"A New Year" by Michael Chin

Janie's driveway is full. It's spilled out on to the right side of the street, five to ten cars deep on either side. I'd just as soon leave as stay, and drink away my New Year's Eve alone at my own house. Mary's waiting for me, though, and this is supposed to be a big night for us, whatever that means. I add to the collection of cars half blocking the road.

I mark time by girls—crushes and relationships, rises and falls. The eighth grade was my Susy Jackson year. Summer before freshman year it was Amy Bobbins from camp.

Making my way up the driveway, I recall the last two years of high school when I frequented this house. Those were my Janie years. At the time, I was foolish enough to think those years wouldn't end wouldn't end.

But years have passed since then. I scale the stairs leading to the front door, navigating through and around other footsteps in the snow there. I consider ringing the doorbell, but think better of it. I've been able to hear the music from inside since before I even reached the foot of the driveway. No one would hear my ring.

Mary's been waiting for me. She rises from her perch on the arm of a sofa and wraps around me. We kiss, then she turns, flicking a bit of her light brown hair across my face. “How ya doing?” she asks.

“Good,” I reply, holding her within my right arm while I take my glasses in my left hand and clean them against my shirt. “You?”

“All right.” She removes the ski cap from my head. Mary always says I look silly in it. She pushes it down into my pant pocket, so it's half in there, half hanging out.

Mary tells time by her clothing. Her times in elementary school were the overalls years. Junior high jeans, high school tight jeans, and in college she's wearing tighter yet. I can tell because I dated her for a few months in high school too. Maybe that's why I feel stuck in time now.

It doesn't help that we're supposed to screw tonight. The circumstances feel so juvenile. Mary won't do it in the backseat of a car and we're both still living with our families. That means finding a room at Janie's house for this night, when her parents are gone, is our best shot.

I move my arm up and over her shoulders, following the sound of the music. It's The Realities of course. This party is the big reunion after the lead singer and bass player went away to college. The band is back together tonight—playing the same vapid originals and weak covers they did years ago. Dave's caressing the mic, scraping it against his stubble and singing off-key as Tom, the guitar player, still lacks any sense of rhythm.

A crowd's grown around them, though, and seems to like them well enough—dancing, singing along. Of course most of them have already begun to drink.

“All right,” Dave says as the last of the feedback from their song dies down. “We're just gonna play one more song before we take a little break. This last one's one you might recall if you were with us back when we used to play all the time.” He pauses amidst a spattering of raised bottles and cheers. “It's called ‘Falling Too Deep.'” More cheers. “And I'm sending this one out to tonight's hostess, my girl Janie.”

The irony.

Dave decides to play the lone song for which I wrote the lyrics, back when I was friendly with the band. And the son of a bitch has the nerve to dedicate it to her.

Mary knows I wrote the words and maybe that's why she gives my hands a little squeeze. Everyone knows the song of course. It's The Realities' big hit, the song they'd play at every show.

And I'm watching clocks
Pacing the floor
Countin' down time
‘Til I'm at your door

Not my best writing but it's a pop song after all.

I see Janie at just the same moment when she spies me. Her face starts, trips and stumbles before arriving at a smile. I return it, little less awkward, and nod. She turns back to Dave, leaving me with a vision of her long blond hair with its new red highlights.

Too late to call
So I'm trying to sleep
Try to hold down these dreams
‘Cause I'm falling too deep

Dave marks time by music. In junior high he liked Green Day and REM. High school was Weezer and Bush. I think he was just discovering Jimmy Eat World when he decided to fuck my girlfriend.

He hasn't seen me yet, though, focusing all of his attention on her. He wears a blue and white ski cap, ratty blue t-shirt and jeans. Janie doesn't dictate his attire.

As they hit the last verse I excuse myself, saying I have to take a leak. Mary hangs back with the crowd.

*

“Terrence—what's up?”

It's Alice , at last a face I have no qualms about seeing. She's sitting on a couch, on the outer edge of some conversation. I end up taking a seat beside her.

“Well I haven't seen you since graduation,” she goes on, “what're you up to now? You in school?”

“Yeah—well RCC,” I say. I hate that question. Richmare Community College is halfway between college and giving up. I had good enough grades to go away to school and we could have scraped the money together. I just never had the desire, though. If mom hadn't filled out the paperwork I probably never would have gone to college at all.

“Ah, that's cool. A lot of times I wish I'd stayed local—I get to missing everything so much.”

