Birds of Summer Read online

  Summer shrugged, hiding her sudden elation. Oriole had openly implied that Angelo was not only dangerous, but dumb. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I won’t tell him anything. But will you?”

  “No,” Oriole said, quickly and firmly.

  Summer couldn’t help smiling. It was going well. “I’ve known about it for a long time,” she said, “and I haven’t told anyone. I just wish you weren’t involved, though. What if there should be a raid, or something? Like that time in Round Valley when there was all that shooting and everything.”

  “Oh, baby.” Oriole put down her sewing and stared at Summer. “You’ve been worrying again. You’ve always been such a worrier. There won’t be any raid. Everyone knows about Galya’s gardens and the greenhouses and everything. No one is going to get suspicious about Galya’s famous berry farm.”

  “How come Galya let them do it?” Summer asked. “She always said she’d never have anything to do with pot. How does she feel about it now?”

  Oriole turned the yoke over to snip off a thread before she answered. “I’m not sure. At first, when she told me about it, she seemed to be all for it. You know. Excited about all the money and everything. But lately, I just don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it to me anymore. In fact, I haven’t really rapped with Galya for a long time.”

  “But you’re up there so much.”

  “I know. But I’m usually in the old cabin and Galya’s busy in the house. But there’ve been times when—” Oriole’s face, transparent as always, looked troubled. “I’ve asked her if she’s down on me for some reason, and she says no, but—”

  “Maybe she’s down on Angelo,” Summer said.

  Oriole nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said. “I think she is. She hasn’t said anything to me about it, but, you know, you can tell. Like, you know how friendly Galya always is to everyone, but she seems kind of uptight around Angelo. I guess it’s to be expected. Probably Galya and Jerry are just tired of having so many extra people around all the time: Angelo and Bart and Jude. At first she was cooking for all of them, but lately the guys have been eating in the old cabin when I’m there to do the cooking. It’s not easy for so many people to live more or less together for such a long time and not bum each other out. Even when you have an enlightened person like Esau there to keep everything mellow, like it was in the Tribe, it wasn’t always easy. I remember once when this guy named Shadow, well actually his name was something like Arnold J. Something-or-other, but he called himself Shadow. Well, anyway, he got very uptight because …”

  Oriole went on with the Angel Tribe story, babbling away as she had a thousand times before about the good old days when the flower children were in full bloom and everyone danced and sang and rapped about how love and mind-expansion and organic foods were going to change the face of the whole world. Summer tuned her out and considered what she had learned and what she ought to do next.

  It seemed pretty obvious that Oriole didn’t know the real situation between Angelo and the Fishers. If she had known, it all would have been right there in her face and voice. The question was, what would she do if she found out? Nicky, and probably the rest of the Fishers, thought it wouldn’t be safe to tell her, because Angelo would get her to tell what she knew and who had told her. But maybe they were wrong. Maybe, if Oriole knew that the Creep was actually holding poor little Marina hostage, she’d come to her senses and stay away from him. Stay away from him and the Fishers and all the dangers that went with five big greenhouses full of pot. Suddenly, it seemed the only thing to do.

  “Mother!”

  Oriole’s Angel Tribe anecdote stopped in mid-sentence. Her wide good-old-days-dreaming eyes narrowed with anxiety.

  “Mother. Angelo is holding Marina hostage. Jerry and Galya didn’t want to grow pot, not after they realized what they were getting into. And Angelo’s making them go on with it. He says something’s going to happen to Marina if the narcs find out about the crop.”

  Oriole looked stunned. She stared at Summer, blank-eyed, her pale freckles suddenly more noticeable against her white skin. “That’s crazy,” she said, “I don’t believe it.” She shook her head slowly, and then covered her face with her hands. Summer sat stiffly, wanting to comfort her one moment, and the next to yell at her and ask her how she could have been such a fool. It was several minutes before Oriole lifted her head. “I asked Galya,” she said, “about Marina. She told me she had to stay in the house because of the pollens. She told me it was the doctor’s orders.”

