Disclaimer: Okay, this is where I shift gears. This story is now rated "R," but really only because the F-bomb will show up more than once. "The Well Below the Valley" is a traditional Irish ("Trad") tune, the authorship of which I cannot determine. Please read and review! I rewrote a large portion of this chapter for the re-release and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. There's a lot of my old life in Florida wrapped up there.
Personal Affairs
Part III: Irish Fanaticism
by MegaSilver
"AAAAAAAAAUGH!"
The demons held on to Rito as tightly as they could on the suspension bridge over the dark sacrificial pit in the sub-level, but in spite of his idiocy he was quite strong and resisted their attempts to toss him over.
"But why are you doing this to me?" he whined to the devil.
"Really, dear, it's not me," she replied apologetically. "I'm just the enabler! You'll find there is very little I can do without the consent of the natural beings in this universe."
"But—AAAUGH! I don't wanna die!"
Master Vile moved closer to his son. "Rito, my boy, I've always told you to do something useful with your life and now you finally have your chance! Just give in and get ready to go home so your sister can be with us once again!"
"NOOOOOOO!" Rito shrieked in a rather shrill pitch. With a surge of brut strength, he finally threw off the grip of the demons who had seized him. One of them fell against Master Vile, who was tall enough that his center of gravity went higher than the rope ledge of the bridge—and so that little horizontal force was just enough to bring it out from over the floor of the bridge, as well.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The endless scream became lower and softer and finally vanished as Master Vile fell through the bottomless pit.
"Dad!" cried Rito.
Briefly the devil looked in after the fallen dark master, shaking her head. "Oh, my. I seem to have forgotten."
"Forgotten...? What did you forget?"
"The sacrifice has to be consensual. No matter how long and hard those demons pushed, they never could have thrown you over. You didn't want to go. I guess your father must have wanted your sister alive badly enough that it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he ought to be the sacrifice—and presto! Just at that moment, he was thrown into the pit."
She tossed her hair and smiled at Rito. "But actually, I didn't forget. I just didn't say anything; I'd never actually tried that before and I thought it would be interesting to watch."
"You're so bad!"
"Oh, thank you!" The devil reached into her purse and donned a pair of white gloves before removing a metal crucifix from a small box. She made a face. "This is the part I hate."
"Why's that?"
"Because this is the part where I have to pray!" She held the crucifix up high and cleared her throat. "Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, I, Patroller of this Earth and Guardian of the Lake of Fire, do beseech and implore Thee that by this imperfect and eternal sacrifice Thou wouldst grant temporal reprieve to one eternally departed in shame! Rita Repulsa of Vile, arise!"
That evening, a Lamborghini Diablo came to a graceful halt on a back road in some woods on the outskirts of the Bay Area. Inside, Rita Repulsa looked back from the passenger seat and glared. "You're sure the craft is hidden around here?"
"Umm… yeah, I'm sure!" said Rito.
"Well, I don't trust your memory half as far as I can throw you!"
From the driver's seat the devil pointed to a metallic object behind the trees on her right. "Is that it right there?"
Rita squinted. "Why, I believe it is! Rito, you actually got something right for a change!" The two Vile siblings exited the vehicle, but Rita held the passenger door open a minute and looked inside. "Hey, Satan, thanks for the lift!"
"Oh, it was nothing; your father and I go back so far…" She sighed. "I'm dreadfully sorry about him, by the way."
Rita swallowed, lip quivering. "It happens."
"Well, come on, then! You and your brother have to carry on in his name. All the best to augment the pact."
"You're right," agreed Rita. She sniffed and wiped away a tear. "Well, anyway, it was an honor finally meeting you!"
"Pleasure's all mine. You're much nastier than I had expected, you know!"
"Aww, you're too kind!" Rita closed the door and waved as the Diablo sped off. Then she marched into the woods, where her brother was tinkering with the ship's door. "Can't you get anything to work?" she growled, banging on the door a couple of times. It swung open and they entered.
As the craft broke through the Earth's atmosphere, Rita gritted her teeth. "Damn that piece of muscle-brained trailer trash! Rito, do you seriously mean to tell me he didn't even shed one tear at my funeral?"
"Euh… yeah, that's right! He yelled at Dad and stomped right out—said he was glad to be out of the family."
