The Myth of Perpetual Summer Read online

  “Really, Lavada, what do you have against self-sufficient women? Griff was taking the boat out when he was two years younger than Tallulah. Shame on you for denying her the experience just because she’s a girl.”

  As much as I don’t want them fighting, today of all days, I admit I feel some satisfaction over Margo’s argument. I continue slowly across the yard, pretending I’m not listening.

  “Don’t try to make me feel narrow-minded! It wasn’t an ‘experience,’ ” Gran says. “It was dangerous. And foolish. And against the rules.”

  “Rules.” Margo gives a little chuckle, flicking ash off her cigarette in an exaggerated way that draws attention to the fact that she’s smoking. “Children constrained by rules never discover their own capabilities.”

  “But they do find their limits—once they’ve passed them! It’s our job to safeguard them, to make decisions until they’re old enough to make them on their own. She could have been struck by lightning. That boat could have been overcome and sunk in that downpour—”

  “Admit it, the only thing you care about is how things appear: What will people think?” She’s taken on an exaggerated Southern accent. “A young girl out on the river alone. Scandalous! Pos-i-tively scandalous!” Margo flutters her hand in front of her heart.

  Her making fun of Gran makes me want to go slap her. But I just clench my fists and dig my fingernails into my palms.

  Gran’s cheeks are getting red, but she doesn’t say anything, mostly because Margo just keeps going. “Besides, the only thing your rule would have changed is that Griff could have been struck by lightning, too. And nothing happened. Besides, if it scared her, it does more good than all the forbidding in the world can. Now she’ll think twice before heading out with a storm coming.”

  “You are missing the point!”

  Griff sneaks up behind me and startles me by whispering in my ear. “I saw your face when you showed up Friday night. Something did happen. Something that scared you.”

  I whip my head around, ready to deny it, but when I look in his eyes, I can’t.

  “What was it, Lulie?” I see a trace of fear in his eyes. “Truth. What did that guy save you from?”

  I open my mouth to tell him enough of the truth to not be a lie. Only a choked sob comes out.

  Slapping my hand over my mouth, I make a dash for the dock, the place I sit and ponder at Gran’s when things are weighing on me. But the sight of the river only makes the muddy taste of its water come rushing back into my mouth.

  I stop short of the dock, gasping, choking, a hand fisted against the pain in my chest.

  Then Griff is there, wrapping me in a hug so fierce it brings a pain of its own.

  Me crying is something Griff isn’t used to. I can tell he’s not sure what to say, so he just shushes me like a baby.

  That makes me mad enough to stop. I push him away and wipe my eyes. “I’m fine.” I sniff. “Fine.”

  “Did Ross do something—”

  “No!” My cheeks flush with heat. I know what Griff is getting at; Gran would use the delicate term get fresh. “No. He saved me.”

  I tell Griff the whole story, not liking the little noises coming from the back of his throat when I get to the point where I gave up and let the water take me. I’ve just finished telling him what happened at the Saengers’ cottage—leaving out my brief, silly suspicion that Ross was a murderer—when I hear the deep sound of Ross’s boat approaching.

  I turn my back to the river and wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Don’t you dare tell him I was crying.”

  Griff just looks at me.

  “Swear on your arrowhead!”

  He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “I swear.”

  I face the river again.

  As I look at Ross, the anticipation that kept me awake last night comes rushing back. I spent my sleepless hours trying to draw his face, but I couldn’t get the blue of his eyes right, even with the pastels Griff bought me.

  My heart beats faster and my skin tingles all over as the boat nears. I can’t wait to hear Ross’s voice again, to look into those amazing eyes. At the same time, I want to bolt and run for the house.

  Ross smiles and waves, and I raise a self-conscious hand before I shift my gaze to Griff. I’m nervous about what he’ll say to Ross, now that he knows what happened.

  But all I see is a new look of admiration in Griff’s eyes. “I’m glad you made it,” he says.

  Ross cuts a concerned look to me, confirming my face is red and blotchy from crying. Then he smiles and says, “Who could turn down a crawfish boil?”

