by Louise Hawes
I hadn’t laughed so hard in way too long. It felt heady and free—like the beach after school or biking downhill or the first run-through of a play where you don’t need your script. I don’t know about Wanda, but I think I could have stayed there forever, sipping sweet tea and sniffing rising dough. The only reason I figured out how late it had gotten was that the Carousel’s owner, Kitty Hodge, kept sweeping up. After her third pass around our table, the plump, frazzled woman was breathing heavily and we finally got the message: She wanted us to leave so she could go home.
Just outside the bakery, we ran into Lisa Santone, the girl from the beach patrol. The one who was home for the summer to do open-air theater. I introduced her to Wanda, and the three of us talked about how hot it was (very), about birthday cakes (Lisa needed to buy one for her sister), and about acting (Lisa had been in three off-off-Broadway productions since she’d started going to theater school in New York).
And that’s when it happened, something little, almost accidental, that I kept inside, like a seed I’d swallowed and hoped might grow: “You know what?” Lisa told me, just as we were saying good-bye. “You should really apply to Tisch next year, Sarah. The city is great, and hey, I’m learning about breathing and memory and motivation—things I never even knew mattered before Tisch.”
“Really?” I asked her. “You think I’m good enough to get in?”
“I don’t know. I only saw you in that walk-on you did in Our Town.” Lisa was being honest, and I appreciated it. “I remember you had something about you, though. Something that made me look at you, even when I should have been focused on the lead.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”
“You’ll have to audition, just like I did. And it wouldn’t hurt to land a role with the Players next year.”
“Sure,” I said. “Sure.” As if it were a done deal. No problem.
After she’d walked away, I turned to Wanda. “You think I could do it?” I asked her.
“Get a part?”
“Go to theater school.”
“Is that what you want?” she asked.
“Well, of course,” I told her, surprising myself. “It’s exactly what I want!”
* * * *
Fry kept texting and calling. Which meant my usual clown act at Mamselle’s was especially painful that night. Not only did I have to juggle all those wrong orders with my apron on inside out, but I also had to keep my cool with a cell phone vibrating nearly nonstop in my pocket. Even when I turned it off, I obsessed about turning it back on. And when I did, the texts and calls poured in, and my juggling turned into fumbling and then into a hopeless meltdown.
Shepherd and his customers had every right to yell at the dumb mistakes I made. But they didn’t. I played the it’s-my-first-day card over and over with the out-of-towners, and most people were pretty patient. Of course, I couldn’t sell that story to Shepherd or to the regulars, but even without it, he put up with a lot. I could see him working toward a big blowup, slapping his head, muttering choice swearwords under his breath. He was like a covered pot on medium high, its top rattling and steam coming out from underneath. But he didn’t boil over.
At last, though, when I’d tripped over myself for the millionth time and made the kind of mistakes I hadn’t made since my first weeks at the restaurant, he lost it. Not in a giant, twister-landing kind of way, though. It was more low key than his usual approach, and it featured some pretty impressive mind reading:
SHEPHERD
Jesus, Sarah.
(Slaps head)
Where is your brain?
(Shakes head)
Hell, I’d settle for half a brain right now. What’s wrong with you, anyway?
ME
(Waiting for explosion)
LAYNELLE
(Whispering to me, so Shepherd can’t hear)
Honey, that deuce in the corner says they ordered fish, not ravioli.
SHEPHERD
School-school is over, poetry school is going fine. So it must be love.
(Leans closer)
Is it love?
ME
(Still waiting)
INNOCENT DINER-VICTIM AT NEARBY TABLE
(Waves me over)
Miss, I ordered the trout, not the ravioli.
SHEPHERD
(Steps between me and diner, sweeps away the offending pasta)
Of course you did, ma’am. Everyone makes mistakes—
INNOCENT DINER-VICTIM
Oh, I didn’t mean—
SHEPHERD
—but ours shouldn’t cost you. Your trout dinner is on Mamselle’s.
