Song of Summer (15 page)

Less than thirty seconds later, I hear his motorcycle. Mom raises an eyebrow at me and I nod.

“That's him.”

Mom and I peek out the window in time to see his bike glide into the driveway. The sun glares off the yellow and black and glints off his helmet as he dismounts. He's wearing his tight Italian leather jacket over his white button-down. The toes of black boots stick out from the cuffs of expensive jeans. With his back to us, he takes his helmet off and shakes his head, fixing his hair before laying his helmet carefully on the seat and turning toward the house. It's not until Mom sees his face, with the perfect cheekbones, dimpled chin, and pouty lips, that she turns to me.

“Robin Peters,” she says, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

I grin.

Carter

I think I've overused the expression “the middle of nowhere,” because until seeing Robin's house, I had not yet experienced its true meaning. Her house is situated between a cornfield and a vineyard with no other houses in sight. The driveway is long and tree lined. I park in the middle of it, next to Robin's Subaru.

I wish I hadn't worn my jacket. It's hot and sunny and the last thing I need is to sweat all through dinner. But I didn't want to get my shirt dirty as I rode over here. If there's one thing my dad taught me, it's that first impressions are important. I start to take off the jacket and realize that I'm still wearing my motorcycle gloves. Crap. I take them off and am faced with a decision: Do I take the walk to the front door or the side door? Most people in this area use the side door exclusively, and the front door is just for show, so I decide to begin the trek to the side door. This cobblestone walkway seems ten miles long.

The jam! I brought jam and it's back in my saddlebags with the Nikon. I turn and jog lightly back to the bike, hoping nobody's watching and the jam isn't broken. It's my mom's favorite, from some Amish lady in a nearby town. I got a sampler of apricot, raspberry, and strawberry. It's all supposed to be grown locally, but I can tell you I've never seen an apricot tree here before.

I pull the little sampler out and, other than being a little warm, the jam seems fine. I toss my jacket over the pommel of my bike and smooth out my shirt, starting the long walk back to the side of the house.

Just as I'm halfway to the side door, a woman flings open the front door. This must be Robin's mom. She has the same blue eyes, same perfect eyebrows, and same heart-shaped face.

“Hi!” she signs crisply, stepping out onto the porch. She holds the front door open and gestures for me to join her. I backtrack and take the steps up onto the porch as she holds the door open, waving me into the foyer. “I'm Robin's mom,” she signs. I instantly like this Robin-at-age-fortysomething.

“Nice to meet you,” I sign. “I'm Carter.”

She reaches out to shake my hand and I give her the jam.

“Ooh!” her mouth says. “Thank you!” she signs.

“You're welcome,” I sign back. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my trusty pad of paper. “My mom loves it.”

She holds out her hands for the pad and pen, and after I give it to her she writes, “I'm sure I'll love it, too.”

She calls something over her shoulder and Robin comes in from a different room.

“Hi,” she signs, smiling. She's wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair in a loose ponytail. Her feet are bare. She looks like heaven.

“Hi,” I sign.

My feelings are written all over my face, as they always are. This fact is confirmed when I sneak a look back at Robin's mom. She's gone bright red and is studying her own wallpaper.

Robin sidles up to me. “You want to see the house?” she signs.

I nod and she takes my hand, lacing her fingers in mine.

I turn around to say good-bye to her mom, and she's gone. Probably back to the kitchen. Something is making the whole house smell delicious. It is distinctly not stir-fry.

Robin tugs me down the hallway into the living room. It's a comfortable, homey affair with a couch, a TV, and a fireplace. There are huge bookshelves lining the walls. A man is sitting in an easy chair, reading.

“Carter, this is my dad,” Robin signs and says.

He stands up and I see that he's about my height and balding, with a hooked nose. He looks almost nothing like Robin except for his chin.

He smiles and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you,” his mouth says, and his smile looks something like Robin's, too. It's honest and intelligent.

“Nice to meet you,” I sign, mouthing the words like I do for Robin.

