Mystic Summer

by Hannah McKinnon

  Cousin Ellen nods sharply. “Except for the gays.”

  I dump a monstrous piece of cake on Ellen’s paper plate.

  It’s almost twilight by the time Mom finds me outside on the porch. Her cheeks are flushed. “Oh, honey, what a day. It’s too much.”

  “You deserve it,” I tell her as she settles onto the swinging chair next to me.

  “We don’t have big gatherings anymore, at least not like we used to when you girls were little. I miss them.”

  “I remember.” It seemed like every summer weekend was spent at a neighborhood barbecue. I’d watch my mom at her dressing table as she put on her colorful Bakelite bracelets and selected a swingy summer dress. Later, we kids would race our bikes up and down the street and dart through neighbors’ yards, while the grownups clinked their glasses and citronella wafted across the grass.

  As if reading my mind, she adds, “Of course now there’s a new generation to keep up with.” She nods at Randall and Owen, who at that moment burst through the door and onto the front porch with us.

  Owen climbs onto my lap. “Come to my house for a playdate?” he asks. I nuzzle his head, and suddenly I don’t want to be anywhere else. “I would love to come to your house,” I tell him. “But I think tonight I’m staying over at Grandma’s.”

  Mom’s face brightens. “Really? You can stay? Because all I need to do is put some fresh sheets on your bed. And there’s so much food left over, your dad and I can’t possibly eat it all by ourselves. Plus all that cake.” She leaps up. “Or we could order out for dinner, if you want!” Her face falls. “Wait. What about Aunt Dotty?”

  “Mom. Sit.” Earlier I’d cornered Cousin Ellen’s unsuspecting husband in the dining room with a piece of cake and convinced him to drive Dotty home to Providence. I only wish I could see Ellen’s face when Dotty piled into the back of the minivan between the kids. “I already arranged that; Ellen’s taking her home.”

  Mom claps her hands. “We get to keep you overnight!” Her enthusiasm fills me with no small dose of guilt.

  Normally I come home for only short visits, often racing back to the city that same day, as if I’m in fear of missing out on something. But tonight it actually feels nice to be away from all that congestion and outside on the porch swing with my mother. Here I don’t have to worry about plans for the night. Or what to wear, or how I’m going to afford it. I might drive over to the pier and watch the boats in the harbor. Even just sitting home in my pj’s with a slice from Mystic Pizza sounds about perfect.

  “Sit here and relax,” I tell my mom, pulling her back down onto the seat beside me. “I can make my own bed.”

  She squeezes my arm hard. “I know, honey. You can do anything you want.”

  Despite the fact we’ve been eating all day long, and my parents’ fridge is bursting with leftover party food, when the last guest finally clears out, I realize I am starving. I’m not alone.

  “Whaddya think? Should we call in a sub?” Dad is hovering beside me as I scour the takeout menu by the kitchen phone.

  “But there’s so much food!” Mom reminds us both loudly from the living room. “We can’t let those finger sandwiches go to waste.”

  Dad sighs. “We won’t, dear. You know how I love cucumber sandwiches.” He turns back to me. “Meatball sub, extra cheese,” he mouths, pointing to the phone.

  I place our order and grab my keys. First, I want to drive downtown. “Back soon,” I call.

  The sun is low in the sky when I walk along Mystic River park, and aside from a few dog walkers and joggers, I’ve got the pier to myself. The air is heady with salt, and I tip my face to the last of the evening sun before it slips below the waterline. Out on the water there are a few small boats in the distance, the whir of their engines the background noise to my childhood. I step onto the pier and make my way down to the end, where the water laps against the pier pilings. I’ve missed this.

  Before moving away and becoming what my dad playfully dubs as a “city slicker,” I always imagined myself living in a cozy place just like this. Where is that girl who would sit for hours on the pier with her sketch pad and charcoal pencils? Still reminiscing, I take one last deep breath and turn back for the street. My heart stops.

