My Magic Summer

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I got the job at Blockbuster. Surprisingly easy. I guess knowing a guy on the inside helped, even though I didn’t think Scott immediately took to me or was so indebted to his little brother that he would do anything. Perhaps they needed the extra hands.

Uncle Willard was proud of me and wanted to order a pizza to celebrate, but I felt weird about that, being that I owed this job to Billy and Little Caesar’s didn’t deliver. Still, a happy occasion, and I was eager to get to work.

Which wasn’t hard. Stocking the tapes, vacuuming that confetti carpet, even working the cash register wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be. Math had never been my strong suit, but this wasn’t a trig test. They make it as easy as possible because they want the whole thing to run fast and smooth, for the sake of the customer. Easiest thing in the world. Nothing to it.

I got to talk to Scott a lot, who warmed up to me, perhaps out of necessity more than anything else. When you’re spending all day with a guy you gotta be friendly, if simply to stave off boredom. Naturally, we discussed movies. He considered himself a big Charles Bronson fan. The bloodier, the better.

“The first one’s all right,” he told me on my fourth day on the job. “But it doesn’t really pick up until part three. No limits. Shoot ‘em all and let God sort them out.”

“Sounds pretty wicked.”

“Yeah, you should definitely check it out.”

“I’ll make a mental note”

“Shut up. Shut up,” he snapped when something caught his eye out the window. Then he stopped himself and turned to me. “Sorry. But, uh, ‘customers.’”

The discretion and ceremony puzzled me until I saw exactly who these customers were.

The woman looked to be maybe in her late thirties, like my uncle, with brown hair and a warm smile. She wore several wooden bracelets and a neat earring with a peacock dangling from one ear. She carried herself in a casual, friendly way, more like a sister than mother.

Something in me immediately knew the young beauty to be Laura Beckham. She who beckoned to Billy, and clearly had the attention of his brother and mine as well. Her hair gleamed as yellow as the sun that must have kissed every square inch of her smooth warm skin, reminding me of California. I had never been out there, but seeing her walk through that door, I imagined a bright and calm beach, like The Endless Summer poster that hung in my uncle’s garage.

She turned to the older woman. “I’m gonna see if they have Sleepless in Seattle.” Her voice sounded casual, like everything about her demeanor.

“Sure.” The woman patted her on the back. “I’m gonna get my Tom Cruise fix!”

They parted ways and the new girl walked right past the counter and me without a glance.

I sighed.

“That’s Laura Beckham,” Scott whispered loudly to me.

“Yeah.”

“And her aunt Ash.”

“Okay.”

He nodded repeatedly and chewed his upper lip as if he had nothing further to add.

I glanced at the return box. “Hey Scott, I’m gonna go put these back on the shelf.”

He grinned. “Yeah, you are.”

Totally transparent, I turned from him. I took my time, going from aisle to aisle, stocking Beetlejuice and Lawrence of Arabia and looking for a peek of Laura. But trying to do it without being too obvious or, you know, a creep.

As it turned out, she found me.

“Are you new here?”

I turned.

Laura leaned against a popcorn display stand.

I stood straight, hoping I looked handsome. My blue vest looked sharp, at any rate. “Yeah. Yes,” I said, grateful I didn’t have to make up an excuse to talk to her. The fact that we were engaging in conversation (sort of) gave me a boost of confidence. “My name’s Connor.”

“I can see.” She reached forward and tapped my plastic name tag. The forwardness of her motion, the proximity of her body to mine, and the unspoken and immediate familiarity of a poke was quite exhilarating. I could hardly contain a smile.

“It says Connor, sure. That’s Connor Whelan.” I didn’t know why I felt compelled to say my last name, but I wanted to keep it going. “I’m here for the summer.”

“I’m Laura Beckham.” She reached out her hand and gave me a firm, warm grip. “I’m a lifer.” She said that with such resignation I felt practically obligated to defend this town.

“Still Bayou’s a pretty cool place.”

“If you like standing still.” She rolled her eyes.

I could hardly defend her home based on my vacation experiences, so I tried to be helpful. “Uh, is there anything I can help you with?”

“Whoa.” She acted offended, which horrified me. “I’m trying to be polite, dude.”

“No, no.” I pointed to my tag. “I didn’t mean ‘why are you talking to me’ or, uh.”

She smiled, and I realized it was a goof, though not a good one.

It was hard to recover. “Let me know if you need help finding anything. I work here,” I finished lamely.

“You don’t say.”

I rubbed the back of my neck self-consciously. “Well, yeah.”

“I’m messing with you.” She tapped my arm with her copy of Sleepless in Seattle.

“Okay.”