  Summer waited. She didn’t have to say anymore. Oriole was saying it herself. “One of them’s always in the house. Angelo usually stays in the old cabin, but if the other two are both out, he goes to the house.” There was another long pause, and she said, “He takes his gun. He takes his gun when he goes to the big cabin.” She sighed so deeply it was almost a moan, and then lapsed into silence. Summer went on waiting—waiting for Oriole to realize what she had done and to decide what she would do now that she knew the truth. They were both still sitting silently a moment later when feet pounded on the steps, the door banged open, and Angelo came into the trailer.

  He stood in the doorway grinning, his eyes quick and busy. Oriole, still sitting with her forgotten sewing in her lap, stared up at him, her face expressionless. “You ready?” he said. “Come on. I got to get back. I’ve been gone all day. I got some nice big T-bones. You wouldn’t want me to have to cook them myself, would you.”

  When Oriole started to get to her feet, Summer grabbed her arm. “She can’t go,” she said. “She can’t go tonight.”

  “Well, well. Would you listen to this. Look who’s got her voice back. And look who’s telling her own mother what she can’t do.”

  “She can’t go tonight because of Sparrow,” Summer said. “She’s sick.”

  The quick eyes flicked to Summer and back to Oriole. “Sure.” His face was cold. “Sure she is. And her gabby big sister’s just the one to play nursemaid ’til her mommy gets home. You can do that, can’t you ? I’ll bet you could do it better than your poor little skinny mom, if you tried real hard.”

  He grinned then, the grin that was even more threatening that his scowl. “Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of things you could do better than your old lady. Like cooking steaks, for instance. How’d you like to come up and cook my steaks tonight so your poor old lady can stay home with her sick kid. How about that? Might be a real nice change for everybody.” He looked at Oriole and his voice had an edge like a razor blade as he said, “Matter of fact, the way things have been going lately, I’ve been thinking about making a change or two.”

  “Let’s go,” Oriole said. “I’m ready.” She unwrapped Summer’s fingers from around her arm. She wouldn’t look at Summer as she got her sweater and went out the door. But Angelo looked back at her—running his eyes slowly down over her body and then back up again. Then he grinned again and stomped out, leaving the door open. The night breeze blew into the room and flickered the flame in the propane lamp, but it was a long time before it blew away the scent of stale aftershave lotion.

  12

  ORIOLE REFUSES TO TALK to me about it. Ever since the night I told her about Marina’s being a hostage and she went off with the Creep anyway, she just won’t answer me when I try to talk about it. I tried again tonight. I begged her to at least stop going up to the Fishers’, because of what might happen if there should be a raid. The Creep could still come here to see her. I said that even though my job at the Pardells’ is ending, I’d take Sparrow and go to town everyday so they could have the trailer to themselves, if she just wouldn’t go up there anymore. But she wouldn’t answer. She just stared at me with a miserable expression on her face, as if she was about to start crying, and said she wouldn’t talk about it.

  I don’t think it’s an act. A lot of the time she looks even more miserable when she doesn’t know I’m watching. Miserable and frightened. I really think that ever since she found out what’s going on
between Angelo and the Fishers, she’s been scared to death, but for some reason she won’t do anything about it. There are things we could do, like going away, for instance. I’ve tried to tell her that we could pack up and go to some other town, but she just says we can’t because we don’t have any money. I told her about my bank account. She wouldn’t believe me until I got my bankbook and showed her how much I have. Then she said that it wasn’t enough because if we moved it would take so long to get back on AFDC and food stamps. But I don’t think money’s the real problem. I think the real problem is that down deep she doesn’t want to go. Oh she’s scared, all right. But, in a way, that’s one reason she won’t go. There’s a part of Oriole that wants to be scared—scared and helpless and in danger. I don’t know why. I don’t see why anyone in their right mind would want to feel that way, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened. It’s not the first time that Oriole has gotten involved with somebody who turned out to be dangerous in one way or another. The Creep is the worst maybe, but not the first.

