The Backtrack

Chapter 8

8

W hen the bagpipes sounded that morning, Sam was not fast asleep. Quite the opposite—she was at the kitchen table and watched as old man Byron trudged through the sand in his kilt, admired the sunrise briefly and then began to play. A few minutes later Alligator Alice power-walked past and waved to Sam through the window.

“You’d think Alligator Alice and Byron would have had a conversation at least once, but I’ve never seen her stop for a chat.” Pearl moved to the coffeepot and flipped it on, so the slow and steady bead of filtering took over the room.

“Maybe they don’t need words.” Sam stood from the kitchen table. She opened the pantry and grabbed bread and a jar of peanut butter. “They have an unspoken language.”

Sam smeared thick scoops of peanut butter onto two slices of toast—one for her and one for Pearl—and then plated them. She brought the plates and two mugs of coffee to the table.

When Pearl sat, she winced.

“You okay?” Sam asked as she set the plate down in front of Pearl. “Want me to get the pain medicine?”

“I have some here.” Pearl reached into the pocket of her worn cotton robe and pulled out the prescription bottle. She popped open the lid and tapped a pill into her palm. She swallowed it down with a sip of coffee.

“I got a recommendation for a rehab specialist from Mr. Rocha. I put in a call to them, so I should be hearing back on when to schedule your first appointment.”

“Isn’t it a little early for details?” Pearl lifted the toast to her mouth. “At least let me get my wits about me.”

Sam sat across from Pearl and wrapped her hands around her warm mug of coffee. Who would drive Pearl to her appointments when Sam was back at work? Maybe Jessie could, or Damon. She’d have to figure that out, too, before she left.

“I can see your wheels turning. Always worrying. I’ll be fine, you know,” Pearl said through a bite.

“I know you will. You always are. Which is why I think we should consider postponing the move,” Sam said. “You just broke your wrist. It’s kind of a lot to move on top of that.”

“It took you over a decade to come back home,” Pearl said. “I don’t know if I have another decade in me. We need to do this while you’re here.”

Sam tried to hide the frown that creased her brows. The thought of Pearl not being around in ten years wasn’t possible. She was aging, yes, but she wasn’t old . Her grandma would be here. In this house. That was just how it had to be. Tightness rose in her chest. Pearl was the only family Sam had. What would she be without this small lifeline?

“I’m not dead yet,” Pearl said. “Don’t look so put out.”

That word dead made Sam cringe. Of course she knew that death was part of life, but her brain wouldn’t even allow her to go there. “Can we talk about something else?” Sam asked.

“Sure. How about you tell me why you were up so late?”

Sam sat back in her chair. “You spying on me?”

“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. She could try 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 she could ask. “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 in Jumanji , 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 was just 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 word Mermaids written 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’re gummies .”

Damon’s eyes widened. “The guy working the counter could barely hide a gag when I ordered it, so it’s not only me who’s judging you, just to be clear.”

“What did you get?” Sam had already made her way to the kitchen and pulled out two spoons.

“I ate a burger at the bar.” Damon pulled a chair out at the kitchen table and sat. “You know me, more of a savory than sweet person.”

Why was she mildly delighted about that phrasing, you know me ? Yes, she did know Damon, didn’t she? Sure, they hadn’t ended up dating in real life, but they’d been best friends, and maybe they could be close again. Sam decided to sit, too.

“Pearl stopped in for an early lunch and told me you could use some sugar,” he added.

“Mmm,” Sam said at both the ice cream and the fact that Pearl had probably meant this as a bit of a double entendre. She handed Damon a spoon, and he carefully scooped a bite without any gummies. He brought the spoon to his mouth, and she tried not to stare as his lips wrapped around it. She shoved a spoonful into her own mouth and looked away.

Sam didn’t want Damon to have any inkling that she was attracted to him, even though she very much was. But when she looked back, he licked his lips and watched her. She wondered briefly if he was having similar feelings. But then he asked, “How’s the cleaning coming?”

Well, if he had any attraction to her, he wouldn’t be thinking about Clorox wipes. She raised the cup of ice cream. “This is the fuel I need to finish my room,” Sam said. “Thanks for bringing it.”

How long would he stay? How long would she have to stare and wonder if his mouth tasted like sugar? She was fairly sure she could go a stretch without Damon noticing any longing in her eyes. But still...she couldn’t pretend forever.

“Need any help? I have a bit of time before I head back.”

A bit of time sounded like fifteen, twenty minutes tops. And after a sleepless night, she wouldn’t mind him lifting the trash bags out of her room and carrying them outside. She wouldn’t mind seeing the way his arms looked when he did that, either...

“Sure.” She took one last bite of her ice cream, left it on the counter and walked down the hall. Damon followed, just like he used to when they were kids. Except now, the smell of his coconut shampoo and the vanilla from the ice cream shop made her want to turn around and get a spoonful of him .

