Streetlights Like Fireworks (14 page)

Driving Lessons

Two days later, we approach Seattle. The same city that gave
the world Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Postal
Service and the Fleet Foxes, to name a few. And, of course, the Foo Fighters.
As we drive toward the skyline from the east with the snowcapped mass of Mount
Rainier calling for attention from the south, I keep thinking about how we’ve
just driven across the entire country together. It seems impossible, like I
have to be dreaming. But the towering spire of the Space Needle, gleaming in
the sunlight, offers a vivid reminder that this is no dream.

We play the radio loud, confirming that the music scene
is alive and well here. We flip through stations, lots of them good, but
finally land on one called KEXP. An actual DJ keeps playing amazing music,
mostly current stuff, some of which I’ve never heard before, but also sneaking
in songs from the Smiths, the Cure and even older tunes from the Beatles and
Bob Dylan. I’ve never heard a station like it before.

The GPS lady continues prattling away in the background,
which reminds me to see how Lauren’s dealing with the roads splitting off all
over the place and the zillions of cars whizzing past. I never realized just
how huge Seattle is, but compared to Richmond or the other cities we’ve passed
through, this city is enormous, spreading out in every direction.

“How’s it going?”

Lauren frowns, her eyes locked on the road. “Awesome,
you?”

“Sorry, but it’s just so perfect, right? This is totally
the kind of city I would have imagined her living in. But how the hell has she
kept from being noticed here?”

Lauren glances at me, then turns down the radio. “Look at
the GPS. Take note of the estimated arrival time, in particular.”

I check to see that we still have over an hour to go. The
map also shows islands. “What’s up with that?”

“Well, I’m just taking an educated guess but I have the
distinct feeling she lives at least an hour away. On an island. Have I
mentioned that I’m getting sick of driving?”   

Understandable, definitely. So, I don’t remind her that
she was the one, technically, to launch this road trip in the first place. “I
guess I owe you one?”

“You owe it to yourself,” Lauren says.

I’m not sure what she means by that but I really want to
turn the radio back up. You just don’t hear Passion Pit on the radio all that
often back home.

~~~

Before long, the city I’d only just fallen in love with keeps
shrinking into the distance behind us. It definitely doesn’t help that the
music also gets more fuzzy and starts to fade. I check the GPS map again. “Hang
on, wasn’t the island just on the other side of the city?”

Lauren shakes her head. “That was the first island. She’s
on the second one, north of here. Way north.”

“But don’t we have to get to the first island to get to
the second?”

Lauren changes lanes and accelerates to keep pace with
traffic. “Just another educated guess, but unless the islands are moving
there’s probably a more direct route once we’re farther north.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“In that case, I guess we never get there.”

“I’m starting to hate you,” I say.

“Which I’d believe if you didn’t totally adore me,”
Lauren says.

I crack a smile. “I don’t adore you. I just sort of
endure you.” A total lie, obviously, and it isn’t like Lauren to let me get
away with it.

“Adore, endure, they go together. Just a matter of time.
With any luck, it all comes full circle again.”

“Based on experience?”

“How freaking old do I look? So, listen, are you ready to
drive?”

“I don’t have my license,” I remind her.

Lauren raises an eyebrow. “A fair point but you do have a
permit. And driving is basically ninety-nine percent observation. You seem
pretty observant to me lately.”

I don’t feel the least bit sure. Still, it seems only
fair to try driving for a while. “Should I have maybe offered days ago?”

Lauren shrugs and changes lanes again. She really has the
whole lane-changing thing down, come to think of it. I’ve been totally taking
her driving skills for granted.

“You needed time,” she says. “It’s all good. Think you
can you handle it?”

And the thing is, it makes as much sense as anything
else. Which means it makes no sense at all. Which, I guess, is the entire point
of everything we’ve done together so far. We’ve basically blown past anything
making sense long ago.

“Let’s do this,” I say.

“Awesome, because there’s a rest area coming up right…”
Lauren points at the giant sign. “Here!”

As soon as we take the exit, the GPS lady says,
“Recalculating. Make a U-Turn as soon as possible.”

Which would have made sense days ago. Now, it’s way too
late to consider her advice.

