by L. D. King
“I really wanted you all to myself, you know, so we could have time just for ourselves; no one else. But if you want your friends to come with us, that works for me. Give them a call and see if they want to go. If they say yes, tell them to be here in an hour and we’ll make it happen. If their boyfriends are coming with them, it’ll be one big party. Make sure everyone brings their travel cards. I’ll need them to book our room and reserve our travel tickets. No travel visa, no ID, they can’t go.”
With a smile on her face, Mary pulled him into a hug. They placed their foreheads together, staring directly into each other’s eyes. Mary told him, “If we all go, I want two rooms; one for the girls and one for the guys. Can we do that? It would really make me happy.”
Jerry looked exasperated. He had a look of frustration on his face for a moment. Then a smile crept back onto his face. He knew she was right, though he didn’t want to accept it.
“I’ll get two rooms. If I’m lucky, we can get some with a door in between. That way we won’t be running up and down the hallway.”
Jerry was starting to think that if he played his cards right, he still might get lucky in New York. Mary tried to get all of the girls on a conference call, but Cori didn’t answer her phone. With Jennifer and Rosie on the line, Mary broke the news.
“Oh, my god! Have I got some news for you! Jerry and I have been talking, and he came up with this great idea for all of us. School starts in two weeks, right? We want to celebrate the end of summer before school starts. We want to go on a vacation to New York City, our last big blowout before senior year, and we want you guys and your boyfriends to all come with us! Just the eight of us!” The girls were excited at the idea.
“If you want to go with us, be at Jerry’s house in an hour. Bring your boyfriends if they want to go. Everyone needs to bring their travel cards. Jerry needs them to get the tickets and to book our rooms. We want to leave tomorrow. Remember, if you don’t have your IDs and travel visas, you can’t go.”
Jennifer was at Mike’s house. She jumped up from the couch with a huge smile. She clenched her fists, pumping them up. She grabbed Mike, stood him up and hugged him. She was screaming. Somehow she was able to still talk between her screams. “Mary, are you kidding? I’d love to go! Just a minute, let me tell Mike where we’re going.”
She explained to Mike, “Mary and Jerry are going to New York for an end-of-summer vacation and they want us to go. What do you think?”
Mike was standing there trying to understand what had his girlfriend jumping around screaming like a mad person. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he was going along with it, whatever it was. He had no plans to stay in East Norwich alone. He smiled as he nodded yes.
“Mike said yes, we’re going! We will be over there in a few. Thanks for thinking of us!”
As Jennifer was talking to Mary, Rosie clicked off from the conference call and called Stan. She told him the news, and he readily agreed to go. She clicked back into the conference call and told Mary, “I just talked to Stan. We’re both coming. He’s on his way to my house and we’ll be over in 15 or 20 minutes.”
Mary told her, “Rosie, I can’t get Cori on the phone. You live close to her house. On your way over here, will you stop and see if she is home? If she is, see if she wants to come with us. Bring her along if she does.”
“Sure, I can do that. Stan will be at my house in ten minutes. We’ll look for Cori and Teddy. We’ll see you in a few.”
Rosie and Stan stopped at Cori’s house and found Teddy there. They told them about the trip, and Cori and Teddy immediately agreed to go. They all went over to Jerry’s house. Jerry’s parents’ front room was filled to capacity, with Jerry, Mary, Jennifer, Mike, Rosie, Stan, Cori and Teddy were there. They sat on every available spot they could find.
Mike, sitting on the sofa with Rosie on his lap, was the first to speak. “So, Jerry… whose idea was this vacation?”
Jerry was sitting at the dining room table with his laptop open in front of him. “Well, Mary and I had been talking. This is our last summer together. We thought it’d be a good time for a last blast in the city. She and I are going to different colleges after we graduate, and some of you are doing the same. This’ll really be our last summer together for a few years while we are away at college. All our parents are working the tourist thing. We thought that it’s high time that we should have some fun of our own.
