Page 40 of The Marigold Trail
“ T yler has cancer?” What? Tyler was always healthy. I spent his seventeenth birthday with him and Diana in a boat on the lake. His head was shaved but he did that every other summer. Did this actually happen in Non-80s-Land as well or is this alternate universe throwing me for a loop?
“Wait. Is this why you didn’t want Diana to date Tyler?” I ask.
He nods, affirming my suspicion. “He’s been sick for a couple of months now, refusing treatment. Tyler’s dad confronted Evan and I to try and convince him to go through with it. We’re the only ones who know other than his family and it didn’t help at all. He wanted to act like nothing was wrong. He's afraid of showing he’s unwell in front of everyone else."
“He refused treatment?” I don’t even try to mask the shock on my face.
“Yeah. He became even more resolute after we got involved. Said he wanted to live the rest of his life without regrets, acting the way he always did. He refused to give up basketball season. Even threatened once to end his life even earlier if we said anything—still not sure if that was a poorly timed joke or not. I was already on the fence when my mom asked me to step up and help support the family, but when I found out what Tyler was doing I just couldn’t play knowing he was in bad shape.
“Wow,” is all I can manage.
“While Tyler’s living his life without regrets, Evan and I were trying to convince him to get treatment. That and trying to convince him not to pursue my sister. At least while he was acting so irresponsible.”
“I can’t believe I never knew this,” I say.
“You weren’t supposed to know. I was angry because I told him not to do this to Diana. He’ll just break her heart when she finds out that he could be gone in a few months, maybe a year. Knowing him, he’ll probably try to hide the fact that he’s sick from her. At least he’s finally given in to chemo.”
“Maybe he started chemo so he can stay for her,” I say, trying to give Ben a new perspective.
My thoughts stretch in vast directions the rest of the week . One day I’m swept up, musing over Tyler’s condition—his chance at recovery, grueling eighties’ cancer treatments, who's to be the bearer of telling Diana the bad news. And the next, I’m being beaten with every grim outcome of possibility that comes with fraternizing with Marigold—or running from them—either option is likely to leave me blighted by the end of the week.
Because truthfully riding off into the mountains with Officer Berrett puts an end to the guise that is this eighties refuge, an end to my temporary state of innocence. But not doing so grants me automatic questioning from the entire Marigold foundation.
It’s Saturday morning. I sift through the Marigold notes in my crossword turned planner another five or six times, just to be sure that I’m giving what I’m about to do my best shot. It’s a plan with about a five percent success rate—five percent might even be too generous a number—but if I time it right and if fate is compelled to grant me a favor I just might be able to pull this off. And in the likely event that it fails, I have Tyler’s dad, Mr. Jacobson, who’s already hot to the case and hopefully now aware of the mine explosion. If I’m being honest, I entrust him to do all the Marigold investigating from the past with the hopes that Marigold won’t be around in the future. My role in 80s-Landia prevents me from having the authority to shut them down myself and he’s the most promising solution, now that he can recover evidence at Bennett Mine.
I grab the wristwatch off of my dresser and join Pops at the table for breakfast. The sunrise matches the color of the orange juice in my hand and the teal of my oversized t-shirt, reminding me of an eighties postcard—the kind that paints the eighties as an overly-saturated, neon rainbow paradise. When truthfully, the eighties was a lot more like living in every single shade of orange and brown. The oversaturated sunrise palette almost feels like a sign.
Pops chews on his refrigerator-chilled bacon as I focus hard on the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip in front of me. I read a few of them aloud to see if he’ll crack a smile. He quickly realizes my objective, sets down his newspaper, and scoots his chair closer to mine so that he can enjoy the paper with me.
He leaves for a day hike soon after, leaving me with Marcie. Her mood wall hanging has been changed to “Feeling Silly.” I’m almost relieved when she greets me in the kitchen, excited to share the news that she gets to spend the day making jam at a neighbor’s house while the boys are at a wrestling tournament. I ask for the keys to the station wagon and send her off with a smile.