It's a political response. She's good. She doesn't give any hint she thinks I'm the loser I suspect I am in her eyes. “I forget, where do you go?”

“Samson,” she replies and takes a sip from her Smirnoff. “I really like it there.”

Samson's a nice school, couple hours east of here. A bunch of people went there from my class and they even invited me out a couple times. Never made the trip, though. There's always something wrong with the car, or I'm low on dough, or Mary wants me to do something with her. More often than not, I just don't feel like it, though. You have to be in a certain mood to go someplace like that—to visit.

We shoot the shit about college life and people we both used to know. Alice is real interested in hearing about the town. She wants to hear about all the places that have shut down since she left, and about the new Applebee's and Best Buy. I can gather that she marks time by local businesses. In her childhood, Sammy's Drugstore on Main Street was still open. In high school she'd frequent Mrs. Ballinger's bookstore. That was before the town got a Barnes and Noble last fall.

She talks about how she never eats at Denny's when she's at school—choosing the family-owned diner just a little ways off campus. She says she helped organize a rally against Wal-Mart out there. Alice stops in a little while, though, to ask me what I have planned for next year, when I've finished my second year at RCC.

I scratch the back of my head. “Don't know. Probably gonna go to school somewhere else.”

My mom's been getting on me to fill out applications to other schools. She says I need an education. Just never felt like doing it, but Alice has got my head spinning. She's a pretty girl. Used to talk to her a good bit in high school, even flirted a little. Never did anything with her because I was with Janie by then, but now I'm starting to see a whole future.

If I transferred to Samson I could go out with her there. We'd go to rallies together—she could fill me in on all that. And if we wanted to sleep together, there wouldn't be any of this sneaking around or plotting. We'd just go to her place or mine and do it.

“Do you know whatcha wanna go into?”

I hate that question too. All I ever really wanted to do was write. Maybe make like Thoreau, and go out into nature, just me, my pens and paper. Or maybe settle down in a normal house in a normal place and write about the world around me. No one's ever taken my writing career seriously but me, though. Me, and for a little while, Janie.

“Still don't have that figured out either,” I say. “I've been studying English, so something with that I guess.”

“Do you think you'd wanna teach?”

“Terrence,” Mary says, arriving at the scene and planting her fingers in my hair. “Here you are.” I'm glad to see her again. I don't like the way Alice is taking this conversation. Mary sits on my lap, a little possessive but I find myself grateful for that too. She turns to Alice . “And how are you?”

“Not bad—was just catching up with Terrence here.”

“So I see,” Mary turns to me, pressing the tip of her nose to mine. “So I was thinking maybe we should do that thing.”

She wants to fuck. I want to leave the room. With a wave to Alice , I follow Mary upstairs.

*

“Look, there's candles out. It's so romantic.”

“Yeah,” I reply, observing the flames. Of course if there are candles someone must have put them there, and the sheets on the bed already look a bit rumpled.

We stand just inside the master bedroom where, not Janie, but Janie's little brother Thomas was conceived. I get to wondering if he's around. He's a nice kid. Marks time by the fictitious heroes he obsesses over. There was the Power Rangers period. Last I saw him he was just starting to get into Harry Potter.

That was a long time ago. It's been longer still since I was last even near this room. I wonder if Janie knows people are taking turns shacking up in here tonight. I wonder if she proposed the idea.

Mary snakes an arm around me to close the door. “Finally, we're alone,” she says as if we've both been waiting for this moment all day. She takes a seat on the king-sized bed and starts unbuttoning her blouse.

Something's not right. I'm not in the right mood. I stall, plucking a cigarette from my pocket and lighting it with a candle flame.

“You know most people smoke afterwards,” Mary says, peering down at a corner of the bed. She rises and takes the cigarette in her fingers, but I hold fast. “And you know I hate smoke.”

I shrug, not looking at her. She sighs and backs away, returning to the bed. I take another drag.

In another minute I'm done with the cigarette and stub it out in the soil of a potted plant by the window seat. Look out that window. Janie's folks will probably smell the smoke when they get back and get pissed at her. I'm at once gratified and guilt-stricken for that.

When I turn, I find Mary stripped down to her black bra and panties. She's lying on the bed, covers folded to one side.

I kiss her as she works down the buttons of my shirt. I kiss her shoulder, then work my way over and up her neck. She moans and I think it's all for show, but keep going anyway.

“You notice anything about what I'm wearing?” she asks, between gasps.

“Na, what's up?”

