Someday Jennifer

by Risto Pakarinen

  “What have you been up to today?”

  “Nothing much,” I said.

  “Peter’s bought the movie theatre,” Dad blurted out.

  “What?” I said, angry at Dad.

  “What?” Mom said, confused.

  “What?” Dad said, puzzled, looking at me.

  “It’s a project I have. Could be fun,” I said. “And I haven’t bought it. They’re letting me run it until they’re ready to pull it down.”

  “Projects are good for you,” said Mom. “Tell me more when we get home.”

  “Hey, I just had a crazy idea,” I said. “How about we get dinner at Burgerland? Like old times.”

  I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Mom’s smiling eyes look back at me. She nodded toward Dad.

  “What do you say, Dad?”

  “You’re on.”

  Five minutes later, at Burgerland, Dad held the door open for Mom and me, and told us we could have whatever we wanted. In the old days, when money was tighter, that had been a real statement of generosity, a genuine treat. These days, it was a nice bit of nostalgia, like buying all the records I wanted. I ordered two cheeseburgers and a milkshake, which made Mom shake her head.

  “Always the same. And now Dad’s going to make you eat another two, I’m sure,” she said, and added with mock worry: “No eating contests today, please.”

  The place looked exactly the same as it had always looked: half a dozen small square tables, ketchup and mustard bottles and a napkin holder in the middle of each one. We sat at a table by the window, because that’s what Dad always wanted. He claimed he liked to watch the world go by, but we all knew he was keeping an eye on his car: he would sit up and stiffen whenever anyone parked too close.

  After four cheeseburgers and two milkshakes, I slumped in my chair, unable to move.

  “Well, isn’t this nice,” said Mom. “Just like old times. Dad always egged you and Tina on. She had to beat you, even if by just two fries.”

  “I know! She counted the fries too.”

  “One time she almost fainted, remember? You had your friend with you, the big boy, and Tina challenged him as well. I don’t think she’d anticipated quite how much he could put away. They both threw up afterwards!”

  “Mikke had to throw his jeans in the garbage. He sat in the trunk of our station wagon in his underwear,” I said, and we all laughed.

  “Whatever happened to him?”

  “Not sure, we lost touch.” I didn’t want to mention what I’d discovered, but only because I didn’t want to mention how.

  “That’s a shame,” Mom said. “You can never have too many friends. But you were always a loner.”

  Ouch.

  “I mean, Tina always had friends over, but you . . . you’ve always been very comfortable by yourself, sitting upstairs with your computer, taking sandwiches into your room.”

  “I had friends.”

  “Oh, I’m not saying you didn’t. Just that you were also happy playing with your computers, content to be alone . . .”

  I suppose she had a point, but sometimes moms—or my mom at least—had a way of cutting right to the bone.

  “And,” she carried on, “you got to make your hobby into your job. Not many people get to do that, do they? And now look at you, following your dream . . .”

  Again, she had a point, and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Can we go home now?” said Dad. “I don’t want to miss the evening news.”

  We somehow wedged ourselves back into the Beetle and chatted all the way home.

  Chapter 25

  Hello

  THE PHONE WAS RINGING as we walked up to the front door. Mom rushed in and grabbed it—but not in time. She hardly had time to put the receiver back in the cradle when it rang again. That told me who was calling and, had I had any doubts, Mom’s first words, and the way she said them, were a dead giveaway.

  “Oh, hello,” she said, somehow managing the fine art of a completely polite surface with an undercurrent of disappointment. The buoyant mood of the evening ebbed away.

  “Fine. Everything’s good. No, no, we just got in. We were at Burgerland.” Pause. “Yes, he’s here. Give our love to Sofie.” She held out the receiver.

  “I’ll take it upstairs instead,” I yelled, hopping upstairs the best I could. My ankle was a lot better, but it still hurt when going up or down stairs. When I picked up the phone and crashed onto my bed, I shouted to Mom that she should hang up.

