by Pat Cummings
Auntie Lea refilled the wineglasses, pouring Trace just a “teensy” bit more. She murmured something about kids in Europe drinking wine at dinner every single night. “And do they become mass murderers or drug addicts? I don’t think so!” she asked and answered merrily. It occurred to Trace that he had never seen her drink wine either.
Auntie Lea and Dallas zinged from topic to topic. There was music they both liked, movies they hated. Countries they had visited and strange foods they had encountered. Dallas mentioned monkey brains. Auntie Lea had eaten chocolate-covered ants. Trace finished the little that was left of his wine, broke off and bit into another slice of bread. The garlicky smell of the cold, congealed butter only hit him as he swallowed and a doughy lump of bread stuck in his throat. Trace suddenly felt close to tears. Everything turned cold, didn’t it? No matter how nice something was, just give it time. Somewhere, in the back of his head, he knew it was ridiculous to let this make him feel so sad. He was stuffed. His head felt floaty. Would it be rude to just rest it on the table for a minute? he wondered.
The candles had burned low. Dallas and Auntie Lea moved seamlessly from the art of stone carving to funny gravestone inscriptions . . . Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a forty-four. No Les. No More . . . The two of them dissolved into laughter at that, but the sound of it seemed to reach Trace through wads of cotton. Enough. No way was he listening to grave talk. Not funny. Trace pushed himself up from the table and clumsily maneuvered his dishes into the sink. Silverware slipped from his hands, splattering sauce and clattering loudly onto his bowl. Mumbling a “good night” that he was pretty sure went unheard, Trace tilted his way dizzily up the stairs and, with a bit of difficulty, into his bed.
His eyebrows hurt. Just peeling one eye open took some work. Trace’s head seemed to be stuck to the pillow, and only with some effort and in slow motion could he roll over to check his alarm clock. He realized his vision was fuzzy, but it still really looked like it was past eleven a.m. Sitting up quickly brought on a whole new wave of eyebrow-related pain. Trace gave the clock another chance. It was 11:22 a.m. From far, far away he could hear someone groaning. He was about three hours past seriously screwed.
Massaging his temples, Trace remembered the wine. Auntie Lea was clueless. And, yes, he had known better, even if she didn’t yet. He should’ve schooled her about what his mom would have thought about him drinking wine. And he would. But first, he had to unstick his head from his pillow. If possible. He would never make it as an alcoholic.
Someone, somewhere, groaned again as Trace crawled through his covers, slid himself around, then tipped his legs carefully off the mattress, toes gingerly searching out each rung as he clutched the ladder tightly. He had no memory of turning off his alarm clock. Or setting it. Or climbing up to the loft bed. And absolutely no idea how the mess piled on the floor around Auntie Lea’s worktable got there. As he stepped cautiously around frayed photo albums, over crumpled handkerchiefs and scattered jewelry, Trace winced, suddenly recalling the loud crash when his hip had collided with Aunt Frenchy’s basket last night.
No time to waste though; he would clean it up later. Trace dressed hurriedly, scrolling through plausible excuses as he yanked on his jeans. What if he had an early-morning dentist appointment, or how about if he had been mugged on his way to school? That could happen. His socks from yesterday, draped on the back of a chair, passed the smell test and he sat down to tug them on. Maybe he could say that he had rescued a kitten from a tree or, even better, a baby from a burning building. No. Not good. A flaming baby would show up on TV. He needed something no one could check.
He swung his backpack over his shoulder and ran downstairs. There was no sign of Auntie Lea. Grabbing an apple and a box of juice for the subway, Trace hurried out so quickly that he nearly collided with an old lady who was inching her grocery cart past his building. She let out a little squeak when he stopped short, but Trace could have kissed her. This was perfect! A little old lady had gotten knocked down in the street and he had come to her rescue and helped her home. Best of all, little old ladies are known to be extremely slow-moving, so it had taken him all morning. He would be a real, live Good Samaritan. He might have to dodge a few questions, but wasn’t it better than saying he was out cold with a hangover? Duh.
