On summertime evenings, there was a firework show over the sea. All day the harbor was swamped with people having a good time. As sundown edged in, they filled the grand lawn that sloped up from the bay to watch. Nick met his friends atop the hill outside an Orthodox church and they walked together through the crowds. It was tricky getting through them because the people were drunk and wild from the day out in the hot sun. Even the little children were crazy.
“Look at them,” Dana said as she reached for Joe’s hand. She held the picnic blanket under her arm. “I don’t like the kids around all this drinking. They should be home.”
Joe looked about. “Cops got this place blocked off.”
“Everyone’s going to be drunk down there.” She sniffled a little.
Joe laughed. “Do you want to see them or don’t you.”
“I want to see. I’m only saying they should know better.”
“They’re kids. What do they know?”
“I mean their parents should know better. Let’s go sit up near the top, away from them.”
“Alright.” Joe kissed her hand. “It’s better up top anyways.”
They got bottled on the narrow road and had to go single file. Joe led them and Dana was second. They stumbled their way through and nobody paid them any mind. Nick lagged with his head bent. Sometimes he looked over the crowded green and to the port below. The streets around them had emptied for the green, and a hum sputtered as the sun dropped in the west.
“All these kids,” Dana said. “Isn’t it something?”
“Town makes money on them,” Joe told her. “Want a beer, Nick? I’ll buy you one.”
Nick shook his head. He didn’t like drinking anymore, at least not around people.
“You don’t want a beer?” Joe looked at him and nodded. His small smile lapsed. “What do you expect?” he asked Dana, trying to tease her. “It’s summer.”
“Most of them look like they’re going to be sick everywhere.”
“They probably will. But you were like them once.”
“Not really.”
“Yes, you were. I was, and Nick too.” He said so defiantly, and his face was earnest.
Dana shook her head with a meek shiver and pointed to the top. “Let’s sit up there.” She gave Joe a look as they started to climb the hill.
Joe overtook her and led them to a quiet place by an old fence. Nick remembered it from when he was young. He bet Joe did too. The fence was now torn to pieces, the cement plates uprooted from the ground. Beyond the fence were the stalls and Joe kept saying he was going to get a beer but it must be a joke because of the eyerolling look Dana gave him. Joe was chuckling and Nick tried too. Down the ways an ice cream truck played its sentimental jingle.
Dana laid the picnic blanket for them. Joe and Nick stood together as she fixed it the way she wanted. They looked out to the sea without saying anything. They’d been best friends since they were little and never needed to say anything. The blanket under them was tousling in the wind, so Joe got a few busted pieces of cement from the fence behind them to settle the blanket.
“Let’s get some beer,” Joe said again. “What do you want, Nick?”
“I don’t want any beer tonight.”
“Then I don’t want one either, I guess. Well, they’re going to close soon.”
“Come on and sit,” Dana told them. “Don’t loom over me.”
Joe and Dana laid together on the far side of the blanket. Joe was dressed well in corduroy pants and leather loafers. Dana wore heart-shaped sunglasses with the lenses popped out so she could wear them in the dark. She folded her legs under her and pinched her arms around her knees. Nick sat on the edge of the blanket, as far as he could from them. He stared down the hill trying to see if Margaret Farmer was down there somewhere.
“This whole place smells like beer,” Dana said.
“Want one?” Joe asked.
“You keep saying so, so get one. I won’t stop you.”
“I don’t want it.” Joe sighed. “I don’t smell beer. All I smell is the ocean.”
“We’ll need to leave here early to beat the crowds back. I don’t want to get stuck.”
“I know.” Joe pulled her close to him. “It’s going to be an early one.”
Nick put the back of his hand to his mouth because he felt a yawn coming. He was getting tired but there wasn’t any reason for him to be. There hadn’t been anything to do all day, so he’d sat around a tea shop reading Atop the Steeple. He’d been going to the shop a long while and had made friends of the clerks. It was better than nothing. They always asked on what he was reading. He’d told them a little of Atop the Steeple but nobody found novels to be as interesting as he did. Or maybe he couldn’t explain them right. Tomorrow was back to work.
“You can get one if you want, Joe, but I don’t want any. I see you looking back there.”
Joe hugged her closer. “Are you sure you don’t want a beer?”
