Wrapped in Rain(29)

This was about the time we learned that the metal boat was leaning against the barn door for a reason. Rex, in a late-night and drunken skeet-shooting outing, had punched two holes in the hull with his best Greener twelve-gauge. When the boat hit the water, it sunk like a concrete barge through forty clear feet of sparkling Alabama water and settled on the bottom.

I looked over the edge, my eyes wide, and said, "Uhoh." Mutt, ghostly white, looked up from the water and asked, "How are we going to explain this?" Of the two of us, he'd be the appetizer and I'd be the main course. Katie looked at the boat, then back at me, and immediately fell on the ground laughing. She might get a paddling, but she really didn't care. The sight of that boat plunging and sinking-and then our faces-was worth every switch.

The beatings could wait. We grabbed our swords and jumped.

The afternoon found us sunning on the warm, smooth granite ledge that protruded out of the water like a landing just below the anchor of the two zip lines.

The evening crickets picked up, and I noticed that our jeans had long since dried. Miss Ella rang the dinner bell, signaling the end, and our faces showed the disappointment. The last day of summer had come and gone. Big Ben had struck midnight, and school started tomorrow. In the morning, the bus would pick us up a quarter mile from the house and take us down to Clopton, where I would start fifth grade, alone.

The zip lines made entering the quarry delectable fun, but there was only one way out. Climbing the steps. Slipping and falling was always possible but not really a big deal. It just meant you were going swimming again.



Mutt was the first to move. He was like a cat anyway, so he hit the rock steps and bounded up and out of the quarry while Katie and I watched. Katie was next. She stood and walked to the first step, but for some reason, she returned, grabbed my hand, and said, "I love you, Tucker Mason." Before she let go, she reached up, pecked me on the lips, and floated up the rocks.

It was my first kiss, and when I close my eyes, I can still feel it.

The rocks were slippery when wet, so she took her time and climbed using both her hands and feet. Finally, I stood on the rock and looked around the quarry. Shadows climbed the walls, the water cooled the air, and I felt a chill on a hot Alabama afternoon. Summer was over. So were a lot of other things.

That day was the greatest of days. And we'd had it all to ourselves, never burdened with doubt, fear, or anxious dread. It may have been the last great day. Maybe even the best day. I hadn't thought about Rex but maybe once or twice, or about Mutt going off to school by himself or Katie being sent to the rich kids' school where they would teach her to wear a dress, little white shoes, and socks topped with lace, and how to sit properly at the piano. Problem was, the day was now over, and in its absence, shadows filled the quarry. I looked up the ledge where the two of them had disappeared. The lost boys were gone, the Red Man had quit dancing, the mermaids were nowhere to be found, and maybe Hook won after all, because Peter Pan was gone, chasing his shadow again. Rex had killed a lot of things in his life. Even Peter Pan.

Maybe that's what I hated the most. Maybe that's why I asked Miss Ella if Katie could sleep over one last time before summer ended. Maybe that's why we had spent the whole day in a deserted rock quarry. Maybe that's why we rolled that boat down here and let it sink to the bottom, knowing full well we'd never get it back. Maybe I needed them to help protect me from the one demon I couldn't escape. Now the day was spent and my demon was ever-present.



I looked down into the water and saw the aluminum boat resting gently on the sandy bottom forty feet below. I nodded. That boat marked the day. I jumped into the water and swam below, pulling at the water. I grabbed the oarlocks and held myself to the bottom, just looking at the boat, listening to the quiet, and feeling the safety of the water. When I started seeing stars, I let go and pushed up. I had what I wanted. Proof that it had happened. And I wanted proof of today because it was the best day.

The best day ever.

Following that day, Katie and I fell in love-in the innocent way that kids do. For four years, we passed notes, called each other on the phone, held hands when nobody was looking, and watched each other grow through the discomfort and promise of puberty, which she hit first.

While I chased baseballs around the backyard, Katie polished the keys on the piano. Every time she came over, Miss Ella led her by the hand to Rex's grand and said, "Sweet Katie, the prettiest noises ever to come out of that piano do so after your fingers touch the keys. So touch them." Sometimes, Katie would play for an hour. And when she did, the look on Miss Ella's face told me all the world was right. Katie's fingers would dance up and down the ivory keys, and happiness would filter through the rafters of Waverly like someone had flipped a switch.

Problem was, it could be flipped off too.

The week prior to our first school dance, the commer cial real estate field opened up in Atlanta and Katie's dad moved the family to a little suburb called Vinings. He bought a house on top of a hill where Sherman had stood and watched Atlanta burn. As their station wagon followed the moving truck out of town, I walked to the end of the driveway, stood at the gate, and waved. It looked like a funeral procession with my heart nailed down in a pine box in the back. Katie peered through the window, waved with one hand, tried to smile, and blew a kiss that never reached me. I leaned against the gate, my face pressed against the bars, and watched the station wagon fade into the distance as loneliness sunk through me like a rock.