Chapter 24
A cat patrols the neighbor cop’s home, hissing and swatting at the air as if warning me another look in its direction will land me a fully-scratched face. I watch it from across the street while waiting for Tyler to pick me up. Somehow, Ben got Tyler to agree to the double date and conned him into letting us ride with him and Diana to the roller rink.
I sit on the square cement step in front of my grandparents’ house with my back pressed against the screen door, weary that Officer Berrett’s motorcycle will pop in at any moment—a routine I’d adopted since the day he’d written asking me to “ride with him to chase the flowers,” whatever that meant.
Thankfully it’s still just me and the cat outside on a late winter Saturday afternoon as Colorado’s unpredictable weather continues to dominate the sky. Two days of scorching temperatures and it seemed the sun was begging for attention in early February. In this rolling heat wave, lightweight loose- fitting capri pants, a matching cotton tank and pink converse from my eighties closet seemed like an appropriate option for waiting outside for Tyler. And cute enough for my date with Ben. Though calling it a date is a bit of an exaggeration—more like Ben’s plan to keep an eye on his sister.
Tyler pulls up in his family’s wood-paneled station wagon, with Diana waving at me through the passenger window. He blasts the horn as I approach the car door, causing me to jump in surprise. Ben laughs through the back window, kicking the door open for me with his dirty Reeboks.
“Hop in,” Diana calls from the front. I scooch in next to Ben who actually dressed up for the occasion; the midnight blue sweater and light jeans make him look like he actually took the double date memo seriously. I remind myself once again that this date is merely a guise for him to keep tabs on his sister and nothing more.
At the skate rink, Diana’s arms hang from Tyler's neck with interlocked fingers in a show of shameless affection that seems to have magnified since Thursday. Ben and I wait in line behind them, irritation skimming the shadows of Ben’s face. He’s looking up, down, to the side—anywhere but them.
“Are you any good at skating, Diana?” Tyler says, adjusting his position so that he stands behind her, comfortable enough to simultaneously hug and talk into her ear. I don’t hear Diana’s response over the roller rink speakers playing “Sail On” by the Commodores, but I know she can skate. At the public rink in Non-80s-Land, as children, she used to roll circles around me while I stood frozen in place, refusing to move in my skates. I never improved as I got older and that should have me worried, but I let Lionel Richie’s singing distract me. The song has me swaying back and forth and singing along on my own. I stop when I’m asked my shoe size at the counter.
“Have you skated much?” Ben finds a conversation piece almost identical to Tyler’s. I hold my hands out for the guy behind the counter to hand me a pair of quad skates. They’re dreamy—with perfect white laces and a cream-colored body.
“No, not really,” I answer truthfully. Just holding the skates in my hands makes my stomach twist in terrible ways. I didn’t fear much. I’d learned to suppress fear habitually thanks to working at the Bureau, but the thought of standing in that skating rink with only tiny wheels on my feet is terrifying—I might as well have yo-yos taped to my shoes. The only thing motivating me to put the shoes on is the chance to spend time with Ben.
We lose Ty and Diana to a group of shufflers. Packed in tight, a wave of older men in office shirts and plump, older ladies wearing embroidered blouses whoosh past.
“You ready? Let’s go,” Ben says, ushering me to stand up. The area smells like sugared oranges and carbonated drinks.
I slowly inch my way into a standing position. When I’m upright I begin to pray that my balancing instincts will take the reins on their own. My legs wobble against the carpet, but I stride fast enough to make it to the skate barrier without falling.
“You’ll be fine. It’s easy. You’ll catch on real quick,” Ben says as he watches me calculate each step off of the rink barrier. He enters the rink, moving from a pattern of confident steps to a perfectly even glide.
He glides nobly around, showing off his skating skills in just a few circles, as I make a few choppy steps back to the rail where I feel comfortable enough to stand and catch my shaky, jittery breath. He finds my gaze and surprisingly shoots a pleasant smile my way for encouragement, likely because he realizes just how much I am struggling.
He holds out his hands, ready for me to take them. An evil couple guns through the space between us, forcing Ben to put his hands back at his side. With perfectly even breaths, I stay suctioned to the wall like a starfish, absorbing its support as if my life depends on it.
A flock of shufflers lap us about twenty times with their precise—almost mechanical—funky movements, each rotation so synchronized they’d give swimmers and soldiers a run for their money. Another set of skaters pace the rink like a school of fish and all I can think about is how half of this room has the potential to become an organized cult. But, like a really fun one.
