“It must have been hard to find out my mom had died without having a chance to show her the journal.”
“I only thought of you,” David said, looking right at my sunglass-covered eyes. “I knew it was going to be hard for you, losing both your parents at the same time, and I wished things had been different, that we were still friends, and that I could comfort you in the same way your mom had comforted me when mine died.”
I looked down at the journal, and an idea formed in my head. I must have been quiet for a moment too long because David sounded worried when he asked if I was okay once again.
“Do you want to read the journal together?” I asked. “I mean, they were ten years old when they started it, so I'm sure we're not going to find anything embarrassing.”
“Yeah, that's a great idea. Do you want to take it home to read it first and then pass it on to me, or do you want to read it together, together?” David said, and I thought I saw a slight blush on his tanned skin.
“Let's read it at the same time. We can meet up and read out loud in my apartment or yours.”
“Okay. Do you want to finish the drinks and come over to mine, then? We could have a look at the first couple of entries.”
“Deal!"
I was wrapping the journal in its scarf again when Pedro arrived and spotted us immediately.
“Jesus Cristo, if this is not a blast from the past,” Pedro said, walking toward us. “Joel, I haven't seen you in years. How are you, my man?” he said as he gave me a one-armed hug and a firm pat on the back.
“I'm good, thanks, Pedro. How are you?”
“I’m great, thanks,” Pedro said. before he turned to David. “And you master chef, I don't see you often enough. You might as well be living in America too.”
“That's quite an exaggeration, Pedro. You see me run past at least a couple of times a week.”
“Running past here won't help me feed my kids. You need to stop and get a drink.”
“You don't have any kids, Pedro,” David deadpanned.
As I observed the exchange between the two men, I was both sad at the years I missed this easy friendship and happy that I was here now.
“Icouldhave kids.” Pedro insisted, unwilling to lose that particular argument. “Anyway, what's that you got there, Joel?” He leaned closer. “I have a feeling I've seen it before.”
“It looks like our moms wrote a travel journal together, and David found it recently. We were just talking about it.”
“It is truly a day of memories. I remember Paula and Sílvia taking that notebook everywhere we went. They would see something and write it down immediately. I asked to read it once, but they said I wasn't allowed. It upset me for a whole hour before I forgot about it and went to play football outside.” Pedro sighed. “I miss those two girls.”
Pedro ran his hand through the silky material of the scarf. “They bought this scarf when we went on a school trip to Viana do Castelo because they really liked the pattern and the color. Their birthdays were close together, so on the same trip, I bought them each a keyring with the Heart of Viana.” Pedro smiled as he recounted the day of the trip.
“I wonder what happened to the keyrings?”
David started fumbling around in his pockets and then put a set of keys on the table.
“Is this it?” he asked.
“Oh my God, David, you still have it. And I see the key is still on it.” He turned to me. “I guess you still have your mom’s, too, Joel.”
I hadn’t paid much attention to the set of keys my grandma had given me, but I pulled them out of my pocket and put them on the table too. There was no doubt my keyring matched David’s.
Pedro let out an excited laugh. “You both have the keys too!”
“What are they for?” we asked at the same time.
“Do they actually open something?” David asked. “I’ve looked everywhere, but I can’t find anything that fits this key.”
Pedro explained that when they were seventeen, our moms spent a summer working hard to save money to buy a car so they could travel together as soon as one of them got their driving license.
“They didn’t have all the money they needed by the end of the summer, so my uncle, who owned this place before me, gave them a job after school in their senior year.”
