Unforgettable Summer

by Catherine Clark

  You’re Kidding, Right?

  The next thing I know I am coming to, and there is a cloud of terrible stale coffee air around my head. I’m enveloped in a coffee cloud, and there’s no oxygen. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to breathe.

  I open my eyes, and World’s Worst Coffee Breath is looming over me. “Look! She’s awake! She’s going to be just fine, everybody!” He leans down and looks into my eyes. “Are you okay? Can you get up?” he asks cheerfully.

  I wince and shake my head, my helmet scratching against the asphalt.

  “Sure is a hot one today. Gee, I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

  Stop breathing! Eat a Tic Tac! “I have to get to the hospital,” I say.

  “Really? You’re that badly hurt?” Coffee Breath is starting to look very nervous.

  “Yes,” I say. “But mostly I need to meet my mother there; she’s in labor; I have to help.” I try to move, and my right side tells me not to.

  I gaze up at the people standing over me like I’m a freak show. I can’t believe it, but Kamikaze Driver is here. He’s talking with Coffee Breath and gesturing wildly. What did he do, abandon his bus? Why isn’t this traffic moving, anyway—is it me?

  Then I remember—the parade is going on, and the highway is blocked until the parade finishes passing down Main Street.

  I’m hoping Kamikaze won’t give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, just to give me germs, just to share bacteria. I’m hoping Coffee Breath won’t come close enough to even attempt mouth-to-mouth.

  Above me, I hear the two of them saying things like “hospital” and “ambulance” and “parade traffic” and “never make it.” My body feels cold and clammy, and at the same time the hot black asphalt feels like it’s burning through my clothes. I wonder if I’m on my way out. I can’t believe I ran into a car door, I can’t believe I just did that. Did I really just do that?

  Is this horrible air—car exhaust being blown on my face, intense heat, feedlot smell—the last breath I’m going to take? That’s not fair—none of this is. I’m supposed to be there to help my mother. Maybe she knows how to do everything, but I’m her rock, she said during our last childbirth class—I’m her stationary front. She needs me. Who else will remind her to pee?

  “Can we get going?” I mumble from my prone position on the street.

  Coffee Breath and Kamikaze gather me up gingerly. I think I scream a little when they lift me. They carefully put me in the backseat of the silver Lexus and try to prop me in the least painful position. I ask them to take off my helmet, but they refuse, saying we’d better wait until we get to the hospital. Then they both get into the front, and Coffee Breath starts to inch forward in traffic.

  “What about . . . the bus?” I ask Kamikaze.

  “I told everyone to get off and then I locked it up. Don’t worry, nobody’s going anywhere in this traffic,” Kamikaze says.

  “That’s the problem!” Coffee Breath says, sounding very tense.

  Kamikaze keeps giving him advice, telling him to pass cars, to drive in the wrong direction, against traffic, to drive on the shoulder. Coffee Breath stays in the right lane, hardly moving. They start arguing, louder and louder.

  “You think you can do better? You think you can do better?” Coffee Breath asks. “Okay, let’s see. Let’s switch.” He gets out of the car and starts to walk around the back.

  Kamikaze slides over to the driver’s seat and takes off without him. I hear Coffee Breath screaming behind us as we make an abrupt left and cut between two cars, and it’s so tight that the driver’s side mirror gets ripped off the car.

  I’m not sure if I’m still conscious or not, but I think we’re now driving down the wrong side of the street. We’re flying, and horns are honking all around us. For a second it feels just like we’re cruising on a weekend night because of all the noise.

  I try to sit up a little more, and I see that we’ve reached the roadblock. A mime is standing on top of a sawhorse, walking across the top as if it’s a balance beam, trying to amuse all the people in the cars that are backed up for miles.

  I glance at Kamikaze. He doesn’t look amused.

  “There’s only one way to get you to the hospital. And you know what it is,” he says. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to himself.

  First he jumps out and tries to talk to the mime. The mime makes fun of him, imitates the way he walks.

  Kamikaze gets back into the Lexus and nearly runs him over. He pulls past the sawhorse and slyly enters the parade.

