Chapter 5: I wasn't sure you were the same. Let's see, the last time we met...

It was Saturday night. Party night.

Although my old home, where my daughter Clarity currently resides (with the old me and my wife Mary, it being late 1979), and the high school where both her and Vicky attend is located in Santa Monica the address where the party was being held was in the much more upscale district of nearby Brentwood park.

Vicky had previously told me that the party was being thrown by some high school senior named Mark Lawton, and that Mark was the son of some bigwig in banking or something. She had also told me that she had heard that Mark's parents were currently over in Europe somewhere and she had no idea if they knew their son was throwing this bash or not.

I eventually located the Brentwood address and found that the house was a true custom built multi-level home on at least 3 acres of land. The party seemed to be in full swing by the time we arrived but finding a place to park wasn't going to be a problem because off to the left, after negotiating around a wide circular driveway, and adjacent to what I assumed to be an oversized 4 car garage was about a half acre set aside for parking with approximately twenty or twenty-five cars already parked there.

As is typical at most teen parties I noticed several small clusters of kids, mostly guys, with cans of beer in hand, hanging outside talking together, so after driving up and around the wide driveway, I revved the powerful full-throated V8 Ferrari engine a few times as we drove past the kids before pulling forward and finding a convenient spot to park among the other cars.

Well, the Ferrari definitely drew the attention of some of the kids hanging out front because I noticed several of them pointing in our direction and talking to each other excitedly as I parked the car. I reached back and grabbed the paper bag holding the two six packs of Pabst and fifth of Rum, then I got out of the car, walked around and opened the passenger door for Vicky. She held out her hand and I took it guiding her out of the vehicle.

The formality Vicky and I had just displayed drew some additionally attention from the on-lookers and one of the few girls hanging outside even smacked some boy on the arm and started bitching at him. Undoubtedly asking him why he couldn't ever be a gentleman like I was. Some of us guys just had to ruin it for all the other males around the world.

As we slowly made our way toward the house I cautioned Vicky, "Remember with Clarity here I'm Jimmy tonight and not Sam,"

"No you remember you're Jimmy and not Sam tonight," Vicky warned in return. "I don't want to see you getting all ballistic on me just because some guy is making out or copping a feel or two of Clarity's tits. That's just normal stuff at parties like this. Remember, you're just a guy tonight and not Clarity's father."

"I know, tonight I'm blind and blonde," I answered, hoping I could follow through. "But I've got to be perfectly honest babe, if I catch some guy playing stink finger with her I don't know what I'll do."

"I'm hoping this isn't that kind of party," Vicky said casually. "Believe me, if there are guys playing stink finger out in the open where we can see them then there'll also be plenty of free booze, drugs and pills lying around too and you'd be certain to get us into trouble then. So if this turns out to be one of those parties, we're outa here real pronto like."

"So who died and made you the grownup all of a sudden?" I questioned smartly.

"You did. When you told me you didn't know what you'd do if you caught some guy playing stink finger with your daughter." Vicky answered even smarter.

"Oh yeah," I answered. But I smacked her on the butt with my free hand.

When we got nearer to the house a girl came forward breaking away from a couple of other kids she had been standing with and she said, "Hey, nice wheels. Is that a 77' 308?"

"Ah, yeah it sure is," I answered back looking the girl over. She was a real knockout, built like a '58 DeSoto before the fins gave it a sense of humor, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with dark hair and eyes and probably 5' 2'' tall or so. She was the kind of teen who was destined to be a beautiful woman.

"Gods," the girl said. "I really dig on the 77's. Love the steel carbs because of the performance, and the sound of those Webers is like music to my ears. I could tell it was a 77' when you revved it up before."

"Huh, yeah. Can't beat them Webers," I responded faking it. What the hell were Webers?

"It looked like you have 16" wheels on it. You must have tricked out the rear-end then huh?"

"Oh yeah. Had to do that. It's a posi rear-end," now I was really faking it. Other than posi I knew nothing else about it.

"3.42?" She asked.

