She laughed. “Dad’s a terrible driver,” she said quietly. “Refuses to let anyone navigate. Just looks at the map in the morning and assumes he’ll remember the way. We got lost in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands . . . we even got lost on the way to Helsinki, and he drives that way most weeks.”
“Excuse me,” said a voice behind me. “This is all very interesting, but can I possibly get an ice cream?”
We both realized there were several people waiting.
“Sorry, you have to work. I’ll see you later,” I said, and pulled out a wrinkled bill from my pocket. She put it in her cash box and, as she gave me the change, she smiled at the person behind me.
“Next, please.”
Later that day, after more kilometres on the bike than I’d planned, I happened to roll past Jennifer’s house. It was the fifth time I’d “happened” along that way in as many hours. Finally I saw her. She was wearing cut-off jeans and a black T-shirt with Voyage Voyage written on the front, and a lot of eye makeup.
I stopped, of course. She smiled, and wiggled her fingers, and walked to the rock next to their mailbox.
“Hello, friend,” she said.
“Hello, friend.”
She gave me the proper beat-by-beat story of their road trip. The sights she had seen, the food she had eaten, the books she had read on their way from Kumpunotko to Barcelona and back. Summer evenings in Finland are endless, and it felt like I could just sit there with her forever.
Every once in a while she paused to ask me if I had been to whatever place she was describing, but when the answer was Copenhagen: no; Amsterdam: no; Brussels: no, she stopped asking.
“Kumpunotko must seem awfully small to you now,” I said.
“The whole world is out there, Peter. Listen, this guy I met in Paris, Jacques, he told me you have to follow your dreams. He was from a small town in France, I forget the name, and now he’s selling his own paintings by the Seine.”
“Was that his dream?”
“He knew what he wanted, and he went after it. I think he’s right. You should follow your dream. What’s your dream?”
“I . . .”
“Well, we all know you’re going to be a big shot in computers, but isn’t there something a little more . . . interesting?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“You must know! Maybe a movie director? Movies are your passion, aren’t they?”
“I can’t do that. I wouldn’t know where to start, making a film.”
“You’d need a script. Maybe be a screenwriter?”
“Maybe.”
“Or something different. A set designer? Building all the spaceships. That’d be far out,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes.
“Maybe. But . . . computing? I’ve written some really good code this summer. I got a new computer. It’s got MS-DOS, a floppy drive, and so much more RAM than my Speccy.”
“I want to be an artist,” she said, apparently not even registering what I’d said.
“And you will be. You’re so talented; I know, I’ve seen it.”
She sighed, and played with her hair.
“I want to move to Paris. You know they have the École des Beaux-Arts? So many of the greats studied there. What do we have? Kumpunotko High? I was thinking of transferring there for my senior year. Jacques said I should apply. Do you think I should?”
I didn’t tell her what I thought she should do. Instead, I told her what I thought she wanted to hear.
“I think you should follow your dream, Jennifer.”
“But it’s crazy, isn’t it? Am I crazy?”
“I’d do it if I were you.”
She gave me a hug.
“I can always count on you, Peter,” she murmured into my ear, before turning and skipping up the stairs onto her porch. “See you around,” she said.
“See you, friend,” I replied.
I knew she was going to do it. Go off and seek her fortune, follow her dream.
I’d have given anything to follow it with her, but I knew that wasn’t how it worked. She may have been part of my dream, but I clearly wasn’t part of hers. I wasn’t a (presumably handsome) French painter called Jacques who (presumably) drank treacly coffee and spoke philosophically while smoking and gazing wistfully into the distance. Besides, I had responsibilities; I had to complete high school and then do my compulsory national service in some remote province of Finland, if I were to have any hope of going to university.
I watched her go into her house.
A week or so later, at exactly 6:15 p.m.—fifteen minutes after my work lugging boxes at the warehouse had ended—I parked my bike against our house and Dad told me there was a message on the machine for me. I knew what it was before I even pressed the little silver button.
“Hey, Peter, guess what? The school in France called—they had a cancellation! It’s totally short notice; I’m literally shoving clothes in a bag as I speak. Listen, I wanted to come and see you to say goodbye, but then I realized I don’t even know where you live! And I guess you’re out anyway. But look, if you get this message before—I don’t know, four o’clock?—then come and see me. Would be great to say goodbye—”
I clicked the red button to delete.
That was the last time I heard from Jennifer.
I HAD GOTTEN into this adventure because I’d received a letter—my Time Machine—from my old teacher, and it had reminded me of Jennifer. I had jumped in with both feet, without thinking, without a plan.
Back then, she was my best friend. After the dance, over those few months, we were as close to being a couple as you can be without actually being one.
She knew that the empty seat next to me on the bus was always reserved for her, and I knew the seat next to hers was mine. She knew that if she needed to talk to me after lunch break, she would find me in the corner of the school library, and that we’d talk about, well, everything . . . except the one thing I was never brave enough to mention.
