Summer in Colby

Chapter 3

‘So Chen survived the childbirth, I assume?’ she asked, taking a sip off her coffee.

‘She had to have a caesarean.’

‘She’s lucky,’ my mom said. ‘Hollis was eleven pounds, and the epidural didn’t take. He almost killed me.’

I flipped through another couple of cards, waiting for one of the stories that inevitably followed this one. There was how Hollis was a ravenous child, sucking my mother’s milk supply dry. The craziness that was his colic, how he had to be walked constantly and, even then, screamed for hours on end. Or there was the one about my dad, and how he…

‘I just hope she’s not expecting your father to be of much help,’ she said, reaching over for a couple of my cards and scanning them, her eyes narrowed. ‘I was lucky if he changed a diaper every once in a while. And forget about him getting up for night feedings. He claimed that he had sleep issues and had to get his nine hours in order to teach. Awfully convenient, that.’

She was still reading my cards as she said this, and I felt the familiar twinge I always experienced whenever anything I did was suddenly under her scrutiny. A moment later, though, she put them aside without comment.

‘Well,’ I said as she took another sip of coffee, ‘that was a long time ago. Maybe he’s changed.’

‘People don’t change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less.’ She shook her head. ‘I remember I used to sit in our bedroom, with Hollis screaming, and just wish that once the door would open, and your father would come in and say, “Here, give him to me. You go rest.” Eventually, it wasn’t even your dad I wanted, just anybody. Anybody at all.’

She was looking out the window as she said this, her fingers wrapped around her mug, which was not on the table or at her lips but instead hovering just between. I picked up my cards, carefully arranging them back in order. ‘I should go get ready,’ I said, pushing my chair back.

My mother didn’t move as I got up and walked behind her. It was like she was frozen, still back in that old bedroom, still waiting, at least until I got down the hallway. Then, suddenly, she spoke.

‘You should rethink that Faulkner quote,’ she said. ‘It’s too much for an opening. You’ll sound pretentious.’

I looked down at my top card, where the words ‘The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past’ were written in my neat block print. ‘Okay,’ I said. She was right, of course. She always was. ‘Thanks.’

I’d been so focused on my last year of high school and beginning college that I hadn’t really thought about the time in between. Suddenly, though, it was summer, and there was nothing to do but wait for my real life to begin again.

I spent a couple of weeks getting all the stuff I needed for Defriese, and tried to pick up a few shifts at my tutoring job at Huntsinger Test Prep, although it was pretty slow. I seemed to be the only one thinking about school, a fact made more obvious by the various invitations I received from my old friends at Perkins to dinners or trips to the lake. I wanted to see everyone, but whenever we did get together, I felt like the odd person out. I’d only been at Kiffney-Brown for two years, but it was so different, so entirely academic, that I found I couldn’t really relate to their talk about summer jobs and boyfriends. After a few awkward outings, I began to beg off, saying I was busy, and after a while, they got the message.

Home was kind of weird as well, as my mom had gotten some research grant and was working all the time, and when she wasn’t, her graduate assistants were always showing up for impromptu dinners and cocktail hours. When they got too noisy and the house too crowded, I’d head out to the front porch with a book and read until it was dark enough to go to Ray’s.

One night, I was deeply into a book about Buddhism when I saw a green Mercedes coming down our street. It slowed as it neared our mailbox, then slid to a stop by the curb. After a moment, a very pretty blonde girl wearing low-slung jeans, a red tank top, and wedge sandals got out, a package in one hand. She peered at the house, then down at the package, then back at the house again before starting up the driveway. She was almost to the front steps when she saw me.

‘Hi!’ she called out, entirely friendly, which was sort of alarming. I barely had time to respond before she was heading right to me, a big smile on her face. ‘You must be Maya.’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly.

‘I’m Tara!’ Clearly, this name was supposed to be familiar to me. When it became obvious it wasn’t, she added, ‘Hollis’s girlfriend?’

Oh, dear, I thought. Out loud I said, ‘Oh, right. Of course.’

‘It’s so nice to meet you!’ she said, moving closer and putting her arms around me. She smelled like gardenias and dryer sheets. ‘Hollis knew I’d be passing through on my way home, and he asked me to bring you this. Straight from Greece!’

She handed over the package, which was in a plain brown wrapper, my name and address written across the front in my brother’s slanted, sloppy hand. There was an awkward moment, during which I realized she was waiting for me to open the package, so I did. It was a small glass picture frame, dotted with colorful stones: along the bottom were etched the words THE BEST OF TIMES. Inside was a picture of Hollis standing in front of the Taj Mahal. He was smiling one of his lazy smiles, in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, a backpack over one shoulder.

‘It’s great, right?’ Tara said. ‘We got it at a flea market in Athens.’

Since I couldn’t say what I really felt, which was that you had to be a pretty serious narcissist to give a picture of yourself as a gift, I told her, ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I knew you’d like it!’ She clapped her hands. ‘I told him, everyone needs picture frames. They make a memory even more special, you know?’

