Summer Hours Read online

  When Donny reached the old eucalyptus tree where our school grounds became the park, he jumped and hit a branch. Clocking out for the day.

  Donny set his own hours, while I waited obediently for a bell to release me.

  2

  Floating

  I was downtown by 3:03. I passed Kemper’s Varia-T, where kids were already swarming in for Mountain Dews and Cheetos. I passed the poster of sundaes in mini plastic baseball caps at Baskin-Robbins, where Serra scooped ice cream. Bernadine’s Closet, the “Fine Women’s Shoppe.” (Spangled, waistless getups, bridge mints, rose hand cream thick as bathroom caulk.) In seventh grade Serra and I invented a game called Least Hideous where we’d evaluate Bernadine’s mannequins and pick the outfit we’d wear if forced.

  A quick turn past the town square and there was the Stay Wag, right where they’d promised. They’d offered to stay behind with me, but I’d told them to stick with the plan. “Save yourselves, make me proud,” I’d said.

  I hopped in behind Eric, still in his green-and-white PE uniform. “How’d the escape go?”

  He turned around and smiled over his headrest, growling, “We’re such rebels.” In his normal voice he continued, “Cops on our tail, Becc?”

  “You’re safe.”

  Serra pulled away from the curb. “I’m disappointed. I didn’t even have to say I was going to the girls’ room. Mr. Reynolds fucking waved at me when I left. He was helping someone with the lathe.”

  “Mrs. LeBaron was so busy collecting cones from the dribble drill I could’ve done back handsprings across the field and she wouldn’t have noticed.” Eric flipped on the radio. “Not that I can do a back handspring.”

  “At least you cut.” I cranked down my window. The air was hot as a blow-dryer but I tilted my head into it, lifting my ponytail to dry the back of my neck. “I’m a tragic case. Every time I thought of you guys swimming I got sweatier.”

  Eric shook his overlong black hair so I could see it was dry. “Not so sure about your detective skills there, Becc.”

  “You waited?” I said. “I’m touched. So what’d you do instead?”

  Serra shuddered. “Eric dragged me to see The Fly. I’m traumatized.”

  I laughed. “We watched Red Asphalt. Much scarier.”

  “Do one thing a day that scares you,” Eric said. “Mr. California told me that’s his life motto. Inspiring, huh?”

  Serra and I exchanged a quick look in the rearview mirror.

  Mr. California was Eric’s mother’s new live-in boyfriend. Six years younger and six shades blonder than her. His real last name was McCallister, and everyone called him Cal.

  Mr. California: rich, expert sailor, casual investor in a fleet of tech startups, killer backhand. Possibly/probably the reason for the Logans’ sudden split earlier this year, though Eric had been vague on the exact sequence of events.

  Eric spent most of his free time at my house now, so I’d never met Mr. California. But I’d seen him in his convertible from my bedroom window.

  Most residents of The Heights, the gated community where Eric lived, chose their Lexuses, Mercedes, and Porsches in dignified black or gray, or practical, heat-deflecting white. Mr. California’s car was metallic turquoise blue, jeweled in chrome.

  My house sat across the street from The Heights’ gate, and from six until eight every morning, as I studied at my desk, a line of commuters descended the hill. Sometimes Mr. California’s car appeared at 7:07 and sometimes at 7:58. I didn’t catch it every day. But if I spotted that flashy vintage convertible heading toward me, I gave myself a study break so I could watch it. A drop of water sliding down the dry hill. Cool and smooth. I waited until its tanned, blond driver waved and smiled at the security guard—he always did, unlike most of his neighbors—before returning to my books.

  It felt like a game, like a good luck start to my day. Nothing more than that.

  But I’d never told Eric.

  “Isn’t he a wise papa?” Eric said. “Darling papa.”

  “He really said that, something scary every day?” I asked. “So he’s jumping out of airplanes or cage fighting or whatever every day?”

  “He does that Escape from Alcatraz triathlon,” said Eric. “My role model.” He punched the radio presets until he got KROQ. “Mr. Jones” was on.

  “Not again,” Serra moaned.

