Three Day Summer Read online

  To Graig—

  for all the summers of love

  (and winters, falls, and springs, too)

  Thursday, August 14

  chapter 1

  Cora

  “You. Are. A. Candy. Cane.”

  The boy grips me by the arms, his enormous glassy eyes staring right at my chest through his long bangs.

  Under normal circumstances, I would feel terrified and violated. Instead, I roll my eyes.

  “He means candy striper,” Anna says as she zips across the tent, bringing paper cups of water to the zoned-out patients slumped against the far side.

  “Yeah, I get it,” I say before calmly extracting the boy’s fingers from my arms. “Sir,” I say as firmly as I can. “Have a seat.”

  Of course, there are no available chairs to sit on, but the ground is probably a sea of fluffy marshmallows to this guy. At least, based on the way he momentarily forgets he has knees and goes crashing to the floor.

  “He’ll feel that in the morning,” Anna says as she zips back.

  “He’s not feeling it now,” I mutter as the boy stares at the hem of my dress with a goofy grin plastered on his face. He’s drooling.

  “Mmmmm . . . candy.”

  It’s only eleven a.m. on Thursday. The concert hasn’t even started yet.

  It’s going to be a very long weekend.

  chapter 2

  Michael

  “We need to be there, Michael. Have you seen this lineup? It’s going to be the event of the year. Maybe even the decade.” Amanda had been flushed with excitement when she’d shown me the newspaper ad a month ago.

  The thing was that I agreed with her. At the time, I was just too pissed off at her to let her know that. She’d thrown a fit in front of my friends just the night before, getting hysterical because I’d casually said I didn’t know how I felt about maybe getting drafted.

  “How can you not know?” she’d screamed. “They are going to drag you into a swamp and make you kill people all in the twisted name of capitalism. Your apathy is the problem, Michael.” Then she’d stalked off, expecting me to follow.

  Which, of course, I had. Not without a few choice words from my friends. “Make sure you get your pecker back from her purse, dude,” was the one ringing in my ear the loudest by the time I reached her.

  Standing by my mom’s car, Amanda had berated me again before dissolving into tears at the thought that she cared more about my life than I did. Unfortunately, Amanda was beautiful when she cried, especially in that moment, with the teardrops clinging to the curve of her cheek, glittering with the reflection of starlight. Before I knew it, I was kissing her and apologizing, telling her that it was going to be okay.

  But in the glare of daylight, I was annoyed that I’d let her spew some nonsense I wasn’t even sure she believed in—she’d probably just been rummaging for an excuse to make me chase after her. And I’d given in to her drama.

  I didn’t want to do it again, especially as she’d clutched the festival ad and said dramatically, “And if you don’t take me, we are over. Once and for all.” She’d turned to another Amanda standby: the puffed-out lips move.

  Yes! That’s what I wanted. To be over. Only . . . every time I got up the nerve to try to tell her that, I’d catch a glimpse of her blueberry-colored eyes or the way her soft, tanned skin peeked through something she was wearing and then we’d be kissing and . . . I couldn’t do it. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d never be able to. Let’s face it, blaming my pecker was not entirely inaccurate.

  But then she’d actually shown me the lineup for this festival. Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead, and Jimi freaking Hendrix on one bill? 3 DAYS OF PEACE & MUSIC, the ad promised. Three whole days. Not to mention it was all happening less than two hundred miles away from us.

  I looked at Amanda’s big blue eyes and the flower she’d drawn on her perfect face. She knew these bands almost as well as I did; she knew what having them all in one place would mean. And I thought, maybe this would be an ideal reason not to want to break up. Maybe we would go and bond over all that glorious music, like we had in the beginning, and I’d realize that the inside of Amanda matched the outside after all, and, for the love of all that is holy, we would finally do it.

