The Adventures of Flash Jackson Page 13

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I used to know a girl just like you,” she said. “When I was growing up. Her name was Letty Horgan.”

  “What about her?” I asked.

  “She was a tomboy too,” she said. “She even had a horse, as I recall. Though in those days that wasn’t so unusual. And we used to say she was full of Zam.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Zam is Flash Jackson,” said Elizabeth. “Same thing.”

  “It is?”

  “Letty was a great deal like you,” she said. “Same spirit, same energy. She didn’t mind living the kind of life that was set out for her, but she wanted it to be fun. You see? And interesting.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Well, I lost touch with her when I moved to England,” said Elizabeth. “I’ve lost touch with all my old girlfriends. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d moved, or passed away, or something. I’m no spring chicken, and that was all a very long time ago. Haley…do I really sound less English?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Strange,” she said.

  “Why strange?”

  “Because I feel less English,” she said. “Sitting here and talking to you has reminded me of a great many things. A great many wonderful things that I haven’t thought about in years.”

  “Like Letty Horgan?”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth. “Like Letty Horgan.”

  “We ought to look her up,” I said.

  “It would be interesting,” she said. “Letty was a character. She used to have Zam ceremonies, down at the deep part of the creek. She made us wear wreaths of leaves, and we had to repeat strange chants after her. It was all in fun, of course. Pure girlish silliness. But she always called it the Zam Spot. She claimed it was magic.”

  “You mean…my creek?”

  “Haley, dear. It may shock you to learn this, but you are not the first person in the world to know about that creek. My generation was here before you, you know. And there were others before us.”

  “Well, I knew that,” I said. “It’s just weird that she would pick that very spot, because…well…”

  Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. “Let me guess,” she said. “That’s where you enact your Flash Jackson rituals, whatever they may be. Am I right?”

  “More or less,” I said. “I don’t really have any rituals, but—well, you know. It’s my spot.”

  “It’s a nice little place,” said Elizabeth. “Maybe there really is some kind of magic there.” She winked. “A power center. Like the Indians used to believe.”

  Oh, Elizabeth, I thought, remembering the sunflowers—if only you knew what kind of magic was really afoot around here, in this very house—would you still be sitting here talking with me like this? Of course, anyone who’d participated in Zam ceremonies as a girl, whatever they were, might be more open-minded than most. But for now I decided that some things would stay secret from her. I would have to know for sure that she could be trusted completely before I told her that I was a…well, a witch, just like my mother and her mother before her, even if I planned on never having anything to do with Lifting the Veil again.

  Two days later it was time for the Shumacher’s big whizz-bang. It was one of those hot and muggy days with a haze in the air as thick as a curtain of lake water, and the smell of honeysuckle was like jam spread over the world. It would have been a perfect day to visit the creek for a swim, or barring that to float facedown in the Fireball McGinty Memorial Pond, snorkeling along and checking out the underwater life—the mosquito larvae and the tadpoles and all. Possibly some of the many goldfish I’d liberated over the years were still alive in there, too. But there would be none of that for me this summer, not with my cast.

  We’d been going to the Schumachers’ for the Fourth every year of my life that I could remember. Mother, who always managed to appoint herself the unofficial deputy of every cooking brigade and party setup crew in the county, went up early to help the Shumacher ladies get everything in order. Out of sheer boredom I decided to go with her, so I spent the morning and the early afternoon of our nation’s two-hundred-and-somethingth birthday sitting under a tree, watching Adam and his father heave picnic tables around.

  I wished, watching Adam out of the corner of my eye, that I hadn’t come. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, and his muscles glistened under a light slick of sweat like the hide of a young colt after running in the sun. Most people don’t take kindly to horse comparisons, but coming from me that was a compliment. Yet I was downright ashamed of the way I behaved around him. Being near Adam did something to my confidence level—namely, it plummeted. He was the only person in the world who affected me like that. I knew what it meant, and it irritated me beyond all telling that I was attracted to Adam. Just the sight of him was enough to give me a fit of the grumps, and all because I wanted him to talk to me more than anything else. I could have killed myself for going in the barn with him last year. He probably thought he could have more of me whenever he wanted now. Well, if he tried his slick moves on me this year, he was going to be learning a hard lesson.

