Chapter 37: Down to Two

June 2, 1983

"Could I speak to Larry Weatherby, please?" I asked the receptionist as soon as she picked up the phone.

"One moment," she intoned, before putting me on hold.

I waited for a couple of minutes. The recipient of this call, a good friend of mine in the other timeline, and a not-quite-as-close friend in this one, was presumably being summoned from somewhere in the warehouse. I recalled that the prevailing policy was rather lax about phone calls while working, and I knew I wouldn't get him in trouble, as long as I kept this call fairly brief.

Finally, the phone line came to life again. "Hello," the speaker intoned, sounding quite curious. I identified myself.

"Hey, dude!" Larry responded with enthusiasm. "How's it going? How come you aren't working here this summer?"

I explained to him that I was now part of a band, which right now was my summer job, and in fact, was a much more rewarding and enjoyable one than counting out small manufacturing parts and putting them in plastic bags.

"You got that straight," said Larry. "Most of the time, I'm bored to tears here."

We got to talking about some of the people that were mutual acquaintances of ours. Larry gave me updates on each one. I casually threw one name out there.

"Yeah, she's still here," he told me in a low voice, no doubt in deference to the fact that others were in earshot. "And she's still as hot as ever."

"That's good to hear," I said evenly, having fished for and gotten the piece of information that was crucial to my plan.

I had almost fully put my dark period of a year ago behind me. Reimbursing Dave for his drums was the next-to-last item on the list of things I needed to accomplish in order to reach that state. Now, I was working on putting a check mark beside the last concern. Unknowingly, Larry had come through for me in that respect. I had an opportunity to not only achieve closure myself, but also offer it to the other person in question. I didn't know whether she would accept that offer, but I had to at least give it a shot.

Later on that evening, I was hanging out in the apartment with Dennis. As was happening with increasing frequency these days, Mayra was there, too. The three of us were seated around a minuscule round table that served as our eating place. We'd sent out for Chinese food, and had pretty much laid waste to the entire order. Dennis made a move to get up and start to clean off the table. But Mayra wouldn't let him.

"No, no, no, I got that!" she told him, making a shooing motion with her hand, before grabbing the dishes. She took them over to the sink, and began to wash them. Dennis made a move to help her, but Mayra continued to shoo him away, smiling widely as she did so.

"You're so cute when you're being domestic," Dennis told her, as she beamed in response.

"You two," I laughed, "are gonna send me into sugar shock."

Dennis couldn't resist. "Jealous much?" he said with a grin.

"I'm not jealous," I replied, still laughing, "but I definitely know I'm the third wheel around here right now."

Actually, I did want to retreat to the privacy of my own room, and afford them some quality time. So, I bade them both goodnight, closed the door, and immediately went over to my desk. I took out a pen and some paper.

On many evenings, at about this time, I would sit down and write for a while. Tonight would be no different. But this time, the content of my writing was far outside the norm.

I sat down, and began to compose a letter.

Dear Kaci,

I hope this letter finds you well. Although it may be a bit unorthodox, I chose this method to say a few things to you that I should have said long ago. This letter is in your hands, which gives you the choice to either accept it and read further, or reject it and toss it in the trash. If you choose the latter, I must say that I wouldn't blame you. At any rate, it's been almost a year now since I last saw you, which has given me ample time to reflect on what happened between us.

The way I treated you – from beginning to end – was despicable. All the things you told me on that final, terrible day were true. I did use you like a con artist. I displayed the maturity of a ten-year-old. I played with your affections for my own amusement. And you deserved far better than that.

There is a part of me that wishes you had not acted so hastily at the very end; that perhaps you might have given me another chance to tell you what was really on my mind. But my actions at the time, and leading up to it as well, negated any right I may have had to expect a second chance. In retrospect, I don't blame you for your decision. You acted as you did, based on the information that my own horribly immature actions had communicated to you.

Am I a better person now? I believe that I am. But the purpose of this letter is not to dwell on that point. Rather, it's to say that a simple "I'm sorry" is not sufficient in this case. Just know that even now, there isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about last summer's events with regret. It's something I'll always have to live with.

Best wishes,

Pat

P.S. I've included my return address on the envelope. Don't feel obligated to use it. But if you'd like to, by all means, please do so.

I placed the letter in the envelope, scrawled Kaci's work address on the front, and sealed it. The next day, I dropped it in the mailbox.

I wondered if she'd bother reading it. I might never know whether or not she had.

June 6, 1983

Today, a Monday, was my twentieth birthday. At band practice that afternoon, my bandmates dropped a wonderfully unanticipated surprise on me.

Lightning in a Bottle, as presently constructed, had been together for six months or so. In all that time, I had rarely broken out my guitar during practice, and not at all during any live show. This was in spite of the fact that I was supposedly our number two guitarist. At first, the issue was that I simply felt I wasn't yet good enough. But some practice on my own, as well as some informal instruction from Inez, had brought me to the point where I might be considered competent. However, right now, there was another concern which was holding me back.

My guitar had been a Christmas gift from you-know-who. And I no longer wanted to even touch it.

