The Summer of the Swans (2 page)

C
harlie looked at the empty sucker stick, reached into his mouth, took out the candy, and held them together in his hand. Sara had said she would throw the candy away if this happened again and so he closed his fist tightly and looked away from her.

Slowly he began to shuffle his feet back and forth on the step. He had done this so many times over the years that two grooves had been worn into the boards. It was a nervous habit that showed he was concerned about something, and Sara recognized it at once.

“All right, Charlie,” she said wearily. “Where’s your sucker?”

He began to shake his head slowly from side to side. His eyes were squeezed shut.

“I’m not going to take it away from you. I’m going to fix it one more time.”

He was unwilling to trust her and continued to shake his head. The movement was steady and mechanical, as if it would continue forever, and she watched him for a moment.

Then, with a sigh, she lifted his hand and attempted to pry his fingers loose. “Honestly, Charlie, you’re holding onto this grubby piece of candy like it was a crown jewel or something. Now, let go.” He opened his eyes and watched while she took the candy from him and put the stick in. The stick was now bent almost double, and she held it out to him carefully.

“There.”

He took the sucker and held it without putting it into his mouth, still troubled by the unsteadiness of the bent stick. Sara looked down at her hands and began to pull at a broken fingernail. There was something similar about them in that moment, the same oval face, round brown eyes, brown hair hanging over the forehead, freckles on the nose. Then Charlie glanced up and the illusion was broken.

Still holding his sucker, he looked across the yard and saw the tent he had made over the clothesline that morning. He had taken an old white blanket out into the yard, hung it over the low clothesline, and then got under it. He had sat there with the blanket blowing against him until Sara came out and said, “Charlie, you have to fasten the ends down, like this. It isn’t a tent if it’s just hanging in the wind.”

He had thought there was something wrong. He waited beneath the blanket until she came back with some clothespins and hammered them into the hard earth, fastening the edges of the blanket to the ground. “Now,
that’s
a tent.”

The tent had pleased him. The warmth of the sun coming through the thin cotton blanket, the shadows of the trees moving overhead had made him drowsy and comfortable and now he wanted to be back in the tent.

Sara had started talking about the summer again, but he did not listen. He could tell from the tone of her voice that she was not really talking to him at all. He got up slowly and began to walk across the yard toward the tent.

Sara watched him as he walked, a small figure for his ten years, wearing faded blue jeans and a striped knit shirt that was stretched out of shape. He was holding the sucker in front of him as if it were a candle that might go out at any moment.

Sara said, “Don’t drop that candy in the grass now or it’s really going to be lost.”

She watched while he bent, crawled into the tent, and sat down. The sun was behind the tent now and she could see his silhouette. Carefully he put the sucker back into his mouth.

Then Sara lay back on the hard boards of the porch and looked up at the ceiling.

I
n the house Wanda and Aunt Willie were still arguing. Sara could hear every word even out on the porch. Aunt Willie, who had been taking care of them since the death of their mother six years ago, was saying loudly, “No, not on a motorcycle. No motorcycle!”

Sara grimaced. It was not only the loudness of Aunt Willie’s voice that she disliked. It was everything—the way she bossed them, the way she never really listened, the way she never cared what she said. She had once announced loud enough for everyone in Carter’s Drugstore to hear that Sara needed a good dose of magnesia.

“It isn’t a motorcycle, it’s a motor
scooter.”
Wanda was speaking patiently, as if to a small child. “They’re practically like bicycles.”

“No.”

“All I want to do is to ride one half mile on this perfectly safe motor scooter—”

“No. It’s absolutely and positively no. No!”

“Frank is very careful. He has never had even the tiniest accident.”

No answer.

“Aunt Willie, it is perfectly safe. He takes his mother to the grocery store on it. Anyway, I am old enough to go without permission and I wish you’d realize it. I am nineteen years old.”

No answer. Sara knew that Aunt Willie would be standing by the sink shaking her head emphatically from side to side.

“Aunt Willie, he’s going to be here any minute. He’s coming all the way over here just to drive me to the lake to see the swans.”