  I haven’t been in the Rodeo Roundup Days parade since fifth grade, when I appeared as a figure skater on the Lindville’s Athletes of Tomorrow float. I probably looked better then than I do now. I’m getting blood on the leather upholstery from my cuts.

  We weave around the edge of the marching bands, scoot past the square dancers dancing on a truck bed, pass some slowly parading llamas, who get spooked by us and start spitting. Kamikaze finds an open space and blows past some twirlers and jugglers. Then we get stuck, hung up behind a small herd of Longhorn cattle, completely stalled.

  “Just one more block and we can cut through the alley to the hospital,” Kamikaze tells me. “Just hang in there. What’s your name?”

  “Coffee Wench,” I tell him.

  “Pardon?”

  “Peggy,” I say, and my ribs hurt when I talk. “Fleming.”

  “Peggy Fleming?” he says, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Farrell,” I add.

  He looks confused and stares at me in the rearview mirror. “What’s your name again?”

  That’s when I hear a motorcycle roar behind us.

  “Well, holy cow, would you take a look at this!” Kamikaze cries.

  I try to look out the back window. I see Denny on a motorcycle, with a naked girl who’s wearing blue-tinted sunglasses and a white cowboy hat. Her long red hair streams out behind her as they zip around us.

  Then I black out again.

  Web of Evil

  “You’re in shock, that’s all it is, shock,” a nurse says to me as I sit on a bed in the emergency room and she checks my vital signs. “You know what it is? You probably haven’t eaten a thing today and you drank too much coffee—I know how you kids are.”

  She’s right, but actually I think it was the fact that I was held at gunpoint and then nearly killed, rather than the lack of a balanced breakfast, that makes me keep passing out.

  They X-ray my wrist and ribs and make sure nothing is broken, then bind and wrap everything tightly with tape, as if they’re trying to hold my bones together just in case they decide to fall apart later. The patches of road burn on my knees, elbows, and palms get doused with antiseptic solution and wrapped in gauze bandages. When the nurse starts talking about whether I should have a tetanus shot, I decide I’d rather pass out again for a while than look at any needles.

  The next thing I hear is my father’s voice. “We’re naming him Elvis,” he’s saying as he leans over my bed. “For Elvis Stojko. But his middle name’s going to be Miles, in case he decides to go by that instead, like his big sister.”

  “What?” I murmur. I don’t know if I’m dreaming this or it’s really happening. With my dad and his names, you never know. Miles is my mom’s maiden name. Isn’t it? They must have given me some medication because I can’t quite focus on Dad’s mouth, on the words he’s saying.

  “First we were going with Scott because, as you know, we love Scott Hamilton. Then we were convinced we’d pick Brian—because of Orser and Boitano. But then we considered Viktor—for Petrenko—and of course Alexei—for Urmanov and Yagudin,” my father says.

  I don’t understand what he’s talking about. I don’t know why he’s speaking in Russian. Has he been studying that with Ludmila, too?

  “He’s a strong, healthy baby,” my father says. “And your mother is doing great.”

  Unlike me, I think as I look down at the various bandages wrapped around my chest and my l
egs. But actually, I don’t feel all that bad.

  “P. F., I’m sorry about our fight,” my father says as he sits beside my bed. “I thought about what you said, and I’m going to put off my comeback for another year or so. Otherwise your senior year will consist of baby-sitting and little else, and your mother will go insane, and I’ve got to practice what I preach. Who knows? Maybe I’ll never do it. It doesn’t matter. The point is that I can’t tell you to be fiscally responsible when I’m acting like I don’t have five children who depend on me.”

  “You’re still young,” I say. “And Ludmila thinks you’re . . . well, that you’ve still got it. That you have always had it. So just don’t lose it.”

  “Right,” my father says. “P. F., what are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumble. “It’s Russian. You know Russian.”

  When the nurse comes to check on me, I tell her I’m okay and ask if I can go see my parents. She insists on having an aide wheel me down the hall to the elevator, even though I can walk, and we go upstairs to the fifth-floor birthing suite. I decide on the way that I have to confess everything.

