Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

With a wide, circling motion of her arm, Winnie scattered him, set him free, let him go.

J ust like that, Marcus’s summer was falling apart. He wished he’d never heard the secret news about Beth and David-it was family business and he’d been dragged in, first by Beth, then by Winnie. Marcus had promised Beth he would support Winnie, but her reaction to the news was so overblown, so immature, that Marcus could feel nothing but disappointment in her. Their relationship, whatever it was-boyfriend/girlfriend or just friends-was turning to rags faster than Winnie’s sweatshirt.

Marcus couldn’t figure out what the twins’ so-called revenge was, but there was a definite change in their behavior. They spoke very little to Beth, and when they did speak, it was in a cool, formal tone, the way you would talk to a stranger at a bus stop. One-word sentences, short, tired phrases, crisp and distant. Beth tolerated it for about a day and a half, then she confronted them at dinner. “All right, kids. What’s going on?” Garrett and Winnie didn’t blink, didn’t crack a smile; they simply looked at each other meaningfully and retreated into themselves, like a set of twins Marcus read about once in a magazine article who had their own spooky form of communication.

Winnie had also stopped talking to Marcus. When they occupied the same space-the kitchen, for example, while making breakfast or lunch-Winnie smiled at him benignly, like Marcus was someone she’d met once before but whose name she couldn’t recall. He wanted to shake her- this is not how you treat people when you’re angry! But Marcus didn’t want to give Winnie the satisfaction of knowing how much her behavior bugged him. After all, he had his own life. He had, he reminded himself with increasing guilt each day, a book to write.

He couldn’t stop himself from thinking of her, though, from listening to every word that came out of her mouth (mostly words directed to Garrett, or to Piper, if she was around). He couldn’t help himself from listening for her in the middle of the night; he knew her footsteps, and when they were in the house together, he kept track of her. One afternoon, as he hung out in his room, he heard her march up the stairs and stop just outside his door. He tried to steady his breathing as he waited for her to knock. Marcus was ready to forgive her-even to apologize.

Strangely, no knock came. Instead, there was a whooshing sound as an envelope skated across the wood floor. Marcus shook his head. It was just like a woman to write a note.

When he bent over to retrieve the envelope, however, he saw that it wasn’t a note and it wasn’t from Winnie. It was a Western Union telegram and that, he realized with a surge of fear, meant only one thing: Zachary Celtic. Zachary had bugged Marcus for a phone number, a fax number, an e-mail address-he wanted a way to contact Marcus to check on the progress of the book.

When Marcus reported that there was no computer at the house where he was staying, no fax machine, not even a phone,-That’s right , Marcus had said, I guess these people I’m staying with are old-fashioned or something -Zachary Celtic had grudgingly written down the address, saying he would send telegrams.

So here was a telegram, delivered by a person so angry with him that she couldn’t even knock on the door and hand it to him. Marcus slit the envelope with his pinky nail.

21 July

Dear Marcus,

How is the book coming along? No pressure, man, just checking in. September will be here before you know it! Call if you need guidance-that’s what editors are for! (And to rip the shit out of your first three drafts, of course-only kidding, man!)

Best regards,

Z

Marcus winced. Zachary Celtic wasn’t used to writing to black people if he thought the only name they related to was “man.”

The telegram reignited the panic that lay in the bottom of his stomach like cold kindling. With trembling hands, Marcus took the legal pad from his bureau drawer. My mother is a murderer . Even that was more than Marcus wanted to say. He tossed the legal pad onto his bed and opened the louvered folding door of his closet. His beautiful white shirt was the only thing hanging. Marcus’s black leather duffel lay across the closet floor, as hideous as a body bag. The only thing that made Marcus feel worse than the duffel was the pair of dock shoes, the left shoe stuffed with Constance’s unread letters. Those three things-the shirt, the duffel, and the shoes-were physical proof of the five hundred dollars he would never be able to pay back and thirty thousand dollars he would never see unless he could figure out how he wanted to tell his story.

Marcus lay back on his white bed. The dead bodies in your own apartment… your mother, pretty woman, too, strapped to the gurney, facing the long needle… the blood-splattered sheet… You get to tell the story in your own words, kid. I’ll bet that’s something you’ve been itching to do… Your mother as, like, an educated woman, a teacher and everything, and one day she just… snaps.

Yes, Marcus thought, she just snapped.

He didn’t know why his mother had killed Angela and Candy; he didn’t have an explanation and it wasn’t fair-to his readers or to his mother-to make one up.

Winnie and Marcus didn’t sit together at the beach anymore. Instead, Winnie sat on the deck with Garrett and sometimes Piper, and Marcus went to the beach alone. He swam the butterfly, some of his strongest swimming, because he knew Winnie was watching. He thought about how he could have won first place in every meet last season. He’d held himself back on purpose. Now that took skill, because nobody suspected he was throwing his races. Or maybe his coach did suspect and decided to keep quiet because he didn’t want Marcus to win. He didn’t want to face the headlines any more than Marcus did. MURDERER’S SON WINS ALL-QUEENS INVITATIONAL.

Marcus grew lonely, especially in the hours after dinner when he and Winnie normally played games. Now he stayed in his room, listening to his portable CD player, reading about spies, thinking about his mother.

For the first time all summer, he missed TV. And with utter dismay, Marcus realized that he wouldn’t be able to write a word while he was so agitated about Winnie.

He considered going home. It was nearly the end of July; he’d had six good weeks. The atmosphere in his white room wasn’t conducive to writing, that was a big problem, so the best thing was to get home-away from so much whiteness. Away from the Newtons.

He called home on a Tuesday night, enjoying the unconcealed intrigue on Winnie’s face when he stood up from the dinner table and announced that he was riding one of the mountain bikes into town. She didn’t say anything, but her eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch, belying her thoughts: What is he doing in town at night? It was likely she also had questions about the telegram-Marcus had checked the envelope and was relieved to discover there was no return address to give him away. Let her wonder. Let her wonder, too, when he disappeared for good.

It cost two dollars and fifty cents in quarters to get a line to Queens on the pay phone, and at first the answering machine picked up. Marcus listened for a few seconds to his father’s melancholy intonation, “We’re not in at the moment, please-”

Then, the voice was cut off, replaced by the breathless alto of Marcus’s sister, LaTisha. “Yeah? What?”

“Or ‘hello,’ ” Marcus said, thinking despite himself that even if the Newtons had a phone they would never answer by saying “Yeah? What?” “You could say hello.”