The Summerfest Volume

Saturday

“The red one,” my friend said. I removed the red flower from the pack of synthetic leis and clipped it to the back of Orion’s collar. He circled a few times in an effort to see what it was, then settled on the couch. Summerfest was happening outside our door, and the apartment had planned a front yard party.

Summerfest is a three-day annual celebration of art that takes place in Virginia Highlands. Small white tents stretch down Virginia Avenue for a quarter mile and a band plays at the Highland intersection, where we live. Our eight-unit apartment had pitched in to make drinks and set up a tent and chairs outside. All were welcome. Some friends had come over to hang out before exploring the festival.

We left Orion with the neighbors out front and meandered through the tents. Robby bought a can of grapefruit seltzer water mixed with vodka, and we took turns sipping it as we passed racks of purses made from garbage and wind chimes that knocked together in the breeze. The acoustic guitar strums that anchored the festival grew dimmer as we slipped past throngs of couples pushing strollers.

I caught the smell of fresh leather and turned to see an old man in a tent full of journals. He was posted up in a director’s chair and smiled when I walked in. The books were thick, with jagged pages and lush covers. They varied from a marbled red one the size of a phone book to a plain brown one the size of a Post-It note.

“The paper is cotton. I make it myself,” he said. I nodded. The journals averaged sixty dollars apiece, and my past few paychecks had been low. I told him they were beautiful and left without touching one.

“Seriously? You’re not going to buy one?” Robby asked when I emerged. I took the grapefruit seltzer can from his hand and walked on with a smile.

He bought me a photo from the next tent. The artist used miniature figurines to create scenes on top of naked bodies, and this one featured an airplane pulling the words “I LOVE YOU.” I bought him a print of Atlanta in technicolor, the painted skyline view from Piedmont Park. We’re still deciding where to put them in our apartment.

Though festivals are based on spending money, the energy enamors me every time. Our cluster of friends meandered halfway down the street and turned back around. I held our new artwork in one hand and Robby’s fingers in the other, grateful for too many things to list.

Sunday

Frantic artists shoved their wares to the center of their tents as the sky crashed open. It was the third and final day of Summerfest, and I emerged from the church located at the opposite end of the festival. I trekked home barefoot, my waterlogged Birkenstocks growing heavier by the second. I stopped in the journal tent. It was uninhabited except for the gorgeous books that were stacked on top of one another away from the rain. I walked to the basket of small ones, planning to buy a reasonably priced gift for an adventurous friend. I ran the pad of my finger around the corner of a little brown cover.

“Boo,” said a man behind me. I whipped around to see the old artisan, who cackled and leapt over a miniature river to take his place in the director’s chair. He wore a nametag labeled “Ernest” and was in front of a small sign that said “Fuzzy Dog Journals.”

“Should have packed up yesterday,” he said as he settled in. He peered at the rain that came down in sheets.

“I thought about you when it started,” I told him. “I would not want to be selling leather journals on a day like this.”

“It’s not so bad,” he replied, and then launched into the origin of his business. He left the corporate world for farming, and then left farming to make journals. He makes more money than ever and exercises every legal tax loophole there is.

At the end, he sighed. “Some old people come in here,” he said, “and tell me the journals are too beautiful to write in. They want to buy one and display it on a mantle over the fireplace. Would you keep a Porsche in a garage? No! What’s the point of buying it if you won’t use it?” He rang up the tiny journal I bought and put it in a plastic bag.

“Write in your journal,” he said. “Fill it with whatever you want.”

Saturday

I crumpled the grapefruit seltzer can and tossed it in a bin when we reached the end of the festival. We climbed the stairs to the tent where our neighbors dunked their cups in coolers of different booze.

“Orion got hot,” one of them said. “We put him back in y’all’s apartment.”

We filed into our apartment and settled on various couches and chairs. Orion bounced frantically from face to face, his little pink tongue mirroring the flower petals on the back of his collar. I pulled some brie from the refrigerator and preheated the oven, planning to melt it and drizzle it with olive oil and rosemary.

When I sat back down, Robby stood and smirked at me. He pulled something from behind his back and placed it in my hands. It was a journal. A heavy, luscious journal with frayed pages and a wraparound cover secured with a black strap.

“You did not!” I hollered. He crouched down and hugged me.

“You’re a writer,” he said. “You need something like that.” I squeezed him as hard as I could. He sat beside me and we opened it, marveling at the smooth drape of the leather and the tight, careful binding. I closed the pages around my face and smelled summer camp and my favorite childhood vest.

Sunday

“My boyfriend surprised me with one of your journals yesterday,” I told Ernest, relishing the way the rain smelled as it slipped under the tent. He grinned.

“I know,” he said.

“How would you know?” I asked. “His friend is the one who came in and bought it.”

He chuckled. “Some young man came in here, walked right up to me, and said, ‘I need the best journal you have in this price range. And if you screw me on this, my buddy will kick my ass because it’s a present for his girlfriend.’”

I pictured Jonathan’s sharp hilarity. “That sounds about right,” I said. “And you didn’t screw him; the journal is perfect.”

“Of course,” said Ernest. “I hope you write in it. Some old people come in here and tell me the journals are too beautiful to write in.”

Saturday

I sniffed the journal again while lying in bed. It smelled just as fresh, and I suspected it always would. I opened it to write, but wasn’t sure how to start. I wanted every word to count.

Robby, who was slipping in and out of sleep, said, “What are you going to use it for?”

“That’s what I’m trying to decide,” I told him. I settled on writing my name and phone number in the front.

An idea hit me. “Will you write a letter on the first page?” I asked. He rolled his eyes and said of course, but not tonight.

He propped himself on his elbow and looked at the book, which was spread out on the pillow in front of me. “You were right,” he said. “It does look like something that would have spells in it.”

“Or scripture,” I said. The thing was luminous. I rubbed my hand over the second page, wanting badly to write something.

“Make it your travel journal,” said Robby. “Write about our adventures.”

I pictured all the places this not-travel-sized journal would go and kissed him. It would absolutely be the place where our moving story continued to unfold. I would launch the volume by writing about today, and then pick back up when we were in a different place. Days like this one made it easy to love Robby who, granted, is a very easy person to love. I was almost as grateful for our hard days, though, the ones that didn’t involve friendly neighbors and paintings of Atlanta. They prepared us for whatever would go in this journal next.

I folded the journal shut and brought the strap around, curling it under itself to secure it. I decided to write down the hardest parts of every adventure, as well as the ones that floated by. This book was too sacred for anything but the truth.