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December 31, 2006-January 6, 2007

December 31, 2006

I glance at my watch. “ Seven o'clock . We made pretty good time.”

Matt unbuckles his seatbelt and stretches. “I've gotta admit, I was a little skeptical when you said the blue bomber could still break 70.”

“You kidding me? This is a classic vehicle. And a classic never dies.”

“A classic—try an antique.”

We make our way out of the car and up to Teri's door. She has a little blue house with Christmas lights still hanging down in loops from the roof. I press the doorbell, surrounded by holly.

Teri answers the door in this really tight black sweater. I notice that her hair is curlier than usual. She gives me a hug.

“How's it going, Teri?”

“It's good,” she says, pulling away, and reaching out a hand to Matt. “I'm Teri.”

“Matt. Nice to meet you.”

“Good to meet you. So come on in here, guys.”

The door leads into a small living room, and I begin to understand just how cramped the house is, and how Teri's brother and sister could get to her so much.

“Oooh, boys,” a kid slumped on the couch says.

Teri rolls her eyes. “Guys, this is Joe. Joe, these are my friends Preston and Matt.”

“Which one of you's her boyfriend?” he asks.

“Will you shut—”

Matt raises a hand, stepping between Teri and her brother. “So what are we watching here, bud?”

“ South Park .”

“Oh yeah, I've seen this one,” Matt says, taking a seat on the couch next to Joe. “This is the one where Kenny dies, right?”

“Kenny dies in all of them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, like this one I was watching yesterday, there's a truck driving by and it smashes him into this car, and he flips over it.”

“That's pretty intense.”

Matt, the camp counselor is back, his patience and ability to feign interest in full tact. I turn to Teri, who's smiling. “Come on,” she says. “Let me give you a quick tour of the house.”

The tour is pretty quick, leading to her room. There's something funny about the way a girl's room will smell. This place has the same unmistakable scent as her bedroom back at Taylor —a certain extension of Teri herself. Her room here has faded posters and pictures with ripped edges, I can only assume torn from magazines years ago. “Sorry we have to hang around here for now,” she says. “My parents should be back from dinner within half an hour, then we can go to my friend Jennifer's—that's where the party is.”

“Na, that's fine.” I turn, seeing someone out the corner of my eye. A little blond girl turns away and keeps walking.

Teri speaks lowly, “Fortunately, she gets shy around new people.”

*

The party is pretty much how Teri described it. This girl Katie is the host—a bubbly little red-haired girl, getting bubblier with every sip from her wine cooler. The party's set up in her basement, where there's a large screen TV and a fridge full of beverages.

Matt and I set up shop at the pool table, taking on two other guys there. While Teri and a few other girls look on. The table's smaller than regulation, but it's pretty nice just the same. We take the first game when our opponents accidentally knock in the eight ball. I chalk up my cue as we wait for our next challengers.

“You're gonna play?” I ask.

“What?” Teri asks, chalking up a cue of her own. “You think this game is just for men?”

“I just didn't think it was for you.”

“Huh.” She sets down her chalk as Matt finishes racking the balls. “Mind if I break?”

“Be my guest.”

It's not a bad break, scattering the table and dropping the two and four balls

“I guess we'll take stripes, then,” Matt says.

Teri's friend isn't as good as her, but Teri's better than Matt or I, at least on this table, which she explains that she's played on a hundred times. In the end, there's just one ball a piece left on the table, and the eight ball, waiting just beside a corner pocket.

Matt doesn't have a clear shot at his ball, as the five ball lies between it and the cue. Still, Matt's game. He raises the butt of his stick and jumps the cue ball. He's successful in making contact with our ball, but not in getting in the hole, and leaves Teri a decent shot. She drains the five then lines up the eight.

Teri takes a long sip from her wine cooler, pointing to the corner pocket with her stick. She lines up the shot, and I come behind her jiggling her stick.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I say, “I didn't realize you were about to shoot.”

“Not just about to shoot,” she replies tossing her hair over, so she can look right back at me. “I'm aiming to win.” She doesn't even turn back to the table, taking her shot and tapping the eight ball in, as the cue rolls back to the center of the table.

*

“So no resolutions at all for you?” Teri asks we sit on the couch, just three minutes left for the year. Sitting right there with her, I can't help smelling her—similar to that scent of her room, but just a little personal, more attached to her.