By the time he reached Myrtle Avenue, Trace had thrown in a few convincing details, but not too many. Offering too much random information, his mom said, was a dead giveaway. He had never felt comfortable about lying. But polishing his little old lady story was beginning to make him feel kind of heroic.
“Trace!” He froze. That sounded like his name, but it was a girl’s voice. He quickly dismissed the thought of truant officers: They were just an urban myth, right?
“Hey, Trace!”
Turning toward the voice, he felt a smile spread across his face and seep right through his whole body. Angel, the goddess, was across the street, leaning out of the door at Roman’s Hardware and waving him over. And then Trace was floating across Myrtle Avenue. Angel was waiting for him. For him. A swish of air passed behind him and a taxi driver yelled something at him in Spanish. A bus honked as he hopped onto the curb. But all that Trace noticed was that, from close up, she was even prettier than he remembered. And when she smiled, she was beautiful.
“Hey, Angel.” Trace grinned. Wasn’t he supposed to be somewhere?
15
Who was he? Cutting class, drinking wine, making up lies, and now this. But he felt good. Reallllllly good. Leaning back on the bouncy metal garden chair, Trace gently bobbed to the music flooding through his head. Angel called it salsa. Above him, tree branches waved, their red and gold leaves parting to show off crisp blue patches. Neon-white clouds were moving across the sky at an unhurried pace. He saw a giraffe, poking its head out of the sunroof of a Volkswagen Beetle. Then he watched as the cloud slowly morphed into a turtle with a saxophone. Okay, next cloud, Trace thought, grinning as the cloud complied and moved along.
“Hey, mister,” Angel said. She pulled her earphones off Trace’s head and handed him a soda. Before him, on a low table studded with tiles, she had placed a tray of chips and dips, cheese and cookies. Trace suddenly realized he was starving. Even if it had occurred to him that Roman’s Hardware had a backyard, he would not have imagined this paradise. Beyond the brooms and shovels, past a wall hung with hammers and pliers and wrenches, Angel had led him to a door that appeared to be just another closet. It was like the entrance to Narnia. Hanging just below the ceiling, where it could be seen through the doorway by anyone in the garden, was a screen showing the front of the store and the cash register. Angel was on duty, but no customers had come in since Trace had arrived.
“’Kay,” Angel continued. “Lemme find this other song that you have got to hear.” She clamped the earphones on her head and began scrolling through her playlists. Angel’s school was having Teacher Development Day, so her dad had her minding the store. Trace brightened. Maybe his school was out too? Maybe he wasn’t cutting? Then he remembered getting out early the day before. That had been for a teachers’ thing. They only got half a day, though. No fair.
Trace scooped up handfuls of chips, washed them down with a swig of soda, and started on the cookies. Against a side wall, a small, rocky waterfall was embedded in a row of bushes. Weeds and wilting flowers were poking up around an army of bluish-green frog statues that seemed to be guarding it. Between the burbling fountain, an occasional birdcall, and whatever tune Angel was humming, Trace felt as if he were deep in a forest. “This is the one,” Angel said, tugging the earphones off. “I have to stock some stuff that just came in before my dad gets back. You okay out here by yourself?”
Trace surveyed the feast before him.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he said, pretty sure that was a witty response.
“Dude, you are so weird.” Angel laughed. Ruffling his hair a bit, she clamped the headphones on his head, then pulled one side away from his ear. “If th
is doesn’t make you want to dance, nothing will.” With a wink, Angel hit Play and left him with the music. Trace was not about to dance. Here? In front of her? Well, in her backyard when any moment she might look out and see him? Nope. In his room, he could dance. His moves were legendary. Crowd-shocking. Poetic, even. But he needed his own beats. This music was good, though. He couldn’t understand a word the singers were chanting. Trace realized he was beating out the rhythm on his knees. All right, Mr. Theodore Raymond Carter: here you are, hanging with an older woman, cutting school, and very possibly hungover. He leaned back against the chair, needing to anchor his head to something solid. It did feel heavy, but dangerously buoyant and soft too, like a hot air balloon that might take off for parts unknown if its ropes didn’t hold.
