Free The Dead of Summer by Heather Balog

the grass or did any of the landscaping himself. No siree. He had a team of landscapers (Mexicans with ride-on lawn mowers that they dangerously raced through the Lincolns’ two-acre backyard) come several times a week and make it all look pretty. And then at any of the many social events that the Lincolns would host at their house, Mr. Lincoln would always go on and on about his precious garden and lawn.
    The Lincolns were always having parties and getting drunk, sometimes doing really gross things with their friends’ spouses in the corners of the house where they didn’t think Lindy and I could spy on them. I always slept over when Lindy’s parents had a party. They thought that if I was there, it would keep Lindy totally out of their hair. Little did they know, we both stayed up all night, keeping a notebook with all the details of what took place inside the confines of the mansion. When we got older, Lindy started taking pictures and videos with her cell phone. There were at least two school board members, three councilmen, and a former mayor that were gonna be in big trouble if Lindy ever got her wish and became an award-winning photographer like she dreamed of. I closed my eyes, imagining the headlines and Lindy’s name on the photo credit when it happened. Linda Louise Lincoln.
    That was Lindy’s real name, a fact she absolute hated. Both Linda and Louise were her grandmothers; Lindy despised both of them and rightfully so. Her Grandma Linda was a money-grubbing socialite (Lindy’s words, not mine) who had been married and divorced six times, the latest time to a man who was only ten years older than we were. Lindy absolute refused to call him Grandpa, so Grandma Linda had refused to attend any of Lindy’s birthday parties or give Christmas gifts until Lindy gave in. Thus far, Lindy had not. Her other grandmother was eighty-nine years old and in a nursing home. I had never met her, but according to Lindy, Grandma Louise had spindly, bony fingers that she liked to rake across Lindy’s face and tell her what a good looking young man she was turning out to be and how she thought the mustache Lindy was trying to grow looked lovely. Oh, and she smelled like Vicks and mothballs. Lindy hated visiting her and had faked sick on several occasions when her parents were going to the nursing home.
    While Lindy was certain of her future, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I grew up. It certainly wasn’t a poet judging on my recent work. I would love to be a writer, though. I had always liked to read and got okay grades on my writing assignments in school. Occasionally, if we were writing creative pieces and not boring essays on comparing and contrasting color symbolism in Dickens’s work or some other crap like that, I would get compliments on my writing from teachers. Someday, I would love to write a book. Or something that changed people or really mattered to someone. Maybe I could write the article that Lindy’s photo was attached to. Most likely not, though. I’m sure Lindy wouldn’t want to share her dream job with anyone, even me. I would have to be content to live vicariously through her, saying I “knew her when…”
    So there I was, dreaming about Lindy’s future, when I must have drifted off to sleep from the heat. I woke up to the bush being shaken above me.
    “Hello!” called a voice. It sounded like the voice of God, coming from the air.
    Still in my dreamlike state, I wondered if I was dead from the heat. Damn it, Mama was right! I needed to drink more water. I hate when Mama is right.
    “Up here,” the voice called. And suddenly, I recognized the owner of this particular voice. Carson .
    I sat up, feverishly rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I attempted to tuck my hair behind my ears and make myself presentable, and then I stuck my head out from the bottom of the bush.
    “Oh, um, hi,” I mumbled, pulling a stray hair out of my mouth. In doing that, I discovered a wet spot on the side of my