The Summer Before Boys (6 page)

“Michael,” Eliza whispered. “He never comes to teatime. He's gotten caught so many times his father would kill him if he finds out.”

“He's here?”

“Yeah, now we better go or we'll all get in trouble.”

He's here. And he never usually comes. But we are here. And he's here.

“C'mon,” Eliza said. “Don't worry. I can get us stuff from the kitchen. Let's go. My dad will be mad too, if Mrs. Smith catches us. Michael always gets caught. He's got a sign around his neck or something. C'mon.”

I tried to look around the room quickly but I didn't see him anywhere. Eliza pulled me through the side doors and onto the porch. Maybe it was just as well. If I had the opportunity to say one more clever thing today he might never want to talk to me again.

M
rs. Jaffe gave each of us—Peter and me—a notebook. The black-and-white kind that are so hard to write in and have pages that don't rip out. She told us it was for our feelings, the ones we might not want anyone else to know. She asked that we write in it at least once a week, and bring it to our once-a-month meetings with her.

But, she said, she would never read it. Never ask us to read it out loud. At the end of each meeting we had “quiet writing time” and we were supposed to write in it then, too. We were supposed to write about our parents, and the war, and what it felt like to worry if your mom or dad was going to live or die. Mrs. Jaffe didn't mince her words. No one else said things like that, like “war” or “die.” It was scary but kind of a relief.

Spelling doesn't matter. Grammar and structure doesn't
matter. This isn't about school, Mrs. Jaffe told us. It's about listening to your own feelings. Owning them. Not being afraid of them.

I heard Peter make a sound under his breath. I thought it was dumb too, but I did it, every week, a little bit, and a little bit more. At the end of the school year, Mrs. Jaffe encouraged us to use our notebooks whenever we felt we needed to. And it did help. I wrote about my mom being in Iraq, about how much I missed her, and how many days until she was coming back. And for the longest time, that was all I wrote about in my journal.

Saturday was errand day. Usually Aunt Louisa let us stop at McDonald's and Uncle Bruce might let us rent a movie. Maybe two. Eliza and I always wanted to go into town.

“You can't stay alone, Julia,” Eliza said. She even stamped her foot.

“Leave her alone, Liza,” my Uncle Bruce said. “We all need to be alone sometimes. This is a small house—nobody gets to be alone too often. Now get your shoes on and let's go.”

As soon as Aunt Louisa and Uncle Bruce and Eliza were gone, I took out my notebook. Maybe I was going write something about my mother, about missing her phone call for the second time in the same week. Or about the war, about missing limbs, or convoys or IEDs. No one should even have to know
what an IED is, but I do. It's an improvised explosive device. I could have written about all those things, since they were on my mind, but I didn't. I wrote his name instead.

M-I-C-H-E-A-L.

I wish I knew his last name. I could write more, more letters to play with and decorate.

And then I wrote it again.
M-I-C-H-E-A-L
. And I wrote it again. I didn't even ask myself why I was doing this, I just was. Because, as I wrote his name, it was like he was closer to me. It was his name. It belonged to him, the letters filled the page, and little movies played in my head—almost without my permission—of how many different ways I might bump into Michael again. How could I make it happen? I had tried all week and the whole while I couldn't let Eliza know what I was doing.

Like on Wednesday.

“You don't even like horses, Julia,” Eliza had said.

“I never said that. I like horses. All girls like horses, don't they?”

Black Beauty
was one of my favorite books. And
Misty of Chincoteague
.

“You never did before.”

“Well, I do now.”

We were walking toward the stables. I figured if Michael's
father works here maybe Michael hangs out and helps him. And so far, Eliza was buying this. I was just glad she couldn't hear my heart thumping.

“Well, hold up your dress, then,” Eliza said. “It's so dirty in there. Mother doesn't really want me doing things like that anymore. Remember?”

