by Rex Bolt
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 - Head First
Chapter 2 - She’s A Fish
Chapter 3 - Favorite Song
Chapter 4 - Hitching It
Chapter 5 - Restraining Order
Chapter 6 - Letter H
Chapter 7 - Palm Springs
Chapter 8 - Securing Mark
Chapter 9 - Seven-Eleven
Chapter 10 - Morning TV
Chapter 11 - CPR Him
Chapter 12 - Fake Vanilla
Chapter 13 - Messing With
Chapter 14 - Flap Panel
Chapter 15 - Issuing One
Chapter 16 - Are We Good?
Chapter 17 - Godspeed
Chapter 18 - Western Straits
Chapter 19 - Deal Breaker
Chapter 20 - Not Tonight
Chapter 1
Beacon, California
November 20, 2016
Well, what could you do for an encore?
Pike didn’t know the answer to that, but when he woke up Sunday morning he called Audrey and asked her how she felt about taking a drive to Manhattan Beach.
“Gosh,” she said, “what is it, like three hours each way?”
“Give or take,” Pike said. “It’s a relaxing drive, not bad at all, until you hit traffic.”
“I see . . . well what would we do? Go swimming you mean? The beach?”
Pike figured it might be a little chilly for that, this time of year, though he remembered it was about a month ago when he raced into the ocean down there to help some people in trouble, and hadn’t worried about the water temperature.
“I was thinking more, have lunch, walk around,” he said. “We might drop in on Mitch.”
“I’m game,” Audrey said.
“Just like that?” Pike said. “No having to take a minute to consider the pros and cons?”
“Nope,” she said, “just give me a half hour.”
***
Past Bakersfield Audrey said, “Now Mitch is the gentleman I met right? At your house?”
Pike said, “Yeah he rang the bell . . . Unfortunately. No notice at all, he just shows up from L.A.”
It was hard to believe that was only a week ago. It was an understatement to say that a lot had happened since then.
“I really liked him,” Audrey said. “He was so genuine.”
“He liked you too. He kept carrying on about it when you left . . . On the one hand, maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that he popped in right then.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. Mitch had unintentionally interrupted an awful situation, with Audrey informing Pike that her late mom had been having an affair with his dad.
There was an uncomfortable silence for a few miles. Then Audrey said, “Well I brought my swimsuit.”
“You mean . . . just a bikini?” he said. Trying to sound casual.
“Oh you,” she said, smiling, reaching over and playing with his hair. “It’s one of those lite wetsuits you use for water skiing.”
“Ah.”
“We used to make family trips up to Lake Almanor, that’s where I learned . . . Sorry to disappoint you.”
“No, no, don’t be ridiculous,” he lied. “This is great by the way, thanks for coming.”
“Well thank you for twisting my arm . . . I’m not ashamed to say it, this is what the doctor ordered.”
“I agree,” Pike said. “Sometimes you can’t beat a change of scenery.” Thinking about his change of scenery from yesterday. Unexpectedly out there in Utah. When all he'd been trying to do was arrive at his own high school football field, a couple hundred feet away.
Traffic was light until they got to around Magic Mountain and then it crawled terribly. When they reached Santa Monica, Pike couldn’t take it anymore and got off on Wilshire Boulevard, which meant the long way to Manhattan Beach, but at least you were moving.
“Like I said,” he said, “a relaxing drive until you hit traffic.”
“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” Audrey said. “It’s wonderful to experience new places, even at a slow pace.”
Pike wondered, was there anything he didn’t like about this person?
In Marina del Rey, at the intersection where you make the turn toward El Segundo, two drivers were getting into it. First one guy, then the other one gets out of their car.
The were in each other’s faces pointing fingers and their cars were sitting there idling, blocking the right lane. People were honking, but the two doofuses didn’t care.
Pike waited until they’d endured two green lights without being able to move.
He said to Audrey, “Excuse me just a minute, I’ll be right back.”
He threw it into Park and got out. One guy had a jean jacket on, and Pike thought that would work, and he grabbed the guy by the front of it and spun him around and in one sweeping motion slammed the guy head-first back into his car and closed the door.
Pike turned his attention to other guy, who got the idea quick and hustled back into his own car and got the hell out of there, and by the time Pike got back in the pickup the first guy was gone too, and traffic was moving again, and some of the drivers were giving Pike a thumbs-up out their windows.
“Sorry about that,” he said to Audrey, “but it’s so disrespectful when they pull stuff like that . . . I mean they’re acting like there’s no one else around.”
“WOW,” Audrey said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s fine . . . I’m quite impressed actually . . . I just didn’t know you had it in you.”
“It wasn’t what you think, I wasn’t really all that angry . . . It was more an act.” Hoping she wasn’t going to judge him differently now.
“You should be in the movies, or something,” she said, and she looked at him a certain way, and Pike felt like everything was okay.
Chapter 2
“The good thing about this place,” Mitch was saying, “is you can get breakfast 24 hours a day.”