  Which is how I find myself driving my mom’s purple Chrysler Crown Imperial, Amanda in the front seat, her friends Suzie and Catherine giggling in the back with my friend Evan. The car is a boat, which is why the large-and-in-charge Evan can fit back there with two other people. At six foot five and with 1) the charm and sense of humor of a Smothers Brother and 2) a seemingly bottomless stash of hash at his disposal, Evan is popular with everybody. But especially the ladies.

  It’s like two different worlds happening in the front and back of the car. A full-out riotous party in the rear and all the tension of the Cuban missile crisis up where I am.

  Amanda is complaining about how hot it is. She’s been doing so for the past hour, during which we’ve been crawling along Route 17B. I keep looking nervously at the hood, waiting for smoke to come billowing out. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s overheated. Something Amanda also knows and keeps repeating.

  A sharp rap at my window makes me turn. A state trooper stands there. I can see my own (thankfully) sober green eyes in his reflective glasses. From my peripheral vision, I quickly glimpse Evan stashing something in his pocket. Only then do I roll down the window.

  “You kids here for the festival?” the cop asks in a friendly tone.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I can feel Amanda rolling her eyes behind me. She hates anything that indicates we are bowing down to “the man,” which, among other things includes her father, cops, teachers, and, for some reason, Dick Clark. She has a weird theory about him rigging the music scene in the fifties, which she says is anti-democracy or something.

  “Well, we are suggesting that everyone turn back,” the cop continues. “There won’t be enough room on the festival site to accommodate everybody, and this traffic isn’t going anywhere. Please turn around the next chance you get.” The cop nods and doesn’t wait for my response before sauntering away.

  There’s silence in the car for a moment. “What do we do?” Suzie says from the backseat.

  “We keep going, obviously,” Amanda says in exasperation. “Of course the state trooper wants all of us to turn back. Look at us. We’re the blue meanies’ worst nightmare.” She indicates the sea of cars around us, which includes more than one psychedelically painted van. “I heard there’s plenty of room at the site. And we can’t not be there.”

  Damn it. It’s so infuriating that her words are actually logical, when the way she says them makes me want to tongue an exhaust pipe.

  We stay in the car, of course. But only for about another thirty minutes. The Chrysler finally overheats and I’m forced to pull it over onto the grass by the side of the road. We get out and I open the hood, not that I know much about what I can do to fix it. I try not to look at Amanda. I think I can only deal with one steaming entity at a time.

  In the meantime, Evan gets out and walks over to a nearby car to talk to its passenger.

  “All right,” he says when he gets back. “I think we’re less than five miles from the site. We can walk it, right?” He turns and grins at Amanda and the girls. I sneak a peek at them too, hoping Evan has managed to defuse the situation. As usual, he has.

  “Sure,” Suzie says cheerfully, and the rest of the girls nod along.

  I take one final look at the car and send up a quick prayer that nothing will happen to my mom’s pride and joy. Then I grab my backpack, Catherine her sleeping bag, and Evan his Rivetin
g Rucksack of Good Times, as he calls it. We’re not the only people who have pulled over, it seems, so we follow a small line of people cheerfully walking their way to the concert of the year.

  chapter 3

  Cora

  At twelve thirty, I’m due for a break, so I slip out of the medical tent and walk the mile and a half to my house. It’s weird to see people lounging around the normally empty field I take to get there.

  It’s even weirder when I approach my big gray farmhouse to see the skinny, bespectacled boy emerging from it. I swear my heart changes its rhythm then, beating Ned, Ned, Ned over and over again. I swallow something acrid.

  He waves at me and walks over. “How is it down there?” he asks casually.

  Of course he’s casual. It can’t possibly hurt that much to be the heartbreaker as opposed to the heartbroken. No matter what he said in his little speech last month.

  Oh, God, it’s been over a month. I feel pathetic.

  In a semblance of calm, I carefully untie my candy striper apron and take it off.

  “Okay,” I say, willing my voice to stay steady. “It’s already getting crowded.”

