Three Day Summer

by Sarvenaz Tash

  This morning, I brought the portable radio out with me to the henhouse and heard them talking about the festival: how the Thruway is closed down and, as my dad said, they briefly considered evacuating Bethel entirely. National radio is talking about my town; they even had a reporter “on the scene.” Never before has my hometown been anything close to “the scene,” and now here it is: the center of the country’s attention for one brief, shining moment. Wild.

  As I near one of Mr. Yasgur’s big red barns, I see one of his sons outside, driving a wooden sign into the ground. It says FREE WATER and people are already lined up for it. I can see Mr. Yasgur himself in his button-down shirt and thick, black, square-framed glasses handing out paper cups of water and milk. He’s the last person on earth you’d think would be up for hosting a whole bunch of hippies. The world is a weird and wonderful place.

  I quicken my pace, the picnic basket swinging heavily beside me, eager to go and help out my fellow man myself.

  I walk past the nonexistent gates and approach the yellow medical tents with caution. I don’t want Anna or one of the other nurses to see me, just in case they accidentally suck me into work.

  My watch says five to nine, so I hang around behind my tent for a while, my eyes scanning the area for a tall, blond boy.

  But ten minutes pass, and then fifteen, and nothing. I wonder if we are standing on opposite sides of the tent, so I circle it in a wide berth, looking carefully into every face I come across.

  Finally, I start wondering if he won’t show. Maybe that kiss has thrown him off too. It admittedly wasn’t my best and it’s not like I was too encouraging, right? I frown. Well, that’s a bummer, I think, looking down forlornly at my picnic basket.

  “Cora!” I hear and turn around immediately with a smile, recognizing Michael’s voice.

  But he’s not there. I scrunch my face in confusion before a brown hand reaches out and touches my arm gently.

  I look at its owner and immediately laugh.

  The mud-speckled person who’s grinning at me has nary a blond hair in sight.

  chapter 30

  Michael

  Cora looks different with the clothes she’s wearing today and her hair put up. She suddenly looks a little like all the other girls here. I’m not sure how much I like it.

  But it’s good to see her.

  “I brought provisions,” she says, pointing to her picnic basket. “I thought we could hand them out together.”

  “Wow,” I say, peeking into the basket. It’s packed to the brim. “I heard a rumor that the National Guard was coming in with food or something too. But who needs them when Woodstock has got you?” I shake my head in admiration.

  “Well, you get first pick.” She holds out the basket to me.

  I think about refusing again but, to tell the truth, I’m a little hungry. I finally settle for taking an apple.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Let’s go over by the lake. I thought I saw a bunch of families over there.”

  “Whoa,” she exclaims as we near the water. “There are so many people. How on earth are we going to pick and choose who to give the food to?”

  “Um . . . ,” I start, scanning the crowd. “How about . . . we pick the people who are wearing orange. Like you.”

  “What would that make us? Orangists?”

  “You’ve found me out.” I hang my head in shame. “My deepest, darkest secret. Good call on your shirt color, by the way. Otherwise, I don’t know if I could’ve been seen with you.”

  “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.

&n
bsp; “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?”

  “Nothing,” I respond. “It’s all free.”

  His eyes widen. “Really? Oh, thanks so much, man. This is fantastic,” he says as he does what I was worried about earlier and takes an entire loaf of bread and four apples.

  “Man, you wouldn’t believe it. There was some old guy walking around here charging a dollar for water. Can you imagine paying one whole dollar for water?!”

  “That’s awful,” Cora says. “But, hey, if you walk over that way, you’ll see a big red barn. They’re handing out free water and milk over there.”

  “Serious?” he asks.

  Cora nods.

  “You guys are far out, man. The absolute best. And here I was thinking this whole shindig was going to the dogs. An hour ago there was the guy with the water, and then there was another old guy telling us we’d all have to evacuate. It was crazy.”

  Cora frowns. “Wait, really? What did he look like?”

  “Who?” the guy asks.

  “The man who said you might have to evacuate.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “He had, like, white hair and glasses.”

  “Ah, okay.” She looks visibly relieved.

  After the guy leaves, I have to ask her. “Who did you think it was?”

  She takes a breath, and I say “Your dad?” at the same time that she says “My dad.”

  Cora laughs. “He made quite an impression last night, huh?”

  “After a fashion,” I admit. “I can only thank the god of Woodstock—that’s Jimi Hendrix by the way—he didn’t see me.”

  “Jimi Hendrix, huh?”

  I close my eyes and bow my head in reverence. “Naturally. The one and only.”

  “Can’t say I ever listened to him,” she says in a shockingly casual way.

  My eyes pop open. “Wait. What?! That’s like saying you’ve lived on earth and haven’t felt the sun. Or swum in the ocean. That’s like you’ve never eaten a Hershey’s bar. His playing, man . . . it’ll just transport you. It’s like he’s one with his instrument and it’s all coming from some great beyond where there’s only pure inspiration and creativity. He’s like a vessel to another land of unsullied, unadulterated . . .” I can’t even think of the word, so I just take my air guitar and strike a pose with a look of intense triumph on my face.

  Cora smiles. “I see. Well, that does sound pretty cool.”

  “Pretty cool? No, no, no. Jimi is not pretty cool. Jimi is the. Man. Period.”

  “The funny thing is, you know what I’m really hearing here?” Cora asks.

  “What?”

