The Memory Jar by Elissa Janine Hoole Page B

face might be more important to me than having a blandly beautiful face. Not that I want to carry a reminder of this on my face for the rest of my life, but it’s not going to screw me up like it would some girls. I take one more dizzy puff on my cigarette before throwing it to the ground and stepping on it. Joey bends and fishes the butt out of the slush. We round the corner to the hospital.
    â€œReady to face the press?” He nods his head toward the hospital entrance.
    â€œWith this monstrous face?” I step through the automatic doors, the antiseptic smell of the place mingling with the smell of wet entryway carpet. We wipe our snowy sneakers and face the bank of elevators. “I’ll break their cameras.”

Then
    Dani and I always played this game we called Instant Vacation. The premise was pretty simple. One of us would shout out randomly, something like “Instant vacation to Washington DC!” and then we’d pretend that’s where we were. Maybe I’d be like Hey, let’s climb up on the Lincoln Memorial , and she’d be all Look! From up here we can see into the First Lady’s private chambers! and I’d go Let’s go tell her all about our plans for world domination! It was silly and sometimes really stupid, like one time when Dani was like Instant vacation to Mr. Fowler’s intestinal tract! and she started talking about all the nasty stuff floating around in there and I still can’t walk past him in the hall without gagging.
    So Scott had been around us for a while. He knew what Dani and I were like together and he’d heard us go on lots of instant vacations. But it was our thing, between Dani and me, and Scott never participated except once. That was the thing about Scott. He didn’t have to spend his time hoping and dreaming because his life was really great. He loved his family, he loved rambling around, hunting and exploring the shore of the lake along the south side of their property. There was enough money to send him to college, even without declaring a major or getting scholarships or making it onto the hockey team. He never complained.
    â€œInstant vacation to Idaho,” Dani said, tipping back her hot chocolate. Whipped cream on the tip of her nose. “I think there’s a grizzly behind you.”
    â€œRetired cops,” said Scott with a shrug of his shoulders. “With short tempers and big fists.” He shook his head, and that’s all he said. I knew he’d once spent a summer in Idaho with his great aunt and uncle while his parents were dealing with transitioning his granny into assisted living, but the few times he’d mentioned it, all he talked about was the good fishing and how much he loved the mountains.
    â€œAnd potatoes,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. What should I have said? There was a long silence, and Dani wiped the cream off her face and avoided both our eyes. It was awkward and drawn-out, and I was going to call out the next instant vacation, but my brain was empty of new places and all I could think about was the cops in Idaho, wondering if they had anything to do with how angry Scott had gotten at my mom and her moods.
    â€œInstant vacation to my deer stand,” Scott said at last, and his voice was low, his eyes on his hands, which were spreading butter on some kind of pastry. “It’s November, and chilly enough this early in the morning to see your breath. Chilly enough to appreciate the wool jacket under your blaze orange shell.”
    Dani tipped her head, her hair falling in black, ironed sheets. “The sun is coming up,” she said.
    â€œThe sun is coming up,” Scott repeated. “It’s still gray everywhere, but the sky is getting pink between the poplar trees, toward the field.” He cleared his throat.
    â€œThe deer congregate in the field,” I said, because I’ve seen them there, a herd of them. Sometimes I’ve