  “I hate calling you on this landline. I’m sure Mom’s listening to our conversation downstairs,” Tina said.

  “No, she’s not. I heard her hang up.”

  “Hope so. Anyway, Burgerland?” Tina said. “And it’s not even a Sunday.”

  “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

  “Well . . . ?”

  “Well what?”

  “How did you do?”

  “With what?”

  “Oh, come on! Just tell me.”

  I laughed. Tina was such an easy target for teasing.

  “Fine. Four cheeseburgers and two milkshakes.”

  “AND STILL THE CHAMPION!” Tina yelled into the phone.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re still the champ.”

  “How’s life in Kumpunotko? Has our brave time traveller made contact with locals?” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “It’s awesome. You should try it.”

  “Like I would ever want to live there again. When are you coming back?”

  I played with the phone cable, twisting it around my finger, and cleared my throat.

  “Not yet,” I said after a pause.

  “Okay, you need time. I get it. I get it. How’s living at home?”

  “It’s fine. It’s quiet here, so I mostly play games on my computer when I’m home. And I read. I found my comics!”

  “Well, I’m sure they’re about as exciting as they were first time around. And what do you do when you’re not at home?”

  “I have my bike. And a project.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I told you! Didn’t you get my postcards? You should have gotten one of them by now.”

  “Postcards?” She sighed. “No. I didn’t get your postcards. Tell me.”

  “I’m taking over the Atlas. It’s closed down, so I’m opening it back up. I’m going to open with a bang, a big gala event.”

  “Wow, when?”

  “Early December, I think. We just need to restore the place first!”

  There was a pause, and when she spoke next she sounded down. “So you’re staying there for a while?”

  “For now, yeah. I think the movie event is going to be great. I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “What do you know about putting together a gala event? What do you know about running a movie theatre?”

  “Nothing, yet. But how hard can it be? It’ll be amazing. Back to the Future, the way it’s supposed be seen. And everybody will be there . . . I hope. You guys’ll come, right?”

  “Sure,” she said quietly.

  There was something up. Something I wasn’t quite brave enough to confront her about. There was definitely tension between Tina and Mom . . . but it was their tension, not mine.

  “Hey, can we set up a time for a call? I’ll call you on Sunday, say?” Tina asked.

  “Sure. I have no plans. But I’ll write it down in my calendar. What time?”

  “Um, five?”

  I scribbled Tina call in a tiny calendar I’d bought at the bookstore. It was the first appointment I added to it. Well, second, because I had written in the meeting at BBB—but after the fact.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to check that you’re okay. I worry about you, brother,” she said.

  “Don’t. I haven’t felt this good in years.”

  “I’m glad. Listen, I have to run. Sofie needs me. Take care and don’t break the space-time continuum,” she said.

  I could hear her laughing when she hung up.

&n
bsp; I stared at the piece of paper with my plan on it and suddenly realized I’d gotten it wrong. I crossed out the numbers three and four, and switched them around.

  1. Get Atlas.

  2. Fix Atlas.

  4. 3. Open with a sneak preview of Back to the Future.

  3. 4. Invite Jennifer.

  No point having the gala opening and then inviting the star guest.

  I needed to do some serious thinking, so I pulled my Spectrum closer and played for a while, but I couldn’t concentrate on Thro’ the Wall, let alone The Hobbit.

  Something was wrong. Something Tina had said had sowed a troubling seed within me. Not the thing with Mom; I wasn’t going to touch that.

  What do you know about running a movie theatre?

  What did I know? Well, I had seen an episode of Columbo in which the murderer makes a mistake with the changing of film reels, which gives the detective the clue he needs. In the episode, Columbo learned to change the reels and flick the switches and turn the knobs just right. So my total knowledge of running a cinema boiled down to watching a fictional detective do a stylized version of one aspect of the whole shebang.

  I did have a lot to learn.

