Just Another Day

August hated her birthday. Born on the first of August in New Jersey, her natal anniversary always took place in the middle of a scorcher. Because of the sweltering 90 degrees plus weather each year, she wished and hoped for a pool party or a day at the Jersey shore, some sort of celebration involving water. So far, her wish had never come true. She thought that maybe, for her sweet sixteen, she could talk her parents into something less hot and sweaty, and including some of her friends.

On the first day of the heatwave, four days ago, she began prepping Mother and Father. They sat on the front porch, moisture running down their temples. The air between them looked like a desert mirage, keeping them cocooned in their private bubbles.

"This is a special birthday year," said August as she fanned herself with a pizza flyer. "I'd like to have some friends over, get some pies, hang out in the family room, watch a movie." 

She touched her mother's shoulder. Mother flinched; she hadn't been paying attention. Her mother blinked several times, her eyelashes damp with sweat or maybe tears.

"You know I can't deal with people," Mother said and sighed. "Especially at this time of the year. I'm sorry, I just can't."

Father ran a dripping glass of iced tea across his brow. He shook his head and closed his eyes. 

August went into the house and spent the rest of the day alone in her room.

"Day two in the nineties," the weatherman announced on the next day's lunchtime news. At the same time, Mother ate a tuna sandwich on the back patio.

"How about if I go over to Claire's house for the weekend?" August pushed her sandwich off to the side. The tuna smelled fishy in the vibrating humidity.

"I need to spend your birthday with you," said Mother. She grazed her fingertips across the top of August's hand, raising the hairs on her arms.

"But it's my birthday," said August. "I'm old enough to make my own choices."

"We've been through this before," said Father. "It's not just your day." He handed Mother a napkin. She wiped the back of her neck. 

August slapped the table. Her parents jumped. Lifting her hand, and exposing the smooshed mosquito, she left the dead bug and her uneaten sandwich with her parents. She went to bed early, brooding.

The day before August's birthday, the app on her phone said it was ninety-six degrees at eleven in the morning. She helped her mother carry groceries in from the car. 

"It's too hot to go anywhere," she said as she hooked six plastic bags over each wrist. The melting asphalt stuck to her flip flops. "Let's just stay home this year and soak up the air conditioner."

"We have a tradition," said Mother. She held the front door for August, who waddled into the house, unbalanced by her need to make just one trip in the humid air.

 "Do we have this teenage rebellion to look forward to from now on?" Father took some sacks from her.

August let her bags roll off her arms. A glass jar in one of them clinked on the ceramic tile of the kitchen floor. 

Tradition. 

That meant another hiking trip in the pine barrens, not even to the lake in the area. According to August's parents, her older brother, Brian, who August had never met, loved the water and drowned when he was sixteen. They didn't provide any details, just tear-filled eyes.

Now in their late fifties, they lived in the past. Every year, they went to Ong's Hat. It was the last place they had been to with their son on his birthday, now her birthday. 

She tried not to fight them. She tried not to ask questions. Her need to know more and the oppressive dog days of summer weighed them down and made their mourning worse, heavier. 

August got a different story from her crazy aunt, her mother's sister, Hester. She had been part of the Moorish Science Ashram. Founded in 1978 by Wali Fard, the commune was full of esoteric wisdom gleaned from far off places and misfits needing a place to belong. 

"Your parents were part of the group. We had an entrance to another dimension," said Hester. 

"The Gate at Ong's Hat." She cackled. "It accepted the scientists, Frank and Althea Dobbs, twins from Texas when they were ostracized by their peers." 

"Famous," said Aunt Hester. "You can read about it in the papers. Princeton University and the Federal government hid the truth and stole our secrets. New Jersey's own Roswell. All kinds of people disappeared through The Gate, including your brother. His body was never found. Don't let your parents fool you. Brian ran away, right into that opening. He wanted a bit of fun." She hugged her cat, Boots. "Your mother was seven months pregnant with you when he left. Caused her to give birth early, right there in the Pine Barrens. The Emergency Squad was called for the boy they never found and delivered you instead."

The place was famous, just like Aunt Hester said. It was easy to find in an internet search. Maybe August would do her own scientific study as a present to herself or take a trip of her own. 

When she woke up on her birthday, a Saturday about to be wasted with the lingering thermal torture, it was already eighty-eight degrees. She put on a white cotton t-shirt that said, "WANTED DEAD or ALIVE: Schrödinger's cat," and khaki shorts, some thick socks, and sneakers. She brushed her hair into a ponytail and tucked it into the back hole of a pink baseball cap. She took a deep breath accepting the day ahead, which she knew would be filled with an itchy rash, fine sand, and bug bites.

Her parents were at the front door waiting for her. Her father handed her a water bottle, and her mother gave her sunscreen.

The back of her bare thighs stuck to the plastic of the back seat in the car. Father hadn't started the car and let the air conditioner run, so the interior was sweltering. He turned on the radio, and Tartini's sonata, The Devil's Trill, wafted back to her before any cold air reached her.

They arrived at Ong's Hat, the scariest ghost town in New Jersey. They pulled into one of the makeshift rest areas along Magnolia Road. The sun beat down on them as they got out of the car and entered Batona Trail. They'd only walk half of the nine miles, turning back just before reaching the lake where her brother disappeared. 

When they reached The Gate, a rotten, weather-worn casing in the middle of a weed field, August was cranky and miserable. Her parents stared at that damn decrepit doorway, holding on to each other in silence.

"This is ridiculous," said August. "It's nothing but a ruin." She stepped up to the doorway. The space between the wood frame shimmered with haze.

"No," said her mother, reaching for August.

August walked back towards the portal, watching her parents' faces. Her father stood frozen with his mouth open. Her mother crumpled to the ground as August's foot passed the threshold. 

A cave breathing wind tunnel sucked her body into a vortex. The whirling and twisting pressure spit her out by a lake, next to a table covered in brightly wrapped packages and a birthday cake with sixteen candles. A group of kids her age surrounded her. One of them reached out a hand to help her up.

"I've been waiting to share this day with you," said the teenaged boy who looked just like her. "Happy Birthday, Sis."