The Hidden Summer (7 page)

“Hey,” I say, touching one of them lightly on the head. “Hey, are you okay? Do you know where your parents are?”

“I’ll take him,” says a voice. “He’s my little brother.”

I look up and there’s Adam Cooper. The one who can do one-armed push-ups. The one who has never spoken to me. And now he
has
spoken to me, although, of course, he didn’t know he was speaking to me. So I need to speak to him. Right.

“Okay,” I say. I try to smile.

He scoops the redheaded boy into his arms. The other boy gets to his feet and scrambles off, hopefully to find someone related to him. Adam’s brother is still crying, and Adam starts bouncing him up and down a little. He looks from me to his little brother and then back to me again.

“It’s Nell, right? Don’t you go to my school?” He has to raise his voice so I can hear him over the crying.

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m proud of how steady my voice sounds. “Yeah” was a very reasonable response. Not stupid at all. Good call.

“I’m Adam.”

“Right,” I say. “Your brother, um, ran into a dog.”

Hmmm, I think. That response was not quite as good.

“He’s a moron,” he says, but he says it fondly. Like he
likes
morons. “You here with your parents?”

The little redhead is calming down slightly. He’s whimpering instead of screaming.

I nod. “My mom and stepdad. They’re both asleep.”

It occurs to me suddenly that maybe it’d be better if I were here with Lydia. Or a massive group of friends. Not that I have a massive group of friends.

“You’re lucky,” he says. “My parents are awake. They think this is good family time.”

Okay, good. I feel better about being with Mom and Lionel. “I guess it is if you don’t count that your brother’s going around attacking Labrador retrievers,” I say.

He laughs. “Yeah, he’s vicious.”

I need to come up with something else to make him laugh. Am I supposed to be thinking this much before every sentence? Can he see the wheels turning in my brain? Still, I would really like to make him laugh again. I look at his brother, who is now quiet and squirming.

“My friend Lydia has a Maltipoo that might be a better match for your brother,” I say. “We could put them in a ring and let them fight it out.”

“A Maltipoo?”

“Maltese poodle. Very macho.”

He does laugh again, and I definitely feel like I am on a television show now. I am playing a character who makes Adam Cooper laugh.

And then I hear my mother’s voice.

“Nell, come on back and stop flirting,” she says, loudly enough that an old couple in lawn chairs several feet away turn toward us.

I look away from Adam because I can’t stand to see his reaction. My mother is a couple of steps away from me. The wind blows her strapless dress around her knees.

“I’m just talking, Mom,” I say it in a robot voice, no emotion.

“If you wanted to come here tonight for a date, you should have said so,” she says. She flips her hair over her shoulder.

“It’s not a date,” I say.

Sometimes I think my mother doesn’t know me at all, but at other times, like now, I realize she can read every thought in my head. She can tell I like Adam. And she can tell this is, of course, not a date. And she can tell that the thing I want most in the entire world at this moment is for him
not to know that I like him
.

“We just go the same school, ma’am,” says Adam. “I hardly know her.”

I hear those words, and I try very hard to keep my face blank so my mother doesn’t see into my head. But I feel like I just ran full speed into a Labrador retriever and hit the ground hard.

“You can come sit with us,” Mom says to Adam, “if you’d like.”

“No, that’s okay,” he says, and I hear how much he wants to escape. I know the sound of wanting to escape.

“Well,” he says to me, “see you.”

“Bye,” I say. My feet step on my mother’s shadow as we walk back to our chairs.

“He’s a nice-looking boy,” my mother says cheerfully. “He’s got good bones. I bet he’s got plenty of girls after him.”

What I hear her say is that he would never pick me, not when he has so many better options. Prettier, smarter, more likable options. I might also be hearing her say that she’s doing me a favor by keeping me from getting my hopes up.

“If you were trying to embarrass me, it worked,” I say.

She laughs. No, it’s more of a giggle.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “No one’s trying to embarrass you.”

I wonder if she believes that. I wonder if I believe it. Part of me thinks
of course
your mother wouldn’t want to embarrass you. Why would she? What would she get out of it? And I don’t have an answer to that.

