Beyond Summer (20 page)

“Come on,” I said. “You two follow right behind me, and I mean
right
behind me. If anybody steps anywhere I didn’t step first, there’s going to be
serious
trouble, understand? I mean it. I’m sick of you guys not doing anything I tell you. I swear, if you two don’t cut it out, I’m going to walk out the door and not come back.” Threats probably weren’t the most mature way to deal with kids, but at the moment, I meant it. I was teetering on the edge of a place I didn’t want to go, struggling to abide by the still, small voice of conscience warning me that if I left, something terrible would happen.

The boys cooperated as if they walked in single-file lines every day of the week. Usually, getting the sibs from one place to another was like herding ferrets, but today, they obediently took long steps behind me, so that their feet landed in my tracks. “We’re going over to the park,” I told Aunt Lute, as we tiptoed through the living room, avoiding smears of paint.

Aunt Lute was down on her knees scrubbing daubs off the floor. “It’s only a small mess,” she said without looking up. “Just a bit of paint. Red and blue and brown, like the birds of spring.” Sitting back on her heels, she studied the spatters and handprints dotting the white walls. “Acrylic washes so easily. God must paint in oils. His birds never fade in the rain. Have you noticed?”

As usual, it was impossible to tell whether Aunt Lute was talking to me or just talking.

“I’m taking the kids over to the park,” I repeated. “If I don’t get out of here for a while, I’m just going to . . . lose it, okay?”

“What if you can’t find it again?” Aunt Lute leaned over to pull something from between the cushions on the sofa. “Oh, look, another one of these.” She drew out a string with a tiny wooden animal on it. “A little brown bear.”

“’S mine,” Daniel offered, and stretched out his hand, opening and closing his fingers. “I finded it.”

Aunt Lute leaned over and swung the bear toward Daniel’s hand, once, twice, three times until his fingers closed over it.

I hurried the sibs out the door, then headed across the yard carrying Jewel, with the boys following neatly behind me. Shasta had already made it to the bridge with her kids. The three of them were leaning over the railing, looking at the creek below. She glanced over her shoulder and waved as we reached the street.

Landon broke rank and dashed ahead to join the neighbor boys. Mark and Daniel moved more timidly, and Shasta stepped aside, pointing out the minnows in the shallow water below. “See them swimming down there? Benji and Ty brought some bread to give the fish a little snack. Share your bread, guys. Give everybody a little bit.”

I watched the sibs politely take small pieces of bread from the neighbor boys. Jewel stretched in my arms, wanting some, too. “Are you headed to the park?” I asked. “We have
got
to get out of that house for a while, before somebody, probably me, goes nuts. The kids just smeared paint all over the living room, and my stepmother’s, like, AWOL again, and . . .” The next thing I knew, I was blathering on. By the time I finished, Shasta probably thought I was a complete lunatic. “I’m sorry. I just . . . it’s just . . . been a really bad . . . few days, and . . .” Emotion gathered in my throat, and for a horrifying moment, I was close to dissolving into tears. I swallowed hard, trying to gather myself together. “I just . . . I saw you and I thought maybe . . . you were headed down to the park.”

Shasta’s forehead lowered. Clearly, she was wondering why the sudden change of heart. When she’d asked about playdates before, I’d intentionally put her off, knowing Barbie would never agree to it.

“Oh, well, we’re not . . .” She stopped, her gaze flicking toward the park. She had beautiful eyes, dark like those of the foreign girl who sat next to me in English class last year. I never bothered to speak to the girl, to ask what country she was from, or what her name was. I just snorted impatiently at her thickly accented English, wrinkled my nose at her strange, spicy scent, and thought she was actually very pretty, but she’d be so much prettier without that hijab wrapped over her head and fastened under her chin.

Now those casual thoughts from high school seemed pointless, immature, and idiotic. Who was I to judge anybody?

Yet I couldn’t help thinking that Shasta looked even younger today, with her hair loose around her face. Not much older than me—way too young to have a five-year-old. Without consciously thinking about it, I categorized her with a long list of tags—
Minority, low socioeconomic, possible high school dropout, teen bride, teen mom, hick, not my type of person, nothing like me . . .

