Summer People, page 9
“Wow,” Rory said, appropriately awed. He got off his bike and looked ahead. “This place is amazing.”
“It’s nice, right?” Christmas said, smiling, pleased he was impressed.
They approached the moss-covered bridge and Rory remarked, “I mean, pretty perfect spot for a picnic, wouldn’t you say?”
“It is,” Christmas conceded. “Let’s keep going. It’s even nicer on the other side.”
Together, they climbed to the apex of the bridge, gnats and mosquitoes swirling around their heads and the brook roaring below their feet. Rory snapped photos on his phone. “Everything is just so green,” he said. “It’s really, really green. Hey, do you mind if I take a photo of you?” he asked.
Christmas laughed and struck a pose, head to one side, tongue out. Then she took out her own phone and said, “Let’s take an ussie.” She leaned her head close to his for the picture. He smelled good, like laundry soap and boy’s deodorant.
“Nice,” she said, looking at the photo. “I look like a dork, but that’s to be expected.”
“Please,” Rory said. He laughed. “You look . . . you know. Good, I guess?”
“Wow,” Christmas joked. “I may never get over that compliment.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t want to . . . freak you out. Like, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere . . .”
“Ha,” Christmas said. “If you keep insulting me, I’ll abandon you and you’ll probably never find your way back to civilization.”
“It’s true. This could turn into a Deliverance-type situation.”
“What’s that?” Christmas asked.
“You know, that old movie.” Rory sang, “Der der der der der” and Christmas found the tune vaguely familiar, but she shook her head to show she didn’t recognize it. “Some guys get lost in the woods and then like, these white-trash guys . . .” Rory looked around, as though he might find the rest of his sentence in the trees above them. “I guess they . . . sexually assault them? Now that I say it out loud, I suppose that’s not, like, a cool reference to make. Sorry.”
“Yeah,” Christmas agreed. “Inappropriate on a couple of levels?” she said, raising her eyebrows ironically and laughing.
They continued across the bridge, to another stone structure, the crumbling remains of a barn or small house, another staging area for Christmas and Lexi’s dramas when they were younger. It looked so small—and unmagical—to Christmas now.
She sat on one of the low stone walls, missing Lexi.
“This place is definitely cooler than I thought it would be,” Rory said, shrugging off the backpack and sitting beside her. “I like these ancient ruins. This is like an archaeology field trip. Do you know all the secret spots around here?”
“I know a lot of them,” Christmas said, happy for the distraction. “But this is probably the best one. It’s all downhill from here. I mean, next time I might just take you by the Quartz Walmart.”
“Now that could be a sociology field trip!” Rory laughed. He unzipped his backpack. “So, are you hungry?”
“I am,” Christmas said. She hadn’t eaten her peanut butter sandwich at lunch and was suddenly starving. “What did you bring?”
He placed two metal water bottles on the ground and peered into the bag. “Chocolate chip cookies,” he said. “But don’t get too excited. They’re vegan. And bagels, what we call Megan-style in my house: cream cheese, sprouts, cucumber, and avocado. My sister, Megan, moved to California and now she acts like she invented the avocado. Anyway. I brought a plain one in case you hated sprouts or something.”
Christmas internally rolled her eyes at the vegan cookies, but said, “That sounds great. Are you vegan?”
“No,” he answered. “But we are vegetarian. And the cookies have loads and loads of sugar, so it’s not like they’re healthy or anything.”
Christmas laughed. “I could never be a vegetarian.”
Rory handed her a bagel.
“Sure you could,” he replied. “You just don’t want to be a vegetarian. There’s a difference.”
“True,” Christmas said, slapping at a mosquito buzzing around her neck. “But I don’t know. I might die of missing cheeseburgers.”
“Impossible meat—you know, that plant-based stuff? It’s actually pretty good,” Rory said.
“Are you trying to convert me?”
