by Lisa Wingate
“My sister gone come take ’way them con’amimums! No more con-a-minamums!” Teddy added, striking a fist in the air and receiving a round of applause. A murmur of agreement circled the group.
“Nobody’s getting our house without a fight,” Shasta piped up.
“We might be new here, but we’re not leaving. This is our place. Our neighborhood. If we have to sell everything we own, we’re not letting Householders take over our house and force us out. We’re going to figure out how to bring a class-action suit against them for the way they do their contracts. In fact, if there’s anybody else here who’s in a Householders home, we’ve got a list by the door, and you need to sign it, so we can get in touch with you. I’m still looking for a lawyer to take the case, but I’ll find one. What Householders does to people is wrong, and we need to stand against it.” Beside her, Cody nodded and slipped his hand into hers.
“I agree,” Mrs. Kaye offered from the kitchen, where she, MJ from the bookstore, and Cass were putting out coffee and cups. “My uncle Poppy lived in this neighborhood all of his adult life, and while it may have its issues, the solution isn’t to take advantage of existing residents, tear down the houses, and destroy the historic character of the neighborhood. If downtown workers want to move to this area to be close to their jobs, let them buy the existing houses and renovate them. There are empty commercial buildings and warehouses all around here. If developers want to put in multifamily housing, let them rehab those properties. Part of what always made this neighborhood special was its sense of identity. People were proud that they lived in Blue Sky Hill. This neighborhood has always been diverse. Within a few blocks, you could find small single-family homes like the one my uncle built, and then just uphill, the estates of doctors and lawyers. There’s still enough room here for everyone, but new construction needs to be planned and controlled, so that it doesn’t displace existing residents or destroy their quality of life.”
“Exactly,” my father agreed, taking command of the crowd the way he once took command of a football team. “And I can promise that none of you, on your own, have the resources to fight off developers like Householders. Your defense, your ability to preserve this neighborhood lies in banding together”—to illustrate, he linked his fingers, forming a double fist—“in creating a neighborhood coalition to prevent wholesale rezoning and rebuilding. Developers, quite frankly, recognize the power and political pull of an active, vocal, united neighborhood. As a coalition, residents have the power to negotiate such things as community benefits agreements, in which community groups have a voice in shaping development projects, and are able to press for benefits tailored to the community’s needs. Developers use this community support to help in getting the permit approvals, rezoning, and abatements necessary to go forward with a project. For many projects, the amount of community support or opposition determines whether the project makes it through city hall. Developers and the neighborhood coalition working together can provide a win-win . . .”
I let my mind drift as the conversation and the planning of the Blue Sky Hill Neighborhood Coalition went on, the hammering out of details, drafting of a mission statement, and election of officers lasting well into the evening. For her part, Shasta had done her homework, both on the Internet looking up bylaws and organizational structures, and through speaking with my father and a lawyer friend of his. The necessary paperwork for the formation of the coalition was typed, copied, collated, and ready to be handed out, which may have been why Shasta was unanimously elected to the office of secretary, serving beneath MJ, who’d been elected president, and several board members hailing from various portions of the Blue Sky Hill area.
By the time the meeting ended, it was dark outside. As residents finished paperwork and wandered to their cars, Shasta and I stood on the sidewalk next to the memory garden, watching my father and Barbie walk to the children’s building to pick up the kids.
“They may have to wrestle Benji and Ty to get your brothers out of there,” Shasta commented, smoothing her T-shirt self-consciously as she watched Barbie and my father cross under the streetlight. “My guys sure miss having friends across the street.”
“The sibs miss them, too—even Jewel,” I said, but my mind was still back in the meeting. My father had taken a bold step tonight— one worthy of the Superman suit on the commercials. “We’ll get them all together to play soon.”
Shasta flashed a doubtful frown, staring glumly at the memory garden.
“Sure.” The word was flat, open to interpretation. She crossed her arms and bent forward, seeming cold despite the balmy night air.
