Summer Days and Summer Nights (19 page)

Maria S. North.

It meant nothing. But it felt like something. The word
north
always felt like something. Marigold wondered when that would stop, when the stilted female voice on Google Maps wouldn't crush her spirit every time it told her to turn north onto the interstate.

This is why you're here,
she reminded herself.
To stop this sadness and guilt.

Still, Marigold left the museum and hurried into the gift shop next door. A carved wooden bear with a
WELCOME
sign greeted her at its threshold. The smell of Christmas grew stronger, to the point of being overpowering.

Does this mean Christmas is ruined forever, too?

The shop was also one room, and a self-inflicted browse revealed the usual trinkets—souvenir postcards, magnets, pins, books, puzzles, T-shirts, and sweatshirts, all featuring the mountain or the Blue Ridge Parkway. A girl about her age stood behind the counter in a powder-blue polo and matching powder-blue pants. In an organized row in front of her register were a dozen tiny brown bottles with eyedroppers. Marigold picked one up. Pure balsam fir oil.

“It's what you're smelling right now,” the girl explained.

“Mmm, it's nice.” But as the lie tumbled from her lips, it evolved into the truth. Marigold wanted one of these tiny bottles. She
needed
one.

She bought one.

Outside the spell of the shop, her regret was instantaneous. She'd already spent too much on the funicular and the trail mix, not to mention the gas it took to drive here. But she was too embarrassed to return it. She'd just have to replace a few more meals next week with ramen. Marigold was already eating a lot of ramen. She had two jobs in Atlanta: an internship at an animation studio, which was what she hoped to be paid for doing some day, and a serving gig at an Outback Steakhouse. That was where the rest of her meals came from—the cheapest menu items, purchased with her employee discount. Sometimes her grandparents, who ran a popular Chinese restaurant in nearby Decatur, would leave food on her doorstep while she was at work. It always made her cry.

Marigold checked her phone and was dismayed to see only forty-five minutes had passed. The screen showed two bars on a 1x signal—it might as well be dead—so she couldn't even call her mom or go online. Her eyes rested on the funicular tracks as another green car crested the mountain. After some quick math, she realized it wasn't North. His car was at the bottom.

She shivered and rubbed her bare arms. Now that her body had cooled, the air seemed chilly and autumnal. Most of the park's visitors were wearing pants or jackets, as if they'd known—duh—they'd be going on top of a mountain today.

To be fair, I did
not
know I'd be going on top of a mountain today.

The only thing remaining was the summit itself, so Marigold trudged onto the pathway. It was even colder under the trees, but it was also more tranquil. The air tasted clean and newly born, and as she brought it deeper into her lungs, she discovered she'd been holding her breath. But here there was lichen-covered bark and moss-covered logs, pinky-purple wildflowers and spiky-soft bee balm, and even a chirping bird with fluffy blue feathers. It wouldn't have looked out of place on Snow White's finger.

A spotted dog in a bandana bounded past, followed by an older woman with a large backpack and walking sticks that looked like ski poles. It was the first actual hiker that Marigold had seen here. But the closer she got to the summit, the more crowded it was. The shelter of the trees disappeared, and the peaceful nature sounds grew into clamorous playground noises. Children laughed and cried and screamed with the freedom of summer vacation. A peculiar stone structure emerged. It resembled a stumpy castle tower, and it was packed with tourists.

Marigold wove through the throng, across a bridge, and around the packed observation deck. The 360-degree view was undeniably beautiful—if she were in a happy mental space, she might describe it as stunning, or even breathtaking—but she wasn't in a happy mental space. The wind whistled and nipped at her exposed skin, so she left after only a minute. She ducked beneath the bridge. Leaning against one of its concrete pillars, she slid down into the dirt. The gravel sparkled with flecks of mica, and the patches of grass were spotted with yellow dandelion flowers. Marigold hugged her knees against her chest.

It's not so bad,
she told herself.

Ahead of her were rolling ridges and mountain ranges cloaked in mist. Below her, the twin cars of the funicular rose and fell. And behind her, inside the ground, was Dr. Elisha Mitchell. His tomb didn't look like much—a pile of flat rocks inside a rectangular wall made out of similar rocks—but she knew what it was, because people kept asking what it was and then reading the plaque out loud.

Marigold redid the calculations. North's car would make one more full trip before she saw him again. She rifled through her purse, searching for paper and a distraction, but could only find the receipt for the balsam oil. Slowly, perhaps unconsciously, she drew her favorite character onto the back of it, a cantankerous but lovable sloth named South.

South was North, of course. But … he actually
was
.

North had recorded the voice of the character. Marigold made comedic animated short films for YouTube, but she wanted to make them for television. It's why she had moved; Atlanta was home to several animation studios. She'd been fortunate—and talented enough—to score the internship, even though the grunt work often sucked. She trusted it would get better.

A boy with dirt on his nose appeared behind her. “I can see my echo.”

Marigold wasn't in the mood, but she smiled anyway to be polite. “Oh, yeah?”

“Watch this.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Mountain, mountain, mountain, mountain.”

She nodded.

“Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome.”

She smiled again, for real this time.

He pointed at her drawing. “Can I have that?”

“I'm sorry.” His mother, a harried-looking woman with stress between her brows and giant silver hoops in her ears, rushed up and grabbed his hand. “Emiliano Navarro Castellanos. What have I told you about bothering strangers?”

“It's okay. He's not bothering me.” Marigold added a marigold into the sloth's hands and then held out the drawing for Emiliano. “His name is South. He only eats orange flowers and heirloom tomatoes.”

Emiliano looked up at his mother. She nodded, and he eagerly accepted the drawing. “Thank you. Gracias!” His mother thanked her, too, but Emiliano was already skipping away and pulling her along with him.

