Rainy Season (5 page)

I try not to look at Steph, who’s biting on her lips to keep from laughing. Instead I chew at the skin around my nails and look at Rat, who nods for me to begin.

“A poem about winter and summer,” I announce, like I’m in front of a classroom. I know the poem by heart because it was Emily’s and my favorite. She taught it to me and we used to say it together whenever it snowed in Rhode Island. I don’t know why we did exactly, except that when snow is falling out of the sky it feels good to shout out something together to celebrate.

But then I start thinking about that broken, dead old bat in its toilet paper shoebox, in a cardboard coffin in the ground that we’re going to leave all by itself forever. A sick cramp grabs hold of my stomach and then I can’t get the poem past my lips. In my mind, I’m running over the paper-white lawn of our house, my mittened hand connected tight to Emily’s, and we’re singing the poem into the night while snowflakes sting and drip down our faces. But then, instead of snow, it’s Robin who’s falling, and his awful, high-frequency screaming is everywhere. The screaming gets louder and louder, filling my ears.

“Come on, Lane. It’s hot.” Steph’s smirking eyes are on me.

A prickle of sweat breaks across my hairline. “A poem about winter and summer,” I repeat. I look down at my sandals. I just know that Steph is rolling her eyes at Rat.

“Are you sure you don’t you know any poems about dead things, Lane?” Rat asks me suddenly. “Like by those ladies who wrote stuff and then killed themselves?”

“Stop talking, you wink.” Steph smoothes some damp vines of hair back from her sweaty face. “You’re wrecking the funeral.”

“Excuse me for living,” Rat grumbles, but I can tell he feels like a doofus. “Sorry, Lane, go ahead.”

I cross my arms, cupping my elbows with opposite hands, and breathe in deep through my nose and mouth so I can say it all out at once.

“In Winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candlelight.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree.

Or hear the grown-up people’s feet

Still going past me on the street.”

It’s not until the last line of the poem that I feel the spurt of pain through the insides of my arms and I realize that my fingernails have broken and dug through my own skin.

“Is it done?” Rat asks.

“The end.” I nod. I drop my hands. I want to cry. Sometimes I think I miss Emily too much.

For a moment, we all stare at the puke yarn cross and the heap of mashed-down orange dirt.

“Let’s eat,” says Steph.

M
RS. WAGNER PREPARES WHAT
my mom and dad call chemical food, but what Charlie and I always crusade for whenever we go along with one of them to the commissary. At each of our places is a peanut-butter-and-grape-jelly sandwich on chewy white Wonder bread cut into four triangles, barbecue potato sticks, and a package of Devil Dogs. Beside each plate is a cup of fruit cocktail, not the found-in-the-jungle-and-chunk-chopped-by-Marita kind, but the pastel-colored floating in heavy syrup good kind. We have our choice of Ovaltine or Tang.

“This looks great!” I say to Mrs. Wagner, who is hovering around the table, staring hard at the food like she forgot something.

“Do you want raviolis, too, sweetie?” she asks me. “Because it’s easy enough to open a couple of cans …”

“We’re okay, Mom.” Rat flicks her away with his fingers and picks up a triangle of sandwich. Mrs. Wagner retreats through the swinging door, back into the kitchen.

“She’s so annoying,” Steph says to Rat and we begin feasting on the chemical lunch.

“I’d like some raviolis, though,” comments Rat after a few minutes. “Hey, Mom!” Immediately Mrs. Wagner pops back in the dining room, like a genie. She waves a letter in one hand.

“Oh, you’ll just never guess what’s going on in the States on ‘General Hospital’!” she breathes. “Aunt Patty—” she waves the letter. “Aunt Patty just filled me in on the whole scoop! I’ve got to call everyone!”

“I want raviolis,” Rat whines. Mrs. Wagner blinks and stares at him for a moment, as if she’s trying to refocus her excitement.

“Oh, right. Let me just heat some up for you and then I’ll call the … I can’t believe it! They eloped! I thought that might happen, I sure did, but to know … so, yes, sorry, Ray sugar, I’ll be right in with the raviolis.” She wanders back into the kitchen, her nose buried inside the letter.

“Mom says the first thing she’s going to do when she gets back to the States is just sit down in front of the television for about two weeks straight and catch up on her soap operas,” Steph says. Her mouth is full of cake. “I mean, it’s bad enough that TV doesn’t even come
on
here until three o’clock, but only one channel? With only Hee-Haw reruns and one soap per day? It hasn’t even been fun staying home from school this whole week, from a TV point of view.”

