by Andre Fenton
“And go bully the mannequins at Wade’s Clothing?” She waved her arms.
“Yeah, and go bully the mannequins at Wade’s Clothing….” I sighed.
I wondered when this would get back to Tia. I knew it would, but this was about Clay. I loved Tia, but the last thing I needed was her looking over my shoulder. Holy shit, this was going to be awkward to explain.
“Well, since I’m working I’ll give you the twenty percent discount I can give to pals,” Taylor said. “As long as you don’t bother any more of these guys, okay?” she grinned.
“Woah, seriously?” I raised my eyebrows. “Thanks, Taylor! I appreciate that a lot.”
“No worries.” She smiled. “If anyone deserves support right now, it’s you.” She took the dress shirt off the mannequin, and headed for the cash.
Okay, forty dollars wasn’t bad.
Once I got back to the truck I threw the bag of clothes on the passenger seat and hoped Tia wouldn’t find out I had skipped class to buy men’s clothes.
Later that evening, I sat near the firepit in the backyard. It had been a while since I heard the crackling of wood and the warmth of flames, so I grabbed some kindling and started a small fire. I could hear crickets in the distance and I let my lungs fill with the smoke.
I looked in the journal again and skipped past all of my entries to the back, with the older parts that were Grampy’s. That’s when I noticed there were pages missing. The jagged edges meant they had been torn out, which was weird. Other pages were filled with cursive. I set the book down for a minute and made sure the fire was secure. I walked the short distance to the lake, my mind drifting to Clay.
Clay could recreate whatever was written inside the journal. Maybe that meant he could recreate what Grampy wrote about, too? I hadn’t tried speaking to Clay in two weeks, so I wasn’t even sure if he still liked me after I let him down big time. I hoped that getting him a new wardrobe would at least be a start.
I skipped a rock and thought about Halifax. I remember at some point I had been sure all the magic had left my heart. I think living in the city surrounded by loud cars, obnoxious people, and light pollution makes you forget there’s a whole galaxy above our heads. And it was moments like this—far away from the rest of the world, skipping rocks across water, near crackling flames, with constellations stretching across a dark blue sky—that made me realize the magic never left. I did.
I knew that the only way to make sense of any of this was to dig into it. So I bit my lip and said, “Hey, Clay?”
Nothing.
“Hey, dude. Um, it’s been a couple of weeks. Are you still upset?”
Of course he’s upset, I thought. He has every reason to be. There would be no moving forward in this friendship until Clay and I found some common ground. It was going to be long and difficult, but it had to be done.
“Come on, you gotta give me something. I know you still care, Clay. If you didn’t care then you wouldn’t have taken me back to that memory in the park. If you didn’t care then you wouldn’t have given me the journal to take care of.”
I took a breath and looked across the lake. I was bad at this. But I knew it was necessary.
“There’s so many things I want to say to you, but you know as well as I do that words aren’t always my strong suit. Please, come here.”
“I’m not your pet.” He revealed himself behind me. I jumped, but caught my balance.
“I know,” I said.
“So, what? You think I’m just your genie in a bottle? An imaginary friend in your journal? That isn’t how this works, Anna.”
“Well you’re not explaining it well.”
“Let’s make one thing clear: I don’t owe you an explanation,” he said. He sounded frustrated. “I don’t owe you—”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I cut him off. “I know that. I know you don’t owe me an explanation, a conversation, or even what you did the other night. You chose to do that. I’m trying to figure out why, Clay, and I think I know.”
“Oh, do you?” Clay crossed his arms.
“Because you still care.”
Clay shook his head and started walking towards the firepit. I followed him.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Of course I still care about you, Anna,” he growled. “Why would I wait if I didn’t? Why would I have faith for so long? I knew after the first five years that you weren’t coming back. But I stayed, and I grew resentful towards you. I don’t know why I stayed—I felt like I had to, I felt like I owed you…and now that you’re back, I see clearly that I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
That hurt. Why hadn’t I just taken the damn journal with me?
“I didn’t know I would be away for that long,” I reasoned feebly. I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with him. “Mom just…I wanted to stay here. I didn’t want to go to Halifax anyways; Mom made me go with her.”
“I know it wasn’t your choice. But you made me stay here. And that’s the part that hurts.”
I nodded. “I know. And I can only apologize in so many ways, but sometimes an apology isn’t enough. I have to prove it to you.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“You gotta let me try.”
We just stood there not saying anything for what felt like forever. I could see Clay cross his arms again. I just wanted him to let me in, let me into his world and let me right my wrongs. He didn’t owe me that; it would only happen if he wanted it.
“Okay.” He let out a breath. “I waited this long, how much worse can it get?”
So he wasn’t optimistic, but it was a start.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Then I took a deep breath and changed the subject. “I have something to show you.”
“Oh, so now you have a surprise?”
“Just…follow me.” I grabbed his hand.
We walked towards the firepit and he grabbed a seat.
“Wait here.” I smiled.