  “Ho! Haley! How’s dat lek?” Mr. Shumacher called to me.

  “Coming along, I guess,” I said.

  “Hurt much?” said Adam.

  He grinned at me as a swatch of lank blond hair fell over his forehead. Used to be that the Shumachers—like many families—couldn’t afford a barber, what with all the mouths they had to feed, and even though the rest of the kids were gone now and the barber in Mannville only cost three dollars (if you were a man, that is) Mrs. Shumacher was still in the habit of plopping a bowl over Adam’s head and trimming around it like a pattern. (For women, the barber either charged fifteen dollars or suggested not-too-subtly that you go to the hair salon down the street, which was called Hair Today Gone Tomorrow. The Hair Today girls charged twenty, but at least they knew what they were doing when a woman sat down in the chair.)

  “Some, yeah,” I said, as gruffly as I could. He wouldn’t get any simpering out of me, damn him. “Gettin’ better, though.”

  “Dat’s good,” said Adam.

  “Yah, dat’s goot,” agreed his father.

  That was the Shumachers for you. Not exactly the most exciting conversationalists in the world—but they were agreeable as hell. If they disagreed with anyone, they kept it to themselves.

  I kept watching him work, hating myself for it, noticing how his hair swung low over his eyes, how he grunted as he and his father carried sawhorses out of the barn and laid big planks across them. These would become the tables where all the food was set out. Mother and Mrs. Shumacher were in the kitchen, and I could hear them both talking at once, the unmarried twin—Elsa, it was—chiming in every once in a while. I just sat there, listening to the muted sounds of birds trying to sing in the heavy air.

  Around one o’clock Mother and I went home again to freshen up. I didn’t need any freshening, not having lifted a finger all morning, but by now I was furious at myself and I needed a dash of cold water in the face. Adam hadn’t talked to me any more after asking how my leg was, and I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. So I went back home, knowing with sick dread that I’d be back in a few hours. What drove me craziest was how oblivious he was—how he seemed not to care if I was there or not. I sat at the kitchen table and watched while Mother patted her face with a damp cloth and then eased herself into my dad’s old chair, cucumber slices over her eyelids.

  “That Adam certainly has turned into a fine young man,” she said, as she leaned back and let the cucumbers work whatever magic they worked on her. I never saw that they made any difference, but I knew better than to mention it. “Think you’ll get a chance to talk with him this afternoon?”

  “Hell if I know,” I said. “What do I care, anyway? And for that matter, what do you?”

  “No need to get touchy,” she said. With her eyes closed she was starting to get sleepy, and she looked kind of like an aging movie s
tar for a moment, taking a break between scenes. “I just thought after that time you spent with him in the barn last year that you two might—well, you know. Talk again. More often, I mean.”

  Embarrassment shot like a wildfire from the tips of my toes to my forehead. I was glad she couldn’t see me through the cucumbers.

  “You knew about that?” I said.

  Mother smiled. “Of course I knew,” she said. “A mother knows everything about her children, even when she pretends not to. Which is exactly what I was doing. Pretending not to know.”

  “It wasn’t all that serious,” I said. “It was stupid. It was a mistake.”

  “Oh, I trust Adam. And you. I knew you wouldn’t get up to anything foolish in there.” She lifted the cucumbers off her eyes and looked at me. “Did you enjoy yourself, at least?”

  “MOTHER!” I hollered.

  “Well, Haley, excuse me for asking. But with a daughter as rambunctious and tomboyish as you, a mother can’t help but wonder—”

  “Wonder what?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say I was relieved,” she said, resettling the cucumbers and wiggling down lower in her chair.

