Birds of Summer Read online

  I knew about the place. It’s a ranch where they raise Arabians, but all you can see from the highway is pastures with white fences and lots of beautiful horses. Way back from the road among the trees you can get just a glimpse of a house and some barns.

  So I went out there on Saturday morning. There was a number to call on the card, but I thought it would be better if I just went. The bus driver let me out right at the gate, but for quite a while I just sat on the fence trying to get up my nerve to walk up the driveway. The thing was, the notice said that they preferred a mature person and that references would be necessary. I’d taken along the letter Mrs. Slater had given me about the good job I did at the day care center, so I wasn’t too worried about the reference thing, but I wasn’t sure whether the Olivers would consider thirteen, almost fourteen really, mature enough. But from the minute I started up the driveway I quit being worried. I don’t know why exactly, except I just knew I was going to get the job. And it wasn’t just because I threw away the notice card, either. It was more that I knew I could do it better than anyone else because—well, because I really wanted to, I guess.

  That particular letter ended there, but the next three or four were mostly about Crown Ridge Ranch and Richard and Nan Oliver. There was one almost entirely devoted to the house—the long low house sheltering from the ocean winds under a heavy shake roof—and another describing the barn with its enormous hayloft and heated stalls. There was also quite a lot about the horses.

  Before she’d started working at Crown Ridge, Summer had never even been close to a horse, and unlike a lot of kids she knew, she’d never particularly wanted to be. The way she felt was that anything that big ought to be more straightforward about its intentions. Like a dog, for instance, who lets you know right away how he’s feeling about you. But she’d been immediately fascinated by the Crown Ridge Arabians, with their high arching necks and delicate faces. So fascinated, in fact, that she had gone to work early one morning so she would have time to sit on the fence and watch them for a while before Nan got up. She’d arrived early that first time simply because of the horses. What had happened had been entirely unplanned, but afterwards she’d gone on doing it for more reasons than one.

  She’d been sitting there watching the young colts chase each other around the field like a bunch of overexcited first-graders, when she heard something and turned around to find Nan Oliver watching her. Then Nan climbed up on the fence beside her and started talking about how she’d done the same thing many times—sitting for hours and hours (which actually was a lot more than Summer had had in mind) just staring at horses like you’d look at a work of art in a museum. And, as they were climbing down to go indoors, Nan put her arm around Summer’s shoulders and gave her a little hug. So after that she’d gone on arriving early to watch the horses—knowing that Nan Oliver was watching her.

  But that was only Nan. Her husband, Mr. Richard Barrington Oliver, was a different matter. Summer had been working at Crown Ridge for several weekends before she even met him, because he was always away on business trips—and their first encounter turned out to be something of a disaster. She sifted through the stack until she found the letter she’d written about that first meeting.

  Well, Mr. Richard Oliver came home today and I’m afraid I didn’t make a very good impression. Not that there was anything I could have done about it. The thing is, Nan had been telling me that she couldn’t promise me the job would be permanent, even though I’d been doing great, until her husband came home and approved of the arrangement. Either she read my mind or else she finally realized how totally unliberated that sounded, because she started explaining how she didn’t have very good judgment about hiring people so she’d promised Richard she wouldn’t do it anymore without consulting him. Anyway, she made it clear that making a good impression on old Richard B. was going to be pretty crucial, and I’d been plotting how I was going to come on beaucoup mature and efficient—and then he walks in while Nan is out in the barn and right into the bathroom where I’m practically standing on my head scrubbing the bathtub. I’d heard someone in the bedroom, but I thought it was Nan so I didn’t pay any attention, and then suddenly there was this strange man walking through the bathroom unzipping his pants. I was startled at first and then, when I realized who it was, really twitchy, because my hair was hanging in my eyes and I’d made this ridiculous squeaky scream when I saw him. He was embarrassed, too, and then mad. And he was still mad a little later when I overheard him talking to Nan and telling her that she was incorrigible and he thought she’d advertised for a housekeeper, not a foster child.