"Yeah. That's right 3.42," Hey! I did know something else. 3.42 was the number Dana had mentioned. I nodded, "Yep, 3.42."

"Some say the 308 GTB fiberglass is the way to go, but for pure sexy looks you really can't beat the GTS Spyder," the girl said.

"You seem to know an awful lot about cars and Ferrari's in particular," I commented wanting to get away from any farther technical talk.

"Yeah well, the 77' GTS is, and has been my dream car for a long time, and my dad's a grease monkey. He owns a shop down in Santa Monica that I've worked at most summers as far back as I can remember. I don't tell any of the guys I know my way around cars though. They don't like girls that know more about their motors than they do."

I laughed.

Finally she seemed to notice Vicky for the first time, "Oh gods. Hi, I'm sorry. I really wasn't ignoring you. It's just the 308. You know." she said to Vicky apologetically. "I'm Heather by the way. I don't think we've met before. You can't go to Olympic high can you? I'm sure I would have seen you around."

"Hi, I'm Vicky," Vicky responded extending her hand, "Yeah, actually I do go to Olympic, but I'm new there so you probably just haven't seen me around campus yet."

"You a senior?" Heather asked.

"No, freshman," Vicky answered without hesitation.

"A freshman!" Heather said sounding surprised. "Gods! I can't believe it. You look hot enough to be a senior."

"Thanks. I think." Vicky responded smiling then she added, "Oh, this is my boyfriend Jimmy."

"Wow!" Heather sounded surprised again. "You're dating a college guy! Well, if you two don't want to get eighty-sixed don't tell anyone else you're a freshman Vicky. This party is exclusively senior's only."

"That's funny," Vicky replied, "because it was a junior and not a senior that invited me. Clarity Eldon. Do you know her?"

"Well yeah," Heather responded rolling her eyes. "Who at Oly high doesn't know Clarity? She's only the most popular girl in school and the exception to the senior's only rule. She may only be a junior but she hangs with and dates seniors only. You and Clarity must be really tight huh? Otherwise she'd never invite a freshman to one of these shin digs."

"Well no, not really. We're not friends or anything. I don't even know her that well. I tried but didn't get very far." Vicky answered.

Heather got a serious expression on her face and then leaning in closer to Vicky and talking in a lower voice she said, "Listen Vicky, that being the case, if Clarity invited you, you can bet that she has some cruel ulterior motive in mind. My suggestion is you both turn around and get out of here before whatever little prank she and the others have cooked up can be played out."

"Sounds like you don't think much of this Clarity." I responded.

"I wouldn't go that far," Heather answered. "I just don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about her. I do my own thing. Know what I mean? And I don't get involved with the 'in crowds' stupid little pranks that they believe maintains their reputation as lords of the social scene. They can really be cruel sometimes and I personally don't get the same enjoyment that they do out of embarrassing others."

"Sounds like a real sweet crowd," Vicky said nodding.

"The sweetest," Heather laughed.

Vicky had told me similar things about Clarity after their meeting when Vicky had first tried to talk to my daughter at school. At the time I had shrugged it off as just one of those school kid things. But now, after hearing Heather I could only assume that both her and Vicky's assessment of Clarity was correct and my daughter was snobby, manipulative, and, above all, cruel. Why hadn't I seen these flaws in her makeup in my old life? And what does that have to say about the way Mary and I had raised her? Could we really have been that bad at parenting? And even more important, if I hadn't recognized these characteristics in Clarity back then, what else had I missed?

Afraid to ask the next question, because of the answer it might generate, but knowing it needed to be asked I looked down at Heather and asked, "Heather does Clarity sleep around?"

When Heather looked up at me she didn't smile. She looked intently for a moment, frowned, and then said, "What the heck kind of question is that?"

I smiled, "You're right. I know how it sounds, but believe me Heather it's very important to me and I wouldn't ask if it wasn't of great consequence. I swear to you that whatever you tell me will never get back to Clarity or harm her in any way. I just need to know."