“Mom gave me one of her credit cards in case I need something while they are gone. Right now, I’m thinking that this is something I need. Mary wants to get two rooms — one for us guys and one for the girls. If we get lucky, we can get one with a connecting door between them. We want to leave early tomorrow. We can go for ten days and still be back before our parents ever know we were gone. In the city, we can do whatever we want. As long as none of us gets arrested or anything, there won’t be any trouble.” He grinned.
“When my mom finds out what I did, all she will do is holler at me. My brother Freddy, did this just before his senior year three years ago. He went to the city with some of his friends. They had a great time. He used mom’s credit card, too. When she found out, she didn’t blow up at him — well, not too much, anyway.”
Mary got up and went to sit next to Jennifer. Cori was sitting on the floor next to Teddy. Jennifer looked around at everyone and said, “If I go, I know that my parents will be good with it, as long as all of us are together. You know what they say: there’s safety in numbers. We really won’t have to tell them that our boyfriends came with us, at least not until later and only if they ask. Besides, we are almost adults.”
Mike sat up straighter, with Jennifer still on his lap, and looked at Jerry. “Dude, I’m broke. I can’t make this work with what I have on me. How are we all going to be able to pay for this?”
Jerry held up his mother’s credit card. “I’ll use mom’s credit card for all of us. I want to go, Mary wants to go, the girls want to go. C’mon, Mike. The whole trip depends on if the girls go. Mary won’t go without the girls, and I bet Jennifer won’t go without you. What do you say? It’s all on me… well, it’s all on my mom.”
Mary stood up and looked around the room looking at her girlfriends. “Come on, girls. Don’t you want to go? The eight of us can take over New York! We’ll have a great time. We might not ever be able to do this again. I really want to go. Come on, let’s do it.”
Rosie was holding Stan’s hand, smiling at him.
“Okay, Mary. If you, Jennifer and Cori are going, I’m going too. Stan will go wherever I go, won’t you, sweetheart? It will be a girl’s weekend, except we’ll have our guys with us. You’re right, Mary... After graduation. I’m going to Florida, and Stan is going to Texas A&M. This is really the last time we’ll ever all be together like this. Come on, Jen, Cori… it’ll be fun for all of us.”
Jennifer was smiling as she snuggled with Mike while sitting on his lap. “All right, Rosie, I’ll go. Mike, you’ll come with us, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
Once Jennifer said this, she leaned over and kissed Mike, letting her long blonde hair fall over both of their faces. Mike came up for air. He peeked around Jennifer, looking at Jerry.
“Whoa… Jerry, you know I’ll follow Jennifer wherever she goes. So yeah, we’ll go. I just need you to remember I’m broke. I don’t want to come out of this owing everyone on this trip, okay?”
Mary walked over to the dining room table and sat next to Jerry. Looking at Cori, she let out a long breath. “What about you two? Say you’ll come with us. It’ll be fun!”
Cori looked up. Her eyes seemed sunken into her face. She looked like she was suffering from a bad case of the flu. She was holding on to Teddy tightly. Teddy didn’t look too good, either. Neither of them had said a word the whole time. Cori was coughing, but she looked at Mary and said in a hoarse voice, “We’ll go with you guys. We both woke up feeling like crap. I think we’ve got some kind of 24-hour bug, but we’ll go with you even if we feel bad. It should
n’t last for long. Thank you for asking us.”
Jerry was on his laptop, looking for a place to stay. He found the place where his brother had stayed three years before. He clicked on the website and liked what they had to offer, so he called everyone to come and look at it.
“Hey guys, come look at this. This is the same place my brother stayed a few years ago. It doesn’t look too bad. I found two available rooms that connect. There are two beds in each room. We can get a rollaway for each room and there’ll be plenty of space. If it sounds okay to you guys, I’ll reserve the rooms for us now. I don’t want to lose them by waiting for too long. What do you think? If you want me to reserve the rooms, I’ll need your IDs to book them.”
Everyone huddled behind Jerry looking at the rooms. Jennifer didn’t see that he was looking at two rooms. She told Jerry, “I don’t want to sleep in the same bed as Mike. I want my own bed. We’re close, but I don’t think we want to be that close just yet. Not that something might not happen on this trip, but we’ll have to wait and see if it does.”