  “Maybe it’s time you picked up a guitar of your own.”

  chapter 31

  Cora

  It’s not long before all that’s left in the basket are the eggs that I said I would deliver to the food tents. It turns out that the purple tents at the top of the hill are still closed down, but Michael leads me to a blue tent a little farther afield than our medical tents. As we make our way over to them, I think about Michael asking me my deepest, darkest secret. He said I’d lied.

  He’s right.

  I almost told him the truth: about wanting to be a doctor. He probably wouldn’t have immediately changed the subject. He doesn’t have Ned’s medical knowledge or his ambitions to make me feel silly about it. But something held me back and now I’m sorry. After all, when else does one get to spill her deepest secret to a handsome stranger she’ll never see again after this weekend?

  We find the people with the silk-screened flying pig bandannas—the Hog Farm people, Michael tells me. I find this pretty hilarious considering I know actual people who run hog farms and they look nothing like these commune folks. But they gladly take the eggs off our hands. They even give us a red bandanna each for our troubles. Michael immediately ties his around his long, shaggy hair. Before today, I wouldn’t have thought I’d find a guy in a headband dreamy but, well, let’s just say this festival is really opening up my horizons.

  “What are you going to do with yours?” Michael asks me.

  I consider for a moment, before finally deciding to tie it around my wrist.

  “Allow me.” Michael swoops in as soon as I fumble with tying the knot, and gently wraps the fabric around my wrist and ties it into an impressive-looking bind. “Boy Scouts?” I ask.

  He turns the fabric around so that the flying pig is proudly displayed right side up. “Nine years.” He grins. “And the only reason I didn’t become an Eagle Scout is because I got too lazy to do the big project that’s required.”

  “Shame,” I say. “I love a man in uniform.” I wink at him and spy the toothless guy with the cowboy hat I saw yesterday, now giving me a big thumbs-up and a grin. Which, for some reason, makes me blush. “Who’s that? Do you know?” I ask to try to divert attention from my possible awkward reply.

  Michael looks over at him. “Oh, sure. That’s Hugh Romney. He’s the Hog Farm leader.” I smile politely at Hugh and he tips his hat to me before his attention gets called back to the small army of helpful hippies he’s clearly marshaling.

  It’s already five to eleven by the time we get back to my medical tent. I take out the candy striper apron that’s at the very bottom of the now empty picnic basket and tie it on. It matches my new wrist adornment pretty perfectly. Already, the tent is busy, and I can hear a couple of freak-outs happening on the inside.

  “Hi, Cora,” Anna says as she walks out of the tent to help someone hobble inside.

  “Hi,” I say to her. She smiles at Michael and me as she goes back inside.

  “Thanks for helping out,” I say to him.

  “Thanks for the apple. And all the food last night.”

  “Of course.”

  There’s an awkward moment of silence that I finally break with a very smooth “Well . . .”

  “Would you be able to come see the concert with me some more today?”

  “Oh . . . ,” I say. “Well, I have to work.”

  “Right,” Michael says. “Maybe during your lunch break?”

  “Um . . . I’m not sure. It seems busy. . . .”

  “She has a lunch break at one,” Anna says as she swishes by me again, this time to help one of the other nurses, who is carrying a tray of paper cups filled with water. “And we have extra medical personnel today so no problem if she’s gone for an hour.”

  I blush as Anna whizzes back into the tent. The woman gets too much pleasure out of my nonexistent love life. Being in your forties must be really boring.

  Michael just looks excited, though. “So, I’ll meet you here at one, then?” he asks.

  “Okay,” I say, not sure what excuse I could possibly give now. Although why I would even want to give an excuse, I honestly have no idea. Sometimes, it’s really confusing being me.

  “Okay,” he says, and stands there some more.

  I’m worried he’ll kiss me again and I don’t think I can handle the whirlpool of crazy that brought on the night before. So I give him what I think is a friendly pat on the shoulder and say, “See you later, then,” before I lift the ten
t flap and go inside.

  It’s busy but Anna is right: There’s a noticeable increase in the doctors and nurses milling about.

  “Cute,” Anna says to me, as I find a corner to stash my picnic basket. “Looks a little like one of these rock star guys.” She hands me some Band-Aids and points me in the direction of two mud-spattered girls with cuts on their legs.

  “I thought you wanted me and Ned to get back together,” I shoot back.

  Anna shrugs. “Nothing wrong with a little friendly competition to get a man to come to his senses.” Then she pauses. “Do you want you and Ned to get back together?”

  “No idea,” I mumble before walking over to my new patients.

  While I clean up their wounds, the girls tell me about an epic dance party in the mud that apparently led to an equally epic tumble. But it sounds like a few scratches here and there were worth the fun.

  “We really need to make an announcement about the brown acid,” I hear from behind me. A guy with dark, curly hair—one of the newer personnel—is flipping through our charts. “There seem to be a lot of incidents with it here.”

  “Oooh, yeah. I heard about that,” one of my patients says, and I turn back around to her. “Someone told me it was poison. Like some guy took it last night and then this morning was having convulsions. He almost died!”

  “Really?” her friend asks. And then, after a moment, “What did we take?”

  “Shrooms. Totally different. We’ll be fine.”

  It’s only as I put on the final Band-Aid that I let their words really sink in. As soon as I’m done, I run over to the charts and flip through them too until I find the page with Michael’s name on it.

  There, in Anna’s neat penmanship: “tripping out/brown acid.”

  chapter 32

  Michael

  I am going to die.

  I don’t remember much about yesterday morning, but that thin piece of film on Evan’s palm, I can suddenly see the color plain as day. The same color as the dirt.