Robin translates and her dad nods at me, giving an appraising look. He reaches down for a pad of paper that's sitting on the table next to him. I realize that he put it there on purpose, for when he met me.

“I hear you've been spending some time with my daughter,” he writes. His handwriting is neat and uniform, every ‘i' dotted, every ‘t' crossed.

“Yes, sir,” I write. I can't think of what else to say for a minute. But he seems to be waiting, so I continue writing, “She is one of the loveliest people I've ever met. Thank you for letting me hang out with her. And thanks for inviting me to dinner.”

He looks back at me and nods, smiling back into his book.

“I'm going to show Carter the rest of the house before dinner,” Robin writes.

Her dad looks up at her. “Okay,” his mouth says and he nods.

She leads me back through the hallway, and I let the breath escape from being trapped in my lungs. Laughing, she looks up at me.

“He's not that scary,” she writes.

I shake my head. “He is plenty scary,” I write.

She leads me through the hallway, past some closets, to a door that leads to a basement. She flicks on the light. From what I can see at the top of the stairs, it's a bright, finished basement with newer furniture. “The den,” she signs, fingerspelling D-E-N.

I follow her back through the hallway and up the stairs. I can't imagine living in a place like this, where everything is separated by walls and halls! Our apartment in New York, our condo on Long Island, our summer house in Chautauqua—all open floor plans. I could sign something to my mom in the kitchen from a place in the living room and she could see every word.

At the top of the stairs and to the right is a door. It's her door. I can tell because it's already open, ready to be seen, and neat as a pin. But it's not always that way—the trash can is full, and there are a few things peeking out from under the bed.

“My room!” she signs.

It's a small room with a twin bed and a desk with an old computer. There are posters all over the walls—band posters of women with long hair and men with beards, holding string and wind instruments. There's a huge collage, too, of pictures. I go over to it and see Robin at all stages of her teenage life, smiling. Jenni is in many of the pictures and a card at the bottom says, “Happy Sweet 16, Love, Jenni.” There are pictures of Robin playing a guitar or that little metal flute. She's in her tennis uniform and she's hiking in the woods. She and a guy have their arms around each other and a little jealousy flares up in me when I realize it's the clueless guy from the overlook. She's singing in a choir. She's wearing a fancy dress, probably at a dance. I could stay there forever, looking at all her different smiles, but she taps me on the shoulder. “You like it?” she signs.

“I love it,” I sign back.

She smiles and writes. “It's a gift from Jenni for my sixteenth birthday. It's one of my favorite things.”

And I can't help myself—I stroke her hair, ending with my hand right behind her neck. I lean down and gently pull her up onto her tiptoes, kissing first the tip of her nose, then her mouth. My other hand finds the small of her back and I press her to me. Our kiss deepens, her hands sliding up my back to my shoulder blades and then down around my waist. And then she breaks away. I startle. My hand flies to my chest.

“I'm sorry,” I sign. I grab for the pen and paper. She is backing up and wiping the corners of her lips. “If I did anything—” She takes the pen out of my hand and smiles.

“My mom just called up the stairs, that's all,” she writes, smiling. “Don't worry. It's only time for dinner.” She reaches up and kisses me on the cheek and takes my hand once more.

On the way out the door, I notice a guitar in the corner and a music stand with one of those metal flutes resting on it. She catches me looking at the guitar and signs, “My baby.” I smile and reach for it but I don't want to break it, so I don't pick it up.

“You should show me sometime,” I start writing, but she's already out the door.

I hurry to catch up and when I enter the dining room, her mom is just laying out the last of the meal. The jam I brought is in little serving dishes next to rolls. The spreading knives have grapes on the handles. Dinner looks like beef Stroganoff, a thick mushroom and beef gravy and egg noodles that are absolutely not Asian.

“This looks amazing!” I write, and Robin's mom flushes with pleasure.

Her dad enters, book closed in his swinging hand, looking kind of like a clean shaven, graying Abraham Lincoln in jeans and a T-shirt.

