A Summer of Sundays (18 page)

Ben Folger nodded. “I never thought I would, either. But Lee Wren was brilliant.”

I’d been waiting for the chance to ask him about the manuscript in the library. This seemed like as good a one as any. “Do you like to write, Mr. Folger?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I do.”

I looked at Jude, but he was too busy dabbing at the crumbs that had fallen onto his shirt to notice. “Really?”

“Yes, but I’ve only written boring things like grants and
library articles. Nothing like this.” He reached over and picked up his copy of
The Life and Death of Birds
.

My excitement deflated. So he hadn’t written the story.

“I recognize that cover,” Jude said, pointing at the book Ben Folger held out. “My mom has it at home; I think she really liked it.”

Ben Folger blew across his hot chocolate. “Is that so?”

Maybe Ben Folger had been the person who got Lee Wren to come in the first place since he was a librarian. I think I remembered that headline in the newspaper articles we looked up. “You probably met her before, right?”

He nodded, stood up, and turned to the record player. “I did.” He lifted the needle, bringing the room into silence except for the hum of the air conditioner. “She was … she was wonderful,” he said.

“What was so wonderful about her?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he glanced to the window, where the rain had stopped. “Actually, it’s looking pretty muddy out there. Not good for yard work. Maybe you can come back tomorrow morning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I sighed and set my mug down on the table. He was done talking and I didn’t want to push him. “Thanks for the hot chocolate and brownies.”

Jude stood up. “Yeah, thanks.”

Ben Folger didn’t turn around, but I saw his head nod ever so slightly.

Jude and I left, letting the screen door close behind us. The air was muggy and the gray clouds were spread across the sky.

“Well,” I said, “I guess he wasn’t the one who wrote the story from the library.”

“Yeah.”

“But you have to admit he isn’t going to kill us.”

Jude shrugged. “I guess. But he could just be waiting until we let our guard down. Or fattening us up like the witch in ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ ”

I rolled my eyes and closed the gate behind us. “You’re hopeless.”

THE NIGHT
was hot. I lay on my side on top of the blankets with the manuscript beside me. The fan blasted just inches away from my bed. I reached over and took a sip of water, turning the page:

It was like the author had been there with me when Robo Matthews first said hi to me in the hallway. I had felt the staccato beat of my heart, and my cheeks filled with heat just thinking about it—even now. I couldn’t help but smile. My eyes drooped and I yawned, flipping to the next page. I felt like I’d hit a dead end. And even though I’d spoken with Ben Folger, he was by no means befriended yet.

There was a knock on my door. Probably Bo. “Just a second,” I said, and quickly reassembled the manuscript and slipped it under my pillow.

I grabbed Lee Wren’s book and opened it to a random page. “Come in!”

The door opened and Emma stood in the doorway, her hands filled with fabric. She had never ventured up here—neither had May—so it surprised me to see her now.

She dropped the bundle of fabric on my bed. Her cheeks were flushed, there were hives dotting her neck. “You have to help me, Sunday. Please, please, please.”

I pulled out a piece of olive-green fabric. It was a sort of skirt thingy. “Help with what?”

“All the fairies in the play are tiny like you. May’s
you-know-whats are beyond huge, so she’s no help. Could you try them on for me? The director wants to see some of the costumes tomorrow and they need to be right.”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

I barely had put on an outfit before she stuck me with pins and threw another one at me. Still, it was fun. We giggled at some of the pieces that were beyond help, while other things I tried on were close to perfect.

When I had the last piece on—a toga-looking dress that was meant for one of the queens to wear—Emma walked me over to the mirror on the closet door. She pulled my tangled hair off my neck. “You look real pretty, Sunday. You have a long, slender neck, not like the rest of us, and I think your eyes are a darker shade of brown. And wow, I only wish my eyelashes were as long as yours.”

“Really?” I laughed, feeling my cheeks redden at the compliment. Sure, my parents said I was beautiful, but parents have to say that sort of stuff. I stretched my arm around my back and reached awkwardly for the zipper. “You know, Emma, you’re really good at this.”

She helped me step out of the robe-dress-toga thing and laid it on top of the others. “You think so?”

“Sure.”

Gathering up the garments in her arms, she sighed. “I hope you all come to the show.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”

“Oh, you know. Everyone has their own stuff going on, and sometimes I feel like it’s easy to get forgotten in the middle of everything.”

I swear it took all the muscles in my face to keep my jaw from dropping open. A small laugh escaped. “You? Forgotten? That would be impossible.” I shook my head. “No, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

She smiled and turned, opening the door. “Well, I gotta try and fix these tonight. It’s going to be a late one.” She stopped and turned. “Thanks, Sunday. It was fun.”

The door closed behind her, and when the sound of her footsteps disappeared, I walked to the mirror.

But she was right, it had been fun.

The next day, just as Jude and I tilled the last bit of soil in one of the flower beds, the screen door opened.

“Lunchtime,” Ben said through the screen. “If you like, you can eat in here.”

We set down our tools, brushed our hands off, and followed him inside. The table was set with three bowls, steam rising off them, and three plates with grilled cheese sandwiches cut into triangles. My stomach grumbled.

Once we had scrubbed off the dirt that was caked under our fingernails, Jude and I sat down on either side of the small table, and the three of us dug in. It was
tomato soup, mozzarella cheese already melted into the rich, creamy red. The smell reminded me of when I had been sick last year.

