Emory's Gift Read online

  I tightened my grip on the phone. “You don’t,” I replied honestly.

  He was a former aerospace executive who had purchased a Montana ranch to play on and who had discovered a grizzly living on the edge of his property. The man’s wife thought the bear looked hungry.

  I’ll bet.

  “Mister, if you feed that bear even once, he’ll start thinking of you as a food source and will follow you home,” I warned. “A grizzly can kill a man with a single swipe of his paw—you’ve seen his teeth, his claws? The only safe thing to do is to stay as far away from that bear as you can.”

  But there was no one there to give eighth-grade Charlie Hall that sort of advice.

  That day I made four trips up to the pole barn, returning each time laden with frozen dinners the bear crunched up as soon as I pried them out of their pans. Each time I came back the bear was wading around in the water, jumping fruitlessly on fish I couldn’t even see.

  “You probably ought to give up on trying to catch a fish. It doesn’t look like it’s working out for you,” I told him.

  The bear gave me a look that I swear contained a little bit of irritation. I decided to let him go about his business without the commentary.

  After I handed over a cheese-and-noodle dish that rained macaroni like little dried-up worms when the bear bit into it, I told him that maybe that should do it for the day.

  “I don’t know that my dad won’t notice if I keep giving you stuff at this rate,” I explained apologetically.

  I figured there must have been something in my tone that the bear understood, because we stood there regarding each other for a minute and then he lumbered off. When I yelled, “Bye!” at him he did not look back.

  I was in a good mood when I walked in the house, totally unprepared for the expression on my father’s face. He was standing in the kitchen by the sink.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said cheerfully, unaware. “Did you finish rebuilding the corral?”

  “Charlie,” my father said gravely. He held up the pan that had contained the lunch that Yvonne had made for the bear. A little of the slimy casserole still clung to the sides—I’d been planning to wash it when I got around to it.

  “What’s this?”

  Uh-oh.

  chapter

  SEVEN

  “YVONNE called a minute ago to tell me I should put this in the oven for half an hour and then it’d be ready.” My dad set the pan in the sink and then crossed his arms, facing me. “You want to tell me what you did with our dinner?”

  “I put it in a bag and threw it away,” I said, which, though not the exact truth, was practically truth’s identical twin. Or similar-looking cousin, anyway.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Dad, it was tuna noodle.” What more defense did a man need?

  My dad regarded me gravely. I fidgeted under his gaze. He drew in a deep breath and let it out as a whistle through his nose.

  “Sit down, Son,” he said to me. We settled in at the kitchen table and he stared at me, searching for words. The fact that he was wrestling with what to say caused me to feel a rising dread. This was going to be about more than just kidnapping a casserole. Suddenly I flashed on what life would be like if Yvonne were sleeping down the hall from me in Mom and Dad’s room, if Yvonne cooked dinner at Mom’s stove, if Yvonne stopped in to try to give me a kiss every night.

  If that happens, I decided to myself, I will run away. I would run away with Kay, who had a driver’s license. We would drive to some place in Canada, where it would probably be legal for us to get married—it was Canada where they let people do whatever they wanted because it was too cold to bother stopping them.

  “Charlie, when a man…” He reconsidered and started over, correcting himself. “Charlie, there are things a man needs.…”

  I stared at him in alarm. We weren’t seriously going to talk about this, were we?

  “Everyone thinks of me as being this lonely man who needs to have a woman around. They respect your mother, but they feel that time enough has passed and that I should have someone like Yvonne in my life, someone I can…” He sighed again. “So I’m really sort of helpless, here. I don’t really like Yvonne. She’s fine; don’t get me wrong. But I don’t like her in the girlfriend sense of the word.” He shook his head in wonder. “I’ve had four people ask me over to their house this month and they all include Yvonne, like the town took a vote.”

  My dad agitatedly got to his feet. “There’s nothing wrong with the woman. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.” He stared moodily out the window. “But it’s as if the lack of any other alternatives makes her the default. Do you know what I mean by that?”

