Setting Free the Kites

by Alex George

  On I read, cursing V. V. St. Cloud as I turned each page.

  Percy Rylance makes his confession. He tells Betsy that he has loved her from the very first time he saw her. She, though, was so manifestly uninterested in him that he barricaded himself behind a fortress of chilly disdain. But his love for her never faltered, not for one moment. He stayed true to Betsy through the years. He never married, never took advantage of the legion of admiring ladies who flocked to be by his side. And he never again played the role of Romeo. Percy always promised himself that he would bear his suffering in silence, but now that the end is near, he finds that he does not want the greatest drama of his life to go unremarked.

  Betsy allows her tears to fall. Percy pats her hand and tells her that it is not her fault. But he doesn’t understand—she is weeping not for him, but for her. The truth both dazzles and crucifies her: Betsy and Percy loved each other fiercely but in treacherous silence. Each night they declared their passion in front of a theater of strangers, but neither was able to confess their feelings in private. Percy loved her! Betsy looks back and sees another, sweeter life that was hers for the taking, if only she’d had the courage to follow her heart.

  Betsy returns to her cottage, ready to live out the rest of her life alone. But as she watches the hedgerows of the English countryside pass by the coach window, she discovers that her heart is not heavy. Despite everything, the final line in the book is bursting with hope, for Betsy tells herself:

  There’s just so much to live for.

  —

  IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK in the morning. I switched off the lamp on my bedside table and stared into the darkness.

  Was this a happy ending? Betsy Cribbins had been denied a life with either of the men she had adored. Her love affair with Roger Fortescue-Pemberton was tragic, but it was Percy Rylance’s dying confession that really got me. They had loved each other all along! Poor Betsy had been so close to happiness and yet so very far. But she remained unbowed to the end. I might have been devastated by the epilogue’s revelations, but Betsy discovered a quiet joy in Percy Rylance’s secret. She was loved! That would have to be enough. Betsy navigated past her regret and found new peace in her heart.

  Maybe that’s the answer, I thought. If you’re still standing on the final page, then that’s enough of a happy ending. A little heartbreak could be survived. I thought about my father, my mother, and me. I wondered if we would all still be standing when our story was done.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I yawned my way through the next day, struggling to stay awake. As I shepherded people on and off the Ferris wheel, I couldn’t stop thinking about Betsy Cribbins and Percy Rylance. The book’s finale had killed me. A lifetime of happiness with her first true love had been there for Betsy to claim all along; all it would have taken was a few simple words. And yet she had lost everything, simply by remaining silent.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Nathan appeared and began doing an elaborate dance in front of the line for the Ferris wheel. This had become one of his favorite routines and always went over well with the crowd. The dragon shimmied and spun, moving from elegant ballet poses to groovy disco moves. Sometimes Nathan just jumped up and down, shaking his head from side to side and waving his wings about. I was sure when he did this he had one of Liam’s punk songs going through his head. At other times he would take a small child by the hands and lead them in a formal ballroom waltz, which got the most laughs of all. The dragon slowly made its way up the line of customers. Finally it wandered over to where I was standing and flapped a wing at me in greeting.

  “Nice work back there,” I said.

  I heard the rough click of a cigarette lighter. Seconds later two thin columns of smoke emerged from the dragon’s nostrils.

  “Tough day?” I yawned.

  “It’s a hard job, spreading joy to the masses,” said Nathan. His voice echoed down the dragon’s fiberglass snout. I knew at once that something was up. It was one of Nathan’s cardinal rules that the dragon never, ever talked.

  “You’re a trouper,” I told him. “A real pro.”

  Nathan nodded and turned to one side so that his limp, nonfunctioning wing was hidden from the view of the guests. “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Hold on.” I hitched up my cassock and went to usher one family out of the lowest pod and help another one climb in. Nathan waited patiently for me to return to the booth.

  “My mom has gone away for a while,” he told me.

