Seventeenth Summer (18 page)

When Jack came up the sidewalk the dog gave a short, gruff bark almost as if it were clearing its throat. I was sitting with my back turned and I hadn’t known he was coming but yet I knew it was Jack. Without even turning my head I knew it was he and I knew exactly how he looked. My mother smiled at him and asked
him to sit down with us while she nodded to me to clear the picnic things away.

My hands felt awkward and unaccustomed as I shooed the flies from the uncovered watermelon rinds and gathered up the paper plates. I stood uncertain for a moment, wondering if I should bring the things into the kitchen or dump them vulgarly into the can at the end of the garden right then. Kinkee nosed politely around my bare legs, sniffing anxiously for scraps, so I decided to take the sandwich leavings into the kitchen and fill her bowl. Jack jumped to his feet to hold open the back door for me and I mumbled a “thank you” that somehow didn’t come out at all.

It all seemed too strange to me. Inside, scraping bits of sandwiches and potato salad into the dog’s dish, my hands shook and my cheeks had a hot prickly feeling. It didn’t seem right to go outside again and sit there on the cool grass, liking Jack so well, right in front of my family! This was the sort of thing that belonged at Pete’s or out near the boathouses, but not on my own back lawn with Kitty and Kinkee and everyone watching! It just didn’t seem right. The dog sat up on her hind legs, begging with petulant squeaks, till I set her bowl on the floor.

From the back lawn I could hear my father’s deep voice, Art’s soft one, and the boy-voice that was Jack’s, with polite pauses when I knew my mother was speaking. In the half-darkness of the kitchen I curled a few strands of hair around my fingers and held my hands tight to my face, just for a moment, to get my thoughts straight and to wait for that fast, excited beating to stop in my
heart. Then I filled the dog’s empty bowl with water from the kitchen faucet, set it on the floor, and went outside.

My father was talking in a formal tone, a tone he saves and puts on like a necktie for just such special occasions as this.

“Of course,” he was saying, “it depends on what you want to do with your life. But for the girls here, I always feel that college is the best way to start.”

“You’re right, sir,” Jack answered. “I really think you’re right but with me it’s different. I’m the only one and my dad needs me ‘round the bakery. I figure maybe I can get some extra education through extension courses and just reading by myself—but my dad needs me ‘round right now.” Jack was sprawled on the grass, talking very fast and earnestly, his eyebrows knit together.

“But it seems to me the thing to do would be to try to get the education first,” my father explained and my mind quickly jumped to Jack’s defense. Maybe there was a mortgage or something. Maybe there was a whole family of poor first cousins that had to be supported. There were dozens of reasons why some people can’t afford to go to college. After all, my father shouldn’t talk that way to a boy he had met only twice before!

“I understand what you mean, sir,” insisted Jack, talking carefully so it wouldn’t sound as if he were contradicting. “If I had a son I would want him to go to college. But you see, we had a pretty good bakery business down in Oklahoma, but my mother wanted to move back here to be near her folks and now we have to build it up all over again. And it isn’t so good—too many people
in this town still bake their own bread and things.”

“Where is your mother from, Jack?” my mother asked, her voice pleasant.

“After they were married she and Dad lived in Oklahoma till just a couple years ago, but she is originally from out near Rosendale,” he said, turning toward her. “I have an aunt out there who says she knows you because you did some work together at a church bazaar once—her name is Alberts.”

So Jack had been talking about my family to his aunt! And he must have been talking about me too. Perhaps, to tease him, his father had said, “Jack’s got a new girl,” and his aunt had looked up in surprise, asked what her name was, where she lived, and what she looked like, or maybe she had heard him talking to me on the phone or maybe after the parade today his father had said to him casually, “Who was that girl I saw you with this morning, son?” To think of anyone calling him “son” made me shiver a little—it seemed such a daringly personal thought—and I looked up quickly to see if anyone had been watching me. But Jack was chewing a bit of grass, looking off toward the lake, and my mother had her eyes on her knitting.

