Laura Anderson - Song of Summer

“Um, well, we’re kind of dating.”

My dad nods and continues with dinner, completely unfazed. My mom, however, puts down her fork and questions me with her eyes.

“I… just… well, I really like him. And he likes me. And… so we’re dating.” I go back to eating, like everything’s totally normal.

When I started dating Trent, my parents had already seen him around the town, the school, even the house. So when I told them we were dating, it was an off-the-cuff, “Oh yeah, and Trent and I are dating now,” kind of thing. They were indifferent either way. I mean, Mom was appropriately happy when we got together and sympathetic when we broke up. Dad distantly approved of everything. They were always nice to him and stuff, but I guess they knew it wasn’t forever. Wish they’d told me.

“I’d like to meet him,” Dad says between bites of meat loaf.

“I’m sorry,” Mom says, picking her way through her words. “I thought it was kind of… kind of a community service thing or something like that… you know, volunteer hours for graduation or something.”

Jenni snorts and covers her mouth.

“Nope!” I say. “I just really liked him so I hung out with him. And now we’re dating.”

Mom stays quiet, but I can see her working it out in her head. “Well, how do you… communicate? And things?”

“I’ve learned a little bit of sign,” I say. “From the Internet mostly. And we write notes.”

Awkward silence.

“And he’s really good at lip-reading.”

Dad looks up at me, meat loaf halfway to his mouth.

Mom breaks in. “Isn’t he a Chautauqua boy? Like, leaving at the end of—”

“Yeah,” I break in.

She digs deeper. “And that doesn’t—”

“Nope!” Before I can think about it too much, I pass the conversational baton.

“Jenni’s met him.”

Jenni nods. “He’s super nice. Totally hot.”

I kick her under the table. I should’ve kept the baton.

Mom turns to look at me, eyebrows raised, setting her fork back down on her plate.

I shrug and give a little smile. “It’s not like I’ve been hiding him from you!” I say (although I surely haven’t made any attempts to introduce them). “I’m sure he’d be glad to meet you!”

“Good!” Dad says, going back to his meat loaf. “We’d like to meet him, too. Let’s have him to dinner tomorrow.”

~

Yesterday’s tomorrow is now today and the time is 5:00 p.m. My mom keeps checking the windows by the front door and pacing back and forth.

“You’ll know when he’s here,” I say, playing a middle school recital piece on the piano in the living room. “And he’ll be here soon. He’s always on time.”

“‘You’ll know when he’s here,’” Mom says in what is supposed to be an imitation of my voice. “I don’t even know what that means!”

“It probably means that his arrival will be unmistakable,” Dad offers from his place behind a book.

“Thank you, Gary,” Mom says, and the lineage of my sense of humor proves itself once more. She checks the window again. I’ve chosen to keep the motorcycle a secret. And Jenni’s description of “totally hot” is the only one I’ve given them. What can I say? I like drama.

Less than thirty seconds later, I hear his motorcycle. Mom raises an eyebrow at me and I nod.

“That’s him.”

Mom and I peek out the window in time to see his bike glide into the driveway. The sun glares off the yellow and black and glints off his helmet as he dismounts. He’s wearing his tight Italian leather jacket over his white button-down. The toes of black boots stick out from the cuffs of expensive jeans. With his back to us, he takes his helmet off and shakes his head, fixing his hair before laying his helmet carefully on the seat and turning toward the house. It’s not until Mom sees his face, with the perfect cheekbones, dimpled chin, and pouty lips, that she turns to me.

“Robin Peters,” she says, “you have a lot of explaining to do.”

I grin.

Carter

I think I’ve overused the expression “the middle of nowhere,” because until seeing Robin’s house, I had not yet experienced its true meaning. Her house is situated between a cornfield and a vineyard with no other houses in sight. The driveway is long and tree lined. I park in the middle of it, next to Robin’s Subaru.

I wish I hadn’t worn my jacket. It’s hot and sunny and the last thing I need is to sweat all through dinner. But I didn’t want to get my shirt dirty as I rode over here. If there’s one thing my dad taught me, it’s that first impressions are important. I start to take off the jacket and realize that I’m still wearing my motorcycle gloves. Crap. I take them off and am faced with a decision: Do I take the walk to the front door or the side door? Most people in this area use the side door exclusively, and the front door is just for show, so I decide to begin the trek to the side door. This cobblestone walkway seems ten miles long.

