Summerlost (3 page)

7.

I'd never had to lie in wait for someone before. It was kind of hard. I put the bike on the sidewalk that led up to our house. Then I sat on the steps wearing the helmet so that I'd be ready to go the minute he came by. I sat behind the porch pillar just in case, even though he'd never noticed me before.

It didn't take long. As soon as he was two houses past ours I jumped on my bike and followed him.

He rode straight down the street. He stopped and waited for a light so I stopped too. I made it through after him.

He headed in the direction of the college campus. We rode past fraternities that used to be regular houses. One of them had a rope swing hanging from a tree out front, and another had a yard that was nothing but gravel.

Then we came to the best part of the campus, the forest. It was my dad's favorite part because of the pine trees that grew there. They were almost as old as the school and stood very tall and straight. The groundskeeper put Christmas lights on the tallest one every year.

The forest was big enough to feel quiet but small enough
that it didn't feel creepy. A waterfall and a couple of sculptures were hidden among the trees. And outside of the forest was a grassy quad where my mom used to play Ultimate Frisbee when she was a teenager.

Nerd-on-a-Bike turned into the forest and rode down the squiggly sidewalks under the trees.

He rode past the quad.

He rode toward the middle of campus to the theater, which looked like it got picked up out of old England and set right down in Utah. And then I realized where he was going.

The Summerlost Festival.

Of course.

I should have known.

The Summerlost Festival in Iron Creek was the third-biggest Shakespearean festival west of the Mississippi River. It happened every year on the college campus during the summertime. A big billboard told you all about it as you came into town:

LOSE
YOURSELF
IN
SUMMER
AND
GO
BACK
IN
TIME
AT
THE
SUMMERLOST
FESTI
VAL

The Greenshow they did out on the lawn before the plays was fun and also scary because they sometimes pulled people out of the audience to be part of it, and there were always crazy
props. One time they had my dad get up to be a prince in a skit. He had on tan shorts and a blue polo shirt like he usually did when he was on vacation. The actors in their tights and peasant dresses surrounded him. He had to wear huge wooden shoes and stomp around on the tiny stage on a quest to rescue one of the actors, who had been cast into a deep sleep by a witch's spell. My dad had to pretend to kiss her. His face went so red. “My prince!” the princess exclaimed to my dad when she woke up.

My mother could not breathe, she was laughing so hard. When Dad sat down, he shook his head. I knew he'd hated it, but he'd been a good sport. Mom hugged him and I felt proud of him even though it had been sort of awful to watch.

Another time, a few years later, we came to see the show and Ben was having one of his hard days and couldn't stop screaming and yelling. Finally my mom took Ben away to the grassy quad and he rolled down the hill over and over, like a puppy. When he came back, happy and big-eyed and sweaty, he even sat on my lap in a kind of curly way like a puppy would have, but he was a boy.

My brother was a boy and now he's not anything.

8.

“Hello,” someone said, and I looked up. Nerd-on-a-Bike. He'd caught me. My face must have looked funny thinking about Ben because the boy's face changed. He'd looked as if he was going to say something to me, like he'd had all the words ready to go, and then he said something else instead.

“You live on my street,” he said. He had dark hair and freckles. I expected his eyes to be brown, but they were hazel. “In the Wainwrights' old house.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I was going to ask why you were following me.”

“I wanted to see where you were going dressed like that,” I told him. “I should have realized. The festival. Do you work here?”

“Yeah.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

So I could work too. The thought seemed to come out of nowhere. I didn't know I wanted a job. I didn't know
what
I wanted, except to go back to how things used to be, and that
could never happen, but I wanted it so bad that it didn't leave room to want much else.

“Are they hiring?” I asked.

“We can find out,” he said. “What's your name?”

“Cedar Lee,” I said.

“That sounds like a movie-star name.”

I almost said,
It's not. It's a tree name because my dad grew up in the Pacific Northwest and there was this huge old cedar tree in his yard and for some reason he thought that would be a great name for his first kid, boy or girl, and my mom liked it too, and he always joked that's how he knew he'd found the right person.
They fought sometimes but they were super in love, my parents. You could tell that in a lot of ways. They were the same height—my dad was short and my mom was tall—and whenever they dressed up and went out, he never cared at all whether she wore heels or not, whether she was taller than he was or not, even though that was one of those things people seemed to think they
should
care about. Without her heels they could stand together and they were exactly the same height. Nose to nose. Eye to eye.

“I
am
a movie star.” I didn't know why I said that, when it was so obviously not true, but he grinned. When he did, his eyebrows went up in a very dramatic way, like a cartoon devil.

“A movie star,” he said. “Like Lisette Chamberlain.”

