A Stitch in Time Pt. 01

I looked over at the clock: 9:24. It was, I suddenly remembered, Christmas morning. I needed to at least show up. I found a relatively clean pair of jeans on the floor, and a nice-looking flannel shirt hanging in my closet that appeared to have never been worn. I pocketed the pile of stuff on my bedside table — a wallet, a pocketknife, a couple of quarters, and a set of keys — and with a last look in the mirror (so far, this body was the only good thing about this whole nightmare) I headed downstairs.

I paused at the doorway to the living room, comparing the scene to the one I had left the night before. The furniture was completely unchanged. Same couch, same chairs, same lamps, same rug. The only thing that had changed was one of the pictures on the far wall. Mom had hung a painting of the church we attended, a 150-year-old building nestled among the oaks and maples that deserved the description it was always given — quaint. The new picture was a photograph; from my vantage in the doorway it appeared to be two people on a beach.

The Christmas tree was in the same place as always, although it didn't seem as "happy" as it usually did. It took me a minute to figure out why; no tinsel. Mom was always a big tinsel person, and I'd spent last night gleefully, but tastefully, helping her put it on the tree.

The three — three? — girls sitting around the living room didn't look all that happy either. The closest to me was Jeanne, sitting on the couch in a pair of jeans and a sweater as she neatly sliced the tape on the back of a wrapped present with a thumbnail. I smiled as I recognized the sweater I'd bought for her, the one I had intended to give her this morning. Back when this morning was still in 2003. I choked up a little, thinking that I would never now know whether I had told her how well I thought it was going to go with her eyes.

It was a little tighter than I thought it would be, meaning that I'd screwed up the size, or, more likely, that she'd finally undergone that growth spurt she'd been wishing for. Well, good for her. She was cutting her hair a little shorter, too, in a way that framed her face much better, and adding a few highlights to her brown hair. She was actually a very attractive young woman now, even if she did still have the same thick lenses in the same unattractive glasses.

Sitting at the other end of the couch was Jill, and my God, what a fox she'd become. If this was 2006, she would still only be 15 years old. Fifteen going on twenty-five, it looked like. Her lustrous blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, emphasizing her perfect cheekbones and her lively blue eyes. Her somewhat over-mascaraed lively blue eyes, to my way of thinking. She was dressed in a bathrobe that had fallen open as she propped her long, tanned legs on the coffee table to paint her toenails with a bottle of polish the color of blood.

I had no idea who the third girl was. She was sitting in one of the wing chairs, her legs stretched open in front of her on an ottoman. She looked to be about 24 or 25. I always had a hard time guessing women's ages, though, so she could be anywhere from 20 to 30. She looked to be about five months pregnant, although again, she could be anywhere from four to six months as far as I knew. She wasn't an unattractive woman, either, with dirty blonde hair that hung down to her almost exposed breasts. She was wearing a short, nearly nonexistent nightie that did little to hide much of anything, particularly with her legs splayed out like that. Dave's wife, maybe? He'd never been the smartest guy when it came to protection, but this girl looked a little older than the standard-issue coed he would have run into at Auburn.

Jill suddenly realized I was standing there, and broke into a grin.

"Hey, bro," she said, "thanks for the gift card. Victoria's Secret. Be nice to buy something there myself."

"For a change," Jeanne muttered as she looked up, too. "Yeah, thanks."

Evidently, I'd bought her the same thing, although with somewhat less success. She picked it up off the coffee table along with a small pile of other gifts that she'd finished unwrapping.

"How come I didn't get one?" the pregnant blonde pouted.

"Maybe because you don't have any secrets," Jill sniped at her, casting a disdainful look at her exposed panties.

"Jill," the blonde warned her, "do you want me to tell your father we're not getting along again?"

"No, stepmother dear," Jill's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I'm so sorry."

Stepmother? Whoa. This was my stepmother? I leaned back against the door jamb as I processed this information. Dad had remarried? And since she was five months pregnant, and Mom had died 18 months ago, he sure hadn't waited very long, the son of a bitch.

Jeanne had finished gathering her stuff, and moved toward the doorway I was standing in. She stopped suddenly, and eyed me with suspicion.

"I thought you hated that shirt," she said.

"No, why would you think that?"

"'Cause I've never seen you wear it before," she answered me, as if I'd done something wrong by not wearing it, and was doing something equally wrong now by having put it on.

"No, it's great," I assured her. "Matches my eyes, don't you think?"

