Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me - Gae Polisner Page 0,2

myself aloud. “You’ve watched it four times, JL. You’ve got this. You already know what to do.”

I’m shaking so badly, I whisper the steps aloud: “Glue. Splint. Powder. Breathe. And you’re done.”

“When the glue is dry,” he says, “gently remove the butterfly from the cloth surface. It may even be stuck … release it free. It’s good to go!”

It moves on to the next video, Twenty Child Stars You Didn’t Know Passed Away, and I haven’t even dabbed the glue yet.

I take my time, ignoring the noise in the background, as I move the small cardboard splint to its wing. I place the splint gently down over the break and sprinkle some powder from the bottle.

Voila! Right?

I lift the metal loop and wait.

The poor creature doesn’t move at all.

Tears spring to my eyes. I should have known better than to try to fix anything.

I slam my laptop shut, chuck the mangled paper clip in the wastebasket, and lie back onto my bed, wishing Max were here. Max, not Aubrey. Aubrey has made her intentions perfectly clear.

She prefers those other girls now.

The phone rings down the hall, and I wait to hear if Mom will get it, but she rarely does. Maybe she’s not even home from her appointment with Dr. Marsdan yet. She’s up to two or three times per week with him.

I roll onto my side, fighting the urge to call Max. He’s at work and I don’t want to bother him. My stomach flutters. I still can’t believe I’m dating Max Gordon.

The phone rings again. Only Dad and Nana still call our landline, and Dad barely does. It’s probably a sales call, some scammer pretending to be from the IRS.

If it’s Nana, I’ll call her back. I’m not in the mood for her, or to tell her I already lost one of the butterflies. It’s not that I don’t love her. I do. But I’m tired of her head-in-the-sand cheerfulness, the way she deflects and pretends, acting like everything with Mom is okay. Shooing away the truth like some pesky fly.

“It’s only a rough spell, honey. Your mother has always been given to histrionics, even as a girl. She’ll be fine. And Dr. Marsdan is the best. He helped my friend Marcy’s daughter. She’s good as new. He’ll fix her in no time. Plus, everything will be better when your father gets home.”

My eyes shift to my desk, to the photo, to my open laptop, to the mess of glue and cotton balls and underneath. To the habitat Max helped me put together a few short weeks ago. The day Aubrey was last here, the day the larvae arrived. And the last time we made any pretense of hanging out.

She made it clear what she thought of me that day. The minute she said that stupid thing about the Jezebels.

LATE MARCH

TENTH GRADE

I unpack the box from World of Butterflies—the cultures, the clamp lamp, the reagents and plants Nana and I ordered for the caterpillars to snack on—leaving all sorts of labels and pamphlets and instruction sheets strewn about my bedroom floor, and gently lift the two small remaining boxes out, one marked Greta oto/Glasswings, the other Delias hyparete/Painted Jezebels. I place them on the floor in front of us.

“What are these?” you ask, picking up the first box too aggressively. I take it back from you.

“Glasswings, Aubs,” I say. “And the others are Painted Jezebels. Wait till you see how cool they are.”

You think I don’t notice how you roll your eyes before you get up and lie back on my bed, your cell phone held above you in the air. You’re texting fast. A group chat that obviously doesn’t include me.

I could ask who, but I know. Instead, I focus on lining up the culture cups next to the boxes of larvae, which will be tiny and weird, since they’re only in their first or second instar phases.

You used to care about this stuff, too, think it mattered. You used to be interested in all the research I did to help them emerge. Now it’s beneath you, or something.

I try not to feel bad, look to Max for some sort of enthusiasm or support, but he’s oblivious, sitting hunched at my desk, head down, singing, and concentrating on assembling the habitat.

“Blue-eyed son … darling young one.” He suddenly sings out loud, too loud, his muscles flexing under his plain white T-shirt, his head bobbing to whatever song he has blaring enough that I can hear it through