  “Oh yeah? Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nathan. “She does this every so often—just disappears for a week or two. Of course, Dad was always around before.”

  “Do you want to stay with us while she’s gone?”

  “Actually no.” The dragon shook his head. “But thank you.”

  “What, then?”

  Nathan pointed at the Ferris wheel. “I want to sleep up there.”

  I blinked. “Why?”

  “All you would have to do is to meet me here each night and send me up to the top,” said Nathan. “When I get to the highest point, you stop the wheel and go home.”

  “And?”

  “And then you come back in the morning and bring me down again.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  The dragon turned and waved to a little girl who was walking close by. “Think of it as aerial camping,” said Nathan. “I could start a whole new fad. It could be a big moneymaker for you.”

  “Why don’t you just come and stay with us instead?”

  “Because I want to be up in the air,” said Nathan.

  “But what will you do all night?”

  He shrugged. “Sleep, I guess. Maybe I’ll bring a book to read.”

  And that was when it hit me: Nathan needed to read Star-Crossed. I thought of him the previous evening, gazing devotedly across the sand at Faye as she played her guitar. Just like Betsy Cribbins, he was hamstrung by desire, tongue-tied by adoration. For a long time I’d believed that Nathan’s lovelorn silence was for the best, but now V. V. St. Cloud’s story had me wondering if that was really true. Betsy had suffered a tragic, lonely fate because she was too timid to tell Percy Rylance how she felt. I didn’t want Nathan to make the same mistake. He had been trapped in petrified limbo for too long; perhaps it would be worth risking a little heartbreak. Star-Crossed would be the key that would set him free.

  “All right,” I said. “Meet me in the parking lot at ten o’clock tonight.”

  The dragon straightened up. “Cool,” he said, and then he sauntered off, flapping his tattered wings as he went.

  —

  AFTER SUPPER THAT EVENING I yawned ostentatiously and told my mother I was going upstairs for an early night. When I heard the low drone of the television from the living room, I knew it was safe to make my escape. (My mother had taken to sitting in front of the television until she fell asleep. Once that happened, nothing short of an earthquake could disturb her. I often came downstairs in the morning to find her snoring peacefully on the couch, the set still on.) I crept downstairs, climbed onto my bike, and set off for the park.

  In my basket was my mother’s copy of Star-Crossed.

  Nathan was waiting for me in the parking lot, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He stubbed out a cigarette as I approached.

  “What’s in the backpack?” I asked him.

  “A sweater, a blanket, a flashlight, a bottle of water, two apples, a box of matches, and a pack of cigarettes. I come prepared.”

  “You would have made an excellent Boy Scout,” I told him. “Except maybe for the cigarettes.” I handed him the book. “One more thing for you.”

  “V. V. St. Cloud?” said Nathan. “My mom’s got some of these novels.”

  “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I’ll send you up in the Ferris wheel, but you have to promise me that you’ll read thi
s book.”

  Nathan turned the book over and read the back cover. “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Nathan weighed the book thoughtfully in his hand. “All right, then,” he said.

  We slipped through the side gate that the park employees used. At night the edges of the paths were illuminated by a series of barely glowing emergency lamps, just bright enough that we could see where we were going without a flashlight. Beyond them, there was nothing but dark shadow. It was eerie, moving through those spaces usually so full of blaring spectacle when every noise was silenced, every movement stilled.

  Rather than going directly to the Ferris wheel, first we sneaked around the side of the office. I wanted to check on my father. I peered in through the window, unsure what I would see. Perhaps he would be staggering around the room wailing in wordless misery, or he might be curled up in a fetal position on the carpet with an empty bottle of whiskey by his side. In fact he was sitting on the couch, immersed in Desires of the Duchess. As we watched, my father turned a page and then took a sip from a cup of coffee. It was not the picture of emotional unraveling that I had been expecting. I found myself a little disappointed that he seemed so normal. Given that he was pulling our family apart, I thought he should look more distraught.

