“Sorry,” Ashley said after we’d officially given up. “I can lend you a fiver if you’re desperate? I know Jeanne can be a bit, ah, insufferable sometimes.”
“Tell me about it,” I sighed. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to pay you back, though.”
Ashley shrugged. “I’ll take it from your purse later.”
Somehow, that wasn’t comforting.
I flopped down on her sofa, debating what to do, when the phone started ringing. Ashley waded through a sea of clutter, throwing books and clothes out of the way before finally finding what she was looking for: a vintage 1950’s phone.
“Yup?” She glanced at me. “Yeah, she’s here. You nearly missed her.” Putting one hand over the receiver, she whispered, “Do you want to talk to them?”
I kind of have to, now you’ve said I’m here.
I mentally prepared myself for Jeanne going on about how awesome the club was and how I most definitely could have stayed, et cetera, et cetera. “Yes?”
“Teresa?”
It was Chris, not Jeanne at all. He sounded upset. Maybe he was just slurring.
“Thank god, you didn’t . . . ” There was enough of a hesitation that I began to think he’d hung up. “We need you.”
“Oh?”
I heard him swallow. “There’s been an accident.”
AN ACCIDENT.
My first thought: I warned you, Jeanne! Did I not literally just warn you?
My second thought: Oh god. Someone’s dead.
“Teresa? Are you still there?”
The hand gripping the receiver was shaking. It didn’t feel like mine. I nodded as though he’d be able to see through the wires.
“Wait, hang on, there’s . . . Look, we’re, uh . . . we’re in Colne Valley Regional Park. It’s like half an hour away. I gotta . . . ”
With a bleep, the line went dead.
“What is it?” asked Ashley, anxiously. “Was that the American boy?”
I nodded again. “I don’t suppose you could give me a lift to Colne Valley? I think they’re in trouble.”
Ashley blinked. “You do realize that park is around twenty-eight thousand acres, right? How the hell did they get out there?”
Because Jeanne probably decided to try avoiding the motorway again, took several horribly wrong turns, and nobody was sober enough to tell her otherwise. It was almost impressive that despite being on the outskirts of London, one of the largest cities in the world, she had still managed to get lost in the middle of nowhere.
Ashley confessed she was nursing a sprained ankle, and with some reluctance agreed to lend me her car in order to track them down. It was an ugly, boxy thing that looked like it had been made out of children’s blocks then wrapped in tinfoil, but it would do the job.
As Ashley explained before I left, there were two major roads running through the park from this direction: one in the northwest and one in the southeast, scaling either side of a series of reservoirs. They converged halfway down the length of the park to form a single motorway, a point that would take the average driver no more than half an hour to reach at night. So, unless Jeanne had started down another minor lane, I’d be able to find them by driving a loop around the northern half of the park. Besides, if Chris was able to locate a phone, then he couldn’t have been too far from civilization.
It was a perfect recipe for disaster. Start with a base of midnight and add an absence of streetlights in a regional park, stir well, then beat together a crappy old car and a terrible driver who’s suffering major anxiety. Top with the possibility of casualties and bake for half an hour until it looks like a total catastrophe. Voila. Road trip à la Jeanne.
Typical of England, it wasn’t a particularly wild stretch of land. I drove past a section of dense forest that quickly bled out into open countryside, straining to see what lay beyond the glare of my headlights. Anywhere Chris may have found a payphone. All that happened earlier was pushed clear out of my mind, overtaken by a single objective: find them.
I came upon a small hamlet near one of the reservoirs just as the clock ticked past midnight. A few minutes later, I spotted Chris sitting on the curbside with his head in his hands. Taking a deep breath, I pulled up beside him and got out.
“Teresa?” He glanced upward, eyes holding such immense relief that it took all my self-restraint not to reach out and hug him. “You found me.”
“What happened? Where are the others?”