  The other problem is that she’s been smoking a lot of pot again. She says she hasn’t, but I can always tell because her eyes get red and her voice gets slow and slurry. She always smokes her brains out whenever things get really bad. At least she does if she can get it, and she sure hasn’t had any trouble getting it lately.

  “Hey, look at this one. Look at this one, Summer. Isn’t this a good father?” Sparrow plunked a Ladies Home Journal down on the table right on top of the letter Summer was writing. “Just look, he’s got all his feet and everything, and he’s just the right size.” Sparrow was cutting paper dolls out of old magazines and apparently having a lot of trouble finding enough pictures of complete figures. Particularly men, it seemed. Or else she was just providing some spare fathers for her paper doll families. Which wouldn’t be surprising, when you came to think about it. In Sparrow’s experience, a rapid turnover in fathers was par for the course.

  “Very nice,” Summer said. The father in question was very tan and handsome and part of an ad for suntan lotion. “Not especially fatherly, but nice. You’ll have to draw some clothes on him, won’t you?”

  “Or they can live at the beach,” Sparrow said. “I’ll just play like they live at the beach, and he won’t need to have clothes on.” Picking up her Ladies Home Journal she went back to where she’d been sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a huge stack of old magazines that she’d bummed off of Nan Oliver. And Summer went back to her letter.

  I guess the Olivers will be leaving soon. They finally sold the ranch, and tomorrow Nan is going back east with Richard to help decide which place they’re going to buy. Then she’ll come back here just long enough to finish selling the horses and a lot of other stuff and do the packing. I’ll be working there every day for a while, helping pack and clean, but then that job will be over, too. I still haven’t told Nan that I’m not going with them. Actually though, I’ve never told her I was, either. I just said I was still thinking about it, and she took it for granted that that meant yes. I’ll have to tell her soon, but I just keep putting it off because I want to go on working as long as possible, and I have a feeling she’s going to get really angry when she finds out I’m turning down her magnificent offer. Last Saturday she asked me again if Oriole would let me go, and I said she would. She would, too, if I asked her. That is, she might object at first, but I could talk her into it, if I wanted to.

  Last weekend Sparrow stayed overnight at the Olivers. They were having important guests for dinner who were bringing a kid about Sparrow’s age, and Nan thought it would be nice if the kid had someone to play with. Or maybe it was Richard who thought so, because he seemed to be all for the idea. Sparrow had a great time. Nan bought her an old fashioned ruffles-and-lace type dress for the occasion, and she and the other kid ate with the grown-ups and Elmira waited on the table. They had some kind of fancy flaming dessert served on a big silver platter. Sparrow came home acting like Cinderella returning from the prince’s ball and asking stupid questions like how come we didn’t ever set things on fire before we ate them. It took her two days to get down to earth again and stop strutting around like a peacock. It probably would have taken her longer, except I told her that the Olivers were going away. I was pretty tired of the royal highness bit. But after I told her, she cried for two hours and I wished I hadn’t. But so what, she would have had to find out sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. Now it’s over with.

  That was one good thing about Sparrow—she always got over things quickly. Just the day before she’d been acting as if she were about to die of grief, wailing about how she loved the ranch and the horses and the peacocks and Nan and Richard more than anything in the world and if they went away she was going to die. Now here she was, perfectly happy, arranging a ridiculous assortment of makeshift paper dolls along the edge of the lounge. Chewing on the end of her pen, Summer studied Sparrow critically. She’d put on her nightgown right after dinner and announced dramatically that she was going to go to bed and cry herself to sleep. That had been before she’d remembered her plan to look through the magazines for paper dolls. So here she was, two hours later, sitting on the floor in her favorite nightgown, the raggedy remains of a sheer black number of Oriole’s, with one leg curled under her and the other bent so that the knee was right under her chin, like some kind of small redheaded human pretzel, making two limp paper dolls approach each other along the edge of the lounge.

