The Summer Before Boys

by Nora Raleigh Baskin

  There wasn’t anything I could say. I couldn’t explain it myself. I couldn’t lie anymore. But I couldn’t include her either. This was about me. Michael was waiting for me. And that made me special.

  It made my skin tingle and my mind full. It was like playing Lester and Lynette but it was real. Every girl needs to remember her first kiss and this could be my memory.

  If I didn’t go now I might miss it. Michael would never talk to me again. No boy would like me again. And if Eliza were really my friend she would understand how worried I was. She would want this for me. She would want to help me. All I had to do was explain this to her, but this is what I said instead:

  “Just because a boy doesn’t like you, Eliza, doesn’t mean no boy should like me.”

  I watched her face change, from angry to hurt. Confusion and sadness. Her lips looked pressed together like a plastic mask’s. I watched Eliza’s body go stiff, like a doll still fastened in her box. Her clothes were fake, no real buttonholes, the material thin and held together with hidden Velcro.

  Well, maybe Eliza didn’t want to be real.

  But I did.

  twenty-eight

  During World War II sixty-seven army nurses and eleven navy nurses were captured by the Japanese and held in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines called Santo Tomas. The prison had once been a university, so maybe it wasn’t so awful. But they didn’t get to talk to their children or their husbands, or let anyone at home know they were okay, for three years.

  More than two hundred American women serving during that war died—sixteen from enemy actions and the rest from diseases like malaria and influenza.

  More numbers.

  Some were even buried overseas, far from their families.

  How do you know someone is really dead if you don’t see their body? You might always wonder if it was a mistake. Dog tags that got mixed together. A wrong assumption.

  A wrong number, after all.

  They get the wrong person.

  A terrible mistake.

  I did. I left Eliza on the hiking trail to the sky tower. She walked one way, I walked the other. I went back, she kept going, following the blue markers. I imagined she would stay on the trail and make her way back, but the truth is, when I got nearer to the lily pond, Eliza was the last thing I was thinking about. It was as if there were a movie camera, filming me. And Michael was watching the movie.

  I could picture in my mind just what I looked like walking along the grass path to the lily pond. I had given special thought to what I wore that morning (hoping I would happen to see Michael, never imagining he would want to meet me), my purple shorts and a matching halter top. I brushed my hair and pulled it into a neat ponytail. At the last minute I took it out and let it fall loose. Now I saw it bouncing across my shoulders and my back as I took deliberately slow steps for the camera. Well, maybe not bouncing, exactly. But who knows?

  So how do you know if someone is about to kiss you?

  What do you do?

  Kiss them back or just let it happen?

  Maybe I had it all wrong and Michael didn’t want to kiss me at all.

  I slowed down. What if he wasn’t there?

  Something about the idea of being the one who was waiting didn’t feel right to me. I came around the corner on the grassy path and tried to see inside the wooden summer gazebo. I was pretty sure I saw a figure inside, not sitting, but standing by the corner beam. It was hard to tell in the shadows. I stepped closer before I could change my mind and back out all together. If he heard my footsteps he’d turn around and the choice would be made for me.

  I let my foot rustle the dry grass and loose stones just ever so slightly.

  But what if it’s not him? What if someone else is in that summerhouse?

  “Julia?”

  The figure inside stepped out in the sunlight. It was Michael.

  “Hey,” I answered. Oh, lame.

  “You got my text?”

  I thought I had answered back, but I realized I hadn’t, which meant Michael had shown up not knowing if I’d be here or not.

  Or maybe he had just been here when he texted me.

  In fact, maybe he had been texting someone else and sent it to me by mistake. Was that possible? “You been here before?” Michael asked me.

  “Huh?”

  “Here at the pond.”

  “Oh, no—I mean, yes.” I wasn’t sure which response worked better. I didn’t even know what I wanted to have work or not. “I mean, I knew where it was.”

