The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  She’d dreamed that she’d been away for a time and had returned to the apartment tired, ready to sleep. As she’d walked through the living room, she’d seen some small, dark shape moving, something, out of the corner of her eye, but hadn’t paid attention, eager to get to bed. The carpeting, a sad, dull-blue shag that ran the length of the apartment, had been teeming with lice, with bugs, with what appeared to be tiny snakes or worms, but that hadn’t seemed weird; she’d made a note of it, is all, and gone to bed. She’d slept, and woken to streaks of sunshine laying across her bed. She was wearing her mother’s warm, ragged terry robe, although she couldn’t remember borrowing it or putting it on, and she’d headed out of her room, down the short hall, thinking that the carpet must have been cleaned, there were no bugs, no tiny snakes or worms—and she’d seen her mother lying on the floor of the living room, dressed in a thin nightgown. Her face was turned away, and Amanda approached her slowly, pulling the robe tight, starting to feel a terrible dread.

  Her mother wasn’t asleep, or dead; she was staring at the far wall, a distant, dreamy smile on her face, her eyes open and unblinking. A sleek rat sat next to her face, cleaning its whiskers with tiny, skeletal paws, its dark fur greasy and thick, and the dread was spinning up into something worse, something bigger; her mother hated rats—

  Grace Young sat up abruptly, holding her arms out to her daughter. “Give us a kiss, baby,” she said, and Amanda felt an incredible darkness wash through her. Terror, but also an aching recognition that her mother was lost to her, now and forever. She covered her eyes and started to cry, because she knew that she would have to kiss her mother, she had to, and it would be the death of her…and when she dropped her shaking fingers a beat later, was in the dark, outside at night. Not alone, though.

  There were trees, and what looked like part of a building—Amanda thought vaguely that it was the restroom block up at the fairgrounds—and very little light but enough to see. From nearby, a couple of hundred yards behind her, maybe, she heard music and people, a background thing. She could smell the sea and trees and wood smoke—and in a clearing not twenty feet in front of her, two, three dark figures were bent over a fourth, down on the ground and draped in shadow. The fourth was on her back on the ground, struggling.

  I was dreaming about my mother, she thought, confused.

  “Hold her!” Low but perfectly audible, a shouted whisper from one of the group.

  “Fuck, she’s strong—”

  “Shut the fuck up! Do it!”

  She knew that voice, that angry, whispered shout. It was Brian Glover, linebacker for the Isley High Cougars and the biggest asshole in the universe. And two of the Dicks, his toadies, probably Todd and Ryan. The three of them had been on probation together since beating the crap out of an eighthgrader last fall. The kid had been hospitalized, and they hung tight. It was obvious what they were about to do, what they had already begun, and Amanda felt sick. She was dreaming, but this wasn’t hers, this hadn’t existed in her mind before. It was as alien as her vision of Lisa Meyer had been, like having someone else’s memory, their nightmare.

  The woman was mostly silent as she fought, either because one of them had a hand over her mouth or because she was saving her breath for the struggle, Amanda couldn’t see—but one of the boys pulled his arm back and hit her, hard, and after that the struggle was mostly over. Amanda saw one of the boys stand up, heard a zipper, heard a laugh—not an evil chuckle but a happy, drunken laugh. They were enjoying themselves; she could feel it, like the frenetic, joyful energy of a party. That was when Amanda started to cry again, because although she opened her mouth wide and screamed as loud as she could, there was no sound. She could hear people, was close enough to them that she saw by the light their revelry cast, but she was a ghost, ineffectual, a voyeur and nothing more. She had kissed her mother after all, and had not survived, and it was the saddest thing she’d ever known. With her new reality just taking hold, she drew in another breath to scream, to force the sound into the world—and woke up.

  She scruffed at her hair and made a small sound of aggravation and despair. The frustration she felt was huge. She wanted to reject the dream, of course; it was crazy and…well, crazy. Fucking psycho nutbag, but it had also been like the vision she’d had about Lisa Meyer and Mr. Billings. The one that had turned out to be true, that had kept her sticking close to the apartment for the last week. The rape dream had come with the feeling of personal knowledge, of awareness of fact as it related to her—subjective, like Devon had said. Whatever she had experienced before, this was the same.

