Someone Like Summer (14 page)

C
HARLIE
A
NNAN'S WHITE
Saab convertible was parked outside of Feelfree when Kenyon and I arrived. Feelfree was the name of Larkin's house overlooking Accabonac Bay. She had decided to have Dad recuperate there. On a Sunday noon in late August Kenyon drove me to see them, after he went to church.

I groaned when I saw Charlie's car, and Kenyon said, “Remember, Anna B., I work for the guy.”

“I know.”

“He doesn't know about you and Esteban, so if you act cool to him, he won't know why. He'll think you blame him for what happened to Dad.”

“He was part of the reason for Dad's heart attack, wasn't he? He wanted to have that meeting behind Dad's back.”

“Annabel, we butt out when it comes to their politics. Dad and Charlie have had their disagreements before. Their friendship has always survived their differences. Charlie's very upset about Dad. He's been on the phone to Larkin three or four times a day.”

“What does Dad say about him?”

“They're old buddies, Annabel. This isn't going to come between them. You know that.”

I hadn't yet told Kenyon or Dad anything about Esteban's letter or his plan to join the army. Only Larkin knew, and Mitzi.

I was glad Larkin had taken Dad to her house, because he would have known something was wrong if I'd been around him for very long.
I had finally stopped crying, and I'd also given up the idea I could change anything.

 

Larkin offered Kenyon and me iced tea, which Dr. Annan was drinking while Dalí smelled his shoes.

“Annabel,” said Dr. Annan, “I hope you appreciate the fact there's nothing personal in any of this.”

“I know for you there isn't,” I said, feeling tears behind my eyes. Kenyon shot me a look as though he was afraid I'd lose it.

“Ken and I have disagreed on a lot of things,” said the doctor, “but we stay friends.”

Dad's voice: “We don't have any choice,” laughing, as he appeared in his old sweats with a
BROWN AROUND TOWN
T, his white socks and sandals.

Charlie Annan made room for Dad on the couch, and Kenyon sat on the leather hassock near them.

“Annabel, do you want to go into my studio and critique my art?”

“Oh, I'd love that, Larkin.”

She knew I wanted to get away from Charlie. She knew everything, even about the night I locked Esteban and myself out of Kenyon's apartment. At the hospital, waiting for news of Dad, we'd talked for hours by ourselves.

But as close as we'd become, this was my first visit to her home. That was how estranged I'd been from everyone and everything but Esteban that summer.

Kenyon got up to come to the studio with me, saying he'd like another look himself.

Dad said, “Son? Tell that girlfriend of yours I'm not ready to be put into the hole yet.”

Charlie laughed. Kenyon must have told him about Maxine and Green Pastures, or maybe it was nervous laughter.

“Please,” said Larkin, “can we talk about life instead of its alternative?”

Dalí joined my brother and me in Larkin's studio.

Around us the walls were filled with Larkin's strange work, which she called environmental
art. Her paintings were of birds grounded because of oil on their wings, of deer running from woods where trees were being cut down by power chain saws, and of land and lakes barren and polluted. She had assemblages and collages made of driftwood, beach stones, even recycled plastic bags.

Kenyon shook his head and said, “Dad must
really
love her.”

I said, “It's funny about Dad. He attracts very hip women, yet he's so square himself.”

“Maybe he's good in the sack.”

I made a face. “Yick and yuck! Don't put that picture in my mind.”

“How are
you
doing, Sis? You were so quiet coming over here.”

That was all he needed to say. I told him everything. I'd cry, get a grip, bear up, then begin all over again.

After, Kenyon was quiet for a minute and then he shook his head sadly and said, “So he's going to be one of those green-card soldiers. I'm sorry to hear that, Anna B. I mean it.”

“He could get killed, couldn't he, Kenyon?”

“Of course he could! That's the idea. We're running out of cannon fodder over there.”

I began to cry again, and Kenyon said, “I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing for me to say.”