“I've got on the earrings you gave me for Christmas.”

“Oh yeah?” I open one eye to peak at them. Could be the earrings I got her. Could be any earrings for all I know. “Glad you like them.”

She starts unbuckling my belt and that's when I have to stop. Don't know what it is but I just can't do this tonight. I roll out from under the covers and onto my feet on the floor.

“What are you doing?”

I pull on my shirt. “Sorry Mary, I'm just not feeling it.”

She kicks at the covers. “Then come back here and I'll make you feel it.” Seeing I won't come back, she gets up and kisses me. I don't respond. She punches by chest. “Fine—not like I wanted to sleep with you anyway. You taste like smoke.”

There are few things Mary hates more than being ignored. It's not like I'm trying to hurt her, but I don't have any desire to make her feel better, either.

“It's Alice , isn't it,” she accuses me, buttoning her shirt, her too tight jeans already on. “I saw the way you were talking to each other. Don't think I'm gonna take you back if you screw around with her.”

That's just like Mary—seeing the obvious, missing the subtleties. I never talked to her much about Janie. Never mentioned the fact that I got my first lay right down the hall with her.

*

I lean across the green felt of the pool table to knock the four ball into a corner pocket. Mary doesn't know the house and I figure my best shot at avoiding her is to hang out in the basement.

I'm shooting the shit with Chris—the drummer for The Realities. He stayed local too, but didn't bother with RCC. Works eight hour days at the county building, mopping floors, shoveling the front steps.

Chris marks time by the job he's doing. It was raking leaves and mowing lawns early on. Then the grill at McDonald's, then a grocery store. His dad landed him his current job.

I'm having a decent time until I see Dave making his way toward us. He's carrying a glass in each hand from the bar across the way. I hope he's just dropping one off to Chris.

“Hey bro,” he says to me, though. I shoot for the three ball but don't have the right angle and it comes rolling back toward me. “How you doing Terrence?” he goes on as Chris shoots.

“All right,” I say, watching the twelve falling in off a lucky bounce. “You?”

“Not bad.”

Silence as Chris misses and I take my shot. Down the three this time. Knock in the seven. All that's left is the five and there's no decent angle for it. I miss and it's Chris's turn again.

“I was thinking we could start over man,” Dave goes on, following me around the table. “Here—have a drink with me. It's your call, rum and coke or black haus and cranberry.”

“That's all right .I'm driving tonight.”

“Come on dude, it's only ten o' clock. One drink's not gonna kill ya.”

I take my shot and blow it again. “What's with the good will Dave? Mixing drinks for everyone tonight?”

“I just think it's time to move on. I screwed you over and I'm sorry. But that was a long time ago.”

I bend and rifle the five into a corner pocket, then point at the far corner with my cue before shooting for the eight. The black sphere ends up just at the edge.

“And look,” Dave goes on, “I didn't know you were here before. I never woulda played ‘Falling' if I'd known you were here—at least not with the dedication—”

“It's your song man. I gave you the words, you wrote the music. Your song.”

“You know what I mean,” Dave scratches his neck with his forearm, spilling a drop from the rum and coke. “I'm not trying to be a dick here. I'm just trying to set it right. Maybe start the new year clean.”

“How ‘bout if I fuck Janie?”

“What?”

“You heard me. What if Janie and I have a go, maybe up stairs in her bedroom. Wouldn't be the first time. Then each of us'd have fucked Janie while she was with the other one. Granted we wouldn't be as secret or backstabbing as you, ‘cause at least you'll know about it. But that's all right. Maybe we can make it up if she makes out with me some other time too.”

Dave laughs. “You gotta be kidding man.”

I don't even know if I am. “Does that mean no?”

“Look, Janie and I are in love man. And besides, she's a person. It's not like lending you my car or something. She's got a say in this—”

“Does that mean no?”

Dave just looks at me for a minute. Chris is waiting for me to take my shot. “Look, I just wanted to make this right.”

I continue to stare, then eye the pool table. I've got a clean shot at the eight. I say “Excuse me,” then maneuver past him to take my position. He starts to walk away as the eight ball falls, turning his back, taking a sip of his rum and coke.

That's half of why I didn't take the drink. Black haus with cranberry juice is Janie's favorite. He didn't have any intention of sharing with me until he saw me there.

“Wanna play again?” Chris asks.

“Yeah, rack ‘em up.”

*

It's only a matter of time before Janie finds me. I leave the basement after that second game of pool so I'll be gone when she looks there. It's her house, though. Large as it is, she knows every place to hide.