  “So if you don’t have a girlfriend, then you wind up with the person who is just there,” I said to my father.

  I briefly wondered if Kay had a boyfriend. If not, couldn’t I be the default? She didn’t act like she was going steady with anyone.

  “Exactly.” My father nodded.

  I was the oldest student in Junior Lifesaving, now that Dan Alderton had dropped out. I was “just there.” Who else could possibly be the default?

  I looked at my dad, who was running a hand through his reddish brown hair. This was the deepest and most intimate conversation we’d had in a long time. What I should do, I realized, was tell him about Kay. It would be an equal trade of information, two men swapping “women, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them” stories.

  I opened my mouth, wondering where to start. Talking to my dad had just gotten to be so hard.

  “But Charlie. Throwing away her dinner, that was just rude. She was trying to do us a kindness. I was lucky I saw the pan in the sink and figured out what she was talking about, but when she first asked me I was without a clue.”

  I hung my head, unhappy with the shift in mood.

  “I raised you better than that.”

  “You and Mom raised me,” I retorted with a sharpness that startled both of us. I didn’t know why I snapped at him. It wasn’t something I did very often, that was for sure. When the surprise and anger seeped out of his eyes they turned cold and grave and unloving. I knew that look.

  The upshot of it all was that I was grounded until the first day of school, not allowed to leave the house unless it was to do chores. August, dry and clear, was just getting glorious and I would spend the last half of it sitting inside. Then I thought of something really important.

  “But can I go to Junior Lifesaving?” I cried.

  Yes, I could do that—those lessons were paid for.

  Most maddening was the fact that I was pretty much my own warden. He was at work; how would he know if I snuck out during the day? Hadn’t I already proven untrustworthy? How then did it make any sense that I was to police myself? It was the sort of crazy parenting my father employed all the time. He made me give my word and shake his hand and that was supposed to be good enough. If he had been as suspicious as a normal dad I might have succumbed to the temptation to head down to the creek to see if the bear was still around, but because of my father’s faith in me I was completely stuck!

  I saw Kay two Saturdays in a row, and though I gave her intense stares whenever she glanced my way she remained cool and professional with me. I couldn’t decide if she was acting like we didn’t have something special between us because she didn’t want the other students in class to feel slighted or she was acting like we didn’t have something special between us because we didn’t have something special between us.

  The second Saturday was the last lesson. We all practiced everything we’d learned, except, I’m sorry to say, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Kay told us we’d receive our certificates in the mail, and that was it. I lingered after class broke up to see if I could catch her eye, but she went directly into the ladies’ locker room.

  Would I ever even see her again?

  I about went crazy during my incarceration, so bored that I sometimes did chores just to have something to do. The world was still ree
ling from President Nixon’s resignation, but I didn’t care about anything beyond my own miserable imprisonment. I was just on the brink of greatness, a boy who talked to real bears and put his lips on real women, only to be snatched back and tossed into solitary confinement. I was itchy with unexpressed energy, so stuck in the world of nothing to do that I didn’t want to do anything. I had long and entirely impossible conversations with Kay in my mind.

  Me: Kay, I’m not just a junior lifesaver. I often go into the woods and feed a grizzly bear tuna casseroles.

  Kay: I love you! Let’s kiss.

  I was so bored that even though I had nothing to talk to him about I called Dan Alderton over Labor Day weekend, though he wasn’t home.

  “He’s not here; he went into town. Are you going to the movies tonight?” Mrs. Alderton asked me.

  “Sorry?”

  “I guess all of your friends from school are going to see a movie. Sugarland Express? With that woman from Laugh-In, Goldie Hawn? I know she’s been in other things, but I still think of her as being on Laugh-In; do you miss that show? I used to love that show. You should go. How come you don’t come over to play with Danny anymore? You tell your dad we’re thinking of him. Is he seeing that woman, Yvette Mandeville? I mean Yvonne. She’s so sweet. Are you okay, hon? How have you been?”

