The Light in Summer

by Mary McNear

  “Yes,” Annabelle said. She’d been holding her sketch pad with one hand and her pencil with the other, but now the hand holding the pencil had to hold the tire swing chain, too. “Come on,” she said. She tried to be serious, but she was still smiling. “I want to show what I learned in my figure drawing class this summer. I’ve really improved since the last time I drew you.”

  “Okay. We’ll stop. Just . . . one more swing, okay?” Luke said, pushing off again. He wanted her to draw him, if that’s what she wanted to do, but he wanted to keep swinging, too. When the tire tilted up in the air and then tilted back down again, it made him feel the same way on the outside that he felt on the inside. Which was . . . light. Free. Like he could swing forever. He felt that way about skateboarding sometimes if he was lucky, and the board was right, and the pavement was right, and his mood was right, but this was different. This was better. Annabelle was here. And when he lifted his feet up and hitched them on the inside of the tire on the upward swing, his knees bumped against her knees. When he leaned toward her on the downward swing, her long, loose hair, which was blowing around her face, touched his face, and that was nice, too.

  It was weird how fast things could change. A week ago, he’d thought Annabelle hated him, and now . . . now he knew she didn’t. When he’d asked Cal about her on the steps of the library, he’d half expected some big lecture from him about girls. But when Cal had found out Annabelle was at the drugstore, he’d said, “Now? She’s there right now? Then why are you standing here talking to me?”

  Luke couldn’t answer that, so he shrugged and went down the block to the drugstore. When he walked in, Annabelle was still there, standing at the makeup counter, using lipsticks to put these little marks on the back of her hand. Luke had thought a lot about what he’d say to Annabelle the next time he saw her, but what he said to her then was, “Why are you doing that? Putting lipstick on your hand?” And she’d said, “To see what it would look like with my skin tone. They don’t let you put it on your lips here.”

  “Will your parents even let you wear that?” Luke asked because of all the rules they had.

  “As long as it looks natural,” Annabelle said. “That’s why I’m not trying the reds. Just the corals and pinks.”

  “Oh,” Luke said. And then they just started talking. Not about lipstick, but about other things, like her drawing class, and his hiking trip, and her brother breaking his collarbone, which Luke hadn’t even known about. Afterward they’d come back to Luke’s house, and Annabelle had wanted to go on the tire swing. Luke thought they were a little old to swing, but once they got on it, he didn’t mind. It was actually pretty fun. It was where he’d told her about how he was going to meet his dad in another week, and about his two half sisters. She was really excited, which was good, because it made Luke forget, for a little while, that he was kind of nervous about it. He and Annabelle hadn’t been together on the tire swing since that day over a week ago. Partly because he’d been busy with Nature Camp and going to Minneapolis, and she’d been away on a family trip.

  He heard the back door open now, heard his mom call out, “Luke? Annabelle?”

  He tried to ignore her, but Annabelle used her foot to slow down the swing.

  “Yes, Ms. Harper?” Annabelle called back. She was so polite, Luke thought. His mom had told her to call her Billy at least a hundred times over the years, but she still wouldn’t call her that. It was a church thing. Her parents said she had to call all the adults in their congregation Mr. or Mrs. or Ms., even if she’d known them all her life. It was just the way they did things, Luke guessed. It seemed old-fashioned, but for some reason it seemed nice, too.

  “Are either of you thirsty?” Billy asked, standing on the porch. “I can bring you some lemonade.”

  “No,” Luke said, not looking at her. He was hoping she wouldn’t come over to them. His and Annabelle’s knees were almost touching, and he was afraid that if his mom came any closer, Annabelle would move her knees away.

  “No, thank you, Ms. Harper,” Annabelle said. “I have to go soon, anyway. It’s almost dinnertime.”

  It was? He didn’t want her to go. He’d forgotten, though, how early her family ate dinner. That was a church thing, too. Her dad had all these commitments on weeknights, like Bible study groups and things like that.

