The Square Root of Summer

by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

  It’s as if he never left. And, ever since that hug in the churchyard, there’s something else, too. An occasional, unspoken wondering …

  When it finally stops raining, we emerge and go looking for the time capsule. It’s only three weeks since the apple-twisting incident, but it could be years: the ivy is out of control, there’s a wasp orgy over the rotting fruit on the ground, and the grass is beyond “needs cutting” and into “Ned’s hair” territory.

  Grey would murder us. He liked the garden untrammeled, so there’s no distinction between “grass” and “flowerbed” and “tree.” Most years, it’s impossible to lie straight on the lawn because he plants yellow tulip bulbs willy-nilly. But this is neglected. It’s a mess. As though without him, we don’t give a shit.

  “I missed this,” Thomas beams, taking off his Windbreaker. “That after-rain smell. I swear it smells different in Canada.”

  Bentley’s paradox says that all matter is pulled to a single point by gravity. Apparently for me and Thomas, that single point is this tree. He stretches up, up, up, revealing a sliver of stomach, as he flings the coat onto a high branch, showering us in rain.

  “Oops,” says Thomas, twisting back around towards me. “There’s something about this tree, isn’t there?”

  We’re both rain-damp now, silver droplets lacing our hair like dew. He watches me as I dry my face with the edge of my sleeve.

  “Petrichor,” I blurt.

  “Is that Klingon?”

  “The after-rain smell. That’s the name for it. It’s wet bacteria.”

  Congratulations, Gottie. Last time you were under this tree with Thomas, the stars went out. Now you’re talking about wet bacteria.

  “Petrichor, really,” says Thomas. “Sounds like one of Sof’s bands. Or your dad when he talks German.”

  “That reminds me—Papa said I had to tell you to phone your mum back, and stop wiping her messages off the blackboard and pretending you’ve called.” I prod at the wet earth with my shoe. “Whatever you’ve done, you have to talk to her sometime. Like, when you’re back next door in a month?”

  “Right,” says Thomas. He leans back against the tree trunk. “Next door.”

  There’s a pause. I know he and his dad don’t get along—and actually, none of the messages on the blackboard have been from him. But should I not have mentioned his mum either?

  Then he smiles, wickedly. “Why do you assume I’ve done something?”

  “Instinct.” The word flies out of my mouth automatically, and Thomas cracks up. “Prior experience. Fundamental knowledge of you. History. That time with the pigs. Mr. Tuttle. A big, doomy sense of foreboding.”

  As I list our past, my mind jumps to the future—Thomas next door, clambering through the hedge, biking to school, eating cereal together, hanging out at the Book Barn. He’s home, and it will be a year so different from the one I’ve just had.

  Thomas smiles, pushing himself off the tree trunk.

  “Race you,” he says, his leg already swinging onto a low branch. Next thing I know, he’s a few feet above me—I can see the bottom of his Adidas. “It’s still here!”

  “What’s here?” I thought we were going to dig up the time capsule?

  “Come up and I’ll show you!” He pokes his head through the leaves, offering me his hand.

  When I’m sitting on a nice, sturdy branch next to him, I open my mouth, but he puts a finger to his lips, then points. Tucked inside the tree is a rusty metal tin, one of those beige petty-cash ones, with a handle on top and a loop to use for a padlock. Our names are written in marker pen on the lid, and sitting on top of it is a frog.

  “Oh,” I say, not recognizing it. The box, I mean, not the frog. Though I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen that before either. “This is the time capsule? We didn’t bury it?”

  Thomas shakes his head. “We found it.”

  I turn my head to look at him, his face leaf-dappled in the sunshine. We used to climb up here all the time, but now we’re both too big for the tree, crammed into the branches.

  “Oh. You really don’t remember this?” he asks.

  I have to hold on to his shoulder with one hand, so I can show him my left without losing my balance.

  “All I know is we talked about the blood pact at the Book Barn,” I say, waving my palm, “then waking up in the hospital with this.”

  “Right. That makes sense. Hold on.” Carefully, he leans forward and lifts the frog onto his finger, then stands up on the wonky branch and reaches over to put it on a cluster of leaves.