  I work my way up to it, though. I ask my parents about the new baby, and where Torvill, Dean, and Dorothy are. “He’s gorgeous, and they’re at day care,” my mother says.

  I look at Elvis, but I can’t hold him because my wrist is all wrapped up. I also have two jammed fingers, a couple of bruised ribs, but mostly it’s lots and lots of road burn. Hence the mummy look, as my legs are covered in white gauze. My parents won’t stop talking about how awful I look, how it must be so painful.

  “Come on! Tell me!” I say. “How was the delivery? I mean, talk about pain.”

  “Five point six for technical merit. Five point nine for presentation,” my father says. “Presentation includes your mom screaming at me and asking why I’m not Peggy. ‘Where’s Peggy, where’s Peggy, I need Peggy I mean Fleming where is she!’” He imitates her.

  Mom laughs. “I just can’t believe—after all our preparations. It must have been one of the fastest deliveries in history.” Her face is shiny and at the same time very pale, like she’s gone through something incredible but exhausting.

  “I’m sorry I missed it,” I say. “Well, um, while we’re all here, there are some things I have to tell you.” I take a deep breath and my ribs hurt. “You’re not going to like them, so here goes.” I start explaining about borrowing the Shady Prairies golf cart. And how Charlotte and I drove it more than once, and how we also drove it into a pool, and how I went to IHOP that night to confront Steve, and how I’ve been spending all this time stupidly pursuing him and in the meantime hanging out with his best friend.

  While I talk, Mom won’t stop crying. “It is sort of sad and pathetic, but it’s not that bad,” I tell her.

  “No—that’s not it!” She says she can’t get over the fact that I got held up by a robber and skated into a car, and she keeps saying it’s all her fault.

  “It isn’t your fault!” I tell her. And then I have to smile, because suddenly I’m remembering everything that’s happened in the past few hours. I remember Denny and I busting Monsieur LeFleur; Kamikaze leaving Coffee Breath in the dust, then frightening majorettes into dropping batons, freaking out llamas into spitting, scaring square dancers who missed their do-si-dos; and then being passed by Denny on his motorcycle, with Charlotte, naked, riding in back of him.

  “You know who came up to tell us you were here?” my father asks. “This bus driver with a really big beard. He drove you here, I guess, and you told him you had to meet Mom,” my father says. “He’s a very intense person. I’ve heard there are complaints about how he drove through the parade, but when everyone heard he was trying to save your life, and that you got hurt by stopping a robbery—”

  “But Dad, that’s not how I got hurt,” I say.

  “Yes, I know that, but they don’t know that. It’s one of those stories that got told wrong and it’s taken off like wildfire. You’re some kind of hero around Lindville now, and so is that bus driver. It’s good publicity. Ride it for a while,” my father says.

  “Okay,” I agree. “But I’m still sorry about the golf cart, you guys. And I’m sorry if I’ve had a bad attitude. It’s just . . . staying here this summer, without a car . . . I feel so trapped sometimes. Like you know the way the air here gets at night after a hot day, and it just feels like the air’s really bad and it’s just sort of sitting on top of you? And smelling?”

  My mother nods. “It’s called inversion.”

  “Inversion, then. That’s sort of my life right now,” I say.

  My father looks at me. “Is it that bad?”

  “No. Well, sometimes,” I admit. “I mean, there are all the changes we talked about. We used to have kind of exciting lives, you know? And now . . . I mean, I love Dean and Torvill and Dorothy, so much. But couldn’t I love them in New York or L.A. or somewhere fun?”

  “But this is our home now,” my mother says slowly, as if I’m the baby. “We can’t move.”

  “I know. I know that,” I say.

  “But you were right—what you said last night. We’ve been taking advantage of you,” Mom says. “I’m going to quit asking you to do so much stuff around the house. You’re just so capable that I kept adding on without realizing—you’re sixteen. You have your own life. You shouldn’t be home on Saturday nights—you should be on a date. I know I would have been.”

  Dad looks at her a little sharply, alarmed by this news.

