The Summer I Learned to Fly

by Dana Reinhardt

  “Well, I know he lives with his dad and that they’re staying on someone’s couch or something while they look for their own place to live. They’re just getting settled and …”

  It wasn’t until I heard myself say this out loud that I understood that not a word of it was true.

  “… and that’s what he told me.… He told me they were looking for a bachelor pad.” Finn stared, unblinkingly. “But none of that is true,” I said. He plucked a few more strings.

  I knew there was something more to Emmett’s story, even if I hadn’t looked too closely. Something that would lead him to the back alley of the Cheese Shop. I didn’t have a father, and I guessed fathers didn’t send their children out to gather cast-off food, but I’d figured times were really tough for the two of them. That was why they’d come here. Why they were staying with friends on a couch. Times were tough. Tough for everybody.

  But still. Something about his story wasn’t right.

  Emotions whipped through me, pinball style. Stupid: ding. Angry: ding. Confused: ding. Sad and sorry: ding, ding, ding.

  I sat down on the sidewalk. Right there in front of the Safeway. Finn sat next to me and folded his legs beneath him.

  “If you hang around here long enough,” Finn said, “he’ll probably turn up. He usually pops by in the afternoon.”

  “I don’t know.… Maybe I should just go.”

  “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

  I looked up from the sidewalk, where I was scratching at a patch of dirt. He meant it. He wouldn’t mind my company. That was worth something.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “What’s your story?”

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  “I don’t have a story. I’m just a normal kid who does what she’s told and never gets in too much trouble. I don’t go anywhere or do much of anything, and maybe the worst part is that it’s never really bothered me.”

  “Ah. I bet there’s more to you than that.”

  “Maybe. I would like to go to Hawaii.”

  “For the beaches?”

  “And the candy bars.”

  He gave me a puzzled look, but then shrugged it off. “I’m on my way to Alaska,” he said.

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “Wow.”

  I didn’t know anyone who’d been to Alaska, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever want to go. Snow everywhere you looked. Ice houses. Frozen earth. A distant and vanishing sun. So bleak.

  “What’s in Alaska?” I knew it had to be some shining light in all that darkness. Something vital.

  “What else?” he said. “A girl.” Again, the sound of random strings plucked while lost in thought. “The girl.”

  We sat by the shopping carts as he told me the story of Lorelai, how they’d met back in Dublin while she was on a school trip, and though they’d only known each other a few days, he loved her, he loved her so completely that the only thing that mattered to him was reaching her again.

  Someone threw a few coins into Finn’s hat, still resting in front of us. We must have looked like ordinary beggars.

  He told me he swore he’d find her. Those were his parting words to Lorelai. He promised he’d find her again.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You haven’t spoken to her since?”

  “Nary a whisper.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Last summer.”

  “That’s a year ago.”

  “Aye. Alaska is a far way from Dublin. It’s a very, very long trip.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Juneau. Lovely word, isn’t it?”

  There were questions I wanted to ask. Why hadn’t he called her? What if she’d moved on? What if she loved somebody else? What if she remembered him, the way you do someone who’s gone, but didn’t imagine him, the way you do when the whole world is still full of possibility?

  Soon we were joined by some of the others from the beach. Molly and Christian and Jasper with their dangling cigarettes.

  Just as they approached, Finn leaned in close. He whispered, “When there’s something, or someone, when there’s anything that makes you happy, you don’t let a continent or an ocean or an empty pocket keep you apart.”

  He returned to his busking and we all hung around and listened. A few times Molly joined in and harmonized. It was no wonder that his hat filled quickly. Finn had amazing talent. His voice was a golden ticket. A pass to wherever he wanted or needed to go.

  Eventually my backpack started to jump around in quick fits and starts. Hum, up from a power nap, was hungry. I felt a surge of guilt for not saving him a cheese stick, so I ducked back into the Safeway to buy a bag of macadamia nuts.

  The day had turned into a scorcher, so I went to the dairy aisle to cool off. I looked at the pathetic selection of cheeses. Business just had to get better at the Cheese Shop. Sure, nothing beats a cheese stick, but who doesn’t want a quality imported goat cheddar now and then?

  The woman next to me reached for a carton of milk and changed her mind. She returned it to the shelf backward so the carton showed the face of a girl, the words Have You Seen Me? below her picture.

  I stared at her. I grabbed another carton and looked at its other side. A different girl. Older. Missing since November. I grabbed another: a boy with blond hair and a gap between his teeth. I turned the cartons around, one after another. I felt feverish, on a wild hunt. I dug my arms into the depths of the case. I searched every single one.

  Searching for Emmett.

  I knew, with a strange, unfamiliar certainty, that Emmett was missing. He was a runaway. It all made sudden, perfect sense.

  Have You Seen Me?

  Yes, I’ve seen you. You are missing.

  I grabbed the last carton in the case. A boy. Curly dark hair. Kind eyes. Sweet smile. Not Emmett Crane.

