Summer at Meadow Wood

by Amy Rebecca Tan

  “It’s market day. I came to work.”

  Earl squinted at me. “For money?”

  “No.” Then I thought better and told him, “I mean, if you want to pay me, yeah. But really I just came to help. Either way.”

  He paused a minute, dropped his hands from his chest, and pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket. He used it to wipe some sweat from his face, then tied it around his forehead.

  “You already have permission to take me,” I persuaded. “You told me when you called my mom she didn’t even let you finish your sentence about where we were going before she said yes.”

  He nodded at that. “Okay,” he said, his voice back to normal. “I could use a hand.”

  He gave me a box to fill and jutted his chin where he wanted me to start.

  I got to work.

  Six hours later we were sitting in rusty beach chairs behind our two tables, our gorgeous display of lettuce, kale, and blueberries nearly all gone. Earl had real price signs propped up this time, all written by Brenda in her neat retired-teacher handwriting, and the cash box was so stuffed with bills and coins that Earl locked the whole thing in his truck and just made change out of what he kept in his pocket.

  The market was emptying out as the heat soared. Earl and I had each drunk two bottles of apple juice between sales, and my stomach was grumbling for something more solid to fill it.

  “When can we pack up?” I asked Earl, after a particularly loud rumble.

  “Let’s give it another fifteen minutes or so. Then we’ll go.”

  I wiggled my toes inside my sneakers and told myself fifteen minutes would go by in a flash. And it did when you had a line nine deep and were busily bagging produce and counting out change as fast as humanly possible, but it passed slow as that slug Vera fed Jolly when no one stopped at your stand. I spread my fingers out in my lap and examined them, counting how many cuts, nicks, and scrapes I had from picking plants and berries.

  “Hey, Vic. Remember me?”

  I had counted six when I looked up to find Angel standing on the other side of our table, grinning down at me. The deep forest green of his eyes hit me again like a magic spell I had to shake my way out of. I closed my hands and stood up so fast my chair tumbled over backward behind me. I righted my chair while Earl watched, his mouth half-open like I was putting on the most mesmerizing performance he’d ever seen.

  “So, do you?” he asked.

  “Do I what?” I asked back.

  “Do you remember me?”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded. “You’re the flower guy.”

  “The flower guy? That’s it?”

  “The flower guy Angel,” I expanded.

  Angel was not the kind of name you forgot.

  “Very good.” He nodded approvingly. “You weren’t here last week. I didn’t know if I’d see you again.”

  And then my stomach rumbled so loudly it sounded like there was a whole separate creature living inside me.

  “Or hear you,” Angel added, and laughed hard. Earl joined in, the two of them cracking up.

  “Thanks, guys,” I told them, folding my arms over my gut, hoping to quiet it down. “Very kind of you. Really.”

  “Aww, I’m sorry, Vic,” Earl said, pulling his bandanna off then to wipe the tears from his eyes. “Take this. Go get yourself some doughnuts.”

  He handed me a ten-dollar bill. “Take Angel with you so I won’t have to worry about you fainting from hunger on the way. It’s not far—I can see the stand from here.”

  “Very funny,” I said, but swiped the money out of his hand. “How many do you want?”

  “None for me. I’ll eat this last tub of blueberries if they don’t sell. You go get enough for the two of you. I’ll keep an eye on you from here,” Earl said, but I wasn’t sure if it was directed at Angel or me.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back,” I assured him.

  Angel led the way.

  I glanced sideways at him as we walked. I had to look up a few inches to get another peek at his eyes. I realized half of what made them look so green were the long dark lashes above and below them. They reminded me of the unit we had in art last year on contrast. I probably would have paid a lot more attention if Angel’s eyes had been one of the examples the teacher pulled up in her slideshow.

  “They charge more for doughnuts here than they do at their store, but they’re so good no one seems to care.”

  “They have a store?”