Nick hoped they wouldn’t get any beer. He didn’t want to drink. It wouldn’t be right. Once or twice more he caught himself peering in the crowd for Margaret Farmer but he didn’t know it was for her until after he’d been looking so for a while. It only made him angry because she’d probably gotten drunk with her friends and he was up here bored and stale. At least he had some cigarettes for the walk home.
“There’s Laura,” he said aloud.
“Huh?” Joe looked to him.
Nick looked down the ways at Laura. “I hope the show starts soon,” he whispered.
Laura was with some kids her own age and Nick turned and crumpled himself a little so she couldn’t see him well. He’d figured she would be down here but he didn’t like seeing her. He could bet Margaret was around too and he hated himself twice over for coming down for the show. It would’ve been better staying home and feeling sorry for himself.
“I’m going to Boston tomorrow,” Joe told him. “I’ve got to be on the road by seven.”
“That’s early,” Nick said from between his teeth. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t get to travel for work and everyday was the same. Barr, Newcomb & Assoc. was a good company to work for, but he wasn’t in management yet. “I’m taking a trip soon.”
Joe turned. “Where are you going?”
Nick thought. “Well, I have some vacation dates saved. Maybe somewhere in Canada.”
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t know.” He stared at Laura Farmer a little more, watching her climb up the hill towards them. She was looking away. “The show must be starting soon.”
Joe hugged Dana closer as a terse windblow picked up. Nick didn’t know what they were thinking but he wondered if they were thinking funnily of him. It wasn’t anything they did, but he’d been getting suspicious of people. He moved himself a little further from them. Now that Joe and Dana were getting married, they weren’t all a big bunch anymore. Not that they ever were. But when they went out together, Nick hadn’t felt like a third wheel. Now, he did. Joe and Dana were always together and he knew to leave them alone.
“I was thinking of going to Nova Scotia,” Nick said suddenly. “I’ve never been.”
“Dana said you’re staring at that girl,” Joe told him.
“The one down there?” Nick pointed at Laura Farmer. “Yeah, I know her.”
“How do you know her?”
“I don’t really know her. I know her sister. Her sister is Margaret.” Nick kept his voice low. “Town isn’t so big. I see them here and there.” It wasn’t so odd that he was friends with them, and he didn’t know why his voice was shaking so much.
Joe gave him a look and Dana looked like she was going to grin but she only turned away and shrugged. “Can’t believe the drinking with all the kids about.”
“Hmm,” Joe whistled ironically. His eyelids flickered. “They’re careless but that’s how they all are.” He laughed and moved closer to her. “Well, that’s how everyone is once.”
“You’re staring at her again,” Dana said to Nick. “She looks about twenty to me.”
“Yeah, she’s about twenty.” His head was crooked trying to see. “I thought she saw me.” He raised his hand in Laura’s direction but she wasn’t looking. He suddenly very badly wanted to see Margaret. “Anyways,” he stammered. “I was thinking to go up to Nova Scotia.”
“What’s up there?” Joe asked.
“I’ve never been. I have a lot of vacation time saved and need to use it somehow.”
The sun had almost quitted and the crowds was hushing. Then the opening cracks and pops of the show raged in the blue-black air. Nick ran his hand over the grass and clutched at his ankle where it itched. He wished he’d worn his loafers instead of the sneakers. Sneakers and this old shirt and his overgrown hair made him look like lazy and adolescent.
“Hi Nick!” Laura called to him from not so far away. She had her hand up and she smiled. “What’s going on?”
“Hi Laura. It’s good to see you.”
Laura grinned but she started talking to one of her friends and Nick dropped his hand.
“Where would you know her from?” Dana asked. “Is she an accountant too?”
“No,” he said. “I know her sister. I don’t really know Laura.”
Joe hugged Dana closer and whispered something into her ear that made her laugh. Dana whispered something back into his ear, but Nick didn’t care to hear it. Laura had come up over a little knob in the hillside and seemed to be looking towards him. He raised his hand. But he was mistaken. Any way she wanted was fine by him but he hoped she hadn’t seen him.
“That’s Laura Farmer. I’m friends with her sister named Margaret,” he told Joe again. He told Joe more than Dana. “I only know them around but I don’t see them so much.”
“I didn’t ask,” Joe told him as he hugged Dana tighter.
