Summer's Freedom Page 10

  “Are you just humoring me, or do you really find this interesting?”

  “I’m playing with the idea of doing a feature on your career for the end-of-summer issue,” Maggie said with a grin. “It’s exactly the kind of profession I like to highlight. Intriguing, different, something most teens wouldn’t have heard anything about.”

  “That’s great. I’d love to see you do it.”

  “You’re a good candidate because you so obviously love what you’re doing.”

  He smiled. “Thanks.”

  “Now, finish with the rodents.”

  Joel shifted, sipped his beer. “One pair of mice can spawn a million descendants in a year.”

  “A million?” she echoed.

  “A million. One red-tailed hawk eats about fifteen hundred to two thousand mice a year.”

  “Wow.”

  Joel touched her arm and pointed to the horizon. “Get ready.”

  A pause fell between them. He gestured with one strong arm for Maggie to move into the hollow he made for her. She sat in front of him, her head nestled in his shoulder, her back against his chest. His legs rested easily along the outside of hers.

  From the edge of the eastern horizon, there came a great light, an orb of orange lifting like a newly created planet to grace the night sky. Without realizing it, Maggie leaned forward, entranced by the sight of the full moon rising, so huge and bright, from the darkness. She sighed, pressing a hand to her chest.

  “It’s really something, isn’t it?” Joel murmured, his hands in her hair.

  She nodded very slowly, her heart filling with a soft illumination, as gentle as the man now cradling her. She shifted to look at him. His face was bathed with the light, his eyes almost mystical as they reflected the great, round moon. “Thank you,” she breathed.

  There was no resisting him as he bent his head to fit his mouth to hers. There was no demand in his tender and playful exploration of her lips. His tongue snaked out to hers, and his hands combed gently through her hair.

  It was a deceptive ease and care he took, an effort to remain calm that made his hands tremble. Maggie sensed his restraint with a feeling of frustration, and she turned in his embrace, pulling away from his sweet kiss. She nuzzled his neck, smelling the clean aftershave he wore, working her hand up his shirt to its opening. She slipped her fingers beneath the flannel to his chest and kissed his neck with her tongue. When his grip tightened reflexively around her, she smiled.

  “Isn’t this the kind of thing you do when you park? Neck?”

  He laughed low in his chest.

  For a while, Maggie thought he wasn’t going to say anything, and when he did, it was in a voice so deep that it was nearly a growl.

  “Every situation demands a different response.”

  With disappointment, and relief, Maggie realized he would stick to his promise—even if in her heart, she didn’t want him to.

  “We ought to get back,” he said, standing up.

  Maggie sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” She fell back on the blanket, staring up to the sky. “Too bad.”

  “Are you a camper?” Joel asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it.” She felt a tickle on her neck and brushed it absently. “Are you?”

  He affected a country drawl. “Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.”

  Maggie nodded distractedly. The tickle moved higher on her neck, and she reached for it again. When her fingers encountered the unmistakable shape of a spider, she shrieked and jumped to her feet, batting madly at her neck.

  “What is it?” Joel asked in alarm.

  A shudder passed through her. “A spider.” She brushed her neck and shook her hair hard. Another shudder rippled her shoulders. “Ugh!”

  Joel laughed. “I wouldn’t have put frogs in your locker if I’d ever seen you act like that over a spider.”

  Maggie strove to see the humor in the situation but revulsion clouded everything. “Joel, please see if he’s on my back or anywhere.”

  He bit his lip to contain the grin, but he did as he was asked. “All clear.” With an obvious effort to maintain a straight face, he asked, “Are you all right now?”

  “Fine,” she said, her voice thick with the disgust she felt toward herself. Briskly, she bent over to yank up the blanket, then shook it viciously. “Believe it or not, I used to pay my brother to kill spiders for me.”

  “Poor Maggie,” he said, but laughter lingered in his voice.

  Resolutely, she ignored him. “I feel sorry for your sisters,” she said haughtily.

