“I’ve decided I don’t want to get my hair cut anymore,” Eleanor announced as we lay stretched out sunbathing on the beach a few days later.
“I don’t believe you for a second.”
It was barely a handful of days ago that she’d been obsessed with the idea of getting her long hair radically pruned into either a flip or poodle-cut, roundly convinced that she was a mere hairstyle away from consummate beauty.
I rolled over on my towel, squinting my lids against the retina scorching glare of full sun. “Hum … let me guess, Sammy told you he doesn’t like short hair. He dreams every night of your long flowing locks laced though his–”
“It doesn’t matter what Sammy likes or dislikes. I’m not seeing him anymore.”
“Yeah sure. You can’t possibly expect me to believe the great lust affair of 1957 has died such an untimely death.”
“Do you have to be such a yo-yo, Stevie? That’s exactly why I don’t like to tell you anything. You always have to say something stupid.”
“I was just kidding.”
“Humor only works if you’re actually funny.”
“Okay, so why’d you break-up?” I asked, the press of my curiosity allowing me to overlook her insult.
“He’s too immature.”
“It took you a month of necking in the sand to figure that out? Jeez, you’re amazing.”
“What’s amazing is that you have the nerve to say anything,” she said, a demented Cheshire cat grin spreading wide across her mouth. “So, tell me, has Jake gotten wise to your designs yet?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eleanor stood, shaking the sand from her towel and balling it under her arm.
“I think you know exactly what I mean, little sister,” she winked; the horrible grin ever-expanding to include her entire face. “You might actually fool some people into believing you like fishing practically every day of your vacation, but my guess is you’re looking to catch something other than what’s in the water.”
For one of the few times in my life I was speechless, my mind scrambling after some effective response of outraged denial which regrettably failed to come, leaving me to stare after her smugly sauntering backside as she headed back to the house.
It had taken a near exhausting strategy of time and effort, but Aunt Smyrna had finally relented and agreed to let me and Eleanor ride bicycles into town so we could hang-out with the local teenagers at the teeny malt-shop sandwiched like a wedge of cheddar between Vincent’s drugstore and the no name Wash n’ Dri on Main Street.
Aside from the vast appeal of mingling with a crowd wholly comprised of our peers, the especially attracting features at The Promenade were a continuously blaring jukebox and a genuine dance floor, albeit it was not much larger than a halved postage stamp.
Fully aware our mother would’ve disapproved had she known, (considering she viewed teenage congregations of any sort suspect unless they involved Church activities) our aunt’s consent had been a long time in coming. “Just this once,” Aunt Smyrna reluctantly conceded, and we knew she meant it. “You know your mother doesn’t trust this Rock and Roll fad you kids are going nuts over.”
I invited Jake to come with us as soon as Aunt Smyrna’s permission had been secured, but I’d then had to badger him unrelentingly before he at last surrendered to my pleas. While I clearly understood the probability he wouldn’t enjoy being at The Promenade for the very reasons I myself anticipated it–eager as I was for a taste of the high-energy, peak-hormone dance music mesmerizing just about every other American teenager I knew–my desire to have him with us easily overrode all other legitimate concerns.
We peddled furiously along the irregular stripe of pavement threaded behind the sprinkling of summer homes widely spaced along the shore, heading out to the narrow two-lane highway that would lead us into town; not daring to slacken our pace until we’d put enough distance between ourselves and the fear of Aunt Smyrna changing her mind and summoning us back.
We swerved drunkenly across the uneven macadam on our aunt and uncle’s rickety old bicycles; Jake smiling over our antics, but nevertheless hanging back just enough to insure separation from our buffoonery.
It didn’t occur to me until much later that Jake might’ve been more than just a little apprehensive over our excursion, but at that moment the only thing in my mind was the heady intoxicant of independence–a bubble swelled close to bursting as we sped along the patchwork of oft repaired roadway. My ponytail whipping behind me in the wind generated by wild flight–skirt billowing away from my bare legs in an uneven canopy; feeling right then as if I could’ve easily peddled to forever and beyond.