I knew that if I rode my bike past her house an hour after school, she’d be sitting outside waiting for me, and I knew the red light blinking on my answering machine before a big test was always her.
We were there for each other—like David and Jennifer from WarGames: classmates and best friends against the world.
Until we weren’t.
There was no fight, no argument. I don’t think I ever did anything to upset her. Our friendship didn’t end; we just went in different directions. She went to Paris; I stayed in Kumpunotko. I graduated. I did my military service. I moved out of Kumpunotko to go to university. She never even sent a postcard.
I didn’t know anything about her life after high school.
Not once had I tried to track her down (except on that drunken, best-forgotten evening).
I wondered again why that was.
Was I chicken?
Basically, yes. But there was more to it than that. Something romantic; a silly notion holding me back.
It had to do with . . . destiny.
If Jennifer was destined to be mine, then cyberstalking her was not the way things were supposed to be. Cupid never fired a bow down a fibre-optic cable.
If Jennifer and I were supposed to meet, we were supposed to meet.
Of course I was also scared that (a) she had a husband she was madly in love with, (b) she would greet me with the words “Hello, friend,” or (c) there would simply be no spark.
This terrified me the most. I knew we had only ever been “friends,” but I also knew, looking back, that there was more to it than that, under the surface. I knew, from having read articles and websites and novels, from having seen probably more rom-coms than a straight single man ought to watch, that it was just slightly possible that she might have been nervous, that she might have been tongue-tied—that the booze she drank at the dance might have lowered her inhibitions so that she was able to do what she secretly wanted to do—kiss me—and that when she didn’t kiss me after Supergirl maybe it was beca
use she was scared of rejection. Or, even worse: when I didn’t kiss her after Supergirl, she was disappointed and rejected and cried all the way home.
I mean, unlikely. But not impossible.
After all: “Look at you, all handsome in a tuxedo and everything. I was almost jealous of Sara, snapping you up like that.”
Maybe we’d never had a candlelit dinner, but we’d had something better. We’d had a connection. And as far as I know, it was never officially disconnected.
Chapter 24
Let’s Go Crazy
I WAS SURPRISED to see Dad’s TV chair empty when I got home. I heard the sound of somebody flushing the toilet. Sure enough, Dad walked out of the bathroom—TV remote in hand—said “Hi,” and walked straight into his precious chair.
“Hey, Dad.”
“I didn’t hear you get in. Sit down. Murder, She Wrote is about to start.”
I liked all detective shows, and I liked Angela Lansbury, so I sat down in the other chair—Mom’s—facing the TV.
“So, Dad, what have you been up to today?”
“Oh, the usual.”
We were silent.
“Wanna hear a joke?”
“Always.”
I told him one I had read on the BBS.
“Why did the Swede throw his clock out the window?”
The joke had originally been about a “boy,” but I knew jokes about the Swedes were Dad’s favourites.
“Heh, why did the Swede . . .” he said, tapping the arm of the chair. “No, tell me.”
“He wanted to see time fly.”
“Good one,” Dad said, without laughing. “Classic Reader’s Digest.”
“Hey, why don’t you just tape the show on the VCR and watch it later? I want to show you something.”
“VCR? We haven’t used that for years. I just press a button now, store about a thousand hours of TV on the hard drive.”
I sighed.
“But I want to watch this now,” he said with the air of a man used to getting his own way. “Watch with me.”
Right then, Jessica Fletcher started to type and Dad raised the volume. I sat next to him for the entire show, but my mind was elsewhere.
Since being home I had seen Dad get excited about something only once, and that was when he witnessed Tottenham—his favourite team—lose a match. The rest of the time he sat in his chair, watching TV. Frankly, it made me angry. And concerned.
He didn’t have signs of Alzheimer’s or anything like that, but this was not the Dad I knew. That man was always on the move, always with a plan, pulling strings to make things happen. He knew everybody, and not just in Kumpunotko; his web of connections spread around other parts of Finland, even in Helsinki.
“I bet the wife did it,” Dad said. “Her alibi’s very weak.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about because my mind had been wandering, but I didn’t want to leave him hanging.
“That’s what they’d like you to believe,” I said, and wagged my finger.
“I know,” Dad said.
A half-hour later, as a frozen image of Jessica Fletcher laughing with the sheriff filled the screen, I got up and slapped Dad on the back. “Well, you were right, of course! Anyway, let’s go. I want to show you something. Put your shoes on.”
He grunted as he got up and walked to the hall. I wiggled the Volkswagen keys in front of him and told him I was driving.
“That way it’ll be a surprise to you.”
“Can’t wait,” Dad said. “You seem excited.”
There was no traffic, so what would have been a ten-minute drive during the morning “rush hour” now took seven. We sat silently in the car for a bit as Dad checked out his old ride. He picked at a bit of the roof lining that was beginning to fray. Then he leaned back and put his hands behind his head.
“Autumn’s coming,” he said.
“Coming? Dad, it’s September already.”
“That’s what I said.”
