Читать книгу Buried Treasure - Jack B. Downs - Страница 18

11 / Anne

The black sky exploded in a pinwheel of bright green twinkles. Delighted screams and laughter bubbled from the throng arrayed on the shore of the Wicomico. James squeezed Anne’s waist, stroking her new red, white, and blue tee shirt. She turned, her face aglow for an instant in the gleam of the fireworks. She glanced around, and kissed him, soft and possessive, as the darkness enveloped them again.

The crowd was relaxed, smoke wafting the air from a thousand cigarettes, tips glowing in the dark. The threadbare pasture of the fairgrounds transformed with the arrival of the Cook Brothers Circus, the centerpiece of the Crane Landing Fourth of July. Along with the fireworks, of course. The town paused in its labors at the dock and the fields to celebrate, and neighbor reacquainted with neighbor over watermelon and smoking grills. The Lions Club had its booth with the roulette wheel. The Methodist Church was selling something this year called tie dye tee shirts—multicolored, whimsical splashes created on a plain white tee shirt, no two patterns the same.

Back in May, there was a good deal of discussion about selling the shirts, at the annual planning meeting, according to Ryan, who heard it from his mom. She, like most of the parents, thought the shirts were too flashy. But the newly installed minister, a Michael Dennis from the mainland, convinced parents that red and blue die on a white background was a fine means to encourage patriotism among the young people.

James glanced around at his neighbors, gathered in family clusters or couplings of sweethearts on old blankets covered with picnic remnants. His dark mood was in contrast to their smiles and carefree comments. Anne seemed to sense his turmoil and turned again, gazing seriously at him.

“I told you, my mom never comes to the fireworks ‘cuz of the noise, and my dad won’t leave her home by herself. Relax, would ya?” She kissed him again, lightly, and pressed back to him.

“It’s not that. I just… I’m thinking of leaving for awhile.” Under his fingers, he felt Anne stiffen. The crowd stilled again with the muffled whoosh, signaling a canister launch. High above the river, a great explosion of blue and red sparkles preceded a series of concussions, gasps, and scattered applause. From the fairgrounds, the raspy hawking from the Volunteer Fire Department’s dunking booth echoed faintly.

“But why? Where would you go?” she whispered. “How long before you come back to Crane Ridge?”

James drew a deep breath. “My dad said my mom was living in a little town called—” A screeching whistle interrupted him, and they both turned to gaze out over the river.

The crowd oohed and aahed, and James turned back to Anne, his mouth close to her ear. “She was living in a town in Texas.” He smiled. “Sugar Land. That would be my mother.”

Anne hugged him and kissed his cheek. “What makes you say that, James?”

He kissed her soft, in the glow of a blossoming rocket. “Before…she was so full of life. So happy and so much fun to be with. Not like a mother, really.” He dropped his gaze. “Imagine how crushed a woman would have to be, to…” he shuddered and she gripped him tightly.

“I’ve been thinking of her lately.” He laughed softly, as a thwump signaled another launch. “That’s not right. I’ve never stopped thinking about her.”

In the bright bloom of light, he sighed. “And just the thought of her dying out there, alone.”

He noticed Anne eying him oddly. “What?”

Anne cleared her throat. “Didn’t your mother leave you? I mean, didn’t she leave you and Dylan? And he was no more than a baby?”

“She left because of him! What my father did!” He said hotly. A few feet away, heads turned at his tone. Anne raised a finger to her lips.

A breathtaking flash drew everyone’s eyes skyward. “So you want to go to Texas? To do what?”

James sighed and slipped his free hand in hers. “I want to see where she’s buried.” He felt her steady gaze. “It’s just something I have to do. This seems like as good a time as any.”

Anne rested her head on his shoulder. “Gosh, I’ll be crazy missing you. When will you be back?”

“Well, that’s a little harder to say.” He waited through a series of bursts. “Everyone thinks I broke into Wilson’s store, and the chief tried to pin me with beating some boy real bad over in Millwood.”

“You have to stay and defend yourself, James!” Several hushes sounded in the dark. Anne lowered her voice. “Or it will never be better for you here.”

“Well, since my father came back I just don’t fit anymore.”

“I want to go with you.”

James started. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do. But it won’t be clean sheets and Nana doing my laundry. I don’t plan on being back for the start of school, and—“

“Jimmy Paxton. You think you’re the only one has a yearning to get off this stupid peninsula?”

Mr. Geiger on the next blanket over glanced their way, and then looked more closely at the two, twined sinuously on the blanket James had lifted from the linen closet.

James buried his face in Anne’s neck, and inhaled her raspberry fragrance. The crackling tune of Windy by a group called the Association grated in the temporary pause of concussions. As if Anne’s response weren’t surprise enough, he found his own feelings betraying the resolve he’d worked on since this morning. What he had rehearsed saying was eventually maybe they’ll catch the guys who really broke into Wilson’s Hardware, and I can come back quiet. Truth was, he didn’t really plan to return at all. If it weren’t for Anne, and for Dylan, what was keeping him here?

Now it sounded like his family might be fixing to move away. His father could mess things up by being close or far away. It didn’t really seem to matter.

But what he found himself saying was, “How will we travel? Where will we go?”

She kissed him quick and hard, breathing, “Shhhh…not here,” into his mouth. He started to speak, and she kissed him again, her face in the darkness appearing soft, and wiser than he felt. One thing that attracted him was the way Anne moved so comfortably in the world they inhabited, as if she belonged here. As if she had a say in her life. He closed his mouth and eyes, and melted into the safety of her.