The Myth of Perpetual Summer Page 5

  “It wasn’t like that. There were other things—” Suddenly she stops talking, tilts her head, and pats my hand. “As we become adults, our views change. It’s not that we give up our dreams—reality sometimes changes them for us. You’ll see.”

  None of this sounds good for Griff. And it certainly doesn’t explain why Daddy said his life was ruined. But Gran has that look in her eye, so I leave the subject there for now.

  “I want to see another picture of Uncle George. One that shows his face better.”

  “There aren’t any more.”

  “Why?”

  She pauses, like she does when she’s making up her mind if I’m old enough to hear something. “Your great-grandmother took his pictures out of the albums after he left. Destroyed them.”

  “If Griff ever decides to move away, we’re not getting rid of all his pictures!” I decide right then and there that if anybody tries to, I’ll snatch them up and hide them.

  “No, no, of course not. Your great-grandmother was a very rigid woman. Not very tolerant of . . . imperfections. If things turned out to be a disappointment, she just pretended they didn’t exist.”

  “Uncle George was a disappointment?” Because he was a loudmouth? Or because he was undependable? I start to turn the pages of the album and, sure enough, there are tiny white corner holders without pictures on several of the black paper pages. And some of the other pictures aren’t regular size, like they had part of them cut off.

  “Poor George.” Her words are a breathy sigh. “He was so lively. But no one understood him.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask.

  Gran blinks and shakes her head a little. “It just means he didn’t fit in and decided he’d be happier if he moved away.” She closes the album. “You know, I’m feeling a little hungry. Would you mind making me some cinnamon toast and tea? Then we can play some cards.”

  I’m so happy that she’s feeling better I put the photo album on the foot of the bed and hop up. “Sure!”

  I’m in the kitchen with my hand in the breadbox before I suspect she just wanted to stop talking about Uncle George.

  * * *

  The streetlights are on and the stores closed as I pass through town. The cube clock on the corner of the bank says it’s ten after six. As I pass, I look into Hayes Drugs to see if Mr. Hayes is still in there, sweeping up and restocking shelves, so I can wave to him. But it’s dark, except for the dim light behind the lunch counter. I can see my favorite thing in the store, the giant yellow ceramic lemon that dispenses lemonade.

  On down the block, the traveling yellow lights that surround the marquee at the Roxy Theater make my shadow do a wavery little dance on the sidewalk. Vertigo is playing again. I want to see it, but not enough to take twenty-five cents that can go toward saving for one of those new Hula-Hoops at the five-and-dime.

  I’m crossing an alley, practicing wiggling my hips for when I get a Hula-Hoop, when I hear a bang. Turning, I see Griff flying out the back door of Billiards and Beer, a pool hall I know no kid is supposed to be in. Even standing this far from the back door, it smells like an old deep fryer and warm beer. Gran calls it a human cesspool (not one of the vocabulary words Daddy gives us each week, so I had to look that one up on my own) and says it should be burned to the ground.

  Griff sprints in the other direction, his jacket whipping in his hand. I’ve just opened my mouth to call to him when the door slams open again, so hard it smacks the brick wall. Two men come out with pool sticks in their hands. They skid to a stop at the other end of the alley.

  They can’t catch my brother. Not only is he fast, he’s wily. He knows more hiding places around this town than a stray cat.

  One of the men yells, “We’ll find you, you little son of a bitch!”

  Language like that out on the street where ladies and little kids can hear proves Granny is right about this place. I bet they spit on the sidewalks, too.

  When I get home, there’s no sound of Walden clomping around in his Bat Masterson outfit, Dharma’s tap shoes, or the smell of Margo’s lit cigarette. Griff is sitting watching Lassie, like he’s been there for an hour.

  “Why were you at Billiards and Beer?” I ask.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I saw you!”

  “Whoever you saw, it wasn’t me,” he snaps, and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “It was so you!”

  “Was not. And stay out of alleys when it’s dark.”

  “Gotcha!” I point a finger at his nose. “How do you know it was in the alley and dark if it wasn’t you?”

