I try to let myself in and am surprised when the front doorknob meets me with resistance. Locked. We never lock our doors here, and I immediately can’t help but wonder whether it’s punishment against me or a precaution against the hordes of hippies my father thinks might come barreling through.
It takes me a moment to remember there is a spare key under the doormat. It’s covered in dust and cobwebs when I find it, but I fish it out and unlock the door.
I tiptoe in, still amazed at the silence. Out of curiosity, I head into the kitchen and glance at the cuckoo clock on the wall, just in case Amanda played a trick on me with the time and it’s really ten o’clock. But nope, it’s after midnight.
I turn around to go up to my room, and am greeted by a solid wall of shadow. “Cora.” It spits out my name. I jump a mile.
The lights get switched on and the shadow becomes a fuming, squat man glaring at me. Dad.
“What,” he says in a dangerously quiet voice, “is the meaning of this?”
“Dad,” I say, my heart pounding from the scare and from the dread of what’s about to happen. “I’m sorry. Time just ran away from me. . . .”
He shakes his head. “Time ran away from you? What happened to your watch?”
Dad points at my wrist and I quickly draw my hand away. I don’t think telling him my watch died because I was skinny-dipping in the lake with a boy is going to help defuse the situation.
“It’s just been so busy,” I start to quickly say. “And then the music was so good, I just lost track. . . .”
“That. Goddamn. Music,” he seethes. “Do you really think you can use that horrible, drugged-out assault on humanity as an excuse? For coming home after midnight?”
I grimace. “No, sir,” I say. Probably best to just get this over with.
“For the rest of this weekend, you will stay right in this house.”
My eyes widen. “But . . .”
“You will help out your mother and me around the farm. You won’t leave our sight for the next forty-eight hours.”
“Dad . . . ,” I begin.
“And then maybe in a few weeks we can discuss whether you can even go back to the hospital again.”
I stare at him. “You can’t ban me from the hospital.”
“I most certainly can.”
“For coming home an hour after curfew?” I say incredulously.
“Because Bethel is declared a war zone and you’re in the trenches, enjoying the music, as you say.”
My heart rate is still up, but this time I can feel the anger that’s surging through my blood. “This isn’t a war zone, Dad,” I start out calmly enough. “Mark is in a war zone.” But then I can’t stop myself. “And do you know who are the only people trying to get him out? Those damn hippies you’re always going on about.”
“Get him out?” he counters. “By doing what? Carrying signs and getting high? Those spoiled kids who have no idea what a real battlefield is like? Or what an honor it is to fight in one?”
“I’m pretty sure Mark doesn’t think it’s an honor. Not anymore,” I mutter.
He snorts. “And just what would you know about it? Your brother is out there fighting for . . .”
“For what exactly? I’d love to know. Give me one good reason Mark is being shot at instead of being here with us.”
“For his country,” Dad says with finality. As if that should answer everything.
Now it’s my turn to snort. “What does a government halfway across the world have to do with our country?”
“For freedom. Those people . . .”
“Want him out of their country, I’m assuming,” I say in a mocking tone.
Which might be the final straw for my father. “You don’t know anything, girl,” he shouts, his dangerous whisper now blossomed into full-volume wrath. “And you should learn to shut up about things you know nothing about.”
Here’s the thing with me. My dad gets visibly angry often, but I don’t. But when I do, you can take seven times his anger and still not be able to fill up the hot-air balloon of rage that inflates inside me, just waiting to be untethered.
“NO,” I yell back. “I will not shut up. And I know plenty, Dad.” I say “Dad” all drawn out, like it’s a joke to call him that. “I know about medicine and surgery and educated people. I know more than some hick farmer from fucking Anytown, USA, ever will.”
I stay just long enough to see his eyes widen. Then, without thinking, I push past him, and run right out the front door.
chapter 48
Michael
Janis is onstage now, and she’s killing it. It’s so dark that I can hardly make her out at all; she’s just a silhouette with big floating sleeves. But I can hear every word that she sings, every note drawn out with passion and conviction. It’s hard to believe this is the same soft-spoken person we came across at a hotel bar just earlier today.
It’s hard to believe at all. Where I was today. Who I was with.
I can’t believe Cora’s not here with me to hear Janis. Not after Janis called her “sister.”
A brass section wails on Janis’s song and I watch the top of Amanda’s head in front of me, moving in time to the music. In the dark of night, I can almost pretend her hair is jet black, that she is someone else entirely.
And that’s completely unfair, isn’t it? If there’s one thing Janis’s voice is pleading with me to do, it’s this: Man up. I should tell Amanda that it’s over.
And then, as if I dreamt her back into life, Cora is suddenly beside us again. I stare at her, for a moment positive it’s a hallucination, even though I haven’t taken anything all day. But then I see Rob grin at her too.
“Hey, Miss Cora is back,” he says.
Everyone turns to her now and she gives a wave and a smile back, but it’s directed at Rob. She hardly even looks at me. “Figured I can’t really miss the greatest rock concert of all time when it’s right in my backyard. Right?”
