"Beyond Summer"

 

Chapter 1

Tam Lambert

 

     It’s strange, the things you look past in a normal day--the big picture you don’t see, while you’re busy focusing on all the little things that seem to matter in the moment. Good hair, an outfit that looks just right, a green light ahead when you’re in a hurry to make an appointment, a short line at Starbucks, a straight shot down the fairway in a game of golf, a smile from a cute guy in the parking lot. You rub your life like Aladdin’s lamp, and magic floats out in little clouds. It works time, after time, after time. You never stop to consider that there could be a day when a charmed life isn’t charmed anymore. At that point, the wishes become prayers, and you hope against hope that God will take up where the wishing lamp left off.

     The summer I turned eighteen became the summer of unanswered prayers. I was hoping that, since the lease was up on the hand-me-down mini Cooper I’d been driving, there was a new car in the works for my birthday—a combination getting-ready-for-college and welcome-to- adulthood present. And maybe a surprise party—something Hawaiian themed, out on the patio, with floating tiki torches in the pool, grass skirts and coconut bras, and a caterer filling the cabana with fruit baskets carved out of watermelons, perfect for early July. Instead, I got a phone call letting me know that my stepmother had rammed her Escalade into the front doors of the Baby Bundles Upscale Resale Shop while delivering a load of gently-worn or still-had-tags-on-them kiddie clothes. The accident wasn’t her fault. It was the stilettos that did it. 

     Such things are to be expected from a thirty-four year old woman who takes the kids to play group in high heels, studies future plastic surgery options, and shortens her name to Barbie, because she looks like a life size version of the doll. If the nickname fits, then wear designer shoes with it, was generally Barbie’s theory.

     The emergency phone call was from the nanny. She wanted me to know she was off work in fifteen minutes, and if someone didn’t show up at home before then, she’d be leaving los ninos with la tia loca--the crazy aunt.
The crazy aunt, Aunt Lute, was part of the summer of unanswered prayers, which made sense, considering that Aunt Lute claimed not one prayer in her life had ever been answered the way she wanted. She’d pause after she said that, and contemplate the deeper meanings behind foggy eyes that were violet-gray, like an iris bloom drying in the sun. Then she’d punctuate the sentence in one of two ways. Either, the best things in life hide around the blind corners, or, Watch out for small favors, Tamara Lee. The first was an invitation, the second a warning. One ended with a wild laugh, the other with tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and fanning into the wrinkles, like twin rivers flowing into estuaries before being lost in the ocean.
It was impossible to know which one of those assessments of life she really subscribed to. But then, that was Aunt Lute. Crazy as a March hare, which was how she ended up living above our garage after being evicted from a house stacked floor to ceiling with things that were only fit for the trash. 

     In a family prone to burning the candle at both ends and dying young, Aunt Lute was a record-setter at seventy, and the only old person I’d ever been around for any amount of time. Not that Aunt Lute was your typical old person. She didn’t bake cookies, or tell family stories, or knit afghans. After having spent her life working a mindless factory job and caring for a now-deceased handicapped brother, she seemed to have traded her real past for several dozen fantasy lives she made up as she went along. My father, fifteen years her junior, was her only financially-stable relative, and probably the one person with a place big enough to put the crazy aunt at one end and still stand to live in the other.

     I didn’t mind Aunt Lute being there, really. I did my best not to be home, and aside from that, there was the fact that Aunt Lute’s presence irritated my stepmother. Aunt Lute’s memory wasn’t good, in terms of the recent past, so half of the time she didn’t have a clue who Barbie was, which drove Barbie nuts. The four blond-haired in vitro munchkins running around the place were a complete mystery to Aunt Lute, as well. It was news to her that my real mother was off in Ecuador with a mission group led by our ex-pastor, and my father had a thirty-four year old wife with a ticking-like-a-time-bomb biological clock that had so far resulted in Mark and Daniel, then Landon, and finally baby Jewel, who was just now getting old enough to cast worried looks at la tia loca. 