“You don’t care
that
for seeing those swans.”

“I do too. I love birds.”

“All right then, those swans have been on the lake three days, and not once have you gone over to see them. Now all of a sudden you
have
to go, can’t wait one minute to get on this devil motorcycle and see those swans.”

“For your information, I have been dying to see them, only this is my first chance.” She went out of the kitchen and pulled the swinging door shut behind her. “And I’m going,” she said over her shoulder.

Wanda came out of the house, slammed the screen door, stepped over Boysie, and sat by Sara on the top step. “She never wants anyone to have any fun.”

“I know.”

“She makes me so mad. All I want to do is just ride down to see the swans on Frank’s motor scooter.” She looked at Sara, then broke off and said, “Where did Charlie go?”

“He’s over there in his tent.”

“I see him now. I wish Frank would hurry up and get here before Aunt Willie comes out.” She stood, looked down the street, and sat back on the steps. “Did I tell you what that boy in my psychology class last year said about Charlie?”

Sara straightened. “What boy?”

“This boy Arnold Hampton, in my psychology class. We were discussing children who—”

“You mean you talk about Charlie to perfect strangers? To your class? I think that’s awful.” She put her feet into the two grooves worn in the steps by Charlie. “What do you say? ‘Let me tell you all about my retarded brother—it’s so interesting’?” It was the first time in her life that she had used the term “retarded” in connection with her brother, and she looked quickly away from the figure in the white tent. Her face felt suddenly hot and she snapped a leaf from the rhododendron bush by the steps and held it against her forehead.

“No, I don’t say that. Honestly, Sara, you—”

“And then do you say, ‘And while I’m telling you about my retarded brother, I’ll also tell you about my real hung-up sister’?” She moved the leaf to her lips and blew against it angrily.

“No, I don’t say that because you’re not all that fascinating, if you want to know the truth. Anyway, Arnold Hampton’s father happens to be a pediatrician and Arnold is sincerely interested in working with boys like Charlie. He is even helping start a camp which Charlie may get to go to next summer, and all because I talked to him in my psychology class.” She sighed. “You’re impossible, you know that? I can’t imagine why I even try to tell you anything.”

“Well, Charlie’s our problem.”

“He’s everybody’s. There is no—Oh, here comes Frank.” She broke off and got to her feet. “Tell Aunt Willie I’ll be home later.”

She started quickly down the walk, waving to the boy who was making his way slowly up the street on a green motor scooter.

“
W
ait, wait, you wait.” Aunt Willie came onto the porch drying her hands on a dish towel. She stood at the top of the steps until Frank, a thin boy with red hair, brought the motor scooter to a stop. As he kicked down the stand she called out, “Frank, listen, save yourself some steps. Wanda’s not going anywhere on that motorcycle.”

“Aw, Aunt Willie,” Frank said. He opened the gate and came slowly up the walk. “All we’re going to do is go down to the lake. We don’t even have to get on the highway for that.”

“No motorcycles,” she said. “You go break your neck if you want to. That’s not my business. Wanda, left in my care, is not going to break her neck on any motorcycle.”

“Nobody’s going to break his neck. We’re just going to have a very uneventful ride down the road to the lake. Then we’re going to turn around and have a very uneventful ride back.”

“No.”

“I tell you what,” Frank said. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“What deal?”

“Have you ever been on a motor scooter?”

“Me? I never even rode on a bicycle.”

“Try it. Come on. I’ll ride you down to the Tennents’ house and back. Then if you think it’s not safe, you say to me, ‘Frank, it’s not safe,’ and I’ll take my motor scooter and ride off into the sunset.”

She hesitated. There was something about a ride that appealed to her.

Sara said against the rhododendron leaf, “I don’t think you ought to. You’re too old to be riding up and down the street on a motor scooter.”

She knew instantly she had said the wrong thing, for at once Aunt Willie turned to her angrily. “Too old!” She faced Sara with indignation. “I am barely forty years old. May I grow a beard if I’m not.” She stepped closer, her voice rising. “Who says I’m so old?” She held the dish towel in front of her, like a matador taunting a bull. The dish towel flicked the air once.