  He’s always mad when I outsmart him. For a minute, he sits there grinding his teeth. Then he says, “I was working.”

  “You can’t work at a bar! You’re a kid!”

  “Oh yeah?” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a handful of crumpled bills.

  “Jiminy Cricket! How much?”

  He stuffs the money back in his pocket. “Not enough.”

  “For what?”

  “Emergencies . . . and baseball cleats. Last year’s are too small.”

  Griff is really good at sports. But Margo says it’s more important to use our money to free Algeria. I say what good does it do to live in America if you can’t play baseball?

  “What kind of emergencies?” I ask.

  He gets up, goes to open the refrigerator, and points inside. “Like this. We need to eat.”

  I peer inside. There’s a milk bottle empty but for a clotty ring in the bottom and a shriveled apple with a bite out of it (Dharma, no doubt). Just looking at all that emptiness makes me hungry in a place so deep it doesn’t feel like my stomach at all.

  I want to point out that the wad of money in his pocket isn’t doing us any good because the stores are all closed. But it’s kinda nice to have somebody worry about me, so I stay quiet.

  He goes and gets the box of Sugar Jets off the top of the refrigerator and shakes it. It sounds almost empty. Then we sit side by side on the davenport, eating dry cereal out of the box and watching TV until Daddy comes home with a sleeping twin on each shoulder. He looks like all the smiles and songs and horn-honking have been wrung out of him. The twins must have had dinner at the sitter’s. My stomach is still grumbly, so I’m a little jealous—even though Mrs. Collins smells like mothballs.

  While I help Daddy tuck them into bed, I tell him my worry about Granny not being well for orchard season.

  He shrugs. “She will be.”

  “What if she isn’t better when the blackberries need picked?” Granny’s the only one who knows where to order supplies and what workers to hire for the harvest and which ones are nothing but trouble.

  “The birds can have the damn blackberries this year!” His tone is so cross that I run to my room.

  After I’m in bed, I can’t stop thinking about the orchard. Gran’s been trying to teach me about pruning the blackberry canes, but sometimes I still can’t tell a primocane from a floricane. If I cut down the wrong ones, we won’t have any fruit. And the pecans. The trees only produce a big crop every other year, and this year most of the trees will have a big one. How will we get all the work done? The farm is in our safekeeping for future Jameses. We can’t be the ones who ruin it.

  Granny always says I worry three steps ahead of where I need to. She says keeping your eyes fixed on the mountain you might have to climb is a good way to fall into a pit right in front of your feet. But the harder I try to stop worrying, the worse it gets.

  Suddenly I feel so lonely for Griff that I wrap myself up in my quilt and head to his room.

  Daddy started to add the ductwork for central heat back when I was five and hasn’t got around to finishing it. Granny says Daddy has “sporadic enthusiasm” for projects. Like two years ago, when he started to invent a new kind of pecan sheller. He barely slept for working on it. But his enthusiasm left town and the half-finished machine is growing rust behind the orchard shed—next to the unused bricks he’s been collecting from knocked-down bu
ildings for years to pave our driveway.

  When I open the door, Griff’s on his belly with his arms thrown wide, sound asleep.

  I curl up in a ball at the foot of his bed, in the space between his feet and the wall. Even with the quilt, I’m cold.

  Maybe my shivering wakes him up, because in a bit he says, sleepily, “Lulie? What’s wrong?”

  I usually only come in when Daddy and Margo are having a row. And then I’m busy with calming Walden. I’ve never figured out how Dharma sleeps through them.

  “What if Granny isn’t better when it’s time for pruning and fertilizing?” I ask.

  “I swear you’re the only person who can worry about a tornado on a sunny winter day. Dad will figure it out if Gran can’t.”

  “Daddy said the birds can have the blackberries this year!” I surprise myself by how loud I am and quickly cover my mouth with the quilt.

  “He didn’t mean it.”

  “What if he did?”

  “Dang, Lulie! The parents say stuff they don’t mean all the time. Stop worrying. Dad won’t let the farm get ruined.”