  We both started walking toward the water and the path that circled the pond. Tall, fragile grasses stood up right along the edge in clumps like tufts of hair, and hundreds of lily pads floated on the surface of the water. They were all different sizes and shades of green, some with delicate stems rising from their centers. And dotting the mass of green were bursts of colorful pink and white and magenta blossoms just sitting patiently in the still heat of the day.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah, isn’t it amazing?”

  I felt his hand brush against mine as we walked.

  “There must be a hundred of them,” Michael said as if we were just talking, as if I hadn’t just moved my arm ever so slightly toward his. It was the smallest gesture and I have no idea why I thought I could do that. Or how I knew what might happen if I did.

  “Probably two hundred, really. Maybe more.” And he took my hand with his, letting his fingers wrap gently around mine. I felt the stickiness of his skin, his palm—the tips of his fingers taking hold, claiming this moment.

  Then just as he stopped and turned to face me, a giant white bird with his legs dangling behind him flew across the clear blue sky. Despite his size, the bird landed in the water quietly and gracefully.

  Magic, I thought—as Michael leaned his face toward me and I didn’t move away. The space between us got smaller and smaller until his mouth and nose, and eyes and skin were close I could hear him, feel him breathing.

  This is it.

  Uncountable numbers—like grains of sand, the miles from home, change in time zone, months and months of waiting. And the fear and the fear and the fear all melted away when he kissed me. And then, I think I kissed him back.

  twenty-nine

  I walked, I ran, I flew back to the house. I touched my lips to make sure it was real. It was. I opened the front door.

  “Eliza’s not back?” It was so impossible that I repeated it twice.

  But it was true. It was pretty late and Eliza wasn’t home yet. Only nobody looked worried. Uncle Bruce had gotten home and was already sitting in his special armchair in front of the television with a beer. Aunt Louisa was cooking dinner, chicken cutlets.

  Nobody was worried until they saw me standing in the doorway, alone.

  “Where is she, Julia?” Aunt Louisa asked me. She held a spatula in one hand, her other cupping the oil that might drip off the end. “Isn’t she with you?”

  I had a sudden image of Eliza on the hiking trail heading off in the opposite direction. Her skinny shoulders set firmly, her feet carrying her forward, up the rocky path. But we had been still very far from the sky tower. We hadn’t even gotten to the Lemon Squeeze yet or crossed the Dueling Dam Bridge.

  And she was alone.

  Every measure of joy and excitement that had carried me all the way here drained from my face in an instant and Aunt Louisa saw it.

  “What, Julia? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I had never heard her sound that way and even though I was the one who knew that Eliza might be lost, Aunt Louisa’s voice scared me.

  My mouth opened but no words came out. I saw Uncle Bruce get up from his chair. By the time he walked into the kitchen he had his truck keys in his hand. “I’ll go up to the hotel and get her, Louisa. Stay here in case Eliza gets back and I don’t pass her on the way up.”

  “Can I go with you?” I asked Uncle Bruce.

  He looked at me as if he knew there was something I was too afraid to say, a
s if he knew something was serious.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  My heart was thumping by the time I slipped into the front seat of the truck. I was calculating the time that had passed. I must have left Eliza around eleven, maybe ten thirty. I met Michael at the Lily Pond around eleven fifteen, but that suddenly seemed like another life, another movie. Eliza couldn’t still be on the trail. It couldn’t have taken her more than an hour and half to get up there and another hour to get down even if she were walking backward!

  Then even if she hung out at the hotel, maybe visited with Pam or went to the tea, she’d still be back already. Eliza hated to be alone. She wouldn’t have gone swimming by herself. She wouldn’t have gone to the game room or the shuffleboard court. I didn’t even think she’d really go through with it and finish the hike. I guess I figured she’d just turn around like I did.

  But the truth was I hadn’t thought about Eliza at all. Not until right now. I could feel my fingers going a little numb as Uncle Bruce and I rode the road up to the hotel. Where could she be?