He raised an eyebrow. “What’re you up to?”
I went to the garage and grabbed the bag of clothes from my truck, hiding them behind my back so he couldn’t see. When I walked back towards him, he knew something was up.
“C’mon, what’s behind your back? Seriously.”
“Close your eyes,” I said with a grin. “Do it.”
Clay shook his head but did what I told him. I laid the clothes on his lap and said, “I thought you might be tired of wearing clothes that are two sizes too big.”
He looked down at the clothes, and then up at me.
“Anna.” He picked up the dress shirt. “You didn’t have to—”
“I did,” I said, cutting him off. “I had to do something. Plus, you deserve more clothes that aren’t older than both of us put together,” I joked.
I finally got a smile out of him.
“Oh, look! A smile. What timeline is this?”
“I just….” He drew out his words. “Haven’t really gotten a gift before.”
“Well, why don’t you go try them on? There’s a mirror in the garage,” I said, poking the dying fire.
In the garage, I watched Clay button up his new shirt while looking in the mirror. It fit perfectly—I guess the mannequin situation was worth the trouble to see him in clothing that fit.
“It’s a lot more comfortable than your grandfather’s scratchy old sweaters, that’s for sure,” Clay said, throwing the old sweater he had been wearing in my truck. I was glad to see him happy. It wasn’t even about me regaining trust; he just looked good with a smile on his face.
I noticed his braids were looking a little soft, and it didn’t take long for me to grab a hold of them.
“Hey! What are you doing now?”
“Just sit tight for a minute.”
“Oww,” he whined. “What are
you—”
“Sit tight,” I said again. I looked around and spotted an upside-down plastic bucket and pushed him down onto it. “I’m fixing your hair. Don’t move.” I ran into the house to find a comb, brush, and other supplies.
When I came back, I didn’t have to see Clay’s face to know he was frowning. I got him to move from the garage to the tree house because he kept whining—it was probably loud enough to wake up Mom and Nan. But the view of the lake wasn’t bad, either.
“You know I’m doing you a favour, right?” I laughed.
As I took my seat behind Clay, I was remembering how my grandmother used to braid my hair. It was all muscle memory. Clay’s hair was kind of long, and I loved it.
“That doesn’t make it fun,” he said with a sigh.
“Stop being such a pessimist, you’re going to look great.”
“If you say so.” He looked towards the water. After a minute, he mentioned, “It’s been a while since we’ve both been up here.”
“I know,” I said, holding a fistful of hair. “You think of it often?”
“It’s one of the only things I think about.”
I paused, hands full of his dark hair. There was the guilt again, using my heart as a doormat. I’m not saying I didn’t deserve to feel it, but it hurt.
“I’m never leaving you again,” I said. “I promise.”
“Don’t promise,” Clay said, picking up a mirror I had brought from inside. “Show.”
He grinned when he saw his reflection. In the background I caught my half smile as I finished up the braids.
“Look how much better this is!” My half grin became whole.
“It is a lot better.” Clay admired my handiwork. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” My eyes drifted away from our reflections, and back to the journal, which was sitting on the floor of the tree house.
“You wanna go back, don’t you?” he asked.
“How’d you know?”
“I can feel whenever the journal is open,” he said. “You found Rudy’s passages, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “I did.”
“You could always just read them, y’know.”
“I….” I was so embarrassed to say. “I never learned cursive.”
“Well, luckily you have me.” Clay picked up the journal. “Rudy wrote those entries long before you ever wrote about me, but I feel his memories inside of me as much as yours.” He paused. “I assume you wanna go back and see for yourself, right?”
“Is that wrong? He never liked talking about his childhood. He always kept quiet about it. I want to respect that. But I also miss him so, so much.”
“You know he ripped some of the pages out, right?”
“Yeah, I saw. Why would he do that?” Was he trying to hide something?
“I wish I knew, but they were ripped out well before I came about.” Clay turned to another page. “But he has other things in there, not just about himself.”
I perked up at that. “Like what?”
“Let me show you.” Clay extended his hand in my direction as his eyes turned blue. I hesitated, but I trusted him. I extended my hand….
The starry sky, the tree house, the lake, and the sound of crickets all vanished. We were surrounded by darkness. I looked over at him, and a bright blue energy resonated around us.
The stars reappeared around a half moon. Small buildings rose from the darkness as a street appeared and street lights turned on. Everything was still.
It looked similar to downtown Yarmouth, but was clearly some time ago. The roads had fewer potholes, and the buildings were in better shape. The street lights looked entirely different—not straight and silver, but tall, black, and curly. This was way more than a couple years ago.
“Woah.” I looked around. “This is…downtown, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Clay grinned as he pointed out a tall, slim, dark man in the distance. Everything was frozen, like someone had hit pause on a movie. I couldn’t tell who the figure was at first.
“You can go right up,” Clay told me. “He can’t see you, nor can you change anything.”
I took a few steps. The man had a full head of hair and no beard, but I recognized that nose, those eyes, and the smile from cheek to cheek.