When he came into the room, he eyed the band posters first, then her corkboard. He stopped at a picture of himself.

“It was pretty metal of me to match the rubber bands on my braces to my red-tipped hair.” He licked his teeth as he stared at a photo booth shot of them from the high school fair. “Metal pun intended.”

“They were a good look. Almost as killer as the shiny shirts you used to wear.” She nodded to the marching band photo—the one they’d taken the night of their almost-kiss. She wondered if he ever even thought of it.

“I’m offended that you didn’t mention my studded belts, but oh well.” He shrugged. “You, on the other hand... Looking at you now, I don’t think anyone would guess that you were an emo chick in high school.”

“An emo chick?” Sam parroted back. Something about his tone when he’d said that gave her pause, like maybe he missed the black lipstick and heavy liner. “Emo is a state of mind just as much as it is a style.”

“Are you telling me you’re still secretly into Evanescence?”

Her mouth opened as “Bring Me to Life” started in her head, along with the bizzaro vision she’d had of them kissing. “Anyone who doesn’t like Evanescence is lying, obviously.”

“Oh, obviously.” He grinned. They shared one of those tense and knowing moments they kept having. Luckily, Damon broke it for them. “What’s left to clean?” he asked.

Sam sat on the ground and slid open the bottom drawer of the desk, which was heavy with photo albums. “I don’t really know what to do with these.” She took one out and opened the front, and the plastic sheet covering the first row of photos wrinkled with her touch. Baby photos of Sam being cradled by Pearl, and her mom smiling tightly next to them. Even then, when Sam was small and helpless, Bonnie hadn’t known how to be around her.

“You don’t want to keep them?” He sat next to her on the floor and took another album out of the drawer.

“I don’t have a place to put them,” Sam said. She didn’t want to tell Damon that her only solid ground was, size-wise, the equivalent of a dorm room. “And I’m not sentimental.” She wasn’t, really, not about her mom, at least.

Damon flipped open the album in his hands and there was a photo of them at Damon’s thirteenth birthday. He’d had a family pool party and wore board shorts. Sam was in a one-piece covered by an oversize Daffy Duck shirt. They both held up peace signs, and Damon’s teeth glittered back with the unmistakable metal braces he’d hinted at earlier.

“Can you believe we weren’t popular in school?” he asked.

“We weren’t?” she joked back.

“Okay if I keep this one?” he asked, but he’d already tucked the photo into the back pocket of his jeans. He wanted a memory of the old them. A photo of Sam and Damon when they were best friends. Something about that made her chest warm.

“You can digitize these, you know,” he quickly followed. “Get rid of the bulky album, but have them on your laptop, or whatever. You don’t want to forget how well ballet flats paired with cargo pants.” He held up the photo album and, as he did, a little booklet fell onto the carpet.

Sam reached for it at the same time as Damon, and their fingers met. Damon pulled back, but the spot he’d touched burned. She tried to ignore the sensation by pulling the little book close to her chest to inspect. When she turned it over, there was Damon’s handwriting. Sam’s Travel Bingo Card . He’d drawn an airplane, an island and a detailed rendering of an Egyptian pyramid. When she opened the card, there was the bingo board where Damon had outlined specific travel goals Sam had shared with him.

See the Aurora Borealis

Swim under a waterfall

Hike Machu Picchu

Watch the ball drop in NYC

Gondola ride in Venice

Oktoberfest in Germany

See cherry blossoms in Japan

Rent a fancy bungalow in Bora Bora

Get to the top of the Eiffel Tower

Walk the Great Wall of China

Go on a safari

Explore Casablanca

Photos at the Hollywood sign in LA

There was a star sticker sheet taped to the inside so Sam could mark each item off as she accomplished them. Her fingers traced the lines of the bingo squares as she tried, and failed, to think of something to say.

“You’re speechless, I see. Is it because my drawing of the Eiffel Tower is borderline phallic?” Damon asked. “My artistic efforts were never as good as yours.”

Sam laughed, relieved he found a way to take any humiliation out of the situation. Because the truth was that this gift from Damon had meant so much to her then, and it still meant so much to her now. He was maybe the one person in her life who fully indulged her dreams of traveling, but she’d pushed him away.

Eventually, she met his gaze, and his dark hazel eyes surrounded by even darker lashes locked on to her. Damon carefully undid the star sticker sheet and handed it to Sam. “I think it’s time to fill out this bingo card.”

She took the stars and stared at them, so wishing she weren’t borderline hungover from the lack of sleep. Instead, she peeled off a sticker and placed it on top of the See cherry blossoms in Japan square. “That was one of the first places I took a proper vacation to, maybe seven years ago. The trees get filled with these gorgeous pink overflowing blooms, and the buds fall off and float down the Meguro River. I thought of you when I went there.” She had thought of Damon, but hadn’t reached out because, apparently, she was truly chicken at expressing her feelings.

