SUMMERS FREEDOM

by Ruth Wind

  Maggie shook her head, following Joel inside at his indication. He carried the kitten into the kitchen and flipped on the overhead light.

  The gray tiger was exhausted and trusting as Joel moved his fingers gently over its body. "Ah, I see," he murmured out loud. To Maggie, trying to calm Moses as he paced around, he said, "It looks like he might have got caught under the wheel of a car. His back paw is pretty mangled."

  "Poor thing."

  Joel squatted and Moses hurried over to wash the kitten with a few short whips of his tongue. "We'll take care of him, Moses," he said, reaching out to stroke the old torn gently. "Now, I bet you're hungry." He looked again at Maggie. "There's a bag of food in that cupboard. Would you feed him while I find a box to transport the kitten to the vet?"

  "Of course." She moved to the cabinet, and Moses followed her eagerly. As she shook food into his dish, she marveled at the transformation of the mangy, distrustful animal into this glossy-coated, clean and loving cat. She rubbed his back fondly as he ate. "You found a master worth your time, didn't you?"

  Joel had disappeared onto the back porch, and she heard him rustling around in there. "Do you need some help?" she asked, going to investigate.

  A clatter greeted her, and as Maggie peeked into the glassed-in room he used as a recycling area, she grinned. "Having trouble?"

  He sighed ruefully, the kitten clasped gently to his chest as he rooted around in a fifty-five gallon drum. "I thought I had a box that would work in here. I must have been wrong."

  In the yellow light cast by the bulb overhead, his utterly straight hair shone as if polished, slightly mussed by the long evening. A photograph of him in his flannel shirt, so huge and muscled and rugged, with the tiny kitten clasped to his chest, would sell a million bottles of whatever anyone wanted to sell. She shifted.

  Joel moved out of the corner. "I was going to invite you upstairs to see my etchings, but I've got to get this kitten to a vet."

  "You've clearly been cast as hero," she agreed with a smile. "I understand."

  He walked her to the door. Still holding the kitten, he bent to kiss her, touching her cheek gently. "I know the first part of the week is a busy time for you, but maybe we can get together Thursday or Friday."

  "I'd like that." She reached up to brush the gloss of his hair with her fingers. Meeting his eyes, she said, "I had a wonderful time tonight."

  He kissed her again, lingering this time. "So did I."

  "Let me know how the kitten is."

  "I will."

  There was nothing else to do. Maggie walked out his door to her own. Immediately, the world seemed silent and a little lonely.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  "Mom, have you seen my red dress?"

  Maggie smiled to herself. "I'm ironing it right now."

  A sheepish Sam rounded the corner of the kitchen, where Maggie stood over the built-in ironing board. A basket of wrinkled clothing awaited her ministrations with the iron.

  "I do this every year, don't I?" Sam commented. "Wait until the last minute to get things together and then spend days running around like a chicken with my head cut off."

  "No, you're doing much better than usual this year. It's only Tuesday evening. Your father won't be here till a week from Saturday." Of course, Maggie thought, this year Samantha had motivation. Next Friday was the last day of school, and Sam planned to spend the afternoon and evening with David.

  "Has Uncle Galen said anything more about when he's going to come?"

  "You know how he is, Sam. He'll be here when he gets here." She eased the pointed nose of the iron into a nook under the collar of the red dress. "Don't worry. You'll only be seventy miles away. I'm sure we can work something out."

  "Can Dad come down with me?"

  "If he wants to." Maggie smiled. "Don't worry about me."

  Sam gathered up a pile of clean clothes from the dryer, located in a closet in the kitchen, glanced once more at her mother and went back upstairs.

  Maggie hung the dress on a hanger and shook a blouse from the mound of clothes at her feet. Since Samantha had begun to date David, she had been very concerned about the broken heart she assumed Maggie had suffered at the hands of her father. Nothing Maggie said would convince the girl that she had long ago recovered from any jilting. Deep in the throes of her first love, Sam couldn't conceive of loving anyone else again.