  “Damn hippies!” Ned intones in a pretty spot-on imitation of my dad before breaking into laughter.

  I smile weakly. He doesn’t get to make fun of my dad anymore, does he?

  “I’m definitely going to go check it out later,” he says, “so maybe I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I murmur. Though really, I hope not. I think it’s going to be hard enough working the medical tent without Ned’s stupid smile distracting me.

  I watch him brush off a spot of dirt from his hand. Even though I know he’s just gotten off a shift plowing my dad’s farm, his hands are impeccably clean. Mom is always happy to let him clean up before he leaves, impressed by his dedication to personal hygiene. I wonder where her loyalties lie.

  “Later,” he says, giving me that ridiculous smile before strolling away down the road to his own house.

  I love-hate him so much.

  Bastard.

  When I walk through the front door, the smell of Ivory soap is still wafting around the hallway bathroom. I peek in, for a moment picturing Ned covered in suds up to his elbows.

  “Cora, could you grab the eggs?” Mom’s head appears from the kitchen, a mass of wavy dark hair. Thanks to my grandmother, we have the same coppery skin tone, the same sharp cheekbones, and the same color hair, only hers is thick and wavy and mine is straight, fine, and currently brushing my waistline.

  I turn away from the traitorous hallucination in the bathroom to my mom. “It’s Wes’s turn,” I say.

  Mom sighs. “I know. He’s gone, though.”

  I let out a disgruntled groan but then walk through the house and to the backyard door to grab the basket. My twin brother is getting scarcer by the day.

  “Oh!” my mom calls excitedly. “Mark wrote. I left your letter on the dining room table.”

  Instant smile. Suddenly I don’t mind the walk in the sunshine to the henhouse. I think of my eventual reward as I methodically gather the smooth and speckled eggs while eighty hens lose their ever-loving minds around me. They aren’t the brightest, the hens, but I still love them. I pretend they recognize me when I walk in, even though I’m pretty sure they wake up every morning surprised to find they are, in fact, chickens.

  “Hullo there, twenty-three,” I greet a particularly plump one, who screeches at me, I like to think, in welcome. I say the number 23 in French, though: vingt-trois. My dad never lets us name the animals on the farm, saying we’ll get too attached when the time comes to bring them to the table. But the French numbers make them seem a little less impersonal somehow, and just a tad more elegant.

  I savor the anticipation of my older brother’s letter. He’s stationed in Vietnam, and hearing from him is more rare than I would like. But whenever I do, it’s like a small weight has been lifted off my heart, one that slowly starts pressing its way down again as soon as I’ve read a letter.

  Hearing from him means he is still alive.

  There are always three letters in every one of his envelopes. One for my parents, one for Wes, and one for me. In one of his first letters to me two years ago, he told me as a joke to grow out my hair in protest of the war. I took it to heart.

  I smile as my hair creates a dark curtain every time I bend down to gather another egg, and wonder what his letter will say this time. He always includes funny anecdotes about the other soldiers and sometimes even himself. I blushed a little last time when he mentioned the “house of ill repute” they’d managed to swing by while stationed in Hanoi. I wonder if his buddy Jack found his army-issued underwear in time before the house got raided. Mark ended the letter on a cliff-hanger.

  I pluck the last egg from No. 80’s (quatre-vingts’) nest and practically skip into the house, eager for a conversation with my older brother. Even if it’s one-sided.

  chapter 4

  Michael

  “Bethel” sounds like a girl’s name. A sweet, maybe plain sort of girl you can take home to your parents.

  I can see the town lives up to that sentiment. It’s nice and neat, acres and acres of squared-off farmland, dotted with white clapboard houses here and there. The particular saturated green of August provides a contrast to the unkempt, colorful tide of humanity that is now steadily flowing through it.

  “Evan!” a voice calls out.

  We turn around to see a black kid with overgrown hair, unbuttoned shirt, and red-striped bell-bottoms striding over to us. He’s wearing large white-framed sunglasses. “I thought it was you, man,” he says as he claps Evan on the shoulder.

