Summer People, page 7
“Goddammit, Gary,” Mr. Ford said, then he moved quickly, his hands darting out and clutching Gary’s collar. He pulled Gary’s face close, through the open window. Though he remained completely calm, Mr. Ford revealed in that moment that he, too, could be scary; Christmas had never seen him like this before. “Chrissy Miller is a friend of mine, and if you ever even look at her again, you’ll be sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gary said, his wild eyes rolling.
Mr. Ford released Gary and he stumbled backward. “All right then,” Mr. Ford said. He put the car in drive again and they continued along the dusty road. “He’s mostly harmless,” Mr. Ford said after a moment. “But you should carry some bear spray with you if you’re gonna run out here all by yourself. We do have some unsavory characters in Sweet Lake.”
“I will,” Christmas said, grateful to Mr. Ford.
The next day, there was a small black cylinder of Mace waiting for her in the mailbox.
Christmas thought of that rescue again as she noted a guy cycling toward her from the opposite direction.
14
She didn’t recognize him, though that wasn’t so strange; she was on a road a bit farther from her house than usual. And it was late June. There would be lots of summer people around in the coming weeks, biking and walking and generally clogging up the area until Labor Day.
But not long after he passed her, he turned and cycled up behind her. When she nervously moved to the side, he pulled over and stopped. Christmas realized she hadn’t brought her Mace. She’d assiduously carried it since that day with Gary, but she’d left it behind that afternoon in her hurry to get out of the house.
The guy, who looked to be about her age, must have realized that he was scaring her, so he sort of waved a greeting, as though to indicate he was harmless. Christmas stopped a few yards away, uncertain. Panting, she waited with her hands on her hips, trying to look confident.
His curly black hair sprang out from underneath a blue bike helmet. He wore a faded Radiohead T-shirt, blue jeans, and Converse sneakers. The T-shirt alone would have recommended him, but he was also really cute. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. He wasn’t from school. Maybe he was from Quartz or Honeysuckle?
“Hey. Sorry,” the guy said. “I’m lost. I’m trying to get back to Sweet Lake, but I really have no idea if I’m going in the right direction, and I can’t get a signal on my phone.”
Christmas smiled. This was no Gary George situation. “You were going the right way before,” she said. “You want to go back down this road,” she walked a little closer so that she didn’t have to raise her voice and used her thumb to indicate behind her. “And up the hill and then take a right over by . . . you know where the old restaurant used to be?” Christmas realized that the usual landmarks wouldn’t help with this summer person. It was, in fact, a rather twisted path home. “Where exactly are you trying to get to?”
“I supposed it’s . . . the northern part maybe?”
“Whose house?”
“It’s ours . . . it’s a blue cottage. My mom is Naomi Gold.”
Christmas thought of Dr. Gold at the lake meeting, and she suddenly realized where she knew the guy from. He’d been there too. He’d seemed older, but maybe that was just because he looked so serious—and handsome—sitting there, listening to Naomi. “Sure, I know the house,” Christmas said. She pursed her lips, thinking for a minute. “You know what? I need to turn around and head back anyway. I lost track of time, and I ran farther than I meant to. If you don’t mind going slow, I’ll jog and you can ride next to me.”
“Really?” The guy smiled widely and slumped a little with relief. “That would be so nice. I could ride you on the handlebars if you want.”
“I’d rather run,” Christmas said, laughing a little bit. The guy remounted and pedaled up next to her as she began a slow trot.
“Let me know if I’m going too fast,” he said.
“I will,” Christmas said, speeding up to a pace that would allow him to pedal along beside her without losing his balance and falling over. “This good?”
“Great,” he said. “But I can’t believe you lost track of time running. I hate running so much, I’m totally aware of every second passing by. I’d much rather bike. I’m Rory, by the way.”
“Like on Gilmore Girls?”
