Chapter 2 #3
Apparently, I would have to start carrying a flashlight.
I’d needed one during the rat scare/circuit breaker problem and I really needed one now to negotiate this path.
I had lived in a lot of different places in my life but I’d never been so totally in the dark before I came here.
When the sun set and unless there was a huge moon or you were in an actual town with other people, buildings, and cars, then it was pitch black.
The moon must have been behind a cloud tonight because this reminded me a lot of when there had been the problem with the electrical panel in the Woodsmen practice facility and Ronan and I had stood on the table—it was that dark.
Who knew what was out here with me? The noise from the party would have masked any sounds of someone approaching—
I screamed when the hand touched my shoulder and I turned fast, ready to fight.
“Cate, it’s me,” Ronan said. “I wasn’t trying to scare you, I swear.”
“You snuck up on me in the dark!”
“No, I was calling your name but you didn’t hear me.”
I had thought that I had a lot of situational awareness. That was incorrect.
“You’re leaving so early?” he asked.
“I don’t know anyone there,” I said. “I met one guy and he asked if I wanted to go behind the barn with him to talk, but that was it.”
“I wouldn’t have done that,” he told me. “I think most people here are ok, but I don’t know everybody, either.”
He had sounded pretty serious. “It’s better to be careful,” I agreed.
“Where are you going? A bar? Home?”
I shrugged. Home, probably, but I didn’t really want to. “I don’t have any plans.”
“Then let’s go somewhere,” he suggested.
“It’s your party,” I reminded him, but he shook his head. I could at least see that with my piss-poor phone light.
“I don’t care. I’ll come back later,” he told me. “They’ll be here all night.”
I thought for a second before I answered. “Ok, where do you want to go?”
“I’ll show you,” he said, and started down the path. “Walk right behind me because I know the way.”
Unfortunately, the length of his stride made it impossible to “walk right behind” because my legs (and I, as a whole) were about a foot shorter.
According to the Junior Woodsmen website, he was six and a half feet tall, so I’d been correct in what I’d originally thought.
He was a mountain. He had gone a ways ahead when he seemed to realize that I was no longer close.
I’d gotten even more held up because I’d managed to step in some mud that was rapidly freezing as the nighttime temperatures dropped back down.
“What are you doing back there?” Ronan called. “Are you hiding?”
“Does that make any sense? Would I hide in a cold, muddy field?” And there might have been rats, because I thought that I’d heard some scrabbling. I’d also been hearing that in my dreams, though. “My shoe is trapped in the muck.”
He laughed but he did come right back. He also let me hold on to his arm as I pulled myself free, but by that point, I wasn’t thinking about going out to a bar or club with my foot encased in mud. “I’m heading home,” I announced when we reached the road. “You should go back to your party.”
“No, I don’t want to. That’s my car,” he said, but he didn’t need to point it out. It was the same one I’d ridden in before, and I would have recognized the brown/silver SUV/truck. “Let’s go.”
I looked at him, at what I could see in our faint lights. He was a mountain-sized shadow, and then I looked down at my dirty foot. I considered returning to my apartment with the “hey there” doormat and the matching towels.
“I’ll drive,” I said. “You smell like you’ve been drinking a lot.”
“I smell like that because some girl poured her beer down my back. Does that sound familiar? Fine, you drive.”
But we encountered another problem when we got into my car. “Does this go back any further?” he asked as he yanked on the adjustment bar beneath the passenger seat.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He nodded and took that well, but his legs were folded so that his knees were up near my dashboard, and his head nearly brushed the ceiling. This vehicle worked ok for me but it was not made for someone his size.
I sighed. “We can take yours,” I said and he was obviously relieved.
“Great, we’ll do that.” But when we walked over to his two-toned thing, he went to the passenger side.
“You can still drive,” he told me, and I figured that I’d been right.
He was drunk but at least he was copping to it and not getting behind the wheel.
Maybe the activity he’d planned was us getting coffee or performing another sober-up activity, although from what I’d seen of my freshman-year roommate, nothing seemed to work overly well.