~~~

I get to know the VW bus in the rest area parking lot first,
testing the acceleration, brakes and steering. During my few practice sessions
with my father, we used my mother’s Volvo, so this is a totally different
experience sitting up high, steering wheel angled like a large platter at
forty-five degrees. But driving is driving, I tell myself, and this won’t be
too different from when I navigated the streets of Edmonds. Still, I’m not
exactly prepared as I tentatively merge onto the highway. All the same, here I
am, suddenly driving illegally on the other side of the country.

“Check your mirror,” Lauren says. “Anything coming?”

I check the driver’s side mirror. “Looks good.”

“Cool. Use your blinker, then change lanes.”

I do as instructed, merging another lane over.

“You’re doing great,” Lauren says, even as a car buzzes
past, the driver leaning on his horn. “Don’t worry about that asshole.”

I grip the wheel tight and hit the gas, gaining speed to
keep up with cars that suddenly seem to be going insanely fast.

“Take it easy,” Lauren says. “Speed up gradually. You
know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, I know what I’m doing,” I say, a bead of sweat
trickling down my forehead. “Driving illegally. On a highway. In a hippie van.”

It makes me feel so much better when Lauren laughs, then
says, “Look at it this way. Even if you had a Virginia driver’s license, at our
age we’re still driving illegally in Washington state. Feel better?”

“Not really.”

“Come on, you’re doing fine. I don’t know why most people
don’t just start out on highways. Pretty much, it’s a straight line until you
have to get off.”

That much is true, other than the fact that I’m going
sixty miles an hour. Has the van always vibrated like this? Still, I lock my
eyes on the road and do my best to make sure I’m not either passing other cars
or falling behind. Having played a million video games in the past does come in
handy. It feels kind of like the same thing other than the fact that if I mess
up our smoldering corpses will be pulled from a fiery wreck.

“I’m still going the speed limit, right?” I say.

“Just a little under, which is fine. Definitely better
than over. I mean, what cop isn’t going to pull over someone dumb enough to
break the speed limit in a 1967 VW bus with out of state plates?”

“Hey, thanks for that.”

Lauren snorts.

Why the hell did I sign on for this again? Oh, right. The
part Lauren said while I’d practiced in the parking lot, about this being my
journey, that I need to take “ownership” of it so I don’t look back at it as a
passive experience later in life. Where the hell had all that come from at this
stage of the game? Does she have some secret habit of reading self-help books
she hasn’t mentioned before? My guess is that she’s just finally too burnt out
on driving and made the whole motivational speech up.

The next hour feels like a century even though I manage
not to crash, don’t get pulled over and don’t have a heart attack. But the hour
does pass, as Lauren keeps telling me to slow down or speed up, that I’m doing
fine. Of course, she can’t resist making a few cracks at my expense since I’m
basically helpless. Still, when it’s finally time to exit the highway
(something I’ve been quietly freaking out about the entire time), Lauren tells
me to just take it slow and plays wingman so I don’t have to worry too much
about the rearview or side mirrors.

From there, the worst part is over and I continue
following Lauren’s directions as we slowly drive through a few towns,
eventually crest a ridge and roll toward a body of water, rippling in the
sunlight as ferries drifted toward islands. Before long, I pull into a line of
cars waiting for the ferry although it takes a few moments to unclench my hands
from the steering wheel.

“Bravo,” Lauren says, clapping lightly. And it doesn’t
sound like she’s making fun of me.

I nod, feeling proud of myself after all. But all I say
is, “So, yeah, I managed to drive without getting us killed or arrested. Pretty
cool.”

“
Very
cool,” Lauren says. “Hey.”

I turn to see and she kisses me, her eyes smiling. I
didn’t see it coming but definitely don’t mind. Then, she looks me up and down
in an exaggerated way. “Yeah, definitely in charge of your own destiny. You’re
sexy when you drive, by the way.”

I can’t help laugh at the way she keeps nodding and
checking me out, as if seeing something new in me. “Yeah, how’s that?”

“The frowning thing. You do it even more when you’re
stressed. It’s kind of your signature look, but it’s enhanced when you’re
behind the wheel.”

“Awesome. Thanks.”

“Think you’re ready to drive this puppy onto that boat
over there?”    

