Destined (35 page)

“The Graduate Equivalency Exam? Yes, I
most certainly do. You wish to be finished with high school early?” he said,
looking at her with renewed interest.

Amy grinned and cocked one eyebrow,
the pierced one.

“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to get
out of that place,” she said. “I want to go to art school. My advisor said I
might be able to get a scholarship.”

Gupta considered this statement for a
moment.

“You have a portfolio of your work?”
he asked.

“Well, sort of,” Amy said, “I have
notebooks. Of my drawings, I mean.”

“Amy has been doing window displays
this summer,” I interrupted, “We have her sketches, and some photos of the
finished projects. But, isn’t she too young?”

“Not if she can pass the exam,” Gupta
replied. “And get accepted to an art college. It’s a tall order, but not
impossible.”

“I was checking it out before school
vacation started,” Amy said, warming to him. “The test didn’t really look that
bad. Except for the math part. I suck at math.”

Gupta laughed and threw back his head.

“A common complaint among artists!” he
said. “I have heard that many times before!”

“So,” Amy said, “I was thinking maybe…if
someone would help me study, maybe I could learn enough to take the exam. What
do you think?” She looked at him expectantly, in a casual yet studied way, her
stillness the only sign that this was of prime importance to her.

Gupta shot me a glance of suppressed
excitement.

“I think, you should come to see me
when I am at home,” he said, “And we will discuss it further. I want to see
your transcript, and I would like to telephone your advisor. But we can
certainly work something out!”

“I don’t have any money, you know,”
Amy said frankly.

Gupta smiled at her, his eyes
twinkling again.

“Money is not important! Relationships
are important. And you have collected quite a few of great value,” he said
enthusiastically. “You come and see me on Monday morning at ten. We’ll talk
about the details then.” He looked at me and we exchanged nods of approval. He
seemed excited about the prospect of teaching again, and the chance to study
Amy while she studied mathematics. I felt she was a talented designer, and
would do wonderfully in art school. I was very curious to see these “notebooks.”

That afternoon the heat outside became
more and more intense, as the bright sun bounced off the pavement and made even
the plastic arms of our lawn chairs too warm for comfort. I had reluctantly
turned on the air conditioning in the shop so we would all have a haven for
retreat, and Bella and I sent Henry inside to preside over the cash register in
comfort. He was looking a little peaked, and was grateful for the respite. The
foot traffic on the sidewalk continued unabated, and the performances under the
tent were very well attended. Everyone in the area had come to town, from the
looks of it. Across the street, the Sorrentinos were doing a brisk trade in
cold drinks and frozen treats. Josie had her grandchildren helping her outside,
and I saw Rocco re-stocking their coolers several times.

We heard from people passing by that
the heat was supposedly going to break late in the afternoon, when a cool front
of Canadian air was due to enter our region. My sunglasses kept sliding off my
nose, slick with sweat, and I guzzled bottled water. The girls were getting a
little grouchy, and we were all tired. We took turns going inside to cool off.
One of the street magicians came by and asked if she could keep her sweet
little white rabbit in his cage at our shop until the end of the day, as it was
too hot for him to survive either in her pocket or in her car. We put his hutch
in the kitchen on the cool linoleum floor, with plenty of fresh water, and she
went back to work.

The kitchen phone rang and it was
Sarah Bennet, on her cell phone. There was a lot of noise in the background.

“Hey!” she greeted me.

“Hey, where are you?” I asked.

“Main Street, right in the middle,”
she shouted.

“How is it?”

“It’s a mob scene! How is it there?”

“Great! Tons of people.”

“Emily, they want to do a live
interview for the six o’clock news!”

“Wow! That’s wonderful!”

“Will you do it with me?”

“What? You want me?”

“Yeah, they want to interview me and
one of the merchants. I thought it should be you.”

“OK, sure.” I said reluctantly. The
thought of being on TV made me nervous.

“We’re doing it at the tent right when
the last concert starts. They’re going to show it in the background. They’ve
been shooting around town all day, so there’s an edited piece back at the
studio that they’re going to show, too. It’s a major story!” Sarah sounded
terribly excited.

“Cool! Outrageous! What time do you
want me there?” I grinned, swept up by her enthusiasm. She told me and we made
plans to rendezvous.

I went into the little powder room
under the stairs and looked at my wilted, shiny, sweaty face in the mirror. My
frizzy hair was stuffed up into a clip on the back of my head, and there was
black dirt in the creases of my neck. My nose was sunburned a rosy red.

I stared at myself and started to
laugh out loud. Some TV star! Then I washed my face and neck, brushed and
rearranged my hair, put on a little lipstick and mascara, and found some
sunscreen for my nose and shoulders. I headed back out to work. When I told the
girls and Henry what was happening they were very excited. Tony showed up about
then, and helped Henry move the little TV from the sitting room out onto the
counter in the shop, so he could watch the news show.

“You’ll be beautiful on television,”
Tony said, “It’s your fifteen minutes of fame, like Andy Warhol said. We should
record it!” Henry nodded, and hustled up the stairs to set the DVR on his
bedroom television to capture the show.

When the time came, I took one last
look in the mirror and then I walked over to the tent, looking up at the spires
with their festive red and orange flags fluttering a little in the breeze that
had finally arrived. My hair lifted a bit off my brow, and I felt cooler, like
I could breathe for the first time all day. Maybe I wouldn’t be dripping with
sweat on television after all! I perked up and started to look forward to the
adventure.

I ducked under the tent and went
around behind the stage, where the news crew had parked their van. It had a
long metal arm attached to the roof that pointed the broadcasting antenna
toward the sky. The back doors of the van were open and two men were inside
looking at a small monitor, surrounded by piles of electrical equipment.

