Three Day Summer(5)
This is my cue to skedaddle. “See you later, Dad,” I say quickly as I turn around and practically flee across the field, nearly going face-first into something dark and sculpted. Wait a minute, those are pecs.
I let my eyes follow the chest muscles up to a grinning face, dazzling teeth matching bright white sunglasses. “What’s the rush, sister?”
“Ergh” or some hideous noise close to that comes out of my mouth.
He takes my hand and gives it a loose shake. “I’m Rob.”
Rob is beautiful. He’s also wearing an unbuttoned denim shirt and tight striped pants that showcase how beautiful all of him really is.
“See you around,” he says before ambling off. He’s with three girls and two other guys. One of the girls is tall and blond, wearing a long, rainbow-colored dress and silver rings on each of her ten fingers, a dainty daisy drawn on her cheek. The other two are darker, one dressed in tiny denim shorts and a midriff-baring crocheted vest, the other wearing a shorter dress that’s dripping with beaded turquoise necklaces. The two boys are both in bell-bottoms, one about the same height as Rob and carrying a humongous backpack and the other slightly shorter and skinnier with longish dirty blond hair and something that looks like the palest wisps of peach fuzz around his lips.
The girls pay me no attention, and Rob and Backpack Guy have clearly already forgotten about my existence. But Peach Fuzz keeps his gaze on me a moment longer as they walk away, nearly walking into Rob, too.
Hmmm—I look down to assess myself—pretty sure he was staring at my legs. And then I remember I’m in my stupid uniform.
I roll my eyes at myself. Not exactly the height of fashion, especially compared to the company he’s keeping. I shake my head and start walking—with purpose this time—back to Mr. Yasgur’s farm.
chapter 6
Michael
That chick has nice legs.
Really nice. Sort of a glowing, deep golden color, tapering perfectly at the ankles and everything. She’s wearing some sort of weird stripy uniform thing, though, which I vaguely remember as meaning something. Nun in training, maybe? I hope not. What a waste of legs.
By the time I peel my eyes away from her, Evan and the crew have plopped down on a bit of grass in the meadow and Evan is digging into his backpack.
He takes out a bunch of bananas, a thermos, four teal plastic cups, and a tin packed nearly to the brim with weed. He also takes out a small brass pipe, which he sets about packing.
Rob eyes the bananas. “Think we can go look for some real food after this? I wouldn’t want anything as prehistoric as hunger pains to invade my consciousness once the music starts. Know what I mean?”
I nod emphatically as I take the pipe Evan is offering me. “Since we’re not in yet anyway, maybe we should hit that lunch counter we passed on our way here? In that little town . . . White Lake?”
“Cool,” Evan says as he repacks the bananas, thermos, and cups.
The pipe goes around once and then we get up and start ambling back. The town we passed on our way from my car is about three miles away, but I don’t mind the walk. We don’t have anywhere to be yet, it’s a beautiful day, and the weed has created a nice buffer of calm, as per usual. Even Amanda is holding my hand and keeping the peace.
White Lake seems to have a sort of main street with a couple of shops, a grocery store, and the lunch counter I remembered. There is a small line out its glass door, but since we have nothing but time, we cheerfully get on the end of it.
“I’m not going back, Jane,” a girl in front of me with braided red hair says to her friend.
“What are you gonna do if you’re not in college, Meg?” Jane shoots back, her eyes big with worry.
Meg shrugs. “I’ll be fine. There are plenty of things that don’t need a college degree. Growing food, playing music, becoming a mural painter. Anything. That school’s stifling me! And besides, it’s not like I have to worry about getting drafted.”
It’s like someone has taken an oil drill and tapped straight into the biggest nerve in my body. I go crashing down from my small high, about to explode into a million pieces.
I can hear the fight with my mom, the one we’ve been having practically every day of the summer. Pieces of it have just been echoed, word for word, in front of me.
“I don’t want to go, Ma. I’ll be fine. There are plenty of things I can do that have nothing to do with college.”
“Not if you’re dead in a field you can’t. It’s the safest way to stay out of Vietnam, Michael.”
I don’t think I want to go to Vietnam. I’m not a fighter. And sure, if I go to the community college I reluctantly enrolled in, I won’t be drafted. But I know for sure I don’t want to go to school. I just can’t imagine ending up like my dad. He spends ten hours a day at his office. I assume he talks to people there, because by the time he comes home, he has no words left for Ma or me.
The worst is looking into his eyes. It’s like looking at a burnt-out wick, dark and purposeless. When I was younger, I used to sometimes stare at other people’s eyes to see if I could recognize the same thing in them. Is that what it meant to be an adult? That was when I started really getting into music. I’d look at pictures of my rock heroes. John Lennon never looked like that. Neither did Jerry Garcia. Or Donovan. Or Jimi Hendrix.