“How far behind is ‘General Hospital’ here, anyway?” I ask. My mom doesn’t watch those kinds of shows, not in the States and not here, so it’s nothing I ever really thought to miss.

“Like, two months. But my Aunt Patty always writes and updates her on it and on all the other shows, too. Mom’s always the last to know, though, of her friends back in the States. Sort of sad for her.” Steph shakes her head. “Poor Mom.”

Poor Mom is right, I think. I never saw a mom treated as rudely by her family as Mrs. Wagner is—like a cross between a dumb housekeeper and an old dog. One of these days, I’d like Mrs. Wagner to show a little spirit—one day just yell, “Get your own dumb old raviolis, you lazy kids! I have work to do!” and slam a couple cans to the floor. Unfortunately, most of Mrs. Wagner’s work is doing stuff like cooking up ravioli. I always have to remember not to let myself treat her like a housekeeper, too, although she pretty much invites it. Too much apologizing.

“Dan’s here!” exclaims Rat. We follow his eyes out the dining room window to see Dan Fellicetti turning into the Wagners’ walkway. Rat leaps up from the table, his knee jolting and spilling the pitcher of Tang. He ignores it though, and runs out the side door off the dining room.

“Mom!” shrills Steph. “Ray spilled!” Mrs. Wagner zips out of the kitchen holding a roll of paper towels and a damp sponge like she’s an actress making her entrance on cue.

“It’s no problem, I’ll get it,” she soothes. Outside the window, I can see Rat talking to Dan, who looks over to us and nods. Steph waves from the table. The two of them start walking back to the house.

“Dan, you hunk o’ man! Hit me!” sings Steph, holding out the flat of her palm once Dan and Rat come into the dining room. I flush; how does Steph say things like that and not feel like a dork? It’s always that way with Steph and me, though—she says the brave things, and then I get flooded with a rush of total embarrassment for her.

Dan doesn’t seem to care, though. He strikes her palm in a high-five. “Steph and Lane, the gruesome twosome. Lane, if you see Charlie today, will you ask him for my Steve Martin Wild and Crazy Guy T-shirt back? I know for a fact that he stole it from me the other day at Kobbe beach.”

“I’ll ask him.” I know for a fact that Charlie stole it, too, along with Dan’s New York Yankees hat. “I don’t think he stole yours, though. I think the one he’s been wearing is a different one.”

“Aw, whatever. Just tell him to give it back, okay?”

“I’ll tell him what you said,” I grant, and put my glass of Ovaltine up against my mouth so I won’t have to talk about it anymore.

Dan’s eyes are cow brown and soft, but he also has a row of pointy teeth like a sawblade, so he has the right face for his personality, which I would call a mix of harmless-creepy. When Charlie stole that stuff from Dan, I didn’t know why exactly, but I was sort of glad, although as his older sister I had to tell Charlie that he was basically on the road to becoming a kleptomaniac and a jailbird. That’s the thing about Charlie, though. He’ll actually
do
the crazy stuff I’d never even imagine attempting, but I usually appreciate the results.

Mrs. Wagner finishes wiping up the Tang and dashes back into the kitchen, returning with a big bowl of raviolis and another place setting for Dan. He quickly starts dishing up a helping without even a thank-you.

“Great raviolis,” I tell her, to make up for Dan. Mrs. Wagner looks startled, then smoothes the smile back onto her mouth.

“Eat up, dear,” she murmurs and then she’s gone again.

“You’ll see Charlie soon enough,” Rat tells Dan, “since he and Ted’ll probably be picking us up to build the war fort.”

“Good.” Dan wipes some sauce from his face with the back of his hand and then smears it across his bare leg. “Charlie’s a great kid, no questions there, but he can’t just take other people’s property.” I know Dan’s only saying Charlie’s great because I’m around; a few months ago Steph told me that Dan said Charlie was a thug who’d probably beat up his own grandparents for five bucks. When I told Charlie what Dan said, he took it as a personal insult to Mina and Pops and he pantsed Dan at recess, then kept slamming him out in Dodge ball for a week. Dan definitely does not think of Charlie as a great kid. Dan’s probably scared of Charlie. A lot of people are.

“Who is that kid you were talking about, Steph? Jason McIrish kid?” Rat asks her. “Maybe Dan knows him.”

“Jason McCullough? He lives right on Sixth Street?”

“Hey, does living on Sixth Street make you on the other side or on our side?” I ask. Steph slaps her hand over her forehead.