“I don't know. I feel like even if I made one, what's the point.” I take a sip of my beer. “I'd probably just forget about it in a few weeks.”

“Well with that attitude you won't keep it up.” She says looking away for a second and waving at one of the girls as she has a seat on the ground near the TV. “I mean, there's something really different about a new year—it's like you get to start over, and it's a new chapter. I mean, sure, life's going to go on. We'll go back to our families, and then back to Taylor , and back to The Window. But with a new year, you can change things—it's like there's an invitation for you to add something to your life, or take something away.”

“So what's your resolution?”

“I'm going to go running at least twice a week.”

“Well that's earth-shattering.”

“The point is that it's something different. And it's symbolic—it means I'm taking more time for myself, and taking better care of my body,” Teri says. “You don't have to change the world—you just have to do something that's going to make things better, or make you happier.”

“One minute left,” a guy calls out. On the TV, the image pans a crowd of people, all getting ready to countdown, to celebrate, down in Times Square .

I look around this room, full of people I don't know. I'm not sure where Matt went—maybe he's still off shooting pool.

And then I look at Teri.

“I think I have a resolution,” I say.

“Oh?”

Everyone begins counting down from ten. It's almost time.

“Yeah. I'm going to try to do something to make myself happy—even if it's something really different for me.”

Teri smiles, her eyes shifting between me and the TV as the countdown winds down.

“Two! One! Happy New Year!”

I kiss her. Sliding an arm around her waist, taking one hand in mine, I kiss her. As she presses herself closer to me, if just for this one moment, I'm happy.

January 1, 2007

I wake up with hair in my mouth, and starting turning my head, and flicking my lips to get it out. I don't get very far. My left arm aches in numbness as I lie on top of it, while my right is under a blanket, curled around Teri's sleeping form, holding her close to me, her back to my chest on the same couch where we had our first kiss last night. Slowly, carefully, I take my arm from around her, pulling the hairs out from between my lips.

I replay the night in my mind. I suppose I had a sense this might happen, or at least had hoped for it. I guess that's a big part of why I wanted to make the drive in the first place.

Beneath the blanket, Teri's shoulders rise and fall lightly, almost rhythmically as she goes on sleeping. I slide my arm back under cover, putting it back over her, over the same black shirt she wore last night.

I wonder what time it is, and wonder if I remembered to take my cell phone out of my pocket before we went to sleep. I'm not about to move, though. As long as we're here, I've got this sense that everything's perfect—like there's nowhere I'd rather be.

And then I hear a fart.

The sound came from past Teri, but I can already start to smell it. I start to lean upward, but my neck is in pain from sleeping with my head half-propped on the arm of the couch. Teri begins to stir.

I manage to prop myself up on my elbow, to see Matt lying on the ground on the other side of a coffee table. He mouths “Sorry” to me.”

Teri sniffs, then covers her nose with the blanket as she stretches a leg out from under the cover of it. “ Preston , was that you?” she asks.

Matt smiles holding back laughter as he nods.

“No, Teri, that was my friend over there.”

Teri props herself up and leans forward, looking at Matt. No sooner than she could have had him in sight does she lose her balance and fall off the couch the ground, taking the blanket with her. Against my better judgment, I can't help laughing.

Matt laughs too. “Well good morning, you two.”

Teri moves her hair from her face, starts to rub her eyes, and starts to laugh as well.

January 2, 2007

“So you think this is a one off kind of thing—or is Teri gonna be your new Emma?” Matt asks, taking a sip from his can of Mountain Dew.

“Can I say none of the above?” I ask, turning from the TV. “I mean, I think it's going to be something real—I want it to be a relationship.” I stretch, still tired now, in the mid-afternoon. My sleep pattern's still a little off from the New Year's party, and the night after. “But, I don't want to say that this is like what I had with Emma. Because—it's different. I don't know, it's like I'm past all that. This is something new.”

“Ah, I was just busting your balls when I said she's the new Emma anyway. I know what you're saying, man”

“Well good.” I reach into the bag of chips between us, grabbing a handful. “So, I mean—do you think that she wants to be in a relationship with me?”

“You know her better than I do.”

