Bingo Brown and the Language of Love (11 page)

Bingo got up from the bed to retrieve it. Bingo’s mother was in a wonderful mood. In the past week she had sold a condo and had a contract on a Tudor split-level.

His dad was in even better spirits. It was as if becoming a house husband and a writer had been his lifelong ambitions. He had two chapters done on
Bustin’ Lewis
now. So far, Bingo had not had a chance to step in with editorial advice, but he was ready to do so at any time. “Yes, Bingo noticed, his parents were acting like high school teenagers going to a prom. He alone was acting in a restrained manner. It seemed to him that his new manliness should be especially obvious in the midst of the childish actions of his parents. Still, no one had commented on it so far.

Bingo waited until his mother left the doorway before he opened the letter. Even with his new manliness, he had not reached the point where he could read letters without making facial expressions. Sometimes his mouth dropped open, sometimes his eyes popped, sometimes he had to put his hand over his heart.

Until he conquered his facial muscles, it was best to read in private.

Bingo opened the letter, but before he could unfold it, he noticed a picture fluttering to the floor—just as his own picture had fluttered from Cici’s letter.

Burning questions flared like fireworks.

Was Melissa returning his picture? Wasn’t it good enough? Had he used too much mousse? Too little? What was the trouble?

Bingo picked up the picture and held it to the light.

Melissa”.

It was a picture of Melissa.

And she was looking right at him. It was as if the camera were a device that allowed people hundreds of miles apart to have eye contact with each other.

Bingo was so dazzled that he closed his eyes and rested the picture against his ribs. When he was almost under control, he looked at it again.

He marveled at it.

Just two months in Bixby, Oklahoma, had done this to Melissa! Two months in Bixby, Oklahoma, had turned her into the most beautiful person in the entire world!

Her hair had always been jazzy, but now, Bingo thought, in Bixby, Oklahoma, it had thrived. It was longer, curlier, shinier. It was—this was the first time Bingo had ever used the word—luxurious. Her hair was luxurious enough to be in a mousse ad!

Bingo knew that from now on, every time he heard the word luxurious, he would think of Melissa’s hair. When he was ninety-two, if someone said, “Isn’t the foliage luxurious this summer?” he would nod, but his brain would soar with the thought of Melissa’s hair.

He broke off to marvel at her smile.

Melissa’s smile had always made his heart beat faster. It, too, was jazzy. But now it had gotten so beautiful that it made his stomach—He was pretty sure it had been his stomach that had attempted a flip on Melissa’s porch that rainy afternoon, because now it was attempting another one.

Bingo put his hand over his stomach and patted it in a calming way. It could not possibly be good for a stomach to be jumping out of place. Bingo would just as soon it didn’t do that.

Anyway, it was back in place now, so Bingo had reason to hope that no permanent damage had been done.

He bent over the picture.

Had her teeth always been that white? And they weren’t big horse teeth like some girls had; they were small and squarish except for two, one on each side, that were small and pointed. Bingo never had cared for long teeth.

Her eyes … She was squinting a little with one eye because of the sun, and Bingo had never seen her squint before. He hadn’t known how beautiful her squint would be.

His stomach attempted another flip, and Bingo thought he better stop looking at this picture for a minute.

He lay back on his bed with the picture propped against his chest.

When his body was working normally again, Bingo reached under the bed for his summer journal. He tore out seven sheets of paper. Bingo had a lot to say.

“Dear Melissa,” he began. The words poured from him.

I am going to be a brother. At first, Melissa, I was not happy about this; after all, I will be 24 when the child is my age, but with the unresponsible way my parents have been acting lately—my mother went home to her mother for a while, and my father is going to become my mother—well, it seems to me this child may need an older brother, one into maturity. I feel now that it may be up to me to help this child reach the mainstream of life, as I have only recently done myself.

If I can do this, sparing him—or her—some of the difficult experiences I have undergone in attaining that mainstream, then big brotherhood will not be, as they say, in vain.

In addition to this challenge, I am preparing to help my father with his comic/crime novel,
Bustin’ Lewis,
if that becomes necessary, and I am continuing to help Wentworth, who knows nothing of the language of love (which you and I put to such good use on your porch when we said good-bye).

It is true that Cici has been over at my house too much. However, seeing her has only made me realize how much better it would be to see you. Just yesterday Cici was standing there, blinking her eyes, thinking (I suppose), and I remembered how thrilling it was to watch you think.