Just as she says it, a startling blast from the ferry’s
horn sounds against the sky. The white hull of the boat looms toward the pier.
“That might be pushing it,” I say.

“That’s what I’m thinking too,” Lauren says. “We don’t
want you to get too sexy.”

Port Gamble

We sit idling at the end of Jessica Malcom’s driveway, her
house barely visible through the trees. If we didn’t know where to look, we
probably wouldn’t even notice the house back there. It’s hard to believe we’re
this close now, yards away from the woman who somehow flashed into my mind when
I first picked up her guitar on the other side of the country.

“So, this is where she lives.”

Lauren peers through the woods. “According to the GPS
lady, this is it.”

Jessica could hardly have found a more remote place to
live than outside Port Gamble, a speck of a town on the edge of an island in
the Pacific Northwest. As we drove through the small town center—a quiet street
with just a few restaurants and shops—I wondered what could have possibly brought
her here. On top of that, Jessica’s house isn’t even in town. It took another
half hour to get to where we are now.

“Ready?” Lauren says.

“I guess so.”

In that moment, my stomach does a little somersault, like
when a roller coaster takes that first plunge. You’re strapped in, there’s
definitely no turning back and whatever is going to happen is now totally out
of your control. Even as we rode the ferry across Puget Sound, drove onto the
island and then toward Port Gamble, I still kept thinking something would
happen to stop us. That we couldn’t possibly finish this journey by finding
Jessica Malcom. But nothing stopped us and we’re about to knock on her door.

“Hang on,” Lauren says. “You should drive.”

“What? It’s a driveway.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s a long driveway. And it took
us a really long time to get to this driveway. Add to that, all of this started
with you. Take us home, captain.”

Sure, it’s silly, but why not? Somehow it does seem
right. I get out and cross paths with Lauren in front of the bus. I climb into
the driver’s seat and wait while she gets in again.

“Don’t forget to use your directional,” she says.

“Funny.”

“No, seriously, you need to use your blinkers just in
case—”