The conversation faded. The lack of things to say felt awkward and strange, given all the times we’d sat in the car after driving somewhere and talked until pandemonium finally broke out in the backseat. Those conversations seemed distant now, as if too much had happened for them to be relevant anymore.
“We miss you at reading class.” Shasta flicked a glance at me, curious about my reaction.
I wondered what she was thinking—if she was looking at the Summer Kitchen, like I was, and realizing that the two girls who first visited here were vastly different from the women who stood here now. “I’ll be back. I just needed to take a few days to . . . well, help get everything moved into the new house in Highland Park. I want to come back and finish out the reading class.”
Shasta’s head rolled loosely to one side. “Yeah, right.” She wagged her chin, her skepticism visible even in the flickering glow of the church windows. “You’re going to drive all the way up here from the University of Texas?”
“Who told you I was going to UT?”
Shasta shrugged, tossing her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “Barbie told me the day we helped y’all load the moving truck. She said you had a golf scholarship there.”
I shook my head, surprised that Barbie had been discussing my future, or that she cared what it might be. Then again, Barbie wasn’t the person she once was, either. This summer had changed us all. Blue Sky Hill had transformed everything I thought, and felt, and wanted. “On the way over here I told them I wasn’t going to UT.”
Shasta coughed softly, rocking back on her heels. “Why? I mean, I figured you’d be, like, dying to, like . . . move on with your plans, get on with your normal life.”
Tipping my head back, I drank in the night air, looked up at the dome of stars twinkling overhead. “I guess the old normal doesn’t seem normal anymore.” Emity had left a dozen messages on my phone in the past few days, and I hadn’t bothered to answer her. She wanted to know about Europe, but drifting around Europe was as far from my plans as the moon from the earth. “I don’t want to play golf—not competitively, anyway. It was just something I did . . . I’m not even sure why. I guess . . . because I thought my father would like it. I want to do things that . . . matter, you know? I told my dad I’m going to stay here in Dallas and go to SMU, work toward law school.”
“Whoa,” Shasta breathed. “Too bad you’re not further along. You could help us slay the Householders’ Army of Death. You and me could be like Xena the Warrior Princess, times two.”
I giggled at the picture. “Yeah, well, you can wear the leather Xena suit. I’ll just be me.”
“Pppfff!” Shasta braced her hands on her hips, her face jutting toward me. “You’re the one with all the cute clothes, Hannah Montana.”
We laughed together, and for a moment it felt like old times. “You know, we really could,” I said finally, watching as Sesay crossed the street and met Terence in the doorway of his studio. The collection of colored glass bottles hanging in the tree outside chimed softly in the breeze from passing cars, the sound coming and going as attendees from the meeting started their vehicles and pulled out of the church parking lot.
“We really could what?”
“Be like Xena times two,” I said absently. “You’ll have Benjamin in kindergarten this year, and Tyler going to Head Start. You could come take some classes with me.”
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nbsp; Shasta scoffed. “College classes?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Ffff! And do what? Be a lawyer?”
I paused, thinking that perhaps I should have found a more subtle way to bring up the idea. As I was making my plans to tell my father about SMU, it had occurred to me that the college wasn’t far from Shasta’s house. A city bus would take her right to campus. I could stop by and pick her up any day she needed a ride. “I think you’d be a great lawyer. We could be partners—defend truth, justice, and the American dream.”
Chewing her bottom lip, she squinted at me, her eyes narrowing as she considered it. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “Yeah, I’ll be able to pay college tuition with all the money that’s left over after we get through paying off all our dumb bills.”
Barbie and my father emerged from the children’s building with Aunt Lute, who had elected to spend her evening with “the courtiers,” as she called them, rather than attending the meeting in the Summer Kitchen. Shasta and I tabled our conversation, watching my strange jumble of family come up the walk. As always, the Lambert clan didn’t go quietly. Dad had Landon tugging on one arm, Daniel trying to tackle him from behind, and Mark darting in and out like a wild banshee. In Barbie’s arms, Jewel waved her hands and squealed.