“They would totally kill me. Drinking wine? Cutting class?” Trace said softly, shaking his head. “Yep, kill me dead.” Trace squinted at the monitor hanging in the doorway that gave an occasional glimpse of Angel, stepping behind the counter to make notes on a pad. With the whole day off, her dad had left her in charge while he ran errands. Roman trusted her with his whole store.
“They’d kill me.” He sighed. But then, they wouldn’t kill him. Because they were gone. If anything, he had killed them. Trace pressed his eyes closed.
Just the thought made his throat grow tight. He tried to swallow. But the river . . . that lump of murky, olive-brown river bottom . . . was stuck there again, trying to go down, pressing against his throat. Trace felt his heart start racing like crazy. Telling himself not to panic was making him break out in a sweat. Trace focused on the music, willed himself to sink into the bass line that was thumping like a heartbeat. The rhythm, hypnotic and warm, made him wish he’d studied Spanish. He wanted to sing and dance and, maybe, to whisk Angel along with him. Nice. Trace leaned back, checked the clouds, and let the music wrap snugly around him. The river couldn’t touch him.
In fact, he was surprised to realize that he wanted to think about the river. It was just a crummy little river. Why should he avoid it? The song ended and another one began, slower, with a rolling melody. A perfect soundtrack, Trace thought, floating along with the music, safely above everything. He could tune in or tune out, it could all be just a reality show . . . starring himself. With a smile, he leaned back, eyes closed, the better to see everything.
So there they all were, laughing on the drive to North Carolina even though they were heading to a funeral. Mom and Dad were singing along to tunes on the radio, making up any lyrics they didn’t remember and telling stories that went with every song: whose party they had been at, what J.Lo or Jay-Z or Will Smith had done lately; Trace had escaped to his iPod, only removing his headphones when they stopped for gas and snacks. Now he felt a slight twinge: he would never know those stories.
Dad’s timing had been perfect, pulling up to the church just before the service. A picture of Aunt Frenchy, with a long silver braid coiled atop her head, sat on an easel at the entrance. Trace had only met her when he was a baby. In the data bank that was his brain, Françoise Raymond Minor, the older of his mom’s two aunts, was an empty file. As Auntie Lea would say, he wouldn’t know her if she sat on his lap on the F train. The thought of a frail little woman plopping onto his lap in the subway made him wince.
Despite what he had expected, the funeral had been anything but sad. His grandmother, Maman DeLeon, had smothered him in a hug and immediately put him to work handing out brochures as people arrived and running to the church basement to grab extra hymnals or to find someone to crank up the air-conditioning. There had been music and funny stories and a lot of talk about Aunt Frenchy “going home.” Only now and then were there tears. It was Trace’s first funeral. “But not my last,” he said into a passing breeze.
A wave of warm water seemed to wash over him and Trace felt as if his whole body was crying. But that’s okay, the music said. “Latigo, latigo, latigo,” a singer crooned. Let it go, let it go, let it go, Trace repeated. Wait. Had he been singing out loud? Opening his eyes, he was glad to see that Angel was behind the counter ringing up a purchase. A smiling customer shifted the baby bundled against her chest so that she could pull out her purse. Trace saw a tiny hand reach up to rest against the woman’s sleeve, making a pale splotch on the monitor. He closed his eyes, ready to get back to his own reality show, seeing himself wrapped in Maman DeLeon’s arms . . . how softly he had been folded into them, how powdery she was.
After the funeral, there had been a repast—which he learned just meant food and more food . . . brought by people who crammed into Maman’s small house to tell Aunt Frenchy tales. Trace saw himself in the line moving slowly past bowls of potato salad and mac and cheese, platters of deviled eggs, apple pies and peach cobblers. “Comfort food,” Auntie Lea had called it, making Trace add collard greens to a plate already piled high with grilled chicken and biscuits.
