“A little too much?” she asked, her mouth full of the delicious salty potato-y fries.
“I just turned all wrong, I didn't go straight out before I turned. Are your folks gonna kill me?”
“No, but only because they’re not here. We should have a few days at least to get it fixed. It's not an issue.”
Jack looked relieved.
“Hey, I forgot to ask you, how was prom?” She asked, slurping on her drink and stealing some more of Jack's fries.
“You wanna talk about prom?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“It was OK.”
“Who did you go with?”
“Jayne.”
“Jayne? Who’s Jayne?” A touch of jealousy in her voice.
“The girl from the bar.”
Peggy's face dropped. The girl from the bar. The girl she'd accused him of checking out before she knew he was straight. She looked at him. Maybe, if she was honest with herself, she'd always known he was straight, somewhere deep down.
“Can you drive the car back?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Uh, yeah I guess, I'm kinda scared though.”
“Follow me, stay close. I'll drive slow.” She had a feeling she’d be driving slow for the rest of her life anyway. “Come on.” She tossed her burger wrapper into the bag, leaving the corn on a cob untouched in the bottom.
Forty-Five
Clean
Later that night Peggy finally managed to wash herself. She was even able to throw Janet's rank spotted pajamas into the washing basket. Not because she didn't want to stay in them; there had been something so comforting about wearing Janet's pajamas. The ones she had put on after saying goodnight to Sammy. But it didn't matter, did it? They were now nothing but a set of stinky pajamas and a bad memory.
The keys to the book room and the back door of the school hung dangled from their long chain, hooked onto the back of the bathroom door. She stared at them for a long time as she let the warm water wash over her. She had no thoughts about them really. She just stared until the dull, deep wound in her chest reopened and the water went cold. She wrapped herself in a towel and sat on the cold bathroom floor, hands holding her heaving chest, she felt tears again for the first time in days.
When she finally stood up and dressed herself, she dropped the chain around her neck, the keys now heavy with guilt, death, blame and grief. She didn’t want to keep the keys, she didn’t want to wear them. But she wanted to feel it. She wanted to feel the pain, it was all she had left of him.
She should have stopped it. She could have stopped it, and she didn’t. It was all her fault.
Jack's presence was beginning to suffocate her. She loved him in a way, and she had appreciated him being around, and the burgers and everything. But now she just really wanted to be alone.
When he draped an arm around her that night in her bed, she gently pushed it away.
“You OK?” he asked softly, breathing into her hair.
“I just... I need some space tonight.”
“I can go downstairs.”
“I just need you to not touch me. I'm sorry if that’s weird. I do want you here, I just... I don't even know what this is, that we're doing, and it’s too much right now.”
“I'm just trying to be a friend, be here for you,” he said softly as he moved away from her slightly. “I want to help you through this Peg.”
In the dark the name 'Peg' was like a dagger in the heart for it was Sammy's voice she heard, not Jack's. It would always be Sammy's voice.
“I do need you here,” she said, but her voice was full of confusion.
* * *
Jack knew she wasn't there before he even opened his eyes. The morning light had woken him, but she was already gone. And all she left was a note.
Forty-Six
Road Trip II
She turned off the GPS and just drove. It didn't matter where she was going, it just felt good to be going somewhere, and to be driving away from Santolsa. She only realized a few hours later she was heading towards the Grand Canyon. Only this time she was alone, and she was thirty-three years too late to see him here, but she decided to keep driving anyway.
She walked slowly, trance-like, kicking the orangey dust up with her black ballet flats, the ones with the studs, the same ones she had worn here so many decades before. She stood in the same place she had stood next to Sammy and she breathed him in. She could still smell him, still feel him next to her, almost as if his ghost was still with her here. Goosebumps raised on her arms. She closed her eyes, stopped the tourists, the chatter, it was only him and her. She knew she was meant to come here. She opened her eyes as a soft breeze caressed her face and she looked down into the abyss below. She knew it was the right thing to do. To end it all. Her toes were so close to the edge, she felt as if she was standing on the edge of two worlds. Standing on the edge of a choice. Her fear of heights still very much present and whispering to her, asking her if she was really ready for it to end?
She grabbed at the chain around her neck, pulling the keys out from beneath her t-shirt where it had been kept safe for so many months. She ran her fingers over the key to the book room and replayed in her mind those first few moments with the key, looking through the yearbook, his picture, the comments, reading the notes to Sammy.
She took the chain from around her neck, holding on so tight that she gave herself an indentation of the key in her sweaty palm.
She had some kind of romantic idea about this being the big grand gesture. She would throw the key over the edge in a fit of rage, screaming his name and exhausting herself with sobs in a Scarlett O’Hara level display of heartbreak until a mob of strangers had to come and remove her from the edge, kicking and screaming. They would escort her back to her motel room where the manager would be asked to check on her every few hours, so she didn't do herself in. They would tell her they'd have to call her parents, but of course her parents wouldn't answer, they wouldn't even know she was out of the state.