But another part of me knows without a doubt that she did mean to embarrass me. I don’t know why she does it, but I know that she does. And as I steal looks at her in her pink sundress, long legs crossed so gracefully, I know that she thinks if she were my age, she would be one of those prettier, smarter, more likable girls that Adam would be interested in. I think she’s probably right.

A few years ago, before I had really developed my strategy, I would try to get back at Mom when she acted like this. When I was furious and hurt, I’d find ways to get revenge without her knowing. I sprayed Windex on her toothbrush. I let Saban lick her favorite coffee mug and then I put it back in the cabinet. I’d eat all the pecans in the mixed nuts because they’re her favorite.

That was kid’s stuff. I’ve learned that revenge doesn’t help you feel better. It makes you feel guilty, when what you really need is not to feel anything. Feelings are the whole problem. Anger, hurt, sadness, guilt—it’s all too much. The only thing that really helps is to stop feeling altogether.

To stop feeling, you have to disappear. So that’s what I do. For the rest of the night, I think of my body as a robot that stands up and walks to the car and then walks to my bedroom and brushes my teeth and gets in bed, while that whole time the real me is gone. The real me is wandering around Lodema and setting up a new home inside a dinosaur. The robot deals with my mother, nods at her when necessary, while the real me walks barefoot on cool fake grass and looks up at the moon.

The next morning, I head to see my grandparents. I feel like I’m back inside my body. I will not think about Adam Cooper anymore. I have more important things to think about, and my grandparents can help me.

I hug and kiss them both, breathe in Grandpops’s grassy smell, and then I plop down on the sofa. I take a long moment to look at them both, from Memama’s small, perfect hands to Grandpops’s stubbly cheeks. I can’t stand to lie to them about remedial classes—I assume eventually Mom will tell them.

I see Memama flash a look at Grandpops, a look that is like a kiss.

I think of Adam Cooper’s face while he was laughing, and then I think of him saying, “I hardly know her.”

I need to focus. I need to concentrate on planning for Lodema. That’s what matters.

“Memama, I need a favor,” I say. “I need you to teach me how to cook a fish.”

CHAPTER 7

THE NEW WORLD

Finally it’s May 30. I hug Mom and Lionel good-bye at about 8:30 and tell them I’m going to walk to the middle school. Mom tries to neaten my hair, and Lionel hugs me extra hard. I walk out the front door and around the block before looping back to the golf course.

I’m only carrying my backpack—I figure I can take a few things each day, and today I’ve focused on the basics to make Marvin feel like home. Lydia and I have plenty of time to think through our supply list—the bigger issue has been figuring out how to get in and out of Lodema in the daylight without anyone noticing. Vaulting over grass like knives everyday isn’t going to work. I’ve spent the last few days walking the perimeter of the golf course, looking for the best place for Lydia and me to climb the fence. We’ll want to stay off the streets and sidewalks as much as possible.

I’ve found a spot with a crape myrtle growing close to the outside of the fence, and the tree is surrounded by high shrubs. We can climb the tree instead of the fence, and the shrubs will hide us. Plus there’s nothing but weeds on the other side—no sharp pampas grass. It’s perfect, and as I make my way there with my backpack, wading through the weeds, I only have one small worry: painted on the side of the crape myrtle are the same symbols we saw on the side of the empty aquarium. Green arrow, purple circles, blue eyebrows. Lydia and I have hardly talked over the last few days—we figured we should do everything possible to keep her mom from getting suspicious—so I haven’t told her about it yet. She might have something smart to say. Or she might just talk more about tadpoles and snow.

I decide to walk to the Chevron. I have a sandwich and an apple in my lunch bag, but I’d like to buy a little treat for our first day on the course. Plus I always like any excuse to go to a gas station. I like the smell of gas, I like the snack marts, and I like all those people driving off to faraway places. Or even just across town. If you want to get somewhere, if you want to put some distance between yourself and where you started, you have to get friendly with gas stations.

