The Light At The End Of Summer

Summer was dying, and there was nothing we could do about it. The mornings had turned brisk without our consent, and the crows had suddenly become chatty, filling the chill air with their harsh caws. The last time Mom had carted me along to the grocery store, they already had a center aisle all set up, full of notebooks, pencils, binders and erasers. I avoided eye contact with the offending items, my version of whistling past the graveyard. The days had lost their feeling of blistering, frenzied activity, and now it was like we were trapped in some kind of languid purgatory, where making plans felt like effort, and executing plans felt impossible. We had almost given up the fight, succumbed to the inevitable. To this day, I don’t know if there is a more specific bittersweet illness than that inexorable summers-end malady inflicts on a kid. The thing about kids though: we are more resilient than we’re given credit for.

I had just finished eating my bowl of cereal when the phone rang, and I slipped unhurriedly off the kitchen stool to answer it, thinking it was likely Jeffrey trying to halfheartedly organize a ballgame for us at Corner Park. I almost dropped the phone when a girl’s voice answered.

Not just any girl, you understand. It was Maggie Dawson. The Summer Girl. The one that might just happen to any boy of the right age, in the right little pocket of summer. I would know her voice anywhere; it was amber honey and campfire smoke, dewy grass and hot chocolate.

“Hey, Ben,” she said shyly.

“Good morning, Maggie, how are you?” I returned, stilted and awkwardly formal.

“Pretty good, how about you?”

Well, I was too many things to put into a simple answer. I was almost shaking because my nerves were on red alert, my mouth was deciding that it didn’t need moisture like it used to, and my heart was thumping like I’d just finished rounding the bases.

“Good, thanks,” I said instead.

Throughout the summer, she and I had performed a courtly dance of sorts; one step forward, two steps back, treading awkwardly on each other’s feet and feelings, almost touching hands. There was a delightful ache in the proceedings, somewhere around the navel, that swelled and subsided throughout the sultry summer days, then came to rest like a sleeping kitten when night fell. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t moved past where we were; there was thrill enough in the opening acts.

No one our age had any idea how to talk about feelings. We had crushes, of course, and maybe the girls treated it differently, but the guys remained taciturn about who they liked, though it was likely that we wore it plain for the world to see. We were utterly clueless about how to even talk to girls, and if you would have told me that it didn’t get much easier the older we got, well, I would have believed you. I gripped the phone in a hand that had turned clammy and sweaty.

“So, listen,” she said, and I was relieved to hear a note of the nervousness I felt echoing in her voice. “I was wondering if maybe you would want to take a walk today.”

“Sure,” I blurted, “Where is everybody meeting up?”

There was silence on the line for a moment.

“Well, I mean, I was thinking just the two of us,” she said in a rush. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Oh,” I said blankly, and my head filled with a low front of downy, cottony clouds, through which not a single ray of intelligent life shone. My inability to speak continued for just a bit too long, and I heard an intake of breath.

“Of course, if you’re busy-” she said, sounding horrified.

“What? No! I mean, I would love to. Go for a walk with you. Where would you like me to meet you?”

Another beat of silence. “I was thinking about the Marigold Fields.”

Just when I thought the summer had run out of surprises.

We fumbled our way around arranging a time, and I spent the intervening hours lost in a gentle stupor, unable to think about anything but Maggie and the Marigold Fields.

It seems like every small town has a special spot that is either beloved or notorious for amorous young couples. Some towns have a secluded dirt turnoff on the outskirts with a view of the stars, some have the undersides of bridges, but we were the luckiest: we had the Marigold Fields. It was a favorite place of everyone, not just couples. Photographers were often spotted at dawn or twilight, trying to capture the essence of the dusky orange and sunny yellow crowns in the waxing or waning light. Hikers trod delicately through the narrow and winding trails that ran through the acres, and families spread their outdoor lunches on checkered blankets. To go to the fields with a girl though, that meant something. It was a rite of passage, in a way, some ancient alchemy to bond two disparate elements into one. It was a statement as well, boldly written, to be seen by the eyes of the world. It was a lot for me to take in.

I had never been to the fields in that capacity, and honestly, I was as terrified as I was excited. I was venturing into uncharted waters, and my only compass was the stories I had heard the older boys tell, with aggravatingly superior and knowing looks. The fact that she had asked me gave me conflicting feelings as well; I felt oddly cowardly for not having done the asking, but that was far eclipsed by the glow of happiness that was threatening to blind me.

My body seemed to be beyond my control, but after a struggle I somehow got on my bike and pedaled it across town, realizing too late that I would arrive covered in sweat with wind-mussed hair, but I was beyond caring at that point. I pulled into the small dirt parking lot and locked my bike to a fence, unconsciously prolonging the moment when I would have to see her. The lot was quiet today, it being a weekday, and there was a curious thrill of elation and dread in the idea that we had the place mostly to ourselves. I smoothed my hair down and fanned my shirt to dry my sweat a bit, then walked toward the field.

Maggie was already there, pretty as a picture, with the vast field of swaying marigolds behind her. She wore a wide-brimmed sun hat, which struck that luminous chord that ran between unaffectedly childlike and determinedly adult, and her dark curls tumbled down across the shoulders of her sundress. She smiled timidly at my approach, and I felt utterly woebegone before her. I could feel the unseen bindings of time and age wrapping themselves delicately around me, drawing me close, putting me in the path of the thresher that separates a boy from his childhood. For a moment I stood still, frozen in the fog at that imperceptible crossroad, unwilling to step in either direction. Then Maggie opened her mouth and spoke and the path cleared, and together we walked into the Marigold Field.