That Summer (8 page)

“I’m not talking.” Her feet were stomping up the front steps. “Let it go, Sumner. Just forget it.”

“‘Forget it.’ Shit, I can’t forget it, Ashley. This isn’t something you can just wipe away like that.”

“Sumner, leave me alone.” I could hear her fumbling with the key. “Just go. Please. Just go.”

A pause, long enough for her to have gotten in the house, but she was still out there. Then, “Come on.” It was Sumner.

“Go away, Sumner.” Now her voice broke, a sob muffling the end of the words. “Go away.”

The door opened, then shut just as quickly, and I heard her feet coming up the stairs and the door to her room shutting with a click. Silence. I got up and went to my window. Sumner was in front of the house, running his hands through his hair and staring up at Ashley’s room. He stood there a long time in his costume, lab coat and stethoscope, no longer looking like a mad scientist but like one who was deeply perplexed about something, or lost. I pressed my palm against my window, thinking he might see, but if he did he never let on. Instead he turned to the VW and walked the short distance of grass to the driveway, taking his time. He started the engine and noise filled the air, his theme music humming as he pulled out, paused at the end of the driveway, and finally drove away. I got back into bed and stared at my ceiling, knowing he wouldn’t be back. I’d heard Ashley dump boys before on the front porch and I knew that tone, that finality in her voice. By the next morning he’d be gone from conversation, wiped from our collective memories. There would be somebody new—soon, probably within the week. My sister, chameleonlike, would change her voice or hair overnight to match the mannerisms of whoever was next. Sumner, like so many before him, would drop from sight and join the ranks of the brokenhearted, dismissed with a wave of my sister’s impatient hand.

Chapter Five

Every week,
my father takes me out for dinner on Thursday night. It’s our special time together, or so my mother used to call it right after the divorce, a term taken straight from
Helping Your Kids through a Divorce or Survival Guide for Abandoned Families
or any other of the endless books that grouped themselves around the house in those first few months, guiding us along unknown territory. Each time, he pulls up in front of the house and waits, not beeping the horn, until I come out and down the walk, always feeling uncomfortable and wondering if my mother is watching. Ashley used to come along as well, but with the wedding so close she’d taken to bailing out every week, preferring to spend the time being comforted by Lewis or fighting with my mother about appetizers for the reception.

There are always a few minutes of awkwardness when I get into my father’s convertible and put on my seat belt, that exchanging of nervous pleasantries like we don’t know each other very well anymore. I’ve always thought he must feel like he’s crossing into enemy territory and that’s why he stays in the car with the engine running, never daring to approach the front door full-on. He usually takes me to whatever restaurant he’s frequenting that week—Italian, Mexican, a greasy bar and grill with cold beer and a bartender who knows his name. Everyone seems to know my father’s name, and at every place he takes me there’s always at least one person just dropping by, staying for a beer, talking sports and scores while I sit across the table with a ginger ale and stare at the walls. But I am used to this, have always been used to it. My father is a local celebrity and he has his public. At the supermarket, or the mall, or even on the street, I have always known to be prepared to share him with the rest of the world.

“So when’s school start up again?” he asked after a man whose name I didn’t catch finally got up and left, having rehashed the entire last four seasons of the NFL complete with erratic hand gestures.

“August twenty-fourth,” I said. This week we were at some new Italian fresh pasta place called Vengo. The ceilings were blue, with clouds painted on them, and all the waiters wore white and whisked around the jungle of ferns and potted plants that perched on every table and hung from the ceiling.

“How’s your sister holding up?”

“Okay, I guess.” I was used to these questions by now. “She has a breakdown just about every other day though.”

“So did Lorna. It must be one of those privileges of the bride.” He twirled his pasta on his fork, splattering his tie. My father was a messy eater, a boisterous kind of person, not really suited to the fancy restaurants he liked to frequent. He was the perfect patron, though, with his long-winded stories and locally known sportscaster face, and now with a trophy wife to match. (Lydia Catrell’s term, not mine. I’d heard it through the vent.)

“You know,” he said after a few minutes of silence, “Lorna really wants to spend some time with you and Ashley. To get to know you better. She feels with the divorce and our wedding you three just haven’t had much of a chance to bond.”

I picked at my fettucine, not looking at him. I thought I’d done plenty with Lorna, with her bridesmaid fittings and showers and all the vacations she’d come along on even before they were engaged, plunking herself in all the places my mother used to go but not quite making it fit. Thursday nights were the only time I saw my father without her, because she had to do the six o‘clock news, the nine-thirty WeatherQuick Update, and the eleven o’clock late-night forecast. Lorna was a one-woman weather machine on Thursdays. I said, “Well, Ashley’s been really busy, and ...”

“I know.” He nodded. “But after the wedding, once things have calmed down, maybe you three can take a trip together. To the beach or something. My treat.” He smiled at me. “You’d really like her if you just gave her a chance, honey.”

“I do like her,” I said, now feeling guilty. Suddenly I was mad at Ashley for squirming out of dinner and leaving me to make peace with Lorna through our father.

“Hey, Mac McPhail!” some big voice said behind me, and a huge guy clapped his hand down on my father’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen you in a million years, you sly dog! How are ya?”

My father stood up and shook the man’s hand, grinning, and then gestured to me. “This is my daughter Haven. Haven, this is the craziest son of a bitch you’ll ever meet, Tony Trezzora. He was the biggest linebacker they ever had over there at your high school.”

I smiled, wondering how many crazy sons of bitches my father actually knew. It was how he introduced just about everyone that dropped by. I went back to my pasta as Tony Trezzora sat to join us, his big knees rattling the table so I had to steady my water glass with my hand. I was studying the size of Tony Trezzora’s neck when someone was suddenly right beside me with one of those huge pepper grinders, wielding it like a magic wand right over my food.