“Let’s get a move on,” my father ordered as they passed by.
“Guess that’s your cue.” Shasta thumbed toward the children’s building. “I better go get my kids. Cody’s probably out there in the truck having a rigor, wondering what’s taking so long.” Checking the parking lot, she vacillated in place, as if she wanted to say something more. “Well, anyway, hug for luck.” She opened her arms, and I wrapped mine around her, and I rocked back and forth in the arms of the only friend I’d ever had who didn’t care who I was, or what I looked like, or what kind of car I drove, or how well I played golf. Shasta was my friend just because she wanted to be.
“Don’t be a stranger.” She sniffed and swallowed hard. “Come over for lunch and stuff, when you’re down there taking those college classes.”
Emotion swelled in my throat. “I will.” We let go and hovered on the sidewalk, the conversation still seeming unfinished. “You know, they have scholarships and grants and things.” The words tumbled from my mouth sounding clumsy and unplanned, even though they weren’t.
“What?” Shasta’s head cocked to one side as if I were speaking in gibberish. “Who does?”
I swallowed the rest of my apprehension and plunged in. “SMU. I printed off some information sheets last night. They’re in the car.” I nodded toward the Escalade, where Barbie and Dad were getting the kids into their seats, and Aunt Lute was standing on the sidewalk with her arms high in the air, a diaphanous scarf catching the night breeze and streaming from her fingertips like a paper-thin flag. “My dad’s got connections there, like everyplace else. If he can get me on the golf team at UT, he can help you find some financial help for SMU.”
Shasta’s hands hitched onto her hips, and she gave my idea a sassy lip smack. “Tamara Lambert, you are so pushy.”
“Look who’s talking, Miss Neighborhood Coalition Secretary.” I was wearing Shasta down, I could tell. She’d give in, eventually.
“I have two kids to take care of.”
“Who are going to be in school all morning, every morning.”
Exasperated, she flipped her hands into the air. “I haven’t cracked a book in five years, Tam. I’d be, like, the dumbest college student ever.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You should see some of the people I graduated high school with. They’re idiots, and they’re going to college.”
“Well, that’s comforting.” Swatting at a moth investigating her face, she snorted. “Are you, like, afraid to go by yourself, or what?”
“Uh, no,” I shot back, even though there might have been a grain of truth in her assessment. College seemed a long way from where I’d been this summer. “I just think you got potential, kid.”
“Geez.” She walked a few steps toward the children’s building, then turned around and continued walking backward. “Let me go get my kids before Cass locks them up in the closet for the night, and then you can give me your stupid papers.”
“Okay.” Checking the parking lot, where my father was in the process of trying to capture Daniel, I trotted after Shasta, and we headed down the sidewalk, as we had so often. This time, it felt as if we were moving toward something.
“It’s a really dumb idea, though.” Shasta hip-butted me, and I stumbled off the edge of the sidewalk. She didn’t bother to apologize. “Me being a lawyer.”
“Or a teacher. You’d make a great teacher.”
Grabbing the door handle, she rolled her eyes. “Lawyers get paid more. So then you’ll always have cuter clothes than me. That’s part of your plan, right?”
“You decide,” I said, and she threw her chin up and strode into the hallway. I didn’t follow—just let the door close behind her and wandered back to Teddy’s memorial garden. Standing in the moon shadows, I took in the scent of roses and night-blooming jasmine. Overhead, the pecan leaves rustled their summer-dry branches, and the moon rocked on its back, bright and full of promise, balancing just above the cross on the steeple of the old white church. Here, in this place that was like nothing I’d ever imagined, suddenly nothing seemed impossible. Here, away from the labels, and the expectations, and the rules I’d allowed to define me, I was free to find out who I really was.
