Page 3 of Heart of the Sun

She deserved this. She really did. This was calledjust deserts.

Emily hung her head and sobbed for a minute, her shoulders shaking. But then with a shuddery breath, she nodded and looked up at me with her big blue eyes,now red-rimmed and glittering with tears. “I’m sorry, Tuck. I was mean. You’re not boring. At least not all the time.” Then she turned and headed slowly to the door, shuffling as she walked like she was heading for the gallows.

chaptertwo

Tuck

I waited a few minutes, giving Emily time to get ahead of me so I didn’t have to hear her pitiful sobs. When I emerged from the stable, she was already a few hundred feet away, her pale blue dress and yellow hair standing out against the rust-colored dirt. The sky had dimmed since I’d first entered the building, and far beyond, I could see the dancing flames of the bonfire our parents had lit, a regular occurrence on weekend summer nights. Sometimes we’d roast hot dogs or s’mores. And sometimes Mrs. Swanson would bring out the board games. Those were the nights I’d hear the adults laughing and chattering long after I went to bed.

I trudged toward the firelight, the rising and falling sounds of conversation meeting my ears as I drew closer. There was an ice bucket filled with drinks on the edge of the large brick patio, and I grabbed a soda, popping it open and taking a sip. “Tuck. There you are,” my mother said, smiling and waving me over.I glanced at Emily as I passed her, sitting on the edge of the stone wall surrounding the patio, her head bent, eyes darting to where her father stood talking to mine.

She looked completely miserable. I glanced away, barely resisting rolling my eyes. She really was the most dramatic person sometimes. It wasn’t the end of the darn world. The windshield could be fixed, even if her dad was steaming mad, which he would be. So she’d missmusic campthis weekend. Oh well. I didn’t feel the least bit bad for her.

My mom grinned as I approached. “Hey, handsome. Where have you been?”

I shrugged. “Just around.”

“Just around,” she repeated, tilting her head as she studied me in that way of hers that made me feel slightly itchy like she could pluck answers from my head whether I’d offered them or not. “Emily’s always over at the house asking about you these days,” she said. “She says you haven’t been hanging out with her and the other kids very much lately. She says you’ve beendisappearing.” My hand tightened on the can as my outrage spiked. Not only was she spying on me, but she was also ratting me out to my mom.

“I haven’t been disappearing,” I asserted. I glanced over to where Emily sat, staring gloomily at her shoes. Her small breasts stretched the elastic of her sundress, and I averted my eyes down to her skinned knees, mostly scabbed over. I didn’t tell my mom that Emily had found me and ruined my secret hangout forever, or that she was an annoying drama queen and a snitch as well. And I especially didn’t admit that I’d thought about kissing her more than once, and I intended to keep doing that, but I wanted to think about it when I wasawayfrom Emily, not when she was anywhere close by.

“I don’t have much in common with her anymore,” I said. Which was sort of true, and sort of not, but I didn’t know how to describe the strange middle ground where I’d suddenly found myself regarding Emily Swanson.

My mom was quiet a moment,but I felt her eyes on me, and I sensed something in her silence that led me to believe once again that I’d revealed myself to her though I hadn’t meant to. She reached out and ruffled my hair the way she’d done when I was very young. “Don’t grow up on me too fast now,” she said, and there was a note in her voice that almost sounded like sadness.

I nodded, concentrating on the dirt as I dug the toe of my sneaker into it. The raised voices of my dad and Mr. Swanson caught my attention and I looked up, watching as they spoke animatedly, Mr. Swanson waving his arms around as he gestured. “What are they arguing about?” I asked.

My mom sighed. “Oh, they’re not really arguing, just discussing the fact that the Henleys and the O’Rourkes sold their orchards.”

My head whipped back toward her, eyes widening. “They did? When?” Devin Henley and Andy O’Rourke were two of my good friends, their orchards part of the community of family-run orange groves—including ours and the Swansons’—that stretched for miles, often referred to as Citrus Row.

“Just last week,” my mother said, forehead creasing. “A development company offered far over market value, and they decided to take it and retire.”

Far over market value.I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but if they were retiring instead of buying another farm, or going to work somewhere else, it must mean they were offered a lot of money. “Did they…did they offer us money too?” I felt funny, like the whole world had just tilted in some weird way, and while I didn’t totally understand it, I felt like I was standing slightly sideways.