  I’d swoon right out of the tree if it wasn’t a totally Isaac Newtonian thing to do. Then Thomas does it for me.

  “Whoa!” As he turns to sit back down, his foot slips on the wet branch. Without anything to hold on to, he windmills his arms for a second, one foot hanging off the edge. I freeze, already watching a future where he falls in slow motion.

  Time speeds up when he regains his balance with a “Phew” and grins at me. “Think I just won Canada the gymnastics gold for that, eh?”

  “Graceful,” I say to cover my panic, grabbing his arm at the elbow to steady him as he sits down. It’s not entirely necessary—his center of gravity seems fine. But then he grabs my arm back, in a strict violation of the Spaghetti Arms Principle.

  “Thank you.” He settles next to me. We’re still holding arms. Not hands. Arms. I’m holding elbows with Thomas Althorpe, and it’s ridiculous.

  And I don’t want to let go.

  “Ready?” He looks at me. His eyes aren’t muddy—they’re hazel.

  I chew on my lip, considering. I like holding elbows with Thomas, eating cake and joking about The Wurst. Against all odds and expectations, I like him bouncing into my room uninvited, lounging on my bed and tickling Umlaut’s ears. I like re-becoming friends—and the something else there is between us, building like electricity in the air.

  But inside this box is everything that happened, on the day he abandoned me. Am I ready to remember?

  “It’s just a box,” says Thomas. “Bawk, bawk, bawk…”

  Before I can think about it, I grab the lid and yank it, hard.

  It’s empty. There’s a brackenish black smear as though slugs have been nesting in it, and the inside of the lid is sort of sooty and covered in illegible Sharpie scribbles, but otherwise, nothing. What an anticlimax.

  “G, did you open this already?”

  “I told you—I didn’t even know this was … whatever this is. What is it?”

  I feel Thomas shrug next to me. “It’s nothing now, I guess.”

  “What did you think was going to be in there?”

  “I don’t know!” He sounds completely frustrated, like he wants to shake the tree so all the apples fall out, bonking us on the head till we get some answers. “We found a bunch of junk, then we did the blood pact. I left you here to get Grey, and when we came back the lid was closed. I always wondered…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head like a dog coming out of the sea. “Nothing. Maybe we opened it too soon, I don’t know.”

  I twist to look at him, sliding one arm behind his back so I don’t fall out of the tree. With the other, I take his elbow again.

  A month ago I didn’t want any memories of this summer. Now, I’m not so sure. I’m starting to remember that there are two sides to every equation.

  “Thomas. Listen. It’s empty. So what? We can put something new in there. A time capsule of you and me. Who we are now.”

  He turns to take my elbow. The shift means now neither of us can move without totally losing our balance. My face must be as serious as his as we look at each other. I want to ask, Who are you, really? Why are you back?

  “So who are we now?” we both ask at the same time.

  “Telepathy,” Thomas says. And his smile could light the whole fucking tree on fire.

  The sky turns from sun to rain in an instant. Within seconds, it’s pouring.

  Lightning flashes through
the leaves, bouncing off Thomas’s glasses. Followed fast by a long, low rumble of thunder.

  “G!” Thomas has to raise his voice over the noise even though we’re inches apart. “We have to get out of this tree.”

  Lightning flashes again. I can barely see through the water in my eyes, but I nod. My arm is still tucked around his waist, his hand still on my elbow. If either of us moves, we’ll both fall.

  “I’m going to let you go,” Thomas shouts. “Jump backwards. On three?”

  Instinct says don’t wait, jump—I slide down the trunk, scraping my stomach on the bark. My topknot snags on a twig, tugging at my scalp with a sharp wince. There’s thunder again, then Thomas, tumbling down from above me, grabbing my elbow the minute he’s on the ground.

  “You didn’t wait for three,” he yells, his other hand pushing back his soaking-wet hair.

  “Neither did you!”

  We turn, laughing, jostling, grabbing at each other’s hands in a race to my bedroom. Where Ned’s standing sentry in the doorway, arms folded, his fur coat bedraggled from the rain. He looks like Umlaut after losing a fight with a squirrel.

  “Althorpe.” He scowls at Thomas, who drops my hand, which makes Ned scowl more. What’s his problem? “Just had a nice chat with your mum—she’s on the phone, wants to talk to you.”

