Beyond Summer (32 page)

“She seems content.”

“How could she be?” She couldn’t read and she was homeless, after all.

Terence cast a sideways look at me, like I just didn’t get it. “She had a message for you.”

The goose bumps slid over my skin again. “For me?”

“About your house.”

I woke up on the sofa, the sun beating against the orange silk sheet over the living room window, turning the room a misty shade of mustard. I’d been alternately dozing and pacing the floors since the early hours of the morning, waiting for Barbie to wake up and wondering what would happen when she did. Last night’s knock-down-drag-out seemed surreal—like a weird dream that should have faded now that it was almost noon. In the house, with the window coverings casting a pall over everything, it felt like morning still, as if the best idea would be to sleep until I woke in a better place.

I turned on my phone and multiple missed calls showed up—three from Shasta; one from Uncle Boone, apparently back from his latest business trip; and one from a blocked number. I stared at the blocked number and thought about my father. After all this time, could he be trying to call?

The phone rang again, and the screen flashed,
Shasta calling.
I answered, and her voice jingled into the room, loud, overly cheerful, out of place, like a bird singing at a funeral. “Hey, you up? I tried to call earlier, but no one answered.”

“I was awake all night, so I didn’t turn on my cell this morning. We had a major fight yesterday after I came home.” I rubbed my head, my eyes burning. If Barbie was as messed-up today as she was last night, I couldn’t let her stay here. What if she hurt one of the kids? What if she put them in the car and took off with them?

“You and the stepmonster?” Shasta’s cheerful tone sobered.

“Yes. She was sitting here drunk or stoned or both when I walked in. She had it in her head that I’d tried to take off with her kids.” A painful sensation rose in my throat. It mixed with anger and created something deeper. Despair. Helplessness.

Shasta gave an indignant snort. “Pa-lease! She’s got some serious nerve. If it wasn’t for you, the kids would be, like, gone already. They’d be running loose around the neighborhood while she’s out partying, and somebody would of called social services already.”

“I guess so.” A breath shuddered in my chest, the air feeling heavy. “It seems like it’s all for nothing. Maybe I’m just enabling. I don’t know where we go from here. I can’t let her be around the kids like this, but I can’t take care of them. I can’t . . . I can’t do this. Sometimes I want to just . . . walk out the door and keep walking.”

“Don’t you even say that.” Shasta’s reply was quick and sharp. I pictured her eyes blazing, white rimmed around the dark centers, heated with righteous passion. “Don’t you even think about it. I mean it, Tam. I’ll come over there and tell the stepmonster what I think, if you want. I’ll tell her I’ll call social services if she doesn’t get her act together. Those kids are just babies. They didn’t ask for any of this. They need someone looking out for them. Their mom needs to step up and take care of them, but you’re all they’ve got right now. I’m coming over there.”

“All right, all right. Just slow down a minute.” I stopped Shasta before the chaos in my head could become any worse. “I’m not packing up and calling a cab.”

“You’d better not. So what happened last night, exactly?”

“I don’t even know. It was just . . . bizarre. Barbie was waiting for me here. She was . . . nuts, and . . .” A blow-by-blow of the argument tumbled out of me—Barbie grabbing the baby from my arms, then dragging the other kids away, her almost falling with Jewel, her accusing me of attempting to take the kids, Daniel trying to get away, Barbie finally disappearing down the hall, bringing all four kids into one bedroom with her, then locking the door and refusing to open it. I could hear her inside, first playing a bizarre game of Candy Land with them, then sloppily reading books and singing lullabies until finally she passed out around three a.m., and Mark got up and unlocked the door.

I lay awake on the sofa all night, afraid Barbie would awaken and try to escape with the kids. If she came out of the bedroom, I was prepared to start a wrestling match, call the police—whatever it took—to keep her from leaving.

Finally, sometime close to morning, I fell asleep.

“I just don’t know what to do next,” I finished. “I’m afraid of what she’ll be like this morning. I’m afraid of what will happen. When the kids finally wake up, I don’t even know what to say to them.”

“Why don’t y’all come over to my house?” Shasta suggested. “I’ll make you lunch and we’ll figure something out.”

