Five
T he commuter plane rolled across the tarmac to one of the four gates at Central Regional Airport. Nearly half the seats were occupied by passengers who wanted to be anywhere but their present location, and Scott Brandonson was one of those reluctant souls.
Even though he sat close to the front of the plane, after the door had been opened and the passengers filed out, he was the last one off. Anything not to step foot back in the state he did his best to avoid at all costs. The times he’d come back had been for a client and even then he’d left as soon as had been polite.
Finally, after five minutes of disgruntled stares from the pilots and flight attendant, Scott extracted himself from the cramped seat, despite being first class, and walked out of the plane and toward his doom.
An agent from the car rental company greeted him at the gate with a relieved smile. Georgia must have realized he planned on avoiding the rental counter until after it closed. The agent hand delivered Scott the set of keys for the car and encouraged him to follow him to the baggage claim. As much as Scott wanted to tell the rental agent to leave him alone, common decency won the day, and they headed, albeit at a languid pace, down the short terminal to the single baggage claim carousel.
And wouldn’t you know it, Georgia continued with her interference. An employee from the airline waited for him with his bags. The rest of the bags hadn’t made their appearance yet, but there was Scott’s, sitting happily on the floor next to the employee.
With a few phone calls and two pre-emptive measures, Georgia made it impossible for him to have an excuse as to why he would have to put off the trip for another day.
He was fairly sure she would have arranged for a driver as well, but then she would have risked Scott having a full-blown toddler moment of stubbornness and refusing to leave the airport entirely.
The rental agent picked up his suitcase with a grin. “I have your car waiting just outside the door there.” The agent nodded to said door before heading towards it.
The small airport had two entrances. One for arrivals and one for departures. Not that the airport needed much more than that, considering there was only one terminal with a total of three gates. However, it did have a restaurant in the terminal, so it wasn’t as small as some of the other airports in the area, which only had vending machines. The rental agent guided Scott through the departures door and stopped in front of a smaller SUV. Scott didn’t bother looking at the make or model. Georgia would have gotten him the most luxury model available and asking for an upgrade wouldn’t delay Scott’s leaving the airport by any significant amount.
The agent opened the back and hoisted the bag inside the vehicle. With a press of the button, he started the door’s closing and walked back to Scott. “Is there anything else I can get for you, sir? Do you have directions to your destination?”
“What? Oh, no. I’m good.” Scott reached into his pocket and pulled out his money clip. Extracting a few bills, he handed them to the agent, but the young man refused them.
“No thank you, sir. It’s all been taken care of.” The agent turned and headed back to the door, but before walking through them, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Have a pleasant trip, sir.”
With those parting words, the rental agent left, and Scott stood alone on the sidewalk next to the rental car. He would have still been standing there, but the rest of the passengers filed out and Scott gave up any fantasy of finding an excuse for not returning to Iron Creek.
Once behind the wheel of the SUV, he started the engine and pulled out onto the side road that would lead to the highway. When he got onto the highway, he kept the car at exactly five miles over the speed limit. He would have kept his speed at the limit, but the other drivers on the highway would probably grow frustrated enough with him to drive him off the road. As much as he didn’t want to visit Iron Creek, he wanted to visit a hospital even less.
An odd thing happened on the trip north. Even though he hadn’t driven on that highway since he’d driven away from Iron Creek, he recognized landmarks. An office building right next to the highway looked the same, except for the name of the company on the sign on the top of the building. A billboard announcing the location of a “gentleman’s club”. A week before Scott left Iron Creek for the last time, he and his buddies drove down and with the help of some doctored IDs, visited the establishment. It did not meet their expectations. In fact, what they saw was enough to turn all of them away from the idea of ever visiting a similar club in the future, regardless of the promised attractions. The abrupt line between the city and the state forest. Trees that had been planted during the depression, under one of FDR’s programs, and grew in straight lines. Even the empty state police car sitting on the grassy median separating northbound from southbound traffic was still there. Although, the car had been updated to a more recent model.
It was almost as though nothing had changed in the years he’d been gone. As he neared the town, he’d done his best to avoid. Lost memories crept into his thoughts. Reminding him of the good times he had with good friends.
“Wait. Double check the ropes.”
“The ropes are fine. I’ve triple checked them already.”
“You say that now, but if we drop her, there’s no coming back from that. We’ll forever be known as the kids who either killed Lauren Somers or caused her to be paralyzed.”
The girl being talked about went from what would have been considered an extremely pale shade of white to a green that rivaled the Wicked Witch of the West. However, despite the change of pallor, she didn’t walk away from the challenge. An abandoned train trestle that crossed over the highway was lacking any decent graffiti. Scott decided they needed to leave an indelible mark on the town, and the best way to do that was by painting something on the trestle large enough for anyone driving into town to see.
The first problem was finding an artist, either brave or stupid enough who would hang over the side of the trestle. They started the search by testing out their strength at holding one another over the edge of a bridge they dived off during the summer. If they dropped someone, it wouldn’t end in broken bones. Or worse.
It soon became obvious that even though Jake and Scott, or Jake and Trent, or Scott and Trent had the strength to hold the third over the side, they didn’t have the endurance. After ten minutes, muscles trembled, grips slipped, and the would-be artist went for a swim. Eventually they came to the conclusion they’d have to find an artist who weighed a fraction of what they did, if they wanted to hold them for very long. Ruling out all the guys they knew left them with the girls. Except none of the girls they knew were brave (or stupid) enough to say yes. Well, all but one. As long as Scott was the one doing the asking, she’d say yes. And when Jake didn’t immediately put a halt to the idea, they decided who their artist would be.
