Summer Snow

by Nicole Baart

  “Could it be the battery?” Janice offered, taking a stab in the dark.

  Grandma tipped her head in assent. “Could be. Or the alternator, maybe.”

  “Gas!” Simon contributed happily. “Diesel?”

  “I don’t care what’s wrong with it,” I cut in with a wan smile. I held out my wristwatch with the smooth face bulging forward. “I care about getting to work. I’m going to be late.”

  “Oh, of course.” Janice downed the last gulp of her coffee and grimaced as if the dregs had settled into a bitter sludge. “I’ll take you.” She pushed back from the table and tugged gently on Simon’s ear. “Come on; let’s quick brush our teeth. We’ll be two minutes, tops.”

  The last comment was directed at me, and I saluted in response, sinking into the chair that she had just vacated. “Will it be expensive to fix?” I asked Grandma.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But there are some men at church who do this sort of thing to help people. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Charity.

  Thinking of the ever-dwindling number in my bank account, I swallowed my pride and said, “All right.”

  Simon chattered all the way into town, and I was grateful that I didn’t have to do anything more than murmur the occasional “Mm-hmm.” I was trying to do the math in my head: Did the money I had set aside in savings offset the cost of fixing my car? Would I still have enough to cover the doctors’ bills that would pile up by August?

  I was cutting corners and being as careful as I could with the small amount of money that came in every month. Based on my income, Grandma had even tried to sign me up for some government program, but I flat-out refused. Supposedly I was eligible to receive a certain amount of healthy food every month: milk, cheese, grains, peanut butter. Peanut butter? Since when was that considered healthy? But though I had seen women in the grocery store eagerly hauling out their coupons and I knew there was no shame in it, I couldn’t bring myself to add one more thing to the list of differences that made me stand out from everyone else I knew.

  I had to make it work on my own.

  “I’ll pick you up tonight,” Janice offered cheerfully when we turned into the parking lot of Value Foods. “What time do you get off ?”

  “Five,” I said. “But I’ll see if I can catch a ride home with someone. You have to pick up Simon before that, don’t you?”

  “It’s no bother. I can come back.”

  “No. I’ll work something out.” I hopped out of the car and reached in through the open back window to give Simon five. “Have a good day, buddy. See you tonight.”

  “Let’s play Yahtzee after supper,” Simon cajoled, catching my fingers when I tried to pull away. His eyes were each a sparkling chip of black onyx, and they glinted at me mischievously from behind his slipping glasses. I knew he wouldn’t let me go until I agreed, so I nodded quickly and pretended to try to wrestle my way out of his grip. “Promise,” he demanded with a giggle as I flapped his arm.

  “I promise.” I laughed, finally yanking my hand away.

  Simon had a way of making me forget myself, but by the time their car had pulled out of view and I was surrounded by the overly cool air of the dim grocery store, worry was beginning to pluck at the corners of my mouth. Only yesterday I had stopped in the shade of the garden shed and wondered if the God of heaven and earth was talking to me. But in the reality of a day gone wrong, it was easy to imagine that the only voice I had heard mingling among the warmth of a perfect afternoon was the whisper of my own conscience, my own deep-down desire to make everything work out. I was on my own. Grandma might stand beside me, Simon might fill my days with laughter, but I was essentially alone—the car, the baby, the muddle of relationships, and even the ambiguous future were entirely mine to disentangle.

  The roller coaster of it all was making me dizzy and sick. I can. I can’t. I’ll try. It’s too hard. The constant teetering seesaw of emotions was nauseating, and as my footsteps echoed on the scratched linoleum of the grocery store, I decided once and for all to cut myself a little slack. No promises. No guarantees. Taking it one day at a time was more than enough drama for me. And a broken-down car first thing on a Monday morning was the only proof I needed to assure me that my resolution was timely and well made. Dealing with Janice and everything that entailed would simply have to wait. I had other things to worry about: Thomas and Francesca’s wedding was mere weeks away and the baby was following not far behind. But before facing any of that, I had a car to fix. It was a manageable problem; even better, it gave me something specific to concentrate on.