     Tempting as it was to pretend I hadn’t gotten the nanny’s phone call, so as to continue with the golf lesson I didn’t really want to take, I couldn’t quite convince myself to do it. Leaving The Fearsome Foursome home with Aunt Lute amounted to child endangerment in any number of ways. Considering that even the nanny couldn’t handle them—the kids or Aunt Lute—there was no telling what might happen in the time it could take for a tow truck to extricate Barbara’s SUV from the jaws of Baby Bundles, and then bring her, and what remained of the vehicle, home. Left to their own devices, the Four would tear the house down brick by brick, then throw the bricks at each other, while Aunt Lute stood in the back yard in her artist’s smock, painting pictures of the sky, or wandered the house tipping all the framed art slightly off square, or sat in her room pecking away on her typewriter, composing memoirs of fantastical events that never happened.

     My bugging out of the lesson ticked off the golf coach, of course. He was the best money could buy, and not accustomed to such utter disregard. He told me I needed to get my priorities straight. “You want to keep that college scholarship, you’ve got to put in the time,” he said, and then he went into a lecture about competition, and how not everyone was fortunate enough to get a University of Texas golf scholarship, and how my father had most certainly called in every favor he’d ever been owed, and blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, my fifteen nanny-minutes were ticking away like the countdown on a detonator. 

     “It’s the flippin’ University of Texas,” Coach reiterated, and he gave me a narrow-eyed look that more or less indicated I was a slacker. “Talent’s not enough. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, Lambert. Considering your father’s reputation on the football field, you’d think you’d know that. Your dad wasn’t the biggest guy in the NFL or the one with the most natural talent, but he gave it everything he had. That’s what made him a great quarterback. You might...” 

     More nanny minutes rushed by, while he lectured me about responsibility and the debt I owed my coaches, my father, Highland Park, and the golf club. Now probably wasn’t the time to tell him I was still trying to figure out how to confess to the world that the golf scholarship to UT was my father’s dream, not mine. Since Barbie’s brat pack was too young for collegiate sports, I was, athletically speaking, the family’s only hope, at least until the munchkins got older. But what I really wanted to do was take a year off and spend it bumming around the youth hostels of Europe with my best friend, Emity. Em’s parents didn’t think there was a thing wrong with postponing college in order to discover the world. 

     When Coach came up for air, I told him about Barbie, and the fender bender, and the stilettos. Coach had seen Barbie chasing one of The Four down the fairway at our last tournament, so I guess he got a pretty accurate picture. He laughed so hard he had to yank off his hat and fan himself to keep from passing out. When you’re a fifty-five year old man who’ll never be able to afford a thirty-four year old wife, it probably feels good to know someone else’s sugar baby just wrecked the Escalade.

     He was still laughing when I grabbed my bag and headed for the parking lot. No doubt, the Barbie story was about to become lively conversation at the pro shop. 

     By the time I got home, the nanny was standing in the driveway with her tote bag in one hand and Jewel dangling under her arm like a chubby-cheeked Beanie Baby. I got the nanny-rundown in ten words or less, in a mixture of two languages: The oldest three kids were locked in the backyard play area, the baby needed a diaper change, and la Tia loca… Leaving the sentence unfinished, the nanny rolled her eyes heavenward and flipped her hand in a motion like a bird taking flight. Then she shoved the baby into my hands and snorted so hard I felt spray on my arm.
Hiking her tote bag onto her shoulder, the nanny told me to remind my father that she hadn’t been paid in three weeks, then she hurried to her vehicle, glancing nervously back at the house, like a horror-movie actress escaping the lair of alien possession. Only when she’d reached her car and planted one foot inside did she bother to tell me that Barbie had called, and that sometime during the fender-bender excitement, Barbie had felt like she was sueno, as in passing out, and the shop owner had taken her to el doctor. I was stuck with the brat pack until whenever Barbie felt better, or my father came home from his office, which was usually sometime around midnight, after he figured The Four had finally worn down and lost consciousness on the furniture somewhere.

     No wonder the nanny was peeling away from the curb like an Indy driver leaving the pit. She was scared to death of being stuck in the insane asylum all night.  Whimpering, Jewel stretched her chubby arms toward the retreating nannymobile, as if she didn’t want to be marooned here without a responsible adult. No doubt, even a seven month old could tell I was in no way qualified to take charge. Aside from that, I had plans tonight, which hardly included acting as zookeeper for a bunch of rug rats. Sometimes, life could be seriously unfair.

     I went inside, put Jewel in the highchair with some Cheerios, and started calling everyone I could think of—Barbara’s friends, everyone on the Barbie babysitter list, the teacher from Mark and Landon’s preschool, the lady who kept the nursery at church, even a couple of my old schoolmates who were desperate for some money their parents didn’t know about. Nobody wanted to come over and take on the sibs. Around our neighborhood, The Four were legendary, which was saying something, considering that our neighborhood specialized in highly-indulged showcase kids, and made no apologies for it. 

