That night I started in with the “I have a sore throat and my stomach hurts” bit. My parents believed me, and why wouldn’t they? I never lied about being sick before. Well, maybe a few times when I was six years old in Arizona and two of my classmates pretty much planned all their days around making my life miserable.
My mom put her cheek up against mine, “No fever,” she pronounced.
After dinner I went outside and sat on the back doorstep. There wasn’t any view to speak of, but I’d learned something the night before. The pesky pines that fought their way up through nothing but sandy soil . . . they were scrappy fighters. Even the fire ants were a miracle of sorts, building sophisticated societies in places no other creature wanted to claim. Not even the most toxic chemicals could keep the fire ants down for long. And the sun. The sun that was setting now so I could only see its powdery pink residue through the pine needles. It was still our friend, our most precious ally in this world. I didn’t want to think about a time when it would turn on mankind and become its worst enemy.
“A penny for your thoughts.” I was so deep in my head I hadn’t noticed my dad in the backyard.
“Trust me, they’re not worth it. And I say that as someone who could use the money.” I was trying to bring a little humor into the conversation but it backfired.
“I haven’t been a great provider. Sorry, baby girl.” Now I’d made my dad feel inadequate. Way to go, Babe.
“No, it’s not that. It’s other stuff I just don’t feel like talking about right now.”
“Perry?” At least he didn’t know anything about Clyde yet.
“And more.”
“You know I’m always a willing ear.” My father seemed sad. He wanted to be relevant in my life and I wished I could help him out. But I couldn’t tell him about Zat. Or Clyde Buell.
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But I could tell Mai everything, and I did. Sometimes she’d try to talk her version of sense into me, but she never judged. In such a short time, she’d become the best friend I ever had.
The next day she gave me a second gift—an ink drawing this time. Me in an ultrashort tennis dress with a big B emblazoned on my chest (super hero style), hands on my hips, way over-developed thigh and bicep muscles. Lying facedown on the court in front of me was a man (presumably Clyde), my foot on his back; two tennis rackets at perpendicular angles to each other above his head like a grave marker. I couldn’t (and didn’t) leave this picture lying around. But every time I sneaked a peek, it brought a smile to my face.
My third day off from work, Mai and LeGrand showed up at my house with flowers. Of course, Mai knew the real reason I was home but she played along when LeGrand suggested they pay a visit and cheer me out of my sick bed. By then I’d already “recovered” from my “illness” and was planning to go back to work the next day. Bing sent me an email that afternoon giving me the all clear. Clyde Buell hadn’t displayed any signs of complete ego failure. In fact, he even expressed concern for my well-being when Bing told him I was sick. Gag.
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Somehow, at some point, LeGrand, Mai, and I became the three Musketeers, hanging out a lot together. This could easily have caused trouble for me with the other kids, but Mattie Lynn was the queen bee and the other girls took their cues from her. So far Mattie Lynn was playing it cool, even though she dropped any pretense of a personal interest in me. LeGrand’s status gave me some protection, although once he was gone only Mai would have my back at Sugar Dunes High. But who was ever going to mess with me and Mai? We were the dynamic duo.
Still, at times I found myself feeling for Mattie Lynn. LeGrand was a project she’d been working on her whole life and then all of a sudden, he was the project she was forced to abandon. But I didn’t see LeGrand that way, I just thought he was fun and interesting. A nice guy to hang out with. But me, the real me? I was with Zat.
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Kay came back from her extended leave. She was nice once we got used to each other. She was tough and you could tell things hadn’t come easy to her. She was probably only in her thirties, but the hardness in her eyes, her tense, thin lips, and her old-fashioned, tight, permed hair made her look about twenty years older. I knew I had to let her reclaim her former second-in-command spot under Bing, so I stepped back. I asked her a lot of questions when I already knew the answers and let her stake out her territory. She was the kind of person you’d rather have as an ally than an enemy.
With her return, Bing and I could take actual lunch breaks and eat real food at a real table in the back room if we wanted. Or I could leave my air conditioned workplace and get outside to breathe real air for a few minutes. I knew her arrival meant I wasn’t needed anymore, but they’d keep me on for the sake of my dad. Once school started, Bing said I could pick up hours after school and on the weekends as needed.
Bing started hitting with me almost on a daily basis, as we had time to do that now. I obviously wanted to play for the tennis team of my school, so being able to hit with the tennis pro was a huge plus. Clyde Buell kept his distance and minded his own business. He almost always came in with his wife after that awful day.
Friends Across the Bay was winding down, so Mai decided we needed to make our move with Alonso before it was over. We’d be going to the same school come fall, so she thought we (meaning LeGrand and me) owed Alonso some quality time. Her logic was that we’d spent half the summer with him and knew nothing more about him after all that time than we did the first day he walked through the door. The way I saw it, Alonso was probably counting the days until camp was over and he could get away from all of us. Like a prison sentence.
“Come on you guys, it will be FABulous,” Mai needled us.
“What makes you think he’s going to want to see us outside of tennis?” LeGrand wisely asked. “Isn’t it bad enough he has to suffer with us those few hours a day?”
“It’s not us, LeGrand, he just doesn’t like tennis. At least I think it’s not us. Come to think of it, he still hasn’t looked me in the eye, but I know he likes you.”
