Ghost Radio-1
701 Words
Ghost Radio
The day was heavenly bright, the kind of sunshine that makes the leaves glow a neon shade of green. Lana looked up into the treetops, revelling in the songs of the forest: birds chirping, chipmunks racing through the pine needles, their little nails scratching against bark as they sped up the sides of trees.
“There’s no better place to be on a day like today,” she said to her cousin, who was lying beside her on a patch of moss.
Emily removed only one of her ear buds to ask, “You say something?”
Lana tugged out the other one before repeating herself. “I said there’s no better place to be on a day like this.”
“A day like what?” Emily asked.
Pointing to the sun, the trees, the sky, she said, “Like this! Like this! Sunny. Gorgeous. Peaceful. It’s perfect out here.”
Emily stood from the mossy ground and shoved her phone in her back pocket, ear buds and all. “If you ask me, a perfect summer day is walking down a city street in your favourite sundress, catching some hot guy’s eye, stopping to give him a little wink, then you’re off like a shot and he’s left drooling about what might have been.”
“Spoken like someone who’s spent exactly two days in the city in her entire life.”
“Hey! Five days.”
Lana smiled, standing up too, and brushing the moss from her butt. “I’ll tell you how it really goes.”
“How what really goes?”
“Summer in the city.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Do tell, oh great and mighty Oz.”
As they meandered down the forest path, Lana told her cousin, “You wake up sweating because no matter how many fans you’ve got running, the apartment’s always too hot. So you peel yourself off your sheets. The shower is your one glorious relief, but it’s always too short because mom’s knocking on the door. So you squirm into whatever outfit will keep you from sweating too much without inviting too many catcalls when you walk past the forty million construction sites between your building and the thankfully air-conditioned library, your refuge from heat that could melt your eyeballs.”
“Even the library sounds exciting, when it’s in the city,” Emily said, all dewy-eyed and fluttery-lashed.
Lana shook her head and laughed. “You’d be singing a different tune if you lived there.”
“Well, you’d be singing a different tune if you lived smack in the middle of nowhere.”
“Nowhere is relative,” Lana said.
“Huh?”
“Nowhere is relative to somewhere. Where is somewhere?”
“The city. People. Places. Stuff to do. Buildings.”
“But why? Why can’t somewhere be this tree?” Lana placed a loving hand on the bark of some kind of tall specimen. An oak, maybe. She wasn’t great with trees.
“That tree isn’t important,” Emily said. “Nobody cares about that tree.”
“Sure they do,” Lana teased. “Don’t listen to her, tree. I love you very much.”
When Lana wrapped her arms around the trunk, Emily laughed. When she kissed its bark, Emily said, “Oh my God, Lana, you are such a freak.”
Lana’s expression fell. She didn’t mean for that to happen. Just that word... she’d been called that word a lot, to the point where it triggered some not-so-fun emotions.
Emily must have noticed her cousin’s reaction, because she quickly said, “I didn’t mean it because of—”
“I know,” Lana interrupted. “I know. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Dude, I know.” Lana punched her cousin playfully on the shoulder and smiled.
Emily punched her playfully back. “Woulda been cool if our parents had done an exchange for the summer instead of your mom sending you to stay here.”
“An exchange, like I live at your house and you live at mine?”
“Yeah.”
Lana shook her head. “No way, man. My mom would drive you nuts. And your mom would drive me nuts after a while. No offence.”
“None taken.”
“We need each other as a buffer.”
“Yeah, true.”
“Plus,” Lana went on. “We’re better together: Emily and Lana versus the world. It’s more fun, spending the summer with you.”
“I guess,” Emily sulked. “Would still be more fun in the city.”
That was a bit of a punch in the gut. Why would Emily choose the stinky, sweaty city over her? But Lana didn’t say anything. They had a whole summer ahead of them. She didn’t want to start an argument so early in the game.
* * * *
- Writer