In the parking lot, Daniel giggled as my father scooped him up. I watched them in silhouette, as Dad juggled my little brother under his arm like a football. In the farthest reaches of my mind, a memory stirred, now tender in its return and beautiful to look at, like last season’s birds coming back to nest. Somewhere between the Waffle House years and the summer of unanswered prayers, I knew the rise and fall of my father’s footsteps, the strong circle of his fingers, the feel of his arm holding me suspended above the ground. I remembered how it felt to fly, safely snuggled on Superman’s hip.
The memory seeped through me, warming cold spaces as I watched my father tuck Daniel into the car, and Aunt Lute gather her silky banner, and the residents of Blue Sky Hill disappear into the darkness. Above the parking lot, the church marquee flickered, the old bulb undecided between yellow and white, between light and shadow. Sometime in the past week, Pastor Al had taken down the invitation to the Summer Kitchen and replaced it with a simple quote from George Meredith. A sense of rightness filled me as I read the words and listened to Pastor Al moving across the hollow floors of the old church, turning out the lights, one by one. As the glow dimmed, I knew that my prayers hadn’t gone unanswered this summer. The answers had only gone unrecognized.
Blue Sky Hill was the answer to a prayer I’d never known was inside me. A question I hadn’t the words to ask. No matter what came after, this would always be the place that broke me and remade me, and gave me to understand the words on Pastor Al’s sign.
Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.
A CONVERSATION WITH LISA WINGATE
NAL Accent sat down with Lisa Wingate, Tam Lambert, and Shasta Williams in the Summer Kitchen of Dallas, Texas.
NAL Accent: First, I’d like to thank all of you for joining me. Tam and Shasta, I’m especially pleased that you could participate.
Shasta Williams: Hey, I still can’t believe you asked me. Since the Blue Sky Hill neighborhood association started up, I’ve been on TV, like, three times, but it still feels weird that people want to know what I have to say. For Lisa and Hannah Montana over there, it probably seems like no big deal to do interviews, but for me it’s a major change.
Tam Lambert: I don’t know why she keeps calling me Hannah Montana. She’s the one who’s Miss Big Deal. You should have seen her at the last city council meeting.
Lisa Wingate: To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to get in the middle of these two, but I always enjoy spending time with my characters.
NAL Accent: Li
sa, my first question is for you. Home foreclosure, financial scandal, mortgage fraud—in some ways Beyond Summer seems inspired by recent news headlines. Why did you particularly want to tackle these current subjects?
Lisa: As with many of my novels, Beyond Summer grew from the story that came before it. After The Summer Kitchen hit the shelves, I began receiving e-mails asking what would happen next to the Blue Sky Hill neighborhood, and in particular what would become of Poppy’s little pink house. One reader said, “I hope the developers don’t tear it down. I hope the house goes to someone who will love it.” I realized I harbored those hopes for Poppy’s house, too. I began searching for someone who would not only love the little house, but have the gumption to fight for the survival of the neighborhood. Shasta was exactly the right person for the job. As she and Cody were closing the deal on their new home, a new question came to mind. What if the very people who were profiting from shady real estate deals in the Blue Sky Hill neighborhood were suddenly forced to move into the neighborhood themselves? What if they moved in right across the street from Shasta and Cody? In an economic era when many families find themselves living on the edge financially and reversals of fortune are not uncommon, it seemed entirely plausible. I wondered how someone like Tam, who has been living what most of us would consider the good life, would deal with such an experience. What would she learn about life in those little houses across town? What would she learn about herself?
NAL Accent: How would this experience change her?
Tam: You know, looking back, I don’t think of our old lives as the good life. I know from the outside, everything probably looked perfect. We had the things other people want—big house, nice cars, clothes, nannies, housekeepers, huge birthday parties for the kids. But we were just a bunch of people living in a house together, going through the motions. We weren’t a family. I think the most important thing I learned in the little house on Blue Sky Hill is that possessions aren’t a substitute for relationships.