A Summer of Kings

by Han Nolan

  On and on she went, relishing every bit of the tale and the red fury she saw on Mother's face, directed at me.

  I finally knew what the expression "She was livid" really looked like, because Mother looked livid. Until then I had always pictured a slab of raw liver when people used the expression, but even though it was raw, all right, it was pure raw anger.

  "Stewart and Sophia, you can go to your rooms. We want to talk to Esther alone," Mother said.

  The two of them climbed the porch steps and crossed the floor, but then at the door, Stewart stopped and turned around and said, "Esther took good care of us, Mother and Dad. King-Roy had promised to meet us at four but he never showed up. We thought he was lost again. Esther was just doing what you asked her to do. She was just trying to keep us together." He stepped inside the door and added, "I think she did the right thing." Then he turned and followed Sophia inside.

  Hearing Stewart defend me to Mother and Dad the way he did made me want to cry. I was full of so many emotions, I wanted to cry anyway, but I didn't. I saved it for when I was up in my room.

  I stood with my head bowed, peering up at my parents from under my bangs, while Mother and Dad each had their say about how disappointed they were in me and how I was old enough to know better and how lucky we had all been not to have been kidnapped or worse, and I let their words slam against me and bounce back off again. I was too exhausted and sad and fed up to absorb their words. Dad strode back and forth across the porch, ranting, while Mother stood right where she was and pointed at me, jab, jab, jabbing her finger in my direction, and I watched as though it was a play, a silly play with highly dramatic people all saying their parts. Monsieur Vichy tsk, tsk, tsked, while Auntie Pie shook her head back and forth the whole time like she had palsy.

  When the whole ordeal was over and my parents had announced that I would not be joining the family for the end-of-July barbecue at the country club that next Saturday night, my father asked me if I had anything to say. My parents always asked me that after they yelled at me and I knew they wanted some appropriate response, but I never got it right. I never said I'm sorry right, and everything else I had ever said had been wrong, too. Everything else always made them even angrier. This time when my father asked me if I had anything to say, I said just what was on my mind. "If you think I'm just so immature and stupid, why do you keep putting me in charge? Why don't you just lock me in my room already and throw away the key? I don't care." I stormed across the porch and into the house. I marched up the steps, expecting any second that my parents would call me back to yell at me some more, but they didn't, and when I reached the top of the steps, I ran into Beatrice and the Beast coming out of her servants' quarters, only I almost didn't recognize her. She had dyed her hair a dark brown and she had on a simple navy-blue dress and a pair of matching pumps. Before I could stand back and take it all in, and before I could say anything, Beatrice patted her hair and said, "Don't you go thinking this has a thing to do with anything you said. I don't go taking my advice from the likes of you."

  "I know," I said.

  "My hairdresser told me the bleach was ruining my hair."

  "Okay," I said, turning in the direction of my bedroom. "I don't care what you do, anyway," I added over my shoulder. Then I ran down the hallway to my room and threw myself on my bed and cried and cried, and the last thing I remember before I cried myself to sleep was the cold image of King-Roy's face in front of me, telling me he wasn't coming back.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I woke up early the next morning determined to forget about King-Roy and all my silly romantic fantasies and to make things better between Pip and me. It seemed that every time we did our cross-country-training runs, we got into an argument. It was always about me. Pip said I wasn't listening to him. He said my mind was always on King-Roy. I told him I was listening to him, and I even repeated back exactly what he had said to me, but maybe he was right, because later I couldn't remember any of what we had talked about except that our conversations had always ended with an argument. This time I was going to try my hardest to show Pip that I knew I was lucky to have him as a friend and that I had put all my silly fantasies about King-Roy behind me.