  Uncle Bruce didn’t say a word until we got to the fork and road changed to two-way traffic. “Tell me what happened, Julia,” Uncle Bruce said quietly. “Did you two have another argument?”

  I think I must have nodded. “We were on the hiking trail,” I began.

  I looked out the window. The end of summer was creeping across the sky and taking away the day just that much earlier than it had the night before. It would be dark in couple of hours. I knew then that Eliza was lost on the trail, and my eyes stung with tears.

  “I turned around and came back,” I continued. “Eliza didn’t.”

  Uncle Bruce didn’t talk at all. He kept his eyes on the road as we pulled into the staff parking lot behind the stables and he shut off the ignition. When Uncle Bruce got out of the car, I followed.

  “Okay, I’ve got to let Mrs. Smith know. And I’ve got to alert the staff.”

  “You do?”

  I had an image of how angry Mrs. Smith would be. I could just see her face.

  “And the night manager. He’ll have the two-way radios.”

  “What?” I asked, but Uncle Bruce was already heading into the hotel. I had to break into a run to keep just behind him and near enough. He didn’t answer me. It was as if every step he took he got more and more anxious. I could feel it, like a string tightening around my stomach, a string that became a rope that became a heavy chain. I could hardly breathe. I was so afraid for Eliza.

  And just underneath the tightening in my chest I was afraid for myself.

  “Exactly where, what part of the trail did you last see her?” the night manager was asking me. “Be very specific. This is important.”

  The night manager was a tall man, because when he stood up from behind his desk I had to look way up at him. He had a very serious expression on his face, that kind of grown-up way of acting like everything was going to be all right when, in fact, he was very worried.

  I pointed on the map as close as I could remember to where we were standing when Eliza and I had our fight. And I left her there.

  “And do you remember what time it was?” he said. “As close to exactly as you can.”

  I knew. I took out my phone and looked at the time of Michael’s text. “Ten thirty-three.”

  Uncle Bruce looked stricken but he didn’t say anything to me. “Does that help, Steve?” Uncle Bruce asked. The night manager’s name was Steve.

  “Well, we can do an approximation,” Steve said, taking some maps out of a drawer and spreading them out on the desktop, “of what the average person on foot can cover in say, an hour or two. Even at a leisurely pace a healthy person could travel three to four miles without even knowing it. We’ve had hikers end up over in Accord.”

  “You mean Eliza could have walked right out of Mohawk? Not be in New Hope any more?” I heard myself cry out and then I felt Uncle Bruce’s hand on my shoulder. It was comforting and warning.

  “No need to panic, sweetie. We are going to find her. She might even be right here in the hotel. It happens.” Steve spoke slowly and directly to me. “So you are going to have to tell us—”

  “Julia,” Uncle Bruce filled in.

  “And be honest, Julia. Is there any reason Eliza might be upset? Is there any reason she might not want to be found?”

  “Maybe,” I answered.

  thirty

  Huge halogen lights that were normally used to dry paint on the walls in large rooms were set up on the roof of the hotel and lit up the sky like strange white suns. They were supposed to act as directional beacons in case Eliza was out there somewhere, nearby, and might follow them back to the hotel.

  Every available staff member who knew the trails had been sent out with a two-way radio. The recreation staff, the activity staff, and even the maintenance staff, like Uncle Bruce, everyone took a different trail and followed it from start to end. The rest of the staff searched inside the hotel, checking first all the places they thought a kid might be—the game room, the television room, and of course the gift shop.

  “No, no, I haven’t seen Eliza all day. But she’s always with Julia. Have you asked Julia? I haven’t seen either of them all day. They must be together. Are you sure she went up to the sky tower?”

  Pam didn’t see me standing behind Uncle Bruce. “Oh my, it’s so dark out now.” Her face was so filled with concern it made my stomach twist even more. Then Pam spotted me lingering near the rock-candy sticks. “Julia, thank goodness. Where’s Eliza?” she asked me. She still didn’t get it.