  I paid for my nuts and stumbled back into the sunlight. I sat down with the group and let Hum eat out of my hand. I tried to make some sense of what I’d discovered. I hadn’t found him, and yet … I knew. The carefully avoided answers. The sudden disappearing acts. The food retrieved from the alley. The misfit band of friends.

  Emmett Crane. A runaway.

  Why? From what?

  I didn’t see Mom arrive, but suddenly she was there, arms folded, glaring at me, and for some reason the first thing I did was shove Hum back into my bag. That’s what I thought contorted her face—that she’d caught me out of the house with my rat, connected the dots, and realized I took him everywhere, even to the Cheese Shop.

  Of course now I can see things as she did. I can imagine what it was like for Mom to approach the grocery store to find her daughter loitering out front with a group of chain-smoking tattooed teenagers scrounging for money.

  “Drew?” she said as if she didn’t know me. Or hadn’t seen me in years. As if she needed to check her senses—make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

  “Drew?” said Jasper. “Who’s Drew?”

  “Hey, Mom,” I said, starting to scramble up, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  “Robin?” Molly looked at me.

  Mom looked at Molly. Confusion settled on everyone’s face but mine, which was turning red. I was caught in a lie that felt much larger than it actually was.

  “Let’s just go,” I said. “Okay, Mom?”

  She turned and started walking quickly toward the car. I trailed after her. I waved over my shoulder at Finn and the others and I could see what looked like pity in the way they waved back.

  We snaked our way through the parking lot and all those cars. When we reached ours Mom put her hand on the door handle.

  “I meant to buy some steaks,” she said in a shaky voice. “For dinner.”

  “Just open the car. Please.”

  “I need to go buy steaks.”

  “I don’t need meat, Mom. Pasta i
s fine. Please. Let’s just get out of here.”

  We climbed into our seats and she started the engine. It wasn’t until we were driving past the hospital that she spoke again.

  “Who are those people?”

  I looked up in another attempt at spying Nick, like he was a presence in the sky, a benevolent god, rather than an amputee trapped in a hospital bed. Nick. He’d know what to do. He’d know how to find Emmett. He’d know why I cared so much. He’d be able to explain those milk cartons to me. He’d know what to say to Mom, how to talk to her about everything that had launched a sneak attack on what was to be my perfect summer.

  Nick. He could fix anything.

  “Those people,” I said, “are my friends.” This wasn’t entirely true. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t true at all, but it felt good to say it. It felt important. I felt important.

  “They smoke cigarettes.”

  “So does Swoozie.”

  “You’re thirteen.”

  “Why are you always reminding me of my age? Like I could ever possibly forget how old I am? I mean, how could I ever forget when you remind me every minute of every day?”

  She gripped the wheel tighter. “Why do those people, your friends, call you Robin?”

  “Because. That’s my name.”

  “Your name is Drew.”

  “No, Mom. His name was Drew. And now he’s dead.”

  Right then I wanted to cry. I wanted to, but I didn’t, because the inside of that car no longer felt like a safe place to do so. I’d cried more times in Mom’s car than I could possibly count—after school when I felt like my teacher had been picking on me, when there was a birthday party I’d been excluded from, when the sad ending of the movie we’d seen had taken its time creeping up on me. But now I just sat and endured her silence.

  I didn’t dare look at her. I’d denounced my name. And I’d said the word dead.

  We pulled into the driveway and she turned off the ignition. She stared straight ahead.

  “I guess,” she said, “that there are some things we need to talk about.”

  “There’s nothing I want to talk about.” As if that weren’t harsh enough, I added, “At least, there’s nothing I want to talk about with you.”

  I got out of the car and slammed the door. I started walking toward the house.

  She unrolled her window.

  “Is this all because I’ve been seeing someone?”

  I stopped. I didn’t turn around.

  “Is that why you’re acting this way? Because I’ve dared to spend some of my free time with someone who isn’t you? Grow up, Drew.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” I shouted. “But you won’t let me.”

  grounded

  Here’s the note I found by the kitchen sink the next morning:

  7:54 a.m.

  DREW Robin Solo—

  Do not even think about leaving this house today. You are grounded. You may come to work if you wish, but if you choose not to, you may not leave this house. I will call you at 10:00. And I will continue to call you every hour on the hour all day long to confirm that you are home.

  Don’t argue. That’s the way it has to be. Mom

  The space above where she’d written Mom glared at me, an angry, punishing white. No love you madly, not even its poor cousin, the simple, lonely love. I knew she meant business. I glanced at the clock: 9:39.

  I had time for a shower. Showers always helped me think. I stood in them far longer than it took to get clean, staring at my feet until I turned pink. But when I stepped out of this shower, I had no idea how to go about my day, or my life.

  The phone rang a minute later.

  “I’m here.”

  “Good.”

  “Talk to you in an hour.” I hung up.

  The phone rang again.

  “Don’t hang up on me.”

  “I thought we were through.”

  “We were.”

  “So?”

  “It’s customary to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  “Goodbye, Birdie.”