Melissa, when you think, you sort of lift your head, and when you lift your head like that—I know you don’t do this on purpose; if you did it on purpose it wouldn’t be nearly as thrilling—when you lift your head, and I hope you won’t think I am a low-minded opportunist, but when you lift your head, I …

Bingo stopped.

Melissa’s letter! He had forgotten the letter. He hadn’t even read it.

He unfolded the letter and spread it flat on his knees. It was on pale blue paper, the same color as the T-shirt she had worn so effectively last year. He found he had missed that shirt.

He read.

“Dear Bingo,”

Bingo leaned closer. He looked. He drew in a deep breath.

Melissa had underlined the word “Dear”! Then she had erased the underline, but Bingo could still see it! He was practically positive she had underlined “Dear.” And an underlined “Dear” was the same as a “Dearest.”

Bingo decided he would underline his, too, only he would not erase his. In his new manliness, he might even underline his twice, making it a “Dear Dearest”! Bingo felt he was just now beginning to understand the subtleties of his new language.

He glanced at Melissa’s letter to him, then at his to her. He had so much to read, so much to write, he hardly knew where to begin.

And there were Triumphs to list! Real Triumphs! All in all, it had been a triumphant summer.

He had fallen out of love with Melissa, suffered, then discovered his suffering was in vain. He loved her more than ever.

He had been deserted by his mother, learned he was to become a brother and that his father was to become his mother. He had not fallen apart, as some people would, at discoveries of this nature.

He had received five letters from Melissa, had been caught in the kitchen and in the living room with Cici, and had handled the ensuing misunderstandings with considerable dignity.

Most important of all, he had learned to dog-paddle in the mainstream of life. And, make no mistake about it, Bingo thought with a shudder of pleasure, that is exactly what this was.

With a smile, Bingo bent to read Melissa’s letter.

Betsy Byars (b. 1928) is an award-winning author of more than sixty books for children and young adults, including
The Summer of the Swans
(1970), which earned the prestigious Newbery Medal. Byars also received the National Book Award for
The Night Swimmers
(1980) and an Edgar Award for
Wanted . . . Mud Blossom
(1991), among many other accolades. Her books have been translated into nineteen languages and she has fans all over the world.

Byars was born Betsy Cromer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her father, George, was a manager at a cotton mill and her mother, Nan, was a homemaker. As a child, Betsy showed no strong interest in writing but had a deep love of animals and sense of adventure. She and her friends ran a backyard zoo that starred “trained cicadas,” box turtles, leeches, and other animals they found in nearby woods. She also claims to have ridden the world’s first skateboard, after neighborhood kids took the wheels off a roller skate and nailed them to a plank of wood.

After high school, Byars began studying mathematics at Furman University, but she soon switched to English and transferred to Queens College in Charlotte, where she began writing. She also met Edward Ford Byars, an engineering graduate student from Clemson University, whom she would marry after she graduated in 1950.

Between 1951 and 1956 Byars had three daughters—Laurie, Betsy, and Nan. While raising her family, Byars began submitting stories to magazines, including the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Look
. Her success in publishing warm, funny stories in national magazines led her to consider writing a book. Her son, Guy, was born in 1959, the same year she finished her first manuscript. After several rejections,
Clementine
(1962), a children’s story about a dragon made out of a sock, was published.

Following
Clementine
, Byars released a string of popular children’s and young adult titles including
The Summer of the Swans
, which earned her the Newbery Medal. She continued to build on her early success through the following decades with award-winning titles such as
The Eighteenth Emergency
(1973),
The Night Swimmers
, the popular Bingo Brown series, and the Blossom Family series. Many of Byars’s stories describe children and young adults with quirky families who are trying to find their own way in the world. Others address problems young people have with school, bullies, romance, or the loss of close family members. Byars has also collaborated with daughters Betsy and Laurie on children’s titles such as
My Dog, My Hero
(2000).

Aside from writing, Byars continues to live adventurously. Her husband, Ed, has been a pilot since his student days, and Byars obtained her own pilot’s license in 1983. The couple lives on an airstrip in Seneca, South Carolina. Their home is built over a hangar and the two pilots can taxi out and take off almost from their front yard.

Byars (bottom left) at age five, with her mother and her older sister, Nancy.

A teenage Byars (left) and her sister, Nancy, on the dock of their father’s boat, which he named
NanaBet
for Betsy and Nancy.

Byars at age twenty, hanging out with friends at Queens College in 1948.