  * * *

  After Ned practically frog-marches Thomas across the garden, I curl up on my bed with Grey’s diary from five years ago. Turn to the autumn, the winter, after Thomas left. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—clues, mentions of a time capsule, something. What I find is:

  THE POND FROZE OVER, ICE-SKATING DUCKS

  G’S HAIR IS GETTING AS LONG AS NED’S. SHE STILL LOOKS LIKE CARO.

  I drop the diary on my bed, go and sit on the floor in front of my mirror. The photo of me and my mum is taped to its corner. My hair’s still wet from the rain, scrolled up in its topknot—and when I take out the elastic, it falls in damp waves all the way to my waist. A stranger looks back at me.

  “What do you think, Umlaut?”

  Meow?

  I consider my reflection, my mum’s face in the photo. Who am I?

  I was someone so afraid of making a choice, I held on nine months for Jason. I waited five years for Thomas, silently. I painted The Wurst and never told Sof I was quitting art. I drift, I don’t decide. I let my hair grow long.

  I twist it in a wet rope around my hand. This doesn’t feel like me anymore. I opened the time capsule and jumped before the count of three—that’s someone who gets drunk on peonies and dries her underwear in a tree. I think I might want to write Ms. Adewunmi’s essay.

  I want to come out of mourning.

  Cutting my hair is suddenly a planetary necessity. I high-paw Umlaut, then jump up and tear out into the rain forest, immediately tripping over a bramble and ripping a chunk out of my ankle. Scheisse! I’m going to take a flamethrower to this mess.

  Wet-haired and wild-hearted, I burst into the kitchen, where Jason and Ned are sitting round the table. Ned is playing acoustic guitar, half a hot cross bun dangling from his mouth like a cigarette.

  “Rock ’n’ roll,” I say, giving Ned double thumbs. The gesture falters when it comes to Jason. I chose to be over him. He told me we were friends. We’ve never been that, I don’t know how. I turn back to my brother and say, “Hot cross buns are for Easter, it’s July.”

  Actually, July’s nearly over. Ned’s party’s in two weeks, and then two weeks after that—a year since Grey died. Term will start and time will slip away. It already is.

  “Hangovers yield to no season,” Ned mumbles round the bun, even though it’s seven in the evening. All the joy I felt moments ago is draining away.

  “If you’re looking for lover boy, he’s in his room,” says Ned, as though I were rummaging for Thomas in the cutlery drawer. I assume Jason’s staring at the back of my neck while I all-over blush at Ned’s foot-in-mouth comment, or maybe he isn’t and hasn’t noticed and, God, how hard is it to put spoons back in the right place, anyway?

  “I’ve commissioned him for the party,” Ned adds. “We’re thinking a giant croquembouche.”

  “Hey, Gottie, did you see the Facebook invitation?” Jason calls over as I turn around, drawing me into their circle. “Meg drew this cool—”

  I walk out while he’s still talking—I’ve found the scissors, and I’m hacking my way back through the soaked garden to my room, jabbing at random shrubs as I go. I want it all gone. Hair, party, garden, Jason, wormholes, time, diaries, death—especially death, I’ve had a lifetime of it.

  My room feels like a coffin.

  CHOP.

  That’s how I imagine it—one swift, clean slice of the blades and I’ll be able to stuff all my sadness in the trash. Jason’s hands in my hair, his mouth on my neck, the girl I was and am and will be—whoever she is. Gone.

  Reality: I ponytail my hair, reach behind me to cut, there’s a crunch—then the scissors stop. Even yanking as hard as I can with both hands … Nothing. They’re stuck.

  Patting around the back of my head with my fingers, my pulse fluttering, I can tell I’m only about a third of the way through my hair—but it’s enough that I have to keep going. Except I can’t. Open. The. Scissors.

  A chunk of chin-length hair swings loose.

  Umlaut turns in circles on the diaries, yowling.

  “Not helping,” I sing-song to him.

  My face burns even though there’s no one but the cat to witness my embarrassment. There’s no Sof to call like when I shaved my unibrow instead of plucking it—I’ve shut her out. Why did I do that? The scissors hang off my hair, bouncing against my back as I throw myself across the room to my phone and text her back, reply to everything, rapidly, urgently, immediately.