His head fell back into his hands. His bleached hair was messy, a dramatic change from earlier, and I noticed a deep cut tracing its way across his temple. “We didn’t . . . I should’ve made sure Jeanne was . . . but . . . I wasn’t paying attention, and she took the corner so fast I . . . ”
“Is she okay?” I scanned the streets for the phone. “Have you called for an ambulance yet?”
He shook his head, wincing as he did so. “Nah. She told me to get you, that you’d know what to do.”
So she was all right. My heart hardened.
“Where are you going?” Chris cried, jumping to his feet as I got into the car again. He was more than a little unsteady.
“Get in,” I said, “and tell me where to go.”
Sure enough, Jeanne had managed to squeeze down one of the tiniest, most rural lanes the park had to offer. Only this time, she’d succeeded in doing a lot more than simply getting the tires stuck. Skid marks illustrated the haphazard route the car had taken around a corner before piling into a centuries-old oak tree, crumpling the bonnet, shattering the front window, and severely denting the passenger door.
I came to a screeching halt behind the wreckage, leaving the headlights on as I ran over. Chris stumbled after.
“What the ever-loving heck, Jeanne?” I gestured to the wreckage, surprised by how angry I was, now the fear had worn off. “How fast were you going?”
Jeanne was sobbing too heavily to be coherent. Her eyes were rimmed in thick liner that was now dripping down her cheeks, her skin red and blotchy. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“In her defense, it was far too dark to see the speed limit,” Ritchie said. Like Chris, his words were much fuzzier than they should have been. His dark eyes were unfocused, and there was the faint stench of vomit hovering about him. “And we only had one, two, maybe three—”
“Quiet,” I snapped. Gotta take charge, gotta keep it together . . . “First things first, is anyone badly hurt?”
Chris shook his head. Ritchie, I noticed, had a nasty bruise materializing under his eye where his head must’ve slammed into the dashboard, but apart from that, looked fine. He’d been lucky. With Jeanne it was harder to tell.
“Well?” I demanded, trying to keep my tone authoritative. “Are you okay?”
“Um . . . ” She sniffled and hiccupped at the same time. “My hand hurts. But not really. Kinda like a headache in my wrist, y’know? Maybe it does hurt.” Then she relapsed into tears. “Oh god, Tree, I’m so, so, so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”
“Yup,” I agreed. “You are.”
Very quickly, I established three things:
A mechanic would be ridiculously expensive.
If we decided to get the car fixed, we wouldn’t make it in time for the solstice tomorrow.
Chris, thank goodness, didn’t appear to have had quite so many drinks as the other two.
“Can you make it go again?” I asked him, realizing how outlandish a request it was. There wasn’t even a windshield left to salvage. “I know you’re more of an airplane mechanic, but surely you could do something, anything?”
Chris was pale in the headlights, eyes flickering between me and the car. “Teresa . . . um . . . ”
“We can buy a new window if we have to, but we can’t . . . I can’t think of anything else to do,” I said, one step away from begging. It had all happened rather quickly, and panic was beginning to set in again.
Ritchie broke the silence with a snort. “He couldn’t put Velcro straps together, let alone fix a bloody car.”
<
br /> “Ritchie—” Chris warned.
“Oh, right,” Ritchie snorted again. “It’s a secret. Sorry. We’re strong, capable—”
Chris slapped him.
“What’s a secret?” I frowned.
“Nothing. He’s not thinking straight.”
“Yes, I am!” Ritchie protested.
“Chris—”
“Teresa—”
“Morris!” Jeanne shrieked in anguish, as though realizing what happened for the first time. “You have to fix it, you have to!”
“I can’t!” Chris shouted. Everyone fell silent. Then, softer, “Ritchie’s right. I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“He means, he’s a potato peeler.”
“Shut up, Ritchie.” Chris was pacing, blood smeared across his hands from where he’d wiped the gash on his forehead. “Look, what he’s trying to say is that we’re not exactly . . . well . . . ”
“Not exactly what?”