“Larkin says the same thing. And she says there's something called the Montgomery GI Bill that promises them not just fifty thousand dollars but postservice employment and training. She says on the internet it says these promises aren't kept.”

“You know Larkin. She's always been against that war.”

“And you're not, Kenyon?”

“I'm beginning to think I'm like most educated white boys, Anna B. Let the underclass fight for me. But I don't know what the hell they're fighting
for
!”

I said, “They're only following orders. Wasn't that what Hitler's henchmen said?”

“Not just his henchmen. The whole country went along with his agenda.” Kenny shook his head. “I hope you get my sarcasm.”

‘I get it.'

“I hope you don't think your big brother is only good for worming cats and putting down old critters. I don't often argue politics, but Larkin's not the only one who can see we're sending the minorities and disenfranchised to the front lines. We have a long tradition of using the poor and uneducated that way.”

“Esteban's so sure he can improve himself by doing it,” I said.

“With luck, maybe he can, honey.”

“What did you really think of him?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“I think the guy's got iron balls to face up to Dad the way he did. That's for starters.” We were sitting in these crazy chairs made out of wagon wheels. “He's a nice boy, Anna, but he is a boy. I don't care how old he is. He's a kid. He was doing his best—unskilled work in a strange country, sending what money he could back to his folks. Look, maybe the army
will
make a man of him.”

“What would make him a man, Kenyon?”

“Confidence, a skill or an education, a place of his own, and a right to be wherever he is.”

“I wonder if I'll ever see him again,” I said.

Dalí was panting hard. It was ninety-degree weather, and the air conditioning in Larkin's studio was weak.

Kenyon sighed, stood up, and walked around, looking at Larkin's art on the four walls.

I knew he didn't particularly like it, but anything not to have to reply to what I'd just said.

By the time we left the studio, Charlie had gone.

When I sat down beside Dad, he said, “Glad to be going back to school in a few days, honey?”

“Yes.” That was true. I missed myself. I missed all the old familiar friends and routines.

“I know you're a little put out with your old man, Anna B., but that boy has a long way to go.”

“He's not a boy.”

“Well, he's not a man, either. I'm sorry if you thought I didn't put out the red carpet for him.”

“I'm getting over our little dinner party, Dad.”

“You've got something bigger to get over, Anna B.”

“Dad? I'm dealing with it, okay?”

The night before I received Esteban's letter, I'd finished reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's
The Crackup
. I hadn't known yet that E.E. was gone, but I'd sensed something was changed. I wasn't sure if it was a change in me, or in Esteban, or a change in both of us. I'd taken a bath using the Anna Sui gel. My eyes had filled with tears when I'd read one of Fitzgerald's silly jingles: “
There was an orchestra—Bingo-Bango, playing for us to dance the Tango
,” and I thought of E.E. and me down on the boardwalk with the boom box going, the moonlight bright, and his eyes watching all over my face while we danced.

“I'm coming home tomorrow, honey,” Dad said.

“I'll have dinner ready.”

“Don't fuss. Some takeout will do.”

“
Won't
do,” Larkin said. “I'll bring the food. I know your diet, Kenny.”

“You know me better than anyone,” Dad said. Then he got red, looked at me sheepishly, and said, “No offense, Annabel. I just meant—”

I cut him off as he was struggling to finish the sentence. “No offense taken, Dad. Larkin's been a lifesaver.” She was the only person who could have changed how I felt about another woman coming along. The moment she'd come into his life, he hadn't seemed as much like his old self as he did like someone new. I'd never seen him fall in love before, and never seen a woman fall for him, either. After Mom died, I wondered what I'd feel if that ever happened. I didn't think I'd be able to warm up to anyone who'd try to take Mom's place. I hadn't counted on Larkin. I hadn't even thought of a woman who wasn't interested in replacing Mom. Larkin was interested in finding her own place with Dad, and she had.

