Three Day Summer(8)

Amanda is with me in my sleeping bag, sprawled out across my chest. Despite everything, I can’t deny that she’s nice to hold on to, warm and soft. Her hair is tickling my bare chest, its blond strands practically glowing by starlight. I bend down and kiss a piece of it.

I hear her laugh slightly and then sigh in contentment.

I look down at her profile. She’s just so damn beautiful. I’m crazy to want to end things. Maybe it can always be like this: peaceful and perfect. Waiting on a tomorrow that is going to fuel everything that is wonderful about being young. I think again of the first time we met, that cold day in January, with the smell of dusty plastic in the air as I flipped through some older LPs—the way I always did whenever I went to Jerry’s Music—just on the off chance that I would come across an original copy of Yesterday and Today. When she caught me checking her out over the tops of my records, she immediately smiled and asked me what I was looking for. I admit, I was a little smug when I said the name of the record, not the band. But she knew what it was right away, knew all about the Beatles’ infamous record that had been pulled almost immediately because of its controversial cover. What’s more, she had actually seen the original cover itself; a cousin of hers had the reissued version, but had managed to pull off the new cover without damaging the one underneath. We talked a lot about music that day and I couldn’t believe my luck: that a girl with the face of an angel knew so much about people like Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel, and even Keith Moon. Some of the people we spent that magical first day talking about, we are going to see live over the next few days.

In the distance, I can just make out the shadows of the flimsy fences. They don’t look like they are too much higher, or more complete, than when we saw them this afternoon. I hope Evan is right about not needing those tickets. I can’t imagine having to turn back around after making it all this way.

I can’t imagine what Amanda will do to me. I look down at her serene face again and feel a tiny shrapnel of fear go through me. I hope I won’t ever have to know.

“That one there is the soupspoon,” I hear Evan say, and I crane my neck to see what’s going on. He’s silhouetted against the moonlight, just a dark hand pointing up into the air, tracing some constellation of his imagination.

“Really?” Suzie asks from beside him, a note of disbelief in her voice.

“And that’s the mashed potatoes, see the chives sticking out.”

Suzie giggles, and I see her hand go up into the air too. “And I suppose that one there is the wineglass.”

“Champagne flute, actually. But you seem to be getting it, baby.”

I hear rather than see Suzie playfully punch Evan. “You are out of your mind, Evan Mather.”

It’s true. He really is.

But then again, that’s usually what makes him so fun.

I realize this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time. The world seems infinite and my worries so small. My parents, my problems with Amanda, the looming question of what I’m going to do with my life once this summer is over—minuscule. There is only one thing that seems as substantial and weighty as the sky before me: the glorious music that will consume the next three days of my life. Hearing Jimi Hendrix pluck those strings, or Janis Joplin wail those notes, or Roger Daltrey weave a story, that’s going to be what my heavens consist of.

For now, I choose not to think beyond that. I choose here and now. I’m going to choose the here and now every single moment of this weekend. Maybe that will be enough to make it last forever.





chapter 9


Cora


Dinner is a subdued affair.

I don’t leave the medical tent until eight p.m. and Mom, as usual, waits for me, the meatloaf getting a little crispier than normal in the oven. Dad, naturally, grumbles about my tardiness.

I don’t bother telling him that I’m pretty sure the next three nights will be even worse.

And that I’m looking forward to it. Today was the largest number of people I have ever seen. Maybe it’s twisted of me to say, but I get excited thinking about the possible medical cases that could walk through the tent flap.

For most of my life, I’ve been certain that I want to be a nurse. The human body fascinates me, all the tiers of it, like when you scrape your knee badly and sometimes you can see layers of skin and tissue, blood and muscle. Once in the hospital I saw actual white gleaming bone.

Ned wants to be a doctor. That’s how we met, actually. He used to volunteer at the hospital, just like me.

For some reason, he got to do more and see more. Probably because he’s a guy and, in my candy striper uniform, I look more like some sort of sickbed cheerleader than someone serious about medicine.

Once, when he got to sit in on a heart surgery and I was relegated to getting rid of patients’ wilted flowers, a seed got planted in my head.

He told me all about the surgery later. It was our idea of a hot date, him explaining the blood and valves and ligaments he saw. And I started daydreaming. Not about becoming a nurse, but about being a doctor.

I told Ned about it, once. It was after he told me about yet another surgery that he got to witness (a ruptured appendix). I said it casually, belying the way my heart was pounding near my throat. It’s not that women doctors are completely unheard of. We don’t have any at Community General, but I do know of one in Ellenville, about twenty miles away. But still. I wasn’t sure anyone close to me would understand.