Сьюзен Виггс - Summer By The Sea

“No one can tell,” he said. “It can be controlled, and maybe it’ll improve when I get bigger and my lungs grow. What’s your name?”

“Rosina Angelica Capoletti, and everyone calls me Rosa. What’s yours?”

“Alexander Montgomery.”

“Does everyone call you Alex?”

He offered a mild, sweet smile. “No one calls me that.”

“Then I think I will.”

They verified that they were just a year apart in age, but in the same grade. Alex had started kindergarten a year late on account of having trouble with his asthma. He admitted that he disliked school, and she got the impression that he got bullied a lot. She declared that she, too, despised school.

“I know I have to go,” she lamented. “It’s the only way to get ahead.”

“Ahead of what?” he asked.

She laughed. “I don’t know. My brothers were in ROTC and joined the U.S. Navy for their education.”

“You go to college to get an education,” he said with a frown.

“If you go in the navy first, then the navy pays for it,” she explained patiently. “I thought everybody knew that.” She indicated the book that lay open across his lap. “What are you reading?”

He picked it up and showed her the spine. “Bulfinch’s Mythology. It’s a collection of Greek myths. This one is about Icarus. There’s a picture.”

Rosa sat beside him on the sofa and scooted over to see. Alex thoughtfully put half the book on her lap. “He’s flying,” she said.

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t look like he’s having much fun.”

“Well, he’s in pain.”

“Why would he fly if it hurts him?”

“Because he’s flying,” Alex said as if that explained everything.

Rosa stuck out her bare foot. The beestings formed red dots on her ankle and shin. “I tried flying, and trust me, it’s not worth the pain.”

“I saw you,” he said. “I was watching from the window.”

“I know. I saw you watching me.”

“I was going to come and help, but I didn’t know what to do.”

“That’s all right. Mrs. Carmichael came straightaway when she heard me yelling.”

He nodded gravely, studying her with such total absorption that she felt like the only person on the planet. “Do the beestings hurt?”

“Not anymore. Mrs. Carmichael put baking soda on them. She said I’m lucky I’m not allergic.”

“You are lucky,” he said with a funny, dreamy look on his face. “You get to be outside and do whatever you want.”

She thought about telling him just how unlucky she was. She was a girl without a mother. But she didn’t want to say anything. Not just yet. It might be too scary for him, this sick boy, to hear about a sick person who had died.

“You mean you’re not allowed outside?”

He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Not without supervision. I might have an asthma attack.”

“Going outside causes an attack?”

“Sometimes.”

She’d heard of a heart attack. An attack of nerves. But not an asthma attack. “What’s it feel like?”

“It’s like…drowning. But in air instead of water.”

Rosa had some knowledge of the sensation. More than once, while swimming, she’d gone out too far and under too deep, and she’d experienced the momentary panic of needing air. The feeling was horrifying. “Then you’d better not go outside.”

He stared down at Icarus, whose mouth was twisted in agony as he flew too close to the sun. Then he looked up at Rosa, and there was a new light in his blue eyes. “Let’s go anyway.”

“Really?”

“My lungs were twitchy this morning, but I’m better now. I’ll be okay.”

She looked at him very closely. There were no lies in that face of his. She could just tell. “I have to get my clothes. Mrs. Carmichael put them in the dryer.”

“I think that might be in the utility room.”

As she followed him through the house, she marveled that he didn’t know for sure where the dryer was. At her house, everyone knew, because laundry was everyone’s business. He opened a painted door in the kitchen to reveal a dim, cavernous room dusty with dryer lint. “It’s in there.”

“You wait here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have to change. I sure don’t need any help doing that.” The room smelled of must and dryer lint, and a hissing sound came from the water heater. Her clothes were still damp, but she put them on anyway—undies, cutoffs and a T-shirt from Mario’s Flying Pizza. The sun would finish the job of drying them. She left the bathrobe on top of the dryer and hurried back to the kitchen.

There, she found Alex and Mrs. Carmichael locked in a staredown. “I’m going,” he said to the housekeeper.

She sniffed. “You’re not to leave the house.”

“That was this morning. I’m better now. I have my inhaler and my epi-pin, see?” He took a plastic thing in a yellow tube from the pocket of his shorts.

“I’ll watch him,” Rosa blurted out. “I will, Mrs. Carmichael. If he starts looking sick, I’ll make him come right back inside.”

The housekeeper kept her hands planted on her hips, though her eyes softened and there was a barely perceptible easing of her shoulders. Mothers were like that. They gave in with their eyes and their posture before saying okay out loud. “You will, will you?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I got my things from the dryer. Thank you, Mrs. Carmichael.”

“You’re very welcome.” She looked from Alex to Rosa. “Try to keep your noses clean, all right?”

“Yes, Mrs. Carmichael,” they said together, trying not to look too gleeful.

Out in the sunlight, Rosa noticed that Alex’s eyes were ocean-blue, and they crinkled when he grinned at her. She vowed to be on her best behavior, just like Mrs. C had admonished them. If she got in trouble, Pop wouldn’t let her come to work with him anymore. He’d make her stay with that dreadful Mrs. Schmidt, the widow with the mustache, whom Rosa likened to a circling buzzard. Even before Mamma died, Mrs. Schmidt had started coming around the house, bringing covered dishes and making eyes at Pop, which of course he never even noticed.

“Here. Have a cookie.” As they headed for the door, Mrs. Carmichael held out a white jar in the shape of a sandcastle.

“Thank you.” They each took one and stepped out into the sunshine. Rosa nibbled on the cookie as she grinned at Alex.

It was a store-bought sugar cookie. Not as good as Mamma’s, of course. Mamma made hers with a secret ingredient—ricotta cheese—and thick, sweet icing. Now that was a cookie.

Ricotta Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 cup softened butter

2 cups sugar

1 carton full-fat ricotta cheese

2 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla (the kind from Mexico is best)

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

4 cups flour

For the glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2-4 Tablespoons milk

2 drops almond extract (optional)

sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350° F. Mix cookie ingredients to form a sticky dough. Drop by teaspoonfuls on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until the bottoms turn golden brown (the tops will stay white). Transfer to wire racks to cool. To make the glaze, stir milk a few drops at a time, along with the almond extract if desired, into the powdered sugar in a saucepan. Stir over low heat to create a glaze. Drizzle over cooled cookies and top with colored sprinkles. Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.

“Too bad about the rope swing,” Alex said, eyeing the rope that still hung from the tree branch.

“I took it from that shed behind the—what is that building, anyway? It’s too big to be a garage,” Rosa said, stopping to put on her flip-flops. The tall building was painted and trimmed to match the house. It had old-fashioned sliding wooden doors like a barn, an upper story at one end with a row of dormer windows facing the sea and a cupola with a wind vane on top.