Chapter Two
"Hey."
"Hey."
It was prom night—1994. I shut the door of the black 1989 Ford Taurus, greeting my boyfriend at the steering wheel with a quick peck on his cheek as to not ruin my make up. He smiled at me with that ever so handsome smile that made my heart flutter, and it took everything in my power to not just kiss him then and there—I would have had I not just applied my lipstick.
The back passenger side door opened, and my brother stuck his head in, wearing an obnoxiously white and black tux that he kept tugging at the tie on earlier. Mom had to keep fixing it, and Richie would fiddle with it even more. It was to the point to where the tie was loose enough that Richie could just take it off if he wanted.
"Richie. I did not say you could ride with us." My boyfriend took in a deep, somewhat frustrated breath.
"My car won't start." Richie hopped into the back of the car, shutting the door. "So. Onward and tally ho! To Bill's house!"
I started giggling to myself as I shook my head.
"I have no idea how you live with him," my boyfriend muttered as he drove off, making me almost snort. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a smile on his face.
"Michelle. Michelle. Hey."
I felt something nudging my leg, making me stir ever so slightly. "Richie, we won't be late to school, just five more minutes," I grumbled.
"What?" My brother's confused, yet very tired, voice came from beside me. "What're you talking about?"
"What?" I sat up slowly. My room was dark, and the TV was still running—some weird late night infomercial about some kind of cooking device. I fumbled for my phone, grabbing it and looking at it. It was three thirty in the morning, and my alarm was blaring. The fact that Richie heard it and I didn't astounded me. I turned the alarm off and sat up on my elbow. On my lock screen, which was a picture of my three kids I took earlier this year for family photos—I had their father and stepmother included in these, of course, and even wanted Robert to take part as he was part of the family; however, Robert said he had "urgent business to attend to" on that specific day. Part of me wondered if that urgent business just so happened to be that little secretary of his he liked so much. Lucille and Collin were sitting in the grass with Vanessa in the middle of them, the three of them smiling at the camera—Vanessa, however, was doing something that people liked to call "cheesing".
In front of this picture, however, I saw that I had five missed calls from Robert, with a text from 1:50 a.m. being the most recent thing he sent me.
I will be there to pick Vanessa up tomorrow.
Short, sweet and to the point. I rolled my eyes and got out of bed. Miraculously, both Richie and I seemed to have passed out above the covers—which would save me a lot of time and energy on making the bed. Richie sat up slowly, masking a yawn with the back of his hand.
"You wanna get a shower first?" I asked him. He only nodded in response, slowly getting off of the bed.
"I can't believe we fell asleep watching TV in the same room." He muttered. "We haven't done that since we were—"
"Since we were kids. Yeah," I muttered, nodding.
"Weird."
"Very weird." I nodded again.
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Before Richie and I left, I kissed both Lucille and Collin goodbye on the top of their heads as they slept, something I always did if I left for work while they were asleep. Except this time, of course, it wasn't for work.
The flight into Maine was quite boring. The drive to the airport was boring. The only thing that seemed somewhat eventful was the woman yelling at the airport Starbucks barista so early in the damn morning.
We slept almost the entire plane ride to Maine, only waking up when the stewardess had us do so to put on our seatbelts. We got off the plane, grabbed our luggage and went to the car rental place not too far off, settling on a red Ford mustang.
"Heads I drive, Tails you drive." Richie pulled a quarter out of his pocket.
"Deal." I nodded. Flipping the quarter up in the air, Richie then grabbed it and slapped it onto the back of his hand. Removing it, he saw the head of George Washington stare back up at him.
"Looks like I buy lunch then." I shrugged as we got into the car.
"As long as it isn't McDonald's or something like that."
"I was thinking about stopping at IHOP."
Richie nodded his head as he began to drive. "IHOP sounds so fucking good right now."
/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
It was summer. 1989. My brother and I were turning 13 later during said summer. It was a time for everyone, as we all had our own trials and tribulations that we had to get over. The biggest one being that the leader of our little group, Bill, lost his little brother not even a year ago and he spoke almost non-stop about trying to find him once school let out for the year.
As the school bell rang out for the last class of the year, I hurried my way through the crowd that was swarming through the halls to Bill Denbrough, my brother Richie, and Eddie Kaspbrak.
"…has to take, like, this super Jewy test."
"But how's it work?"
Eddie, the kid who spoke first, waved his hands a bit and shook his head. "They slice the tip of his dick off."
"They what?" I stared at Eddie as I wedged my way through a couple of kids to walk next to him as we made our way down the hall.
"Yeah. Stan's going to lose the tip of his dick at his thirteenth birthday party." Eddie clarified.
"But then Stan will have nothing left!" Richie shook his head.
"That's true." Eddie agreed.
"Wait up, you guys!" Stan, seemingly out of nowhere, hurried up behind us and came in between Bill and Eddie. I smiled somewhat bashfully at him.
"Hi, Stan."
"Hey." Stan gave off a small, slight smile and I could have sworn he was somewhat blushing. However, it could have just been my imagination. Before either of us could speak again, Bill spoke up.
"Hey, Stan, what happens at the Bar Mitzvah, anyways? Ed says they slice the tip of your d-d-d-dick off."
At this statement, Stan's face turned from one of going to answer a simple question to one of absolute confusion. My brother piped in, however, before Stan could actually clarify.
"Yeah, and I think the rabbi's gonna pull down your pants, turn to the crowd and say, "Where's the beef?"" he joked, making Bill and Eddie chuckle.