"Grr." Rita looked out the window as they flew past the moon and noticed something. "WAIT! Stop! I just noticed something. Go back!" At her command, Rito activated the reverse engines. "Yes, that's it!" Rita looked at the surface of the moon through the ship's telescope—and beheld a humble motor home. "Well, what do you know? Zedd thinks he can actually do a thing or two without us around to help! Rito, is this thing properly cloaked?"
"Euh, should be!"
"Good." Rita donned a pair of headphones and aimed a remote digital amplifier in the direction of the trailer.
"There's nothing else I can do," came Finster's voice. "Unless you want to set off alarms in the Power Chamber upon materializing on Earth, I will have to spend at least another day tweaking this thing."
She heard a monstrous growl. "I suppose it will be worth it," said Zedd. "After all, that was my problem the first time: I just wouldn't see that Kimberly was something worth waiting for!"
Rita's eyes went wide. "What?" She threw the headphones against the console. "Kimmy?" Her breaths were becoming shorter and quicker. "That barbarian miscreant is trying to court the former Pink Ranger?"
"Uh-oh," said Rito.
Down on the moon, Zedd continue to prepare the next phase of his plan, blissfully unaware of the peeping Tina gazing down on them.
"But my lord, I thought you said humans were unreliable!" protested Goldar.
"Not entirely!" Zedd contradicted. "Humans are primitive fools. If you gave them simple, well-defined, specific instructions, you would be amazed at the results you get! Oh, if only I'd remembered that before I started this!
"No matter. This time, I know step by step exactly what I need them to do, and when. I suspect the next few days will be…" He chuckled. "… just a blast! I've gone far too long without terrorizing anyone!"
It was six-thirty AM and still dark on New Year's Eve just outside of Derry, Northern Ireland. The weather was chilly, but Angus Ferguson was bundled up nicely as he sat beside a pond, puffing away on a cigarette, killing time before he had to clock in at seven. As he tossed the stub into the water and prepared to sit on a nearby rock, he saw his comrade-in-arms, Carson Morris, approaching him.
"Morrow, Angus," bade Carson. "Got a fag?"
"Aye." Angus reached into his jacket, took out two fresh cigarettes and handed one to his comrade.
As they sat smoking on a rock, a reddish light began to illuminate the pond. Angus looked behind him to the East but the sky hadn't begun to redden. Puzzled, he gazed back at the pond, where he noticed the color, increasingly intense now, was a conspicuous red-purple rather than the usual subtle red-orange of a sunrise or sunset.
"A gentleman was passing by
He asked for a drink as he got dry
At the well below the valley-o
Green grows the lily-o
Right among the bushes-o"
The balladeer bellowed out the traditional tune as he strummed his guitar at a table in the pub. Were the bartender, Brendan O'Driscoll, less occupied, he might have accompanied with his tin whistle. Alas, tonight Brendan was solo and in front of him a tall red-haired girl was opening her twenty-first birthday party with the Car Bomb: a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream dunked in two-thirds a pint of Guinness beer and downed immediately before the concoction reacted and began curdling.
Brendan kept one eye on his watch and one eye on the girl as he rooted enthusiastically: "… three… four… five… six… Seven seconds! Sláinte!"
After successfully chugging the concoction, the customer began puckering her lips, pounding her chest, and coughing. "Any second and I'm gonna be on the floor!" A nearby friend reached over to prop her up on the barstool.
"Come on now!" Brendan encouraged her. "You did grand! It's your birthday here; you can't be well out of it already!"
She wiped her mouth. "I just need some food first."
"How about some fish and chips? I'll have 'em make it extra greasy; that'll fix you up right!"
The girl nodded gratefully, still coughing intermittently.
"Nate! Make it fish and chips—deep-fried with real butter for the sweet colleen here!" Brendan called through the kitchen window as he punched in the order.
It is, perhaps, a bit cliché to describe a young Hibernian immigrant to the States bartending in an Irish pub, but such is life in the world of Irish concept bars. Besides Brendan's alluring accent—the most obvious asset of a specifically Irish bartender to an Irish pub—, however, his warm personality as well as the speed and precision with which he poured perfect pints of stout had made him an instant hit among the regulars at O'Brien's Pub in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The hours were erratic and sometimes exhausting, but nobody did this better Brendan. Even for a Fort Lauderdale bartender, he made out especially well tip-wise. At just under 20 years old, he had plenty of money to pay the rent, keep a car up, take some community college classes, and support his newly budded romantic relationship.