  I should be relieved. But my heart is still galloping around in my chest, my ears are buzzing, and parts of my body feel so electrified that I wonder if I’m about to faint. I’m torn between aggravation and appreciation when Griff leads him toward Gran’s house. I follow along, not sure where I fit in. I’m grateful when we reach the house and Walden runs up and takes my hand.

  “How are those potatoes coming, buddy?”

  * * *

  As I sit on the back steps, watching Ross and Griff pitch a baseball back and forth (turns out Ross is a sophomore and on the varsity baseball team), I get a little ticked off. Ross is my guest, and Griff has totally taken over, leaving me to shuck the corn by myself. I’m tempted to go tell Gran that Griff quit baseball so she’ll drag him off to interrogate him in private.

  Just when I’ve worked up the nerve enough to do it, Tommy comes into the yard, his beagle, Buster, trotting at his side. Buster sees the ball in flight and shoots into the air, snatching it before it hits Griff’s glove. Then he runs off, tail wagging, stopping a few yards away waiting for someone to chase him.

  While Griff tries to get the ball, I hurry over to Tommy. I’m glad he’s shorter than Griff or Ross, so I can talk into his ear without being too obvious. “Why didn’t you tell me Griff quit baseball?”

  Tommy squints toward Ross. “Who’s that?”

  “You first.”

  “Because he didn’t want me to. Now who is that guy?” There’s an edge to the question.

  “Ross Saenger. He’s my guest.” Just saying it gives me a little shiver. Mine. “He gave me a tow when Gran’s boat ran out of gas on Friday afternoon.”

  Tommy’s gaze snaps back to me. “You took the boat out alone?”

  I straighten my shoulders. “Yes, I did.”

  Griff has the ball back from Buster and is wiping the dog slobber on his Levi’s as he comes closer. He dips his chin. “Tommy.”

  By the tense way Tommy is standing, I can tell something is off between them.

  Griff says, “Didn’t think you’d come.”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I come every year.” There’s a challenge in his tone.

  Griff shrugs, then calls Ross away from playing with Buster to introduce him to Tommy. I’m just about to ask Ross to come into the house and help me bring out the stacks of newspaper to dump the cooked crawfish on when Dad comes around the corner with a bag of ice over his shoulder.

  Then I see Dad arrived with more than the ice. He hefts the bag off his shoulder and plops it on the ground near the cedar bucket holding the crank cylinder for the ice cream. “Look who I found at the bait shop!” he says, like he’s just discovered Santa Claus visiting from the North Pole.

  Two girls, probably from the college, are right behind him. They have teased hair, polished fingernails, and are wearing pedal pushers with blouses tied just above their navels, showing a pink ribbon of skin all the way around. Their laughing stops when they see the yard full of people.

  “Yowza,” Griff says under his breath, and nudges Ross with an elbow.

  My ponytailed, gangly fourteen-ness is suddenly too much to bear, and I want to melt into the grass.

  One of the girls seems to recover before the other. “We were about to get stuck fishing with the boys, but Professor James was nice enough to invite us to the crawfish boil.” I’m pretty sure I see the girl bat her eyelashes at Dad. “He even pai
d for our friend’s bait. Such a nice man.”

  Margo comes and stands right in front of Dad with her hands on her hips. “Nice man, huh?” Then she turns to the coeds. “I’m Mrs. Professor James.” Then she waves her hand toward us kids. “Mother of his four children.” She turns toward Gran. “And this is his mother.” She lowers her voice, as if sharing a secret with the girls. “She’s quite old-fashioned.” There’s something in the set of Margo’s shoulders and the tone of her voice that is unfamiliar to me. And she called herself Mrs.! She usually corrects people when they do that, reminding them she has a name of her own.

  I wait for Gran to interrupt, offer her usual open-armed hospitality. But she stays quiet.

  “Don’t be inhospitable, Margo,” Dad says. “It’s such a grand day! Have you ever seen such a cerulean sky? We have a bounty of food . . . and these young maids have never had the pleasure of dining on crawfish! Can you imagine? I admit, neither are Southern-grown, but seriously . . . a travesty.” He shakes his head.

