Beach Music

After writing the sentence, you put the notebook back in your purse. Allison looks at you expectantly.

She follows you as you do an about-face and walk back to the living room. You sit down at the grand piano, make a show of cracking your knuckles, and then reach for the keys.

Surprising even yourself, you launch into a classical piece that you vaguely remember from when you took piano lessons years ago -- you can't even remember the title, but with you playing it, it's coming back to you perfectly.

You finish with a flourish and bring the lid down over the keys as you stand up. Allison claps for you. You pretend to curtsy.

"Take that, Mom -- I told you I didn't have to practice," you jokingly say.

"Right, because a couple decades from now, I'm going to be able to just magically transform myself into a virtuoso." Allison completes your thought. "Fun, isn't it? I actually made myself an expert on the guitar."

Now she leads you out to the beach, making a brief stop at the guest house. It's very modest compared to the main house, with almost the same floor plan as your one-bedroom apartment, although it's at least twice the size. As advertised, she picks an electric guitar up from a stand in the living room, turns on the attached amplifier, and plays a quick riff.

You clap this time. "Hey, maybe we should jam sometime."

"Maybe Mirela will reward some more people and we can get a drummer and a bass player, too," Allison says. This time, you can tell she's joking, more or less.

Finally, you make it out to the beach. Allison tells you, "We say this is 'our' beach, but it's really all public."

You nod -- unlike Allison, you're from Florida, so you're familiar with that concept. You notice that there's a small brass "PRIVATE - NO TRESPASSING" sign on the beach side of the gate. "Do you get many trespassers?" you ask.

"The sign is mainly for show. Mirela actually has a magical 'field' set up that kind of repels people who aren't supposed to be here. But" -- Allison drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper -- "I'm not sure she realizes it doesn't work on kids. Sometimes they see me and ask to use the bathroom, and I let 'em. If they're especially nice, I may do a little something for them with the notebook."

"Really?" you ask.

She nods. The two of you are walking toward the water now. She points out, "See, the nearest public access is about a quarter mile that way" -- north -- "and about a half a mile that way" -- south. "So we don't get a lot of people spending the day right here."

"What do you do for the nice kids?"

"Minor stuff, really -- giving them straight teeth instead of braces, making it so they won't have acne when they're teenagers, making it so the girls will have bigger boobs once they develop --"

"Really?!"

"I've only done that once or twice -- okay, maybe five or six times," she admits. She wades into the warm greenish water, stopping once it's halfway up her shins. Unlike her, you have to stop to take off your shoes, which you throw several feet behind you so they won't get wet.

You start to ask, "So with the notebook, you made yourself bisexual, and made yourself play guitar like Carrie Brownstein --"

"I was doing Roger McGuinn," she protests. "You didn't notice that was a 12-string?"

"Fine," you say, "just -- first female guitar player I could come up with. Anyway -- what else have you done to yourself with the notebook?"