by Alison Tyler
She looked around the table, feeling all those eyes on her. Should she lie and say they hadn’t done it? These girls had known her since grade school. They’d guess quickly if she were lying. At least, Violet would. But telling the truth wasn’t the same thing as spilling the details. She didn’t have to explain the way they’d fucked, the way she had known what he’d wanted her to do to him. The way she had understood that this was a onetime deal. That she’d never quite look at him, or her memories of him, the same way again.
They spent the day walking through their old town, visiting the hangouts that they’d claimed as their own twenty years before. Or, at least, trying to. So many of the places were gone now. Dori felt an unbearable longing, that desire to go home when there was no home for her here. Not any more.
What had happened to the place she remembered? Were all her memories, like those of Luke, destined to be demolished before the reunion was over?
That evening featured another reunion-sponsored affair, the final one in the two-day event: an 80s extravaganza with a prize for the best costume, held at an expensive restaurant in the city. Dori had her miniskirt in her suitcase. Bangles for her arms, slouchy purple suede boots. But at the last moment, she decided not to go.
‘I can’t,’ she said, finally caving in and showing Violet the photos that Luke had taken the previous night. ‘I don’t want to see him again.’
Violet’s eyes widened at the slide show, but she didn’t say anything negative. Violet never judged her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t up for teasing Dori a bit. ‘Really? You two aren’t destined to be one of those couples who hook up at reunions, and the next time we all get together, you’re married, and you have six children, and you lead him around on a striking leather leash …’
‘Shut up …’
‘So, what do you want to do?’
‘Get drunk.’
Violet grinned. She always liked that idea. Together, they headed back downtown, passing the bookstore that had once been The Majestic, their treasured movie theater, the place where she and her gang of friends had gone every Friday and Saturday at midnight, dressed in costumes, Violet as Columbia, Chelsea as Janet, finding no irony in the role, simply choosing the girl she thought was prettiest.
Was it worse that the owners of the bookstore had kept the façade the same, rather than tear the whole building down? The blue-and-white marquee remained in place, but instead of stating the names and times of the second-run movies playing, the words spelt out the latest New York Times best-sellers.
Janie and Chelsea met them at the bar, a Silicon Valley mixing hole that had once been Gael’s 24-hour Creamery, the place they’d gone for coffees and cocoa before the midnight show, or (if they thought they could sneak in after curfew) after the show had ended. Everywhere Dori looked, she saw her past, as if a thin layer of translucent film covered her memories. If she could only peel back the surface of this superficial bar, would the Creamery be right beneath? If she headed back to the ladies room for a quick touch-up, would she return to see the burgundy barstools had vanished, the yuppies had disappeared, and her girlfriends had lost twenty years in a blink?
That’s how she felt. But when she confessed the thoughts to Janie, her friend simply smiled at her and told her to go easy on the alcohol, advice neither of them took.
As the evening progressed, they switched over to pretty drinks with silly names – a Dirty Girl Scout for Dori, a Long Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall for Chelsea, and Blue Margaritas for Janie and Violet who cried out ‘jinx’ when they ordered the same thing, simultaneously. ‘You owe me a coke,’ Violet crowed.
‘Speaking of coke …’ Janie interrupted, ‘you know what happened to Gael Livingston, right?’
‘Gael?’ Chelsea asked, shrugging to indicate she didn’t know who Janie was talking about.
‘The man that owned the Creamery,’ Janie reminded her. ‘This place. What used to be here. He got busted for coke, the summer after we graduated. There was this sting, and he was caught with intent to deal.’ Janie’s older sister was on the local police force. ‘I heard he went to pr –’
But as she said the word, Violet kicked her under the table. Chelsea’s own husband had recently been arrested. Again. And even if Violet didn’t get on well with her sister all the time, she didn’t feel the need to pour on the salt, unless it was around the rim of one more margarita.
‘You know the deejay?’ Chelsea began. ‘He used to be in a band with Dameron.’
As they gossiped, talking about their friends, the people they’d seen the night before, Violet continued to look at the photos of Dori and Luke on the phone.