  Nathan and I watched him through the window for several minutes and then set off through the park. The only sound was the crunch of our footsteps on the gravel. Suddenly Nathan grabbed my arm. “Wait,” he whispered. “Can you hear something?” We stood still and listened. From out of the darkness somebody appeared to be talking, but it was too quiet for me to make out any words.

  “We should leave,” I said nervously.

  Nathan looked at me, mystified. “What do you mean?”

  We had stopped by the entrance to the miniature golf course. “There’s somebody over there,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to get caught.”

  “But whoever that is, it’s not your father. So that means they shouldn’t be here, either.”

  “I don’t care,” I hissed.

  While we had been talking the whispering had gotten a little louder, and then we both heard, very distinctly, two words.

  Oh, Faye.

  We stared at each other.

  “We really should go,” I said weakly.

  Oh, baby, whispered the voice. Oh yes.

  In an instant Nathan had turned and disappeared into the darkness of the golf course. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed him. I crept from one wigwam to the next until I caught up with him, crouching behind a large plastic cactus. Nathan pointed furiously around it. I stuck my head out to look.

  The centerpiece of the mini golf course was the sixth hole, which featured a life-size statue of a kneeling Pocahontas. Players had to knock their ball up an incline and into a hole on top of the statue’s head. The ball would disappear down a tunnel and moments later it would fly out of the beautiful Indian princess’s mouth and land on the putting green. Pocahontas wore a perpetually astonished expression, her mouth a perfect O of surprise as golf balls shot out of it all day long. It wasn’t very dignified or regal, but what I saw when I peered around the cactus was far worse.

  Hollis Calhoun was standing in front of the kneeling squaw. His groin was directly level with the princess’s open mouth. He was clutching the back of her head with his left hand and moving his hips gently back and forth. As he did so, he continued to whisper to himself.

  Oh yeah. Oh baby. Just like that. Oh yeah.

  I stared in mute astonishment for a few seconds and then retreated back behind the cactus. Next to me Nathan was staring blindly into space.

  I coughed. “Is he—?”

  Nathan nodded. He looked as if he might throw up.

  Oh, Faye, groaned Hollis again.

  “Come on,” hissed Nathan, his face dark with fury. We set off back the way we had come. Hollis was unaware that he had been spied upon. Once we regained the path, Nathan stormed off toward the Ferris wheel, muttering to himself.

  “Nathan!” I whispered. I had to hurry to keep up with him. “Come on, Nathan, don’t be mad.”

  He turned to me. “He was saying Faye’s name!” he hissed.

  “At least she wasn’t actually there.”

  Nathan shuddered at this.

  We arrived at the Ferris wheel. Nathan checked through his bag while I unlocked the control panel and turned the motor on. The thrum as the engine creaked into life sounded as if it would wake up half of Maine. I wanted to get Nathan up in the air as quickly as possible. Now there wasn’t just my father to worry about—Hollis Calhoun might also hear something. Nathan climbed into the lowest pod and immediately lit a cigarette, which he pulled on angrily. I closed the metal door and secured the latch. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” I said. “Enjoy the book.” I went to the booth and eased the wheel into motion, trying not to think about the loudly cranking gears as the massive arms began to move. I stared up into the night sky. When Nathan’s pod reached the top of the wheel, I switched off the engine. The silence that followed was absolute.

  Nathan was trapped in a small metal cage, suspended a hundred feet above the ground with no way of getting down again until I came back in the morning. I wanted to call out and check that he was not having second thoughts. But Nathan never had second thoughts about anything.

  I climbed back onto my bicycle and set off for home, wondering if my plan was going to work.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I couldn’t sleep that night.