  “All right, then,” his mom said, and Luke could tell she was happy that he and Annabelle were hanging out together again. “Let me know if you change your minds.” Please go back inside, he thought. As if she’d heard him, she said good-bye to Annabelle and did.

  “I saw your mom’s boyfriend on Main Street today,” Annabelle said, starting to draw him again.

  Luke nodded. It was weird hearing someone call Cal his mom’s boyfriend, but he supposed that’s what he was.

  “He was parking his Porsche.”

  “He’s selling that. Which is too bad. But he wants something he can drive in the winter. He asked me to look at Jeeps in Duluth with him tomorrow.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Annabelle said.

  “Maybe.” He shrugged.

  Then they were quiet while Annabelle was trying to get something right in her drawing.

  “I told my parents about you meeting your dad,” she said finally. “Was that okay?”

  “I guess,” he said.

  “My mom said it was like a movie,” Annabelle said. “She meant, I think, those made-for-TV movies she watches on the Hallmark Channel.”

  “I don’t think it was like that,” Luke said. He was thinking to himself, that if his life were going to be like a movie, he’d prefer Fast & Furious to the Hallmark Channel. He’d already told Annabelle yesterday, when he’d briefly run into her, about meeting his dad at the hotel coffee shop. He hadn’t told her everything. Because he still didn’t know how to describe it. He’d thought about it a lot, though, kind of playing it over in his head and remembering little details. He liked his dad, and he could tell his dad liked him, too. But his mom kept saying “You’ll just need to take things slowly.” It reminded him of Mad Dog saying he needed to be “in the present.” Adults had these things they said that were supposed to be so helpful, but they were sometimes just annoying.

  “Anyway, my mom is happy for you. And my dad . . .”

  “Does he still hate me?”

  “No. He said you were a good kid. Basically a good kid.”

  “Basically?” Luke echoed. He wasn’t sure if he liked that or not. But Annabelle didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

  “Yes, and he said you weren’t going to be hanging out with Van anymore, either.”

  “Yeah. I’m not allowed to. In school, though, it might be hard . . .” School was starting soon, and he felt a little nervous. It was his last year of middle school. So much had changed over the summer. What would Van think when he told him his dad didn’t live in Alaska, but on Vancouver Island instead?

  “You don’t know about Van?” Annabelle had stopped drawing and was looking at him a little strangely. The tire swing was still now.

  “What?” Luke said. “What about him?”

  “He . . . got sent away. I thought you knew. I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Luke shook his head, confused. “I haven’t seen to him since before I went on the hiking trip. What do you mean, ‘He got sent away’?”

  Annabelle looked upset. She even closed her sketch pad.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Well, my dad said . . . and don’t repeat this, okay, Luke? Because a lot of what he hears . . .”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes he doesn’t want it to go any further . . . But Officer Sawyer told him that Van and his friend, that dropout—”

  “J.P.,” Luke said, and for some reason his heart was beating faster.

  “He and J.P.,” Annabelle continued, “got caught breaking into the Greys’ barn.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said. And he meant it. He was shocked. He didn’t think they’d really d
o it. They were always talking about doing stuff that they didn’t do.

  Annabelle shook her head. “No. They did. And the Greys’ handyman called the police. And then he called Mr. Grey.”

  “Did they get arrested?”

  She shook her head. “No, Mr. Grey didn’t want to press charges. But he did want there to be some consequences. So J.P., who’d already been in trouble before, got sent to some program. I don’t know what it was. Something that’s supposed to, you know, get you back on track. But Van . . . when the police called his parents to come pick him up at the station, nobody came. And when they went to his house to talk to his parents, no one was home.”

  “It’s only his dad,” Luke said.

  “No, I mean, he was gone, too. Van had been living there all alone. There was supposed to be some aunt or something that was stopping by to help, but . . .” Annabelle shrugged. “They couldn’t find her, either. So he was just on his own there. He wouldn’t really say for how long. But there were no groceries. And he didn’t have any money.”