I was saved from that awkwardness (but a welcome awkwardness, you know?) by her aunt, who came around the corner holding Far and Away.

“Laura, we’re going.”

Smiling, Laura turned to her. “I’m ready.”

I stepped into action. “I’ll check you out.”

We walked toward the counter together, like a small parade.

“Aunt Ash,” Laura introduced, “this is Connor…Wheeler?”

“Whelan.” I raised my hand and waved weakly across Laura.

Aunt Ash stopped. She looked at me curiously. “Whelan? Are you any relation to Willard?”

“Well, I have an uncle named Willard Whelan. I’m staying with him.” I could have just said he was my uncle, but I didn’t want to assume we were talking about the same Willard. But then again, how many could there be around here?

“Oh, that’s funny. He did the wiring for the bar. And he comes in all the time.”

“Aunt Ash is a bartender at The Blue Bonnet,” Laura explained, putting the tapes on the counter. Scott didn’t interject.

“Small world,” I concluded.

“Small town,” Laura said, unimpressed.

“Well, you’ll have to tell him I said hi,” Aunt Ash said with a coy smile before turning to Scott. “How much will that be?”

When they left, Scott watched Laura walk out without an ounce of subtlety. I felt annoyed at his piggishness but also ashamed because I shared it, and what could I say?

“Yeah, good ole Laura Beckham,” he muttered and turned away from her diminishing figure at last. “I’d like me some of that.”

I nodded faintly. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.

“Too bad she’s with that butthead Wayne Duggins.”

“Oh yeah?” I had heard the same from Billy, and it stirred my curiosity.

“He thinks because he’s got a pick-up truck that he’s the king of town. Yeah, it’s a sweet ride, but so what? He’s still as dumb as bricks.”

“But he’s got a pretty girlfriend.”

“Yeah, and he’s a punk. His whole family is punks. You know they’re all roughnecks, and so is he.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Wayne dropped out of high school. ‘Cause he’s an i***t! So, now he goes out there and pumps oil for a couple months and comes back and forth. He’s not here for her.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen.”

“Oh. He shouldn’t be with a high schooler.”

Scott shrugged. “Well, she’s eighteen, but yeah.”

“She seems nice.” And I meant it.

This had all been going beautifully smooth. How easy to fit in! And Mom and Dad were worried about me. I wasn’t here three days before I bumped into a new best friend and he got me a job at my favorite store, and then the prettiest girl in town approached me. I had never kissed a girl, but who knew? Maybe that would change this summer.

* * *

Uncle Willard came in with Chinese takeout and started putting honey walnut shrimp and General Tso’s chicken on the table. “The boys are home from work,” he said after noticing I still wore my blue Blockbuster shirt. I liked it. It felt like a uniform, which it was, but I meant in a prouder sense. Though maybe I shouldn’t. My granddad had been in the Army Air Corps, and then later the Air Force; my dad, a Green Beret; and Uncle Willard, the Navy. I worked in a video store. A little inglorious, but I had my own world.

“Here’s to a job well done!” I declared, taking a seat.

After grace, I thought to ask, “Do you know an Ash Beckham?”

He looked up, so I went on.

“Or maybe that’s not her last name. That’s her niece’s. And Ash might stand for Ashley.”

“Ashton,” he corrected, smiling fondly. “Beckham’s her sister’s married name, not hers. And, yes, I most certainly do know her. Adorable Ash is the bartender at The Blue Bonnet.”

“Nice place?”

“It most certainly is.”

“She and her niece were in the store today. She said you did their wiring.”

“Pro bono.” He winked.

I didn’t want to pry, but it appeared as though there was something between Uncle Willard and Ash.

“What’s that like?”

“Electricity?” He raised an eyebrow. “Why, Connor, it’s what makes the world go round.”

“I bet if you did it, that bar’s lit up something beautiful.”

He tousled my hair, appreciating my compliment.

“I do my best, especially when it’s for a friend.”

He got up to get a beer.

“Oh yeah,” I said, remembering. “She also told me to tell you she says hi.”

Uncle Willard could barely contain a grin. He sat back down. “You never been to The Blue Bonnet, have you?”

I searched my memory. “That’s not the barbecue place where we all sit at one long table?”

“No, you’re talking about Mo’s Country Shack. This is a bar. Honky tonk.”

“No, then. I’ve never been.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. Why don’t we drive down there?”

I already looked forward to it.

* * *

I woke at half past midnight. I sweated, owing to either the incalculable heat of a climate I hadn’t adjusted to or from a forgotten dream. Perhaps I was walking in an endless desert there. I didn’t mind. Maybe it had been peaceful. My own personal Arabian Night. Maybe I wasn’t hot, but when I had been pulled back into the world of the waking, a cooler more real place, the temperature became real and showed its effects, like when you pull a frosty glass out of the freezer and beads of water appear on its side. Condensation. From my dreams.

