Electric City: A Novel (17 page)

He didn’t want everything to happen all at once. He knew there was only ever going to be one first time for the two of them, and he needed to be sure it was all right with her. He found himself doubting he could give her enough of anything; he was going back to boarding school so soon, and would it be fair? Would it be better to wait and be more sure?

Sophie found she wanted to hear the word
love
, or to say it; she didn’t know how to give herself without losing hold of safety. Henry would go away and she might not be able to stand it if they crossed this last, careful line; he could fall in love with someone else, and so could she, and then what would
this
mean?

They could wait, could allow time to bend around them and promise more of itself. Meanwhile, their bodies conversed in silence. All the words dangled electric and incomplete.

In his tent with Bear, Martin stayed awake and absorbed the night’s harmonies of owls and wind. For a long time he lay on his back pretending the tent didn’t exist so that he could look through the Milky Way, flowing with the curve of the universe. He forced himself not to think about the two of them inside the house. He was out here in the dark because he wanted to be, making his own choices.

I want UP
, Martin sang silently toward the sky.
I can be a cloud-walker, an eagle nester, a treetop dreamer.
He was good at spotting raptors, especially from his perches in maples, oaks. His grandmother said he had hawk-vision.

But what about loving the ground? Lying with his face in the grass, ear turned toward the murmuring earth. He loved that too, the deep desire to climb underneath the grass, cover himself with a blanket of soil, bring his body back home to its origins.

I want UNDER
, he thought.
I want roots at my fingertips, clay between my toes. I want the taste of earth in my mouth, the place the trees hold on to for dear life
.

Still, his prayer returned him to his recent place among high branches, echo of thrush music in the air. His bare feet had gripped the rough bark of the pine, his hands strong and true. He held on, even as the ghosts of falling men danced all around him.

I do not fall
, he whispered to the leaves and stars.
I fly.

I
N THE MORNING
, all three sprawled over a serene breakfast picnic under one of the widest oaks not far from where Martin had already unpitched his tent. The air was full of translucent butterflies and ricocheting grasshoppers; scarlet ladybugs landed briefly on Sophie’s hands and she watched them explore the circumference of her wrists before flying elsewhere. In the distance, water-skiers careened around invisible corners, spraying rooster tails of foam into the blue.

It was clear that the previous afternoon they had spent too much time in the sun; both Henry and Sophie were bright pink at their shoulders. She tried wearing a hat, but it seemed reluctant to stay on her head. It was far too humid and sticky for the protection of long sleeves. By the time breakfast was over, Bear was panting in the shade, and even Martin felt drowsy with laziness. Henry said the only true remedy was getting onto the water.

“You mean into,” Sophie said.

“That too,” he said.

Martin wished again he’d kept the canoe just one more day. Sophie looked out at the
Ticonderoga
making its stately way across the middle of the lake. “You don’t mean that kind of thing?” she asked, pointing.

“I forgot to show you the boathouse,” Henry said. But he hadn’t forgotten, not exactly. The
Sterling
was his father’s pride and joy, kept in immaculate condition, as though new from the shipyard where it was
built years earlier. A classic reproduction of the style popular in the ’20s and ’30s, when the lake drew visits from opera stars and gamblers. Ever since Henry had been old enough to follow instructions, his job was to towel dry every surface, removing every droplet that might dare to leave a murky shadow on the chrome or worse, stain the varnish yellow.

Praise for Aaron’s skill at knot-tying had been one of Arthur’s rare expressions of approval. And the only exception to his rules of spotlessness involved the annual tracking of his sons’ heights on one support beam of the boathouse, dark inky lines with dates attached. They had, of course, stopped measuring after Aaron’s death.

“Things can be so complicated,” Martin said quietly, almost to himself.

“I know,” Henry said. “So much better to paddle and glide. Right?”

Martin nodded, thinking of Jonas Wheatfield, and Joseph, and Steinmetz.

“My brother Simon is a lifeguard on the public beach,” Sophie said. “Now that I know what it’s like on private property, I vote for staying in this place the rest of the summer.”

“Here the lake closes,” Martin said, then spoke the phrase in Mohawk. He had told both of them about the ones who ate trees, about
Ratirontak
, and managed not to laugh when Henry struggled with the pronunciation.

Bear started barking with staccato joy at a platoon of ducks, as though reminding everybody to get wet.

“You’re right!” said Sophie, and she ran toward the lake without looking back. Henry followed, and Martin did too, pausing only to grab a stick for aiming Bear’s exuberance a little farther off. Otherwise the heroic dog didn’t seem quite able to tell the difference between a
splashing swimmer and someone in dire need of rescue. Sophie had begged Martin to call Bear away before he clamped onto the scruff of her neck in order to drag her to shore.

