PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Nineteen

The group made its way back to the United States in silence. Helga stared out the window the whole way, crying silently. Sophie finally handed her the entire box of Kleenex from her purse. No one said a word.

It was nearly seven o’clock before they crossed the border and headed for Masline. Masline was located in San Diego County, about sixty miles north of the border. Ordinarily, it would have been a drive of no more than an hour and a half, but between the broken roads and weekend traffic, it was nearly three hours before they reached Masline, and everyone was exhausted.

Tommy asked Rose if she wanted to go back to Southland for the night, but Rose declined, realizing that it would be easier to simply stay in Masline until after Trudy’s funeral, although she wasn’t sure if her mother would let her stay at the house or not. Her dilemma was solved when Sophie offered to let her stay the night at her house. Rose hadn’t told her about the problems between herself and Ruth, but she sensed that Sophie wanted to talk to someone.

They stopped by Rose’s house briefly while she went inside and picked up some fresh clothes for the following day. Rose tried to slip in quietly, but her mother heard her and came downstairs.

"Who’s down there?"

"It’s just me, Mom."

"Rose? What are you doing here?"

"I’m just going to pick up some clothes, and then I’m spending the night at Sophie’s house."

"How did you get here?"

"My friends brought me. We went down to Mexico for a funeral today, and now we’re back."

"Rose, you know I don’t want you going down there..."

"I’ve already been down there, Mom. The funeral was this afternoon. No one bothered us and the people are no different from Americans. I don’t see why you care, anyway. You’d happily put me out on the streets, which are a lot more dangerous than that little Mexican town."

Rose instantly regretted the last remark. Ruth’s eyes blazed dangerously.

"I’ve done my best for you, Rose. If you choose to throw it away, that’s your decision. Now, hurry up and get your things, and get out. Don’t come back."

"Mom!" Rose knew that her mother was upset with her, but she hadn’t realized how upset. "I still live here, you know."

"Not anymore. You’ve made your decision."

"What about the rest of my stuff? I can’t carry it all tonight. Besides, you said that I could live here as long as I was going to Elias University. The quarter won’t be over until next month."

"When did I say that?"

"When you were coercing me into getting engaged to Cal."

"I never coerced you."

"You knew that I didn’t want to marry him then. You gave me an ultimatum."

"Look, Rose...you can come back to get the rest of your things. But you’d better get them by the end of the quarter, because you’re not coming back here after that. And you won’t be spending weekends here, either."

"Fine. I don’t want to be around you anyway."

"You’d better watch it."

Rose clenched her teeth to keep herself from saying something else she’d regret and headed up the stairs. Slamming her bedroom door, she picked up her old gym bag and started throwing clothes into it. She didn’t understand her mother’s attitude at all. What was so important about marrying Cal? It was the twenty-first century, for heaven’s sake. She didn’t need a husband, and even if she did, she certainly didn’t need Cal. She wanted to live to see twenty.

Her mother had been miserably unhappy married, and had shown no desire to remarry after her husband’s death. Rose didn’t understand why her mother was pushing marriage upon her, unless Ruth, in her bitterness, was trying to make her daughter’s life as miserable as hers had been. But, Rose thought, marriage to Cal would be much worse than what Mom went through with Dad. At least Dad didn’t abuse Mom physically.

She also didn’t see what was so important about attending Elias University. There were plenty of good schools out there, ones that didn’t cost as much. Sophie had spoken highly of the college she was attending, the University of Redlands, and Trudy had been attending UC San Diego, only about forty miles drive from Masline. Rose had wanted to go to Masline City College herself in the first place, and after Jack had described it she thought it sounded even better. It wasn’t as prestigious as Elias University, but she really didn’t care about that. It was inexpensive and paced slowly enough that a person had a chance to absorb all the knowledge instead of memorizing it by rote, and she could always transfer to a university when she was done with the community college.

Rose zipped up her bag and left her room. Using her crutches to help support herself, she made her way back down the stairs. Ruth was waiting for her at the bottom.

"Good night, Rose," she said, in a far more civil tone this time. "I hope you feel better soon."

Rose looked at her oddly, then realized that her mother was staring at her crutches. "Thank you. Good night," she said, coolly but civilly. As she reached the door, she turned and asked, "Are you coming to Trudy’s memorial service tomorrow?"

"I can’t. I have to work."

"Of course. As always. Why would you ever take time for anything else?" Rose hurried out the door before Ruth could yell at her again.

Hurrying to the car, she climbed in and tossed her bag to the floor.

"How’s your mom?" Sophie asked, noticing Rose’s scowl.

"Busy, as usual. She won’t be at the memorial service tomorrow because she’ll be working." Rose’s voice was sarcastic.