I looked down at my pinafore but it wasn't there. Usually it would be hanging just below my knees, brushing the tops of my boots. If everything was the same, I would be grateful not to be wearing a corset yet, grateful I could still breathe freely, run freely, and play. Not worrying about how ladylike I looked. Not like the fancy ladies who always look so weary, who don't walk but glide across the room and fan themselves slowly, in between sips of their tea.

But it wasn't the same anymore.

And Michael wasn't at the stables.

And then on Friday.

“Why don't we go swimming,” I suggested and I wondered if Eliza could tell. Could she tell I wasn't wearing my swimming bloomers? That I didn't have my parasol. I hadn't been able to conjure up even a single sash, eyelet, or petticoat of muslin.

“Alas,” Eliza said. “Off to our daily swim.”

She couldn't tell, and Michael and his brother were at the lake. They were both on top of the log, their legs running in
place, gripping it and letting it spin under their feet at the same time. They were facing each other, laughing. Michael didn't see us, see me.

“I don't want to stay here,” Eliza said. I wasn't sure which Eliza was talking. Was it Olden-Day Eliza or just Eliza Eliza? But at that moment I didn't care any more than I had to in order to keep her next to me, long enough to be seen—by Michael.

The log was anchored on one end to the floating dock. The other end was tethered to a huge concrete slab on the shore. It was a famous tradition at Mohawk. Apparently it was an original log dating back to when the beach was first dug and the hotel first opened to the public.

“C'mon, Julia,” Eliza said. “We can come swimming later.”

Then I knew it was Eliza Eliza doing the talking, because Olden-Day Eliza would never say “c'mon.”

Every fourth of July in the real olden days, before the picnic on the great lawn, the men—the guests and the employees—had log-spinning contests, while the women had to sit on wooden chairs, in high stockings, shoes, bathing dresses with long sleeves, and floppy wide-brimmed hats. And watch. Olden-Day Eliza and Julia could have stood on the beach and watched the festivities. Of course, girls weren't allowed to swim at the same time as the boys.

But Eliza was done trying to get me to pretend with her. She
might not have figured it out completely but she knew I wasn't paying attention. And now she just wanted to go.

“We can catch a ride back with my dad,” she told me. “If we leave now.”

There wasn't really anything I could do, standing there in the sand, to get his attention. Let him know I was there—had sought him out, in fact. Though I wasn't sure if that would be a good thing or not. Probably not.

But I was finally there, after days of trying to figure out how to bump into him. I couldn't just leave now.

“Julia, c'mon.” Eliza reached out her hand to me. She was just Eliza, my cousin, my niece, my best friend in sixth grade, in New Hope Middle School and for all my life. And I couldn't just let her down.

“Okay, we can go.” I tried to say it loudly. In the end we caught our ride but I missed “bumping into” Michael whatever-his-last-name-was.

I wrote his name three more times—
M-i-c-h-e-a-l
. Michael. Michael—I wrote it in print and then script and then I closed my notebook.

Like Mrs. Jaffe told me—I was owning my feelings, whatever that meant.

I
don't remember ever wanting to be alone with a boy. I sure never tried to be, but one afternoon for counseling, Mrs. Jaffe was late and for the longest time Peter Vos and I just sat there, at two opposite sides of the room.

“Maybe this is part of the program,” I said out loud and for some reason Peter answered me.

“What is?” he said.

“This. This sitting here. Maybe we are supposed to write in our notebooks.”

“So go ahead.”

“Maybe we are supposed to talk to each other.”

“Go blow,” Peter said.

“That's not very nice,” I said, wishing I had something meaner to say back, but I didn't.

It was quiet again.

“We should just go. I'm missing science again.” I think that time I was just talking to myself.

Peter said, “Sorry.”

“What?”

“Sorry. I didn't mean it. My dad's coming back.”

“He is?”

“Yeah, next week sometime, they told us . . . ,” Peter said.

“You must be happy.”

Peter nodded but didn't offer anything more.

