Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  “Oh, I don’t know. My folks are Baptist, so I guess that makes me one. I don’t really see what difference it makes. We’re probably all wrong anyway.”

  “You see! You see!” Dawn cried. “That’s what is so spooky. What if we are all wrong? Or, what if, say, all the religions are wrong except for those people with the shaved heads? I mean, how do you know? Don’t you think it’s frightening?”

  “I’m sure,” April said, appalled. “God does not want us running around with shaved heads.” She folded her arms across her chest, and huffed. “No way. I just won’t believe it.”

  “How can you be so sure, April?” Dawn asked meekly. “What do we know about anything except what our parents and ministers have told us? And to think there are dozens of different religions, all which think they know the truth. Gosh, I feel… It’s scary.”

  “Don’t make such a big deal out of it, Dawn,” Patty said. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

  Dawn blanched and turned a blank gaze towards the ground. “How can you guys stand not knowing?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Dawn…?” April said.

  “I feel funny…” She set her lemonade clumsily down on the table, spilling some.

  “She’s trembling,” Randy said.

  “Are you okay?” Regina asked, putting her arm around the girl’s shoulder.

  “I feel…dizzy.”

  “It’s okay, Dawn,” April said.

  “Nobody knows,” Dawn mumbled cryptically. “We just guess and pretend like we know… Who is there to trust?”

  “Look what you’ve all done,” Patty scolded. “You’ve upset her.”

  “Dawn, honey,” Regina said, trying to comfort her. “It’s okay. Come sit down over here on the wall.” Regina helped her over to a low, red brick wall that encased a flower garden.

  “Maybe she’s had too much sun,” Randy said. “I’ll get some ice.” He snatched the handkerchief from Cheek’s back pocket.

  “Not that one,” Cheeks cautioned. “It’s, um…full.”

  “Yuck,” Randy said, dropping the hanky to the ground.

  “Here,” Katie said. She took the bandanna that she wore as a headband and handed it to Randy. He wrapped it around some ice from the chest and brought it over to Dawn.

  “That’s so weird,” Patty murmured to the others. “What could have gotten into her?”

  “You know how religious her parents are,” Steve said. “If it suddenly struck you that perhaps everything you were taught to believe might be wrong you’d be upset too.”

  Max said, “She’s frightened.”

  “About what?” April asked, mystified.

  “She glimpsed the face of nihilism,” Max said. “Substituting nothing for something is no answer for anything. We are hard-wired for God, but everywhere today people are sawing at the lines.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” April sniffed.

  Regina returned to fetch a glass of water and overheard their conversation. “Dawn’s a sensitive girl,” she said, pouring from a pitcher. “Remember that film we saw in class about the Nazi death camps? The piles of emaciated, tangled bodies being bulldozed into pits and all that? The poor girl wept for two days afterwards.”

  “I remember,” Patty said.

  “Okay,” April said, “but what does that have to do with what we were talking about?”

  “It has everything to do with it,” Max said.

  April blinked in incomprehension. “You guys are so weird.”

  From across the park someone called out Max’s name. The youths turned to look and saw jogging towards them a girl with a bouncing mop of long, shiny black hair.

  31

  Feminine Measures

  The youths exchanged curious glances as Max ran to meet the girl. She halted in front of him and pulled her hair out of her face, revealing her bright, marble-gray eyes and a full-blown smile.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, thrilled to see her.

  “Dad and I came into town for some supplies, and I thought that while I’m here I’d drop in on Ms. Winters.”

  “Well, it’s great to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

  “Did you get my letter?” Aidos asked.

  “No, I haven’t been home all day.”

  “Well, I have something to ask you, then. Would you like to come to Camelot for dinner tonight?”

  “Really? That would be—” Max turned and saw his friends watching him with keen interest. “Um, hold on… Everybody,” he said, walking up to the group at the lemonade stand, “this is Aidos. Aidos, this is—”

  “No need,” she said. She put out her hand in turn to the others, addressing each by name, a sunny smile on her face. Dumbfounded by her frankness, the youths could only mutter a puzzled hello. She left them with their mouths open and walked over to Katie and Dawn, who were still sitting on the garden wall and observing Aidos with wonder.

