Three Day Summer (11 page)

chapter 37

Cora

A couple of sips into his beer and Michael seems to have relaxed enough to form sentences again. Pretending to be a rock god, not bad. In the presence of a rock goddess, total disaster.

But once he regains some of his composure, he starts to excitedly fill me in on what exactly makes Janis so great (“Her voice. It's so raw. Like the joy and pain of existence itself is transmitting through her.”). He even tells me about some of the other bands he mentioned before, like Canned Heat (“Perfect, pure blues music. Which is really the basis of rock-'n'-roll.”) and Santana (“Not that anybody can beat Jimi, but my cuz says he's a worthy second. So I'm curious as all hell.”).

He honestly knows more about music than anyone I've ever met. It's pretty impressive, and I tell him so.

He shrugs good-naturedly, but I can tell he's pleased. “It's not very often that I actually know more about something than someone else. Trust me. We should both enjoy this moment for the rarity that it is.”

I laugh.

“What about you?” he asks, as he takes another sip from his beer. “Since you're obviously not spending time as the president of your local Doors fan club, what's your favorite thing to do? For fun?”

I consider this, not sure anyone's ever really asked me that before. Truthfully, I don't think most people who know me would think to put the word “fun” in the same sentence as “Cora.” “Um . . . I like the movies?” I finally offer lamely.

“Oh, yeah? Seen any good ones lately?”

I have to rack my brain a little, because I haven't actually been to the movies since Ned and I broke up. What was the last one we saw together? Oh, right. John Wayne. His choice. “
True Grit
,” I finally remember the name. “It was pretty good.”

Michael nods. “I missed that one.” Then his face lights up. “Oh, but have you heard of this new one,
Easy Rider
? I haven't actually gotten around to seeing it yet, but I've heard it's supposed to be amazing. Really different.”

I shake my head no, starting to think that maybe I'm not
that
into movies if I can't even be bothered to go to one alone. “See? Here's another thing you actually know more about than me.” I throw my hands up in the air.

He opens his mouth to say something, but then closes it again. For a wild second, I think he's about to ask me out to the movies. But then he surprises me with a different question. “So what do you
really
like to do, Cora?” He grasps his beer glass in both hands, his head cocked, looking at me intently across it. “In your spare time?”

I eye him. “Honestly?” I ask, and he nods. “I don't really have much spare time. I'm either at school or helping out at my farm. And the rest of the time, I'm volunteering at the hospital.” He's looking at me quizzically and I wonder if he's thinking about how boring that sounds. If that's the case, I might as well go all in and admit it. “But actually, I find that really fun. My work at the hospital. I just . . . love it. Does that sound completely insane?” I look down into my own beer glass, and see the strings from my candy striper apron dangling near the floor through the bottom.

“Insane? Um, no. Impressive? Hell, yes.” When I look up, Michael is beaming at me.

I laugh. “You probably wouldn't say that if you actually knew what being a candy striper mostly entailed.”

“Saving people from dying because of bad acid, right? I assume that's a daily task.”

“Oh, yes. Happens all the time here in Bethel. Where, by the way, I think the median age is fifty,” I counter.

“Old people. What is the matter with them these days?” Michael shakes his head. “Why can't they take a page from our book? Wholesome, respectful, clean-cut . . .”

I reach across the table and lightly touch his shoulder-length hair. “Very clean-cut.” Then I snort, remembering something else. “Oh, right. The other fifteen percent of my spare time is spent trying to stop my father and Wes from murdering each other. Wes's hair is the latest point of contention. You know, along with their points of view on the war, and the farm, and school, and his clothes, and basically anything it's possible to have an opinion about.” I've stopped touching his hair, but my hand is still hovering near his side of the table. He takes it in his.

“Is there a lot of fighting in your house?” he asks. He looks serious for a second, which is a look I don't think I've seen come across his face before.