  Exhausted as I was after staying up so late the previous evening, I couldn’t stop thinking about Nathan, alone in the metal pod with the wind whipping in off the ocean. It was also difficult to dispel the vision of Hollis Calhoun thrusting himself at Pocahontas, Faye’s name on his lips. I had never seen Nathan so angry. I took my mind off it all by opening the copy of The Great Gatsby that I had found in Liam’s bedroom. I was soon bewitched by the beautiful debauchery of Fitzgerald’s universe. Elegant creatures talked in sentences as crisp and as dry as a glass of vintage champagne, but nobody was listening to what anyone else was saying. Floating above the fray of all that ravishing self-absorption stood Gatsby, watching and waiting for Daisy Buchanan.

  I didn’t like Daisy, though, not one bit. From the moment she first appeared, dressed in white and perched on the enormous couch in her sitting room, I could tell that she was a phony. Gatsby was too good for her; anyone could see that. I turned the pages, captivated by the exquisite train wreck of it all. Oh, the careless violence of that hot Long Island summer! Once again, I read late into the night. Fitzgerald’s quietly devastating truths chilled me.

  I did not want Faye to be another Daisy Buchanan, so careless with other people’s hearts. Nathan deserved better than that. But his dreams, I realized, were just as grand and impossible as Gatsby’s had been. They had no business in this world.

  It occurred to me then that I had given Nathan the wrong book.

  —

  AS THE FIRST LIGHT of the new morning began to peep through my bedroom window, I got dressed and left a note for my mother on the kitchen table. I climbed onto my bike and sped down the deserted roads, watching the sun rise over the horizon in front of me. At the park I opened the side gate and ran to the Ferris wheel.

  “Nathan!” I called out softly.

  There was no reply.

  I called again, more loudly this time. There was still no answer. I went to the booth and cranked the Ferris wheel into life. When Nathan’s pod reached the docking station I hurried over.

  Nathan was sitting up, his blanket around his shoulders, reading. As I swung the metal door open, he held up his finger. He was on the final page of Star-Crossed. I stood there and watched him. Finally he lowered his finger and closed the book. Then he looked up at me.

 
“This,” he said, “is a great book. But such a tragic ending. Poor Betsy!”

  I thought of Gatsby lying facedown in his swimming pool with a bullet in his back. That was a tragic ending. “It’s a good read,” I said neutrally.

  “A good read?” said Nathan. “It’s amazing! To think that Betsy’s whole life could have been different if she’d just said a few words to Percy. All the happiness she had ever wanted could have been hers!”

  This, of course, was precisely what I had been hoping Nathan would glean from V. V. St. Cloud’s story, but now I was regretting having given him the book. I was starting to see that no good could possibly come from this. Gatsby had adored Daisy, and look where it had gotten him.

  “It’s just a silly romance novel,” I said. “You shouldn’t read too much into it.”

  Nathan stood up and stepped out of the pod. He arched his back and extended his palms out toward the rising sun. Then he turned to me. His eyes were shining. “Poor Betsy!” he said again.

  —

  THROUGHOUT THE DAY I caught glimpses of Nathan as he strolled through the park in the dragon suit. He must have been exhausted after his sleepless night on the Ferris wheel, but I thought I could detect an extra bounce in his step, an additional swish to his tail.

  It was a Friday. Many visitors to Maine arrived and departed over the weekend, so there was a valedictory feel to Fridays at Fun-A-Lot. I saw quiet desperation in the faces of some of the parents, as if this visit to the park at the end of their week away was one last throw of the dice, a final bid for some happy memories to take back home. When my break came I walked through the park toward the concession stand. It was the height of the lunch rush. There were two long lines snaking back across the concrete. Nathan was parading up and down, provoking squeals of delight from the watching children. Every so often he would stop and put his arm around a kid’s shoulders to pose for a photograph. When Nathan saw me he raised his arm for a high five. Embarrassed, I put my hand in the air and slapped the tip of his wing with my open palm. (He might have been hiding inside the dragon suit, but everyone could see me.) Nathan put his arms around me and forced me into an awkward foxtrot. We pranced up and down the line of laughing guests and I tried not to tread on his huge dragon feet.