That Summer(22)

“Casey?” There was a sudden knock on the door and Mrs. Melvin’s thick New York accent, which always made her sound irritated even when she wasn’t, boomed through the wall. “It’s time for dinner and it’s your turn to set the table. Haven can stay if she wants to.”

“Just a minute,” Casey yelled, tossing the cigarette out the window, where it rolled down to the gutter and caught a wad of pine needles on fire. Casey, busy running around the room spraying White Shoulders on everything, didn’t notice.

“Casey,” I whispered, pointing out the window at the small blaze. “Look.”

“Not now,” she snapped in a low voice, still waving her arms. “God, Haven, help me.”

“Wait,” I whispered, getting up and going to the window. “Don’t open the door yet.”

“Can you smell it?” she said, whirling around. “Can you?”

“No, but—”

Mrs. Melvin knocked again, harder. “Casey, open the door.”

“Okay, okay, one second.” She put the perfume on the dresser and went to the door, passing the window without noticing the flame burning in the gutter. She unlocked the door. “God, come on in then.”

As Mrs. Melvin came in I was leaning against the windowsill, attempting to appear casual with my Coke in my hand and trying not to cough as a thick cloud of White Shoulders settled over me. She took one step, stopping in the frame to take two short sniffs of the air. She was a small woman, like Casey, with the same shock of red hair, only hers was styled in a bob, ends curling down neatly over her shoulders. She wore stirrup pants and a long white shirt, with huge gold hoops dangling from her ears. Her eyeliner, as always, drew my attention next: onyx black, thick on upper and lower lids, curving out past her eye to a neat flourish that made her look like a cat. It must have taken half a jar of cold cream to remove and was a bit much, especially in our neighborhood, but it was her trademark. That and her incredible sense of smell.

She sniffed again, with her eyes closed, then opened them and said curtly, “You’ve been smoking.”

Casey turned bright red. “I have not.”

I glanced out the window. The fire was still burning, looking like it might spread to a wad of leaves nearby. I had to do something, so as Mrs. Melvin crossed the room, eyes closed again and still sniffing, I panicked and flung the rest of my Coke out the window, most of it hitting the glass with a splat but thankfully enough getting to the edge of the roof where it somehow, miraculously, doused the fire. I thought we were home free until I turned around to see Mrs. Melvin, hands on her hips, looking at me. Just past her was Casey, who threw her hands up in the air and shook her head, surrendering.

“Yes you have,” she said, walking past me to the open window and glancing out at the smoldering gutter. “Look at that. You’re setting fires and still lying to my face.”

“Mom,” Casey said quickly, “I didn’t ...”

Mrs. Melvin walked to the door. “Jake, get up here.” Parenting in the Melvin household was a tag-team affair. Any conflict had to be dealt with in tandem, attacked from both sides. I heard Mr. Melvin pounding up the steps before he appeared in the doorway in jeans and loafers. My father called Mr. Melvin the consummate frat boy. He was forty-three but looked eighteen and was about as whipped as any man could be. One look, one call from Mrs. Melvin and he snapped to attention.

“What’s going on?” He had a newspaper in his hand. “Hello, Haven. How’s it going?”

“Good,” I said.

“We have a situation here,” Mrs. Melvin said, directing his attention out the window to the gutter, which was still smoking a bit and thus providing the proper dramatic effect. “Your daughter has taken up smoking.”

“Smoking?” He looked at Casey, then out the window. “Is something on fire out there?”

“It’s that 4-H camp, Jake, where she picked up every other bad habit this summer.” Mrs. Melvin walked to the dresser and opened the box on top, taking out the pack of cigarettes. “Look at this. There are probably birth control pills in here too.”

“Mom, please,” Casey said, “I haven’t had sex yet.”

“Haven,” Mr. Melvin said quietly, “maybe you should get on home to dinner.”

“Okay,” I said. This was the way I always seemed to leave the Melvins’ house, under some sort of duress. Things were always exciting over at the Melvins’. During the divorce I’d spent most of my time there, sitting on Casey’s bed reading Teen magazine and listening to arguments and situations that blissfully had nothing to do with my world whatsoever.

On my way out the door I saw Casey’s brother, Ronald, on the porch petting the Melvins’ cat, a hugely overweight tabby named Velvet. Ronald was only five, not even born when I’d met Casey the day they moved from New Jersey all those years ago.

“Hey, baby Ronald,” I said.

“Shut up.” He hated his family nickname now. At five, he was beginning to resent anything with the word “baby” attached to it.

“See you later,” I said.

“Haven?” he called after me. “How’d you grow so much?”

I stopped at the end of the front walk to face his shock of Melvin red hair and his toughskin cutoffs, the cat shedding a cloud of hair all around him. “I don’t know, Ronald.”