  He choked and finally burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” he said when he caught the look of dignified endurance on her face. He swallowed the last chuckles, but his nostrils quivered for a moment longer as she carefully folded the blanket.

  “You know,” he said, “I’ve read that a fear of spiders is related to low endorphins in your brain. You know how we could increase your endorphins, don’t you?”

  Maggie gave him a dry glance. “Don’t even say it, Joel Summer. It’s bad enough you’re a tease. You don’t have to prove yourself to be a lecher, as well.”

  He shrugged. “Just trying to be helpful.”

  * * *

  Moses, Joel’s cat, was waiting on the front porch when they got back. With him was a kitten, perhaps four or five months old. It was a scrawny gray tiger, with tufts of white at its chest and paws. As Joel and Maggie came up the walk, Moses shifted, like a child getting ready to ask a favor, and protectively licked the kitten’s ear.

  “Who’s this, Moses?” Joel asked, squatting. He held his fingers out to the kitten, who sniffed them delicately and rubbed against the other cat. Moses meowed softly.

  Maggie had never seen a cat behave in such a territorial fashion toward an animal it hadn’t lived with. As she watched, the kitten stood up and haltingly limped toward Joel. “Oh, he’s hurt,” Maggie said.

  Joel scooped him up, his hands easily engulfing the skinny body. Moses meowed again and trotted to the front door. Joel grinned. “Okay. I get the message. We’ll take him inside.” He looked at Maggie, a bemused smile on his face. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”

  Maggie shook her head, following Joel inside at his indication. He carried the kitten into the kitchen and flipped on the overhead light.

  The gray tiger was exhausted and trusting as Joel moved his fingers gently over its body. “Ah, I see,” he murmured out loud. To Maggie, trying to calm Moses as he paced around, he said, “It looks like he might have got caught under the wheel of a car. His back paw is pretty mangled.”

  “Poor thing.”

  Joel squatted and Moses hurried over to wash the kitten with a few short whips of his tongue. “We’ll take care of him, Moses,” he said, reaching out to stroke the old tom gently. “Now, I bet you’re hungry.” He looked again at Maggie. “There’s a bag of food in that cupboard. Would you feed him while I find a box to transport the kitten to the vet?”

  “Of course.” She moved to the cabinet, and Moses followed her eagerly. As she shook food into his dish, she marveled at the transformation of the mangy, distrustful animal into this glossy-coated, clean and loving cat. She rubbed his back fondly as he ate. “You found a master worth your time, didn’t you?”

  Joel had disappeared onto the back porch, and she heard him rustling around in there. “Do you need some help?” she asked, going to investigate.

  A clatter greeted her, and as Maggie peeked into the glassed-in room he used as a recycling area, she grinned. “Having trouble?”

  He sighed ruefully, the kitten clasped gently to his chest as he rooted around in a fifty-five gallon drum. “I thought I had a box that would work in here. I must have been wrong.”

  In the yellow light cast by the bulb overhead, his utterly straight hair shone as if polished, slightly mussed by the long evening. A photograph of him in his flannel shirt, so huge and muscled and rugged, with the tiny kitten clasped to his chest, would sell a million bottles of whatever
anyone wanted to sell. She shifted.

  Joel moved out of the corner. “I was going to invite you upstairs to see my etchings, but I’ve got to get this kitten to a vet.”

  “You’ve clearly been cast as hero,” she agreed with a smile. “I understand.”

  He walked her to the door. Still holding the kitten, he bent to kiss her, touching her cheek gently. “I know the first part of the week is a busy time for you, but maybe we can get together Thursday or Friday.”

  “I’d like that.” She reached up to brush the gloss of his hair with her fingers. Meeting his eyes, she said, “I had a wonderful time tonight.”

  He kissed her again, lingering this time. “So did I.”

  “Let me know how the kitten is.”

  “I will.”

  There was nothing else to do. Maggie walked out his door to her own. Immediately, the world seemed silent and a little lonely.

  Chapter 7

  “Mom, have you seen my red dress?”

  Maggie smiled to herself. “I’m ironing it right now.”

