Mike rejoined the guys and helped to load up their instruments.
The majority of the ninety-minute drive from Chicago to Rockscoe was conducted in silence. Adriana felt awful about causing such a scene back at the studio. Nobody was sure exactly what to say, and by the time they arrived back at her home, everyone was tired and wanted to go to bed. Everyone except Adriana and Peter.
When Mike, Micky and Davy had wandered off to bed, Adriana motioned for Peter to follow her to the sliding door that led out to the back deck. They slowly tiptoed past Micky sleeping on the couch, and sliding the door open, they stood in the crisp, cold, early December air.
“Peter,” Adriana began, her thoughts finally becoming clear, “I’m sorry for bringing you out here, but we have to talk.”
“I know,” he said quietly, zipping up his midnight blue snow jacket.
“Come here,” she said, taking his hand and walking over to the edge of the deck. “You see that star up there,” Adriana asked, pointing to the sky.
“Which one,” Peter asked, trying to follow where her gloved finger was pointed.
“That one,” she said, turning him a bit to direct him, “the really bright one to the right of that cluster there.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Peter answered with a smile. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah, it really is,” she agreed dropping her hand and wrapping her arms around herself. “It reminds me of you.”
“Really,” Peter began his face lighting up, then a look of confusion invaded his face, “but I thought…”
“This is really difficult to say, Peter,” Adriana started. “That star is beautiful, but it’s so far away. I can stand here on the deck and watch it from a distance. It lights the sky and adds to the entire picture of the night, but, if I tried to get close to the star, do you know what I’d see?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Peter said, looking up at the sky and squinting.
“If I had the star next to me, it would be this burning mass, standing on its own. Very different from how I had seen it in the past. I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at it. It wouldn’t be as beautiful close up as it is in the distance. I’d think I’d want to get closer, but when I do, I just discover that it doesn’t belong with me. It belongs in the distance. Where I can still admire it,” Adriana continued.
“So,” Peter asked, looking over at her, his brown eyes shining with sadness, “I’m a disappointment? You want to keep me at a distance?”
“Oh, no, Peter,” Adriana said, placing a hand on his arm, “not at all. It’s just, I’ve realized that what I felt for you was nothing more than a crush. I watched you from afar for all those years thinking that if I could just meet you, we’d just kind of click, ya know? That we’d fit together just fine. Now that you’re here, I see that being together wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
“I think I'm beginning to understand,” Peter said after a few moments of silence, looking up at the star.
“See, to me you are like that star. I still think you are one of the greatest people I’ve ever had the honor of knowing, but it wouldn’t be fair to you or me, if we begin a relationship based on a fantasy that I’ve had in my mind. We’d end up disappointing each other,” she said, looking earnestly at Peter.
“You’re right, Adrian,” Peter said, turning to face her, “I mean, wow. These past months have been amazing. Unreal, but amazing.”
“I still want to be your friend," Adriana continued after a moment. "You deserve someone who can love you they way you love them. You’re too great of a person to have to deal with someone as indecisive as me.”
“Hey,” he said quietly, smiling his famous dimpled smile, “you’re not so bad. I guess I should have known better. You, know, read the signs or something. I didn't want to admit it, but I even got the feeling that you might like somebody else.”
“I didn’t know it was that obvious,” said Adriana, looking down.
“Yeah,” Peter said, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards him for a hug. “The only question is…who is it? Mike or Micky?”
“Davy,” Adriana said sarcastically, resting her head on his shoulder, stifling a giggle.
“Yeah, right,” Peter said, hugging her tighter and laughing that amazing, warm, Peter Tork laugh. “But seriously, Adrian,” he said, pulling her back and looking her in the eye, “whoever it is, they’re lucky. And I am more than happy to be your friend.”
“If I could turn back time! If I could find a way! I’d take back those words that have hurt you, and you’d stay,” Adriana sang from inside the studio.
The Monkees were doubled over with laughter as she danced and did her best Cher impression. “If I could reach the stars, I’d give the all to you. And you’d love me, baby, like you used to do!”
“Oh, stop, please,” Davy said, holding his stomach, laughing, “I can’t take anymore.”
