supporting the glass. Above us, the sun is still fairly high in the sky, and the leaves of an old elm tree rustle together like they’re trying to keep warm.
The walls, closet door, and light switches are covered in the most intricate mural I’ve ever seen. It’s a 360-degree panoramic view of a city park. The details, the depths, the lighting…it’s like a photograph. I don’t feel as if I’m looking at a wall; I feel as if I’m looking out a window.
All the furniture is white—the bed, the lamp, the desk, the dresser.
There’s some sort of soundtrack being pumped out of hidden speakers somewhere. Street traffic, the constant slosh of water from a fountain, and someone playing the violin far off in the distance.
And the floor…
“Is this AstroTurf?”
“Yeah, my parents wouldn’t let me plant real grass in here, so this was the best I could do.”
“Where are we?”
“Washington Square Park,” she says. “It’s in New York. It’s my favorite place in the world.”
“I’ve never been there. What’s so great about it?”
“I have this picture of me there with my mom when I was a baby. It’s one of the only photos I have of just the two of us.” She opens her computer and pulls up a picture of a young woman who looks a little like Joni, wearing a winter coat and hat and holding a fat baby about Hope’s age. They’re in front of a big arch. “I don’t really have any memories of her, but this picture feels like a memory, if that makes sense.”
I nod. It’s like the journals. A poor substitute for the real thing, but better than nothing.
“So when my stepmom and my sister Stevie and my best friend Karen and I went on a trip to New York a few years ago, we all went there.” She shows me another picture of the four of them under that same arch. A tall, darker-skinned woman who I guess is Joni’s stepmother; the girl from the hallway, only younger; and a white girl with a huge smile. Joni’s hair was longer then—and pink. “It’s this perfect little square of music and art and history and intellect and nature and harmony, right in the middle of a bunch of screaming streets.” She looks me in the eye and smiles. “It was incredible. Because those are all things we have inside us too. You know, the things that make us human? Even though pressure, rules, drama push in on us from the outside and try to take over. I like being reminded that if this little, unassuming park in the middle of Manhattan can fight back against the bullshit, so can I.”
I gape at her for a long moment, slowly coming to realize that Joni is my Washington Square Park. My way to connect with who I was—am—in the middle of all the bullshit.
She gets it. I wonder how she knew that was the exact right thing to say to me.
“What bullshit are you pushing back against?” I ask. She always seems so perfectly happy.
She shrugs. “Family being all up in my business all the time. Friend drama. Karen and I…I don’t know, lots of stuff.”
I want to know more, but then she’ll feel like she can ask me more about my life, and we’re not going there. So I nod. “How did you even do this?”
“You’d be surprised what you can do with a little elbow grease and imagination.” She grins. “Elijah did most of it.”
“Elijah?”
“The guy in the garage? He’s my stepbrother. Anyway, you ready to go?” She jumps up and down. “It’s tattoo time!”
We wave to Elijah on our way out, but I don’t think he sees us, he’s so immersed in his work. The kids are out of sight, but I can still hear them screaming and laughing.
“So what are you getting?” I ask as we drive. The evening is warm, and we have the windows rolled down.
“An outline of an elephant on my shoulder,” Joni says as her short hair blows around in the wind.
“An elephant? Why?”
“Because they’re beautiful.”
Fair enough. “Your parents don’t care?”
“Nah. My dad let me get my first one last year. I’d been telling him I wanted a tattoo for as long as I could remember—since I was six or seven. I’ve always loved the concept of decorating your body. Anyway, he kept saying, ‘Sure, Joni, when you’re sixteen, you can get a tattoo.’ I think he thought I’d forget about it by then. But I turned sixteen