"At the Bar Mitzvah, I read from the Torah, and then I make a speech and, suddenly, I become a man." Stan clarified, though his voice was somewhat shaky as he did so.
"I could think of funner ways to become a man." Richie retorted.
""More fun", you mean." Stan corrected him.
As the five of us made our way to the stairs, we passed by Henry Bowers and his gang, which included of Henry, Patrick Hockstetter, Vic Criss, and Belch Huggins. "Oh, shit," Richie muttered as we walked past. We tried to play it cool to reach it to the stairs, though I wasn't all in all completely sure that we were. The four boys—who have been our tormentors for years, were eyeing us with a somewhat evil glint in their eyes and Hockstetter had this weird smile on his face as we walked by. Eddie, who had gotten caught up in the crowd, hurried his way back over to us as my brother spoke again. "Think they'll sign my yearbook? "Dear Richie, sorry for taking a hot, steaming dump in your backpack last March."" As he spoke, Gretta Keene stormed her way up the stairs, shoving her shoulder into Stan's, making him give her a dirty look as we made our way downstairs. ""Have a good summer."" My brother finished his joke as I looked at Stan.
"You okay?" I asked him. Stan nodded his head.
"I'm fine. She didn't hit me that hard."
"I hate her so much." I rolled my eyes.
"I think everyone does."
It was nightfall now, the drive being almost completely over, and I was grateful. The closer we got to Derry, however, the more I seemed to remember about small, dumb stupid things.
I sipped my water, looking out the window as the radio began to play Lay All Your Love On Me by ABBA. I snorted a bit. "I haven't heard this in years." I said softly.
"Me either." Richie's voice made it seem like he was lost in thought. I smiled to myself, lost in my own thoughts.
"I think the last time I was did was at my wedding. My first wedding." I nodded. Richie turned the car off of the highway. "The good wedding…" I trailed off.
"I think so. I can't believe I forgot that happened." Richie looked so confused. "God, I was a groomsman in that wedding." I nodded.
"There were a lot of things I forgot about. I was just thinking about that summer."
"What summer? There have been a lot of summers." Richie parked in the parking lot of a Chinese food restaurant.
"The eventful summer where I started for the first time. Remember that?"
Richie started laughing. "That was fun." He turned the car off. "You were so mean. Except to Beverly. Beverly was the only person you were nice to."
"Yeah. Because she understood and stole tampons, Midol and chocolate for me." I joked, and Richie chuckled softly.
"Yeah." He nodded for a minute. "God, I can't believe I forgot all about her until now. With that short red hair that she had."
I sat in silence for a moment. "Me too." I nodded. "I hope she's doing alright."
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Richie look out the driver's side window. "Well, you could probably ask her now. She's right there with some other guy." Richie got out of the car. I followed suit, watching a redheaded woman hug a tall, handsome looking man. They hugged for a good minute as my brother and I approached. The two of us looked at one another and Richie shrugged, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.
"Wow." He said, making the two break the hug. "You two look amazing. What the fuck happened to me?"
I snorted. "I got all the good looks," I joked, making Beverly chuckle softly.
"What's going on?" Richie approached the other man, who was smiling hardcore.
"Hey, man." The two did a quick, what some would call "bro-hug".
"It's Richie. Hi."
"Yeah. It's Ben."
I hugged Beverly as Richie and Ben hugged.
"Hey," I smiled softly. "It's great to see you."
"It's great to see you too." Beverly gave me a squeeze as we pulled away. Richie and Ben were doing the same.
"Hi," Richie smiled at Beverly, giving her a hug.
"Hey," Beverly returned the smile. I smiled at Ben, hugging him. His hair was neatly styled, and it looked as if he had some good facial hair beginning to appear. He was far from the fat kid that I knew years ago.
"You look great." I told him. I heard Ben chuckle softly in my ear.
"Thanks. So do you. I guess all that acting's doing well?" he asked as we pulled away.
"I like to think so." I joked, smiling more.
"Should we go inside? Meet up with everyone else?" Beverly spoke up.
"We should, yeah. I guess that was the point of coming here." Richie kept the smile on his face. The four of us made our way into the restaurant, Richie being the one stuck holding the door open for the three of us before walking in behind us. As we got closer to where we were supposed to be sitting, I felt Richie grab my elbow gently. "They have a gong." He muttered in my ear before hurrying over to it, grabbing the stick to bang on it with and banged on it once. The three other men who were already speaking turned and faced us. "This meeting of the Losers' Club has officially begun."
"Look at these guys." Said a man in a red hoodie and light blue polo. I looked at him for a moment before remembering a young boy with a fanny pack around his waist and could feel a smile spread across my face. Eddie Kaspbrak looked almost exactly the same as he did twenty seven years before. He was just older now, obviously, and had matured a lot in the face. But the smile he had on his face was that same one I knew from when we were kids.
Beside Eddie was someone I knew too well. Bill Denbrough, the now accomplished writer who somehow could not finish a book well to save his life. His dark brown hair that he had when we were kids lightened up over the course of his life into that of a dirty blonde. Next to Bill was the only kid in Derry that anyone probably ever homeschooled, and that was Mike Hanlon. Mike looked almost the exact same. His face had slimmed down, and he grew to probably be the tallest out of our group, but that was a face I knew anywhere.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my brother point to Ben, who stood in front of us, and mouth his name. He then mimed being fat, and then pointed at Ben again. Ben, who I assumed saw Richie's shadow or simply just Richie out of the corner of his eye because my brother was never sneaky in the slightest, turned back to look at him. My brother simply shoved his hands in his pockets again, smiling at Ben with this shit eating smile he's had all of his life.