Page 10 of Stony Point Summer
“A toewhat?” Kyle asks.
“Popper.” Neil takes back his canteen and has another swig. “It’s a trap.”
“No way,” Kyle tells him, squinting over at the marsh banks. “That’s a blue crab.”
“Is not. That’s just how the VC camouflaged it.”
“VC?” Shane turns up his hands. “What’s that?”
“Oh, man,” Jason says, shaking his head. “The VietCong. Don’t you know anything about war? The VC soldiers set out all kinds of booby traps. Punji sticks to spike your body. Snake pits to fall into.”
“And that one’s a toe-popper.” Neil leans over and nudges the blue crab with his stick-machete. “A landmine.”
“Really?” Shane looks closely at the dark olive-colored crab shimmering just beneath the water, in the reeds. The crab raises a snapping blue claw in defense, pinching at Neil’s stick.
“You think I’m lying? Go ahead,” Neil says, hitching his head to the landmine. “Step on it.”
“It’ll take your leg off, punk,” Jason adds, turning the barrel of his gun toward the crab. “Or your foot, at least.”
Shane kicks off his sneakers and wades in. But every step he takes slows as he nears the mine. He lifts each dripping foot high, and gingerly sets it down in the muck beneath the water. It’s obvious that the war tales of these two have unnerved him. So he finally turns away from the crab—eyeing first Jason, then his machine gun.
“What are you, a scaredy-cat, kid?” Jason asks, squinting through the waning evening light. A few fireflies rise from the marsh grasses; distant katydids begin their squeaking call. Out beyond the marsh, lamplight comes on in cottage windows.
“I’m not akid. I’mShane.” Shane steps closer and motions to Jason’s weapon. “Can I shoot your gun?”
“Shoot it? At what?”
“Something.” Shane looks to the egret still lingering on the muddy banks, then to the nearby blue crab. Finally he points to a stand of trees beyond the marsh. “I’ll shoot into the jungle. Over there.”
“Don’t let him, Jay.” Neil hurries closer to his brother.
“Why not?” Kyle asks, sloshing through the shallow water. His blue-and-white striped shirt is muddy from where he fell, injured, minutes ago. “He won’t break it.”
“I just want to fire one shot,” Shane says.
“No, Jay,” Neil persists. Now he’s standing between Jason and this kid they just met. “You can’t trust him,” he warns while looking his brother dead-on.
“You don’t think so?” Jason asks, glancing past Neil to this kid calling himself Shane. This kidnotintimidated by Jason or his machine gun. This kid who has Neil’s hackles up.
Neil, standing with the marsh grasses whispering behind him, looks from Shane to Jason. Taking a cautious step closer, Neil tells his brother in a low voice, “You just don’t know. He could be the enemy.”
five
— Now —
AFTER TALKING TO ELSA ON the front stoop, Maris turns to go inside. Problem is, she still isn’t used to walking into her house without Jason or the dog there. It’s unsettling, even after living alone all these days—eleven, to be exact. If Elsa wasn’t going to Cliff’s, Maris would’ve invited her to dinner. They could’ve sat at a table outside some seafood shack and dipped clam strips into tartar sauce. Oh, how they’d talk, too. They’d ruminate on the turns of their lives, Elsa’s especially, and her sad news delivered in a certified letter this week.
Instead, Maris is on her own.
So after Elsa leaves for Cliff’s trailer, Maris goes back into the house. Certainly there’s something to wrangle up for dinner, if she can just maneuver the obstacle course of her about-to-be-renovated kitchen. It’d help if she got some things out of the way. She starts with the beautifully wrapped gift for Elsa’s grand opening. Lifting it off the kitchen counter, she carries the box to the dining room—and promptly bangs her head on the big black lantern-chandelier.
“Ow! Damn it,” Maris says, looking from the chandelier to the shoved-aside dining room table. Earlier, she’d moved it over—sliding one end of the painted farm table across the floor, then the other end—to make space for the refrigerator. The workers will movethatin here when they begin kitchen demo next week. For now, though, that out-of-place farm table left her head a prime target for the lantern-chandelier.
And so Maris’ life is turned upside down not only by Jason’s absence, but by her secret kitchen reno, too. She rubs her forehead and glares at the still-swinging lantern that clipped her. “That’s enough of that,” she decides, stepping around it to squeeze Elsa’s gift onto the table. Not that it’s easy to. There’s scarcely enough space among the pillar candles set on wide candlesticks, and the bouquet of wildflowers and cattails spilling from a tall ceramic pitcher, and the piles of dishtowels and potholders, and the toaster and fruit bowl from the kitchen. Her laptop’s crammed on the table, too, beside several notated manuscript pages. Somehow, she finds room enough for her gift box. Barely. With an extra nudge.
That done, Maris finally heads to the kitchen again.
And opens the fridge.