  Cameron Wilder is walking toward me across the green. He’s wearing a baseball hat, so I can’t see his expression beneath the shaded rim. But it’s him, I am sure. The leggy stride, the squared shoulders. He glances up at the sky, and I know. I would recognize that mouth anywhere, the way the corners turn up playfully, as if he’s about to laugh. He’s not alone. Cameron is with a young woman. And he’s pushing a baby stroller.

  I freeze.

  The woman flips her long hair over her shoulder and smiles at something he’s just said. Instinctively I make a sharp left off the pier, fumbling in my pocket for my car keys.

  But out of the corner of my eye I see him stop and turn in my direction. “Maggie?”

  There’s no getting away now.

  We meet in the middle of the green. I’m more than a little relieved when I realize that the girl he’s with is none other than his older sister, Anna. But there’s an awkward beat before he lets go of the stroller and gives me a loose hug. “Wow,” he says. “It’s you.”

  “It’s me.” I pull away and smile back at him, aware of the strangeness that’s filled the space between us. Anna saves us.

  “Maggie, so good to see you!” We exchange pleasantries, but I feel Cameron studying me.

  “And who’s this little one?” I ask, bending to peek into the stroller.

  A tiny cherubic face gazes up at me, her eyes wide and blue. She has the longest eyelashes I have ever seen. “This is Emory,” Cam says, reaching in to touch her cheek. I had heard that Anna had gotten married and had a baby. “She’s beautiful,” I tell her. “Jane has three kids of her own, too.”

  Anna laughs. “Three? Wow. She must be busy.”

  “That she is,” I agree, feeling silly that we’re all standing around talking about Jane. Emory begins to fuss, and Anna takes the handles of the stroller.

  “Be sure to say hi to your sister for me, okay?” Then she looks at Cam. “I’ll take Emory for a little stroll along the water,” she tells him, leaving us alone.

  Up close Cam looks remarkably the same, though there is a haze to his blue-gray eyes that wasn’t there before. And a few more crinkles around his eyes when he smiles. “So how long are you visiting for?” I ask.

  “Actually, I moved back here. A couple months ago.” He looks directly at me for the first time and I feel a little release in my tummy, the same way I used to when we’d sit shoulder to shoulder on the hood of his Jeep.

  Cameron moved back to Mystic? The last I’d heard he was still out in California, having finished graduate school.

  “How about you?” he asks.

  “I’m only visiting for the weekend. It’s my mom’s birthday,” I say. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, but that balmy August night we parted ways in my driveway surges back. I wonder if he’s remembering it, too. He’d tried to kiss me goodbye and I’d turned my cheek. Something I’ve always regretted. When he doesn’t say anything I add, “I’m living up in Boston, now. I teach at a private school.”

  “That’s great.” I’m not sure if he’s talking about Boston or the teaching part, but he doesn’t expand either way. Suddenly I’m aware of my baggy sweats and my droopy ponytail. This is not the way I wanted to look if we met up again. And this is definitely not going as I’d always imagined it would. I have the sudden urge to flee to my car. But something holds me rooted to the ground in front of him.

  Until he beats me to it. “Well, I’d better get going.” He nods toward his sister and the baby, who are waiting at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Yeah, me, too.” Unsure of how to say goodbye (I am not going in for another awkward half-hug), I lift one hand.

  Cameron looks at my hand, then back at me. The night in my driveway flashes once more. And be
fore I realize what he’s doing he clasps it in his own, our fingers entwining. My cheeks flush at the familiar warmth of his grip but I force myself to meet his gaze. I squeeze back. “See you around, Mags.” And just as quickly he lets go and turns down the pier.

  “See you,” I manage. But he’s already gone.

  Breathless, I hurry to my car. It’s only when I’m pulling away that I peek back in my rearview mirror. Cameron is standing beside Anna, bent over the baby stroller. She’s the one watching as I drive off. I press my hand to my cheek.

  When I get home with the subs I’m not hungry anymore. My parents are in the kitchen, at the table, drinking tea. “Everything okay?” My mother has radar.

  I hand the paper takeout bag to my dad. “I just ran into Cameron Wilder.”

  Mom’s expression is one of feigned surprise. “Really?”

  I take a deep breath, trying to slow my heart rate. “I had no idea he moved back to Mystic.”