"Of course I think it matches your eyes," she nearly took my head off. "That's why I bought it for you last year."

Without even the hint of a smile, she pushed past me and stomped up the stairs to her room.

"We saved your presents," Jill said, pointing to a pile of gifts sitting on the couch between her and the seat Jeanne had occupied. I sat down in the space Jeanne had warmed for me.

"Where are Dave and Dad?" I asked as I glanced at the card on the first gift, from Jill.

"Your father, uh, didn't get enough sleep last night," my stepmother giggled as Jill rolled her eyebrows. "He'll be down soon. Dave had to go in to open up the Seven-Eleven because his manager called in sick."

Jill's gift proved to be a very nice-looking cellular phone.

"This is awfully expensive, Jill," I said, "but thank you."

"You're welcome," she favored me with a well-practiced, but nonetheless glowing, smile. "And I actually got it free, sort of. It comes with instructions for transferring all your numbers from your old phone on it."

"Sort of free?" I asked.

"Well," she giggled, "he did get to take me to dinner."

I narrowed my eyes.

"Oh, fuck you," she grinned and threw a pillow at me. "Who are you to talk?"

Who was I? That was turning out to be a very good question.

"Anyway, thank you," I said, leaning across the couch to kiss her on the check and sitting back with another gift in my hands, one from "Dad and Mom (Tiffany)." Tiffany. That figured.

It was an empty picture frame, with a gold inset inscribed "Marshall High School — 2006 State Champions."

"It's for that picture you have in your room," Tiffany bubbled. "We can hang it on the wall now. Your father picked it out."

For me or for him? I couldn't help but think.

"Thank you," I smiled at Tiffany.

"Where's my kiss?" she pouted.

I stood up and walked over to her chair. She planted her feet on the ground and pushed herself up a little, and I leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. She threw her arms around my neck, and I was only barely able to brace my arms against the arms of the chair to keep her from dragging me down on top of her.

"Thank you," I murmured.

"I wish this was our baby," she whispered into my ear.

She let go, and I turned and tripped over the ottoman, somersaulting onto the rug. "Our" baby? How could "we" have a baby? Oh my God, I was doing my stepmother. Not only had I managed to misplace my virginity in the last three years, but I'd apparently buried my self-respect along with it. Oh my fucking God.

"Are you okay?" Jill asked when I hadn't gotten up after a minute or two on the ground.

"Yeah, sorry," I said, pushing myself onto my elbows. "I just hit my head."

"Didn't hurt the golden arm, did we?" she arched her eyebrows, her voice taking on the slightest mocking quality.

"Which one is that?" I asked in all innocence.

She just clucked her tongue in disgust and returned to her nails. I returned to the couch, and opened a hastily-wrapped magazine from Dave, with a card telling me I'd be receiving Sports Illustrated for the next year.

"That's very nice," I said absently as I replaced it on the coffee table.

"It's a big sacrifice for Dave," Tiffany assured me.

I looked over at her. A subscription?

"He doesn't make that much at the Seven-Eleven," she seemed eager to press his case, "and it's hard for him to even think about sports after his injury."

"Oh, yeah," I agreed. "I hadn't thought about it that way, uh, Tiffany. Thanks for reminding me."

"Tiff," she said quietly.

Jill was rolling her eyes again.

"Tiff," I acknowledged.

The final gift I unwrapped was from Jeanne, a wool winter hat, mostly blue, with little white baseballs in it. It was just so - so Jeanne. I imagine I was grinning stupidly as I put it on.

"What do you think?" I asked Jill and Tiffany.

"Yeah, the girls'll flock to that," Jill said.

"You know, I just can't understand knitting," Tiffany was shaking her head.

"Jeanne knitted this?" I asked. "Herself?"

"You don't think anybody would sell those, do you?" Jill apparently found it hard to make comments that didn't include sarcasm.

"Jill," Tiffany used her stepmother warning voice again before turning back to me. "She did work on it for most of the last two months."

"Well, I like it," I said. "Hey, it comes with a matching scarf."

I put that on, too.

Dad wandered in just then, dressed in a bathrobe and a pair of fuzzy slippers that had obvious been a gift from Tiffany at some point. My father was 45 years old now, and he wasn't a fuzzy slipper kind of guy.

"You look like a dork," he muttered on his way past me as he leaned over to give Tiffany, the son of a bitch's pregnant wife, a long kiss on the lips. As they were kissing, she looked over to make sure that Jill was still intent on her painting, and then gave me a big wink.

Oh my fucking God.

