Second Chance

Another big thank you to blackrandl1958 for the invitation to this special event and for editing my story. I can honestly say this tale would never have seen the light of day without a big push from Randi as I rarely do romance and I have never before done anything even remotely approaching sci-fi.

Scottie Jorgensen had never felt quite like this before. She had been drunk a couple of times, but never high. Unlike when she was drunk, this feeling was more... calming, laid back. She felt like everything was in soft focus, and she was just on the edge of being giggly. Although nobody was telling any jokes, almost everything she heard seemed... hysterical.

The 18-year-old redhead took another hit on the joint that her date, Joey Fasano, had handed her while the pair and five other couples sat around a campfire several hours after the prom they had attended. The dozen teenagers had attended the prom, then had changed clothes to spend the evening sitting around a makeshift campground drinking, getting high and maybe... maybe having sex in one of the tents sent up near the pond at the back of the old Travers place. Scottie was nervous and excited about the possibility of losing her virginity, especially with her handsome date, a well-built young man with dark brown hair, blue eyes and dimples.

She was more than a little surprised when Joey, firmly established as a member of the cool crowd at Harry S Truman High School, asked her, on her best day a second or third tier social crowd student, to the prom. Scottie knew who she was, and what she looked like. She was considered pretty but not beautiful, with green eyes, average sized breasts and nice legs, and her thick, wavy red hair hung down to a couple of inches past her shoulders.

She wasn't sure exactly what Joey's motive was in asking her to the prom, but she wasn't going to pass up the chance to go to the social event of the high school year with a hunk. Her best friend, Wanda, had warned her that all Joey wanted was her virginity, but Scottie wasn't so sure she wanted to keep that intact anymore. After all, she was 18, and most girls her age had already experienced sex. Having a hunk like Joey as her first would be something she would remember for the rest of her life, she told her friend.

The Travers place was an old homestead. The house by the road was built in the early 1920s, but by 1970 it had been abandoned for at least a half-dozen years. Teenagers used to sneak out to the pond behind the house to have impromptu parties because the house and the woods behind it made the site almost invisible from the road.

Scottie had been sipping on a Budweiser and taking hits on the joints as they were passed around. She was running the prom back in her mind. Joey looked so handsome in his powder blue tuxedo, and she thought she looked good in her dark blue gown. The evening was fantastic, magical, she thought. She hoped the rest of the night was also going to be magical. She and her parents had negotiated for her to have a curfew of 3 AM this night.

Scottie got up from her spot and walked toward the area in the woods that the girls were using as a restroom. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog that was building. She got a little off the path the other girls had used, and didn't see the large puddle until she sunk in halfway to her right knee. She squeaked and fell forward, striking her head on a small tree and submerging it in another puddle. She felt the warmth of the water as she drifted off into a comfortable... sleep, from which she would never awaken.

******

Arnold "Dusty" Dustwicz was crushed. The girl of his dreams, Tori Jahn, had just turned him down for the upcoming prom.

"You're a great guy, Dusty, but I don't like you like that. You're a friend, but nothing more. I don't want you to spend that kind of money on me if we're just friends," Tori said.

"Thanks for being honest with me, Tori," Dusty said. "I can't say I'm not disappointed, but I appreciate the honesty."

Dusty sighed heavily, then slowly walked away with his head down. Tori knew she did the right thing by being honest, but she also knew that she might have just lost a good friend.

Dusty had been working up the courage for a month to ask Tori to the prom. He knew she was out of his league, but if he was going to spend the kind of money guys usually spent on prom and the whole weekend, he wanted to ask out the girl he considered his top choice. Tori was not only beautiful but had a curvy body, bright blue eyes and was a good friend. There were probably girls who were prettier, but not to him.

"Ooh. I can see by that look on your face that she said no," Dusty's best friend, Gary Scatini, said a few minutes later in the cafeteria during lunch hour. "But there's still plenty of time to ask somebody else. I'm sure there's a lot of girls who would want to go to prom with you."

"Nah. I'm not going," Dusty said. "I've already been turned down by the only girl I really want to go with. I don't have a 'Plan B.'"

"Don't be that way, Dusty."