I looked down at the frame again, the pretty stones, my brother’s easy expression. THE BEST OF TIMES, indeed. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Absolutely.’

Tara shot me another million-watt smile, then peered through the window behind me. ‘So is your mom around? I would love to meet her. Hollis adores her, talks about her all the time.’

‘It’s mutual,’ I said. She glanced at me, and I smiled. ‘She’s in the kitchen. Long black hair, in the green dress. You can’t miss her.’

‘Great!’ Too quick to prevent, she was hugging me again. ‘Thanks so much.’

I nodded. This confidence was a hallmark of all my brother’s girlfriends, at least while they still considered themselves as such. It was only later, when the e-mails and calls stopped, when he seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, that we saw the other side: the red eyes, the weepy messages on our answering machine, the occasional angry peel-out on the road outside our house. Tara didn’t seem like the angry drive-by type. But you never knew.

By eleven, my mother’s admirers were still hanging around, their voices loud as always. I sat in my room, idly checking my Ume.com page (no messages, not that I’d expected any) and e-mail (just one from my dad, asking how everything was going). I thought about calling one of my friends to see if anything was going on, but after remembering the awkwardness of my last few social outings, I sat down on my bed instead. Hollis’s picture frame was on the bedside table, and I picked it up, looking over the tacky blue stones. THE BEST OF TIMES. Something in these words, and his easy, smiling face, reminded me of the chatter of my old friends as they traded stories from the school year. Not about classes, or GPAs, but other stuff, things that were as foreign to me as the Taj Mahal itself, gossip and boys and getting your heart broken. They probably had a million pictures that belonged in this frame, but I didn’t have a single one.

I looked at my brother again, backpack over his shoulder. Travel certainly did provide some kind of opportunity, as well as a change of scenery. Maybe I couldn’t take off to Greece or India. But I could still go somewhere.

I went over to my laptop, opening my e-mail account, then scrolled down to my dad’s message. Without letting myself think too much, I typed a quick reply, as well as a question. Within a half hour, he had written me back.

Absolutely you should come! Stay as long as you like. We’d love the company!

And just like that, my summer changed.

The next morning, I packed my car with a small duffel bag of clothes, my laptop, and a big suitcase of books. Earlier in the summer, I’d found the syllabi to a couple of the courses I was taking at Defriese in the fall, and I’d hunted down a few of the texts at the U bookstore, figuring it couldn’t hurt to acquaint myself with the material. Not exactly how Hollis would pack, but it wasn’t like there’d be much else to do there anyway, other than go to the beach and hang out with Chen, neither of which was very appealing.

I’d said good-bye to my mom the night before, figuring she’d be asleep when I left. But as I came into the kitchen, I found her clearing the table of a bevy of wineglasses and crumpled napkins, a tired look on her face.

‘Late night?’ I asked, although I knew from my own nocturnal habits that it had been. The last car had pulled out of the driveway around one thirty.

‘Not really,’ she said, running some water into the sink. She looked over her shoulder at my bags, piled by the garage door. ‘You’re getting an early start. Are you that eager to get away from me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Just want to beat traffic.’

In truth, I hadn’t expected my mom to care whether I was around for the summer or not. And maybe she wouldn’t have, if I’d been going anywhere else. Factor my dad into the equation, though, and things changed. They always did.

‘I can only imagine what kind of situation you’re about to walk into,’ she said, smiling. ‘Your father with a newborn! At his age! It’s comic.’

‘I’ll let you know,’ I told her.

‘Oh, you must. I will require regular updates.’

I watched as she stuck her hands into the water, soaping up a glass. ‘So,’ I said, ‘what did you think of Hollis’s girlfriend?’

My mother sighed wearily. ‘What was she doing here, again?’

‘Hollis sent her back with a gift for me.’

‘Really,’ she said, depositing a couple of glasses into the dish rack. ‘What was it?’

‘A picture frame. From Greece. With a picture of Hollis in it.’

‘Ah.’ She turned off the water, using the back of her wrist to brush her hair from her face. ‘Did you tell her she should have kept it for herself, since it’s probably the only way she’ll ever see him again?’

Even though I’d had this exact same thought, after hearing my mom say it aloud I felt sorry for Tara, with her open, friendly face, the confident way she’d headed into the house, so secure in her standing as Hollis’s one and only. ‘You never know,’ I said. ‘Maybe Hollis has changed, and they’ll get engaged.’

My mom turned around and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Now, Maya,’ she said. ‘What have I told you about people changing?’

‘That they don’t?’

‘Exactly.’

She directed her attention back to the sink, dunking a plate, and as she did I caught sight of the pair of black, hipnerdy eyeglasses sitting on the counter by the door. Suddenly, it all made sense: the voices I’d heard so late, her being up early, uncharacteristically eager to clean out everything from the night before. I considered picking the glasses up, making sure she saw me, just to make a point of my own. But instead, I ignored them as we said our goodbyes, her pulling me in for a tight hug – she always held you close, like she’d never let you go – before doing just that and sending me on my way.