Marigold felt inexplicably sad to see them go—a general, misdirected stirring of loneliness and fear. She didn't know how long she'd been staring at Dr. Mitchell's tomb when her heart compressed with a sudden and knowing panic. She checked her phone. And then she scrambled to her feet. Racing down the peak, she dodged strollers and a tour group in matching neon T-shirts. It was exactly four o'clock. Railways were punctual.
He
would be punctual. What if he left, thinking she'd changed her mind?

*   *   *

In the last ninety-three minutes, North's confidence had continued to spiral downward. His usual posture of self-assurance bordering upon arrogance had wilted into hunched shoulders and slack arms. As Marigold gasped and wheezed toward the museum, his back was to her, but she still registered the defeat in his body.

She slowed her pace. Her own confidence dared to grow.

His ears pricked up as if receiving some subtle signal, and he turned to face her. Shoulders pulling back. Chin rising.

Marigold stopped when she was still several feet shy. “Sorry I'm late. Thanks for waiting.” Her voice was a little breathless.

“You, too,” North said.

“And thanks for the sandwich.”

He winced.

“I'm serious, it was good. I was really hungry.”

“Sorry about the you-know-what. I didn't even think of it until you'd left.”

A smile broke through her cautious reserve. North
had
remembered. “So, was my interpretation correct?” she asked. “Are you officially a vegetarian?”

“Your mom would be proud.”

“She'd ask why you still eat dairy.”

North laughed unexpectedly. Her heart panged in response. He had a great laugh—funny and deep. “How's she doing, anyway?”

“Good. Pretty good, at least.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” he said. The sentiment was sincere. North and her mother got along well, which was remarkable because Marigold's mother didn't care for most men. Marigold's father had always been sort of awful, but they hadn't known how awful until a year and a half ago when his
other
wife had surprised them on their doorstep.

It was taking a while to get over those scars.

Her father had never been around much—his work in orthopedic sales kept him away for weeks at a time, he'd claimed—but her mother had been fine with that. She clung to her free-spirit identity to an extent that verged upon irony. And she'd never been his legal wife, only a partner. It was why Marigold shared her mother's Chinese surname and not her white father's Irish surname. Unfortunately, this was also why, when his actual wife showed up, they'd lost their house and most of their savings. Those things had never belonged to them, either.

North had played a huge role in getting their lives back on track. When she met him, Marigold and her mother had been living in a dirty, crowded apartment and were saving up for a new house. Not only had North cleaned and organized their apartment to make it livable, but he'd also helped them find the house. And then, when
that
space had required a ton of work, he'd driven his truck over every night for the three weeks before their move-in date to paint the drab walls, fix the leaky plumbing, rip up the musty carpeting, refinish the damaged hardwood, and carry in the heavy furniture. And he'd done it the whole time knowing that as soon as her mother was settled, Marigold would leave. It wasn't what he'd wanted. North had helped because it was what her family had needed.

This was the debt that felt like it could never be repaid.
This
was why she was here.

It was why they understood each other, too. Marigold respected North's sense of duty to his family. She never would've left home if she felt that her mother wasn't stable enough to be alone. But Marigold also knew it was important to carve out your own life—something her mother had always encouraged, even when things were rough—and she was worried that North had given up trying.

The confident edge returned to his voice. “I have a tip.”

Marigold arched an eyebrow.

“The next time you attempt to spy on someone who knows you, wear a hat.” North pointed at her braid. “It's a dead giveaway.”

“I wasn't spying.”

“You were one hundred percent spying.”

She shrugged it off. “Maybe … ten percent spying, ninety percent wondering what the hell you're doing here.”

“I'm working. What the hell are
you
doing here?”

“Your mom told me you'd be here, so I came.”

He was as stubborn as a boulder. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you.”

“And how's that going for you so far?”

Marigold glared at him.
Glared.
And then she burst into laughter.

North looked away, trying to hide a grin. “All right. Okay.”

“You're impossible.”

“I know.”

“And you look ridiculous in that uniform,” she said.

“I look incredible.”

“Incredibly ridiculous.”

“Incredibly handsome.”

She laughed again, and he smiled directly at her—for one brief, brilliant second—before turning around and striding away. “Come on,” he said. “I know a place.”

Marigold would follow North anywhere.

*   *   *

They trekked up the pathway, but instead of taking her back to the summit, North nodded toward an offshoot that led into the forest. A sign marked it as the Balsam Nature Trail. She hadn't noticed it earlier. “You came on a good day,” he said. “It already rained. Usually, it showers in the afternoon.”

“How long until your break's over?”

North didn't even have to glance at his phone. “Twenty-two minutes.”

“Then let's not waste any more time discussing the weather.”

He didn't respond, so Marigold took his silence as assent. They entered the sanctuary of the woods. Pebbles crunched underfoot. “Except, okay,” Marigold relented, a few seconds later, “I do have
one
question. What's up with all the dead trees? Is it acid rain or something?”

North ground to a halt. He stared at her.

“What?” She marched past him.

“You,” he said, “are a terrible listener.”

It dawned on her. “You told us on the funicular, didn't you?”

“I told you on the funicular.”

“Well, I was a little distracted after that insane stare-down you gave me.”

“Balsam woolly adelgid.” North started moving behind her again. “It's an aphid-like pest that's been killing the Fraser firs. But … yes. Acid rain, too.”

Marigold waited for him to catch up before giving it another try. “Please tell me what you're doing here. And don't you dare say ‘working' again.”

“I'm not.”

Her blood pressure rose. “You're not working.”

“No. I'm not.”

She gritted her teeth, tired of the verbal games. But North seemed to regret his decision to be difficult, because he quickly acquiesced. He gestured to a patch on his shirtsleeve. Marigold's eyes widened as she read it. “Volunteer? You're a
volunteer
?”