Song of Summer

by Laura Lee Anderson

  I look back at Carter. His eyes are saucerlike, and with good reason. There are fruit pies and meringues and coolers with cream pies to be bought by the slice or the pie.

  “A slice of coconut cream?” I write. We were playing favorites over text yesterday and he said that was his favorite.

  “Just one?” he signs, eyes gleaming.

  I nod, a mock-serious look on my face, and point to a big sign that proclaims, “Buy a slice and help the hospital! Buy too many and the hospital will help you!”

  Carter laughs, signing, “Just one,” in agreement.

  I turn to the booth. Mrs. Kelso is standing, waiting for me to order.

  “Hi, Robin,” she says. Her son graduated last year, and he was in Westwinds, the select choir, with me.

  “Hi, Mrs. Kelso,” I say.

  “How’re things down at the Grape Country Dairy?” she asks.

  “Good, good.”

  “You get into some fancy music school yet?”

  I shake my head. “Not yet…” I don’t know if school is really for me. I want to give it a year or two.

  “Well you will. Who’s this with you?” Her round face smiles up at Carter, and then she raises her eyebrows at me like I have some explaining to do, bringing an Italian model into Westfield.

  I look back at Carter. He waves. “This is Carter,” I say and sign. I practiced this particular phrase last night, along with my numbers. “He’s my friend, here for the summer.”

  Carter looks at me, shocked. Sure beats “Please,” “Thank you,” “Yes,” and “No.” I shoot him a proud grin, wiggling my eyebrows, and look back to Mrs. Kelso. She looks worried.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry… We don’t have any Braille menus.”

  What?

  “Um, he doesn’t… he doesn’t need a Braille menu,” I say. My hands don’t move. Thank God Carter can’t hear this conversation. I flash a nervous smile at him and turn back to Mrs. Kelso. “He’s deaf, not blind. He can… he can read. And… well, you don’t have menus anyway. You just have pies. He can see which pie he wants.”

  “Oh! Right. That’s silly of me. I’m sorry,” Mrs. Kelso says. She turns to Carter. “HI, DEAR!” she yells. The whole crowd turns to look at us. “WHAT KIND OF PIE DO YOU WANT?”

  Carter calmly points to the pie he wants—coconut cream meringue—and steps back to look at me. He points at me and gestures for me to order as he hides a little smile. I’m turning bright red.

  “Sorry,” I sign to him. He shrugs, the little smile still teasing me. He’s acting like this is nothing out of the ordinary. And he really can’t lie. I don’t know if I could ever get used to this. It’s… embarrassing. “I’ll… I’ll have cherry,” I say. July is peak cherry season.

  “How nice of you to take him out,” Mrs. Kelso says as she gets our pie, like he’s a puppy or a child or something.

  “I’m not taking him out,” I say, taking the pie and nodding at Carter who’s pulling a folded piece of paper out of his wallet.

  “How much?” it says. He slides it toward her.

  “He’s taking me out.”

  Mrs. Kelso looks up at him, astonished. “Four dollars,” she says.

  Carter opens his Italian leather wallet and slides a five across the counter.

  “Keep it,” he signs, and mouths. Mrs. Kelso smiles her thanks and arranges the money in the cash box.

  We take our slices to the playground by the church and Jenni materializes out of the crowd, sitting on the grass beside us. She doesn’t have pie, but she did manage to scrounge up a funnel cake somewhere. I’ll have to get one of those before we leave.

  “Everybody’s talking about him,” she says.

  “I thought you had a yard sale,” I say.

  “Fine. Everybody’s talking about him at our yard sale.”

  “And speaking of yard sale, how is the macramé selling?”

  She sighs. “Fine? I sold three bracelets and five keychains.”

  “Nice!”

  “Here—give me that,” she says, gesturing to the pad of paper.

  I laugh and slide it across the grass to her. She writes, “Everybody’s talking about you,” and shows it to Carter.

  He shrugs and smiles easily. “Comes with the territory,” he writes. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not like everybody else.”

  “Who?” I write, and circle her “everybody.”

  “Kari, Ana, Callie…”

  Whoa. That’s, like, upper-echelon people. Yeah, small towns have popular kids, too. There are a lot of factors that go into the deciding of Westfieldian popular kids—looks, music, money, sports, brains—no one thing is more important than the others. And, of course, you have to be friends or frenemies of all the other popular kids.