     Through the French doors, I watched the three boys while I opened yet another address book, looking for anybody else I could call to take over. The book was old—from the bottom of the stack. There were entries in my mother’s handwriting—friends, old coaches and dance teachers, the PTO president from seven years ago. My mother was vice president then. It seemed strange that you could be vice president of the PTO one year, and heading off to Ecuador with a mission group the next. But that was my mother. When she was into something, she went all the way. My mother was The Purpose Driven Life in a good pair of running shoes. 

     Outside, Mark and Daniel were using the climbing rope to scale the wavy yellow slide on the playscape. They knew they weren’t allowed to do that. The rope, in fact, was supposed to be wrapped around the beam overhead and tied there, so they couldn’t get it down. The last time they rope-scaled the slide, Daniel had ended up in the emergency room getting four stitches in his curly blond head.

     I stood at the door, trying to decide whether to grab Jewel and take her with me, or leave her where she was while I went out to save lives in the play yard. Jewel was almost done pushing Cheerios off the tray and watching them bounce across the tile. She had a bored, tired look that said, Look out. I’m gonna blow. When Jewel got wound up, she could literally scream and wail for hours, and nothing would stop her. The pediatrician said she had some digestive issues. My father said she took after Barbie, but he didn’t say that within earshot of Barb, of course.

     Outside, Daniel was halfway up the slide. Mark and Landon had picked it up from the bottom and were shaking it, either giving Daniel a ride, or trying to knock him off. With the Brat Pack, there was a thin line between good clean fun and murderous intent. If I’d ever acted like that when I was little, my mother would have put me in the time out chair until my rear end took on its the shape, but since I was an only child, there wasn’t much incentive for me to compete in any way.

     Yanking open the French door, I hollered, “Cut it out!” The boys, of course, ignored me completely and shook the slide harder. In the highchair, Jewel jerked her head up, looked around the kitchen, and let out a wail.
Daniel stumbled sideways on the slide, caught himself on one foot, and teetered there, clinging to the rope. My body tensed as I waited for him to swing through the air, careening toward the nearest solid object. He’d end up in the emergency room right next to his mother.

     “Cut. It. Out! Get down!” I screamed out the door, but it didn’t do any good. The sibs were used to Barbara hollering, nannies yelling, the white noise of each other, and Aunt Lute occasionally popping in with an outburst unrelated to anything. Loud sounds and sudden displays of emotion meant absolutely nothing to them.

     I heard Aunt Lute’s squeaky pink house shoes come down the stairs and cross the living room as I was trying to undo some new plastic thing that was holding the screen door closed--Barbara’s latest attempt at child safety. As The Four grew in size and dexterity, efforts to keep them either locked inside or locked outside had turned my father’s house into a Fort Knox of the latest kid containment devices. 

     Perfume and pink chiffon floated by as Aunt Lute shuffle-squeaked into the kitchen, where Jewel was howling like a banshee and trying to push her way out of the high chair. Aunt Lute passed by on her way to the sink, seemingly oblivious.

     “Can you get her?” I snapped, grabbing the screen door with both hands and throwing my weight against the child lock. “Aunt Lute, can you get her?” Glancing over my shoulder, I took in Aunt Lute’s weird combination of fluffy pink housecoat, slippers, and a poufy bathing cap that looked like something from I Love Lucy.

     Calmly filling her glass, she swiveled my way. “Whose is she?” It was impossible to tell whether Aunt Lute was asking a question or making a point, as in, Whose problem is the screaming baby? Certainly not mine.
Which was exactly how I felt about it. However, blood was about to be drawn in the back yard, and I really didn’t want that on my conscience. Technically, those were my father’s children, flesh of my flesh, even if my father rarely crossed paths with them.

     “Barbara wrecked the Escalade again.” Yanking a jelly-covered butter knife off a plate on the counter, I prepared to commit mayhem on the child lock. It was either kick down the screen door, or let Mark and Landon assassinate Daniel. He was hanging onto the rope and the slide now, tossing out threats and preschool potty words in a growl-shriek that sounded remarkably like my stepmother’s. 