“But I'm asking you as an impartial observer. From what you saw at the party—”

“She's happy, dude.” I turn to face him, and he's smiling. “I could tell from the minute we walked in her door.”

“Really?”

“Girls don't wear sweaters like that for no reason.”

I chuckle, turning back to the TV. We've got some bad action movie from the ‘80s on, where the masked protagonist is charging through a room of gunmen.

“So,” Matt starts up again. “I called Julie.”

“Is that so?”

He nods. “I slipped out of the party a little before midnight , and took a walk around the block.”

“Yeah, I saw you weren't there when the ball dropped.”

“So while I was out there, I gave Julie a call. And she didn't answer.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, so then I called her again, and I left a voicemail. Think I might have said too much.”

“Why? What did you say?”

He takes a long sip from his soda. “I just wanted to say hi, and let her know I was thinking about her. I mean, you remember high school. We were always together for New Years.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Matt shakes his head. “Anyway, she hasn't called me back. So, I don't know. I probably shouldn't have called in the first place. I mean, fuck she was probably with Johnny when I called.”

On TV, the guy crashes through a window.

“Well, logically speaking, you're probably right. But I know what you're saying—that sometimes you've just got to do something.”

“That's exactly it,” Matt, says sitting up a little, before he slumps back down. “But now it's going to be awkward as hell the next time I see her.”

“Don't tell me you want to back out of The Palace this weekend.”

Matt waves a hand. “Na, that's fine. It's just fucked up, you know?”

January 3, 2007

My phone rings, and the caller ID shows it's Teri on the other end of the line. It's funny how just seeing her name there makes me smile. Thinking about it for a second, seeing that it's her calling has made me happy for a while.

“Hey Teri,” I say.

“Hi Preston ,” she says, sounding a little out of breath. “How's it going?”

“Things are good.” I lean back slightly in my chair, sitting at the desk in my room. “How are you?”

“Good. Cold.”

“Are you outside?”

“Just got back in. I went running.” There's a certain pride in the way she says it, and it's kind of cute.

“Way to go. Following through on that resolution, I see.”

“I'm trying.”

“So if you were running, shouldn't that have warmed you up?”

“Well, ever get to that point where you're sweating, and part of you is hot, but your face or something is, like, frozen numb.”

“Sounds like a winter sports thing.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“I don't do winter sports.”

Teri sighs. “Yeah whatever. So what are you doing with your day?”

I glance at the clock as it nears two in the afternoon. “Just got up an hour ago. Been playing around on my computer.”

“That's one exciting day.”

“We can't all be runners.”

“So any further excitement planned for the day, or are you just going to stay in your room the whole time?”

“Well, I'm sure I'll have to go to bathroom at some point. Probably the kitchen, too.”

“Insanity.” In the background, I can hear Teri's brother yell something, and her sister scream. “Guys, calm down!” She sighs. “Maybe I'd better call you back.”

January 4, 2007

What would you say to taking out this sidebar altogether, and using more space for a photo on the top fold?” I ask, drawing in pencil on an old copy of The Window.

Chang scratches his head. “I don't know, dude. I don't do all this layout stuff. Shouldn't you be asking your new girlfriend these questions?”

In a sense he's right, and honestly, Teri and I have talked about rearranging the layout in my section before. But something's different now. It's funny, but I actively don't want to ask her about layout, all of a sudden. Instead I want to impress her with what I can come up with.

I don't say any of that, looking away from Chang, out my bedroom window, out at the clear winter night. “I'm not looking for an expert's opinion here. I'm looking for what the everyman says—the reaction of someone who would be picking up the newspaper to read it, without being involved in it.”

“Well I guess I like what you're talking about. But only if you have a good photo for the front page. Otherwise, it's just going to be an eyesore.”

“Yeah,” I nod. “It's putting a lot of faith in the photo department.”

“So,” Chang says, pushing the paper to a corner, “I'm starving. You sure Matt's on his way?”

I shrug. “Said he was gonna shower then come over.”

“I'm thinking wings tonight, how about you?”

“We could do that.” I look at my phone to find it's nearing eight o' clock, which means Chang and I have been waiting nearly 45 minutes. “Let me give him another call.”