Everyone else went to school except, of course, Henry, who hadn’t started yet. But Mom had sent him over to one of his friend’s houses for the day.

I lay on the couch, my nose red and stuffed up, my throat scratchy, and my head aching. I remember how Mom covered me up with a thick red blanket and sat down on the couch so that my feet were resting on her lap. We watched the cartoon channel together, her hand on my feet. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew she was gently pushing my hair away from my eyes and whispering my name.

“Sunday? Wake up and try to eat something, sweetie.”

I sat up, trudged over to the table, and sat down next to Mom. I sipped my tomato soup as she told me about the day I was born. I’d heard it before, but usually it got mixed up in the jumble of prying questions from my siblings, who wanted her to tell their stories. She still didn’t get to finish that day because Dad had walked in, his clothes and hair white with dust.

“I came home for lunch to see how my Sunday was doing,” he said, kissing my forehead.

“I’m okay.”

We ate lunch together, just me and my parents. After
I was done, I slept until my brothers and sisters came home. Even though I had been sick, I loved that day.

A loud slurp from Jude brought me back to the present.

“So,” I said, “how is your day going?”

Ben took a bite of his grilled cheese sandwich. “Fine.”

“Good.”

Silence.

The rest of lunch was similar. I asked generic questions, Ben gave convenient, one-word answers, and after the plates were set in the sink I was no closer to befriending him than I was before lunch.

I needed to find something that he’d want to talk about. I needed to switch strategies.

“Thank you for lunch,” I said, walking casually around the room. I looked at the various small pictures I hadn’t seen the other day. One was of him standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, another was a picture of a big ornate clock I didn’t recognize, and a third was a picture of him waving from in front of the Taj Mahal.

“Is this you in all these pictures?” I asked, though I already knew the answer was yes.

Mr. Folger nodded and smiled slightly.

“Which one was your favorite?”

“India.” There was no hesitation in his voice. “There’s a magic in India that you can’t really explain. The colors, the people, the beauty, the ugliness—all of it mixed together.”

Encouraged that he was talking more, I asked, “Can I look at your books again?”

“Anytime.” I heard the chair squeak across the floor. “So, what grade are you two in?”

Letting Jude answer, I bent down, my eyes scanning the very bottom shelf until they landed on a long white book with a spine that read:
ALMA AREA HIGH SCHOOL 1962

I turned my back toward the table and pulled the book from off the shelf. Flipping quickly through the black-and-white glossy photos of girls wearing dresses and bobby socks and boys in shirts and ties, I reached the section where the individual senior pictures were. There was Ben Folger, smiling into the camera, his hair rich and dark and his smile warm yet serious.

“What are you looking at, Sunday?” Jude asked.

I jumped a little and turned the page quickly. “Just some books.” I pulled another down from the shelf, looking at it briefly, and then put it back.

As Jude launched into a description of my mom, dad, and each of my siblings, I flipped through the candid shots, slowly this time, trying to spot Ben Folger again.

I found him on page 75.

At first I had turned past it, but Ben Folger’s wide smile—the one I had only seen once or twice—was unmistakable.

The caption was simple. “Friendship: longtime friends
and fellow seniors
LEE WREN
and
BEN FOLGER
get some laughs in the school library, where the two of them volunteer.”

Lee Wren?
The
Lee Wren?

I glanced behind me at Ben Folger and then back at the yearbook picture one more time. He and Lee Wren were standing in front of a circulation desk in a library, a stack of books piled to one side. They were both smiling warmly into the camera, their faces leaning in toward each other.

I flipped to the W’s. “Wagley, Whanter, Wistorn, Wolf,”

I whispered. “Wren, Lee.”

She looked a little like the picture hanging in the library: the same smile, the same full cheeks, the same arched eyebrows, but her hair was long and pulled off her face, and there weren’t any wrinkle lines around her smile or on her forehead.

Ben Folger obviously had known her better than he was letting on.

“So,” I said, hoping to sound casual. “I read more of
The Life and Death of Birds
. I wish I had gotten to meet Lee Wren.”

Ben Folger gave a “Hmm.”

He wasn’t taking my bait. I was just going to have to ask. “You knew Lee Wren, right, Mr. Folger?”

He swallowed and nodded.

“I’d love to hear about her.”

Ben walked into the kitchen and came back with a plate of cookies. “I bought some cookies at the store yesterday. Would either of you want any?”

Jude’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, sure.”

Ben set the plate down, reached for a cookie, and took a big bite.

“Please,” I asked. “I really like her book and since she lived here and you knew her could you just tell us any little thing that you know?”

Ben dabbed at his mouth. “When she came to town she was professional and kind, and everyone loved her appearance at the library. But she kept to herself.” He got up and walked to the window. “That’s about all.”

“You didn’t know her better than that?”

He turned and looked at me, his glance moving from my face to the yearbook in my lap. His shoulders slouched a little. “I knew her in high school. But … that was a long time ago.”

It was the first time—seeing him standing there looking at me—that I understood what my mom had said: maybe he was just a lonely old man.

He wasn’t a killer. He didn’t eat raw meat, and there wasn’t any curse. He even seemed to like having Jude and me over, though he was out of practice when it came to having company. Maybe that was it. He was lonely and
out of practice. Anyone would be. He lived in this house all by himself. No neighbors. No pets.