Ben decides to take a full lap around the rink with the hopes of encouraging me to leave the wall. It doesn’t work. I lean back comfortably against the barrier, watching as Ben gives up and starts actively looking for his sister.
Diana’s holding hands with Tyler doing a shuffle skate. All of Tyler’s energy is put toward making sure Diana’s having a good time. It might be the first time in a while that I’ve seen his face full of concentration rather than mischief.
Ben catches my gaze and skates back toward me. I feed my gaze back to the soda counter, where I currently wish I was. I stay put, knowing the trek there is too dangerous in skates.
“Plan on letting go of the barrier anytime soon?” Ben says now a few feet away, reaching out both of his hands again for me to hold.
“I…uh. I don’t know. I’m pretty comfortable here,” I say, wholeheartedly meaning it.
“Come on. I can teach you,” he offers. “Just hold my hands and I’ll help you glide.”
“You’ll be supporting all of this.” I point at the length of my body and almost fall over for the effort.
“Don’t you want to at least learn how to do this?” He performs a shuffle pushback and then spins around in front of me.
“If that’s what you want me to start with,” I say, “I’d rather army crawl back to the carpet.”
Ben lets out a quick snort. “Now that would be a sight to see.”
As if the shuffling cult wasn’t already?
“Do you trust me?” Ben says. His tone is borderline gentle, a far cry from his usual harassment.
He motions for my hands, but this time with determination. For a second I spot interest in his eyes and forget about my aversion to skating. I clasp my hands with his before he pulls me in, my skates gliding freely toward him.
“See? Already making progress. It isn’t so bad, is it?” he says.
I gain a fraction of confidence, even though he’s doing all the work, and let go to see if I can glide on my own. With just one step I scramble to gain my balance, switching slowly from left to right, chopping the slippery floor as momentum keeps me leaning forward.
“You sure you don’t want my hands? Skating backward is my specialty,” he says as I try taking longer strides on my own, moving from a chop to a short graze. With the next graze of my skate, I become a Mario Kart vehicle spinning out over a banana peel and receive a panoramic view of the disco ball and neon light-covered ceiling on my way down, smacking my hip and arms in the process. I giggle in pain on the hardwood floor as Ben comes to my rescue.
“That’s it!” His ribbing words of encouragement break with a chuckle. I hold my hands out for him to pull me back up to my feet and meet his gaze to find that his face is now a permanent smirk—like a portrait painted exclusively to gloat in my humiliation—which makes me feel the need to rip the expression off his face.
I shift my momentum back to the floor with purposeful deadweight and drag him down using a self defense arm grab so that he loses his balance and lands on the floor next to me. He pops back up quickly as I experience the best laugh of my life, inhaling chokes of laughter like a round of bullets from a metal storm.
He playfully shakes his head in disapproval and instead of getting up, I sit on the rink floor attacking my skate laces, trying to set my feet free while skaters whip past.
On my march back to the table in socks I spot Diana alone. Ben follows and we both stop at the barrier wall to watch Tyler in a leather jacket getting ready to jump a human barricade of young men kneeling on their hands and knees in a straight line. They’re like an expanse of cars ready for Evel Knievel—or in this case Tyler—to clear, or not clear them.
Tyler comes flying around the corner looking to gain speed in his loose parachute pants. Determination floods his eyes and it looks like he’s going to make the four-man jump with about eight feet to clear as long as he pulls off an impressive vertical. Teenagers outside the rink hoot and howl, raising their sodas as Tyler lands the stunt with bent knees. I mentally slap myself for thinking Tyler could go a night without seeking the room’s attention.
Diana’s eyes light up with amusement. Their night seems to be a lot more successful than ours. I can thank my deep-seated fear of walking on wheels for that.
I’m sitting at the table, feet free of quad skates, when a Southern rock beat with heavy electric guitar claps from the speakers. Ben appears at my side with a corndog. Although this wasn’t a real date, I always felt a little special when he handed me food—his horrible artichoke dip made from homemade mayonnaise back in Non-80s-Land being the exception.
Non-80s-Land Ben excelled when it came to cooking and often made me taste his weekly game night appetizers, having me sample everything from sakura strawberry cream puffs to mozzarella caprese skewers before guests arrived. How could I not find him attractive handing me a plate of five-star food for testing, let alone a simple yet delicious corndog?
