Three Day Summer(25)

“Lucky me. Ah, there’s one now.” She points to a middle-aged man wearing an orange bandanna.

We start toward him.

“So . . . ,” I say, taking a bite of the apple. “Tell me about yourself.”

She laughs. “What do you want to know?”

“Um, I’ll settle for your deepest, darkest secret. And, maybe your shoe size.” She laughs again. It’s looking to be a good day for me, charm-wise. Which is great; I only seem to have about five of them a year.

“Six and a half,” she says. “You?” We reach the man, and she bends down and opens up her picnic basket. “Sir, some food?”

The man’s face lights up. “For me?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” she says. “Take what you need. Except the eggs. They aren’t cooked yet. I have to get those over to the food stands.”

He reaches in and comes up with a couple of slices of bread, thanking her profusely.

“Of course,” she says with a smile before turning back to me.

“You sure you want to just open up the basket for people? What if someone takes everything?” I ask.

“Well, if they’re wearing orange,” she whispers, “I trust them.”

“Good point,” I answer as we scan the field some more. “Two o’clock. Orange skirt.”

She nods and we head in that direction.

“So?” she asks.

“What?”

“What’s your shoe size?”

“Oh, nuh-uh,” I counter. “You answer all my questions first and then I’ll answer yours.”

“Oh, is that how it works?

“Absolutely. What, you never played this game before?”

“I have led a deprived life in my little farm town,” she says, putting on a drawl.

“It’s okay. I will show you the way of the cosmopolitan world. And as payment . . . your deepest, darkest secret.” I stop and hold out my hand, my palm open as if waiting to receive my set price.

“Well . . . ,” Cora says, a line forming between her eyebrows as she stares down at my hand. “The truth is that I would like to be a . . . nurse. There. I said it!” She looks up into my eyes then, brazen.

“What?” I sputter. “That is unexpected. And shocking.”

“Isn’t it just?” she says before walking over to the girl in the orange skirt and opening up her picnic basket. Once she’s a few apples and hunks of cheese lighter, she comes back.

“I just never expected this from you, Cora.”

“I know.”

“I mean, you? A liar?”

“Hey!” Cora objects.

“Biggest, darkest secret, my ass,” I say. “Pathetic.”

“All right. Well, since we’re on my territory, we’re going to play the Bethel version of this game. In which you spill your guts in front of me, right here, right now.”

“I am an open book,” I say. “Ask me anything and I swear I will not lie.”

“Okay. What is your shoe size?”

“Ten.”

“And which of your teachers did you have a crush on?”

“Ms. Abernathy,” I say without any hesitation. “Tenth-grade science. Great legs.”

“And what’s your favorite thing in the whole wide world?”

“Music,” I answer, throwing my apple core on the ground for emphasis. “Glorious music.”

“What do you play?”

“Play?” I ask.

“Yeah. Any instruments? Drums? The guitar?”

“Oh,” I say. “No, I don’t play anything.”

“Why not?” she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I just . . . appreciate it, I guess. The music.”

“Oh,” Cora says.

Suddenly our playful banter has grown uncomfortable and I know exactly why. She has managed to hit at the one big problem of being me.

I chuckle. “See, the thing is, you’re the type of person who knows exactly what she wants to be. And it’s something amazing and useful. And that’s awesome. But I’m the type of person who is completely useless. A lazy good-for-nothing, as they would say.” I try to lighten the mood with some good old-fashioned self-deprecation.

But she’s not having it. “Why do you say that?” she asks. She stops walking and looks up at me, forcing me to stop too.

“Oh, you know.” I shrug helplessly. “It’s like I don’t want to go to college. And I don’t want to go fight. I don’t know what I want.”

Cora says, “You’re seventeen. I’m not so sure you’re supposed to know what you want.”

“Eighteen, actually.”

“Oh, well, in that case. What is your life plan, you hippie bum?”

I laugh. “Handing out food to people wearing orange. Obviously.” I take the picnic basket from her. It’s heavy and I feel a little bad that I didn’t think to take it from her earlier.

I head toward a guy with an orange-enough tie-dyed shirt and open up the basket for him.

“How much?” he asks suspiciously.

“What?” I ask.

“How much do you want for it?”