Summerlost (12 page)

26.

I noticed how chilly it was when we went back into the theater. Desert-night cold comes fast. And all three of us were dressed in short sleeves. I noticed Miles folding his arms and hunching his shoulders. I shivered.

“Slide over,” Leo said, and so I did, and then our arms and legs were right together.

“Slide over,” I told Miles, and so he did too.

“Of course
you
get the middle,” he muttered. “Then you're the only one who gets to be warm on both sides.”

On my other side, Leo shook with laughter. I could feel it.

My brother and my best friend sat next to me. My mouth was hot from the Fireball, and my hands and feet were cold from the night. On either side, I was warm.

27.

The minute the play ended, Miles whispered to me that he had to go to the bathroom and took off. Leo and I sat there for a minute, letting the other people exit the theater.

“Thanks,” he said. “That was great.”

“And you were surprised, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was.” He stood up and stretched and then stuck out his hand so that he could pull me up. “I love coming to the plays. I've really missed it this summer.”

“Are you sure you don't want to be an actor?”

“I know I couldn't ever do what they do,” he said, pointing at the stage where the actors had been. “But I could be the one who writes the words they say.”

I started laughing.

“What?” Leo asked. “What's so funny about that?”

“It's funny because—” I said, and then I couldn't stop cracking up, but Leo didn't get mad. He raised his eyebrows at me.

“You don't want to be an actor,” I said. “You want to be
Shakespeare
.”

Then Leo laughed too. “I guess if you put it that way, it sounds weird.”

“Not weird,” I said. “Just big.”

Leo had all these dreams. He had specific dreams, like seeing Barnaby Chesterfield in London. He had big dreams, like being a writer. And he trusted me so much that he told me his dreams out loud.

I'd spent the last year feeling like being alive was lucky enough. Like being alive was
hard
enough.

But I did have dreams.

There.

I admitted it to myself.

I had all
kinds
of dreams. I wanted to go skiing again and get fast and good. I wanted to go to London too someday. I wanted to fall in love. I wanted to own a bookstore or a restaurant and have people come in and say, “Hi, Cedar,” and I wanted to ride a bike down the streets in a little town in a country where people spoke a different language. Maybe my bike would have a basket and maybe the basket would have flowers in it. I wanted to live in a big city and wear lipstick and my hair up in a bun and buy groceries and carry them home in a paper bag. My high heels would click when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. I wanted to stand at the edge of a lake and listen.

Leo and I found Miles in the courtyard, and then we went to wait for my mom by the bike racks and the water fountain. Miles walked down to stick his hand in the water that cascaded from the ledge, but Leo and I stayed up by the top.

The plaque in front of the fountain said
CHARLES
H
.
JOHNSON & MARGARET
G
.
JO
HNSON
MEMORIAL
CENTE
NNIAL
CELEBRATION
FO
UNTAIN
.

“That's a realllly long name for a fountain,” I said.

“My brothers and I call it Baby Niagara,” Leo said. “Because the part where it goes over the edge looks like Niagara Falls.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You've been to Niagara Falls.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was for a family vacation. My dad plans one every year. It's always somewhere different. This year was the first year he didn't plan a vacation. Because of the England trip.”

“He must really like England,” I said to Leo. “Because he's been there before, and he wanted to go again, like you.”

“Yeah,” Leo said.

I sat down on the rim of the pool. The moon was full above and there were always more stars here than back at our real house, because of the light pollution in the city.

“Mom's here!” Miles hollered up from below.

“I bet we can fit your bike in the trunk,” I told Leo. “Sorry I didn't tell you to walk instead of ride. But I didn't want to ruin the surprise.”

“I don't think it will fit,” Leo said.

I looked down at my mom's car. He was right.

I'd been thinking of our old car, not the one we had now.

We used to have a minivan.

It got totaled in the accident.

And when it came time to buy a new car, my mom realized we didn't need a minivan anymore. We didn't have enough people. We could fit into a regular car.

So every time I see a minivan like our old one (which happens all the time, because a lot of people who park at grocery stores or schools or really
anywhere
have minivans), it's like a tiny punch.