I shrug. “Yes, sometimes. Sometimes a lot of begrudging silence. They both adore my mother, so she can usually butt in and get them to stop. Or sometimes I can . . .” I trail off. “My dad fought in both World War II and Korea and he's so proud of his time as a soldier. Mark was always the favorite anyway, but when he signed up for the army, he cemented that spot forever. My dad's brave and strong boy. And I was the only girl. So sometimes that leaves Wes a little bit adrift, you know?”

He nods solemnly. “Yeah, I kinda do. I'm an only child but I'm still somehow my dad's least favorite.” He laughs, but I don't think it's very funny.

“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning.

But he shakes his head, and his goofy grin is back. “He's just not a warm and fuzzy guy, is all.” Just like that, his serious moment seems to be over. Still holding my hand, he bends his head to try to read my watch. “Does that say three?” he asks.

I take my hand back to check. “Yup,” I say. “I guess we should try to get back and catch some more of these bands?” I make it a question, because I'm not entirely convinced that Michael doesn't want to tell me more about his parents.

“Definitely,” he says with enthusiasm as he gets up from the table, dispelling any notion I have that he wants to stay on the subject. “Some of them are going to knock your socks off, I'm telling you.” He offers his hand to help me up, but as he does, we look at each other and I know we're both hit with the same thought.

“How exactly are we going to get back?” I finally voice the concern.

“I take it hitchhiking is out?” Michael says.

“Unless you know of a way to tow about twenty thousand cars from Route 17. Or we find a car with wings.”

“I got it.” Michael snaps his fingers. “How about the same way we got here?” He grins as he starts to head for the hotel's front door.

I'm pretty skeptical. What are the chances that a second dope will mistake Michael for Roger Daltrey?

It turns out I'm right, of course. The helicopter is waiting just outside the hotel again, and I see Michael walk up to it with all the swagger he can muster. “G'day,” he says to the guy in shades who is manning the door.

“Get lost, kid,” the guy promptly replies.

“Bout,” Michael continues, trying on his accent once again, “ay'm Roger Daltrey.”

“Oh, yeah? And I'm a leprechaun.” The guy puts on a fairly impressive Irish accent before continuing. “Stop wasting me time now, laddie.”

I can't help but laugh, and Michael walks back over to me, looking sullen.

“You gotta admit, his Irish accent was way better than yours,” I tease.

“Mine was English!”

“Oh . . . ,” I say, and can't help giggling.

“How far is it to the festival?” Michael asks.

“Um . . . about twenty miles,” I answer.

“So . . . walking is out of the question?”

“Unless we want to get there on Sunday night,” I say.

I can see a worried expression creeping into Michael's handsome features. “So how
do
we get back?” he asks. I'm sure he's thinking about Jimi.

“Didn't really think that far, did you?” I ask gently.

“No,” he admits. “I guess I never really do. It's my fatal flaw, according to my mom.”

I stare at the helicopter and watch as the guy in shades is relieved of his duty by a heavier-set guy. Then I look down at my red-and-white apron and am suddenly hit by an idea.

“Come with me,” I say.

chapter 38

Michael

“You're
what
?” The burly helicopter pilot is looking Cora over skeptically. She doesn't bat an eye.

“Dr. Fletcher. I think you heard me the first time,” she says in a curt but calm voice.

“
You're
a doctor?” He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and glances over at me incredulously, as if I'm going to back him up. I try to keep my face neutral.

“My volunteer.” Cora indicates me and then snaps his attention back to her. “We've just got news of a cardiac arrest on-site, and I was told by the organizers to come to you so you could get me there as soon as possible. We're wasting valuable time here.” She folds her arms across her chest and stares him down. Just a few minutes ago, I watched as she took off her apron and took her hair down out of its braids, tucking its long strands behind her ears. She stands tall and assured in front of the pilot now, looking imposing.

Twenty minutes later, we're touching down right near the main stage again and I can't help thinking that Cora is a genius.

I wait until we've disembarked and are far enough away from the pilot before turning to her. “Good thinking. She's not just a pretty face, folks.”