“Fighter pilots.” He swallowed. “I work part-time in the mess kitchen doing food preparation. Ritchie’s more into, uh, janitorial work. My dad is a squadron leader, Ritchie’s dad’s a flight lieutenant. We came with them because we’d done nothing with our lives in America and didn’t have the money to support ourselves out there.”
Everything slowed down. The dust particles dancing through the headlight beams, the moon’s progression from behind the branches of the oak, Jeanne’s pathetic hiccupping. Stopped.
I gave a shaky laugh. “That’s funny.”
“This time I’m really not joking.”
“So you never really flew for the Queen?”
“I don’t even know how to fly.”
“And Live Aid?”
“Watched it on TV.”
“Spying on the Russians?”
“Nada.”
“Having the fastest bike in Mildenhall?”
“That,” Chris said, “is actually true. Ritchie’s nuts.”
Richie nodded in agreement, falling over after attempting to stand up. There was a rip in his leather jacket, exposing his pale arm.
Well then. Part of me was flattered, knowing they made all that up to impress us, but the more dominant part was all the more irritated. My only hope for somehow salvaging this mess of a road trip had been their mechanical expertise, but if that was nothing but a pile of lies, then we were well and truly stuffed. We’d have to pool our money for a tow truck and watch the solstice from some crummy London suburb.
“Tree?”
I glanced over at Jeanne. She truly did look pathetic, her makeup smeared all over her face and her swollen wrist hanging limply by her side. “What?”
“I really am sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s your car,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Not mine.”
Her lower lip quivered. “I felt terrible . . . when I realized you’d really left . . . I didn’t think you . . . I thought maybe . . . ”
“Are you saying it’s my fault that you were going so fast?”
“Yes,” said Ritchie.
“No,” said Jeanne. “No, I’m glad you didn’t go home. That’s all.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that I nearly had, when I remembered the reason why I hadn’t. However, if my purse was in the car, then I’d have more than enough for a bus fare to Stonehenge.
“How much money do you have? All of you?” I probed, automatically reaching for my pockets.
Jeanne started crying because she didn’t remember. Ritchie shrugged and said, seriously, “About eleventeen dollars.”
“Twenty pounds maybe? Give or take?” Chris searched through a wallet tucked in his butt pocket. “Plus my credit card, which has a bit more. Ritchie has about the same.”
My head was spinning. Maybe, just maybe, we could bus it to Stonehenge in time for sundown tomorrow. Of course, we’d never make it all the way back home again afterward, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it. As for the car . . . I wondered if it was illegal to leave it where it was. Jeanne’s family was well-off; they’d pay any resulting fines without problem.
I relayed this to Chris, who seemed too relieved about my not biting his head off after his revelation to be too concerned about practicality.
“And I can phone my buddy and get him to bring the bikes down! We can motorcycle home!”
“We?” My stomach gave a little twist.
“Sure.” He glanced at me slyly. “Why? Afraid?”
I gestured to the wreck, and at Ritchie, who was retching behind the oak. “You haven’t exactly inspired me with confidence.”
“Fair enough.”
I cracked a smile, then sighed. “I think I’ll need your help getting these two into the car. And to make sure Ritchie doesn’t . . . uh . . . on Ashley’s seats.”
Chris grimaced. “I’ll take it as penance. I deserve it.”
I tossed him the keys and ordered Jeanne to get in the passenger side, fumbling through the darkness in an attempt to retrieve my purse from the wreck. The driver’s door, despite being relatively undamaged, was stuck fast.
“Darn,” I cursed, giving it a series of desperate tugs. “The lock’s jammed.”
“Is it unlocked?” Chris asked. He was trying to force Ritchie inside the car in the same manner that a cop might treat an uncooperative criminal.
“Course.” I jangled the keys to prove it.
Chris abandoned Ritchie for the moment, coming over to stand directly behind me. I felt my back straighten.
“Let me have a go.” After a few tugs, he let go, cursing. “I think it really is locked.”