I knew right away who he meant. Lisette Chamberlain was the most famous person the town of Iron Creek had ever
produced. She got her start at the Summerlost Festival and went on to star in soap operas and movies and then later died under mysterious and dramatic circumstances.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Leo Bishop,” he said.

“That's a good name too.”

“I know,” he said. “Come on. Let's go talk to my boss.”

9.

We parked our bikes out in front of the box office building, in the rack closest to the fountain. It had a pool with a geyserlike spray that went straight up, and then the water ran down like a waterfall over a pie-shaped wedge of concrete jutting out over another, lower pool. When we were kids we climbed back behind the waterfall, even though we knew we could get in trouble for it.

Leo took me around to the concessions building, which was half timbered and pretend-old-looking, like the theater.

Once we were inside, Leo introduced me to his boss, Gary, and told him that I wanted a job.

“The season has already started,” Gary said.

“But we could use a few more people,” Leo said. “Especially since Annie quit last week.”

“Have you worked anywhere before?” Gary asked me.

“No,” I said, “but I babysit a lot. And I have good grades at school. I'm very responsible.” A couple of girls about my age stood watching me. I felt dumb.

Gary looked at my feet and said, “No flip-flops.
Never
again. Can you get some sandals by tonight?”

“Sure,” I said. I had a pair of leather sandals at home that looked like the ones some of the other girls were wearing.

People milled around the room, all wearing peasant costumes. I saw some older people too, around my grandma's age. They were the volunteer ushers, who gave directions and instructions and helped people find their seats in the theater.

“You can train today and tonight,” Gary said, “and then start tomorrow. Your mom will need to sign this because you're not sixteen. Bring it back with you tonight.” He handed me a form and I nodded. I wondered what my mom would say. Would she agree to this? What was I thinking?

“You work from one to three in the afternoon and from six to eight thirty at night,” Gary said. “Every day but Sunday. You're here to sell concessions before the matinees and evening performances start, and during the Greenshow. Then you come back and help clean up afterward. Payday is every other Friday.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Lindy,” he said to one of the older ladies. “Can you go to the costume shop and ask Meg if we have anything that will fit?”

Lindy nodded and left.

“I'll have you shadow Leo today,” Gary said. “He'll show you what to do. Do you have any questions?”

“I guess I have one,” I said. “What do I . . . concess?”

Behind Gary I saw Leo grin again.

“We'll assign you something later,” Gary said. “For now, learn from Leo.”

A few minutes later Lindy came back with a peasant skirt and blouse. The blouse was white with ties at the neck. The skirt had flowers on it. They both looked big.

“It's the smallest one they had,” Lindy told me.

I ducked into the employee bathroom to get dressed and I pulled out my ponytail because I'd noticed the other girls all had their hair down. I left my shorts on under the skirt but I balled up my T-shirt and put it on a chair in the bathroom, hoping no one would take it.

“That looks all right,” Gary said when I came out.

Gary and Leo showed me all the things they sold out on the yard (as Gary called it). I'd seen some before when I'd been to the festival. Fresh tarts—raspberry, lemon, and cream cheese. They looked like tiny folded-up purses. I wanted to eat one. Bottled water, with the words
SUMMERLOST
FESTIVAL
and the logo, the theater, printed on the labels. Old-fashioned candy in cellophane packages—lemon drops, horehound candy, and taffy in wax-paper twists. Chocolates. And programs. Fancy, printed-up programs. Leo took a basket of those and so I did too.

Gary had lots of final instructions. “Remember,” he said, “no flip-flops tonight.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Take care of your costume. Delicate wash only. You don't want Meg from the costume shop mad at you. Trust me.”

“All right.”

“Don't forget that you're in England,” he told me. “In the time of Shakespeare.”

I nodded. I didn't point out that I'm part Chinese-American and so the odds that I would have been in England back in Shakespeare's time were highly unlikely.

“And,” Gary said, “you're a peasant.”

That part felt kind of true thanks to the outfit.

“Stay in character,” he said, “but don't use an accent unless you're given specific permission. The only kid here who has permission to use an accent is Leo.”

“Okay.” I followed Leo toward the door.

“Where are you?” Gary called after me.

For a minute, I didn't get it, but then I did.

“I'm in England,” I told him.

10.

“I've actually been to England,” Leo said. “That's why I can do the accent. Because I've heard it in real life.”

“Let's hear it,” I said.

“Oh, you will. Soon.”

We walked across a brick courtyard with a big tree in the middle. A wooden bench was built all the way around the tree. “It's not as busy for the matinees,” Leo said. He had a lively voice and talked fast, but not so fast that I couldn't keep up. “People don't wander around much when it's hot. They stay in the gift shop and buy their stuff there or go straight to the theater. The nighttime shows are the big ones, as far as we're concerned. That's when the real work gets done. That's when I break records.”