I slip my Bono glasses on and stare at her until she
bursts out laughing. Then I drive forward, slowly, the van lurching and shuddering,
until Lauren tells me about the emergency brake. Then she starts laughing
again.

~~~

When I expect Jessica Malcom to be watchful and waiting, as
Michelle Carter had been, that isn’t the case. As we draw closer to the house,
no one stands observing our arrival at the front door or peers out from the
windows. And while I’m not sure what to expect to find hidden back there behind
all those trees, it’s just a house. Not a particularly large house either. Just
a light blue house with dark blue shutters, dorm windows, a front porch with a
couple of Adirondacks and a  two-seat swinging chair moving a little from the
wind blowing in from the water. The house itself might not be overly impressive
but the setting is, definitely. That long driveway has taken us to an elevated
plot of land overlooking the water and mountains beyond.

We get out and stand there staring at the view. The air
is so much cooler here, the breeze blowing through my hair.

“Wow,” Lauren says.

“Yeah, wow.” I gaze past the house at mountains and light
shimmering on the bay. At that moment, something large cuts through the surf
and disappears again but not before blowing a jet of mist into the air.

“Was that a whale?”

I remain transfixed for a few more moments. “I think it
was.”

Then I become aware of music coming from somewhere behind
the house, muffled but definitely live. The thumping of drums, the low
vibration of someone playing bass. A band knocking out some sort of blues
progression. I imagine Jessica Malcom jamming with some new band but then the
front door opens and a woman gazes out at the two of us.

She looks at me, then Lauren, then at me again. Our eyes
meet and it feels like the world stops. In that moment, silence, the band in
the background forgotten. I see two things at the same time—two people at the
same time—the young, impassioned rock star with flaming red hair and a thin
woman somewhere in her forties, her hair still red but lightly streaked with
gray. The same eyes, definitely—sparkling green. She cocks her head, narrows
her gaze and keeps it directed at me. I hold on as long as I can, then break
off eye contact and squint out at the water. The whale is gone but the ripples
left by its wake are still spreading.

I become conscious of the music again, a flourish of cymbals
and the bass player trailing off. I hear laughter in the distance, followed by
a meandering guitar riff that soon fades. The woman descends the porch steps
and walks toward us. She gestures in the direction behind her house. “My
husband and some friends. Good thing we have a detached garage or I wouldn’t be
able to hear myself think.” She smiles, but the smile seems a little forced.
“So, I guess you must be Jack and Lauren.”

“Hi,” Lauren says, extending her hand.

“Jessica Foster. Nice to  meet you.”

It seems strange to hear the legendary Jessica Malcom
identify herself that way but it makes sense, of course. Obviously, she got
married at some point and went with his last name. But while I expect a
guarded, wary woman, Jessica seems more hesitant, almost as if she’s nervous
about the two of us being here.   

Jessica turns to me, I offer my hand and she takes hold
of it. Again, she looks into my eyes much longer than she did Lauren’s, long
enough that I glance toward the house this time. “Is your husband in a band?” I
ask, not sure what else to say.

“Just on two Saturdays each month. One of his hobbies. As
you might have guessed, it’d not a bad idea to find ways of keeping yourself
occupied around here. There’s not a whole lot going on. Anyway, Michelle told
me you came a really long way to find me.”

“All the way across the country,” I say.

Jessica nods. “That’s what she said.”

“We’re pretty sure we found your guitar. At least, it—”

“Are you two hungry? Thirsty? You must be. Please, come
inside.”

Jessica turns and walks back up the steps. As we follow,
Lauren shoots me a look reflecting exactly what I’m thinking. Did she not hear
the part about the guitar? Didn’t she care? But we only have a second before
Jessica holds the door open for us.

Despite the house looking like any other from the
outside, it’s somehow reassuring that the inside isn’t typical at all. The
living room is more a painter’s studio, with easels and stacks of canvases
resting against the walls. We pass the dining room, which looks like a study
with a desk against one wall and a leather chair and ottoman in the corner. A
bookcase crammed full of books covers the middle of another wall. The back of
the house holds the kitchen and family room, which flow into each other. While
those rooms are pretty much what you’d expect—a table and chairs in the
kitchen, couches and a TV in the family room—the entire back of the house
offers windows overlooking the water and the mountains. French doors open onto
a screened porch allowing another place to see that amazing view. So, kind of
like “normal” life, just improved upon a million times.

“Have a seat,” Jessica says, as she goes to the sink and
fills a kettle with water. “Would you like some tea? I think we have soda too,
if you’d prefer.”

Lauren takes a seat at the kitchen table. “Tea works for
me. Thanks.”

I pull out a seat too. “Sure, that sounds great,” I say,
even though I don’t drink tea all that often.

Jessica puts the kettle on, then opens a cabinet holding
an array of colorful boxes. “Mint? Chamomile? Irish Breakfast? Pretty much
whatever you’d like. As you can see, I’m kind of into tea.” She glances at us
over her shoulder and I can’t help notice that her hand trembles as it hovers
in front  of the boxes.

At that same moment, a man walks up the back steps,
crosses through the screened porch and comes into the kitchen. He’s thin,
mostly bald, with a trimmed graying goatee and blue eyes. He wears faded jeans
and a Seattle Mariners t-shirt. He smiles and says, “Hey, you two, I’m Peter.
So, you got here okay. How was the drive?”

He comes to the table and shakes our hands while we
introduce ourselves. Then he goes to where Jessica stands placing boxes of tea
onto the counter. He rubs her shoulder, lowering his voice to a whisper. “How’s
it going, honey? Doing okay?”

Jessica nods, meets his eyes and smiles, but I can tell
something’s off. I glance at Lauren, who shakes her head almost imperceptibly,
the message being,
Yeah, I see it too. No idea
.

Jessica turns to face us directly. “We need to go into
town,” she says. “We weren’t sure exactly when you’d show up and there’s really
not a whole lot here. I also need to check on the shop.”

“I can go, if you’d rather,” Peter says.

“No, it’s fine,” Jessica says, lowering her voice for him
before raising it for us again. “Are you two okay with hanging out here for a
while?”

Lauren and I exchange glances, then shrugs. “Sure, of
course,” I say.

The tea kettle whistles and Jessica fills the mugs. “I’m
just going to run upstairs for a moment,” she tells Peter.

She leaves the room and Peter brings the mugs to the
table. “Sorry about leaving you two here but Jessica wanted to make a nice
dinner. And, like she said, we need to check on her shop. Anyway, we won’t be
long. Sit out on the porch if you feel like it or just watch TV.”

Always the one to be up front about things, Lauren asks,
“Is everything okay?”

Peter hesitates, then says, “Well, this might seem a
little weird but Jessica kind of…well, she gets feelings about things. And
she’s sort of had one about the two of you coming here.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Peter shrugs. “She really hasn’t told me all that much.
Just that it means something. That something is going to change. I don’t really
know. Probably, it’s just the old band stuff coming up for her. A lot happened
back then and she’s done her best to put it out of her mind over the years.”

Jessica’s footsteps sound on the stairs. “Ready, Peter?”

A few minutes later, they’re gone and we sit at Jessica
Malcom’s kitchen table, looking out at the water.

“Okay, that was strange,” I say.

Lauren sips her tea. “Which part?”

“Well, for one thing, they just left us sitting here in
their house. And Jessica Malcom is not exactly known for inviting strangers
into her life. Scratch that—she’s not known for inviting anyone into her life.”

“True. But it’s probably safe to guess we didn’t drive
three-thousand miles, and contact everyone she knows, so we could show up here
to rob her. I mean, she knows why we’re here.”

“Yeah, exactly! Did you see how she reacted when I tried
to bring up the guitar? It was like she just…” My words trail off since I have
no idea what happened in that moment.

Lauren leans in closer. “Couldn’t quite handle it? Yeah,
I totally noticed that.”

“And then there was the part Peter said about her getting
feelings about things. Don’t you think that’s kind of…” This time, I don’t
finish because I already know how Lauren will react. And I’m right.

“That part I don’t find strange. Honestly, I’m not all
that surprised.”

“What are you thinking?”

“What I’m thinking is this,” she says. “This whole
deal—this little adventure of ours—started out with you getting a really strong
feeling. Well, that’s kind of a two way street. I mean, if your phone rings,
someone dialed it, right?”

“Could have been a butt dial,” I say.

Lauren dips her spoon into her tea and flicks it at my
face. I wipe the tea off my nose without comment. After all, I deserved it.

“Like I was saying—if you can manage to stay with my
analogy—is that you got a strong feeling at your end because a strong feeling
came at you from the other. So, it stands to reason that both involved are
highly intuitive. And, obviously, there’s a reason why the person at one end is
feeling it and the other one feels it too.”

“Hang on. Are you saying there’s some sort of personal connection
going on here?”

Lauren’s eyes meet mine. “Jack, really? Did you ever
doubt there would be?”

