September is a month of mixed emotions—anticipation, hope, and a pang of sorrow for the summer that is suddenly, irrevocably lost. The weather intensifies this sense of a divided heart. One day it’s hot enough to swim—but school has just begun. Then a cold rain makes one think of being under the covers with a book. September is sunlight with a little edge, a time when promise and regret mingle, bringing that slight pain in the chest that is almost like fear. And the days run out so fast. To Bren, who would live in Central Park if he had a tent, the shortening afternoons imparted a sensation close to panic.
The small private school on West Eighty-ninth Street ran until four. In many ways Bren liked his shabby, friendly, and often stimulating school. Unfortunately, the last class of the day was economics, and it was held in a room that had a tantalizing view of the street. Through the long windows he could see the light changing on the leafy branches of the plane trees, an agonizing reminder of the passage of time. When the bell finally rang, he dashed for the door, only to stop with a groan as he saw that Eli was going up to Mr. Steiner’s desk to ask a question. Eli, his best friend since sandbox days, had funny ideas about how to spend the last hours of a beautiful day.
“Come on, Eli,” Bren called from the door when the endless question seemed to have been answered. “It’s getting dark, you creep.”
Eli glanced out at the still glowing afternoon. “So go,” he said. “It’s not as if I don’t know where to find you.” But Bren waited, and they walked together toward his house, where they would pick up a Frisbee and a large black dog.
Shadow was a Newfoundland of heroic proportions and a champion Frisbee player, which was fortunate because Eli had a tendency to duck when anything more menacing than a leaf passed through his private air space. Bren knew that Eli would rather be at home, gloating over the microprocessors, converters, and gently humming power supplies that occupied all but a small corner of his bedroom. Instead he went to the park and watched Bren play with his dog.
They reached the place Bren favored for his game. “Why do I do this?” Eli asked, as he tried to find a perch for his bony backside halfway up a small hill, where he hoped the Frisbee would not find him in its murderous horizontal course. “Every day I ask myself the same question, and every day I come up with the same answer: Eli Wilder, you must be crazy.”
“It’s my magnetic personality,” Bren said. “Here you go, Shadow, old boy. First an easy one. Get your reflexes tuned up.”
A practiced flick of the wrist, and the Frisbee sailed under the autumn trees, in and out of the golden shafts of light that fell on the worn grass of Central Park. A hundred yards away the great dog crouched, his muscles taut but still, no motion wasted until the last second, when a single economical leap and snap of massive jaws secured the prize.
The game had a theme with only two variations. Sometimes Shadow brought the Frisbee to Bren. Sometimes he pranced away with it, tail wagging, brown eyes shining with mischief.
“Here! Stop, thief! Give me that, you monster,” Bren shouted. “Come on, Eli. Don’t just sit there. Head him off.”
With a sigh, Eli closed his book, dived down the hill, and wrestled Shadow to the ground. “You could train this beast better,” he said, as Bren came panting to the fray. “Train him better or find a more athletic friend.”
“More athletic than you, or more athletic than Shadow?” Bren asked.
“Than me, you nit. When I think that I could be listening to the Ninth and finishing those circuits.”
“Eli,” Bren said, crouching with one arm over the dog’s dusty shoulders, “Eli, my friend, think. Winter is coming. You can wire circuits till your eyes drop out, but this can’t last.” Bren made an expansive gesture at the autumn glory of the park and fell over in the grass. Eli laughed. Shadow barked and jumped on top of Bren.
Back on his feet, Frisbee in hand, Bren paused and looked with disapproval at the fading light. “You see,” he said, “it’s almost gone. Every day a few minutes less, and now, oh blast! I think she’s calling me.”
Eli waited while the familiar look of concentration possessed Bren’s face. Shadow, too, appeared to listen to a voice that only they could hear.
After a moment Bren shook his head and gave an exasperated sigh. “Well, that’s it for today, I guess. I told her not to call, I’d come when the sun went down, but she can’t resist.”
“Mothers are like that,” Eli said. “I’m just glad mine is limited to the distance she can screech.”
“You don’t have a clue how lucky you are,” Bren said, as they turned toward home. “I’m getting too old for this.”
“Maybe you could have a serious talk with her,” Eli suggested, not very optimistically. “Ask her to save it for real emergencies or something like that.”
“I can try, but it’s a bit like reasoning with some force of nature, you know—like maybe a volcano?”
Eli grinned and nodded. He had known Bren and also Bren’s mother for a very long time, and he was aware that there was little more to be said on the subject of Miranda West. They walked in companionable silence toward the western edge of the park, where tall apartment towers were silhouetted against a pale sky streaked with apricot.