“Well, it’s a boy’s name too,” Rory said, with a weariness that suggested he had heard this remark before. “And you’re Chrissy, right? I remember you from that lake meeting.”
“Christmas, actually,” Christmas said, cringing inwardly. Though there were several people in town who knew her by her nickname, she’d long ago abandoned it. “My name is Christmas.”
“That’s a pretty unusual name too.”
“It is,” Christmas agreed. Rory waited for her to continue. “I was born on December 25. My mom didn’t think she would ever have kids, and so then when I came along, she said I was the best Christmas present she ever got.” Christmas smiled, thinking of her mother telling the story. Her mother had also said that she felt about Christmas the person the way that other people felt about the holiday: that she was a cause for joy and celebration, and a bit magical. Christmas felt a twinge of sadness and regret. Her mother mostly drove her crazy, but she also missed her somehow, missed the way they used to be.
“That’s really nice,” Rory said. “So, do you live in Sweet Lake?”
“Yeah, we’re almost directly across the lake from you. Our house is white—or it was once. We have about two million bird houses in front?”
“Sure, I know that house,” Rory said. “Do you ever sell any?” He was referencing, she knew, the hand-painted sign her father had hung, advertising “Bird homes, condos, bungalows, and ranches—bat homes too!—$25 each!”
“That’s my dad. He sells a few each summer. But he makes at least twenty each year, so we have a surplus.” She laughed. “Have you guys been coming up a while now?”
“My parents bought the house four years ago, but I never wanted to come. I was pretty bratty about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I gave them a hard time. I wanted to be at home—we’re from Brooklyn—playing baseball and hanging out with my friends. So, whenever my folks would come up, I’d make a big fuss until they’d let me stay with friends for the weekend. And if they forced me to come up, well, I made them even more miserable. I’d stay indoors the whole time, looking at my phone.” Rory was silent for a moment. Then, he added, “I like it now though.”
Christmas smiled and cut a glance at Rory. She was surprised by how comfortable she was with him. Maybe it was the run that relaxed her, or that she could talk to him mostly without looking at him.
“What changed?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I’m starting to get it—the appeal of an ‘escape.’ I really, really needed to get out of Brooklyn this year.” They continued in a silence for a moment and then he added, “Maybe I’m just turning into a senior citizen. But I like waking up and hearing birds instead of car alarms. I enjoy the peace and quiet and all that stuff. Do you live here year-round?”
“Yeah,” Christmas answered. “We lived in Queens, but we moved up full time when I was ten.”
They’d encountered a long, steep incline and so they both fell silent, panting as they crested the hill.
When they reached the top and began the descent, Rory rode his bike in a zigzag behind Christmas, back and forth across the road as she dashed, allowing the downward slope to let her build momentum, almost as though she were flying. Near the bottom, he pulled up alongside her and they started to talk again.
“So, do you like living here?” Rory asked.
“I love it.”
“That must have been hard, though, when you moved,” Rory said. “Leaving your friends and all that.”
Christmas shrugged. She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t had that many close friends down in the city. Instead, she said, “It was definitely an adjustment. But I always felt more at home here, in our house at the lake. Plus, we moved for the school.”
“Are the schools up here good?”
“I don’t know if they’re objectively good, but the elementary school here was better than the school I was in downstate. Resources and support, that sort of thing. I have some learning disabilities and they weren’t really able to deal with them at my old school.”
“Oh, makes sense,” Rory said, nodding. Christmas couldn’t tell if it made him uncomfortable that she’d brought up her learning disabilities.
“I have dysgraphia,” she said. “Or some kind of written-expression disorder. The jury’s still out. It’s basically like I have dyslexia but with writing.” Christmas paused. Was this boring? She couldn’t tell. He seemed interested. She thought about her doctor downstate, who explained that her challenges were “idiosyncratic.” He had also floated the idea that Christmas might be on the spectrum, suggesting that some of her ADHD things overlapped with autism-things. She did not mention this to Rory, however, instead saying, “I also have ADHD. Sometimes that makes it hard for me to concentrate, but it also makes me extra motivated.” She saw Rory nodding in her peripheral vision. “It’s like I have a responsibility to do well. To prove that I’m smart or whatever.” She surprised herself; she hadn’t realized that she’d ever really felt that way until she’d said it out loud. “I was pretty far behind when we moved here,” she added. “But I just graduated with a 3.8 GPA.”
