The Summer of Owen Todd Read online

  Dad talks with the guy for a bit, then calls me over. They start up the motors of both working karts. I slip into the junky green one and Dad gets the dirty hot one. We take them around a small dirt track circling the backyard of the house, and it’s clear we were right. I’m barely able to keep up, everything is rattling on mine, one wheel is loose, and Dad’s holding way back. After a couple of laps, I’m dragging farther and farther behind until Dad nods and we pull in. The man is watching from his back step. Sean’s sitting there munching a carrot. He says something, and the man responds by leveling his hand straight out. It’s shaking. I hear, “Can’t fix karts. Can’t do anything.” Sean nods, pulls up his shirt a few inches. “Pod. All the time.”

  “Switch?” I say to my dad.

  We do. I slide into the seat of the blue kart, the pad warm from my dad. The motor sputters powerfully behind me. I press lightly on the gas, and the kart jolts ahead. Trigger pedal. I ease off and start slow. The track is packed dirt and not big, but it’s flat and isn’t a simple oval, so I get to put the kart through a bunch of turns and one not-too-short straight with a kink in it. Dad is struggling behind me like I did behind him. I slow, speed up, slow to let him catch me. The fun is in the scramble. In the second lap, I don’t lift off the pedal though. It’s too much for me not to test what it can do, and it does a lot, roaring into a pair of turns without any drift in the back at all.

  The old gummy steering wheel feels fat and powerful in my hands, and every time I turn it fast, my insides sway. This is probably the fastest kart I’ve ever driven, really balanced. I love it. I want it. Dad has to buy it.

  We slow and stop. Dad steps back, studies the good kart back to front. The other one is coughing thick blue smoke.

  “This is faster than number seventeen, Dad,” I whisper. “Forget the other two.”

  “Oh, I know, believe me. Now comes the sticky part. I don’t like how he had all three lined up like that. I only want this one.” He saunters up to the back step and starts talking to the guy.

  I follow Sean to the pickup, where he pops his backpack on the floor. “The dirty blue one is really fast,” I tell him. “I hope we can get it.”

  “Is three thousand dollars a lot?” he asks.

  “Three thousand? That’s what he wants for it?”

  “No, for all three. You have to buy them all. Package deal.”

  “All three? No way. One is great, but the others are wrecks. Maybe for parts. But not for three thousand.”

  “That’s what everybody says, but he told me the cars belonged to his grandkids, who he says he never sees anymore. He wants them all racing again but nobody’s willing to rebuild the junky ones and if they say they are he can tell they’re lying. I think he likes playing the cranky old man. Say you’ll race them all. I bet he’ll drop the price.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Not exactly, but I think that’s what he wants. Tell him you’ll put it in writing.”

  I look over. My dad’s shaking his head. “Dad never breaks contracts.”

  “So try it.”

  I frown at Sean, then join my dad, who’s saying, “I seriously only want the one. But I’ll take the other two for parts if I have to. A thousand, total.”

  It’s the old man’s turn to shake his head. “I thought you were a mechanic. Sorry, no deal.”

  “I am a mechanic, that’s how I know how much they’re worth,” Dad says, exasperated. “Maybe even a thousand is too much.”

  I turn to look at Sean. He wiggles his eyebrows.

  Flipping my J&D cap off and twisting it back on for effect, I say, “You know, Dad, the green one’s slow but there’s something interesting about it in the turns. And the third one, well, it’s a rebuild, but who knows. It could be something again. You’re the best kart man on the Cape. Off the Cape, too.” I’m talking like a veteran kart mechanic from way back. “I think we could rebuild and race them all.”

  Dad practically laughs in my face. “Race them? All three of them? Owen, I don’t have three thousand dollars for this. I can get brand-new ones for less.”

  “Not like my Jenna’s,” the guy says, playing the old man, like Sean said. “The blue one used to be Jenna’s.” He even gets a faraway old-timer look in his eye, like he’s remembering some distant memory from years ago. I almost expect him to shed a tear.

  Dad screws up his face. “Sure, maybe not like … Jenna’s. But I thought since the karts were old, I’d get a better deal.”