"She still intent on throwing you out?" Tommy asked. Sophie looked at Rose in surprise.

"Yes. She said I can come back to get my things, and that’s all. I guess it’s just as well. We’d be at each other's throats anyway."

"Why is she throwing you out?" Sophie asked.

"She is extremely upset over the fact that I broke off the engagement with Cal, and that I won’t be attending Elias University anymore. What does she expect? I’m not going to stay with Cal after he tried to kill me."

"I thought you gave him back his ring before he pulled a gun on you and Jack," Helga said, looking away from the window for the first time.

"I did. I have my reasons."

They had reached Sophie’s house, so Tommy pulled the car over, allowing Rose and Sophie to get out. Rose dragged her gym bag out with her. They waved to Tommy and Helga before the car disappeared down the street.

As they slowly made their way up the driveway, Rose noticed that Sophie’s convertible was parked on the lawn, near where the pine tree had once stood. It still gleamed, even in the darkness, the bright blue exterior looking as if nothing had happened. Sophie stopped and slowly walked over to the car, Rose following.

"It still works," she told Rose, "even after having a tree fall on it."

Rose looked closer, now noticing that the passenger side was dented and the windshield cracked. The paint was scratched on the passenger side, bits of wood and branches scattered nearby from when the tree had been cut apart and removed. There was a gaping hole in the ground where the roots had literally been torn from the earth.

Sophie touched the cracked windshield. "I’m going to keep it...I don’t have any other transportation."

Rose was staring at the passenger seat where Trudy had died. It was too dark to tell if there were bloodstains on the seat, and Rose wasn’t so sure she wanted to know.

"The inside looks okay," Sophie told her. "Trudy...broke her neck. She didn’t bleed to death or anything. It was quick...I hope. Anyway, she was...gone...by the time I got back out here. I was parked on the street, and I had the top off the car. Maybe if I’d kept it on, things would have been okay, but it was such a nice evening, I wanted it down." She stopped, staring at the crack in the windshield. "I should have left it up."

Rose shook her head. "You didn’t know the earthquake was going to happen. I would have left the top down, too. Besides, it might not have helped. That was a powerful earthquake, and the tree was pretty big, too. Remember the time we climbed it?"

Sophie nodded, staring at the spot where the tree had once been. During their senior year of high school, they had come up with the brilliant idea of sitting in the tree on Halloween night and terrorizing the trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, not only had the trick-or-treaters been more amused than frightened, except for the smallest children, but the three girls, Rose, Sophie, and Trudy, had had to wash large quantities of pine pitch out of their clothes. They had never tried climbing a pine tree again.

"It should have been me." Sophie spoke suddenly. "It’s my car, and I’m the one who parked it under that tree."

"It shouldn’t have been anybody," Rose countered. "Not you, not Trudy, not anybody else. I guess we were just due for an earthquake, and it had to happen at that moment. You were lucky that you got through it okay, along with the rest of your family."

"I know, but still..."

A voice sounded from the front door. "Sophie? Is that you?"

"Yeah, Dad, I’m here. Rose is here, too."

"Well, come in. It’s past eleven. I don’t want you wandering around out there with the power still out."

"We’re coming." Sophie and Rose headed for the door. "It’s okay if Rose stays the night, isn’t it, Dad?"

"Yes, that’s fine. What did you do to yourself, Rose?"

"I sprained my ankle," she told him, still limping somewhat and using the crutches for support.

"And cut her arm," Sophie added gloomily. "The earthquake hurt a lot of people."

"Sophie?" Sophie’s mother made her way down the hall, feeling her way along in the darkness.

"I’m home, Mom."

"How was the funeral?"

"Sad. I hate funerals, especially open casket ones."

Her mother gave her a hug. "I know, sweetie, but it’s necessary to say good-bye when you lose people you care about."

"I know, Mom." Sophie sounded like she was trying not to cry. "Rose is staying the night, okay?"

"That’s fine. Go to bed before you wake up your brother."

At that moment, Sophie’s eleven-year-old brother, Mark, came trudging down the hall. "What’s going on?" he asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Hi, Rose."

"Hi." At eleven, Mark had reached the age where he wasn’t sure whether girls had cooties or whether they were interesting, and he had a bit of a crush on Rose. Rose humored him, but did not encourage him.

"Sophie just got home, Mark. Go back to bed," his mother told him, shooing him back down the hall.

He lingered a moment, still curious, before reluctantly heading back to his room. Sophie’s parents told them good night and headed for their own room.

Sophie carefully made her way into the garage, pulling a sleeping bag off the shelf for Rose. She returned to find Rose examining the filter that had been put on the kitchen faucet.

"What are you doing?"

"Why is there a filter on the faucet?"