“That’s awesome,” Rory said. A moment later, he added, “A couple of people at my school had ADHD and they were at the top of our class too.”
Christmas looked at Rory and this time, he looked back. “ADHD can be good and bad, I think,” she said. “Like, I can get super focused. Which, again, can sometimes create problems if I’m too focused on the wrong thing. But if I have a problem to solve, I can be sort of like a pit bull about it. I can’t stop worrying about it until it’s resolved. And I’m never late. Again, I can be obsessive about it, but I also secretly believe it’s important to be on time for things and I judge people who aren’t.” She cut a wry glance at Rory.
“Mental note,” Rory said. “She doesn’t like lateness.”
Christmas laughed. Was he flirting with her? Yes. He was flirting with her.
“Am I pedaling too fast?” Rory asked.
“A little,” Christmas conceded, suddenly aware that she was breathing hard. Rory put on the brakes, coasting smoothly now, on a somewhat-level road. At a fork, Christmas gestured to the right and they continued along at an easier pace.
“You must run track,” Rory said.
Christmas shook her head. “No. I guess I should have. But I suppose I’m more of a lone wolf.”
“You woulda been a track star,” Rory said. “You still could? In college?”
“Maybe,” Christmas said. “Are you . . . What year are you in school?”
“I just graduated too,” Rory said. “I’m going to Cornell in the fall.”
“Wow,” Christmas said. “Cornell. You must be excited.”
Rory shrugged. “I’m working on getting excited. I’m mostly just nervous. My sister went there—she just graduated—and she really loved it. But what about you? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to CCC,” Christmas said, glad that the flush she had from running would hide whatever color was spreading across her face and neck, embarrassed to have proudly mentioned her GPA. “The community college. Just for the first two years. You know.”
“That’s cool,” Rory said, trying perhaps a bit too hard to sound upbeat.
“Yeah,” Christmas said. She hadn’t felt ambivalent about her plans before; not only were plenty of the kids from her graduating class going to community college (if they were going to college at all), but her parents were big proponents of public educations and “democracy’s colleges” and, since they were also basically not rich, had suggested the community college route was somehow more virtuous than her other options. But now it felt unimpressive, embarrassing, knowing that Rory was going to Cornell.
They passed town hall, which was set on a hill overlooking the lake. Christmas was happy to change the subject and, nodding ahead to where the lake was visible through some trees, asked, “Do you know where we are now?”
“Oh yeah, I see it,” Rory said. “But I never would have found my way back. I probably would’ve pedaled forever, an ancient mariner on a bicycle. You basically saved my life.”
Christmas smiled appreciatively, but his last remark reminded her of Lemy, and she also remembered, with a sudden sinking feeling, all the things she had been running to forget: Lemy in the lake, the weirdness with her parents, the fight with Lexi. She wished they weren’t back already; she wished she could keep running beside Rory so that she could stay with him in that place out of time, moving together. He was easy to talk to and she found herself wanting to tell him more: about Lemy, about Lexi.
“Do you really know which house is mine?” Rory asked.
“Sure,” Christmas answered. “I know the houses around the lake pretty well. Plus, at the Lake Association meeting, your mother said you had the place across from the church.”
“Good memory,” Rory said. “Weren’t you, like, elected to the board?”
“We technically never had the elections,” Christmas said, frowning.
“Yeah. That whole meeting was out of control,” Rory said, raising his eyebrows.
When Christmas didn’t comment, Rory continued. “What do you think is causing the algae?”
