Summer Days and Summer Nights (18 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys,” he announced, “I'll need you to board this car one at a time. Politely. Not like the jerks that you actually are.”

The crowd laughed again as they queued into a single-file line. Marigold hesitated near the back, hiding between two bikers with thick arms and wizard beards. Trying to be invisible. Trying to
think
. She'd thought it would have been easy enough to get him alone, but she hadn't expected to find him … doing a routine? Was that what this was?

A ranger in khaki hurried past, signaling something to North. He nodded, the middle-aged woman took his place, and he jogged off toward the park office.

Marigold watched anxiously as he disappeared into the log-and-stone building. The line moved forward as passengers continued to board. Would he return? Should she wait out here? She couldn't see him through the office's windows.

“Come on, sweetheart. You're up.”

Marigold looked back, agitated, to find the ranger signaling for her to board. “Um.” It came out as a stammer. “Uh…”

The ranger's hand gestures grew more impatient.

“Is he—is that guy coming back?”

The woman nodded brusquely. “He's on his way right now.”

Marigold glanced over her shoulder to find North striding toward them, halfway across the main platform. Like a startled rabbit, she shot up and into the car. It wasn't flat, like a cable car on the street. It was built to match the mountain's natural incline, and the wooden benches faced backward—toward the view. The front of the car, the best seats, were already taken, so she hustled down the sloping aisle and onto a middle bench. It was as far away from the back—where North would be standing—as she could get.

“Thank you, Kathy.” His voice clicked on over the intercom, and Marigold heard him shut the door. “I'll take it again from here.”

She could have at least
waved
to show him she was here. Why had her first instinct been to run? Marigold sank into her seat, flaming with regret. The car smelled like body odor and old machinery. Its windows were closed and revealed traces of rain earlier in the day. The atmosphere felt stuffy. Claustrophobic. It was too late, that was the worst part. At some point—some point very soon—North would discover her, and for the rest of his life, she'd be a silly anecdote he'd tell to friends and future girlfriends.

“Greetings, good afternoon, and welcome to Mount Mitchell State Park,” he said. “Because you're all lazy, you've chosen to sit your way to the summit, when you could have easily walked it instead.”

As the other passengers groaned with good nature, Marigold heard him pressing buttons and flipping a switch. The small car lumbered into motion.

“Out the front window, you'll find spectacular views of the Black Mountain range—part of the larger Blue Ridge range, part of the even larger Appalachian range—and out the
side
windows, you'll find that we're rising at a near-horizontal incline. I cannot stress this fact enough: It truly isn't a difficult hike. Denali, the tallest mountain
west
of the Mississippi, has an elevation of 20,310 feet. We're headed up to 6,684 feet. This funicular should not exist. Unfortunately, it does, so we're stuck here together for the next nine minutes.”

More laughter and guffaws. The travel-fatigued parents seemed relieved to have someone else entertaining their children, if only for this fleeting respite. But Marigold felt surrounded by his voice. Cornered by it. Beside her, a couple in their late twenties with ironic hobo hairstyles was snapping carefree, square-shaped selfies. She hunkered down even lower and peered through the slats on the back of their bench.

North had one hiking boot–clad foot propped up on a metal box. His left hand held the intercom, while his right hand rested on his thigh. It was an oddly masculine pose for someone so casually flashing his bare knees and calves in such absurd blue shorts. “The first rails were laid over a century ago, and they've only undergone minimal repairs since. But have no fear; this antique rattletrap breadbox is safe and sound.” He pounded on a wall for emphasis. It was not a sturdy noise.

The rickety car joggled and clattered, beneath and around her, but nothing else was matching up to her childhood memories. It was true that the mountain didn't seem very steep, and she also didn't remember the operator delivering such a gimmicky spiel. He sounded like a skipper on the Jungle Cruise at Disney World.

“I'm delighted to say that it's been almost three weeks since my last derailment,” North continued, “and I only lost half of my passengers.”

