Summer at Meadow Wood

by Amy Rebecca Tan

  He turned quickly then and went into his cabin without waiting for a response.

  “What is he, some plant-man prophet or something?” Jordana asked, rolling her eyes.

  “Kinda.” I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  A breeze moved through the air, bringing with it the smell of garlic, onion, and tomato stewing in the kitchen. We always had spaghetti on Thursday nights. It was two hours away, but I was already hungry for it.

  After a few minutes, Jordana said, “My back is killing me.” Then she broke into “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from Annie.

  And even though I couldn’t sing to save my life, and even though I didn’t have it half as bad as Orphan Annie or orphan Eleanor Roosevelt, I joined in. Singing made the rest of the period fly by. Jordana would deny it if anyone asked her, but I knew from the way she sang and from the way she proudly handed her overflowing bag of weeds to Earl that she had had some fun, too.

  Day 28—Friday

  “It’s getting too hot for my kale,” Earl said, pulling off a wilted leaf, the ruffles around the edges hanging limp and lifeless as a popped balloon. “We’ll see what we can salvage for tomorrow’s market.”

  It was midafternoon and Earl told me he’d already been in the garden for an hour, weeding and watering and worrying. His cheeks were sunburned pink and his blue bandanna looked soaked with sweat.

  “Should I work on the kale?” I asked. I had a baseball hat on to shield my eyes from the glare, but it was so hot I felt like the top of my head was cooking inside it.

  “No, I’ll handle that. How about you tackle this here?” He walked me over to a row of raised beds I had never bothered looking closely at before. From where I stood, it was just a massive collection of green leaves splaying in all directions. The leaves were as big as my face, and as I scanned all four identical beds, I realized I didn’t see anything that resembled food.

  I caught Earl looking at me, holding back a grin. “Have some faith, Vic. The goods are in there.”

  Earl crouched down and leaned into the bed, spreading the leaves and stalks like he was parting a curtain. “Down here,” he directed. “Summer squash, in all its glory.”

  I knelt beside him, peered in, and saw dozens of long cylindrical vegetables, all colored a rich shiny green, speckled with tiny dashes of pale yellow so delicate they looked like they could have been painted on by hand.

  “Commonly referred to as zucchini,” Earl added.

  I sighed. “I know what zucchini is.”

  He reached in and cut one off, leaving a stumpy stem on the thinner end of the vegetable. “Doesn’t get more gorgeous than that,” he said, holding it up to the sun and turning it this way and that.

  “You’re weirdly proud of your vegetables, Earl,” I teased him.

  “They’re my babies,” he replied, then handed the green squash to me. “I’m gonna need you to harvest all the zucchini that looks like this. They’ll sell beautifully tomorrow.”

  “Aside from your zucchini babies, do you and Brenda have any kids?”

  He let go of the huge leaves and they closed like a tent over the vegetables beneath.

  “You know, like human kids?” I asked, trying to make the question breezy.

  “Nope,” he answered, looking up at me. “And yes.”

  “No, you don’t have kids and yes, you do have kids—that’s your answer?” I asked.

  “Brenda and I don’t have kids of our own, not the way you mean,” he explained. “But we’ve had hundreds of kids over our summers, and if you do the math, that more than balances out our empty nest the rest of the year, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not doing math.”

  Earl smiled. “Just trust me then. All you campers, you’re our kids. We plan for you all year and then spend twenty-four/seven enjoying your company all summer.”

  I smiled back. “I guess it does balance out.”

  “Although it’s a bit shorter this year. Camp ends on a Tuesday, so it’s more like seven and a half weeks, not eight.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed things are a little . . . different this year.”

  “Fewer campers this year, but it’s just in senior camp that numbers are down. Junior camp is big and intermediate is holding steady,” Earl explained. “And this year we have a productive garden.”

  “The garden is cool,” I admitted. “And Yarrow is very spacious with only five campers living inside. I kind of prefer it that way.” Then I remembered that Carly was gone. “I mean, four campers now.”

  Earl just nodded. “Meadow Wood will always be here.” He turned his attention back to the raised beds overflowing with ripe squash.

  “So, I should get started on those zucchini, I guess.”

  “I guess,” he repeated, then reached into his pocket and pulled his knife out again, the one he’d just used to separate a zucchini from its stem. “You comfortable using a knife?” Earl asked.

  “I’ve been cutting my pancakes since I was about five years old, so yeah, I think I can handle it,” I told him.

  “This is no pancake knife. Let me get you the special scissors. You can’t hurt yourself with those.”

  “Have some faith, Earl,” I threw his words back at him. “I’m thirteen.”

  He put the knife back in his pocket and showed me how to use the special scissors.

  I lifted my baseball cap up a bit off my head to get some air between my scalp and the thick fabric, but I couldn’t take it off completely because the sun was too strong and I needed the brim to shade my eyes. Next time I’d have to remember to wear sunglasses and skip the hat altogether.

  I developed a system where I cut three zucchini in a row and then moved them to the cardboard box together. I laid them carefully, side by side, as if I were tucking them into bed for the night. Then I went back in for the next three. The more I worked, the more I cared about how good a job I did, how clean my cuts were, and how I packed them so they would stay smooth and perfect for tomorrow morning. I wanted them to sit so beautifully on our market table it would be impossible for a shopper to walk by without buying a few.