  But I sang along under my breath as we left downtown.

  We passed the turnoff for Orchard Hill, where the graceful old homes like Francine Haggermaker’s hid behind mature trees. The new palaces, like The Heights, sprawled farther from town each year, secluded behind gates. Their expensive baby trees racing to catch up with the fully grown ones on Orchard Hill.

  Orange Park was booming. Families came for our schools and low crime rate and gigantic empty lots. They built his-and-hers master closets bigger than my mom’s whole bedroom, and bathrooms with two bidets, and slapped Italian tile on anything that didn’t move.

  When we were on Bird of Paradise Way, Serra asked, “Need to run in for your stuff?”

  “No, I wore my suit.” I gazed out the window to my left, at my dear, hopelessly unfashionable brown ranch house.

  As we passed the gate to The Heights, Eric waved out the window at the guard in his little white booth.

  Just like Mr. California.

  To me, he was only a wave from a car, a drop of blue, a flash of light on white-blond hair. He seemed so sunny, such an unlikely villain.

  I guess that only made Eric hate him more.

  * * *

  Serra pulled into the sagging carport of the LaSalle Villas. The apartments formed a rectangle around the mucky outdoor pool, which Serra called “divorcée soup” because most of her neighbors were in various stages of marital splittage.

  “Last one in...” Eric slammed his car door and ran to the gate, peeling off his PE shirt. He didn’t wait for Serra’s key. We all knew how to get into the LaSalle Villas pool by reaching over and jiggling the latch. Before the gate clanged shut behind him, Eric hooted and splashed.

  I shot off, calling, “Race you.”

  Serra yelled, “No fair, track star.” My flip-flops and the gate slowed me down but Serra never stood a chance. I’d just run the 200 in 25.2 at the county meet.

  When I got to the courtyard Eric was already underwater, gliding along the white concrete bottom, collecting rings left behind by someone’s kid. Nobody else was there—no divorcée soup today. I stripped to my turquoise suit and jumped into the deep end.

  Always, that panic in your confused belly as you fall, before the water catches you. Then sweet quiet.

  Eric swam close to me and made a puffin face, his overgrown black hair floating around his head like when he’d touched the Van de Graaff generator on the science center field trip sophomore year. His long hairy legs kicked away and then Serra’s smooth, rounder ones splashed down. She treaded water, like she was riding an invisible bicycle.

  I stayed down in the cold and quiet until I couldn’t stand it, until the pressure in my lungs got to me and I had to push off for the surface.

  “Heaven,” called Serra, back floating.

  Eric sat in the shallow end, scooping dead bees out of the pool with cupped hands, flinging them to the bushes on jet trails of water.

  For a long time the only sounds were Eric’s splashes and a radio playing The Cranberries on the second floor.

  Then Serra climbed out and dried herself with her T-shirt. “Snack time. Back in a sec.”

  I tipped off my raft and dipped under the handrail to join Eric on the steps.

  “How’s home, E?” I examined the inside of the plastic drain: a Band-Aid and more bee carcasses. I never looked at him when I asked about home.

  “Dandy.”

  “Are your parents still using you as message boy?”

  He pushed his we
t hair off his forehead into a wall of absurd, spiky bangs.

  “Can’t you talk to them? Explain how it sucks for you?”

  He shrugged. “I’m out of there in twelve days.”

  “Twelve? I thought you weren’t leaving till September!”

  “I decided to do early-start.” He closed his eyes and sank into the pool.

  It was Eric’s last summer. Our last summer. And now we didn’t even have July.

  He couldn’t wait to take off for Rhode Island, putting ten states between him and his parents, his role as go-between, the bad daytime drama of the past year. All the adult poison within the fancy iron gates of The Heights.

  The Heights. It even sounded like a soap.

  Eric’s home made me appreciate mine. It was only me and my mom, and the only passion she indulged was for her latest shipment of seed packets from Gold Thumb Gardening Depot. My mom tended our flowers herself, unlike our neighbors in The Heights, who hired certified landscape engineers to present “design concepts.”