‘Why’d he take this?’
Dori shrugged. ‘I guess this is the new definition of phone sex.’
‘Weren’t things simpler when we were kids?’ Violet asked, watching the people around her, and the men with their Bluetooth headsets, going for that part-machine look, as if they’d signed on for a Robocop assignment.
‘I don’t know,’ Dori said, after her third drink. ‘Maybe we didn’t have all this space-age technology, but I don’t remember high school being particularly easy, either.’
Violet was silent, thinking. ‘Honestly, I don’t remember much of the day-to-day of it at all,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, I have these blurs of memories. Driving to San Francisco with you to go clothes shopping at those stores.’
‘The six-dollar a pound stores!’ Dori said excitedly. ‘I remember that.’
‘And going to Berkeley, to Telegraph Hill …’ Janie added.
‘… where all the stores smelled like patchouli.’
‘That’s how we got nailed,’ Violet moaned. ‘Your mom smelt the incense on you, and she knew there wasn’t a store in town that smelt like that.’
When one of their phones rang, the four women reached into their purses simultaneously. The phone was Chelsea’s, but Dori had it in her hands.
She didn’t realize the ringing device wasn’t her own phone until after she’d said, ‘Hello?’ and heard a semi-familiar voice ask for Shell. She was about to tell the man that he had the wrong number, when she suddenly realized the coincidence. ‘Shell,’ she repeated curiously. ‘Do you mean Chelsea? Are you looking for Chelsea Slater?’
‘She dropped my name already, did she?’
From the snide tone, Dori realized the man on the phone was Dameron, Chelsea’s ex. Marc Dameron, but they’d always called him by his last name. She handed the blonde her phone, mouthing, ‘Dam’ as she did so.
As she listened to Chelsea snipe at her ex, Dori realized that they must have swapped phones accidentally at dinner the night before the dance. She had grabbed Chelsea’s and Chelsea had taken hers. Slowly, realization dawned on Dori, understanding exactly what that meant. The photos she’d believed were on her phone were actually on Chelsea’s X-phone. She squinted her eyes, concentrating. The phone swap meant that Rowan might have called, might have gotten Chelsea instead of her, the way that she’d just answered the phone and found herself talking to Chelsea’s ex.
After Chelsea spoke to Dameron, she took both of the phones in her hands.
‘You can see why we got confused,’ she said. Dori nodded. Chelsea had bought her own scarlet slim-line after the birthday dinner in NY. Chelsea had always seemed to want the same toys that Dori owned. But now, while Dori watched, she felt that Chelsea had hold of the phone too long.
‘What are you doing?’ Dori asked, sliding her chair closer to see.
‘Nothing.’
Dori leaned over just as Chelsea hit the green button with the cherry. The one that meant ‘send.’
‘What did you do?’ Dori shrieked. She’d seen the name flash across the screen at the last second. Chelsea had learnt the functions of the phones better than Dori had. And, with a simple click, she had sent Rowan the picture of Dori tied down, eyes wide, lips parted in obvious pleasure.
‘I just wanted him to see what he missed,’ Chelsea said with a smile.
‘Bitch,’ Violet hissed, understanding the situation instantly. If Chelsea couldn’t have Luke, then Dori wouldn’t be able to have Rowan. Tit for tat in Chelsea’s world.
‘You have no idea,’ Chelsea smiled, sounding pleased.
‘Of course, I do,’ Violet snarled back at her sister. ‘Out of all the people here, I definitely have an idea.’
It was exactly like being back in high school, loving and hating her friends. She remembered this jealous streak of Chelsea’s, and she knew (as an adult, anyway) that Chelsea was dissatisfied with her life. But that wasn’t Dori’s fault, was it? And was anyone ever really satisfied?
