The day goes by quickly, I try to call Shelby again but there’s still no answer. I guess he’s out living his life, something I wish I could do. I get dressed for the party, there’s a large wardrobe in my room. When I look inside it feels as though I’m looking through racks at a store, nothing in here brings back any memories and the pouffy blue dress is nowhere in sight. Maida borrows a long black shift dress and a choker necklace. I decide to go casual.
Esther arrives at seven sharp, as she’d promised and we all pile into her Jeep. Nick’s house is even further out of town than mine, deep into the forest. Ten minutes later we’re there, his house is much more modern than I'd expected. Cars are parked out the front, Esther parks off to one side, next to a white Toyota Corolla. We all get out and make our way towards the behemoth of steel and concrete. The front doors are wide open, you can hear the music shaking the ground even though we’re nowhere near the house yet. We walk down the gravel driveway and go inside. From the foyer, two large staircases lead upstairs, the wall behind them is all glass, leading out to a large heated outdoor pool, I can see the heat rising in the cool outside air. It’s boiling inside even though the doors are open. A large lounge suite is situated in front of the huge windows, people are sitting there laughing, drinks in hand. Maida’s talking to me but I can’t hear her over the music. We both continue to follow Esther through the house.
It feels like my memory is starting to come back and this place is now very familiar, I know that she’s on her way to the kitchen. The sleek metal bench tops are in view now, they remind me of the morgue. It’s a stark contrast to the warmer wood of the kitchen at my house, this place is modern and cold. I look around the room, everyone looks familiar. A girl with blonde hair is sitting on the bench top in front of a window, I smile at her, she jumps down and rushes over, throwing her arms around me.
“Hey Ellie! Where have you been?” I know her name is Rachel, we went to school together, I’ve known her since we were kids. I can remember some of the times I hung out with her and Esther, trips to the city, sleepovers. I talk to her for a few minutes, still struggling to hear over the music. I continue scanning the room, I know all of these people. I get that feeling, when you remember something suddenly and you’re so proud of yourself, my brain is no longer betraying me.
I walk around the big steel kitchen island, watching all the people that I know, it's a mixed bag emotionally, I feel fondly for some people and not so for others. Small flashbacks keep popping up, bit by bit, little snippets of the past that I can’t make complete sense of, images, feelings all rolled into a messy ball of memories. Patched together in my mind like a ragged quilt, the Frankenstein’s monster of memories. It’s a weird feeling. I feel so happy, finally, with every memory I’m getting a bit closer to figuring out what happened, it thrills me but frightens me. Anyone in this room could have tried to hurt me, and I’m still none the wiser on that front.
Maida is to my left, she’s eating potato chips from a large plastic bowl she’s carrying around and smiling awkwardly around her, bobbing her head to the music. It’s so loud, I can barely hear what people are yelling to each other. I’m filled with confidence all of a sudden, I know these people, I can handle them. I don’t want to leave Maida alone but I think it might be the only way I can get a successful read on everyone. I tell her I’m going to check out the rest of house and she nods and yells. “That’s fine, I’m happy right here!” I think that’s what she says anyway.
I leave the kitchen and make my way to the huge lounge suite by the wall of glass that leads out to the pool. I scan the room ahead of me, I recognise most of these people. I try to figure out who to talk to first? Then I see Nick, the person from my first memory. He looks up, I wave.
“Hey!” He comes running over. “Long time, no see. Where have you been?”
“Car accident!” I yell, deciding that lying is the safest plan here.
“Whoa, man, that sucks.” He screams back.
“I know! Right?”
“You’re okay? Did you get hurt?”
“You could say that.” I say too quietly for him to hear.
He gives me a weird look. “What?”
Instead of repeating myself I change the subject. “Nice house!” I say.
He laughs. “You like it now? You’ve been here stacks of times, you used to hate coming to parties here. Said it reminded you of your grandfather’s place.”
I suddenly remember that house, he was the man mentioned in the article I read earlier. He was always kind to me, kinder than my mother and brother.
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“Yeah, I used to hate that house, gave me the creeps.” My head starts to ache suddenly.
I’m walking into an office, a man sits behind a large antique desk, surrounded by shelves of books, he has white hair and a beard, my grandfather. I go up to him and give him a hug. “Freezing day today, isn’t it?” I nod, it’s snowing outside and you can feel the cold through the window behind the desk. He opens up a drawer and pulls out some chocolate, handing it to me. “Don’t tell your mother.” I promised not to. “She’s in a bit of a mood today. Your father gives her everything and she’s still unhappy.” I nod again, I don’t want to talk about my parents. All they did was fight, being at my grandparent’s house was peaceful compared to home.
The flashback ends and Nick’s in front of me again. “Whoa, are you okay?” He grabs my shoulder and steers me to a seat in the corner.
“Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about my Pop.”
“Your Dad’s family were always pretty good. Nice people.”
“Yeah, shame we never got to see them. Do you remember that dance we went to?”
He laughs. “The formal? Yeah, that night was a mess.”
“Was it?”
“Don’t you remember, we got arrested and your mum flipped out. Said she’d disown you or something, how you’d brought shame on the family.”
I suddenly remembered. “Yeah, she said my dad would be disappointed in me.”
“She knows how to upset you.”
I feel sick, the bad memories are starting to intertwine with the good. I suddenly want them to stop, I need time to process everything. I remember snippets of that night, we went to the dance and left early. Then Nick, Esther, Rachel and I broke into a house. We thought it was empty but it wasn’t, a man had hung himself in the lounge room, he’d been there for days. We’d set off the security system and got picked up by the police shortly after. My mother picked me up and wasn’t pleased, after that my relationship with her went from bad to worse.
“So, you ready to party?” Nick interrupts my thoughts.
“Yeah, definitely.” I say halfheartedly.
Nick holds out his hand to dance, it reminds me of my first flashback. I get a tap on my shoulder, I turn to see Travis Siegel, his black hair and blue eyes shining under the bright lights. I remember he had a twin sister called Petra, that shared his striking features. They both looked like models. He’d been Esther’s boyfriend in high school.
“Wanna dance?” He yells over the music.
“Sure.” I yell back.
After a couple of songs Travis moves on. I’m tired and sit on a couch with Esther, Nick and Maida. The music’s been turned down and the main doors have been closed. We reminisce about old times, Maida smiles and nods even though she has no idea what or who we’re talking about. I can tell with a lot of my old friends that the only thing keeping us together are memories. We have nothing in common otherwise. We're all stuck in this town and stuck in the past. It didn’t seem like anyone planned on moving away, some had left for school but had come straight back again, taking jobs their parents had given them. It was the type of town where you’d get a job, get married, have some kids and die, no matter your social standing. An endlessly repeating cycle. Nobody seemed to have the ambition to leave. I didn’t understand why my parents hadn’t sold that big old house and moved on. There was nothing here.
Nick goes and gets a photo album and we look at pictures from the past two decades, we’ve known each other forever. Our parents were friends well before we were born. Many of them grew up together. My friends help fill in the blanks from my memory. My mother wasn’t from one of the rich Ridgemont families. She used to live at Shady Oaks with her parents. Then she met my father and they moved into that big old house, a place that nobody else in the family had wanted to live in. It had stood empty for years. With all my memories coming back, I felt so much resentment, so many feelings, both good and bad. I felt a fondness for my friends, mixed with an odd sense of discomfort, our friendships had seen better days. Spending time together out of necessity, having a high school level house party when we were all in our late twenties. Nobody knew how to grow up or how to move on. According to Agnes I’d tried to leave, I wondered if anyone else here had?
The party is winding down and everybody is beginning to look tired. Maida keeps yawning, she looks like she can barely keep her eyes open. Esther gets up off the couch and says she’ll drive us home. She’s tired too. As we walk outside in the freezing night air, I notice most of the cars have gone. I was so focussed on our conversation I hadn’t even noticed people leaving. Nick stands at his front door and says goodbye as we get in the car.
We drive through the thick woods back to the big old house, the house nobody wanted. The trees are so tall they block out the moonlight. Esther locks the doors, she says you never know who could be out in the woods, she’s heard bad stories.
“In a small town like this?” I ask incredulously.
“Don’t you remember the story about that guy with the meat cleaver?” Esther asks.
“No?” I laugh.
“Oh wait, I remember that story.” Maida speaks up.
I look over at her wearily. “Continue.”
“It was back in ’88 I think, people came up here to go skiing and they disappeared. They gave up on the investigation because they couldn’t find the bodies. They just said they probably died from exposure. But witnesses in a lodge said that they saw this guy, walking around in the dark with a meat cleaver.”
“That sounds ridiculous.” I laugh.
“They called him the Ridgemont Butcher. It was on TV and everything.” Esther says. “I was terrified when I heard about it. I thought he was going to get me.”
“I wonder if it was true?” Maida asks.
“Let’s hope not. We better change the subject otherwise I’m going to be too scared to drive home by myself.” Esther says jokingly.
We arrive at my gate, it's been left open awaiting our return, we drive up the long driveway. Esther stops near the front door and Maida and I get out. I thank Esther for the lift.
“No problem. We’ll have to hang out again soon.” She replies. I slam the car door and walk towards the house, Maida rushes ahead of me. I hear Esther drive away, we go inside, I take off my coat and hang it on a hook by the door. Today was exhausting. I go straight to bed.