Twisted Summer

by Willo Davis Roberts

  A bunch of people spoke to me, Oliver Atterbom, and Nathan Cyrek, and half a dozen others, including Hal Powell’s sister Tora. “Hi, Cici. Welcome back.” Nobody sat down with me, though.

  Moodily, I watched Tora. Maybe she was going to be the next Zoe. She wasn’t as pretty, but she had that sense of the dramatic, even in jeans. They were really tight—my mom wouldn’t have let me leave the house in them—and she wore a bright printed shirt with orange and blue parrots and lots of splashy green leaves. Fifteen, almost sixteen, she must be now. Her lipstick looked like blood in the firelight, and her eye shadow was either blue or green, I couldn’t be sure. She was flirting with Chet Cyrek, who seemed to have gotten over his sister’s murder and was flirting back, reaching out to tug at her hair. She jerked away, managing to stick her chest out as she did so.

  I watched them for a minute or two. Well, Zoe had been gone for a year; what did I expect, that her brothers would withdraw forever? How old was Chet now? Nineteen, I calculated. When I was here last, he wouldn’t have paid any attention to a girl three or four years younger than he was, but I had to admit Tora didn’t look—or act—like one of the little kids anymore.

  After a few minutes it dawned on me that the kids, except for the younger ones, were pairing off. I sat near the edge of the blankets, feeling out of place in a way I’d never expected.

  Somebody changed the tape, and now the music boomed forth in a wild jungle rhythm. It brought out the craziness in Tora and Chet, and they began to dance without inhibition. Most of the others made a circle around them, clapping their hands, stomping their feet, chanting some repetitive chorus.

  Hal Powell was the only one besides me who wasn’t in the circle. He was sitting on the edge of the dock, and when I glanced toward him he grinned at me, but he didn’t move to come any closer.

  Not that I wanted him to join me. I liked Hal all right, but even though he was a little older than I was, he seemed like a younger brother. I could remember too many of the silly things he’d done years ago.

  Once he’d poured sand in the radiator of the Judge’s car. He was only about six, so the Judge had simply marched him home, holding him by one painfully red ear, and let his folks deal with him. He’d “borrowed” The Sound Wave once and taken it out in the middle of the lake and lost the oars, and his dad had to rescue him. And when he was about nine, he’d gone skinny-dipping with a bunch of the other boys and somehow his trunks got lost, and he had to come home naked. He’d begged the others to sneak home and get him something to wear, but nobody would; they all thought it was hilarious, and he finally had to creep through the woods to the back of their cottage. Lina had caught him without a stitch on and finally got him some pants. She took him home, and Mrs. Powell had locked him in his room for the rest of the day, after lecturing him in a voice we could hear down on the beach.

  It wasn’t Hal I wanted to sit with me, it was Jack, but it felt pretty lonely by myself.

  It was going to be a while before the fire died down enough to roast the wieners. Suddenly the thought of continuing to sit there any longer was intolerable. I began to scoot farther away from the writhing dancers, into the shadows. Nobody was paying any attention to me, not even Hal. When I reached the concealing darkness under the trees, I stood up and walked toward the Powell cottage. If anybody said anything, I’d say I needed to use their bathroom.

  Nobody paid any attention, though, so when I reached the house I kept on going, farther back into the woods.

  The Shurik place was the only one in the community that wasn’t right on the lake. It was small, the earliest cottage to be built here, and had never been intended as a year-round house. After Mr. Shurik died, though, Lina couldn’t afford to support two sons and keep both the cottage and the house they had in the village four miles away. So she sold the town house, because it was worth the most, and spent part of the proceeds insulating the cottage. From then on she and Brody and Jack had stayed there all year. No school bus came all the way out here, so the boys walked the three miles to the nearest house even through deep snowdrifts in the winter. The plow didn’t clear the road in bad weather because it was a private road to the lake, not a county responsibility.