In reality though, it was all quite pathetically normal. She just kind of dropped it, just like she had dropped her car keys earlier that day at the gas station. The keys simply slipped away, no slow-motion special effects or screaming. Just another object dropped in the world.
She had expected to feel relieved, like it was the end, or to at least feel something, the first stitch sewn into the cut that sliced through her entire body. She wanted to feel more than just the same sadness. The same blankness. She wanted something different, worse, anything, just something different. It wasn't different. It was exactly the same, only now she had taken away her chances of ever seeing Lacey, Ben, and Young Janet again.
She cursed herself, kicked some dirt into the canyon in frustration and headed back to the car, and no one around her had even noticed a thing.
Forty-Seven
Las Vegas
After spending a couple of weeks holed up in the very same Las Vegas hotel she'd stayed in with Sammy, Peggy finally turned on her phone. She had only left the hotel, which had hardly changed at all over the years, except become a bit grungier, to get coffee. She'd had Chinese food delivered to the room once a day and had watched MTV classics between taking long showers and drinking until both the mini bar went dry and hot water went cold. She was never leaving. She felt him here. More than in Santolsa, more than in her own stupid broken heart, more than anywhere. He was in every video clip, every sip of rum, he was in these sheets.
Messages began to bleep through, mostly from Jack wanting to know where she was and pleading for her help with fixing the car. She rolled her eyes at herself. She’d completely forgotten she’d just left Jack there with her Mom’s car all dented in. There were also a couple texts from her mother saying they were coming back next week.
She threw her phone onto the other side of the painfully large king-sized bed. She looked back over and grabbed the phone again. She sent a text to her mom telling her where she was and that she was fine. It was summer, he
r parents would hardly care that she went to Vegas. Then she sent a text back to Jack telling him she was OK.
The phone rang immediately. Jack.
“Hello?” she answered, as if she didn't know who it was.
“I thought something horrible had happened to you,” he said.
“I'm fine, I'm just in Vegas.”
“You went to Vegas without me?”
“It's not like that Jack, I just needed to come here. It's the only place I can be right now.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I don't know if I am coming back.”
“What?”
“I don't know what I'm doing,” she sighed. “Come down if you want, I guess.” She didn't know where the invite came from, loneliness, missing him? But the sound of his voice did make her feel less alone and she had been alone for weeks. Maybe it was time to start talking to people again.
“How am I going to get to Vegas Peg?”
Peg, why did he always have to call her Peg?
“Get Mom's car fixed and drive it down. They aren't coming back until next week.”
“But I can't even drive. And pay for it how?”
“I'll send you some money.”
“OK, so let me get this straight. You've been in Vegas for the last few weeks with your phone switched off. Now you want me to come join you and you want me to drive your Mom's car to Vegas that I crashed in the parking lot after I get it fixed with your mom's money?
“I don’t know what’s going on with me, or what’s going on with us, but I could use a friend if you still want to be friends.”
“Always,” he said.
* * *
Jack had no idea how to get a car fixed. He knew nothing about cars. He was the complete opposite of Sammy Ruthven in all ways, and didn't he just know it. He didn't even really know anything about bikes if he was honest. He knew how they worked, but not so much that he could do more than put the chain back on.
He Googled garages and tried to find a quote, but they all asked for specific information about make, model and registration. He knew it was an SUV and it was a grey kind of silver color, but that was it.
“Mom?” he called as he bounded down the stairs.
“Yes darling?” she asked, pushing her dark hair behind one ear and looking at him attentively.
“Do you know a good garage?”
His mother looked confused and put down the scissors she was holding over her scrapbooking book.
“A garage Jack, what for?”
“Yeah, it's for Peggy, I mean, Magz.”
“Peggy?” she asked.
“I meant Magz, but she's gone on this weird thing where she's asking everyone to call her Peggy. But yeah, it's for her, she needs to get her Mom's car fixed before they get back.”
“Can't she just take it where her mom goes?”
“I dunno Mom, she just asked me for help.”
“This all sounds a little suspicious,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“It's not, much.”
She smiled and her soft brown eyes crinkled. “I go to Sam's.”
“Sam’s?”
“It's a couple blocks past the diner. I can get the address for you.” She was about to get off the couch when Jack stopped her.
“I'll just look it up,” he said, grabbing his phone out of his pocket.
He found the number and called, but he got all flustered when the guy answered.
“Yeah hi, this is Jack.” He sucked at calling people. “I've got a question for you about a car,” Jack really had no idea what he was saying.
“Uh huh,” said the guy.
“I accidentally drove into a pole in the parking lot and it doesn't look good.”
“Just bring it in with your insurance certificate and we'll take a look.”
“See the thing is, I was driving it for a friend...”
“So, bring cash,” the guy said.
“How long do these things take to fix? I kinda need to be in Vegas as soon as possible.”
“Vegas?” the guy asked.
“Yeah, I have to drive to Vegas to meet my girlfriend.” The word 'girlfriend' was spilling out of his mouth before his brain could catch it.
