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HAZY SUMMER
BY A.R. HALL
CHAPTER ONE
BETTY
“Come on, Betty. It’ll be a gas.” Dorothy faked a pout and batted her eyelashes as if I were a man that would fall for her act.
All it did was make me roll my eyes at her efforts, and try not to laugh. She slid onto a stool at the counter as I passed. I refilled coffee and handed out orders from the window, doing my best to ignore her. She’d been pestering me for a solid ten minutes and didn’t seem to be giving up anytime soon.
“Go on, Betty,” Mike yelled from the window.
“Stop encouraging her.” I slid a new order into the ticket rail and rotated it.
Mike laughed, glanced at the ticket, then continued cooking on the grill.
“Can I get a strawberry shake?” Dorothy called out. She knew I couldn’t ignore her if it came to my waitressing duties. “It’s my last summer here for a while.”
It was mine too. Not that she knew. Nobody knew, except for my dad. He’d been easy to talk to about it and understanding. Unfortunately, I’d needed help to open a bank account. Thankfully, my father didn’t care what I did with my money. It was mine after all. He helped me come up with a solid plan to start saving about eighteen months ago and I was nearly ready.
It would be the fresh start I needed, building over the last three years. I could feel it, right at the edge of my fingers. The thought put a smile to my face as I grabbed another order from the window and took it to the table closest to the jukebox.
As I turned around, the first few notes of a song that played all too often started. The music left goosebumps across my flesh as I walked away from it.
“It’s a sign.” Dorothy smiled then started singing along to it.
Tell me why it can’t work this time.
Push me away again and again.
Why are you running away?
I would follow you.
Out from the shadows and into the sunshine.
Running from what holds us back.
That’s where our hearts beat together (together).
I’d do anything for you.
Would you follow me?
Follow me.
Would you follow me?
Follow me.
Baby, I would follow you. (Baby, I would.)
A sign of the end of times, maybe. It was my own inner crisis, hating and loving listening to Hazy Summer.
It was no secret to the locals. Some of them were proud of the guys for working hard on their music and making it. Sure, they weren’t as proud as they were with the ones that went to fight in the war, but at least they were all doing something.
It’s not like they were stuck in Cedarville like me.