Heather looked up at me, "Well, I'd really love to help you but like I told you before I don't socialize with Clarity either physically or intellectually so how would I know what her sexual proclivity is?"

"Come on Heather," I argued, "This is high school we're talking about here. Nothing goes unnoticed in a high school. I'm not asking you to divulge any big secrets or anything, just tell me what the rumors in halls say, and what your own personal opinion is. That's all."

She looked up at me quickly; a flashing, interrogative glance and perhaps she had recognized the seriousness on my face or possibly something in my eyes because she cocked your head to the side and said, "There's more to you two than just coming to this party isn't there? Okay, for what it's worth. Clarity is generally considered to be a stuck up bitch, but I have never heard anything said about her being 'easy' or sleeping around.

As for Chad Layman, the guy she's currently dating I have no idea if they're sleeping together or not. Were I to take a guess, yeah sure, they probably are. After all, that's only natural isn't it?"

I felt a sense of relief at learning that Clarity wasn't blatantly promiscuous and I was just about to thank Heather for being candid and trusting when Vicky spoke up, "Thanks Heather. Not just for being honest with us, but heck, it isn't every senior that would spend all this time talking with a lowly freshman."

Heather laughed taking on her previous carefree demeanor, "Hey, you're a freshman with a Ferrari 308 GTS Spyder. Nough said."

Vicky looked at Heather for moment and then she said, "Hey! How about you coming over sometime or Sa ... ah ... or Jimmy can pick you up so you can drive the Ferrari?"

Heather just stared wide eyed at Vicky.

Vicky looked up at me and said, "You wouldn't mind would you Jimmy? You know letting Heather put the Ferrari through its paces a little."

I thought about Vicky's offer and it only took me a second to decide, "No. I wouldn't mind at all. Like Vicky said Heather, you're more than welcome to either come over, or I can pick you up. What do you think? Want to take the Ferrari out for a spin?"

"You're kidding right?" Heather said almost breathlessly. "This is some kind of joke."

"No," Vick said casually. "Not a joke."

"Not a problem," I said. "Why don't we exchange phone numbers then you and Vicky can work out the details."

"You're serious huh?"

Vicky and I both smiled and nodded.

"Gods! Yeah, okay ... oh damn I don't have a pen on me! Where's my purse? Oh crap..." Heather was almost yelling she was that excited.

Vicky opened her handbag and fishing out a pen and one of Dana's FBI business cards she said, "Here, I've got a pen." She scribbled our phone number on the back of the card then ripped it in half and handed everything over to Heather.

Heather quickly wrote down her number on the unused half of the card and then handed it and the pen back to Vicky.

"Gods thanks! You guys are really cool. You have no idea how long I've wanted to drive a 308 Spyder. Wow! Is calling you on Monday to early?"

"Call tomorrow if you want," I said. "That way you'll have the whole day to putter around."

"Great!" Heather said, and then laughing she added, "But you really don't putter around in a Ferrari 308 GTS Spyder."

"Cool. Anyway," Vicky said. "Give me a call tomorrow and we'll set it up." Then changing subjects she said, "Hey, how about taking us inside and introducing us around?"

"Sure thing. But remember I warned you, so don't blame me if you both end up being the butt end of some nasty joke. Come on." Heather said leading the way toward the house. Halfway there she turned her head and said, "Hey, thanks again."

Music spilled out when Heather opened the door and hot clouds of smoky air and laughter hit the cool air of the night when we entered the muted glow of the living room.

Heather never got the chance to introduce us around because as soon as we had crossed the threshold Clarity spotted Vicky and she came rushing over.

I had prepared myself mentally in advance knowing it might be horribly uncomfortable or even unpleasant meeting my daughter this way. But I had also considered the fact that after her mother, Mary and I had divorced I had had very little contact with my daughter for a lot years as father and daughter and we had grown far apart. In my original time line those years of very little contact actually added up to nearly thirty years. Because of that I had convinced myself that this lengthy separation would make this meeting go much easier for me than I had first contemplated.