Laura Anderson - Song of Summer

“We just ate,” she says.

“Tonight,” I write. “At my house. Meet my family?”

She looks up at me, eyes wide. “I don’t know…” she says.

“Please?” I sign.

I pout my lip, draw in my eyebrows, and give her my best puppy-dog face. It works. She bursts out laughing.

“Okay,” she signs.

“Good,” I sign. I pull out my phone to text them.

She grabs the pen and paper out of my pocket and starts writing. After a minute, she shows it to me: “You mean you didn’t even ask them yet?!”

I shrug and grin. “It’ll be okay,” I sign.

I’m right. It is okay. I write my address down for her and she assures me that she’ll be able to find my house. I give her forty bucks for the gatehouse.

“You shouldn’t have to pay to come to my house,” I write when she tries to reject it. “It’s a lot of money. If I had a guest pass I’d give you that instead, but I don’t have one on me. Please.”

She accepts it gingerly. “What should I wear?” she writes.

“Clothes,” I write in reply. “Unless… well that’d be an interesting dinner.”

“Ha-ha,” she writes. “Seriously.” And she circles the question, then adds, “I’ve never been in a house at Chautauqua. For all I know, you have butlers and maids and a dress code or something.”

“We don’t have a butler,” I write back, laughing. “We don’t even have a cleaning lady! And we don’t wear suits or anything special to dinner, if that’s what you mean. Just look like you. You always look good.”

“Sure,” she writes. “Okay. See you tonight?”

“Tonight,” I sign.

“Bye,” she signs.

I put on my helmet. “Bye. Tonight!”

Kicking my bike into gear, I drive off.

Robin

“Jenni!” I text. “I need you! Now! I’m by the church! Where we met up with Carter!”

Jenni is there in two seconds. She’s out of breath. “Robin! Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

“Um… ,” I say. The grass seems to be spinning and the sound of Carter’s bike echoes in my ears.

“Robin!” She shakes my arms but my right hand flies up to my head, where it likes to go when I’m overwhelmed.

“Um… I’m going to his house. For dinner. With his family. I don’t know what to do! I won’t be able to talk to anyone! I’ve never been in a house at Chautauqua! I’ve only been there for All-County Concerts! All I know is the ice-cream shop!” I hold the two twenties he gave me out in front of me. “Look! This is to pay the people at the gate! Because you have to pay people to walk into his neighborhood!”

“Is that all! I thought you were in trouble!” Jenni laughs and sits on the steps, dragging me with her.

She ends the laugh in a big sigh and turns to face me on the steps. “Well,” she says, “we knew this day was coming-“

“We did?!” I explode. “Why didn’t somebody tell me this day was coming!”

“Okay I knew this day was coming,” Jenni says. “And I have thought about it for you, even if you haven’t. First things first.” She stands and helps me up. “You need to decide what to wear.”

“First things first I need to figure out what to say!” I correct her. “And how to say it!”

“No no no.” Jenni says. “First things first, you decide what to wear. Talking is just talking. But clothes speak louder than words, and his first language is seeing. So we are getting you dressed.”

I let her lead me back to my car, and we both get in, heading out to my house.

Upon walking in the door, I realize that I should probably ask my parents about this. They let me use the car if I tell them where I’m going and who I’m hanging out with. It’s not a bad system, really, but I do actually have to tell them where I’m going and who I’m hanging out with. “Just a minute Jenni,” I say, and poke my head in my mom’s office. She’s sitting at her desk, unpacking her latest order and parceling it for customers. “Hey, Mom?” I say, standing in the doorway. “You know that boy I told you about? The one I took to the craft fair today?”

“The deaf one?” she says.

I gulp. You see, I’ve given my parents… less than full disclosure about Carter. This is what she knows about him: He’s about my age, deaf, from New York City, and living at Chautauqua for the summer. I hung out with him at the overlook and we’ve been texting a lot over the past couple days.

“Yeah… ,” I say. “He invited to me to his house for dinner.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, I don’t see any problem with that.” This is what she doesn’t know about Carter: He is gorgeous. He has a ridiculously sexy motorcycle (which I’ve ridden.) He as good as told me he was interested in me today. “Just make sure your phone’s on and that there’s gas in the car,” she continues.

“Okay,” I say, about to head for the stairs.

“But you tell him that we’d like to meet him, too!” she calls after me. “Dinner at our house! Soon!”