  I butt in. “Draw up a contract, sir, that we’ll take them and race them all.”

  “Owen? Come on. Sorry, sir, I just can’t—”

  “My dad never breaks a written contract,” I say.

  The man flicks his eyes over at Sean, then back to my dad. “That true, sir?”

  “I’m a man of my word, but a poor man. Sorry, I guess we’re going.”

  “Hold on.” The guy looks at me now. “You promise not to cut any of them up for parts, and race them, and you put that in writing, you can have the lot for six hundred.”

  Dad’s mouth drops open. He blinks at me, at Sean, at the guy, then fumbles for his checkbook. “Deal!”

  It’s wrapped up in a few minutes. Dad and the guy, who despite his tremor has got some muscles, hoist all three karts into the back of the pickup, laying the third one, the skeleton, on its side. Dad digs around in the front and comes out with a J&D cap, which the man slings onto his head with a smile. Shay and I climb up into the back and sit in the two working karts—he in the blue one, me in its slower brother. When we get on the road, we wave at the other drivers as Dad passes them, lights blinking. He drives three slow miles to downtown Chatham and parks.

  “A celebration,” he says. “For Sean, who saved the day.”

  Shay laughs and wiggles his eyebrows again. “Aw, shucks. Here’s to me. And to you, Mr. Todd, since you’re gonna have to rebuild those two other karts.”

  “It’ll be a challenge,” says my dad. “Could be fun, after all.”

  Seriously, this is one of the reasons Sean’s been my friend so long. He likes having fun, but he knows how to keep a secret and he listens to people. He listened to the guy selling the karts and he figured something out. He’s smart about stuff like that. He thinks about what other people are feeling. He’s sensitive.

  We order fish and chips at the Chatham Squire, and my dad and I get cheeks, which sound creepy, but my dad says we’re in luck because they’re the sweetest part of the fish and not always available. He’s right. Lunch is awesome. Sean has broiled cod.

  We drop the three karts at the track and head back to Brewster.

  “I told my mom to pick me up at your house,” Sean tells us, so we pull into our driveway and park. As he climbs out and jumps to the ground, he is as happy as I’ve seen him for a long time. I think he’s happy mostly because he got us such a deal today.

  “The first full day of summer vacation is officially awesome!” he yells.

  And, after a couple of random things fall into place, so is the second.

  FIVE

  Dad unlocks the side door, which goes straight into the kitchen. Sean and I head to the living room. I hear the refrigerator wheeze open. I check the house phone for voice mail and discover three new messages.

  “Maybe my mom?” says Sean.

  The first message starts with breathing. It ends with breathing. The next one is just dial tone. The third one coughs, then, “This is Coach. Sorry, I think I just hung up on you. So, no game tomorrow. Too many kids on vacation. No forfeit, since the other team’s taking off, too. See you Wednesday afternoon at practice. Three p.m. Uh … yeah. That’s all.” Click.

  “Yay!” Sean yells. “We didn’t lose tomorrow’s game!”

  “We are awesome at that. But now what? I mean, doesn’t that mean…”

  I don’t finish, but “doesn’t that mean” is the first part of “doesn’t that mean you’ll be with your babysitter earlier because your mom’ll be at her shop in P-town?”

/>   And I suddenly have the crazy idea that the first call was from Paul Landis, and his breathing into the phone is also suddenly the creepiest thing I can imagine. I hope it doesn’t show on my face, but Sean gets it. He swears under his breath.

  Dad enters, eating a cold chicken leg out of a container, though why he’s hungry so soon after lunch, I don’t know. He offers the container around, and we refuse. “Sean, your mother just phoned my cell. She’s on her way.”

  Then—tumble, tumble—the second rando thing falls into place, only it takes a little while to get to it.

  “Why don’t you go with her tomorrow,” I say.

  “Go with who?”

  “Your mother. To P-town. Model ladies’ dresses and stuff.”

  He snorts a laugh. “Which I would love to do, but I’ll be in the way. Her words. She totally doesn’t want me there because the store she says is the size of a closet, so there’s no room for me, and she doesn’t want me wandering the streets like an orphan. Also her words. I might get abducted by pirates.”

