Laughing Fate (25 page)

She lay in her bed thinking back on her date with Potter. Part of her was scared at how fast it all was going. She’d only known Potter a short time and already she had said she’d loved him and started a relationship with him. She was half afraid that she’d passed the point of no return. If Potter walked away right now, she would be left broken hearted. She’d be one of those tragic women who just wasted away without their love.

Puck snorted. Ok, maybe she was being just a tad over dramatic. The point that she was trying to make was that she had grown used to Potter and would miss him if he ever went away. Love was supposed to make you stronger, not make you waste away. Puck tossed and turned in her bed, beating her pillow with her fist trying to find a comfortable position. For someone who did not believe in love she sure had a lot of opinions about it.

Puck squeezed her eyes shut and tried to drown out all of her thoughts. She just wanted to sleep, she didn’t want to analyze her feelings for Potter. She let her thoughts wonder, pictures of Potter scrolling through her brain. When she finally fell asleep she had a smile on her lips.

****

The month of October quickly sped by. Puck went with her sister for the ultrasound, relieved to find out that both mother and child were healthy. Perri was finally warming up to her again and they had spent many nights staying up all night long discussing her child.

It still freaked Puck out to think of her baby sister having a child, but she kept reminding herself that her sister was legally an adult. Puck knew in her heart that Perri would make a wonderful mother, she would be just stern enough to keep her baby from turning into a brat. She would also be loving and fun, a great role model for her child.

She hadn’t seen as much of Potter as she would have liked, but she had been so busy with work and her sister that she just didn’t have the time. Potter had been understanding about it all and had started hanging out at the diner along with all of his gang. They sure had livened up the diner, even more than it usually was. They claimed the booth at the back as their own and would sit there drinking beer, starting food fights, wrestling, and singing little ditties.

Puck smiled as she remembered one particular evening when Brad had thrown a bread stick at Dave, missed and hit the Pastor of the local church right in the head. The man of God had looked so mad that he had probably started praying to God to smite Brad right there and then. He had stalked out of there all self righteous and puffed up and the next day at church he made a special mention of the young hooligans of their town who were the spawns of the devil.

Puck quickly brushed her hair and checked out her appearance in the mirror. She was wearing her favorite pair of blue jeans that had been worn for football, soccer, hiking, wrestling, and many other fun adventures. They showed all the wear and tear that had been inflicted on them, but were the most comfortable jeans that she owned. She also wore a black star wars shirt, which was actually a little boy’s shirt that she had bought years ago. Her hair was pulled back in her usual pony tail and a wide smile was on her face. She was going on a secret adventure!

It was the beginning of November and the weather had turned cold, but it had not yet started raining. It was time for one last hike before the weather turned sour. She planned on leaving her house by 7 am and driving to a secluded part of the mountains known as Kneeland. It was some 45 miles east of Trinidad and was a windy steep road that went to the very top of the mountain. At the top one could find streams and forests and adventures galore.

She had purposefully decided not to tell anyone about her hike. Potter still freaked out anytime she mentioned going for a walk (he kept envisioning her pulling a stunt like she had at Skinny Meadow, but with more dire consequences) and Perri had been going on and on about some serial killer on the loose that was leaving bodies in the slough.  Sandy was an old fashioned type of gal that just stuck to “Do you want to end up like Karen Miller?”

Karen had been a school girl that went missing one summer in a town south of Sunny Cove. At her disappearance she became a minor celebrity- all the parents and teachers used her as an example to the younger generation to illustrate the need of being safety conscience.  It happened 10 years ago and yet die hard locals still used her as an excuse to squash fun adventures.

It was still early in the day, plenty of time to sneak out of her house and drive up into the mountains. She didn’t have an exact idea of what she’d do once she got there, but she figured something would pop up. It always did. Best of all, Perri was going shopping with her friends and then would join Puck at Potters for a movie night, so no one would be the wiser of her little adventure as long as she got back in time.

Puck grinned as she yelled at Perri that she’d be paying some bills and that she would see her at Potter’s at 6 pm. She then ran out the door and made her getaway. She noticed a slight ‘Ker-plunking’ coming from underneath her Jeep’s hood, but ignored it blithely. Today was going to be fabulous, she would not let car problems mess with it!

The drive to Kneeland was full of breath taking scenery. The trees grew in wild abandon, untouched by the logging companies. To the right side of the road was a steep drop off that met the river down below. The road started out paved but quickly turned into an old dirt road with bumps and sharp turns.  It was just challenging enough to send a thrill through Puck as she made the turns a tad too fast, bringing back memories of past trips up here.

One time she had been driving an elderly lady up here to the small airport at the top of the mountain. It was a rarely used airport sitting on a grassy hill that rose above the forest. The whole drive up here the old bat had been saying, “Please slow down, please slow down.” Puck had put up with the lady as a favor to her mom and had even slowed down to 30 mph, which was much slower than she usually went up this road. She knew every twist and turn like the back of her hand. This had been a favorite spot of Drea’s and Kyle’s.

She pushed that last thought away. As it was getting closer to December, she found her thoughts being drawn to those two more and more. At such times she truly thought she hated herself and found herself not caring much what happened to her.  But she was an expert at burying those feelings so she just did what she always did: she concentrated on the adventure at hand. There were so many people in the world that had gone through worse stuff than she had, so who was she to be in the depths of despair? She should be grateful to be alive and have the freedom of going on this adventure.

