"What?"
"That's not how you drink a really cold Coke."
"So how do you drink a really cold Coke?"
She smiled, raised the Coke to her lips, and tipped the bottle up.
She gulped, and gulped, and gulped, and gulped, and gulped. The ice on the bottle's sides melted down toward her—and she gulped, and gulped, and gulped.
When she finished, she took the bottle away from her lips—she was still smiling—and she sighed, and then she squared her shoulders and kind of adjusted herself like she was in a batter's box, and then she let out a belch that even my brother couldn't match, not on his very best day.
It was amazing. It made birds fly out of the maples in front of the library. Dogs asleep on porches a couple of blocks away probably woke up.
She put the bottle down and wiped her lips. "That's how you drink a really cold Coke," she said. "Now you."
So what would you do? I lifted the Coke to my lips, tipped the bottle up, and gulped, and gulped, and gulped. It was fizzing and bubbling and sparkling, like little fireworks in my mouth.
"You know," she said, "it's a little scary to see your Adam's apple going like that."
The fireworks exploded—and I mean exploded.
Everything that was fizzing and bubbling and sparkling went straight up my nose and Coke started to come out all over the library steps and it wasn't just coming out of my mouth. I'm not lying. By the time the Coke was done coming out of both places, my eyes were all watered up like I was about to bawl—which I wasn't, but it probably looked like I was—and there was this puddle of still fizzing Coke and snot on the steps, and what hadn't landed on the steps had landed on my sneakers, which, if they had been new, I would have been upset about, but since they had been my brother's, it didn't matter.
"If you—"
"Don't get mad," she said. "It's not my fault that you don't know how to drink a really cold Coke."
I stood up. I tried shaking the Coke and other stuff off my sneakers.
"Are you going to keep waiting for the library to open?" she said.
"No, I'm not going to keep waiting for the library to open."
"Good," she said. "Then do you want a job?"
I looked down at her. There was still a little Coke up my nose, and I was worried that it was going to start dribbling out, which would make me look like a chump.
"A job?" I said.
"Yes. A job for a skinny thug."
"What kind of a job?"
"A Saturday delivery boy for my father."
"A delivery boy?"
She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. "Fortunately, you don't have to be too smart to do this."
"Why me? I mean, there's got to be a hundred kids in this town you could have asked."
"Because you have to deliver stuff out to the Windermere place and everyone's afraid of her and no one wants to go. But you're new and you don't know anything about that so you seem like the perfect guy. What's your name?"
"Thug," I said.
She tilted her head back again.
"Doug," I said.
"I'm Lil, short for Lily, short for Lillian. So finish your Coke—but don't let your Adam's apple do that thing."
And that's how I got the job as the Saturday delivery boy for Spicer's Deli—five dollars a Saturday, plus tips—which, if you ask me, is pretty impressive for having been in stupid Marysville for only two days. Even my father said I'd done good. Then he added that it was about time I earned my keep around the place. When did I start?
"A week from Saturday," I said.
"If they thought you were any good, they would have started you this Saturday," he said.
Terrific.
CHAPTER TWO
The Red-Throated Diver Plate CCII
THE NEXT SATURDAY—the Saturday before I was going to begin my new job at Spicer's Deli, which if they thought I was any good I would have been starting now—I was waiting on the library steps.
Again.
People who passed by looked at me like I didn't belong.
Again.
I hate stupid Marysville.
Every few minutes I went up the six steps to the library doors and tried them and they were, of course, still locked, so I'd go sit down. I waited for what must have been an hour, until finally the woman with her glasses on a chain looped around her neck—she already had them looped around her neck even though she wasn't even in the library yet—she came walking up the block and climbed the steps and looked back down at me like I was trespassing.
"The Marysville Free Public Library does not open until ten o'clock," she said.
"I know," I said.
"These steps were not made for people to sit on," she said, "especially since you might get in the way of others who would wish to use them."
I looked up and down the block, then moved way over to the edge of the steps. "Dang," I said. "I didn't see all the people jamming to get inside. Don't they all know that the Marysville Free Public Library does not open until ten o'clock?"
She sniffed. I'm not lying. She sniffed. "Go find some other place to be rude," she said.
"Is this one reserved for you?" I said.
I know. I was sounding like Lucas.
She took out a key from her purse, put it into the door and opened it, and went inside. She clanged the door shut behind her. She turned the bolt in the lock hard enough for me to hear.
I hate this stupid town. I hate it.
I waited on the steps. Right in the middle of them. My legs all spread out as far as I could spread them.
It wasn't too much longer before an old guy came from the other direction. He had glasses on a chain looped around his neck too, and I almost told him what a jerk he looked like with glasses looped around his neck, except I figured it wouldn't make any difference. He probably wouldn't even care that he looked like a jerk.
"You're an eager one," he said. "But the library doesn't open until ten o'clock."
"That's what I've been told," I said.
And he laughed, like there was something funny about that.
"I see you've met Mrs. Merriam. Is that why you're sitting like that?"
I looked at him. He had hair coming out of funny places—like his ears, his nose, between his eyes. He didn't need the looped glasses to look like a jerk.
