New!
He installed himself in Plover cabin, next to mine. The family with the baby had just left for LA—thank you, family.
He was twenty-six and, I learned from grilling Willa, had met Graham and Angela back when they were students at UCLA and his mother was their sociology professor. He didn’t have a fixed address, preferring to roam with the seasons. Cannery work in Alaska, picking in Washington and Oregon, working concerts or the Country Fair or the wine crush down in Napa. He slept in the back of his truck and sometimes crashed on the beach.
He’d worked as a roadie for Graham in his late teens. But he wasn’t a musician. And, unlike the rest of Graham and Angela’s visitors, he liked to repay the Kingstons for their hospitality. First were the crates spilling over with fresh Oregon raspberries and strawberries. Then, the next night at campfire, he gave Graham a gift. A small stack of new albums.
My uncle took one look at the flames and satin on the covers and said, “You’ve been out there too long, my boy.”
“Just for fun.” Colin’s smile seemed innocent, but he had to know that Graham loathed this kind of music. It was the stuff I adored, even now that I had a newfound appreciation for folk. I kept my passion for pop and disco between me and Willa (we held her Hustle lessons in the woods or my cabin).
The albums were still in cellophane, emblazoned with round yellow Tower Records New! stickers. That meant they were at least $3.99 apiece. A lot of money for a poor wanderer, for a joke.
“My contribution to the Rec Room,” Colin said. “But only if you give your blessing, of course. Otherwise we’ll toss them in the fire. A ritual purification.” Colin snatched the top album from the stack in Graham’s hand and stood. He held it over the snapping flames, looking right at Graham and smiling.
He had a great smile. I was besotted enough to register the thought, though it was a strange moment.
“They’re just teasing,” Willa whispered, sensing my tension. “They’re always like this, because Colin says my dad is a music snob. Watch, it’ll be fine.”
Sure enough, Graham held his hand out for the album, smiling indulgently. “Always good to know what the kids are twitching to these days. Thank you kindly, lad.”
It was the first time I’d seen someone come close to disrespecting Graham. But the moment passed so quickly. Graham smiled at me, cracking open a new beer. “We don’t burn albums here, do we, Lady?”
I shook my head, honored to be singled out.
The rest of the night went as normal.
Colin got picked by the bottle and sang a raucous sailors’ tune he’d learned canning. Graham clapped louder than anyone.
When Colin and I were walking down to our cabins that night, he said, “So, Graham seems to be in good form this summer. I’m glad, for Angela and Willa’s sake.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, that he can be...you know.”
“What?”
“Oh. Nothing. I’ve known Graham and Angela forever. I’m like the son they never wanted. And you? Known them long? You and Willa seem tight. You’re always disappearing together.”
I shook my head, but this pleased me. “I hadn’t met any of them before this June.”
Colin nodded thoughtfully. Then he smiled, looking up at the sky. “Weird to think of it watching us.”
Skylab—he didn’t need to say the name. We were all aware of Skylab that summer. You could be talking about it in broad daylight and you’d still have to look up at the flat blue sky. It was always up there. A threat, a joke, a shining symbol of governmental arrogance and human fragility.
“It’s not coming down in our part of the world,” I said.
“No?”
“I saw it on the news.”
“Well, okay then. I guess I can sleep soundly tonight, Jackie of the trustworthy eyes.”
I was halfway up Slipstream’s steps when he called, “Hey. Why do you and Willa disappear all the time? You always look so eager to get away.”
“Oh, you know.” I jiggled the right handrail; it was loose, but I kept fixing it with gum. “She’s teaching me about local flowers, berries. Stuff like that.” So much for trustworthy eyes.
“Ah, right. Well, sleep well. If you get any updates on space debris, you’d better knock on my door first.”
“I will!”
I liked Colin. I half wished I’d tugged him up my cabin steps; I’d almost done so.
But the fact that Willa and I stole away to work on our songs every chance we got was our secret.
So were the spots where we found our privacy—the dark treehouse, the warm hollows in the beach dunes we carved behind sheaves of seagrass, the buzzing, milkweed-shaded banks of the Far Pond.
She had her budding flirtation with Liam from the custard shack and I might soon have Colin—he was hard to read.
But those places were only for me and Willa.