“Okay,” she said, pressing her lips together in her best Cher face, “I will.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mike said, putting his hand on his own stomach, bending over, “I thought I was ‘bout to burst.”
“That was great, Adrian,” Peter said, wiping tears of laughter.
“Hey,” Micky said, smiling at her, “I think I’d like to see some more.”
“Oh, that’s enough of my silly mode for tonight,” she said, leaning against the wall, catching her breath. “Did you guys ever know Sonny and Cher?”
“They had a couple songs on the radio,” Mike said, “but we never met them.”
“That’s right,” said Adriana, thinking for a moment, “I don’t think their show came on until the seventies.”
“I watched it the other night on VH1,” Micky said, pointing at her with a drumstick, “I didn’t think it would be very funny, but Cher did this great skit about single life.”
“Oh, I love that one,” Adriana exclaimed, laughing, “but that wasn’t on the Sonny and Cher show. It was on the just ‘Cher’ show.”
“Hey,” Micky said, banging a drum, “I’ve got an idea, why don’t we bring Sonny and Cher into the future?”
“Please don’t,” Mike said, who obviously was not a big fan.
“We could do it,” continued Micky, “set the date to the early seventies in the van, then BLAMO! We could bring them back here and have the Monkees and Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour!”
“Nah,” Adriana said, when she finally stopped laughing, “nobody would ever buy it. I don’t think they’d be daft enough to go with us to the year 2000 anyway. Not like you guys.”
“Hey,” Mike said, pretending to be hurt, “We’re ‘daft’? You’re beginning to sound more and more like our little Manchester Midget every day!”
“Oooo,” Davy growled, hands on his hips, “I resemble that remark!”
“Eh,” Mike said with a shrug, “anyway, we may be ‘daft’ for coming, but I know I like it here.”
“I know,” Adriana said, winking at Mike, “but now the year 2000 better get ready for the ‘Past Lives’.”
“So, the ‘Past Lives’ are really the Monkees, huh,” Tyler Stevenson thought to himself as he crept past his usual eavesdropping spot outside the studio door.
“Boy, the FBI, CIA, NASA and everybody else I can think of calling. are going to love this. Thank goodness for Father and his connections. But first, the kind soul that I am, I’m going to let them have a chance to get out before things get out of hand. Wouldn’t want too much bad publicity surrounding the studio.”
The antagonistic Tyler, glancing at his reflection in a window, ran his hand through his slicked back red hair. Smiling at himself, he made his way outside to his black Porsche to sit and wait for Adriana Wilson and the “Past Lives” to leave so he could follow them home.
“Hey,” Peter asked from the backseat of Adriana’s van later that evening, “has anybody else noticed that black car that keeps following us?”
“Wha' black car,” Davy asked, turning in his seat to look out the back window. By that time, the Porsche had disappeared behind another car.
Peter turned to look out the back window again. “I could have sworn that car had been following us ever since we left Chicago,” he said.
“Well,” Mike answered, “maybe he’s just headed north.”
“Yeah,” Adriana nodded in agreement, “a lot of people travel around the holiday. Christmas is only a few days away. I’m sure people are just headed home.”
“I guess so,” Peter sighed and turned around to face the front.
“Deck the halls with bows of holly fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la! ‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la,” the guys sang as they lifted the Christmas tree they had picked up on the way home unto a stand in Adriana’s living room.
“I think that has to be the perfect tree,” Adriana said as she entered the living room with a huge box of decorations in her arms.
“Let me get that for you,” offered Micky.
“No, let me,” said Mike.
“No, no, that’s okay, I got it,” Adriana said as she set the box down on the floor. “I love this time of year.”
“Me too,” Peter agreed with a huge grin and a hearty nod.
“Everything always seems a little bit more peaceful at Christmas. Quieter,” said Adriana, glancing at her friends. “And here I thought I’d be spending this Christmas alone.”
“Alone,” Mike asked. “What about Jessie, Link and Ursula?”
