Someday Jennifer

by Risto Pakarinen

  The Beetle had some trouble climbing the road toward the hospital—a great white building on top of the highest hill in town. I was almost all the way up, ready to make a right-hand turn into the parking lot, when I saw a car coming out. I stepped on the clutch and the Beetle slowed, but as I jabbed at the brake pedal with the umbrella, the handle came off in my hand and the umbrella fell down into the footwell. As I began to roll backwards, I managed to yank the car out of gear and shift my left foot over to stamp on the brake pedal, only to find I’d already stopped.

  I looked back to see a large silver Saab, far closer than it might normally have been.

  My first thought: Dad’s gonna kill me!

  In my panic, I thrust the car into first gear and stepped on the gas pedal with my bad foot. Pain shot through me and the car stalled. In the rear-view mirror, I saw a hand come out of the driver’s window of the Saab, waving at me to turn into the parking lot.

  “Defying the monstrous pain that shook his body, he somehow kept going,” I narrated.

  The Saab followed and parked in the spot right next to me.

  Fight or flight?

  Neither.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure get out of the Saab. I stayed put, frantically trying to kick the incriminating umbrella under the seat with my left foot. The figure walked around to inspect the front of the Saab. As the figure moved closer to my window, I pretended to be searching for something in my glove compartment. When I looked up, I saw a woman’s stern face on the other side of the glass. She stood with her arms folded across her chest.

  Fight or flight? I smiled and waved.

  In puzzlement, she tilted her head. She was a sporty-looking woman in her forties, I guessed. I reminded myself that, despite my best efforts, that made her about my age. Grown-ups: I always forget I’m one of them now.

  She had blonde hair that hung to her shoulders, and laughter wrinkles around her eyes—or maybe “anger wrinkles”? I couldn’t tell. She was about my height, maybe a little shorter. She had blue eyes, and she was wearing a denim jacket, blue jeans, and green Converse sneakers. And she was chewing gum. She looked like Olivia Newton-John in the last scene of Grease.

  I sighed and got out of the car.

  “What just happened there?” she asked, sounding like an annoyed teacher, like Tina asking Sofie why there’s popcorn all over the sofa.

  Fight or flight?

  To be honest, I was bored of finding a third option, because it invariably meant humiliating myself. So I decided—for once—to stick up for myself.

  “Oh, hey, it’s the lady who rear-ended me. Do you know how brakes work?” I said.

  “Well, excuuuse me. As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, and paused for effect. “In fact, it looked to me like you were rolling backwards. So perhaps you’re the one who doesn’t know how brakes work?”

  Should have chosen flight. While I tried to come up with a respectable way out of the situation, she pressed on.

  “Are you suggesting that it’s my fault you can’t stop your vehicle rolling backwards down a hill?” She looked around. “There are a few people around. I wonder if anyone would act as my witness.”

  “No, hey, come on,” I said, my hands up, gaze down, palms to her, in my best impression of Columbo. “No need to get the cops involved here, right? I mean, I bet your Saab didn’t even get a scratch.”

  She chuckled. “Actually, yeah, not a scratch. I’m only teasing. Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound aggressive. It’s just that I think my arm may be broken, so I’m in quite a lot of pain.”

  I gave her what I thought was a piercing look. “How do you change gears with a broken arm?”

  She laughed nervously. “Well, I doubt it’s actually broken. Just sprained. And what’s wrong with you? You look like you’re hobbling?”

  “Yeah, twisted my ankle.” I realized too late that she’d tricked me. “But I was doing fine with driving until the handle came off the umbrella . . .”

  She laughed, and then mock-whispered, “We probably shouldn’t be driving at all?”

  Eager to smooth things over, I one-upped her: “We’re idiots!”

  Her smile dissolved, and an eyebrow crept upwards. Deciding to quit while I was behind, I said, “Anyway, no harm done, eh?” and started to limp toward the entrance. Just as I walked through the sliding doors, she speed-walked through in front of me with a chuckle.

  I may have been hurt, but I still had the eye of the tiger. I took longer strides and, defying the pain, started to walk faster toward the registration. Just a few steps later, she was ahead of me again. She turned around and blocked my way.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” she said.

  Everything went still.

  Jennifer? My eyes were as big as plates and I had chills going down my spine.

  Jennifer!? I was squinting to see better. The chills were multiplying.

  I stroked my chin. A thousand thoughts went through my head. I was so elated and so disappointed with myself. Here was Jennifer, and not only had I crashed into her car, I’d also spoken to her for at least two whole minutes without recognizing her.

  Frantically, I tried to reconcile the spritely teen face with this stern middle-aged woman. Both blondish. Both had . . . eyes . . . noses . . . ? It was hopeless. I was hopeless.

  “Jennifer?”

  She frowned.

  “No, Sara. Remember? We went to high school together.”

  Oh god. Of course. Sara the New Wave girl. My wrong dance partner.

  “Um, you’re Sara? Of course! I am an idiot. You’ve hardly changed,” I lied, transparently. “Good to see you!”