  My car so consumed my thoughts that when the clock read 5:05 and I finally slowed down enough to realize that the day had flown by, it struck me that I had not secured a way to get home. I collected my purse slowly and took a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom to buy myself a little time to think.

  It seemed hopeless. The one person I felt comfortable asking for a ride, Alicia, had already left, and though Graham had arrived at Value Foods after school, his shift wasn’t over until close. I barely knew Monica and certainly wasn’t confident about petitioning her for a lift, and besides, she had skipped cheerfully out of the back room moments before I entered it. I would have to chase her to catch her—if she was still in the parking lot. There was no one else; my options were exhausted. I was stranded.

  For a moment I tossed around the idea of calling Janice or Grandma and asking them to come and pick me up, but I had been so insistent when Janice dropped me off only hours ago. I wasn’t willing to recant my earlier assurances that it would be no problem whatsoever to find a ride home. Or maybe I wasn’t willing to admit that I couldn’t manage even this one small thing on my own.

  I walked aimlessly to the front of the store, waving unenthusiastically at Clark when I passed him. He grunted back. I wondered how long five miles would feel to my pregnant feet.

  The air was startlingly warm after a long day of working in an air-conditioned store, and goose bumps sprang up on my arms instantly. The breeze lifted my hair off my neck, and the sun spread like a blanket across my back. It felt wonderful. All at once I didn’t care about the car. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t simply drive home. I found myself actually thankful to be more or less marooned in Mason. It was Mason after all, not New York, and if nothing else I could enjoy an hour to myself before breaking down and phoning home. One day at a time, I reiterated. Even, one moment at a time.

  I remembered that the used-book store was open until six and that the bakery was only two doors down. People often joked that Mason had been founded around Lily Spencer’s kitchen. Apparently she had been such a well-known baker that when she opened a shop and tried to call it Stone Ground, everyone ignored her chosen name and called the bakery Lily’s instead. Two generations later, Lily’s remained. Their specialty was sweet breads, and the thought of a thick slice of lemon-blueberry bread and a new book seemed like the smallest piece of heaven to me. I would treat myself to two indulgences, guilt over car expenses repressed, and find a bench in the park for an hour or so. I could call from the gas station when I was ready to go home. Though my plan would give Grandma ammunition for her dogged allegation that I needed a cell phone, I decided it would be well worth the short argument. I liked the thought of dropping off the radar for a while.

  But my well-laid plans crumbled long before I even made it out of the Value Foods parking lot.

  “Hi!” a voice called as I stepped onto the sidewalk at the entrance to the grocery store. I looked around for the source of the sound, wondering if the greeting had been directed at me. But pretty girls got shouted at in parking lots, not pregnant ones. I blushed and concentrated on the path in front of me, embarrassed that I had reacted until I heard someone tease, “Work is that way!”

  I turned around to see Michael sitting in an ancient, rusted-out Volkswagen Bug. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I watched him as he pulled his car up beside me and let it idle. The engine sounded like it was full of gra
vel, and I raised an eyebrow quizzically. “My shift is just over,” I assured him. Then I added playfully, “Nice car. It looks about as reliable as mine.”

  “Hey now, don’t knock the Bug,” Michael said, feigning offense. “I’ve seen your car. Herbie here is one fine machine compared to that.”

  “Apparently so,” I consented. I didn’t mean to roll my eyes.

  But Michael looked at me and then swiveled around in his seat to survey the parking lot. “Where is your car?”

  “I gave it the day off.” I shrugged. “It was being rude—wouldn’t start.”

  Michael gave a low whistle. “That doesn’t sound good. Did it go rrrr-rrrr?”

  “Rrrr-rrrr?” I mimicked with a laugh. “Nice sound effects. But no, actually, it sounded more like click-click.”

  “Good thing you make the big bucks, Julia. Click-click is not cheap to fix.”

  I sighed. “Go figure.”