Marigold marveled at his propped-up leg. They'd dated in colder weather,
pants
weather, so she'd never seen his legs outside in broad daylight. They were tan and muscular and hairy. She would've guessed that hairy legs might be kind of gross, but they weren't. They were manly.

Everything about North made him seem older than his age. It wasn't just his voice or his legs. He was tall and broad—
brawny
was the word that most frequently came to mind—from years of hard farm labor. He listened to NPR and had dreams of becoming a radio broadcaster. His vocabulary was considerable, and he'd consciously dropped his rural accent at a young age. He could also be a bit grumpy and curmudgeonly, though with a tenderness and thoughtfulness to his actual actions that she found rather charming. Marigold used to joke that he was born to be someone's grandfather.

The hipsters beside her had stopped Instagramming. Conscious of their wary side-eyes, Marigold whipped her head forward again, wincing with embarrassment. She slid back up, slowly, into an almost normal sitting position. As if there weren't anything suspicious about her behavior. As if she weren't being a total creep.

“Each car was christened upon the funicular's launch,” North said, and Marigold heard a twinge of genuine distraction in his voice. Not the sort that meant he'd spotted her, but the sort that meant his mind was elsewhere. He was working on autopilot. “The first car was named
Elisha
after the Reverend Elisha Mitchell, the scientist who proved that this mountain was the tallest in Appalachia. At the time, Dr. Mitchell's claim was hotly contested, and tragically, he died on an expedition while trying to verify his original measurements. He fell from a nearby waterfall. Later, both the mountain and the waterfall were named after him, and his tomb was moved to the summit.” A
thunk
indicated North's foot landing back on the floor. “Now. Did anyone catch the name of the second car—this car—as you were boarding?”

“Maria!” a man called out.

“Careful, sir. No one likes a show-off.” After pausing for the inevitable laughter, North continued. “But you're correct. This car was named after Dr. Mitchell's wid—”

He stopped. Midword.

The hair rose on the nape of Marigold's neck. She felt him staring at her, staring
through
her, and the sensation was tense and electric and charged. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing him to continue. He didn't.

The other passengers shifted on their benches to see what was happening. North's silence was deafening. Her entire body burned as she removed her sunglasses. Suddenly, the mountainside car seemed precarious. She turned, dizzily, to face him.

North stared at her for several long seconds. His expression remained flat. Unyielding.

She grimaced and held up a hand, just barely, in acknowledgment.

He held her gaze for one last, pointed second. Blinked. And then turned away with a blithe smile for his audience. “His widow, Maria. The one left behind.”

There was a collective exhale as everyone settled back into their seats. North didn't miss another beat, and Marigold knew he wouldn't deign to look at her again. She angled herself toward the closest window, ignoring the stares of the more curious passengers. North was her friend. She was here to
help
him. Why was this all so shameful and humiliating?

Since moving away, she must have accidentally said or done something awful to him, but she was flummoxed as to what this transgression might be. North was still talking. Her head buzzed, and her bra was lined with sweat. She wished she could crack open a window. The railway split into two sets of tracks, and they passed the other car—jokes were exchanged and hands were waved and bells were rung—and then the two tracks merged back into one. The ride was only half over. It was agonizing.

When they finally reached the top, she lingered behind while everyone else exited. Several people expressed their gratitude to North. “Save your thanks for the return trip,” he replied with faux merriment. “There's still plenty of time to be mauled by a black bear.”

The passengers had all disembarked.

For a surreal moment, Marigold thought he'd actually forgotten about her. But then she heard him jump back onto the car's platform. His movements sounded heavier, not like the easy swing she'd seen earlier. He reentered the car, held out a hand toward the new line preparing to board—a signal for them to wait—and then closed the door.

Marigold stood.

North stared at her with that same guarded expression. “I only have a second.”

“I know.”

“Are you here to see me?”

“Of course I'm here to see you.” Marigold moved toward him, up the sloping aisle. “I wanted to talk.”

“No.”

She stopped. Her heart stuttered. “No?”

