I was pedaling hard, weaving through the traffic, already fifteen minutes late for lunch and trying not to be any later. I only had a couple hours before I was due back to pick up Jojo, and in that time had to fit in lunch, visiting with friends I hadn’t seen in a month, and picking up more diapers. It sounds busy, yet it was the most relaxing day I’d had in ages.

Oceanside had changed since I was a kid. There was still the ebb and flow of tourism, a tide of sightseers and weekenders that would take over the town and then just as suddenly vanish, but the town no longer felt dead once they left. There was still a bustle in the air, a sense that things were happening. New businesses opened up, buildings were being renovated, and even the old town square had been spruced up into an artists’ district.

It was certainly harder to bike through Oceanside these days, even during the autumn, but I prided myself on biking whenever possible. No running out of gas, no sitting stalled in traffic, just the endless fresh air rolling in from the sea filling your lungs as your legs propelled you up the hills (so many hills, so so many) to your destination. I couldn’t do it all the time, of course. I’d gotten a baby seat for the bike, but it just didn’t seem safe enough to ride Jojo around in. Maybe when he was older. So I was borrowing a car from my mom for the time being, but every chance I got, I ditched the car and biked instead.

Nat and Owen were out on the patio at Emperor Panda, waving as I pulled up. I locked the bike and jogged over to join them.

“Oh my god, you look so tan,” I said, giving them a big hug. “I’m so sorry I missed your wedding.”

The lucky dogs had just gotten married at a tropical island resort, while those of us with babies and responsibilities had to stay home.

Nat laughed. “You would’ve hated it!”

Owen added, “We know how drama-averse you are! And there was some small degree of drama during the wedding.”

As we sat down, Mr. Thurgood, Owen’s Boston Terrier, hopped into my lap for pats. Scritching him on the head, I said, “Still, I’m so glad to see you guys. I have been so out of it. I feel like I’ve missed everything that’s happened the past few months!”

“Mr. Suburban Single Dad!” said Nat, beaming at me. “You’re like the most mature person we know.”

“We are taking notes on everything you do,” said Owen, “so we can learn from your wisdom.”

That made me laugh. “Wisdom rule one,” I said, “you never have enough diapers. You might think you do. You might have just bought them yesterday. But you do not have enough. Ever.”

Then they gave me the Curious About Parenting look, a look I’d come to recognize in my friends who had settled down. I had a lot of friends who were nowhere near mature enough to consider having kids yet (I would’ve counted myself as one of them until Jojo dropped into my life), but among those guys who had gotten married, who found themselves established, there was a look in their eyes when they began wondering what having kids would be like.

Little did they know!

I pulled out my phone and brought up the pics I’d taken of Jojo this morning, in his little blue hat my mom had knitted for him. They oohed and ahhed appropriately.

Then Owen asked the big question: “So...is it hard, having him? Raising him? I mean, Nat and I have talked--not too seriously, but you know, the topic comes up--”

That made me laugh. “He’s the best baby in the world. And I’m not just saying that because he’s mine.”

Mine. A little pang when I said that. Jojo wasn’t mine just yet. He would be, someday, when the lawyers and the court finished their interminable paperwork. It would’ve been faster if my sister Janey had stuck around to fill out forms, instead of just dumping Jojo on me before heading off to Mexico.

Oh, I don’t like thinking about that. Not thinking about people leaving forever. I didn’t hate Janey--she was my little sister, and I’d never hate her--but she had cut herself out of Jojo’s life the same way Dad had left us when we were kids. It left a little knot of pain in my heart.

Yet I’d discovered Jojo himself was the cure for that pain. I missed him so much when I wasn’t near him. Still, I needed a little time to recharge, a little time to talk to adults!

“The thing is, everything changes,” I said. “Your entire life, however it worked before, gets rearranged, because now you’re responsible. Like, you never realize how many power outlets you have, until you have a baby. Now that he’s crawling, I’m shocked by how many dangerous things are on the floor.”

We ordered, and our food came out. I was having the 5-spice tofu, while Nat and Owen shared lo mein, with a plate of snow peas for Mr. Thurgood, who had returned to his spot under the table.

“Speaking of things changing,” said Nat, “did you hear about the old boardwalk?”

“Wow, there’s a blast from the past. No, what about it?” I asked.

“They’re tearing it down!”

