Ann Patchett - Commonwealth

The mesmerizing item was the gin. The parents might enjoy a drink every now and then but it wasn’t like they had to take it with them. They had never seen gin in the car before. That was something special.

“You know you can’t take it,” Holly said, looking back to the door of the parents’ room. She was talking about both the gun and the gin.

“Just in case something happens,” Cal said. He put the gun in the brown paper sack along with the candy bars and Cokes. Jeanette had taken her Coke and two candy bars out of the bag already and put them in her purse. She took the bottle from her brother and started working on the seal, teasing it loose so gently that it finally gave itself up to her little fingernails in a single, replaceable piece. She put the seal in her coin purse and gave the bottle back to her brother. Then they set out for the lake, Caroline carrying the map.

It was hotter than they expected it to be, though no hotter than it had been the day before or the day before that. The sky was already turning white, clamping a pervasive dullness onto the landscape. Holly scratched at her arms and complained about the mosquitoes. Like her stepmother, she was particularly sensitive to mosquitoes. The grass in the field across from the motel, the field that the waitress had told them to cut through, came up to their waists and was as high as Albie’s chest, but being right up in it they could see the tiny flecks of yellow flowers blooming on the stalks. “Can you see the lake?” Albie asked. He had ketchup smeared across the blue-and-yellow-striped shirt that Beverly had bought for him. His hands were sticky.

“Stop,” Cal said, and put up his hand flat to the sky. They stopped like soldiers, all at once. “Turn around,” he said, and they turned around.

“What’s that building right there?” Cal was talking to his brother, pointing just across the street.

“The Pinecone,” Albie said.

“How far did she say it was from the Pinecone to the lake?”

In the quiet they could hear the cars whizzing past. Deep in the grass the crickets rubbed their wings together, the birds called out overhead. “Two miles, maybe a little less,” Franny said. She knew it wasn’t her question to answer but she couldn’t stop herself. There was something about standing there that was making her uneasy, the dry weeds pricking at her shins. There was no path through the field.

Cal pointed at his brother. It was funny the way he could be so much like his father while being nothing like him at all. “Albie?”

“Two miles,” Albie said. He started chopping at the grass with his open hand, and then began swinging his arm back and forth like a scythe.

“So now you know we’re not there and you know I can’t see the lake.” Cal started walking again and the rest of them pushed ahead. The field was bigger than it had looked from a distance, and after a while they couldn’t see the Pinecone anymore and they couldn’t see anything else either, just the grass and the washed-out sky. Several members of the party wondered if they were still going in the right direction.

“Are we there now?” Albie said.

“Shut up,” Holly said. A grasshopper the size of a baby’s fist jumped up from the dry grass and attached itself to her shirt and she screamed. Franny and Jeanette moved to the left of the pack, and when they ducked down they were pretty sure no one could see them. They were very close, almost nose to nose, and Jeanette smiled at her before they popped back up again.

“ Now are we there?” Albie hopped forward, both feet together, but his progress was thwarted by the density of the grass. He looked back at his brother. “ Now are we there?”

Cal stopped again. “I can send you back.” He looked behind them. There was still the beaten-down vestige of the trail they had made in the grass.

“Where are we?” Albie asked.

“Virginia,” Cal said, his voice as tired as an adult’s. “Shut up.”

“I want to carry the gun,” Albie said.

“People in hell want ice water,” Caroline said. It was an expression of her father’s.

“Cal’s got a gun,” Albie sang, his voice surprisingly loud in the open landscape. “Cal’s got a gun!”

They stopped again. Cal moved the brown bag higher up under his arm. Two swallows came from nowhere and shot past them. Albie wouldn’t stop singing. Jeanette pulled the can of Coke out of her purse.

“It’s too early to drink it,” Holly said. She was in her first year of Girl Scouts and she had read the chapter about survival tactics in the handbook. “You have to make it last.”

Jeanette cracked the can open anyway. Watching her drink, they all decided they were thirsty. There would be more Cokes once they got to the lake.

“Cal’s got a gun,” Albie called, though with less interest.

Holly looked up at the sky. It was a complete blank. There wasn’t a single cloud to offer them protection. “I wish I had a Tic Tac,” she said.

Cal thought for a minute and then nodded his head. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic bag about the size of three postage stamps where he kept the Benadryl tablets his mother made him carry for his allergy. They all sat down, pushing back the grass, and Caroline opened up the brown bag. She was very formal about the way she picked up the gun and set it beside her, and then she handed out the Cokes. Cal came behind her and gave everyone two garish pink pills. “I shouldn’t give you any,” he said to Albie. “You’re annoying the hell out of me today.”

But Albie kept his palm up in silent demand until finally Cal sighed and gave him his two.

“This is what I needed,” Holly said, having brought the pills up to her mouth and then brought them down again, pressed beneath her thumb. She took the bottle of gin out of the bag and swigged it like Coke, but it surprised her. For a second she almost spit it out but she managed to keep her lips pressed together. She handed the bottle to her sister and then stretched out on her back. “Now I won’t mind walking to the lake,” Holly said.

Jeanette took a hit of the gin and coughed, then she leaned over and gave her pills to Albie. “You can have mine.”

He looked at the two extra pills in his palm. Now he had four. They were so pink in the bright light, in a background of so much colorless grass. “Why?” he said, maybe suspicious and maybe not.

Jeanette shrugged. “Tic Tacs give me a stomachache.” This was possible. Everything gave Jeanette a stomachache. That’s why she was so thin.

Franny watched Caroline, how she pushed the pills into her palm with her thumb and threw back her head as if to swallow them with a big slug of Coke. Caroline was always convincing. Franny could see she didn’t really drink the gin either. Her mouth wasn’t open when she tilted the bottle back. But when the bottle came to her, Franny decided she would compromise — swallow the gin and palm the pills. The gin could not have surprised her more. She followed the burning sensation as it went down her throat and through her chest and stomach. It was as hot and bright as the sun, settling between her legs — a beautiful sensation, as if the burning had brought about a sort of physical clarity. She took a second mouthful before handing the bottle to Albie. Albie drank the most of all.

The children didn’t mind waiting. Waiting was all part of it. It was hot outside and the Coke was still cold. It was nice just to lie there for a while and stare up into the emptiness of the sky, to not have to listen to Albie go on and on about nothing. When they finally got up Cal put his empty Coke can next to Albie’s leg.

“That’s littering,” Franny said.

“We’ll pick them up later,” he said. “We’ll have to come back for him.”