A couple of weeks later, Gary grabbed Dusty by the arm in the hallway between classes at Truman High School and moved him to an unoccupied spot.

"Hey, Joanne Gurney really wants to go to the prom, but she doesn't have a date," Gary said quietly. "Opportunity is knocking, my friend. All you have to do is turn the door handle and go into the room."

Dusty knew Joanne well and considered her a friend. They had been in several classes together throughout their high school years. She was a good-looking blonde with large breasts and somewhat discriminating taste. She hadn't had a boyfriend for several months.

"I like Joanne. I really do. She's a great kid. If I just wanted to go to the prom, she'd probably be a fun date. But I asked the one girl I wanted to go with," Dusty said.

"Big mistake, Dust-man," Gary said. "You do know that prom is like the ultimate aphrodisiac for teenage girls. You know there's a lot of guys who would be lining up for a night with Joanne's primo pussy."

Dusty had to admit to himself that he hadn't thought out the whole scenario. Losing his virginity to Joanne would be life-altering. He actually thought about that for a couple of days before he decided that keeping his integrity was worth more than losing his virginity.

A week later as Dusty was putting his books in his locker to end the day, Susie McGuire stopped and asked if he had a minute. He answered affirmatively.

"Dusty, you know Joanne and you like her. You'd really be making her day if you asked her to the prom," Susie said.

"I get it, Suze. I really do. But I asked the one person I wanted to go with, and she turned me down. I don't really feel like going with anyone else. It's just that simple," Dusty said.

"You know someday you're going to regret not going to your prom," Susie said. "And you could be doing a good thing here, but you're just going to pass on that as well."

Dusty's close friends spent the weeks leading up to prom trying their best to convince him he needed to go. He continued to resist until it was almost too late to make plans. Then he got an unexpected visitor at his home one evening.

Joanne Gurney's mother was sitting in the living room with Dusty's mother when the young man came in from mowing the yard late one afternoon after school. Dusty knew his mother and Donna Gurney were friends, but it wasn't usual for the pair to be sitting in the Dustwicz' living room sipping tea.

"Dusty, could you come in here for a minute," his mother said when he came into the house from the garage.

Ever the obedient son, Dusty walked into the living room and acknowledged both women.

"Uh... Dusty... we've got a bit of a situation here, and I think you can help us out... and get something out of it yourself," his mother said. "Mrs. Gurney would like to ask you for a favor of sorts."

Donna Gurney was still a pretty woman in her 40s. Dusty briefly thought of the old adage that says if you want to see what a woman will look like in 20 years, take a good look at her mother. He thought that whoever married Joanne Gurney would still be pleased in the future with how she looked.

"Dusty, Joanne is absolutely devastated that she is going to miss her prom. It's every girl's dream to go to prom, to get dressed up for the biggest night of her high school career. But for some reason, nobody has asked Joanne to go. She hasn't had a boyfriend since she broke up with Bobby Petrillo a few months ago.

"I know you and Joanne are friends. Could you take Joanne to the prom, just as friends, as a favor to me. She deserves a special night, and I know that you are a good guy and would treat her right. Her father and I would pay all the expenses for the night..."

"You wouldn't have to do that, Donna," Dusty's mother interrupted. "We would gladly pay for Dusty to go to the prom."

Dusty could see that Donna Gurney had tears in her eyes. Ellen Dustwicz was one step away from that. He looked down at the floor for a second to gather himself.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Gurney, but I can't take Joanne. I only asked one girl. I only wanted to take one girl, and she turned me down," Dusty said. "Joanne's a great girl, but she deserves to go as someone's first choice. It might hurt her now, but I don't want to be the guy she's running down 20 years from now because he wasn't her dream date for that night. Think about it, both of you. You know I'm right."

"Dusty..." his mother began, but quickly stopped when she looked at his face.

"I guess you're right, Dusty. I didn't look at it that way," Mrs. Gurney responded.

Dusty felt somewhat guilty that he lied to his parents for one of the few times in his life when he told them he was going camping with some other friends who weren't going to the prom on that night. He actually was going camping, but he was going alone. He packed his small tent, some camping supplies and some food and beverages into the trunk of his car and headed out about an hour before his friends would take their dates to a restaurant to start prom night.