“I don’t think I’d better. If Barbie wakes up and we’re gone, there’s no telling what she’ll do. What if she calls the police and has me hauled in for kidnapping?”

“Let her call the police. I’ll tell them a thing or two. I’ll get Cody in on it. He’s seen your stepmom taking off all the time, coming home in the middle of the night. They’ll take his word for it. The DPD listens to their own. He’s gone working at a convention today, but I can try to get hold of him, and—”

“Wait, just settle down, okay? I don’t want to do anything right now.” Standing up, I stretched my back, feeling like my body was a twisted Slinky, the coils impossible to untangle. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

In the hall, a bedroom door was creaking slowly open. Mark peeked out, and then stepped into the shadows of the hallway. He was carrying Jewel. He came into the living room quietly, then stopped and stood in the doorway, as if he didn’t know where to go next.

“Jewel’s poopy.”

I cast around the dim room, looking for the diaper bag. No telling where it had ended up. “Bring her in here. We’ve probably got some diapers in the bag.”

“Who’s that?” Shasta sounded as if she were ready for a fistfight.

“Just Mark. He got the baby up.”

There was a quick exhale into the phone. “Oh, all right. I thought it was
her
. I thought she was, like, having the nerve to bring you the baby so you could change her. I’m coming over, all right?”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to. The boys and I are already out and about, anyway. We walked up to the bookstore after Cody left this morning. Besides, I found out something about the voodoo lady, and . . . Did you know your aunt’s in the front yard right now, like, doing karate or something?”

I walked to the window as Shasta hung up the phone. There in the yard was Aunt Lute, wearing flowered pajamas, performing what looked like a cross between karate, yoga, and some strange form of Asian dance.

By the time I’d changed Jewel’s diaper, Shasta was on the porch with her boys. I opened the door, and we stood watching Aunt Lute. It was hard to believe that only a few weeks ago, we’d looked at this house and been afraid to get out of our car. Now Aunt Lute was calmly doing calisthenics on the front lawn, and, other than the pajamas, that seemed all right.

“What her doin’?” Tyler asked.

Shrugging, Mark lifted his hands, as in,
No telling.

Shasta’s eldest snickered behind his hand. “She’s got her PJs on.”

“Benjamin!” Shasta scolded. “Hush up. That’s rude.”

Aunt Lute continued with her routine, oblivious to the conversation.

I pushed the door open wider, and Shasta slipped through with her boys, who moved to the clutter of boxes and toys in the dining room. Shasta took Jewel. I pushed the sheet-curtain aside to let in some sunlight, and we sat on the sofa. Babbling, Jewel stretched out her arms, giving a two-toothed smile. I couldn’t help comparing the joyous expression on her face to her confusion and fear last night when her mother took her.

I pushed the thought away because it was too hard to consider. I wasn’t ready for it. “So, tell me about the bookstore. Let’s talk about anything else, all right? Did you run into the voodoo lady at the bookstore?”

Shasta shook her head. “Not exactly. I saw Terence. He was in his studio working, so we stopped by. So he was, like, painting a portrait of her, if you can believe that. I asked him if he knew anything about her and whether she was dangerous, and should I be worried.”

“What did he say?”

She leaned closer, as if we were sharing the dish. “Well, first of all, he said she told him to be careful about my house—something about a lot of people moving in and out of these yellow houses, and the color yellow being bad luck, but whatever. That wasn’t really the interesting part. He said she asked him to write some words for her on paper. She’s, like, trying to learn to read from watching the reading class. How cool is that? I mean, she still gives me the creeps, but I didn’t really think about her actually learning to read, you know? Now I feel kinda bad—like I should’ve asked her to sit down with Elsie and me.”

“Maybe so.” I tried to focus on the conversation, but my mind kept drifting toward Barbie’s door. How much longer would she sleep?

Shasta’s eyes widened with interest. “Terence said they got to talking last night as he was leaving. He said she comes from someplace where soldiers took her father away when she was, like, a little girl, and she’s had a really hard life. He thinks she’s been some kind of migrant worker part of the time, but she wouldn’t even tell him where she’s been exactly. He’s pretty sure she’s afraid to sign the papers for the reading class. Like she’s afraid she’ll get caught.”