  The muscles in Margo’s cheeks tense as she steps nose to nose with him. “Just remember, Dray, I was one of your coeds once.” Then she kisses him. Not a sweet peck like parents are supposed to have, but a long, embarrassing kiss.

  Dad picks up Margo, swinging her in a circle. “Carpe diem, my love. Carpe diem!”

  “Drayton!” Gran’s voice is harsh and angry. She’s never angry with Daddy. Then she turns to the girls. “I do so apologize, but I’m afraid the food won’t be ready for quite some time.” I can’t believe Gran can lie so smoothly, without a single twitch. “Perhaps you young ladies would like Margo to deliver you back to your friends after all?”

  “Come on, come on now!” Dad rubs his hands together. Then his eyes widen, like he’s just gotten a wonderful idea. “Let’s all go swimming!” He’s already unbuttoning his shirt with one hand and grabs the hand of one of the coeds with the other as he pulls her down the slope to the dock. “Yes! Swimming.” Then he starts singing, “ ‘Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river . . .’ ” His belt flies through the air and lands in the grass. Then he lets go of the girl’s hand and spins around, throwing his hands over his head. “I can walk on water!”

  I stand horrified as he reaches over and tries to untie the coed’s blouse. “Let’s get you baptized.”

  She bats his hands away and runs back toward the house, her eyes filled with surprise and—I can barely believe it—fear.

  The other coed is calling, “Come on, Babs! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Come to me!” Dad yells. “Can you not feel it? The power of the water?”

  I lose track of the girls because I can’t take my eyes off my father. He’s down to his boxers and one sock.

  Gran is shouting, “Drayton Neely James! Griffin, go stop your father!”

  Without his shirt, I see how skinny he’s gotten, each rib and knob of his spine standing out under the pale skin.

  Dad reaches the dock and kicks his boxers off. I cover my eyes, my whole body screaming with shame.

  “Life is a river!”

  I hear a big splash. He’s either belly-flopped or laid out and fallen in backward. I turn and run into the house, my skin flaming with embarrassment.

  Fifteen minutes later, Ross comes to find me curled up in the front porch swing. “Um, I just wanted to see if you’re okay.”

  I’m too mortified to even look his way. “I don’t know . . . this isn’t . . . he’s never—” I cut the words off, remembering him driving down Eudora Avenue with a car full of people a couple of years ago.

  When I get the nerve to look at Ross, I see his clothes are wet. “What happened?”

  “Griff and I had to go in after him. He fought us.” He points to a blossoming bruise on his cheek.

  “Oh my God.” If only I could disappear in a puff of smoke.

  “Your grandmother said he must have had too much celebration.” He laughs a little. “It’s not a big deal. Once my dad put on my mom’s fur coat and hat and red lipstick and sang Bessie Smith songs at a New Year’s Eve party at our house. It happens.”

  “It’s not drink.” Dad’s soared past his shiny time. The hurricane is here.

  Ross tilts his head and gives me a look that says he thinks I’m a foolish child. “It doesn’t matter, Tallulah.” He sits next to me on the swing.

  “Where are Griff and Tommy?”

  “Trying to talk your dad out of taking the dock apart because there are some rotted boards. He said he wants to rebuild it with an upper deck and he thinks he’s figured out a way to build a boat lift out of old tires and a block and tackle in the shed. He seems quite determined.”

  “Ugh.” I cover my face.

  “I should probably go.”

  Without thinking I grab his hand. “Don’t!” I have to fight the urge to put my head on his shoulder and cry. “Please. Stay.” I pull my hand back. “Gran would be so disappointed if you missed the boil.”

  He chuckles. “She does seem to be intent on keeping to the original plan. She just put the vegetables in the pots.”

  “If you leave, she’ll think you’ve been offended and that would bother her even more than Dad’s behavior.”

  “Well.” He takes my hand in his and smiles at me. “Can’t have that.” Looking in his eyes, I can see that Ross Saenger is going to be a knot in my rope. There will always be a dividing line in my life; before he pulled me out of the river and all that comes after.

