I laughed. Gretchen popped to mind, for some reason. If camp was school, I was pretty sure I was the boy Gretchen hated. Probably deservedly so.
As Anna’s face shuttered, I rushed to say, “I’m not laughing at you. That was a laugh of delight. If anything, I’d have expected you to say it was about a boy youliked. Which would have been cool. Most songs are love songs for a reason. But a boy youhate—that’s a great twist.”
She smiled tentatively, and I asked, “How’d you learn to play banjo?”
“I grew up in a tiny town in West Virginia where there was nothing to do, and my grandpa taught me.”
Well, damn. Anna was officially my favorite camper. Not that there was much competition.
“My mom and I moved to the Twin Cities when she and my dad got divorced. She met a guy online, and we moved to be with him. He hasmoney.” The way she emphasized “money” made me think the guy must not have a lot else going for him.
I had to swallow a laugh. Once again, I wasn’t laughingather, I was just fucking charmed by this kid and her talent. “Maybe you should write a song about that.” The best songs were authentic. And what was more authentic to a teen girl’s experience—I imagined—than hating her mom’s boyfriend who had upended her life?
“I’ve thought about it,” she said, “but I decided he’s too much of a dick to bother with.” She inhaled quickly. “I mean jerk. He’s too much of a jerk to bother with.”
I grinned. “I get it. OK, Anna, you want to meet up next week at this same time? I can’t pretend to know banjo.” I’d noodled around with one here and there over the years, but banjo was not in Concrete Temple’s wheelhouse. “But I can try to help you with songwriting—if you’d like. Or we can just jam.”
“That would be great,” she said.
And hell, maybeshecould teachmebanjo. “You know anyPete Seeger?” I asked as she packed up her instrument. Maybe my Appalachian musical wunderkind would know some of the folkies of my youth.
“Never heard of him.”
Thanks to Anna, I closed out the week with a spring in my step. Metaphorically. I was still wearing my Docs, as I’d neglected to bring any other shoes, and though the temperatures had come down from their previous Dante’sInfernoheights, the afternoons were still hot. My attitude adjustment didn’t mean I wasn’t glad the week was over, though. Well, I guess nothing was “over” since we lived here, but the kids did normal summer camp things on weekends. And there were no sunrise circles on weekends; the kids were allowed to sleep in.
I knocked on Jack’s door to see if he was in the mood for a drink. We’d fallen into the habit of having one before dinner. “You want to go to your place, look out at the lake?” he asked. His cabin was on the forest side of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
“Nah. Let’s just stay here,” I said, though I had no idea why. It was likely that soon the Sourplum Fairy, who always went swimming with Maiv before dinner, would come flitting home to change into her ridiculous swimsuit that made her look like a ruffly marshmallow, and did I want to see that?
No.
Mostly no.
It was complicated.
I liked the swimsuit, OK, as absurd as it was. I was capable of appreciating a pretty woman even if I didn’t appreciate the woman herself.
Soon we were set up on Jack’s porch with more of his sake, which wasn’t my favorite, but it had been a long week and a drink was a drink. Like clockwork, Gretchen appeared a few minutes later. She was only walking, not leaping or pirouetting or whatever the fuck, but she had a lightness and grace about her, which I guess shouldn’t be that remarkable given her line of work. I’d noticed, though, because I was an asshole, that the lower body that was the engine of all her light-footedness was hella strong. She had a sizable ass and big, muscular thighs. The combination of that physique and the ruffly swimsuit was… really something.
Maybe I would tag along for swimming today. Gretchen always asked Jack and me if we wanted to join—though she never seemed to actually want us to say yes. I used to love swimming, back in my McCarren Park days, and I’d been known to hit hotel pools for laps with some regularity. It had been a long time, though. When had tours stopped being fun and started feeling like such a grind? Had the switchover been gradual or abrupt, and how had I not noticed?
“Hey!” Gretchen called when she spotted us. “Just the gentleman I was hoping to see. Can I join you for a sec?”
We didn’t give her an answer, but she didn’t require one. She barged in and leaned against the railing of Jack’s small porch. “It’s about my dance girls and their end-of-camp show.” I belatedly wondered if I should give her my chair. Jack had one of the small porches with a single chair, and I’d dragged the chair over from Danny’s place next door. “They want to doLittle Women.”
“Uh, OK,” I said, as Jack said, “Little Women, like Marmee and Jo and Meg donate their Christmas breakfast to the poor and stuff?”
“Yep.Little Women, but with dancing.”
“Little Women, but with dancing,” Jack repeated, a hint of mockery in his tone. More than a hint.
“So,” I interjected. “Little Women, but with dancing. What about it?”
“I was hoping you could help us adapt it?”
“And here I would have thought Louisa May Alcott didn’t need any help,” I said.
I was trying to be funny, but she scrunched up her Disney princess nose, seemingly giving serious consideration to what I’d said. “You would?”