Maxine had left Seaview after Dad's operation. I was glad of that. One loving couple was enough. I sat there envying Dad and Larkin, and trying to think how I could get the gold earring to Esteban. Somehow I trusted Dario. Dad
always had the address of anyone who worked for him, and Dario was a regular, probably because he was documented. I could ask Dario for Esteban's address. It would be like Esteban to warn Dario that I might do that, and forbid him to give it to me. In that case I'd put my letter in a package with the ring, wrap it carefully, get it stamped, and ask Dario to mail it for me.

I wanted to go home and cry some more, in private, listen to Mercedes Solo and Shakira, and try to write Esteban another letter. I wanted to keep the part about staying safe, but I wanted to tell him to shoot himself in the foot—to do something to make it impossible for him to go to Iraq.

I said, “Are you ready to leave, Kenyon?”

“We just got here.”

“Don't stay on my account,” said Dad. “I have to get on the horn and scrounge around for a new crew. We got the Jamison job, so we're going to have our hands full.”

“We'll talk about that,” said Larkin. “Annabel, come outside with me a moment. I want to
tell you something.”

“When do you go back to school?” Dad asked me.

“September seventh,” I said.

“Go ahead, you two,” Kenyon said. “I want to watch the game soon, anyway, so I'll watch it in the screening room if I'm taking Sis home.”

Larkin walked across to the back door and held it open for me.

She said, “No, Dalí!”

Dalí came anyway.

It was hot. It had been the hottest summer I could remember. I'd tried to tell Esteban that when he said our summers were so much like the ones in Colombia. I could see him in his bib overalls, my favorite clothes of his, but I could see him in his cargo shorts, too. I couldn't stop seeing him.

“I'm going to write Esteban,” Larkin said, “and tell him he is welcome to return to Seaview and stay on the estate of an artist friend of mine. He needs a groundskeeper. Esteban would make a good salary, and he could work for me, too,
help me lift and pack things.”

“It's too late, Larkin. He said he would be in the army when I got his letter.”

“Things can go wrong. I hope they do.”

“Dad would never forgive you if you found work and a home here for Esteban.”

“And I will never forgive myself if something happens to that boy. Why didn't I find him a place to live after Charlie got them all booted out? I knew Chet Boterf needed someone to live on the premises.”

“Larkin, it's nobody's fault, really.”

“It's all of our faults! What are we doing to stop this war?”

Dalí was off in the field rolling around the way he did. Neither Larkin nor I had sat down in the chairs on the terrace there. It was scorching. I had the feeling neither one of us wanted to say much more, anyway. I would start crying and Larkin would get into a rage about the war.

“I'm going home, Larkin. I feel like I've been away when I haven't been anywhere.”

“There's one more thing,” she said. “Hold out
your hand. Close your eyes.”

I waited until I felt something drop into my palm before I looked down.

It was Esteban's gold holy medal.

“I told Charlie that I knew whose it was, and he was only too happy to return it,” Larkin said.

“You told Charlie about Esteban and me?”

“I fibbed. No. I
lied
. I said you'd lent Kenyon's apartment to a school friend and her Latino boyfriend. But you gave them the wrong key and they were locked out. I said this boy ran off because he was afraid to get the girl in trouble, and afraid he would be accused of trying to break in.”

“And Charlie believed it?”

“Charlie said the boy was probably undocumented, that they were always afraid they'd be arrested. He said he bet you'd never try that again, and that if Kenyon ever found out, there'd be big trouble between you two.” She put her arm around me and said, “I didn't even say Esteban's name. I said I didn't know who the boy was, but that he was only there to see his girlfriend, not to steal.”

“Dad better watch out. You're a fast thinker.”

“No. I'm a slow thinker, but I think hard when I paint. I kept thinking of Esteban without his holy medal. There is something so touching about these young men, so far from their families, up here facing so much hostility. I feel for them. And for you, sweetie. I know what you're going through.”

“It's Esteban's lucky piece, too. He'll need it for sure!”

I would send it with the earring and the last letter I'd already written to Esteban. No more redoing letters to him.

Larkin and I hugged, and Dalí came rushing at Larkin to break it up.