the first chapter of a whole story that sprung up from a writing prompt (can be found on this site, entitled Girls on the Road)
I ran away from home when I was 17. Not for good, not forever. I came home before the summer had ended and returned easily to my final year of high school. It wasn’t out of any sort of family rebellion; because it was my brothers and my father I missed the most. I had run away from a potentially dizzying and confusing love affair. I couldn’t know it when I left that all of my effort was for nothing. That summer was the second time I fell in love.
Petra talked a mile a minute behind the wheel of her big Buick sedan. I wasn’t listening to a thing she was saying but she knew that, that’s why she was talking. Her voice layered over the dull roar of the road beneath our tires and flew out the windows with the wind. We had the front windows rolled all the way down and the back two cracked to Petra’s precise specifications. Our hair did not blow in our faces. If we weren’t careful our cigarette butts flew back in and scarred the backseats blackly.
I chain smoked without realizing I did it and chewed my nails, squinting through the smoke. The warm day and bright sunshine and rich summer colors of the countryside around me went unnoticed. Color was my world and to not notice it at all made my distraction apparent. It had been three hours since Petra had high jacked me from the stool in my hometown’s favorite Bar & Grill, Avery’s. She had driven out from the city to see me and found me in an agitation that I could not precisely explain or shrug off.
She dropped herself onto the stool beside me and stared at me with her brilliant brown eyes, framed in glittering blue eye shadow. Her black hair fell shaggily around her ears and in her eyes and featured bright stripes of pink. This week. Her clothing was toned down for the day, only a simple pair of jeans and an over-washed vintage shirt, probably one stolen from her father’s stash. She had bracelets on both wrists and her lip piercing glittered in the sun. She was beautiful that moment she sat down beside me. Her colors did not go unnoticed in my daze.
When she asked me what was wrong I only shrugged and said I needed a drive. She understood fully and flashed me a bright grin. We bought bottles of soda from Tom Avery Sr. and headed out to her car. I grabbed the bag of random clothes and art supplies from a recent road trip I’d taken from my truck. There were a pile of CDs at the bottom of the bag and Petra went through them and chose the music for the drive. I left my keys under the seat of my truck with the window rolled partway down and the door unlocked. I loved my small hometown of Sutter.
We went twisting through the countryside for more than a hundred miles, taking back roads and main roads through bigger towns and littler cities. We crossed county borders and then a state border. We made our turning decisions based on an origami fortune teller I fashioned quickly from my drawing paper from my bag. When I finally got around to telling her what was going on she said she needed to stop for gas and smokes. She handed me some change and pointed me toward the payphone. She told me to call him and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“James, where are you?” Tom Avery Jr. asked me when he picked up the phone. “I have been waiting at your house for 20 minutes already.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” is all I could start with. I couldn’t say for sure where we had stopped. Even if I did, need I tell him?
“Are you on your way here, or what?” he asked with a hint of hopeful excitement that mixed anger and confusion and sadness in me like icky globs of paint, turning my insides a horrid brown-black.
“No, I’m probably not going to be able to make it back before dark,” I answered him vaguely. My last cigarette had broken so I finagled it back together with the phone stuffed into the crook of my shoulder.
His silence was thick as I flicked my lighter flame on.
“Where are you?” he asked slowly.
“I don’t know. Some gas station some where. I ran into Petra and we decided to take a drive. We just stopped for snacks so I doubt very much that we’re done yet.” I knew how I sounded.
“We were supposed to have our date tonight. Right now, in fact,” Tommy said to me.
“I know,” I answered. Not sadly, not angrily, not regretful. No emotion.
“And you left with Petra,” he asked. “Why?”
“I had to get out of town Tommy, just for a little while,” I told him as honestly as I could. Why did I have to get out of town? Would he ask me that? Would I answer with the same vague truthfulness, or give him the real reason?
“Jamie, what is going on?” he asked me. I could hear Petra’s footsteps crossing the gravel behind me.