We sat outside for a long time while the sky grew dark and small new stars popped out and a thin crescent of moon made a bright curve in the sky. We talked of everyday things and my father and mother addressed most of their remarks to Jack because he was company, and when he didn’t understand he would question them with a quizzical “Please?” instead of the “Pardon me?” that we
always used, and even in the darkness I could imagine his eyebrows knitted together in thought. Art slapped at the mosquitoes that kept up a steady murmur around our heads, but after the heat of the day the coolness of the evening was so pleasant that no one wanted to go into the house.

I found my mind following the conversation with the same back-and-forth movement with which one’s eyes follow the ball in watching a ping-pong game. Each time anyone spoke to Jack I waited a little breathless to hear what answer he would toss back. At Pete’s and in McKnight’s I was sure of him but with my family I had been anxious. After all, it is quite a test for a boy to have to talk with six people at once.

Later on, much later, when the sky was very dark and the stars were sprinkled across it, hard and bright, Kitty decided it was time to go through her Fourth-of-July ritual of lighting her box of sparklers. We all sat watching and making the right, appreciative comments, while she stood with each sparkler at arm’s length, shooting off a wraith of quick stars. As each one burned near the end she tossed it over her head so it fell in a bright arc to the ground, lying in the grass till the hot wire had glowed itself out. Kitty’s teeth chittered with excitement and ecstasy, and having Jack and Art as audience added to the thrill. She had taken off her shoes and short socks to enjoy the coolness of the grass, and my mother warned, “Be careful of those hot wires in the darkness with your bare feet, Kitty dear.” After the last sparkler had arched through the air and sputtered out in the grass, she gave a breathy
little sigh and sat down beside me, all tired from the happiness of it. After the brightness of the sparklers the sky seemed even darker than before.

Somewhere off in the distance an ambulance siren sounded, faint at first with an eerie questioning, the sound swelling as it passed the corner of our street, going down Park Avenue and headed out toward the highway that runs along the lake. It sped on its way, leaving a long, thin wall of sound trailing behind it, while my mother stopped in her conversation, listening. All of us sat with our minds snapped in alertness, knowing what she was thinking. If we are all away from home and hear a fire siren, my mother is certain it is our house that is burning; if one of us is away and we hear an ambulance, she is sure it is one of us stretched out somewhere on the highway. We knew now she was thinking of Lorraine and we all began talking very fast and very animatedly to drown out the weird tail of sound that still lingered in the night. With sudden enthusiasm Jack burst out, “Mrs. Morrow, have you ever been sailboating?” and then petered out in a less eager account of the fun he and Swede had had that afternoon. It made my lips feel soft just hearing him then. How quickly, without even a word said, he had understood and become one of us!

Out in the dark sky just a few blocks from us the annual fireworks display was being set off over the lake. Explosions, like dull thuds, preceded a thin whistle as the rockets shot into the air, bursting into a million bright-pointed stars, showering down into
the night. Kitty let out little breathless exclamations of awe, and the dog, frightened by the light, whimpered and lay down close to Art with her head meekly on her paws. For a long time no one said anything. Fireworks should be watched in silence. Above us some of the rockets exploded in circles, echoing outward in diminishing rings of color while others burst into showers, hanging in mid-air for a moment like bright flower sprays, and one shot high, high above the others, like a brilliant comet and then plummeted to the earth, dragging a long scarlet tail down the sky. Jack whistled between his teeth and Kitty gave a little gasp of wonder. Above us the whole darkness seemed shot through with light and shattered with bursts of color that sent out a melting rain of stars. It seemed as if one could almost hear the brightness. The whole night tingled with it.

“I hope Lorraine and Martin don’t miss this—wherever they are,” my mother said quietly.

Jack was sitting, propped on his hands, with his head back looking at the sky and he moved his hand just a little so it barely touched mine. A tingling ran up my arm and I felt my face flush in the darkness. As a finale a series of rockets was set off in rapid succession till everything was a dazzle of quick-tailed shooting stars, fiery comets, and huge chrysanthemums of colored light. Long after the display had ceased the spectacle was bright before our eyes and the night sky was suddenly gentle and demure with the coy twinkle of pale stars. All of us felt the strange, silent natural
beauty of it. The hushed night seemed so real, so lovely that I felt almost ashamed of the gaudy efforts of the faded rockets.