This line of work put Brendan in contact with a somewhat older crowd, and Kimberly Hart, his girlfriend, was one of the youngest people Brendan knew in the States. He did get a vague impression that most Americans didn't think highly of teenaged girls in general. Sure, Kimberly fulfilled a few of the stereotypes: she liked to shop, she was giddy, and she was always fixing her hair or makeup, but beyond that she was caring, energetic, dedicated and easy to talk to. To boot, she was definitely a fair lass—and she a competitive gymnast. For some reason Brendan found that latter quality extremely appealing. If Kimberly's account was accurate, her more positive qualities hadn't always been so evident, but as Brendan had said in klutzy Irish fashion, "Well, so long as that's in the past, we're grand."
And so long as she kept herself out of the pub, as well. That was another downside of bartending: a man couldn't look forward to visits from his girlfriend at work like some guys. Kimberly of course wouldn't try to order alcohol, but her mere presence there—even possibly just eating at one of the tables—could complicate things without her intending it to. As Brendan had put it: "If some eejit starts hitting on you in there, I'll defend you—and that might cost me that job." She'd seemed a little uncomfortable with the principle but had been very understanding and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
There was one more negative aspect of this job: the occasional shady character. In general they were easy enough to deal with, but from about ten-thirty tonight Brendan began to notice one particularly disturbing one. This guy had that kind of burning expression that one associated with vigilantes or drug dealers in films, which itself wasn't so scary; plenty of people came in here wanting to look "tough." This guy didn't talk; he just sat at the corner of the bar slowly sipping sherry—and seemed to be keeping an eye on Brendan . That was quite unsettling.
Business was slow this evening of New Year's Day, so the kitchen had closed at ten and Brendan tended solo until the bar closed at midnight. The bloke had remained seated until then. Brendan spent the next fifteen minutes getting the few remaining customers to drink up and another thirty cleaning the area, but he was sure that man would be waiting around somewhere.
He was right. After turning out the lights, he took the front door out, guessing the stalker would figure he'd leave through the back, and cursed himself for parking in the alley behind the pub. He did everything he could to maneuver into it discreetly, but as he approached his vehicle he heard footsteps behind him.
"Oh, feck," Brendan whispered. Come on. Just a few more feet. Just act like nothing's wrong.
He could handle himself in an ordinary brawl, but schoolyard fights and bar mêlées had nothing on someone following you down an alley, where there was no telling whether he'd have a gun. This man's physique, moreover, suggested he might well be an ex-Marine. Brendan, on the other hand, stood five feet ten inches and weighed 150 pounds. Suffice to say, this would not be an even match.
Best to avoid blows, if possible.
"Excuse me!" came a deep voice from behind, closer than he had expected. When Brendan kept walking, a powerful hand grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around. The force of the spin confirmed Brendan's initial assessments of the imparity of their respective strengths. "Hey! I was talkin' to you."
Brendan couldn't be sure, but the accent seemed to resemble those he had heard when he had lived in Brooklyn his first months in the States. Doing his best not to sound scared, he asked, "What do you want?"
"I know what you're up to with Kimberly Hart. She's mine. Stay away from her."
That did it. Brendan's sweet disposition gave way to the mad working-class Gael beneath. He momentarily forgot his fear and glared. "Bollocks, who the fuck do you think you are?" At that, the thug grabbed him.
Brendan clenched his fists, tightened his chest and breathed deeply. Terrifying as this was, it was long past time to run. The force of the grip made it clear that he was in for a licking, but had to be prepared to at least try to defend himself.
Then, staring into the man's eyes, he was astonished to see a glow that resembled red eye in flash photographs—only somewhat eerier.
"She's my girl," the man reiterated. "Don't you talk back to me… and stay away from her! I know people, and I know how to hit anyone where it hurts." With that, he released the startled lad and marched away.
That afternoon, in a Boeing 747 on the runway of London-Heathrow International Airport, Kimberly clenched her fists, hoping her grandparents wouldn't notice how tense she was. She had flown from Paris that morning to rendezvous with them and fly back to the United States.