She finds me in one of the guest rooms where people are taking tequila shots. I've had one, but one's not enough to phase me much these days. It's still a shock to see Janie appear in the doorway, though. Makes me feel drunker than I am, because I feel lost in time.

“Terrence, can I talk to you?”

I follow her out to the hall then into her room. Makes me feel even further out of time. The room's largely the same as when I last saw it. There a few less posters, probably because she left them hanging in her dorm room at school, or outgrew them. Everything's positioned the same, though—same dressers, same bed in the same spots. She has me sit down on the bed with her, but keeps a little distance. We used to hold hands there, usually kissing by the time we hit the mattress.

“So Dave tells me he talked to you,” Janie says, snapping me back to the present.

“Yeah,” I look away, rubbing a hand over the stubble on my chin.

“He said you wouldn't hear him out.”

“Well if that's how he interpreted—”

“Terrence, listen to me.”

I face her.

“I miss you,” she says, “and so does Dave. And we both realize we hurt you when we got together. But it was never about you.”

“How was this not about me? For Chrissake, I thought we were gonna get married.”

Janie moves a hand to her head. “Terrence, we talked about that, what—two or three times?”

Guess those talks meant more to me. I was planning my future around them. She was just shooting the shit.

“Look,” she goes on, “the thing is that Dave and I fell for each other when I was still with you. That's all it was. We weren't out to hurt you. It's been over a year now and we just wanna move on.”

“Yeah, well I appreciate the personal invite tonight. I wouldn't have even known about the party if wasn't for Mary—”

“If you don't want to be here you can leave. Mary already did. Looked like she was upset.” She stands up. “And if you hate me so much, don't feel any obligation to stick around.”

She leaves me alone in there. A picture on her nightstand catches my eye. It's an old one—she had it on her nightstand the last time I was up here and for months before that. It's got Janie, Dave and the rest of the band, a few of our friends from high school, and me. I've got my arm over Janie's shoulders and she's in my ski cap, tilted a little because she just snatched it from me and threw it on herself.

It was taken two years ago, on another new year's when Janie's parents left town and Janie had some people over. Senior year of high school. Simpler times.

We slept together that night. Didn't even make love, but just rested there, my chest to her back.

“I've been thinking about history,” she said then. She was always saying something like that.

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yeah. And it's all about wars and fighting.” She paused to yawn. “It's always who revolted against who, or who conquered someone. American history starts with white people killing Indians. US history starts with us fighting the British. It'll probably end with war too.”

“Way of the world I guess.”

Janie turned to face me, squeezing one of my hands between her palms. Our faces pressed against one another so I could feel every word she said against my own lips. “But it doesn't have to be. I was thinking about how I mark time. And it's birthdays, and Christmases, and New Years. What if that's how we taught history? By when great people were born or the moments that made them great. Isn't that stuff just as important?”

*

Coming down the stairs, I see everyone's already moved to the living room. They're all huddled around the big screen TV that's Janie's father's pride and joy. I don't join the crowd, though, standing a little ways up from the foot of the stairs. I can see most of the crowd from there, and see over them to the TV showing Times Square . The Ball is set to drop in about two minutes.

I see Janie and Dave sitting up toward the front. She's in his lap. My hands don't ball up, though. All at once I realize I'm not that mad, or sad even. I want to run and shake Dave's hand, give Janie a hug. I want to say everything's forgiven and that I've had my moment. I'm ready to end the war.

I want to drive to Mary's and tell her I'm sorry. Don't even know if I want to be with her anymore, but I do want to say I'm sorry.

I want to head home and get out my paper and pens to write the words to new song about how everyone's all right. Want to rewrite history, or start a new volume, with this as the starting point.

It occurs to me a lot of this is just me getting caught up in the moment. I've had moments like this before. I've never had them with everyone and everything so readily available, though. Maybe it's all just the New Year's cheer, getting caught up in the premature rattling of noisemakers and cheers of excitement from the crowd I'm watching. The countdown ends as the clock strikes twelve. Everyone's making noise now, on the TV and right there in the living room. People hugging each other and kissing, making toasts. I join the crowd at last. Maybe I won't mark this year with a girl, but with friends and family or with Spring Break, the Fourth of July and Christmas.

Resolutions aren't for me. I always thought they were silly. I do hope, though. I smile at Janie and she returns it. It's first smile we've exchanged in who knows how long.