“Right,” I said to Leo. “Sorry.”

“It's no problem,” Leo said. “And thanks again. This was great.”

“I'm glad. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Miles and I went down and got in the car.

“Doesn't Leo want a ride?” my mom asked.

“He has his bike,” I said. “He's going to ride home.”

“That's dangerous,” Mom said. “It's night.”

“We can't fit his bike in the car,” I said.

“Well, we'll follow him then,” Mom said.

“Because that's not creepy at all,” Miles said, and I laughed.

Mom smiled and turned around to look at us. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was great.”

“It was pretty good,” Miles said. “Even though the seats were hard and I got cold.” I slugged him in the arm.

“Thanks,” he said to me. “For the ticket.”

“You're welcome,” I told him. “Thanks for the Fireball.”

We sat in the car waiting for Leo who didn't know we were waiting for him.

Leo pulled his bike down the stairs next to the fountain. Bump, bump, bump. My mom rolled down her window and called out, “We're going to follow you! To make sure you get home safe!”

I heard Leo call back, “Okay.”

He started riding down the sidewalk. Mom gave him a minute before we swung out into the street behind him. We had to make sure everyone got home safe, in our car that still seemed wrong.

I understood why Leo called the fountain Baby Niagara. Because once you see something big, you can't help seeing it in everything small.

28.

My dad used to say that life was like turning the pages in a book. “Oh, look,” he'd say, pretending to flip the pages in the air after we'd had something bad happen to us. “Bad luck here on page ninety-seven. And on ninety-eight. But something good here on ninety-nine! All you had to do was keep reading!”

For small things it used to help, him saying that. Like if you failed a test or got a bad haircut or bonked your head on the waterslide and had to go home early from a birthday party at the pool.

Of course he never slammed the book shut, which was what had happened to him. One last bad thing and then the end, for him and for Ben. No more pages to turn, nothing to get them to a better part in the story.

It could go the other way too. Sometimes you were having a perfect day and you never ever wanted to turn the page because you knew there was no way that whatever came after would be as good.

The day after we turned the page on the play, Cory kept
looking over at Leo and me and smiling. Not a nice smile. An I-know-something smile.

“Hey,” Cory said to Leo and me partway through the afternoon. “After we're done with this shift, you guys should meet me in the forest over there.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I have to talk to you.”

“We can talk now,” Leo said.

“No,” Cory said, acting shocked. “We're
working
now.”

No way was I going into the forest—
our
forest—with Cory the Hellfart. No way was I following his orders. “We need to hurry home,” I said. “Sorry.”

Cory shook his head. “Seriously. You guys don't want to do that. There's something I need to tell you.”

“We don't have to go,” I told Leo after Cory walked off.

“I think we do,” Leo said.

“Why?”

“Because it could get worse if we don't,” Leo said.

We watched Cory. The sun glinted off the chocolate wrappers in his concessions basket. The candy had probably gone all melty and gross in the sun.

• • •

“Look at what I found,” Cory said under the trees. He held out a piece of paper. It took me a minute to recognize it.

It was one of our tour flyers.

Leo reached out to grab it but Cory snatched it away. “I
knew
this was yours,” he said.

“It's not,” Leo said.

“It
is
. I called the number this morning and you answered.” He laughed. “
This is Leo Bishop, how can I help you?
” Cory said, pretending to be Leo, making his voice high and weird in a way that wasn't like Leo's at all.

Leo clenched his hands into fists. His mouth had gone into a straight line. “So
you
were the person who hung up.”

“That's right,” Cory said.

And I thought,
Why?
Why didn't Cory like us? Why couldn't he leave us alone?

Cory would have made fun of Ben. I was sure about that.

“So what,” I said. My voice sounded flat. “So what, Cory.”

“So I'm going to tell Gary,” Cory said. “And you'll both lose your jobs.”

“Why?”

“Because Gary won't be happy that you are giving tours and putting these flyers in the programs,” Cory said, in a tone that said
You idiot.

