by Shawn Inmon
Mom didn’t say anything to me when I got inside, but I could tell she was upset about something. After school the next day, she called Shawn and me on the carpet.
“What I witnessed last night has greatly upset me. After I called you in to dinner, I saw you two acting like a couple of animals. I’m sure the whole neighborhood saw. It was inappropriate and it will not happen again. Is that understood?”
I glanced at Shawn, who looked surprised. Neither of us had thought that a kiss and hug in the yard was wrong, but we both nodded and mumbled “OK.” As I look back now, this seems to have been a turning point. There was a change in Mom’s attitude toward Shawn and me. Before this, she often encouraged me to spend time with Shawn: at Homecoming, with tutoring, whatever. Now it felt like I crossed an invisible line, and she was letting me know it.
We ignored these warning signs, though, and continued to spend every minute together that we could. We were young, we made each other happy, and that’s all we thought about. I was a steady young girl, never too excited and never too sad. I had always felt like I had been waiting for something to come along, something that might bring out everything I had inside. Finding and falling in love with Shawn did that, and I didn’t question it.
At Mossyrock High School, they let the senior class out a week before graduation. Shawn took a job working on a farm outside of town, and that meant I was back to either walking to school or riding the bus. After a year of riding to school with Shawn, it was hard to get back on the bus, but that’s how it would be going forward. When school started again, Shawn would be off to college, and I would be alone again on Damron Road.
The closer it got to graduation, the heavier things felt between us. Then Shawn caught strep throat a couple of days before graduation. We decided we weren’t going to go to his senior party since I wouldn’t have been able to stay like all the seniors. I figured instead that we would take one last trip up to Doss Cemetery and find that feeling we always did there. Instead, he was too sick to even do that. We were both home in our beds while the other grad parties were just getting started.
Shawn and Jerry were scheduled to leave for Alaska two days after graduation. Shawn had gone to Alaska three times before to spend the summers with his brother. He’d had so many adventures and made so much money there, it must have been irresistible to plan one last trip with his best friend before college separated them. By graduation, Shawn was having second thoughts, but after having planned the trip for almost a year, he felt like he had to go. I knew he would rather spend the summer seeing me, but he didn’t want to back out on Jerry.
The day before he left, we naturally spent the whole day together. We didn’t do much of anything, because he was still just getting over his strep throat and he needed to save whatever money he had to support himself in Alaska until he got a job. We spent a lot of the day sitting in Shawn’s bedroom listening to music. He had gotten a Beatles album as a graduation present, and we listened to it over and over that day. Normally, I wouldn’t have been allowed in Shawn’s room, but his mom cut us some slack because he was leaving the next day. Plus, we made sure we left the door open and she kept popping her head in every few minutes to check on us. That was fine, because we felt too sad to fool around that day.
We were sitting at opposite ends of his twin bed with our legs tangled in the middle, listening to music and not talking much, when Shawn sat up.
“Dawn.” He looked so serious.
“What? I’m still right here.”
“I can’t stand the thought of being without you. I’ve never felt anything like what I’ve felt with you this last month. I have to go to Alaska, ‘cuz there’s no way to get out of it now, but when I get back, I don’t want us to be separated anymore. I just want to be with you.”
“Yeah, me too. But as soon as you get back, won’t you be leaving for UW?”
“Yeah.” He slumped back against his pillow, defeated. “But still… as soon as we can, I want us to be together all the time.”
I wasn’t completely sure what he was talking about, but I think he was saying he wanted us to get married eventually. How very Shawn it was: implying it without knowing how to blurt it out.“That’s what I want too.” I reached out and grabbed his hand and held it. I knew that moment couldn’t last forever, but I sure wanted it to.
Late that afternoon, we drove the few miles to Lake Mayfield to see my friend Cindi Cowan. I don’t know why we decided to do that, because we’d never gone together to see her before. Shawn, Cindi and I walked along the lake and talked for a long time before we went into her house.
Cindi sat down at the piano in her living room and started playing. Eventually, she played The Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet. I hadn’t lost all perspective, so I knew that Shawn leaving for three months wasn’t anything like the famous story. Even so, listening to Cindi play the song felt so sad and haunting that I couldn’t stop a few tears from spilling over. I held on to Shawn’s hand as tight as I could, and when I looked up at him, I saw tears in his eyes too.
When the last note of the song faded away, we looked outside and saw that it was starting to get dark. We had done our best to stretch out every moment, but our last day together was done.
Magnet and Steel
When I woke up the next morning, Shawn was gone to Alaska. He and Jerry had left for the airport in the middle of the night. I looked out my window and saw the Vega still sitting in its normal place between our two yards, but I knew it would just be sitting there for a long time.
I walked out and plopped down on the couch. Mom said, “I think Shawn left you some things.” She pointed to a little pile of stuff on the coffee table.
“Where was it?”
“Dad said he found it out on the front porch this morning when he went to work.”
On the top of the pile was a little homemade envelope. Shawn had taken two pieces of lined notebook paper and stapled them all around on three sides. On the front, he had handwritten the lyrics to Always and Forever. Inside, he had put his 45 of the song. Underneath that was an identical envelope he had made, but this time the lyrics and 45 were of Peter, Paul & Mary’s version of Leavin’ on a Jet Plane. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like he had taken extra care in writing the words, “When I come back, I’ll wear your wedding ring.”