My mother gave a thin smile. “Oh sure. But no amount of money could get me to sell our farm.You know that. It’s my legacy. And yours.”

My world righted just a bit, even if not completely. I watched my father and Mr. Swanson for another minute. Mr. Swanson was speaking, and my father was rubbing his forehead as though he was torn about whatever Mr. Swanson was saying to him. A company had wanted that land. What was going to happen to it now? I started to open my mouth to ask more questions when Mr. Swanson gave my father a companionable pat on the shoulder, their conversation obviously ending as they each turned away. I watched as Emily stood, marching stoically toward her father, about ready to ruin his day with her confession about his damaged car.

“Em,” her father said, smiling and gesturing her over as he glanced at my mom. “You promised to sing for us next time Mariana had her guitar out.”

My mom smiled, taking a few steps to where her guitar rested against an Adirondack chair. “I’m ready if you are. Something simple,” she told Emily on a laugh. “I’m still practicing.” My mom had been taking guitar lessons once a week for the past six months just for fun—it’s been on my bucket list forever, she’d told my dad—and would sometimes strum a few chords around the bonfire, but she was still a beginner. Emily was better on the guitar, having played longer, but I knew Emily preferred to sing, and was happy to let my mom accompany her.

Emily hesitated, clearly torn between the confession she’d mustered up the nerve to deliver, and accepting the delay of a performance. She shot her dad one final, indecisive look, but then turned toward my mom, who was hooking the strap on her guitar and moving to the elevated portion of the patio.

Emily’s parents, my father, and a few of the men who worked with us, along with their wives, moved closer, some taking seats on the slew of Adirondack chairs, some sitting on the low stone wall surrounding the patio.Emily and my mom murmured a few words, obviously choosing which song to play.

I stepped away from the adults, leaning against the pergola that covered the outdoor dining set. Hot pink bougainvillea twisted around the pillars and dripped through the slats, providing shade when the eating area was in use. The sun had set, stars blinking in the navy sky, but the temperature was still in the nineties at least, and the coolness under the overhang welcomed me.

Lanterns and string lights provided illumination to the outdoor area, especially bright over the portion of patio now acting as a stage. My mother sat down on a folding chair with her guitar, Emily stepping to the forefront, all gazes fixed on her. The gold in her hair glinted under the glow, the skin of her shoulders smooth and tan. I was surprised the adults hadn’t noticed that her eyes looked slightly swollen from crying. Even so, she was prettier than any of the other girls from town. I wanted to stare, and so I did. Emily’s gaze met mine and I startled, the back of my neck growing warm. I made it a point to yawn. Emily’s eyes narrowed, but then, as my mother began to strum, Emily’s shoulders lowered, and she closed her eyes, her body swaying gently.

The first note broke the night hush and somehow melded with it too. Emily’s voice was high and sweet, but also held an undertone of smoke as though she’d inhaled the bonfire and it wove between the words. Everything inside me seemed to still—my thoughts, my breath, even the beat of my heart and the flow of my blood—taking up the slow melody of the song. Emily sang about rainbows and bluebirds, but it felt like more than that. A longing rose inside me, for what I had no words to describe. All I knew was that I was completely entranced. And that if she looked at me again, I wouldn’t be able to hide it.

The beauty of her voice was effortless, even if there was a sad quality to it. Maybe she was feeling the loss of that music camp that would be taken from her as she sang the melody.But rather than ruin the song, her sadness seemed to add something…an extra note…another chord. I didn’t understand it exactly, but I felt it, and I could tell the others watching felt it too, saw the way Emily’s mother brought her hand to her heart, and a farmhand named Arleen wiped her eye.

As the song came to an end, Emily dropped her head, bending in a bow, the final note somehow still suspended all around us, though it had already faded to silence. The small audience jumped to their feet, clapping exuberantly, whistles ringing out. Emily smiled, and my mother stood, taking her in a hug. “You’re a star, beautiful girl,” I barely heard her say from where I stood.

The applause died down, conversation picking up, a few people heading toward the standing ice buckets where drinks were chilling. I watched as Emily took a deep breath, walking toward her father.

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