"I guess," I said.
"You should be glad she hasn't called a policeman to have you removed." He pulled out a pocket watch—I'm not lying, a pocket watch—and flipped it open. "It's already past nine thirty," he said. "I don't think we'll undermine all law and order in the state of New York if I let you in early."
He put his pocket watch back and then took the steps kind of slowly. He puffed his breath out when he reached the top. "There seems to be more of these every time I climb them," he said, and took a key from his pocket.
The library was even cooler than it had been a week ago, and darker, since the only light came through windows that were stained yellow and didn't let in all that much.
Mrs. Merriam glanced up from the desk, and when she saw me, the look on her face was the look she probably gave to the bottom of her shoe when she stepped in something that she didn't want to step in.
"The library does not open until ten o'clock," she said.
"Exactly right," said the man, who was still puffing a little.
"Mr. Powell," she began.
"Just this once," he said.
"You don't know the meaning of just this once. How many times have you let the Spicer girl in early just this once?"
"For which she will one day thank us when she dedicates her first book to the Marysville Free Public Library." Mr. Powell turned to me. "Perhaps you will do the same. Now, is there anything I can point you toward?"
I shook my head. "I'll look around."
He nodded. "If I were you," he said, "I'd start in the nine hundreds, over there—but that's because I've always been partial to biography."
I didn't go over to the 900s. Fi
rst I tried the 500s, which looked pretty dull if you ask me, and then over to the 600s, which looked a whole lot duller, and I'm not lying. The 700s were better, and I looked through a bunch of them to see if I could find a picture of the Arctic Tern. But I couldn't.
I guess you're wondering why I didn't go up to the book on the second floor right away. I mean, that's what I was there for, not for some stupid biographies in the 900s. But I think it was because I didn't want Mrs. The-Library-Isn't-Open Merriam's eyes looking at me like I was something on the bottom of her shoe when I went up there. I just didn't.
So I messed around in the 700s looking for the tern until I saw Mr. Powell head over to the front doors to unlock them so the bezillion people who had been waiting outside and probably spreading themselves all over the six steps could come in, and some did, and the library began to hum with talk that carried because of the marble, and Mrs. Merriam adjusted her looped glasses and started checking in returned books and telling people to keep their voices low, and I crossed the hall and went up the stairs.
No one had come up here yet, so the lights hadn't been turned on. But the Arctic Tern was still there, falling. The morning sun that slanted through the windows—they were stained yellow up here too—the sun showed the water darker, and rougher. And the terrified eye.
I put my pretend pencil over the glass case again, and I started drawing the wings. I drew the lines down from the wingtips, and then sharply back up into the body. I tried to fill in the six rows of feathers, keeping them all the same in each row until I came in close, where the feathers faded into the body—dang, they looked like fur. I could feel the wind rush over their tightness. Then, following the line down the bird toward the water, curving it up around his neck a little—no, a little less, and then back down again toward the water, ending at the perfect point of his lower beak, where it stopped being beak and became air.
And then the light snapped on.
Mr. Powell.
Puffing. A lot.
He looked at me, a little surprised. (He had his glasses on, instead of looped across his chest, so he didn't look like too much of a jerk.) "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have turned these lights on sooner."
"It doesn't matter," I said.
He walked over to the glass case and looked down into it. "Sterna arctica," he said.
I looked at him. "Arctic Tern," I said. I didn't want him to think I was a chump, like I didn't know the bird.
"That's right," he said. "There used to be a little card around here somewhere. Isn't it a beauty? You can feel it plummeting through the air."
I didn't say anything.
"I came up to turn the page. I do it once a week. But I can wait, if you want."
I shrugged.
He looked down again at the Sterna bird. "I think I'll wait," he said.
"Who drew this?"
He turned and pointed to the picture on the wall. "He did. John James Audubon. Almost a hundred and fifty years ago." He looked into the glass case. "You want to try drawing it yourself ?"
I shook my head. "I don't draw."
"Ever try?"
"I said, 'I don't draw.'"
"So you did. I'll leave the book open to this page, and if you change your mind or want to read about the artist, I'll—"
I turned and left before he could finish. What a jerk. Didn't he hear me say I don't draw? Chumps draw. Girls with pink bicycle chains draw. I don't draw. Was he old and deaf ?
I hate this town.
A week later, I wasn't at the library when it opened at ten o'clock, and if you've been paying attention, you should know why. I was over at Spicer's Deli before nine, still tasting the salt-and-peppery fried eggs that my mother had made for me before I left. Mr. Spicer and Lil were standing by two wagons, and one was already packed with filled brown bags. "Lil will have the second one waiting for you by the time you get back from this first run," Mr. Spicer said. He handed me a drawn map with the houses of the customers marked and told me the order I should go in, which depended on how far away the houses were and how much ice cream was in the brown bags—which made a lot of sense, since it was already somewhere up in the eighties probably, and the white haze in the air said it was going to be a whole lot hotter.
"Do you want to warn him about Mrs. Windermere now or later?" said Lil.
Mr. Spicer looked at her. "He doesn't have anything to worry about," he said.
Lil looked at me and mouthed, Yes, you do.