  “Provincetown?” My dad pretends to think about it. “Abducted. Pirates. Yeah, I can see that.”

  I try to imagine a way Sean can avoid having the sitter. “Or maybe your mom will bend the rules and you can come to the track with us.”

  “Sorry, no track for us, either,” Dad says. “Mommy’s driving to Grandma’s, which you should know because it’s the anniversary of when Grandpa died. So I’m volunteered to take Ginny to dance class. You could come with us. Model tutus.” He starts another piece of chicken, his eyebrows doing the questioning as he bites in.

  I hear a car coming up the drive to the house. “Well, I haven’t been to Provincetown in forever. Maybe I could go with you. We could buddy up, keep each other from being kidnapped.”

  Sean looks at me. I can see him flipping through all the arguments he’d have to have with his mother before he shakes his head. “She won’t go for it. She’s all business lately. She’s kind of … worried about this shop. Two kids? Even two kids as awesome as us? There’s another side of my mom you don’t want to see.”

  “Ask her,” my dad says, tugging open the side door for Mrs. Huff.

  She stands outside smiling. “Ready, Sean? Did you have fun?”

  I just push right into it. “Can you take Sean and me to P-town with you tomorrow?”

  “Come in,” Dad says.

  She tries to keep smiling as she steps into the kitchen, but I can tell it’s hard for her. She runs her fingers through her short hair next to her ear. Her lips tighten. Her eyes flick toward my father, who smiles back at her and offers the container of chicken parts. She shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry, Owen. It’s not really a great idea.”

  “But if we go together, I’ll keep Sean busy, and he’ll keep me busy. We’ll take care of each other.”

  My dad suddenly laughs, which doesn’t help, but he sets down the container, pulls open the freezer door, and takes out a can of ground coffee. “Coffee, Jen?”

  “Oh, no. We have to get going—”

  “Please?” Shay says. “Please, please!”

  She seems a bit twitchy, I don’t know why. Maybe she’s thinking of all the stuff she needs to do and is just nervous. “Sean, I don’t think so.”

  “No, Mom, this is good,” he says, whining a little. “You know the store is a big thing to handle. You need moral support. We’re it.” He points a finger back and forth between us.

  “You’ll have nothing to do! It’s a dress shop. A tiny dress shop for ladies.”

  “Yeah!” says Sean. “Right across the street from … Marine Specialties.”

  She sighs. “Sean—”

  “Owen, it’s the coolest store,” he says. “They have so much junk in Marine Specialties. Everything. You can buy a submarine. Seriously. A submarine. No lie.”

  “A submarine,” I say.

  “A small one,” Shay says.

  “But big enough for two, right? I’ve always wanted one.”

  Dad laughs again, spoons coffee into the machine. “Jen, you’re sure, no coffee?”

  “Thank you, no. You’re not getting a submarine, Sean.”

  “Probably not this weekend, I agree,” he says. “We have to test drive it first. You always test before you buy. I’m sure we could get a good deal on it, too, if we promise to sail it. Or dive it. No, no. This weekend, we should start small. Maybe some scuba tanks. Or an oar.” He laughs. “Or … an … oar! Get it? Seriously, Owen needs a break from his family. No offense, Mr. Todd.”

  Dad laughs more. “I’m fine with it if you are, Jen. I know the marine store. It is pretty fantastic. Owen would love it.”

  Sean’s mother twists up her face now, but there’s a glimmer of a smile in there somewhere. “Mm-hmm. I can see a thousand ways this could go off the rails. But I guess … if you really, really want to. Owen?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  Sean starts jumping up and down while his mother groans a long sigh. But she finally breaks out in a full smile. It’s a tense smile, but I’ll take it. “This is so unlike me. But … I’ll pick you up at eight, Owen.”

  “I’ll be ready at seven!” I say.

  “And I’ll still be here at eight.”

  We slap fives, Sean and I. Single ones.

  “Dude, excellent awesomeness,” he says, “not one, but two days in a row!”