Their second problem was not coming to a consensus on what to write on the side of the trestle. The first suggestions all included several curse words in varying combinations. They’d come up with one that everyone agreed on too, until Trent pointed out that they’d find a way to paint over the graffiti within weeks, if not days, if there was a curse on the trestle for all to see. The chosen artist was the one to come up with a suggestion they could all agree on. Hodag Country. The hodag, a made-up animal that started life as a hoax, was the school’s mascot. While the town might not be thrilled with the graffiti, they wouldn’t rush to paint it over, which made the plan of leaving an indelible mark more likely to succeed.
The last problem was collecting the materials they’d need. It was almost impossible to purchase spray paint at the hardware store without a note from a parent, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t collect cans already purchased. Everyone who showed up that night had to pay the price of admission with a can of spray paint. All except the three boys tasked with holding the artist and the artist herself. There were sixteen cans of spray paint piled on the trestle, along with twenty students from the high school. All seniors except for Lauren, Lizzie, the artist’s best friend, and Pete, a junior who always seemed to hang around.
Despite Scott’s assurances he triple-checked the ropes, he followed his friend’s advice and went back for a fourth check.
“You sure about this, Lauren?”
She nodded. “I trust you guys.”
For two weeks leading up to the night scheduled for leaving their indelible mark, weather permitting, Scott, Jake, and Trent practiced holding Lauren over the side of the bridge. That had been Trent’s suggestion. Not only would it prepare Lauren for being upside down, but it would also give the boys a time frame. Anything longer than forty-five minutes and slippage started.
Their practicing came in handy that night. As they moved down the trestle with each letter Lauren painted, there weren’t any fumbles or slips.
“Don’t forget the ‘O’ in country or they’ll definitely paint over it.” Someone in the crowd suggested.
“I know how to spell country.” Lauren shouted in response.
“How many segments left?” Trent asked through gritted teeth.
“Two. Well one and a half by the sound of the spraying.” Another voice from the crowd answered.
They’d figured out that each letter in Hodag could have its own segment, but they’d need to put two or three letters in a segment for country. That meant they were almost done.
“Thirty minutes.” Pete had volunteered to keep track of the time.
They might have been able to hold Lauren for forty-five minutes, but they wanted to get the job done well before then.
“Can you finish?”
“Yeah.” The sound of spraying accompanied Lauren’s acknowledgment. “Okay, next.”
The boys lifted her up, so she wasn’t pressed against the trestle, and moved down to the next and last segment. Spraying started as soon as they all settled back into place. Four minutes later, the spraying stopped.
“Done.”
Jake and Trent hoisted her back up, but it was Scott who grabbed hold of her and lifted her back onto the trestle with them. Even when her feet were flat on the ground, he still didn’t let go of her. Not until his girlfriend, Olivia, stepped from the crowd and pushed herself between them.
The trestle was still there. It had been updated at some point, reinforced with concrete and iron probably because it was close to collapsing, but the trestle, as well as the indelible mark was still there almost fifteen years later. The trestle was the last landmark before the bridge. In about thirty more minutes, Scott would be driving into Iron Creek.
Scott slowed down long enough to decide to drive past the one nicer hotel in town where he was supposed to be checking in. He told himself it was because he wanted to stop at his father’s house first. Except that once he crossed the bridge and drove down Main Street, he didn’t continue down the road to his old neighborhood. Instead, he pulled off into the municipal parking lot.
He didn’t want to go to his childhood home, and he couldn’t check in to the hotel yet, that left wandering around town for a bit. A lot had changed since Scott had left Iron Creek. Main Street used to be bustling. Never busy, but shops filled the street, and their doors were always open during the day. Now, most of the storefronts were empty and the ones that weren’t were closed until summer and the arrival of the tourists. The bookshop was still there and open, and so were a few restaurants Scott remembered eating at. But everything else seemed designed to trap tourists and their dollars with over-priced souvenirs that would just gather dust.
After passing two blocks of darkened or empty storefronts, he turned right. Mac’s had stood for years on the corner a block away from Main Street. Far enough away for the locals to be happy, but close enough to invite a few of the braver tourists through its doors. Not that he expected the bar to be open, but he needed to reassure himself that some things hadn’t changed.
The closed sign on Mac’s door wasn’t a surprise, but at least the sign said they’d open at 4:00 pm.
Scott turned around and spotted a little bakery across the street.
That was new. Not the building, just the shop. Assuming Scott’s memory wasn’t playing games with him, it used to be a house, or maybe it had been a gift shop, but he couldn’t remember who had lived there.
Maybe he could get something to eat before heading to his father’s house. He jogged across the street and followed the walkway to the door. A bell rang out as he pushed the door open and walked inside where the comforting scent of baked goods greeted him.
And so did the surprising sight of the woman standing by the only table in the front portion of the shop.
As much as she’d grown in the past years, she hadn’t changed at all. Scott would have recognized her lithe form and casual demeanor in a crowd-filled room. She’d been haunting his thoughts for over a decade though, so it was less about how little she’d changed and more about his obsession with his memory of her.
Lauren Somers.
Yeah, she’d grown from a tall and lanky teenager into a tall and lean young woman with a hint of curves that certainly hadn’t existed the last time Scott saw her.
He couldn’t believe how little she’d changed. She even had her dark brown hair in the same messy bun she always had her hair in during high school. Her jeans were a little tighter and showed off more than they used to, but otherwise she was in the same uniform of her adolescence.
She was a welcome sight. All the women he dated in the city paled in comparison to Lauren. None of them had a fraction of her genuineness.
“Well, if it isn’t Lauren Somers.”