The Rockmore House

34 | Every Road

Emily's house was gross. The walls must have absorbed the aromas of stale beer, pizza and incense over the years. The carpet had all kinds of mysterious stains. I couldn't figure out why a college house would even have carpet, with all those fibers soaking up nefarious filth like a sponge.

I perched on a bar stool, gripping a red Solo cup while observing the crowded room. Eric was deeply and noisily involved in a game of beer pong, bouncing a ping pong ball against the dining room table with intense focus and throwing his hands in the air and cheering when it landed in one of the cups.

The floor buzzed from the speakers playing a mix of eighties music and current radio top forty hits in the basement. Kaitlin was somewhere down there dancing, probably with the girl she was flirting with earlier that night. A few people engaged in conversation on the sunken couches, seemingly in a contest to determine who could be the loudest, the wittiest, and the most intelligent all at once. I feared the winners would never be declared and it would go on all night.

I wondered if nights like this were an essential part of the "college experience" that had been presented to me as a requirement for a full and well-rounded life. Maybe it would be fun if I was drunk, too. And if I wasn't biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity to cut out of there.

I waited for Eric to play enough rounds of beer pong to get sufficiently buzzed before I put my coat on and asked him for his keys.

"You shouldn't be driving," he said dismissively.

"I haven't had a single drink."

He swiped the cup out of my hand and took a sip.

"Vernor's," I said. I watched his forehead wrinkle as he realized that he was drinking ginger ale and not beer.

"Ugh! This stuff reminds me of having a stomach ache."

"In this case, it's preventing a stomach ache."

"Let me smell your breath." He nose-dived toward my face and I leaned back and pushed him away.

"Get out of here! You think you're a human breathalyzer? I'm not drinking. Promise."

"Where do you need to go right now?"

"To visit a friend."

"Why don't you invite your friend over here?"

"There's too many people."

"An antisocial friend. Okay." He tipped his red cup to his mouth, emptied it and set it on the kitchen counter. "I'll go with you."

"I need to go alone."

Eric rolled his eyes. "You're not going alone. Who's your friend, anyway?"

"It's a family friend I promised my mom I'd visit while we're here. Someone I've known forever."

He pointed his finger at my face and twirled it around, while he took his time to decide what to say next. "You're lying. What's going on?"

I sighed. I couldn't get anything past Eric, even when he was mild to moderately intoxicated. 

"It's the guy from the summer. I found him. He lived up here."

"He lives up here? He's gotta be like eighty years old. That's, like, deeply fucked up, Nessie." His horrified expression quickly turned grim. "I'm sorry, Ness. Vanessa."

"I have no idea where he is now, but in 1955 he lived a few miles away from here. I have an address. And directions." Inside my coat pocket, I clutched the folded map from Stan. I fidgeted with it, but the sound of my fingers bending the paper seemed too loud and I pulled my hand out of my pocket.