  I got myself dressed and ready for our run. I put on the Yankees baseball cap Pip once gave me and the Kennedy for President campaign button with President Kennedy's head on it that he'd also given to me. I pinned it to the one-piece gym uniform, which was way too big on me, so the elastic-trimmed undershorts hung down below the outer cuff almost to my knees. Mother had gotten the uniform large on purpose because it had to last three more years of high school. She had insisted I would grow into it. I figured Mother thought I was going to be an Amazon woman by the time I was a senior in high school. The gym uniform was the only clean item I had left to wear because I had forgotten to bring down my laundry, but that morning I didn't care. I even wrapped the Boy Scout belt Pip had given me around my waist, hoping to lift up the uniform some. It didn't work very well, but at least I would be showing Pip how much I appreciated him.

  I was early for our run, so I sat outside on the polar bear rock and waited for Pip. It felt good to sit in the dark with my old friend, Polar Bear, his white granite body appearing ghostlike in the moonlight. I used to like to talk to the bear and tell him my troubles, believing he was listening. I guess I knew better than to do that now, but in the back of my mind I still thought maybe he could hear me, so I talked to him, whispering all my hurts and sorrows.

  "I don't know what's wrong with me," I told him. "I don't know why I felt so desperate for King-Roy to like me in the first place. What did I expect, anyway? He's eighteen. He's a man, really, and he's a black man. Pip is right, we're from two different worlds." I took a deep breath. "But I'm scared. I'm scared and I don't know why I'm scared. Losing King-Roy yesterday—I don't know, it means something. I feel like something big and tragic has happened, but I don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm feeling, but it makes me miserable and sad and scared." I patted the rock—a polar bear lying on its side—and ran my hand back and forth along its white body.

  A while later the sun began to come up and I knew, without looking at my watch, that Pip was late. He was never late, and I tried to recall if he had said something to me about coming later. I thought about this for some time and then, before I could decide on whether or not to head back inside, I looked up from my polar bear and saw Pip enter through our gate. He had someone with him, and that's when I remembered that he had told me that one of his pen pals was coming to stay with him for a couple of weeks. Every summer Pip had a new pen pal come visit. He had told me this pen pal was from White Plains, the only New York pen pal he had.

  I stood up on the polar bear and called out to Pip. He saw me and waved, and the two of them turned and cut across the lawn toward me. That's when I discovered that Pip's White Plains pen pal was a girl, and that's when I saw the two of them walking together holding hands, and that's when my heart started racing in my chest and I felt so dizzy I had to sit back down on the polar bear.

  When Pip and the girl—a pretty girl with long straight tangle-free brown hair, with the bangs pulled back in a barrette on the top of her head, and wearing makeup and a matching pink shorts and shirt outfit with strappy white sandals—caught up to me, I stood back up and forced myself to smile. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, and it was so loud, I had to lean in to hear what Pip was saying to me.

  "This is Randy Michaels," Pip said, wrapping his arm around Randy's shoulders and giving me a big grin. "And this is my oldest friend, Esther."

  I smiled bigger and gave a half wave at Randy and noticed that she was looking me over and grinning like she was ready to burst out laughing. That's when I remembered what I had on and I looked down at myself with my hanging sack of a gym uniform, and then I heard it—Randy couldn't contain herself. Her laughter bubbled up out of her and she fell against Pip and covered her mouth, and Pip laughed, too, and asked, "What's so funny?"

  Randy
pointed at me. "What have you got on? Is that your gym uniform?"

  Pip laughed some more and said, "That's just Esther; she always looks like that."

  I didn't know my heart could pound any louder, but it did. I shouted above it, "I do not! Pip, I do not. I've never worn this silly uniform before in my life. Mother just ordered it because my old one was so worn."

  Pip, seeing that I wasn't laughing, closed his mouth, and then Randy said, "We have the same uniform, only ours is gold and they ... uh, fit a little better."

  That last bit cracked her up again and she was falling all over Pip laughing.