"I need some coffee," Dad grunted as pushed himself off the chair. "Where's Dave?"

"Seven-Eleven," Tiffany said. "Manager's sick."

"Assistant manager at a fuckin' Seven-Eleven," Dad shook his head as he made his way into the kitchen. "You want some coffee, Trick?"

Jill and Tiffany both looked over at me. I was Trick?

"Uh, yeah, sure Dad, thanks," I yelled back.

He came back with the coffee, and Jill and I watched him and Tiffany open up their gifts. Mine was apparently a gift card to a steakhouse. Had I gotten everybody a gift card? I must have shopped for a whole fifteen minutes one day. Dad grunted his thanks while Tiffany called me over for another kiss, this one blessedly uneventful.

My mother had loved Christmas, and I found myself unwilling to let go of what little holiday spirit we had going by heading back to my room. So I grabbed the copy of Sports Illustrated that came with the subscription acknowledgement and started to flip through it. Jill had finished painting and was now in the drying stage. Dad and Tiffany were sitting on the floor, murmuring to each other. Dad put his hand and then his ear on Tiffany's stomach while she cooed about feeling the baby kicking.

"So can you take me to Uncle Bill and Aunt Ruth's now?" came a voice from my left. We all looked up to see Jeanne in the doorway, looking eagerly at Dad for an answer to her question.

"Hey, sorry, doll," Dad shook his head. "I gotta spend the afternoon changing the timing belt in my car, and Tiffy's car is still in the shop from hittin' the deer."

"The deer hit me," Tiffany protested with a sulk.

"Yeah," Dad chuckled, "but he hit you smack dab in the middle of the hood, and it's gonna be another week 'til they get in all the parts. Christmas, you know."

"But you said you'd take me," Jeanne protested, clearly struggling to keep a stiff lip.

"Nothin' I can do about the timing belt that quickly," Dad told her, still sitting on his butt on the floor. "You know, if you hadn't failed the driver's test twice, I'd have bought you your own car by now."

He returned his focus to his wife, Jill returned hers to her toes, and I watched Jeanne as her face fell and her shoulders slumped. She turned and started to walk slowly back upstairs. I suddenly remembered the keys in my pocket and pulled them out. One was labeled as a Subaru key, so it might very well be that I owned a car.

"Hey, J," I shouted after her, "I can give you a ride."

I looked up the stairs, to where Jeanne's butt was about to vanish into the ceiling. The butt slowly turned in place, and the girl ascending turned into a girl descending. Still not a happy girl, though.

"Why?" she said when she reached the third step, the first step at which she was able to finally look at me.

"I dunno," I shrugged my shoulders. "To say 'thanks' for the hat and scarf?"

She blinked at me a few times. Apparently, she hadn't noticed I was wearing them before now. That was probably because she hadn't even given me so much as a glance when she came back downstairs to ask Dad about the ride.

"Um, okay," she agreed. "When can we leave?"

"Whenever," I held out my hands. "My plans for the day were kind of gonna start and stop with laundry."

"Yeah, I could use some laundry, too," Dad chimed in. "What about it, Tiffy?"

"I still got a couple of clean pairs of panties," Tiffy adopted a sullen expression. "And it's Christmas. I'll do it tomorrow."

Dad grunted his assent.

"Let's go now," I said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get out of this house. "Grab my coat, wouldja?"

That last line was a sudden inspiration, and it would solve one of the three immediate problems I had, namely, which coat was mine? Unfortunately, that was the most minor of the three. The other two, how you got to Uncle Bill and Aunt Ruth's, and how you drove a car, were going to be a little more problematic.

As it turned out, though, they were easily solved by the same method. As we walked out of the house — me wearing a very nice leather bomber jacket, along with the scarf and hat — I followed Jeanne toward a fancy silver Impresza. She began to walk toward the passenger side when I was re-inspired.

"Hey," I said, tossing her the keys. "You drive."

"Me?" her eyes widened as she caught them. "Drive your car?"

"Can't pass the test if you don't practice," I grinned. "You got a permit, right?

She crossed over to the driver's side and adjusted the seat while I took the other seat.

"I'm nervous," she said. "I hate sticks. That's why I failed the second test. I got so nervous driving Tiffany's car."

Shit! A manual transmission. Another good reason for me not to be driving.

"Well, just talk yourself through it," I suggested. Talk us both through it, in fact.

"All right," she started reciting a litany. "I put in the clutch, I start the car. I let the parking brake off, I put in reverse. Now I slowly let my foot off the clutch, and when I feel it reach the stall point, I put on the gas, and shit!"