I had serious doubts about Mai’s plan. She’d never met Alonso, but she liked stirring things up. Stirring people up and watching to see what would happen. She had a strong desire to push boundaries, maybe the result of spending her entire life in one small town. I had a much more laid back approach to life, which is why we made such a good pair.
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Alonso’s house wasn’t far from Mai’s in distance, only a few miles. But it was a world apart in other ways. Like most places I’d lived, there were all sorts of microcosms within the larger world of Sugar Dunes.
The houses in his neighborhood were neat, tidy, and small, but they were built precariously close to a busy street, with petite front lawns which provided hardly any buffer between the traffic and the homes. They looked older, built in the days when cars didn’t travel so fast, and people didn’t worry so much about a random car losing control and careening through their front door.
The fact that doors and windows were left open in most of the homes made me think they probably didn’t have air conditioning. This presumably explained why so many people were enjoying the late afternoon from tiny front porches, visiting with neighbors so close that a normal conversational tone was all that was needed to be heard by the person in the next home.
Smells of dinner on stoves wafted out through windows, merging with others to create one giant intoxicating aroma. We passed a house where the sprinkler was running on the front lawn for the delight of a small group of children who ran happily through its mist.
I was suddenly ashamed to be in LeGrand’s flashy red Beemer. It was too much in a place where people lived so modestly. It was too much in Mai’s neighborhood, or even mine, for that matter. I looked at it now as a bad joke, not the fun, sporty machine I had viewed it as only minutes before. I kicked myself for not bringing my dad’s truck instead.
We pulled up in front of Alonso’s house and saw the white truck in the driveway, the one that said “Cummings’ Emergency AC Repair.” LeGrand and I argued for a minute about who should go knock on the door. I thought I should because I’d met Alonso’s mother. LeGrand thought he should because he knew Alonso better than I did. We finally agreed to go together and leave Mai in the car because we didn’t want to overwhelm him. Mai wasn’t happy about it, wanting to see for herself his initial reaction, but she accepted the majority rule.
The door opened immediately and there stood Dee Cummings, the first person to show me a kindness when I arrived in Sugar Dunes. She looked at me for a minute, as if she was trying to place me, perhaps remembering my face but not the context of it. Then I saw the light go on in her eyes.
“How’re you doing?” she greeted me warmly. “Trout Lane, right? No problems with your air conditioner?” She glanced over at LeGrand, maybe trying to piece together his part of this puzzle.
“Hello Mrs. Cummings. Yes, it’s me, Babe Fremont, and this is my friend, LeGrand Buell, Alonso’s mentor partner in the tennis camp.” I couldn’t bring myself to refer to it as Friends Across the Bay. Every time I used that moniker now, I just heard Mai’s sarcastic interpretation.
“Is everything okay?” Her wide eyes narrowed slightly with concern. “Alonso says he’s had a great time. Learned a lot.”
“Yes ma’am,” LeGrand took over. “He’s doing just fine. We came by to see if he’d like to join us for sort of a tennis camp dinner. Just the three of us, actually there’s a fourth in the car.”
Dee relaxed visibly. “That’s very kind of you. Please come in.” She stepped aside to make room for us to enter.
The temperature was about thirty degrees colder inside. I should have known the Cummings would have one of the few air-conditioned homes in the neighborhood.
“He’s back in his workshop. Let me show you the way.” Dee took us through a cozy front room which led directly into the kitchen and then through the back door.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, if we’re interrupting your dinner hour. We should have called ahead.” LeGrand kept up his patter.
“No, no. Not at all. I haven’t even thought about dinner, to tell the truth. Just got home from work. I was thinking Alonso and I would go out and get something to eat, but if he goes with y’all, I think I’ll just skip dinner. Had a big lunch.” She chuckled softly.
Alonso’s workshop was probably a garden shed at one point but it had been nicely redone with carpeting, wood panel walls, and a large window which let in plenty of light. There was a room air conditioner, so it was comfortably cool. A little television was mounted on the wall and the built-in shelves housed all kinds of expensive-looking tools and electronic equipment, neatly sorted from what I could tell. There was a wide counter where he appeared to be working on a project. He looked up, obviously a little more than surprised to see us. Dee went back in the house.
“Hey dude!” LeGrand acted like this visit was the most normal thing in the world. “Care to join us for dinner?”
There was no small talk leading up to the question. I guess he didn’t want to give Alonso a chance to think up an excuse. In retrospect, I was glad LeGrand came to the door with me because I was pretty much not even a factor after reintroducing myself to Dee.
“Umm . . . Uh,” I could see the wheels turning. “Let me ask my mom.”
“No problem. We’ll wait for you.” But what we actually did was follow him back into the house to make sure he’d say yes. I really just followed LeGrand’s lead.
“Ma, I—” he could hardly get two words out before Dee responded.
“Sure, you go on ahead and have a good time with your friends,” she said.
__________
Mai suggested Big Mama’s Fish House where we stuffed ourselves with fried fish, chicken fried steak, green beans, ham with gravy, grits, mac and cheese, hush puppies, and pecan pie. The three Musketeers did most of the talking, but that wasn’t surprising considering Alonso was in the company of two almost strangers and one complete stranger.
Just before we dropped him off at his house, Mai came up with the idea the four of us should have a picnic on Hurricane Island the following Sunday. Alonso didn’t object. He didn’t actually say he’d come with us, but since he didn’t outright decline the invitation, we started thinking about the possibility of a fourth Musketeer.