“Nobody said anything,” Sara said wearily. She threw the leaf down and brushed it off the steps with her foot.

“Then where did all this talk about my age come from, I’d like to know?”

“Anyway,” Frank interrupted, “you’re not too old to ride a motor scooter.”

“I’ll do it.” She threw the dish towel across the chair and went down the steps. “I may break my neck but I’ll do it.”

“Hold on tight, Aunt Willie,” Wanda called.

“Hold on! Listen, my hands never held on to anything the way I’m going to hold on to this motorcycle.” She laughed, then said to Frank, “I never rode on one of these before, believe me.”

“It’s just like a motorized baby carriage, Aunt Willie.”

“Huh!”

“This ought to be good,” Wanda said. She called, “Hey, Charlie,” waited until he looked out from the tent, and then said, “Watch Aunt Willie. She’s going to ride the motor scooter.”

Charlie watched Aunt Willie settle herself sidesaddle on the back of the scooter.

“Ready?” Frank asked.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, believe me, go on, go on.”

Her words rose into a piercing scream as Frank moved the scooter forward, turned, and then started down the hill. Her scream, shrill as a bird’s cry, hung in the still air. “Frank, Frank, Frank, Frankeeeeee!”

At the first cry Charlie staggered to his feet, staring in alarm at Aunt Willie disappearing down the hill. He pulled on one side of the tent as he got to his feet, causing the other to snap loose at the ground and hang limp from the line. He stumbled, then regained his balance.

Wanda saw him and said, “It’s all right, Charlie, she’s having a good time. She
likes
it. It’s all right.” She crossed the yard, took him by the hand, and led him to the steps. “What have you got all over yourself?”

“It’s a gross red sucker,” Sara said. “It’s all over me too.”

“Come on over to the spigot and let me wash your hands. See, Aunt Willie’s coming back now.”

In front of the Tennents’ house Frank was swinging the scooter around, pivoting on one foot, and Aunt Willie stopped screaming long enough to call to the Tennents, “Bernie, Midge, look who’s on a motorcycle!” Then she began screaming again as Frank started the uphill climb. As they came to a stop Aunt Willie’s cries changed to laughter. “Huh, old woman, am I! Old woman!” Still laughing, she stepped off the scooter.

“You’re all right, Aunt Willie,” Frank said. Sensing a moment of advantage, Wanda moved down the walk. She was shaking the water from her hands. “So can I go, Aunt Willie?”

“Oh, go on, go on,” she said, half laughing, half scolding. “It’s your own neck. Go on, break your own neck if you want to.”

“It’s not her neck you have to worry about, it’s my arms,” Frank said. “Honest, Aunt Willie, there’s not a drop of blood circulating in them.”

“Oh, go on, go on with you.”

“Come on, Little One,” Frank said to Wanda.

Aunt Willie came and stood by Sara, and they watched Wanda climb on the back of the motor scooter. As Wanda and Frank drove off, Aunt Willie laughed again and said, “Next thing,
you’ll
be going off with some boy on a motorcycle.”

Sara had been smiling, but at once she stopped and looked down at her hands. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

“Huh! It will happen, you’ll see. You’ll be just like Wanda. You’ll be—”

“Don’t you see that I’m nothing like Wanda at all?” She sat down abruptly and put her lips against her knees. “We are so different. Wanda is a hundred times prettier than I am.”

“You are just alike, you two. Sometimes in the kitchen I hear you and I think I’m hearing Wanda. That’s how alike you are. May my ears fall off if I can hear the difference.”

“Maybe our
voices
are alike, but that’s all. I can make my voice sound like a hundred different people. Listen to this and guess who it is. ‘N-B-C! Beautiful downtown Burbank.’ ”

“I’m not in the mood for a guessing game. I’m in the mood to get back to our original conversation. It’s not how you look that’s important, let me tell you. I had a sister so beautiful you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Who?”

“Frances, that’s who.”

“She wasn’t all that beautiful. I’ve seen her and—”

“When she was young she was. So beautiful you wouldn’t believe it, but such a devil, and—”