At the bottom of the little pile was a blue school notebook. On the cover, Shawn had written DAWN ADELE in bold letters. When I opened the notebook, I found page after page of his handwriting, like he had written me one last mega-note.
I scooped it all up and headed for my bedroom so I could listen to the songs and read the notebook in private, although I was pretty sure Mom had already read it all before I woke up. She said, “I know he’s gone, but somehow it feels like he never left.” I ignored her, but she kept on. “I’m sure you’re going to miss him, but it will be good for you to have a little separation. You’ll have to get used to it soon anyway, when he goes off to college.”
Hearing Mom say exactly what I had been thinking didn’t help at all, so I didn’t answer except to turn on my heel and go to my room. I put Always and Forever on repeat on my little stereo, laid down on my bed, and opened the notebook.
Dawn Adele –
When I think about you, I always hear music, so I wanted to list some of the songs we’ve listened to and why they will always make me think of you.
The first song he had listed was Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan. He wrote that he first heard that song when he was giving me a ride to school, before we started dating. Even so, he said it would always remind him of me, no matter where he was when he heard it. Then he listed dozens of the other songs we had listened to, and why they would always be part of our story to him. He must have stayed up all night working on it.
I spent a few hours sitting on my bed, reading the little book Shawn had written for me and feeling blue while listening to our songs. Eventually, I realized it was summer outside. The weather was nice and the world was going
to keep spinning whether I participated or not. So I hauled myself outside, saddled up my horse Rocky, and went for a ride up to Mossyrock.
We had a pigeon named Fred. He lived in a coop, but we let him come and go as he pleased. Sometimes he flew along behind Dad when he went to work. When he did that, Dad was afraid he wouldn’t be able to find his way home, so he would put Fred in the car until it was time to go home.
I was about halfway up Damron Road when I saw Fred flying along behind me. Eventually, he caught up and landed on Rocky’s hindquarters. For the rest of the trip, we made a nice little parade—me, Rocky and Fred.
By the time I got home, I was still a little sad and missing Shawn, but things seemed better than when I woke up that morning. It was still a little weird, riding past the Sin Bin and seeing it sitting there, quiet and forgotten.
Within a few days, I started my new job at DeGoede’s bulb farm. Dad had gotten me the job, which didn’t excite me too much; it was really hard work for $2.35 an hour. But Mom told me that if I wanted new clothes for school, I had to earn the money myself. I couldn’t picture myself showing up in the same clothes I wore my freshman year, so I took the job.
People who have never farmed have no idea how backbreaking it can be. Every day I walked down rows of bulbs, bent down, pulled them up, and put them in a gunny sack I drug along behind me. When my bag was full, I carried it to a drop-off, emptied it, and started all over again. When it was sunny, you’d think I’d have gotten a tan, but it’s hard to get a tan through all the layers of dirt. I never did learn to love the job, especially the part where I got up earlier in the summer than I did when I went to school, but I stuck with it.
About a week after Shawn left, he called me from a payphone in Kodiak.
“Hey, baby… I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too, a lot,” I said.
I was surprised he’d been able to call because long distance calls from Alaska were so expensive. Hearing his voice just made me miss him more.
“Things aren’t going very well up here. The jobs on the fishing boat that we thought we had fell through. We’re sleeping on the boat, but it’s in dry-dock and it doesn’t have any power or water on it. I haven’t had a shower in a week. We got a job working on a fish refinery, though, so it’s OK, it’s just not what we were expecting. How are you doing, baby?”
“I’m fine. Just working at DeGoede’s every day and missing you. I wish you were here.”
“I wish I was there even more. I was hoping that when I was up here and working that the days would fly by, but every day it’s a little bit harder to stay up here without you.”
A recorded voice interrupted. “Please deposit two dollars and twenty five cents for another three minutes.”
“Aw, crap. I’m out of quarters. Almost out of money altogether. Hope we get paid soon.”
“Shawn, I love you.”
“Dawn Adele…”
I knew he was about to tell me he loved me, too, but he got cut off, so I never got to hear it. When I sat the phone down in the cradle, I saw Mom staring at me.
“It’s going to be hard to miss him if he can’t stay away.”
“No, it’s not, Mom, I do miss him every day.”
She muttered something, but I didn’t hear it because I was busy slamming the screen door as I went outside. I walked over to the Vega and sat down, leaning my back against it.
I had hoped Shawn would call and talk to me at least a few times over the summer, but now I knew that hearing his voice only made things worse. It felt like tearing the scab off a cut and now it needed to start healing all over again.
A few days later, I asked Cindi Cowan to come spend the night with me. I felt better when I had someone to talk to, and Cindi was a good listener. We were all eating dinner when the phone rang. My stomach flipped a little. Was Shawn calling me again already? Was everything all right? I jumped up from the table and ran to the phone, ignoring the dirty look from Mom.
I picked up the heavy black handset and said “Hello?”
“Well, hello!”
