Sunday, Dec 22, 2021
Dad had tried to be super casual about having a secret storage space but he also wanted to keep it secret, Sofie and I were not to say a word about it to Mom.

“It’s a surprise,” he said. He was probably right, it would’ve been a surprise all right, a real shock even.

The next morning, I headed straight back to Kim’s Basement. I had no time to lose, I needed to bring in the heavy artillery. A mixtape. Pete needed to give a mixtape to Sofie, and it had better be a good one.

explained the situation to Kim who scratched his chin a little. That was always a good sign. It mean that he was thinking, and a thinking Kim was a great Kim.

“It’s not as easy as it may seem at first glance,” he said. “I need more information about them, and I’d also need to know exactly what kind of an effect we’d like the tape to have.”

Kim asked me a few questions to be better able to help me. I answered them the best I could.

“No, they don’t have ‘their song.’ No, they don’t have a lot of history. She made her a hot chocolate. She liked him in a play. He’s Jennifer’s kid. She’s my niece,” I said, embarrassed by how little I could give Kim. He took notes and when he had filled a full page in his journal, he underlined the last item twice and tore out a new page.

“Let’s get to it,” he said. “First of all, let me choose the tape.”

Kim turned around and pulled out a shoebox filled with cassettes.

“Let’s see … 60, 60, 90, 60 … BASF, TDK, Maxell, Sony, Fuji… chrome… here we go,” he said and pulled out a BASF 60-minute tape, tore off the plastic around the tape and put it in the stereo he had behind him.

“I think we can get 15 great songs on this. But first, we have to create the story,” he said.

“The story?”

“The story of their relationship. What is the story we want, um, what was his name again?”

“Pete.”

“Yes, the story that we want Pete to tell, um, what was her name?”

“Sofie.”

“Exactly.”

“I just want them to not be afraid to talk about their feelings for each other, that’s all.”

“Interesting,” Kim said, and rubbed his chin again. Then he lifted the counter top and walked to a crate filled with records and pulled out a few of them before zooming over to another one where he found a few more.

“Let’s begin with ‘Hello’,” Kim said, took the record from its sleeve, set it on the turntable, and dropped he needle on it. Then he pressed Rec and Play, and rubbed his hands together like a Bond villain.

It took as two hours to put together the tape as we took turns coming up with new songs and then finding the records in Kim’s crates. Once we had the final cut ready, Kim suggested that I be the one to write the song titles on the tape.

“My handwriting’s crap,” he said.

And so I sat there and wrote down the songs that were:

Side A:
Hello
How Will I Know
Burning Heart
Freedom
I Want To Break Free
Take On Me
The Way You Make Me Feel

Side B:
Through The Barricades
Every Breath You Take
Love in the First Degree
I Just Called To Say I Love You
Time After Time
Footloose
Crazy for You

I insisted on the last song. Maybe it wasn’t exactly our song but it was the one that Jennifer and I had danced to just before she kissed me that one time that one night back in high school.

“That should do it,” Kim said. “Guar-an-teed.”

➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)