Three Day Summer (16 page)

chapter 54

Michael

I drift in and out as Jefferson Airplane plays on, and by the time I fully wake up, there's no music at all. I walk over to look at Amanda's watch. It's noon.

The sky is overcast and cloudy. It looks like it's going to rain again.

“I feel so disgusting,” Amanda says as she gets up and looks down at her muddy arms. Then she looks over at my clothes, which are still caked with the stuff from yesterday and again today, and looks even more bewildered. “So are you,” she says matter-of-factly.

I guess now that I have my backpack, I can switch into the change of clothing I brought. I slowly bring the bag over and swap my shirt for the Monterey Pop T-shirt that's balled up at the bottom.

For a second, I think about suggesting the lake to Amanda, but then I decide against it. I don't want to taint that memory. I want it to stay as perfect and pristine as it is.

It doesn't matter because Evan suggests it anyway. So after rolling up our sleeping bags and gathering our meager belongings, we head on over to the water.

The lake is even more crowded than it was yesterday because I guess even some of the holdouts can't spend three muddy days without a bath.

Amanda, Catherine, Suzie, Evan, and Rob all strip down to their birthday suits and wade in. I linger back.

When she's only in up to her thighs, Amanda turns around and yells at me to come join them.

I'm still fully clothed and I don't want to. I look at her stunning naked body and feel sick to my stomach. Her skin is porcelain pale, glowing in the weak sun. I have been begging her to let me see her like this for months. And now I just want to turn away.

But what excuse can I give her? Slowly, I strip down completely too and leave my clothes in a pile next to the others'. When I get in the lake, I stay closer to Evan and Suzie than I do Amanda. I don't want to touch her in that water. It became sacred to me yesterday and I'm already ruining that.

I can see Amanda's thinking about swimming over, though, so I dunk myself in, rub my arms a little bit, and then start to wade back out again.

“Hey . . . ,” Amanda calls.

“I'm worried about our clothes,” I lie. “I'll go stand guard.”

I change quickly, putting on the clean jeans I brought and the Monterey shirt. Then I wait, purposely not looking out at my friends but keeping my eyes on the horizon.

Eventually, they splash out too. Amanda takes her time rummaging through my backpack for the clean dress she brought, bending over so that her ass is a hairline away from me. I look away.

Everyone gets dressed and the music still hasn't started. Rob suggests we go to the food tents to see if we can get something to eat. It's only then that I think to ask him what happened to the girl he was supposed to be meeting here.

“She never made it, since the roads were already closed by the time she was supposed to leave,” Rob says, and shrugs.

“Shame,” I say, thinking mostly about his flirt session with Cora from the night before. But Rob just shrugs again and grins.

The food tents are handing out more army-issued bologna sandwiches. We each get one and Catherine suggests a picnic by the lake. We go to the drinkable side.

Our picnic ends and still no music, so Suzie brings up the woods that surround the farm. “I heard they're selling things in there.”

“What sort of things?” Evan perks up and I'm sure he's thinking about getting more weed.

“T-shirts and stuff like that,” Suzie says.

We have nothing better to do, so we go.

chapter 55

Cora

At around one, Ned shows up at the tent. He's volunteering today.

Turns out, he was volunteering yesterday, too. I know this because as soon as he comes in, he walks right up to me and says, “I thought you'd be here yesterday.”

“What?” I respond, a little disoriented by the lack of greeting.

“I thought we'd both be here volunteering together yesterday.”

“Oh,” I say, as I brew up some more freak-out tea. You would think all the announcements about the acid would have stemmed some of the tide of bad trips, but you'd be wrong. Maybe it only freaked me and Michael out. Or maybe we were just looking for an easy excuse to spend time together. “Anna gave me the day off,” I tell Ned. “To see the festival.” I leave it at that.

“Oh, really? How was it?”

“Great,” I say.

“Great,” Ned says to me, and smiles. “I mean, obviously, I could hear some of the music from here. But it must have been cool to watch it, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, and busy myself with pouring tea and delivering it to a couple sitting in the corner.