Seated by the window now, she had a number of things on her mind, not the least of which was the burglary from several days ago. Although the cops had kept a lookout and the area had been calm since then, she couldn't stop her recurring troubled feelings. Why had the burglars only searched their apartment? Why had they just left without taking anything? What had they been after?
Perhaps it was ex-Ranger paranoia creeping up, but she couldn't completely shake the thought that those burglars had been after her—and that there would be a recurrence. But why would they have been after her? Whom did she know that would come after her in France? She'd only been here a week and a half, and she'd never even been in Europe before the last month. Maybe they'd been after her mother—although that thought brought her little comfort.
Also occupying her thoughts was her change of setting. In less than a day she would be back in Broward County, in less than a week back at school and back at practice. Everything seemed all right. But then there would be graduation in just four months… and Kimberly planned to continue on training—if she kept on qualifying—for the 1998 Pan Global Games, but… what about Cindy and Marlene? Good as they were, they weren't quite up to her level and it was anyone's guess as to when they would stop qualifying at state or regional levels.
And how would things work out with Brendan? She had told the truth when she told Trini that she hadn't considered dating him for the first two months, but that had largely been because she had been trying to remain faithful to Tommy. In reality she had always had at least a modest crush on him: she was a girl, he was, so far as she was concerned, a cute guy, and he had an Irish accent.
LAST YEAR
Kimberly moved to Coral Springs in late February 1996, a little over a week after her seventeenth birthday. All of a sudden, the time she would once have spent saving the world or goofing off with her very best friends was consecrated to gymnastics. That of course was what she wanted. But here and there a little free time popped up and loneliness would start to settle in.
By late June, however, she began to get to know Cindy and Marlene, the only other girls her age training with Coach Schmidt. Cindy, a pretty blonde girl from Boca Raton just a short drive up north, was really sweet, mostly sensible and kind of smart—perhaps not quite as smart as Trini, but still pretty brainy—though at times she could be rather ditzy for a dedicated gymnast with a fairly high G.P.A. Marlene, an Italian-American from Pennsylvania with dark reddish-brown hair, was goofy and good-natured and the sort of girl who, were she not doing intensive sports training, would likely have been a total party animal. Very fast, the three of them clicked, and suddenly Florida had begun to look less glum for the former Pink Ranger.
Hot though it was under the Florida summer sun, the threesome banded together and spent nearly every minute of their estival free time cruising to Disneyworld, to Key West, to Miami Beach, to the Everglades, to (naturally) Aventura Mall or Sawgrass Mills Mall or just over to Hollywood Beach to check out the Broadwalk.
And all of it was wonderful—well, except for Miami Beach.
Just minutes after driving into Dade County, the girls quickly learned how difficult it is to get a parking space in South Beach on a Saturday night. Once they did manage to park, they quickly learned how difficult it is to get into a trendy South Beach club when you're underage and have no connections—even with a hot gymnast's body. The only place that would let them in was a karaoke bar where Kimberly didn't even get to show off her vocal talent before Marlene's terrible singing voice attracted so many "boo"s that the poor girl couldn't bear to stay. And once they got back to where they had parked, they immediately discovered how efficiently the Miami Beach cops can tow a car. All in all, an awful night, but definitely a memorable stint that they would laugh at for years down the road.
Throughout all the adventures and misadventures, Kimberly became amazed at how varied and how exciting was the state of Florida: you could drive just one or two hours and be in a totally different world. Sure, there was plenty of variety in California, but it was much more spread out.
Before the start of the school year, Kimberly, Cindy and Marlene convinced Coach Schmidt to intervene so that they could all three attend Hollywood Hills High School for their senior year, which heretofore only Marlene had attended—and Coach Schmidt agreed that it would be better for Kimberly and Cindy to be able to commute rapidly to the gym after school. The girls were thrilled.
To celebrate, on the Saturday night before Labor Day, Marlene got the excellent idea that the trio should break with the diet and go have a traditional Irish fry-up breakfast for dinner at O'Brien's Pub in central Fort Lauderdale. She further proposed that, while out, they take advantage of one major difference between Fort Lauderdale's night scene and Miami Beach's: a great many of Fort Lauderdale's bars do not card underage clients, hence its ephitet among university-level spring breakers, "Fort Liquordale."