  The letter ended there, and the next one, written several days later, told about being called into Richard Oliver’s study and told that, for the time being at least, she could keep the job. When she went in, he was sitting at his antique rolltop desk. He nodded and motioned for her to sit down, and went on writing. He wrote for a long time, and the longer she sat there, the more certain she became that she’d lost the job. So, when he finally said she hadn’t, she was so relieved she didn’t even feel angry at him for making her suffer so long for no reason. At least she hadn’t been angry until later, when she’d had time to think about it.

  Actually, the whole thing had been standard operating procedure for Richard Oliver. It hadn’t taken Summer long to realize that the “making-people-wait” bit was just one of a whole repertoire of tricks that Oliver used to make people feel threatened and inferior—even people he had no real power over—so that when he was ready to deal with them they were so relieved they went right along with whatever he had in mind. Since that day she’d watched the way he related to quite a few other people and wondered if it was something he got from being so rich, or if it was how he’d gotten rich in the first place.

  Learning how to deal with Richard Oliver hadn’t been quite as easy as sitting on a fence staring at horses, but in the end the results were just about the same. Oliver never talked about her job being temporary anymore, and she’d even overheard him telling someone what a great find she’d been. She wasn’t exactly sure he really liked her—but then she wasn’t sure she liked him either. What he liked about her was how hard she worked and the way she came up with answers to the tricky questions he liked to throw at people. And what she liked about him was—well, his study, for one thing. He had a lot of other assets, but most of them she had mixed feelings about. Like his high-powered smile and the super-confident manner that made everything he did—even ordinary things like cutting up a steak or walking across the room—seem like highly technical skills. But there was nothing mixed about her feelings concerning real mahogany paneling, a Dutch tiled fireplace, huge leather chairs and an overall atmosphere of unplanned perfection.

  “Hey, Summer.” Oriole’s voice penetrated the flimsy door easily. “Aren’t you finished yet? Sparrow’s going to sleep.”

  She put the letters back in the chest and locked it before she opened the door. On the lounge, two thicknesses of foam rubber covered with dirty pillows, Sparrow and Oriole were cuddled together. Their curly red heads were touching—Oriole’s pale and flyaway and Sparrow’s crisp and chestnut.

  Sparrow grunted and yawned and started to get up, but Oriole pulled her back to snuggle—kissing her on both ears and the tip of her nose. Sparrow struggled, playing she didn’t like it, but she was grinning, and she finally relented enough to hug Oriole back. But by then she was wide awake again and fussing for a fairy tale before she went to sleep. She’d been hung up on fairy tales lately, particularly ones about princesses.

  “Can you read her a fairy tale, baby?” Oriole asked, but Summer shook her head.

  “You woke her up,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  “Okay,” Oriole said. “The snuggle was worth it.” She picked Sparrow up and kissed her again. “What’ll it be, baby?”

  When they’d disappeared into the bedroom, Summer opened the door and went out on the step. The wind was blowing, and she turned her face into it, letting it blo
w away the anger. Anger at Oriole for pretending that games and kisses were enough, and at Sparrow for not realizing yet that they weren’t. Or maybe at herself for a moment’s yearning for the long ago time when Oriole’s make-believe had been enough for her too.

  4

  TURNING THE CORNER ON the way to Pardell’s class the next afternoon, Summer ran into Haley. “Hey,” Haley said, “you missed a real gnarly one.”

  “A gnarly what?” Summer asked before she remembered about the beach party. “Oh, the beach thing. How’d you make out?”

  “Outrageous. Too bad you missed it. Everybody was there.”

  “Who were you with?”

  “Me? Oh, Brownwood, mostly. Janet and I were just bopping around at first, but I wound up with Brownwood.”