  Fondly, she sighed. As always, the closer the time for Samantha to go to Denver came, the bluer Maggie got. She missed Sam on the long, hot days of June and July, missed her energy and quick spurts of excitement. She missed having three curling irons tangling in the bathroom drawer, MTV blaring and the burbling of conversations as Sam talked on the phone.

  Get used to it, Maggie, she told herself. In two years, Samantha would graduate from high school and go on to her own life in college or in New York, whichever she chose when the time came. After that, Samantha would never really be hers again.

  Maggie had never considered having a baby in spite of her own youth because Sam had filled that portion of her life so well and completely. Now, every so often she wondered what it would be like to experience pregnancy and birth and the tender helplessness of an infant.

  The phone rang. Maggie started to cross the room to answer it, but hearing Sam's running footsteps in the hall overhead, decided not to join the race. She never got phone calls anymore, anyway.

  To her surprise, Samantha called her. "Sharon's on the phone."

  A clutch of uneasiness rippled through her belly. "Hi, Sharon," she said into the phone.

  "You know it's a story at this time of night. Three guesses which one."

  "Damn." Maggie sighed. Tickets for Proud Fox were going on sale at seven tomorrow morning, and even at five this afternoon, there had been a handful of kids armed with sleeping bags and cans of soda and sandwiches outside the ticket outlet. Everyone wanted good seats for the show. "I'll meet you in ten minutes."

  She hung up the phone and switched off the iron. "Sam!" she called upstairs as she slipped into a pair of white leather tennis shoes. When her daughter appeared on the stairs, she said, "I have to go out for a while. Remember you have a final tomorrow."

  "Is it the Proud Fox thing?"

  "Yes." She frowned. "Is David there?"

  "No, he had to work tonight."

  Maggie nodded, heading for the door. "I don't know how long I'll be. Call your great-grandmother if you get lonely."

  "Can I go with you?" Sam bit her lip. "Please?"

  After a ten-second hesitation, Maggie acquiesced. "All right. Hurry."

  She was rewarded with a dazzling grin from Samantha. "I just want to get my camera." She dashed up the stairs. Maggie donned a light woolen jacket with voluminous pockets, checking to be certain she had her pen and reporter's notebooks.

  When Sam dashed down the stairs, her camera had been slung around her neck, and her hair was pulled severely into a ponytail. She'd thrown a sweatshirt over her jeans. In her green eyes was leaping excitement.

  "Ready," she said breathlessly.

  At the ticket outlet, Maggie couldn't believe the cacophony that slammed into her ears. From a dozen boom-boxes turned full volume blasted several different songs, all written by Proud Fox. Long-haired teenagers sang along to whatever song was closest to them. A few danced in the square fronting the department store where the tickets would go on sale the next morning.

  In contrast, at the opposite end of the square, a large group of protesters marched solemnly in a circle, singing a hymn of long-suffering.

  Maggie shook her head. Only teenagers could create this much melodrama—the costumes so extreme and opposed, the gravity of one group played against the hedonism of the other.

  She turned to Samantha as they entered the square, looking for Sharon. "Don't get in the middle of anything," she said to Samantha. "And don't be too obvious with the camera. People will do anything to get their picture taken."

  Sam nodded.
She nervously licked her bottom lip and lifted the camera to ready f-stops and light settings. "Do you think I have enough light to shoot without a flash?"

  "I don't know." The square was patchily lighted with overhead spots. "Try it and see what happens. I'm going to go talk to the protesters."

  Sam nodded, shooting a wide-angle view of the scene, already engrossed in her photography. Maggie smiled as she watched Sam glance over the camera to measure the scene, then duck back behind it, never missing a step.

  Maggie headed for the circle of protesters. When no one even glanced her way, she chose one young man at random and fell in step beside him. "I'm Maggie Henderson," she said. "I'd like to do a feature article, in depth, on what you're trying to do here."

  The boy licked his lips. "The signs speak for themselves."

  "Not really," she insisted. "There are dozens of bands with violent or sexual lyrics. Why are you opposed to Proud Fox in particular?"

  He glanced at her and Maggie sensed he was nervous. "You need to talk to Cory."

