“Good choice,” said Rose. “Okay, Coriander, you go next. I’m still thinking.”
Mom played Bob Dylan’s “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” singing along loudly and out of key, which was saying a lot as far as Bob Dylan goes. When the song ended, Mom said, “No one writes songs like that anymore. Whatever happened to three chords and a message?”
“I hear what you’re saying,” said Rose. “But do you two know any songs written in this millennium?” Mom and I shared a look in the rearview mirror. Rose shook her head in amusement. “I’ve got the perfect song to bring you into the twenty-first century. Check it out.”
“Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye slowly crept out of the speakers like a genie from a lamp. It took a little while to gain momentum, but by the second chorus we’d started a new dance craze, as much as our seat belts would allow. I’d always assumed it was an older song, since in my mind, old music = good, new music = bad. But it turned out that good music had been written in the last few years.
For the rest of the ride we continued our rotation. I played the Sex Pistols; Rose played Of Monsters and Men. Mom played Widespread Panic; I played Naked Raygun. The two-hour ride flew by, marked by a few isolated thunderstorms and one quick bathroom break. Grub sat out the musical conversation, but I occasionally caught the top of his army helmet bobbing along.
Our genre swapping soon evolved into a new game: Musical Guilty Pleasures—you know, the one that inevitably ends with Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Hey Ya!” by OutKast. As we entered the town of Williams Bay, Wisconsin, Mom rolled down the windows and we all chanted the swelling chorus to “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners.
“Come on! Eileen taloo-rye-aye, come on! Eileen taloo-rye-aye!”
The song faded to an end as we turned onto my aunt’s street. The lake came into view for the first time and I took a deep breath, taking it all in. The road led directly to the waterfront, where tall oaks guarded the shore like a fortress wall. My aunt’s cottage, six houses up from the lake, lay surrounded by lush greenery and flowers, all perfectly in bloom. As we pulled into the driveway, we spotted Aunt Willow on the front porch wearing a sun hat over her long, side-braided hair. She greeted us with warm hugs and crinkly-eyed smiles. After I introduced her to Rose, we headed inside to unpack.
While Mom, Aunt Willow, and Grub got caught up, I gave Rose a quick tour of the cottage. I explained how every single decoration and picture had a story—the wooden oar hanging on the wall had been made in 1873 and subsequently purchased from an antique dealer in Elkhorn; the small rocking chair in the corner was the very one Mom and Aunt Willow’s own grandfather had been rocked to sleep in; the blond-haired boy about to eat a minnow in the photograph was, in fact, me at the age of two before my hair color changed.
The fate of the minnow remained uncertain.
After the tour, we headed to the lakeshore to partake in a family tradition: carry-out spaghetti and meatballs. It was the one day of the year Mom ate meat. We sat in Adirondack chairs in a semicircle facing the lake, eating from our aluminum to-go containers. The water shimmered in the early evening sun like blue and white sequins. Across the bay, nearly a mile away, multimillion-dollar mansions jutted from the earth atop emerald-green lawns the size of football fields.
Aunt Willow, who’d seated herself between me and Rose, began one of her intense inquiries—not out of nosiness, but sincere interest.
“Cori tells me you’re a musician,” said my aunt to Rose. The way she said musician was the same way someone might say astronaut—full of awe.
Rose nodded with a mouthful of spaghetti. “Mm-hmm.”
“You know, Sol and I—that’s my late husband—we loved going to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when we lived there. Have you ever been?”
“No, but I’d love to,” Rose replied.
“Well, maybe Zeus can take you there with all his hard-earned tip money,” said my aunt, patting me on the knee, then turning back to Rose. “You’re a pianist, yes?”
Rose nodded again. “I’m working on it.”
“She’s really good,” Grub said. “She’s going to piano school next year.”
Rose and I exchanged a look.
“Oh, lovely,” replied my aunt before we could correct him. “We had a piano growing up, didn’t we, Cori? Not that it got used much. We could barely pound out ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ with one finger!”
Aunt Willow continued telling stories about failed music lessons, making everyone laugh, including Rose. I’d known the two of them would get along, and I was happy to see them hit it off. But another part of me counted the seconds until I could have some alone time with Rose, which hadn’t happened since her return from Saint Thomas.
“Is this your first time seeing Geneva Lake, Rose?” my aunt asked.
“Yes, it’s beautiful!”
“There is something magical about it,” Aunt Willow agreed. “Tomorrow morning we’ll take out the boat first thing and give you a tour. Did you bring your swimsuit?”
“Yep, it’s in my bag,” Rose replied.
I tried to control my breathing. Picturing her in a swimsuit had taken up most of my brain space for the past week.
My aunt continued. “And how was the drive up? Did you run into any rain?”
“A little,” Rose replied. “It was a great ride though. We all took turns playing our favorite music.”
“How fun!” said my aunt. She put a finger to her chin. “Let me guess, Zeus played his loud guitar music and Cori played her hippie music.” Aunt Willow leaned over and put her hand on Rose’s arm. “And you played them some real music.” I couldn’t see my aunt’s face, but based on Rose’s reaction, she’d just received one of Aunt Willow’s classic winks, which made you feel like you were the only person that mattered to her.
Rose shrugged with a grin. “It’s all real music, I guess, just a matter of taste.”
“It’s also a road trip,” I added. “You need songs with words on road trips.”
“Oh, nonsense,” my aunt replied. “Some of my best ideas come while driving and listening to the classics.”
“I guess I just don’t get classical music,” I confessed.
“Maybe it’s like broccoli,” Mom said.
“Gross,” said Grub. He’d finished eating his breadsticks and noodles—no meatballs or sauce for him—and had begun setting up miniature plastic army men in various formations on his chair.
“Zeus, when you were two you absolutely despised broccoli,” Mom explained. “The sight, the smell—the mere mention of it made you retch.”
My face turned red.
“Aww!” said Rose.
Redder.
Mom continued. “So everyone knows broccoli is a good source of dietary fiber. And Zeus used to get so constipated—”
“Mom!” I glared at her. Rose snorted and choked on her spaghetti.
“Oh, don’t be embarrassed, everybody poops,” Mom said, waving a hand dismissively.