  “Barry Brownwood?” Summer let her surprise show. As far as she was concerned Brownwood was a Grade A lumphead and about a million miles out of Haley’s class. Where was Kid?”

  Haley’s laugh was exaggeratedly unconcerned. “Oh you know the Alvarro shuffle. Kid was with Abbie Norcross.”

  Summer rolled her eyes. “Wow! How old is she now? About twelve?”

  “Thirteen. Thirteen is old enough.”

  Summer shrugged. Abbie Norcross was an only child with very old-fashioned parents, but she was also very cute. With Kid around, the poor old Norcrosses’ ancient ethics didn’t stand a chance. “How’d she manage to get out?”

  “I helped. I called Mama Norcross and said a bunch of girls were coming to our house for a girl-type party.”

  “Just a natural born do-gooder,” Summer said. She meant her smile to be ambiguous, but the sarcasm must have leaked through because Haley didn’t like it.

  “What’s eating you?” she said coldly.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m just not a Christopher groupie, I guess.”

  “Well, don’t get lonely,” Haley said, “because everybody else is. Everybody!”

  “Yeah, I know, but what I don’t know is—why?”

  Haley took the question seriously. So seriously that there weren’t any of the new-wave expressions, for which she was famous, in her answer. “Why,” she repeated. She thought for a moment with her eyes getting intense and glittery. “It’s just that—I guess it’s because he just doesn’t care. I mean, about anything.” Her eyes stopped jittering then, and her voice was cool as she asked, “Do you know what I mean, McIntyre?”

  But just at that moment Pardell came around the corner followed by half the class, which was just as well since what Summer was about to say wasn’t very diplomatic. Because she’d suddenly realized why she’d never been anxious to join Christopher’s harem. Why, in fact, the one time she’d really had a chance to join the “Blanket Blotchers,” when Kid had cornered her behind the bleachers after a game, she’d punched him where it would do the most good—and then ran. The thing was—she’d met him too often before. Haley, with her banker father and PTA president mother, thought Kid Christopher was something absolutely unique; but growing up with Oriole McIntyre you knew better. Guys who didn’t care about anything were the story of Oriole’s life. And after a few of them traded your last food stamps for pot and hit you with their handmade belts, they didn’t seem all that charming anymore.

  The class was about Mark Twain that day. There had been an assignment about Twain’s use of irony, and Pardell read sections from some of the papers and asked the class to comment on them. He didn’t identify the writers, which was just as well, since some of the stuff was pretty stupid. But for the most part, he read things he liked. Summer could tell from some of his comments that he was looking for several of the examples that she had mentioned in her paper, so she felt sure he would read hers, but he never did. That surprised her a little because Pardell usually liked the way she wrote, but she didn’t really begin to worry until, as he was dismissing the class, he asked her to stay.

  Haley grinned and whispered, “What’d you do, McIntyre? Turn in some pornography?” but no one else paid any attention. Pardell often asked people to stay to talk about their work. But Summer began to feel definitely uneasy. While Pardell was carrying on as usual—blocking the door while he checked his watch to be sure the elderly and infirm had had time to get off the streets, etc., etc.—she started looking through her binder. She was sure she’d turned in the assignment; but if she hadn’t, it should still be there. It was then she realized what had happened, and, at first, all she could think of doing was jumping up and running out and never coming back. The essay on Mark Twain was right there in the binder pocket; what was missing was a letter to Grant.

  She’d finished the letter during her free period, and it was almost the same length as the essay; somehow she must have gotten them mixed up. The first part of the letter had been like a short story. A kind of a-day-in-the-life-of account of one Sunday when the sun had been shining and Oriole had rescued a baby bird, and she and Sparrow had made up a song about it, and Oriole had planned a picnic lunch. But then it had started to rain and the picnic was off. Big disappointment—so Sparrow went to her bedroom and cried, and Oriole went to hers and got stoned. And there was quite a bit more about Sparrow and Oriole and how much alike they were, and how the things that made you want to hug a cute, dopey, helpless seven year old made you want to scream at someone who was supposed to be an adult, not to mention a mother. “I scream at Oriole a lot lately,” she’d written, “even though I know it’s too late for her to change. It’s too late for Oriole and in a different way, it’s probably too late for me, and pretty soon now it’s going to be too late for Sparrow.” It was a ridiculous letter, and she’d known it while she was writing it. There wasn’t anything she’d ever written that she’d hate so much for anyone to see. Anyone—even Pardell. Or, maybe, most of all Pardell.

