“Go away, Sumner.” Now her voice broke, a sob muffling the end of the words. “Go away.”
The door opened, then shut just as quickly, and I heard her feet coming up the stairs and the door to her room shutting with a click. Silence. I got up and went to my window. Sumner was in front of the house, running his hands through his hair and staring up at Ashley’s room. He stood there a long time in his costume, lab coat and stethoscope, no longer looking like a mad scientist but like one who was deeply perplexed about something, or lost. I pressed my palm against my window, thinking he might see, but if he did he never let on. Instead he turned to the VW and walked the short distance of grass to the driveway, taking his time. He started the engine and noise filled the air, his theme music humming as he pulled out, paused at the end of the driveway, and finally drove away. I got back into bed and stared at my ceiling, knowing he wouldn’t be back. I’d heard Ashley dump boys before on the front porch and I knew that tone, that finality in her voice. By the next morning he’d be gone from conversation, wiped from our collective memories. There would be somebody new—soon, probably within the week. My sister, chameleonlike, would change her voice or hair overnight to match the mannerisms of whoever was next. Sumner, like so many before him, would drop from sight and join the ranks of the brokenhearted, dismissed with a wave of my sister’s impatient hand.
Chapter Five
Every week, my father takes me out for dinner on Thursday night. It’s our special time together, or so my mother used to call it right after the divorce, a term taken straight from Helping Your Kids through a Divorce or Survival Guide for Abandoned Families or any other of the endless books that grouped themselves around the house in those first few months, guiding us along unknown territory. Each time, he pulls up in front of the house and waits, not beeping the horn, until I come out and down the walk, always feeling uncomfortable and wondering if my mother is watching. Ashley used to come along as well, but with the wedding so close she’d taken to bailing out every week, preferring to spend the time being comforted by Lewis or fighting with my mother about appetizers for the reception.
There are always a few minutes of awkwardness when I get into my father’s convertible and put on my seat belt, that exchanging of nervous pleasantries like we don’t know each other very well anymore. I’ve always thought he must feel like he’s crossing into enemy territory and that’s why he stays in the car with the engine running, never daring to approach the front door full-on. He usually takes me to whatever restaurant he’s frequenting that week—Italian, Mexican, a greasy bar and grill with cold beer and a bartender who knows his name. Everyone seems to know my father’s name, and at every place he takes me there’s always at least one person just dropping by, staying for a beer, talking sports and scores while I sit across the table with a ginger ale and stare at the walls. But I am used to this, have always been used to it. My father is a local celebrity and he has his public. At the supermarket, or the mall, or even on the street, I have always known to be prepared to share him with the rest of the world.
“So when’s school start up again?” he asked after a man whose name I didn’t catch finally got up and left, having rehashed the entire last four seasons of the NFL complete with erratic hand gestures.
“August twenty-fourth,” I said. This week we were at some new Italian fresh pasta place called Vengo. The ceilings were blue, with clouds painted on them, and all the waiters wore white and whisked around the jungle of ferns and potted plants that perched on every table and hung from the ceiling.
“How’s your sister holding up?”
“Okay, I guess.” I was used to these questions by now. “She has a breakdown just about every other day though.”
“So did Lorna. It must be one of those privileges of the bride.” He twirled his pasta on his fork, splattering his tie. My father was a messy eater, a boisterous kind of person, not really suited to the fancy restaurants he liked to frequent. He was the perfect patron, though, with his long-winded stories and locally known sportscaster face, and now with a trophy wife to match. (Lydia Catrell’s term, not mine. I’d heard it through the vent.)
“You know,” he said after a few minutes of silence, “Lorna really wants to spend some time with you and Ashley. To get to know you better. She feels with the divorce and our wedding you three just haven’t had much of a chance to bond.”