Pike and Audrey had met him at the usual spot, The Kettle, and with traffic, plus the other small delay, it was around 1 by the time they got there and Pike was starved.
“You ever cook for this character?” Mitch said to Audrey.
“I haven’t,” Audrey said, smiling. “I’d like to though.”
“Well if you do,” Mitch said, “you need to throw portion-control out the window . . . Last time he was here, he’d just scarfed down a major meal and then some, and we go see this guy, which takes, what, maybe a half hour, and we finish with that, and right away he’s ravenous again.”
“What person did you have to meet?” Audrey said.
Pike kicked Mitch under the table.
“It was pretty dull, the whole thing,” Mitch said. “It wasn’t important, it turned out.”
Audrey said, “But Pike drove all the way down to help you meet this person?”
Pike cleared his throat. “It’s football-related, basically . . . Mitch is helping me decide where . . . and if . . . I want to continue playing next year . . . In fact did you know Mitch played at Michigan State?”
“Yes, but you’re overstating it,” Mitch said, glad to change the subject. “The atmosphere was very rudimentary back then, compared to today.”
“Well I’d never try to tell anyone what to do,” she said, “but I saw a few of our games, and everyone says it, he has talent.” Sliding over in the booth and resting her head on Pike’s shoulder.
“So do you,” Mitch said to Audrey.
“What does that mean?” Pike said.
“It means, she’s a charming young woman, not to mention beautiful . . . An old guy like me, I can get away with saying that. If I were 35 it would be different . . . You’ll see what I mean someday.”
“How about we take a walk,” Pike said.
***
They took a look at the ocean and the day was slightly overcast, not much warmth, and the water didn’t look inviting at all.
But Audrey said she wanted to go in, and there were changing rooms up on the front of the pier and soon she was all set.
“Okay now what I’ll do,” Pike said, “is I’ll stand right at the water’s edge. Me and Mitch. You signal us if there’s any issue at all . . . Does that work?”
“You’re funny,” she said, and she took a running start and a moment later dived under a wave and was in.
“Jesus, look at her out there,” Mitch said, “she’s a fish.”
Pike had to admit, it was pretty impressive. She knew how to bodysurf, and was catching medium-sized waves and riding them part way in, and then as they began to fizzle out she’d do a flip turn and head back out for the next one.
He said to Mitch, “Yeah, you never know, people surprise you with talents you wouldn’t expect.”
There were some surfers to the right of where Audrey was, and a few little kids frollicking in the whitewater in front of her. She looked like she was having so much fun, and whatever guilt Pike felt in dragging her down here was eased.
Mitch said, “Welp . . . Now for the main event, which I’m dying to hear about . . . More than I can ever tell you.”
“What main event?” Pike said.
Mitch frowned. “Oh, then . . . I just assumed . . . since you came all the way here . . . that you had something to say to me. Face to face.”
“I got you now,” Pike said. “You need to speak English, I can’t always follow you . . . Yeah, what we talked about, I did it.”
For a moment Mitch’s eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his skull, and he dropped down to one knee in the sand.
“Why are you shocked?” Pike said. “You told me all along, you thought I could do it. That it was possibly part of my bizarre . . . endowment.”
“Please tell me about it,” Mitch said, very quietly.
“Fine . . . What I did first, I tried to come up with a quiet place, but also a familiar one . . . as my . . . starting point.”
“Good thinking . . . Stay in your comfort zone, then.”
“So I picked a spot at school. I doubt it mattered, but I also made sure the dang place was constructed before 1956, like you warned me.”
“I didn’t warn you, I just thought it would be prudent . . . then what?”
“Then miraculously, I was able to put myself in a relaxed state . . . Like I read about it the book.”
“Beautiful. The psychic element, then . . . Exactly what the Russians were working so studiously on, back in the ‘60s.”
“I felt good . . . hard to explain, but I was in a zone . . . but something told me that might be it, that beyond that, nothing abnormal was going to happen.”
“Except then it did,” Mitch said.
“Yeah. There was a brief spinning that crept on me . . . not going to go into the details, but then something kind of shook and I was there . . . if you can believe it.”
“Where is there?”
“That was the problem,” Pike said. “I screwed up on that . . . ended up out-of-state.”
“Ho-ly Toledo,” Mitch said. “You’re shitting me.”
“Jeez. Why do keep being so surprised? What, you were pretending the whole time, when you encouraged me?”
“I don’t know what I was doing, frankly,” Mitch said. “Right now, I’m simply blown away.”
“You want to know if I made it back then?”
“Yes . . . please . . . I mean you obviously made it, but was there any . . . issue?”
“Not really. I went pre-1956 on the other end too, and more or less reversed it . . . In both cases I got the day right but fucked up the location.”
Pike made sure he was keeping an eye on Audrey out there. She was still catching waves, and hadn’t slowed down a bit.
Mitch was rubbing his chin. He said, “I’m just going to play devil’s advocate here.”
“Uh-oh,” Pike said.