Whenever his mom and her sister got together, they would pull out photo albums, and in Maman DeLeon’s bedroom closet they had struck gold. By the afternoon, with Trace wedged between them, nearly submerged in the pillow-soft couch, they had leafed through every last album, holding him captive. He remembered staring at the creased photo of a spindly little girl, his grandmother, with the caption Seraphina DeLeon, age five. She was so tiny.
“That’s Maman?” he had asked in amazement. His mom and Auntie Lea had laughed at his disbelief. Now Maman was soooo big and soooo soft and soooo wrinkly. “Everyone gets old,” his mom had said.
Trace leaned back, looked at the sky for a minute, then closed his eyes again. “Wrong there, Mom,” he said quietly. “Not everyone.”
Trace could see them packing up the car, saying their good-byes, and hitting the road. His dad had hoped to make it to Baltimore before rush hour, but as they merged onto the highway Trace realized that he was missing his iPod. “Don’t say it,” Trace tried to warn himself, but he knew how this played out. He heard himself say that they had to go back. Yes, he had checked his bag and his pockets. No, he could not wait for Maman to mail it: he needed his iPod for the trip home.
His dad had taken the first exit, crossed the overpass, and swung the car into a southbound lane. “It’ll just take a minute,” Trace promised.
“It’s all good,” his dad had said. That was his mom and dad’s favorite saying. Their way of letting him know everything was cool, even this delay. His mom winked at him over her shoulder and cranked up the air conditioner. They were in no real hurry.
But this, this was the moment in time that Trace knew he would do over. This was the answer to Dr. Proctor’s time travel question. He would have left it behind. It was just a stupid iPod. But he had made them go back.
And if they had not? Tick. Tick. Tick. What if they had stayed five minutes more? Tick. Five minutes less? Tick. There was Maman on the porch again and Auntie Lea laughing, knowing one of them must have forgotten something. Maman rattling off his dad’s favorite dishes, trying to persuade them to stay for dinner, to sleep over. Tick. More hugs all around. Tick. Tick. Questionable promises to call, to write, to email, to visit more often. Tick. Tick. Tick. More of the stuff people do who expect to see each other again. This was nice. He could see them all together again one more time. It felt like he had the power to eavesdrop on that day.
“Drive safely. Call me when you’re home,” Maman had called out. Trace nodded. “When we’re home,” he repeated to the tree branches overhead, to the clouds. And then they were at the bridge. From the back seat, the river had looked small, like nothing special. But the car had jerked suddenly, swerving to miss the brown flash of a deer bounding out of the trees before the bridge. And then they were in a world of slow motion. And absolute silence. Never again would anything be so crystal clear.
There was the guardrail. Gray and chipped, dented metal. They were going to hit it. It would stop them. Oh. The flimsy guardrail had crumpled. Wow. Now they were sailing. Gracefully, slowly, his book bag took flight. He watched the deliberate arc it traveled only to slam
against the window. Mom’s sunglasses pirouetted silently over her shoulder. Dad’s paperback sailed toward him, launching its bookmark into the air. HEY! That first bump had shaken his rib cage, sucked all the air out of his lungs. Tumbling now, and rolling into—WHOMP! Trace was yanked hard against his seat belt. The second bump really hurt. “That’s going to bruise.” Trace grimaced, glad to be just watching, not to actually be there for this part.
Whoa! The water, already? This would be the rough part, and Trace tried to breathe with the music, hold on to the rhythm. Because he already knew that those windows were crap. And here came the water, rising right up through the floor, out from the dashboard, curling in around the window seams. No amount of jabbing the Down button on the handle mattered. Dad kicking the glass like crazy didn’t work. Should he have kicked too?
The water was up to his chin. She’d be there soon. It reached his nose. Then there she was, her hands wrapping around his arms, grasping him, not that gently, and steering him right through the window. The sick olive-brown water kept churning around them; it was gritty with dirt from the riverbed as it streamed away from the sinking car. There was that familiar thumping in his chest as the river tried to hold on to him. But those strong brown arms that had pulled him were pushing him toward the surface now. I’ve got you. She had not spoken but he had heard her. I’ve come back for you.