  My mother stares into her teacup.

  “So how is Cameron?” Dad asks brightly. All through high school and college, Dad refused to take any of the local boys I dated seriously, referring to them dismissively as “the car wash kid” or the “lifeguard guy.” But he’d liked Cameron from the start.

  I shrug, still flustered by our awkward reunion. “He’s fine, I guess. He was down at the pier with his sister, Anna. And her baby.” I pause. “Emory, I think her name is.”

  Mom looks up, an expression of uncertainty on her face. “That’s not Anna’s baby,” she says, finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mom and Dad exchange a look before she answers me. “That baby is Cameron’s.”

  Four

  Miss Griffin, are you okay?”

  Molly Ferguson is standing opposite my desk, peering at me through her Tina Fey–style pink glasses. I lift my head from the keyboard of my laptop and rub my eyes.

  “Were you sleeping, Miss Griffin?”

  “Me? Of course not,” I stammer, blowing a wayward clump of hair out of my eyes and jerking upright. I have never fallen asleep in class. Not as a student, and certainly never as a teacher.

  “Um, I think you have a keyboard imprint on your face.”

  “What?” I stand, and grab the small mirror I keep in my desk drawer to confirm that there are no leftover pieces of lunch stuck between my teeth should a parent surprise me. Sure enough, there is a row of red squares marching across my left cheek where I must’ve rested my face on my laptop. “Oh, God. I mean, gosh.”

  For the last two nights, I’m lucky if I got a combined seven hours of sleep. I’ve been waking from fitful dreams about weddings. And Mystic. And, despite my consternation, Cameron Wilder. Who (even though Erika insisted he was just a pang from my past that was sure to fade during a rather late-night discussion upon my return to Boston) has managed to infiltrate not only my waking but also my sleeping hours. Even on laptops.

  “It’s okay,” Molly whispers, as I struggle to compose myself now. “Once Danny Phillips fell asleep during my movie theater birthday party, and he drooled on himself. We took a picture.” She examines my face carefully. “Doesn’t look like you drooled.”

  Soothing reassurance from a nine-year-old.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” I insist, though I can tell she isn’t buying it. “I was just listening to my computer. It was making this weird humming sound.”

  “Uh-huh.” She doesn’t blink. “Here’s my essay. The timer went off five minutes ago. Just so you know.”

  “The timer!” I fly out from behind my desk. “Boys and girls, pencils down!” Half the class is reading silently, and they look up at me over their books as though I’ve kept them waiting. Which I apparently have. The other half is still scribbling madly in their mastery test workbooks, pretending they didn’t hear me. I was supposed to end the writing prompt five minutes ago. I glance at the clock; make it ten.

  “Isn’t this supposed to be a timed test?” Wrenn Bailey is studying me like I’m interviewing for a job, and poorly at that. Wrenn is one of those students who feels the need to give me constant feedback, and he keeps regular tabs on my management skills, forever reminding me that it’s past lunchtime. That the missing math books I’m looking for are on my desk, exactly where I left them. And that his father does long division a different way. Now he crosses his arms, awaiting my reply.

  “Yes, Wrenn. That is correct. I noticed that many of you were a little behind, and therefore decided to add some extra time so that you could all finish.”

  He blinks. “Then what’s the point of it being a timed prompt?”

  I try not to glare at him as I whisk the prompt off his desk, which I already know, while void of any personality or hint of creative expression, will be grammatically flawless. Wrenn is a rule follower. He approaches my assignments, like most things, with suspicious calculation. In his world there is only one right answer, and only one acceptable way to arrive at it. Poetry baffles him. Music causes him to twitch. He will probably make a fine IRS auditor some day.

  Then I remember Timmy Lafferty. Timmy is hunched over his closed journal, still wiping the sleep from his eyes. “Will you come speak to me for a moment?” He trudges over, eyes darting back to his desk as if he’d rather be there.

  “Are you feeling okay today?”

  He clears his throat. “Yes.”