  “You too. Wow, what a surprise. I didn’t know you were in Kumpunotko.”

  “Yeah, I just got here.”

  “Are you back for good? Where have you been? What do you do? Sorry, too many questions!”

  I laughed. “Let me just register first, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Way ahead of you.” She turned around and walked briskly to the registration window.

  As we waited for our names to be called, we gave each other the short version of our life stories, the public version—the one we give to distant relatives or old friends from school.

  In my case, it went from high school to university to a successful career in IT to being an entrepreneur and an adventurer.

  Her story began with being an au pair in Sweden, then studying music, and after that I tuned out a little bit, wondering if Jennifer was somewhere close. Not the receptionist; she was too young . . .

  “. . . so now I’m a policewoman here.”

  I was back in the conversation.

  “Wait, what? I crashed into a cop’s car?”

  “Yes, sir, you did.”

  “Oops. Am I in trouble?” I asked with a laugh.

  She didn’t laugh back; instead, she took out her pocket notepad.

  “Do you really have to report it?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders, as if there was nothing else she could do.

  “Oh, come on! There was no damage!”

  “No,” she said, and laughed. “I just wanted to see you dance a little.”

  “Dance! With this ankle?”

  She looked at me slyly. “Well, I’d high-five you if my arm wasn’t hurting so bad.”

  So she remembered the dance, remembered my split tuxedo pants, the gymnasium echoing with laughter. Fine. That gave me an opening, which I jumped into casually.

  “Who else do you see from the old days? You know Mikke’s a priest now, in America somewhere?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I heard Jennifer’s still in town—do you remember Jennifer? I bumped into her brother yesterday. He told me.”

  Sara got up from the wooden bench to throw her chewing gum in the trash can a few steps away.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her,” she said when she sat back down. “It’s not like we’re friends or anything, but I’ve bumped into her arou
nd town.”

  “Oh well, I guess I’ll bump into her eventually, then. Not that it matters. You know. Whenever. Or never,” I said.

  I was very casual on the outside, but inside, the voice-over man was in high gear: “Firmly settled back in Kumpunotko, our hero knew he had every chance of bumping into her . . .”

  Just then, the doctor called Sara in.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she replied, and disappeared into the doctor’s room. I’d hardly had enough time to pick up a magazine when Sara walked back out and toward me.

  “Listen, if you want to go grab some pizza or something, just text me, okay? Here’s my number.” She handed me a page torn from her pocket notebook.

  “Will do. Thanks,” I said. “My number’s in the phone book. Well, it’s under my father’s name,” I added, but she’d already closed the door again.

  I lingered outside the doctor’s office for a while longer, but I didn’t see Sara again. The doctor who called me in was too short and too old to be Jennifer. She shook my hand in a way my dad would have loved and asked me to sit on the bed. She looked at my ankle and told me that nothing seemed to be broken, so she just taped it properly—with medical tape, not the electrical kind I’d used.

  “Take it easy now. Just give it some time,” she told me.

  “Thanks.” She seemed nice, like someone I could talk to. “Hey, Doc. You don’t happen to know Jennifer Berg, do you?”

  She looked puzzled. “Is she a patient? Because obviously I can’t talk about . . .”

  “No, she works here. At the hospital. I thought you might know her.”

  “Sorry,” she said with a smile. “Lots of people work here.”

  Her smile remained. I left.

  Chapter 19

  Small Town

  SARA’S SAAB WAS STILL parked outside the hospital when I limped out with a prescription for painkillers. It was almost four in the afternoon, and Kumpunotko was at its best. The view from the hospital was beautiful, the houses and the town’s buildings laid out below, little people in little cars trundling here and there along little roads.

  I stood by the low stone wall at the edge of the parking lot and looked at the hills around the valley, the sunlight bathing the fields in green and casting long shadows from the patches of woodland. With some trouble, I climbed up on the wall to get an even better view.

  “It’s not bad, you know.” The voice came from behind me, startling me so that I almost fell down.

  Sara.

  “It looks pretty nice from here,” I said.

  “Should you really be standing on that ankle? Sit down instead.” She climbed onto the wall too, and then sat down on it. “It’s small, I think, but it’s mine.”

  I realized she was referring to Kumpunotko, and nodded. “We were in such a hurry to get out of here. I used to think that living in the city would make my life exciting, that I’d make it big and be happy, but all it did was make me realize how many more strangers there were.”

  “True.”

  “And sometimes it’s nice to be in a place like this,” I said, nodding down toward the town.

  “Where everybody knows your name?”

  “Yeah. Who said that?” I asked, wondering if she knew.

  “I think it’s from an old TV show.”

  We sat in silence for a while.

  “Don’t you think the clock tower looks so much bigger from up here?” I said.

  “Funny how it makes a bigger impression from afar.”

  I wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

  “What’s your favourite place here?” she asked. “I love the market square. It’s so full of life and colour.”

  “And that guy is still there, selling lottery tickets.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s ever won.”

  “Somebody must have. The car’s changed.”

  “Oh no, that got stolen. Pretty much the crime of the century around here.”