The change of moods amongst both grandparents encourages me, giving me the strength to carry on with today’s plans.
My first stop is the track field—a little pit stop before I confront my choices for the future. It’s Diana’s first meet of the season and I wouldn’t miss it for the world. The last time I had watched my best friend fly through the air like this was around 2011. The fact that I was able to witness her doing one of the things she loved the most again was a gift. A gift from time.
It was also an opportunity to gauge who would be at the Browns’ home this afternoon.
As I enter the platform, a tall, bony-framed, blonde girl sprints past me with her ten-foot pole at her side. She plants her pole in the box just before reaching the mat and heaves her body forward so the pole bends like a pool noodle in the process. Everyone watches as the pole drops to the runway floor and she flies over the bar with success. Hoots and hollers erupt from the bleachers.
I look over to see Ben, Mama Robyn, and Grandma Harriet amongst the loudly cheering crowd, tucked away at the side of the stands. Ben can’t see me from where I stand and I prefer it this way. I have the perfect view of him, the perfect way to gaze at him and admire him without him knowing. I don’t plan to catch him today. It’s too hard to confront him knowing what I’m about to do.
Diana’s next in line. She seems to be in a calm, zen-like state, waiting for her turn. She doesn’t look nervous, just focused, like an eagle looking to spot its target from a distance. She holds so much composure I can’t help but wonder if she is still unaware of Tyler's condition. I survey the pole vault bleachers for Tyler. If he was here he’d surely be watching, but I don’t see his face anywhere. If she doesn’t know, I can’t help but wonder what she’ll do when she finds out.
She pats down a few unruly curls and adjusts her teal sweatband so that it sits at the top of her forehead. Diana spots me and smirks before her vault attempt. I give her an obnoxious wave as a rush of excitement pulses through my blood.
She starts the vault, rocking back and forth on her heels before ascending to a high-knee power run. At the end of her sprint she plants her pole in the box and launches herself into the air. She sails over the bar using a twist motion before gravity pulls her down onto the cushioned mat where she lands with a soft poof.
A few rounds pass, leaving three girls, including Diana, left in the competition. They attempt the eight-foot vault, all barely inching over the bar.
I look at the time on my watch and notice I’m running a little behind schedule. Officer Berrett told me to meet him at the house around noon. The event’s taking longer than I expected and it would be wise of me to leave now, but I’m inclined to see Diana’s performance all the way through.
We all watch as the first and second competitors fail the eight-and-a-half-foot vault. A snarl hits Diana’s bare lips as she preps for her sprint. Her steps are higher this time and powered with even more strength. She hits the target and wins the event, but our eyes stay glued to her as she attempts to beat her personal record on a second run.
For a moment I feel as if I’m watching the same exact scenario that happened during track season of 2011 play out, except this time she wasn’t using iPod earbuds to blast Rihanna’s “What’s My Name” before her final PR attempt. She catapults herself into the air and bends over with centimeters to spare, making the vault and hitting a new personal record. I’m overcome, overjoyed, and reveling in excitement a few yards away, but I can’t stay for the celebration.
I hurry back to the station wagon, feeling grateful to experience one of Diana’s happiest moments all over again. I let this memory of young Diana embracing her family as they pelt her with congratulatory pats sink into the permanent spot in my brain allotted for core memories.
The drive across town alone in the family car is quicker than usual thanks to less midday traffic. I open Ben and Diana’s front door with ease. In the few weeks I’d been here I’d learned locking the door wasn’t something the Browns cared to do—along with most households in the eighties. Back at it again, I am running the habit of breaking and entering.
So far the plan is going swimmingly. With no one home I’m able to get what I need from the Browns without cause for disturbance. Though my time is limited and chances are slanted percentage-wise, at the end of this, I will still have a lot of explaining to do.