She stared at Chelsea again. The woman was nothing like her sister, was she? Thank God. Dori didn’t think she could handle knowing two Chelseas. The blonde had the smile of a barracuda, and her teeth gleamed in the halogen lights overhead. Dori realized that the woman had put the most effort of the four of them into planning for this reunion. Teeth bleaching, definitely. Her hair highlighted to the same wheat-blonde color it had been naturally in high school. Was there some Botox involved with her newly smooth forehead? Chelsea didn’t seem able to properly raise her eyebrows any longer, but she was as snarky as ever. The gossip queen of Redwood High.
‘It was a joke,’ Chelsea said, smile still in place, eyes contradicting her words. Chelsea was the one friend in their group who would send out a mean email with the letters LMAO throughout. As if ‘laughing my ass off’ and sideways smiley faces could take the sting from the cruelty in her words. Dori felt that she was seeing her friend for real for the first time.
Maybe they weren’t really friends at all.
But there was nothing to do about it now. Well, there was one thing. Dori grabbed her phone out of Chelsea’s hand, flicked the off button, and set the device in the pocket of her hobo bag, then raised her hand to the bartender, ready for another drink.
Chapter Five
‘Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick.’
Dori opened her eyes and looked around. At first, she didn’t know where she was. She had to blink for a few seconds in order to make sense of her surroundings. Her initial thought was that she was back home. And by ‘home,’ she meant Bryce’s home. That’s how drunk she’d been the night before. Staggering under the strain of her headache, she made her way to the bathroom. She didn’t even want to look in the mirror, but she forced herself to, confronting a reflected exterior that looked every inch as miserable as she felt inside.
Splashing cold water on her face didn’t help. She remembered reading that Paul Newman was a fan of dunking his face in a champagne bucket of ice water to wake up after a long, hard night. Her former boss, Bette, had told her that, swearing by the chilly morning dunk to close her pores. But cold water on top of a hangover? It wasn’t something that Dori was anxious to try.
Bleary-eyed with a combination of fatigue and the fancy drinks she’d imbibed the previous night, Dori took the longest, hottest shower she could stand. All she wanted to do was climb back into bed, but she had an early flight. She had to get herself together.
The sound of The Cure reached her even over the spray of the shower. This was one of her favorites: ‘Just Like Heaven.’ She couldn’t get away from 80s music, could she? But as she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, she realized that the band singing wasn’t The Cure. It was a remake. She wrinkled her nose. She preferred the original version by far. In her opinion, there had been no reason to attempt to recreate a treasure.
After dressing and packing her small carry-on bag, she headed down the stairs to the front desk. She’d already settled her tab the previous afternoon. She handed over her key, slipped the strap of her carry-on suitcase over her shoulder, and walked outside, planning on hailing a cab. Her phone rang, surprising her.
Hadn’t she turned it off the night before?
Yes, but right as she’d left the bar, Violet had caught up with her, grabbing the phone out of her bag and turning the tiny machine back on with a push of her thumb on the control pad. ‘I might want to call you in the morning,’ she’d explained. ‘You know, to say goodbye.’
So Dori was expecting to hear Violet’s voice when she slipped a hand into her purse and pulled out the new slim-line Cherry X-phone. She pressed the tiny answer button, and then heard a rapid series of high-pitched beeps. Not exactly what she wanted to hear through the hangover throbbing through her forehead.
Was someone’s fax machine trying to call her? Or had she managed to mess up the phone yet again? She really needed to read the instructions for the damn thing. She didn’t understand how Chelsea had mastered the mechanics so quickly. The girl wasn’t any smarter than she was, simply more cunning.
‘Hello?’ she tried, speaking loudly to be heard over the electronic noises. No voice spoke even after the rapid beeping ended. Shrugging, Dori pressed the tiny button to end the call. And then, confused, she stopped on the sidewalk, standing totally still.
It was as if she’d just seen a heat mirage. The air stirred around her in an inexplicable ripple. Yet the sun wasn’t that high in the sky. The temperature couldn’t have been more than 70 degrees. Dori closed her eyes and opened them again, and then, unable to help herself, pulled off her rhinestone-studded shades for a better look, squinting at the sudden brightness that added infinitely to her headache.