“Why, thank you,” Cora says, straightening out her trusty medical badge. “Good thing this thing doesn't actually say ‘candy striper.'”

“Though really, couldn't I have been the doctor? Instead of the volunteer?”

“Doctor or Daltrey,” she retorts. “You can't have both.”

“I could totally be a doctor,” I say, grinning.

But she's not smiling. “You weren't the one with the badge,” she says softly, almost to herself. She moves a little bit away from me. She's fiddling with her hair, swiftly putting it into a long braid again.

“Hey, what's the matter?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she responds flatly.

“Pretty and transparent,” I say, keeping up with her quickened pace.

“What?” Now she's unfolding the candy striper apron she's been clutching.

“Your face. I can tell something's wrong.”

She shrugs as she methodically puts her apron back on. “It's nothing.”

I've been with Amanda long enough to know what “it's nothing” actually means. But I don't know if I should push it the way I always know for sure I should push it with Amanda so that she can yell at me for whatever is pissing her off and get it over with.

“So who's that?” Cora stops walking and points to the stage. A lean, olive-skinned guy in a leather vest is playing one hell of a guitar solo, while around him bongos, drums, a bass, and maracas retaliate.

I grin. “That should be Santana.”

We watch him play for a bit, close enough to see his face clearly in the afternoon sun. His eyes are closed, and his face is scrunched up in concentration. It's like he's channeling a force from another planet to create the sounds that are coming from his strings.

And then, suddenly, whatever possesses him seems to get hold of the drummer, too, who goes into a long, complicated drum solo. The drummer looks young, with shaggy, light hair that's flying all over the place. He kind of looks like me, actually. I would give anything to switch places with him right now.

“Wow,” I say. “They really are amazing.”

“Yes?” Cora asks.

I nod. “This is all improvised. They're just bouncing off each other.”

“What do you mean? They're not just playing a song they wrote before?”

“No, ma'am. They're just listening to each other and making it up on the spot.”

“Wow,” Cora says, and I can tell she's genuinely impressed.

“They're fantastic.” We take advantage of our unbelievably close viewpoint for a little bit longer before someone with a staff T-shirt finally comes over and asks us what we're doing there. We are in the artist area, after all.

“Just on our way to the medical tents,” Cora says, quickly pointing to her badge and then turning away before we get questioned further. I follow her.

She abruptly stops and I almost bump into her. She turns around and looks at me, a decisive gleam in her eyes. “The thing back there,” she says. “The reason I was upset is . . . I actually want to be a doctor.” She says it emphatically and then waits, as if for some sort of reaction from me.

“Okay . . . ,” I say slowly. “That's great,” I add, hoping it's the right thing to say. I don't see how it couldn't be. It genuinely
is
pretty great, and I'm sure she'd be good at it, doing something she so clearly loves.

But Cora just laughs bitterly. “Yeah. Pretty great. Unless you're anyone in the medical profession. Or my dad. Or Ned.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you see that helicopter guy's face when I said I was a doctor? He was thinking, ‘A woman doctor?' You just don't see that around here so much. . . .”

I pause for a second. “Yeah, but in the end, he believed you, didn't he?”

“I guess. . . .” She looks down at her apron.

“Honestly, he was probably more thinking, ‘She's too young to be a doctor. . . .'”

“That could be true,” Cora admits, looking a little embarrassed.

I think back to the encounter. “But you know what? If he was thinking what you said, screw him,” I say emphatically. “We live in the age of Gloria Steinem. You can be anything you want to be!”

Cora laughs. “You know Gloria Steinem?”

“Sure,” I say, but leave it there. I don't need to continue and tell her that it's because there were a couple of months when Amanda would bring her up at least once a conversation.

I touch her arm. “That's what the music is saying, Cora,” I say in all seriousness. “You can be anything you want to be. Anything at all.”

We pause and listen to the guitar sing. It's clear as day to me; I hope she can hear it too. I think by the smile creeping across her face that she can.