Three Day Summer (9 page)

chapter 31

Cora

It's not long before all that's left in the basket are the eggs that I said I would deliver to the food tents. It turns out that the purple tents at the top of the hill are still closed down, but Michael leads me to a blue tent a little farther afield than our medical tents. As we make our way over to them, I think about Michael asking me my deepest, darkest secret. He said I'd lied.

He's right.

I almost told him the truth: about wanting to be a doctor. He probably wouldn't have immediately changed the subject. He doesn't have Ned's medical knowledge or his ambitions to make me feel silly about it. But something held me back and now I'm sorry. After all, when else does one get to spill her deepest secret to a handsome stranger she'll never see again after this weekend?

We find the people with the silk-screened flying pig bandannas—the Hog Farm people, Michael tells me. I find this pretty hilarious considering I know actual people who run hog farms and they look nothing like these commune folks. But they gladly take the eggs off our hands. They even give us a red bandanna each for our troubles. Michael immediately ties his around his long, shaggy hair. Before today, I wouldn't have thought I'd find a guy in a headband dreamy but, well, let's just say this festival is really opening up my horizons.

“What are you going to do with yours?” Michael asks me.

I consider for a moment, before finally deciding to tie it around my wrist.

“Allow me.” Michael swoops in as soon as I fumble with tying the knot, and gently wraps the fabric around my wrist and ties it into an impressive-looking bind. “Boy Scouts?” I ask.

He turns the fabric around so that the flying pig is proudly displayed right side up. “Nine years.” He grins. “And the only reason I didn't become an Eagle Scout is because I got too lazy to do the big project that's required.”

“Shame,” I say. “I love a man in uniform.” I wink at him and spy the toothless guy with the cowboy hat I saw yesterday, now giving me a big thumbs-up and a grin. Which, for some reason, makes me blush. “Who's that? Do you know?” I ask to try to divert attention from my possible awkward reply.

Michael looks over at him. “Oh, sure. That's Hugh Romney. He's the Hog Farm leader.” I smile politely at Hugh and he tips his hat to me before his attention gets called back to the small army of helpful hippies he's clearly marshaling.

It's already five to eleven by the time we get back to my medical tent. I take out the candy striper apron that's at the very bottom of the now empty picnic basket and tie it on. It matches my new wrist adornment pretty perfectly. Already, the tent is busy, and I can hear a couple of freak-outs happening on the inside.

“Hi, Cora,” Anna says as she walks out of the tent to help someone hobble inside.

“Hi,” I say to her. She smiles at Michael and me as she goes back inside.

“Thanks for helping out,” I say to him.

“Thanks for the apple. And all the food last night.”

“Of course.”

There's an awkward moment of silence that I finally break with a very smooth “Well . . .”

“Would you be able to come see the concert with me some more today?”

“Oh . . . ,” I say. “Well, I have to work.”

“Right,” Michael says. “Maybe during your lunch break?”

“Um . . . I'm not sure. It seems busy. . . .”

“She has a lunch break at one,” Anna says as she swishes by me again, this time to help one of the other nurses, who is carrying a tray of paper cups filled with water. “And we have extra medical personnel today so no problem if she's gone for an hour.”

I blush as Anna whizzes back into the tent. The woman gets too much pleasure out of my nonexistent love life. Being in your forties must be really boring.

Michael just looks excited, though. “So, I'll meet you here at one, then?” he asks.

“Okay,” I say, not sure what excuse I could possibly give now. Although why I would even want to give an excuse, I honestly have no idea. Sometimes, it's really confusing being me.

“Okay,” he says, and stands there some more.

I'm worried he'll kiss me again and I don't think I can handle the whirlpool of crazy that brought on the night before. So I give him what I think is a friendly pat on the shoulder and say, “See you later, then,” before I lift the tent flap and go inside.

It's busy but Anna is right: There's a noticeable increase in the doctors and nurses milling about.

“Cute,” Anna says to me, as I find a corner to stash my picnic basket. “Looks a little like one of these rock star guys.” She hands me some Band-Aids and points me in the direction of two mud-spattered girls with cuts on their legs.

“I thought you wanted me and Ned to get back together,” I shoot back.

Anna shrugs. “Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition to get a man to come to his senses.” Then she pauses. “Do
you
want you and Ned to get back together?”