  I could see the cottage lights through the trees after a few minutes’ walking. My heart quickened its beat, though it wasn’t likely I’d meet Jack.

  The cottage seemed smaller than I’d remembered, maybe shabbier. There were no shades drawn, and I could see into the living room. Lina was there, in the same old rocking chair with the lumpy cushions, reading. Though she had little formal education, she’d always been a reader. The boys used to haul bags of books for her from town. Sometimes I borrowed them when I was younger; she read everything from westerns to mysteries to biography and history.

  Taking care to stay well out of the light that spilled through the windows, I maneuvered around to see the rest of the room, but there was no one else there.

  I was a Peeping Tom, I thought, but I didn’t move away. I wanted to go in there, to talk to Lina, to wait for Jack to come home from wherever he was, but I didn’t dare.

  Was it possible Jack was in his room? I knew where it was, a little lean-to around the back. I started to inch my way around the cottage, wincing when I stepped on a stick and it broke with a sharp crack.

  I held my breath, waiting for Lina to come to the screened door and look out to see what had made the noise, but she ignored it. The radio was on, playing softly; maybe the music had covered the sound.

  To my disappointment, there was no lamp on in Jack’s room, though a shaft of light slanted in from the room beyond. It didn’t show much, only a bulletin board of cork with a bunch of stuff stuck on it with thumbtacks.

  Growing bolder, I took a few quick steps toward the window in order to see better. The curtains were open, and now I could make out the shape of a dresser, and I knew his bed had always been right under the window.

  He wasn’t there. He must have gone to town or something. I exhaled with a ragged sound. My folks would skin me if they knew I was looking in someone else’s windows like this.

  Still I lingered, eyes fixed on the bulletin board. There was a newspaper photo there, but I couldn’t make out exactly who the people in it were, but there were three figures. And a strip of paper with dark print that was big enough to decipher. Shurik Convicted, it said, in bold black letters.

  Why on earth was Jack keeping that? I wondered. How could he live with that horrible headline?

  I was turning away when I recognized one of the other items tacked to the board.

  The Christmas card I’d sent him last winter. The one he’d never answered.

  I hadn’t written anything on it. None of the things I thought of to say could be written down, not without being embarrassing even if Jack was the only one who saw it. All I’d done was sign my name, “Cici,” with no “love” or anything like that.

  I’d been bitterly disappointed that he hadn’t sent me a card, as he had the previous year. Of course that one had been a little kid’s card, with a jolly Santa on it and a sucker—cherry flavor—inside. Maybe he’d figured I was too old for something so childish last year.

  Why had he kept my card? There were no others on display.

  I pictured him lying on that narrow bed just out of my line of vision, maybe for days at a time, trying to figure it all out after Brody was arrested. Had he cried, or was he past that kind of thing?

  In the distance, down on the beach, I heard shouts go up, and when I glanced that way I could see a shower of sparks between the trees. I could no longer hear the jungle music. And if somebody came along and caught me here, peering into the Shurik cottage, what could I possibly say?

  I backed away, wanting to go home—back to the Judge’s house—but knowing I couldn’t. Not until Ginny and the little kids went home. The grown-ups would want to know why, and I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t talk to anybody about anything.

  It was a good thing the fire was still blazing, or I�
�d have run into the trees. The smell of the pines was strong in the air, as I made my way back to the group.

  Nobody had even noticed I was gone. The send-up of sparks had evidently been from the brush some of the kids had thrown onto the remains of The Sound Wave, but the boat was burning less vigorously now. Some of the boys had cut sticks, and the kids were putting wieners on them. Ginny and Randy were on their knees on one of the blankets, taking the lids off mustard and pickle relish, popping open bags of chips.

  Nathan Cyrek, who at twenty-two might have considered himself too old for this kind of gathering, approached with a girl I figured out to be Randy’s sister, Noreen. Probably she accounted for Nathan’s presence. She was blonde and quite pretty. Nathan reached into an open ice chest and pulled out a dripping can, handing it to her.