  Eric burst up, a skinny leviathan with wet hair pasted over his eyebrows.

  I ran my hand in the water along the quivering oval shadow of his head. “I’m sorry, E.”

  “How can you feel sorry for someone who can do an underwater handstand like this? Time me.” He shot away from the steps. His size-fourteen feet wiggled above the surface as he balanced on his hands, as confident as a Cirque du Soleil artist.

  I started doing one-Mississippis in my head and lost count, drifting closer to him.

  He fluttered his legs and tipped over, then bobbed up next to me, spitting water and cocking his head to clear his ears. “Well?”

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  “Liar. You didn’t time me.”

  “I’m feeling lazy.”

  “Too lazy to time me, hanging out with truants. Hardly behavior worthy of the Francine Haggermaker Scholar. Next you’ll be injecting H with those guys behind the dumpsters in MacArthur Park.”

  “That’s the plan for tomorrow.”

  “Sweet. I’ll come with you. Blow off my mom’s asinine grad barbecue.”

  “I think we have to make an appearance.”

  Eric shaped his wet hair into a ’50s pompadour and raised his eyebrows like James Dean.

  “I love it,” I laughed.

  “I know I won Best Hair.”

  Eric had not won Orange Park High 1994 Best Hair, Male. He often ran out the door without even pasting his hair down with water, resulting in a bouncing top layer propped up by cowlicks. I wouldn’t change it. But I’d tallied Senior Superlative votes for the yearbook, and Best Hair, Male had gone to Chris Pettigrew, a snotty blond golf phenom.

  “Don’t be too bummed if you don’t win.” I swam away.

  “Those bastards! Who got it?” he called, following me to the deep end.

  “Not telling. You’ll put gum in his hair.”

  Eric and I treaded water, facing each other. He batted at a yellow leaf floating between us. I batted it back. We sloshed it back and forth a few times. We figured out how, if you gently pushed the water from a few inches behind it, the leaf rode the waves like a mini surfer.

  He swam closer, so close I could see how his long black eyelashes had clumped into triangles around his brown eyes. “How’s Becc?” he asked quietly.

  “Happy, now.”

  “What’s that?” Eric touched my shoulder while his other hand carved fast figure eights to keep him afloat. That oddly quiet voice, again.

  So serious for Eric.

  His fingers rested lightly on my left shoulder, where the ribbon for hanging my bathing-suit top had come out.

  “Oh, I keep forgetting to snip those,” I said. His fingers stayed put, toying with the wet satin ribbon. “It’s for hanging up my suit.”

  I ran on, panting harder, focusing on a spot two inches above his steady brown eyes. “I hate those suckers. I mean, I guess it’s a nice gesture on the part of the apparel industry, but I wish I could tell them, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”

  “You’ve shown me encyclopedias of girl info,” he said softly, caressing the ribbon. “How else would I learn about the courtesy hanger loops?”

  “I’m the sister you never had.”

  “A sister. Let me get back to you on that one.” He tugged the ribbon once and stared at me, unsmiling, while our heads bobbed up and down.

  My face flushed. At the clang of the gate he removed his hand, slapping something on the water.

  “A feast of junk food,” Serra called. She had two more rafts under her arms, towels around her neck like Rocky, a green plastic mixing bowl brimming with snacks.

  I swam over to inventory the food, grateful for something to do. Pringles and gummy candy from the Sweet Shed and lemonade Capri Sun bags from the freezer.

  Shaky, I punctured the top of a silver bag with a straw and sipped hard. I got a few syrupy pulls, followed by chunks of bland slush. “Capri Suns make me feel like I’m in NASA. Bathroom?” I asked Serra, wrapping myself in a yellow beach towel.

  “Door’s unlocked,” she called.

  I felt Eric watching me as I fled, leaving wet footprints on the burning concrete.

  Serra and her parents had a ground-floor unit set close to the street, so anyone on the sidewalk could see their high, rippled bathroom shower window. They could even make out the brands of shampoo and conditioner. That was about as poor as it got in Orange Park now. Serra’s dad ran the mail room of a tech startup, and her mom worked as a part-time doctor’s office receptionist.