I wondered for a moment what my mother would think if she knew that I was sitting there in the darkness with Jack’s hand on mine. And all those strange thoughts. I wondered if it were just me or if they all felt this night so mysterious, so pulsing with something unspoken. My whole body felt uneasy with it. Suddenly I had an almost uncontrollable impulse to reach out and touch Jack’s bare throat gently, lightly with one finger, at the V of his shirt. And it was just then that he said politely to my mother, “Well, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Morrow, I think I’d better be going now. I’ve got to be out on the route early tomorrow.” He stood for a moment not knowing what else to say.

My mother rose from her chair too, saying, “I’m glad you came, Jack, and come again any time. It’s nice having you.” Her words sang in my ears as I walked to the front sidewalk with him. Kitty walked with us.

It was late and we all went into the house then and the others went straight upstairs while my mother turned back to call to me, “Angeline, be sure to see that the front door is unlocked for Lorraine.”

“I will,” I called back.

In the living room the window shades were still drawn as they had been against the heat of the afternoon and a few tired flies buzzed behind them against the windowpane. The air was hot and still and had the oppressive weight of not being lived in
all day. There was something heavily, depressingly quiet about the whole room, and outside, somewhere in the city, the sound of an occasional late firecracker echoed. On the corner table was a vase of yellow flowers, limp and wilted, and in the heat of the afternoon the broad, smooth petals had dropped to the floor like tired butterflies. The night seemed suddenly husked of its beauty.

Quietly I turned the key in the lock and tried the knob of the front door. It was open. Lorraine would have no trouble getting in.

Of the days that followed I remember almost nothing definitely. Nothing seemed to stand out by itself but all flowed together into a stream of pleasantness like warm, thick honey. Every moment was full of it. Every night there was the lonely, ecstatic wonder of thinking about Jack while I lay in bed alone; outside, the stars just pin-pricked the sky and the wind was gentle in the trees, and in the morning there was the slow luxury of waking with the first sun on the wall and knowing that a whole long day of thinking lay ahead. It was the sort of happiness that almost makes you sad it is so wonderful. Everything seemed different to me—everything.

Sometimes after I had been with Jack, I would go upstairs into my own room and my thoughts seemed as clear and steady as crystal, and I would look at my wrists all traced with thin, blue veins and somehow I almost expected to see them pulsing,
all throbbing with the strange new urge that was beating through me. Sometimes I went for walks by myself far out into the big field and my legs felt strong and thin and clean. Touching things sent a new pleasure through my hands that filled my whole body with satisfaction. The rough bark of trees was good, hard, and I thrilled to the soft, silken curve of the dog’s head as I stroked it. Words came out of my mouth like bubbles. Standing in our garden, watching fat bumblebees blunder against the broad faces of the sunflowers, I almost laughed aloud, and there was a new fascination about yellow-furred caterpillars, tufted like toothbrushes, inching along the hollyhock stems in the bright morning sun.

Sometimes I felt that my feet just wouldn’t stay on the ground. I wanted to pick the leaves from the raspberry bushes with their smooth surfaces and the greenish-white fuzz underneath, and touch the softness to my lips. The lake breeze blew in warm and soft, and black and yellow spiders rocked in webs that glinted in the sun and the whole air shimmered with July heat. Everything, everything was wonderful. Sometimes the world seemed so full of the luxurious lushness and warmth of summer that one could almost reach out and eat it with a spoon.

In the evenings we went for walks, Jack and I—long, silent walks—not talking at all, not having to talk. Or we would go out to Pete’s with Fitz and Margie or to the movies by ourselves. Sometimes when we sat in the movies Jack would hold my hand. It wasn’t silly. We did it because it was good to sit so close together
in the darkness and, somehow, by holding hands you can carry on a conversation without talking.

When my mother and I were home alone in the morning, doing the housework, I found myself telling her little, noncommittal things about him, anything just so I could say his name aloud. “Mom. Jack says that his father says that more people are buying regular bakery bread and that the fad for sliced bread is going out …” Often when Kitty and I were together I talked to her about him—Kitty will listen to anything. I told her how he had been the star of the basketball team at high school, how well he drove a car, and I once asked her if she had noticed how clean his shirts always looked. I talked and talked about things that made no difference to Kitty at all but just gave me the chance to think of him and say his name.