  A sheepish Sam rounded the corner of the kitchen, where Maggie stood over the built-in ironing board. A basket of wrinkled clothing awaited her ministrations with the iron.

  “I do this every year, don’t I?” Sam commented. “Wait until the last minute to get things together and then spend days running around like a chicken with my head cut off.”

  “No, you’re doing much better than usual this year. It’s only Tuesday evening. Your father won’t be here till a week from Saturday.” Of course, Maggie thought, this year Samantha had motivation. Next Friday was the last day of school, and Sam planned to spend the afternoon and evening with David.

  “Has Uncle Galen said anything more about when he’s going to come?”

  “You know how he is, Sam. He’ll be here when he gets here.” She eased the pointed nose of the iron into a nook under the collar of the red dress. “Don’t worry. You’ll only be seventy miles away. I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “Can Dad come down with me?”

  “If he wants to.” Maggie smiled. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Sam gathered up a pile of clean clothes from the dryer, located in a closet in the kitchen, glanced once more at her mother and went back upstairs.

  Maggie hung the dress on a hanger and shook a blouse from the mound of clothes at her feet. Since Samantha had begun to date David, she had been very concerned about the broken heart she assumed Maggie had suffered at the hands of her father. Nothing Maggie said would convince the girl that she had long ago recovered from any jilting. Deep in the throes of her first love, Sam couldn’t conceive of loving anyone else again.

  Fondly, she sighed. As always, the closer the time for Samantha to go to Denver came, the bluer Maggie got. She missed Sam on the long, hot days of June and July, missed her energy and quick spurts of excitement. She missed having three curling irons tangling in the bathroom drawer, MTV blaring and the burbling of conversations as Sam talked on the phone.

  Get used to it, Maggie, she told herself. In two years, Samantha would graduate from high school and go on to her own life in college or in New York, whichever she chose when the time came. After that, Samantha would never really be hers again.

  Maggie had never considered having a baby in spite of her own youth because Sam had filled that portion of her life so well and completely. Now, every so often she wondered what it would be like to experience pregnancy and birth and the tender helplessness of an infant.

  The phone rang. Maggie started to cross the room to answer it, but hearing Sam’s running footsteps in the hall overhead, decided not to join the race. She never got phone calls anymore, anyway.

  To her surprise, Samantha called her. “Sharon’s on the phone.”

  A clutch of uneasiness rippled through her belly. “Hi, Sharon,” she said into the phone.

  “You know it’s a story at this time of night. Three guesses which one.”

  “Damn.” Maggie sighed. Tickets for Proud Fox were going on sale at seven tomorrow morning, and even at five this afternoon, there had been a handful of kids armed with sleeping bags and cans of soda and sandwiches outside the ticket outlet. Everyone wanted good seats for the show. “I’ll meet you in ten minutes.”

  She hung up the phone and switched off the iron. “Sam!” she called upstairs as she slipped into a pair of white leather tennis shoes. When her daughter appeared on the stairs, she said, “I have to go out for a while. Remember you have a final tomorrow.”

  “Is it the Proud Fox thing?”

  “Yes.” She frowned. “Is David there?”

  “No, he had to work tonight.”

  Maggie nodded, heading for the door. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Call your great-grandmother if you get lonely.”

  “Can I go with you?” Sam bit her lip. “Please?”

  After a ten-second hesitation, Maggie acquiesced. “All right. Hurry.”

  She was rewarded with a dazzling grin from Samantha. “I just want to get my camera.” She dashed up the stairs. Maggie donned a light woolen jacket with voluminous pockets, checking to be certain she had her pen and reporter’s notebooks.

  When Sam dashed down the stairs, her camera had been slung around her neck, and her hair was pulled severely into a ponytail. She’d thrown a sweatshirt over her jeans. In her green eyes was leaping excitement.

  “Ready,” she said breathlessly.