I picked at my fettucine, not looking at him. I thought I’d done plenty with Lorna, with her bridesmaid fittings and showers and all the vacations she’d come along on even before they were engaged, plunking herself in all the places my mother used to go but not quite making it fit. Thursday nights were the only time I saw my father without her, because she had to do the six o‘clock news, the nine-thirty WeatherQuick Update, and the eleven o’clock late-night forecast. Lorna was a one-woman weather machine on Thursdays. I said, “Well, Ashley’s been really busy, and ...”
“I know.” He nodded. “But after the wedding, once things have calmed down, maybe you three can take a trip together. To the beach or something. My treat.” He smiled at me. “You’d really like her if you just gave her a chance, honey.”
“I do like her,” I said, now feeling guilty. Suddenly I was mad at Ashley for squirming out of dinner and leaving me to make peace with Lorna through our father.
“Hey, Mac McPhail!” some big voice said behind me, and a huge guy clapped his hand down on my father’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen you in a million years, you sly dog! How are ya?”
My father stood up and shook the man’s hand, grinning, and then gestured to me. “This is my daughter Haven. Haven, this is the craziest son of a bitch you’ll ever meet, Tony Trezzora. He was the biggest linebacker they ever had over there at your high school.”
I smiled, wondering how many crazy sons of bitches my father actually knew. It was how he introduced just about everyone that dropped by. I went back to my pasta as Tony Trezzora sat to join us, his big knees rattling the table so I had to steady my water glass with my hand. I was studying the size of Tony Trezzora’s neck when someone was suddenly right beside me with one of those huge pepper grinders, wielding it like a magic wand right over my food.
“Pepper, madam?”
“Oh, no,” I said, “I’m fine.”
“You look like you need some. Trust me.” Two twists and a small shower of pepper fell over my food. I looked up at the person holding the grinder and almost fell out of my chair. It was Sumner.
“Hey,” I said as he whipped another grinder out of his pocket, this one full of some white substance.
“Cheese?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I can’t believe—”
Twist, twist, and I had cheese. He was grinning at me the whole time. “You like cheese, Haven. I remember that about you.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked him. The last time I’d seen him was at the supermarket a few weeks after Ashley broke up with him. He’d been working in produce bagging kiwis and had trouble meeting my eyes even as he joked with me.
“I’m the pepper-and-cheese man.” He twisted the grinder again, just for good measure, then slipped it back into his apron pocket like a gunslinger after a shootout. “I’m also authorized to fill your water glass, if you so desire.”
“No, thanks,” I said, still staring up at him while he puttered around our table, removing empty plates and at the ready with the pepper and cheese grinders, while my father traded stats with Tony Trezzora and didn’t even notice him.
“How’s your mom?” He glanced around at the other tables, keeping an eye out.
I was so flabbergasted at seeing him, just popping up out of nowhere with cheese for my pasta. I said, “How long have you been in town?”
“Just a few weeks.” He stepped out of the way as a short girl carrying a huge tray on her shoulder staggered by, barely clearing a fern that was balanced on a ledge beside us. “I’m still in school up in Connecticut, but I’m thinking about taking some time off. I’m not sure
.”
“Really,” I said, as he started to back away, off to cheese another table. “You should—”
He waved, doing some weird hand signal that I couldn’t interpret, pantomime in retreat. I realized I was about to tell him he should call Ashley, and thought maybe it was best that he’d been walking away and hadn’t heard. She could barely handle answering the phone now, much less any major blasts from her past.
I sat and watched Sumner work his way around the restaurant, wielding his cheese and pepper mills like a professional, laughing and joking at table after table, while my father stayed lost in sports talk with the giant next to me. I kept wishing I’d said something more important, something striking, in the short conversation I’d had with the only boyfriend of Aslsley’s I’d ever really liked.
Later, when I’d finished my food, I went to find the bathroom and saw Sumner sitting in a back booth eating and counting a pile of money. He waved me over, scooting aside to make room for me to sit down, so I did.
