I nodded. “At the end of the summer,” I said. I looked over at Henry, expecting some kind of reaction. Everyone else’s responses—even my grandfather’s, over the phone—had been angry, distressed, concerned. But Henry’s hands just tightened on the wheel, something closing off in his face.
We drove the rest of the way home without speaking, and Henry passed my driveway and pulled into his, confusing the dog, who had sat up straight when we neared our house, his nails scrabbling against the glass of the window, eager to get home. He clearly hadn’t put it together that this was also the place where people dumped syrup on him. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, when Henry had turned off the engine, even though he made no move to leave his car.
“Right,” he said, his voice sounding far away. “Sure.” I looked over at him, wondering what I’d said, or if this was just the residual tension from earlier. It seemed that in my efforts to put the past behind us, I’d unwittingly made things even more uncomfortable. I started to say something—anything—to try to get us back to a more amicable place, when the dog started full-on whining, standing up on my lap, straining to get back home again, which must have seemed extra frustrating now that it was so close.
I pushed open the door and slid out of the car, dropping the dog down to the ground, where he immediately started pulling against his leash. I was about to say something else to Henry, but he was still sitting in the driver’s seat, looking lost in thought. So I just closed the door gently, and then headed up his driveway, being tugged by much more force than I would have thought a small dog was capable of, wondering what had just happened.
An hour later, I was sitting on the front porch with a glass of Diet Coke, extra ice, shucking the corn for dinner. My siblings were with me, and they were, technically, supposed to be helping. But instead, Gelsey was doing her ballet exercises using the porch railing as a barre and Warren was pacing back and forth, barely avoiding getting whacked in the face by Gelsey’s grands battements, peppering me with questions about his upcoming date.
“And she said yes?” Warren asked, as I peeled back the green husk from a ear of corn, exposing the yellow and white kernels underneath. I felt my stomach growl just looking at it. Fresh corn was one of the best things about the summer, and Henson’s corn was always spectacular. I dropped the husk into the paper grocery bag resting at my feet, then looked up and gave my brother a look.
“Yes,” I said, for what had to be the eighth time. “I asked her if she wanted to go to the movie on Friday, she said yes, and I took the dog and left.”
“And you’re sure she knew it was with me?” Warren asked. I met Gelsey’s eye just before she sank down into a grand plié. She gave me a tiny smile before looking away, stretching her arm over her head.
“I’m sure,” I said firmly. “You have a date. You’re welcome.” I shook my head, wondering if I’d done the right thing. After all, Warren and Wendy sounded like some kind of terrible folk duo. Not to mention the fact that she was now going to be subject to my brother’s endless wellspring of trivia.
“Right,” Warren said, as though just now realizing I had something to do with this. “Thank you so much, Taylor. If there’s something I can do to repay you—”
“There is,” I said, handing him the half-shucked ear of corn, and picking up my Diet Coke glass—I was due for a refill. “Finish these.” I headed in, through the screened-in porch to the kitchen. My mother was slicing up tomatoes, and I recognized the fixings for hamburgers on the grill.
“Corn done?” she asked as I opened the fridge to retrieve my Diet Coke.
“More or less,” I said, glancing out to the porch, where it looked like Warren was talking to Gelsey, wearing a dreamy expression, but not actually accomplishing anything.
“More or less what?” my father asked, walking into the kitchen. He was holding the dog tucked in the crook of his arm and he looked a little rumpled, the way he always did when he woke up from his nap. He had also stopped dressing as though he was going to be called into the office at any moment, and today was wearing an American Bar Association T-shirt with his khakis. Without meaning to, I looked behind him to the calendar on the fridge, and saw that we had somehow ended up in the middle of June. Like every year, the summer was moving much too quickly—but I now had more of a reason to need it to slow down than just not wanting to go back to school.
“The corn,” my mother said, bringing me back to the present moment as she turned down the heat on one of the burners.
“Oh, shucks,” my father said, his pun expression spreading over his thin face. I smiled, and it looked like my mother was trying not to. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, with mock contrition, “was that too corny? Personally, I thought it was a-maize-ing.”