  Luke looked away. He thought about Van on the riverbank that afternoon the last time he’d seen him, eating that bag of Cheetos, and all of his ribs showing through his T-shirt. He was afraid he was going to cry. “Do you think he was hungry?” he asked Annabelle.

  “I . . . I don’t know. They found someone, someone from his mom’s side of the family, I think, to take him. He went to live with them in South Dakota, and . . . he’ll probably be okay. I mean, they’re probably nice, right?”

  Luke shook his head. “Not if they’re from his mom’s family. I mean, she didn’t even want him. She just left him.”

  Annabelle didn’t say anything, but she felt bad. Luke could see that.

  Finally Luke gave the tire swing a push. “He was my friend,” he said, not really to Annabelle. More to himself.

  “I know,” she said. And for some reason Luke glanced at the charm bracelet on her suntanned wrist. He’d always liked the way it looked there.

  “I used to talk to him about my dad,” he said. “About finding him.”

  “Luke, I’m sorry. I have to go. Are you okay?” Annabelle asked, her light brown eyes worried.

  “Yeah,” Luke said. “It’s all right. I would have found out anyway, I guess. Eventually.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? We can go to Pearl’s.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Here,” she said, opening her notebook and tearing a sheet out of it. “You can have this.” She held it out to him and he took it, but before he could look at it, she leaned over and kissed him on the lips, really fast. Then she got off the tire swing and ran toward her back door, calling bye to him over her shoulder.

  Luke looked at the picture she’d drawn of him and smiled. It was actually pretty good.

  CHAPTER 35

  Hey,” Cal said when Luke answered the front door the next morning. “You ready?”

  Cal wondered for a second if Luke had forgotten about going to Duluth to test-drive a Jeep Cherokee, but Luke nodded and said, “Almost. Murphy’s in the backyard, though. I just need to put him inside.”

  “Okay, great. I’ll wait here,” Cal said.

  Luke was back in a minute. “Let’s go,” he said, yanking a baseball cap on backward over slightly unruly hair.

  “Thanks for doing this, by the way,” Cal said as they walked over to his Porsche, which was parked on the street in front of the house. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Huh?” Luke asked, squinting at Cal in the dazzling morning light.

  Cal resisted the urge to smile. If Luke was anything like he’d been at thirteen, he heard only about twenty-five percent of what adults said to him, maybe less. “I said thanks for coming today. Did you . . . get a chance to have some breakfast?”

  “Oh, yeah. My mom made some eggs before she left for work. They’re one of the things she can do, like, halfway decently,” Luke added. “That and hot dogs.” Cal nodded but again did not smile, this time out of loyalty to Billy.

  He and Luke reached the car and climbed in, Cal waiting until Luke’s seat belt was fastened before he turned on the engine. He pulled away from the curb and headed out of town, amused that Luke seemed to be enjoying himself so much. He was adjusting his seat, running his hand over the leather upholstery, and examining the “infotainment touch screen panel” on the dashboard.

  “There’s wireless Internet if you’re interested,” Cal offered, looking over at Luke. “Or we can blast some music.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” Cal said in what he knew was a shameless bid for Luke’s approval. “Anything you want, as loud as you want it.”

  Luke used the touch screen to search SiriusXM, chose an R&B station, and cranked up Drake’s “One Dance” loud enough to make the windows vibrate. Cal didn’t mind. He liked this song, too.

  “The sound is amazing,” Luke said, swiveling around in his seat. “It’s, like, coming from everywhere.”

  “There are nine speakers,” Cal said loudly to make himself heard over the song.

  “Are you going to go any faster?” Luke asked hopefully once they were out on the highway. Cal was purposely driving the speed limit.

  “Maybe a little bit,” Cal said. After checking his rearview mirror, he floored it, just for a second.

  “Whoa,” Luke said. “Keep going.”

  “Sorry, that’s it,” Cal said. “I don’t think your mom would be too happy if we drove to Duluth like that.”

  “Probably not,” Luke agreed. “Why do you want to sell this car, though?” he asked. “It’s so cool.”