“So tell me what’s going on with you,” Sumner said, arranging his stack of bills in a neat pile. “Besides the fact that you are tall and gorgeous.”
“Too tall,” I said.
“You are not.” He twirled some pasta around his fork and pointed it at me. “You should be grateful you’re tall, Haven. Tall people are revered and respected in this world. If you’re short and stubby, no one will give you the time of day.”
“I don’t want to be revered,” I said. “I just want to be normal.”
“There’s no such thing. Trust me. Even the people you think are super-squeaky-clean normal have something about them that’s not right.” As he said this, a tall waitress with long, shimmering blond hair passed by, winking at Sumner. He waited until she was out of earshot, then said, “Take her, for instance. She looks normal.”
I watched her disappear through double doors by the pay phone. “And you’re saying she isn’t?”
“Not specifically. I’m saying no one is. She looks like your typical blond beauty, right? But in actuality”—now he leaned closer to me, sharing secrets—“she has an extra toe.”
“She does not,” I said firmly.
“I swear to God, she does.” He went back to his pasta, nibbling. “Sandals. Just yesterday. Saw it myself.”
“Yeah, right,” I said.
He shook his head. “Well, I guess those childhood full-of-trust days are over for you, huh? You don’t believe me the way you used to.”
I watched my father talking to Tony Trezzora, his face pinkish from a few beers and a good session of male bonding. “I don’t believe a lot of things.”
The extra-toed waitress passed by again, smiling a big warm smile at Sumner, who smiled back and nodded towards her feet. I was embarrassed and concentrated on the fern that was hanging over us.
“So,” he said after a few minutes, “how’s Ashley?”
“She’s good,” I said. “She’s getting married.”
He grinned. “No kidding. Man, I never would have pegged her for the early-married type. Who is it?”
“This guy named Lewis Warsher. He works at the mall.” I wasn’t sure what else to say about Lewis. It was hard to describe him to strangers. I said, “He drives a Chevette. ”
Sumner nodded, as if this helped. “Ashley Warsher. Sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles when you say it.”
“He’s okay,” I said. “But now Ashley’s miserable ’cause the wedding’s so close and everything’s going wrong.”
“Ashley’s getting married,” he said slowly, as if it was a different language and he wasn’t sure where the syllables fell. “Man. That makes me feel old.”
“You’re not old,” I said.
“How old are you now?”
“Fifteen,” I said, then added, “I’ll be sixteen in November.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m old. I’m ancient. If you’re fifteen, I’m a senior citizen. Little Haven. Fifteen.”
My father was looking for me now, having noticed I was missing for longer than it takes to go to the bathroom. Tony Trezzora, undaunted, was still talking.
I took Sumner back to the table with me, and as we came up my father smiled and said, “There you are. I was beginning to think I’d been ditched.”
“Dad, you remember Sumner,” I said, and Sumner stuck out his hand as my father stood up to shake it. “He used to date Ashley.”
“Sumner, how’s it going?” my father said energetically, pumping Sumner’s hand within his own large one. “What have you been doing lately?”
“I’ve been in school up North,” Sumner said when my father finally let go of his hand. My father believed in the power of a strong, masculine handshake. “I’m taking the semester off, though. To work and take a break from school.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” my father said firmly, as if someone had said there was. “Working is the best learning you can do, sometimes.”
“And that’s the truth,” Tony Trezzora added.
“Well, I should get going,” Sumner said. “My next shift starts in about fifteen minutes.”
“Here?” I asked.
“Oh, no, at my other job,” he said. “One of my other ones.”
“Now that’s a work ethic,” my father said. “Take care, Sumner.”
“Good to see you again, Mr. McPhail.” He turned to me as my father sat back down to his now-cold food. Tony Trezzora made his excuses and disappeared to the bar, probably in search of another audience. Sumner said, “It’s really good to see you again, Haven. Tell Ashley ... well, if it comes up, tell her I asked about her. And congratulations. On the wedding.”