  “Whoa. Popular kids,” I write for Carter’s benefit. A thought strikes me. “Do you have popular kids at your school?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he writes.

  “That means yes,” Jenni says, grinning. Carter looks at me and shakes his head, but we all know the truth here. Of course he’s one of the popular kids. It would be impossible to look like that and NOT be a popular kid. Of course, Jenni’s gorgeous and she’s not really a popular kid. But that’s small towns for you: everybody remembers when you ate crayons.

  “What are they saying?” I ask.

  “Good stuff!” Jenni writes enthusiastically. “He’s so hot, blah-blah-blah… Callie wanted his number.”

  Carter gives her a look. “You didn’t give it to her, did you?” he writes.

  “Of course not!” The sun is bouncing off of Jenni’s hair, and her teeth are gleaming at him. “I don’t even have your number.”

  “Good,” Carter writes. “Next time just tell them I’m off-limits.”

  “Why?” Jenni writes. “You got a girlfriend back in New York you’re not telling us about?”

  I give her a look.

  Carter shakes his head. “NO!” he signs emphatically at me.

  “Then why?” Jenni asks.

  He takes up the pen and looks at me. “I’m interested in someone else.”

  Chapter 16

  Carter

  Jenni raises her eyebrows and pokes Robin in the leg, and Robin rolls her eyes and smiles into her slice of pie. The red of the cherries makes her lips even redder and her tongue sneaks out between her smile to clean them off. Her eyes glance into mine and I shrug. It’s true, after all. I am interested in someone else.

  After pie, Jenni pretends that she has to go back to her yard sale. I follow my nose and Robin follows me to a shish kebab place. The booth is sponsored by a therapeutic riding stable for the handicapped, and they’re pretty excited to meet me. A few people know a couple words in ASL, and we chat long enough for them to find out that I’m from the city and don’t know too much about horses. The shish kebabs, though, are tremendous. I make sure they know that.

  Weaving in and among the booths, we look at stained glass, doll clothes, pottery, wooden signs… In New York this would only be for, like, middle-aged women. Here? Seems like three or four entire towns came. I spot a few people our age, and they’re staring at us. I wonder if Robin’s popular. She talked like she wasn’t, but how couldn’t she be? She’s so funny and confident and interesting. And beautiful. She picks up a delicate piece of glassware and my eyes wander from her long, dark eyelashes to her rose-colored lips, down the curve of her neck and I look away, over the crowd.

  Glancing behind, I see that the instrument booth Robin loved is behind us. Making sure that she’s engrossed in the glass, I turn to the booth and take a card off his counter. “Asaph the Flutecrafter,” it says, with his website and street address. He looks at me and I hold the card up. “Thanks,” I mouth. I put the card in my pocket.

  He nods. “You’re welcome,” his mouth says.

  I rejoin Robin and she looks up at me.

  “Pretty,” she signs, and points to the glass.

  “You want it?” I sign.

  She
shakes her head and places it back on its stand.

  “You sure?” I write.

  “Yes,” she signs

  “Okay,” I sign. I look at her again—she doesn’t seem to linger over the glass or even miss it as she walks away. Instead, her eyes find Asaph the Flutecrafter’s booth. The dreadlocks guy (Asaph, I guess) catches her eye and holds out the flute to tempt her. She shakes her head and smiles. We walk through the aisles one last time and I can almost see her pine for the flute. I feel guilty for not buying it for her. You took a card, I tell myself. Just wait until she knows you better.

  We’re almost to my bike when I squeeze her hand. I don’t want to let her go. I had such a wonderful time seeing her, spending time with her, talking with her. She looks up at me, a question in her eyes.

  “You want dinner?” I write.

  “We just ate,” she says.

  “Tonight,” I write. “At my house. Meet my family?”

  She looks up at me, eyes wide. “I don’t know…” she says.

  “Please?” I sign.

  I pout my lip, draw in my eyebrows, and give her my best puppy-dog face. It works. She bursts out laughing.

  “Okay,” she signs.

  “Good,” I sign. I pull out my phone to text them.