January 5, 2007

There's a game I've played on my own over the past month, when I've got nothing better to do. It's all about exploring my mind, trying to piece together memories. It all traces back to the night Dave played his first show with The Axis. It was the

night I was beaten into a coma.

The game is all about supposition, trial and error. I try to frame things a certain way. I'll think it was a group of men in black ski masks who came at me, pouncing on me from each direction until they beat me to ground. I'll play the scene out in my head and see if anything sticks.

I liken this game to hearing an old song. You might have forgotten all about a particular tune, but when you hear it again—even just few chords of it—it rings familiar. Then you remember the chorus, then the verses, then intro, until the whole thing has come back to you.

The game hasn't worked yet.

For the first time, today, I play it with a partner—or at least a variation on the game.

Matt is less interested in scenarios, more interested in pinpointing a perpetrator. Given the nature of the attack—how badly I was hurt, and that I still had my wallet in tact—Matt's operating under the assumption that there was a purpose behind the attack, and that it must have been someone I know. “What about Johnny Reed?” Matt asks, reclining on the couch.

“Johnny Reed? What would he be doing in Butterton?”

“Kicking your ass.”

“So Johnny comes all the way out to Butterton just to fight me.”

“Hey, you remember what happened last summer, when you clocked him at The Palace.”

“Right, and Julie said it was over.”

Matt just sort of grunts at the mention of Julie's name. I think of apologizing, but just look away.

“How about that RA then?” Matt asks after a minute.

“Barry?”

“No, not him. I mean the RA on the haunted floor.”

“That guy Anthony? Not too likely.”

“What, you told me you guys were dicks to each other at the time—and you and Teri got him to ‘fess up to rigging a lot of the ghostly stuff. He probably got in a lot of trouble over that.”

“Yeah, but he didn't strike me as the type of guy who'd resort to physical violence. And besides, he's not that big dude—he would have had friends with him to pull off something like that.”

“And he wouldn't have needed friends to chuck that couch out a window?”

“Touche.” Nothing's registering. I try to picture Anthony that night, and it's not any more familiar than Johnny Reed. Try as we might, we're still not getting anywhere.

January 6, 2006

It's not particularly busy at The Palace when I show up tonight, but then, it's only nine, so there's still plenty of time for more of a crowd to head in. It's funny because, from the crowd that is here, I'm starting to see people a year younger than me, going out in Shermantown for their first time. I'm still underage myself, and yet I'm starting to feel old here.

They've got some new neon signs over the bar now, advertising different brands of beer. Tonight I sip from a rum and coke, switching things up a little bit as I wait for Matt, Chang and Joey at a corner table.

“Well,” I turn, and find Julie standing behind me. “What's a good looking gentleman like yourself doing alone in a dive like this.”

I smile. “Just waiting for some good company to come my way.” I gesture to the seat across the way and Julie swings around the table, taking a spot there.

“So you're here all break, and I never see you,” she says. “Would it kill you to stop by Stephon's?”

“You're working there again?”

“Had to make some money over the break. And besides, we get over a month off from class—what am I going to do, just sit around and watch TV the whole time?”

“Hasn't been working out so badly for me.”

“I imagine, in part, because you're hanging out with Matt every waking second.”

“You know us too well,” I smile, sipping from my drink. “Speaking of which, I understand you didn't return his call at New Year's.”

“Do we have to talk about that?”

“Speak of the devil.” I tip my head as Matt approaches the table, a pint draft in his hand.

“Hey kids,” he says, setting the glass down.

“Well, I should probably be going,” Julie says.

“Na,” Matt answers, “stick around.”

“I think I'd rather go.”

“Maybe you should just let her go,” I put in.

Matt doesn't take his eyes from Julie. “Well all I was going to ask her was if there was a reason why she didn't return my message from the other night.”

Julie gets up from her seat, looking down to the floor. “Well, maybe if you called me sometime other than when you were piss drunk at midnight on New Year's, I'd be more prone to take your calls.”

“That phone line works both ways, babe.”

“All right,” I interject again. “Maybe we should just leave it at that for tonight.”

“I think that's a good idea.”

“All right,” Matt still keeps his eyes on Julie, “but just do me a favor and tell Johnny I said hi.”

Julie raises one eyebrow. “Johnny and I are through.” From there, she turns and walks away.