     “Barbie had to go to the…” I paused to wedge the knife into the plastic lock in an attempt to pop it loose. “…stupid…doctor.” If it didn’t give in the next thirty seconds, and Jewel didn’t shut up, I was going to go crazy. I really was. Tomorrow, no matter what, I wasn’t coming home. I was telling everyone I had a late lesson, and then I was spending the night someplace else. Anyplace. Anywhere that wasn’t a flippin’ nuthouse for munchkins.

     I smelled Aunt Lute’s perfume, and a whisper of chiffon tickled my arm. “This way,” she said nonchalantly, then slipped a finger around the jelly knife and pressed some mysterious, invisible switch. The plastic security loop slid loose so suddenly it shot across the room. 

     I slid the door open and ran across the yard, pointing the drippy jelly knife at the boys like a weapon. “Cut it out! Right now! Mark! Landon!” They were unfazed of course, and kept shaking the slide right up until I got to the playscape and started grabbing little body parts. I got Daniel first, because he was the one in mortal danger. Yanking him off the rope, I stuck him on the platform above the slide, and then went after Mark, since sending his twin brother to the hospital had probably been his idea.
Mark dropped his side of the slide and ran off. The slide fell, knocked Landon down, and landed on his leg. Landon let out a howl. 

     On the playscape, Daniel seized a plastic bat and ran down the slide, pinching Landon’s leg and causing him to scream bloody murder. Daniel hit the ground running and went after Mark with the bat, hollering, “Doo-doo, dookie poop-face! I’monna mop you!” Mark tripped over Barbie’s cat, the cat squalled, and Daniel caught up, then whacked both his brother and the cat with his weapon of choice. The cat screeched, retreated, and ran for her life, looking for a hole in the play area fence.

     Dragging Landon from under the slide, I set him on his feet, swiveled toward the other boys and yelled, “Cut it out!” Again. 

     The pool gate alarm went off. I wanted to scream right along with it.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Aunt Lute’s pink housecoat fluttering against the iron gate. When I turned to look, she was entering the water in her swimsuit and bathing cap, the squeaky pink slippers still on her feet. She held Jewel in one arm. Naked. My mind flashed a picture of la Tia loca drowning the baby. “Aunt Lute, wait!” 

     The blood-curdling tone of my voice attracted the boys’ attention. All three froze instantly, looked at the pool, then ran to the play yard fence, grabbed the iron bars and stuck their faces through, suddenly captivated.
“Why’za Jewee swim?” Landon babbled his three-year-old voice suddenly sweet and inquisitive, and his blue eyes wide beneath fluffy blond curls.

     In the pool, Jewel gurgled happily and kicked her feet as Aunt Lute dipped into the water just enough to cover the baby’s legs, then bounced up again.

     “Why’za Jewee swim?” Landon repeated. He followed me through the play yard gate and across the lawn, while the other boys stood at the fence, fascinated by the sight of la Tia loca and the baby. In the pool, the diaphanous puffs of pink fabric on Aunt Lute’s bathing cap caught the late afternoon light, giving her a sunny rose halo as she bounced up and down with the baby, both of them giggling.

     I remained cautiously silent until I’d made it to the pool fence, just in case la tia loca had completely lost it this time, in which case I’d need to dive in and rescue the baby. Opening the pool gate, I held Landon off and stepped inside by myself. “Aunt Lute, what are you doing?”

     She bounced in a semi-circle until she was facing me. Her violet eyes were bright in this light, sparkling with the reflection of long rays of evening sunlight. “Come on in. The water is lovely.” Fanning a hand across the surface, she altered the shape of the light, causing it to bend and dance. Jewel babbled and flapped her arms in appreciation, then wanted to touch the water herself. Aunt Lute leaned her over so that Jewel could reach.

     Holding my breath, I moved a step closer to the edge.  “Aunt Lute, I think we’d better get out of the pool,” I suggested cautiously. “Barbara’s not home.” Once upon a time, I would have gladly gone in for a swim, but I hadn’t been in the pool during daylight hours since the twins got old enough to walk. After that point, I couldn’t go into the pool, or anywhere else, without them hanging all over me. Taking a swim meant getting stuck with babysitting duty while Barbie took advantage of the time to go bleach her roots, or arrange her shoes, or whatever else was pressing on her agenda. It was easier to go swim at Emity’s house.

