon trembling in his hand as he lifted it to his mouth, his wife watching him. Hildy looked at her father, then at her mother, then at Jenny Rose who never seems to look at anything, whom no one else sees, except Hildy.
It is easier now, looking at Jenny Rose; Hildy finds it hard to look at anyone else for very long. Jenny Rose sits beside her on the wooden pew bench, her leg touching Hildy's leg. Hildy knows that Jenny Rose is only holding herself upon the bench by great effort. It is like sitting beside a struck match that waits and refuses to ignite. Hildy knows that Jenny Rose is so strong now that if she wanted, she could raise the roof, turn the communion grape juice into wine, walk on water. How can the R.M. not see this, looking down from the pulpit at Hildy, her eyes never focusing on her niece, as if Jenny Rose has already gone? As if Jenny Rose was never there?