  Brian Glover and the Dicks—Devon had bestowed the title on the local bully asshead and his pals years before, and the name had stuck, like a band name—they were going to rape someone at the fairgrounds. In the dark.

  What about the rest of it? The part about her mother, that had to be some kind of regular dream thing, symbolic, or whatever. She didn’t want to turn into her mother. Peter was probably the rat, who fucking knew. What Amanda knew, what she believed, was that the rape was going to happen.

  “Town picnic,” she muttered, sitting up straighter in bed. The big annual picnic was today at the fairgrounds. Everyone went. They did lunch, a big, usually lame-ass show in the afternoon—high school band, a presentation from the drama fags, some acoustic hippie from the artist colony—and then dinner. And drinks, big-time; the Trumans usually sponsored a couple/five kegs, although they only gave out drink tickets to the summer people and their own snotty clientele; everyone else got ridiculously overcharged. Anyone in town with a good or service to sell showed up to schmooze…and for the disaffected youth of the small community, it was a chance to meet new blood, to seek out others of their own kind. To create some summer memories, stories that could be retold throughout the long, boring winter. The picnic ran until eleven, wrapping with a moldy-oldie rock show. Well after dark.

  Shit. She had to tell someone; she had to do something. She looked at the clock again. She couldn’t call anyone, not now. Except for Devon, she couldn’t think of anyone to call. And waking up her mother…even if Grace wasn’t dead-to-the-world drunk—which was extremely unlikely—what could she do about anything? Believe her daughter? Call the cops? Provide comfort? Fat fucking chance times three.

  Amanda had been thinking that she’d bag the picnic this year, after what had happened at Pam’s house. A couple of the kids who’d been there had tried to reach her—Ally Fergus had called twice—but she’d dodged the calls, determined to avoid the whole thing. Even Devon had mostly dropped it; there was nothing else to say, nothing to figure out, and once the initial shock had worn off, she hadn’t been able to come to any conclusions about anything. She’d foreseen a death, and that person had died, and after most of a dull, reality-based week in her mother’s crappy apartment, she’d kind of given up on revelation.

  Plus, Brooks might show. Her ex-boyfriend. Her only real boyfriend. Brooks lived in Port Angeles. They’d met at last year’s picnic and dated for almost five months before she’d realized he was pretty much a moron. Plenty of good reasons to skip the picnic this year.

  But that woman…

  She would go. She and Devon would figure out something, some way to tell somebody…they’d stop it from happening.

  Amanda eased back against the pillow and took a few deep breaths. OK. OK, she was going to do something. They could tell Chief Vincent that Brian stole something, or assaulted somebody. The truth was obviously not an option, but—

  —but yeah, it is, she thought. There had been witnesses to her freak-out at the party. She didn’t particularly relish the thought of trying to explain what had happened—or how seeing the future was even possible, since she had exactly no clue—but they’d have to take her seriously if she could prove she’d done it before. Wouldn’t they? Or was that hopelessly naive?

  It wouldn’t come to that. She’d think of something, or Devon would. They had to.

  Amanda closed her eyes to think, sure she wouldn’t sle
ep again, and spent a solid fifteen minutes coming up with plans and discarding them before drifting off again. She slept deeply and without dreams until late in the morning, until people were already gathering at the fairgrounds for the town picnic.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Inconsiderate bitch, Rick thought, looking at his watch again. Again, because Sadie was late, almost certainly fluttering around with the fucking details, even after he’d told her ten times—at least—that the details weren’t a big deal. It was a picnic. No one gave a shit if the crackers on the salmon trays went above or below the fish; no one gave a shit if the mint leaf arrangement on the potato salad made a flower or not. Well, OK, considering their target audience, maybe they would, but that wasn’t the point. The point was they were going to care a fuckload more if the food wasn’t there. They’d care enough to wander over to the other side, faggots, they’ll go right over there to those cocksuckers’ goddamn tapas buffet and fill up, and we’re fucked for the summer. And, as an afterthought, bitch.