North glanced away. “I meant … my break isn't for another ninety minutes. And there's a line of tourists out there dying to hear my tremendous farewell speech.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. Of course.”

They were staring at each other again. A lump rose in Marigold's throat. She remembered herself, forcibly, and hurried to the door. She waited for North to open it. He didn't. She glanced at him, hurt and unsure—
Am I supposed to do it?
—and that was the moment his hard expression crumbled and his warm eyes filled with remorse.

“You'll wait for me?” he asked. “You have the time to wait? I'm sorry. There's no one else here right now who could take my place.”

The lump returned. “I can wait.”

North reached for the door, but then, in an afterthought, kicked open the metal box near his feet, grabbed an object from inside it, and thrust it into her hands. “Here. To keep you occupied.” But then he frowned as if he'd said something idiotic. “Meet you in front of the museum at four o'clock?”

Marigold clutched the object to her chest and nodded.

*   *   *

It was a sandwich. To keep her occupied, North had given her a vegetarian BLT with avocado and imitation B.

This was interesting for four reasons: One, he'd been flustered enough to misspeak. North rarely got flustered and even more rarely misspoke. Two, he'd given her a part of his own lunch. He must not
completely
hate her. Three, he'd forgotten about her lifelong aversion to the texture of raw tomatoes. This was disappointing to an extent that made Marigold feel uncomfortable. And four, he might be a vegetarian now. North had always wanted to be a vegetarian, but he'd needed the more complete proteins found in meat to do his farmwork without getting tired. Surely it took less energy to do this new job.

Marigold sighed as she rewrapped the sandwich. Her mother would be thrilled. She was the owner of a popular vegan restaurant in downtown Asheville, and she already believed that North hung the moon. This would cement it. Marigold wasn't a vegan or a vegetarian—she loved meat, probably because she'd always been denied it—but she was understanding toward those who were. Still, the tempeh bacon made her sad. It represented another change in North's life that she hadn't known about.

She watched the
Maria
clank its way down below her line of sight. At least the temperature was several degrees cooler up here. The accompanying breeze was a solace as she approached a cluster of old-looking buildings: restrooms, the museum, a concessions stand, and a gift shop. A wide pathway—asphalt imprinted to look like stone—ran behind them, winding its way up toward what could only be the summit. Marigold had a lot of time to kill, so she checked out each building, starting with the women's restroom. It had been a long drive.

After taking care of that, she wandered over to the concessions stand, which she found typically Southern in flavor. There were bottles of water and Gatorade, cans of soda, granola bars, candy bars, and those orange-colored peanut butter crackers. But they were also selling mason jars filled with apple butter, chow chow, pickled okra, and blackstrap molasses, and they had an entire shelf of fruit cider—strawberry, peach, muscadine, and scuppernong.

Marigold hadn't eaten since breakfast, over eight hours ago. North had guessed correctly; she was famished. She bought a package of trail mix and wolfed it down. She stared at North's sandwich. Then she removed the tomatoes and ate it, too. It tasted better than the trail mix.

Next up was the museum, which turned out to be one dimly lit room. Its displays explained the park's flora, fauna, geology, and topography. Marigold read each sign dutifully, but without the focus to comprehend any of their sentences, until she reached the corner dedicated to Dr. Elisha Mitchell. A single word jumped out, and her heart staggered.

North.
His wife, Maria's maiden name had been North.

It was a coincidence. A first name versus a surname, and North had been named after—of all the hideous things—the North Pole. His seasonally passionate parents had also named his older brother Nicholas and his sister, Noelle. It was worse than her own mother naming her Marigold Moon. But Drummond Family Trees had been growing and selling Christmas trees for two generations, and they were aiming to extend it into a third. When North's father had been diagnosed with Parkinson's, the pressure had been put onto Nick, who'd run away in response. Noelle wanted the farm, but their parents had misguidedly offered it to North instead, because he was male. Then she'd run away, too. North didn't want it, but he was all they had left. His parents weren't cruel. However, they'd made an ugly mistake, and now North was the one paying for it. Except … maybe he wasn't anymore?