  Pick a color, pick a number—meet me at the beach on Sunday. Please?

  A world where Sof and I are friends.

  Then I grab my nail scissors and start hacking away in tiny blunt snips, not caring about the strands that are falling to the floor, how it’s going to look. I’m so ready to be—

  Free. The kitchen scissors hit the floor.

  I run my hand over my head–it feels really short. In places. There are also long lengths that I’ve missed. When I was a kid, Grey would cut the food out of my hair instead of washing it. I suspect I’ve accidentally re-created toddler chic.

  Umlaut pads over to the mirror with me.

  My eyes flick between my reflection and the photograph. Olive-skin-dark-eyes-so-much-nose-out-of-time-eighties-mullet-hair: yes, I do look like Mum. But it’s nice. Because also, for maybe the first time in forever, I look like me.

  A mirror ball of light ripples across the room. I look up, catching the end of a screenwipe—and on the other side of it, my ceiling is starred with phosphorescent plastic constellations. Like I used to have when I was little and shared a bedroom with Ned. He always hated them.

  Did I stick these up there? Or did Thomas?

  Under their fluorescent glow, my phone beeps with an alert for gottie.h.oppenheimer. Thomas’s email has arrived. Even though it’s impossible, even though this is a brand-new address: this is the email he sent a month ago. The timelines are converging.

  Thursday 31 July

  [Minus three hundred and thirty-three]

  I’ve deleted and reinstalled my email app, climbed the apple tree and waved my phone around for 4G, and boinked it with my fist—but, aside from our addresses and the date at the top, Thomas’s email refuses to be anything but this gibberish.

  It shouldn’t even exist! I hadn’t even set up this account when he sent this. Did he guess hundreds of addresses, sending out emails like messages in bottles?

  v 4.0—opening Schrödinger’s box determines whether the cat is dead or alive.

  But what if the cat isn’t in there yet?

  When dawn arrives, I shove my new hair into a facsimile of normal and change out of my planet-print PJs into a vest and shorts. At my bedroom door, I pause, lookin
g out at the damp grass—and kick off my tennis shoes. If I’m going to discover the universe, I’ll start with my feet.

  When I enter the kitchen, muddy up to my ankles, Thomas and Ned and Papa are already at the table. There’s a plate of cinnamon rugelach between them.

  Papa’s eyes go wide, while Thomas swallows in a choking sort of way, then says, “Whoa. Your hair.” I can’t tell from his tone if it’s good or bad.

  I reach up and prod it. “Scale of one to eleventy million, how awful?”

  Thomas shakes his head, his own tousled hair bouncing. “Nah, you look awesome. It’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.”

  We stare at each other for a moment, something unspoken passing between us.

  Then Ned whispers in Papa’s ear, and he harrumphs, muttering in German. I think I catch the word Büstenhalter. Bra.

  I fold my arms across my chest, and Thomas leaps up, launching himself round the kitchen, putting a rugelach on a plate for me, flipping the kettle on, bat-grabbing and babbling a mile a minute about Ned’s croquembouche commission.

  I eat the pastry, licking sticky sugar from my fingers, and let myself laugh at Thomas’s antics. Ignore the way Ned’s scowling at us both.

  After nearly a year of mourning, I feel like the Victorians when Edison came along—all those years in the darkness, and then electric light.

  I’ve got the earth between my toes.

  * * *

  On Sunday, I dodge Ned’s weird policeman act and walk inland out of Holksea, along the canal to Sof’s. It’s a scalding day, and she’s already sunbathing when I get to the boat, barely visible through the jungle of pot plants her mum keeps on the deck.

  I stand on the towpath for a couple of seconds, watching as Mrs. Petrakis goes from watering the plants to sprinkling Sof, who shrieks with laughter. Grey used to do that to us in the garden. Did he do that to my mum? Would she have done it for me? The thought is a wormhole yank to my heart.

  “Sof!” I bellow, to stop thinking about it.

  She sits up, peering over the ferns, and her mouth forms a perfectly lipsticked, perfectly gobsmacked O.