The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  Abbey shook his head, his eyes still, his attention entirely on Amanda. “Impossible.”

  She leaned forward and spoke in a kind, careful voice. “I’m the balance, David. For you. For now. In my dreams, I think I see the things that are fated, because of what you do.”

  She swallowed, her smile a nervous tic. “Not all of it; I can’t promise that. There’s a lot I don’t see. But there are other things, when I’m awake. Some things can be changed. I’m sure of it. My friend Devon did it; he’s alive because he changed the circumstances, because of what I told him. And I know what people are thinking. Where they might go, in their minds.”

  Abbey was shaking his head again. “You wouldn’t be safe.”

  “I already am,” she said. “I’m twice as strong here, with you, and not just in a psychic sense. I’ve been through an amazing amount of shit since you got here, and everything that happened it’s like I got older, I got smarter…I got closer to you. To this.”

  She dropped her voice to a whisper and said something John didn’t catch. He thought she said to love. Whatever it was, Abbey’s expression flickered. He studied her face.

  “Amanda, how ’bout you get this batshit idea out of your head, right now,” Bob said. “You don’t know this man—”

  “Yes, I do—”

  “—and there’s no way in hell you’re going anywhere with him, not based on five seconds of contact, I don’t care what you think you see.”

  Amanda looked at him calmly, at him and then John, ignoring Abbey for the moment. “OK, listen up,” she said. “You’ve both been great. Really, really great. I think both of you are good guys, and you want to do the right thing. Granted, I’m a teenager so therefore an idiot about some things, but even with you two watching out for me, there is nothing for me in Port Isley, no future at all; I was leaving anyway. And I just met someone who needs me, who absolutely needs me, and this is why everything happened at once, this is why everything ends here, now, not because I’m going to die. Because I’m leaving. We both are.”

  She glanced back to Abbey. “I dreamed it.”

  Bob looked at John, his expression a twist of frustration. “Would you speak up, Doctor? Explain to her about stranger danger, maybe?”

  He turned and shot silent daggers at Abbey. “And you, don’t get your pecker up. She’s not legal.”

  Amanda’s tone was calm, so calm and reasonable. “I can make this decision, Bob. It’s fast, but not impulsive. I want this. For a lot of reasons.”

  Abbey seemed slightly awed by Amanda. “I haven’t said what I want.”

  Amanda reached out and tried to take his hand, but he pulled away, avoiding her touch.

  “You want to see Chelsea,” she said. “I can meet her first. I can tell you what will happen. What might happen.”

  Abbey fisted his hands in his lap, the picture of anxiety. “And then what?”

  Her expression said nothing. “Then we decide if we keep being useful to one another or if we part ways.”

  “Do you know?” he asked. His voice trembled. “Can you see…”

  “I see you,” she said, and that electricity from before passed through the room. John felt as though he were witnessing a private moment between old friends, a first kiss, a power surge, a mother and son talking; he couldn’t relate it to any one thing. It was all those things; it was a palpable feeling of energy.

  “I think we should talk about this,” he said, finally. “No one has slept well, and there’s nothing saying a decision has to be made right this second, is there?”

  Amanda rolled her eyes at him. “Ah, the voice of reason. You were planning on taking me in permanently, John? Your plate’s full enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked at him with an unlikely kindness. “Whether you’re meant to be with her, that’s not set in stone. People change all the time; people decide things because of who they are and what they want. You can make it happen or let it go…and it will work or it won’t. What guarantee is there that it all won’t end tomorrow? For anyone, ever?”

  To have his silent fears so neatly laid out and inspected…John couldn’t say he cared for the feeling. He couldn’t fault her honesty, but as a therapist, she lacked finesse.

  “Little contradictory there, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re arguing both sides, determinism and free will. Is it fate or choice?”

  “Both. Or neither.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Amanda nodded. “You got me there. Everything else has been so clear for all of us, up till now.”

  “He’s a grown man,” Bob said. “You’re seventeen. You think he’s not going to find that useful?”

  “You have no idea what I know,” Amanda said.

  “Why don’t you tell me, then?”

  “You’re going to give up the paper, turn it over to Nancy,” Amanda said. “You’re going to start writing a book about what happened in—”

  “Stop it,” Bob said. He looked ill. “Stop. I don’t want to hear that.”

  “Right. He does, though,” she said, and tilted her head at Abbey. “For him, it means being able to have a life. To know where he can go and how long he can stay.”

  “I don’t like being treated like I’m not here,” Abbey said.

  “Yeah, it sucks, doesn’t it?” Amanda said, turning back to him. Her tone was affectionate, as though she’d known him forever, but her expression was dark. “I think everything had to happen the way it did for me to get here, to where my head is. For us to meet and have it be the right thing at the right time for both of us.”

  John looked at Abbey, the man he’d dismissed as an introvert not so long ago when they’d crossed paths in the park, the man responsible for the depth of his connection to Sarah, if all this madness was true, if Amanda knew what she was talking about. The man responsible for everything.

  If, if. He knew better. He believed.

  “How long will the effect continue?” he asked. “After you go.”

