Page 18 of Melt With You

Dori nodded. ‘It’s downstairs, I think. In the closet. You’re welcome to use it while she’s gone. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

Chelsea smiled smugly in the way of teenagers who think they have pulled something over on an adult, and she headed past Dori, walking through the house with the confidence she always exuded, a little flick in her hips to make her skirt swirl. Dori stayed where she was. This was only her second time back in her old room, and she felt momentarily hypnotized by the decor. She’d stopped in the room earlier, only long enough to set her purse down on the dresser before fleeing down the stairs to pour another scotch.

The posters on the walls were so familiar: Poison, Bon Jovi, The Police, U2. Movie posters, as well: The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Pretty In Pink. In and around the posters were assorted oddball decorations. There was a packet of Saltines taped to one wall next to the light switch, and she had no idea why.

Had she really slept in this bed for eighteen years? The room seemed so much smaller than she remembered.

She looked at Dameron, who was sizing her up the way he always did when there was a cute girl in the room. The man had balls. Didn’t seem embarrassed at all to have been caught looking. Dori recalled the way he acted in present day. Whenever she ran into him at a party, he gave her that same look – an expression she’d always read as ‘I wonder what you’d be like in bed?’ And at hellos and goodbyes he hugged her for a beat too long, hand sliding down to rest on her ass if he thought nobody was looking. He was vile. She’d always thought so.

‘You house sitting?’ he asked, settling himself down on Dori’s leopard-print bedspread, kicking his legs out and getting comfortable. He had on scuffed black high-tops that were laced incorrectly.

She nodded. ‘Last minute. I was looking for a vacation, and my father –’ She shook her head, quickly. ‘Dori’s father got in touch with my mother. Set it up.’ Dameron didn’t seem to notice the slip.

‘You live in Manhattan?’

‘Yeah.’

‘God, I can’t wait to get there. I’m in this band. We’re going to New York as soon as we get up the money.’

Dori had forgotten that. The band. Their plans. Dameron now was a house painter. At least, that’s what he called himself. He tended to use the excuse as a painter to scope out houses that he hoped to break into. Chelsea had finally left him when he’d been caught, yet again, in a house that didn’t belong to him. The band had never taken off, and she wondered for a moment whether if it had, he might have ended up in a different situation. A different life.

She leant against the wall, looking at him. Although he didn’t know it now, he could look forward to at least seven of his next twenty years spent in prison. She wondered what he would say if she told him that. He wouldn’t believe her, she decided. Who would?

There was a crash and a scream from downstairs, and Dameron jumped up and sprinted down the hall, Dori following him. When she rounded the corner to the hall closet, she started to laugh. She’d forgotten about her mother’s method of cleaning, which could be summed up with a simple sentence: Shove everything into a closet and shut the door. That’s what her mom must have done right before leaving for Europe, because all of the contents had been under pressure in that closet and had come crashing down on Chelsea when she’d opened the door. The lithe blonde girl was totally surrounded by sports equipment, but there was no skateboard in sight. Dori helped Chelsea out of the rubble, lifting off her brother’s lacrosse stick, and pushing away several pairs of roller skates and two soccer balls.

And then Dori remembered.

Her skateboard was under her bed. That’s where she always kept it. When she went back upstairs to her room to snatch it up, she had to reach all the way under the bed, where it had rolled to a rest against the wall. As she backed out from beneath the twin bed, she knocked her shoulder against the wooden slats holding up her mattress.

A slim leather journal fell from under the slats, landing on the floor.

Dameron walked in to collect the board, and Dori shoved the diary back into its hiding place under the bed, not wanting to look in that at all.

Chapter Nine

There were so many songs about being lonely. But had they all been written in the 80s? ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ by Yes. Billy Vera and the Beaters’ ‘At This Moment.’ The Police’s ‘So Lonely,’ which always made her want to cry. Or actually made her cry, whether she wanted to or not.

She was lonely right now, and there was nothing she could do about it. She felt even lonelier once Dameron and Chelsea had left, although she was also extremely relieved that the breaking-and-entering duo had departed. She couldn’t tell how well she had pulled off the farce of not being herself, although they’d been so concerned that she not know their actual reason for being there, perhaps they hadn’t thought her behavior was that weird at all. And what was the chance that they’d guess the truth, that she had slipped through time somehow to appear in the 80s as a grown-up? That wouldn’t be the first explanation that sprung to most people’s minds.

What she really wanted to do was call Violet. Her best friend would make everything better. But although Violet lived only a few blocks away – down the alley and around the corner – the Violet she wanted to talk to was twenty years in the future. No matter how miserable she felt, she couldn’t call the friends from the 80s, for fear that they would think she was insane and put her in an institution.

So instead, Dori puttered through the house, playing record after record. The music was soothing, but even more so was watching the records rotate on the turntable. Why were CDs supposed to be so superior to records? Well, of course, she understood the stated reasons: quality. Durability. But had people forgotten what it felt like to hold a record, to watch it go round?

And now, even CDs were becoming passé, with music being downloaded not only to computers, but to telephones. Just before the reunion, she had seen a commercial advertising a new device that would capture a song, identify it, and download the tune instantly. Pretty soon, people would be able to think about a song before simply downloading the music into their heads.

But records were different. She hadn’t realized how comforting it felt to sit next to a stack of 45s and put one after the other on the stereo. Her situation didn’t seem quite so dire as she watched the vinyl rotate. Playing the music brought back so many memories. Memories of her father pounding on the door to her bedroom and demanding that she stop listening to the same goddamn song over and over. That was one of the best things about 45s. She could put the stereo on repeat, and listen to a single song until the rhythm of the music was embedded in her brain.

Crimson and Clover. Over and over.

Now, with the house to herself, she could play any song she wanted, as many times as she wanted. Except, some of the songs she most desired to hear hadn’t been invented yet. The songwriters didn’t even know they were going to write these songs. That the songs were going to be hits. Some of the singers weren’t even sperm yet – the young ones whose music she purchased from iTunes so as not to have to face a checkout clerk, who might judge her for purchasing pop stars like Maroon 5 or The Killers.

She looked at the 45s, spread out before her on the burgundy rug of her bedroom, and she thought about all of the different career paths these singers and bands would take. By 2008, so many of the songs Dori loved would be played only on the Classic Rock stations. She had Prince. She had The Scorpions. Duran Duran. Men at Work. Madness. Guns N’ Roses.

What she wanted was Pink Floyd, but she wasn’t into Pink Floyd in high school.

In 2008, she would have simply been able to hook up a computer and click onto the iTunes music store. The only computer in the house right now was a huge Macintosh in her brother’s room, with a tiny screen and no way to connect to the internet.

What would someone in 1988 do if they wanted to hear a song?

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