Three Day Summer (2 page)

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 when 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.

chapter 5

Cora

DON'T BUY YASGUR'S MILK! HE LOVES HIPPIES!
The sign is huge, the letters almost taller than me and I stand about five foot four. If a sign could scream, this one would be out of lung capacity.

But that's not what makes me stop in my tracks as I'm walking across the little field to my shift in the medical tent. No, I screech to a halt because of the five-foot-six sweaty farmer who's emphatically hammering the sign's left post into the ground with his good arm.

“Dad?” I say in disbelief.

My father looks up at me, his eyes squinting into the sun. I'm wearing my candy striper apron again and a plain blue dress underneath it. None of that “hippie nonsense,” as my dad is fond of calling some of my friends' more fashionable duds. Not that it seems to matter anyway because the glint of disappointment is suddenly diamond bright in his eyes.

“And where do you think you're going, young lady?” he asks.

It takes everything I have not to roll my eyes. I sigh. “Dad, I'm working the medical tents. You know that.”

“Damn hippies. If they're going to get themselves liquored up and drugged up and God knows
what else
, they don't need
my
daughter's help to get them back on the straight and narrow. They can sleep it off like everybody else.”

I point at the sign. “Mr. Yasgur, Dad? Really?” Max Yasgur owns more land than anyone in all of Sullivan County. He's the purveyor of most of our milk and a sweet, soft-spoken guy. As of about three weeks ago, he also happens to own the farm that's about to host an enormous music festival. No surprise that my dad and some of Bethel's other disgruntled citizens have done everything in their power to try to stop him from leasing it. The idea of rock stars, and hippies, and fifty thousand young people descending upon our sleepy little farm town is not exactly a palatable idea to people like Dad.

Obviously, their protests haven't been working. But asking people to boycott Mr. Yasgur's milk? This is just too much.

“This is what he gets,” my dad says stubbornly. “We told him it'd be like this and we're as good as our word.”

“It's just a music festival, Dad. Jeez, what do you think is going to happen?”

Oh, crud. Now I've done it. Dad's face has just become six shades of red, his cheeks and the tip of his nose flaming as brightly as a siren.

“Cora Fletcher. I wonder if that's exactly what some seventeen-year-old girl said to her dad right before the Democratic convention. Right before she got her head bashed in at the riot. Or how about before Martin Luther King was assassinated? Or what about President Kennedy?! Just a parade on Main Street?! Is that what that was?”

“Dad, there are no presidents or dignitaries here. It's just a rock show,” I mutter.

“This music gets all you kids riled up and then you're all
tumbling
and who knows what your brain is telling the rest of you to do.”

He means “tripping,” not “tumbling,” but this doesn't seem like the right time to get into semantics.

“Okay, Dad. Okay. Just calm down, all right?” He had a mild heart attack just a year ago and I don't need him to have another one. “I'm just going to be working the medical tent with Anna. That's all. Everything will be fine.”

Anna is the nurse I usually volunteer under. She recruited me two weeks ago for this—basically as soon as we all found out that the festival was kicked out of Wallkill, New York, and about to suddenly descend on Bethel instead. (Funnily enough, I don't think it was ever slated to take place in the actual town of Woodstock.) Anna is also a friend of the family. I can see Dad's red cheeks fade into a slightly less alarming dark pink.

This is my cue to skedaddle. “See you later, Dad,” I say quickly as I turn around and practically flee across the field, nearly going face-first into something dark and sculpted. Wait a minute, those are pecs.

I let my eyes follow the chest muscles up to a grinning face, dazzling teeth matching bright white sunglasses. “What's the rush, sister?”

“Ergh” or some hideous noise close to that comes out of my mouth.

He takes my hand and gives it a loose shake. “I'm Rob.”

Rob is beautiful. He's also wearing an unbuttoned denim shirt and tight striped pants that showcase how beautiful
all
of him really is.

“See you around,” he says before ambling off. He's with three girls and two other guys. One of the girls is tall and blond, wearing a long, rainbow-colored dress and silver rings on each of her ten fingers, a dainty daisy drawn on her cheek. The other two are darker, one dressed in tiny denim shorts and a midriff-baring crocheted vest, the other wearing a shorter dress that's dripping with beaded turquoise necklaces. The two boys are both in bell-bottoms, one about the same height as Rob and carrying a humongous backpack and the other slightly shorter and skinnier with longish dirty blond hair and something that looks like the palest wisps of peach fuzz around his lips.