“So that's great.” I tried not to sound jealous. I tried to make a joke. “You won't have to come to these sessions anymore.”

“I'm scared,” Peter said quietly, as if he wanted to tell me something but he also needed to keep it to himself.

So I pretended I hadn't heard.

They come in person. They come to your house in their full dress uniform and then you know. You know it's not good news. It's the worst news, so every day that you are home and you see someone in a uniform outside the window it takes you back for a minute. It takes your breath away for a moment or two.

Then you see it's the postman. Or the UPS man. Or even somebody in a navy blazer maybe that you caught out of the corner of your eye but didn't focus on and your heart freezes
for just the split second. In the deployment program before my mom left, I heard about a kid who hid under his bed whenever he heard the doorbell ring. There was a girl who started hysterically crying this one time she got called to the principal's office. All they needed was to check on a field trip permission slip.

But I never thought I'd see them at Mohawk. The army. I never expected them to come all the way up here just to find me. To bring with them the news that is too awful to write down in a letter.

There were three of them, walking up the hill nearing the rose trellises. It was early. How did they get here so early? For once, Eliza and I woke up when Uncle Bruce did and we got a ride with him to the hotel. It was my idea. I didn't wonder why the army had come to Mohawk instead of my house. I didn't think.

I've got to run away,
I thought.

They were coming closer. Navy blue, bright white, bright red.

My brain started spinning.
Eliza and I can hang out by the lake all day. We can swim or take out a boat, and either way I can keep an eye on the beach, keep a lookout. I can make sure the soldiers never find me. If they never find me they can't tell me. If they can't tell me that means nothing bad has happened.

“Julia, what's wrong? What's the matter?”

I had thought every day that this could happen, that this
might happen—but I didn't think they should be laughing like that.
Why are they laughing?

Eliza was pulling at my arm. “Julia, it's a wedding. What are you looking at?”

The whole thing had lasted ten seconds, if that. In ten seconds my brain flew out of my body, traveled all the way around the world, broke in two, and now I was back to normal. Just like that.

Like nothing had ever happened.

It was a wedding. There were always weddings at Mohawk, practically every weekend. The groom, or maybe it was the bride's family, must have had someone in the military. The whole wedding party was coming over the hill, smiling and laughing and starting to group together. The photographer was telling everyone where to stand.

A
n entire hall at the far end, at the top of the carpeted stairs, was roped off with a red velvet cord. The rope hung, swaying heavy in the middle with age. It was hardly even red anymore. That's where Mrs. Smith lived and it was forbidden to go down that hall or anywhere near those rooms. They were private.

It was our favorite place to wander.

“Are you sure she's not here now?”

“She's gone,” Eliza said to me. “She's always at the lunch service.”

We liked it down there because it was empty. We would never encounter someone smelling of suntan lotion, wearing a pair of Juicy shorts, iPod earphones, or hoodies. We would never hear
the modern voices of swearing teenagers or whining children.

It was the end of July and hot outside. I had talked to my mother last night and she told me she'd be home soon. She couldn't tell me the exact date because she didn't know or they wouldn't let her say. But soon, she promised. A month from now. Four weeks. Five, tops.

By the end of August.

She promised.

Meanwhile young ladies had to stay indoors in such hot weather as this, so they wouldn't glisten. Eliza told me that's what they called sweating in the olden days and we shouldn't do it. It's unbecoming of a lady, Eliza said.

I should know—or I should pretend I know—what “unbecoming” means and if things were working like they used to, it wouldn't matter. Eliza and I would be playing together and inside that world, we would both know. But now its like there's a tiny part of me that is standing outside, in the real world, with one foot holding the door open. When I am all sweaty, from summer, and from running—do boys think it's “unbecoming”? Would Michael?

So I have to figure out what unbecoming means, and I decide it's not pretty. It's not attractive to be sweating. Not on your
face, or behind your knees, or down your back, and certainly not under your arms. I tried to walk more slowly so I wouldn't work up a sweat.