  “Hey, Rob. How are you?” Evan grins.

  “About to witness an amazing show, man. How do you think?” Rob says good-naturedly.

  “You said it,” Evan says.

  “I’m actually really glad I ran into you. My girl and her friends aren’t supposed to get in until tomorrow. Mind if I hang with your crew until then?” He looks over at us. I can already see both Suzie and Catherine eyeing him moonily. I guess he’s pretty good-looking.

  “Not at all. Nos casa is su casa,” Evan says before introducing us all. Even Amanda bestows one of her dazzling smiles on Rob. The same smile that practically stopped my heart the first time I saw it across the record store aisle.

  But since the car ride hasn’t made me feel too optimistic about this weekend solving all our problems, I suddenly get hit with a little jolt of inspiration: What if somehow Amanda cheats on me with Rob and then I can finally use that as an excellent excuse to end it? I start to walk a little behind them, so that maybe they’ll have more of a chance to talk. Just in case.

  The nice thing about arriving on Thursday, a full day before the show is set to start, is that we have a good pick of where to camp out.

  Or at least, that’s what I thought.

  “Evan, man, you got the tickets?” I ask as I see some metal gates in the distance.

  “Sure, man,” Evan says with a laugh. “We are the tickets.” He stops and does a little twirl, finishing with a hand flourish that air-presents the length of this body.

  “What?” I’m not really getting Evan’s joke. When I first mentioned the festival a month ago to Evan, he said he would take care of getting us in if I could take care of getting us there. Obviously, I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.

  “It’s gonna be a free festival, man, don’t worry about it.”

  “No, it’s not,” says Amanda before turning to me. “Is this because you were too cheap to give him the eighteen bucks?”

  I roll my eyes. “No, Miss A,” I say. “Evan, what did you do with my thirty-six dollars then?” Chivalrous (read: stupid) boyfriend that I am, I’ve already fronted the money for both Amanda and me for all three days. Amanda has this annoying habit of getting all feminist and ranty on me w
hen I open doors for her but then becoming all wide-eyed with batty eyelashes when it comes to picking up the tab.

  Evan grins. “Don’t worry, man. It’s all in here,” he says as he pats his backpack, which makes a dull, satisfied sound. “I have everything you need to make this an experience you won’t ever forget for the rest of your life. One that will make paltry thirty-six your favorite number in the whole word.”

  Drugs. He’s spent my money on drugs. Normally, I wouldn’t care because he always shares and it seems to work out in the end. But this time, we won’t be able to get into the concert. And we’re stuck in the middle of Podunk, USA. Not to mention Amanda is going to cut my balls off, draw a flower on them, and save them as a souvenir.

  But just as she screws up her face and opens her mouth to yell, Rob cuts in. “My cat’s right, man. I’ve heard there’s a million people coming. No way they’re going to be able to keep all those people outside. Those fences are coming down. Trust me.”

  Evan nods emphatically. “In the meantime,” he says, “let’s check out the luxurious accommodations that Bethel has to offer. Miss A and the Mandettes are sure to dig it.” Evan’s nickname for Amanda and her two friends. They love it, of course. Nobody seems to notice that when I call Amanda Miss A, it’s with a sneer.

  We continue to walk to Evan’s “luxurious accommodations,” which turn out to be a field outside the fences. Now that we’re closer to them, I can see that the gates aren’t even fully erected yet. A couple of people appear to be slowly fiddling with some tools down one end. Down the other, a lone guy in a red shirt seems to be the only sort of official-looking person even manning them. Meanwhile, the field is already dotted with reposing kids. I start to relax.

  “If we don’t get in, because of your friend, Michael,” Amanda hisses at me underneath a perfect smile. “I will kill you.”

  Great. Death by Woodstock. Well, I hope it happens after Hendrix plays.