Read Online Three Day Summer by Sarvenaz Tash - Free Book Online Page A

she’s purposely not meeting my eye. But why should that matter to me? She is my . . . what did she call it? Oh, yeah, music buddy. For the day.
    â€œIs that your ex?” I blurt out. Goddamn it, Michaelson. What the hell?
    â€œUm. Yeah.” She turns to me this time. “Ex,” she says as if she wishes that weren’t the word she had to use for him. I find myself wishing she didn’t sound so down in the dumps about it.
    But this whole thing is ridiculous. I shake my head to clear it of its nonsensical thoughts, determined to enjoy the rest of the show with an empty mind. And an extremely empty stomach, apparently.
    By the time we get near the stage, Tim Hardin has just finished playing and the stage is being set up for the next performer. I squint until I see him waiting on the sidelines, a black-haired man wearing a long white tunic and carrying a tall stringed instrument that ends in a round, squat wooden head.
    â€œRavi Shankar,” I announce, and am glad for it. I can use some meditative sitar music right now to float me away from the physical. In this case, my hunger pains.
    I close my eyes as Ravi sits down and tunes his instrument. Just as he plucks his first few notes and I’m getting ready to lose myself to some higher state of being or whatever, something extremely hard and fast hits me in the back of my head.
    â€œOw!” I turn around to confront whoever has just assaulted me.
    â€œOh, man. I’m so sorry, man!” A guy with a long black beard is looking over at me in horror. “I didn’t mean . . . I just thought you might want some sustenance.”
    He points down at my foot and I look to see the culprit behind what is likely to be a very large lump on my head. It’s a beautiful, perfect, big (and heavy) orange.
    I look back up at the guy, stunned. “For me?” I ask stupidly.
    Blackbeard nods. “For sure, man.”
    I pick the fruit up. It even feels delicious, its pockmarked skin heavy with juice.
    â€œAre you sure?” I have to ask again, especially as I’ve just noticed the very pregnant woman sitting down on the blanket right at his feet.
    â€œDefinitely,” he says. “We have to feed each other out here, dude. Peace and love and music, right? Besides, it’s the least I could do for conking you in the head with it.”
    I stare down at the woman again, who keeps one hand on her belly as she waves the other one at me in a friendly gesture. “Take it with our blessings,” she says. And then I see her take out three more oranges from a canvas bag she has beside her. She hands them up to her man, who starts walking around, giving them out to other people.
    I look down at the orange and for a second feel like Ravi is picking out the music straight from inside me: the immense crescendo of gratitude and peace and awe toward my fellow man seems interpreted exactly in the swell of his sitar strings.
    I look up at Cora and grin.

chapter 21
    Cora
    I think the last time I saw someone staring at something the way Michael is staring at that orange was a Christmas morning when Wes got the green army men he’d been coveting for half the year. The irony of which is not lost on me.
    Michael peels into his orange slowly, staring at it as if it might disappear at any moment.
    â€œDon’t worry, it’s not a hallucination,” I say as he reverently excavates the fruit from the skin.
    He breaks it open into two sections and then gallantly holds his hand out with one of them cradled inside.
    I laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Eat the whole thing.”
    â€œBut you must be starving too.”
    â€œI’m not. And besides, I thought we established that I live three feet over that way. On a farm . Where there is all sorts of food and food-producing things.”
    Michael stares at the half orange he’s holding out to me again. “Please?” he says.
    â€œMichael. I appreciate the ridiculous