“Is it possible you just dreamed your travel? . . . That you were in an acutely heightened state of awareness? And thus you felt certain you were there . . . when you may not have been?”
“I’m not believing this,” Pike said. But he found himself running back through it, replaying it in his mind.
“To expand on it a bit,” Mitch said, “were you somewhere you’d never been? Or were you familiar with your surroundings?”
“Familiar with them,” Pike said.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m in no way trying to downplay your accomplishment.”
Pike felt confusion creeping in and his energy draining. He sat down on the beach.
“Anyhow,” Mitch said, “something to consider? Right?”
Pike took a while to answer. “All right, what you’re saying,” he said, “I can see where you’re coming from. And I’m just mixed up enough now that I could almost agree with you . . . Except . . . on the return trip, I had to walk from Audrey’s house back to school.”
“Interesting,” Mitch said. “You sure?’
“Damn straight I’m sure. In fact I had to stop and eat twice along the way.”
“Well, then,” Mitch said.
Audrey was coming in. Pike said, “We have to wrap this up. What it sounds like . . . very unfortunately, maybe to prove it to you and me both . . . I have to try it again. This time change some shit, so we know 100 percent for sure.”
“That’s very wise thinking, young man. Similar to a controlled experiment . . . Cause and effect.”
“So you tell me,” Pike said, “What would that be, that would need to be changed?”
Audrey was standing there now, talking a mile a minute about how great the waves had been, and to Pike’s surprise she peeled off her water skiing wetsuit or whatever it was, and sure enough underneath it was that bikini after all.
Pike stood up quickly and gave her a towel. Mitch was politely looking off toward the ocean, and Pike decided that was the right thing for him to do as well. What could you do?
Chapter 3
Audrey slept the first half of the drive back, and when she woke up she said, “So you see why I think you might be a secret agent or something?”
“Very funny,” Pike said.
“That man you guys met, that wasn’t a football person . . . was it.”
“No,” Pike said.
“And the reason we went today, what you had to talk over with Mitch, that wasn’t about football either, correct?”
Pike didn’t answer that.
“How’s your dad?” he said. “And how’s Hailey?”
“They’re as good as can be, thank you for asking. How’s yours?”
That was a rough question. Pike hadn’t confronted his dad on his relationship with Mrs. Milburn, and probably never would.
“It’s kind of what I was telling Mitch,” he said, “when you were out there in the water, so natural, looking like a million bucks. You think you know someone, but you don’t. There’s hidden shit.”
“You’re absolutely right. And often we don’t see it coming.”
Pike turned on the radio and they listened in silence for a while.
“What’s your favorite song?” he said.
“Gosh . . . there are hundreds,” she said. “I guess it depends on the day, and my mood . . . Right now at this moment? I’d say Under the Bridge.”
“Whoa. The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Good choice . . . Although did you know it’s supposedly about the guy using drugs?”
“Oh no. Really?”
“At least I think that’s one interpretation. But who cares, it’s a great song.”
“Have you ever . . . done drugs?” Audrey said.
“I’ve smoked a little weed . . . what about you?”
“No,” she said.
“Which was stupid on my part,” he said. “A party here and there, you know how it is, you think you’re supposed to.”
“What’s your favorite song?” she said.
“Closing Time, by Green Day.”
“Wow then, we both favor oldies apparently.”
“Okay I’m jumping around here,” Pike said. “Where did your parents meet?”
“Right in town. They were high school sweethearts.”
“I remember now. You told me they went to the old drive-in movie theater back in the day.”
“Hmm . . . I don’t remember that conversation, but yes, I’m sure they did.”
Oops. Pike realized that was Cathy who told him that about her parents. But anyhow . . .
Pike said, “And . . . how many years were they together, before you were born.”
“Let’s see. Well if I’m 18, and my dad’s 44 . . . so what’s that make it . . . About 8 years I guess. Why?”
“Did your parents ever live somewhere else, after they were married?’
“You mean different, like a different house? Or different city altogether?”
“Different city.”
“Uhm, well, yes, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but they spent a few years in Chico.”
“You’re talking Chico, California? Up toward Oregon?”
“Yeah, my dad had a job there for a while. I never asked them much about it . . . By the time I was born they were back here.”
“What’s he do now, your dad? I’m sorry, I should know that stuff.”
“No, that’s fine, why would you? He’s a regional manager for Enterprise, the car rental company . . . He’s on the road a lot, but mostly day trips.”
Pike said, “Dang, I don’t know why, but that’s completely surprising . . . And your mom? . . . Did she have a career?”
“Sort of. When Hailey and I were old enough she went back to the JC. Got her design credential . . . She worked part time out of the house.”
“So what years were they in Chico, do you know?”
“My,” Aubrey said, “you’re quite the interrogator all of a sudden.” She seemed mostly amused by it, not particularly upset.
“That’s my fault then,” Pike said. “I got a lot of thoughts racing . . . Unrelated stuff . . . random.”