“No,” I said. “I mean, why tell Gary?”

“So he'll fire you.”

“Why do you care?” Leo asked. “Why do you want us fired?”

Cory grinned. “Because.”

As if that were an answer. But it was, to Cory. It was all the answer he needed.

I am different and that has nothing to do with you
, I wanted to tell him.
Leo is different and that has nothing to do with you. You look at us and you don't like us and you don't even know why. I've seen it before a million times with Ben.

But my knowing this didn't change anything. Cory was still going to tell on us. He was still going to get us fired.

“So are you going to go tell Gary right now?” I asked.

“I haven't decided when I'll tell him,” Cory said. “Maybe tonight. Maybe later.”

I wanted to shove Cory. To smash him down into the ground so he could lie there and feel the dirt under him and be up close to every fallen pine needle and feel scared. But I didn't do that. I watched him go.

“How close are you now?” I asked Leo when Cory couldn't hear us anymore. “To having enough money?”

“Not close enough,” he said. “And I've only got a week before my dad's deadline to have the money for the plane ticket.”

“We can do it,” I said. “We can't quit now.”

“Once Cory tells Gary it's all over.”

“We're being blackmailed by a Hellfart,” I said. I hoped it would make Leo laugh.

Leo didn't laugh.

He also didn't cry. Which it looked for a minute like he might do. I knew that feeling. Hold your mouth tight, tell your heart not to hurt, tell your brain not to think about what might happen next.

29.

It was a busy night because the festival was winding down for the summer and everyone wanted to see the plays before they closed. Every time I saw Cory, I felt my heart sink. Had he told Gary yet? At the end of the night, when we went out and unlocked our bikes, Leo said, “We don't have to meet up in the morning. No one signed up for the tour tomorrow. The only person who called today was Cory.”

Everything was going wrong. “It's okay. People will call again. It's only one day.”

“The only way I can make the deadline is if the tour keeps doing as well as it has,” Leo said. “Every day.”

“I could lend you some money,” I said. “Really.”

“No,” Leo said. “I couldn't take that from you.”

“Why not?”

“I just can't.”

“You would have had
all
the money if you'd done the tour by yourself,” I pointed out.

“I wouldn't have made as much money without you,” Leo said.

“I don't even know what I'm saving for yet.”

“But you're saving for
something
.”

When Leo said that, I realized it was true. It hadn't been before. But it was now.

A season ski pass? A plane ticket?

I wasn't sure exactly
what
I wanted yet, but things had changed. Now I could at least imagine things I might want.

You're stupid
, something inside me said.
Hoping for something doesn't mean you'll get to have it. There are no guarantees.

Shut up
, I told that voice.
I'm turning right past you to another page. You're right but today I don't care.

30.

“No running today?” Mom asked when I came downstairs the next morning. She was sitting at the table with a pile of lesson plans for the new school year. Everything was coming to an end.

I'm sure I looked blank for a second before I caught on. Oh. Right. Running. What I supposedly did in the mornings.

“No,” I said. “I didn't hear my alarm.”

“Well, you've been every other day.” Mom put her hand on my head as she set a bowl on the table in front of me and reached for the cereal. “What would you like? Cheerios with bananas?”

I nodded. The sun shone through the window. I couldn't believe how long I'd slept in.

“I'm so proud of you this summer, Cedar,” Mom said. “Running in the mornings. Working so hard at the Summerlost Festival.
Volunteering
at the Summerlost Festival.” She brought over a plate of sliced bananas and the milk and cereal and sat down across from me. “And taking care of Miles for me too. Except for that slipup with the soap opera, you've been amazing with him. I really appreciate it.”

I picked up the plate and started to slide the bananas into my cereal. I felt guilty. I'd lied to her about the tour, and Miles and I hadn't actually stopped watching
Times of Our Seasons
.

My mother beamed.

I ate my cereal.

With all the guilt, and with everything going on with Leo and Cory and the tour, you wouldn't think that I would care that the milk was perfectly cold and the bananas not too ripe, but I did. It felt nice to have something be exactly right.