INNOCENT DINER-VICTIM
(Smiling)
Well, thank you. That’s real nice.
SHEPHERD
You’re welcome, ma’am. And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to your server for a minute.
(Pulling me aside)
You already know what I think of that guy, right? So let me tell you what I think of you.
ME
(Waiting)
SHEPHERD
I think you’re way too smart to let someone like him make you clear from the left!
* * * *
I’d hoped, in a fervent, intense way that came pretty close to praying, that it would rain hard enough for our last cleanup to be postponed. But Saturday morning the sun was so bright it woke me up. And started me worrying: I’d never promised Fry a chance to “explain.” Would he try to do that in the middle of hammering and pounding? Would I be able to face him? Could I call in sick?
Pretty immature, right? And pretty shortsighted, too. I’d have to deal with Fry sooner or later, after all. So, finally, setting a record for Slowest Toothbrushing and Longest Shower Ever, I got dressed and found Margaret, H, and Fry waiting curbside. Today, after all, was the day we were going to literally raise the roof at the Baylor cottage. After the hard work we’d put in, no one wanted to miss the big finish.
Given his passion for plywood and power tools, I should have known Fry would be almost as anxious as I was to see that little cottage good as new. That was one thing, maybe the only thing, we could see through together.
My throat and stomach had forgotten Fry and I were over, and they went through their whole jump/tighten routine as soon as I saw him. He was wearing a shop apron, and his shoulders were wider in real life than in my memory. He looked every inch a prince, except for his eyes, which wore a frightened, animal look. “Hi,” he told me, climbing into the car, sitting where he always did, beside me in the backseat. But those animal eyes didn’t look at me, they stayed hidden, dark.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey!” Margaret turned from the front seat, giving us both a victory sign. “Today’s the day!”
And that’s how the whole ride went, Fry and I almost wordless, the lovebirds chatty bordering on manic, and totally unaware of what was happening in the backseat. But when we got to the cottage, before the great boy-girl divide could push us farther apart than we already were, I pulled Fry aside. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back,” I told him.
“We can’t talk here, Sarah,” he told me, sounding almost relieved. “I’ll see you this afternoon, okay?”
I was going to meet the Untouchables. “I can’t.” I knew who my real friends were. Finally.
“Sunday, then. Can I come over Sunday?”
“No.” Mom and Aunt J. would be home.
“Next week.” He looked down. Around. His eyes still hiding. “Come on, Sarah. Give me a chance?” And then it rushed out, whispered, almost too soft to hear: “Please?”
Before I could answer, H and Margaret were beside us, breaking up our one-liners again, forcing us both to smile, to pretend. “Hey, man,” H told Fry, “we need you topside.” That was when my ex-prince and his friend joined the roofing crew, and Margaret and I got to work tiling the backsplash in the kitchen.
Thanks chiefly to Fry, who knew his way around ladders and shingles, the roof went on quickly. After we’d finished i
nside, Margaret and I went outside to help put in a stone pathway to the front door and to watch the final shingles being laid on the roof. You couldn’t help but pick Fry out from the rest of the crew working up there. Thatcher was the biggest, that’s for sure. But Fry had that smooth, easy gait that cute guys do, when they know they’re good at something. Everyone followed his lead, asked him questions, even Mr. Shettle. “Hey, Reynolds,” the little man would yell, cupping his hands to reach Fry on top of the roof. “You think we need sealer there?”
As if he walked in the sky every day, his silhouette dark against the sun, Fry would come to the edge of the roof, swing one foot over the ladder. He’d confer, perched there, with the shop teacher, then climb back to work. I know I wasn’t the only one watching him move like some gorgeous airborne hero across the top of my old/new dollhouse. From down below, he was the perfect fantasy figure, brave and strong and every girl’s dream.
Once the gutter was in place and Fry had come back to Earth, we all wolfed down those tiny sandwiches and took photos. Margaret showed me the one she’d caught of the three of us before H forced her to get in the picture, too: Fry was in the middle, of course, and he had one arm around H and one around me. His face was hot and tired and almost happy.