  “It’s pretty cool,” Cal agreed, “but it’s not practical anymore. Not up here.” And not only that—he also needed a car that could accommodate more than one passenger. Billy and Luke were both a part of his life now.

  “Maybe it’s not practical in the winter,” Luke said. “But . . . the rest of the year? Maybe you can have two cars.”

  Cal smiled. “Maybe, sometime. But not now. This car reminds me of my life in Seattle. I’d kind of like to get something new. You know, start with a clean slate. That kind of thing.”

  Luke considered this. “Was your life in Seattle that bad?” he asked, turning down the radio.

  “No,” Cal said. “Not all of it. Parts of it . . . parts were good. But things are different now, and I think it’s time for a change.”

  Luke seemed to accept this. “I was looking at a map last night,” he said after a moment. “I wanted to see where Vancouver Island is. It’s not that far from Seattle.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s only about five hours away by car and by ferry. I’ve been there before, a couple of times.” Cal had noticed that every time he saw Luke, Luke would slip in a mention of his father. He wondered if he was, consciously or unconsciously, reminding Cal that he already had a dad. Cal was careful to tread lightly. The other day when he was at their house, Billy and Luke had a little skirmish about Luke going to the Nature Museum’s picnic on the last day of camp. Luke said it wasn’t “mandatory.” Billy said she wanted him to “finish strong.” They were all in the kitchen, and Cal had quietly excused himself and said he’d take Murphy for a walk. By the time they’d returned, Luke was on the phone with Annabelle, and Billy was humming over the dishes in the kitchen.

  “What’s Vancouver like?” Luke asked him now.

  “It’s beautiful,” Cal said honestly. “I spent most of my time in Victoria, though. That’s the city on the southern tip of the island. But there’s a lot more to see than that, obviously. And the fishing . . . I haven’t done any there, but I know it’s supposed to be amazing.” He looked over at Luke.

  Luke nodded and then said almost shyly, “I might visit my dad and his family there over spring break. It’s still, like, in the planning stages,” he added.

  “Right.” Cal nodded. And then, casually, knowing it had been almost a week since Luke had met his dad, he asked, “Have you talked to him lately?”

  “Two nights
ago. We’re going to Skype every week, for now.”

  “That’s good,” Cal said. But he wondered if this was hard on Luke: starting a new relationship with the father he’d never known and getting to know the man his mom had just started dating. He wasn’t sure how well he would have handled this when he was thirteen.

  It was quiet now in the car.

  “Your friend Annabelle,” Cal asked after a few minutes, “is she in your class?”

  Luke nodded. “There’s only one class per grade at my school.”

  “Got it,” Cal said. He waited. But there was nothing more about Annabelle, which was probably just as it should be. How forthcoming had he been about girls at Luke’s age?

  “When do you go back to school?” he asked.

  “Um, in a couple weeks,” Luke said, lowering his window a few inches. Cal thought he might have heard a little nervousness in Luke’s voice. Even sixteen years after graduating from high school, Cal could still remember having a pit in his stomach the weeks before school started every fall. It was part excitement, part fear.

  “Where are you going to live in Minneapolis?” Luke asked then.

  “Oh, I just got an apartment. It’s in St. Paul, though. In Linden Hills. Do you know that area? It’s between Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun.”

  “I think I know where that is.”

  “I was thinking,” Cal said, “that the next time you and your mom visit your grandmother, you might . . . like to see it?”

  “I guess,” Luke said. Cal wasn’t exactly sure if this was a yes or no. Well, he wouldn’t push it.

  “Can we open that?” Luke asked, indicating the sunroof.

  Cal adjusted the slide-tilt sunroof, and a square of blue sky opened above them. Luke reclined his seat further and, with a sigh of pleasure, crossed his hands behind his head.

  “In another two years, I’ll be getting my learner’s permit,” he said to Cal.

  Cal smiled. The Porsche would be long gone by then, but a Jeep, he thought, would still be pretty fun to learn to drive in.

  CHAPTER 36