He sits at the table and they bow their heads and I follow suit, hoping somebody will tap me when the prayer is over. He slides his paper over to me and I read, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful. Amen.” I look up and the rest of the family's mouths are saying “Amen.” He timed it perfectly.

I smile at him. “Thank you,” I write under his prayer.

“You're welcome,” he writes back.

Dinner is funny. There is no real translator, since Robin doesn't know a whole lot of ASL and still gets stuck in basic conversation. I see a lot of awkward conversational pauses as well as sighs and yawns. Not because they're tired or bored—hearing people just have a hard time with silence. They're always filling it with sounds that don't mean anything.

By the end of dinner, I am writing things down and Robin is reading them aloud. Her parents are writing and speaking aloud, and Robin is doing a funny combination of all three. At one point, she passes her mom's notepad to me while saying what I was writing in reply to an earlier conversation and trying to sign that her dad would like the butter, please.

I have to stop my writing and laugh. Her face while she's concentrating is one of the cutest things I've probably ever seen—right up there with Trina's pudgy toddler hands signing from her high chair when she was a baby. Robin's eyebrows furrow and the tip of her tongue sticks out the side of her mouth, just like in a cartoon. Her hands stop and start and stop again. Instead of spelling “butter” she spells “burret,” and I laugh.

“You are too cute,” I sign to her, and she drops her concentrating face and smiles, shaking her head and turning pink. I pass her dad the butter and smooth a little curl that's escaping from her ponytail.

When I look back to the table, her parents are looking at each other and communicating in secret parent-look language. They turn their attention to me and their smiles tell me that I did something right.

“Dinner was wonderful,” I reiterate as the meal comes to a close. “Absolutely delicious.”

Robin's mom blushes and smiles and signs, “Thank you.”

“You wanna go to Sciarrino's and get a movie?” Robin writes.

I shrug, “Yes,” I sign, and I follow her to her beat-up Subaru. “What's Sciarrino's?” I sign when we get to the car.

She laughs. “DVDs” she signs.

“You still have a video store?” I write.

“Yeah,” she signs. “Westfield is small.”

Despite her living at least a mile from any neighbors, the drive to town takes less than five minutes. On the way there, she drums her fingers on the steering wheel, bopping her head around. At first, I have no idea what's going on and then I glance at dashboard—sure enough, whatever sound system she has is lit up. “Track 05” says the screen. I give her a little smile and she turns red. She punches a button on the radio and it turns off.

“Sorry,” she signs.

I don't have time to tell her it's okay—we've pulled up to a little storefront with a big window and a lit neon sign. It smells like stale smoke in spite of the New York smoking ban that's been in effect as long as I can remember. There's a wall of DVDs and Blu-rays, a wall of video games for the various systems, a ton of candy, and a few newspapers. These places only survive in tiny towns and big cities. There's one down the block from Jolene's apartment in Queens, and we go all the time to buy Nerds and Twizzlers.

Robin wanders over to the wall of new releases and I follow her. She runs her finger along the titles, stopping when she gets to one she wants to see. I shrug or nod or shake my head until we finally decide on one. As she lifts it down (a superhero movie—action and romance and not depressing or pretentious), she turns around and says hi to somebody standing behind us.

I look. There are two prettyish white girls about our age. They have light brown hair and they're smiling too big at me. I sigh inside and set my face into what I hope is a pleasant, open expression. It's just so different here. In the city there are thousands of ethnicities and hundreds of languages and most people don't care much about what makes you different. Yeah, people stare. Especially if I'm speaking ASL. But they would never actually try to meet me.

“Hi,” Robin says and signs. “This is Carter, my… boyfriend.”

Boyfriend. I like it. I smile. “I didn't know you knew that sign!” I sign to her.

She shrugs and blushes. “I learned it last night,” she says.

I smile at her and she looks up to the girls, who are talking to her. They look at me with raised eyebrows out of the sides of their eyes, like they want to include me, but they can't. It's a little distracting.