  SIX

  Mrs. Huff pulls in my drive at eight a.m. sharp, and when I leap out the door into her minivan I find Shay still grinning like a chimp.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah!”

  A little over an hour later we’re parked in a lot a block away from Commercial Street, the crazy busy shopping street that follows the curl of the giant Cape Cod Bay.

  “You boys stick close,” Mrs. Huff says as we hustle down to her shop. “You could get lost here and no one would ever find you again.” She stops on the street. “Sean, did you bring—”

  “I have both pods, Mom. You take one.” He hands her a small zip case.

  Belle-Teak is the name of the dress shop his mom comanages.

  Shay tells me the name is supposed to be a play on the word boutique, but he’s not exactly sure how and neither is his mother, because Mrs. Huff’s boss, Miranda Something, who owns the store, chose it.

  We enter the shop to find Miranda frowning into the register. She’s a big, boxy woman and is the one with all the business sense, Sean told me, while his mother, besides working at the high school, used to work in a bunch of stores and even designed dresses when she was younger. Miranda seems all right, but after Shay’s mom introduces us, they talk low to each other, and neither seems happy about something. The doorbell bings, and this girl, dressed in a loose black T-shirt, black jeans, and black boots, maybe a college student, pushes into the store like she owns it. I’m ready for someone to tell her we’re not quite open, but they both say, “Hi, Gee,” so the girl apparently works for them. She responds with a flat smile and a long ragged sigh.

  When Sean’s mom asks her, “Can you arrange these on the racks outside?” gesturing to a row of flimsy dresses, the girl makes such a slow, whispery, “Sure,” I wonder if she’ll make it to the door. She looks like she wants to die.

  “Owen, when I said it was a tiny shop, I meant it,” Mrs. H. says. “Maybe you two can…” She nods across the street to Marine Specialties. “And no submarines, please. We simply don’t have room.”

  I laugh because his mom doesn’t make that many jokes, then I suggest she lend us her cell phone, like my dad did. She loves this idea because it shows how responsible at least one of us is. She shows Sean the store’s number and gives the phone to him. We are out the door in a flash, fleeing the shop like we did school on the last day. On the sidewalk we carefully avoid Miss Glum, who is roughly hanging the dresses, but does seem to be arranging them in size order, which I think shows potential.

  It must be barely twenty feet across the street to the other shop, but the riv
er of Commercial Street practically drags us away in its current. Even this early, a little before nine thirty, the pavement is jammed with people. There are at least three different songs playing from public speakers. A wolf pack of girls in tight T-shirts squeezes past us, while five or six boys in long shorts lope along behind them. Those poor girls. The guys trailing them are goofily slapping one another. But Shay’s eyes are fixed only on the marine store, which is drawing him in like a tractor beam. A low-tide smell mixes with the tang of boat fuel and pastries just before I enter.

  Then I enter.

  Whoa.

  Like Doctor Who’s TARDIS, Marine Specialties is so much bigger inside than out I can barely believe it. It’s crowded wall to wall, floor to ceiling like a hoarder’s museum of every kind of junky stuff you can imagine. Grandma would call it “crazy crap.”

  “Seriously,” I say. “This is the exact opposite of your mother’s store.”

  “You mean Belle-Teak?”

  “I do mean Belle-Teak.”

  “Well, yeah, because … holy cow!”

  From the ceiling over Sean’s head hangs a complete old-fashioned rubbery diving suit. It has an enormous bronze ball of a helmet with a grilled-over glass porthole on the front, showing a sexy lady’s heavily lipsticked mannequin head inside. The diver’s arms are straight out as if it’s flying. Not far from this is what must have been the first surfboard invented. It’s at least fifteen feet long and could hold five people. Gawking at it, I nearly fall over and realize we’re pinned between tables crowded with stacks of plates and dishes and knives and forks and glasses that you could use to feed thousands.

  “What a freaky place,” I say when Sean nudges me to look to my left.

  Standing there is a bearded old man, staring at us from among the tables, as motionless as a mannequin. “He looks like he fell down from the ceiling,” Shay whispers. “But I think he’s actually alive. And he has a man bun!”