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I sleep like the dead in the twin bed that had been Charlotte’s, and when I wake, with the sun high and streaming through the window above me, I am still in the same position I had been when I fell into the bed the night before—curled on my left side, my arms crossed tight over my chest, my knees at the level of my elbows, facing the door. For a moment, when I open my eyes, and adjust to the light, I do not understand where I am. Then the memories unfold, laying out the days before from end to beginning, and I am left with the image of my mother, cold and still in her bed.
I close my eyes, pressing the heels of my hands into each socket, scrubbing away the vision. It fades out, and I see her from years ago, handing me a box of Milk Duds on one of those kindergarten days before we moved to the country. She is smiling and laughing and happy. I let that image linger, until it finally disintegrates, played out, played thin. The faint scent of lavender escapes from the blankets when I throw them back and rise to sit. I listen and can hear sounds from the house, a creaking of floorboards, the thumping of music from somewhere below. There must be a basement, and somebody down there must like hard music. There are smells in the air, and I try hard to place them, past the lavender, past the clean linens. Finally, when my stomach churns and growls as it recognizes the smells, I launch myself upward, in somebody else’s sweatpants and t-shirt, and open the door out into the hall. The hallway is dimly lit, but as I move closer to the living room, the sunlight takes over and the warmth from the sun fills the room.
I hear voices coming from the kitchen area, the scraping of spatula on skillet, the sizzle of a pancake landing, gooey side down. I come around the corner to find two boys sitting at the table with their chairs pushed out, dribbling a soccer ball back and forth. I’ve seen them both at school, but certainly don’t know them. The first one, the scrawny one, is Tommy McGill. Looking at him, I can tell he is Leslie’s son if for no other reason than the large eyes and full lips, set in a cock-eyed slant.
The other boy I have also seen at school; he’s in my grade, and now that I take a second to actually place him, I realize he is in my civics class. His name is Jay, and he has a very round face and coarse hair, sticking up slightly in the back. His eyes are dark pools, and he smiles when he sees me, his teeth spreading in the circle of his face and his eyes narrowing until his irises recede, a Cheshire Cat smile. “Good morning, Alison.” There is a slight foreignness to his speech, a precise pronunciation that comes from speaking English as a second tongue.
“Good morning.” My voice is whispery from non-use, and I clear my throat and try again. “Jay, right?” I ask.
“That’s right!” He is nodding and smiling and his enthusiasm is a little too much for me so early this morning.
“You’re in my civics class,” I say, to explain how I know who he is.
“Good morning,” Leslie says from where she stands at the stove. “How did you sleep?”
“Like the—” The word I almost say is 'dead,' but instead, I start over. “Like a dream.” Leslie smiles and tells me to have a seat. I do, sitting along the wall, facing into the room. The boys go back to talking about whether Coach Stevens is coming back next year. Apparently, there is some question of his return, and the boys seem to see it from different sides. When Leslie brings a plate of pancakes to the table and hands them to me, they both gape at her.
“Do you like powdered sugar or syrup?” she asks, and the option is almost too much.
“Syrup, I guess.” There is already butter slathered on top of and melting into the pancakes, and I pour the syrup, letting it spill over the edges, pooling on the plate. I’ve had pancakes before—of course I’ve had pancakes before. You can’t live for seventeen years and never have a pancake. But it has been many, many years, and never in my own home. Pancakes are from IHOP, and IHOP is from an earlier time, before we moved here.
They are thick and fluffy, and the syrup soaks into them so they literally melt in my mouth. I am aware that I just moaned and open my eyes to see Jay and Tommy both looking at me, nodding their heads. They understand.
“Oh my God,” I say around a mouthful, and they laugh, good natured, friendly. “These are so good.”
“Mom makes the best pancakes,” Jay says. This is an honorary title, of course; she is obviously not his mother
“And lasagna,” Tommy adds.
Jay leans back in his seat, holding his stomach, “Oh God,” he says, “the lasagna.”
Leslie comes back with two more plates of pancakes dripping with butter, and the boys sit to attention, nearly drooling as she sets the plates in front of them. Syrup is poured, and I giggle when I hear them moan, just as I had done. Something around my shoulders unhinges, and I feel them drop, the muscles easing, the tension lessening. The boys continue their banter between mouthfuls, and Leslie comes to sit beside me with her own stack of pancakes.
The music from the basement rises and booms because the door to that space is open and another boy walks in, his hair hanging limp and thin to his shoulders. The graduated tint of his glasses shade his eyes. He is clearly of the same blood as Tommy and Leslie McGill, the same full, tilting lips, with short, squat legs and a long torso. “I knew I smelled pancakes,” he says, scooping up the plate still sitting at the stove. “Were you going to tell me?” he asks, sounding petulant, spoiled.
Leslie just smiles up at him. “I knew you’d smell them.” He harrumphs and sits at the end of the table, beside Jay. He slathers on more butter and pours a generous dose of syrup. After he has eaten through half of his pancakes, his eyes land on me, and I feel them boring into me. I look up and meet his gaze. The glasses are tinted, so I can’t actually see his eyes, just dark graduated lenses.
“Who are you?” he asks, and a bit of pancake slips out the lower tilt of his lip
“Alison.”
He looks to his mother and shrugs his shoulders, going back to his breakfast. Apparently, this is a house where strays are common.
“What are you boys up to today?” Leslie asks, looking from Jay to Tommy.
“Tommy is helping me paint the slide today,” Jay says. Tommy groans but nods.
“That’s quite a job,” Leslie says.
“Alison, want to come help?” Jay asks. “We could use another hand.”
It is Saturday, and I am on the schedule to work at Billups Hardware for the afternoon. “What slide?” I ask, letting my curiosity get the best of me.
“Jay’s folks own Summer Grove,” Tommy says. I must look stupid, because clearly, I don’t know what that is. “The campground?” he prompts.
“Sorry. Not familiar.” They are so excited to tell me about it that I catch myself smiling as I dab up the last of the pancakes and poke them into my mouth. Summer Grove is a campground on 16 between Charleston and Ashmore. There are eighteen sites and a water park to boot. The water slide is in need of painting, as it apparently is every year before the summer season. “I don’t work tomorrow,” I say.
“Yes!” Jay says, and just like that, I feel myself smiling at him, as if I have known him all of my life. I feel like I have dropped into a different world, with my stomach happily full and sugar singing in my blood.