  Then he saw me and got one out for me, too. “Want one, Cici?” he asked.

  I took it, not caring what it was. Nathan and Noreen had already turned away, picking up sticks for hot dogs. I popped the top and took a sip, then grimaced.

  Beer. I’d tried it when all the other kids did, but I didn’t really like it. Somebody had told me it was an acquired taste; I’d just have to get used to it. But I didn’t see the point. My folks would have grounded me for a couple of years, and my mom belonged to MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. One of the girls at school had been killed by a drunk driver, and I’d already decided I was never going to be in the position of that driver, knowing he was responsible for something like that.

  I stepped away from the group and emptied the can into the roots of a tree. I wasn’t thirsty anyway.

  It seemed a long time before I could get away and walk home. Ginny and Randy were behind me, laughing quietly, and the little kids were ahead, acting silly and pushing each other into the edge of the water.

  Welcome back to the lake, I told myself, and hoped nobody would be around to keep me from going straight upstairs to my own room.

  I sure didn’t want to talk to anyone tonight.

  chapter four

  There was nobody around when I came downstairs next morning.

  It was cool and quiet. Mrs. Graden had not even shown up to fix breakfast yet.

  The Judge was always up early, and I could see that he’d made coffee and toast. He was probably out on the water with Fergus MacBean, his old fishing buddy. They always insisted the best fishing was right after dawn.

  I was hungry, and it was easy to find enough to get me started. I remembered telling Molly once, when I was about ten, “Oh Grandma, you have the most wonderful refrigerator!”

  This morning there were big homemade cinnamon rolls, which I spread with real butter; I carried them, along with a glass of orange juice, outside to eat.

  Sure enough, there was the boat on the other side of the lake. Maybe if they caught enough, we’d have fresh fish for supper.

  The only other sign of life was a figure on the dock down at the Powells, and something about it looked familiar in a way that made me forget to take another bite.

  Jack? Was it Jack, sitting there with his back against one of the pilings, dangling his feet in the water?

  I didn’t even take time to think. I cut across the grass and onto the trail, moving quickly.

  He watched me come, and gradually details became clear. He was wearing only a faded pair of jeans, rolled up so they wouldn’t get wet. I wondered if he’d been working out with Brody’s weights, because his chest and shoulders had developed considerably since I’d seen him, and he had a golden tan over all those muscles. His hair had gone almost blond already from the sun. His hazel eyes looked me over as I walked out on the dock.

  “Hi, Cici,” he said, as if we’d met yesterday.

  My voice sort of stuck in my throat, though I’d never had any trouble talking to Jack before. “Hi. I missed you at the thingy last night.”

  “I don’t go to those much anymore,” he said. His voice was deeper. “Kid stuff.”

  “All the big kids were there.” I felt a burst of exhilaration and took a bite of the cinnamon roll, then broke off a chunk and handed it to him, the way I used to share my treats with him when I was a little kid. “I kind of felt like I was a big kid now, until I got here.”

  He accepted the half roll. “Not as good as Mom’s, but not bad,” he said. He was openly inspecting me, and I wished I’d put on my new red shorts and striped shirt instead of this old outfit.

  “You haven’t changed much, except to get bigger,” I said, sounding a little breathless. I hoped he’d put it down to my brisk walk over here.

  He studied me for a moment longer. “You have.” His grin came as I remembered it, making my breath catch in my throat. “You aren’t flat chested anymore.”

  “I’m almost fifteen,” I said. “It’s about time. I was getting worried.”

  The grin widened. “All pointless, as you can see. You mean none of those guys tried to hit on you last night?”

  “Nathan gave me a can of beer, which I dumped out in the grass. He was with Noreen what’s-’er-name.”

  “Donner. Yeah. Well, I figured Nathan would be there. It’s one reason I wasn’t.”

  I lowered myself onto the edge of the dock, fairly close to him. “Because of Brody?”

