Before Wings

by Beth Goobie

  It was Aunt Erin who had suggested Adrien work at Camp Lakeshore for the summer. She had called her niece directly and invited her. “Can’t pay you much, won’t be a millionaire. Just working in the store, nothing too strenuous.”

  A few hours and it had been strenuous, all right. Some weird boy telling her she was dying. Aunt Erin treating her like a mental deficient. The wind moaning in the trees, opening up places in the air, calling spirits.

  Since her aneurysm, Adrien had seen spirits. Perhaps her brain circuitry had altered, or the worlds had rearranged themselves to give her a taste of the afterlife. She didn’t see them constantly, but there was often the hint of something smudging the corner of a room, shifting behind a tree, wailing across a lake. This didn’t frighten her, just made it difficult to focus on the here and now. It was like being pulled in different directions. She was standing in a shadow land between two worlds and was being asked to choose, but didn’t know how to take those steps toward the humans reaching out to her, their voices calling, “Come, come.” Their smiles were too vivid. She kept fending them off.

  Aunt Erin and the weird boy didn’t play the game of life, pretending there was hope. Paul Marchand was right. She was dying. Maybe not at this very moment, but it would come. The blood vessels in her brain were weaker since the aneurysm—they could tear at any moment, rip the life out of her. Her body would drop, her spirit rise ... to do what? Float endlessly in a gray smudge through rooms, watching the living go on without her? Join that line of spirits howling across the lake? What was it they had been calling, over and over?

  Adrien slipped on her raincoat and made her way toward the water, looking down to keep the wind out of her face. The mayflies had been grounded by the rain, and a cold aloneness spread out on all sides. Why had she come to this place where no one knew her, no one loved her? She was an aneurysm victim. Didn’t Aunt Erin know she had to be careful not to get upset, not to exert herself, not to stress her blood vessels? Adrien reached the ridge and was about to follow the path down to the shore when she saw her aunt standing on the beach, unmoving, her hood down, yellow jacket flapping in the wind. Out on the lake, the spirits moved in a restless line, a gray glow that was easy to distinguish in the dark—the vague shapes of five girls moving in and out of themselves, grieving like smoke.

  Aunt Erin was watching them. Unaware of her niece, she stood staring directly at the spirits. There was no doubt about it, they were as clear to her as they were to Adrien.

  Abruptly, Aunt Erin turned and came up the path. Startled, Adrien stepped back. As she peaked the ridge, Aunt Erin looked straight at her and Adrien saw her aunt’s face split wide with sorrow. Without speaking, the woman passed by, walking across the lawn toward the dining hall, while Adrien stared after her, tasting her aunt’s loneliness, a heavy salt in her throat.

  two

  She slept heavily, through dreams of heaving water and a night sky coiled with clouds. Formless voices called through slow chaos. When she woke, she was sweating, her scalp soaked, even though the cabin held an early morning coolness. The rain had stopped. It took a few minutes to place the unfamiliar bed, the rough blankets, the pillow that smelled of closed-in places. The room danced with a rustling emerald light. For a brief moment, she was sure she had stepped through to one of her dreams, waking in another life where she could be free of wondering if something was about to tear open inside her head.

  The snapping of branches brought her bolt upright. Suddenly Adrien realized she was alone in a cabin, and something was moving against the outer wall. Wrapping a blanket around herself, she crept to the window, but saw only the lift and toss of easy green trees. More sounds came from the cabin’s other side. She slunk down the narrow hall and peeked into an empty bedroom. Something shadowed the window, and a face peered in.

  “Close the window and I’ll take out the screen,” Paul said. “I’m washing windows.”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “Close the window,” he repeated, holding up a squeegee.

  “Close your own window.” She turned to leave.

  “I’ll have to come in.”

  “Go do another cabin first.”

  “This is the last one.”

  “So wait five minutes while I get dressed. What time is it, anyway?”

  “Eight-thirty.”

  “Most people start work at nine.”

