Page 21 of The Backtrack
“I had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Your light was still on.” Pearl took a quick sip of coffee. “What’s eating you?”
Sam scratched a spot on her head. Shecouldtry to tell Pearl the truth. Or some version of it. No, she couldn’t word vomit this early in the morning. But maybe there was something shecouldask. “Have you ever, um...” Sam wasn’t actually sure how to start a conversation about a hallucination from a CD player. Trying to form a sentence in her head that didn’t sound completely unhinged proved hard.
“If you’re asking if I’ve ever been with a woman, the answer is yes. A handful.” Pearl held up her hand and started to count off fingers, apparently adding all the women up. “Maybe four? Or three? Hard to remember.”
“What? Grandma, no—” Sam’s thoughts stopped and stalled with the revelation that her grandmother had slept with more than one woman. Though she wasn’t entirely surprised; Pearl often made comments about Helen Mirren that were borderline harassment.
“I see how uncomfortable you get when I ask if you’re seeing anyone. And when I mentioned Damon, you practically slid under the table. You don’t have to hide who you are from me. Love is love, or whatever they say.” Pearl looked out the window again.
“I’m not...” Sam shook her head. “This isn’t my coming out moment, okay?”
“Okay.” Pearl turned to face her. “Then what’s got you so tied up in knots?”
“Is the house...haunted or something?”
Pearl narrowed her eyes.
“Like, has anything weird ever happened to you? Something you have a hard time explaining?” Sam spoke quickly before she chickened out.
Her grandma took a luxurious sip of her coffee. “Life is weird, honey, and I’ve lived a lot of it. Can’t say I’ve seen a ghost, though.”
Her grandma clearly had no idea what she was talking about, which was when Sam decided that the only way out of this situation meant getting back to working on her room. The sooner Sam got to cleaning, the sooner she’d be able to forget everything she’d seen, past or present.
“Never mind,” Sam eventually said. “I’m just jet-lagged. What have you got planned for the day?”
“I’m going to take a cup of coffee out to the beach. Get dressed. Go for my morning walk. Then lunch with Jessie, followed by my nap. Sunset stroll. The usual. Care to join?” Pearl pushed herself up from the table with a little extra effort.
“Maybe at sunset,” Sam offered. Though she had no intention of doing anything other than cleaning. “Grandma, shouldn’t you rest? What did the doctor say?”
“You were there,” Pearl reminded her. “He said to wear a trash bag when I shower.”
“He also said to rest,” Sam pushed.
Pearl waved her hand, as if wiping away the comment. She made her way toward the back door but stopped to knock on the door frame with her cast. “Hopefully, you’ll find something good while you’re digging through all of these old memories.”
Sam was sure she wouldn’t, but kept that thought to herself.
When she returned to her room, the first thing she clocked was the CD player on her bed. The thing was obviously evil—just like the board game inJumanji, causing dozens of rabid monkeys to be released into the world. Only in this game, she’d be sent a baker’s dozen memories of 2000s fashion crimes. Sam opened the box of trash bags on her desk, draped a black bag over the top of the CD player to keep it from leaking fumes, then gently kicked it under the bed. She’d figure out where to dispose of electronics later, but for the moment she’d focus on cleaning out her desk. It was undeniably where she stored the majority of things she didn’t know what to do with.
The top was covered in felt stickers that were so old they’d basically fused to the wood. Sam had done her homework there, doodled in her notebook and stared out the window waiting for Damon to show up. Now all she wanted was to empty it out so she could donate the whole thing. She opened the delicate metal handle of the top drawer to reveal boxes, dividers and a hot pink Caboodle loaded with markers instead of makeup. Why had she hoarded over twenty pens, receipts from thrift stores and concert stubs? There was a box filled with a random assortment of trinkets: a Morrissey rubber bracelet, Magic 8 Ball, a single red-and-yellow-striped-toe sock, three Delia’s clothing catalogs, a half-empty bottle of Clinique’s Happy perfume and a laminated Blockbuster Video membership card.
Sam held on to the card, turning it in her hands as she remembered going to the local store with Damon every Friday, picking out a movie and ordering pizza. A weekly ritual they’d had, and maybe the only real routine from her childhood. Their Fridays together made Sam feel like she only needed one friend: him. The Blockbuster card was compact and easy to carry. She could slide it into her wallet, if she wanted.
But holding on to things was tricky. Yes, she could keep this laminated card, but what about the other items? She didn’t have a place to store her memories, not if Pearl moved. Her studio apartment in Paris barely had enough room for her bed, let alone an overflowing CD collection. As she closed and tied off a trash bag, she fully understood these items would disappear, along with her room and the memories it carried.
The rumble of a motorcycle snapped her out of her thoughts—Damon. She stood just in time to see him pull into the driveway.
Well, what did it matter if she was sleep deprived and a touch manic? She pinched her shoulder blades together. This wasn’t a big deal. He was stopping by, albeit unannounced, and she could handle a brief interaction. This wasjust Damon.
She opened the front door and tried not to be fazed. But there was his dark hair, the confident way he leaned against the door frame, and then he spoke.
“I brought ice cream.” He lifted the brown paper bag with the wordMermaidswritten in elaborate cursive across the front. Sam had worked summers there, and some deep Pavlovian response filled her mouth with saliva; she could almost smell the sugary waffle cones.
“Don’t tell me.” Sam took the bag.
“Cookie dough ice cream, two scoops, extra gummy bears,” Damon said. “I don’t know how you eat this. The gummies get hard as rocks.”
“That’s the point.” Sam pulled the container out of the bag, opened the lid and sniffed the sickly sweet vanilla and cream. She popped a rogue gummy into her mouth and began the business of chewing it back to life. “You have to warm them up until they become half a gummy, but it’s all worth it because they’regummies.”