Her parents had lived within driving distance and she’d done a lot to try to get herself out of her usual weekend state before they’d shown up in the lobby of our dorm.
Anyway, she’d moved out after a while and I hadn’t had to deal with her.
I also had to adjust the seat quite a bit, moving it forward so that I could reach the pedals and up so that I could see over the steering wheel. “Does this drive better than it looks?” I asked him.
“I happen to think that my car is beautiful and it drives great,” he answered. “Didn’t I just tell you that I was a mechanic?”
“Yes, but my dad was a welder and he never fixed anything for us, not even stuff that he probably could have done with his eyes closed.” That was why I had learned to do things myself.
“I never recommend welding blind and I do work on this car,” he said. “I rebuilt it.”
That explained the Frankenstein paint job. I started the engine and pulled out.
Ronan patted his seat with a hollow thump. “The engine’s great. The exterior could use some help, but I’ll get to that over the summer.”
“Won’t you be busy?”
“Yeah, I put in a lot of hours at the dealership,” he agreed.
I shook my head. “I mean, won’t you be trying out for the real Woodsmen team? Don’t all the Junior Woodsmen do that?” Ed had talked about the quarterback moving up, but the rest of the guys also had a chance.
But he was also shaking his head. “No, I don’t bother.”
I assumed it was because he knew that he wouldn’t make it, but I did ask. “Why?”
“It’s a waste of time. I’m fine where I am.”
With the rodents and the dirt? With the cold showers and the bad equipment, with the fully second-class experience? “I wouldn’t be,” I said. “I set goals for myself and I plan out how to achieve them.”
“Like what?” He pointed ahead at the road. “This comes to a dead end up here at the stop sign. Make a right.”
We were still in the middle of nowhere, but we had at least passed one other house and that sight reminded me of one of the goals I’d mentioned. “I wanted to have my own place, just mine and no roommates. Now I have that.”
“Nice.” He held up his hand and then cleared his throat. “I’m waiting.”
I slapped his palm. “I wanted to settle down and never have to move again. Getting the job with the Woodsmen was key, because they’re really into internal promotions.” That was what everyone said in the employee lunchroom, where I eavesdropped. “I could stay there for my whole career.”
“That also sounds good.”
It did, didn’t it? I wondered why I wasn’t happier about achieving all that.
I made the choice not to delve into that issue at the moment. “What about you? Do you have goals?”
“I just said that I’m going to paint the exterior. I need seatbelts in the back, too,” he mentioned, glancing over his shoulder.
“I mean long term. Career goals, relationships, stuff like that.”
He thought about it, or at least, he was quiet for a few moments before he responded. Then he had just one word to say: “Nope.”
“Nope,” I repeated. “Nothing. You’ll go from day to day without any plan for the future and without any ambitions besides some repairs to this car. Or truck, whatever you’d call it.”
“That’s about right.” We were approaching more lights and I saw that we were nearing town. “Would you say that you’re a sporty person?”
“Not particularly.” We had never stayed in the same place long enough for me to get into a sport, but I had never been overly athletic anyway.
“You said your boss plays golf. How about you?”
“No, never. Why are you asking me these questions?”
“I’m very competitive and I want to make sure that I can beat you. We’re going to play miniature golf right now,” he explained.
“Right now? It’s late,” I said. “And cold. And out-of-season.” Most touristy attractions around here were closed until the snow totally melted and visitors returned for the summer.
“You’re going to have to trust that this will be one of the best experiences of your life,” he said. “I’m not going to say ‘top,’ but it’s going to come close.”
“Mini golf with you in the dark and freezing temperatures is going to be one of the best experiences,” I echoed. Now that we were in a more populated area, there were lights and I could see him. He was nodding seriously.
“Definitely. It’s going to be the start of something,” Ronan said.
“Of what?”
“Maybe a career on the pro-miniature golf circuit. Or you could develop a new goal, like getting the course record and having your name in lights.”
“They do that?”
“We’ll see what the future holds, Cate.” When I looked over again, I saw that he was laughing, and I realized that I was, too.