     Aunt Lute smiled and bounced Jewel up and down in the water again. “Everyone can come in.” She nodded toward Landon, and then the terrible twosome hanging on the play yard fence. “Let’s all go for a swim.”
Well, this is it, I thought. La loca has finally snapped. She’s lost it completely. Squatting down, I reached over the water. “Here, I’ll take the baby inside.”

     Aunt Lute’s gaze lifted slowly, locked onto mine in a way that would have seemed entirely lucid, if not for the fluffy hat, the pink slippers, and the naked baby. “Let’s have a swim,” she repeated. “It will be good for them.”
I shook my head, trying to figure out how to get the baby away from Aunt Lute without jumping into the water and getting my golf togs all wet. If I got wet, I’d have to change clothes, and there was no telling what the sibs would get into while I was up in my room. “They don’t have suits on. I’m not even sure where their suits are.” Barbara probably took them to the resale shop so she could buy new ones.

     The corners of Aunt Lute’s mouth twitched upward, forming half-moon wrinkles under her sunlit eyes. “Let them swim in their shorts. We’ll hang the clothing over the fence when we’re finished.”

     “Barbara’ll have a cow.” The boys were wearing some kind of matching Baby Gap stuff that looked like it’d never even been washed before.

     Aunt Lute checked the yard. “I don’t see any Barbara.”
I laughed, and la loca nodded, smiling slyly. Every once in a while, I had the feeling that Aunt Lute was a fox in a sheepskin, not nearly as out to lunch as she pretended to be. 

     “The water tires them out,” she said. “They become so exhausted--” Pausing, she yawned and stretched her free arm “—they can’t help falling asleep. Just like little angels.” 

     All of a sudden, Aunt Lute and I were on the same wavelength, and her point was as clear as the water in the pool. The Four were at their best when they were asleep—their puffs of curly blond hair like rays of curving light against the pillow, their cheeks red, and their lips pursed into tiny cupid’s bows.

     “Come on, guys. We’re going swimming,” I said, and headed out the pool gate to spring Mark and Daniel from the play yard. Landon trotted along behind me, and when we retrieved the twins, everyone was so happy about going swimming, that nobody smacked, bit, or pushed anybody on the way across the yard. 

     I stripped off the boys’ shirts, put water wings on Landon’s arms, grabbed a swim diaper for the baby, and the pool party commenced. Aunt Lute showed the boys a few maneuvers she’d learned in some imaginary life as a synchronized swimmer in Vegas. The twins could swim like fish, so they weren’t too bad at the aquabatics. It kept them entertained, anyway, and by the time we dragged everyone out of the pool well after dark, the sibs were so tired, they barely made it through peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before passing out in front of a Disney movie. I carried the boys to their beds, and then put the baby in her crib. At the bottom of the stairs, Aunt Lute and I gave each other a high five.

     “Glorious evening,” she pronounced. “Princess Stephanie loved to swim, as well. She had beautiful golden hair, and the softest brown eyes, just like yours.” Making a motion to illustrate flowing locks, Aunt Lute smiled, then turned away and headed for the bonus room over the garage, her wet slippers leaving twin slug trails on the tile. 

     No telling who Princess Stephanie was. 

     “Good night, Aunt Lute,” I called after her.

     “Good night, Princess.” She finger waved over her shoulder as she disappeared around the corner, adding, “I’ve some dry underwear in the laundry room.”

     Still contemplating the weirdness that was Aunt Lute, I cleaned up the sandwich crusts on the bar, then went to the living room, turned off the Disney movie, and flipped through the cable channels. 

     My father was on Channel Forty-Three in one of his We take shabby homes commercials. He was wearing a cheesy Superman suit, and his favorite advertising partner and former second-string fullback, Randy Boone, was dressed as Superboy with dreadlocks. They were rescuing some lady from back taxes she couldn’t afford on a house that needed costly repairs. My father gave her a market estimate and made her a purchase offer in twenty-four hours or less. And solved all her problems. Behind them, the house changed in an instant, going from shabby blue with a weed-filled yard to a bright, clean Householders yellow. Another derelict property rehabilitated by Householders, television magic, and my dad’s superpowers, as easy as one, two, three.

     From outside, the glow of headlights panned into the living room, traveling from one end to the other as a car rounded the circle drive on the way to the garage. I changed the TV channel in case it was my father pulling in. 

     Lately, he hated those commercials.

 

Chapter 2