“Pepper, madam?”

“Oh, no,” I said, “I’m fine.”

“You look like you need some. Trust me.” Two twists and a small shower of pepper fell over my food. I looked up at the person holding the grinder and almost fell out of my chair. It was Sumner.

“Hey,” I said as he whipped another grinder out of his pocket, this one full of some white substance.

“Cheese?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I can’t believe—”

Twist, twist, and I had cheese. He was grinning at me the whole time. “You like cheese, Haven. I remember that about you.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked him. The last time I’d seen him was at the supermarket a few weeks after Ashley broke up with him. He’d been working in produce bagging kiwis and had trouble meeting my eyes even as he joked with me.

“I’m the pepper-and-cheese man.” He twisted the grinder again, just for good measure, then slipped it back into his apron pocket like a gunslinger after a shootout. “I’m also authorized to fill your water glass, if you so desire.”

“No, thanks,” I said, still staring up at him while he puttered around our table, removing empty plates and at the ready with the pepper and cheese grinders, while my father traded stats with Tony Trezzora and didn’t even notice him.

“How’s your mom?” He glanced around at the other tables, keeping an eye out.

I was so flabbergasted at seeing him, just popping up out of nowhere with cheese for my pasta. I said, “How long have you been in town?”

“Just a few weeks.” He stepped out of the way as a short girl carrying a huge tray on her shoulder staggered by, barely clearing a fern that was balanced on a ledge beside us. “I’m still in school up in Connecticut, but I’m thinking about taking some time off. I’m not sure.”

“Really,” I said, as he started to back away, off to cheese another table. “You should—”

He waved, doing some weird hand signal that I couldn’t interpret, pantomime in retreat. I realized I was about to tell him he should call Ashley, and thought maybe it was best that he’d been walking away and hadn’t heard. She could barely handle answering the phone now, much less any major blasts from her past.

I sat and watched Sumner work his way around the restaurant, wielding his cheese and pepper mills like a professional, laughing and joking at table after table, while my father stayed lost in sports talk with the giant next to me. I kept wishing I’d said something more important, something striking, in the short conversation I’d had with the only boyfriend of Aslsley’s I’d ever really liked.

Later, when I’d finished my food, I went to find the bathroom and saw Sumner sitting in a back booth eating and counting a pile of money. He waved me over, scooting aside to make room for me to sit down, so I did.

“So tell me what’s going on with you,” Sumner said, arranging his stack of bills in a neat pile. “Besides the fact that you are tall and gorgeous.”

“Too tall,” I said.

“You are not.” He twirled some pasta around his fork and pointed it at me. “You should be grateful you’re tall, Haven. Tall people are revered and respected in this world. If you’re short and stubby, no one will give you the time of day.”

“I don’t want to be revered,” I said. “I just want to be normal.”

“There’s no such thing. Trust me. Even the people you think are super-squeaky-clean normal have something about them that’s not right.” As he said this, a tall waitress with long, shimmering blond hair passed by, winking at Sumner. He waited until she was out of earshot, then said, “Take her, for instance. She looks normal.”

I watched her disappear through double doors by the pay phone. “And you’re saying she isn’t?”

“Not specifically. I’m saying no one is. She looks like your typical blond beauty, right? But in actuality”—now he leaned closer to me, sharing secrets—“she has an extra toe.”

“She does not,” I said firmly.

“I swear to God, she does.” He went back to his pasta, nibbling. “Sandals. Just yesterday. Saw it myself.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.

He shook his head. “Well, I guess those childhood full-of-trust days are over for you, huh? You don’t believe me the way you used to.”

I watched my father talking to Tony Trezzora, his face pinkish from a few beers and a good session of male bonding. “I don’t believe a lot of things.”

The extra-toed waitress passed by again, smiling a big warm smile at Sumner, who smiled back and nodded towards her feet. I was embarrassed and concentrated on the fern that was hanging over us.

“So,” he said after a few minutes, “how’s Ashley?”

“She’s good,” I said. “She’s getting married.”

He grinned. “No kidding. Man, I never would have pegged her for the early-married type. Who is it?”

“This guy named Lewis Warsher. He works at the mall.” I wasn’t sure what else to say about Lewis. It was hard to describe him to strangers. I said, “He drives a Chevette. ”

Sumner nodded, as if this helped. “Ashley Warsher. Sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles when you say it.”

“He’s okay,” I said. “But now Ashley’s miserable ’cause the wedding’s so close and everything’s going wrong.”

“Ashley’s getting married,” he said slowly, as if it was a different language and he wasn’t sure where the syllables fell. “Man. That makes me feel old.”

“You’re not old,” I said.

“How old are you now?”

“Fifteen,” I said, then added, “I’ll be sixteen in November.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m old. I’m ancient. If you’re fifteen, I’m a senior citizen. Little Haven. Fifteen.”

My father was looking for me now, having noticed I was missing for longer than it takes to go to the bathroom. Tony Trezzora, undaunted, was still talking.

I took Sumner back to the table with me, and as we came up my father smiled and said, “There you are. I was beginning to think I’d been ditched.”

“Dad, you remember Sumner,” I said, and Sumner stuck out his hand as my father stood up to shake it. “He used to date Ashley.”

“Sumner, how’s it going?” my father said energetically, pumping Sumner’s hand within his own large one. “What have you been doing lately?”

“I’ve been in school up North,” Sumner said when my father finally let go of his hand. My father believed in the power of a strong, masculine handshake. “I’m taking the semester off, though. To work and take a break from school.”