Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash

shoe size?”
    â€œTen.”
    â€œAnd which of your teachers did you have a crush on?”
    â€œMs. Abernathy,” I say without any hesitation. “Tenth-grade science. Great legs.”
    â€œAnd what’s your favorite thing in the whole wide world?”
    â€œMusic,” I answer, throwing my apple core on the ground for emphasis. “Glorious music.”
    â€œWhat do you play?”
    â€œPlay?” I ask.
    â€œYeah. Any instruments? Drums? The guitar?”
    â€œOh,” I say. “No, I don’t play anything.”
    â€œWhy not?” she asks.
    I shrug. “I don’t know. I just . . . appreciate it, I guess. The music.”
    â€œOh,” Cora says.
    Suddenly our playful banter has grown uncomfortable and I know exactly why. She has managed to hit at the one big problem of being me.
    I chuckle. “See, the thing is, you’re the type of person who knows exactly what she wants to be. And it’s something amazing and useful. And that’s awesome. But I’m the type of person who is completely useless. A lazy good-for-nothing, as they would say.” I try to lighten the mood with some good old-fashioned self-deprecation.
    But she’s not having it. “Why do you say that?” she asks. She stops walking and looks up at me, forcing me to stop too.
    â€œOh, you know.” I shrug helplessly. “It’s like I don’t want to go to college. And I don’t want to go fight. I don’t know what I want.”
    Cora says, “You’re seventeen. I’m not so sure you’re supposed to know what you want.”
    â€œEighteen, actually.”
    â€œOh, well, in that case. What is your life plan, you hippie bum?”
    I laugh. “Handing out food to people wearing orange. Obviously.” I take the picnic basket from her. It’s heavy and I feel a little bad that I didn’t think to take it from her earlier.
    I head toward a guy with an orange-enough tie-dyed shirt and open up the basket for him.
    â€œHow much?” he asks suspiciously.
    â€œWhat?” I ask.
    â€œHow much do you want for it?”
    â€œNothing,” I respond. “It’s all free.”
    His eyes widen. “Really? Oh, thanks so much, man. This is fantastic,” he says as he does what I was worried about earlier and takes an entire loaf of bread and four apples.
    â€œMan, you wouldn’t believe it. There was some old guy walking around here charging a dollar for water. Can you imagine paying one whole dollar for water?!”
    â€œThat’s awful,” Cora says. “But, hey, if you walk over that way, you’ll see a big red barn. They’re handing out free water and milk over there.”
    â€œSerious?” he asks.
    Cora nods.
    â€œYou guys are far out, man. The absolute best. And here I was thinking this whole shindig was going to the dogs. An hour ago there was the guy with the water, and then there was another old guy telling us we’d all have to evacuate. It was crazy.”
    Cora frowns. “Wait, really? What did he look like?”
    â€œWho?” the guy asks.
    â€œThe man who said you might have to evacuate.”
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” he says. “He had, like, white hair and glasses.”
    â€œAh, okay.” She looks visibly relieved.
    After the guy leaves, I have to ask her. “Who did you think it was?”
    She takes a breath, and I say “Your dad?” at the same time that she says “My dad.”
    Cora laughs. “He made quite an impression last night, huh?”
    â€œAfter a fashion,” I admit. “I can only thank the god of Woodstock—that’s Jimi Hendrix by the way—he didn’t see me.”
    â€œJimi Hendrix, huh?”
    I close my eyes and bow my head in reverence. “Naturally. The one and only.”
    â€œCan’t say I ever listened to him,” she says in a shockingly casual way.
    My eyes pop open.