  The minutes raced by despite the heat, and I ended up staying after the bugle, finishing the zucchini harvest and then helping to collect the last of the ripe blueberries. Blueberry season was pretty much over, but we were still able to fill six containers with the plump dark fruit. I was sure we would sell out in the first hour.

  “You better get back to Yarrow and clean yourself up before dinner,” Earl called out to me. He was fussing with the coils of hose by the back of his cabin where he stored it.

  “I know—I’m completely gross. But that was actually fun,” I said, pulling my baseball cap off and using it to fan my face. Eleanor Roosevelt was right. The work had made me feel happy, grateful even, to be in that yard gardening with Earl. Even without Jordana’s singing.

  A loud swoosh from the cabin sounded and we turned to find Brenda sticking her head out of the window where she’d just slid up the screen. “Earl, you need to get inside and cool off.”

  “We’ve been working hard out here.” Earl flexed his bicep muscle to prove it. His arm shape didn’t change much between the flexed version and the regular version, though, from what I could see.

  “I don’t like you so overheated. You need to hose off, the both of you.”

  Earl pointed the hose toward the sky above his head and closed his eyes as the water fell down on him like sweet rain.

  “That does feel a whole lot better,” he said, then turned off the water and coiled up the hose.

  “I’m coming in,” he called through the window to Brenda. “See ya later, Vic.”

  Once he was gone, I uncoiled the hose, turned it back on, and pointed it over my head the way Earl had. I was drenched in seconds. Cold water trickled down my back and legs and dripped from my hair, collecting in pools on the ground before soaking into the thirsty soil. The scorching heat on the top of my head disappeared and goose bumps popped up on my forearms from the sudden chill. I
t made me want to lie down and sink into the cool, wet ground for a moment or two and just be.

  Like a plant.

  Day 29—Saturday

  “How honored I am to be your personal alarm clock.” Chieko was shaking me awake with the finesse of a grumpy gorilla.

  “I’m up. Stop. I’m up.” My vision came into focus and I took in Chieko’s puffy, tired face. She had sleep lines across one cheek from lying against a creased sheet. It looked like a scar.

  “Jeez, do I look as bad as you this early?” I whispered.

  “If you mean do you look like total butt-butt, the answer is yes,” she answered without a pause.

  “I miss Carly.”

  “She’s fast asleep right now on a thick, comfy mattress and will probably wake up to breakfast in bed, so I doubt the feeling is mutual.”

  “Thanks, Chieko. You might want to work on your nurturing skills before you have kids,” I advised, rubbing my eyes and propping myself up on my elbows.

  “Why would I have kids?” she shot back.

  I let out a giant yawn and sat up the rest of the way. “Can we talk about that some other time, please?”

  “Whatever.” Chieko shrugged.

  At least she had stopped shaking me.

  “Sorry you had to wake me again,” I added.

  “Next Friday night you can wear my watch to sleep and wake your own self up at five in the morning, thank you very much,” Chieko said.

  “Fine with me,” I agreed.

  “No, won’t work,” she said. “I never take this baby off. Ever.” She stroked her wristwatch affectionately, then started poking me in the shoulder.

  “I’m up. Stop!” I begged her.

  She stopped.

  I pulled my knees into my chest and stretched my neck up and down. I always woke stiff and sore after an afternoon in the garden.

  “So you’re going back to bed, right?” I asked, trying to converse myself into wakefulness.

  “Hmm, let’s see. I could take advantage of these early hours to wash and blow-dry my hair, paint my face, shave my legs, and give myself a mani-pedi. Or I could drool into my pillow for another glorious hundred and fifty minutes.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “What do you think?”

  I knew the answer. Since she’d mentioned shaving her legs, my eyes moved to the black R tattoo gleaming up at me from her ankle.

  Chieko, tired and grumpy as she was, noticed my gaze and covered the R with her hand. “I hate that stupid thing. I wish it would evaporate.”

  “People get tattoos removed,” I mentioned.

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t always work. And it’s crazy painful—worse than getting the tattoo.” She shuddered. “Plus, it’s prohibitively expensive.”

  “Prohi-huh?” I furrowed my half-awake brow.

  Chieko stated each word clearly for effect. “It is trust-fund, rich-kid, Daddy-Warbucks-from-Annie kind of expensive.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not to mention,” she added, “that it’s the ultimate sign of defeat.”

  It had never occurred to me to think of it like that.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Of course it is,” Chieko countered. “It’s defeat with a capital calligraphy D. Come to think of it, maybe that should be my next tattoo.”

  I lightly smacked her, and she lightly smacked me back, twice. One smack as she said “de” and the other as she said “feat.”

  “Or it’s a new beginning, which is more like a victory when you think about it.” I immediately thought of my parents and the life waiting for Freddy and me when camp ended, realizing those words applied to me, too. I had a new beginning waiting for me, and approaching it as something positive seemed a better way to go.