  Mrs. Alderton, I decided, was one of those people who asked questions without ever really desiring any kind of answer.

  I told her politely that it was a pleasure to speak to her and that no, I wasn’t going to the movie. I didn’t tell her I was grounded, nor did I say that with my dad there were no exceptions, no appeals. You took your punishment.

  Fifteen cords of wood had arrived by truck a few days before and naturally it was my job to stack it all. I was digging around in the woodpile, not so much stacking as just heaving split logs around and thinking about Kay, when I heard the Jeep turn off onto Hidden Creek Road and head up to our house. By the time I went inside, Dad was in the shower, which was pretty unusual. When he came out of the bedroom a while later, he was wearing pressed slacks.

  “You okay on your own for dinner tonight?” he asked me. He was buttoning a shirt and it seemed to be giving his roughened fingers some trouble. His new tie, fancy and wide, was flopped over the back of a chair like a deflated snake.

  “Where are you going?”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I knew.

  “Just out with some friends. Out to dinner. Dinner with … Yvonne, she’ll be there, too. Actually we’re meeting friends for a drink and then after that dinner it’ll be just me and Yvonne, Miss Mandeville, at dinner. It’s a dinner date. I’m going on a date, Charlie.”

  For nearly a year my father had been silent as a broken clock, and now, with the advent of this Yvonne woman, he was unleashing a torrent of words and I didn’t like any of them.

  “When will you be home?” I asked him in a low voice.

  “Don’t wait up for me,” he replied, turning his back on me.

  That’s how I wound up going to see a movie that night. I watched my father’s Jeep pull out of the driveway and I cursed him out loud. I found myself going to the gun cabinet, but no, violating that rule wasn’t enough; I had so much rebellion inside of me banging around like a buffalo head-butting a pickup truck that I needed to do something really bad. It wasn’t ten minutes later that I was trotting down the road, drinking in the evening air, an escaped prisoner.

  I was headed, as it turned out, for a hefty helping of heartbreak.

  chapter

  EIGHT

  IT took more than a little bit of walking to get to town, but I was used to it. Selkirk River didn’t really know how to decorate itself for Labor Day beyond a back-to-school sale at the dime store, so it just left up the stuff from the Independence Day celebrations—the streetlights wore boas of red, white, and blue. The air was warm and I decided I’d be better off with an ice cream than without, so I headed toward Baskin-Robbins as the first order of business.

  There were little white tables scattered around next to the big picture window at the ice-cream parlor, and my heart fluttered when I saw the short black hair shimmering on a girl sitting at one of them. It was my Kay, licking an ice-cream cone and laughing.

  I went from glorious exaltation to crushing despair in just seconds. Kay was not alone.

  Her companion at the table was a man I’d never seen before. He had the short haircut of a soldier, and he was handsome and muscular and taller than Charlie Hall by a lot. Compared to him I was just an eighth-grade kid from Junior Lifesaving.

  I’d lost her.

  I’m sure I’m probably not the only heartsick boy in the world to self-inflict more damage by hanging around and watching the love of his life lavish affection on another male. Kay’s lips eventually met his when they finished eating and stood outside the ice-cream shop. They kissed like they’d put in a lot of practice at it, entwined in each other’s arms, and then broke apart with smiles on their faces.

  Kay left in one direction and the boyfriend in another. I lingered for a minute and then set off in the direction of the movie theater.

  I’d lost my taste for ice cream.

  Naturally, because I hadn’t yet suffered enough, Kay was out in front of the movie theater, meeting some girlfriends. She was wearing hot pants, her tan, slim legs adding desire to the nauseating stew of emotions bubbling up inside me. I hung back until she went inside, then purchased my ticket and slunk in after her.

