Dale brought his mouth to her ear. “I have a birthday surprise for you. Come on.”
He led her to a screened-off corner of the basement used for storage. On top of a stack of plastic lawn chairs was a rectangular box wrapped in silver paper.
“It’s not my birthday for another half hour,” she protested, even as she smiled.
“I can’t wait any longer. Open it.” He held the box steady as she peeled back the wrapping.
Inside, a layer of tissue paper revealed a black motorcycle jacket with gleaming silver buckles.
Her breath hitched. “It’s too much. You should be saving up for the tour,” she said while fitting her arms through the sleeves over her sequined dress, enveloped by the heaviness and smell of leather.
“Eh, Dad’s been giving me extra shifts at the store, and everyone bought Commodore 64s for Christmas, so I’ve been making good commissions. Does it fit okay?”
“It’s perfect.” Head tilted in mock suspicion, she asked, “Is this because you’re sick of me borrowing your leather jacket all the time?” She’d tell him it was her New York City armor, that she felt safe wearing it.
“No way. I just thought you could use some of your own armor,” he said.
Her heart a hummingbird flying frantic circles in her chest. She wrapped her arms around Dale and murmured, “I’m so damn lucky.”
“Because I spoil you rotten?”
His warm breath made her knees soften and her blood hum. “No, because I get to spend the rest of my life with the coolest guy on the planet.”
“Goddamn right.” He kissed her with a fierceness that made the room go dark and quiet. “I have another surprise for you, but you’ll have to wait until after the countdown for that one.”
“Don’t tell me, don’t tell me!” Holding up a hand, she turned away.
While she normally loved surprises, between the Factory Twelve tour, Dale’s and Wayne’s leaving school, and London looming, Oona was reaching her saturation point.
“Come on, let’s rejoin the others,” Dale said.
The basement was illuminated by clear Christmas lights kept up year-round. White dots of light bouncing between mirrored walls put Oona in the center of a giant disco ball, or a star on the verge of explosion. The room blurred as she blinked back confused tears. This was the culmination of a perfect year. But it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. Not long after this party, the scales would tip. If Oona said no to London and took a semester off, she’d lose her academic momentum. But would she lose even more if she said no to the band? If Early Dawning went on tour without her, she’d have to contend with Dale’s absence that spring—which would be painful enough—and his disappointment. And that would just be the opening act for her England departure. Could they survive such disruption?
Oona was at the mercy of a clock whose ticking grew louder and faster with each passing hour. A clock that was about to betray her.
She checked the time: 11:55.
In the corner of the room, a small color TV broadcasted the ball drop from Times Square. Corey pointed at the screen. “Is that lit-up thing a cherry?”
“This is why people think drummers are dumb. It’s an apple, you doofus,” Dale said. “You know, like the Big Apple? New York isn’t known as the Big Cherry.”
It wasn’t all that funny, but Oona craved a break, so she threw her head back and laughed. Dale took advantage of her exposed white throat and dove in teeth first, playing the amorous vampire. The room tilted as he dipped her—the tips of her hair brushing the floor—then shifted further off its axis. Her laughs morphed into squeals of protest, then quieted into murmurs of pleasure. They engulfed and consumed each other, but wasn’t that love? She couldn’t imagine it being anything less. And now that she had it, she couldn’t imagine choosing to leave it behind.
There was that tremor beneath her feet again, the shift and blur at the edges of the room. Had she overdone it with the champagne? Hopefully, she wouldn’t be sloppy behind the keyboard and mic when Early Dawning performed a few songs after ushering in 1983.
Remember this party. Every second of it. Every person here.
They were a motley bunch. As she gazed around the room, Oona took mental snapshots of her friends, each strange and talented in their own way. She was sure they would all go on to do great things. But would she?
I wish I didn’t have to choose.
A recurring wish she’d had these last few weeks and one she made again now, unaware that every granted wish comes with a hidden cost, every blessing shadowed with a curse.
The countdown to 1983 began.
“Ten!”
She tightened her hold around Dale’s waist, felt this was the pinnacle of her happiness. A panicked voice whispered at the edge of her mind: There’s nowhere higher to go.
“Nine!”
The jacket made her too warm, but she wouldn’t take it off for the rest of the night. She also wouldn’t tell Dale it wasn’t his jacket’s heft that made her feel safe as much as wearing something that belonged to him. Any talisman could’ve guarded her—a class ring, an old T-shirt, a ratty shoelace—as long as it was his.
“Eight!”
Unfortunately, there were some things her leather armor wouldn’t protect her from.
“Seven!”
The tremor intensified, up Oona’s legs to the base of her spine, an unseen force that threatened to turn her body into a metronome, setting a new rhythm for her life.
“Six!”
She tried to ignore it.
“Five!”
Perspiration trickled down her temples as she counted down the last seconds of 1982 and her own eighteenth year.
“Four!”
She followed the red glow of the ball descending on TV, crying out with the others, though hers was a cry of pain.
“Three!”
A sharp sensation exploded from the top of Oona’s head and spread down the center of her body, an invisible broadsword cutting her in two.
“Two!”
Escalating heat stirred within her as particles scrambled to escape and rearrange, but not now and not here.
“ONE!”
PART II
Under Ice
2015: 51/19
2
Oona came to with a long gasp, as if breaching the surface after being trapped underwater, left to drown.
A second earlier, she’d been surrounded by people and light and noise and warmth. Now she lay on a plush carpet in a dark room lit by a fireplace, silent but for the crackle of flames heating the drafty space.
How much champagne did I drink?
“Hey, are you okay?” asked an unfamiliar male voice.
The light, though meager, hurt her eyes; the room wavered before her. She blinked as if recovering from a camera flash. Focus.
A man kneeled over her, lean torso clad in a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt, the album cover’s prism and rainbow bedazzled with small rhinestones.
Oona propped herself up on one elbow, groggy. “Where’s Dale?”
That’s when it hit her: she wasn’t in Dale’s basement, or even his house.
Instead, she was in a room that could’ve been the library out of the board game Clue: high ceilings, dark wood paneling, leather wingback chairs, an antique globe, a bar cart laden with crystal bottles faceted like large jewels. Shelves of books dominated one wall, a rolling ladder offering access to the ones beyond arm’s reach. The sort of room where stylish academics could mingle, enjoying fine scotch and murmured conversation. A walnut desk faced a bay window, framed by velvet emerald curtains eclipsing the view beyond.