“It’s nothing. I’ll be home later. I’ll stop by and we will talk. Listen I have to go.”
“No, no Jamie please,” he said. “What’s happened? Why did you leave town?”
“Tommy I can’t talk about it right now, not here in this filthy phone booth,” I told him finally. “I will call you later.”
I put the phone back on the hook quietly before I could hear another word from his end of the line. I put my face in my hands, careful to keep the burning ember of my cigarette out of my hair.
“You okay, babe?” Petra asked.
“I feel like twisting his head in my hands. Bursting it like an orange. Violence is fine sometimes but not now. I just don’t know what to say to him,” I told her as I turned away from the booth. We started back toward the car. “Can we get an orange? I’ll tear it to pieces and send it to him and then that will explain everything.”
“While I am willing to debate with you the sense in putting an orange in an envelope, how about we talk about something else right now instead?”
“Something else like what?” I asked as I rubbed my cigarette out on the bottom of my shoe. I stuck the butt in my hip pocket. I looked around at the unfamiliar bit of country road where we had stopped to refill the gas tank.
“The beautiful, green eyed gas station attendant who was willing to sell us cigarettes has given me directions to the hottest dance club in the city about 35 miles from here. If we get back on the road we can get there before the stores close for the day. We’ll get a snazzy new outfit and then we’ll go dancing,” Petra peeled the cellophane off of the illegally purchased cigarettes and pulled one out. “How does that sound?” she asked as she lit one cigarette. She pulled it from her own mouth and then placed it between my lips.
“I think I could use some dancing,” I agreed easily. Mindless jumping around and sweating seemed just the thing to get two idiot boys out of my mind. Tonight was to be all about Petra and Jamie, two girls with nothing on their minds but dancing.
****
I always woke with first light, as long as I could remember. In the winter, when getting up for school occurred before night had passed, I lived in a perpetual dreary fog that never broke until lunch. It was the only time of the year I needed an alarm clock.
First light was not so different one state over, though perhaps dingier, squinting through the broken-down roadside motel windows. I stared at the stained ceiling and wallpaper as the light grew. Petra was breathing softly and easily beside me in our lets-not-think-about-who-else-slept-here bed. I matched my breathing to hers and thought about home.
I had not called my house again last night. Though my father must surely know that I had called, he had no word of explanation from my own mouth. But Tommy had answered my house phone when I called the first time and he would not have left soon after. I wouldn’t have been able to get to my father last night anyway. There would be no way to get past Tommy until someone made him go home. Besides, I’d been busy dancing.
But the sun was rising and I knew there was a phone on this end of the motel and a handful of change in Petra’s purse. I rolled out of the bed without disturbing her and pulled on my discarded jeans. I pulled a sweatshirt out of my bag because it was easier than finding my bra in the half light and then going through the motions of putting it on. Petra had not stirred when I pulled the door closed behind me.
I was thankful for the sweatshirt over my thin T-shirt when I felt the cold of the morning. It was still early in the summer and we hadn’t even had a heat wave yet. The morning was dew covered and cold. By noon, though, the sun would bake the road.
And we were for the road again today. We had whispered an agreement between us last night in the dark before falling asleep. We would move on to the next city where our friends from last night told us of a club we had to get into.
Those familiar and basic early morning sounds surrounded me and went uninterrupted next to the empty country road. I lit a cigarette while I punched in my home number and loaded the slot with change. The second week of summer vacation on a Saturday, none of my brothers would be awake, if they were home at all. But my father would be alert to a ringing phone that carried a call from his only early rising child, his only daughter.
“Good morning, Jamie,” He answered with a tired froggy voice.
“Hi, Daddy,” I answered and pulled a long drag at my cigarette.
“Don’t ‘Hi, Daddy’ me,” He answered. “Where are you?”
“Illinois,” I answered.
“Illinois,” he repeated blandly. “And do you mind explaining to me why?”
“It’s complicated,” I told him.