Christmas shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the cows. Maybe the auto shop. Maybe it’s global warming.”
“We humans are the worst. We treat the entire world like it’s one big toilet bowl.”
After a pause, Christmas agreed. “I guess we do.”
They were approaching another fork in the road: to the right was Christmas’s house, to the left, Rory’s. Christmas slowed and Rory did too, riding in a loop around her before coming to a stop and putting one foot on the ground. Christmas stood, panting a little, hands on her hips again. She glanced down and was startled to realize she was wearing a sweat-drenched bright orange Mets T-shirt, pink shorts, and teal sneakers. She inwardly cringed. She wanted to assure him that she did not normally dress like this. Instead, she muttered, “Um, I guess this is where we say goodbye.”
“Thanks so much for bringing me back,” Rory said. “That was super nice. And it was really cool talking to you.”
“Yeah,” Christmas agreed. She looked up and smiled, unable to stop thinking about how sweaty she was. It was so much easier when they had their eyes on the road ahead of them! But she liked looking at Rory, who really was amazingly cute: sharp-featured with high cheekbones and bright brown eyes, he was tall and thin, with ropy muscles.
“We should do it again sometime,” Rory said.
Christmas felt herself flushing and was then grateful for the fact that she was probably already pretty red in the face. “I run every day. But mostly in the morning. And besides, don’t I go too slow for you?”
Rory shrugged. “You ever bike?”
“I do, actually.”
“We could go for a bike ride sometime, if you want. You could show me, you know, some cool spots.” He seemed suddenly embarrassed. “Or whatever.”
“Yeah. That’d be fun,” Christmas said. She wanted to add, “My friend Lexi and I love to bike around.” She didn’t, of course, but the thought of Lexi provoked another thought: in a flash she saw herself, abandoned again, the next afternoon stretching out in front of her, alone without Lexi. She said, quickly, “How about tomorrow? I work until around three thirty. I can swing by your house after. Like, four thirty?”
“That’d be awesome,” Rory said. His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, track star.”
“Sounds good,” Christmas said. She stood awkwardly for another moment before giving what she felt was a super dorky little wave and taking off again, jogging away.
“I’ll be ready on time,” Rory called after her.
Christmas looked back and smiled to let him know she got the joke, before she started to sprint, and then to really run hard, propelled forward with a lightness, as though she were filled with bubbles lifting her a few inches above the road.
15
Christmas sat on the couch, scrolling on her phone. Her father watched the Mets game from his recliner while her mother snoozed in hers. Christmas texted Curly to ask about Lemy, but he didn’t respond. She stopped herself from texting Lexi. Thinking about Rory, reviewing the details of their conversation, gave her mind something else to settle on, but still, the thing with Lexi was always there, like a pot simmering on a back burner.
In her hand, the phone vibrated. It was Lexi.
sry about today, just tired. I think im coming down with something and gonna actually stay home from work tmw. dont worry, ill call and let Shelley know.
Christmas’s heart pounded in her chest. A part of her wanted to cling to the lie that Lexi really was coming down with something. But a larger part of her knew better—knew her friend better—and knew that even sick, Lexi was never mean or distant. She’d never pushed Christmas away before.
Christmas had no idea how to respond and was sitting, staring at the screen, trying to slow her breathing, when the doorbell rang.
Christmas looked up to see her parents, wide-eyed. They both stared back at Christmas expectantly. They weren’t used to unannounced visitors. Or announced ones either, really.
“Oh my god, you guys,” Christmas said, exasperated. She heaved herself off the couch. “Fine. I’ll get it.”
She padded down the hall and pulled open the front door. Ben Pappas, blond and baby-faced, stood beside another uniformed officer. Officer Schaefer was also youngish, but where Ben tended toward the cherubic, Officer Schaefer was thin-faced and severe-looking with a pointy chin and sharp nose.
They stepped awkwardly inside and explained they had a few more questions for Christmas.