"Leave it to the Irish to make Guinness a breakfast food!" exclaimed Marlene with a big grin.
"Yeah, and what would you know about what Irish people eat?" asked Cindy, whose father was half Irish, sarcastically.
"Couldn't do any worse than those 'Irish Americans' with their green cream cheese bagels in New York on Saint Paddy's Day!" Marlene retorted.
"Are you crazy?" Kimberly hissed. "We can't have beer! We're already pushing it with all that pig fat!"
"Come on, Kim!" pleaded Marlene. "I've been doing gymnastics since I was little and I've never even gotten to try starting drinking!"
Kimberly didn't answer. She just shook her head. Cindy didn't react, either, indicating that while she wasn't going to moralize, she definitely wouldn't side with the beer.
"Oh, okay. You know what? You're right, anyway. Besides, it's stout beer, after all—foamy and bitter and the like… I'd probably just throw it all up if I tried it."
Marlene was actually a really good sport. But her apparent knowledge of the technicalities of beer made Kimberly wonder just how much the girl had read up on alcohols and perhaps even designer drugs—while not daring to try any of them.
At the pub, their server was an affable 20-year-old man from Galway: Brendan O'Driscoll. He and the girls got on pretty well. Marlene, and then Cindy had tried to flirt with him, and when he made a joking remark at Kimberly, Marlene said, "Huh-uh, buddy! She's spoken for!"
Brendan immediately backed down and apologized. He treated Kimberly with immaculate politeness for the rest of the evening—and, indeed, did the same for the other girls, despite their efforts to continue flirting. But towards the end, his shift was over early for the night—he had asked off—and he came over to say goodbye. The three had a lively discussion about their respective origins and vocations—Brendan's, as a bartender-slash-community college student; the others, as elite-level gymnasts—and they agreed to join Brendan and his friends for a convivial picnic in the northern part of the Gold Coast up north for Labor Day, where there would be less of a crowd than in Broward or Dade County.
The picnic was sensational: wonderful company, great food, and though Brendan and his friends had a bit of beer, they didn't go at all overboard and they didn't try to push any of it onto the girls. At one point Brendan took a time out from beach volleyball to catch his breath and sat on the sidelines. A few minutes later, Kimberly noticed he looked a bit lonely and went over to join him, although she herself wasn't at all tired.
"You having fun, are you?" he asked her with a grin.
"Yep!" she replied.
Brendan reached for the beer case and pulled up a Heineken. "Ahh… if you want—I mean, do you? I mean, I know you're—"
"No, I can't. I mean… gymnastics and all, and plus, I'm kinda…" She stopped herself short. Brendan was underage, too, after all.
"Would it bother you if I had one?"
"Oh, no, go ahead! I can drive if need be."
Brendan popped open the bottle. "Ah, we won't leave for a couple of hours and I plan on taking it easy." He nodded towards two of the guys playing volleyball. "Those two… I thought it'd be a miracle if they were still able to play volleyball today! They can slam it pretty well sometimes, but I told 'em to take it easy today."
Kimberly was really impressed.
They kept on talking, Brendan about his own life—he was quite the adventurer, leveraging connections with his first cousins to emigrate from Galway to New York City right after high school, then coming down to Florida after he decided that the mid-Atlantic winter wasn't sufficiently warmer than Ireland's—,and Kimberly about hers. As she talked, though, carefully avoiding the Ranger bit, she surprised herself at how much she actually had to say—she had gone to being a Power Ranger not too long after breaking out of her shallow cheerleader mold and hadn't really thought about a lot of the other things that had happened. She did find that she talked disproportionately about the past summer in Florida.
Marlene and Kimberly had hitched a ride with Brendan and left Kimberly's car at Brendan's place in Fort Lauderdale before picking Cindy up in Boca, but once they had dropped Brendan off, Kimberly really caught hell for her two-hour-long one-on-one talk with Brendan. "So when's the wedding, huh?"
The next day at lunch, Cindy joined in on the teasing and Kimberly finally told them to clam it. Cindy backed down immediately; Marlene persisted until Cindy calmed her down. But a few days later, the girls began to notice posters announcing the Homecoming banquet and dance. Marlene brought up the question of what Kimberly would do if perchance some guy asked her—"like him?" she whispered, nodding towards a pretty decently built football player walking past?