  But a second later she did.

  “Eliza is lost, isn’t she? How long?”

  She was asking me but the night manager answered. “It’s been several hours already, Pam. You know what to do if she shows up here. Or if you hear anything.”

  “Of course, Steve,” Pam said. When she turned to look at the approaching darkness outside I wondered what she was thinking about. Maybe she was remembering that little girl who two years ago wandered away from her family to get a sweater that she had left on a picnic bench and didn’t return. The mother was certain she had been snatched and she was hysterical for hours, until a doctor was called to give her a sedative. A kid doesn’t get lost walking fifty yards to the picnic lodge, the mother kept screaming until the medicine finally kicked in and she fell asleep on a chair in the grand sitting room.

  But it turns out they can. And by the time the mother woke up, her little girl was back in her arms. She had just taken a wrong turn. The little girl had her sweater but had somehow lost her right sneaker. Eliza told me all about it in school the next day.

  Or maybe Pam was remembering the boy who had walked back into the hotel after his parents had checked out and his whole family was in their car ready to drive away. The boy said he left his iPod on the little glass table right beside the checkout counter. He ran back inside to get it, but he never came back out. That boy was found about an hour later walking down the mountain road toward the gatehouse with his headset on. He explained to everyone he decided to leave out the front door and that his parents would drive by and see him on their way home.

  “He really thought his parents would just leave without him,” Eliza had told me. “Isn’t that crazy?”

  Then it was completely dark, eight o’clock, and as is the procedure, Mrs. Smith called the state troopers, who arrived with their dogs.

  thirty-one

  The officer wanted something of Eliza’s so his people-sniffing dogs could pick up her scent and begin to track her. Uncle Bruce called Aunt Louisa, who he still insisted wait at the house in case Eliza showed up there. Two neighbors had come over, made coffee, and offered to stay with her. One of them could drive something of Eliza’s up to the hotel. A pair of socks, a nightgown would be great, the officer told us. Anything that hadn’t been laundered.

  “Will this work?” I asked. I fished into my backpack and brought out Eliza’s sweatshirt.

  “Does this belong to the missing gir
l?” the officer asked me.

  I nodded. But Eliza is not a missing girl.

  “Did she wear it today?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “She always wears that one. It hasn’t been washed all summer.”

  Eliza’s sweatshirt was pink with a hood and a zipper. It looked suddenly so small and so pink when the police officer took it from me. His uniform was gray, and his belt was black and he had a gun.

  We were in the grand tearoom that had been closed off so that the sight of the state troopers and the dogs, and the lights, the megaphones, the maps, and the walkie-talkies that gave off periodic random static wouldn’t affect the other guests. It was clear that people knew something was going on, but so far no one had said anything. Mrs. Smith was standing by the tea tray holding her own hands tightly, as tightly as her face was pinched into an angry, worried expression.

  Steve, the night manager, was by the glass doors talking quietly with two staffers, a youngish guy and an older woman. I recognized them as trail guides.

  Uncle Bruce was poring over the open maps and I noticed for the first time the tiny shapes of flowers and vines carved into the legs of the wooden table where he was standing. Not saying a word, like he was trying to remember something. Where was that steep drop? That crevasse that someone could fall into? Where was that one spot where the trail narrows and the colored markers are most faded?

  • • •

  The Korean War is called the Forgotten War because nobody seems to care about it. It happened right after the end of World War II and before the Vietnam War. When the Korean War veterans came home from their tour of duty, there were no memorials or parades, not much on the evening news, not even any protests or demonstrations. It wasn’t even called a war. It was called a conflict. The Korean conflict.

  But if you ask me no one cares about any war.

  If it doesn’t affect them personally, they can act like it isn’t happening. If it isn’t in their backyard or even within a thousand miles it might as well be a cartoon on TV or a boring reality show. If their mom or dad isn’t over there eating sand, it hardly matters. No, it doesn’t matter at all. How can you forget about something you never knew about in the first place?