  “Let’s just say this conversation never happened,” I said. I got up and stumped out towards the steps. “I’ll be waiting in the truck,” I said over my shoulder.

  To understand a Shumacher party, one has to have met a Shumacher—and since it’s likely you haven’t had the pleasure, allow me to describe them. Your basic Shumacher is a rare, stupendous thing, the sort of person one meets but rarely in life and wonders why there aren’t more of them. As I mentioned before, they’re generally large, agreeable, and strong, but that really only scrapes the Shumacher surface. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find bottomless wells of geniality and decency, and also generosity—this annual party being a perfect example of all three. But dig even deeper and you’ll find a creature that loves to celebrate, and needs only the slimmest of excuses to do so. All of life is a celebration when you’re a Shumacher. Everything you see and hear is funny, and everything you put in your mouth is delicious.

  The best thing about the annual Fourth of July party was that it started early and it went on forever, sometimes until the wee hours. Mr. Shumacher was famous for three things: homemade sausage, home-brewed beer, and party games. These included some games that everyone’s heard of, like potato-sack races and pin the tail on the donkey, and other less common events, like throwing things: a huge stone, a small telephone pole, a sledgehammer. These last were usually a men-only kind of thing, although a girl could get in them if she wanted. I’d sort of been hoping to try out the hammer toss this year, but it looked like I would have to wait. There were also footraces, flag football, and chasing the greased pig, and after everyone was thoroughly exhausted and stuffed and overflowing with beer, there was music and dancing, and finally fireworks. But my favorite was the greased pig.

  It started out with a great squealing from behind the barn, and next thing you know this little black-and-pink streak of lightning came tearing around the corner with Mr. Shumacher and Adam racing along behind it, already laughing so hard that they collided with one another and hit the ground. There was an instant uproar from the men in the crowd. Plates of half-finished food were tossed down, mugs of beer gulped in a hurry, and then about twenty men and half-grown men became a mob of howling pig chasers.

  The women, who knew from experience what was about to happen, formed a barricade around the tables. This was to protect the food. The guys tore up the yard for several minutes, during which a twisted ankle, two split lips, and what might later turn out to be a concussion were sustained. First prize for catching the pig was the pig itself, so they were a pretty determined lot, but nobody ended up with it: For the third year in a row the pig got wise and promptly disappeared over the horizon, never to be seen again in this part of the world. It was a disappointment. That pig could have fed a whole family for a year, once it was fattened on kitchen scraps and slaughtered.

  “Ve ought to put up a fence und try again,” said Mr. Shumacher, but as this was also the third year in a row he’d said that and it hadn’t happened yet, everyone ignored him.

  The Schumacher party was the kind of party where you didn’t need an invitation to show up. This meant it got a little bigger every year, and as the afternoon wore on, this one started looking like it was going to be the biggest party yet. Mr. Shumacher was in heaven. His chubby red-apple cheeks were glowing like a pair of headlights as he stood by the driveway and welcomed new arrivals. I saw Adam’s face through the crowd, smiling, a little longer and thinner than his father’s but with the same red cheeks, which he had somehow managed to adopt. He had a fair amount of beer in him by then, but it was a Schumacher trait to remain steady as a rock. After a while I realized he was smiling at me.

  This was it—my big chance to prove how little I cared for him, and for all men in general. I could snap my fingers in his face and walk away. In fact, I was going to do just that. I would show him. I crutched over to where he was sitting, but instead of doing what I’d planned, I said, “Howdy, Adam.”

  Idiot.

  “Hi again, Haley,” he said. There was a foam mustache on his upper lip.

  “Any beer left?”

  He reached under his lawn chair and held up a mug, and I took a deep snort. Mr. Shumacher made beer Germanstyle, the way it was supposed to be: thick and dark and strong, and served slightly cooled, not chilled. I didn’t care much for beer, but this stuff was delicious, and it went straight to my head. That was good. If I was going to be betraying my true self and giving in to whatever stupid girly impulses ruled me whenever Adam filled my vision, I figured I at least deserved a little anesthesia.