  I read my plan again. It was too crude. It wasn’t even a plan. I felt stress creep up on me. Just like when I’d read Hanna’s letter and gotten all jumpy and been unable to sit still. I got up and paced around my four-pace room clockwise. Then I turned and paced it two laps counter-clockwise. Had I been a smoker, I would have lit one up.

  Instead, I did some push-ups. Before the third one, I glanced under my bed and saw the box of comics I’d told Tina about. I pulled it out and picked up the magazine on top. It was The Phantom—the Ghost Who Walks—my favourite superhero. Not even Superman was as cool.

  I flipped through the comic but stopped at the letters pages, where they ran jokes and pen pal ads, my favourite. I loved reading them, in part because it was fun to imagine finding my perfect match and in part because they were always so full of hope, but so wrapped up in acting cool. They were all the same, though: a lonely teenager looking for a friend who he knew to be out there somewhere. If only the right person happened to read the comic and see their ad.

  The letters made me think of Mom, and how she’d called me a loner. And that made me think of Tina, who had always been the precise opposite of a loner—whatever the word for that is.

  Something about our phone conversation had made me sad. I wanted to explain to Tina what I was after, without spelling it out. I wanted her to understand me, to get me.

  It was too late to call her back, so I wrote another postcard instead.

  Hi Sis,

  Kumpunotko’s not that bad, you know. Lots of familiar faces made me feel right at home right away. The other day, I bumped into Jan, a classmate of yours. His sister ( Jennifer) was in my class. Sprained my ankle. Long story, but nothing to worry about. I’m already better.

  You should come and visit.

  XO,

  P

  I put the postcard in my pocket and went for a bike ride to town. I was in an odd mood, slightly dislocated, and I wondered if it was because of the conversation with Tina or the half-kilogram of meat I’d eaten earlier.

  I stood outside the Atlas and admired the building. The sign wasn’t in as great a shape as I’d thought, but I couldn’t wait to see the massive glass doors after a good scrub. I tore down the flea market signs that had been taped there, crumpled them into a ball, and threw the ball in a perfect three-pointer into a nearby trash can.

  “And the crowds go wiiiiiiild!” said my sports-commentator voice.

  WHEN I GOT back home, the house was dark. I carefully placed my Crescent against the wall under the kitchen window and tiptoed to my room. I closed the door so that the lights wouldn’t wake up Mom and Dad.

  I dialled up to “I Wanna Rock!” and saw that the sysop had replied to my reply.

  Okay, I’ll keep it live for a bit.

  I was disappointed that there wasn’t more, but right then, a chat window opened. As far as I knew, only one person could do that—the sysop herself.

  I figured this was a faster way to chat, she wrote.

  Definitely, I wrote back. Thanks for having this BBS. Good to be back.

  I hit Enter and waited.

  It took a long time for me to get a reply. A minute later, text lines started to scroll on the screen, a letter at a time, and a line at a time, as if each pixel had to wait for the previous one to arrive before it started the epic journey down the telephone wire.

  I remember I used to thrill at the technology.

  Good to be back? So you know how this works. Excellent. You’ll find the games under “files,” and I’m afraid the jokes are fairly dated. But there’s no traffic, so you’ll always get through. Tell me what you’re looking for here.

  I thought about it.

  Nothing special. Just wanted to do exactly this. Meet like minds, you know?

  Again, I had to wait for the reply.

  I see. I agree—the nighttime is the time for some electronic communication. What’s happening in your neck of the woods?

  Just listening to some music.

  What?

  Spandau Ballet’s “True.”

  I was worried that Twisted Sister might laugh at me for listening to something that soft, but when her reply came back it made me smile.

  Great tune. Weird lyrics, though.

  It’s about how hard it is to tell someone you love them.

  It is?

  I think so. Though you’re right; it is hard to tell.

  It took us forty-five minutes to have that exchange, with the dial-up modem and the computing power of the Spectrum, plus my having to translate everything into English before I typed it in, so we called it a night.