People were still taking photos of the house, the new porch, the front steps, the garden. Even the guy from the county, the one who took roll, was posing with kids, and Fry was moving from group to group. Laughing. Taking bows. That was when I slipped out my cell and texted a poem about the cottage. And about fresh starts. I knew I wouldn’t send it to Fry. But maybe Wanda would like it. And maybe, with two or three more passes, it would even be good enough to show Rufus.
Then, when the tools were put away and most of the food was cleaned up, Mr. Shettle clapped Fry on the back. He held up his paper cup, looked at the rest of us. “Want to say something to these folks?” he asked his star workman. “Kind of bring things to a close here?”
“Yeah,” Fry said. He faced the crowd of kids who’d worked so hard to put that dollhouse back together. I thought maybe he’d talk about Rufus, about why we were all here. Instead, he raised his cup high and just shouted, “We got her done!”
Everyone cheered.
The dollhouse is finished, time to put
mother and father on the sofa,
the kids in their chairs.
They’re still wearing their old clothes,
thinking their old thoughts.
Shouldn’t we let them know?
Everything’s different, they need to
tell the truth now, they need to
hug their kids.
The Herd Gathers
I was single again. But I still didn’t believe it. I was functioning, instead, in a kind of suspension, a place where I moved through thick air, blurred conversations. I was a hit-and-run victim walking, and I was in shock.
Yes, Fry kept texting, and I guess that didn’t help. What did, though, was shutting the phone off before I left for the cove that afternoon. As I got closer to the sea, the tang in the air and the cheerful, wordless hum of voices behind the dunes lifted my spirits. It was summer, after all. I had survived trigonometry and not getting a lead in our school play. I had weathered the bash and, now, losing Fry. Best of all, I was sort of friends with one of the most famous poets on Earth, and my beloved Untouchables were together again.
Well, most of us were together: Brett and Thea had weekend jobs, but all the rest were at the cove when I rounded the bend and found them, spread out like jewels on the rocks: Alicia in her mango-colored swimsuit; Marcia, her tattoos and nose stones making her look exotic, even in a sweatshirt and jean shorts; George, quiet and brilliant and utterly hopeless in his adoration of Wanda; my beautiful, flaming Wanda, who would never feel more than friendship for George, but who let him follow her everywhere; and of course, crazy Eli. . . .
Even though the water in the cove was only wading depth, Eli looked as though he’d signed on for a diving expedition. While the rest of us wore bathing suits and shorts, he was sporting a full-body wet suit, complete with a snorkel mask pushed off his face and buried in his dark curls. “Sarah doesn’t return to the fold every day,” he said. “This is a special occasion, and I wanted to dress for it.”
I laughed. “I’m deeply honored,” I told him. “But I hope you don’t scare the fish.” I grinned at the crazy friend I’d missed more than I knew. “Maybe you should have worn tails?”
Eli shook his head at my horrible pun, then slapped one rubber thigh. “She’s back,” he said. “She’s definitely back.”
The cove was just as I remembered it, certainly not deep enough for diving, but full of echoes and magic. The coral covering the rocks facing the sea was pink and gray above the water, but underneath, it turned purple or orange. The larger boulders that formed the horseshoe in which we sat were full of cracks and crevices, so at high tide, the ocean would poke its wavy fingers through the holes and make soft, swishing sounds. I couldn’t believe how much I loved being there, and I couldn’t believe how long I’d stayed away.
Naturally, everyone wanted to know about the course. And about Rufus. I studied the drops of water on my bare arms, my toes under the water, white and glabrous as minnows. I thought about what I really wanted to tell each one of these friends—how much I’d missed them, how sorry I was to have sold them short, to have left them to the not-very-tender mercies of the cool kids. But it was hard to go back, harder to explain how busy I’d been, how wrong.
