sneak down to the diner down on Fourth Street and get a big fat BLT.”
“So you’re a vegetarian with a weakness for bacon?”
Griffon shrugs. “I try.”
We finish our pizzas and emerge back into the hustle of the late afternoon sidewalk. Wandering up the street, we stop in a few shops, although I have a hard time concentrating on anything that’s for sale whenever Griffon is close to me. As we walk, our shoulders brush, but he makes no move to hold my hand again, so I try to keep my mind on other things.
“Can we go in here a second?” I ask as we pass a huge record shop. “My dad’s birthday is in a couple of weeks, and he collects vintage records. He’ll be shocked if I get him something he might actually like.”
The amount of stuff crammed into the store is visually overwhelming, and it takes a second to be able to focus on any individual thing.
“What kind of music does your dad like?” Griffon asks, scanning the rows and rows of album covers.
“Mostly classic rock,” I say, wishing I’d paid more attention to his collection upstairs. “You know, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. Seventies stuff.”
“Got it.” He walks over to a table and starts flipping through the covers. “This one’s good,” he says, handing me a cover. “Or this one. God, I haven’t seen that one in ages.”
I flip the two records over. “MC5? The Stooges? I haven’t heard of either one of these.”
“They’re awesome,” he says. “Trust me. Does he have them?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. I look at both covers. “Which one do you think is best?”
“Well, if he likes Zeppelin, then I’d go for MC5,” he says. “A little faster pre-punk style, but still cool.” He leans over toward me so that nobody can hear. Griffon taps the album. “I had this very same record back then.” He laughs. “It’d be funny if it really is mine, wouldn’t it? Somehow it landed at this record store and here I am, holding it all over again. You never know.”
I watch him as he turns to walk down another aisle, wondering how I’d feel with so much of my past life set out in front of me. I look down at the unfamiliar record in my hands and wonder if I’d been alive in the seventies. And if I’ll ever remember if I was.
“Janine said that sometimes people don’t come back for years,” I say quietly, catching up. “But it sounds like you were just here.”
“I was,” he says. “My last life finished in 1986 when I was forty-two.” He glanced at me. “Heart attack. When or where we return is one of those things we can’t explain. Sometimes it takes decades, and sometimes just a few years. Pretty random.”
I wonder if I’ll get used to the ever-growing list of questions that don’t seem to have any answers as Griffon stops in front of a stack of singles, staring at the one in front.
“‘Strange Fruit’?” I ask, reading the label.
“Billie Holiday,” he says, with an edge of sadness in his voice. He makes no move to pick it up, just stares at the small black record with the white label.
“You want to get it?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head. “Too many memories,” he says, and from the way he says it I assume they aren’t all good ones. Griffon looks around like he’s forgotten where we are. “Places like this are hard sometimes.” He takes a deep breath and smiles at me. “MC5, then?”
“I think he’ll like it,” I answer, trying to lighten the mood. “It comes highly recommended.”
We stand in line in front of an older guy with long white hair. He smiles at us, then points at the record I’m holding. “MC5,” he says, his eyebrows raised. “I thought kids your age only liked that hip-hop rap crap that comes blasting out of the cars around here.”
“I think that’s what people said about the MC5 back in ’68,” Griffon answers.
The man laughs from deep within his rather large belly. “True,” he says, nodding. “I imagine you’re right.” His smile causes the wrinkles around his eyes to deepen. “They were good, though. That’s the best live album ever recorded—Detroit, 1968.”
“They had an awesome show at the Fillmore East in ’69,” Griffon says. He glances at me with a tiny smile on his face.
“At the Fillmore, huh?” the old guy says. “I don’t remember any live recordings in New York.”
“I don’t think they made any,” Griffon says. He nudges me with his elbow and points to the cashier. “Our turn.”
We walk up to the counter, leaving the old guy with a confused smile on his face. It’s fun, but strange to be in on Griffon’s little joke. “That wasn’t very nice,” I whisper. “Were you really at that show?”
“Yeah,” he whispers back. “I wasn’t lying. It
I hand over the album and the cashier rings it up. On the counter are some silver pendants hanging on black cords. I pick one up and look at it. It’s a cross with a loop on the top, but it seems really familiar.
“Here you go,” the cashier says, handing me my bag and some change. She sees me looking at the necklace. “You want to add one in?”
Just holding it makes me inexplicably sad, like I’ve just lost something important. “No thanks,” I say, putting it back. I don’t like necklaces in the first place, but my reaction to this one is doubly strange. All I get is a feeling— no visions or memories that might explain it. “I was just looking.”
“That’s an ankh,” she says. “The Egyptian symbol of eternal life. Very mystical.”
Eternal life. A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have meant anything to me, but now everything is so different. Griffon is watching me closely as I murmur, “Maybe next time.”
We walk out into the blazing sunlight and stand on the sidewalk, trying to decide where to go next. Instead of thinning, the crowds seem to be getting heavier and louder. Griffon squints up the street. “You know what I’d really like?” he asks.
“What?”
He turns and focuses his sharp amber eyes on me. “To be alone with you.”
I smile, releasing the tiny thread of anxiety I’d felt since I arrived. “That sounds perfect.”
As we pull up to his house, the lights are off, even though it’s starting to get dark. “Is Janine gone?” I wonder how she’ll feel about coming home and finding me alone with Griffon in their house. Most mothers wouldn’t deal with that very well, but then, Janine isn’t most mothers, and Griffon isn’t most sons.
“She’ll probably be back later,” he says, not seeming to give it a lot of thought. He walks ahead of me to unlock the heavy front door. “Janine doesn’t sit still for very long.”
We hang our jackets on hooks by the door, and I follow him across the hallway. The house is quiet, and I feel how acutely alone we are in it. Griffon doesn’t say anything, but I know we’re headed up to his room. As we approach the stairs, I hesitate just a tiny bit, but it’s enough for him to notice. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I say. More than anything, I want to follow him up the stairs—it’s all I’ve wanted since that day in the cafe, but a small part of me is afraid of what might come next. I glance up at his broad shoulders and strong jaw, and see something in him that’s older than he appears. More experienced. I wonder how many times he’s been in this situation, how many first times he’s had. He’s right, it isn’t exactly a level playing field, but the pull I feel when he’s near me obscures most of my rational thoughts, and I know that once I climb those stairs, everything might change.
Griffon walks back down two steps until he stands right next to me. Reaching over, he brushes my cheek with his hand and runs his fingers through my hair. He bends down and kisses me softly on the mouth, then traces a line up my cheek, planting gentle kisses on my eyelids. I can feel his hand tremble slightly as he holds the back of my neck, and I force my breathing to stay even as he presses closer to me.
Taking one small step back, he holds my chin in his hand and runs his thumb over my lips. “Never do anything you don’t want to, understand?”
I nod. “I do want to,” I say quietly. “I’ve wanted to be alone with you since the first time I saw you.”
A smile flickers across his face, full of emotion yet unreadable at the same time. “Don’t forget, I saw you
