The Way I Used to Be

On one of the final evenings of summer, Eden and Mara drive to the gas station in the car that Mara’s dad gives Mara for her 16th birthday. This gas station, the girls have discovered, is willing to sell beer to them, despite the fact that Eden and Mara are underage. Eden flirts with the middle-aged male gas station attendant, while Mara secures the beer. He leers at them but does not object to them buying two six-packs.

Eden and Mara get back into the car, blasting the music: “‘This is going to be the best year, Edy!’ she [Mara] shouts, looking over at me with an enormous smile” (185). Eden asks where they are headed, and Mara says that it is a surprise. They soon arrive at nearby playground in an adjacent suburb, where Eden and Mara used to play as children: “I once believed this was the most magical place on the planet. I walk closer. It’s smaller now, it seems, than when we were kids, but still wonderful” (186). They open their beers and light cigarettes at the highest tower of the wooden playground. They talk about how differently they view the world now that they are older, wiser.