I sensed Jake’s reluctance to enter the malt shop even as we settled our bikes into the sturdy iron rack cemented at the curb, but I purposefully declined to acknowledge his unease. He’d be fine, I decided for him. He was no more nervous than I was myself.
The familiar sound of Pat Boone pulsed enticingly from the jukebox, drawing Eleanor and me like moths caught within a spell of illumination as we crossed through the doorway. For just a moment we hung within the threshold, then stepped forward to be instantly absorbed into a sea of teenagers; girls outfitted in poodle skirts, tight puff-sleeve sweaters, and neat white bobby socks cuffed above scuffed saddle shoes; boys sporting duck tails (a hairstyle banned from school back home in Callicoon), tight Levi’s, and smelling of pomades, hovering around the jukebox and attempting to look effortlessly cool.
We threaded our way through the maze of tables, miraculously finding a pair of vacant stools at the counter, the red vinyl seats still warm from the bodies who’d vacated them only a moment before. Eleanor and I hopped up onto the seats, leaving Jake to stand, the expression on his face doing little to mask the obvious fact he felt altogether out of place.
Immediately striking a ridiculous pose–breasts pointing like strategically aimed missiles as she draped herself over the counter–Eleanor ordered three chocolate sodas, aggressively pretending she had always been a member of this particular congregation, right here mingling with this herd of seemingly confident strangers.
I turned to Jake, rolling marble eyes in her direction, and he’d smiled, easily surmising the meaning behind my look. Though if he’d had any idea just how long she’d likely practiced the peculiar posture, he might’ve spun in the aisles laughing instead.
The music changed and the crowd’s attention swung in unison to watch a dark-haired couple dancing a vigorous mambo. As well as they moved together on the tiny dance floor, I couldn’t avoid thinking they weren’t quite as fluid as Aunt Smyrna and Uncle Cal had been back in the days when they’d so clearly adored dancing with each other; ever willing to offer a demonstration of the Tango, Cha-Cha, or Merenge, and leaving their audiences all but rhapsodized by each and every performance. Only now, with everything so twisted and changed between them, the recollection held an unreal quality of remoteness. As if it was all too brittle an illusion to remain intact, even within the protective rooms of memory.
We watched the crowd laughing, dancing, and swirling around us, saying little ourselves in light of our mutual uncertainty of what it was we should be doing now that we were here.
“Do you have a nickel?” Eleanor asked after a while. “I want to play something on the jukebox.”
“Nope. I only have one and I’m using it myself.”
“Come on,” she pressed. “Let me have it and I promise I’ll pick out an Elvis record.”
“No. I want to do it myself.” Honestly, but she knew it wasn’t every day I got the chance to operate a jukebox.
Jake flicked a coin onto the counter in front of Eleanor and we ceased our quarrel to stare at him in stunned surprise. Even after an acquaintance of nearly four summers, I still found myself perplexed at times by how effortlessly he was able to read our conversations.
“Thanks,” Eleanor smiled, throwing me an expression of smug proportions as she hopped from her stool. “Don’t bother saving my seat.
”
We watched her sway toward the male contingent of James Dean lookalikes stationed around the jukebox.
“That’s the last we’ll see of her,” Jake signed.
I nodded in agreement, feeling the sprinkling of inquisitive stares turned on us as Jake’s fingers formed the words, ashamed of, but unable to displace the immediate sense of self-conscious embarrassment fanning over my face.
Jake shifted his eyes away from me as he slid onto Eleanor’s abandoned stool.
Had he felt my discomfort so easily? What was it he’d seen on my face? Could I be that transparent? He wasn’t some mutant horror, he was only deaf, I reminded myself–knowing as I did that I should never have had to.
When had I become so shallow? Did I really care about a few curious stares tossed my way by a handful of insignificant strangers? And the answer, though I tried not to see it, was yes, I did.