Puck turned the volume up on her stereo to drown out her thoughts. This was a fun day darn it! She had been driving on auto pilot the last couple of miles, her foot steadily pressing on the gas, and had failed to notice the rather nasty turn ahead of her. She quickly slammed on her breaks and watched as her car skidded sideways towards the edge.

Time seemed to slow down as Puck stared out the windshield. She was no longer in control of her jeep, just a mere spectator in life. Her hands gripped the wheel strongly, turning it sharply to counteract the skid. She felt her heart racing, fear and excitement racing through her body. The edge was getting entirely too close. With a kick, time sped back up, her jeep still sliding along the road.

When her jeep had come to a stop just a foot away from the edge, Puck let out a little laugh. She felt adrenaline rushing through her veins and let out another laugh. She started her car and resumed her drive up the road. She would not be telling that little story to Potter or Perri. She cocked her head to the side and decided to tell Sandy though. Sandy was familiar with all of her near death experiences- had actually been a participant for some of them- and wouldn’t yell too loud at Puck.

Puck made it the rest of the way with out incident and soon found herself lost in a little secluded world where one could easily imagine they were an intrepid adventurer exploring a new land. She hadn’t passed a single car on the way and would probably not run into a single soul either.

She parked her car on a little trucking road that ran further up the mountain and got out to hike to the river. There wasn’t exactly a trail and Puck didn’t know exactly where she was going, but she had always been good at fumbling around lost until she found what she wanted. With a huge grin on her face, Puck marched into the woods with her handy dandy backpack full of all the essentials.

She finally found the river about half an hour later and sat on a log that lay across it, forming a bridge about four feet above the raging waters. She lay back against the wood, staring up at the sky. There were clouds softly moving along with the wind, a peaceful sight that mesmerized Puck for several minutes. The chirping of birds and the raging waters soothed Puck and helped the stress just float away as if carried away by the water.

She sat up and rummaged through her backpack until she found her romance novel and laid back down ready to be immersed in the world where werewolves existed and women kicked butt. She was so engrossed in her book that it took her a while to notice her cell phone going off. It was a jaunty tune by Flogging Molly about drinking and fighting and whoring. Ah, a great song indeed! She carefully set the book on the log so it wouldn’t fall off and grabbed her phone.

She had a text message from Potter that said: “
Hi, whatchya doin? U still coming at 6?”

Puck glanced at the digital clock on her phone and winced. It was already 4 pm. She’d have to hurry up and hike back to her car to make it home in time. Dang it! Her novel had just gotten to the interesting part! She sat up and swung her legs around so she wasn’t straddling the log and quickly texted a reply.

“
Sure will! Just doing some errands real quick. Miss u
!J
”

“
Miss u 2! I’m surprised yur not out on an adventure, isn’t this yur day off?”

“
Ya well gots to be a mature adult sometimes…”

“
KK, see ya at 6. O bring your bikini- we can sneak out for a quick surf session after the movi
eJ
”

“
Yeah right. In your dreams. Gots to go, l8r!”

Puck smiled at her phone, rubbing the screen with her thumb. She slid her phone open again and on impulse texted:
“loves ya”
.

She waited with bated breath for Potter’s reply. She had only said she loved him once and that had been on accident. There was a long pause and then the opening chorus to her ring tone sang out. She quickly opened the message, nervous as to what Potter would say.

“I know u do lol”

Puck stared at the screen with her mouth open. How dare he? She wasn’t truly angry, actually she was quite amused.  However, she could hear the battle call sounding off in her brain, so she quickly texted back:

“
Uh! U do realize that now u will never see me in a bikini????”

“
Baby I’m sorry! Loves ya too
!J
”

“
Don’t call me baby!”

“
Will do. Don’t forget yur bikini”

Puck smiled at her phone and sat it carefully on the log. She then grabbed her book and stuffed it in her backpack. She carefully stood up on the log and bent down to pick up her pack and cell phone. She watched in horror as her phone slowly slid off the log and into the raging waters below. Holy Crap! Puck stared after the little white shape floating merrily away, two hundred dollars just slipping away. Crap!

Puck was still cursing and mumbling under her breath when she reached her car. She threw her backpack in the back seat and sped down the mountain. She still couldn’t believe that she’d lost her cell phone! She heard the odd klunking noise again from her jeep and began cursing that too. Couldn’t anything go right?

At that moment her jeep began giving off a high pitched whine and smoke started billowing out of the hood. She let it drift on to the side of the dirt road and told herself not to worry. Maybe it was just over heated? As long as it was a radiator problem then she could fix it. Her very first car had had a busted radiator, an oil leak, as well as a fan that wouldn’t turn off- so she’d had to fill it with water, oil and plug and unplug the fan manually every time she drove it. Come to think of it, she could also handle a battery problem…as long another car was here to jump it.

Puck glanced to her right and left and sighed. Who was she kidding? She was all alone on this one.  She checked the radiator which seemed ok and the oil which was also fine. She had no idea why it was smoking, her small reservoir of knowledge having been spent. She shut the hood in disgust and got back inside her jeep. She’d wait another couple minutes and then she’d try to start it again.

She told herself that no matter what happened she’d be ok, that this would be one heck of a story to tell her friends about. After a half an hour she tried her car again, but it was well and truly dead. She glanced at the clock in her jeep and felt frustration wash over her. She was going to be late. She hated being late.

“Time of death 5 pm,” she solemnly said to no one in particular. She had always wanted to be a doctor. If she’d been rich and had actually gone to college she would have become one and then she’d randomly pop into rooms and declare, “Time of death…” just to freak out patients and family members. Maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t a doctor…