I turned on the stereo. The tape was in the middle of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” To my surprise, Dad turned up the volume and pumped his fist.
“Wow, I didn’t know you liked this,” I said.
“It’s not Sinatra,” he said with a big grin, “but this one’s pretty good.”
He rolled down his window and stuck his elbow out just as we pulled into the Atlas parking lot, next to the black side door.
“This is it,” I said as we both got out.
“Great spot! I’ve never thought of parking here.”
“No, no, this is it. This is what I wanted to show you. The cinema.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve seen it before.”
“But do you know who you’re looking at now?”
Dad shook his head, a puzzled look on his face.
“The new manager!” I threw my hands in the air. “Ta-dah!”
I walked to the side door, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. I flicked on the lights and gestured for Dad to come in.
“What’s this? You’re the manager? What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you later. Come and look at this beauty,” I said and walked to the main theatre.
Dad was just a step behind me, and I could hear him muttering something to himself.
I did jazz hands again when we got to the main hall and I turned the house lights up.
“This is where the magic happens,” I said.
“And . . . you . . . and this? Is that why you were asking about the developers?”
“Yeah! I spoke with them and made a deal. I get to run the place until it’s time to tear it down. They reckon around Christmas or so.”
“And you’re going to do what?”
“Well, obviously I’m going to show films. Lots of films. But first I’m going to have a big gala event, a grand opening. I’m going to give Kumpunotko the kind of event it’s never seen before.”
He nodded patiently, looking around.
“But, do you know how to do it?”
“How hard can it be?”
Dad sat down on one of the seats in the first row and extended his feet all the way out. He looked around the theatre, humming a Beatles song, nodding and wrinkling his nose.
“Well, you have your work cut out for you,” he said with a chuckle. “How big is it?”
“Ten by ten, downstairs. And the balcony’s got thirty seats, so one-thirty in total.”
Dad got out of his chair and walked up the aisle in the middle. He kicked the carpet that I had duct-taped down. I joined him at row six, walked to the middle, and sat down. Dad sat in the seat next to me.
“The cushions are soft, but there are no cup holders. There’s enough legroom for you, Pete—you’re not that tall—but look at my knees,” he said, and pulled his knees almost to his chin.
“Maybe we could put the rows farther apart? We’d have to lose a row, but . . .”
“Nah. Nobody really minds. You know what’s always bothered me, though? That I have to keep my jacket on my lap at the movies, or shove it on the dirty floor. Why can’t there be a small hook for it? Right . . . here.” He pressed his index finger in the middle of the seat in front of him.
“You got it. We’ll have that. I’m the boss. Want to see the rest of it?” I got up, squeezed myself past Dad, and led him into the lobby.
“The lobby needs a new coat of paint, I think,” I said.
“And some lamps.”
“Sure.”
“And a red carpet.”
“Obviously.”
“Do you think all of this can be done by one man?”
“Well, there’s the thing . . .”
I let that hang in the air.
He opened and closed the service hatch, which creaked. Ran his finger through the dust on the counter. Blew it away.
“Perhaps you could find someone to help you out?”
“That’s what I was hoping.”
He put his hands on his hips and looked at me.
“You do realize I’ve become quite attached to my TV schedule.”
I grinned. “That’s what the VCR’s for, right?”
Dad got on his knees and started to scratch the floor with a key. Then he walked around the lobby, behind the counter, and into the office. He came back out holding a large yellow plush toy in a boiler suit and safety googles, its mouth splayed in a ridiculous grin. “What’s this?”
I knew, but didn’t want to admit that, so I just pointed to one of the film posters on display—Despicable Me—which must have been one of the last movies shown before the place closed down.
He walked to the entrance of the auditorium and yelled “Day-O!” so that it echoed through the dimly lit cinema.
“We can work it out,” Dad said. He winked.
“How quickly do you think we can fix it up?”
“Hard to say. I don’t know much about running a movie theatre, either. To get the theatre in presentable shape will take weeks. We need to see what has to be done, then get all the material, then do the work. Not to mention all the paperwork.”
“The developers mentioned that. I have no idea what they’re talking about.”
“I assume you’ll need all kinds of permits if you want to have a hundred people in here.”
I only wanted to have one person in there, but I didn’t say that to Dad.
“I don’t think it’s the government’s business to tell me what I can or can’t do . . .”
Dad looked at me askance. “This from the man who worries when there’s only three months left to file his tax return? You have changed lately, Peter.”
I looked down, embarrassed. He continued: “I must say, I admire your libertarian stance, but I think you need to at least file something with the police. And the fire department. They’ll probably do an inspection. I know a guy who used to do those. I can ask him.”
“That’d be great. By the way, maybe we shouldn’t tell Mom about this . . . yet.”
He cast me a glance. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t quite seem real yet, and I don’t want everyone to get their expectations up.”
He frowned, but didn’t say anything more.
Five minutes later, I locked the door and we picked Mom up from the library. She had been reading books with little children, one of her many projects.
Someday Jennifer Page 15