I look both ways before I cross the street, not just looking for traffic, but looking for anyone who might know me. I jog across Clairmont Avenue quickly, keeping one hand up to shield my face. The gas station is just ahead of me on the corner.

The truth is that our options are going to be very limited by not having a car. This isn’t New York or Boston—Birmingham is not a walking city. Everyone has cars here, and even though you could ride the bus, it’s really inconvenient. (We had a neighbor who worked in a restaurant five miles away, and it took her two stops and over an hour to get to work every morning.) A few people ride bicycles, but there aren’t any bike paths; if you ride on major roads, you have a death wish. So that leaves walking. At least that’s what’s left for me and Lydia. And that means we’re within a half hour of a couple of nice restaurants, a used bookstore, a gourmet grocery store, and the Chevron.

My entire savings adds up to thirty dollars. That gourmet grocery store is definitely off-limits.

At the gas station, I linger over the food aisles, trying to memorize what’s on the shelves. If we need extra supplies, this is where we’ll have to come. (Man, beef jerky is expensive. You’d think it was dried diamonds, not dried cow.) I head to the counter with a Snickers—my favorite candy bar—and a Heath bar, Lydia’s favorite.

The girl at the counter is by far the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen working in a gas station. She has a short afro and creamy brown skin, and she’s slouching over the counter in a way that makes her seem confident and cool. It’s the kind of slouch that I could see myself practicing. I wonder if Adam Cooper likes slouchers.

Nope. I will not think of him. When I think of him, I see my mother’s face.

“I like your shirt,” says the pretty sloucher, handing me my change.

“Thanks,” I say. “My dad got it for me from Spain.”

That’s true. It has a mosaic bull on it. I can’t remember why Dad went to Spain, but I think it may have been a trip with a girlfriend.

“You’ve been to Spain?” she asks.

“I haven’t been anywhere.”

She gives me a sympathetic, I-get-you look. I like her a lot better than the hairy guy with a mustache who’s usually at the counter. He has a tattoo of what I think is a koala on his neck.

I head back to the honeysuckle tree to wait for Lydia. When she shows up a little while later, she’s sweating and out of breath. She’s got Saban’s leash in one hand: his tongue is hanging out of his mouth, and he’s sort of staggering.

I pull out a bottle of water from my backpack.

“Thanks,” she says. She takes a long chug, then she unzips her bag and pulls out Saban’s water dish. She pours him half of the water.

“Did you have any trouble?” I ask.

“Nope. Mom made me pancakes for breakfast, squeezed me hard for a second, and then said she was running late for work. I think she’s looking forward to me bringing back a pair of those aluminum can pants.”

As soon as Lydia’s rested, we pick up our backpacks and climb the crape myrtle, with Lydia passing Saban over the fence to me once I get on the golf-course side. We head to the putt-putt course. The second I open the door to Marvin, I realize we have a problem. The heat knocks the breath out of me. I haven’t been in Marvin during the heat of the day—he’s like a sauna. In the amount of time it takes to walk in, set down my bag and unzip it, my hair is drenched like I just got out of the shower. I go back outside and Lydia’s standing in the shade of her rocket ship. Neither one of us can quite make ourselves go inside again.

“I think I can be done setting up in maybe thirty minutes,” I say. “Meet you back here then. We can go find a nice shady tree or something.”

“You know, you could take the other bunk bed in my rocket,” Lydia says. “There’s plenty of room for us both.”

“No, thanks,” I say. “I want my own place. Or, you know, my own dinosaur.”

She shrugs, takes a breath, and darts inside the rocket ship. Plenty of kids at school hate being by themselves—they’re never without a group of friends around them laughing and talking. The worst punishment for them is if a teacher makes them sit alone at lunch. I’ve never been forced to sit by myself at lunch, but it wouldn’t be so bad, really. It’d be the perfect time to read a book. (The same thing occurs to me about being sent to prison—just having to sit on a bunk bed all day long might be kind of nice. You could read and draw and learn how to do things like paint or play the guitar. I think I could be okay with prison.)

