“Give the wheel a spin for a chance to win gift cards, discounts, and more,” a vendor called out from where he stood beside a wheel labeled with various prizes from businesses up and down the block.
“I’ll spin it,” Murry declared, making it whirl around several times before landing on a gift card to one of the local bakeries.
Daddy stepped up and spun it next and got a gift card to the new age shop that he promptly passed to me. Then it was my turn to spin, and we all laughed because now we had double credit at the bakery.
“I can see some amazing breakfast treats in our future,” Murry said.
Those wouldn’t be the last gift cards we won before we made it around the square either. Along the way, there were more samples too. We donned hippy gear and posed for pictures inside a refurbished hippy van that looked like something right out of the 1960s. Daddy purchased a packet with different-sized photos, including ones small enough to tuck in our wallets as well as one big enough to hang on the wall in the loft, and then we all headed inside the counterculture museum to take a break from the crowds of people outside.
Wandering past monitors with speeches, rallies, protests, and old news reports playing on the ones mounted on the walls was cool. So were the colorful clothing displays of dashikis and bell bottoms. There were neon posters, album covers, and a whole room where music played from a turntable while scenes from Woodstock played on a screen that took up an entire wall.
The history of the event was depicted on the other displays, so we took our time reading everything while swaying to some seriously mellow music. I loved the Grateful Dead, but I’d never heard them on vinyl the way their music sounded in the room.
“Talk about a chill vibe,” Daddy said. “I could use some of this on my playlist.”
“Haven’t you ever heard the Grateful Dead before?” I asked.
“Probably,” Daddy said. “I’m sure I have with all the stations, hoping I did back before Bluetooth. I just didn’t recognize what I was listening to. How are you so familiar with them?”
“Murry used to play them all the time,” I explained.
“My grandmother loved them,” Murry explained. “She was a true Dead Head. When I introduced Raleigh to them, he couldn’t get enough, so we’d listen to them on YouTube over and over until we finally started moving on to other things.”
“I still love them though,” I said, shoulders swaying asCasey Jonesfilled the room.
And because I loved them, we got to stay and listen to the whole song before moving on to the next exhibit. When we finally stepped back outside, the crowd on the sidewalk had thinned some, making it easier to finish the last street on the square. That’s where we almost lost Murry. He spotted something in a window, and if I hadn’t been holding on to his hand so tightly, he’d have pulled free in his haste to get in there. Daddy wasn’t so lucky and got cut off from us by people who’d been trying to leave the store as Murry rushed in, so we waited, just inside the doorway, for him to catch up.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped, narrowing my eyes at him.
I hated that it made some of the excitement in his eyes fade while his bright smile thinned out before he started pouting.
“The shop’s not even that big,” he complained. “You’re not going to lose me in here.”
“Sorry for not wanting to take that chance,” I shot back.
“Raleigh…”
“You promised you wouldn’t let me get lost,” I reminded him as I curled my fingers through his belt loop so he could pick things up in here the way he’d done for me at the crystal table. “You can still see everything.”
“You’re right,” Murry said. “I’m sorry. I got excited when I saw all the games in the window.”
“Well, we could always use a few new games to add to the collection in the loft,” Daddy said as he stepped around a woman so he could join us. “But I have to agree with Raleigh about you not doing that again. We have time to see everything, I promise. We don’t need to rush and get separated.”
“Sorry,” Murry muttered, ducking his head.
Daddy placed his hand on it and mussed up his hair. “All’s forgiven.”
I loved that when Daddy said something was forgiven, he never brought it up again. Growing up, my folks were constantly rehashing old arguments and blaming each other for things that happened before they’d even had me. It was exhausting, listening to them be so bitter and hurtful towards one another. Murry and I never have fights like that, which was a relief because I doubted our friendship would have lasted this long if we had. I hated meanness. It was so ugly. Not to mention how gross it felt to listen to it and see it play out. My stomach always felt like it was filled with twisty rocks that churned and rolled around in there.
“Depending on what we find, we might need to make a pit stop back at the loft to unload before we head over to the park,” Daddy said. “With all of the options in here, I can’t picture us leaving empty-handed.”
“Have you ever played an RPG?” Murry asked, already leading the way towards the new expansion set he’d spied through the window.
“Played them and run them,” Daddy said. “Aspen and I had a regular gaming group in New York when we still lived there.”
“Sweet, Aspen plays too?” I declared. “So does Phoenix; he and James helped us make our first characters. Up until last year, we had a club game night every Tuesday where a bunch of staff and dancers would get together to play through a campaign.”
“Why’d you stop?” Daddy asked.