  “But we need to—”

  He surprises me by leaning forward and giving me a hug. Griff isn’t a hugger like Walden. “We can’t do anything about the blackberries or pecans tonight.” The hug ends with a little shove. “Go back to bed.”

  “I feel better when I’m with you. I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

  “You’re crowding my feet.” He reaches under his pillow. “Here.” He presses something into my hand.

  When I feel the coldness and the jagged edge I know exactly what it is. His arrowhead. He treats it like a diamond and never lets anyone touch it, not even Tommy.

  “It has big Indian magic,” he says seriously. “You can keep it until Granny’s better.”

  “Truth?” I stare at the chiseled stone in my hand.

  “Truth.”

  I wrap both of my hands around it and hop off the bed before he changes his mind.

  “Thanks, Griff,” I whisper as I hurry back to my room.

  * * *

  A couple of weeks later, Daddy is teaching a late class and Margo is off at one of her meetings, so Griff and I put Walden and Dharma to bed. It takes both of us to wrestle Dharma and run a toothbrush over her teeth. Once the twins have settled down, Griff and I elbow each other for room at the bathroom sink.

  “I heard Mrs. White and Mrs. Adler talking today. I was in the cloakroom and they didn’t know I was there. They said you’d better start getting to school on time or they’re calling the truant officer,” I say.

  “I’m not truant. I show up.”

  “Late!” Griff doesn’t understand how much better off we are if we stay invisible. “They said we’re not properly supervised and our clothes are dirty.” Granny James would have a stroke if she heard that—besides, our clothes aren’t all that dirty. “They’re talking about calling a social worker.”

  “That’s stupid. They’re just old biddy gossips. Besides, school’s a waste of time,” he says. “It’s making us a bunch of robots.”

  Lately Griff’s taken to repeating Margo—at least about the stuff he wants to be true. He’s not so keen on her Christmas is nothing more than a way to get people to spend their money on useless junk and distract them from the real problems in this world. Or Television is arsenic to a child’s mind.

  “Dad says formal education is important,” I say around my toothbrush.

  “That’s because he’d be out of a job otherwise.” He takes the cup from the holder and rinses. Then he hands it to me and dries his mouth on a towel he picks up off the floor. “And they don’t talk about us because I’m late for school. They do it because we live in a run-down house and Margo is . . .” He stops. “If we were rich, nobody would talk about us.”

  Apparently, Griff isn’t into Margo’s Capitalism is a ravenous monster devouring our souls, either.

  I spit and rinse. I’m putting the cap back on the Gleem when Griff leaves the bathroom and shuts the light off on me. He loves doing that, leaving me standing in the dark with a dripping toothbrush. I leave the bathroom and walk into the cold hall, toward my bedroom. Our house feels empty, even with me and Griff and the twins in it.

  I feel a little ashamed for wishing Margo tucked us in bed at night and packed our lunches in the morning. But some days I guess I’m just a selfish girl.

  A while later, I hear a car in the driveway and headlights arc across my wall. I go into the living room and wait. Daddy comes in and stands in the middle of the room with his hat in his hand. “Margo not home?”

  “No,” I say. “She said her meeting will be late so she’ll stay with a friend.”

  The words seem to hit Daddy’s shoulders like stones. His eyes close. He stands there kind of swaying for so long, I think maybe he’s fallen asleep. Then he rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “ ‘Yet the soul maintains its deathly sleep and the heart bleeds from a thousand wounds.’ ”

  “What?”

  “Hugo Wolf.” He shakes his head and hauls his heavy legs off to his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

  I dread what’s coming. Daddy’s moods usually settle in for a while once they arrive. And shadow time is the worst mood of them all.

  After that night, Daddy pretty much disappears into his whiskers and his dark, closed-up bedroom.

  And Margo just plain disappears.

  4

  May 1958

  Griff says you can get used to a sharp stick in the eye if it’s there long enough. But I can’t get used to Margo not being around at all. I know it’s stupid to miss her, because she wasn’t home much and didn’t hardly do anything for us anyway. Still, it doesn’t feel right in our house without the smell of her cigarette smoke or the sound of her and daddy talking late at night.