  All the town’s eateries were selling food for minimal fees—even with the council footing a hefty portion of the bill, they had to charge something or every white-trash family in three counties would be lining up—but Poisson had stocked up for full lunch and dinner crowds. They had crates of fine food ready to go in the walk-in at the restaurant to impress the summer people into buying their wine and high-fiber organic scones at the shop, into choosing Le Poisson for the season. Both of the head chefs and all the Truman’s deli prep workers had been at it for the better part of a week, and now all anyone would remember was Elson’s foray into Spanish appetizers, because Sadie was fucking late.

  Rick was at the top of the service drive, near the line of cars that were stacking up on Bayside to park in the fairground lots. Teenage town boys weaved in and out of the line, took money from drivers and pointed to the open tracts of packed dirt to the east or south. There were a lot of SUVs and more than a few hybrids, summer cars ferried over for the season, but Rick barely saw them. He watched the turn for their truck, for the first delivery, which should have been unpacked and set out an hour ago. Josh was back at the table now, watching the ice melt and making excuses.

  He thought about calling again, even reached for his cell, but he’d already left two messages on Sadie’s voice mail in addition to the half dozen unanswered texts. She wasn’t at the restaurant, and he didn’t want to call the shop; he’d already totally bitched out Randy, who’d simply had the misfortune to answer the kitchen phone. She just left, he’d said, but it had already been more than twenty-five minutes, it was a fiveminute drive, and where the fuck was she?

  Fuck it. He unpocketed the cell and stabbed the redial. Beeping. Nothing. He punched another button and fumed through her bland and tiresome message. God, she was wound tight. Even her voice, that tense, nasal pitch, as if the horrible strain of trying to sound like a friendly, easygoing person was strangling her.

  “You’ve reached Sadie Parris-Truman, co-owner of Le Poisson and Truman’s Specialty Edibles. I’m unable to take your call right now, but if you leave your name, number, and the time you called, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you.”

  Beep. “Sadie, where are you?” He took a deep breath, tried to control his tone a little better. With things the way they were on the Eleanor development deal and the ordering expansion coming up, he couldn’t afford to lose her goodwill.

  “Sweetheart, I know how you like to get caught up in the arrangements, but people are already heading in, and I really wanted to have everything set up in advance.” He forced a laugh into his voice. “You know how I get. If you get this, hurry up, OK?”

  He cut the call, cursing under his breath. Bitch. Fucking inconsiderate uptight rich bitch.

  Rich. That one little word canceled out the rest of them. He couldn’t afford to leave her, and if she left him he’d be royally screwed. The latter was a possibility, he sometimes thought; their marriage was a dry and stale affair, and he didn’t doubt that she was bored…but she was comfortable enough, and he meant to keep it that way. He worked hard, he took care of the business end of things, he had a place in the small town’s political arena, just like her Daddy’d had, God rest his rotten soul. No fucking around, either; Port Isley was too small, and he was too busy, anyway. He had no overtly bad habits and was known to provide occasional servicing in the bedroom, with a smile. If she’d take her ridiculous head out of her own narcissistic ass for a single minute and take a real good look, she’d realize he didn’t even like her, let alone love her—but as that never, ever happened, their marriage was essentially sound.

  He was about two heartbeats from turning around, heading back to the service lot to get the pickup and go to Poisson himself, when he saw their van join the line of cars.

  There was her pinched face behind the wheel, and when she saw him, she gave a cheery wave, as if she was right on time. He raised his hand in turn, deciding for the millionth time that he would leave as soon as the suit settled on the Eleanor deal. That money would be his, all of it. Then he’d hire the best divorce attorney alive and see what he could do about getting a few other things put in his name.

  The cars crept forward, and then she was turning in to the drive, crunching to a stop so that he could climb in.

  “It looks like those murders didn’t dampen anyone’s appetite,” she said brightly.

  “No, everyone came,” he said, aware that he sounded strained, unable to help it. “Early, too.”

  “Honey, I’m so sorry about the time,” she said. She smiled at him again, the van idling. “But wait till you see the prosciutto. Remember how I was telling you I didn’t like the arrangement, that it wasn’t just perfect? I stopped at the shop and had Katie redo the melon. It came out—”

  “Just drive,” he snapped, the relief of saying it immediately overshadowed by the need to backpedal. He smiled, exhaled heavily.