I run to the kitchen looking for the Browns’ new transparent phone with colored wires that Ben spoke of connecting recently—the same phone he’d gifted me in Non-80s-Land when we were young, possibly even the same phone that had brought me here to 1987. I hold the phone cord up in the light to take a closer look at the coil. A slit in the coil exposes the copper wire, confirming my suspicion. This is the same phone I’d held in my hand before leaving Non-80s-Land. I disconnect the wire from the wall jack and hold the phone like a precious baby in my arms, jogging back to the station wagon.
I check my watch again for the time as I drive off. I have thirty minutes to get across town before Officer Berrett knocks down our front door in search of me.
I’d used what little door of opportunity I had to collect Ben’s transparent phone, my old Non-80s-Land possession, while my best friend’s family was preoccupied and now I’m strapped for time. I need to be early to Officer Berrett’s. I must be the first to walk across the street. The first to knock on his door. And no one can witness it. I need to keep this little escapade a secret from everyone, in the likely chance everything doesn’t go as planned.
Every couple of seconds I get the urge to glance at my wrist for the time. The more I lean into the impulse the more my chest fills with anxiety, the more my mind races with uncertainty. I take the moment to think over the concerns that had sprouted during my night at the drive-in with Ben.
Ben’s lack of knowing Chris Farley’s significance in my life brought a new perspective to mind. A perspective of the future and the consequences that would emerge if I were to continue living in this eighties universe. Consequences that might erase substantial realities from my past—like my relationship with my father.
The relationship I had with my father would simply not exist to anyone but me. It wouldn’t be acknowledged or spoken of. Eventually it would become an ever-increasing, distant memory of a life I once had. Erica would likely meet my father down the road, giving me the opportunity to see him again sometime in the next decade—a miracle I would’ve given up everything for over the last twenty-six years of my life to see, even if it was just to see him one more time—however I can see it all with clarity now. Staying meant my father would marry my mom and have a kid, a kid that wasn’t me.
The fact that my Non-80s-Land father knew me as his daughter throughout his time alive bonded us together and I wasn’t willing to give that up. I wasn’t willing to give up the meaning behind those Chris Farley references—the root of all my core memories with my father—or the reality that they exist only in the Non-80s-Land universe unless I had to. When it came to those memories there was pain in accepting this alternate universe as anything other than temporary.
When I park the station wagon next to Erica’s car in the driveway, I hop out of my seat firm in my decision, despite knowing that if I succeed in all of this I’m about to give up my one and only opportunity to be with Ben.
I walk into the house with a few minutes to spare. Upon entering, I quietly sneak into Little Narnia—despite being grounded from it—to drop off the transparent phone. I do a double take to make sure I have everything properly laid out on Pops’ desk, ready to test as soon as I get back from the mountain. A feeling of optimism shoots through me as I stare at my future time travel experiment. Optimism is all I have in this huge moment of uncertainty.
“Greg broke up with me,” Erica says from the couch, when I make my way past the accordion TV in the living room. I pause at the front door and look at her. Her green eyes coil with anguish.
“Oh, no. Are you okay?” I ask, noticing the bangs left out of her ponytail have woven around the hinges of her reading glasses and she’s still wearing her baggy sweats and the tee from the night before.
“No,” she says. A tear trickles down past her lips and then another follows in its path. I tell her I’m sorry and capture her in a hug.
I can feel the clock ticking on my wrist as minutes pass, but my arms squeeze around her as our memories as “sisters” flood through me. The nights we spent in front of the TV laughing and stretching, the mornings before school spent doing my hair, and the time we spent together blasting eighties music out of the car window flash through my mind—memories I’d never forget no matter which century I landed in.
I knew everything would work out for her. She would fall madly in love. She’d experience joy and loss and she would be grateful for the experience of knowing my father. It would all work out the way it was supposed to for her in our other universe. The thought of seeing it all play out again in this universe was tempting, but I’d be sacrificing my father-daughter relationship in doing so.
I ask her if I can do anything and then I remember the last phone conversation I had with her in the present day.
“I have to head out and I’m no expert in love, but someone wise once told me this.” I pause, repeating the words she spoke to me over the phone in Non-80s-Land. “You may not have his love now but you’ll always have my love.” I squeeze her one last time and hurry out the door.