We made no further attempts at conversation, both of us staring out at the bodies moving around us, trying too hard it seemed to pretend we were enjoying ourselves. As if we’d come here for this very thing.
It was a short time later when Jake reached to tap me on the shoulder. My eyes followed his to where Eleanor stood flanked by two greasers in leather jackets. She motioned us to join them, but I turned away, intent on ignoring her.
Jake slid from his stool. “You go ahead. I’m going back now.”
“But we only just got here.”
He smiled tightly without quite meeting my eyes. “Sorry. Not for me.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said much too easily, knowing as I did that my failure to offer argument was nothing other than a betrayal.
He nodded and turned away, swallowed into the crowd like vapor as he headed toward the door.
I felt terrible. No less awful than if I’d reached in and plucked out his heart, twisted and wrung the precious organ until I’d killed him.
I looked back at Eleanor, now glaring at me impatiently. One of her greasy bookends had whipped out a comb from the back pocket of his jeans and was smoothing the already slick perfection of his well-sculpted ducktail, the other merely grinning stupidly at nothing in evidence.
I glanced away as though I didn’t see her.
While we’d promised to be back before dark, nightfall had crept up stealthily without our noticing it. Aunt Smyrna would be angry, that much was certain. Peddling as hard and fast as our strength allowed, we raced madly against the deepening hour.
Eleanor’s legs spun in a blur of rapid motion, easily sprinting ahead as my own bike clanked and groaned the harder I worked the pedals. Beads of sweat dotted my forehead and along the perimeter of my scalp as I struggled to keep up, compelling myself onward, undeterred, or so I thought, by the rather wobbly object supporting me.
Until all at once I heard a terrible grinding screech emanating from one or another of the parts spinning beneath me–followed by a distinct popping sound that brought the bike to a slamming halt–the unexpected cessation of motion sending my un-tethered body sailing over the handlebars to a violent deposit onto the pavement.
I heard before I saw the tearing of my new poodle skirt, the flesh of my knees and one elbow torn raw against the blacktop. I started to cry even before the pain came–a subconscious reaction to the realization I’d been hurt, possibly maimed.
When it came, it arrived at a gallop–sharp stabs of throbbing anguish. I knew if I dared a glance downward it would be to see that my legs were gone. Both limbs ripped away at the knees, ground like road kill into the macadam; a horrific conviction that instantly launched my whimpering cries into outright bawling.
“Stevie–” Eleanor called out as she swung her bike around and peddled back toward me. “What are you doing? What happened?”
“The bike–” I choked past a streaming flood of tears. “It just … I don’t know … it came apart or something.”
“It looks okay to me. Did you run over something in the road?”
“No–I don’t know … something just happened.”
“Well I can’t see anything wrong. It’s too dark. You’ll just have to walk it back then.”
“I can’t get up.” Converging rivers of tears continued to spill over my cheeks. “My legs–something happened to my legs,” I wailed, unable to feel anything in evidence below the searing pain in my kneecaps.
Eleanor knelt down, peering closely at the maimed and twisted remains of my limbs.
“They’re just scraped up. Jeez, Stevie, you’ve positively ruined your new skirt. There’s no way you’re fixing this.”
Scraped? “You mean they’re still there?”
“What?”
“Everything–my legs.”
“What’re you talking about? Did you hit your head on the handlebars?”
Though every inch of my body throbbed with the madness of a runaway train, an immediate wave of relief washed over me as my eyes searched exactingly over my lower extremities. It was true, aside from my mortally injured skirt, all body parts really did seem to be present and more or less intact.
“I’ll let you ride my bike for part of the way,” Eleanor said, finally managing a weak display of sympathy.
“Alright. Thanks, El.”
I pushed myself up to stand on wobbly legs. A strong taste of nausea waved up in the back of my throat and I swallowed hard, attempting to grasp my senses back from the crazy spirals whirling inside my head like maniacal circus performers.