  Chieko shook her head at me. “Another discussion for another time, young one. You need to move it. Those vegetables ain’t gonna pick themselves.” When she stood up, the cot creaked angrily at the shift in weight.

  “And these campers ain’t going to sleep themselves if you guys don’t shut your traps,” Jordana grumbled from under her covers.

  Chieko picked up a pair of balled-up socks from the floor and chucked them at the motionless heap that was Jordana’s body.

  “Camper abuse,” Jordana mumble-yelled, and knocked the sock roll off.

  “Go back to sleep, knucklehead,” Chieko called back.

  “I’m trying to,” Jordana called out, then rolled over to face the wall.

  I dragged myself to a standing position, threw on the clothes I had set out the night before, and headed to the bathroom, where even my toothbrush looked annoyed at the early hour. Or maybe the toothbrush was just a toothbrush and I was hallucinating because of severe exhaustion. It was too early to tell.

  Angel came to our stand at eleven with the same apron, the same friendly greeting, and the same ridiculous green eyes. He talked to Earl for a minute and then asked if it was an okay time for me to take a break.

  “I’m almost sold out, so go right ahead.” Earl waved us off. “Just stay between here and Hoefel’s, where I can see you.”

  Angel grabbed my hand and walked in front of me, leading me through the crowd. He looked back over his shoulder twice to make fun of my grumbling stomach, which was embarrassingly loud again.

  The line at Hoefel’s Donuts was ten long. We stood side by side, our clasped hands hanging between us like it was the most natural thing in the world. His hand was bigger than mine and his skin was calloused and cool against my palm. My hand was growing clammier by the second. I wanted to let go, rub the sweat off on my shirt, and then retake his hand, but I didn’t know how to do it without him noticing. How did his stay so dry? Jordana would probably know a trick. But if I asked her, I would have to fess up about Angel, and there was no way I was going to do that.

  I bet Vera could research an answer for me. But she wouldn’t be able to do it until camp was over and she was back in Pennsylvania, with access to her computer or her library or her other resources.

  So I was stuck with clammy palms.

  Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

  Once we got our doughnuts, we sat on a bench in the shade and ate, white sugar crystals falling to the ground like snow each time we took a bite.

  “Your stand’s almost empty again,” Angel said, looking in Earl’s direction.

  “We didn’t bring as much as usual, but yeah, we did well. Did you?” I asked.

  “Not our best day. Guess people wanted food today more than flowers.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s fine. We do most of our business at the store. Bouquet deliveries, weddings, that kind of stuff. This is just extra,” he explained, and gestured at the tents. “It’s fun to be a part of the scene.”

  “Fun?” I asked.

  “Yeah, fun. What? You don’t like it?” His gaze was intense.

  “Um . . . I like working in the garden with Earl,” I started to explain, thinking it through as I went. “I didn’t in the beginning, but I do now. A lot, actually. And I like working at the stand okay. But I don’t like getting up early. Waking up that early, when it’s still completely dark out, is a complete nightmare for me.”

  Angel laughed and nodded. “You get used to it. And then, after a while, you start to like it. Being up before everyone else, before the sun even—it’s pretty Zen.”

  “Zen?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows at him.

  He nodded again. “Spiritual. Meditative. All that.” Then he added, “Plus, my mom and dad both say it keeps me out of trouble.”

  I smiled at that because it was such a parent thing to say.

  “It’s one of the few things they agree on,” Angel added.

  “What do you mean? They don’t get along?” I asked, feeling ashamed that I was hoping his parents had problems like mine.

  “No, they get along fine. Now. They’re divorced.” His voice was breezy as he said it. “Very divorced.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s good. I mean, not
at first, right when they split—that was a mess.” He shook his head, remembering. “But now it’s good. I live with my mom during the school year and see my dad on the weekends. I live with my dad during the summer and see my mom on Sundays. I work the shop and market all summer and my dad pays me. I like it.”

  “And the work keeps you out of trouble,” I repeated.

  “Exactly. You can’t be out all night with friends when you have to get up at the butt-crack of dawn to work.”

  “Guess not,” I agreed. I took my last bite of doughnut and rubbed my fingers together, sprinkling the extra sugar onto the pavement below. Some colony of ants was going to have a serious party when it found the spread of sugar we were leaving behind.

  “What are your parents like?” Angel asked.

  I paused.

  I could answer any way I wanted to.

  I could make something up.

  I could flat-out lie.

  He lived in New Hampshire and I lived in Pennsylvania and it would be easy for him to never know the truth. And it was for just that reason, I think, that I told him everything. I didn’t even know I was going to do it. I just heard myself talking and I heard what I was saying and it was all about the smoking oven and the burning cookies and the email on the laptop and the canteen money disappearing and the phone call in Brenda’s office and even the letters I’d received with the terrible P.S.’s. And he listened to every word, holding my hand again.

  And even though I had eaten my weight in doughnuts and should have felt as heavy as a beached whale, I felt the exact opposite. I felt light and airy and free.

  I felt relief.

  I was a doughnut-stuffed feather of relief.

  Angel looked toward his dad at the flower stand and watched him make a sale. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, for my family, starting over was a whole lot better than fighting through the mess of trying to keep things the same.”

  His words made perfect sense to me.