  “Hello, Katie,” she said, offering the girl her hand. “My name is Aidos. It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”

  Katie looked up and absently shook her hand. Before Katie could say anything, and she didn’t know what to say, Aidos dropped to her haunches and looked Dawn in the eyes. She took Dawn’s hands from her lap and held them gently between her own. “Hello, Dawn. How do you feel?”

  “Um…”

  Aidos stood and helped Dawn to her feet.

  “I was just…resting.”

  Aidos smiled and brushed strands of Dawn’s hair from her face and tucked them behind the girl’s ear. With the back of her fingers she caressed Dawn’s cheek, looking her kindly in the eyes. She leaned in and whispered something into Dawn’s ear. Dawn closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, a tear glided down her cheek. She smiled, wiped the tear away with the palm of her hand, and emitted a shy chuckle.

  The others watched, gobsmacked. Aidos spun abruptly around to face them. Startled, the kids lurched back. The group of friends turned to Max as if he owed them an explanation, but Max, arms folded, merely shrugged. They saw the admiring glint in his eye, and followed its trajectory back to the strange girl.

  “Mmm,” Aidos said, “lemonade.” She walked back to the table.

  Cheeks hustled around to the other side of the table and poured her a glass. Reaching for the glass she spotted the sign that told of the one-dollar price tag.

  “Oh,” she said. “I don’t have any money.”

  “Here…” Max said, digging into his pocket. He slapped a dollar bill onto the table. “There you go, bartender.”

  The girls looked on with tremendous interest; sizing up the mysterious stranger with their feminine measures. They gazed at Aidos’ long legs and faded blue jeans—speckled with paint and with rips at both knees and below her shapely bottom—and noted her beat-up tennis shoes with the knotted strings. They considered her black T-shirt with the sleeves and midriff cut off, and the girl’s smooth, olive skin. They envied her broad shoulders and perfect posture. Her neck was slender, her head egg-shaped, and from it hung a wild profusion of luscious, inky-black hair with pine needles tangled up in it. Her smile revealed thin, expressive lips and snow-white teeth. The girls noticed that Aidos wore not a smidgen of make-up, hadn’t a single pimple, and except for a plain silver band on her finger, wore no jewelry, not even a small stud for her ear.

  The girls were too confounded to be jealous. Slovenliness never looked so regal. So this was the girl they had been hearing about? The tomboy who single-handedly faced the taunting jeers of the boys and humbled their adolescent machismo in hand-to-hand combat? The muse who inspired Max to the heights of philosophy and sent Steve to the poet’s garret?

  “Dawn,” Katie whispered, “what did she say to you?”

  “She said that I had a beautiful soul. She said that I mustn’t be afraid because if the dawn were afraid to rise the birds would never sing.”

  “Huh?” April said. “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get it.”

  “It was
sweet…” Dawn softly protested.

  “Yes, it was,” Katie reassured, her eyes still contemplating the odd, enchanting girl. She took Dawn by the hand and together they joined the others.

  “Aidos,” Steve said, “I have a confession to make. I—”

  “Keep them.”

  “I can’t do that,” he protested. “They’re your books. You might want to read them again.”

  “I can do that anytime,” she said. “I know them by heart.”

  “You memorized them?!”

  “I have a pretty good memory,” she said modestly.

  “How did you do it?” he asked with relish. “I mean, is there a trick for that kind of thing?”

  “More like a discipline,” Aidos answered. “The ancients practiced it. It was called the art of memory, after the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine muses. I’d be happy to teach you the little I know about it.”

  “You would?”

  “Sure.”

  Regina said, “Me too?”

  “Of course,” Aidos said. “You’re all invited.”