“Oh, look–that’s what happened,” Eleanor said, lifting the injured bicycle from its resting place in the middle of the road. “The chain broke and got caught in the tire.” The dangling links drooped under the foot pedal, chinking against the pavement as she wheeled it toward me. “Looks like you bent the front rim too.”
I paid little attention to her observations, still struggling to refocus on the spinning center of gravity somersaulting through my brain.
With Eleanor walking the injured bike, I pedaled drunkenly beside her, our progress painfully slow as we continued toward home.
“You okay now?”
“I think so,” I said, though I wasn’t quite sure. My entire body quietly screaming in distress, as if striving to break through a suffocating wad of cotton pierced with needles.
“You want to switch now?” I asked.
“No, you can ride a little while longer.”
I smiled at her in the dark, her obvious concern leaving me especially touched and appreciative.
“So, you know, Stevie, I was thinking, what if we tell Aunt Smyrna you had your bike accident earlier–say maybe a couple hours earlier.”
So, that was it. The entire reasoning behind her attentions. She wanted me to be our alibi.
“That’ll probably work.” Eleanor had no need to convince me of the benefits to be had from a realignment of facts. I much preferred to be lavished with sympathy over my near crippling accident than endure an irate reproach from Aunt Smyrna.
“Except … well, do you think you could act a little more injured? Maybe cry a little harder or something?”
“Yeah, sure. I know what to do. Just leave it to me.”
A peculiar sensation someplace between stiffening and numbness was widening a path along my skinned knees and torn elbow, a dull ache stretching out like bony talons beneath the dirt and road gravel embedded painfully into my skin. There was little question that as soon as Aunt Smyrna laid eyes on the carnage she would rush to swab the whole mess with a wash of some horrible burning tonic. Just thinking of it now brought a roiling swell of sickness churning through my stomach, making it all the more ludicrous that Eleanor would suggest anything resembling acting on my part.
Chapter Six
I avoided the ocean for the next week–excepting for the first afternoon following the near tragic bicycle accident when I’d gone down to the water for a swim; an altogether foolish notion instantly abandoned with the first spray of sea water to wash against my freshly torn wounds. The fiery stab shooting through
my limbs was no less jolting than a lightning strike, excruciating in a way that caused me to cry out in bloodcurdling anguish–a pair of nearby children dropping their sand pails and plastic shovels in the midst of digging a hole to China to stare in bug-eyed horror.
Aunt Smyrna assured me I’d be fine once the minefield of cuts and scrapes scabbed over, and for the next several days I lay stretched out on the couch reading books I’d already read, flipping through the collection of magazines Eleanor kept hidden under her mattress, or sitting on the porch consuming obscene quantities of lemonade and ginger-snaps.
Eleanor managed to fade away like a mirage most mornings after breakfast and didn’t appear back on the beach below the house until late in the afternoon, her unknown comings and goings leaving me increasingly agitated since it was the first time in all our summers here that I really had no idea how she was spending her days.
When Uncle Calvin announced he’d be vacationing with us at the beach for the next two weeks I felt smugly assured Eleanor’s unquestioned disappearances would cease. And remarkably they did.
I missed Jake. Though he passed by almost daily, I wasn’t yet prepared to seek him out. I knew I needed to say something about my ignorant behavior on that unfortunate afternoon at The Promenade, but what? I’m sorry you’re deaf. I’m sorry that I’m sorry you’re deaf.
Whatever I said, I realized I’d have to cough it out soon, even if it was just to fall at his feet and tell him how despicable I felt for being born an idiot. Because our summer visits passed much too quickly to waste precious time postponing something as significant as reconciliation.
Contrary to anything I might have expected, it was surprisingly pleasant having Uncle Cal home with us on vacation. Most mornings while I sat on the porch sipping coffee with Aunt Smyrna, Eleanor and Uncle Cal would walk the beach looking for shells or gathering bouquets of the wild flowers sprouting in leggy clusters along the edges of sand. And unlike Aunt Smyrna who said she loved watching the ocean but possessed no desire to get especially close to it, he went down to the beach with us every afternoon.
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