“No. If I was trying to convert you, I’d start talking about the abysmal, inhumane, and disgusting conditions at most CAFOs as well as their abysmal, inhumane, and disgusting far-reaching effects, but no. I’m just saying that most of my carnivore friends have told me that they can’t tell the difference between plant-based meat and cow-based meat. You should try it sometime.”
“I would, I guess, but as far as I know, that stuff hasn’t made it here yet,” Christmas said. She unwrapped her bagel. “At least I haven’t seen it in the market.”
“Tell me about it. This place . . . it’s sort of like going back in time, isn’t it?”
Christmas didn’t respond right away. She took a bite of her bagel to give herself a moment to think. His remark was so close to Lexi’s complaint that she immediately felt a bit defensive; it was like having somebody poke your bruise.
“The farmers’ market has great meat,” Christmas said after she’d swallowed, trying to turn the conversation to the town’s advantage. “You know, fresh, local, humane. The cows at Cunningham’s, for example. They couldn’t ask for a better life. They hang out, munching grass all day, enjoying their beautiful view of the lake.”
“They are pretty picturesque,” Rory conceded. “I guess if I was gonna eat meat, I’d want to eat one of those Cunningham cows.”
“This bagel is amazing, by the way,” Christmas said, honestly. “Where in California does your sister live?”
“San Francisco. Have you ever been there?”
“No,” Christmas said, shaking her head. “I’ve never been anywhere. I mean, we go to the city sometimes, but I’ve never even been on a plane.”
“Really?” Rory seemed genuinely surprised.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just . . . you just seem so . . .” He shook his head.
She shook her head back at him and widened her eyes, waiting for him to continue.
“No offense, but you’re . . . really normal? Like, you would totally fit in down in Brooklyn, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Christmas said, her response coming out a little more snappish than she’d intended. “It’s not like we’re another species up here.” She suddenly understood his comment about the “sociology field trip,” and she felt her mouth turning down at the corners.
“I guess I’m not very good at this,” Rory said. He looked at Christmas with concern. “I only meant that I think you are a cool person and I guess I was sort surprised.”
“Uh-huh,” Christmas said, nodding with fake agreement. “Is this like, ‘you’re not like these other girls’? I’m supposed to be flattered that I don’t conform to the stereotype of the upstate hick?”
“No, that’s not what I . . .” Rory began. He grimaced and then tried again, as though he couldn’t help himself. “But don’t you think—I mean, I’m probably digging myself in deeper here—but don’t you think the people here are a little backward? Not you, obviously, and I’m sure there are other people like you, too, but a lot of people—”
Christmas scoffed. “Now I really am offended.”
“This is coming out wrong. You really don’t know what I’m talking about?” he asked plaintively.
Christmas took a deep breath. Of course she knew what he was talking about. Lemy—one of the more sophisticated people Christmas knew—was missing an incisor tooth and, when he wore his overalls and trucker cap, well, she had to concede he was leaning pretty hard into redneck-chic. Even her own dad, who literally bought his clothes at the hardware store and whose winter beard, she joked, often looked like a bird had skipped a birdhouse and nested there instead, could sometimes pass for an extra for a Netflix drama about the meth epidemic.
“I know that we don’t dress and talk and act the same way as people in Brooklyn do,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But that’s the point. People can be themselves here.” She took a breath, thinking of her parents, of the way they valued their privacy, of her father’s crazy birdhouses and the fact that he would only sell them on the “honor system”—a locked wooden box in which buyers could insert cash—because he never wanted to have to interact with strangers. She thought of the guy who had a ten-foot wooden sculpture of a Bugs Bunny-esque creature on his front lawn, of the Lopezes, who had painted their house fluorescent pink, and of Shelley, who kept peacocks. The idea that they could all be explained, dismissed as “hicks,” that people like Rory assumed they already knew everything about them without knowing anything at all—it made her heart pound and she felt, again, the sting of injustice, of being misunderstood, misrepresented. “People from downstate come up for one weekend and they think they’ve got it figured out. And if we’re so terrible, why is it that all the Brooklyn people buy everything they can, driving up prices to the point that regular folks can’t even afford the rents? And what is it these summer people are trying to escape from anyway? I’ve never wanted to escape where I live, because where I live isn’t terrible and competitive and mean and stressful.”
