Summerlost (17 page)

9.

Leo and I went back and found Meg in the Costume Hall. “I decided I'd do this one tonight,” she said. I looked into the case and saw Lisette's costume from
The Tempest.
The mannequin already wore the dress and the jacket. Meg smoothed down the cuff, her hand lingering on the blue-gray velvet.

“You're three minutes late,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“I designed this costume for Lisette,” Meg said. “She loved it.” She reached into her pocket and took out the ring, slipping it onto the mannequin's finger. I heard Leo draw in his breath.

“It's not the real ring, you know,” Meg said. “It's a replica.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Then where's the real one?” Leo asked.

“I sold it,” Meg said. “That's what Lisette wanted me to do.”

Meg let go of the mannequin's hand and closed the display case. “She took the ring off and gave it to me in the hallway right after the show ended that night.” Meg smiled. “She told me to sell the ring and give the money to Gary.”

“Gary?” I said.

“He's been here a long time too,” Meg said. “He was working concessions back then. It was his first job. His car had broken down and he didn't have enough money to fix it. He loved that car. Lisette could have gone home and written him a check, of course, but this was a grand gesture. Impulsive. In the moment. That was like her. She said at least something good would come out of her marriage to Roger.”

“Roger went to see her at the hotel that night,” Leo said. “Do you think he killed her?”

“No,” Meg said. “I don't.” She was looking at the photo of Lisette wearing the costume at the back of the display case. “He wasn't that kind of person. He was a jerk and a mediocre actor, not evil. But he didn't deserve her. And during her last trip home to the festival, Lisette finally saw that.” Meg's face fell. “Once Lisette knew something, she
knew
it. I wish she'd had more time. To fall in love again. To perform again.”

I watched Meg, looking at the mannequin and the photo of Lisette. How hard would it be to have to swallow down your own feelings and bring the image and memory of your friend back to life?

Meg turned away from the display case and our eyes met.

“I still sold the ring, even after Lisette died,” Meg said. “But I had this replica made later, for the Costume Hall. I wanted the display to truly represent her last performance.”

“Did Gary get to keep his car?” Leo asked.

“Yes,” Meg said. “He was so happy. I didn't tell him where the money came from, of course. I told him it was an anonymous friend. But I think he figured it out.” She frowned at me, and then at Leo. “Gary can seem uptight,” she said. “But he worked very, very hard to get his job. He works very hard to keep it. He knows the festival inside and out, and he loves it. It's a place where he belongs.”

While she said that, I thought about Gary, and imagined him talking about England, and the way he wanted everything to be exactly right, and suddenly I knew. What I should have known all along. My throat and eyes and heart felt like I was going to cry.

Gary was like Ben.

Not exactly. But similar. And I hadn't put it together until now because Gary was older and had come a long way and we would never know if Ben could have come that far or found a place that felt as right to him as Summerlost did to Gary. We would never ever, ever know.

I blinked and tears went down my cheeks. I wiped them away fast.

“It's like his kingdom,” I said. “It's where he's the most safe.”

“Yes,” Meg said. She handed me a tissue, and I knew that she understood what I'd realized. I knew she must know about Ben.

“The last I knew of Lisette was that she did something nice
for her friend,” Meg said. “And that she was full of life and ready to move on. It's a good way to remember someone.”

I want a good way to remember
, I wanted to say to Meg.
I want to stop crying. I want everything in the world to stop breaking my heart.

10.

“No ghost,” I said to Leo as we rode our bikes home.

“That's okay,” Leo said. He veered around something on the sidewalk that looked like a mysterious silver grenade but turned out to be a soda can.

“Would you have
wanted
to see Lisette's ghost?” I asked.

“Of course,” Leo said.

I bumped over an uneven sidewalk crack that had grass growing out of it, furred and dark in the dim light.

“But I did see the tunnels,” Leo said. “Thanks to you.”

We stopped in front of my house. Leo's house, across the street and down a short ways, was still dark.

We were home and nearly home.

I almost said
I'm sorry about Barnaby Chesterfield
but I didn't want to ruin anything. So I asked Leo something else. “Why did you ask me to do the tour so soon after you met me? You hardly knew me.”

Leo sounded embarrassed. “I thought you were cute.”

The surprise of his answer made my heart beat quick. “I thought you might have asked me because you felt bad for me. Because of Ben and my dad.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, I do feel bad that that happened to you. But I asked you because after we met I knew the tour would work with you. It wouldn't have worked with anyone else.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” Leo said. “I had the idea for the tour, but I didn't actually
do
it until I met you.”

I hadn't thought about it that way, but he was right. It made me feel good, like I had helped him too.

Leo took a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you something before you left.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is it?”

“Um,” he said, and for a minute under the streetlamp in the night I thought he was going to tell me that he liked me.

What would I do if he did?

I liked him too. He was cute. I could picture kissing him. I could picture holding his hand.

“I wanted to say thanks,” Leo said. “I have a lot of friends. You might not think that because you saw Cory and those guys bugging me at the festival. But at school, I do. And at home, I've got my family. I feel alone a lot, though. I like things they like, but I also like
different
things. So when you and I became friends this summer it was great. I feel like we get each other.”

I waited for him to say something more. But he didn't.
Is that all?
I wanted to ask. He stood there on the sidewalk
and I noticed that he had dust from the tunnels on his black T-shirt.

He smiled at me. I realized that what he'd said was a lot.

“I thought you were going to tell me that you liked me,” I said.