"You know, there's only one solution," said Cindy. "You have to ask Brendan to take you."
"What?" exclaimed Kimberly. "Oh, come on, guys, don't start this crap again!"
Cindy shook her head. "No, seriously. You go to Homecoming with an older man, and then every guy in school will be terrified of crossing him. And then you'll never have to worry that you'll cheat on Tommy for the rest of the school year!"
Kimberly lightly smacked Cindy on the shoulder. "NOT funny."
"Okay, well, that last bit, sorry about that. But seriously, Kim, you should think about it. You know someone's gonna ask you anyway. Wouldn't it be nice to have a real pretext?"
"Well, I could just… not go." Kimberly blinked back, shocked at herself. She—not go to a school dance? Once upon a time, she had lived for that junk!
"No! Come on, Kim!" pleaded Marlene. "If we all go we can have so much fun—we'll all get a limo, go for a nice spin… I mean, if Cindy and I get asked." She grimaced a bit.
"Oh, come on, you will!" Kimberly assured her friend.
"Pleeeeease?" Cindy and Marlene begged at the same time.
"Oh, all right, I'll give it a try!" Kimberly sighed, somewhat exasperated but actually starting to look forward to the notion.
So, Kimberly called up Brendan that night and explained her situation.
"A high school dance?"
"Yeah." Kimberly twirled the phone cord nervously.
"Well, I gotta be honest; I've seen some of those kids dance and it's just brutal to watch, but sure, why not? It sounds fun!"
Indeed it was. Marlene and Cindy both had dates, naturally, and the limo was sensational.
Brendan was adventurous and street-smart, but in a down-to-Earth kind of way. He definitely knew how to survive and network: she quickly discovered that he knew all sorts of creative and budget-friendly ways to live it up in South Florida, from sailing to student concerts. The trick, he explained, was to talk to lots of people, shop around attentively, and try inexpensive new things whenever possible. It seemed as though he could always survive the natural world, no matter what he woke up wanting to do. He preferred the unknown.
That was definitely a departure from Tommy, who tended more to stick to the things he knew but when he had settled on something he pursued it vigorously. Then, once he was confident he would charge head-on with relentless force, and nearly always came out victorious. In the times of war, this had meant that he would be the Lancelot Kimberly had dreamed of in her youth: her handsome prince on a White Tiger.
But Kimberly was no longer in the war…
Several fairly uneventful weeks passed: lots of training, a couple of video nights with Cindy and Marlene. Then in early November there was a three-day weekend. One week before, Brendan phoned Kimberly to say, "We're going on a yacht cruise around the Keys next weekend. One place left. You up for it?"
Kimberly was a little nervous going without Marlene and Cindy, but there were other girls on the yacht—it was mostly the same crew they'd gone on the Labor Day picnic with, and the whole weekend turned out just dandy. As for Brendan… well, they just goofed off, talked, ate, laughed, hung out with the others. Brendan was a perfect gentleman and they both took everything in stride.
But when Kimberly got back home and started to dial Tommy's number to tell him all about it, she found she couldn't. Suddenly when she thought about Tommy the whole thing seemed too much like a date. Suddenly everything she did in Florida started to seem so… detached from everything else. Like it was set apart. Almost as though nothing else had happened before, or that it had just flown by before setting her down for her new life.
Throughout the following week, Kimberly couldn't stop thinking about that weekend. Every so often, though, thoughts of Tommy and of her aborted phone call would penetrate in and the guilt would kick in. By now, Cindy and Marlene had stopped teasing her about Brendan, but somehow, that only made her guilt real rather than some superficial aggravation. She kept putting off the phone call until Saturday, when finally she managed to put the weekend out of her mind. But the call had been shorter than she'd anticipated and she'd neglected to tell a great many details about the trip.
Then Thanksgiving came. Brendan had three old friends visiting from out of town, and he invited Kimberly and Cindy—Marlene was back in Pennsylvania for the weekend—to join them for a post-Thanksgiving banquet at a neat little place he'd heard about up near Boca Raton. Cindy confirmed that it was a decent place. They mostly enjoyed themselves, even though one of the guys was a bit of a rough-mouth—and saw fit to guzzle down an entire pitcher of beer.