  The movie theater had big velvet curtains and magnificent chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Opulent faux box seats were built into the intricately tiled walls down by the polished wooden stage. It was a magical place for me, even if close examination revealed significant wear in the cushions and a carpet that was thin and ragged. The place was crowded, but as soon as I walked in I spotted a contingent of boys who were in my grade. Feeling better, I started down the ramp toward them, but a hand on my wrist stopped me.

  “Hi, Charlie,” said a female voice. It was, of course, Kay, sitting in the aisle seat.

  It was my impulse to sullenly shrug her off as punishment for her betrayal, but I couldn’t help it: a grin immediately lit up my face. “Hi!” I said. My whole arm was singing with the sensation of her hand touching me, even when she let go.

  I stood there with my goofy smile, probably looking totally enraptured. If the thousands of volts of pure love I was sending her way registered with her at all, she gave no sign, though a small grin did twitch at the corner of her mouth.

  Say something, you idiot! I cursed myself.

  The lights dropped and the curtain began chugging its way to the ceiling, wrinkling up from the bottom. The noise level began receding.

  “Well, enjoy the movie,” I said to Kay. She smiled at me.

  Just three rows down were my friends. Dan Alderton was sitting in the aisle seat. There were plenty of open places among them. “Hey,” I whispered, starting to slide into the row to join them.

  “Where you think you’re going?” Dan demanded loudly—so loudly that it seemed like everyone in the theater stopped to listen. His leg was pressed against the back of the seat in front of him, like a railroad-crossing gate.

  I was dumbfounded. “I just…” I pointed to an empty seat.

  “Nuh-uh. Pick someplace else.”

  Sitting next to Dan were the same boys from the road that day, Mitch and Jerry and the ninth grader, Gregg. They were jeering at me with open hostility.

  “Go sit down,” Gregg said.

  I didn’t understand any of this, but the previews were starting and I could feel the people behind me getting restless. I glanced up and saw Kay gazing at me and there was something in her dark eyes I couldn’t read—I loathed the idea it might be pity.

  I found a seat down in front, where the floor sort of leveled out and anyone viewing the movie would get a crick in his neck by the end of it. I wasn’t watching, though; I was still sorting through my confusion. I had done nothing to offend Dan that I
could recall, but the contempt on everyone’s faces was unmistakable.

  I’d been focused on Dan and those next to him, but what about the other guys, several from my grade, all of whom had been watching as Dan blocked my passage? It felt as if a vote of excommunication had been taken. Or was it just that they were all so thankful that it wasn’t happening to them that they kept their heads down?

  Either way, I was an outcast. I swallowed back the hurt.

  I was still wallowing in self-pity and perplexity when something light popped me on the back of the head. I thought I heard a snigger as well, and when something else struck me it fell into my lap: a kernel of popcorn.

  So now my misery was complete. My dad was off on a hot date and would probably wind up getting married to the grocery gal, the love of my life was dating some man, and the boys from my grade hated me so much they were throwing food at my head.

  If I left the theater my retreat would be noted and I would lose whatever slight standing I had among my fellows. If I stayed I’d be showered with popcorn and everyone in the theater would be witness to my humiliation. There were no good options.

  A piece of hard candy shot past my ear, bouncing on the floor in front of the seats. The boys had escalated their ammunition. Now the projectiles would not only debase and disgrace me; they would hurt.

  I was so saturated with wretched unhappiness I didn’t even notice the person standing next to my seat in the aisle until I heard her whisper to me.

  “Charlie. Move over.”

  It was Kay. I blinked at her in stunned amazement. She gestured that I should take the empty seat next to me, so I did, and then she took the seat I’d just vacated, but not before standing in the flickering light, giving all the boys behind her a long, full look—this girl was no eighth grader!—and fixing Dan with her unreadable eyes.

  She didn’t say anything, just sat and watched the movie while I gazed at her lovely profile in sheer dumb wonder. When she caught me staring she gave me a small smile and then, astoundingly, laid her head on my shoulder.