It wasn’t Shawn. “Who’s this?”
“Isn’t that just the way it is? I call a pretty girl up to ask her on a date and all she can say is ‘Who is this.’ Story of my life.”
It was Tommy, Shawn’s nephew from Auburn.
“Oh, hey Tommy. What are you doing?”
“Nothing right now, but I’m going to be rolling into the ‘Rock sometime tomorrow and I wonder if you would like to accompany me to that disco you guys go to down in Longview?”
“Did Shawn put you up to this?”
“He may have…”
“K. Hang on just a sec.”
I put my hand over the mouthpiece and turned around to Mom, still at the table. “Tommy is coming down from Auburn tomorrow and he’s going to take me to Longview to go dancing.”
I didn’t wait for a response, but just said “OK, see you tomorrow night,” and hung up. When I sat back down, Mom’s mouth was a thin line and her eyes were narrow.
“I didn’t tell you that you could go, did I?”
I stared back, but didn’t say anything. I thought she was ticked off at me because I had just assumed I could go and now wanted to threaten me with not going.
She was quiet for a minute and said, “Did Shawn put him up to this?”
I nodded.
“Well, if Shawn trusts him to take care of you, I do too. You can go.”
I glanced at Cindi out of the corner of my eye, but tried to keep the smile off my face and out of my voice. Cindi saw it and shot me a quick smile.
“Thanks.”
“Same rules apply. Home by eleven.”
“I know.”
I didn’t think that would be a problem, since Tommy and I wouldn’t be going up to Doss Cemetery on the way home.
The next day at DeGoede’s dragged on worse than usual. Seeing Tommy wasn’t the same as seeing Shawn, but we had become friends and I knew we would have a good time. Summer was off to a boring, hard-working start, and this would be something different.
Because we started work at DeGoede’s so early, I also got off early. I was home, cleaned up and ready to go by 4:30, since I didn’t know exactly what time Tommy was going to pick me up.
A little after dinner, Tommy knocked on the door. He sat down on the couch in the same place Shawn sat so often when he came to visit. It was a little like he was a replacement Shawn for the day.
Mom had been working on this weird project, and now she hauled it out and showed it to Tommy. She had taken a roll of toilet paper and painstakingly written a whole series of little jokes on it. It was like the 1978 version of posting something on your Facebook wall, I guess. She called it Colleen’s Bathroom Humor and had been working on it ever since Shawn had left for Alaska. Her plan was to fill the whole roll with her jokes and observations and give it to Shawn as a ‘going away to college’ gift when he got back from Alaska.
She hauled it out and unrolled everything she had written on it, showing it to Tommy.
“I’m going to have it all filled before he gets home,” she said.
“I don’t know about that,” Tommy said. That was an odd thing for him to say, but I was just happy to see him, so I ignored it.
Just then, I heard a horn honking outside. It reminded me of the Vega, a sound I knew quite well. When I listened to the pattern of the honking, I knew what it was. Whenever I was supposed to meet Shawn out at the Vega to go somewhere, he would honk out the rhythm to Love Gun on his horn to let me know he was there. He thought it was funny. I’m pretty sure the rest of Damron Road could have wrung his neck.
Now, I was hearing the rat-a-tat-tat of Love Gun again, but I couldn’t figure out why someone would do that. The weirdest image crossed my mind of Shawn’s step-dad Robert sitting behind the wheel of the Vega honking the horn, but I knew that couldn’t be right.
I jumped up and threw open the front door and screen door to see who was messing with me. There was a big bu
sh that grew beside our front porch and one of its limbs had grown out so that I couldn’t immediately see the Vega. When I pushed the branch out of the way, I saw Shawn leaning up against the Vega, smiling at me.
In two seconds I was in his arms again. He looked and smelled so good, just like he was supposed to. I didn’t want to let go of him, but eventually I did and said, “What are you doing here?”
His eyes sparkled. “I told you I missed you. I just couldn’t let this time that we could be together get away from us.”
“Yay!”
Yes, I actually said ‘ yay’ like a little girl who has just been handed a double scoop ice cream cone. Shawn brought that out in me. Tommy had wandered out from the outside and slapped Shawn on the back.
“Thanks, bro,” said Shawn.
“You two set this all up, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“I hate you sometimes.”
“Really? I left Alaska two months early just to see you and now you hate me? I’m crushed.” He didn’t look crushed. He looked tremendously pleased with himself.
“Are we still going to Hollywood Hollywood?” I asked.
Shawn looked at Tommy. “Of course. Let’s go!”
“Wait, we’ve got to talk to Mom first. I know she’ll want to see you.”
Walking across the yard holding hands with Shawn was one of the best feelings I ever had. All the loneliness and boredom of the summer had vanished with the honk of the Vega’s horn.
A lot of that happiness went away as soon as we walked in the living room. Mom had tucked away the roll of jokes she had been showing Tommy. Now she looked stern, with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed.
“So, you’re home,” she said.
“Yep,” Shawn said, smiling. As he noticed Mom’s sour expression, the smile faded and he raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head slightly, because I had no idea why she was suddenly in a bad mood.
“And why did you come home so early? I thought you weren’t going to be back until August.”