I’m not a drama queen. I don’t overreact to things. In fact, compared to my friends, I’d say I have the least angst in Oceanside. Yet hearing this news, I had to set my chopsticks down a moment. “Say that again.”

“The whole thing,” said Nat. “They’re just going to bulldoze all of it!”

I felt dizzy and strange. Nat seemed excited about it. But even though he’d been in Oceanside a long time, he hadn’t grown up here. That was the difference.

“But they can’t do that,” I said. “All of Oceanside’s character and personality started at the boardwalk. It’s as much a part of our history as the old cannery building, or the lighthouse.”

It was where we went to hide from the world, I wanted to say. It was the place we could be free from our parents, free from school, where we could just be ourselves.

Owen said, “No, they’ve needed to demolish that thing for decades. When’s the last time anyone actually used it? It’s all run-down, abandoned, nothing but spiders and graffiti. You can’t get within fifty yards of it without getting tetanus.”

That was true. Once the pier had been built, with its permanent carnival, all the tourist traffic had left the old boardwalk. Nobody wanted to go down there anymore.

Yet it was still full of memories.

“They’ll probably develop it,” I said with a trace of bitterness. “Put in a bunch of boutiques and restaurants we can’t afford, like they’ve done with most of downtown.”

Nat nodded. “That’s the bad part. Watch, it’ll be the site of some millionaire’s mansion, right on the beach.”

That was a horrible thought. At the same time, I had that strange feeling you sometimes get when something is important to you, yet you haven’t seen it in years. How could I have any say in the boardwalk? I’d avoided it, the same as everyone else. In some small part, I was responsible for its decay, as much as the rest of the town.

“Where are you even getting this?” I said. “It hasn’t been in the news.”

Owen laughed. “We have the inside track on all the Oceanside real estate these days. Josh was there at our wedding, and he started dating this guy who does all the deals in town, and so when he heard about it, he told Josh, who told us.”

I didn’t exactly follow that, but that was okay; that’s how information works in Oceanside.

“But!” exclaimed Nat. “That’s not the only news Josh told us, nor the most important.”

“I don’t know, the boardwalk is important. To me, anyway,” I said.

“Josh’s real-estate boyfriend is really excited, because of who is in town right now. He’s going to try to inveigle him in all manner of land deals.”

“I’m not following,” I said. “Who’s in town right now?”

“Ransom Pope, the singer. Don’t tell anybody. Josh made us swear to keep it absolutely confidential,” said Nat.

“No one is allowed to know,” agreed Owen. “Especially not us.”

Ransom Pope. There was a name I hadn’t heard in forever.

Well, that wasn’t true. You couldn’t go five minutes without hearing his name somewhere. He was always on TV, or releasing a new album, or appearing on the covers of tabloids veering from one starlet to the next.

At first, it had seemed strange and painful, seeing this vision from my past everywhere. Gradually I had peeled my version of Ransom away from this handsome man on TV, making them into two separate people. That way, when a store was playing his songs while I was shopping, I wouldn’t have to think or feel anything about it at all. My Ransom was safely locked away in the past.

Had he come back to town? It didn’t make sense to me. Weren’t we just as full of fakes and phonies as we’d ever been?

It’s weird, hearing about him so soon after hearing about the boardwalk, as though he were a natural disaster blowing into town, destroying all our memories.

Nat laughed. “Look at your face! Owen, look at him! Do you find his music as sickly-sweet as I do?”

“Millions of tween girls and their moms think otherwise,” said Owen.

“I didn’t even realize he used to live here,” said Nat. “He’s about your age, Cave. Did you know him when you were younger?”

I shook my head. The lie came easily: “No, I never met him. Not my kind of music, either.”

“It’s all anybody is going to be talking about,” said Owen. “That is, once the news gets out that he’s here. Which it won’t do, thanks to our discretion and ability to keep a secret.”

I was already rising from my chair. “You know, I should go down to the boardwalk before they do anything to it. I’d like to see it one more time.”

“You better go fast,” said Nat. “It won’t be there for long.”

I’d spent ages making myself nostalgia-proof, shoring up my defenses so that loss wouldn’t hurt me anymore. That included things like not visiting old places that held strong memories for me. I didn’t need the past. I had plenty going on in my life right this moment, good things, happy things, so that there was no room for painful memories.

Still, I couldn’t let them tear down the boardwalk without one last visit, painful as it might be.