  When the last kid had filed out the door, she was standing by his desk with the Mark Twain paper in her hand.

  “Here,” she said putting it down in front of him. “Here’s the assignment. I turned in that other thing by mistake. Can I have it back now? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Hey, wait a minute.” Pardell said. “Take it easy. You’re intimidating me.” She went on frowning while he pretended to take his pulse. “See there,” he said. “One hundred, at least.” He shook his head. “Wow! Clippety clop.” As soon as she smiled, he jumped up and got a chair, and the next thing she knew she was sitting down. “Well,” he said, “let me see the Mark Twain, then.”

  He read it through quickly, chuckling now and then and rubbing his hand over the bald spot on top of his head. “Good,” he said. “Good. Nice observation.” And then, when he had finished, “I like your point about sarcasm rather than irony. A nice distinction. I’ve noticed that about your writing before, Summer. You use words with a great deal of precision.”

  But she wasn’t about to be deterred from her objective. “Thanks,” she said. “Could I have my letter back now, Mr. Pardell?”

  He shuffled through the stack of papers, pulled one out and folded it over, but then he just sat there holding it, even after she held out her hand.

  “And sometimes,” he said, “you write like a poet—with power and clarity and—” He paused for a moment. “Who’s Grant?”

  It was a trick Pardell had. She’d seen him use it before. When he talked to just one person, he could make you feel as if what you were saying was the most important thing in the whole world. And even though it was just one of Pardell’s tricks, it had worked with her before and it did this time, too. Only a moment before she would have sworn that there wasn’t an ice-cube-in-hell’s chance that she was going to say anything at all about Grant or the letter; but then Pardell did that perfect listener thing with his big messed-up face, and all of a sudden she heard herself saying, “My father. Grant is my father.”

  His eyes didn’t even flicker, and after a moment he just nodded very slightly and said, “Of course. Of course.”

  It all came out then—the words welling up from some strange place over which she
had no control. “I write to him a lot—for years and years—ever since I learned how to write. Only I don’t mail them because I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know who he is, really. I never saw him. All I know is that Oriole says he was different. He was just hanging out in Carmel like everyone else was then, but with him it was just for that one summer because then he was going back east to go to medical school. Then he met Oriole, and they started traveling together. Oriole didn’t know she was pregnant until after he went away. She never wrote to him about it because she didn’t want him to come back and mess up his life. And then she lost the address. So I just write to him and keep the letters in a box. There’s a lot of them now—hundreds, maybe.”

  She’d been looking down at the desk as she talked, rubbing at a spot where ink had soaked into the wood—rubbing hard as if she could scrub it away. Her voice was a little shaky, but her eyes were all right until she looked up and saw the expression on Pardell’s face; that was when she began to cry. She fought it for a moment, frowning and clenching her teeth, but her throat swelled shut and tears burned in her eyes and finally she gave up and put her head down on the desk.

  While she was crying, Pardell didn’t do or say anything; but when she began to stop, he got up and went to the back of the room and wet a paper towel in the sink and brought it to her. She wiped her face and gathered up her things without looking at him; but when she started for the door, he went with her. He stopped with one hand on the doorknob, holding it shut. When she looked up at him, he just nodded, narrow-eyed, as if he were sizing her up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m a lot sorrier for this Grant character than I am for you. He doesn’t even know what he’s been missing.” Then he opened the door and let her out.