Robyn Carr - A Summer in Sonoma

“You’re a genius,” she said. “Where’d you get your brains? You get them from me? Nah, I’m just the auntie. Jeff, this is so cool.” She ruffled his dark hair, kissed his temple. “You have your bath?”

“Not till after them,” he said. “Look, I can make ‘em fly.” He maneuvered some keys, clicking away, and sure enough the small airships moved between tall buildings.

“Can I try that?” Cassie asked.

He showed her how and they entertained themselves for about twenty minutes before Julie reappeared. Now she was water splashed and even more wilted. Billy was at his second job. He was a paramedic for the fire department and, on off days, worked in a builder’s shop cutting wood for cabinets and everything from marble to granite for countertops. Firefighters worked twenty-four-hour shifts, during which they didn’t get much sleep. He’d get home at eight in the morning, grab a nap, go to the shop for a few hours, then go back to the fire department for another twenty-four the next morning. After three twenty-four-hour shifts in six days, Billy would get four days off in a row from F.D. and those were the best days—he only worked one job, at the shop. The best thing about his second job was he could make his own hours, as long as he got the work done. And he put in a lot of hours; money was real tight. Usually Julie would be coming to the end of her rope after days of managing on her own, as she clearly was at the moment.

Julie pulled the small computer out of Jeff’s hands. “Can you get your bath before you do any more virtual building or flying?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Can you pick up your dirty clothes and throw them in the hamper?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Then they disappeared, leaving Cassie alone.

When Cassie and Julie spotted each other the first day of seventh grade, it was an instant bond. Tall, thin, blond Julie and short, round, dark-haired Cassie—they were an odd-looking pair. A couple of years later Cassie’s stepdad was transferred from California to Des Moines and Cassie couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her friends, her school. Plus, Cassie’s mom had married Frank when Cassie was eight and they’d proceeded to have two babies and had a third on the way. Cassie couldn’t put it into words at the time, but she didn’t really feel like a part of their family. It had gone from Cassie and Francine alone to Frank and Francine and the kids, and Cassie as babysitter and guest.

Some begging and negotiating evolved into Cassie moving into Julie’s house, right into her crowded little bedroom, sharing a regular-size double bed. Their parents didn’t think it would last long; they assumed they’d start to fight like sisters or Cassie would miss her mom and the little half sibs too much and want to move back. Neither happened; Cassie and Julie were best friends and roommates all through high school.

Cassie got her first job at fifteen, paying her way so she wouldn’t have to rely on help from her mom and stepdad or put a strain on Julie’s folks when she needed essentials like underwear or school supplies. She supported herself but for room and board. At graduation Julie’s mom handed her a check; she’d saved every penny of support Cassie’s stepdad had sent, from the piddling fifty dollars to the rare two or three hundred. “If you decide to use this for college, you can stay here rent free as long as you’re in school. If you do something else with this, we’ll work out a reasonable rent for you.”

It was an unexpected opportunity for Cassie; her mom and stepdad didn’t have a cent to spare. Birthday and Christmas presents had always come in the form of plane tickets to visit the family. So she went to college, studied nursing and got her R.N. degree, working while she went to school to support herself.

Julie went to college, too, but didn’t make it through a whole year. She got pregnant, dropped out and married Billy, the love of her life. When Jules and Billy got their first little apartment, Cassie stayed on at Julie’s parents’ house, finished college and landed her first job in emergency room nursing.

And then Cassie’s mother died. That left Frank with three kids to support on his own. The plane tickets stopped coming; they were replaced with gift cards from Starbucks or Borders.

When Cassie was twenty-five, she managed to buy her little house, not coincidentally real close to Julie and Billy’s. And she got Steve, her Weimaraner.

She briefly considered going back to the house to pick up Steve and ask Jules if she could sleep on the couch tonight, but quickly decided she’d brave going home, after a glass of wine and a little decompression time. She’d never leave Steve alone all night—he was such a baby. Right now she wished she’d taught him to bark and snarl menacingly, just in case she ever needed him to be protective. But he was so sweet just the way he was.

It was a long time before Julie finished with the kids, getting everyone settled, though it was obvious she’d hurried through bedtime rituals. Instead of picking up the house, she passed Cassie and went immediately to the kitchen, pouring herself an apple juice in a wineglass. She brought the bottle of chardonnay to Cassie, offering to top off her glass. Then she plopped herself on the other end of the couch, with her legs tucked under her, facing Cassie.

“Tell me what happened,” Julie said. “You’re actually a little pale.”

“You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it. He attacked me—right in the car, right in the parking lot of the bar where I met him for our date.” Julie gasped and covered her open mouth with a hand. “It was bizarre. Otherworldly. It took me by such surprise, for a minute I couldn’t even move, couldn’t even push or yell.” She went through the details, right up to the breaking of the window and the cup of coffee with Walt, her friendly neighborhood thug.

“He climbed over the console?” Julie asked.

“Yeah. That threw me, but I realized later, there was an awful lot of room in that front seat. He had both bucket seats back as far as they’d go. And where he parked—real far away from most of the cars—he must have done that deliberately before we met for the evening.” She shook her head with a short, unamused laugh. “I remember thinking he was worried about dents and scratches. But no—he planned it. He was prepared to take matters into his own hands if I insisted on going to the concert.”

“God! You must have been terrified! How did that biker guy know you were in trouble?”

“He said he heard me, that the car was rocking. I was fighting so hard, it made the car wobble.” She showed Julie her knuckles. “I don’t know if I got this from banging on the window or punching him in the face.”

“Holy shit, Cassie. You think about calling the police?”

“I thought about it, yeah. Thing is, I’ve run rape kits on victims for detectives, and even when they’re banged up, torn apart and hysterical, the police can hardly make a case. What am I going to say? A guy I accepted a date with—who I let kiss me in the parking lot and again in the car—held me down while he kissed me? He never hit me, never got to my clothes, never unbuttoned his pants…The fact that we both knew what he was going to do will be completely irrelevant.”

“But you’ve got that guy—”

“Yeah, Walt. He called it assault. It was an assault, but it only got as far as an attempt.” She shrugged. “Although it still scared me half to death.”

They heard the sound of the garage door opening and Julie threw an unmistakable look of disgust over her shoulder toward the door. Billy came in, wearing his jeans and T-shirt covered with sawdust, putting his tool belt on the washer in the laundry room, which connected the garage to the kitchen. He looked pretty wiped.