I shrug. "Sure, why not?"
"You don't wanna drag some strange old lady to the beach. I'll talk your damn ear off." She takes a defiant bite of ice cream and then launches into hissing and wincing.
"You remind me of my grandmother, and she was my second favorite human," I say.
She gives me a puzzled look. "Second favorite?"
"Husband." It's all I can manage.
She nods, and that's it. I steal a look at her, and she's staring into nothing, her gaze full of memory. Yeah, she gets it.
"Well, missy, if you're serious, and if you've got the gumption to haul my fat ass up and down that trail, I'd love to come."
I grin at her. "I may be short, but I'm strong. And you're a gazelle, so helping you up and down the trail will be no problem."
She cackles. "A gazelle, she says." She slaps her hip. "More like a Greater Kudu."
"A what?" I ask.
"Greater Kudu. Big African deer fella. Spirally horns. Big asses."
"Oh." I stick my spoon into my paper cup-bowl thing and extend my hand to her. "I'm Ember."
"Amber, nice to meet you. I'm Faye."
"Ember," I say, emphasizing the E sound. "Like embers from a fire."
"Ember, huh?" She eyes me. "That your real name, or is that some sort of fuck-the-patriarchy thing?"
I laugh. "I mean, definitely fuck the patriarchy, but no. My mom was a hippie. My full name is Emberly. She thought it was cool and different, I guess."
“You ain't old enough for your mom to have been a hippie."
"Well, she wasn’t a hippie, like Woodstock and whatever. She followed Phish around for like…I dunno, years. Years and years." I shrug. "But shewasinto bell bottoms and free love and peace signs and pot." You can make out my orange bus in the distance. "That orange VW was hers."
"Well, I guess that makes sense." She looks at me again. "So, she followed Phish around, and then had you and settled down, huh?"
It's my turn to cackle. “God, hardly. She took me with her."
This gets me a flabbergasted stare. "On tour? To concerts? With stoners and hooligans?"
"Yup."
"What about school?"
"She had a commune. She traveled with like a dozen people, some of whom were former teachers. I was educated in the back of RVs and buses. But yes, with stoners and hooligans." I shake my head. "It was…nontraditional, sure. But I liked it. Never knew anything different, obviously. There were other kids. They'd park their vans and buses in a big square and we'd all play together while the parents went to the show."
"How'd they make money?" she asks.
I shrug. "Never could figure that out for sure. I know a couple of them sold pot, another sold nitrous or something. Some of them sold shirts and merch, or cannabis pipes and bongs. I don't know what Mom did. She was cagey about it."
She sighs. "Was, huh?"
I nod. "Got cut at a show, developed an infection, and died. I was nineteen."
"Lotta loss for someone so young," she says.
All I can do is shrug. She's right.