Dusty originally considered going to one of the more common camping sites, but wound up driving around for a while before turning up at what he knew to be "the old Travers place," a property on the north side of town that had long since been abandoned and was way grown over. He knew that at one time the home had been occupied, but after the owners had died it remained unoccupied and left untouched for many years, with the acreage being used as kind of a hangout for teens for many years in the 1970s and 1980s. There was a pond on the back side of the property, and a teenager had died near there in the early '70s, history said.

The story was that a group of teens were partying after prom, when one of the girls, way too high for her own good, wandered off, fell into a large puddle and drowned.

The site became somewhat of an urban legend/scary story scene for the next 20 years, then eventually drifted into complete disrepair and disuse. Everybody figured it would someday be bought and leveled by some big company seeking to build an industrial plant of some kind.

The desolation of the site appealed to Dusty in his current mood, and he pulled a flashlight out of his trunk along with his tent and supplies. He stumbled along for a while until he was at the site of the pond. He set his tent up about 30 yards away from the pond, pulled a can of Coke from his backpack and sat down to ponder the meaning of life.

"You okay? Are you hurt?" came the disembodied voice from somewhere behind him, rousing him from what was either a nap or unconsciousness, he didn't know. He grabbed his flashlight and turned toward the sound, his heart pounding. Truth be told, the voice scared him shitless.

"Wh-who the fuck are you?" Dusty stammered to the young woman walking toward him wearing bell-bottom jeans and a light-blue halter top, looking very 1970s, the young man thought despite his fear.

She held her hand in front of her eyes to deflect the light shining directly into her face. He chuckled uncomfortably, then dropped the light to her midsection.

"I'm Scottie. Scottie Jorgensen," the young woman said with a happy lilt to her voice.

Dusty looked hard at the woman's body, noticing that her braless nipples were erect under the halter and her jeans were indeed snug-fitting.

"Where the hell did you come from? You scared the fuck out of me!" Dusty growled.

The young woman giggled. Dusty liked the sound.

"I came from just over there," Scottie said, pointing to a spot a few yards off.

Dusty frowned as he thought the woman was avoiding his question.

"Where do you live? Where do you go to school? I've never seen you before," Dusty asserted.

The young woman sat down cross-legged on the grass about a foot away from Dusty, grabbing her long red hair into a bunch and dropping it down her back. She grimaced.

"I live around here. I go to the local high school," she said quickly, hoping the young man would accept the answers.

"Nuh-uh. You might live around here somewhere, but you don't go to Truman. I'd have remembered seeing you before," he answered.

Dusty could see the young woman smile at his compliment.

"Well, I used to go to the local school," she sighed as Dusty raised an eyebrow, indicating disbelief.

"Used to? When?" he asked pointedly.

"Uh... a long time ago," she said slowly and softly. "Why all the questions, Columbo?"

"Colum... who?" he questioned, not recognizing her reference to a '70s detective television program.

Dusty couldn't interpret the look the woman gave him.

"What year is this?" she asked innocently.

"Wow. How high are you, Miss Scottie Jorgensen?"

The woman gave him another unreadable look, then sighed. Then frowned.

"How did you know? I was high, but I'm not now," she said. "Not for a long time."

Dusty scrunched his nose like he smelled something unpleasant.

"You're cute, but you're not making any sense, Scottie," he said.

"What year is this? Please answer me," she whined in a distressed tone.

"Okay. I'll play along. It's 2022. May 16, to be exact," he announced.

The woman's eyes teared up. Several fell down her cheeks.

"This is going to sound really weird, I'm sure, but the last time I was here before today was May 14, 1971. I've been... gone for 51 years," she whispered.

Dusty's face contorted into a mask of confusion, then recognition.

"Wait. You mean..." he queried. "IMPOSSIBLE!"

Scottie pulled her arms around herself and started rocking, looking more like a 5-year-old than a teenager at the moment.

"I was trying to find a good place to... I slipped and fell into a puddle... The water was warm. I closed my eyes for a second," she whispered in an emotionless chant.

"May 14, 1971," Dusty said. "You're... that girl... who died here... all those years ago. That can't be."