The girls pay me no attention, and Rob and Backpack Guy have clearly already forgotten about my existence. But Peach Fuzz keeps his gaze on me a moment longer as they walk away, nearly walking into Rob, too.

Hmmm
—I look down to assess myself—
pretty sure he was staring at my legs.
And then I remember I'm in my stupid uniform.

I roll my eyes at myself. Not exactly the height of fashion, especially compared to the company he's keeping. I shake my head and start walking—with purpose this time—back to Mr. Yasgur's farm.

chapter 6

Michael

That chick has nice legs.

Really nice. Sort of a glowing, deep golden color, tapering perfectly at the ankles and everything. She's wearing some sort of weird stripy uniform thing, though, which I vaguely remember as meaning something. Nun in training, maybe? I hope not. What a waste of legs.

By the time I peel my eyes away from her, Evan and the crew have plopped down on a bit of grass in the meadow and Evan is digging into his backpack.

He takes out a bunch of bananas, a thermos, four teal plastic cups, and a tin packed nearly to the brim with weed. He also takes out a small brass pipe, which he sets about packing.

Rob eyes the bananas. “Think we can go look for some real food after this? I wouldn't want anything as prehistoric as hunger pains to invade my consciousness once the music starts. Know what I mean?”

I nod emphatically as I take the pipe Evan is offering me. “Since we're not in yet anyway, maybe we should hit that lunch counter we passed on our way here? In that little town . . . White Lake?”

“Cool,” Evan says as he repacks the bananas, thermos, and cups.

The pipe goes around once and then we get up and start ambling back. The town we passed on our way from my car is about three miles away, but I don't mind the walk. We don't have anywhere to be yet, it's a beautiful day, and the weed has created a nice buffer of calm, as per usual. Even Amanda is holding my hand and keeping the peace.

White Lake seems to have a sort of main street with a couple of shops, a grocery store, and the lunch counter I remembered. There is a small line out its glass door, but since we have nothing but time, we cheerfully get on the end of it.

“I'm not going back, Jane,” a girl in front of me with braided red hair says to her friend.

“What are you gonna do if you're not in college, Meg?” Jane shoots back, her eyes big with worry.

Meg shrugs. “I'll be fine. There are plenty of things that don't need a college degree. Growing food, playing music, becoming a mural painter. Anything. That school's stifling me! And besides, it's not like I have to worry about getting drafted.”

It's like someone has taken an oil drill and tapped straight into the biggest nerve in my body. I go crashing down from my small high, about to explode into a million pieces.

I can hear the fight with my mom, the one we've been having practically every day of the summer. Pieces of it have just been echoed, word for word, in front of me.

“I don't want to go, Ma. I'll be fine. There are plenty of things I can do that have nothing to do with college.”

“Not if you're dead in a field you can't. It's the safest way to stay out of Vietnam, Michael.”

I don't think I want to go to Vietnam. I'm not a fighter. And sure, if I go to the community college I reluctantly enrolled in, I won't be drafted. But I know for sure I don't want to go to school. I just can't imagine ending up like my dad. He spends ten hours a day at his office. I assume he talks to people there, because by the time he comes home, he has no words left for Ma or me.

The worst is looking into his eyes. It's like looking at a burnt-out wick, dark and purposeless. When I was younger, I used to sometimes stare at other people's eyes to see if I could recognize the same thing in them. Is that what it meant to be an adult? That was when I started really getting into music. I'd look at pictures of my rock heroes. John Lennon never looked like that. Neither did Jerry Garcia. Or Donovan. Or Jimi Hendrix.

I have no idea what or who I want to be, but I know for certain what and who I don't. And that's all I see when I think about going to college. A one-way ticket to future soullessness.

“Hey, are you checking that girl out?!”

A sharp voice brings me out of my unpleasant daydream. Amanda's.

I look at her in a daze, only then realizing that I've been staring at the redhead.

“What?”

“Asshole!” Amanda says as she punches my arm.

The redhead catches my eye and gives me a small, secret smile.

I shrug and smile back before turning away. No need to fan the flames of Amanda's psychoses.

It takes us another forty-five minutes to get a table. By the time our burgers arrive, Amanda still isn't talking to me.

But, man, will I remember that meal. A juicy, perfectly cooked slab of meat, doused with ketchup, and large, crunchy slices of sour pickle. Perfectly salted fries, crispy. A Coke.

My consciousness definitely feels ready for whatever's about to come next.