“Told you.” Then I sighed heavily. This wasn’t a first-time occurrence by a long shot, but unfortunately, the solution never got any easier. I was only glad the windows had been left open.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked, alarmed, as I squeezed my torso through the only-just-torso-sized crack left open by the window.
“What does it look like?” I grunted over the sound of Jeanne apologizing profusely from Ashley’s car. “Can you give me a boost?”
“You’ll shatter the glass!”
“Gee, thanks.” I indulged in an eye roll. “I’m trying to reach the handle so I can wind the window the rest of the way down. Then I’ll go all the way in.”
Chris just nodded. Gave me a boost. Stepped back and watched as I (very ungracefully, it must be said) reached for the handle, wound down the window, and hauled myself into the driver’s seat.
Inside, it stunk of liquor and burnt rubber. It was also pitch black, making my search for my purse a long and tedious one. Then, getting out, I remembered our suitcases. Getting them on the bus—and, later, on a motorbike—would be darn near impossible.
“Jeanne?”
“I wouldn’t,” Ritchie advised, wisely. “She’s having a bit of a crisis.”
I turned to Chris. “Suitcases?”
“I don’t have anything.”
“Yeah, but you’re a guy. It matters less for you.”
He flashed a grim smile, and for the first time since I’d pulled up, I noticed how out of sorts he looked. If anything, I was relieved on his behalf that he wasn’t totally sober. It made the fact that he allowed Jeanne to drive a bit more excusable.
“All right,” I said, getting into Ashley’s car and tuning out Jeanne’s weeping. “Let’s go.”
The headlights swung around, plunging the Morris into complete blackness, and then we were gone. Nobody spoke again.
WE FOUND OURSELVES IN A HUDDLE ON ASHLEY’S floor the next morning, surrounded by Ashley’s junk. Various groans and moans accompanied each of us as we woke up one by one, and aside from that, nothing more was exchanged. What was there to say?
I sat there, sandwiched between a stack of records and an overflowing laundry basket, watching them. To say Ritchie was embarrassed would have been like saying the North Pole got a tad chilly in the winter. He locked himself in the toilet seconds after waking up, pale-faced and drawn, shrugging on
his leather jacket in attempt to regain some of his coolness. Chris sat across from me, fixing himself a bowl of Cheerios and avoiding eye contact. As for Jeanne . . . you’d have thought she’d butchered my cat and only just realized it was wrong.
She sat beside me, but far too carefully. Like I was some strict grandparent who insisted upon proper posture. Every now and then I felt her eyes scan the side of my face. She, like the others, said nothing.
You could have killed someone. You could have killed yourself, and the boys. And for what? What would you have done if I hadn’t been around to save you? You’re an idiot, a bloody idiot. Don’t ever do that to me again. I was scared for you.
But I wasn’t much better, because all I did was eat my cereal too.
We counted and collected bus money. Then we thanked Ashley, and thanked her again much more profusely after she volunteered to have the car towed as an IOU. Ritchie downed several liters of water and a handful of Tylenol. We marched out into the blinding mid-morning sunshine, found the bus stop, and waited.
It occurred to me that perhaps the smartest thing to do would’ve been to go home. I wasn’t a believer in fate, yet it seemed like maybe we just weren’t meant to finish this journey. Everyone was tired, the tension was suffocating, and after last night, a good portion of good humor seemed to have leaked away from the group. At the same time, the mess only made me more determined to finish what we’d started. And if I was being honest with myself, I wanted to see the magic and otherworldliness that Jeanne described at Stonehenge. I wanted to see if she was right, I wanted to say I’d experienced it, and I didn’t want to quit when we were so very close. I knew that I’d never get this close again, and I didn’t want Jeanne’s bad decisions to take this chance away from me. Oh, sure, we nearly saw the solstice at Stonehenge. No, can’t tell you what it was like; my friend was an idiot, so we all went home again. I’m sure it was great, though.
“Well,” Chris said, unable to bear the tense silence any longer. “Happy solstice, everyone. Blessed be or whatever you’re supposed to say.”
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