  I laughed. “Mine’s the movie theatre. The Atlas.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you just love the magic of the movies?”

  “Sometimes. It’s so expensive though, when you can just watch it at home a year later. You used to work at that video store, didn’t you?”

  “Video 2000. Yeah. You know they’re planning to knock it down? The Atlas.”

  “I heard a rumour.”

  “I don’t think it’s just a rumour.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. Still, there’s always the other one.”

  “I loved the bookstore too,” I said, suddenly keen to change the subject but not wanting the conversation to end. “I like the way I can trace my life through the different departments. The kids’ books are in the back, with the little chairs and sofas.”

  She laughed. “I used to always make my mom read Goodnight Moon. Even though we had it at home. God, I loved that book.”

  “And then you move to the front of the store, the teen fiction. Then, when you grow up, you move up into proper fiction—action and thrillers.”

  “I never went there,” Sara said.

  “I guess you get enough of that at work.”

  “No, I’ve just never liked thrillers. I don’t find them particularly realistic. And I don’t like the idea that something awful has to happen in order for it to be entertaining.”

  We sat in silence for another while. Not exactly awkward, not exactly comfortable.

  “Anyway, as exciting as this is . . .” She grinned and swung her legs around, climbing back over into the parking lot. “See you around, Peter.”

  I waved and watched her walk back to her Saab. She had another look at the front bumper, then waved her fist at me, then grimaced in pain. I laughed and waved again.

  I sat there for a little while longer and then limped back to the car. Just before I hopped in I cast a look back over the little town of Kumpunotko. I gave the movie theatre a small wave. I couldn’t see it, but I knew exactly where it was.

  “It will be mine,” I said in my narrator voice. “Oh yes, it will be mine.”

  I DROVE OUT of the parking lot, then shifted into neutral and just cruised down the hill, the car speeding faster and faster, past the burger joint, the train station, the bank, the pizza place, and then slowing down until it stopped right in front of the record store. I took it as a sign from the universe and steered the car to the side of the street, into an empty parking spot.

  A small bell jingled as I walked in. A big man behind the counter looked up from a newspaper but didn’t turn down the music—Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years.”

  “Good tune,” I said, raising my eyebrows and nodding up toward the ceiling, where the speakers were.

  “Yeah,” said the man. The name of the store was Kim’s Basement, and while I assumed he was Kim, the store wasn’t in a basement, so I couldn’t be sure.

  He sold only second-hand records, with CDs on one side of the store and vinyl on the other. I moved to the vinyl side and started to go through the crates. My muscle memory was still there, and my fingers flipped from one cover to another in fractions of a second, bypassing records I had no interest in as they were either rubbish or, having been released after the mid-1980s, didn’t technically exist to me.

  Every once in a while I stopped and let out a surprised gasp when I found a record I had coveted during my high-school years but hadn’t had enough money to buy. They were all marked at just a few euros—yes, I know euros didn’t exist in the mid-1980s, but come on—and pretty soon I had a decent-sized stack of LPs set aside.

  When I finally approached Kim at the cash register, I had thirteen records in my hands, all of them great eighties classics.

  “Great store,” I said.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  He flipped through my selection and stopped at Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms.

  “Not their best,” he said.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  There was a slightly awkwar
d silence.

  “Can I still buy it?”

  “Up to you.”

  “Would you?”

  “I guess,” he said. Without another word, he lifted the countertop and walked past me, heading to the records. He pulled one directly out of the crate and handed it to me on his way back.

  “But that’s the one you really need,” he said. “Where it all began.”

  It was called Dire Straits. I did that thing where you look at an album sleeve and nod, as if you’re appreciating the music therein. I turned it over and read the track listing.

  “Sultans of Swing” caught my eye.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take that one too.”

  He bopped his head to the beat—he’d put on some Ultravox—as he punched the keys on his old cash register, and then pointed at the total.

  “Cash only.”

  “Suits me!”

  I rummaged in my pockets for some money. Found a note and some coins, but realized I was a few euros short.

  “Um,” I said, unsure what to do. “I’m a little short.”

  “Yes, but size isn’t everything.”

  I grinned.

  I had a quick flick through the pile, deciding what to put back.

  “You could always open an account,” he suggested.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Could be dangerous. I mean, there’s a lot of good records in here.”

  He grinned. “I know. All you need to do is register on our very high-tech database.” He reached under the counter, took out a leather book, opened it up, and slid it over to me, along with a ballpoint pen. There were columns for name, address, amount owed, and signature. “Got any ID on you?”

  I showed him my driver’s licence. He took a quick photo of it with his phone and passed it back. In the book, next to where I’d inscribed my details, he wrote 15 euros. “Just settle up at the end of the month, yeah?”

  As I scribbled my initials in the final column, I realized I could finally buy all the albums I had ever wanted, without batting an eyelid.

  I was rich!

  WHEN I GOT HOME, Dad was still in front of the TV; Mom wasn’t home yet. I shouted “Hello!” and went straight upstairs, eager to listen to my new albums, and to take it easy and play a computer game. After all, that was what the doctor had ordered.