Summer strolled through a neighborhood of evenly-spaced homes and tree-lined streets wet with the light rain. Some of the yards were perfect, some cluttered with toys or strange gardens. The professors from St. Karl, the nearby liberal arts college, threw an interesting element into the neighborhood.
Her mind wandered back to her days as an environmental studies major, rooming with Sushi, skirmishing with the boys or inventing games and recipes together late at night. Games ran in Otto's blood, and Alex had a special genius for concocting revitalizing blends to get through a night of studying. He'd even proposed one of his non-alcoholic drinks as a menu addition at CafeNow. It was a brilliant drink, bright and clean with fresh-squeezed oranges and pomegranate and mint and...only Alex really knew, but a few sips was enough to change your perspective on life and a tall glass of it had once pulled her out of a full-blown depression.
Steve had rejected it, of course. Not bad, he'd nodded. But we get our menu from headquarters. And that brought her back to Steve, the face of corporate idiocy. Who could think wasting Alex was a good policy? She could still hear Steve's prissy boss-voice. You just need to learn to follow the rules, Summer.
Yeah, she snapped in her mind, just become a cog and nobody has to bother thinking.
Pulsing inside her was a hunger, desperate and constant, to find a set of people where she could be herself, thinking people who would pay attention to each other and take care of the world and laugh and eat and fight together. She'd tried it before, but somehow even in the organic-vegan-environmentalist circles of Thornfield she'd never really fit in.
I'm too abrasive, she told herself. Always pushing my ideals in people's faces. I need to just settle down a little, fit in, play by the—
Her mind recoiled in sudden horror from what it had almost touched. Steve was in her head. A shudder ran through her. It was to avoid just those moments that she had come here. She needed to get on her knees, get her hands in the dirt, just forget everything and help beautiful things grow for a while.
One of the houses on the street stood out as abandoned, a strange sight next to the well-kept houses all around it. It was a quirky old house—the old-fashioned porch and a round tower at the corner always made her think of long summer evenings and secret passageways and friendship and adventure. And there was a sweet garden out back. She wondered sadly who had left a house like this abandoned.
Summer slipped through the gate and wandered to the backyard, enjoying the quiet neighborhood sounds. The backyard was mostly overgrown weeds and a few tumbled branches from the cherry and oak trees that ringed it. A small arbor was now drowned in rampant but dying vines. There was one patch of rich brown earth with delicate sprouts where Summer had cleaned up the weeds and begun to plant a few months ago. She pulled out the gardening tools she'd stashed under a big bucket and continued extending the patch. Whenever she'd cleared enough space she carefully planted a few more winter squash seeds from a packet she'd brought along.
She knelt in the wet dirt, relishing the sensual pleasure of letting herself get muddy, lost in the sensations of the thick earth packing and breaking up under her fingers. Her tensions began to drift away. She could almost feel the tender plants growing. A sense of living connection settled into her bones, a connection with the plants, the earth. She heard a few ladies walking by, laughing and talking, and smiled.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing back there!" An old man's angry voice snapped into her calm. She started and looked up. Above her an angry face peered over the high fence, long and square with eagle eyes and bushy white eyebrows. Two hands clutched the fence like they were pulling the man up onto his tiptoes so he could look over. She stared at him wide-eyed, without words.
"Get out of there, you pesky brat! What are you doing messing with that place? I ought to call the police!"
Summer jumped up and wiped her hands quickly on her jeans.
"I was just—I come here to garden sometimes. It's abandoned. I don't think anyone minds."
"Don't tell me it's abandoned, you little twit! What do you mean, no one minds? I mind! Don't go trespassing, ruining peoples' gardens." He gave a disgusted grunt, and muttered, "Little criminals nowadays." A knobbly finger stabbed toward her, snatching her attention. "What's wrong with your hair?"
Summer automatically fingered a dreadlock, turning pale.
"I—"
"Don't tell me. I don't want to know." The man shook his head. "Disgusting," he spat, then, more loudly, "Get out of here."
Summer started shifting from fear to anger.
"Why?" she asked defiantly.
"Don't you talk back to me! I'll get you arrested! I'll get all of you arrested!"
"All of who?"
"I told you not to talk back. Young people," he grunted. "No respect for other peoples' property! Hell in a handbasket."
"I care about this property!" protested Summer. "I'm trying to improve it! See?" She pointed to the plot she'd cleared. It was clean and well-tended, sprouting fresh life, an oasis in the dirty yellow tangle that covered the rest of the yard. "You don't want to live next to a dump, do you?"
If she'd thought he was angry before, she hadn't seen anything yet. His hand slammed against the fence. Suddenly livid, he yelled, "Don't call this a dump. It's not a dump! It's—" His voice choked off, clenched tight by emotion. Then he continued more flatly. "Eh, why bother. Just gonna tear it all up anyway." It was hard to tell if he was talking to himself or to her.
"That's no reason to abandon it in the meantime," she argued.
He turned back as if remembering she was there. Now only his eye and a shock of white hair showed above the fence, as if he'd wilted back down. "You've got two minutes to get out," he said without energy and disappeared behind the fence as he turned away. "Then I call the police."
Fighting tears of anger and frustration, Summer gathered up her tools, threw them violently into the bucket, and marched off the premises. When she looked back there was no sign of him except—maybe—a flicker of motion at one of his empty windows.