“I
do
like you,” Leo said.

“I mean, I thought you were going to tell me that you wanted me to be your girlfriend or something.”

“Oh man,” Leo said. He looked embarrassed again.

“A minute ago you told me that you thought I was cute.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. “I mean, I do think that. But you're not my girlfriend. You're my person.”

I knew right away what he meant.

I thought he was cute and he thought I was cute but it was different than it was when people have crushes.

With Leo I'd fallen into another kind of like. I couldn't wait to tell him stuff and I loved hearing him laugh at my jokes and I loved laughing at
his
jokes. He made me feel like I had a spot in the world.

It felt as if Leo and I could like each other all our lives.

So I hugged him.

He was my person too.

11.

I slept in because my room stayed dark for a long time. We'd had to board up the window until we could get a new one installed. I rolled up my blanket and pulled off the sheet to take downstairs. My last set of clean clothes sat out on the dresser.

Through the kitchen windows I saw my mom out in the backyard, wearing work gloves and pulling the smaller branches left over from the big tree cleanup into a pile. The morning was greeny-gold, end-of-summer. Our suitcases and boxes sat in the mudroom, ready to go out into the car.

I went outside to help her.

“I want to get this part of the yard cleaned up,” she said. “Mr. Bishop said he can come and haul the last of the branches away and I don't want to leave him with too much to do, since he's already being so nice about it.”

“I snuck out with Leo last night,” I said, pulling some of the sticks into the pile. The grass was dewy and long. I didn't look at my mom. “We went over to the festival. Meg let us see the tunnels when everyone else was gone. I'm sorry. I know I was
grounded. But it was our only chance.” I decided to keep the part about exactly
how
late we'd been out to myself.

“I guess that's okay,” Mom said. I glanced over at her in surprise. She shrugged and smiled. “Leo's been a very good friend. But the next time you break the rules like that there will be
big
trouble.”

“Okay.”

“So you got to say good-bye.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we're going to keep in touch. Write to each other and stuff.”

“Tell him we'll be back in December,” Mom said. “For the Christmas break. The renters will be gone for the holiday.”

“I will,” I told my mom. “You know who else we should write to? That boy.”

“What boy?” she asked.

“The one who Ben helped,” I said.

Her eyes filled with tears.

The back door opened and Miles came out. “Hey,” he said. “Didn't you guys hear the doorbell?”

“No,” my mom said. “Who was it?”

“Mrs. Bishop,” Miles said. “She brought this.” He held up a jar of jam. “It's homemade. She said to tell you guys good-bye and that she'll keep an eye on the house while we're gone.”

“That's nice of her,” Mom said. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

“Where's the bread?” Miles asked.

“We're all out,” Mom said. “All we have left is cereal and milk. We can get a hamburger for lunch on the road.”

Miles groaned. “That's too long.” He went inside and then came back out with the jam and a bowl and a spoon.

“Wait,” I said. “You can't eat it straight.”

“I
can
,” said Miles. “Do you want some?”

I looked at the jar. The jam was colored the most beautiful red. It was like bottled rubies, but better, because you could eat it. “Sure,” I said.

“Me too,” said my mom.

“Really?” Miles and I asked at the same time.

“Really,” she said.

Miles went inside to get more bowls and spoons. He dished up the jam and handed each of us a bowlful. I turned the spoon upside down in my mouth so I could get it all. It tasted sweet and full. Like summer.

We ate every bit of the jam. I took the jar inside to wash it out. When I did, the sunlight caught the facets of the jam jar and it was like a prism, sending bits of rainbows around the room. Like my broken diamond window used to do.

I went upstairs and found the things Miles had left for me—screwdriver, toothbrush, map, wooden spoon. I took them downstairs and put them in the jam jar and brought it out to the backyard.

“There,” I said.

“What are these?” Mom asked.

“Ben objects,” I said. “Miles found them. He's been leaving them for me.”

“Oh, Miles,” my mom said.

Miles had jam on his face.

“We need something for Dad,” I said.

Mom stood up and went out to the yard. She came back with a splintered piece of wood. At first I thought it was part of the deck but then I realized it was from the fallen tree. One of the old trees that my dad would have loved. It stuck out above the toothbrush and spoon and screwdriver and map like the tallest flower in a bouquet.

12.

We put the jar in the cup holder of our car to bring it home safe with us.

“I wonder if the vultures will come back to live in our yard when everything's cleared up,” I said as we backed out of the driveway. I craned my neck, looking out my window. Trying to see the birds in the sky. Or Leo in his yard.

“Maybe,” my mom said. “I hope so.”

The baby birds died in their nest.

Lisette died in a hotel room.

My dad and my brother died in an accident.

The end is what people talk about. How they died.

Why does the end always have to be what people talk about? Think about?

Because it's the last thing we knew of you. And it breaks our hearts because we can picture it. We don't want to, and we know we might get it wrong, but we do. We can't stop. Those last moments keep coming to our minds, awake, asleep.

At the end, everyone is alone.

You were alone.

But other times you were not.

You clomped around onstage, your face red with embarrassment, your knees knobby in your cargo shorts, and you looked back at your wife and kids who laughed and cheered.

You rolled down a hill. You had been crying but now you smiled. There was grass on the back of your shirt and in your hair and your eyes were bright. I put my arms around you.

Your last moment was the worst moment, but you had other moments.

And people were with you for some of them.

I was with you for some of them.

There were times when we were all, all around
you.

EPILOGUE