  The conversation lulled and Michael and I exchanged weak smiles before it hit him. “You’re not walking home, are you? I thought you lived in the country.”

  “I’m not and I do,” I said. But I didn’t really know how to explain what I was doing, so I motioned rather lamely in the direction of Main Street and shrugged again.

  “I can give you a ride somewhere, you know. Do you need a ride?” Michael’s smile was candid and his eyes were amiable, intense even. He was wearing a T-shirt that said Eagles Lacrosse in faded lettering across the chest, and through the open window I could see that he had on baggy jean shorts and flip-flops. I had never seen Michael wear anything other than his Value Foods uniform. It was a bit like running into my teacher at the swimming pool in second grade and realizing that she did not actually live at school—she had a house, a husband, a life. Shocking.

  “Uh …,” I wavered, trying to think of a polite way to say no.

  But Michael reached over to the passenger door and swung it open. “Get in,” he said, nodding at the seat beside him. “You need a ride and I know it. I have one quick thing I need to do, and then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  “How much gas do you have in the tank?” I muttered, surprising myself.

  “Not nearly enough,” Michael replied with a good-natured grin.

  I felt conspicuous and awkward, but I also felt committed, and I crossed in front of the car slowly. My apron caught on a sharp edge of the license plate, and my ears burned as it became obvious that I hadn’t even bothered to take off the most hideous aspect of my ugly uniform. What was Michael doing offering me a ride? He might as well have picked up the fat lady from the circus sideshow I was so conspicuous in the tenting royal blue fabric. I bit my lip and caught Michael’s eye through the windshield, making a sheepish face as if to show how stupid I was to not ditch the apron the second my shift was over.

  Humiliated, I quickly undid the strings and pulled the piece of fabric over my head. I hustled into the car and yanked the door shut. “Thanks,” I said shyly. “I was going to go to the bakery and then call for a ride later, but this is more convenient.”

  “Good idea,” Michael shot back, driving out of the parking lot. “The bakery, I mean. Still want to go?”

  Too much information, I thought, wishing I had kept my mouth shut. He probably thought that the last thing I needed was a baked goodie. “No,” I demurred.

  Michael stopped in front of Lily’s anyway.

  I lunged for my purse and was out the door before he had a chance to undo his seat belt. “If you’re driving, this is my treat. Don’t move.”

  He put both hands on the steering wheel as if he had been warned, but he seemed pleased.

  It was inexpressibly strange to be surrounded by the smell of baking bread in Lily’s as I picked out a snack for Michael as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t know what he liked, so I bought a slice of lemon-blueberry bread and one of cinnamon coffee cake as well as two strawberry lemonades in Coke cups. The cashier asked me if I wanted the strawberries that usually adorned the glasses of Lily’s hand-squeezed drinks, but I declined. Somehow strawberries made a drive home seem like a date.

  Michael happily chose the cinnamon coffee cake and then made a U-turn in the middle of the street to head south out of town. “I promised to drop something off for my brother, and he was expecting me over a half hour ago,” he said around a mouthful of coffee cake. “But after that I’ll take you wherever you need to go, okay?”

  I almost replied, “Take as long as you need,” but I caught myself in time. Somehow that sounded smarmy, desperate. Instead I said, “Deal.”

  Talking to Michael was like walking in sand: it was easy and comfortable, even calming somehow. At first I tried to guard my answers, think about what I was saying before I let words pass my lips, but there was nothing to fear in his questions. His affability was sincere and I lost myself in it.

  I didn’t notice how far we had come until Michael drove down the long driveway of a farm that was over ten minutes south of town. There was a small huddle of people around an extended-cab pickup beside the barn, and Michael waved at them as he yanked hard on the rusty parking break. “Back in a sec. If the brake doesn’t hold, you do know how to drive a stick shift, right?” He winked. Reaching into the backseat, he grabbed what was obviously a tractor part and let himself out of the car.

