Free Emory’s Gift by W. Bruce Cameron

his lips on real women, only to be snatched back and tossed into solitary confinement. I was itchy with unexpressed energy, so stuck in the world of nothing to do that I didn’t want to do anything. I had long and entirely impossible conversations with Kay in my mind.
    Me: Kay, I’m not just a junior lifesaver. I often go into the woods and feed a grizzly bear tuna casseroles.
    Kay: I love you! Let’s kiss.
    I was so bored that even though I had nothing to talk to him about I called Dan Alderton over Labor Day weekend, though he wasn’t home.
    “He’s not here; he went into town. Are you going to the movies tonight?” Mrs. Alderton asked me.
    “Sorry?”
    “I guess all of your friends from school are going to see a movie. Sugarland Express ? With that woman from Laugh-In, Goldie Hawn? I know she’s been in other things, but I still think of her as being on Laugh-In; do you miss that show? I used to love that show. You should go. How come you don’t come over to play with Danny anymore? You tell your dad we’re thinking of him. Is he seeing that woman, Yvette Mandeville? I mean Yvonne. She’s so sweet. Are you okay, hon? How have you been?”
    Mrs. Alderton, I decided, was one of those people who asked questions without ever really desiring any kind of answer.
    I told her politely that it was a pleasure to speak to her and that no, I wasn’t going to the movie. I didn’t tell her I was grounded, nor did I say that with my dad there were no exceptions, no appeals. You took your punishment.
    Fifteen cords of wood had arrived by truck a few days before and naturally it was my job to stack it all. I was digging around in the woodpile, not so much stacking as just heaving split logs around and thinking about Kay, when I heard the Jeep turn off onto Hidden Creek Road and head up to our house. By the time I went inside, Dad was in the shower, which was pretty unusual. When he came out of the bedroom a while later, he was wearing pressed slacks.
    “You okay on your own for dinner tonight?” he asked me. He was buttoning a shirt and it seemed to be giving his roughened fingers some trouble. His new tie, fancy and wide, was flopped over the back of a chair like a deflated snake.
    “Where are you going?”
    He wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I knew.
    “Just out with some friends. Out to dinner. Dinner with … Yvonne, she’ll be there, too. Actually we’re meeting friends for a drink and then after that dinner it’ll be just me and Yvonne, Miss Mandeville, at dinner. It’s a dinner date. I’m going on a date, Charlie.”
    For nearly a year my father had been silent as a broken clock, and now, with the advent of this Yvonne woman, he was unleashing a torrent of words and I didn’t like any of them.
    “When will you be home?” I asked him in a low voice.
    “Don’t wait up for me,” he replied, turning his back on me.
    That’s how I wound up going to see a movie that night. I watched my father’s Jeep pull out of the driveway and I cursed him out loud. I found myself going to the gun cabinet, but no, violating that rule wasn’t enough; I had so much rebellion inside of me banging around like a buffalo head-butting a pickup truck that I needed to do something really bad. It wasn’t ten minutes later that I was trotting down the road, drinking in the evening air, an escaped prisoner.
    I was headed, as it turned out, for a hefty helping of heartbreak.

chapter
    EIGHT
    IT took more than a little bit of walking to get to town, but I was used to it. Selkirk River didn’t really know how to decorate itself for Labor Day beyond a back-to-school sale at the dime store, so it just left up the stuff from the Independence Day celebrations—the streetlights wore boas of red, white, and blue. The air was warm and I decided I’d be better off with an ice cream than without, so I headed toward Baskin-Robbins as the first order of business.
    There were little white tables scattered around next to the big picture window at