At the Vermont quarry, the goldenrods look ten times more beautiful and the wild blueberries taste better than the ones we buy at Hannaford’s supermarket. In the clear water, jeweled frogs’ eyes stare out from under reeds. Other frogs sit on the quartz rocks and gleam like emeralds, moving so that the warm sun makes their skin glitter. A breeze ripples across the shining water, kisses the paper birch trees, and weaves softly through my hair.
The quarry is stagnant until August, but as soon as we arrive, it comes to life. Having grown up here, I am the quarry’s favorite. Mushrooms reach up to me from the spongy ground, butterflies land on my cheek. The dogs pant and whine, nuzzling their way into my arms. We make our jaunty way towards the hammock; the wind blows it just for me.
I can’t remember why, but we stopped going a few summers ago. Maybe we got too busy, or the trip was too expensive, but either way Vermont faded into the recesses of my mind as a happy childhood memory.
I now hang out with friends, sitting on the porch and chipping the polish off our nails. Sometimes I just lie on the floor, bored. The sunlight slants through the window and lands on my face. I can see all the dust particles in the air. They lazily float closer and closer to the wooden floorboards, just waiting to be kicked up again.
The Vermont house was dusty. Soot from the fireplace mixed with animal hair and wet earth. At the end of a long, hot day, my siblings and I tracked black prints upstairs. We didn’t like to stay in the house so much, preferring to entertain ourselves outside. We read long books under shaded trees, walked barefoot across hot stones, saluted the ground from the crest of a green hilltop. We watched the dogs bound through the tall, grassy meadows.
“Neoma, look,” Alison interrupts my thoughts as we sit on her porch. The late August heat is sticky and itchy. I hate the bugs that keep biting my legs.
She shows me something on her phone, a girl who got arrested at her school. “I mean, she posted the whole thing on her Instagram. Like, what did she think would happen?”
“Uh huh.” I adjust the strap of my uncomfortable and sweaty tank top. Looking across the street, I see waves of heat emanate off the asphalt. Discarded candy wrappers glint in the hot sun, hurting my eyes. I want to lie down.
We used to go camping, out in the meadow. The grass waving in the night breeze and the bright stars above seemed to stir something in the adults. I listened closely as my parents laughed and recounted stories from their childhood. The fire illuminated each of their smiling faces, and I went to sleep swaddled in the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag.
In the morning I crept out of my tent and walked barefoot back to the house, scratchy reeds brushing past my legs, the morning dew wetting the hems of my jean shorts. The new day was windy and cool, the sun just beginning its slow ascent into the sky. Under the bright blue, my mind was filled with possibility for this new day. I might go swimming and catch frogs, or paint blotted pictures of the scraggly conifers up by the rocks. Maybe I could read comics all day at the lake, next to a cool glass of water.
This heat on the porch has become unbearable. A wasp writhes and buzzes, half drowned, in the sugary spillage of the Sprite I drank half an hour ago. It twitches randomly, dragging its swollen abdomen across the splintered wood.
“Alison, I’m so hot. Let’s go inside.”
We trudge up her front steps and open the door, a blast of cold air greeting us. I am relieved as we walk through her sterile kitchen. The cool countertops are clean and orderly. We flop onto her couch and turn on the TV, our sweaty limbs sprawled out like tree roots.