Chapter 33
B en made it to class today. He came to grab a few kisses in between class periods and catch up with Tyler before Tyler was able to push Diana back against the locker for a public smooch. Evan stops by and hands Tyler a bag of store items—looks like Tylenol and ointment—and says “Hi” to Ben while doing so. They must've made up, though Evan pays me no attention.
Ben and I walk around school together sharing mint leaf gum and holding hands. My sweatshirt sleeve covers my hand, but he grabs onto the cloth covering my hand anyway. We’re basically a walking billboard flashing the neon letters: We are an item. Our hand-holding is interrupted when Erica reminds me that our dad, my Non-80s-Land Pops, gets back from his Africa trip today and it’s Cornish Pasty Day—a yearly tradition in the Atkinson household celebrating our Scottish roots in the form of salty meat-stuffed pasties. So, with cause for double celebration, I’m supposed to ride home after practice with her, not Ben.
“Call me tonight,” Ben says before we part for the day.
Cheer practice has me lost in my thoughts. Things are slowing down and Erica is training and making sure the junior cheerleaders are prepared to move on without the seniors for next year’s season. I liked to think of myself as a decorative chess piece that stays out of the way, so that the other pawns aren’t ousted from the game.
I follow the routines with mindlessness while my head is completely absorbed with sentiments of a music-filled spring, endless dirt bike rides, dates with Ben. Maybe I’d even step foot in the skating rink again. I’d made it an aspiration to be with Ben from now on. I had him this time. I wouldn’t lose him.
I smile thinking about how I’d always assumed our futures would be together in some capacity. I figured we’d be partner agents for another five to ten years, and then our families would stick together because of the friend-family connection. At the least, Diana would invite us over for dinners until we grow old and become too inept to drive.
But then again, sooner or later more unpleasant thoughts fight their way through. I’d have to accept the consequences of choosing a relationship with him over choosing the Non-80s-Land future. Thoughts of how I could pursue the issue of Sheriden and Marigold through the past jump to my mind as I justify my choices.
If I wasn’t able to make my way back to the FBI and sort out the Marigold issue in Non-80s-Land, I’d have to keep pursuing it on my own through Robert Schills’ historic moves. He’d be in the papers, eventually online, when Google ramps up its knowledge. I would keep at it and tip off the world in my own way as best I could.
Then another strain of thoughts hit me. Why didn’t Tyler’s dad get anywhere with the Marigold case, holding the information he had with the newspaper clippings within the walls of his own home? The question rocks my brain like a ticking clock that needs to be silenced.
Erica and I spot Corky and Bennette approaching each other after our end-of-practice cheer send-off, which gives me a glimmer of hope for them. I hope they can share a mutual hatred for my quick, rebound-like timing to the start of my relationship with Ben. If that brings them closer I’ll be happy, even if the hate is directed toward me. Best friends should stay best friends if they can, regardless of boy drama.
Erica reminds me for the third time today that I’m riding home with her, as if to warn me I’ll reap the consequences if I ride off on the back of Ben’s dirt bike to his place instead. Pops is coming home, not to mention our Cornish Pasty Day dinner. It’s a non-negotiable event that I’d been threatened with since childhood. The threat being that any inheritance from my Scottish side would be revoked if I failed to bake a meat, potato, and onion-filled pasty on that day. The threat was an empty one, but the fear of deceased ancestral spirits hovering above me with trash cans throwing away that imaginary inheritance kept me doing it year after year.
My current world was so upside down that today’s date didn’t even trigger a Cornish Pasty Day memory. I was pleasantly surprised when Erica planted the initial reminder in the hallway. Marcie’s pasties were precious metal in comparison to my previous pasty creations that meet the standard of fool’s gold.