So I told them about Rufus, instead. I shared what I knew they’d never guess, things about my poet that surprised them and made them wish they’d been hauled into court, too. No, I didn’t mention Rufus’s dead sons. That was something that felt private. But I talked about our class in the garden, how there wasn’t a plant or an animal he didn’t know by name; I told them he was the best teacher I’d ever had, the only one who made me feel changed for having listened, looked, tasted, and touched. I described the way he’d opened H’s locked car, the way he held both your hands in his, the way he made your memories and your feelings matter.
“It’s true, it’s all true.” Wanda opened her arms wide, hoping the right words would fall in her lap. “Rufus Baylor is, well, he’s dear and awesome at the same time. He’s like a king disguised as a commoner.” She shrugged, helpless to explain. “Like when he talks? You have the feeling he’s giving you all these presents, but you don’t have a big enough place to put them.”
“You two sound like you’re on drugs,” Marcia told us. “A Rufus Baylor trip.” She grinned at Wanda and me. “You should see your faces when you talk about him.”
Wanda and I smiled at each other like groupies. Groupies who shared the same delicious secret. Of course, I told them about the new poem Rufus had written just for our class. But even though it was short, I couldn’t recite it when George begged me to. I remembered some of the words and all of the feeling. Still, I knew getting even one word wrong would change everything, and I didn’t want to spoil it. Rufus had lots of words to choose from, we all do. But he’d chosen the ones that sang his kind of music. And that, as he would have said, made all the difference.
It turned out, though, it didn’t really matter. George and Wanda knew a lot of Rufus’s old poems by heart, especially the famous mountain odes. They were dying for an excuse to trot them out, and it was thrilling to hear them. Even if Wanda put her hand on her chest and sounded too much like Miss Kinney when she recited.
There was one poem they tried to teach us. It was short, and it used the same lines over and over on purpose. Only they were shuffled around till they became a sort of bell, like the one our class had made on that first day with Rufus.
Or they should have made a bell. And if we’d each been able to say our lines at the right time, they would have. But somehow we always managed to get things in the wrong order, so they made no sense at all. One of the words that kept repeating was “Fall! Fall!” And finally, that’s what we did. Eli starte
d it. Whenever Wanda pointed to him, he didn’t even try to remember the line he’d been assigned. He just clamored to the top of the rock he’d chosen as a seat and jumped off, gasping, “Fall! Fall!” as he went.
Soon everyone was parachuting off whatever height they could find, screaming, “Fall! Fall!” as they plunged down. And even though I scraped my knee on my last jump, and even though we never did learn our lines, I knew one thing as I watched us dive-bombing and shouting Rufus’s poem: He would have loved it. I could imagine him there with us, conducting our leaps, fine-tuning our lines—right up until high tide, when the water filled the cove and chased us out.
* * * *
That night, when I walked to Mamselle’s, Shepherd was waiting for me. Menu in hand. “What do you think?” He handed me a list of special table d’hôte options on elegant card stock. “Manny worked his buns off on this. Kind of good, huh?”
I pulled off my sweatshirt, scanned the menu. It wasn’t just good; it was amazing. Under Mamselle’s logo and a design of cresting waves were the words “The Last Verse: A Celebration of Sentences Well Served.” And below that was the description of a meal that made my mouth water just reading it: There was a choice of caprese salad with artichokes or mini shrimp kabobs in mango marinade; the entrées were basil-crusted mahimahi with sweet potato flan and roasted vegetable couscous, or filet mignon with asparagus and blue cheese topping served with garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes and spinach-stuffed baked tomatoes gratiné. For dessert? A flaming baked Alaska at each table.
“This is incredible,” I told Shepherd. “Has Rufus seen it?”
“I read it to him this morning over the phone. He said to ask you what the kids would think.”
“What will they think?” I asked. “They’ll think crime pays!” I studied the oversize card again. “This has got to be the best menu I’ve ever seen.” And then it hit me. “Wait,” I told Shepherd, “there’s something missing.” My father might not have been to college, but he was nobody’s fool. “You forgot the price.”