  Fascinated by the novelty of it all, an animated discussion ensued. No one but Max really believed Aidos’ claims, but the idea was intriguing enough to make them willing pigeons, like volunteers at a magic show.

  “I’m in,” Katie said. “But where?”

  “I know just the spot,” Aidos said. “A cathedral in the woods, not far from where I live. If you want to learn you should join me there.”

  April groaned. “I hate the woods.”

  “Does that mean you won’t come?” Aidos asked, disappointed.

  “April,” Patty said, “don’t be such a wuss. Of course you’ll come.”

  Dawn said timidly, “I’ll come.”

  If Dawn went then April knew she had to go because Dawn was the last person she knew who would go hiking through the woods on such a crazy mission.

  “Hey, Katie,” Randy said, “here come your folks and Mayor Fitch…and some other guy.”

  Everyone turned and looked.

  32

  The Sound of One Lip Kissing

  “Quick Steve,” Max said, “Hide the money.”

  “Oh, Max,” Katie said. “Stop it. And don’t say anything about tonight either.”

  “Why? Are you ashamed of me?”

  “I should be. That’s the trouble.”

  “But I think Max is a gentleman,” Aidos said.

  “He can be,” Katie said, giving Max a censoring eye. “But he loves driving my father crazy. Max,” she said, warning him with a finger, trying not to smile, “…behave yourself. Remember, I’m the one who has to listen to his ranting, not you.”

  “Say there, Mayor,” boomed Mr. Austin, as they approached the circle of friends. “Don’t we have a law against loitering in this town?”

  “I’m sure we do,” the mayor said, playing along. “Pretty suspicious looking characters too, I’d say. Perhaps I should call the police.”

  “We are exercising our constitutional right to free and lawful assembly,” Max said. “We know our rights.”

  “Uh-oh,” Regina whispered to Katie.

  “Oh, I see we have a lawyer in the group,” the mayor joked, a lawyer himself.

  “Shall we keep name calling out of this?” Max rejoined.

  The youths struggled to hide their smiles. All but Aidos, who chuckled brightly.

  “And who do we have here?” the mayor said, unperturbed and obviously in good spirits. “I don’t believe I know you, young lady.”

  “My name is Aidos.”

  “What an interesting name. What does it mean?”

  “Well,” she answered, “there’s no literal translation, but for the Greeks it meant reverence and the shame that holds men back from wrongdoing.” She spoke slowly, her eyes fixed first on the mayor, and then on Mr. Austin. “But it meant also the feeling a prosperous man should have in the presence of the less fortunate, a sense that the difference between him and them is not deserved.”

  The two men exchanged uneasy glances, not knowing what to reply, sorry they had asked.

  “That’s Greek to them, all right,” Max said.

  Katie asked, “Who’s your gentleman friend, Daddy?”

  “Ah, yes, where are my manners? This here is Gary Webber, a business associate of mine from the city. He works for a fellow I’m doing business with there. Gary, my daughter, Katie, and her friends.”

  “A pleasure,” Katie said, putting out her hand.

  Gary Webber put down his briefcase and shook Katie’s hand. He acknowledged the others with a polite nod. A handsome, young-looking twenty-nine, with thick, wavy brown hair, he wore a fine suit with loosened red tie.

  “Is that lemonade you’re selling?” he asked.

  “Sure is,” Sinclair said, squeezing in front of Max to ensure the sale. “Ms. Winters’ arctic lemonade. The tangiest, tastiest—”

  “I’m sure,” Gary Webber said with a smile. “I’ll have a glass, thank you.”

  Mr. Austin said, “Make that four.”

  “Three,” said Mrs. Austin. “I’m on a diet.”

  “Coming right up!”

  “What’s the money go for?” Mr. Webber asked.

  Without missing a beat, Sinclair jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Library.”

  “A worthy cause,” Webber said approvingly.

  “Kind of shameful, though, don’t you think?” Max said. “A little old lady having to stay up nights fixing batches of lemonade to keep a library open in a town that can find the funds to build an unnecessary four-story courthouse, and commission a ridiculous ten-foot statue of a lumberjack for the park, but not an extra nickel for the modest request of a hard-working and selfless librarian?”