  Good to talk. See you around, Twisted Sister wrote.

  I logged off and pumped my fist. I had a new friend.

  Chapter 26

  Lovin’ Every Minute of It

  THE NEXT MORNING, I awoke with a clear head. Whatever blues I’d felt had disappeared. In fact, I felt a small inkling of optimism. The only way forward was through, as they say. If I ever wanted to get to item three on my list, I had to get through item two.

  Dad was waiting for me in the kitchen. He had a big mug of coffee in front of him, and he was writing something on a piece of paper. For the first time in ages, the television was off.

  “I thought we’d go to the hardware store today,” he said. “A friend of mine owns it, so we can probably get a deal.”

  I was still in my pyjamas.

  “Come on,” he said, throwing me a slightly disapproving look. “This cinema isn’t going to fix itself, you know.”

  He was right. I’d been back in Kumpunotko for ten days now. Though getting the keys had been, thinking about it, a breeze, I hadn’t really done anything since, except for inviting Christopher Lloyd to the opening night. I looked at the calendar and did a quick calculation. I had half of September, all of October and November—ten or eleven weeks—to get the old Atlas back on her feet. It was time to roll up my sleeves.

  “But we don’t know what we need.”

  “We’ll need everything, I reckon. Put your work clothes on. Oh, eat breakfast first. Mom left you something in the fridge. By the way, I had a look at the bumper; it’s not too bad. There’s this guy I know, he’s got a garage, so I called him. He said he’d hammer it out in fifteen minutes and it’ll be as good as new. Whenever you have time,” he added.

  “Wow, you’ve been busy.”

  Dad smiled. He tapped his pen on the piece of paper. “Look here.”

  He had drawn three columns, dividing our work into three categories: (1) Construction; (2) Paperwork; (3) Movie. Then he had written items under each heading: things I had to take care of, I guessed.

  “Construction is going to be the easy part, I figure. There’s not going to be anything too heavy-duty, so most of it I can do myself. The paperwork? Well, I think I can help t
here; I know how to grease the wheels in this town. But the last thing—the actual film and running the cinema—is something I can’t help you with.”

  It would have taken me another week to get myself that organized. I wanted to hug him. So I slapped him on the shoulder, which is about as close as our family gets to such things.

  AT THE ATLAS, we walked the same route as on our first visit. This time, though, Dad walked ahead of me, pointing at things, and I walked a step behind him with a clipboard, taking notes. He did things I hadn’t even thought of, like checking which windows opened, flushing each toilet, and trying each tap. It felt weird going into the ladies’ room, but he just strolled in without a care. I was half-expecting a flustered grandma to hit him on the head with her handbag.

  He’d brought various tools with him, and for a while he stood by the fuse box, scratching his head. He had a little machine that he touched against bits of the building’s wiring. Sometimes it gave a beeeeeep. Sometimes it gave a bi-bi-bi-bi-bip. Sometimes it made no sound at all.

  “Hmm.”

  An hour later, we sat on the stage in front of the curtain, our feet dangling in the air, and summed up our inspection. We agreed that most of the work would be fixing up, and when Dad said, “There’s nothing structural needs doing,” I nodded, as if that’s what I’d been about to say.

  “Paint the walls. Clean the carpet, at least. Wiring and fuses. Light bulbs. Plumbing.” Dad listed things out, tapping his fingers one at a time.

  “Plumbing?”

  “One of the toilets is backing up. God knows what’s been down there solidifying for the last however many years. People will need to use the toilet, with all those big sodas.”

  He switched hands.

  “Tickets. Cash registers.”

  “I’ll do cash only.”

  “You can’t do cash only. People will expect to be able to pay by card. I reckon you’ll lose fifty percent of your customers if you insist on cash only.”

  I remembered Kim’s Basement. “The record store does cash only.”

  “And he probably turns over twenty euros a day. You want a hundred and thirty people in here, ten euros each. You’re going to need a card machine.”