“Yes, I know James,” he said, “Everything is complicated when you’re 17. I’ve been dealing with 17 year olds for what seem like decades now and let me tell you, young lady, I am glad you and Eric are the last I have. Soon every one of you monsters will be out of my house. It will be peaceful. It will be wonderful.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I said faintly and blew out smoke in the direction of a bird sitting on a tree branch on the other side of the road. I couldn’t help but smile at my dad across all the miles. He had started the conversation with the stern use of my given name. Already he had regressed to my socially accepted nickname and he’d thrown in a ‘young lady’ for good measure. He wasn’t really mad at all.
“Does this have anything to do with Tommy?” Dad asked.
“This has everything to do with Tommy,” I answered.
I heard a click of a doorknob behind me and turned to see Petra’s head poke out of our room. She spotted me and then ducked back inside. She reappeared a moment later dressed in yesterday’s jeans and one of the sweatshirts from my bag. She was barefoot and bleary. She crossed to me and handed over the water bottle she carried and tucked the room key in her pocket. I watched all of this as I listened to my dad talk about the scene in the house last night. Tommy had been frustrating and overbearing until Eric, my twin brother and Tommy’s other best friend dragged him home. I was only half listening to my father’s words. I already knew what had happened back home, I knew my family well enough.
But I couldn’t listen clearly because I was so very distracted by the colors of Petra in the morning light. The bright pink was a shining contrast against the black of her hair. Her skin was a warm tan that framed her eyes beautifully. I watched her shuffle up to me and grab the cigarettes off the counter of the phone. She dug the lighter out of my hip pocket. My dad told me about how Kevin had reacted as she squinted up at the same bird I had so recently accosted with a plume of smoke. I was startled away from the realization of what was happening to me. My dad’s words suddenly cut through to my senses and I pulled my eyes away from Petra.
“Wait, what?” I demanded. “You called Kevin?”
“Well, sure, Kiddo,” he receded from anger even further into his fatherly nickname for me. “We didn’t know where you went and you didn’t give Tommy any specifics. We had to make sure Kevin knew to look out for you in case you headed that direction.”
I sighed and took one final hot drag before rubbing out the ember on the wall. Petra plucked it from my fingers before I could stuff it in my pocket.
“You should call him,” he told me, “Just to let him know you’re alright.”
“No, Dad, you should call him. You’re the one who got him into it, you keep him informed,” I told him.
“I think you two are being really stupid.” Dad sighed. I heard the microwave beep as he put in a cup of instant coffee while he waited on the real stuff to brew. I suddenly missed the kitchen and my father’s company in the mornings.
“We made the decision together, Dad. We did what we knew would be best for us, both as individuals and as a couple. The McDermotts and the residents of Sutter may think they know better for us, but they don’t. We both want this.”
“So, you’re mad at Sutter now too?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know what I’m mad at, Dad. I’m 17.”
He laughed and I smiled. “Are you coming home now?”
I looked at Petra who was leaning on her elbows on the nearby rail, staring out over the parking lot. “Not tonight. We heard about another club we want to check out.”
“When are you coming home, James?” Dad asked quietly.
“A few days. Petra and I want to drive around and look at things,” As I spoke her striped shaggy hair bobbed as she nodded her slow approval.
“Will you be drinking at this club?” Dad asked.
“Why do you think I have a fake ID?” I asked him. He knew perfectly well that I did not.
“I suppose you’ll be doing drugs. Smoking pot and dropping acid.”
“Dad, even if I had a joint every day I couldn’t hope to match Joey,” I joked of my brother.
“Please, it is too early in the morning to be reminded that all of my children are delinquents.”
“We’re not delinquents, we’re just kids. And besides, when did your dear sweet Jeff ever do anything wrong?”
“You are forgetting about the banana incident.”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a little laugh.
“Where did you sleep last night?”
“Sleep?” I asked him. “In a box with a crack-head and his rabid dog, of course.”
Petra laughed.
“You and Petra have enough money. A decent car with a spare tire?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I said.
