The Square Root of Summer(60)

“Budge over, Sof, it’s stuck.” She moves aside and Ned puts his full weight and both hands on the tap. “Scheisse. Thomas, can you grab me a wrench, or a knife, or something?”

“Wait a second,” I say to Thomas, holding him back. He flails, caught between me and Ned. “You couldn’t rehearse in front of me? You couldn’t even tell me? I’m the only one who’s heard you sing.”

“Sorry we didn’t tell you about the band,” says Ned, semipatiently, still trying to yank at the tap. Even over the music, I can hear the sarcasm, that he’s drunk. “Sof asked me not to. What happens at rehearsal stays at rehearsal—as I’ve told you a thousand times. You’d remember if you paid attention to anything other than yourself.”

He grabs a spoon from the drying rack and starts bashing the tap. I let go of Thomas’s arm. Am I selfish? All I’ve seen Ned do all summer is party, play guitar, and pretend Grey isn’t dead. But maybe I’ve got no idea what he’s been up to. Maybe he’s got wormholes too.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” I say to Ned’s back. “Hey! Look at me. You should have told me, you should have … She’s my friend.”

It’s Sof, not Ned, who turns on me. A hiss so low and furious I can barely hear the words. “I’m your friend? Are you joking? Gottie, you barely want me around! I can see it in your face every time I’m round here, and it sucks. You only reply to my texts half the time, you’re always with Thomas, you think the world revolves around you. Even when I was upset about Grey, you wouldn’t let me be your friend. Well, guess what? Ned did, and we don’t need your permission.”

“I’m not giving it!” I shout back, knowing I’m seconds away from being yanked out of time. Thomas is telling Sof to calm down and holding my arm, then Ned is yelling back at me.

“Gottie, shut up. You’re driving everybody crazy. You hide in your room for hours and you’re always daydreaming, you never listen, I fixed your bike, I try to involve you. And God, his car, you cleaned it—that was his STUFF, but you can’t deal with his shoes? And you disappear for hours when we need you, you’re so selfish, you eat all the cereal and drift around like you’re the only one in pain and Jesus, this f*cking tap—”

Punk is blaring and everyone’s still yelling and I’m waiting for the wormhole to yank; it’s going to take me right now, surely. None of us notice the tap—the ancient, rusty, creaky kitchen tap, which I’ve been tightening with a wrench all year because it keeps leaking and Papa won’t deal with anything and I don’t know what else to do—as it shoots off the sink.

Silently, it rises up and up to hit the ceiling.

Followed by a geyser of water that threatens to drown us all.

“Fuuuck!” hoots Ned, as everything happens at once.

For a few seconds, the water rushes only upwards, as though there’s no gravity. Then it comes crashing down over our heads, soaking us, as everyone runs from the kitchen. Now it’s spraying every which way as Ned tries to stem the flow with his hand, only making things worse. It sweeps everything before it in a tide, cups and mugs and bottles crash to the floor. Then Thomas’s cake.

The four of us watch, drenched.

Frozen.

Then a bedraggled Sof catches my eye. And, unbelievably, she laughs.

After a second, I crack up too—and suddenly we’re all hysterical. I’m holding on to Sof and we’re staggering about, both of us shrieking as we keep slipping across the floor. The water’s still spraying and Ned’s still trying to stop it and giggling, “Fuck, f*ck, f*ck,” and this strikes me as the funniest thing ever.

Every time I look at Sof I collapse into giggles. My legs are weak like noodles. And every time she looks at me, she does a startled-donkey snort. Pretty soon we’re unable to hold each other up and we hit the floor, taking Thomas down with us—which only sends us into further hysterics as we flap about, beached fishes. I can’t see where the wormhole is, and I don’t care.

Ned flops down into the water too, even though he doesn’t need to, straight onto the cake, which makes Sof cackle even more. Breathlessly, she snorts at me, “Look—at—at—” She’s laughing so hard it takes her ten attempts to add, “Ned!”

“Fuck you, Petrakis,” Ned says, splashing her with water. “Shit, my camera.”

It’s Thomas who finally calms us down.

“Ned, Ned,” he says, struggling to sit up as the giggles fade out. “Get towels from the bathroom, your bedsheets, laundry—anything, there’s a load in my, Grey’s, that room. G, is the shed locked? Is there a mop or anything? I can’t think, um … Okay, Sof, can you turn off the music?”

Ned helps Sof to her feet and they head off, following instructions. Thomas nudges me: “The mop?”

“Shed, yes,” I say, still faintly delirious.

“Right. Can you handle—this?”

I nod—I don’t have a choice—and he runs off, slipping in all the water on the floor and banging against the walls.

There’s a saucepan on the drying rack and I grab it, approaching the sink like it’s a rat I need to kill. I try holding it down over the tap but it just redirects the spray right in my face. Trying again, both hands now, I manage to use it to sort of deflect the spray back down into the sink. Half of it is still going all over the counter, the windows, but at least not me.