~~~

Maybe she just needed to get out of the house but Jessica appears
more relaxed when she and Peter return. It seems strange that she’d just been
worried about not having what she needed for dinner but maybe that had been the
case. She puts on music, lifting the energy, while she and Peter prepare food.
While I wasn’t sure if maybe Jessica Malcom might have remained obsessed with
her era in music as so many middle-aged people do, that definitely isn’t the
case. She plays mostly current bands.

Lauren and I sit listening on the screened porch,
watching as the sun starts to sink behind the mountains and as boats continue
to drift out across the water, all of it cast in golden, glimmering light. What
must be familiar to them is spectacular to us. It seems like both Jessica and
Peter understand that, since they go about preparing the meal quietly, with
just the music playing, almost like they don’t want to disturb us.

We have dinner out there too, gathered around what
Jessica tells us is an old farmhouse table she found one day at a yard sale.
She seems fine now as we eat fish tacos made from Alaskan halibut and the four
of us talk about pretty much everything but why Lauren and I are there. I know
there’s something to what Lauren said before about Jessica not being ready to
handle some aspect of that, so I do my best just to go with it while we answer
questions about high school, life in Virginia and our trip across country. We
learn about the shop Jessica runs in town, a combination bookstore and gallery
featuring the works of local painters and photographers. “More a hobby than a
business,” is how she describes it, but she smiles while telling us about the
place. These days, Jessica paints and produces digital art as well. She doesn’t
go into detail, but Peter mentions a website which must not be connected with her
original name. He teaches English at a nearby high school and, yes, he once had
musical aspirations but these days jams with friends on weekends. “All things
considered,” he says, “it seems the better way to go. I’ve heard the musician’s
life isn’t all that enviable.”