  I said, "My mother bought it big so I could grow into it," and at this Randy looked at me with such a horrified look on her face, I knew she was imagining the monster I would have to become if I were to ever fit into that uniform. Then she burst out laughing again, and I tried my hardest to laugh, too. I knew that normally I would find it funny, but now it wasn't funny to me at all. Inside I felt like something was breaking, and I felt so scared I didn't know what to do. I laughed a fake laugh, which was hard to do because I could hardly breathe and my heart was racing. The sun had come up fully by then and I could see that Randy was really nice-looking. Nothing on her face was too big or too small. She looked perfect. I figured she had probably gotten all A's on every report card since kindergarten. She looked like the kind of girl who skied and rode horses and looked beautiful doing both of these things. I bet her hair never got tangled, even when she had to stuff it up into a bathing cap to go swimming. When she laughed, she opened her mouth wide enough for me to see that she didn't have even one cavity. All her teeth were white and perfect, just like her.

  I stood watching her laughing at me, feeling my heart banging against my chest, closing off my air passages, and I thought that if I didn't do something—leave or run or something—I was going to pass out right there on top of the polar bear, so I said, "Are we going to run, or did you come over to tell me you were canceling today?"

  Pip wiped his eyes and shook his head. "No, we're running. Randy's going to wait for us." He took her hand in his and added, "She doesn't run."

  Pip said this as though her not running was the cutest, sweetest thing ever, as though no one was as clever as Randy because she didn't run.

  Pip said, "I told Randy she could look around the grounds, if that's okay."

  I shrugged. "Yeah, sure, I guess so." I looked at Pip and then Randy. They were the exact same height. I looked back at Pip. He looked taller than usual. He looked lots taller. When did he get so tall? I asked him, "Pip, when did you get so tall? You look taller all of a sudden."

  Pip ran his hand through his bangs so they stood straight up and said, "I knew you weren't listening the other day. I told you, I've grown two more inches—six inches since Christmas. I'm five-two now, and the doctor says I might grow another two or three inches before the summer's out." Pip glanced over at Randy, then back at me. "He thinks I could be around six feet tall once I reach my twenties." He shoved his thick-rimmed glasses up on his nose and smiled.

  My heart pounded. My ears were full of it; I could hear blood rushing around in my head, I swear that I could. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I felt scared. I wanted to run.

  "Okay, well—let's run," I said.

  I set off toward the woods and waited for Pip to catch up to me.

  It took him a minute or so because he had to say his good-byes to Randy, and then when he caught up to me, he said, "Isn't she great?"

  "I didn't know Randy was a girl," I said, leaping over a rock and entering the woods.

  "That's because you weren't listening. I told you yesterday. I said she was coming. I said she, not he. I knew you weren't listening."

  I picked up my speed, trying to match the rhythm of my heartbeat, and Pip sped up, too.

  "No racing," he said. "Remember, we agreed; no more racing on our training runs."

  "I know. I remember," I said, already gasping for air. I wanted to slow down but I couldn't. We ran through the woods side by side along the piney trail.

  "Randy wants to join the Peace Corps, just like I do," Pip said. "And she's into politics like I am, and her parents both teach at Columbia University, so her parents are teachers like mine. Isn't that crazy how alike we are?"

  "Crazy," I said. I ran faster.

  "You're racing," Pip said.

  "So what," I said. "Let's. Let's race. Come on!"

  I took off down the hill and around a boulder toward the first pond, and Pip followed. About thirty seconds later he had caught up to me, and then he passed me. I sped up and reached out to tag his shirt, and Pip sped up. I ran faster and so did Pip. Pip ran so fast, he was getting away from me. I tried to catch up but he was too fast. He was getting farther and farther away, and I wondered when this had happened. When did Pip get faster than me? I pushed myself to run harder, to catch up. I saw his red shirt in the distance. I kept my focus on that shirt and tried to speed up, tried to catch him, but he was too fast. He was leaving me behind. As soon as I thought this, as soon as I realized the truth of what was happening to me, I stopped. I just stopped running. I leaned over and gasped for air, and I could feel tears filling the rims of my eyes. I could feel them spill over as I gasped and coughed and spit the heavy saliva that had collected in my mouth. I straightened up and let my tears roll down my face. I felt a great pressure come down on my chest, and I decided I was having a heart attack. I was having a heart attack because my heart couldn't take it. I knew my heart couldn't take being left behind again. All my life I had been left behind—in school, by my family, then by Laura and Kathy, then King-Roy, and finally, Pip. Even Pip had moved ahead of me. Even Pip had grown up.

