The Summer I Learned to Fly Page 6

  “Do you have any ideas?” I asked.

  “Only one, but it’s stupid.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, she hates that I don’t wear a helmet. So I thought maybe I’d buy one for each of us, like, matching helmets. Then she could stop wearing the fugly one she took from her brother, and I’d sacrifice half the reason I love my Vespa and cover up when I ride. You know, to make her happy.”

  I sat next to him on the pasta stool and didn’t say anything.

  “See? I told you it was a stupid idea.”

  “Nick. That’s the least stupid idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  He shot me a beautiful grin.

  The more days that went by, the more I scolded myself for getting that fluttery feeling about Emmett on the couch that night. I’d let my guard down.

  While she packed a bag with my dinner, Mom told me she had to stay late at work for the third time in eight days. I’d already taken out the last of the day’s trash and the extra cheese and bread. The front doors were locked. Swoozie had left early for a doctor’s appointment. Nick and Becca had ridden off in their his and hers helmets.

  “What do you have left to do?” I asked, gesturing around the shop. It was immaculate. Counters cleaned, floors swept, cases closed.

  “Birdie,” she said with exasperation, like I was a toddler on my hundredth why question of the day. “I have a crazy amount of paperwork to do. Bills to pay. Ledgers to balance.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere?”

  “Just to my desk.”

  “You aren’t going out in a silver car?”

  This flew from my mouth before I stopped to think, and the minute it was out there in the space between us I wished I could pull it back in.

  “Whatever do you mean?” she said carefully.

  “Nothing.”

  “It didn’t sound like nothing.”

  I leaned over and hugged her. This caught her off guard, and it took a beat before she wrapped her arms around me. I held on to her tighter than I had in a long time. I squeezed her, hoping that it might somehow undo the conversation I’d started, because I didn’t want to know.

  I wanted to believe she’d be at her desk tonight. Paying bills. Balancing ledgers. So I held her like I did when I was younger, when that was all it took for everything to be right in the world.

  “It was nothing,” I said again, and I took my dinner-in-a-bag and rode home on my bike.

  I put the bag in the fridge and ate a bowl of cereal instead. I was too lazy to boil water and too sick of pasta to face whatever she’d given me. I changed into my pajamas while it was still light and I put some of Mom’s music on the downstairs stereo. Nothing was on TV. I scanned the bookshelf for something to read. I wished that I could draw or paint or do something, anything, well enough that I could lose myself in it and forget everything else. I turned the music up louder, but not so loud that I didn’t hear the knock at the door.

  Other than the fear of fire and the larger fear of nuclear war that was always in the background, we were pretty carefree around my house. Mom didn’t lecture me about safety. She trusted me, trusted the universe enough to let me stay home alone and ride my bike wherever I wanted and not have to account in detail for my time away from her. I could say I showed a friend around town, for example, without being given the third degree.

  However, when home alone I was to keep the front door locked. I was not to open it to anyone. Packages could wait for delivery until the next day or sit out on the doorstep. Nothing was for sale that I needed to buy. No petition required my signature.

  Standing there listening to the second round of gentle knocking, I couldn’t remember a single time anyone had come to the house while I was home alone. I’d never been put to the test until now.

  Round three.

  And then a whisper: “Robin?”

  There was only one person who would say my name like that. I unlocked the door.

  He stood under the porch light.

  “Hi,” he said. There was something apologetic in his posture. At least, that was how I decided to take it. He was sorry for disappearing from my life for a week.

  “Hi.”

  He smiled and brushed his black hair out of his eyes.

  “Do you want to come in?” I asked.

  He wiped his feet on our doormat. He’d have won Mom over with that single gesture.

  He looked around the living room, standing still as if waiting to hear whether anyone else was in the house.

  “I’m alone,” I said.

  “I saw that your mom’s still at the shop, so, you know, I figured I’d find you here by yourself.”

  She’s at work, I thought. Just like she said.

  He still didn’t move. He was listening to the music, a record of Irish folk songs I had playing only because that’s what was already on the stereo. Mom loved this record. I’d roll my eyes at her whenever she put it on. Again, Mom?

  But here I was, listening to it. Having that music on was like having Mom at home. It was the sound of not being alone.

  I wished I had something else playing. Something cooler. Something Georgia would have had on when a boy stopped by to see her. And I really, really, really wished I hadn’t already put on my pajamas. Flannel, old-man style, with pictures of sheep jumping over clouds.

  “Do you like this music?” he asked.

  I wondered if this was a trick question, but decided to go with the truth. “It’s okay.”

  “Well, then I’ve got someone you have to meet. What are you doing tomorrow?”

  I walked over to the couch and sat down. He sat across from me in the corduroy armchair. Dad’s favorite chair.

  He wore tan pants with no holes in the knees. A button-down shirt over a gray T-shirt. Almost as if he’d dressed for the occasion. He was rosy. Pink. Maybe he was nervous. Or winded from the walk over here; I’d never seen him with a bike.