  She grabs the pen and paper out of my pocket and starts writing. After a minute, she shows it to me: “You mean you didn’t even ask them yet?!”

  I shrug and grin. “It’ll be okay,” I sign.

  I’m right. It is okay. I write my address down for her and she assures me that she’ll be able to find my house. I give her forty bucks for the gatehouse.

  “You shouldn’t have to pay to come to my house,” I write when she tries to reject it. “It’s a lot of money. If I had a guest pass I’d give you that instead, but I don’t have one on me. Please.”

  She accepts it gingerly. “What should I wear?” she writes.

  “Clothes,” I write in reply. “Unless… well that’d be an interesting dinner.”

  “Ha-ha,” she writes. “Seriously.” And she circles the question, then adds, “I’ve never been in a house at Chautauqua. For all I know, you have butlers and maids and a dress code or something.”

  “We don’t have a butler,” I write back, laughing. “We don’t even have a cleaning lady! And we don’t wear suits or anything special to dinner, if that’s what you mean. Just look like you. You always look good.”

  “Sure,” she writes. “Okay. See you tonight?”

  “Tonight,” I sign.

  “Bye,” she signs.

  I put on my helmet. “Bye. Tonight!”

  Kicking my bike into gear, I drive off.

  Chapter 17

  Robin

  “Jenni!” I text. “I need you! Now! I’m by the church! Where we met up with Carter!”

  Jenni is there in two seconds. She’s out of breath. “Robin! Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

  “Um… ,” I say. The grass seems to be spinning and the sound of Carter’s bike echoes in my ears.

  “Robin!” She shakes my arms but my right hand flies up to my head, where it likes to go when I’m overwhelmed.

  “Um… I’m going to his house. For dinner. With his family. I don’t know what to do! I won’t be able to talk to anyone! I’ve never been in a house at Chautauqua! I’ve only been there for All-County Concerts! All I know is the ice-cream shop!” I hold the two twenties he gave me out in front of me. “Look! This is to pay the people at the gate! Because you have to pay people to walk into his neighborhood!”

  “Is that all! I thought you were in trouble!” Jenni laughs and sits on the steps, dragging me with her.

  She ends the laugh in a big sigh and turns to face me on the steps. “Well,” she says, “we knew this day was coming-“

  “We did?!” I explode. “Why didn’t somebody tell me this day was coming!”

  “Okay I knew this day was coming,” Jenni says. “And I have thought about it for you, even if you haven’t. First things first.” She stands and helps me up. “You need to decide what to wear.”

  “First things first I need to figure out what to say!” I correct her. “And how to say it!”

  “No no no.” Jenni says. “First things first, you decide what to wear. Talking is just talking. But clothes speak louder than words, and his first language is seeing. So we are getting you dressed.”

  I let her lead me back to my car, and we both get in, heading out to my house.

  Upon walking in the door, I realize that I should probably ask my parents about this. They let me use the car if I tell them where I’m going and who I’m hanging out with. It’s not a bad system, really, but I do actually have to tell them where I’m going and who I’m hanging out with. “Just a minute Jenni,” I say, and poke my head in my mom’s office. She’s sitting at her desk, unpacking her latest order and parceling it for customers. “Hey, Mom?” I say, standing in the doorway. “You know that boy I told you about? The one I took to the craft fair today?”

  “The deaf one?” she says.

  I gulp. You see, I’ve given my parents… less than full disclosure about Carter. This is what she knows about him: He’s about my age, deaf, from New York City, and living at Chautauqua for the summer. I hung out with him at the overlook and we’ve been texting a lot over the past couple days.

  “Yeah… ,” I say. “He invited to me to his house for dinner.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Well, I don’t see any problem with that.” This is what she doesn’t know about Carter: He is gorgeous. He has a ridiculously sexy motorcycle (which I’ve ridden.) He as good as told me he was interested in me today. “Just make sure your phone’s on and that there’s gas in the car,” she continues.

  “Okay,” I say, about to head for the stairs.

  “But you tell him that we’d like to meet him, too!” she calls after me. “Dinner at our house! Soon!”

  “Sure!” I say, glad that I’m not as transparent as Carter. “He’d love that!”

  I run upstairs to find Jenni rooting through my closet.