  I let her hang up first this time. I got dressed even though I wasn’t going anyplace. How do you dress for a day of nothing? Of exile from the world for crimes you can’t even name?

  I put on a tank top and a pair of Mom’s old yoga pants. I cleaned Hum’s cage and I cleaned my room. I took out Emmett’s notes, with their crane creases, and reread them, though I knew them by heart, before putting them back in my bedside drawer.

  The phone rang again.

  “An hour already?” I said.

  “Time flies when you’re grounded.”

  “And see? I’m still here.”

  “Yes, you are. Good girl.”

  “Don’t talk to me like a child.”

  Mom sighed. “I know you’re growing up, Drew. But I want you to know that I’m not taking my eyes off you.”

  “That sounds creepy.”

  “I guess what I mean to say is, I’m not falling asleep on the job. I know I’ve been distracted. Running a business is all-consuming even in the best of times, and Lord knows these have not been the best of times. And yes, I’ve met someone. When it rains it pours, I suppose. I know I could have handled this better. I should have talked to you earlier, but I wanted to wait until I knew it was something worth telling you about. And now I’ve gone and messed this up. But we’ll figure it out. I promise. We’ll sit down and we’ll talk. I’m not forgetting you, Drew. You come first. Before anything else in my life. For better or worse.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Yes, you can go now. Goodbye, love.”

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  I continued my cleaning frenzy. At least, that was how I justified rifling through the piles of mess in Mom’s bedroom. Mountains of books abandoned in the middle; clean shirts pulled from the closet, then tossed to the floor; mugs of half-drunk coffee—an anthropologist dropped in the center of Mom’s bedroom would have no choice but to conclude that whatever creature inhabited this space suffered from some sort of attention deficit disorder. But I knew that already. Mom had trouble finishing things. That wasn’t what I was looking to discover about her.

  I wanted to know who drove that silver car.

  I looked in her bedside drawer, trying not to think about how awful it was to do that. If Mom went looking through my bedside drawer, I’d never forgive her. I’d cease loving her madly. But I opened the drawer anyway, slowly, as if this somehow absolved me of my sin, and I found nothing. No folded and refolded notes. No book of lists including Men I’m Currently Dating.

  The phone rang again.

  “It’s only eleven-forty-two,” I said. “You’re early.”

  “Robin?”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Then I held it up again.

  “Hello … Hello …?” he was saying.

  Have you seen me?

  He must have heard me breathing, because he began to talk. “Please,” he said. “Don’t hang up. Just listen to me. I want to come see you. Can I come see you? I’m only a few blocks away.”

  I closed my eyes and traced a circle around my small house, and then I traced another, and another, radiating out, wider and wider, until I could picture a pay phone. Outside Patrick O’Malley’s. The bar nobody ever seemed to go into or out of, which was no more than five blocks away.

  “I’m grounded,” I said.

  “I’ll come to you.” He paused. “If Lost, Please Return to Drew Solo: One Forty-Six Mount Pleasant Drive.”

  All those circles, like rings on a tree stump revealing how long that tree has been alive, and I was the center. My little house. My little life.

  “Okay.” I hung up without saying goodbye.

  You are lost. I stared at the phone tucked back into its cradle.

  But I have seen you.

  this is not a dream

  Mom’s twelve o’clock phone call and Emmett’s knock on the door arrived simultaneously.

&
nbsp; I reached for the phone first. “Can’t talk now, on a cleaning jag.”

  “Don’t forget the fridge,” she said.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Good—”

  I hung up and then worried she’d call again with a lecture about how it isn’t customary to cut off somebody in the middle of a goodbye, but she didn’t. It was a work in progress, this business of learning how to say goodbye to each other.

  I opened the door and stood facing him. I hadn’t decided if I was going to let him in or not.

  “Robin,” he said.

  “I know,” I said. “I know you aren’t staying on a couch with your father and I know you aren’t looking for a bachelor pad and I know you ran away from home, wherever that is.”

  He dug his hands into his pockets and sighed.

  Something about the sadness on his cartoon face tipped my inner scales. I let him in. He followed me into the kitchen, where we both sat on stools at the counter.

  “I’m not sure where to begin,” he said.

  I thought of saying How about at the beginning? or How about starting with the truth? but both of those responses felt cliché to me even then, like something from one of the bad TV shows I liked to watch.

  “Start with your name,” I said. “Your real name.”

  “Michael Emmett Forsythe.”

  “So where’d you get Crane from?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper crane, put it on the counter between us, and shrugged.

  “I see.”

  A long silence followed.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said. “You know … I can’t really come out and tell just anyone that I ran away from home. What if you called the police? What if you thought you were doing the right thing? You’re like that, Robin. You want to do the right thing.”

  I thought about how I’d searched Mom’s bedside drawer. How I’d stolen Dad’s Book of Lists. How I sneaked Hum into all the places he wasn’t allowed. What could possibly have made Michael Emmett Forsythe see me as someone who wanted to do the right thing?