  The cut on his cheek had healed a bit, and I noticed for the first time a softness about him. He wasn’t beautiful like Nick, but there was a sweet, almost cartoonish humor to his look. He had a face you’d throw away the rules for. A face to unlock doors.

  “I’m supposed to go to the shop, but …” I picked up a cushion and put it in my lap. It was doing nothing to help hide my hideous pajamas. I turned it over a few times and then put it back down again. “How did you know where I live, anyway?”

  “I’ve been following you.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have opened the door.

  He leaned forward and grinned. “Robin. I’m kidding. I knew your address from the inside of your backpack. If Lost, Please Return to Drew Solo: One Forty-Six Mount Pleasant Drive.”

  Right. My backpack.

  “There’s a phone number in there too,” I said. “You could have called.” You didn’t have to wait a whole week.

  “I could have,” he said. “But then maybe you’d never have invited me over.”

  I thought of the bag in the refrigerator.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m pretty much always hungry.”

  I led him into the kitchen.

  The paper bag held linguini, fresh pesto, and a wedge of Reggiano. Mom didn’t believe in pregrating cheese. We always shaved it fresh over our hot plates.

  I put water on to boil, took out some silverware and a cloth napkin, and set him a place at the counter. I’d never cooked for anyone other than Mom, and I was nervous.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “I ate already.”

  “So did I. You don’t see that stopping me.” It wasn’t that the cornflakes had filled me up, it was that when nervous, like a rat, I tended to lose my appetite.

  He picked up his fork and twirled it between his fingers.

  “Robin, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  This sounded serious. I knew the saying about a watched pot never boiling, but I stared at it anyway.r />
  “It’s about Hum,” he said. “I don’t know if you know this about rats, but they should have at least one other rat, a rat to attach themselves to, or else they get lonely.”

  Hum needed a friend? That was all he wanted to tell me?

  Emmett might have thought he knew everything about rats, but he didn’t understand that Hum was different. Hum didn’t need another rat, because he had me.

  “I take him everywhere. He’s never alone.”

  This statement didn’t account for the fact that, at that moment, Hum was very much alone in my room. He wasn’t allowed in the kitchen when we were cooking or eating. It was one of the rare occasions when Mom’s rules actually made some sense.

  “Yeah, that’s another thing,” he said. He leaned back in his stool, almost tipping over. “That cage you take him everywhere in—it’s too small. Rats need room to roam.”

  I put the pasta into the water, which had finally decided to boil. I spun around with a wooden spoon in my hand.

  “Is that why you came here tonight? To lecture me about how to take care of my own pet?”

  “No, I came here tonight because I like you.”

  Were there any sayings about watching a pot of water already boiling? Because that was what I did. I turned my back to Emmett and stared at the water. I stirred the pasta. It had only a minute more to cook. Not nearly enough time to regain my composure.

  “I like you too,” I said in a smaller voice than I’d intended. I meant it, but I wasn’t sure I sounded like I did. I was wandering into unfamiliar territory.

  At school, with my classmates and friends, I had to decode the hidden meaning of words, to search for what Ms. Bethel in our English class called intentionality. There was what people said, and then there was what they were thinking. Take that first lunch at Antonio’s when Georgia said Shut up, when what she really meant was Say more.

  One thing I knew for sure was that boys never came out and told girls they liked them, and girls certainly never told this to the boys.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad we got that settled.”

  I drained the pasta and grated the cheese over it. I slid the plate in front of him. For some reason I felt totally at ease. Even my sheep pajamas seemed less a crime against humanity.

  “So will you blow off work and spend the day with me tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “All right!” He put up his hand for a high five and then caught my hand midslap and squeezed it tight. It was friendly. It lasted only a second. And it was the single most romantic moment of my life.

  the stolen child

  Emmett left only minutes before Mom returned. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, though I wasn’t sure exactly what the bullet was. Beyond unlocking the door, I hadn’t done anything wrong, and anyway, I assumed the unlocking-the-door rule pertained to people I didn’t know.

  I knew Emmett Crane. Even if there were still things I didn’t know about him, those were mere details. I knew him.

  When I heard the front door open and Mom’s footsteps on the stairs I flipped off my bedroom light. I wasn’t in bed yet, and I hadn’t brushed my teeth or washed my face, but I didn’t want to make small talk about balancing ledgers or what I had or hadn’t watched on TV, and I certainly didn’t want to talk about silver cars. I didn’t want to break the magic spell of my night. This night belonged to me.

  Just as she reached the top of the stairs I made a dive for my bed—the early decision to change into those awful pajamas came back to save me—and my head hit the pillow just as my door creaked open.

  “Birdie?”

  I played statue.

  She stood there adjusting to the darkness of my room. She was looking for the shape of me. Making sure that I was still there.

  “Love you madly,” she whispered.

  Emmett showed up at eleven the next day. I watched from my bedroom window, and when I saw him round the corner I raced down the stairs and undid the lock.

  I’d dressed all wrong. There he stood in long surf shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top, and I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt. Mom was a big believer in air-conditioning. I had no idea how warm it was out in the real world.

