Three Day Summer(13)

Her plumage is fanning out, so many eyes and rivers. It’s impossible for it to be contained.

“Tell me about your family, Michael.”

Oh my God. She knows my name. This beautiful, rare bird is talking to me.

I have to do it. Very softly, I reach out and touch one of the feathers. It’s like silk.

I snap my hand away like it’s been burned. Idiot. I’m too impure to touch the bird. Don’t I know that?

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, hoping she is forgiving.

“It’s all right,” the bird responds calmly. “Everything will be fine. Just tell me. Start with your parents. What are their names?”

“Charles and Annemarie Michaelson.”

“And do you have any siblings?”

“Just me. Michael Michaelson. Michael M. Michaelson. The M stands for Mitchell.”

The bird lets out a small coo. A laugh? “You’re joking.”

“Never!” I yell, terrified. What happens to those who joke with a creature such as this? The words “fiery death” keep blinking on and off in my brain. “Please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t.” I think I can feel hot tears crawling inside my face and up my tear ducts.

“No, no,” she says. “It’s okay. Please don’t worry.”

One of her feather eyes bends down and touches my arm. I inhale sharply. It feels like a balm, reaching into my skin and drawing itself to the water in my tear ducts like a dowsing rod. Everything suddenly becomes cool and calm.

“I like it. Michael Michaelson. How did you get here, Michael?” she asks.

So I tell the bird everything. About my mother’s purple Chrysler, picking up Amanda and the girls and Evan. I tell her about yesterday’s burger. I hope she’s proud that I didn’t eat bird. Never again. Not now that I’ve been touched by the feathers of a goddess.

Time has stopped again. This gorgeous creature has been with me for only a millisecond. No, nine days. No, thirty-two minutes.





chapter 15


Cora


It’s been six hours since Michael Michaelson was dropped off at my tent. His friends have not come back for him. He sits in a corner now while I tend to other patients. I’ve been keeping my eye on him, though, and it seems to me like his gaze has become just a bit more focused in the past half hour.

The sun is still blazing high in the sky when we all hear it: the very first strains of music. I look at my watch. It’s a few minutes before five p.m. Quite a few anxious patients informed me that the concert was supposed to start hours ago. I can hear some of them start fidgeting now. When I look up, my eye catches Michael’s. His face breaks into a grin.

I hand the cup of tea to my latest freak-out patient and walk over to him.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

He shakes his shaggy blond hair. “Okay. A little . . . groggy. You still look a little . . . odd.” He blushes then, the pink of his skin rooting to his peach fuzz and reminding me even more of the summer fruit.

“I get that a lot,” I joke. I lower my voice conspiratorially. “It must be because I’m part Seneca.”

“Really?” Michael’s eyes get just a little brighter. “What part?”

“My grandmother,” I say, surprised he’s interested.

“Ah. Far out,” he responds. “Do you look like her?”

Sometimes, I feel self-conscious about how obviously different I look. When I was younger, I’d compare my summer tan to my brothers’ and, every now and then, wish mine wasn’t quite so much darker. But I don’t feel that way when I tell Michael yes, not with the way he beams at me.

We can hear some lyrics now, something about marching to the fields of Korea.

“Do you know who this is?” I ask Michael.

“I’m not sure. I thought Sweetwater was supposed to perform first, but this doesn’t sound like them,” he responds.

“It’s Richie Havens,” a blond girl drinking one of my teas offers from a corner of the tent. “I need to get out of here so I can see him.”

I walk over to her with my penlight. “Okay, let me see your eyes,” I say. A little glassy but focusing okay. “You feel like you can walk?”

“Definitely,” she says.

“Okay, take it easy.”

“Peace, sister.” She gives me a hug, before taking out a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses from her shirt pocket and reaching the front flap of the tent in six long strides.

“Hey,” a voice says softly from behind me. I turn around.

Michael is smiling sheepishly. “Think I’m okay to go too?”

I shine the light in his eyes, and they turn them an even lighter green, like the peridot in a ring my mother has.

“I think you’re okay,” I say.

“Great. Thanks. For everything. Sorry I was so messed up.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I offer.

He stares at me then for a moment too long and I wonder if he’s maybe not okay to leave.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Bye.”

“Bye,” I say, and turn around to busy myself. I can always cut more gauze strips.

I go to the bin where they’re kept and grab the scissors from one of the makeshift shelves.