  Abbey shook his head. His eyes were cool and clear, if perhaps dazed from their meeting. From meeting Amanda, certainly, who was as calm and implacable as the tide, who already treated him as though their future was a certainty. Abbey was responding to it, too, leaning toward her slightly, as a plant leans toward the sun. “Varies. A week, maybe? Two at the outside. I could look it up.”

  “The lines of numbers,” Amanda said. “He writes everything down. Since Matthew died, since he realized he’s like his brother, he’s been trying to document the effect.”

  Off the young man’s shocked expression, she added, “I’m sorry, David. Mr. Abbey. I wish you knew what I do, that’s all, about yourself. About what kind of person you are.”

  She addressed all of them. “If you need more time to adjust to this concept, this unexpected turn, that’s fine. And I guess if one of you wanted to be an ass about this, Bob, you could, but please don’t. Just think about it before you say anything. I can see things now that I couldn’t see before. This is what’s supposed to happen.”

  She looked almost fondly at the man who’d taken the last name of a disease carrier to come to their town, to move in next door to him. He wished Sarah had come, that she was standing here with him so that he could see her face, so that he could see her thoughts.

  Annie. Karen, Rick Truman, Ed Billings, the fire that had burned four houses close to the theater before the fire department had brought it under control…how many hurt, how many killed?

  How many could be prevented if she went with him?

  “What happens with the fun house?” Bob asked abruptly. “With the mother and the baby? Do you know?”

  Amanda frowned. “I…I don’t know what happened, exactly, but either way, it’s over. The carnival, I mean. It’s already gone. The baby…I don’t know about him, either. That one I haven’t seen.”

  Her expression said that she hoped she wouldn’t.

  “The explosion this morning, though, that was th
e fire I saw,” she said. “The kid blew himself up, I’m pretty sure. You know, I think it might have been Aaron Reese? He was a senior, second time. Just this guy. Remedial.”

  John scrambled for the other images she’d dreamed, ignoring, for the moment, that she hadn’t told them this before coming here, that she’d chosen to do this in front of a stranger.

  “The gunfire?” Bob asked.

  Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see that, but it will happen today, before we leave. If it hasn’t already. I mean, if my theory is correct.”

  “So we could still stop it,” Bob said.

  She gazed at him a moment, then shook her head again. “No. That one can’t be stopped, I don’t think.”

  “Pretty sure. You think. You don’t know.” Bob shot a meaningful look at John.

  “Bob, stop protecting me,” she said.

  “What if I don’t want to write a book? What if I decide not to because you just told me I would?” Bob asked.

  “That’s OK, too,” Amanda said. “Whatever. What are you fighting? Are you trying to argue with shit happens? Is it so impossible to believe that there are some things you can change and some you can’t? Or that I’m just seeing one possibility of many?”

  “I need time to think,” Abbey said. “And you want to talk about this, obviously. I’m sorry, if you’ll excuse me…”

  He stood up, and so did they. Amanda reached out and touched him again, his arm, and he started as though she had burned him.

  “Right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can see why that’d be…we’ll set down some ground rules on the drive. What time do you want to leave?”

  Abbey shook his head. “Today. Tonight. I thought I’d pack and then try to get some sleep first…”

  “Good luck with that,” she said. “I’ll be here by dark with a few essentials. If you want to keep being alone, you can tell me then…though you can at least drop me in Seattle, right?”

  “I…”

  “Good, OK,” she said. “It’s going to be OK. You’re right in the middle. You can’t see it, but you can trust me. I know that’s a crazy thing to say after how I got you to come to the door, but I didn’t know what else to do. I really am sorry. You will see her. You can, if you want to. If you’ll let me help you.”

  Abbey didn’t answer, only waited for them to walk ahead, back the way they’d come. He was still flushed and obviously disturbed, his face boyish although he had to have a decade on Amanda. He wore his social ineloquence like a much younger man, like an open book. John wondered why Abbey might jerk away from someone touching him and didn’t like any implication he could imagine. He wondered what happened to the people who touched him or what he was afraid might happen. Did Amanda know? Or care?

  They left by the door to the kitchen. Abbey stared after them, after Amanda, with a look that John couldn’t quite define, finally closing the door.

  They automatically started walking toward John’s house.

  “You really think this is a good idea?” John asked her.

  “I know it is.”

  “How do you know so much about him?”

  “How did I know so much about you?”

  “We’re going to talk you out of this,” Bob said.

  “You’ll try, for reasons that are sound,” Amanda said. “And very sweet, which is why I won’t be a jerk about it if I don’t have to be, but you gotta give it up. Unless you want to hogtie me, you sort of have to let me go.”

  “He won’t take you,” Bob said.

  “He will. He has to.” John thought she looked like she might cry, suddenly. “He doesn’t have a choice.”

  When they reached John’s back door—not crossed with crime tape—John used his key, and the door opened. There was no one in the kitchen or living room, though they could hear footsteps upstairs. In the guest room, John figured. By silent consensus, they sat at the small table, the breakfast nook table that Lauren had ordered special for their fifth anniversary, when the kitchen had finally been deemed complete.

  “Think they’ll kick us out?” Amanda asked quietly.