The crowd was in whispery extasy as explosives filled the sky, but Nick ripped up a pile of tangled grass and dirt and held it in his palm. He tossed it away and scraped his hand against his pantleg. He couldn’t wait to have a smoke. He didn’t like cigarettes but it was better than getting drunk. Not that he’d quit getting drunk, but he was trying to be better. It was only that drinking made him feel empty and guilty. So, he would smoke as much as he wanted and have some oranges and chocolate when he got home, the dessert things he’d left for a special treat.
“I love those blue ones,” Dana said. She laid on the blanket with her long pink-blondish hair splayed like sunflower pedals.
“When I was little, we would light firecrackers but my dad told us we had to stop.”
“I sure hope so. Come and lie down, Joe.”
Joe laid. “Yeah, a guy at the end of the street lost his thumb once setting one off.”
“Don’t tell me things like that.”
Nick said he’d lit fireworks too once upon a time but Dana didn’t hear. She didn’t need to because he and Joe weren’t as good friends anymore now that he had Dana and life had slowed. When they got married next spring, they all probably wouldn’t see each other so much. Joe did a lot of traveling and Dana made a good deal of money, so she did whatever she wanted. She was alright in the end and Joe was too. Nick only didn’t like how they’d smirked and talked conspiratorially when he’d only been telling them a little of Margaret and Laura Farmer. He wanted to bring them up again so he could explain it in a better way, but that’d passed.
“We’d thought it was from a war.” Joe snuggled her. “But he’d been only playing with fireworks. That made us laugh a lot, that it was a mistake and not him being a hero.”
“Hush,” Dana said. “I like the sound of them going off and you’re ruining it.”
There was room for Nick to lie too but he couldn’t do so with them. They didn’t want him there and he knew he should go leave them alone but he didn’t know what excuse to give. He didn’t even care on the fireworks and had only come because Joe had asked and expected him. If he hadn’t come, Joe and Dana would’ve talked more about him than ever. Joe had only wanted him to go because Dana said so. Dana did because she was always looking to get out. They were still alright friends considering it all, Nick thought.
“Nick. Nick. I’m feeling awful, Nick,” a voice said from over his shoulder.
He turned and looked up. Laura Farmer stood over him with her hands over her eyes. She swayed back and forth in the wind and then she almost toppled on him. Nick scrambled to his feet and took her by her shoulders.
“Laura,” he said worriedly, looking into her face. “You must be drunk or something.”
She was drunk but not so very. Once he got her stationary, she blinked and then seemed to awake a little. She looked about with a vague frown and her eyes were wide and blue. He felt sorry for her that she’d gotten drunk and he bet Joe and Dana were staring at him but he didn’t care about them.
“Do you have any water or anything? The fireworks are making my head hurt.”
“We can get some at the cart there,” he said and pointed down the road.
“Thanks Nick.” She looked up at him with a scared, dumb look and her voice was fearful and searching. “I’ve got a headache and need something. I’m sorry. I need water.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Let’s go.”
“I don’t want to take you away from fireworks,” she mumbled as he took her around the torn chain link fence. “I’m sorry, Nick.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” He laughed to make her feel better.
“You wanted to see the fireworks and I’m sorry.”
“Let’s get some water so you don’t get sick.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
They walked the lawn towards the stands. When they got to the road, she took off her meshed sandals and held them by their straps. Her foot-heels and the tops of her toes were scraped red. Nick wondered what she’d been getting up to today but he didn’t want to ask her. They were alright enough friends no matter what Joe and Dana thought, and she would’ve told him but maybe he didn’t want to understand anything too straightforwardly about the Farmers. He bought for her some water from a man packing up a grill. Some trucks were backed up on the lawns, and the stands were being hooked to the back to be driven away.
“I’m sorry, Nick,” she said again and almost slumped over.
He took her up by the shoulders again until she was stable. “Drink the water and then you’ll have more,” he told her. “You don’t want to get sick.”
Laura sat down on the curb with her feet in the street. Nick sat with her and rested his elbows on his knees. The fireworks boomed about them but they were far from the crowds. They were under a streetlamp and their shadows were long and narrow before them.
“Sorry I took you away from watching them,” Laura said. She didn’t sound as dazed as before and even chuckled a little, like she always did.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I didn’t mean to make you miss them,” Laura said.