  “Because of me,” he corrected. He took another bite and chewed, then reached for my glass and took a swig of orange juice before handing it back.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I don’t feel comfortable around any of them and particularly not around Nathan and Chet Cyrek.” He looked me straight in the eye. “I kind of thought I might hear from you, after it happened.”

  He’d been disappointed, but was giving me a second chance.

  “I didn’t know about it until we got here yesterday. Nobody in our family writes, or even calls, most of the time.”

  Jack grunted. “I got your Christmas card, but it didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t answer it,” I said.

  “No.” There was a small silence. “I didn’t know what to say to you, Cici.”

  “Like I don’t know what to say to you now.”

  “We always used to be able to talk to each other. You used to ask me the darndest questions. Like ‘What’s all this stuff about the birds and the bees?’ ”

  “You always answered me. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d never have understood anything,” I told him.

  “It’s been two years. I guess you must have figured out a lot of things during that time.”

  “A few. But I’m struggling with Brody and Zoe. I can hardly believe it.”

  He stared at me, then drew in a deep breath that sent interesting movement through his chest. “Do you believe it? That my brother killed her?”

  I hesitated. “Everybody seems to think he did. Including Ilona.”

  “Yeah. That’s what really crushed him, you know. Ilona. She never came to see him. Never talked to him. Didn’t even write him a note. So he knew she swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. She took it for granted that he was guilty. He didn’t see how she could, after all the plans they’d made together. He never looked at another girl after he and Ilona started going together. He didn’t even like Zoe. Why would he have been messing around with her?”

  “That question bothers me, too. You don’t believe he did it, do you?”

  “No.” He drew up one knee and clasped his hands over his shinbone, staring out across the water. “I know he didn’t. I know Brody.”

  “I never thought he was a liar,” I said softly, “but Ginny says everybody lies sometimes. The way we did when we were kids and didn’t want to be punished for something. She reminded me of when we set that old barn on fire, how we denied ever being there. And our folks believed us.”

  “That was stupid kid stuff,” Jack said. “Trying cigarettes. That’s a whole different thing from what happened to Zoe.” He fell silent for a moment, then added very quietly, “It just about tore my mother apart. My dad died such a long time ago, and
all she ever had was the two of us. We were close, really close. We talked about everything, including sex. And there’s no way Brody was trying to talk Zoe into sex when she was killed.”

  “I wasn’t old enough to think much about that stuff when I was here before,” I mused, “but I remember what Zoe was like. I doubt if she’d have resisted very much, if he had tried. Not so he’d have to strangle her to shut her up when she objected.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t think she’d have objected. Mom didn’t think so, either. Zoe flirted with guys from the time she was about twelve. Everything she said and did was a come-on for somebody. There was a time when she bugged Brody—sooner or later she bugged just about everybody who wore pants, including me—but he talked to us about it. He thought she was a pest.”

  One phrase hung in my mind. “Even you?” I asked, though when I thought of it, I realized he and Zoe had been about the same age, so that wasn’t surprising. I recognized the sharp jab to my heart as jealousy, though Jack wasn’t and had never been my territory. I just wanted him to be.

  “We all thought she had something going with that guy Trafton, and he must have been thirty or more. My mom even remarked that she was going to get into trouble, hanging around with a guy almost twice her age, but the Cyreks never did anything about it. They told Mrs. Powell they thought making a fuss about a relationship would just make Zoe more stubborn, and that they figured it would run its course, the way all the other crushes had. He hadn’t been around for a while by the time the murder happened, or maybe he’d have been a suspect instead of my brother.”

  “I don’t know any Trafton. Who was he?”

  “Just a guy who showed up last summer for a few months, had a job at the feed store in town. Kind of a drifter, I guess. Carl Trafton. He met some of the kids and came out here to swim with them. Mom commented that it was funny he couldn’t find any friends his own age, but Zoe said everybody in this part of the world was already married by that age, and he wasn’t interested in anybody stuffy enough to be married.”