The list pricked my conscience, as much for how easily it came as for its content. Tagging people, judging them according to my mental catalog, was as natural as breathing—an unconscious by-product of having grown up in a neighborhood, a school, a community that had
high standards
.

Barbie wasn’t the only reason I’d put Shasta off about playdates. The truth was that even though she was friendly and beautiful, and her husband had saved us from the flat tire, and she had it together with her kids much more than Barbie did, this girl wasn’t up to
my
standards.

The look on her face said she could tell that. She was reading me like a book, and she’d slapped a few labels on me, too.
Snob, brat, spoiled little rich girl . . .

The funny thing was that none of those labels fit anymore. I didn’t know who or what I was, but the spoiled, self-possessed girl who’d trotted the high school halls like she owned the world had been given a wake-up call in the most painful way.

Shasta tossed her hair over her shoulder, motioning down the street, seeming uncomfortable. “Well . . . ummm . . . actually, we were headed someplace else.”

“Oh,” I muttered, turning my attention to the boys, because the situation was suddenly awkward, and tears were building in my throat again. I felt lonely, and lost, and I needed someone to talk to. “Well, that’s all right. I mean, maybe another time.” Stepping back to peer around the overhanging trees, I considered taking the kids to the park by myself. The idea sent an uncomfortable sensation sliding over my shoulders, causing a tiny shudder. Just down the street, homeless people stood in a soup line outside the white church. What if they got the urge to come sleep it off in the park after lunch?

On the other hand, the idea of going back to the blue house was almost unbearable.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Shasta watching me, trying to decide what to say next. “Well . . . ummm . . . actually, we were headed to the church on the corner. The little white one?”

I blinked hard, broadcasting shock before I could consider how she’d take it. No doubt my face said,
The place with the soup line?

Along the bridge railing, the boys were laughing and talking as if they’d known one another forever. For them, there was no socioeconomic gap.

Shasta crossed her arms uncomfortably, digging the toe of her tennis shoe into the dirt at the curb. “You’re welcome to come with us,” she offered halfheartedly. “They told me they have a story time and games for kids there every day after lunch.” She rushed the words out, seeming as nervous as I was. “And they were looking for volunteers to sign up as tutors for a reading class they’re starting three nights a week. I figured maybe I’d do that. Cody’s gonna be doing a little extra night work, which leaves me stuck with no car all day and all evening, and, well, I just need to get out and do something, you know?” Her eyes met mine, and I nodded.

“I can
so
relate,” I admitted. Labels or no labels, there wasn’t an inch of space between us right now.

Shasta’s face opened, and she grinned, her expression precocious as she leaned a little closer to me. “And, for this literacy thing at night, I hear they have
free child care
.” She cast a glance at the boys, and I understood everything that was being said without being said. “Come down there with us,” she pressed, touching my arm. “You know, check it out and stuff. The kids would have fun playing the games.”

I thought about the soup line winding from the old church like a slowly moving snake, and air hitched in my chest. Not so long ago, our church youth pastor had made plans for us to do a poverty simulation with some church that met under an overpass and served homeless people. We were supposed to give up everything that belonged to us and live for twenty-four hours the way those people did—sleeping at the mission, eating in a soup line. I signed up to go along, because I didn’t want to look bad compared to everyone else, but the truth was that I didn’t want to participate. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, stuck in that part of town, surrounded by derelicts, by society’s castoffs, and I really wasn’t interested in finding out. It seemed to me that, if we wanted to do some good, we could have a car wash or a garage sale to raise money for homeless people.

I told Dad about the trip, and he couldn’t see any point in “exposing yourself to those realities
.
” He sent me back to the youth pastor with a donation and a warning—while my father appreciated the youth pastor’s zeal, he needed to be more judicious about his methods. We were just kids, after all, and some things you didn’t have to experience in order to understand them.

“You know, I’d really better go back and check on Aunt Lute,” I said, giving our house a concerned look so Shasta wouldn’t think I was making excuses.

She frowned toward our driveway. “She could come with us.”

“Aunt Lute’s busy cleaning.”