  Katie moved her hand stealthily to Max’s leg and gave him an admonishing pinch.

  “Hmm, yes,” Webber said diplomatically. “The big city faces similar predicaments, only on a much larger scale.”

  “Your industry and concern is noble,” the mayor said. “It’s nice to see the young people in this town take an active interest in the welfare of the community. It is the kind of grass-roots citizenship that keeps democracy strong.” He took a sip of lemonade. “Mmm, very tasty.” His eyes widened with a brilliant idea. “You know, there are quite a few worthwhile projects in this town in which energetic youths like yourselves may be of service, all of which the taxpayer would be most grateful for. Why, just the other day, Mrs. Goodbea of the Ladies Auxiliary was speaking to me about the need of a litter patrol—”

  Max said, “Here’s a novel idea. Add some more trash containers around town and let John Q. Citizen pick up his own litter.”

  The mayor’s smile waned. Stormer, the little puke, was beginning to piss him off.

  “Well, Max,” he said, checking his anger. “They, we, do provide you kids a good education and a secure and comfortable environment for you to grow up in. And don’t forget, Max, that football team of yours—of which we are all very excited about this year, as you might imagine—could not exist without the support of the good citizens of Pinecrest.”

  Max smirked, an expression Mayor Fitch took for surrender. Fitch thought he had hit the smart aleck where it hurt most, and made the cocky kid eat his own crap sandwich. Now to rub his face in it…

  “Gary,” Mayor Fitch continued, “this is Maxwell Stormer. He is the star quarterback of the Pinecrest Panthers. Maybe you read about him recently?”

  “Now that you mention it,” he said, “I did read about you, only a month or so ago. Gil seems to be quite a fan of yours.”

  “Who?” Katie asked.

  “Gil Bixler, the sports columnist,” he replied. “A good friend of mine. In fact, we went to the same school. I played some ball myself in college, but a knee injury put an end to that.”

  “What position did you play?” Randy asked.

  “Tight end.”

  “Were you any good?”

  “Not pro material, if that’s what you
mean. But it was a good experience. Now I’m just a businessman.”

  “An MBA,” Mr. Austin corrected, as if Gary were his own son. “Instead of footballs, he snags business deals. He has good hands too. You know,” he said, turning to Mr. Webber, “I’ve been telling my Kate to go in that direction. She’s a bright girl. Straight A’s all through high school. I think today a pretty woman with an MBA—”

  “Daddy,” Katie pleaded.

  “She starts Stanford pretty soon. Maybe you could give her some pointers. Let her know what to expect, you know. I never went to college myself, though—”

  “Honey,” Mrs. Austin interrupted, “shouldn’t we be going? Remember we have to be at the banquet by seven and we’ll want to check into our hotel first. It’s a good three hour drive.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “Let’s go. Gary, you’ll be back up here in two weeks to close this deal, won’t you?”

  “I think that’s a fact.”

  “Great. We’ll have you over for dinner, and you and Kate can have that talk.”

  “Let’s be on our way, dear,” urged Mrs. Austin.

  “Oh, and Gary,” the mayor added, “will you be seeing Gil Bixler again soon?”

  “We work out at the same gym.”

  “Well, well,” the mayor said. “Maybe you can convince him to come up here and have another look at our Panthers. This is going to be our year, a long time coming too. What do you say, Steve? Steve here is another one of our stars. Look at the size of this boy!”

  “You fellows are pretty confident this year, eh?” Gary Webber said.

  “This is the big one, all right,” said Randy, water boy and number one fan. “We’re going all the way. Right, Steve?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  Max was surprised by Steve’s lack of conviction. Steve had always been the most gung-ho member of the team. It would have been much more like him to have said something about kicking ass and wiping the field with their opponents’ faces.

  Mayor Fitch said, “And how do you feel about this coming season, Max?”