Sunday, Dec 22, 2021
I borrowed Sara’s key to our apartment – she wasn’t happy – and sprinted home. I couldn’t find the spare keys anywhere and when I finally gave up looking for them, our apartment looked like it had been burglarised. The sofa cushions were either on the floor or upside down (or both), kitchen drawers were open, the framed poster of Back to the Future hung crooked.

I knew I couldn’t blame it on Einstein, not all of it anyway. But I’d have to cross the bridge called Sara when she saw the mess. It occurred to me that I must’ve left the keys in my room at Mom and Dad’s so I rushed downstairs and instead of walking back to Atlas to take the Beetle, I got on my Crescent, and started pedaling as hard as I could.

As always, the wind was against me. It was raining, too.

But the bike ride also gave me twenty minutes to clear my head, calm down, and come up with new plans. I was afraid that I had made a lot of people angry, and just as in Ghostbusters II, the anger was poisoning everything.

I threw my boke on the front lawn and rang the doorbell, praying that Mom or Dad would be at home. I heard the ding dog from the other side of the door but no footsteps. I rang the bell again and pressed my nose against the frosted glass window even though I knew that I’d only see shadows even at best.

I rang the bell one more time, and then heard Mom’s high-pitched voice. “Yes, yes, I’m coming,” she said. She was wiping her hands in her apron when she opened the door.

“Oh, Peter, I didn’t hear the doorbell, I was listening to Christmas songs in the kitchen,” she said.

“Hi, Mom. Listen, I’m in a hurry, need to get something from my room,” I said and – even without kicking off my shoes – continued running up the stairs. I noticed that Dad was sitting at his desk, the computer glowing in the dark again.

“Looking for someone to help you organize your storage?” I shouted without waiting for an answer.

All the doors upstairs were closed, and I stormed into my room like Magnum. P.I..

“Sorry, Venkman,” I muttered, and pulled open the drawers in my desk. I had used the spare key last summer when I had thrown a surprise birthday party to Sara, and must have then left it in my room afterwards. I must’ve just left it on my desk, or in a drawer, or under my Spectrum, or …

Five minutes later, my room looked like, well, yes, as if it had been burglarised.

“Mooooooom!” I shouted. “Have you seen my spare keys to Atlas?”

“Yes, it’s hanging with the other keys in the hall,” she shouted back from the bottom of the stairs.

I ran down. Mom was waiting for me in the hall, dangling the keys from her finger.

“Thanks, gotta run,” I said.

“Peter, I’ll drive you,” Dad said, dashing out of his office.

“I’ve got my bike,” I said.

“It’s fine, I’ll take it to your place. I’ll throw it in the trunk, let’s go,” he said and pulled on long rubber boots.

As soon as we sat down in the Volvo, Dad looked me with a conspiratorial look on hs face.

“Look, Peter, if Mom asks you about the storage you mentioned just now, just tell her you were kidding. OK? I may have not told her about all my deals,” he said.

“What?”

“It’s the damnest thing, Peter, whenever I even think about something, Facebook throws a deal in front of me. I bet that if I now tell you that I’d love to have a boat,” Dad said, raising his voice and leaning toward his phone in its cradle, “there’ll be a boatload of deals waiting fo me on Facebook. They’re listening to us.”

“You don’t have to buy everything you see, though.”

“Oh, but the deals are so good!! Anyway, don’t tell Mom, and we’re good.”

“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “But don’t do anything stupid.”

“Oops, here we are,” Dad said, and stopped in front of Atlas. I could see a few people standing outside, waiting to get in. The posters had worked. Then I saw a familiar figure appear from around the corner. Rexi.

“Bye, Dad,” I said and slammed the door shut and ran inside. I opened the basement door and skipped down the stairs. Pete and Sofie had barely noticed that I had been gone or that the door had been locked.

“Sorry, uncle Peter, we lost track of time, we’ll be right up with the reels and posters,” Sofie yelled.

I turned around and walked up to the projection booth with Rexi with a smile on my face. Mixtapes! There’s nothing they can’t do, I thought.

➡️ More on Someday Jennifer (HarperCollins Canada 2019)