At the end of practice, Inez approached me, toting a guitar I had never seen before. I figured it belonged to her. But she presented it to me, and invited me to take it.

"Happy birthday, Pat," she said with a smile. "From all of us."

I looked at her with surprise, and then realized that the others had crowded around us.

"We all chipped in for it," said Eileen. "What do you think? Do you like it?"

"I-I-" I stammered. This unexpected gesture had a powerful effect on me; I paused for a moment to collect myself. "It's great... fantastic," I got out. "Thank you. Thank you all. You guys are the best." I looked the guitar over. It was a definite upgrade from the one Julia had given me, which meant that it had cost a pretty penny.

The three girls all hugged me. Paul gave me a firm handshake. And then Dave did something, well, unmistakably Dave-like. Even though he'd been sober since that night at my apartment, he unleashed a hilarious impersonation of his drunk self.

He proceeded to give me an ungainly man-hug, and in a slurred, high-pitched voice, croaked out, "I love you, man!"

Six people lost it, and the laughter didn't die down for what seemed like several minutes.

June 13, 1983

We'd done shows the previous Friday and Saturday evening at Sea Breeze. This was the somewhat exclusive club at the beach where last summer, the earlier edition of our band – the one minus me – had impressed the management enough to land a couple of gigs. They'd agreed to bring us back this year. In fact, they now liked us so much that they begged us to come back later in the summer, something that we readily agreed to.

The heart of the summer was approaching. None of us had classes to worry about, which meant that our only real responsibilities were band-related. Our band income was such that none of us had to think about finding work for the summer. As a result, we had plenty of leisure time on our hands. On days when we had practice, I would usually head over to the Andrade house a few hours early, and meet up with Inez and Evie. Usually, Mayra and her mom were there too. But on this particular day, Mayra was out doing something with Dennis. Señora Andrade was upstairs on the phone. Which left the three of us in the basement, our practice studio, talking about anything and everything.

I was spending more and more time with Inez and Evie these days. I'd really gained an appreciation for the special friendship that existed between the two of them. I mean, of course I'd always known that they were best friends and roommates. But I'd discovered that a bond existed between them that was truly unique. They finished each other's sentences. They were frequent co-conspirators in well-meaning causes, like the recent occasion when they'd deftly defused the potential blowup involving Dave, Paul, and me, playing divide and conquer to perfection, with only a few words passing between them. Both of them had the amazing ability to read me like a book. They were different in some ways; Inez was more emotional and idealistic, whereas Evie tended to be cool and logical. However, in this respect, they countered each other well. Among the many reasons to consider as to why Inez was so much better off in this timeline: the last time around, she didn't have Evie.

This was all the better for me, since in the other timeline, I'd only had one sounding board during my college years. Now, I had two. But there were important differences in my interactions with each of them. With Evie, I'd somehow managed to transition into exactly the same type of relationship we'd had last time; she'd adopted a role in my life that was almost maternal. With Inez, things were more equal. I spent as much time giving her advice as she did me.

Now, the topic of conversation was our next show at Sea Breeze, on a date to be determined later in the summer.

"They asked us to do 'Scenes From an Italian Restaurant'," I said to Evie. "But we haven't done it since high school."

"I won't have much to do on that one," Inez noted. Then, turning to Evie, she said with a giggle, "Better get to work re-learning that sax solo, Chiquitita."

"Chiquitita?" I blurted out, my tone expressing equal parts curiosity and bemusement.

"It's kind of a nickname or term of endearment I have for Evie," explained Inez.

It sounded familiar to me, and I soon made the connection. "Wait a minute," I said. "Isn't that the title of an Abba song?"

"It is," Evie confirmed. "It's pretty much our theme song." They both smiled in my direction, apparently quite eager to share something with me. But they wanted to see if I'd ask first. Of course, I indulged them.

"There's a story here that's just begging to be told," I grinned.

"Right after Doug broke up with me," Evie offered, "and I was down in the dumps, Inez used to sing that song to me. Then later on, after the whole mess with Danny, I returned the favor, and sang it to her."

"How touching," I told them both sincerely, absent any trace of facetiousness.

Inez picked up a cassette tape, and popped it into the stereo system. The song we'd just been discussing, "Chiquitita", began to play.

"What do you think?" Evie asked me with a sly grin.

I wasn't sure that I shared their enthusiasm for this particular tune. I mean, really ... Abba? I'd never actually given this song a listen before, however. And when I did, I became aware of something.

"Hey, you know what? This tune is actually kind of catchy," I commented. I'd taken particular notice of the keyboard arrangement, which was elaborate and infectious, and which wove its way through the entire song, climaxing in a big-finish solo at the end.

"So, let's see," said Inez, "all it takes to do a really good rendition of this song is two females singing in harmony, and a keyboardist."

"A really skilled keyboardist," said Evie, laying it on thick.

"I know when I'm being buttered up," I replied with a chuckle. I wasn't giving in yet. However, they both then proceeded to gaze at me with big puppy dog eyes, with their lower lips curled downward in a mock pout. Now, that was one onslaught I was completely unable to resist.