“Caught by whom?” My attention shifted away from the problem of what to do about Barbie to focus fully on Shasta’s story. A tingle of intrigue tugged at me.

Shasta checked on the three boys in the dining room. “I don’t know. Maybe she was, like, involved with some bad people, working for drug runners or something, and they’re after her. So now I’m seriously curious about her. You know me—hopelessly nosy. When we go to the Summer Kitchen on Monday, I’m gonna talk to her, and see what I can find out.”

“Are you sure you should get . . .” Before I could finish the sentence with
involved
, a door creaked in the hallway, and I jerked upright. Landon ran out and dashed toward the living room, followed by Daniel. The squeak of the mattress testified to the fact that Barbie wasn’t far behind.

Shasta caught my gaze and mouthed,
Uh-oh
, then stood up and whispered, “Want me to take her on?”

I shook my head. “Let me see how things are this morning, first.” No telling what shape Barbie was in now that she’d sobered up, or if she’d even remember yesterday’s ridiculous rumble, but having a third party here, plus Shasta’s kids, probably wouldn’t help.

Shasta cocked her head to one side, watching as Barbie crossed the hall to the bathroom. After the door closed, Shasta whistled softly. “Someone looks seriously rough this morning.”

I nodded, rubbing my eyes. As lousy as I felt, I could only imagine that Barbie was in significantly worse shape. “It’s probably best if I talk to her by myself. I’ll call you later.”

Standing up, Shasta handed the baby to me, then caught a breath and lifted a finger as if a sudden idea had come to her. “You know what? I’ll cook dinner for us. Cody’s gonna be gone all night, and the kids’ll be bored, and the house’ll be too quiet. Plan on coming over, all right? We’ll do hot dogs out back.” As usual, Shasta rolled the day’s schedule along without waiting for an answer. “I think I’ll see if I can get Elsie to come, too. Cody’s still obsessing about the house loan, and I told him I’d ask Elsie what she knows about Householders. She’s been in this neighborhood a long time. I think she knows something about the yellow houses.” Heading for the door, she tapped a finger against her temple, as if she were punching in tonight’s menu. “Oh, hey, ask your aunt to come. Never mind. I’ll ask her myself on the way out.” Shasta called her boys, then let herself out the front door. Before closing it, she poked her head through the opening, her lips forming a sympathetic twist. “Call me if you need me. I’m two seconds away.”

I lifted a hand in acknowledgment, and she gave me the high sign before leaving.

Down the hall, the bathroom door opened, and Barbie staggered to the living room, her nightgown hanging off one shoulder and her hair sticking out like straws on a broom that had been smashed against the floor. She crossed the room without speaking, headed toward the kitchen.

Shasta knocked softly on the window, then waved a fist in front of the glass. Jewel flailed her arms and babbled, “Ba ba-ee, ba ba-ee.”

The sound halted Barbie in the dining room doorway. She stood frozen, swaying in place like a tower moving in the wind, leaning farther and farther off center until finally her shoulder came to rest against the wall. Her head lolled sideways, making a dull thud as she collapsed, her knees buckling, ankles softening, her body sagging to the floor in slow motion.

Mark looked up from playing with the pile of Duplo blocks under the dining table. “Mommy?”

“Barbara?” I stood and moved toward her. Was she passing out? Having some sort of seizure? Had she overmedicated already this morning?

“Momm-eee . . .” Landon crawled across the field of blocks, his eyes rimmed with white, the Duplos scattering.

Barbie’s body slumped forward, her face falling into her hands, her arms trembling.

Mark and Daniel scrambled toward her, following Landon’s lead. I crossed the room, setting Jewel in her bouncer seat on the way. By the time I reached Barbie, the boys were gathered in a semicircle around her, afraid to come closer. Fear took away the soft curves of their faces and created tight masks.

Nudging the boys out of the way, I knelt in front of Barbie, leaned close, tried to see her face, but it was covered with her hands, shielded by her hair. Long red fingernails dug in deep. She trembled wildly. “Barbara, what’s wrong? Are you sick? What’s the matter?”

Landon extended a hand and tentatively touched her knee, last night’s chaos apparently forgotten or forgiven this morning. “Momeee?” he pleaded. “Mom-eee?”