“Oh, I’m sure I could have spent Christmas with them and their families,” Adriana said, pushing her hair behind her ears as she surveyed the boxes, “but, I don’t know, even though they’re my best friends, it almost seems kinda desperate. Like, ‘oh poor, lonely Adrian’.”
“Oh,” Mike said, “Well, here thought we’d be spending Christmas at the pad.”
“That doesn’t sound so awful,” answered Adriana, opening the large box labeled "Christmas-Basement".
“Well,” Mike continued, checking to make sure the tree was even, “it’s pretty bad when you ain’t got no presents, not much food, and no electricity. Things didn’t look too good for us this year.”
“At least you have each other. This year it would have just been me and Shorty here,” Adriana said, bending down to pick up her gray and black Tabby cat.
“Well, we’re all ‘ere now,” Davy said, clapping his hands together, “let’s decorate this tree!”
And so the five friends spent most of the night decorating the Christmas tree and rest of Adriana’s apartment. When they were finished, it looked...different. Each of them put on their special touches, so instead of one theme, it ended up looking like a collage of tastes, but, Adriana loved it. She loved spending time with the guys, period, and watching the face of the guy that she had begun to adore light up with the Christmas tree was enough to make her more then elated, but at the same time, she felt a little apprehensive, not knowing if he reciprocated her feelings.
Later on that night, the doorbell rang.
“Hark,” Davy said loudly, “I hear a knock upon yon door!”
“That’s not a knock, you idiot, that’s a doorbell,” Mike corrected him.
“Hark, I hear a doorbell upon yon door,” Davy shouted.
“Who could be here at this time of night,” Adriana asked looking at her watch. It was nearly 11:30pm.
“I’ll go with you to answer it,” Micky said, standing up and walking with Adriana over to the door, “you never know who it could be.”
Carefully opening the door, Micky and Adriana came face to face with Tyler Stevenson and a man in a dark suit with a nametag. All Adriana could make out were the letters F.B.I.
“Now,” Tyler began, “you can invite us in or you can just wait for the early edition.”
“I don’t believe this,” Adriana shouted, pacing the floor after Tyler and Mr. Smythe from the F.B.I finally left, “on top of everything he threatened to call the media and tell them about the time machine!”
“I think he’s bluffing,” Davy said.
“I don’t think so Davy,” Mike said, sitting down and letting out a sigh, “as much as I hate to admit it, that guy meant business. He said if we don’t come in for questioning tomorrow, he’s gonna tear the house apart, confiscate the van, and have us on twenty-four hour surveillance for the rest of our lives.”
“He can’t do that,” cried Peter.
“Oh, Peter,” Adriana said, folding her arms and stopping the pacing, “I’m pretty sure he could. The F.B.I. is a very powerful organization. It’s not like on TV where they can be portrayed as bumbling idiots who are easily gotten rid of. They could ruin all of our lives with just one move.”
“If we go in for questioning tomorrow, they’re bound to find out we’re not from this time period,” Micky said, nervously drumming his fingers on the coffee table.
“What are we going to do,” asked Peter.
Adriana took a deep breath and sighed. Looking at each of the guys she said the words she hoped she’d never have to say.
“Tomorrow morning, I have to send you guys back to 1967.”
“What,” they all asked in unison.
“I’ve got to,” she said, pacing once more, “I can’t be selfish and keep you guys here. When the F.B.I. finds out about the time machine, they’re going to either destroy it or exploit it. When you don’t come in for questioning tomorrow, I know they’ll come here looking for you, but you don’t have to be here. Though, I’m going to have to get Link and Jessie to take you back. I’m scheduled to work half the day.”
“On Christmas Eve,” Peter asked.
“Yes,” Adriana continued, her face reddening as she felt herself getting emotional again, “I hate to do this, but if we don’t take you guys back, who knows what will happen. I guess the van will also have to be destroyed...”
“Adrian,” Davy interrupted, looking at his friends, “we don’t want to leave.”
“I know you don’t, Davy, but I have to think about the big picture,” she said, turning to walk to her room, as the urge to cry from frustration was beginning to be too much. “It’s just not safe for you here anymore. And I won’t be responsible for ruining your lives.”
View My Guestbook
Sign My Guestbook
