“Hi,” I sign. There’s an awkward moment when I feel like I should hug her or something but she’s just standing there with her hands in the back pockets of her cutoff jean shorts. Not the best hugging position, really. So I just shrug, feeling like a middle schooler at a dance.
“This is Jenni,” she introduces, slowly spelling Jenni’s name and indicating her gorgeous friend.
“Hi,” signs Jenni timidly. She flicks her hair like a shampoo commercial.
“Hi,” I sign back. I wonder if Jenni is going to hang out with us the whole time. Not that I mind, but I’d hoped it would just be me and Robin.
I take out my pad and paper. “So… this is a craft fair!” I write.
Robin nods and smiles. “It’s my favorite thing,” her mouth says. She signs, “Love.” So I guess she’s looked up a few more signs since the picnic on the hill.
“Let’s see it,” I sign. She nods and her smile sparkles up into my face. After a moment of hesitation, I reach for her hand. She takes it, her sweaty palm against mine. It’s nice.
Jenni takes that moment to tap me on the shoulder. “My family’s having a yard sale,” she writes. She makes an apologetic face but she’s hiding a smile. “Gotta help them. Sorry I can’t come with you guys.”
“It’s okay,” I write. Robin says something to her. I catch the words “See you at the” and “an hour,” but she’s half-turned away so I can’t see everything. We wave good-bye and head into the crowd.
It’s chaotic, to say the least. Kids, families, and middle-aged white ladies are everywhere. In fact, everybody’s white. I think there are three brown people in the whole place. It’s always a culture shock, coming from the city, where I am often the lightest-skinned person in the room, to coming out here to the country and being the darkest. I don’t think a single one of my friends from home even has blue eyes.
There are a million little tents with candles and fudge and pottery and photographs and knickknacks and everything has hearts or checks or plaid. It smells like sweat and sun and kettle corn. Robin obviously loves it.
Every time she sees something she likes, her whole body changes. She goes up on her toes and stretches out her neck like happiness is trying to lift her off the ground. When she likes one particular thing, she taps on my arm and shows it to me—a cream-and-sugar set, a beaded bracelet, a blown-glass paperweight. “Nice,” I sign, unable to suppress a smile. She doesn’t buy anything, and she doesn’t expect me to buy anything for her, she just wants me to see it. Crowds aren’t really my thing, and crafts aren’t really my bag, but she just glows. I’d come here every day if I could watch her like this.
One booth is entirely full of photographs, and I browse through a bin of pictures of Amish country. I imagine my life without my phone, without my videophone, without my bike… I wonder how the deaf Amish live. Robin’s hand slips out of mine after a few minutes. I glance up briefly and she just holds up a finger, telling me to wait, before she slips into the crowd.
I decide to buy a photograph that was taken from the same overlook where we had our picnic. This one was taken in the winter—in the snow, before the lake had frozen over. The sparkling snow contrasts with evergreen trees and the distant bright blue expanse of the lake. For once, I have something to show her instead of the other way around. The only problem is I can’t find her. When I finally spot her, she looks like she belongs to the booth she’s in. A white guy with dreadlocks and a modal T-shirt is nodding in rhythm from his spot in the booth, which sells handmade instruments.
She’s playing a kind of flute or something. It’s copper and it’s held out in front of her, more like a clarinet than a flute. I’ve never seen anything like it. Her fingers are flying and people in the crowded aisles are stopping to listen. A little boy grabs his sister and they dance around in a circle. People start clapping in unison and the man who owns the booth starts to tap one of his drums with a little wooden mallet. Somebody grabs wooden spoons off the display case and smacks them between his hand and his knee, like a hillbilly from a movie.
Robin’s eyes are focused down, on her fingers, but her smiling eyes flick up to the crowd from time to time. The wind blows her ponytail and her face is pink from sun and people watching. Finally, with a flourish, she finishes the song. The crowd breaks into applause, the little kids run back into the crowd, and the man with the spoons starts to inspect them like he might buy them.
Laughing, her eyes find mine. They are twinkling and crinkling and sparkling. More than the motorcycle. More than the picnic. More than me. The guy from the booth taps her on the shoulder and she turns to him, still laughing. She gives the flute back and he pushes it into her hands, trying to convince her to buy it. She shakes her head, ponytail swinging.
I pull the pad out of my pocket. “How much?” I write on it, and start to walk over. I intend to buy it for her. I really do. I could buy anything for her. But I shove the paper in my pocket. I don’t want to buy my replacement.
Chapter 15
Robin
“No really, I can’t afford it.”
I hand the pennywhistle back to the guy. A handmade pennywhistle? Awesomeness “instrumentified,” but costing way more than a penny, and I need to keep my money for the Dread Pirate Martin. Maybe at the end of the summer, I’ll have enough left over for a beautiful handmade pennywhistle, which I have already christened Francis Flute. From Midsummer Night’s Dream. Obviously. I look up to see Carter stepping across the aisle to me, hands in the air, parting the crowd like Moses parted the Red Sea. “Deaf applause” he called it on the hill, but something is wrong. He’s got that gun-to-his-back forced smile again.
I smile at him. “Thank you! Thank you!” I sign to my nonexistent audience, and when I look at him again, he’s smiling. Real smiling.
He shows me a picture he bought that was taken from the overlook. I’ve never seen it in winter—the park is closed then. “Beautiful,” I sign.
He nods.
I check my phone. Yup, it’s been an hour. I wipe off my sweaty hand and take his, weaving through the crowd. His hands are strong, but not farmer strong and not football strong. They’re strong in a classical pianist way. Or a surgeon. I pull him into a little booth and take out my waitressing pad.
“What are you doing after high school?” I write.
He pauses. “I don’t know,” he writes, then signs. He points at me. “You?”
Tour to coffee shops and colleges, playing my guitar.
I hesitate. “I don’t know either,” I write, then sign, copying his earlier movements. We leave the booth and I weave us through the crowd so we’re not too late.
He squeezes my hand and I look up at him. “Where… ?” he signs with his left hand, mouthing the word.
“You’ll see,” I say. He nods.
The crowd disperses, and there it is in all its glory: the hospital’s pie booth.
You want a boy to stay at a craft fair? Take him to the pie booth. A lesson learned from too many years of Trent.
I look back at Carter. His eyes are saucerlike, and with good reason. There are fruit pies and meringues and coolers with cream pies to be bought by the slice or the pie.
“A slice of coconut cream?” I write. We were playing favorites over text yesterday and he said that was his favorite.
“Just one?” he signs, eyes gleaming.
I nod, a mock-serious look on my face, and point to a big sign that proclaims, “Buy a slice and help the hospital! Buy too many and the hospital will help you!”
Carter laughs, signing, “Just one,” in agreement.