  “Yeah, in town. It’s near our flower shop.” He pointed at the Ramos Family Flowers logo on his apron. “So, where’s Meadow Wood Farm? I never heard of it before.”

  “It isn’t a farm. It’s a camp. Earl just started a garden at camp and sells some of his food here, that’s all.”

  “Riiiight, Meadow Wood camp. I’ve heard of the camp,” Angel said. “Wait—so you don’t live here?”

  “Nope, just here for the summer.”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t want to read too much into it, but I thought I heard some disappointment in his voice.

  “Then why do you help him sell? Shouldn’t you be playing tennis or singing around a fire pit or something?”

  Why did I help Earl?

  The first time I helped him it was for the money. I wanted my canteen privileges back and I wanted to make sure Freddy never knew his were gone.

  But now it was different.

  I was helping Earl because Carly was gone.

  I was helping Earl because my parents were a mess.

  I was helping Earl because Eleanor Roosevelt said work would pull me out of my depths. So far, she was right. At that moment, I felt a lot more like someone beaming on top of a mountain than someone drowning in the depths.

  “If I was at camp right now, I wouldn’t be about to inhale a bag of Hoefel’s doughnuts,” was the answer I gave him.

  Angel smiled wide at me. He had a dimple on his right cheek I hadn’t noticed before. It was like a second smile right next to his bigger one.

  We reached the stand and took our place in the back of the line. The smell of cinnamon sugar was intoxicating. My stomach grumbled again.

  “No doughnuts at camp?” Angel asked. “That’s just cruel.”

  “We get cookies and brownies. And we have canteen once a week, which is junk food heaven. We can buy whatever we want there—soda and ice cream and candy bars. But there’s nothing like these doughnuts.”

  “Once a week for canteen isn’t enough. No wonder you escape to the outside world on Saturdays.”

  “Well, really it’s because Earl needed help. I’m channeling my inner Eleanor Roosevelt and helping people who need help.”

  “Oh,” Angel said. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And a little creepy-sounding—channeling another human being, especially one who’s not even alive.” He put his hand on my shoulder, steered me forward a few feet, and then let go.

  A gentle warmth seeped from my shoulder down through my stomach all the way to my knees. I actually felt wobbly, but that could have just been because I needed food. I did know there was no way I could look up into those eyes, though, or I would blush a red deep enough to match the roses at his flower stand. It occurred to me that this must be how Jamie felt every time she saw Trey, her longtime crush, at school last year. I wasn’t sure if I liked the feeling or not.

  “So, Eleanor Roosevelt?” Angel asked. “The longest-reigning First Lady of the United States?”

  “How’d you know that?” I almost yelled. I hadn’t known the first thing about her until I started reading Chieko’s book.

  “We studied the presidents last year in school,” Angel admitted. “And don’t be too impressed, because that’s all I know about her.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not impressed,” I lied.

  He smirked at that, then asked, “So why her? Why not Mother Teresa or Gandhi or some other saintly person? What’s so great about Eleanor Roosevelt?”

  I gasped in pretend
outrage and squared off on him, hands on my hips. “What’s so great about Eleanor Roosevelt?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.” He copied my hands-on-hips pose and grinned ear to ear.

  “I’ll tell you what’s so great,” I said. “She changed what it meant to be First Lady. She was the first one to get involved in politics. She pushed the president to pass laws for people who weren’t being treated right. She wrote articles and went on the radio. She inspired women to speak up.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest and declared, “She was a complete and total rock star.”

  The elderly lady in front of us in line turned around when I finished, patted my arm, and said, “You tell him, honey.” Then she nodded curtly, turned back around, and moved up a few steps.

  Angel smiled and raised his eyebrows at the lady’s back, then said, “Thank you for the history lesson, Vic.”

  “Anytime,” I answered.

  “I’m so hungry. This is torture,” Angel said, putting both hands on my shoulders this time and steering me forward again.