  “Fuck if they will,” Bob said. He looked sullen, like he wanted to yell at someone but had no decent target. The old reporter really did look awful.

  “No one should be in the study,” John said. “Go lay down, Bob.”

  Bob slumped in his chair. “Yeah, OK. But just for a while. This is not decided.”

  Amanda stood up. “It is, and you’re being stubborn. Is that, like, some old guy thing, your sense of entitlement? Your feeling that things are the way you think they are because that’s what you’ve decided despite any evidence to the contrary?”

  Bob slumped lower. “You said you weren’t going to be a jerk.”

  “Come on, you look like shit,” Amanda said, and reached down to assist Bob to his feet, careful not to touch the arm in the sling. “Little help here, John?”

  John helped. Awkwardly flanking him, they shuffled down the hall toward John’s office, Bob leaning on them, his expression sour.

  “Amanda,” he said finally, as they maneuvered him to the sofa, “you’re going to be surprised, someday, how much you thought you knew. How wrong you were.”

  “Yay, Bob supports my decision,” Amanda said. She got the pillow off the chair and set it at her end of the couch. “What’s your take, John? You’ve been awfully quiet. Swing his feet up on your side…careful…”

  Bob winced and gritted his teeth, but they got him lying down. John covered his legs with one of the blankets stacked on the desk chair. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m…I really don’t know. I thought we were going to have to stake him through the heart, or sic the government scientists on him, something…something else.” What he thought was, A week. Maybe two.

  Amanda pulled the chair next to Bob, dropped the rest of the linens on the floor, and sat down. Her voice was calm and clear.

  “I’m going, with or without your support. But I’d like it. I’d like to know that someone gives a shit what happens to me after I’m gone. Maybe somewhere I could come for Christmas, or some shit.”

  “Well, of course you have our support,” Bob mumbled, closing his eyes.

  “Count on it,” John said, and the door, partly open, was suddenly kicked all the way in. A startled-looking chubby guy in a white hairnet and wearing gloves stood out in the hall, wearing a CSU jumpsuit.

  “Who are you? Where’d the cops go? This is a closed crime scene, the whole house.”

  “It’s my house,” John said.

  “It’s OK,” Amanda said. “Ah, that guy said we could be in this room.”

  “Who?”

  Amanda studied his face a moment. “The old man. Whelan.”

  The guy looked surprised. “Is he here?”

  Amanda hesitated. Reading him.

  These aren’t the droids you’re looking for, John thought. Amanda had gone Jedi.

  “No, why would he be here?” she asked. “But something came up and the cops had to run, and they called him. He said finish what you’re working on and pack it home.”

  The tech looked at John, then back at her. “You’re supposed to have badges.”

  John nodded at Bob. “Our friend is ill. That’s his blood you’re swabbing up out there.”

  He seemed to realize that he was alone in his battle…and Amanda had used the magic name, the one he’d thought of, that she’d plucked from his thoughts like some theatrical trick. John wondered if the old man, Whelan, also said pack it home, and suspected that he did.

  “Stay out of the taped rooms, OK? And no smoking.”

  The guy disappeared as quickly as he’d come, a set of footsteps moving up the stairs.

  “You could open in Vegas,” Bob croaked.

  Amanda looked at him, all seriousness. “This is what I want to do. What I want to be.”

  “You like the power,” John said. “You like knowing things.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Amanda reached over and smoothed
Bob’s hair away from his forehead, the gesture more unselfconscious and kind than John would have given her credit for, which made him feel like he didn’t know her at all. She had changed.

  And she’s leaving, either way. She was right; Bob was being stubborn.

  “Don’t go without me,” Bob said, already halfway to sleep.

  “I’ll say good-bye, don’t worry,” she said. “Rest easy, codger.”

  “Fuckin’ kids,” he mumbled, and was asleep.

  They watched him for a moment, neither speaking.

  “You got work today?” Amanda asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” he said, and sighed. “But I’m going to have to call in, considering. Even without all this—” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling, to the footsteps overhead, “—I’d cancel. To be with her as much as I can, if there’s only a week or two left.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that, you know.”

  “No, you’re right, of course. It will be what it is. And forcing it would be the antithesis of…never mind. There’s just…I still can’t believe any of this. The idea of some genetic disorder carrying a psychological influence…that’s paranormal, that’s like science fiction. What would that do to a man, to understand that he was responsible for so much chaos?”

  “Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?”

  “Don’t you care why he is the way he is?” John asked.

  “He doesn’t know, and he’s been researching it since I was in grade school,” Amanda said, and John felt a chill, wondering what she’d seen, exactly, when she’d touched Abbey.

  “I feel like there’s so much that hasn’t been answered,” John said. “Who is this guy, really? Why doesn’t he want people to touch him? Why didn’t he know that you weren’t Chelsea?”

  “Some of that is personal,” Amanda said. “But I’ll ask him to send you copies of his records, if you like. What he knows. I’m sure he will, if I ask.”

  John nodded. “I would insist.”

  “I’ll miss you,” she said. “Both of you.” Her eyes welled, but she blinked back her tears.