“Hi,” I said, “I’m Emily Ross. I’m
here for the interview?”

A dashing young man with blonde hair
got out of the front of the van, dressed in crisply creased slacks and a short-sleeved
shirt. He came over and put his hand out to shake mine.

“Steve Mason, Channel 40 News, good to
meet you!” he said, smiling to reveal a set of perfect white teeth.

We chatted about how well things were
going, how much fun everyone was having, how happy the merchants were with the
turnout. Then Sarah showed up, calm and poised, and took over the conversation,
to my relief. She had estimated counts for the crowds and the number of cars in
and out of the parking garage at her mental fingertips. She had sound-bite
quips ready to utter. She was a real pro, and I was glad she was there. All I
had to do was smile and look friendly, nod my head and agree with her. We went
through all of the reporter’s questions fairly quickly and he showed us where
he wanted us to stand for the interview, right outside the entrance to the tent
so that the stage and performers could be seen in the background. The cameraman
positioned himself out in the middle of Market Street, to get some of the tent
in the shot too. We were all waiting for the signal that it was time to begin.

The cool breeze had picked up quite
nicely over the past few minutes, and the little flags fluttered gaily in the
sunlight. I squinted up at the sky, and noticed some distant clouds to the
north. They looked bluish gray. As I watched, they came closer, obviously
moving along at a considerable clip.

“We’d better do this soon,” I said to
Sarah, pointing at the sky. She looked at it and frowned.

“It’s the cold front they predicted,”
said the cameraman, turning around to shoot the rapidly approaching weather.

“Get back here!” yelled Steve Mason, “We’re
ready to go live!”

The camera swung back around, focusing
on him. He spoke into the microphone, smiling broadly and introducing Sarah and
me. The band played in the background, just wrapping up a tune. A bunch of
people had gathered to watch the interview, including Rocco and Laurie. We did
our interview as rehearsed, and I felt relatively relaxed about it. I didn’t
say anything stupid, at least. Then they cut back to the station and my part
was over. The reporter thanked me, and said the station had asked him to do a
live wrap-up at the end of the news show in a few minutes. Sarah and I stepped
aside so they could get a good shot of the clowns and jugglers on the sidewalk
in front of Sorrentino’s.

In the quiet between songs on stage, I
heard a deep rumble to the north. Sarah heard it too, and we both turned to
look.

Dark, billowing charcoal gray clouds
were rolling towards us out of the northern sky. They stretched wide across the
entire horizon. A flicker of jagged light shot across them, and in a minute we
heard the thunder again. It was definitely heading this way. The wind started
whipping along, and up and down the street tablecloths and signs were fluttering
and flapping. A handful of paper napkins flew off Rocco’s pizza table and
soared down the sidewalk.

Everyone started to scramble, pulling
things inside and trying to secure lightweight objects under heavier ones. I
saw Siri and Bella make a dash up the steps of the shop, their arms laden with
sale items. Tony was spreading a plastic tablecloth over the used books,
strapping it down with duct tape. I noticed Lexi and her boyfriend standing
inside the door to the shop, watching the activity. She waved at me and they
ran down the steps to help, while Amy quickly packed things into empty cartons.
The sound of the wind was almost as loud as the band playing under the tent, as
the news crew went live again to wrap up their broadcast.

The juggler behind Steve Mason was
having a hard time, as the wind snatched the balls out of his hands and flung
them away. Luckily the spot was short, and the reporter was able to sign off
without mishap. Then a big flash of lightning tore across the bruised sky and
the thunder growled again, nearly on top of us now. We could see the rain
approaching as it moved towards us, coming down in streaming sheets of water,
hissing when it hit the hot pavement and sending up clouds of wet steam. Then
the air turned greenish gray and the storm swept right over us, soaking me to
the skin within seconds.

Lightning split the sky again, right
overhead, and thunder cracked with a deafening boom. Behind me, people shouted
and I turned around to see someone pointing up at the peaked tent roof, where
the big electrical cable emerged and looped to connect to a utility pole on the
far corner by the medical offices. I looked up just in time to see a bright
ball of bluish light shoot out of the dark sky and run along the cable, sparks
arcing into the air. Thunder boomed again, very loud, and someone yelled, “Watch
out!” Lighting struck the tent pole again and the big cable was suddenly loose,
flapping in the gusty wind and sending showers of sparks cascading down the
canvas roof. People screamed, and the cable whipped around like a snake.
Parents grabbed their children and ran for their lives.

“Are you getting this?” the news
reporter yelled at the cameraman, who was pointing his lens at the tent to
capture the chaos. A siren sounded in the distance, then another, and another,
as the fire department and police raced to the scene.

Sarah and I stood shivering on the
sidewalk in front of Sorrentino’s. Josie came outside wearing a plastic
shopping bag tied over her curly white hair. She pulled us back under the
awning and the three of us watched as the fire department pulled up and took
control of the situation. The storm had started to move past, but the street
was filled with puddles of water, a potential danger with downed electrical
wires on the ground. They finally got the power disconnected and the loose
cable stopped spitting sparks. The people who were sheltering in doorways
nearby cheered and applauded.

Nobody appeared to have been injured,
but we were definitely shut down for the day. The band started to pack up their
instruments to go home. The sun came out again, lower and redder in the sky now
as it moved toward twilight. Awnings and trees dripped, while birds soared down
from the rooftops to splash in the puddles.

Sarah and I looked at each other in
dumb amazement.

“It could have been worse,” she said
reassuringly, starting to regain her composure.

“Yeah, somebody could have been
electrocuted, right?”