It’s the first real day of summer—which is rarely the first official day of summer but rather a time in which the schedules of you and seven other people magically align, and it’s a beautiful thing, which makes you ELATED like you’re about to star in your own music video, although you can’t sing, which you do anyway from coffee to shower to slipping into your most effortless jumpsuit, and all you need is a swipe of lipstick, and to hell with a flatiron, you’re going to let your curls and waves run wild today because, because, because—and you’ve planned the perfect summer day for seven people who you love more than anything else in the world.
It begins waiting in line for a free concert in Central Park’s SummerStage. You’ve come early to get a good seat—and so did hundreds of other people—and it’s only when you are close to the entrance that you discover no one actually brought any food or water or blankets—only alcohol-spiked drinks. Vodka-spiked Sprite in clear water bottles. Rum-and-coke in a Camelback. You all thought you were being so clever. (The fact you are all approaching thirty and this happened will never be discussed.) That’s okay, though, because someone offers to make a run for food and another for water. Some offer to take off a layer of clothing to share as a blanket. Who minds sitting on the grass anyway? Your friend comes back with a large offering of hot dogs, and the other with three water bottles—she didn’t have any more cash on her. It’s still okay. It’s summer. It’s a free concert by one of your favorite bands. Not that you know more than two of their songs, but still. It’s free. Outside. Central Park.
You finish the hot dogs quickly, a little too quickly, because you didn’t know you were starving, because you skipped breakfast for the fabled Lavish Summer Picnic in the Park and washed it down with a tumbler of strawberry-schnapps-something, the thick liquid a little too warm, because you are sitting directly in the sun. There’s a bunch of clouds in the sky, but the sun is in a place where they will never cross. You take turns using the one short-sleeve buttoned down shirt and the summer shawl as blankets. You all get grass-stains on your clothes but won’t notice until you get home because you are quite tipsy now, having finished most of the mixed drinks because you want to conserve the water.
Because somehow, among the eight of you, no one has any more cash.
You catch up for hours, because the band won’t be on for another three, and even then, the concert will start nearly an hour late. And when the band finally does come on, you rise to your feet, all of you swaying, having downed all the alcohol, groaning from the hotdogs that will remain inside your stomachs for the next several months, and yet you still feel hungry. No one’s touched any of the water yet. It’s become a silent challenge among you. Still. You are in Central Park on a perfect summer day with your beloveds, and you are still waiting for the band to play one of the songs you know so you can sing along.
And just as the guitarist strums up those familiar chords, there’s a sudden, rapid-fire downpour that lasts only a few minutes but leaves you all drenched. The sun, of course, is still beating down on you mercilessly the whole time, though it’s past eight in the evening, and the sun will only start to set when you gather your things.
And so you all leave as others cry for an encore, hoping to beat the crowds, only to be immersed in a mass of damp, sweaty bodies who had the same idea, and you say your rushed goodbyes as you all part ways, still slightly swaying and now most definitely overheated and starving and aching, and you think you’re halfway home to shower when the air-conditioning goes out on a crowded 7 Express Train that suddenly goes local, that suddenly HALTS and balances precariously on a curved track between stations for what seems an eternity, as if you’ve grievously wronged the train itself, and it’s making you pay.
Somehow you’re still soaking from the rainstorm which seems ages ago, your loose and effortless jumpsuit is sticking to your skin, it’s beyond wrinkled—why the hell did you wear linen?—you swear you’ll never be dry again, your hair has grown into a tangled tumbleweed, and you’re pretty sure there’s a sparrow who’s taken respite in there, somewhere, and you’re never getting home as the train lurches, picking up speed, gliding right past your stop, and then the next, and then the next . . .
And it’s only then you realize you all left the water bottles, still unopened, in the park.