  “Hiya, chick,” Sparrow whispered, making one of the paper figures bob up and down. “Hello, darling,” the second figure bobbed in return. Then she smashed the two dolls together while she went, “Kiss, kiss, smack, smack, smack.”

  “Who’re they?” Summer asked. “Who’s starring in the big sex scene, I mean?”

  Sparrow held up the two figures, a man in an odd stooping position and a domestic-looking woman holding a pan of something. “This lady one is Mrs. Gingerbread and the man is Mr. Lawnmower. See, I cut off his lawnmower but I couldn’t cut off the gingerbread without making a hole in her stomach.”

  Summer was relieved. At least the two lovers weren’t who she thought they might be. “I see,” she said. “But what I want to know is, if that’s Mrs. Gingerbread, where is Mr. Gingerbread?”

  Sparrow looked puzzled. “I don’t know. I didn’t find any.” She looked vaguely towards the scattered magazines. “Did you see a Mr. Gingerbread?”

  Summer shook her head and said, “Never mind.” It was no wonder Sparrow was confused. Sex was a very complicated subject, and some people, an awful lot older than seven, still hadn’t gotten it straightened out. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t too surprising that Sparrow was confused about what marriage had to do with the whole scene. “Never mind,” she repeated. “It’s way past your bedtime. You’d better clean up that mess and go to bed.”

  Summer wound up having to help as she’d known she would if she wanted to get the room back in order any time before midnight. Sparrow was willing enough, but she was so disorganized that most of her effort was wasted unless someone was right there directing things. Of course she was only seven, but Oriole, at thirty-four, was just the same. With people like Oriole and Sparrow, everything depended on who was doing the directing.

  When the living room area, which was enough of a disaster without a knee-deep sea of magazines, was back to its normally cluttered condition, Sparrow hugged and kissed Summer and headed for the bedroom. In the doorway she suddenly stopped and looked back. “Good night,” she said, tilting her face upwards and quivering her chin, like a tragic heroine in the movies. “Now I’m going to cry myself to sleep.”

  Summer grinned at her. “Be my guest,” she said.

  It was only a couple of hours later, perhaps a little before midnight, when Summer awoke suddenly and sat straight up in bed, certain that she’d heard a loud noise. She listened, holding her breath, her heartbeat a series of shuddering explosions against her ribs. There was silence, but somehow she knew it was not
an empty, harmless silence. Someone was there, somewhere in the trailer, waiting and listening.

  Beside her, curled against the wall, Sparrow stirred and sighed and settled again into deep regular breathing. Summer slipped from the bed, and moving quietly to the door, she slid the thin wood panel an inch to the right. Putting her eye to the crack she peered through into a blinding beam of light. The door moved again, in a sharp jerk, and a rough hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her forward into the living room.

  There were two of them. Two men carrying flashlights and pistols. The one who was holding her shone the flashlight into her face, and as she jumped back, blinded and terrified, his grip tightened. “Hey. Hey,” he said. “Calm down. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Who else is here, in the trailer?”

  She struggled again, but the man’s grip on her forearm was firm and strong. “Cool it, kid,” he said. “Just answer my question. Are you alone?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Alone. I’m alone.”

  He went on holding her while the other man crossed into the hallway that led to the bathroom and Oriole’s bedroom. In a moment he was back. “No one there,” he said and headed toward Summer’s room.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t go in there.” He paused for a second and then he raised his gun and disappeared into the bedroom. Summer was still struggling, trying to follow him, when he reappeared, grinning. “Just a sleeping kid,” he said. “Thought you said you were alone, little lady.”

  “I am. Except for my little sister. We’re here alone.”

  “They must be up the hill, with the others,” the man who was holding Summer said. “Looks like we’re on a wild goose chase.”