Ned gets some orders himself and starts to treat some minor wounds. But I notice that every time he needs something from somewhere else in the tent, he manages to find a way to walk by me and say something.

The first time it's “Who was your favorite person you saw yesterday?”

“Janis Joplin,” I answer honestly, thinking not only of her spectacular performance but of meeting her at the hotel bar.

The next time he walks by, he's had time to think about this response and he asks me, “Was Janis Joplin on yesterday? I don't remember hearing her.”

“Yeah,” I say. “She was on really late.”

“How late?”

“I think around two a.m.”

He frowns, about to say something else, but I walk away to tend to a patient.

He finds a way to be where I am within five minutes. “Your dad let you stay out until two a.m.?” he asks incredulously.

“Not exactly,” I say.

“You snuck out?” he asks, and he lightly touches my shoulder for no particular reason.

I look him in the eyes then, those brown eyes that used to make me feel so warm and happy, like holding a freshly baked cookie on your tongue. “Not exactly,” I say mysteriously, and give him a small smile before I go to a young boy with a twisted ankle. The boy is slightly hysterical and therefore, thankfully, needs my full attention for a while. Ned isn't able to get to me, but at one point, I catch him looking thoughtfully in my direction. It's like he knows, like he can feel the sea change between us.

Anna, never missing anything, must see the quick glance Ned and I share. Next time she's near me, she voices my exact thought. “They always know,” she says.

I look at her, both of us understanding exactly what she's talking about. “Do they?” I ask.

She nods. “When you're just about ready to move on, they know. And that's usually when they come back. It's like the universe's way of making you figure out what you really want.”

She leaves me to cut up more bandages and I have a perfect view of the back of Ned's head as he tends to someone.

How will I pass this test? Am I ready to move on? Move on to what, though? A boy I might never see again? One who lives hundreds of miles way and who, not to mention, has a gorgeous girlfriend. Okay, a bitchy girlfriend, but gorgeous nonetheless.

I look at Ned's soft brown hair, see the one piece in the back that always seems to stick up. I watch the familiar shadow his body casts across the floor and know there was a time when I delighted in seeing that tall, assured shadow holding hands with mine—like the pavement itself was painted with our love.

And I know that something in my heart has changed. That little lump that was always embedded somewhere in my throat whenever I saw him; that little surge of adrenaline; even that ounce of fear of losing him that was always brimming just below the surface when we were together.

It's all gone.

Instead, unencumbered by butterflies in my stomach or a stuttering heartbeat, I finally imagine what staying with Ned really would have entailed. If we'd gotten married someday, he would be doing what he always did: making decisions for both of us. For our entire family. And who would I be? A wife and mother, I presume. But not a doctor.

In other words, I wouldn't be me at all.

Throughout all my pining and heartbreak, how did I miss this one kernel of cold, hard truth that would have made it much easier to get over him after all?

chapter 56

Michael

I wish Cora and I had thought to come to these woods together. They are wild and fun. They are also the same woods that we were camping by on the first night. Evan recognizes the way to his pharmacy immediately.

Just as Suzie said, there are vendors spread out among the trees, a lot of them selling homemade tie-dyed T-shirts, some with hilariously rude sayings. One of the shirts has a doodle of the moon landing with the big words “GOVERNMENT HOAX” surrounding it. That guy works impressively fast, considering the landing was all of a few weeks ago.

“Nice shirt,” the guy says to me when he sees me looking at his wares. I think he must be trying to hawk something from his table, but when I look up, he's actually pointing to the T-shirt I'm wearing. “Were you there?”

“I wish,” I respond, wondering if I had more of an enterprising spirit, could I really have made it out to California as a sixteen-year-old?

“I was there,” the man reminisces.

“Which was better?” I have to ask. The Monterey Pop festival in '67 was legendary, but I'm really starting to think Woodstock might surpass its fame. Though, perhaps, that's wishful thinking on my part since this is the one I'm here for.