In the place of the five-story parking garage was a funky second-hand clothes store where she and her friends had bought their T-shirts and track jackets back in high school. The items in the window were all emblazoned with skulls and crossbones and off-the-wall sayings like ‘Welcome to California. Now Go Home’ and ‘Madge says, ‘You’re Soaking In It.” Decals covered the door, the types of sticker she and Violet had used to decorate their binders, lockers, and skateboards. In the right side of the window hung a leather jacket that Dori had coveted throughout school, one with a price tag that put the jacket constantly out of her reach. She hadn’t thought of that jacket in years.
She shook her head.
The store had been razed years before. She and Violet had commiserated on the loss the previous day while out window shopping. Violet had remembered the exact year when the whole little block of unique shops had been demolished – 1992 – to make way for the multi-tiered parking lot where the Silicon Valley elite could park their BMWs and Mercedes Benzes, often taking up two spaces per car to ensure safety to their prized vehicles.
What was going on? The parking lot had been there a moment ago, hadn’t it? She was sure she’d seen a car pulling in as she’d stepped out of the B&B.
She must be dreaming.
Slightly light-headed, and more dizzy than she had felt all morning, Dori kept walking, taking the next few steps in a total daze. She found herself standing in front of the Creamery, the little 24-hour restaurant on the corner where she and her friends had hung out after school.
How drunk had she gotten the night before? Could someone possibly have slipped something into her Dirty Girl Scout? She’d heard horror stories of men putting Roofies into women’s drinks. But she’d had control of her own glass all evening. Right here. In the bar that had once been Gael’s Creamery – that was Gael’s Creamery once more.
She stood absolutely still checking out the cluster of rainbow-hued Vespas parked out front. Seeing the teenagers inside, with their large white mugs of coffee and cocoa, she thought she recognized one of them. That girl in the window was Violet, wasn’t it? With her pink-streaked punk haircut and her beaten-in leather jacket with all the zippers and buttons covering the lapel. Internally, Dori spoke sternly to herself in an attempt to regain clarity. The girl looked like Violet – like Violet had looked in high school. Not like the high-end art dealer of today.
But how was it possible that the Creamery was here? And if the Creamery was still here, did that mean … could it mean …?
Heart racing, Dori turned her thoughts to The Majestic. Would it be a big box bookstore, or would it, could it –? She rounded the corner and sa
w the movie theater. She tilted her head up to read the sign and instead of seeing the names of the New York Times Best-Selling Authors, she saw the words Repo Man and Blade Runner and the times of the shows.
And after that, she didn’t remember anything at all.
‘Are you feeling okay, Miss?’ A man was holding her hands in his, shaking her very gently. ‘Miss, please, are you okay?’
The concrete felt cold under her body, chilling her through her short white dress in a way that made the ground seem very real. She gazed up and saw the owner of the Creamery where she regularly bought java in the afternoons. He’d run out of his store to help her, lifting her up now in his strong arms, bringing her into his café with him and settling her into one of the luxurious red leather booths. He left her alone, rushing back outside to grab her suitcase, which he brought in and placed at her side, a worried expression in his espresso-brown eyes.
Dori saw the pack of kids on their Vespas rev their engines and head off down the street. The night before, the place had been an upscale bar, martinis in every flavor imaginable, modern art on the walls that Violet had scoffed at. The only thing the same both then and now was the shiny black-and-white checkered floors.
‘What happened?’ she asked, hearing how weak her voice sounded. Clearing her throat, she tried again. ‘I mean –’ But what did she mean? She had no idea where to start, or how to phrase the questions ricocheting in her brain. ‘What happened?’
The man looked concerned. ‘You fainted, that’s what I think. I saw you stumble, and then fall. Did you hit your head hard?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he asked, and she gazed at his hand and said, ‘Three.’
He nodded, smiling encouragingly. ‘What day is it?’
That was more difficult. She tried to remember. The first night of the reunion had been Friday. Last night was Saturday. Today was Sunday. Wasn’t it? ‘I … I’m not sure. It’s the first, isn’t it?’ At this, and he nodded again. But was it July 1st, 2008. Or …