  “You wanna siddown?” said Adam. He pulled up another lawn chair and patted it. I set myself down and arranged my skirt so it fell as gracefully as possible down my cast. Somewhere, I could feel Mother’s eyes on me, and I knew she was out there in the crowd, watching.

  “How’s things?” I asked.

  “Good,” he said.

  “What are you doing these days?”

  “Ag,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Agricultural school. Starting in the fall.”

  “Oh, yeah? That’s nice.”

  He shrugged. After a while he said: “Oh, yah. And my dad got a new tractor.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “What kind?”

  “International.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yah.”

  We sat in silence for several minutes, taking in the spectacle of nearly one hundred fifty people growing progressively drunker. There was a lot of backslapping going on. Somewhere off in a corner of the yard a few women had raised their voices in song, that sappy one about piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.

  “How much longer is dat t’ing gonna be on your lek?” Adam asked.

  “Forever,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oho,” he said teasingly. “What do you wanna talk about?”

  I think the same memory hit us both at the same time: hay stuck in our hair, sweat trickling down our chests, hot salt in our mouths, heavy breathing. That stupid girly reflex took over me and I looked primly down at the ground, my ears red. I could feel heat coming from him and I knew he was looking at me. I was having the biggest shyness attack of my life.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You havin’ a good time?” he asked. He had the softest voice: kind and warm, with a touch of his adopted father’s deep rumble.

  “Yeah,” I said, still not looking at him. Damn it, I thought. What’s happening to you? I knew what Adam was thinking, and I know he knew what I was thinking—it was written all over my face. And as much as I hated myself for it, I knew that if he grabbed me by the hand and led me toward the barn, I would have gone.

  And I do believe he was going to, but at that moment, who should appear but that little shit Frankie, breathing like he’d just run a m
ile.

  “Hi, Haley,” he said. “Hi, Adam.”

  “’Lo, Frankie,” said Adam.

  “Frank,” I said sternly, but he missed it.

  “Heard you were gone for a while!” Adam said.

  “Yup,” said Franks. “I’m back now, though. Can’t tell you where I was. It’s a secret.”

  “Frank!” I said.

  “All righty,” said Adam breezily. “Don’t tell me, then.”

  “What are you up to, Franklin?” I said, gritting my teeth.

  “I have to show you something,” he said.

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  “Good Lord,” I said. “Can’t you bring it over here?”

  “It’s too big,” he said. “I can’t lift it.”

  Adam was a pretty tolerant guy, not the sort that would make fun of Frankie—but having Frankie around was enough to kill anyone’s sex drive. I could have argued with him, even ignored him, but that would have made me look desperate. So I stood up, sighing heavily, and said, “See ya, Adam.”

  “’Kay,” he said. “Bye. Bye, Frankie.” I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Absolutely no emotion showed on his face at all.

  “Bye, Adam. Come on,” said Franks, pulling at my arm.

  “Stop that,” I said. I was about to give him another tongue-lashing, but I remembered how guilty I’d felt after the last time. We made our way through the people until we came to a massive boulder that formed the centerpiece of Mrs. Shumacher’s flower garden.

  “Look,” said Frankie, pointing at the boulder.

  “You brought me over here to see this?” I said. “A fucking rock?”

  Frankie looked shocked. “Haley!” he said. “That’s a bad word!”

  “I know,” I said. “And I meant it, too.”

  “You shouldn’t use that kind of language.”

  “Frankus,” I said, “if you don’t show me what you brought me over here to show me, I’m gonna put a hurt on you like—”

  “Here,” he said, bending down and pointing. “Look here.”

  I looked. He was pointing to the outline of a fossil in the side of the rock. I gave up—I wasn’t going to get rid of him until I looked. So I made a big production of lowering myself to the ground and leaning in so I could see better. It was an imprint of a little salamander or something, some kind of lizardy-looking thing, about ninety zillion years old.