“No idea,” I mumble before walking over to my new patients.

While I clean up their wounds, the girls tell me about an epic dance party in the mud that apparently led to an equally epic tumble. But it sounds like a few scratches here and there were worth the fun.

“We really need to make an announcement about the brown acid,” I hear from behind me. A guy with dark, curly hair—one of the newer personnel—is flipping through our charts. “There seem to be a lot of incidents with it here.”

“Oooh, yeah. I heard about that,” one of my patients says, and I turn back around to her. “Someone told me it was poison. Like some guy took it last night and then this morning was having convulsions. He almost died!”

“Really?” her friend asks. And then, after a moment, “What did we take?”

“Shrooms. Totally different. We'll be fine.”

It's only as I put on the final Band-Aid that I let their words really sink in. As soon as I'm done, I run over to the charts and flip through them too until I find the page with Michael's name on it.

There, in Anna's neat penmanship: “tripping out/brown acid.”

chapter 32

Michael

I am going to die.

I don't remember much about yesterday morning, but that thin piece of film on Evan's palm, I can suddenly see the color plain as day. The same color as the dirt.

My mind starts to race. Sure, the guy who just told his friend he heard the brown stuff is poison doesn't look like the world's foremost medical expert.

But I am definitely sweating now. In a way that seems unhealthy, like I have a fever. And then my right temple starts to throb against my new Hog Farm insignia. Is it possible for my head to just combust, splattering my brains all over the fields of Woodstock?

I feel nauseous. It's going to happen today. I'll leave my parents an orphan. Wait . . . no, that's not how that works. But still, as an only child, I'll leave my mother childless. She will die of grief. Maybe my father will notice and be upset too.

I feel something on my shoulder and I jump a mile. I turn around, bewildered.

It's Cora.

“Whoa. It's okay. Just me,” she says.

I immediately reach out and hug her tightly, partially in relief at seeing her and partially because I don't want to miss the opportunity in case my skull explodes at any moment.

About two seconds later, I feel pretty awkward about it. Especially when I let go and see that I've left streaks of mud all over her orange shirt.

“Sorry!” I say. “It's just . . . I heard . . . the acid . . .” I can't seem to get my thoughts together. Surely another precursor to croaking.

“Brown tab?” She finishes my thought.

I nod. Oh, God. She knows I'm going to die and she came out here to tell me in person. She's even holding my hand to soften the blow.

“You'll be . . . ,” she starts, and I find that I'm holding my breath. “Fine.”

I stare at her. “What? Really?”

Cora nods. “Yeah. I mean you got the worst of it yesterday. I checked with Anna, too. She said you might have some slight repercussions today, but nothing dire.”

The pain in my temple is already starting to subside.

“But just in case,” she continues, “I think I'll stay with you today.”

“Really?” I say, taken aback. “What about work?”

“Well, technically, I'm a volunteer. And besides, it'll still be work being with you.”

I'm still in a state of shock from my reprieve from death and don't smile at the joke, but she does.

“It's okay. Anna said she won't need me, especially when she saw how worried I was about you. And anyway, she wants me to enjoy the concert. How often does a person have this in her backyard?”

She sweeps her left hand out in front of her, her right one still holding on to mine.

“Come on,” she says, as she leads me toward the stage.

chapter 33

Cora

“Cora, wait up!”

We haven't gotten very far toward the stage when I turn around to see my brother and his friend Laurie jogging up to us. They are both carrying their antiwar signs. Wes has a new one, I see. Behind them are Adam and Peter, who are huddled together, discussing something.

“Hi, Cora,” Laurie says to me with a big smile.

“Hi,” I say.

“Who's this?” she asks, pointing at Michael.

It's only then that I realize I'm holding Michael's hand, right about the same time my twin brother does. He looks Michael up and down.

I drop his hand as nonchalantly as I can, using mine to wave gallantly to him instead. “Michael, Laurie. Laurie, Michael. And that's Adam and Peter.” I needlessly point to the two boys who are deeply in the middle of an argument and not paying us the slightest mind.

Laurie shakes his hand. “How do you do?”

Wes turns to me. “You spent all day yesterday roaming this place, right?” he asks, casting a suspicious glance at Michael, who has somehow become immediately absorbed in conversation with Laurie.