  “I love you, honey, but you’re late. Didn’t you get my messages? We’ve got to get set up.”

  “Of course,” she said, and the chill in her tone, in her look as the van lurched forward, told him he’d better step it up.

  “I’m sorry if I snapped at you, sweetheart,” he said, reaching over to pat her bony knee. “I’m sure everything looks beautiful. You know how I get.”

  She nodded sullenly, not answering, her concentration fixed on the narrow drive as it wound toward the service ahead, the van inching forward.

  “I just want everyone to see what you’ve done,” he added. “This is a showcase for your talents, Dee—”

  “That’s right, it is,” she said, her voice cool. As if deciding where to put the radish roses was some kind of skill.

  “But I’ve worked hard, too,” he said. He hated the slightly hurt sound in his voice, almost as much as he hated having to dance this fucking dance every time she got her feathers ruffled. “You’re the spark, honey, the artist, but someone has to crunch the numbers, make sure things are on time, and that’s me. And I hate it when we run late, you know that.”

  He watched her struggle with her naturally sour disposition for another half second, then nod, not so sullen this time.

  Good enough. He patted her leg again, then motioned toward one of the few open spaces as they pulled into the service lot, a good two hundred yards from the fairground walkway. All the other spots were taken, delivery vans and a few small school buses already crammed into place for the day. His own pickup was front and center, right at the curtain of trees that bordered the fairgrounds’ northern edge, where the food was being set up; he’d get Josh to come out, help him change places with the van. Rick had been among the first to arrive, for all the good it had done them.

  She parked, then turned a thin smile his way. “Do you mind if I go see what Elson’s brought? You can handle the unloading, can’t you?”

  He smiled back at her. No problem, honeybunch. You mingle, I’ll do the shit work. “Sure. Just stop by our table on the way, ask Josh to come give me
a hand.”

  “Sure thing.” She gave him an obligatory peck on the cheek and handed him the keys before climbing out, smoothing a new and particularly unflattering linen dress over her skinny hips as she walked toward the trees. She was built like a stick figure. He watched her a moment, watched her reach the small path that led to the fairgrounds proper, and wondered what his life would be like without her.

  A hell of a lot better, he thought. It wasn’t that he hated her, or even wished her ill—he just wanted her to drop off the face of the Earth so he didn’t have to see her, ever again. Her narrow, mirthless face; her barren, skeletal body; her stupid, boring, debutante wannabe background—everything about the woman was tiresome. If he could hang on a little longer, a year at most…the Eleanor Street project, the old middle school site, was going to be big. Assuming the contract workers ever got what they wanted from the condo company, the buildings would go up, and he was a primary investor. Not Sadie.

  A year. One year. He’d spent nineteen of them with her already; waiting through another wasn’t going to kill him.

  Sighing, he got out of the van and started to unload the food.

  John had three appointments on Saturday morning, all regular clients, all struggling to make their lives better. Tanya had slept with her ex again and was feeling crappy about it—but she had finally taken some responsibility for her actions, admitting that she’d made the mistake. For five months, the sex had just “happened,” and he was glad to see her making some progress. His ten o’clock, Marianne, an incest survivor, had gone through a whole session without making any self-effacing comments, a first for her. And while Dale was still having a hard time with his anger, he’d been surprisingly calm for a change; John’s small incitements hadn’t set him off. A good morning, in all, and John was free by one o’clock and hungry for food he didn’t have to make himself. He headed home to change, then took the Blazer up to the fairgrounds, lucking into a just-opening spot close in, only a few rows from the main trail in the east lot. Both lots were packed, and as he locked up and headed for the trail, he could hear the crowd through the trees, faint music and laughter and raised voices. Elson’s was doing the barbecue this year, and he could smell smoke from the fire pit on the light breeze, something meaty. Le Poisson had done the roasting last year, salmon and sausages spitted around the pit, plus an excellent crab boil. He and Lauren had enjoyed the food, if not each other’s company. That had been one of their last public appearances together, actually right near the end…