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “I know she’d want to see you.” I didn’t know this, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
He grinned. “Well, maybe not. But pass it on anyhow. Take care of yourself. Remember what I told you.” He raised his eyebrows at the six-toed waitress as she swept past again, long blond hair shimmering. “See ya.”
“’Bye, Sumner.” I watched him walk towards the front of the restaurant and then out the door, onto the street. I thought about Virginia Beach and the ride in the back of the Volkswagen under the stars, so many summers ago. As I sat back down with my father I could have sworn I heard the soft putter of the VW, the theme music, curving above the noise and mingled voices of the restaurant, just as I’d last heard it outside my window on that night, long ago.
In the car on the way home I looked over at my father, his new hair fluttering in the breeze, and said, “Wasn’t it great to see Sumner again?”
“You know, I’m not sure I remember which one Sumner was. Was he the football player?”
“Daddy.” I looked at him. “I can’t believe you don’t remember him. You really liked him.”
“Oh, honey, I liked them all. I had to.” He laughed, taking the turn into our neighborhood just fast enough to squeal the tires a little bit. My mother said his personalized license plate should not read MAC, as it did, but MIDLIFE CRISIS. I tried to tell her that was too many letters, you could only have eight, but she said that wasn’t the point. He added, “They all run together in my head now. There were too damn many of them.”
“Sumner was different,” I said. “He went to Virginia Beach with us, remember? When you did that golf tournament and we stayed in that nice hotel?”
He squinted, as if it took great effort to reach so far back. Then he said, quickly, “Oh yeah. I remember that. He was a nice kid.”
And that was all my father, with his selective grasp of the past, chose to remember. He was skittish whenever I brought up the past, our vacations, family events. He was eager to start over—brand-new wife, brand-new house, brand-new memories, the old carelessly tucked away.
We pulled into the driveway, right beside Lewis’s Chevette, which was parked with the motor off and he and Ashley still in it. As we slid up beside them Ashley looked over, with a scowl that told me they were fighting and not to get involved. Unfortunately
, my father is not skilled in reading my sister’s expressions: he was waving at her. She just looked at him; Lewis slumped beside her.
“They’re fighting,” I explained. “Thanks for dinner.”
My father sighed and put his car into reverse. “See you next week.” He kissed my cheek when I leaned over. I waited a beat for what I knew came next. “Need any money?”
“No, I’m fine.” I never took it, even when I did need it. Ashley always said she just couldn’t take any even though it had been a hard month and her credit card was due ... well, okay, just this once. She had it down to an art. I would have felt strange taking my father’s pocket money, a twenty slipped here or there to make up for his day-to-day absence. Besides, I had my four twenty-five an hour at Little Feet, no big deal but enough to get me by. It would have been nice to have an extra bit, but whenever I felt tempted I thought of my mother’s face and said no. The tether, stretching beyond my mother and out of the house, was always attached and I was ever mindful of where my obligations lay.
I stood in the driveway as my father pulled away hitting the horn twice, that happy beep-beep! as he turned out of sight. I started up the walk towards the door, Ashley’s voice now audible without the rumbling of my father’s car.
“Lewis, that’s not the point. The point is that you didn’t do anything to stop it.” I recognized the tone, the clipped ends of each word, like speaking right into a wall. “I just didn’t think you’d ever act that way. I assumed you’d defend me.”
“Honey, I don’t think it was as bad as you’re making it out to be. They were only giving their opinion. They didn’t mean it to be some kind of attack.”
“Well, Lewis, if you can’t even see why it was so upsetting to me, then I guess I can’t expect you to understand why it bothers me that you didn’t take the action that I thought, as my fiance, you would take.”
A silence, with just the cicadas chirping and the TV from our next-door neighbors, the Bensons, playing the theme song from “Bewitched.” I kept walking until I was out of sight on the porch, then took off my shoes and sat on the steps.