  When Michael was gone, I came to as if rousing myself from a deep sleep. Late-afternoon drives down country roads? Cake and conversation? What was I thinking? Or, more accurately, what was I hoping for? What good could come from chasing impossible dreams down dead-end roads? I liked Michael. I liked him too much to be satisfied with the occasional ingenuous encounter. I didn’t need an intermittent friend or another reason to stay up at night. I needed answers, help, a little understanding. I needed a savior. Incredible as he was, Michael didn’t seem the superhero type to me.

  “I want to make one more stop,” Michael announced, sliding back behind the wheel only moments later. I could hardly complain—it was his car after all. But some of the magic of the afternoon had worn off for me, and Michael noticed my hesitation. He elbowed me with a conspiratorial smile. “You’ll like it. I promise. It’s a season thing.”

  I was utterly bewildered by his proclamation and not much in the mood for surprises, but I participated in friendly chitchat almost automatically as we drove back toward Mason.

  “Are you in a rush?” Michael asked, though he had already gotten me to agree to his extra pit stop.

  I shook my head.

  “Good, ’cause this is so cool. It only happens once a year for a couple of days.”

  My interest was piqued, but he wouldn’t answer any questions about his subterfuge, and before long our destination was revealed when Michael turned onto the tree-lined road that led to the gravel pit. It looked like an entirely different place from the last time I had overlooked the small lake, but that didn’t stop my stomach from lurching painfully when I realized where we were going. Though the verdant swatch of wooded terrain was barely recognizable as the barren wasteland it had been only months ago, in my mind’s eye I could still see Janice and Simon curled up in her car. The thought made my vision blur.

  “It’s the perfect day for it,” Michael assured me as he cut the engine.

  We stepped out of the car wordlessly, and immediately the warm June air slid around me. It seemed a little too close for comfort, like an unwelcome embrace, and I pushed up my long sleeves wishing that I were wearing shorts.

  “The perfect time of day,” Michael continued, watching the sky. He turned away from me and stretched in the sun-soaked shade of an immense tree as if we had been driving for hours. Light fanned through the flutter of leaves and cast wavering lines of radiance across his skin, his dark hair. I realized that I was staring and looked quickly away.

  “You are about to witness a once-a-year phenomenon, Julia. Maybe even once-in-a-lifetime if the temperature and wind and lighting are just right.”

  Michael’s excitement
was endearing, and when he spun around to grin at me, I tried to grin back, pushing the blackened remnants of bad memories out of my mind. He was right—it was a beautiful day. And though I didn’t know what he had planned, there was no reason for me not to enjoy it. When he motioned me to follow, I willingly trailed him single file across the parking lot, down a small hill, and through a copse of lithe trees. Within moments we emerged at a short precipice above the lake, and Michael spread out a hand to encompass it as if to say, Take it in.

  The sun was sinking on the horizon, and it bathed the lake in golden light that made the surface of the water glitter with an ethereal iridescence. I had to squint to look at it. Even more impressive than the play of light on water was the airy show above it. Dancing and buoyant on the exhalation of a soft wind were thousands upon thousands of cottony snowflakes. They spun and floated and fell only to be swept up and away before descending once more to flirt with the coolness below. After a pause to admire their reflection in the lake, the wisps of white settled down gently to glide along the glistening wetness. It was indescribable.

  And it took me a moment to understand what was happening: the cottonwoods were shedding puffs of down in an impressive display all over the tranquil lake. I had never seen anything like it. Summer snow.

  “I feel like I’m in a fairy tale,” I breathed. A sense of sudden and acute self-awareness told me that I should feel embarrassed for saying something so silly, and yet I didn’t. Michael had brought me here; he obviously felt something akin to what I was experiencing amid the torrent of white. He didn’t say anything.

  Evening was approaching, and there were pockets of coolness in the air. A gust of wind rose over the knoll behind us, and in an instant the atmosphere changed. Without warning, a chill shivered down my spine, and across the lake the trees responded in kind: they shuddered and trembled, nodding to the current in graceful submission. For a moment the shower of cotton swept into a frenzy of stormlike proportions, and my breath caught in my throat. It was so beautiful. It was so unexpected and bright.