  "Okay," she agreed. "Point him out to me."

  "He's, uh, not here right now. He said he'd join us later."

  "Do you know where I can find him?"

  "No." The answer was abrupt, and he glanced over his shoulder toward some of the other teens, who threw them sharply censorious looks.

  "A last name?"

  "I said he'll be here later. You can talk to him then."

  The straggled line of campers waiting for tickets was growing louder and rowdier. From the corner of her eye, Maggie saw the uniformed police officer edging closer to the line, and she took a breath. She'd had no luck with the protesters. Maybe she could appeal to the rockers.

  She reached the head of the line. "Hey!" she shouted to the girl who had the enviable position of being first in line.

  The girl, no more than seventeen, turned her boom-box down and looked at Maggie expectantly.

  "You'd hate to lose this spot." Maggie said, still yelling. "If you can't help me get everybody quieted, the police will make you all go home."

  The girl hesitated, then turned to talk to the boy right behind her. He measured Maggie for a minute and turned to the boy behind him, who nodded and turned his box down.

  Maggie repeated the ploy about halfway through the line. The simple fact that they might lose their chance to buy tickets for the concert of the summer was more than enough inducement. With a sigh of satisfaction, she noted the sound levels lowering considerably, enough that the chanting hymn could be heard.

  The shouts that signaled the onset of the riot were like a backfiring muffler on a quiet side street. Maggie turned in shock to see bodies from both sides, exploding into sudden violence.

  At the sight of roiling bodies and police and flashing lights, her heart constricted. She'd glimpsed Sam a few seconds before the ruckus had broken out. Maggie prayed she'd had the sense to maintain her distance.

  But she hadn't. Maggie glimpsed the tall, slender girl skirting the very edges of the action, shooting pictures as fast as she could click the shutter. Her cheeks were stained with a flush of high delight, her forehead dewed with sweat. And, Maggie noted as she neared her, Samantha's feet were bare.

  For a long, long second, she simply watched as Samantha dipped and knelt and squatted and stretched to catch the best photos, her blond ponytail dancing as if to emphasize her exuberance. There was no high in the world, Maggie thought, like doing what you loved.

  A crash of something behind her shook Maggie out of her reverie, and she made a lunge for Sam, catching her shirt to drag her away just as several more bodies hurtled by. They searched the crowd for Sharon, finding her with a boy who bore a long cut on his mouth. He struggled to shake free of Sharon, mumbling, "I'll be all right, I tell ya."

  "Your arm is broken," the photographer argued with the deceptive sweetness she sometimes adopted to make a point. "No concert in the world is worth going through the rest of your life a cripple."

  For the next hour, as police managed to calm the crowd and shoo away any lingering trouble, paramedics attended the wounded. Anyone who hadn't been hurt while waiting in line was told to go home, and the police had to haul off two more kids in squad cars when they resisted the orders.

  By the time the last teens had been loaded into ambulances or police cars or sent home, Maggie was exhausted. "Sam," she said, "give your film to Sharon. She'll develop it."

  "I might have gotten some good stuff," Sam said, handing over the roll.

  Sharon gave her a playful punch. "You're a pro, kid. You kept your head and your eye. I'd bet my next paycheck that you've got a shot or two in here worth the morning paper."

  Sam squealed, grabbing Sharon's hands. "Really?"

  "Really."

  Maggie grinned. "Do you have any idea where you might have left your shoes?"

  "Uh—no." Sam glanced at the mess in the square and widened her eyes sheepishly. "I think they might be lost."

  "It's all right." Maggie slung an arm around her daughter's shoulders. "But, in the future, you might think about wearing more comfortable shoes."

  Sam smiled.

  "Now, I've got an editorial to write while I'm still hot, and you have a final to study for."

  "If you're going to be up awhile, Maggie, I'll call to let you know what we have in the way of photos," Sharon said.

  "Great. Talk to you then."

  Samantha barely spoke on the way home, deep in her own reverie. Maggie let her drift within herself, familiar with the need to absorb what had just been recorded. As they drove up in front of the house, Sam reached out to touch Maggie's hand. "Thanks for letting me go," she said.