After some fruitless tossing and turning, I decided to take a walk. Outside, why not? Maybe I was already driven by some unspoken force. That would explain why I didn’t put my shoes on. Didn’t even occur to me.

I pattered barefoot through the house, careful not to stir my uncle, and I opened and shut the door without a peep.

I walked onto the sturdy pavement that relaxed and steadied my gait, and then onto the soft dirt, so surprisingly smooth, and finally onto the cool grass that tickled my feet. The ground was wet with early dew, as if the Earth itself was sweating.

My own sweat had cooled, and the night air chilled me. I shivered in my pajama bottoms and white T-shirt. But it was a good shiver. Electric, reminding me I was alive. In a flourish of poetry and inspiration, I imagined that the bumps on the arms I folded and hugged to my body were being pulled, as if by some magnetic force, to the place that beckoned me.

I didn’t know where I was going. After a while, I realized my path was taking me to Burnet’s Mount. Or maybe the edge of the woods. I stopped in front of the weeping willows, two on each side of Still Bayou’s peak.

And there she was, sitting in the shadows of the left willow, dangling from one of the top branches like one of its hanging weeps. Was she swinging? I couldn’t tell. Shadows moved and swam around her form, caressing her as I longed to. It appeared she was controlling them, dancing while sitting still, and all I could see was a thin shaft of light across her eyes. Deep brown wells. Caramel and penetrating.

We made eye contact for a moment, and I couldn’t stand her staring down at me like that, like a beautiful hawk cutting right to the heart of me with her gaze. So, I took an awkward step back. I put my hands in my pockets and looked up to that black sky, with no moon and few stars. This darkness reflected on the maiden below.

“It’s not an empty sky,” she proclaimed in a firm, feminine voice with the trace of a distant accent. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“I’m…I’m sorry?” I took another step back. I didn’t know what I apologized for.

“Don’t apologize.” Her voice sounded clear but not loud. She hung a good twenty feet from me, all alone up there on the highest branch, but to my ears she didn’t project. “You haven’t done anything. Yet.”

“I…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, and then she jumped.

My heart jumped with her, but it ended in an instant. She landed on the ground with a supernatural elegance, as if she had floated down. Glided. Slid through the air. Didn’t so much as make a sound. She clearly hadn’t hurt herself, either.

“What…what are you doing here?” I asked.

Engulfed in shadow and veiled by the leaves, she c****d her head. I could make out her shape, but I wanted to see more. Her hair flowed an inch below her bare shoulders. She wore a thin dress. It may have been silk or satin, but it was too dark to tell. A bewitching young woman with a full chest and lips I could tell were thick and luscious even without seeing.

“I may as well ask you the same question,” she pointed out, playfully. Her voice sounded cool and warm, repelling yet inviting.

I was enchanted. “Yes. I don’t know. I felt like taking a walk.”

She nodded. “I get that. I felt like taking a dive.”

“A dive?” I frowned “Like into a pool?”

“All the world’s a pool!” Her voice rang through the night. “And I thought I’d jump in!”

This was confusing in a transfixing, transcendent way. “From the tree, you mean?”

Her laugh sounded warming and knowing. “Higher, silly.”

“Up…there?” My gaze wandered to the dark sky above.

“You’d be surprised, kid.”

“Maybe not.”

“Anyway, you can’t see us, yet,” she said casually. “It’s not time.”

“Us?”

“You’ll seeeeee…” she sang, holding onto the tree trunk and swinging around.

I wanted to step into the shadow and join her, but I hung back. “When?”

“Wait,” she whispered and stopped. “It’ll get brighter, and then you’ll see it all.”

“I hope so.” I swallowed, frightened and intrigued. It all seemed so ominous and so welcoming, like a door I had never seen before and was scared to open, not because what was inside might hurt me, but because behind it lay a whole new world I had no idea how to approach.

The branches started to sway, and the shape moved into even darker shadows.

“Stop.” My voice came out soft and pleading. I wanted more of her. “Where are you going?”

“Where I came from,” she said simply.

“Who are you?”

She wasn’t a girl from the neighborhood with a playful demeanor. She was someone else. Something else.

“You have a lot to learn…” Her voice grew softer, and it saddened me to think she drifted farther away. “Strolling in the witching hour is a good first step, Night Walker.”

“Shadow Girl,” I said back, and then I was alone.

I didn’t know why I called her that, but in that moment—surrounded by the breathtaking emptiness in a night filled with possibilities, the awesome vacuum a wonder left behind—it felt right.

Shadow Girl.