“Not drowning, waving!” she shouted, lifting both hands in the air. “I know you mean well, Bear, but this is beyond the call of duty.”

“He’s all right,” Martin said, throwing the stick of distraction over and over.

“I’ll save you,” Henry said, pulling Sophie into his arms. Her eyes were the color of the tree-framed lake, a shimmering kaleidoscope of green. “You’re glittering again,” he said.

I’m all right
, Martin thought, watching Bear paddling toward him with happiness gripped between his jaws.
Everything is all right
.

It was only when the dazzle of the lake threatened to set off a migraine that Henry explained he had to retreat into the shade again. No matter that being in the water with Sophie felt like some alternate universe; time slowed but didn’t stop. She and Martin would drive back to Electric City and so-called ordinary life would reclaim them all.

“Doesn’t seem right to stay here once you two leave,” he admitted. They were on the steps of the porch, drinking lemonade and iced tea, collaborating on an early dinner. Henry hand-shaped hamburger patties while Martin placed half a dozen ears of corn onto a wobbly-legged grill. A trio of wet towels dripped on a nearby railing, and the truck was loaded for departure.

“You could follow us home,” Sophie suggested. Her shoulders and cheeks were shiny with aloe for the sunburn. She sat on an Adirondack chair with her legs folded, slicing cucumbers and tomatoes on a cutting
board across her lap. Without being asked, she had made up her mind to taste a nonkosher hamburger for the first time in her life.

“Caravan,” Martin said, poking at the coals with Bear’s fetching stick. “You got better things to do?”

“Good point,” Henry said.

“I’d show you one of my favorite fishing spots on the way back,” Martin said. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

Henry laughed. “Thanks anyway.”

“Simon will be waiting for me at the Mohawk bridge by dark,” Sophie said. “Or else he’ll kill you both.”

“I think that’s probably a good enough reason not to be late, don’t you?” Martin turned the ears of corn until they were evenly singed. The hamburgers were spitting juice as they cooked, and Bear watched for anything that might find its way to the ground.

“Medium rare?” Henry said to Sophie. “Burned to a crisp?”

“Medium medium,” she said.

“Same here,” said Martin.

A breeze shivered across the lake while they were finishing dinner, hinting at the edge of summer. Before long there would be arrows of geese flying overhead, making a clamor of goodbye. Bear had wandered off to inspect the perimeter, discreetly marking territory.

“When was the last time you climbed that white pine?” Martin asked.

Henry reached for Sophie’s nearby fingertips, astonished each time that such delicate hands could feel so strong. “Which one,” he said, though he already knew.

Martin pointed.

“A long time ago,” Henry said. “With my older brother.”

“You have a brother?” Sophie and Martin asked at the same time. Even Henry felt a jolt of awe when he said the words out loud.

“He died.” Sophie’s hand held on and on.

Silence. Even the cicadas weren’t singing, muted by the cooler air.

“He fell out of a tree,” Henry said. “Ten years ago.”

“Not
here
?” Sophie said.

“Back in Electric City,” Henry said. “Another house. Another tree.”

Martin saw his own hands on the limb of the pine, the meeting of lifelines underneath.

Sophie felt Henry lean all his weight in her direction as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing tight.

“I’m sorry,” Martin said softly. And when his feet wanted to move, he stood up and spoke with his simple clear voice, to offer the story that had been waiting. It seemed right that there could be something that belonged now to the three of them.

“Here is the legend of Eagle,” he began. “Whose life can be thirty-five years long, or seventy, depending upon this one rite of passage. Because reaching the age of thirty-five brings Eagle to the point where his beak and talons have grown so long and hooked that they no longer serve him as weapons of the hunt.

“After flying to the most remote of mountain peaks, Eagle must bite off each one of his talons, then smash his own beak against the rocks. Defenseless now, and with only his willpower to keep him alive, he waits.”

Martin paused, remembering how the tape recorder hissed while his grandmother stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. Sophie and Henry were so intent he imagined they could hear the resonant echo of Annie’s voice telling it. He went on, translating her words.

“If he can survive the growing back of his talons, the growing back of his beak, then Eagle is able to start over. He can fly out of the temporary dark and back into the wild blue. To exult in the second half—no, the second version, of his life.”

S
OPHIE RODE WITH
Henry on the way back, with Martin’s truck and Bear just ahead. The dimming light felt like something to grab with her hands, pull into herself like the strange flavor of grilled meat she could still notice at the corners of her lips.
Was it blood?