“Yes, Grams, that would be rude.” I let out a sigh. “Especially since I was here last New Year’s and the raccoon playing the old noisemaker was a musicalprodigy. I cannot be compared to that level of artistry.”
“In that case, I won’t say anything beyond, ‘I’m rooting for you.’ You know I always am.” She winks, and as much as I’d like to believe her, it would be nice if she could come see a show without wearing ear plugs.
“I know they’re not the best band in the world, but I needsomething.”
Grams retrieves the glass candy dish from the coffee table and places it in my lap. “I was mostly teasing to get you to laugh. They’re not the worst, Mari, but you deserve the best.”
The band may need work, but so do I.
“I’d rather practice together than be out of my league.” I pull myself up from the sunken cushions to select a mini chocolate bar that has probably been in the dish since last Halloween.
Across the living room, there’s my mother’s picture hanging on the wall. Grams’ AA coin is perched on the frame to commemorate 10 years sober.
I’m proud of her.
Grams doesn’t talk about it much. She doesn’t talk aboutthemmuch either. She’ll put on an old record of Mom and Dad’s once in a while to commemorate birthdays and anniversaries of the joyful and tragic things life has had to offer. “A world tour in heaven,” she calls it. It’s the loveliest thought I’ve heard anyone say about their passing.
Conversation dissipates as she throws her phone down for a second time and walks to her bedroom.
“A new song by next week, hm?” she shouts, and dear God, she’d better not be climbing anything.“You said you went through old notebooks earlier?”
“Grams?”I roll off the couch before the cushions can suck me in any farther and leap to my feet. There’s a clatter of something falling, and I race to the edge of the living room. “Grams!?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she says, shuffling back into the room. “Ta-da!”
In her hands there’s … another notebook.
No—not a notebook.
Thenotebook.
As she slips it into my hands, my gaze falls to the wilted strands of weeds woven through the binding and a lopsided Camp Mangrove sticker on the front cover.
I remember what happened that last summer. The yelling—the fights—the reason I could never go back.
It was all my fault.
“I thought Aunt Andrea threw this away.” I saw her throw it away.
“Maybe she did,” Grams says with a shrug. “As you know, the raccoons and I have anunderstanding. Even before I moved into this place, an alliance was formed.”
I would roll my eyes if she wasn’tso damn funny.
The musty smell of rotting paper is strong as I flip through the water damaged pages. The words and drawings are faded but undeniably mine. I’d carry this thing around every summer, racing to write down my ideas after going for a swim. The lack of patience shows in the way the pages are morphed from the touch of wet fingers. The entire notebook is strangely bloated at the center, like there’s something stuck inside.
“Huh…” I peel the sections apart as carefully as I can manage until something small and beaded falls onto the floor.
My bracelet.
Friendship bracelets are commonplace at camp, but this one is different. A pearl gleams in the middle of the plastic pony beads. Something I must have found in a freshwater clam, on one of the many afternoons I was left to my own devices. The worn elastic is fragile as I slip it onto my wrist.
And while I may have outgrown the imaginary friend who “made it for me,” I somehow haven’t outgrown this.
A frown pulls at my lips as I study the bracelet. For a moment, I’m not 22-year-old Marina, standing at my Grams apartment after a bad day. I’m the little girl lonely enough to make up impossible things to play with.
At least now I know the difference between reality and pretend.
“I remember. You always came back from camp with the most fun little stories,” Grams says. “You and that little friend. What was his name?”