  He retreated and she decided she had won. But what if he snuck around the cabin and watched through the window while she dressed? Or came inside? She locked the bedroom door and pulled down the blind before changing into jeans and a T-shirt. Then she washed her face, brushed her teeth and carefully combed her hair. Make the prophet of doom wait. When she finally emerged from the cabin, he was sitting on the front steps, smoking. As she stepped off the side of the small square porch into a flurry of mayflies, he turned to look at her, his face as expressionless as yesterday, except for his eyes.

  “What?” she snapped, flushing.

  He shrugged.

  “Isn’t it against the rules to smoke at Camp Lakeshore?”

  He shrugged again.

  She hesitated. “So, can I have one?”

  He gave just the hint of a smile as he pulled a pack from his shirt pocket and tossed it to her. She missed and had to bend to pick it up. So what, she couldn’t be expected to be an athlete these days. A yellow lighter was tucked into the left side. She lit and inhaled deeply. This was one thing she hadn’t fully considered when she had agreed to come for the summer, but then she hadn’t known about the no smoking rule until Aunt Erin sent the long list of Rules for Staff, one week after the phone call. Not that it mattered on an official level—she was underage and Aunt Erin was hardly likely to sell them to her at the Tuck’n Tack store—but none of the other staff would be carrying any for an easy bum. After thinking through all the ways she could get caught smuggling in a carton, Adrien had decided this would be the perfect opportunity to quit. Perfect as in no two ways about it.

  “Thanks.” She started picking mayflies off her T-shirt.

  He returned the pack to his pocket. “Any time, Angel.”

  “My name’s Adrien.”

  He looked directly at her. “I know.”

  The opportunity was wide open. She had been poking and prodding people for two years, looking for this moment, and here it was. She gulped air. “How come you said I was dying?”

  His eyes didn’t leave her face. “Aren’t we all?”

  She dragged on her cigarette. “Yeah, but I am. Did my aunt tell you?”

  He dropped his stub and ground it out, then slid it under the porch. “Erin doesn’t talk about people. She’s good that way.”

  “So how’d you know?”

  He linked his hands behind his head and stretched, cracking bones all over his body. “I’ve dreamt my own death a hundred different times. A hundred different ways. It never quite gets me; I always wake up just before.” His eyes narrowed and he stared off. “It’s always the same day, the same place, but each time it happens a different way.”

  “They can’t all be right.”

  “No, but why always the same time and place? I figure I choose the way it gets me, that’s all.”

  She forced a laugh. “You’re nuts.”

  “Then why’d you ask me?”

  They watched each other in the quiet morning air.

  “You still haven’t told me how you knew I was dying.”

  “Just a feeling.” He picked up a bucket and turned to go.

  “Hey,” she called after him. “Can you tell when it’s going to happen ... to me?”

  He looked back at her. “It’s not clear.”

  “So, when’s your big date?”

  “Want to watch?”

  “Just wondering.”

  His face intensified. “You’ll be there. I’ve seen it. Hide the butt, eh?” A silvery swarm of bugs rose as he pushed into the bush at the back of the cabin. She listened to the squeegee swish in the bucket, then drip a
s it rose. Paul swore.

  She took one last drag at her cigarette, ground the butt and slid it under the porch.

  “Hey Angel, would you please go inside and close the windows?”

  Her lips twitched with the hint of a smile. Surrounded by sunlit bug wings, she followed the path through the trees toward the dining hall for breakfast.

  Three women in polyester uniforms stood at the kitchen’s main counter, opening large boxes of canned food. Their voices could be heard from the dining hall’s main entrance, interrupting one another, breaking into volleys of laughter. No English. Adrien peered cautiously into the kitchen. They didn’t look like aliens, just three middle-aged women, bulging at the sides and wearing orthopedic shoes. Hairnets and weird words.

  One woman saw her and broke into English. “You’re Adrien, right?”

  Adrien smiled with relief.

  “Such a pretty girl. Looks just like Erin, eh?”

  The hairnets nodded enthusiastically.

  “Um, could I have breakfast?” Adrien asked.

  “Breakfast?” The first woman rolled her eyes dramatically. “Maybe you could show up before noon?”