  Maggie smiled, touched again with the bittersweet evidence of Sam's growing maturity. "You're more than welcome."

  She didn't see Joel until they reached the stairs. "Hi," he said, standing to greet them. In his arms was the kitten, his back paw rather conspicuously bandaged in a cast.

  "Hi, Joel," Sam said cheerfully. "How's the kitten?"

  "Good. The vet said today his lungs are clearing, and he should be able to eat real food in a few more days."

  "He's so cute," Sam cooed, stepping forward to rub the kitten's head. "I'm glad he's okay." She tsked lightly. "I have to go study. See you guys later."

  Maggie had watched the exchange with an amused smile. When Samantha went inside, she said, "I didn't know you and Samantha had grown to be friends."

  "She comes to talk to me in the garden sometimes." He grinned. "She's the one who told me how much you love a certain brand of hamburger."

  "Of course." Maggie grinned. "Count yourself among the elite, then. She finds most people over the age of twenty boring beyond belief."

  "She's a sweet kid," he said. "But not nearly as sweet as her mother."

  Maggie stared at him in the lamplighted dimness. His expression was tender and grave. A square of light caught on the plane of his cheekbone, throwing his eye into shadow. "I have to go in," she said, suddenly overwhelmed with the emotions crowding into her chest.

  He moved slowly toward her and put a hand on her neck. "Do you have to go right now?"

  "I have to write an editorial tonight, while I'm still angry."

  "Well, then," he murmured, "go write and come back."

  He pulled her head to his, his huge hand cupping the back of her skull, and lowered his mouth. Instead of kissing her gently, he took her lower lip into his mouth and sucked lightly. Her hips went weak with the sensation.

  His thumb moved on her ear, stroking lightly, his touch jingling her earring, and he followed the sucking motion with a gentle nip and a teasing thrust of his tongue. "Come back out when you're done," he whispered insistently. "We can have some coffee or something."

  "It might be a while."

  "I can wait." His thumb moved up and down, up and down on her throat. "It's a beautiful night."

  Maggie nodded. "Okay."

  He let his hand slide down her arm, then squeezed her fingers and let go. "Go get
finished. I'll be here."

  But the editorial Maggie had planned to write completely disappeared from her mind when she sat down to try to scribble it out at the desk in her bedroom. She found herself glancing out to the backyard, her mind filled with the promise of Joel. In exasperation, she threw down her pencil.

  Lately, her discipline had flown right out the window. Several times recently, when she should have been taking notes for a story or an editorial, she'd instead played peacemaker. Tonight, she'd been more interested in Sam's excitement than in the news unfolding around her. Even now, instead of writing an editorial, she wanted to find out who the students involved in the protest were and have a talk with the adults behind them. She wanted to stage a town meeting to call parents' attention to Proud Fox's lyrics. She wanted to find out why David could come and go at will, with no one paying much notice; she wanted to uncover the reasons why so many sixteen and seventeen-year-olds had been able to camp out all night in front of that store.

  She had no interest in making a story out of it. She wanted to fix it.

  Rubbing her forehead wearily, she let go of a long breath. Newspapers had once seemed to be the most exciting kind of career she could choose. After seeing Samantha at work shooting photographs tonight, Maggie realized there was a huge gap between what she felt for her career and what people who loved theirs felt. Like Joel. His voice soared when he spoke of hawks, and his eyes took on a glow.

  It called into question everything she thought she knew about herself.

  "Oh, quit," she said aloud. "Stop agonizing." She grinned. First it had been thoughts of pregnancy and babies, now dissatisfaction with her job. Was that what they meant by a biological clock?

  More likely, she thought as she headed down the hall, she just had a bad case of infatuation, which time would undoubtedly heal.

  Samantha, when Maggie looked in on her, had fallen asleep over her studies. Maggie gently removed the book and turned out the light, then flipped the quilt over her. For a moment, she looked at her daughter tenderly, seeing in memory all the Samanthas she had tucked in through the years. Now Sam was nearly a woman, but her face still showed the faintest traces of the little girl she had been.