We jerked back about a foot and a half and stalled.

I looked over and she was literally shaking.

"Can you please drive?" her voice quivered as she stared down at her lap.

"No," I said, touching her on the arm. She looked at me with a mixture of embarrassment and anger and suspicion playing across her face.

"You remember when we were at Grandpa and Grandma's that one time," I asked her, "when I was, like twelve, and you were eleven? And we were learning how to fish?"

She blushed and looked back at her lap.

"Do you remember when you got that worm hooked to your finger?" I continued.

"Yes," she said softly.

"Me, too," I chuckled. "And after I got you two lovers apart" — that merited a small giggle from the driver's seat — "I gave it back to you, told you how to do it one more time, and then stepped away. Remember that?"

"Uh-huh," she said, looking forward now instead of down.

"And when I came back, you'd baited that little sucker all by yourself," I said. "And you ended up catching a big one, too, I think."

"He wasn't that big," she demurred.

"I think you're missing the point," I said gently. "First of all, I want to say 'thank you.'"

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I love this hat and this scarf and I can't believe you made them for me."

"You do?" she asked, finally looking at me again.

"I do," I nodded. "Second of all, I bet Dad watches you like a hawk when you're driving his car, and Tiffany probably gets worried about you scratching up her paint or burning up her clutch."

She nodded.

"Or being attacked by a deer," I added as an afterthought, producing the first genuine laughter I had heard in the Sterling household all day.

"So I'm just gonna sleep here," I said, putting the seat back, slouching down in it, and closing my eyes. "Take me for a ride, Jeeves."

We stalled again on the way out, and once getting into first gear at the end of the driveway. After that, though, it was a piece of cake. I kept my left eye closed the whole way, in case she looked over, but the right was open, scanning the scenery. At a minimum I was going to learn how to get to Uncle Bill and Aunt Ruth's.

As Jeanne smoothly pulled into the driveway, I learned that they hadn't moved. Whether I could find my way there again, or home for that matter, was another question.

"You should come in," Jeanne turned to me with a look of delighted triumph when she set the brake and turned the car off.

"Why wouldn't I come in?" I asked.

"When was the last time you were here?" she countered.

"I honestly can't remember," I said, honestly not remembering.

"Well, you certainly didn't come last Christmas," she said. "I was the only one who bothered. I don't think you've been here at all, in fact, since Mom died.

"Really?" I asked. That seemed unlikely. I had always loved visiting Mom's family; they were so, I don't know, exuberant about life.

"Hell, you practically spent all day last Christmas over at Sheila's," she sneered, drawing out the name "Sheila" so that it sounded like I'd spent the day with a slug. "Where was her husband, anyway? I mean, it was Christmas."

"I dunno," I said. I'd also been doing it with a married woman named Sheila? Who the hell was I? "So, inside?"

We walked up to the door, Jeanne growing more and more excited with each step she took. Finally, bouncing up and down, she rang the doorbell.

"Aunt Ruth!" she screamed as the door was opened.

"Jeanne!" Aunt Ruth, Mom's older sister, was just as enthusiastic as her niece. She stepped forward and the two embraced. Finally, Jeanne let go and turned to me.

"And is this your boyfriend, dear?" Aunt Ruth asked before Jeanne could speak. "I'm Ruth Parkinson."

She held out her hand. My Aunt Ruth, who'd nursed me through mononucleosis in the eighth grade, was offering me a handshake. God, what a pitiful asshole I'd become.

Chapter 3

Jeanne was at least as mortified as I was that my aunt apparently had no idea who I was.

"Aunt Ruth," she murmured, "it's Trick."

"Trick?" Aunt Ruth asked.

"Patrick?" Jeanne tried again. "My, uh, brother?"

"Oh my gosh," Aunt Ruth snatched back her hand like she might not even be sure whether I deserved a handshake. "Oh, Patrick, I'm so sorry."

She put her hands on my cheeks and looked into my face.

"I'm so embarrassed," she said. "Of course it's Patrick. And I saw you just last year. I just didn't realize how much you'd grown."

"I'm sorry I haven't come over more," I mumbled.

"Well, I certainly hope we see you more now," she said. "Now give me a big hug."

I leaned down — Aunt Ruth was only about five-foot-five — and got almost as enthusiastic a hug as my sister had.

"Well, come on," she let go and turned around, linking one arm in mine and one in Jeanne's. "Everyone's going to be so excited to see you both."