“What makes you say that?” I ask. I'm not about to give anything away.

“Cora, the whole neighborhood could hear Dad last night.”

I grimace. “Yeah, I guess. What of it? And just when did
you
get home last night, anyway?”

“Jeez. Calm down.” He puts his hands up in the air in a placating gesture.

Now I genuinely want to know, though. “I'm serious, Wes. When did you get home last night? And did Dad say anything to you?” My bet is on no.

Wes rolls his eyes. “Maybe like half an hour before you,” he finally says. “And no, he didn't. But don't you think Dad has enough to criticize me about without the curfew bit?”

I soften a little because he's right. Seeing my face concede, he gets a mischievous gleam in his eye and looks over to where Michael and Laurie are talking to each other. “But I'm beginning to think thou dost protest too much. What's going on with Tall, Blond, and Muddy here?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Can you maybe get your own love life and stay out of mine?”

“Aha! You said ‘love life'!” He stares critically at Michael again. “Really? That guy? Isn't he like a drugged-out hippie?”

“You know who you sound like, right?” I ask, ready to pounce.

“Okay, okay. Just . . . be careful.”

I roll my eyes. “You too. Watch out for splinters.”

I look at his sign, which today reads
DIE AT 18 BUT VOTE AT 21. DO YOU SEE A PROBLEM HERE?

“Wordy,” I say.

“But it makes a good point.”

“True,” I say.

“Laurie came up with it,” he says just as Laurie gives a loud guffaw. I look to see both her and Michael doubled over in laughter.

I frown. I don't like this. Especially since blond-haired, blue-eyed Laurie looks a little like Michael's girlfriend.

Right. His
girlfriend
.

On second thought, this is a good reminder for me that he has one. And I should keep myself to myself. No more hand holding, or hugging, or weird pecks. Thank you, Laurie.

“Anyway, I think Mark would approve,” Wes says, looking over at his sign again.

I reach out and lightly touch his sign then, like it's somehow a connection to my absent older brother. “Your letter from him was bad too?” I ask, although it's not really a question.

Wes shakes his head. “We got to get him out of there,” he mutters.

If only,
I think.

“Oh, man. Look at that.” Michael's voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I look up to see him pointing toward a bunch of people who are pushing a Volkswagen van up a steep hill—everything, naturally, the color of mud. They get a few inches of the way up, about five feet from the crest, before the car starts rolling back down again. Then I hear a couple of the girls scream as they duck out of the way of the free-flying vehicle. Once the van has made its way back to the bottom, they jog back down there and try again.

“What's the van doing on the field in the first place?” Wes asks with just a touch of incredulity, and I can't help smiling to myself. One day, he'll see just how uncanny his resemblance to our dad really is.

Adam and Peter stop their conversation and we all watch the saga of the van unfold, as more and more people nearby rush to help. Now there are five people pushing. And then, once it rolls down again, six. At that moment, I'm sure we're all equating it to something or other in our lives, the futile struggle, the resistance to inevitable failure.

Me? I go a bit more of a literal route. The van makes me think of the back of Ned's truck. In early March, it was too cold to be in the barn, which would have offered more room.

Oh, fine, there's some metaphor in there, too. Futile struggles and last-ditch efforts and all that. Only I was a girl in love, and a girl in love often can't see when something has stalled for good. She'd rather spend all her energy trying to move a large hunk of metal up a mountain than face the truth. Because truth is the enemy of hope.

I am, thankfully, distracted from my thoughts by the loud noise of a helicopter flying low right over us. It's green with the US Army's logo emblazoned on its door.

“What are they doing here?” Wes asks breathlessly as we all stare up at it.

It hovers lower and lower. And then, right in front of our eyes, a package falls from it.

“Oh my God. Are they gassing us?” Adam asks.

“No, man!” We turn around to see a prematurely balding guy with a compensatory long beard. “They're
feeding
us. The US Army is bringing us food.”

“No. Way,” Wes says, but from where we are, we can see the Hog Farm folks gathering around whatever was dropped from the helicopter, their bright red strips of fabric flying in the wind from the rotating blades.

My brother and his friends all hold their signs by their sides now. Right about where their jaws are.