“Lane! Duh! The other side, of course—and that’s the totally most stupid question, it just shows how you don’t even—”

“No, not so stupid,” Rat doesn’t look at me and two spots of red appear on his cheeks. “Because Fort Bryan has an odd number of streets—eleven—some Sixth Street kids do go to our school.”

“That’s not true, Rat, no Sixth Street kids go to our school. Sixth Street is the other side. What about Heidi Carson from my Saturday gymnastics?” Steph looks mad. “She lives on Sixth and definitely doesn’t go to our school, and won’t even talk to me. Remember last week she even tried to steal—”

“Steph, if that’s the girl I’m thinking of she’s not talking to you because you called her a thumbsucker that day she—”

“I never heard of that kid, Jason McCullough,” says Dan, very loud. “You sure he lives on Sixth Street? ’Cause I definitely would know the name McCullough from my lawn mowing.”

“Yeah, he does.” Steph sounds doubtful.

“Well, I don’t know him.” Dan lifts and drops his shoulders. “Maybe you’re thinking of Kevin McCormick? Now
that
kid I know. His dad restores Corvettes.” He sucks in another spoonful of raviolis. “These are Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, right?”

“I’m gonna get a Corvette when I turn sixteen.” Rat holds out his hands like he’s gripping a steering wheel and starts making squealing driving noises. As clear as if it’s on a movie screen, this picture bursts into my mind’s eye. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the delicious cream filling of the Devil Dogs. I chew slow and slide the taste all over my mouth.
Go away,
my head whispers. My heart starts bumping along too fast, and the vision sweeps back through me.

“What kind do you want? Lane? Hey there, Lane.” I open my eyes to see everyone frowning at me.

“Huh?”

“Car,” huffs Dan impatiently. “What kind of car do you want?”

“Um, a coupe.” Like Nancy Drew. In some books she drove a sporty roadster, but in other stories it was a coupe. The coupe sounds better—more expensive, although it’s hard for me to picture one exactly.

“Not a Merc? Merc’s are the best kind of car you can get,” Rat says.
Calm down calm down,
whispers my head.
Stop thinking. Don’t think.
I tuck my sweaty hands under my legs.
Please be normal. Don’t do this, Lane,
I say to myself in my meanest inside voice.

“Besides,” Steph is saying, “a coupe can be just any old type—”

“I need to use the phone for a sec,” I say, pushing back my chair and standing. Dan, Rat, and Steph are quiet, staring at me. “Be right back.” I smile like it’s nothing.

I dash out to the living room and pick up the telephone receiver. I can’t seem to find enough air to inhale.

“Hello?”

“Mom, it’s Lane. Is Dad back?”

“Lane, don’t do this to me. I mean it.”

“Just tell me if he’s safe.”

On the other end of the phone, my mother sighs.

“Because I had a horrible flash of Dad and the jeep going over on its side. And there was fire everywhere.” My fingers are shaking. I balance the phone between my chin and shoulder and squeeze my hands together. “Marita was in the jeep, too.”

“He’s back and he’s safe, Lane. He’s safe, Marita’s safe. What else? Alexa is here, she’s safe. I’m safe, but in a minute I’m driving to the grocery store and I might spontaneously combust on the way, or get hit on the head with a big can of tuna fish in aisle B.”

“I had a bad spell.” I speak low. “The fire—it seemed like it was happening for real.” I drop down to my knees on the carpet.

“Lane, do you think you need to see Dr. Forrest again? I can make an appointment. Or what about the meditating? Why don’t I sign you up for another session at the center? We could go together.”

“No. I’m okay now.” I breathe deep. I am silently repeating my word; I try to slow the chant to the pace of my heart.

“Lane?”

“What?”

“I’m going to make an appointment anyway.”

“I won’t go. I’m okay now. Marita’s there, too?”

“She’s here, he’s here. Everyone’s here, everyone’s safe.”

“Okay, then.” I say quietly. My heart is dropping back down to its normal tap. “Oh, and Mom, Dad invited”—I cup my hand over the receiver—“Army People to the party. I didn’t tell him in time.”

“He told me. Just the Wagners, though, right?”

“I think so,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. If too many others come, we’ll just make them sit on the porch and we won’t feed them.” She laughs, mostly to get me to laugh, but I don’t. “You and Charlie be home by six for dinner. Daddy and I have to go to Major Gregory’s change of command at the Officer’s Club, but we’ll be back by seven-thirty, eight. Okay?”