“No, ma’am,” Rob counters.
She walks over to him and I follow her with my eyes. Trying to think of something to say. Amanda looks from my face to Cora’s, a scowl screwing up her features.
“What about your dad murdering you?” Amanda demands of Cora.
“Yeah,” Cora says. “Screw him.”
My jaw almost drops. Cora is a surprising girl but I still never expected her to say that.
Rob laughs, though. “Yeah, screw all the parents,” he says.
Cora smiles. “Screw all the parents!”
Rob takes the opportunity to lift her hand and then spin her around underneath it before bringing his arms behind her back to end in an impressive dip. Cora laughs.
Smooth freakin’ asshole.
“This is Janis, right?” Cora asks him.
“The one and only,” he responds.
“Do you know I met her today?”
“What? Get out of here, you big liar,” Rob says.
“Nuh-uh,” she says. “Totally met her.” And I immediately realize she said “I met her,” not “we met her.”
She launches into a version of our story that doesn’t include me and I feel like shit.
Cora is here, but she’s really not. She’s not here with me.
chapter 49
Cora
After I tell Rob my story, I listen to Janis Joplin, really listen to her, for the first time. I’ve heard a song or two from her before but before today, she wasn’t a real person to me. She wasn’t someone you could have a conversation with, someone who could buy you a drink.
Now that she is, I think I finally understand why someone would be so obsessed with music. Everything Janis is and has ever felt, she’s pouring out onto the stage right now. She’s inviting us all in to witness it. It takes my breath away, the bravery of it.
Eventually—too so
on—Janis’s set ends and Rob gets extra-excited because Sly and the Family Stone come on next. I can’t make out much on the stage; the lights they have up there don’t seem powerful enough to counter the darkness of a country night. But I can tell there are a lot of band members and, of course, as soon as the music starts the vibe completely changes. This is dancing, party music and all around me, people are jumping around and swaying wildly.
Rob takes me for another spin and I let him. Every time I twirl or swing or dip I keep my eyes trained to look away from Michael. It’s pretty impressive, actually. Like my own psychological choreography.
About a half hour into their set, Sly asks the audience to join him in a sing-along. “Most of us need approval from our neighbors,” he starts out, before asking us to shun that concept and sing the word “higher” with him, throwing our peace signs into the air. “It’ll do you no harm,” he claims.
At first, I just watch everyone around me following suit. But then Rob grabs my hand and makes me pump it into the air. “Get into it!” he yells, as he starts yelling “higher” in time with the rest of the crowd.
I smile and say it softly at first, but as it goes on and on and everyone is shouting, I do too. Why shouldn’t I? “Still again, some people feel that they shouldn’t,” Sly says from the stage, again encouraging us to “get in on something that could do you some good” without worry about embarrassment or approval. I realize Sly is speaking directly to me. I raise my arm higher, wave my two fingers in the air, and yell into the damp night. The red Hog Farm fabric still wrapped around my wrist glows bright against the starry sky like a triumphant banner. I close my eyes to savor how amazing it all feels.
Except that emblazoned on the back of my eyelids is the silhouette of a person I haven’t looked at in hours. Michael.
I immediately open my eyes and fix them on Rob, whose head is swinging wildly to the music.
Rob is beautiful, just like when I first saw him. He’s also energetic, fun, and funny. Most importantly, he doesn’t do weird things to my stomach or make me think too hard about things like feelings. Feelings are crap. That’s why I’m going to be a doctor, dealing with the wonderful, solid world of physical ailments.
Sly has gone into the “higher” chorus again and it’s louder than ever, now that everyone is taking his advice and not waiting for approval from their neighbors.
I don’t need approval either, I finally realize. I will be a doctor, no matter what anyone thinks or says.
I say “higher” one extra time than everyone else, not realizing the song has ended and they’ve already broken into applause. But I don’t care. I’m sure I clap harder than anyone else too. Something has just become so very clear to me about myself, about who I am, and I have the music to thank for it.
Which, I guess, is what Michael was trying to tell me just this afternoon.
chapter 50
Michael
I glimpse the time on Amanda’s watch. It’s past five a.m. when the real Roger Daltrey saunters onto the stage.
As the night has gone on, some space has cleared up (I guess some people actually want to get sleep or something, the idiots) and we’ve all managed to get pretty close to the stage now, so I can see Roger clearly in all his glory. He looks like a scarecrow with a mop of wild blond hair. He’s wearing an open jacket with long, fringed white sleeves, and no shirt underneath, his taut belly on display. The band starts to play and he actually prowls onstage, walking it from one end to the other like he owns every fucking audience member.
And you know what? I think he does. He sings and gyrates, exuding some crazy confidence and something else. Let’s call it raw manliness. I can practically hear the sighs from all the female, and probably some male, concertgoers around me. I think Amanda is turning to putty beside me. And I’m sure everyone else not completely beguiled by him just wants to be him.
I know I do.