“Well you come home soon because I have to make a big show of yelling at you to make your brothers believe that you’re not the favorite.”
“But I am, right?” I asked, knowing the old joke would smooth away the rest of his anger.
“Just don’t tell the others.”
We said our goodbyes and I promised to call. My dad had always been laid back and easy with us. He let us do what we did and we had all learned from each other’s mistakes and our own. There was a certain look though; a tone the five of us dreaded that screamed of his disappointment. One thing was unanimous between my brothers and I; we never wanted Dad to be disappointed.
Now that Eric and I had reached that final year before dubious adulthood the 6 of us had each other all figured out. As the youngest in a long line of 17 year olds we were also getting away with a lot more than our older brothers had. Dad knew that whatever 17-year-old, earth shattering thing was going on in my life I was still his daughter. I was still the most sensible of the bunch, and a girl who’d been raised in the chaos of a home filled with boys. My sanity would return and I would take care of myself until it did.
Petra and I went back into the room together and dumped my travel bag out. I always kept a bag packed with all the stuff I needed for overnight trips to shows that we booked in towns further out than late night driving distance. The last time I had used the bag was on my final visit to see Kevin. My two sweatshirts had already been dug out, as well as my good jeans for last night. Inside was also a toiletry kit with a toothbrush and deodorant and extra hair ties and a small amount of make up. My traveling art supplies were of no use to us this morning.
We went into the bathroom to brush our teeth, and she dug through my make up for something that would suit her.
Petra and I met at a 20 and under club in the city. Eric, my musical genius brother had convinced me to perform some of his new electronic dance-rock type music he’d been writing specifically for me to sing. He had always loved my singing voice and I had been his guinea pig for many years, but could rarely get me to sing in front of a live audience outside of Avery’s.
Petra had been the most enthusiastic dancer in the group. The music, I had to admit, I enjoyed performing. The club manager asked us to come back and we played there at odd intervals over throughout my Junior year. Petra introduced herself to me at our second appearance, her hair gone from orange to a blazing blue. She was all big expressions and gestures. We had been consumed in laughter within moments of our meeting.
Petra was the first female friend ever able to enter the inner circle of my life in Sutter. There were plenty of girls in the high school Sutter kids attended in the city. I considered none of them more than acquaintances. The girls in the clubs and classes liked me well enough, and I liked them too. But I was too rough for the artsy girls, too artsy for the farm raised tom-boys. The cheerleaders, of whom I was part of during the basketball season, found me an oddity. I had early years of dance instruction and was a cheerleader because I loved to dance. Those girls loved to fawn over their strange tomboy interloper.
The only school group I always felt totally comfortable was band. I was that one girl percussionist and the last in a long line of McDermotts to march through the band and the section. Having too many brothers will do these sorts of things to a girl if she has no reason to fight against it. I really, really didn’t.
When Petra told me that she played the trombone, that one chick trombone player in the rival high school band I knew that we were kindred souls. I went dancing with Petra whenever we had the chance, traveling to all the surrounding big cities.
Petra was my world of girlieness in my male infested life.
“What do you say we go and get some breakfast? Then we’ll drive around until we find a cool thrift store or maybe a mall.” She flashed her teeth at me. “I can smell clearance sales on the wind.”
I laughed at her and we dressed and then packed up my clothes and everything we bought on our quick shopping spree from the night before. She put her hair in messy pigtails and did what she could to reproduce her shocking makeup style with my weak stash. I rarely wore the stuff but on my trip to see Kevin I had wanted to look distressingly good. He’d done the same to me and it had been torture. But we’d parted with smiles and well wishes and no regrets.
Petra found a disposable camera in my bag and we had a picture taken by the clerk out front. It was the first of many pictures, many cameras, but we didn’t know that yet.
... To be Continued...
See next: Chapter Two - Flight uploaded to AD now as of 3/7
Who knew the Wright's had a trunk full of hidden family secrets? Searching for treasure and hidden family secrets is one way to fuel the flames of passion.