  Tyrant, her cat, leapt off the couch when I walked in. He crossed the living room to me, stretching every couple of steps, lordly and unhurried. I bent down to let him see my hand, waggling my fingers under his muzzle before scratching his ears, the way Serra had shown me years before. Serra said cats hate it when you descend on them with no warning, like an alien invader.

  Tyrant followed me into Serra’s room, winding himself around my legs. I sat on the bed and tucked the white satin ribbon into my bathing suit.

  Serra had a picture on her nightstand. It was the same one I had on my dresser, the same one Eric had on his bulletin board. My mom had taken it after the Senior Awards ceremony and made copies for us.

  Five-foot-one Serra in the middle, on tiptoe, her arms stretched to our shoulders. Eric and I hunching to even things out, the sun flashing off my glasses and the plaque in my hand. All three of us laughing.

  My mom called us the Three Mouseketeers.

  The three of us had been best friends for all four years of high school.

  Eric spent so much time at my house his sweatshirts ended up in our wash. He and my mom had whole bits they’d do about me, my neatness and coconut addiction and the shredded scrap of pillowcase I’d slept with since I was four.

  And now, two weeks before flying away, he was suddenly all eye contact and tender gestures.

  * * *

  When I came out Eric lay on a raft, hands over his stomach. “I really shouldn’t have eaten that last rat, Becc,” he said, as if everything was the same.

  I forced a laugh. “You just wanted to say that.” Translation: Let’s go back in time to twenty minutes ago, before you touched my naked shoulder.

  I jumped onto an orange raft. The three of us swam and floated and waited for the next song on the radio. Time fell away in four-minute increments, until the sun dropped below the roofline of Serra’s building.

  The radio ads came faster. It was almost commute time, and soon we wouldn’t have the pool to ourselves.

  3

  Truants

  The next day

  WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE | The grad barbecue at Eric’s

  WHERE I WAS | Consorting with the enemy

  Eric’s mom had gone for an Old West theme, with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and servers i
n bandanna neckerchiefs. But the faux down-home look had a hundred little flourishes that said money.

  Warm, lemony finger towels waited by the rib station, and misters released a perfectly calibrated fog, cool enough to shield us from the ninety-eight-degree afternoon but light enough to preserve hairstyles. Silver goody bags held dark chocolate truffles shaped like graduation caps, custom-ordered from a store in Santa Monica. The food was delicious, the tiered backyard beautiful—everything snipped to perfection.

  Behind our hostess’s back, the sweating waiters tugged at their hokey red cravats. And if you didn’t count Francine Haggermaker (and I didn’t), the guests were Mrs. Logan’s friends, not ours.

  I wanted to jump into the cobalt-tiled pool nobody was using, or teleport up to Eric’s room, where he’d fled with Serra ages ago, beckoning me to follow.

  Mrs. Haggermaker’s gray eyes had been tracking me, so I’d stayed. She sat in state under a mister, in a wicker armchair that seemed somehow more imposing than the others, while I attended her from the ottoman at her knees.

  “How do you know the family?” She nodded at Eric’s mom.

  Mrs. Logan was laughing, surrounded by a visored group from the country club. She was hard to miss, even in a sea of other yoga-and-tennis-toned OC blondes, because she was even taller than me.

  Mrs. Haggermaker’s expression was inscrutable, but there was a micro pause between the and family; she knew about the divorce. Possibly the affair. She would still accept Mrs. Logan’s invitations—she wouldn’t have her booted from the garden club or hospital board; everyone involved was rich enough to ensure this level of gentility—but the minor scandal hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  “Eric Logan has been one of my best friends since we were fourteen.”

  “I see.”

  There was a long silence, so I scrambled for small talk. “That’s a pretty pin. Is it a cornflower?”

  She touched the stickpin on her chest. “Forget-me-not. My late husband’s, from his lodge.” She’d also worn the pin, gold topped with a five-petaled blue flower, the night of the awards ceremony. It was the same blue as the ever-present hair ribbon secured around her bun.