The guy grins. “It's
all
groovy,” he says emphatically, and points behind me. I turn around to see three thin wooden signs tacked to a tree. Each one has an arrow pointing in a different direction and a label:
GROOVY WAY
,
GENTLE PATH
,
HIGH WAY
.

I turn back to the T-shirt guy with a smile. But he has a more serious expression on his face now when he gives me this unexpected bout of wisdom. “There's no wrong way. Wherever you're at, you have to make it what you want it to be.”

I look back at him, really mulling over his words. “Thanks,” I say as I walk away, and I mean it, looking at the painted words of the signs one more time as I pass them.

So anywhere I am can be the Groovy Way, or Gentle Path, or High Way? I suppose anywhere could be a billion other adjectives too. Is all of life really just a state of mind? I'm not even currently a time god, and all these thoughts are suddenly rushing my brain in a rare moment of waking clarity.

Everything is better at Woodstock.

The girls are crowded around a small jewelry stand, looking over beaded necklaces and peace-sign bracelets. As I'm hanging back, letting them browse, a stone catches my eye.

I move forward to look more closely at it. It's a large glass stone, a murky blue with streaks of darker blue within it. It's shaped like a teardrop and hangs from a thin chain.

It instantly reminds me of being in the rain-pattered lake with Cora. The colors, the shape, everything about it. I want to buy it for her so badly.

I ask the price. “Ten dollars,” the lady says to me.

I don't think I have ten dollars but, just in case, I check my backpack thoroughly. I ask the lady if she'd be willing to take four dollars and thirty-seven cents for it. She declines.

“Awww, it's beautiful,” I hear Amanda say behind me, and I turn around to see her beaming at me. “But it's okay, babe. That's expensive.”

I just nod, but don't say anything to correct her mistaken impression that the necklace would be for her. Because I am the scum of the earth, that's why.

I get the uncomfortable feeling that I'm not the only one who thinks that either. Looking up, I find the source of my paranoia. It's Cora's brother, standing at a nearby booth with his friends, his eyes boring into me, as if he were brought to life by the intensity of my thoughts. I wish my thoughts were good enough to bring his sister here instead. But then again, I don't know if I'd want the dirty look that Wes is giving me to ever cross Cora's face. Definitely not directed at me, anyway.

And that's when I realize: It's time for me to take the High Way. Even though the music is about to start soon and I don't want to miss it. Even though I'm terrified about the wrath I'm about to bring upon myself. None of that really matters. How can I instruct Cora to listen to the music and let it tell her to believe in herself, when I can't do the same thing? Everything the past few days have been telling me is that it's time to man up, to own something that I know is the right thing to do.

Evan has already made his purchases and the group is making its way back out of the woods. I hurry to catch up with them and lightly touch Amanda's arm. It's the first time I've voluntarily touched her all day.

She turns around, megawatt smile and all. She's probably still thinking about that necklace. I take a deep breath and watch as our friends keep going, not realizing that we've stopped. I ask her if we can talk.

“Course,” she says.

“This is all me,” I blurt. “All my fault.” I figure I should start this off with one of her favorite phrases. Anyway, it's the truth.

“What is?” she asks suspiciously. “That you didn't have money for the necklace?”

“No, not that,” I say firmly, and something about the way I say it makes her smile begin to falter. “I just . . . I don't know why you're with me, Amanda. I seem to piss you off all the time. And I think, I don't know. We should be happier than this.”

“Happier?” she says slowly.

“Yes. You deserve more. . . .”

“Happier . . . ,” she says again, in an oddly detached voice. “I don't think I understand, exactly. . . .” She tilts her head at me, blinking like a Disney doe.

I take her hand and then a deep breath, staring into her clear blue eyes. “Amanda . . . ,” I begin.

But I don't get to finish my sentence. I get a tap on the shoulder, and when I instinctively turn around, I don't even have time to register what's happening before something explodes near my right eye and everything goes black.