Anyway, Lydia and I both like to have time to ourselves. Neither of us has brothers or sisters, and I think that has something to do with it. There are plenty of times that I have to entertain myself—there’s no one else around to do it. If I hated alone time, my life would be pretty miserable. Instead I’ve learned to enjoy it, and I miss it if I don’t have it.

Despite all these positive thoughts about alone time, even a minute inside Marvin is miserable. I think I might pass out. But I prop the door open, so there’s a little breeze. I start to think I can handle it. I pull out an inflatable mattress, the kind you float on in the swimming pool. I blow it up—outside in the shade of an oak tree—and bring it back into Marvin. It’s a pretty good couch. I pull out my Lava lamp and plug it in, just to see if the electricity works. It does. Between the inflated mattress and the floating blue shadows on the wall from the Lava lamp, I’m really feeling an underwater theme in here. It’s more like being in the belly of a whale than a dinosaur.

I pull out my laptop, which is wrapped in a blanket. It’s time to leave Marvin. I need to get closer to some of the houses lining the golf course.

Once I went to the beach down at Gulf Shores, and I met a boy from Philadelphia. We caught mussels together for a while, snatching them up in the surf and then tossing them back so they could bury themselves in the wet sand again. It was his first time to Alabama, and he said that before he came down here he thought nobody owned any shoes. And nobody had electricity. That made me think: 1) he had been watching some very old movies; 2) he was sort of condescending for someone who lived in a city known for cream cheese; and 3) my state has an unfair reputation.

I know some people think we’re still all about dirt roads and hound dogs down here. But I’ve lived in a big city all my life. I don’t want Lodema to be some big camping trip. I don’t want to just fish and wander around dirty and barefooted. I need the Internet. And I don’t want to have to walk all the way back to my house to get it.

I should mention that I did one other thing during the last four days. I started hanging out along 34th Street, the street that’s closest to the putt-putt course. The backyards of those houses are only forty or fifty feet from the fence around Lodema. I took my scooter to 34th Street and rode up and down the sidewalk during the afternoons when people were getting home from work. I struck up conversations with people and complimented them on their pets. I asked the people’s names. Then I asked for their pets’ names, and I scratched plenty of dogs behind their ears while I oohed and aahed over them. I found out what kinds of dogs they were. I found out from the pet owners if any of their neighbors had pets. I bet I know the names of at least twenty dogs and cats that live on 34th Street.

When I boot up my laptop and call up the list of available networks, I recognize several of the networks that are labeled by last names. Anderson. Bailey. Watson. Levey. Sanchez. All of them are security-enabled networks requiring a password. This is where it gets fun. I know how people love to use their pets’ names for passwords. Birthdays and anniversaries, too, but those are a lot harder to figure out. So I play around with different combinations—pumpkin, pumpkintheboxer, lady, ladycollie, sam, schnauzer, samschnauzer, samtheschnauzer, labradoodle, dixie, dixielab, dixielabradoodle—and pretty soon I have it: the Watsons’ password is eugenebeagle. I’m in.

Soon I’ve got a wireless connection whenever I want it, and both our places are hot but comfortable. I see that Lydia’s even brought a little fan, which she’s angled right over her bed. Saban lies in front of it with his tongue hanging out. He raises his head occasionally, then looks disappointed and flops back down.

“Should we walk him?” I ask. “He seems depressed.”

“He always looks like that.”

“Huh.”

Regardless of Saban’s opinion, we’re ready to get out in the fresh air. We grab our lunches and a couple of bottles of water. We don’t bother putting Saban on a leash. It’s not like he can go very far. But we haven’t even left the putt-putt course before Lydia’s yanking on my arm.

“What?”

“Look,” Lydia says, pointing toward the aquarium hole.

I do look, but all I see is the concrete and the fake grass and those three fish mouths.
“What?”

She strides over and leans down by the three fish. Saban pants along beside her. When she stands up, she’s holding something in her hand. I look closer. It’s a Coke can.

“This wasn’t here last week,” she says. “Someone else has been here.”

I think about that. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone else would come on the course, but it doesn’t seem like a huge deal.