Back in Fort Lauderdale, Brendan's friends went upstairs to the apartment while Brendan stayed downstairs to see Kimberly off. "Listen, ah, sorry about Gerry at dinner. They're both a bit rough sometimes and I told 'em to take it easy, but I guess Paddy's a bit better at it than Gerry."
"It's okay."
"But… you know, they're good friends." Brendan sighed. "So different here."
"Really?" Kimberly leaned up against her car.
"Aye. Just what you've told me about your guy friends. Just a different experience… I grew up with Gerry and Paddy and if I go back to Galway for a visit I know I'll have a hundred people to see."
Kimberly chuckled. "Really? Wow… you know, a lot of my good friends moved out of Angel Grove."
"Aye?" At Kimberly's nod, he added, "Do you miss 'em, do you?"
"I do, said Kimberly. Especially the original core team. "What I have here in Florida, though… my friendships with Marlene and Cindy… and you, and your friends—it's just so… different." And yet somehow it seemed so much more in focus, so much bigger than everything else over the prior seventeen years.
But… how could that be? How could such a tiny sliver of life blossom to such disproportionate importance, especially after two and a half years spent saving the WORLD? Was it just because this was where she was now and it was so different from anything else she'd ever known, or was—
"Well," breathed Brendan. "I better not keep you too long. You got practice tomorrow, do you?"
"Yeah," Kimberly nodded. "Coach Schmidt said it would be a good idea if we were still in town. Marlene's coming back tomorrow night," she added for no apparent reason. "We're leaving for Denmark on December 15."
Brendan nodded. "You're spending Christmas in France, are you?"
"No, Germany actually. My grandparents still have a house near Munich; my dad and brother are coming with us. Then my brother and I are going to Paris to see my mom and stepdad for New Year's. And then…" she took a deep breath. "Right back into it all."
"I see. Ye ah… want to maybe… I mean, all of us, get together, go see a movie or something, before you all go?
Kimberly inhaled deeply. Suddenly memories of her last phone call with Tommy pierced into the moment… "Well, uh, we're pretty busy with practicing and all…"
"I see."
… and just as quickly dissipated. "I mean, yeah, we're really busy, but I'll talk to Marlene tomorrow night and let's try to have something set in place before the end of this weekend. I'd really like to get together before…" She swallowed. Before what? Just a casual little Euro-trip. She'd be coming back soon enough.
But a full five and a half weeks without seeing Brendan? Where would be all the affable Irish charm, all the spontenaity…?
Now they were gazing squarely into each other's eyes. "I really want to see you before…" Her voice cracked a little and she found herself lean just a little closer to Brendan.
Brendan leaned a bit closer, too, but stopped when he saw Kimberly had stopped and looked downward. Then she looked back upward into his eyes. They were close enough that she could hear his heart beat, and for a moment something seemed strange: she hadn't expected it to be so easy to look upward into Brendan's eyes.
He started to lean down toward her. She didn't try to back away. So their lips met, and they kissed. And kissed some more.
And some more.
Then Brendan pulled sharply away, his eyes tormented with shame. And suddenly Kimberly realized why it had been so comparatively easy to crane her neck upwards to look at Brendan: he was a full three inches shorter than was Tommy.
How could I do it? she cursed herself silently.
"I'm sorry!" breathed Brendan. He backed away a couple of steps. A few droplets of rain began to fall.
Keeping her eyes on Brendan, Kimberly got into the car, started the engine, and pulled out to drive home.
It was a terrible drive: the rain quickly became heavy, and Kimberly's barely-contained tear overflow did not help her visibility. Once she finally arrived in her grandparents' garage, she had a hard time recalling any of the details of her trip home—she'd been spaced out, images running through her head the whole time.
How many people did I kill on the road here?
She tried to exit the car but couldn't. Her legs, so powerfully in shape from the months of intensive athletics, wouldn't move. Her brain was clogged. She'd have to get it together if she wanted to move on.
How fitting. So this was it. Time to choose. Which was bigger to Kimberly, her life in Florida or her life in Angel Grove?
If she could take up the same life in Angel Grove that she had had before leaving, it would undoubtedly be a very, very grand thing. Alas! If she returned a year and a half from now, would she ask Katherine to hand over the powers of the Pink Ranger?
Doubtlessly not.
