Читать книгу River of Love - Aimée Medina Carr - Страница 20

We can’t wait to tell our friends about the cute guys at the private school on the edge of town. Scarlett and Sadie Morgan moved here over the summer. They’re chic hippies with long, straight hair, stylish bell-bottom patched jeans with aromatic patchouli peasant shirts. Scarlett ties a thin, leather strap as a headband against her long, flowing cornsilk hair.

They bump into me between classes by the locker bays. “Where did you disappear to after school yesterday?” Sadie asks.

“Oh-lah, it was so trippy! We went to The River to check out this magical party place our friends from Sacred Heart School discovered.” The twins look at each other puzzled and turn to go to class. I spur-of-the-moment blurt, “Hey, wanna check it out? We can catch a ride after school. Scarlett can bring her guitar; we’ll make a fire, sing songs and get stoned.” I offer.

“Wow, that sounds fun, let’s meet in the front parking lot,” Scarlett says, her moss green eyes widen with excitement.

“Cool, I’ll arrange a ride.” I amble to my next class and realize I broke the promise to Jack to keep The River secret. Ky Kerry’s an old trusted friend whose jovial and robust hardiness and pickup get him invited. I scribble a note to him in third-period Semantics class:

Bro,

Wanna get high after school—need to bum a ride for me and the Morgan twins, I’ll take us to a beautiful River hideaway. Do me a solid, por favor.

He sits in front of me. I poke him and hand the note under the desk. Ky writes on the note:

If it’s primo weed and I can score a couple of bucks for gas for the GMC. Ass, gas or grass, nobody rides for free.

He reaches under the desk and hands it back to me.

We wait for the Morgan twins who are fresh new faces. Ky has a gleam in his eye. He’s known me since second grade; I’m like a pesky, little sister to him. He’s Irish/Italian; handsome with long, red auburn hair, burly with bearish muscles, lumpy arms, and big, doughy hands. A cherub in a Hulk body with sunshine in his pockets.

“Kinda stoked to meet these new, hot chicks, huh?” I tease. He grabs me to dole out noogies when his thick index finger accidentally, pokes me in the eye.

“Yeow! Don’t blind me, crazy Ky!” I scream. He drapes his thick arm over my shoulder. Scarlett and Sadie rush up with the guitar and backpacks. We were too distracted to notice the Sacred Heart School van driving by.

Fernando Fernandez is sitting in the passenger seat of the van, “Mira! Mira! Mira! Oh, holy shit, some guy’s hanging all over Jack’s girlfriend!” He shouts while jumping up and down in the seat. The van’s full of scared freshman clueless to why the Mexican dude is so frantic.

We pile into Ky’s blue, 1968, GMC pickup, and tool down the road. He parks at the dead-end entrance of The River. Scarlett lugs the guitar and follows me down the path thick with bushes and reeds. “Geeze, you need a machete to get through here,” she whined.

I’m anxious Jack and Caleb might appear but relieved to find Oliver alone at The River. He lounges by a cozy fire basking in the mellow, fall day. He excitedly runs up to us, “Hey, what a surprise. How did you know about this place?” I explain Jack and Caleb brought Cha Cha and me, swearing us to secrecy.

“So much for that!” I roll my eyes.

“No worries, the more Merry Pranksters, the better, let’s get loaded.” He cheered.

“You know the rap: ‘No pigs, no parents, no priests, and no hassles!” His high-pitched giggle echoes through the campsite.

Sadie pulled out a thick, fat joint. Morgan sisters come from a large bohemian, hippie family. Their mother is a free-spirited, gypsy divorcée. The fraternal twin girls are inseparable with different personalities. Scarlett’s a petite, lively extrovert full of zing, a flaxen-haired mini Joni Mitchell. Sadie’s thin, coltish, with long, thick chestnut brown hair, a sweet shy introvert. Both have magnificent moon-shaped eyes—Scarlett’s green, Sadie’s blue.

They’re priestess of music that play guitar, piano, sing, and harmonize beautifully. Their presence at The River was as natural as the deer and stunning as the sparkling sacred cottonwoods growing along the banks.

Oliver fires up the joint, “Please play; it’s so far out to have music in this blissful haven.” Glee lights up his bird-like eyes. “I was so bummed out before you showed up. I suffer such a rash of shit from the jocks and stomps at my school. I come to The River to purge the negativity and replace it with pure Love.” He tilts his head, closes his eyes and smiles.

Oliver stretches out his legs and pops his knuckles. “I came from a lesson in Headmaster Rio’s Psychology class about how our negative and critical thoughts stick like Velcro; where the positive and joyful thoughts are like Teflon and slide away. We have to deliberately choose to hold onto positive thoughts and memories for at least fifteen seconds before they ‘imprint’ and store in our memory banks. Isn’t that the coolest?” He bobs his head with an impish smile. We stare at him in stoned astonishment.

Sadie pulls out the guitar, tunes it and the sister’s warm up their voices. They sing, Go with The Snow, an original song older sister Eve wrote after the death of their grandmother. A harmonious closeness permeates the group.

Everything’s moving in slow motion; I’m paralyzed, until wait… I’m just stoned. Oliver leers at Ky—looking super butch in his green plaid, flannel shirt, and faded patched blue jeans. Ky’s giant boy face with glacier blue eyes sweet with intent and gaiety. Oliver’s burning gaze alerts Ky that he’s hot for some Italian Papa.

Ky leans toward the singers and reels us back to earth.

“Hey, it’s almost dark—hate to be a buzzkill, but Rosie and I have a pain-in-the-ass Semantics test tomorrow. Time to vamoose.” He cocks his head toward the path to the truck. Our squinty, bloodshot eyes blink us back to reality.

Later that night Jack calls, his voice is hesitant and halting with a cold, stilted quality.

“What’s wrong?” I immediately ask.

“Someone told me while riding in the Sacred Heart School van this afternoon, they drove by the high school and saw you making out with a hippie guy.”

“Oh, Jack, are you serious? Ky Kerry’s an old grade school friend; we were waiting for the Morgan twins to take them to The River. He poked me in the eye while we were horsing around. Who made up such a blatant lie and why would you believe it?”

Coldness melting, he said, “I didn’t say I believed it, just inquiring.” His voice trails off.

“Whoever told you this, is not a friend. It might’ve looked like we were hugging from a distance. We left right after with the twins. Oliver met the girls, they sang songs and we had a blast.” It angered me that such an innocent act got misinterpreted. One of Fernando Fernandez minions had reported the incident to Jack.

Go with the Snow

go with the snow

go with our Love

look at the sky

the white snow dove

think of the time

and the songs to be sung

in the cold of the winter

in the heat of the sun

fly with your soul

and take you some lovin’

it’ll keep you as warm

as that old bakin’ oven

think of the forest

the wind in the trees

just as sweet as you imagine

as kind as you please

Think of joy—joy

Think of joy—joy

–Eve Morgan