“That’s…Grampy?” I grinned. He looked a lot slimmer. His face looked smooth and young. He was handsome in his youth.
“Yep.” Clay smiled. “I think he told you this story a couple of times—the one where he met your grandmother? But now you can see it first hand.”
Clay snapped his fingers and the world began to move. People were walking around, laughing—full of joy. I could hear music in the distance, in the direction Grampy was walking. I followed him as we walked down to what I assumed was Main Street.
“This is amazing!” I said to Clay. “How come you never told me you could do this?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know I could when we were young. Once you left, I spent a lot of time inside the journal, and I figured it out.”
I watched Grampy stop outside the door of a small building. The music was loud on the other side of the door. He took a deep breath.
“Come on, Rudy. Let yourself have fun,” he said to himself before he walked inside.
I always cringe at men giving themselves pep talks. It just seems so corny, and Grampy wasn’t exempt from that.
We followed Grampy inside; the music was too loud and lots of people were sweaty and dancing. Grampy went straight to the bar and ordered a drink. A young black woman passed him a scotch. Ew. I couldn’t handle that stuff. He took a sip and I could see the nerves on his face—his eyes were darting around the room. Then he ordered another drink. And another one, and another one. He fiddled with the buttons of his vest, with a look of uneasiness. It was strange; he always came off as overly confident to me. This had to be the night when Grampy met Nan. The dance floor, the bar, being well dressed. It went along with how he used to tell the story. He told me he won her over with his moves, then asked if he could buy her a drink, and next thing he knew they were madly in love. At least that’s what he told me when I was a kid.
I watched Grampy edge towards the dance floor. He was awkwardly trying to break through the crowd. Everyone was surrounding a young black woman in the middle of the dance floor who was moving so fluidly and carefree. I assumed this was Nan and my smile extended into something stupid. Eventually Grampy made his way towards her. They made eye contact.
Then Grampy opened his mouth, and instead of a smooth line about buying her a drink, he stuttered, “H-hi…miss!” He tried to get her attention. “I like y-your…h-hair. Can I buy you a beer?”
I groaned and put my head in my hands. “C’mon, Grampy!” I shook my head. “Ask her to dance. Say something sweet. Stop being weird.”
“It’s all downhill from here.” Clay grinned.
“Don’t tell me that.”
Grampy didn’t say anything else. He just kind of moved back and forth, trying to dance with a serious lack of rhythm. I didn’t know if this was real life, or if Clay had taken me to an alternate universe. I was flabbergasted at the idea of Grampy being nervous. But I could feel him becoming anxious; he wobbled a bit. I facepalmed, knowing he drank all that scotch way too fast. The dancing woman in the middle took note and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…I’m fine.” Grampy replied. But the next thing I knew he fell backwards, hard.
“How did Nan fall for that?” I asked, looking at Clay.
“It’ll make sense soon.” Clay snapped his fingers and everything sped up, like a movie on fast-forward. The woman on the dance floor left, and two men picked Grampy up and carried him towards the back exit. Clay and I followed. They sat him down against the brick wall outside and the bartender from earlier approached. Clay snapped his fingers again and time resumed normal pace.
“I’ll take it from here,” the bartender was saying to the bouncers.
She put a wet cloth to Grampy’s forehead, and eventually he came to.
“Hey. Woah. Woah.” He moved her hand away. “What happened?”
“What happened? What happened is you got drunk and passed out on the dance floor.” The woman laughed. “But to be fair, I was the one giving you those drinks.”
“I don’t believe that,” Grampy said. “Did someone hit me?”
“No,” she said. “This isn’t one of those places. The only thing that hit you was the floor you fell on.”
“I don’t believe it,” Grampy repeated. He shook his head.
“Gosh, you must be a city boy. You got a chip on your shoulder or something?”
“Or something.”
He tried to stand up but the woman pushed him back down. “Where do you think you’re trying to go?”
“Back inside. I can’t go out like that.”
The woman laughed. “We are well beyond dance floors right now. You are not going back into that bar.”
He sighed with a look of defeat across his face.
“What’s your story, anyways?” the woman asked. “You a tourist? We get all kinds men like you in the summer.”
“No. This ego grew up here for the most part,” Grampy said. “I’m going to university in Halifax right now. Tried to catch a boat down here, missed it, so I thought I’d make the best of my ‘vacation’ here.”
“Huh,” she replied, looking at him closer. “You do look familiar now that I think about it. Maybe we’ve into run into each other in passing.”
“I guess I should properly introduce myself,” he said with a smile. “My name is Rudy Brooks.” He extended a hand.
She shook it. “I’m Tanya Grant.”
“What?” I cut in to the moment. “Tanya Grant? That’s…that’s Nan,” I realized. “Holy shit.”
“Yep.” Clay smiled. “Your grandfather was quite the storyteller.”
“You mean he was quite the liar.” I laughed.
“You disappointed?” Clay asked.
“Honestly, a little bit. That wasn’t smooth at all.”