“Good,” he said. She looked up, and a satisfied look passed across his face. Though, just as quickly as it had come, it vanished. And maybe she’d imagined the whole thing, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Damon liked the fact that she’d been thinking of him.

She went through the rest of the bingo card and shared when she’d seen the bucket list item, along with fun anecdotes. Stepping in donkey shit as she hiked Machu Picchu was a particular hit in terms of making Damon laugh.

When the card had been filled, minus the Casablanca square, she refolded the card and placed it on top of the desk. “I obviously can’t get rid of that until I fill the whole thing out.”

“Not unless you want a life not lived.” Damon stretched out his legs, and his jeans brushed against the side of her knee.

She wanted to lay her head on his thick thigh and fall asleep—both because she was tired and because being near him reminded her that anything was possible, which was how he’d always made her feel. “I remember when you made this for me. It put all of my goals in one place, and I was so worried that I’d never get to check any of them off,” Sam said. “I didn’t want to prove my mom right.”

“Your mom was never right about you,” he quickly replied. “She never knew you.”

But you knew me , Sam wanted to say.

“Have you heard from her?” Damon gave a gentle look.

Her mom hadn’t reached out, not to Sam or Pearl. Sam leaned back and let her head rest against the side of the bed frame. “Bonnie’s really committed to never seeing me again, so...”

“Did you ever try to find her?”

Not many people in Sam’s current life knew the story about how her mom left. And when they got close to asking, Sam deflected. She readied herself to do the same now, but something cracked open, and the truth slipped out. “I did hire an investigator once. A few years into flying, when I had some extra money. I had this idea that I could find her and tell her I was a pilot, and she’d be proud. Maybe even want to talk. The woman I hired found her in Clearwater, Florida—this little town, bigger than Tybee, but kind of exactly the same. She was working the front desk of a hair salon and rented a one-bedroom place close to the beach. It was like she’d left here for something nearly identical. Just, you know, without me and Pearl.”

Sam’s voice cracked at the memory. “I’d occasionally call the front desk of the salon, just to hear her voice when she picked up the phone.”

She cleared her throat, and Damon’s hand found its way to her knee and gave her a squeeze. “She’s a shitty person. That’s not on you.”

Sam nodded but didn’t look up to catch his eye. She hadn’t opened up to anyone about this ever. She was surprised that all it’d taken was a cup of ice cream, but then again, there had been extra gummy bears.

“My mom, on the other hand, is having a barbecue tomorrow and told me it was rude that I hadn’t invited you and Pearl.”

A small smile crept across Sam’s face. The Rocha family was notorious for their elaborate barbecues. “So you’re still not going to extend the invite, huh?”

“Not unless you agree to wear your old Doc Martens and do a karaoke duet of a Paramore song with me, no.” He leaned back into his palms, and the muscles in his biceps popped under the weight of him. She couldn’t help but stare for a beat too long; she was only human, after all.

“Unfortunately for you, I love to crash parties. What time?”

“Two.” Damon wiped his hands across his jeans and pushed himself up from the floor. Sam was tall, but she looked up at Damon and felt infinitely small compared to his broad shoulders and wide stance. The darker circles under his eyes told her he was tired, though from work or something else, she wasn’t sure. “I should get back. Those beers don’t pour themselves.”

“So noble, your job.”

“The Lord turned water into wine, but someone had to make the beer.” He hesitated, and they stayed locked on each other, not saying a word.

Damon shook his head, as if to unlock himself from her. He stopped at the door frame, then turned slightly. “Don’t throw out any of my mix CDs. Those are going to be collector’s items someday.”

“I’d never,” she said with a tight smile, and he walked out the door.

Oh, if only he knew all of the trouble one of those CDs in particular was causing.

Sam nibbled her bottom lip. Here she was, in her childhood bedroom, and she’d just watched the man of her visions walk out the door. He was in the past, but he was also so very present.

She went to put the album back in the drawer, when she spotted something shiny in the jewelry dish next to the pile of albums on her desk. She picked it up and inspected the lone earring. Her mom’s earring. This was the one she’d lost the pair to.

She swallowed down the realization that there was one other way to confirm that what was happening was real. Her clarinet case was somewhere in this room. She hadn’t known where her earring had vanished to all those years ago—she’d been too caught up in the moment—until she watched Damon pick it up and tuck it into her clarinet case. If she found the earring still there, she’d know that what she saw was not a hallucination.

She got on her hands and knees and looked under the bed. There was the small walk-in closet, and she opened the door and pulled the metal chain that turned on the overhead bulb. Within a few seconds, she saw the case. She easily pulled it down, covered in dust as well as band stickers. In her vision, he’d tucked an earring into the front pocket. She unzipped the pocket and reached in, sure she’d find nothing.

But as her fingers slid back out, the tip of her index finger snagged on something sharp. Her eyes widened as she felt around the inside and fingered the unmistakable round stone earring and sharp backing. She pulled it out and pinched the earring between her index finger and thumb, so hard that it hurt.