Three Day Summer(40)

I step a bit closer to her and slap on a smile. “Hey, would you mind giving me the time?”

She looks startled that I’m talking to her and then her eyes narrow. I can almost see the wheels turning, figuring out a way to tell me to go to hell.

But really, how many snide remarks can you make to someone asking you the time?

So she settles for gritting her teeth and lifting up her left wrist like it’s a Herculean task.

“Eleven twenty,” she finally grunts.

“Holy shit!” I immediately exclaim, and I hear Michael laugh. Amanda and I turn to him with dual glares.

“It’s not funny. I’m going to be murdered by my father.” The smile immediately slides off his face. “I have to go.”

I can see Michael almost start toward me, but then he stops, tethered to his spot by Amanda’s hand.

I really have to go, and I have no idea what to say to him. So I settle for a general “Nice to see you guys again” and a wave, which I mostly direct over to Rob, Evan, and the two girls instead of Michael.

Then I turn around and walk away at a quick trot.

I hear Michael call out, “Wait . . .” but then Amanda’s voice cuts in.

“Wait for what?” she demands and then, luckily, I’m too far away to hear the rest.

I don’t know whether to focus on the confusion I’ve just left behind or the certain doomsday that’s ahead of me.

Neither will help my state of mind, I finally decide. But there’s nothing to do but keep walking, so I time my steps to the beat of the music for as long as I can hear it.





chapter 46


Michael


I can’t even watch Cora walk away. Amanda is asking me why I called out for her and I don’t have a proper answer at all, but I know I can’t continue to stare after her.

So I do something horrific.

I kiss Amanda to shut her up. It feels awful. I don’t mean the kiss itself or Amanda. I mean me. Knots of guilt are forming in my throat, making it hard to breathe (especially while kissing, where breathing is already a carefully choreographed sport). I kiss Amanda and I think about Cora and wish she were the one here with me now.

Which, of course, makes me a really shitty person.

All this time, I’ve assumed that Amanda would eventually cheat on me. In fact, just a couple of days ago, wasn’t I hoping for it? With Rob? But she didn’t. It was me. Maybe she’s been right to be preemptively pissed at me this whole time. Maybe I am a loser and she is, after all, way out of my league.

I’ve been feeling so much inner turmoil that the Grateful Dead have switched over to Creedence and I’ve hardly noticed. I don’t think I could even tell you one thing about the Dead’s set.

Now Creedence is playing “Bad Moon Rising,” a faster-paced version than they normally play, and the word “bad” cuts through the humid night air, headed straight for me. I’ve been a bad boyfriend, I think as I look at the top of Amanda’s head. She seems calmer now, swaying to the music. She looks like she should be on the cover of a magazine, like the poster child for our generation or something. A little mud-speckled, a flower still drawn on her cheek, long blond hair, blue eyes. Woodstock’s dream girl.

But not for me. For me, it was a striped apron and someone who couldn’t even tell Hendrix from Townshend. Someone who didn’t come for the music at all, who came just to help. Someone who helped me by making everything seem in focus for once. After all the time I’ve spent with Evan relishing things going fuzzy, it’s funny that it’s the exact opposite that has made me feel the lightest I’ve ever been.

But she’s gone now. And what can I do about it? I can’t run away from my friends again and show up at her doorstep. Her dad definitely seems like the type who owns a shotgun and knows how to use it. I can’t even break up with Amanda. Not for a . . . whatever . . . that would last one more day at the very most. And that is only if Cora ever talks to me again. Or, for that matter, if I ever even see her again.

I can’t do anything.

Can I?

Creedence starts a new song, and after a few moments I recognize it. It’s a cover of a song my mom owns actually, one of her beloved jazz records. Nina Simone, I think. “I Put a Spell on You.”

Black magic really must be at work because soon I’m thinking, Maybe I’ll see Cora at her medical tent tomorrow. Even though I shouldn’t think that at all. What would be the point of seeing her when I have Amanda and home and a whole life nowhere near Bethel, New York, starting the day after tomorrow?

But it doesn’t matter. Hope doesn’t listen to logic. And by the end of the song, I’m pretty sure it’s not hope at all. I will see Cora tomorrow because I will make it happen. What do they call that?

Oh. I think it’s determination.

All in all, a totally foreign feeling for me.





Sunday, August 17





chapter 47


Cora


It’s past midnight by the time I arrive home. I guess I stopped walking briskly as soon as I was out of Michael’s sight, feeling heavy and sluggish because of everything I was walking from and walking to. What difference does twenty minutes here or there make anyway? I’m dead meat no matter what. Dead meat with the stench of someone else’s boyfriend on her lips. In an instant, this day has gone from exhilarating to disastrous.