Jerry clicked through to the reservation page. He showed Jennifer that it was two rooms with a connecting door. He looked at her. “Jennifer, that’s why we’re getting two rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. Will that work for you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s a good idea. It’ll be nice to have two rooms.”
“Okay. I’ll make the reservation starting tomorrow. Sunday through the next Wednesday. Is that good for everyone?”
Jennifer was counting the days on her fingers. She looked puzzled. She looked at Jerry. “If we come back on Wednesday, that won’t be enough time. We have more than two weeks until school starts. Can we stay until the Sunday before we start school? That will give us all day Sunday to come home to get ready for school. Our folks won’t be back until noon on the Monday that school starts. We won’t see our parents until that night. What do you think?”
Jerry smiled. He squeezed Mary’s hand. “All right, I’ll book it starting tomorrow for two whole two weeks. That will give us a full two weeks in the city. Is everybody good with that?”
Everyone smiled as they gave Jerry a thumbs up. Jerry smiled and clicked the reserve button, using his mother’s credit card to secure the rooms. He told everyone, “Okay, I need everyone’s IDs to complete the reservation. I’ll need them to get our travel tickets.”
Jerry bought the bus and train tickets. He printed them out with their room reservations and gave everyone back their cards.
“Everything is ready. Be back here tomorrow at 7:00 AM with everything packed and ready to go. Pack light, ‘cos we won’t need much. Bring what you need, but keep it to one backpack each, okay? We’ll see all of you here tomorrow at seven, ready to go. Don’t forget to keep your IDs and travel visas on you in case we get stopped along the way. We will need them to get on the bus and train.”
And so it was decided. The eight of them, four couples, would start their adventure the next morning. They didn’t have any idea that the next day would the last time that the eight of them would be together. It would also be the last time that any of them would see East Norwich again.
After everyone had left. Jerry hugged Mary. He asked her, “Did you notice Cori and Teddy? They didn’t look so good.”
Mary responded. “I know. Did you hear how hoarse Cori was? She said that they had a 24-hour bug. Now that I think about it, neither one of them said too much of anything. They just sat on the floor over in the corner. When I looked at them, their eyes looked all sunken into their heads. Teddy’s skin was turning dark. He was rubbing his hands like they hurt. Kind of weird, don’t you think?”
“They said they’ll be ready to go tomorrow, but I think if they don’t look any better, they better stay home. I don’t want to catch anything and ruin our trip. I don’t know, Jerry… maybe there’s something wrong with them. Neither of them looked too good. Let’s see what happens tomorrow,” Mary said.
It was seven in the morning the next day, a beautiful late summer Sunday morning. For most teenagers around the world, their day didn’t begin until noon or later. Seven in the morning was just too early. But this group of kids was on a mission. Jerry was waiting for everyone on his parent’s front porch as everyone trickled in. By 6:45 everyone was at Jerry’s house except for Teddy and Cori. The girls were huddled up on the lawn, talking non-stop about the fun they were going to have in the city. The guys were thinking about something entirely different. They were sitting or standing on the porch, hoping that they might just get lucky with their girls in the city.
Teenage boys have two thoughts hardwired into their heads: food and sex. Ask any teenage male, if they are honest with you, they’ll admit that’s what’s on their minds. Once they get a driver’s license, it would be safe to say that there’s a third item added to the list: cars.
Jerry stood and spoke out loud to no one in particular. “Has anyone seen Teddy or Cori?”
Stan was leaning on the porch post. “I haven’t seen them. I live just down the street from Teddy. Cori was staying with him because both of their parents are at the beach. Rosie and I stopped at Teddy’s so we could walk together, but when we got there, the front door was broken off the top hinge. It was standing wide open. We walked a few feet into the house and called out to them, but there was no answer. The house was a wreck. Everything was ripped off the walls, thrown onto the floor. The furniture was ripped up. There were deep scratches or gouges on the walls as well as the wooden floor. It was spooky standing there. It was so quiet in the house. It was cold, too. Nobody answered us, so we left. We got out of there as quick as we could. We were really hoping to find them so they could tell us what happened.”