It would be February before Kimberly could make it back to Angel Grove even for a short visit. Aisha was gone. Jason, Zack and Trini were gone. Billy was no longer a Power Ranger. Her father had left, and then her mother. So little remained of everything she had known and loved except for her mother's parents, two uncles and a few cousins…
… and Tommy.
And if Tommy would wait for her for so long, would she herself be able to give up everything she had here, everything that seemed so huge all of a sudden, to have the kind of romance she had had with Tommy?
But could they have that kind of relationship, could they pick it back up after all this—she without the Power, he with?
But if she ruptured with her past, then what would happen? Her foreseeable future was in Florida, ostensibly with Brendan. What about after 1998? What if he had to move back to Ireland? What if he didn't really want to…?
Nothing was certain. Everything was risky.
But the more Kimberly thought about Tommy, and the Power Rangers, the more she knew there was one thing that was, definitely, over for her.
It was already eleven forty-five, but she did not go inside yet. She just sat in the garage, put her head down on the steering wheel and mourned her loss until after midnight.
When she'd regained control of herself, she wrote her last letter to Tommy. Besides being emotionally difficult, it was no physical cakewalk, either, since her tears kept smudging the words on the paper. After the third try, she gave up on felt-tip pen and settled for ballpoint.
Dear God, I'm such a bitch.
She had to write the letter, though. And she had to write it now or she'd be wrestling with it through the Global Games, and worse, lying to herself and to Tommy. Cruel as it was to break up by letter, a phone call would have been crueler still, and a visit was simply out of the question.
When she'd finished the letter, proofread it, sealed it in an envelope, and cried for a few minutes, she headed out the door once more, this time to the post office. She couldn't risk waking up the next morning tempted to grab it out of the mailbox, to 'wait a little bit; see how things turn out.' After returning home, brushing her teeth, and crawling into bed, she fell asleep with tears in her eyes, terrified she'd wake up wanting to take that horrible parcel back.
That did not happen. She awoke feeling rested, focused, and ready to go to practice. A large piece of her heart did feel hollow, but while it was not something she was used to, it felt right. She now had no reason to doubt that the space was meant to be cleared, that Florida was taking the place that California could no longer hold.
Before leaving her bedroom, Kimberly caught sight of the photograph of her with Tommy on the ferry. She picked it up and, with a wistful sigh, took a photo album from the shelf, removed the photograph from its frame, and placed it in its appropriate chronological position in the album. There would be no ceremonial burning or trashing; she had no such grudge or hatred to warrant such drama. She couldn't. But as she threw her gym bag over her shoulder and left, one question remained.
What do I put in that frame?
And now, sitting on that airplane, after having seen her oldest friends and even though they had tried to encourage her, she got those lingering feelings of doubt and guilt—like what if she was a traitor?
As the luxury liner sped down the runway, the thoughts weighed heavily on her mind and mixed with several days' insomnia to lull her into a peaceful sleep the entire long while to Miami.
Upon landing at Miami International Airport that evening Florida time, Kimberly's grandmother managed to shake her only halfway awake. Kimberly passed like a zombie through immigration, and it was a good thing she had made a list of the things she was bringing back to give to the customs agent, for at first the few words she was able to speak came out as mumbles. Gradually, however, she became more and more alert and by the time the agent let her pass she was fully conscious.
In the main terminal, as her grandparents were preparing to descend the stairs to the baggage claim, Kimberly caught sight of a CNN broadcast on a TV screen in one of the terminal restaurant. They were relaying a BBC segment from earlier that day about an incident in Brendan's hometown of Galway, Ireland, prompting her to pause and watch. She couldn't hear the sound in this frenzied jetport, but there were closed captions.
"At approximately eleven-thirty this morning, a pipe bomb exploded in this landmark tweed factory near Galway, killing thus far two and wounding at least twenty while causing substantial damage to one of the tweed cap assembly lines. No one has claimed responsibility for the action. Some have speculated paramilitaries from the North; however, investigators have said they are unaware what if any significance this factory would have for either Unionist or Republican causes in Northern Ireland.
"Irish President Mary Robinson and Prime Minister John Bruton have issued a joint statement vowing to catch the perpetrators and expressing sympathy to the victims and their families…"
Kimberly's heart missed a beat as she recalled some words Brendan had spoken once: "Me da? He's the foreman in a hat factory."
TO BE CONTINUED…