  At the ticket outlet, Maggie couldn’t believe the cacophony that slammed into her ears. From a dozen boomboxes turned full volume blasted several different songs, all written by Proud Fox. Long-haired teenagers sang along to whatever song was closest to them. A few danced in the square fronting the department store where the tickets would go on sale the next morning.

  In contrast, at the opposite end of the square, a large group of protesters marched solemnly in a circle, singing a hymn of long suffering.

  Maggie shook her head. Only teenagers could create this much melodrama—the costumes so extreme and opposed, the gravity of one group played against the hedonism of the other.

  She turned to Samantha as they entered the square, looking for Sharon. “Don’t get in the middle of anything,” she said to Samantha. “And don’t be too obvious with the camera. People will do anything to get their picture taken.”

  Sam nodded. She nervously licked her bottom lip and lifted the camera to ready f-stops and light settings. “Do you think I have enough light to shoot without a flash?”

  “I don’t know.” The square was patchily lighted with overhead spots. “Try it and see what happens. I’m going to go talk to the protesters.”

  Sam nodded, shooting a wide-angle view of the scene, already engrossed in her photography. Maggie smiled as she watched Sam glance over the camera to measure the scene, then duck back behind it, never missing a step.

  Maggie headed for the circle of protesters. When no one even glanced her way, she chose one young man at random and fell in step beside him. “I’m Maggie Henderson,” she said. “I’d like to do a feature article, in depth, on what you’re trying to do here.”

  The boy licked his lips. “The signs speak for themselves.”

  “Not really,” she insisted. “There are dozens of bands with violent or sexual lyrics. Why are you opposed to Proud Fox in particular?”

  He glanced at her and Maggie sensed he was nervous. “You need to talk to Cory.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Point him out to me.”

  “He’s, uh, not here right now. He said he’d join us later.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “No.” The answer was abrupt, and he glanced over his shoulder toward some of the other teens, who threw them sharply censorious looks.

  “A last name?”

  “I said he’ll be here later. You can talk to him then.”

  The straggled line of campers waiting for tickets was growing louder and rowdier. From the corner of her eye, Maggie saw the uniformed police
officer edging closer to the line, and she took a breath. She’d had no luck with the protesters. Maybe she could appeal to the rockers.

  She reached the head of the line. “Hey!” she shouted to the girl who had the enviable position of being first in line.

  The girl, no more than seventeen, turned her boombox down and looked at Maggie expectantly.

  “You’d hate to lose this spot.” Maggie said, still yelling. “If you can’t help me get everybody quieted, the police will make you all go home.”

  The girl hesitated, then turned to talk to the boy right behind her. He measured Maggie for a minute and turned to the boy behind him, who nodded and turned his box down.

  Maggie repeated the ploy about halfway through the line. The simple fact that they might lose their chance to buy tickets for the concert of the summer was more than enough inducement. With a sigh of satisfaction, she noted the sound levels lowering considerably, enough that the chanting hymn could be heard.

  The shouts that signaled the onset of the riot were like a backfiring muffler on a quiet side street. Maggie turned in shock to see bodies from both sides, exploding into sudden violence.

  At the sight of roiling bodies and police and flashing lights, her heart constricted. She’d glimpsed Sam a few seconds before the ruckus had broken out. Maggie prayed she’d had the sense to maintain her distance.

  But she hadn’t. Maggie glimpsed the tall, slender girl skirting the very edges of the action, shooting pictures as fast as she could click the shutter. Her cheeks were stained with a flush of high delight, her forehead dewed with sweat. And, Maggie noted as she neared her, Samantha’s feet were bare.

  For a long, long second, she simply watched as Samantha dipped and knelt and squatted and stretched to catch the best photos, her blond ponytail dancing as if to emphasize her exuberance. There was no high in the world, Maggie thought, like doing what you loved.

  A crash of something behind her shook Maggie out of her reverie, and she made a lunge for Sam, catching her shirt to drag her away just as several more bodies hurtled by. They searched the crowd for Sharon, finding her with a boy who bore a long cut on his mouth. He struggled to shake free of Sharon, mumbling, “I’ll be all right, I tell ya.”