"All the houses on this first run are within a couple of blocks of the deli," Mr. Spicer said, "so it shouldn't take long if you put your mind to it. You better get going before the ice cream starts to melt."
So I got going. But I'm not lying, it wasn't so easy to match Mr. Spicer's hand-drawn letters to the letters on the street signs, and so it probably did take a little longer than it would have for someone who had lived all his life in stupid Marysville, which Mr. Spicer didn't seem to understand as well as he should. "You'll have to pick up the pace if we're going to get all these orders delivered," he said when I got back.
I nodded.
"Lil's got the next wagon all set. Right? Here's the map. You'll get to know all of these by heart, but you have to keep your mind on it this time."
Terrific.
"Are you going to warn him about Mrs. Windermere yet?" said Lil.
I set out again, dragging the wagon behind me. After ten minutes, I had no idea how to find any of the streets on the map, and so I had to stop and ask someone who was edging the lawn in front of her house, like it really mattered to anyone if her grass was cut in a straight line. I held out the map and asked if she knew where the street was for the first house.
She put down her edger, took off her garden gloves, and looked at the map. "That's Gardiner. That's this street," she said. She pointed up at the sign on the corner. "Didn't you see it?"
No, I didn't see it, jerk. I wouldn't have asked you if I had seen it, would I? That's what I wanted to say.
"So number nineteen would be..." I said.
"A few houses down on the other side. Evelyn Mason's place." She pointed. "It's the bright yellow one with the white impatiens under the porch."
I headed down to Evelyn Mason's place with the stupid white impatiens under the stupid porch, knocked on the stupid door, handed over the stupid bags of groceries, showed her the stupid map and said, "I have to get over to...," and she pointed the way.
That's how I got by the rest of that Saturday morning. I showed the customers the map, and they pointed the way. It worked pretty well—until Ernie Eco drove by and he said what was I doing and I told him and he asked if I needed help finding the houses and I said I did and he looked at the map and told me the way to the house after the one I was already heading to, but he told me to go in completely the wrong direction and by the time I got that figured out and turned around and found the last house, their ice cream had mostly melted inside the foil bag and they wouldn't pay for it. So I took it back. Mr. Spicer said it could happen on anyone's first day but I shouldn't let it happen again and next time he'd have to take it out of my salary.
Ernie Eco probably thought he was a barrel of laughs.
He probably thought I was a chump.
Then Mr. Spicer nodded to the last wagon. "It's for Mrs. Windermere," he said.
Lil whistled kind of low, like something out of The Twilight Zone.
"Mrs. Windermere," I said.
"This one's got ice cream too. Lemon ice cream, which is expensive. So pay attention."
I nodded. I wondered if he might hand me a cold Coke before I left. The mercury must have left ninety behind a long time ago. And I sure did know what to do with a really cold Coke.
"Mrs. Windermere is supposed to pay you," Mr. Spicer said. "Cash on delivery. Sometimes she tries to charge it, but then she forgets, and I have to drive over and she's forgotten that she didn't pay and we have a really unhappy scene. So make sure you come away with"—he looked down at her bill—"twenty-two dollars and seventy-ei
ght cents."
"Okay," I said. Waiting for a cold Coke. Waiting for a cold Coke. Waiting for a cold Coke.
"And you won't even need a map for this one," Mr. Spicer said. "Go over to the library, take the street that runs into it—that's Green Street—and head out until the houses stop and there's a big field. Go across that, and you'll see this huge brick house. That's where she lives. Got it?"
"Twenty-two seventy-eight," I said.
Mr. Spicer nodded. "In hand," he said.
A Coke, I thought. A really cold Coke with ice coming down the sides.
He looked at me. "You waiting for something?"
"I wouldn't be in a hurry either if I was him," Lil said.
I set off on the last run of the Saturday deliveries. I decided that if I found any sprinklers going, I'd jump through them, since everything I was wearing was already dripping wet anyway.
But there weren't any sprinklers the whole way. Are you surprised? There never are.
Do you know how many blocks there were before the houses started thinning out after the library?
Fourteen.
Do you know how many trees there are along the road once the houses started to give out?
Six.
Do you know how much shade they gave?
Maybe a tiny bit more than zero.
Do you know how big that field before Mrs. Windermere's house was?
Big. And the path that I had to drag the wagon on wasn't exactly mowed.
By the time I got there, I couldn't believe I was still sweating, since it felt like anything liquid must have baked out of me. I couldn't believe there was still frost on the metal foil around the expensive lemon ice cream.
Mrs. Windermere's house spread out at the end of a long brick path—and the bricks were baking hot—that led up from the road through gardens on either side that had just been sprinkled with sprinklers, which were turned off now, of course, and then past some tall evergreens and then into some high trees that, finally, spread some shade down onto the world and then through some more gardens with flowers that I would have died to bring home to my mother and finally more baked bricks right up to the house. It was the biggest house I'd ever seen that one person owned. I mean, there were pillars in the front. Pillars! More windows than Camillo Junior High. This green and white ivy climbing up everywhere. And a doorway with a round window over it. That's right. Over it. No one could even look out of it, it was that high up.
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