Page 46 of Everything All at Once

“And we’re going to a record store in Groton?”

“Yeah.”

“Which is right next to Mystic...”

“You want to meet him?”

“Of course I want to meet him! I have to check out the guy who’s stolen your stone-cold heart.”

“He hasn’t stolen my... Okay. I’ll see if he’s around,” I said, pulling out my phone. I sent him a short text, and he wrote back right away:

Definitely! Text me when you get here.

“What did he say?” Em asked.

“He said, ‘Is your drunk friend going to be there?’”

“He did not.”

“He did not. He said okay. I guess we’re hanging out.”

“Wow. And you went to New York with him. Wow. This is huge. You’re, like, getting married.”

I handed Em another piece of toast because she couldn’t talk with food in her mouth.

When Abe was dressed, we took the Thermoses of coffee and the remaining toast and got in my car. We drove with the windows down and the music up, and Abe and Em had a long conversation about the merits of vinyl versusdigital and whether there was a point at all to preserving history like that and only when I got off the exit for Groton did I ask Abe if he knew where the store was. He directed me the rest of the way, and we took side streets to get to a little shack-like structure on a little street in the middle of nowhere. The small parking lot was crowded with cars and a faded sign on the building said Magic Grooves.

“This place looks interesting,” Em said.

“It looks like Championship Vinyl,” I said.

“Excellent reference. This place is famous,” Abe declared, getting out of the car. “People come from all around to get their albums here. They even do concerts in the back, record release parties. It’s the real deal.”

I texted Sam before I got out of the car:

We’re in Groton. Magic Grooves.

The inside of the store was dark and dusty and kind of perfect, exactly the sort of place I could imagine spending hours sorting through old musty records. I mean—I would have preferred if they were books. But still.

Abe and Em drifted off to lose themselves in the stacks, and I approached the man behind the counter. He was in his early thirties, with short brown hair that swooped to one side, a flannel shirt (the store was air conditioned significantly), and small, round, wire-framed glasses. He looked approachable and friendly—even doing paperwork, he had a smile on his face. When he saw me he looked up, and it grew even larger.

“Hi!” he said. “Can I help you find something?”

Every movie or book I’d seen or read that featured a record store like this had pretentious, miserable people manning it. I was happy that wasn’t the case here.

“You’re not Leonard, are you?” I asked.

“That’s me! What can I do for you?”

“I think you knew my aunt. Helen Reaves?”

“Oh man,” he said, his face darkening instantly. “Professor Reaves. Of course I knew her. She was your aunt? I was so sorry to hear the news.”

“You were one of her students?”

“Years ago. Eight years, maybe? Best class I ever took. She was so good at explaining what she wanted you to know. It was like she was just an open book, just blowing all her knowledge over the class. Wow, that’s a terrible analogy. She would have flunked me for that,” Leonard said, smiling again, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Actually, speaking of books... I’m supposed to get one from you. She said she lent you one and she never got it back?”