Maman
Part IV: Projectiles My Way
by MegaSilver
Kimberly tensed the bowstring, bringing the arrow up near the corner of her mouth. Steadily she aligned her focus to run parallel to the shaft, centred on the target and flexed the handsomely-crafted wooden longbow up and down until she felt her gaze just on spot.
Almost as soon as she had released her grip, her uncle Steve Leary called to her. "Kimberly? Someone here to see you!"
Huh? Kimberly was a bit puzzled. Who could that possibly be?
But as she walked back to her uncle's truck and recognized—who else?—her boyfriend, she could only sigh happily. Of course it was Tommy! "Hey, what are you doing here?" she asked, half-knowing already.
"Trini said you'd be out here."
Go figure.
Tommy grinned and gazed at the archery range. "Little training?" he asked in a low-pitched voice.
"Yeah," Kimberly affirmed. "After the battle yesterday I realized I'd be more helpful like this if I could get used to shooting longer-range. Lucky for me Uncle Steve's the expert!" She bounced her eyebrows. "Oh, my gosh; you know, he was telling me about this like totally cool ritualized bow hunt at the end of November, over in central France, and he showed me some pictures his friend sent him and it just looks so much more chic and noble than hunting in America…" She sighed and lowered her voice even more. "And of course that's right around the time I'll be… you know."
"Kimberly?" Mr. Leary was approaching the pair.
"Oh, Uncle Steve!" Kimberly whirled around and grinned. He wouldn't have heard anything, right? No, surely not… "Umm, I guess you've been introduced to Tommy?"
"Sure," Mr. Leary affirmed. "I'm going back on the range; I just wanted to say the two of you help yourselves if you want some of the snacks in the cooler." He handed his key to Kimberly. "You know where to find me if you want to pick back up, okay?"
"Gotcha; thanks!" Kimberly turned back to Tommy.
Tommy smiled. "Did you, ah, do archery before…"
"Hmm? Oh, no, no… not really seriously, anyway. My dad used to be really big on hunting; his parents are from Germany and they'd go back to Bavaria every year while he was growing up and they'd make it a point to hunt with my grandpa's friends, mostly along the German-French border. And then their kids became Dad's hunting partners, and when my dad met my mom he met Uncle Steve and found out he was into projectiles, Steve started going with the group abroad every year but then… well, it's not like the two of them could really hang out much after, you know, my mom filed for divorce. But by then the annual hunt meant more to Uncle Steve than to Dad, I guess, so my dad dropped the hint that he wouldn't be going so Steve wouldn't feel like he had to stay away from my dad's old friends… and my dad hasn't brought it up since." Kimberly shrugged.
"Wow" Tommy's eyes were wide. "I gotta say, that's kind of sad."
Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Whatever; I kind of have a hard time feeling sorry for my parents, you know…"
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay." Kimberly bit her upper lip. "But speaking of parents…" She looked down at her abdomen. By now it had only been a little over four weeks. April was here, and a little over two months remained before summer holiday. If she wore the right clothes—lots of baby doll dresses, nothing too tight—she could make it toward the end of the school year without showing. She hoped.
But…
"Oh, Tommy." Kimberly took a deep breath. "How am I going to go back to school September? I'll be a freaking hippo by then!"
"You won't."
"Yes, I will!"
"I mean you won't go back to Angel Grove High!"
What? Kimberly looked at Tommy funny. "Are you crazy? Drop out?"
"No! I mean, a different school. A different town, even! Kim, I'll be eighteen in June. I can work any job then. We can go off somewhere to start our family and come back when it suits us!"
Kimberly felt her stomach turn. That seemed far-off. "You… you're gonna drop out of school?"
"Well, maybe not. I mean, if I can juggle work and school—it'd be rough for a year, but—"
"Would you make enough to live?"
"I have to!"
"Or maybe not!" Kimberly protested. "Maybe it won't be so bad… I mean, tomorrow, when we tell my mom." She gulped. Somehow, she didn't really believe that. "Oh, Tommy, why do we have to tell them?" Suddenly she found herself wishing they really could just run away.
"Oh, Kim!" Tommy took her into his arms. Then he seemed to read her mind: "I wish we could just run away right now and forget about everything!"
"Even the Power Team?"
Tommy drew back slowly, a look of bewilderment on his face. "Kim, no… never!"
"But how could we—"
"We got teleportation; it'll all be okay!"
Kimberly sighed. Did all males think like this? "Tommy… I don't think Zordon would approve. We're a team; we have to be there for the others."
"But we would be, whenever—"
Kimberly shook her head. "It's not that simple," she said. "Look, I know I'm stupid and I have no idea what I'm doing in any of this. But I know one thing and that's that I can't leave Trini and Billy and Jason and Zack. Especially not with the fight. I—I'm not sure why, but… I really and truly believe Zordon chose us together on purpose. And it's not just about the fight."
Tommy turned his glance away and began inhaling and exhaling quite deeply. Something about that tense calm was highly disconcerting. True, his face didn't contain quite the antagonistic anger it had when he'd been under Rita's spell, but the atmosphere had clearly cooled quite a bit. "Look, I… I have to go," he said now. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll tell your mother tomorrow night, my parents the next. Then we'll make our plan." He began to turn to leave. "See you tomorrow."
"Tommy—"
"I'm sorry; I just… have to go think." He didn't run, but he moved quite quickly to his car and then drove off.
Kimberly didn't try to protest. She couldn't fault him for not seeing things clearly. For both of them, nothing was clear beyond tomorrow night.
Tears welled up in her eyes as the Sunday sun began to descend to the west: another weekend gone, that brief respite about to disappear before the duties and pains of Monday beckoned.
Kimberly loved weekends, of course, but for whatever reason, they rarely finished on an up note. There was always as spot of dread, even when one had cause to believe one was headed for a decent week. Even if there was no concrete reason. Even in the summertime. Even if the down only began just before the bitter end, it was almost always there, that little tremor of emptiness, some unfilled hole somewhere.
And now, suddenly, as she contemplated the precarity of their situation and their utter incompetence to navigate it, she wondered whether the dread only deepened as one got older and experienced more of life's trials.
TO BE CONTINUED…