“What did you say your name was?” asked the man.
“Jack. Jack Forrester.”
There was a pause on the line.
“Hello?” asked Jack.
“OK Jack, bring it in, I'm here until six tonight.”
Driving up to the garage in the totaled car Jack felt much more confident. If he had an accident again it wouldn't even matter, because it was already wrecked, and he was on the way to getting it fixed. He had the radio cranked up and the window down and he was feeling very cool, driving was so fun. He should really get a car, and a job, and a real girlfriend.
He parked badly out the front, walked into the office and dinged the bell on the counter. A middle-aged man was working on something out the back and held up a hand, gesturing for Jack to wait. Jack looked around at the walls which were covered in framed pictures of nice looking cars, certificates, old newspaper articles praising the service at the garage, that kind of stuff. Jack tapped his fingers on the counter impatiently. He wanted to get to Vegas dammit. He didn’t want to have to deal with these boring admin tasks of life.
The man walked over, stood behind the desk and gave Jack a dark look. Jack took a step back.
“Jack,” said the man, raising his eyebrows. He was about the same height as Jack, maybe a little shorter, but he was packing some pretty good muscles for a middle-aged dude. Much better than Jack's. Jack looked down at his arms.
“Going to Vegas huh?” the man asked, wiping his hands on a greased-up cloth.
“Uh, hopefully, once I get this fixed,” he thumbed outside towards the car.
“Sure, sure, girlfriend in Vegas,” mumbled the man.
“Not really,” Jack admitted, shrugging.
The man looked mildly interested.
“No, I don't know why I said that. I used to want her to be my girlfriend, but she met someone else, but then he died, it's a mess, a long story. I don't really know why I'm telling you this.”
The man said nothing.
“So, uh, how long will it take to fix because I really want to be in Vegas by tonight.”
“There’s no way you’ll be in Vegas tonight with this car.”
“But Peggy’s waiting for me,” Jack complained.
The man said nothing, but just kind of stared him down.
“Look old man,” said Jack, “I can just take it to somewhere else if you’re going to be so weird.”
The phone rang, and the man picked it up, motioning for Jack to wait. Again. Jack rolled his eyes. “Sam’s,” the man said. “No, it’s Sammy not Sam, I’m sure I can help you… yes ma’am, Sammy Ruthven.”
Jack's face paled, his body lost its ability to stand and he fell over his own foot, landing on a small table. “Sammy Ruthven?” Jack whispered.
Sammy shot him a look as he carried on with the phone call. “You just bring it into us, and we’ll sort it out in no time, don’t you worry.” Sammy hung up the phone and folded his arms, smirking at the boy in front of him perched on a table.
“You’re Sammy Ruthven,” Jack said, pointing to the man.
“And you’re Jack Forrester.”
“I thought you were…”
“What?”
“Dead.”
“Do I look dead to you?” he asked.
“Where the hell is Peggy?” Jack demanded.
“In Vegas, apparently.”
“You should go straight down there and see her, she’s a complete mess,” Jack said accusingly as he scrambled back onto his feet.
“I can’t go down there,” Sammy said.
“Why not?”
“I’m not the Sammy Ruthven she wants to see.”
“What do we do then?”
“You have to go down there.”
“How? My car’s wrecked.”
“Take mine.” Sammy threw Jack a set of keys. “The red Mustang out front.”
* * *
Jack sat in the driver’s seat of the red Mustang and almost died himself. It was the most beautiful car he’d ever seen.
“Drive safe, and bring her back in one piece,” Sammy said through the window before tapping the roof gently. Jack didn't know if he was talking about Peggy or the car. But it didn't matter. What did matter was that Sammy was still alive, and that meant that he was no longer competing against a dead guy. Sammy was back in the running, but Jack was driving his car.
Forty-Eight
The Rescue
“He’s alive,” Jack panted. It was just after midnight and he was standing in a seedy hotel room doorway in Vegas. Driving the Mustang through town, he got lost for about an hour, but nonetheless, he felt like the King of the world. Girls were looking at him. And all because of a car. Jack was going to get a car immediately. As soon as he worked out how to pay for it.
“What?” she asked groggily as she ushered him inside.
Jack rested his hands on her shoulders gently. He wanted to lean in and hug her, kiss her, but instead he just said, “Sammy.”
She looked up at him blankly. She was a total mess. Her hair was greasy, her face was pale, she had dark circles under her eyes, and she smelt like liquor.
“Sammy Ruthven is…” Jack said, “…alive.”
“Why would you say that to me?” she asked angrily. She flopped back down on the unmade bed, her eyes returning to the TV where an old-school rock star was gyrating wildly.
“I saw him,” Jack said as he finally caught his breath.
“Stop it,” she said, putting her hands over her ears like a child, and then dropping them to take a sip out of one of the many travel sized alcoholic beverages on the nightstand.
Class of 1983: A Young Adult Time Travel Romance Page 29