  I smile. “The thing is, I might not be able to actually get a date. Anytime soon.”

  “Who cares about dates?” my father says, looking a little happier now. “Friends, then. Maybe I don’t like the Plot and the Lot and the whatever comes up next . . . the Cot . . . wait, forget I said that . . . anyway, I know you well enough to trust you. You might not be the best driver, okay. But we can work on that.”

  “Really? So does that mean I could maybe start driving again soon? Not right away—I know I still owe you money, so I’ll pay that back first. But at the end of the summer, or when I turn seventeen, in November? I could buy an old car, or borrow one of yours once in a while?”

  “Yes,” my mother says. “Of course.”

  “You know, I thought of giving you back your license yesterday, actually,” my father says. “Just in case you needed to drive Mom to the hospital. But I actually couldn’t find your license. I don’t know what I did with it. It’s in my desk somewhere, but things have been so hectic. . . .”

  I smile. That fits in with everything else lately. I have my license back, but I don’t have an actual license.

  Which is okay, because I don’t have an actual car.

  Which is okay, because I can’t really drive right now, because of my bandaged body.

  “But P. F. About the golf cart,” my father says. “You’ll need to call Shady Prairies when we get home and tell them what you did. And let them decide what action to take.”

  “Right. I know,” I say.

  “And we’re going to have more driving lessons, you and me. A lot more. Remember how intense I was about your skating a few years ago? Like that.”

  “Four hours a day?” I ask.

  “Sure. In very, very short shifts. Lots of errands. Driving Elvis around until he falls asleep—things like that.” He glances at my mother, who’s rubbing Elvis’s tiny fingers. “And once a week you can practice highway driving by taking me to the arena to skate. Maybe. If it’s convenient for your mother.”

  “We’ll see,” she says. “Torvill and Dean will be in kindergarten, so . . .” She lets out a deep sigh. Suddenly her eyes are brimming over with tears. She opens her mouth to talk, but she can’t. Dad gives her a hug, being careful to leave enough room for Elvis between them.

  I ask an aide to wheel me out of the room into the hallway to give them some privacy. She parks me just outside the door so they won’t have to look far for me.

  Charlotte and Denny come to the hospita
l at about 5:30, just as my dad is preparing to take me home. They heard about my accident when Coffee Breath showed up at Gas ’n Git, looking for a phone. Charlotte’s called three times already to check on me and see when I’m being released. Denny doesn’t come inside, but I can see him through the sliding glass doors, perched on his bike. He waves at me and blows me a kiss, like he’s the one on parade now.

  Charlotte rushes up to the admissions desk and is about to throw her arms around me when she notices my bandages. “Fleming! I can’t believe you!” she says. “You saved Denny’s life!”

  “I did?” I ask.

  “Yes! And you took out that idiot LeFleur.”

  “So what about you?” I say. “Did I see what I think I saw?” I’m talking nonsense again. I haven’t been able to speak clearly all day.

  “Charlotte? What did you do?” my father asks, turning around from filling out some insurance paperwork.

  “Just rode a motorcycle, that’s all,” Charlotte says, smiling at him.

  “So it was you I heard about,” my father says. He turns to me. “Wild streak. Emphasis on streak. Okay? I told you, P. F.” He starts laughing and Charlotte’s face turns nearly as red as her hair.

  When my father turns back to the desk, Charlotte says quietly, “So I saw Mike and Steve after the parade, and they both asked about you, and I told them about the robber thing and they were both so impressed and worried about you. So. Which one do you like?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I think about it for a couple of seconds. “Neither, I guess.”

  “Really?” she asks.

  “Really.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. We’ll find a new FEN for you, then.”

  “What’s a FEN?” my father wants to know as he comes back toward us.

  “You know, Fleming, you look sort of terrible,” Charlotte says, deftly changing the subject. “Let me come over tonight and fix you up.”

  “How exactly are you going to get to our house?” my father asks her with a critical stare. “Do you need a ride, or were you just going to . . . hmm, I don’t know. Jump-start a golf cart?”