Her final words echoed back in her ears, and she thought again of her argument with Lexi, and the reality that while she did not want to escape Sweet Lake, it was possible that in her desire to defend it, she willfully overlooked some of its shortcomings. And aware, too, that she sounded provincial and defensive, the wave of rage crested and transformed, retreating and leaving behind only regret and sadness. Her eyes filled with hot tears.
“Oh my God,” Rory said. He put a hand gently on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I feel so bad. Please, please don’t cry.”
“It’s okay,” Christmas sobbed, feeling acutely absurd. “It’s not just you. I feel like an idiot for crying. I’m just sick of everyone—you and my friend Lexi and really, everyone—looking down on us. And what happened with Lemy—” Here she dissolved completely, unable to finish the sentence.
Rory took her bagel from her hand placed both of their dinners, carefully, still in their waxed paper, on the ground. Then he turned back to her put a tentative arm around her shoulder. “Maybe you should let it all out?”
And leaning into him, she did. She let herself cry, hard and loud, as he held her.
18
When Christmas was calm enough to talk again, she apologized for making Rory witness her nervous breakdown, and then they sat for a long while, listening to the birds and the wind through the trees and the croaking frogs. Even though Christmas thought she should probably feel embarrassed for having cried in front of Rory, she didn’t, and when they began to talk again, it was easy, and their conversation ranged over all sorts of subjects: the city, and video games they liked, and whether or not fishing was ethical. She felt like she could have gone on talking to him all night, but sighing, she realized that they should start heading back. “It gets dark quickly,” she explained, thinking of how the sun dove down behind the mountains without much warning. “Do you have anything reflective on your bike?”
“I do,” Rory said. He rose and began to repack the bag and the two headed toward the bridge and their bikes.
They didn’t talk much as they cycled home, mostly because they were focused intently on the same goal: getting off the unlit country roads before it became fully dark. As they crested a final hill, they could see the lake in the near distance and Christmas felt a bit relieved, knowing they’d be okay.
Christmas planned to deliver Rory to his house and then stop at the Hansens’. Her parents wouldn’t be worried; they probably thought she was with Lexi anyway, but she’d call them to check in once she had a signal.
Just as she thought about her phone, it vibrated. They’d been in a dead zone and now they weren’t. Hoping it was Lexi, she steered with one hand as she picked the phone up out of the basket on the front of the bike. But it wasn’t Lexi; it was a text from Curly. Skimming it, Christmas could see that he was thanking her for what she’d done and asking her to come by the house that evening. She dropped the phone back in the basket, promising herself to think more about that later.
The route they were on would take them past Cunningham’s Farm, and Christmas was poised to point out the happy cows to Rory, but as they approached, the bright, rotating red-and-blue lights of a police car burned into Christmas’s eyes, making it almost impossible to see. Closer, Christmas saw there were several people and trucks—and the police car—parked at the pasture nearest the lake.
“What’s going on?” Rory asked.
Christmas shook her head. Did it have something to do with Lemy? But Lemy had been in the lake in front of the adjacent woods, not in the pasture. Christmas saw Ben and Officer Schaefer walking carefully alongside Mr. Cunningham.
Christmas and Rory biked up to the perimeter fence and stopped. In the waning light, Christmas could see that though some cows stood in clusters around the pasture, many others were down on the ground, lying on their sides, a position that looked strange and unnatural.
“I think there’s something wrong,” Christmas said, and as the words left her lips, a cow close to the fence collapsed and began convulsing, its legs straightening and jutting in spasms. The poor creature made a groaning noise and white foam began to leak from its open mouth. The cow’s eyes were large, brown, and rolling frantically. Christmas looked at Rory, whose own eyes were wide with shock.