  Not long after Margo took to the wind, Gran had a little sit-down with Griff and me. She made it clear Margo’s whereabouts are no one else’s concern and we’re to keep family business to ourselves. She also told us we have nothing to be ashamed of. Ashamed. That means Margo is up to something sinful. But at least it means she’s not kidnapped or dead.

  Of course, everybody in Lamoyne who wouldn’t say two words to my face about Margo before she disappeared wants to ask after her now that she’s not around. So I came up with a good, shameless reason for her being gone. She went back up to Michigan to care for a sick aunt.

  After a while, people started asking too many questions, so I decided my excuse needed some legs. Now I say that Margo volunteered for the Red Cross and had to leave for Africa straight from Michigan. That’s how volunteering works. You go when they need you.

  People generally look surprised, and not always convinced. But at least the questions stop. Which makes walking around town a whole lot less like dancing on a hot skillet.

  I’m headed to the Farm and Feed to pick up the order of pectin for the upcoming jam making. Passing an alley in the neighborhood near the school, I hear a cat yowl in pain. I follow the sound. It’s coming from a garage with its door open to the alley.

  Just inside, Grayson Collie is sitting on the concrete floor, taking a lighter flame to the whiskers of a cat he’s tied to a toolbox.

  “Hey! Stop that!” The words are out before I think.

  Grayson looks up. “Fuck off, or I’ll come out there and set you on fire.” He holds the lighter closer and closer to the cat’s paws, staring at me as he does.

  My body goes as hot as if it is on fire. I snatch up a rock and send it sailing right into the middle of his forehead.

  He drops the lighter and grabs his head. I see blood through his fingers.

  I run in, yank the twine off the cat’s neck, scoop it up, and run like the devil.

  Grayson is shouting horrible things. I hear his feet pounding the ground.

  The cat is squirming and yowling. I keep running, arms tight around it.

  Car tires screech.

  I turn. Everything goes slow. I’m frozen, watch
ing the shiny bumper come closer, closer.

  It stops just short of me.

  The cat wriggles free and takes off. I can’t move.

  “Are you all right?” A man’s voice.

  I look up from the bumper.

  Mr. Hayes is out of his car, hurrying to me. “Tallulah! You can’t just run into the street like that.” His hands are on my shoulders, then he takes my wrists and holds out my arms. “Was that your cat?”

  My knees are jelly. I look at the blood welling up along the cat scratches. “No. I saved it.” I look back into the alley. It’s empty.

  “From what?” Mr. Hayes is taking a handkerchief and dabbing at the blood.

  I almost tell, then I remember that after I reported Grayson to the principal for shoving me off the monkey bars we got a rock through the front window of our house. “Some kid was hurting it.”

  Mr. Hayes looks down the alley with a frown. “Who? Where was he?”

  “I’m sorry I ran in front of your car. I’ll be more careful.” I pull my arms from him and hurry off on rubbery legs.

  I hope Grayson’s too worried about somebody finding out he was torturing a cat to come after me. I’ll have to watch my back for a while, though, just in case.

  * * *

  That night, I’m lying in bed with my arms and legs spread wide so none of my parts are touching because it’s so hot, studying the shifting lace of moonlight through the trees. For the whole day, my insides have been buzzing like one of Mr. Stokes’s hives, thinking of what might have happened to both me and that cat.

  Finally, I hear Griff walk to his room and close the door. He stays up late reading hot rod magazines. He and Tommy have been collecting parts from the junkyard and storing them in the old smokehouse out back. By the time they’re old enough to drive, they plan to have a dragster ready to “ride the curbs.”

  I peel my sweaty self from my sheets and go to his room. He doesn’t look up when I open his door.

  “I know you’re awake,” I whisper.

  He tucks an arm behind his head. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know.” I can’t tell him the real reason for my buzzing, he’ll get mad—and get even. Since I’ve been working in the blackberry cane at least I don’t have to explain the scratches on my arms.