“I don’t care much on the fireworks,” Nick told her. “My friends invited me.”
“You can go back and I’ll be alright.”
“No, I’ll sit with you. They’re alright by themselves.”
Laura finished the water and Nick filled the bottle back up for her in a fountain. He made sure she drank the whole of it again. She did so and then slumped over tiredly, resting her head on her perched arm. He didn’t care to be taking care of her but he was glad she seemed to be doing better. He’d always wanted a kid sister and that’s what she felt a bit like.
“I’m not feeling so drunk anymore.”
Nick nodded. “Do you want to go back to your friends?”
“No, I’m going to sit here. You can go if you want.”
“I’ll sit here. Joe and Dana like being alone and … Did you have a good day and everything?” he asked, changing the subject so he didn’t talk on them, how they were getting married and everything. “Did you get out in the sun at all?”
“It went alright. I don’t really remember much of it.”
“You must’ve been down by the docks.”
She nodded. “Were you down there too? I didn’t see you.”
“I came down to watch the fireworks.” He considered. “Play the games any, Laura?”
“What games?”
“Didn’t they have carnival games on the dock?”
She smiled suddenly and leaned back in thought. “Yeah, that seems years ago.”
“What games did you play?” He was trying to make her feel better. “Did you play the one where you had to knock the bowling pins over?”
“I don’t remember. We probably played it or something. But I didn’t win anything.”
“That’s too bad. I always liked those.”
Margaret must be down there amongst the rest. She probably was but Margaret had her own friends. He didn’t know her friends like they didn’t know Joe nor Dana. But maybe the sisters were meeting up after the show and he would see her if he stuck around. He only wasn’t sure if he wanted to. It wasn’t that she would be drunk. But he only wished they were all the same age and that he wanted to get drunk with them. It made him feel strange that he was trying to bunch around with them instead of girls his age and mostly he wanted to be alone.
“I got to ask you about the elephant sitting around here,” Laura said in a low tone.
“There’s an elephant about?” Nick waived like something was about.
“You know what I mean.” Her eyes were wide and earnest. “That Margaret is down there but she’s with her new boyfriend. I’m sure you saw.”
Nick smiled a little and felt a tightening in his throat. “I know all about it.”
“Did you see her?”
“No, but I think she said something on it,” he said quickly. Margaret hadn’t said anything, but it was the way Laura had looked at him that made him lie. It wasn’t so odd a lie, he didn’t think. But she maybe saw through it. “I don’t know any boyfriend of hers,” he said.
“I know you don’t. I only wanted to say so.”
“Alright.”
Laura stared. “I know you don’t care,” she said slowly and nodded until he nodded too.
“Alright.” Nick knew to smile. “I’m sure tired. I’ll need to be getting to bed soon.”
“You need to be up early for work tomorrow?”
“That’s right.”
Laura still looked at him. “I only wanted to tell you because she was going to walk home with me. But he’ll probably come too.”
“Alright.” He stood and looked over the dusky lawn. “Looks like the show is finishing.”
He looked behind them where the street curved back over the hill towards the rest of town. It would be a long walk home with Joe and Dana, and he would feel better if he went alone. Tonight, was a night where he needed a cigarette and some time to think by himself. Maybe he would buy some beer on the way and think long into the night.
“I only wanted to say it so that you know,” Laura said. “Margaret likes you a lot. She always talks about you.”
“Yes, she’s a good friend of mine,” Nick said.
“I hope I’m your friend too.”
“You are. Of course, you are.” She was little next to him and he couldn’t possibly have any hurt feelings. The same went for Margaret. It wasn’t her fault that he liked her so much.
“That’s good.” Laura nodded and scraped her hair back over her face. “Thank you, Nick.” She stood. “I’m feeling better. You were nice to help me.”
“Make sure you fill up the bottle for your walk home. That way you won’t get sick.”
People started coming up from the lawn. Nobody was talking nor laughing much and the little, tired children were being carried by their parents. Nick didn’t want to leave yet but he stood and helped Laura up. He knew not to take anything too personally. That would be a nasty thing to put himself through. A cigarette or two would help. When he got home, he would drink some beer and sit up late reading Atop the Steeple. If he was late for work tomorrow, so be it.
***