“You’re doing good, you know,” he says, giving me a sympathetic smile. “You tried skating on your own which is a huge improvement from clinging to the wall.” He must sense that I feel as if I’ve been defeated by my pretty quad skates.
“Here, trade me.” He hands me the cornmeal-upgraded hotdog in exchange for my skates.
“You only got one?” I ask. He nods his head. “You want some?” I offer up the corndog and he leans in, taking a bite. My heart flutters again at his close proximity.
“You can have the rest if you go out there one more time.” He grabs the stick from my hand and signals toward the rink with the tip of his chin. “I promise to do all the legwork,” he says with some warmth. His lips part to say something and then he looks into my yielding eyes. Instead of speaking, he sings to the song “Caught Up In You” blasting from speakers above as if this were karaoke and I’m his entire audience. Even if his soft voice is drowned out by the rink’s booming speakers.
As soon as I sit, he bends down and begins lacing up my skates, carefully tugging and tying the laces until they’re secured, and I almost choke from the shock. He grasps my wrist and leads me onto the roller floor, where he pulls me into his chest. He wraps his arms around me, supporting all my weight so I can glide with him. With our bodies so close, an uncontrollable smile spasms across my face from the excitement.
The chord progression of “Caught Up In You” picks up as we finish a lap together around the rink, pushing my excitement to another level—a level only certain songs with certain settings can achieve. It’s so overpowering that a brief romantically thrilling commercial of the two of us floats through my mind.
“This has got to be one of my favorite songs right now,” I say loud enough with my head twisted back so that he can hear me.
“Oh, I know. Your love for 38 Special isn’t a secret. ‘Hold On Loosely’ would be fun to skate to too. You know that the lead singer’s brother is the main vocalist for Lynyrd Skynyrd?” he says as we continue gliding together behind a few pairs of girlfriends. I must be missing something. Was it common knowledge that I liked this band from the eighties?
He smiles and then pulls me in a little tighter so that it feels like we’re sharing a meaningful hug more so than having him act as my guide.
Ben holds me for another two laps and I find myself wishing “Caught Up In You” would play on repeat for the rest of the night. The way Ben sang along—like he was singing to me—had my heart racing.
I’d be okay if we just stayed like this forever, forgetting everything else, the day-to-day, time travel, our FBI department in charge of whether or not Non-80s-Land Ben and I make it out alive with what we know. For the first time since landing in the eighties, staying sounded quite nice actually.
Although we’d spent more time together over the years than with our own family members, Non-80s-Land Ben had never been so physically close to me. He hadn’t offered to tie my shoelaces or hold me close to him. He’d kept a brotherly kind of distance, even when we sat on the sofa together for game nights. He just acted as if I was his little sister’s best friend, whom he teased just as much as he teased his own sister.
That’s what this is, I tell myself. He’s doing nothing more than he would do for his sister if she were in this position. When I decided to forfeit my skates and leave him alone out on the roller rink, he would’ve become the third wheel to Diana and Tyler’s date. Of course, he would do everything possible to get me back out there, especially after I’d made such a show of quitting. But what was he doing locking eyes with me and singing to me? That was more than a little friendly.
Trumpets snap me out of my thoughts and the moment as “Y.M.C.A.” terminates the couple’s skate. The song is met with an explosion of hand gestures from the crowd. Ben looks at me, his raised eyebrows inquiring if I want to stay out. I shake my head and laugh.
“No roller choreography for me, thanks!” I yell over the loud music.
Ben smiles and guides me to the exit so that I can stand on my own next to the barrier. He turns to face the rink looking through the dancing crowd for Tyler and Diana.
“Have you seen them anywhere?” he asks.
I hadn’t. I was so absorbed in the music and his closeness that I hadn’t thought about Ty and Diana at all. We both scan the room but find no sign of them. I suggest checking the restrooms, so we stash our skates and part ways. With no luck, we meet back up to search outside where we find a parking lot full of mostly old, seventies-model station wagons and no sign of life.
“Where’s Ty’s car?” I ask, roaming around in the poorly lit lot. “They could be in there.”
He looks unhappy about that prospect.
Ben searches the entire parking lot, shaking his head with disappointment. “I knew he would do something like this.”
“Something like what exactly?” I ask.
“Tyler’s always got to make every situation exciting. He probably went for a spin with Diana or something. He better be back soon or I’m going to shove his face in.”