  Everyone had left me behind and I didn't know how I would ever catch up.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I didn't want to have my heart attack in the middle of the trail, so I dragged myself, dizzy and panting, off the path, then moved deeper into the woods. Behind a cluster of pine trees, I dropped onto the ground and waited for my full-out heart attack. I wondered if I was going to die. I waited—still panting; my heart still pounding—and listened with my eyes shut tight. The pressure in my chest eased up some, and I rolled onto my back and stared up at the sky. My heart was pounding still, and my hands and legs felt shaky. A tear spilled out of my left eye and ran into my hair. "I've been left behind," I said. "The whole world has left me behind. How did this happen?"

  I asked this of the sky, but I knew. I knew how it had happened. It had all started when I had stayed back—no, even before that, when I couldn't keep up with the lessons in class and then I stayed back—and Mother hired the tutors to help me to catch up, but she knew, even then, I would never catch up. That's why she kept hiring the tutors every summer, and that's why she gave up on me this summer. She realized the tutors didn't help; I'd always be behind everybody else.

  I remembered the slumber party I was invited to in fifth grade. I remembered going into the woods behind Sara Partridge's house with all the other girls, and Sara pulled out a pack of cigarettes, a pack of Marlboros, and she passed the pack around. No one else looked surprised. It was as if they had all planned this. They had planned to go smoking in the woods and they didn't tell me. Everyone took a cigarette except me. I didn't want one. I didn't want smoke in my throat and lungs. What was the fun of that? I didn't get it. The girls all lit up their cigarettes and sucked up the smoke and choked and tried to look all grown-up and I thought they looked like they were little girls playing at being grown-ups. They were posing and acting like they were so smart and so grown-up, and I thought they had looked so silly. But I had been wrong. That night in the woods was some kind of initiation, and I had missed it. I had passed it up because I thought it was stupid, and then they passed me up and left me behind, holding the Lavoris mouthwash they had used to hide the smell of tobacco on their breaths.

  It was always like that. I didn't get it. I didn't get it at all. I realized this, lying there in the woods staring up at the sk
y. I didn't get how the world worked. Why did we have wars? Why did people hate? Why did white people hate black people? Why did we have to get grades in school? Why did the popular kids pick on the unpopular kids? Why? I didn't get it.

  I didn't understand why people had to change. Why couldn't we all just stay the same? Why did boy-girl friendships have to become all about sex? Why did girls have to flirt and boys have to fight? Why did Laura and Kathy go off to Nantucket together and leave me behind? Why did they do that to me? Because I didn't talk about boys all the time? Because I didn't carry a purse? Were those reasons to leave me behind? If I started carrying a purse, would they be my friends again? Did I want friends who wouldn't like me unless I carried a purse?

  And why did King-Roy act like he liked me and then like he didn't? Why did he hug me? Didn't he hug me? Maybe he didn't but dumb me thought he did.

  What was wrong with me, anyway? That's what I wanted to figure out. I heard Pip calling to me but I ignored him. I was in the middle of my heart attack; I wanted to be left alone.

  I looked up through the trees at the white clouds in the sky, and I thought about my polar-bear rock. I didn't want to believe it, but I knew I still did—I still believed the polar bear could hear me. I still believed stuffed animals were real. Logically I knew it wasn't true, but in my heart I knew a part of me still believed. I believed they could see and breathe, and I still treated all my stuffed animals as though they were alive just in case maybe they were—maybe. I still liked climbing trees and running and wearing pants instead of dresses, and I didn't understand why no one else my age did. Why? Why did they have to change, and if they did have to change, why couldn't I? Why wouldn't I? I could wear dresses all the time. I could smoke and wear makeup and carry a purse. I could talk about boys for hours on the phone and play spin the bottle at parties and kiss the boys in the closet. I could do all those things, so why didn't I? What was wrong with me that I hated all those things? What was wrong with me?