  “Just bread and water?” Adrien hedged.

  The women whooped. Corn Flakes, milk and bread appeared and she ate, listening as they lapsed into their weird language. Why didn’t they speak English if they understood it? She tried to guess what they were talking about. The old country? Their children? Husbands? Sex? Adrien almost laughed out loud. Maybe they were discussing their latest Pap smears. Cancer—did the hairnets ever think about death? From their whoops, giggles and snorts, it didn’t sound like it. As Adrien finished her cereal, the first woman returned to English. “Just leave your dishes in the sink. We’ll get them later.”

  “Um,” Adrien asked, “where do you come from?”

  The women gave each other sly smiles.

  “Ah, she wants us to go back to where we come from,” said one.

  “Wants our jobs,” said another. “Wants to work on her varicose veins.”

  “It’s these lovely uniforms and hairnets,” said the third. “Everyone wants to wear them.”

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” said the first. “Finish your school, then worry about a job.”

  Adrien fled out among the trees where she stood, cheeks burning. Old hags. She didn’t want their lousy jobs. For all she cared, they could cook pork and sausages in every lousy camp in the entire country. Rude—they were rude. She turned this way and that, kicking at roots and flailing at mayflies until her face cooled. God, did she want a cigarette. That’s what she should do—learn how to ask for a cigarette in whatever gibberish those hags were speaking, and run that by them. She would show them. By the end of summer, she would be fluent in asking for drugs, needles, condoms and porn in their language. Every morning she would come up with something different. Excuse me, but do you have the latest issue of Playgirl? I lent mine to the campers and they won’t give it back.

  Aunt Erin was in the office. “Great,” she said, looking up from her desk as Adrien entered. “Today, you’ll do inventory for the store. Count stuff.” She grinned, but she looked tired, her eyes puffy. Last night’s scene at the lake passed between them, a shadow of cold wind and rain. Frowning, Aunt Erin pressed the bridge of her nose, pushing at something in her head. Pushing it away. “Leave the mayflies outside,” she said.

  Adrien stepped out onto the porch. The bugs sat in a resting position, their wings folded together and pointed upward. They didn’t struggle as she pulled them off, but there was always a slight suction, as if their little buggy feet were holding on for dear life. Yuck, she thought, watching each one flutter away. Putrid. Barbaric. Go thou to thy doom.

  As she came back inside, a lawnmower started up. “On grass already,” Aunt Erin said. “Boy’s fast as ever.”

  Boxes labeled T-shirts—Medium, Sweatshirts—Large and Buttons were stacked along one wall. Adrien was more interested in the ones marked Coffee Crisp and Smarties.

  “No eating the merchandise,” Aunt Erin admonished, following her gaze. “I’ll show you what to do.”

  “I can count.”

  “There’s last summer’s records, and records from over the winter. Schools come out for the day. Church groups and conferences rent the place. Need to make sure everything’s in order. Glad you’re here to do it.”

  A storage area at the back of the office held boxes stacked halfway to the ceiling. “Hope you like counting,” Aunt Erin quipped, then led her outside and around the building to where an awning opened out of the north wall. During the summer months, Tuck’n Tack operated like a concession booth. Aunt Erin handed Adrien the key ring that unlocked the door, the cabinets and the large service window. “Lots of air conditioning,” she said. “Here’s the lever that lowers the awning.”

  She demonstrated and Adrien played with it, watching the blue-and-white striped canvas yawn outward, then shrink back in. Out, in, out, in.

  “Easily entertained,” observed her aunt. “Good to see.” Before Adrien could protest, she continued. “When you’re working in Tuck’n Tack, kids’ll come by with their counselors. Every cabin’s got its daily time slot.” She made Adrien practice unlocking and locking everything, then showed her where to hang the key ring on the office wall. “How many summers were you here?”

  “Five.” Adrien had been booked for a sixth, but her brain had blown that June.