“I wan-go wit boys,” Landon interjected, suddenly tuning in to the conversation. Jewel bounced in my arms, as if she understood, too.

Shasta bent over and smiled at Jewel, who reached for her. Aunt Lute’s extremely politically incorrect nanny comment streaked across my conscience like a meteor looking for a place to land. The only similarities between Shasta and Barbie’s last nanny were the dark hair and brownish skin, but that was enough for Aunt Lute. Typically, it would have been enough for me, too.

I felt the need to apologize. “Listen, I’m sorry about what Aunt Lute said the other day—about the nanny thing. Aunt Lute’s . . . well, actually, she’s kind of, like, nuts really. I mean, she’s harmless, but she’s just a little off. She moved in with us about six months ago, because her house was condemned. When the inspectors came in, the place was piled with stuff—food, and old pizza boxes, and scrapbooks, and clothes she’d bought and never even taken out of the bag, and paintings of all kinds—just about everything a person could hoard. She hadn’t thrown a thing away since her brother died and left her alone in my grandparents’ house ten years ago.” If that didn’t convince Shasta that we were normal people, I didn’t know what would. Everyone has a crazy aunt somewhere in the family.

“Hey, I’m not one to talk.” Shasta nudged me on the shoulder, like we were just girlfriend to girlfriend. I had a twinge of longing for Emity. “You should see
my
family. My folks are both mostly Choctaw—from southeastern Oklahoma. Everybody’s related to everybody. We don’t grow too many branches on the family tree, if you know what I mean.” She nudged me again, and I laughed.

Shasta’s son pointed out something in the creek, and she walked to the edge to look over. “A perch got my bread!” The older boy waved his arms excitedly. “A big ol’ perch! Mama, can we come fish for it?”

Shasta rolled her eyes, turning to me. “They’re just like their daddy. Cody’d sooner fish than eat.”

I looked over the railing. The fish was swirling lazily through the water, its scales reflecting the sunlight in a metallic mixture of gold and pale blue. “My father loves to fish.” As the words came out, I wanted to swallow them again. Landon turned to me, his eyes the iridescent blue of the fish.

“Where’sa Dad-dee?”

I rested a hand on his head, put a finger to my lips, whispered, “Ssshhh, we’re talking.” For days, the kids had been asking about my father, and Barbie had been telling them he was on a trip and he’d be back soon. I didn’t want to lie to them, so I didn’t say anything.

“Where’sa Daddy?” Landon blinked slowly, his forehead lined with little worries.

“Ssshhh, Landon. Don’t interrupt when people are talking.” I could feel the blood creeping into my face again.

Shasta’s mouth curved to one side, and her eyelashes fanned upward, as if she were waiting for me to explain. I didn’t, of course. I just guided Landon back to the bridge railing and said to Shasta, “It’s complicated.”

She shrugged, as if
complicated
weren’t a problem for her. “Listen, if you were a fly on the wall in my family, you’d see complicated. My daddy left us when I was a kid, and there’s still three of my uncles who’d, like, shoot him on sight. Actually, I think my mama probably would, too, but that’s my family. There’s always more people getting married, unmarried, remarried, and pregnant than you can shake a stick at. Just one big, crazy mess.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said, and we talked for a few minutes about her hometown and the fact that she and Cody had decided to move to the city so he could take a job with the Dallas Police Department.

“It was something we were always gonna do, anyway,” she finished. “We just all of a sudden decided, now was the time. Of course, Cody’s parents and my mama are waiting for us to screw everything up and come running back home. They don’t even know we bought a house yet. When they find out, they’ll freak, and I just don’t want to hear it, ya know? Hel-lo-oh, we’re, like, adults, after all.”

“Sometimes they just don’t get it,” I agreed, thinking of my trip to Europe. I knew my father would never understand, but I had a feeling Shasta would. Except for the two kids leaning over the bridge railing, she seemed like a girlfriend my age.

“Exactly.” Stroking a hand over her long, thick hair, she scissor-pinched the bottom and looked for split ends. “It stinks being the black sheep.”

I chuckled. “I was always an only until the sibs came along, so I guess I’ve been the bad kid and the good kid.”