Dusty reached his hand out and put it on the woman's shoulder. He tapped her twice and shook his head.

"Not dead. You're right here. You're as solid as I am," he said.

Scottie looked at him with questioning eyes. She tapped her left arm with her right; tapped her face and head.

"I feel real. I can't be dead," she said. "But..."

"Yeah, but..." Dusty repeated.

The young man's eyes lit up as he thought of an answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He tapped the phone several times and started reading. His eyes grew bigger as he read the obituary for... Scottie Jorgensen.

He quietly handed the phone to the woman when he was done. She looked at it as if it were a snake. He realized that if the woman thought she was from the 1970s, she would have no idea what a cell phone was. He took the phone back and started to read the obituary aloud.

Tears dropped out of her eyes as Dusty read. She was sobbing when he finished. Whoever this woman was, her heartbreak was real, and he felt deeply for her.

He looked again at the photo on his phone, and then back at the woman. He had to admit the photo matched the woman.

He moved over next to the woman and hugged her to his body as she wept. It took several minutes for her to finally stop.

"I can't explain it, but you're here in my arms, alive as much as me," Dusty said.

"I feel alive, but I guess I know better. I don't understand," Scottie said.

The two sat together for several more minutes before she finally spoke again.

"Why are you here, in this place?" she asked.

"It's prom night tonight," he answered. "I didn't have a date. The girl I asked turned me down. I could have gone with another, but I didn't want to. I guess I just wanted to be alone tonight. Wallow in self-pity for a while."

"Prom night. Of course. It was prom night for me, too, when..."

The silence between the two was deafening.

"Why don't you tell me about it, Scottie?" he said softly.

Scottie spent the next few minutes whispering her story. She hesitated several times before finally admitting to Dusty that she was a virgin when she...

"Tonight could have been my first time," Dusty responded. "If I would have taken the other girl, I'm sure she would have given it up to me. I really thought hard about it. But in the end, that wasn't the way I wanted my first time to be."

"Wow. A teenage boy who doesn't think with his crotch. I am in the presence of a... unicorn," Scottie said.

Dusty could see goosebumps starting to form on Scottie's shoulders and arms.

"If it's okay with you, I can unzip my sleeping bag and we can wrap it around us to keep a little warmer. I've also got a couple of Cokes and a big bag of pretzels. I really wasn't planning on meeting anyone tonight. You know, the wallow thing," Dusty said.

Scottie smiled and nodded... and Dusty was smitten... and very confused.

As the two sat and talked, Dusty watched in fascination every time the woman took a sip of Coke and ate another pretzel. She finally caught on to what he was doing.

"Yeah, I know, this is strange," Scottie said. "Everything tastes the same as it always did. I was feeling cold, now I'm warm with the sleeping bag around us. Here, touch my hand. I'm warm. It's like I never... left."

The conversation was getting sparse as the evening went on. Dusty could see that the woman was getting tired, and he wrapped an arm around her. A few minutes later, he could feel her breathing even out as she slipped off to sleep. He liked the feeling of her body against his as they cuddled together, and before he realized it, he also was asleep.

It was light out when Dusty awoke alone. He was lying down wrapped in the sleeping bag. He reached out for Scottie, but she was gone. He confirmed that when he opened his eyes.

Dusty took down his tent and cleaned up his camp. He wondered if he should take the Coke can Scottie was drinking from and have it checked for fingerprints and DNA, like he'd seen on several TV shows he watched. He talked himself out of it, knowing there was no way he could ever explain what he experienced the previous night.

"Damn, she felt so real in my arms," he said aloud to no one.

Dusty did a six-hour shift in the local grocery as a stock boy. The job was his way to earn spending money. He was the only high school senior working as the rest of the seniors employed by the store had the weekend off for prom activities.

"Hey, loser-boy, what did you do last night; play pocket pool while all the other seniors were fucking their prom dates?" yelled Billy Rayburn, another stocker who was a junior, when Dusty punched in.

"Bite me, pizza face," Dusty rejoined to the boy whose skin was a constant source of trouble for him.

Billy grumbled but didn't come back at Dusty, knowing the latter had a quick, sharp tongue.