  I motion for him to come closer. “I read your narrative last night,” I whisper. “The one about the sorcerer and the magic owl?” Timmy is the kind of kid who trots quietly along in the middle of the pack. One of those shy gems that you might otherwise overlook, until you give him some creative license, like with the writing assignment the kids handed in yesterday.

  His eyes widen. “Was it any good?”

  I shake my head. “No. Not good. It was great!”

  Timmy smiles so wide I could count each of his orthodontic brackets.

  “I think you should enter this in the writer’s workshop contest. Have you thought about that?”

  Timmy’s lips zip closed again. “I don’t know.”

  The writer’s workshop is an annual writing celebration hosted by Darby’s board of directors. Local authors come in to work with small groups of specially selected students. It’s my favorite school event of the year.

  “I think you’d really enjoy meeting other authors like yourself,” I say.

  He smiles just a little at that. “Okay. I’ll ask my mom.”

  Timmy is the exact kind of kid the workshop is made for—talented kids who need a boost of confidence. There’s a scuffle in the back row, and I’m suddenly reminded of those who don’t need a dose of confidence. “Horatio. Can I help you with something?”

  Horatio is rifling through a backpack that I know for a fact is not his. This one is a tattered blue L.L.Bean. His is a monogrammed leather messenger bag that I, myself, would frankly kill for.

  Behind Horatio, Brad King chews his bottom lip nervously.

  “Nope. I’m good.” Horatio continues to rummage through Brad’s bag.

  I go to his desk and place my hand on the bag gently. This gesture would cause any one of my other twenty students to surrender the bag wordlessly. But Horatio grips it tighter.

  “Yo. Let go my bag.”

  Nice slang touch for Plymouth County. “This is not your bag,” I remind him.

  “So?” Horatio glares sideways at me from beneath his floppy bangs that are cut to look hip, but in my opinion only serve to make him look more sneaky. There is a collective intake of breath behind me. This is the utmost test of any teacher. Forget parents or curriculum or state standardized testing. Classroom management is number one. If a student picks at the threads of its fabric, you have to mend it. Fast.

  I try again in a calm but firm tone. “Horatio. Let. Go. Of. The. Bag.” I stare back at him, feeling my chest begin to pound. “Now.”

  Horatio thrusts the bag in my direction, and pauses for a menacing beat. Then, as if on cue, his face crumples. “Ow! You hurt me!�
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  The class gasps. Brad King looks at me in horror.

  “What?” How could this have happened? I look down at his hand and try to examine it.

  “Ow! Don’t touch me!” Horatio clutches his finger protectively against his chest and leaps from his seat as if he’s been struck by a bolt of lightning.

  “Horatio, please. Show me your finger. Did you get it stuck in the bag somehow?”

  “I’m bleeding!” He holds up his right index finger, which is covered in red. My knees buckle. I do not do blood.

  “Anna Beth, get the nurse!” I cry.

  I reach for Horatio’s hand, trying to stave off the tide of nausea that is sweeping over me. The boy is bleeding. And he’s screaming that I did it. “Let me look,” I plead.

  But Horatio reels away from me. “No! Don’t hurt me again!”

  I can sense the other kids starting to panic. There is no way I hurt him. Is there? The whole class is on its feet as Horatio jerks and spins, clutching his bloody hand. He won’t let me near him, but maybe that’s for the best. I think I’m about to faint. As I envision Horatio being whisked away in an ambulance another thought strikes me: my teaching career is over.

  Behind me Wrenn Bailey makes a strangled sound. What now? I spin around. Is he laughing?

  Suddenly I notice other kids also straining to contain their amusement.

  “Class, be quiet!” I shush them. Can’t they see this is a crisis?

  But as wrong as this whole scenario is, something else isn’t right. I turn back to Horatio, who is now clutching his left hand to his chest. And then to Brad King’s desk, where his snack of carrot sticks sits beside a little container of something red.

  “Brad, is that . . . ?

  Brad nods. “Ketchup.”

  “Ha! Got you!” Horatio pumps his stained hand in triumph.

  Now my temper is the only thing pounding. If I were any less of a professional I would yank his finger off for real. “Horatio!” I hiss. “In the hallway!”