First Summer – Ekin Oklap

Rosa had also tried her best to dress up, and once or twice she thought she caught Nadia looking at her strangely, in a way that made Rosa’s heart beat a little faster. But before she could think too much about this, the Sixth Dimensions walked on stage. The noise was deafening, so much so that Rosa thought it couldn’t possibly grow any louder – but of course it did, because a minute or so after her band Rowena herself emerged, holding her fiddle in one hand and its bow in the other, arms stretched wide as if to embrace the entire universe.

She was tall and her skin glowed under the purple moon. Her long hair was piled in a swirl on top of her head. ‘Hello, Zodiac!’ Rowena shouted, and as her eyes roamed over the audience at her feet, Rosa could have sworn that for a moment, the most famous balladeer in the universe had looked right at her and smiled.

Soon Rowena and the Sixth Dimensions were powering merrily through what Lynx informed Rosa were all their greatest hits: ‘Someday Somewhere’, ‘Under the Papaya Tree’, ‘The Moons of New Yelang’, and many more. Rosa had never heard music like it before, slow and meandering one moment, gloriously upbeat the next and with lyrics that seemed somehow to speak to every truth about life and the universe. Sometimes the whole crowd would sing along, and Rosa imagined millions of others across the seven galaxies watching and singing along on simulcast, but even then Rowena Tawny’s extraordinary voice would cut through it all, reedy and high-pitched and like no singing voice Rosa had ever heard before.

It was mesmerizing. ‘Thank you, thank you all for being here,’ said Rowena as her band played the last few bars of ‘Second Season Blues’ – a slow, hopeful number about riding out tough times and waiting for your luck to turn. ‘We’re going to play you a new song now – a new song about an old story. A song about love’ (this raised a huge cheer from the audience) ‘and about longing.

It’s called “The Ballad of Billy Blue”.’ A murmur of excitement rose from the crowd. Rosa could feel it in her bones, the euphoria, the anticipation. There was a surreal moment when, once again, Rowena seemed to be looking straight at her.

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OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com 1 IT WAS so hot that summer that they kept talking about it on the news. During the day, the air was so thick with moisture that it was hard to breathe sometimes, and at night the bedsheets stuck to your skin like shrouds and made you dream strange dreams. People tried to carry on as normal, and for the most part, they managed; but as they went about their business and ran their daily errands, you could tell from the looks on their faces that they all thought this was no way to live, and that they would much rather hibernate their way through the worst of it.

In that summer of wet hot days and restless nights, a girl I had never seen before moved into the brown house at the end of the road. She arrived one day, seemingly out of nowhere, in the back of a blue car that moved slowly up the road as if the driver were unsure where to stop. When it finally reached the brown house, the car nearly drove straight past it, braking abruptly only when Old Mrs Dickie – who must have been watching from behind the curtains – flung the front door open and waved.

The girl and the driver got out and started unloading her things. Old Mrs Dickie went back into the house, then re-emerged to hand something to the driver. I saw him nod at her and carry the girl’s luggage – two mismatched suitcases and a small red holdall – into the house while Old Mrs Dickie held the door open and the girl waited outside, her backpack against her chest. After the driver was gone, Old Mrs Dickie and the girl stood staring at each other for a moment.

Then Old Mrs Dickie smiled. The girl smiled back, though because of the distance, I couldn’t really tell whether she meant it. Then she did something strange: she held out her hand to Old Mrs Dickie, who shook it. The strangeness was not so much in the handshake itself, but in the fact that it was the girl who’d initiated it.

Old Mrs Dickie ushered her inside and closed the door behind them both. I watched it all from my spot out on our porch, feeling as if I had melted into the rocking chair, and trying to trick my mind into believing in a breeze that wasn’t there. I had already spent many summer hours in that chair; I was often alone, and there wasn’t much else to do.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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