  “Here’s the books,” said her aunt, ignoring yet another obvious opportunity for sympathy. She explained how to decipher the numbers and columns and returned to her desk. Adrien began to open boxes. There were zillions of T-shirts and sweatshirts, each with two sailboats and five tiny waves.

  “These are ugly colors,” she said.

  “What?” Aunt Erin looked up from her desk.

  “Kids don’t like these colors.”

  “Blue, green and red?”

  “They’re all dark. You need neon. Lime green, laser lemon and hot pink. A bright blue. You’d sell a lot more.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion.” Aunt Erin returned to her paperwork.

  Heat slapped itself across Adrien’s face. She stared at her aunt’s bent head, then said slowly, “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not slave labor.”

  “That’s right. You can go home if you want.” Aunt Erin didn’t lift her head.

  “Well, maybe I will.”

  “Phone’s right here. Help yourself.”

  Silence pulsed between them.

  “Why don’t you like me?” Adrien asked in a small voice. Aunt Erin sat very still, her head down. “Like has nothing to do with it,” she said. “You’re working at a job for pay. I tell you what to do and you do it. Don’t order your boss around. May as well learn that from me, or it’ll get harder for you later.”

  What later? Adrien almost asked, but the phone rang and Aunt Erin picked it up. “Camp Lakeshore,” she said calmly, looking out the window.

  Paul peered through the screen door. “Coffee break. Coming?”

  She knew he meant smoke break and started to get up, but Aunt Erin covered the phone and said, “Just started. Give it another hour. Then you get ten minutes.” She returned to the phone.

  Paul’s eyebrows floated upward. “I’ll come back in an hour,” he said and left.

  After the phone call, Aunt Erin left the office without speaking. Rigid, Adrien sat staring at the box of mediumsize, navy blue T-shirts she was counting. They were more than ugly, they were archaic. Camp Lakeshore’s logo hadn’t changed in over a decade, and the two toy sailboats and five dinky waves looked like something out of a kid’s coloring book. Didn’t Aunt Erin know she was competing with extraterrestrials and Marilyn Manson?

  She got up and wandered around the office. It held the usual boring stuff—memo pads, staplers, a calendar with scenic trees, copies of summer scheduling. There were two wall clocks, one on the east wall and one on the west, catching the sun as it came up and went down. Aunt Erin had everything clocked, organ
ized and filed into place except Adrien, and this niece wasn’t going to fit into her aunt’s neat schemes without a fight. Maybe she would just have her final aneurysm here and now, throw up and die all over her aunt’s tidy desk. Wouldn’t that throw a wrench into things? She could just imagine Aunt Erin discovering the body, checking for a pulse, calling Mom and Dad. There would be tears, profuse apologies. Adrien explored every possible angle of “I was such a lousy aunt, I killed her with my terrible attitude.” It gave immense satisfaction for several minutes, then waned.

  She fingered through a stack of papers on her aunt’s desk and her hand shifted the mat, uncovering the corner of a small photograph. Idly, she slid out the picture and scanned it. A group of girls her own age grinned at the camera. They were all in swimsuits, as was their counselor, a young woman with wheat blond hair and pale blue eyes—Aunt Erin in a Speedo, holding a life jacket and grinning as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Adrien couldn’t believe how much they looked alike. There on Aunt Erin’s face, she saw her own forehead, nose and mouth, ridged cheekbones and jutting chin. Two of the girls knelt behind her on a picnic table and draped adoring arms around her neck. Two more had wrapped their arms around her waist. They must have been nuts.

  Adrien slipped the photograph into her wallet. There was a lot of information in this picture and she wanted to study it. She would return it later. Maybe. If her aunt behaved herself and started treating her with respect. Adrien comforted herself with a Coffee Crisp and went back to counting last year’s ugly unsold T-shirts.

  In exactly one hour she was sitting on the porch steps, waiting for her cigarette. Aunt Erin was nowhere in sight and she had counted so many T-shirts that a myriad of ugly sailboats were floating through the dazzling waters of her brain. She heard the distant sound of the mower cut off, then approaching footsteps. Mayflies exploded in every direction as Paul came into view.