  “Go shower.” She waves me off with her free hand, her nose stuck among my clothes.

  I grab my robe off the back of the door and shower off all the craft fair grime. My memory wanders and I smile as I remember the pennywhistle and the little kids dancing and the man with the spoons… That. That is music. It brings people together. It breaks them down and connects their hearts. But seeing Carter’s face… I never thought music could be exclusive. I always thought it was for everyone. If only there was a way he could someday hear it. He doesn’t even know how empty his life is without it.

  I wring out my hair, towel off, and put on my robe. When I get back to my room, Jenni is rooting through my underwear drawer.

  “Excuse me!” I say.

  “You have nothing good in here!” she laments, holding up a pair of striped cotton undies.

  “I have no reason to have anything good in there!” I say, throwing my dirty clothes in the hamper. This will be my third time seeing this guy. There is no reason for him to see my underwear. Trent never did and we dated for years.

  “Just because he won’t be taking it off doesn’t mean he won’t see it!” Jenni says.

  “So I should tease him in front of his family with an oh-so-classy G-string sticking out from my jeans? That is exactly the message I’d like to give his family.” I throw boring underwear at Jenni and she stuffs it back in my drawer. “I want to date this guy, not torture him!”

  Jenni stops rooting through my drawer and looks up at me. “You want to date this guy?”

  I collapse onto my bed. “I don’t know… ,” I moan.

  “Well, thankfully, you don’t have to know that now!” she says brightly. “Let me ask an easier question: Do you want to make a good first impression?”

  “Yes!” I say, sitting up, leaving a wet-hair imprint on the bed.

  “Then we will get you ready to make a good first impression!”

  By the end o
f our fussing, I am dressed in jeans, flats, and a classy black tank top, so you can’t really tell if I’m dressed up or dressed down. My hair is down for the first time pretty much all summer. I’m wearing it long and parted on the side, the natural waves enhanced into curls with the help of a curling iron and a little mousse. I’m wearing black eyeliner and mascara. There is the slightest bit of rosy lipstick. Even I have to admit I look pretty good.

  And that’s good, because it’s about time to leave. Jenni and I pound down the stairs and I have a mini panic attack, turning to her. “I spent the whole afternoon getting ready and none learning ASL. None. At all. I still get confused around ‘P’ and ‘Q’ in the alphabet! I don’t even know how to say, ‘Nice to meet you!’”

  Jenni turns me back around and faces me toward the hall. “You’ll do fine,” she says. “I’m sure they’ve talked to hearing people before. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there are a lot of us.”

  I laugh weakly as we stop by my mom’s office.

  “Ooh! So pretty!” my mom says. She’s just finishing up her Mary Kay parcels.

  I do a turn for her and she applauds lightly. “All right,” she says. “Do you have your phone?”

  “Yep.”

  “Gas in the station wagon?”

  “Yes ma’am.

  “Then have fun! Be home by midnight!”

  “Will do! Love you!”

  “Bye, Mrs. Peters,” Jenni calls.

  “Bye, Jenni. Come over any time!” my mom calls after her.

  “Your mom is so nice,” Jenni says as we walk out the door.

  “Yeah… ,” I say.

  “I can’t believe she just let you go off to his house, never meeting him or his parents or anything. She’s usually really strict about stuff like that.”

  “Yeah… ,” I must sound guilty.

  Jenni stops. “She doesn’t know that this boy’s the sexiest thing under heaven, does she?”

  “No . . .”

  My guilt is replaced by laughter.

  We hop in the Subaru and I take her home on my way to Carter’s house. Once I get to Chautauqua Institution (the town’s full name), I know enough to pull into the parking lot instead of the gates—cars aren’t allowed on the grounds unless they’re dropping something off. I spot a row of covered motorcycles in a far corner. One of the covers says “Ducati” in yellow writing. I smile. Before getting out of the old Subaru, I pull the mirror down and fix split ends for far too long. I check my back pocket for my waitress pad and little pen, as though there will be no pen or paper in their entire house, and before I shut the car door, I grab my All-State select choir sweatshirt. It doesn’t really go with my outfit, but it can get chilly at night by the lake. Halfway across the parking lot, I feel like I should have brought something—some kind of gift for his mom or something. Isn’t that what rich people do? It’s too late now.