I can’t help it. I turn my head slightly and seek out Cora’s face. She’s been completely wrapped up in Rob this whole time, ignoring me at every turn. But she must feel me looking at her and, this time, she meets my gaze. She looks up at the specimen of testosterone on the stage. And then she looks back at me again. Then she laughs quietly.
I should feel hurt or like my own manhood is being mocked. But the truth is, she’s right. I ain’t no Roger Daltrey. And the fact that anyone would ever mistake me for him is pretty hilarious. So I start chuckling too.
I decide to risk it further. “You think the suit dropped some brown acid too?” I yell over to her, referring, of course, to the executive who mistook me for Roger.
Cora glances at the stage one more time before turning her gaze back to me. She just smiles enigmatically and I smile back.
But then she returns her gaze to the stage again and she doesn’t look toward me anymore, even though I keep waiting for her to. I think I’ve lost my moment. And her.
Eventually, I give up and focus on the band again. I see Keith Moon freaking out behind the drums, probably tripping out on something. Or maybe just the music itself. It is that good. I see Pete Townshend with his guitar, his dark, close-cropped hair and long face in direct contrast to Roger’s bright demeanor. Pete is in all white. When he plays, he plays angry, like he’s seeking revenge from the strings.
Between them—and let’s not forget the fantastic bassist, John Entwistle—there is so much palpable energy radiating from that stage. At five in the fucking morning.
It’s beautiful. And for a moment I let myself realize that being a fake part of that for even just a minute in some stuffy corporate dude’s eyes is absolutely priceless.
I bang my head just a little bit harder and move around just a little bit more as they play. At one point I begin to realize I’m mimicking Roger’s moves a little. But you know what? I don’t care. I had rock star confidence for an hour today. And if I can somehow get that back, I’m pretty sure I can rule the world.
chapter 51
Cora
Ten songs in and Roger Daltrey continues to slither around onstage like some sort of sexy snake. I’ve never had much of a rock star complex—at least not before Michael’s earth-shattering kiss today—but this guy makes it hard not to feel just a little bit flustered. And you know what, I have to admit that Michael does resemble him. They’re both long and lean, with a similar mess of blond, wavy, shoulder-length hair; I don’t think the suit was that far off.
Seeing Mr. Daltrey now, I can’t help but smile at the perfectly magical, one-of-a-kind experience Michael and I shared thanks to him. I break my eye-contact rule with Michael just long enough to try to convey that.
The band is in between songs when a man with dark curly hair climbs up on the stage. I vaguely recognize him. I think he might have been one of the extra guys who was helping out in the medical tent this morning.
He grabs the mic that Pete Townshend (Rob reminded me of his name) was using while the guitarist is turned away fiddling with an amp. “I think this is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison.”
There is some confusion in the air, but I also hear the crowd applauding, Rob included. Because of Wes, I vaguely know who Sinclair is—a political activist who was recently sentenced to ten years in jail for selling a couple of joints to undercover cops.
But now Pete Townshend has turned around. He brings his guitar up like an ax and the mic picks up most of his words. “Fuck off my fucking stage!” he yells, and brings the guitar down on the curly-haired man, who either falls or leaps off the stage. I strain my neck and look for him, to make sure he’s not on the ground, injured, but he’s disappeared into the crowd.
Something heavy and almost silent hangs in the air now. We just witnessed a moment of violence in what has, until now, been a dreamy couple of days of peace and music—just like the posters promised. It’s a jarring reminder of the world outside our bubble. The world of war and racism and assass
inations. I can tell I’m not the only one who suddenly remembers how thin that bubble’s skin is.
In my disturbed mood, I think about my father. I can’t believe I cursed in front of him. Or called him a dumb hick. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the look in his eyes when I stormed out, like I ripped his heart and his voice box out at the same time. Speechless through and through.
I may not always agree with him, and sometimes he makes it so easy to disregard him with his outdated views. He trusts the US government completely, but not young people. He gets behind the word “democracy,” but not Wes’s passion for carrying his sign. It’s like he wants so badly for the world to be black and white when it’s not. It’s not even shades of gray. It’s every color in the world: all the beautiful ones, the grotesque ones, and everything in between.
I have to remind myself that my dad hasn’t had it easy. His own mother refused to talk to him after he married Mom. And then she died within a year. And even though I can see his chest puff up every time he brings up his wars, I’ve never really asked him about what that experience was actually like. He did get shot, for God’s sake.
And I know he loves us. I knew it when I was five and he saved my favorite pig from slaughter even though he had told me time and again not to get attached. I knew it when he made sure to buy Wes not just the toy soldiers but the exact ones he asked for, even though he had to drive to another town fifty miles away. And then when he taught all three of us how to drive with an astounding amount of patience, especially in light of Mark’s propensity for hitting our mailbox every other time he parked.
Today, when he came at me, he expected it to be like all his other histrionics and, surely, he thought he was in the right since I had blatantly broken the rules. He never expected me to talk back. Never expected me to say that.
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