  Gran manages to serve dinner just like always, despite the fact that Dad’s down at the dock with a claw hammer and a crowbar prying off boards. We all eat, but it’s a strange time. Griff and Tommy are oddly quiet—and not just because they’re stuffing their gullets. Not so strangely, Gran and Margo are acting like two like-charged magnets. But I close it all out as I listen to Ross. He’s been so many places, done so many things. It’s obvious his family has a lot of money, but he doesn’t act like it. Even when he’s talking about ski trips and flying to Europe, there’s a humility to it, an air of gratitude to his parents. He talks about his mother—a real mother, who remembers birthdays with homemade devil’s food cake, makes hot tea after bicycle accidents, and is there to talk when life gets complicated—and I’m so jealous I almost cry. For the third time today. A new record.

  Some time later, their tension seemingly dissolved, Griff leaves to spend the night at Tommy’s house. I’m pretty sure Griff was driven by Dad’s hurricane, which is bound to get worse. I can still hear him knocking around in the shed.

  I walk Ross to his boat, almost forgetting how horrible parts of today have been. But my easiness with him evaporates. I’m self-conscious about everything, my childish hair, my clothes, the way I’m walking, the sound of my voice.

  Ross stops and turns to me before we reach the gap-toothed dock, and suddenly I can’t breathe.

  “Thanks for today,” he says, those blue eyes locked on mine.

  “Sure.” Clever. My cheeks heat up again.

  Then he stuns me by kissing me on my temple.

  I stand there like an idiot, not sure if it was a thank-you kiss, a brotherly kiss, or a real kiss. So I hurry to untie his boat and cast him off.

  Right before he starts the motor, he smiles and says, “I’m glad I met you, Tallulah James.”

  I stand there dry-mouthed, with my heart thundering, watching his boat until I can’t see it any longer. Finally, I calm myself down enough to walk back to the house and help clean up.

  By the time we have things in order, Dad has set up three camping lanterns and is insisting on working on the dock through the night. Gran looks at him with worried eyes, but the persuasion, the logical argument I expect to come, doesn’t. Margo loads up the twins and suddenly I don’t want to go home and face Dharma’s nightly bedtime tantrum—which Margo ignores, so it goes on and on and on in the darkness of our bedroom. Thankfully Gran invites me to sleep over, a rare treat of it being just Gran and me . . . if you don’t count Dad out there tearing the dock ap
art in the night.

  Gran goes to bed first. She seems more tired than normal. Considering the day, that’s not surprising. When I finally head upstairs, I pass the front hall closet and remember.

  With a heaviness in my chest, I open the door and look at the three jars of mayhaw jelly, red-checked ribbons around their necks, sitting where I’d tucked them when we arrived, waiting for the right time to present them as gifts.

  10

  Jelly or no jelly, I was a fool to believe there was a ghost of a chance Margo would be home with us this summer. It’s only June, and her attention is already split—not between us and civil rights, but between civil rights and banning nuclear weapons.

  An hour ago, she got wind that a new bunch of Freedom Riders are coming to Jackson. Ever since that horrible bus burning over in Alabama on Mother’s Day, she hasn’t stopped complaining that she wasn’t there. What does she think one woman can do against dozens of angry men swinging clubs and throwing firebombs, anyway? Why isn’t registering Negroes to vote in Lamoyne enough for her? It’s certainly enough to make people around here angry. It took Griff half a day to scrape off the nasty words someone painted on our car windshield.

  When I asked Margo that question, she said that kind of I’ve-done-my-share attitude is why there’s still a problem. If every person stood up for what was right, people like her wouldn’t have to do it all. I couldn’t argue with that. Still, I’m scared sick as she takes her suitcase and rushes the twins out the door to drop at Mrs. Collins’s so she can head to Jackson with her group of demonstrators.

  Just last week Margo was mad as a wet hen when Dad came up the driveway honking the horn of this shiny new Chevy convertible we can’t afford. Now she’s plenty happy to throw her suitcase in it and just leave.

  “I want to go!” The desperate words bubble up before I’m aware they’re coming.

  “Tallulah, you’re too old for a babysitter.” She opens the back door and Walden climbs right in. His eyes are sad as he looks at me, but he’s not complaining. Dharma stands pouting with her arms crossed across her chest, until Margo reminds her that Mrs. Collins is waiting to see her new dance routine.