“We should get out of here,” Rory said, but Mrs. Cunningham, a frumpy woman who stood apart from the various groups clustered in the pasture, spotted them and walked over, wringing her hands. Though Christmas barely knew Mrs. Cunningham, she could sense the woman was looking for someone, anyone, to talk to.
Mrs. Cunningham wiped at her eyes. “They’re dying,” she called as she approached. “They’ve been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” Christmas asked. “That can’t be . . .”
“Almost all of them, the past two hours.” Mrs. Cunningham swept an arm out to indicate the scene before them. “They just started dropping, getting sick. We called Greg—the vet from Grantsboro—and he came over right away, but there’s nothing he can do. He said they’ve been poisoned.” Christmas looked out at the field, where she saw a lean man squatting down, ministering to a cow on the ground.
“Oh my God,” Christmas said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Who would do a thing like this?” Mrs. Cunningham wailed. Christmas noticed, over Mrs. Cunningham’s shoulder, two little boys in matching Minecraft pajamas watching from the Cunninghams’ front porch. They were the Cunninghams’ grandsons, who lived with the Cunninghams because both of their parents were incarcerated for drug-related charges. Pills and meth. It wasn’t uncommon. The taller of the two kids waved. This was Jared; he was six or seven and one of Christmas’s campers. Christmas waved back.
Suddenly, Mr. Cunningham, who must have just noticed who his wife was talking to, came barreling toward them, shouting at his wife to be quiet.
“Goddammit, Renee,” he said. “Goddammit.”
Christmas instinctually took a step back, wheeling her bike with her, and Rory did too.
“Get the hell out of here,” he yelled at Christmas and Rory. “Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Christmas could see Rory shaking his head out of the corner of her eye. “We were just biking past . . .”
“Gonna see if you can resuscitate the cows, little girl?” Mr. Cunningham bellowed nastily. “Get the hell out of here. Pain in the ass—stirring up trouble—you’re the one who has the cops all over me!”
Christmas parted her lips to protest, but the old man continued. “This is your fault. And you better tell your friend Curly to watch his back. Messing with my cows. You don’t mess with my goddamn cows.”
“I didn’t . . .” Christmas tried. “I don’t . . .”
“Hey man!” Rory shouted. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Christmas laid a hand on Rory’s arm. “We better go,” she said.
Mr. Cunningham’s face was so red that Christmas was momentarily afraid he might have a heart attack and then she really would have to use her CPR again.
As they started to bike away, Mr. Cunningham continued to berate them, and Christmas was grateful they were separated by an electric fence.
They coasted the rest of the way down the hill, past the scene still unfolding across the pastures closest to the lake. Mercifully, the road jogged away from the lake, and they were soon out of sight of the farm.
“What the?” Rory said, catching up with Christmas. “I can’t believe he was so rude to you. What’s his problem?”
Christmas shook her head. Her breath was shallow, her heart was pounding. “Do you remember him? He’s the one—he used the . . . slur at the meeting. And I told the cops. I mean, they already knew, but I guess he thinks that I think . . . I don’t know.”
“Who’s Curly?”
“Lemy’s husband.”
They biked a little farther in silence and, too soon it seemed to Christmas, they were in front of Rory’s house. It was now fully dark, though scattered streetlights and houselights illuminated the road.
“Hey, want to come in?” Rory asked. The house, with its glowing windows, looked cozy and inviting. “You seem kinda upset. Have a glass of water? Or I can bike you back to your house?”
“I’ll be okay,” Christmas said, trying to shake off the horrible feeling of being hated by someone. It wasn’t easy. “I’m actually going to stop over at Curly’s now. He texted me while we were out. And I guess I should tell him about what Mr. Cunningham said.”
“Honestly, I think you should tell the police. The fact that that guy was threatening someone whose husband is already in the hospital is pretty messed up,” Rory said.