“Stan, they never made it here and we haven’t heard from them since yesterday. They didn't look so good then. Mary’s been calling Cori’s cell, but she’s not answering.”
Jerry took a deep breath. He looked at everyone. They were all looking at him. With his ROTC training, he knew how to take charge when necessary. When he was in charge, everyone listened to what he had to say. This time was no different. He sighed, leaned forward in his chair, cleared his throat and spat on the ground.
“We aren’t too far from Teddy’s house. It’s on the way to the bus. We can make a quick stop at his house and look around to see if they’re home. We don’t have much time, so if we are going to stop, we need to leave now so we don’t miss the bus.”
“All right, let’s do that. If everyone’s ready, let’s go,” said Mary.
“Keep calling Cori. See if she answers her phone while we walk over there,” Jerry said.
“Okay,” Mary replied. “I’ve called her about six or eight times already, but I’ll try her again. Stan, do you have Teddy’s number?”
“Yeah, I’ll call him. If he answers, I’ll ask him what the hell is going on. I just hope that they aren’t just messing around. They could ruin this for all of us.”
“Stan, we’re going, with or without them,” said Jerry. “Our room charges are non-refundable, and I’m not going to miss this trip for anything. We need to leave now if we are going to stop at Teddy’s. The bus won’t wait for us.”
As Jerry was standing on his porch, he was looking at what the girls had brought with them. They each had a backpack, which was fine; that’s what they had been told to bring. The thing that baffled Jerry was that each girl also had a suitcase. Jerry bent over to pick up Mary’s suitcase. It was heavy.
“Mary,” said Jerry, “What have you got in your suitcase? Rocks? Do you remember we asked you guys to only bring what you needed, in one backpack? Did you pack everything that was in your closet?”
Rosie stood up from the step she was sitting on. She looked directly at Jerry and said, “For your information, Mr. Timmel, I know nearly everything about clothing and fashion. We only have the basic, essential things a woman needs when she is going to be away for this long. We have shoes, dresses, undergarments, pants, blouses, sweaters, coats, and makeup, along wi
th whatever else we might need. You want us to look good for you, don’t you? Girls need to be ready for anything. We also brought a sewing kit, extra buttons. And a first aid kit with Band-Aids and medical tape. If you don’t think all those things are important, it’s high time you learned. What’s going to happen when you are married with two or three kids? Are you going to make your wife put everything into a backpack for each person?”
“A real gentleman would carry his lady’s bags — if he loved her, that is.” She looked at Stan. “What do you guys have in your backpacks?”
“Uh… I have an extra pair of pants, two pairs of socks, two pairs of shorts, one pair of shoes, two tee shirts, my toothbrush with toothpaste and my deodorant. I’ve got all of the essentials that a guy needs. And we still have more room if we need anything else.”
“Wow, Stan. You really planned ahead for this trip, didn’t you? After a few days, you’ll need to stay downwind of all of us.” She looked at Jerry and Mike. “What about you two? What did you guys pack?”
“We all brought about the same stuff as Stan. We don’t really need much more than what we have, do we?” said Mike.
Stan stood up. His face was flushed. He was kind of sorry that he started this. “Don’t get me started on that, Rosie. I would like to find the guy who started that ‘Carry my stuff for me, honey’ crap. I’d knock him the hell out.”
“Stan, for your information, that guy is a 60-year-old, happily married man with six children, all but one a boy. He has four grandchildren. He carries his wife’s bags, or anything else that she needs to bring on the trips they take together. He opens doors for her, pulls her chair out at the dining table, holds it for her to sit. He’s a very happy man. His wife is happy too. Remember: happy wife, happy life. So there. How do you feel about that?”
Stan knew when he was on the losing end of a conversation. He huffed and snorted, then he walked over to her suitcase, bent over to pick it up, and started a cadence.