"With all the broken water mains, we need to make sure we aren’t drinking contaminated water. There’s not much bottled water to be had."

Rose nodded, remembering the broken water main she had splashed through when she had gone to find Jack the night the earthquake struck. There had been other broken pipes when she had driven through the darkness seeking help.

They made their way to Sophie’s room in silence. Once there, Sophie switched on a flashlight and tossed the sleeping bag on the floor. Rose noticed that a piece of cardboard covered the window of the room, although the broken glass had been carefully removed.

Suddenly exhausted, Rose dug through her bag for her nightgown and changed into it. She unrolled the sleeping bag and slipped into it, ducking as Sophie tossed an extra pillow from her bed.

Rose had just started to doze off when she heard Sophie crying quietly. Sitting up, she found the flashlight on Sophie’s desk and switched it on.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Sophie’s voice was muffled. "Sorry to wake you, Rose."

"I wasn’t asleep yet, and besides, I spent one night this past week waking my roommates up with worse than crying."

"What were you doing?"

"Screaming. I had some awful nightmares, about...about Cal, and the earthquake and everything."

Sophie was silent for a moment. Finally, she spoke.

"It was horrible. I’d gone back inside to get my biology textbook, and suddenly the ground started shaking. I rushed for the door, but the ground shook so hard that I fell, and the window shattered. The desk tipped over, and I barely got out of the way in time. When the ground stopped shaking, I rushed outside, and I saw the tree...lying on the car. When I got there, I saw Trudy...she was still sitting up, but her head was turned halfway around and hanging to one side. I knew she was dead then, but I still had to check her pulse and make sure. Nothing. She was gone."

By this time Rose was crying, too, not just because of Sophie’s words, but because of her own guilt over having not spoken to Trudy since the wedding. She had been so depressed following the morning that Cal had raped her that she hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, and when she finally had started to feel better, she had gone to visit Jack. While she didn’t regret the time they had spent together, she wondered if it would have been too much trouble for her to take the time to call Trudy, or send her an e-mail, or stop by to see what she was doing. She and Trudy had been close friends since fourth grade, and now Trudy was gone, and Rose had never taken the time to contact her.

"Where were you when the earthquake struck?" Sophie asked her.

Rose took a deep breath, remembering. "I was at the El Pollo Loco downtown. Jack and I went to dinner there. I’d given Cal back his engagement ring, and he’d promptly used it to frame Jack for a crime he didn’t commit. Then he had the nerve to tell me that I’d made a mistake, and that he would forgive me if I put the ring back on."

"Why did you get engaged to him in the first place?"

"Mom sort of coerced me into it. The only way I could afford to attend Elias University was if Cal paid for it for me, and his paying for it was part of the marriage agreement. Mom told me that I would be out on the streets if I didn’t accept his offer, and I was too afraid of being homeless to refuse."

"You should have come to me or Trudy. Either of us would have given you a place to stay until you could find a job."

"Neither of you had much space, and I didn’t feel like I had a choice. And when you think you don’t have a choice, you don’t. Mind over matter, and all that. I realize now that I should have listened to my instincts and refused, but I sort of thought that things would eventually be okay, even as I realized I’d made a terrible mistake in accepting Cal’s proposal. Later, he found ways to control me, and I tried harder to please him, because I felt like that was all I could do, but things just kept getting worse. He got abusive—as far back as last summer was the first time he hit me—and finally I’d had enough and decided to get out of it."

"And then the earthquake struck."

"Yes. I was climbing out of the SUV, because I was too upset to drive—I’d just told Cal off—and the vehicle started shaking and threw me to the ground. I got up and realized what was happening, and then a crevice opened in the ground, which swallowed the SUV and would have swallowed me if Cal hadn’t pulled me out of the way." She paused. "I suppose I should thank him for that, although considering what he did that night, I think his bad points overshadow his good."

"Tommy and Helga told me a little of what you’d told them, about how Jack got shot and everything."

Rose nodded, and filled Sophie in on what had happened after the earthquake had struck and she had gone to find Jack.

She was crying harder when she finished. The emotional strain of the day, combined with her dread of the memorial service tomorrow and the strain of having to tell what had happened that night again, were too much. Rose crawled out of the sleeping bag and felt her way down the hall to the bathroom, where she stayed until she got more in control of herself.

When she returned, Sophie was almost asleep. "You feeling better?" she asked Rose.

"A little. I’m just tired. It’s been a hell of week."

"You’re right. It has. And we still have to get through the memorial service tomorrow." Sophie pulled her bedspread up to her chin. "Good night, Rose."

"’Night, Sophie." Rose lay down and closed her eyes, but this time sleep eluded her, and it was two hours before she finally dozed off.

Chapter Twenty
Stories