  I was hungry, too, but suddenly didn’t mind being stuck in line. If Jamie could see me now, she wouldn’t even recognize me. Here I was—Vic Brown—at a farmers’ market outside camp, shopping for doughnuts with a flower-selling guy who had the world’s most gorgeous eyes. I barely even knew him, but I liked him. Which killed my streak. My lifelong never-had-a-crush-on-anyone streak was over.

  Gone.

  Dead.

  Like Vera’s first frog.

  When we reached the front of the line, we decided to buy a half-dozen bag to split. I reached into my pocket for money, but Angel cut me off. “I’ve got it,” he said, handing over a bill to the cashier.

  “But Earl gave me money,” I protested.

  “It’s my treat,” he said, giving me the warm bag to hold. “But next Saturday, you have to buy.”

  “O . . . kay,” I said, feeling like I wasn’t completely sure what I was agreeing to.

  “Great. It’s a date,” Angel said, then pulled a doughnut out of the bag and bit into it. He closed his eyes as he chewed and I stared at the tiny sugar crystals that glittered around his mouth.

  Yep, I had just agreed to my first date.

  Earl and I were quiet the whole ride back to Meadow Wood. As we pulled into the long driveway that led to the parking lot, I asked him, “Has anyone signed up for farm elective the last two weeks?”

  “Signed up? No.” He laughed to himself. “Brenda added slots to other elective choices so it’s not possible to get stuck with it, either. Seniors will only be at farm if they want to be. But they’ll be eating farm food in the dining hall either way.”

  “Got it.”

  “I don’t mind gardening alone. Best part of my day is being in that space,” Earl added.

  “Wow.” I folded my arms across my chest in fake anger. “The best part of your life at camp is when you’re not with any campers? That’s really great, Earl. Thanks a lot.”

  Earl laughed. “It’s not like that,” he explained. “Camp is great. But camp is loud. And fast. And frenetic.”

  “Frenetic?”

  “Frenetic,” he kept going. “The garden is the other end of the scale, and I like the balance.”

  “You like to hide,” I told him.

  “Not hide. I like to . . . be,” he decided. “In the garden, I’m with the sky and the dirt and all the green. I can smell the green. And the change that happens there, bit by bit—I just love it.”

  Earl pulled the truck into the spot next to the rusty shed where he stored the folding tables. He turned off the engine, unbuckled his seat belt, and climbed out of the truck. Then he walked over to my side and handed me a thin fold of bills from his pocket. “You take this for your efforts and get on back to your cabin. I can unload myself.”

  I thanked him for the cash and said, “I can help you.”

  “I know you can. You did. And I hope you do again, but you’ve done more than enough for today. Go be a camper.”

  Before I could say another word, he popped open the flatbed door and slid out a folding table in one graceful motion.

  I started to leave, shoving the money into my pocket so I wouldn’t have to explain it to my bunkmates, when Earl called after me, “I hope you’re available next Saturday, though. I wouldn’t know how to console Angel otherwise.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and yelled, “Very funny,” then turned on my heel hard so bits of gravel kicked up from the ground.

  I could hear Earl laughing behind me while I walked away, but I didn’t care. I was busy thinking about Angel and trying to fight back the smile that was spreading across my face. Then I decided to just let the stupid smile do its thing, and I grinned like a goofball the whole long walk back to Yarrow.

  Day 23—Sunday

  “If this cabin is wiretapped, I’m so fired. We haven’t done R and T in days,” Chieko announced.

  “What’s R and T?” Jordana asked.

  “Roses and Thorns,” Jaida C explained, patting Jordana on the back the same way she did with her camp sister in Daisy.

  Jordana scrunched up her brow. “No one calls it that,” she muttered to herself. “Like, ever.”

  “Get your darling selves to my room ASAP,” Chieko called. Then she changed her mind and said, “Scratch that. Not ASAP. Right spankin’ now.”

  Once we were settled in a circle on the floor, Chieko asked, “Can we just save some time here and agree that everyone’s thorn is losing Carly for the rest of the summer?”

  Heads nodded in unison around the circle.

