That Summer

Halloween came and Sumner carved a jack-o’-lantern that was supposed to look like Ashley but turned to mush. Ashley’s had one of Sumner’s awful ties hanging off of it and dangling over the porch rail. Ashley went as Cleopatra, Sumner as a mad scientist, and Laurel Adams as Marilyn Monroe in a peroxide wig and a dress that I could tell my mother thought was entirely too tight. They took me around the neighborhood, house to house, and ate my candy; I felt like I was really doing something, being somebody, with them all around me. Afterwards they dropped me off at home and Ashley kissed my forehead, which she never did, and then they were gone, puttering down the street with the light catching the blond in Laurel’s wig and turning it silver, I sat up and watched my father scare the hell out of all the trick,or,treaters with his monster mask until everyone had gone home and I got sent to bed and ate candy in the dark. I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard them outside.

First the car coming up the street and pulling into the driveway, and then Ashley’s voice, harsh. “I don’t care, Sumner. Just go, okay?”

“How can you do this?” He sounded strange, not like himself. I sat up in bed.

“It’s done.” A car door slammed. “Leave me alone.”

“You can’t just walk off like that, Ash.” His voice was bumpy, breathless, like he was moving around the yard after her. “At least let’s talk about it.”

“I’m not talking.” Her feet were stomping up the front steps. “Let it go, Sumner. Just forget it.”

“‘Forget it.’ Shit, I can’t forget it, Ashley. This isn’t something you can just wipe away like that.”

“Sumner, leave me alone.” I could hear her fumbling with the key. “Just go. Please. Just go.”

A pause, long enough for her to have gotten in the house, but she was still out there. Then, “Come on.” It was Sumner.

“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.