Three Day Summer(3)
“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 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.”