“Sure!” I say, glad that I’m not as transparent as Carter. “He’d love that!”

I run upstairs to find Jenni rooting through my closet.

“Go shower.” She waves me off with her free hand, her nose stuck among my clothes.

I grab my robe off the back of the door and shower off all the craft fair grime. My memory wanders and I smile as I remember the pennywhistle and the little kids dancing and the man with the spoons… That. That is music. It brings people together. It breaks them down and connects their hearts. But seeing Carter’s face… I never thought music could be exclusive. I always thought it was for everyone. If only there was a way he could someday hear it. He doesn’t even know how empty his life is without it.

I wring out my hair, towel off, and put on my robe. When I get back to my room, Jenni is rooting through my underwear drawer.

“Excuse me!” I say.

“You have nothing good in here!” she laments, holding up a pair of striped cotton undies.

“I have no reason to have anything good in there!” I say, throwing my dirty clothes in the hamper. This will be my third time seeing this guy. There is no reason for him to see my underwear. Trent never did and we dated for years.

“Just because he won’t be taking it off doesn’t mean he won’t see it!” Jenni says.

“So I should tease him in front of his family with an oh-so-classy G-string sticking out from my jeans? That is exactly the message I’d like to give his family.” I throw boring underwear at Jenni and she stuffs it back in my drawer. “I want to date this guy, not torture him!”

Jenni stops rooting through my drawer and looks up at me. “You want to date this guy?”

I collapse onto my bed. “I don’t know… ,” I moan.

“Well, thankfully, you don’t have to know that now!” she says brightly. “Let me ask an easier question: Do you want to make a good first impression?”

“Yes!” I say, sitting up, leaving a wet-hair imprint on the bed.

“Then we will get you ready to make a good first impression!”

By the end of our fussing, I am dressed in jeans, flats, and a classy black tank top, so you can’t really tell if I’m dressed up or dressed down. My hair is down for the first time pretty much all summer. I’m wearing it long and parted on the side, the natural waves enhanced into curls with the help of a curling iron and a little mousse. I’m wearing black eyeliner and mascara. There is the slightest bit of rosy lipstick. Even I have to admit I look pretty good.

And that’s good, because it’s about time to leave. Jenni and I pound down the stairs and I have a mini panic attack, turning to her. “I spent the whole afternoon getting ready and none learning ASL. None. At all. I still get confused around ‘P’ and ‘Q’ in the alphabet! I don’t even know how to say, ‘Nice to meet you!’”

Jenni turns me back around and faces me toward the hall. “You’ll do fine,” she says. “I’m sure they’ve talked to hearing people before. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there are a lot of us.”

I laugh weakly as we stop by my mom’s office.

“Ooh! So pretty!” my mom says. She’s just finishing up her Mary Kay parcels.

I do a turn for her and she applauds lightly. “All right,” she says. “Do you have your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Gas in the station wagon?”

“Yes ma’am.

“Then have fun! Be home by midnight!”

“Will do! Love you!”

“Bye, Mrs. Peters,” Jenni calls.

“Bye, Jenni. Come over any time!” my mom calls after her.

“Your mom is so nice,” Jenni says as we walk out the door.

“Yeah… ,” I say.

“I can’t believe she just let you go off to his house, never meeting him or his parents or anything. She’s usually really strict about stuff like that.”

“Yeah… ,” I must sound guilty.

Jenni stops. “She doesn’t know that this boy’s the sexiest thing under heaven, does she?”

“No . . .”

My guilt is replaced by laughter.

We hop in the Subaru and I take her home on my way to Carter’s house. Once I get to Chautauqua Institution (the town’s full name), I know enough to pull into the parking lot instead of the gates—cars aren’t allowed on the grounds unless they’re dropping something off. I spot a row of covered motorcycles in a far corner. One of the covers says “Ducati” in yellow writing. I smile. Before getting out of the old Subaru, I pull the mirror down and fix split ends for far too long. I check my back pocket for my waitress pad and little pen, as though there will be no pen or paper in their entire house, and before I shut the car door, I grab my All-State select choir sweatshirt. It doesn’t really go with my outfit, but it can get chilly at night by the lake. Halfway across the parking lot, I feel like I should have brought something—some kind of gift for his mom or something. Isn’t that what rich people do? It’s too late now.