The jam! I brought jam and it’s back in my saddlebags with the Nikon. I turn and jog lightly back to the bike, hoping nobody’s watching and the jam isn’t broken. It’s my mom’s favorite, from some Amish lady in a nearby town. I got a sampler of apricot, raspberry, and strawberry. It’s all supposed to be grown locally, but I can tell you I’ve never seen an apricot tree here before.

I pull the little sampler out and, other than being a little warm, the jam seems fine. I toss my jacket over the pommel of my bike and smooth out my shirt, starting the long walk back to the side of the house.

Just as I’m halfway to the side door, a woman flings open the front door. This must be Robin’s mom. She has the same blue eyes, same perfect eyebrows, and same heart-shaped face.

“Hi!” she signs crisply, stepping out onto the porch. She holds the front door open and gestures for me to join her. I backtrack and take the steps up onto the porch as she holds the door open, waving me into the foyer. “I’m Robin’s mom,” she signs. I instantly like this Robin-at-age-fortysomething.

“Nice to meet you,” I sign. “I’m Carter.”

She reaches out to shake my hand and I give her the jam.

“Ooh!” her mouth says. “Thank you!” she signs.

“You’re welcome,” I sign back. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my trusty pad of paper. “My mom loves it.”

She holds out her hands for the pad and pen, and after I give them to her she writes, “I’m sure I’ll love it, too.”

She calls something over her shoulder and Robin comes in from a different room.

“Hi,” she signs, smiling. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her hair in a loose ponytail. Her feet are bare. She looks like heaven.

“Hi,” I sign.

My feelings are written all over my face, as they always are. This fact is confirmed when I sneak a look back at Robin’s mom. She’s gone bright red and is studying her own wallpaper.

Robin sidles up to me. “You want to see the house?” she signs.

I nod and she takes my hand, lacing her fingers in mine.

I turn around to say good-bye to her mom, and she’s gone. Probably back to the kitchen. Something is making the whole house smell delicious. It is distinctly not stir-fry.

Robin tugs me down the hallway into the living room. It’s a comfortable, homey affair with a couch, a TV, and a fireplace. There are huge bookshelves lining the walls. A man is sitting in an easy chair, reading.

“Carter, this is my dad,” Robin signs and says.

He stands up and I see that he’s about my height and balding, with a hooked nose. He looks almost nothing like Robin except for his chin.

He smiles and holds out a hand. “Nice to meet you,” his mouth says, and his smile looks something like Robin’s, too. It’s honest and intelligent.

“Nice to meet you,” I sign, mouthing the words like I do for Robin.

Robin translates and her dad nods at me, giving an appraising look. He reaches down for a pad of paper that’s sitting on the table next to him. I realize that he put it there on purpose, for when he met me.

“I hear you’ve been spending some time with my daughter,” he writes. His handwriting is neat and uniform, every ‘i’ dotted, every ‘t’ crossed.

“Yes, sir,” I write. I can’t think of what else to say for a minute. But he seems to be waiting, so I continue writing, “She is one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. Thank you for letting me hang out with her. And thanks for inviting me to dinner.”

He looks back at me and nods, smiling back into his book.

“I’m going to show Carter the rest of the house before dinner,” Robin writes.

Her dad looks up at her. “Okay,” his mouth says and he nods.

She leads me back through the hallway, and I let the breath escape from being trapped in my lungs. Laughing, she looks up at me.

“He’s not that scary,” she writes.

I shake my head. “He is plenty scary,” I write.

She leads me through the hallway, past some closets, to a door that leads to a basement. She flicks on the light. From what I can see at the top of the stairs, it’s a bright, finished basement with newer furniture. “The den,” she signs, fingerspelling D-E-N.

I follow her back through the hallway and up the stairs. I can’t imagine living in a place like this, where everything is separated by walls and halls! Our apartment in New York, our condo on Long Island, our summer house in Chautauqua—all open floor plans. I could sign something to my mom in the kitchen from a place in the living room and she could see every word.