  He lifted his sunglasses and checked me out. His look said it all. I ran back upstairs to change.

  “To be fair,” I called from my bedroom, “you didn’t say where we were going.”

  “I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything about going skiing,” he called back. “Or ice fishing.”

  I put a bathing suit on under a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. I hadn’t been anywhere near the beach all summer. It was a crime. I loved the beach, though there wasn’t much fun in going alone.

  I checked myself in the mirror. I was pasty. I missed the girl with the raw peeling nose from summers before Mom started the shop, when she’d take me and a few towels, a bucket and shovel, and a magazine or two and we’d spend the whole day by the surf.

  I ran down the stairs to meet Emmett, and it wasn’t until he mirrored my expression back to me that I realized I was grinning from ear to ear.

  “What?”

  I couldn’t come out and say I’m happy, really happy, for the first time in a long while. “Nothing.”

  “Okay then.” He shrugged.

  He followed me into the kitchen, where I grabbed some fruit and cheese. He’d brought a backpack too, and we filled his with the food, leaving room in mine for towels, water, and Hum.

  Emmett motioned for me to lead the way and he closed the front door behind us.

  I always went to lifeguard station 21, where the beach was the widest and the water the calmest. It was the only beach I knew, and I could do the fifteen-minute walk there with my eyes closed. First you had to turn left out the front door, which I did, just as Emmett turned to the right.

  We stopped, spun around, and faced each other. It was funny, the choreography of a sitcom. We were both so sure we were in sync we assumed words didn’t need to be spoken.

  “This way.” He waved me toward him.

  “Really?” I shot him my most skeptical look.

  “I promise.”

  I shrugged. “Okay then.”

  I walked toward him and he reached out. I thought he was about to put his arm around me, but instead he gave me a friendly shove and we were on our way.

  The walk to Emmett’s beach took almost twice as long as the walk to mine, but I held back from pointing this out. I was working on not having to be right all the time. It was the by-product of being an only child, I guessed. In my house there was my room, my stuff, my clothes—I didn’t have to share anything, not even ideas and opinions.

  I was stubborn. Mom had been telling me so since I was old enough to understand and then reject the label, which of course meant I was being stubborn about being stubborn. She said I inherited this from my father. It was right there on his List of Biggest Flaws in capital letters: STUBBORNNESS.

  Emmett’s beach required that we scramble down some rocks just around the northern bend of a cove. The first thing I noticed was that there wasn’t a lifeguard station. I was a good swimmer, maybe even an excellent swimmer, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need a lifeguard. I believed nobody was above the law of the ocean.

  We jumped down from the last rocks onto a small stretch of white sand that backed up to a steep cliff. It was a secret spot of beach, the kind nobody knows about. Nobody except for a group of kids gathered around a table built from two tree stumps spanned by an old surfboard. They were those elusive older, wiser teens. The ones who at school would never give a seventh grader the time of day.

  “Emmett!” one shouted. Emmett gave a friendly wave and led me toward them.

  Someone had a guitar. But the music stopped as we approached.

  “Hey, guys,” Emmett said. “This is Robin.”

  “Robin!” they shouted in unison. I’d never had a group shout my name in unison, never mind that Robin wasn’t my name anymore. This day alr
eady felt like it was happening to somebody else, so the name suited me just fine.

  The guitarist returned to his playing and singing and the others returned to listening and Emmett leaned over toward me and pointed.

  “Jasper, Christian, Molly, Deirdre.”

  Three were smoking cigarettes. Two had tattoos. Molly had a ring in her upper lip.

  “And the person I really wanted to you meet,” he whispered as he pointed to the guitarist, “is Finn.”

  Finn was older. He had a beard, for one thing. Strawberry-colored and shaggy. He wore a wool cap over his strawberry hair. His guitar was covered in stickers and his fingers were filled with silver rings.

  The song sounded familiar. Like a lullaby, something someone had sung to me once, though Mom wasn’t much of a singer.

  “Finn’s a busker,” Emmett said into my ear. I liked the way it sounded even if I didn’t know what it meant. “He’s from Ireland. He sounds like what you were playing last night, but maybe even better, don’t you think?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t just the music, it was the cliffs, the secrecy, the danger I felt near strangers, the warmth of Emmett’s breath in my ear—all of it made me want to lose myself in that song.

  I listened. He closed his eyes as he sang.

  “Come away, human child!

  To the water and the wild

  With a faerie hand in hand,

  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

  It hit me what was familiar about Finn’s song. I didn’t recognize the tune; I knew the words. They were from a poem by William Butler Yeats.

  From Dad’s Book of Lists, Favorite Poets: Shel Silverstein, W. B. Yeats.

  I hadn’t heard of Yeats, so one day when things were slow at the shop I’d gone to the library and checked out a collection of his poems. These words were from the one that spoke to me. It was called “The Stolen Child.”

  Finn stopped. There was a pause and then a round of applause.

  “Okay, ladies and gents,” Finn said. “Enough from me. Go on about yourselves. Enjoy the day.”