  “Okay, so just roses then,” Chieko continued. “Mine is finally getting Brenda to order new arrows for the range. That junk they gave me to teach with is beyond funky. They don’t even fly right half the time.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m done. Who’s next?”

  Jordana’s rose was that her parents were coming up next Sunday for Visiting Day and were taking her out for a fancy lunch and to see a movie in town.

  Jaida A’s rose was learning she had already saved forty-five pounds of organic trash from the garbage by delivering it to the stables instead.

  Jaida C’s rose was a mosaic pottery project she had almost finished in the arts-and-crafts shack that came out a lot better than she expected.

  And I said my rose was seeing Freddy at Forest Lake earlier that day, that he’d passed a swim test and moved up a level.

  But I had a bigger rose. I just didn’t want to share it. My bigger rose was Angel.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Like at breakfast. We always had bagels on Sunday mornings, but today the bagels made me think of doughnuts, which made me think of Angel.

  At arts and crafts, the piece of dark green sea glass that Jaida C sank into the concrete slab of her mosaic project made me think of the dark green of Angel’s eyes.

  At swim, a counselor wearing a bathing suit with daisies all over it made me think of Angel selling daisies at his flower stand.

  At lunch, when a kitchen staffer came out to mop up a spill, the sight of him in his long white apron made my mind jump to Angel in his green Ramos Family Flowers one.

  Every time Angel popped into my head, a wave of prickly heat washed through my body. I didn’t entirely like the feeling, but I didn’t entirely not like the feeling, either. It was just . . . different. But I was getting used to different. My parents splitting up was different. My best friend leaving camp was different. At least this kind of different didn’t make me want to cry.

  Anyway, I hoped Carly’s rose was that her collarbone was hurting less and that she would still find a way to love riding horses as much as she did before her accident.

  And I hoped Saturday would come quickly, because that was when I’d get to see Angel again.

  Day 24—Monday

  “My pet project is dead since Carly is gone, so I might as well focus my skills on you,” Chieko said as she lifted my elbow and repositioned my back foot.

  “Gee, thanks. I feel so special,”
I said, collapsing my stance and dropping the bow and arrow to the ground.

  “Don’t be a butt-butt.” Chieko lifted my arms and pushed me back into position.

  “That’s Carly’s word!”

  “Yes, and I’m making sure it lives on at Meadow Wood while she’s home recovering in an air-conditioned room with cable TV and a laptop and a cell phone,” Chieko claimed.

  “Wow, you’re not jealous.”

  “Not jealous enough to break a bone,” Chieko countered.

  I rolled my shoulders back, checked my feet, then looked at the target. I pulled my right arm back as far as I could, elbow out, held it a nanosecond, and released.

  My arrow soared several feet over the tire and disappeared into the woods beyond.

  Arrows flew down the row on either side of me, but none of them reached their target. Instead of the beautiful crisp sound of contact, the air was filled with the zip-zing of an arrow releasing, then the quiet plunk of it hitting the ground. A collection of grunts and a few curse words followed these attempts.

  Chieko stood back watching the archery fiasco, shaking her head in disappointment.

  Finally, she threw her hands up in the air and waved them like an overcaffeinated air traffic controller. “Bows down! For the love of God and all things holy, EVERYONE STOP!”

  We all stopped.

  “You are shaming my skills as an instructor!” Chieko reprimanded us. “Drop your weapons.”

  We all dropped our gear to the ground.

  “Step back and spread out,” Chieko ordered.

  We did.

  “Now stretch your arms up in the air like this.” Chieko reached her arms up high, then lifted up onto her tippy-toes to reach even higher.

  We all copied.

  Next she dropped her torso down and bent at the waist, letting her long, thin arms dangle in front of her calves and her fingers rake through the mixture of grass and weeds at her feet.

  We copied.

  Then she raised herself back up and stood still as a tree, her eyes closed, her hands held in prayer right in front of her chest.

  We stared at her, and somehow she knew it.