“What kind of records?”

“
All
kinds of records,” Leo said. “Most programs sold in an hour. Most programs sold in a night. Most programs sold in a week. Gary keeps track of all of it. I'm gunning for most programs sold in a single season, and I'm a lock for that if I keep up the way I'm going. But what I'm most proud of is that
one night I outsold
everyone
in concessions. Do you know how much harder it is to sell programs than water? We're in the desert. But I did it. One night. One awesome night two weeks ago. And I'm going to do it again.”

It seemed like Leo had more energy than anyone I'd ever met.

“So,” he said. “Why did you want the job? What are you saving up for? And don't say college or a car.”

“Why not?”

“That's what everyone says.”

“What's wrong with wanting to go to college or get a car?” I didn't think far enough ahead for either, but something about Leo made me want to play devil's advocate.

“It's fine,” Leo said, “if you're specific. Like, Jackie, one of the girls, says college, but she says UC San Diego to study marine biology.
That's
fine. And if you know exactly the type of car you want to get: also fine. But vague stuff is stupid.”

“Well then, I'm stupid,” I said. “Because I don't know.”

Leo frowned. “You can't think of anything you want?”

I did not answer that question because right then an older lady walked by and that's when it happened.

The accent.

Leo smiled and, sounding like Oliver Twist or who knows what, called out, “Can I interest you in a program, my lady?”

I didn't know if the accent was right. I didn't know if it was
real England or kid-in-a-movie England. What I did see was that Leo's face lit up and then the lady's face lit up and his smile seemed as big as the world. Like he loved the world. Like he had no idea what it could do.

She bought three programs while Leo joked with her in his maybe-real English accent and I stood watching.

“Impressed?” Leo asked me when she'd gone away.

“Very,” I said, but I made it sound sarcastic.

“Let's hear you try,” he said. “Next time, your turn. With an accent.”

“But Gary said—”

“I won't tell Gary,” Leo said. “Come on.”

The next person we saw was a man, an old man, with a neatly pressed white shirt and a bottle of water in his hand. He had a nice face and big glasses, and he walked fast.

“Sir,” I said, and then when he didn't hear me, I said it louder. “SIR. Could I interest you in a program?” I did not know what was coming out of my mouth, accent-wise. Maybe I was German? Or Italian? Or Irish? Australian?

He stopped and looked at me and I held out a program.

“I don't think so,” he said, pleasantly enough, and then I turned around to see Leo shaking with laughter.

“What was
that
?” Leo asked.

“I'm surprised you didn't recognize it,” I said. “It's from a little-known part of England. A very small province.” Did
they even have provinces in England? I wasn't sure. I knew they didn't have states.

“Really?” Leo said. “And what's the name of this province?”

“It's Bludge,” I said, in my terrible accent, saying the first even-sort-of-British word that came to mind.

“Oh yeah?” Leo asked. “And what's the capital city of the province of Bludge?”

Did provinces have capitals? “Bludgeon,” I said.

That made Leo laugh so hard that he almost missed a lady with two teenagers walking past. But then he switched right into the accent and she bought a program and smiled at him.

We were walking back along the sidewalk when some boys on bikes came through. An usher waved at them to stop but they didn't.

“They're not supposed to cut through here during festival hours,” Leo said, “but they do it anyway because it's faster.”

When the boys came closer, I could see that they were about our age. Spiky blond hair on one, baseball hats on all the rest. Tall socks. Shiny shirts made out of fabric that looked like plastic. Coming home from some sports practice, maybe. They were going so fast that I worried they'd slam right into us, so I followed Leo's lead and stepped over onto the grass.

As they came by, one of them knocked Leo's hat off his head and they all laughed.

“That's new,” Leo said. He reached down to pick up his hat.
“Usually they just yell stuff at me when they come by.” I could tell he was trying to sound like he didn't care. It was almost working. “They think they're so wild, but they're kids on bikes. It's not like they're Hell's Angels or something.”

“They're like Hell's farts,” I said, and that cracked Leo up hard enough that I could see the braces on his back teeth.

I smiled too.

“That's perfect,” he said. “They're Hellfarts.”

We walked past the Summerlost Theater, with its flags waving merrily and its dark-painted wood and white stucco. The wooden stairs outside were worn smooth-grooved with decades of people coming to get lost in lives that were not their own.

“Did you hear?” Leo asked, when he saw me looking. “The theater's coming down at the end of the summer.”

“What?” I said, stunned. Did my mother know? She thought of the theater as part of the town, her childhood.

“They're remodeling some of the other buildings, but the theater's too much hassle, so they're starting over. They're tearing it down and building a new one across the street,” Leo said. “Haven't you noticed?”

“I guess I haven't been over there yet.”

“I'll show you after our shift,” Leo said.