Birds of Summer Read Free Page B

had been named Cerbe, Cerberus really, after another dog—one Grant had adopted during the summer he’d lived with Oriole. That Cerberus had died when Summer was still a baby, but she’d heard a lot about him from Oriole’s “good-old-days” stories. So, when Cerbe had appeared on the scene, a half-grown pup that someone had dumped beside the road, he’d become Cerberus the second and had grown into a wooly bear of a dog, shaggy, smelly, and at the moment, dramatically woebegone. Cerbe had always been a ham.
    Because his drooping tail and head and sad doggy eyebrows were just too much, she grabbed him roughly and pulled him against her chest, her fingers deep in the thick fur on each side of his broad body. With the top of his shaggy bear-shaped head pushing against her stomach, he nuzzled happily, crooning his love growl, and she growled back. Her face buried in his rough coat, she whispered insults about his looks and intelligence and the doggy funkiness of his smell—loving him fiercely for knowing how she felt about him no matter what she said or did. A few minutes later she went out, steady-handed, to talk to Oriole.
    “Here. Have a carrot?” Oriole said. Not only had she combed her hair and dressed in her straightest clothes, but she was actually wearing shoes. Obviously she was sorry about what happened last night and was trying to make amends. That was Oriole for you—thinking a hair ribbon could solve the McIntyres’ problems. Talk about straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic!
    Summer accepted the vegetable peace offering and sat down at the table. Leaning on her elbows she crunched on the carrot and watched Oriole speculatively, waiting for the next gesture. The kitchen area was cleaner than usual. Most of the dishes were done except for the ones on the window ledge that had been there for so long they’d become semi-permanent, like a part of the decor. The cracked and chipped surface of the Formica sinkboard had been wiped, and it looked as if dinner was already underway. Putting a dish of raw vegetables on the table, Oriole sat down facing Summer.
    “The pay was terrible, anyway,” she said. “When I realized what it would do to our food stamp allowance—”
    “Mother!” She never called Oriole that except when she was really furious at her. “That’s not true, and you know it. We figured it all out, remember? Even with the reduction in the AFDC, we’d have been getting almost two hundred more …” She stopped suddenly and shrugged. The job was over—gone—lost forever, so it didn’t make any difference.
    “Galya stopped by this morning and took me in to see about the food stamps. We’re not going to have to wait to be reinstated. That’s good news, isn’t it?”
    “Great!” She could almost taste the bitterness in her voice. Oriole looked at her sharply.
    “I don’t see why you’re so uptight about food stamps. Esau used to say that we should never be ashamed of having food stamps. Esau said food should be free to everyone, like air and sunshine, and it’s a crime that some people should have more than others just because they have more money. Esau always said, ‘Just smile sweetly right into the faces of people who glare at you in the checkout line because—’”
    “Yeah, I know,” Summer interrupted. “I remember what Esau always said.”
    “Do you really remember him? You were only about four when the Tribe broke up.”
    “No. I don’t remember him. It’s hearing you tell about him that I remember.” Esau had been the leader and guru of a group of people that Oriole had lived with for a while in San Francisco. The Angel Tribe, as they’d called themselves, had inhabited a big old house only a few blocks from the center of Haight-Ashbury, right in the midst of everything that was going on in those days. And Oriole had been right in the center of the Angel Tribe; she still loved to remember and talk about it. Summer had heard over and over again about how the