John Gone (The Diaspora Trilogy) - By Michael Kayatta Page 0,1
his feet, his eyes drifted to the watch still gripping his arm. Surely there was something simple he was missing, some button, switch, or trick to it.
John stood and walked toward the house’s front door with his head still turned down at his wrist. He pulled lightly against different points around the face as he moved, hoping to find a weak point. Nothing seemed to work.
Suddenly, a familiar, feminine voice called his name from farther down the hall. “Johnny!” it exclaimed in a high-pitched squeal.
“Johnny?” he heard his mother repeat. She’d never met anyone who’d called him that.
John raised his head and saw two women close in front of him. His mother was standing addled at an answered front door, while his girlfriend stood happily on the other side, just a foot away from her. They’d met, and that wasn’t supposed to have happened.
“Molly?” John remarked. He choked on the name.
“Happy three!” she replied. Molly clacked past John’s mother in high-heeled shoes and threw her arms around John’s neck in a familiar hug. “Daddy and I came all the way from the mainland to take you out to lunch for our three week anniversary!” She looked over her shoulder at John’s mother. “Your mom can come, too. We can wait while she gets dressed.”
John’s mother looked down at the clothes she was wearing and crossed her arms over the dried coffee stain on her chest.
John slowly backed from Molly’s embrace and opened his mouth to speak. No words followed.
“You didn’t forget our three week anniversary, did you?” his girlfriend accused.
“No, of course not,” he answered defensively. It was an innocent lie. He hadn’t known that three weeks was an anniversary couples were supposed to celebrate.
“John starts his first job today,” his mother chimed in.
“Thanks, Mom,” John muttered.
Molly seemed confused. “So you weren’t planning on celebrating with me?”
“Of course I was,” he said quietly, turning his back to his mother and walking Molly a few steps away. “I just had it planned out for tonight, not this morning.”
Molly’s lips bulged into a half-frown. “You have what planned out?”
John shrugged his shoulders playfully. “It’s a surprise,” he invented.
His answer did nothing for her pouting. “Well, how will I know what to wear?” she asked.
“Just be ready by six, okay?”
“My favorite number,” she answered him, lifting her shoulders and curling her smile as tightly as her face would allow.
“John, we need to go,” his mother interrupted.
John turned and nodded to her before returning his attention to Molly. “I’ll call you tonight.”
“I’ll be getting ready,” she replied.
John’s mother stepped between them and put a hand on Molly’s shoulder. “It was nice to meet you,” she said, ushering the young, pretty blonde from the door.
“You too, Mom!” Molly answered, flittering out of the house to the front driveway.
John and his mother followed Molly outside and watched her enter the passenger’s side of a bright orange convertible parked in their driveway. The driver lowered his loud music as Molly entered the car. After a grin and a loose salute, the man revved his engine and wheeled out into the road. John noticed a vanity license plate shimmer against the sunlight as the car pulled away. It read: “Saturday.”
“Are you angry?” John asked.
“No,” his mother answered, keeping her hands on the steering wheel, and her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Why would I be angry?” It was the first she’d said since leaving the house ten minutes ago.
“I don’t know, you just seem--”
“It’s just that we’ve always been honest with each other,” she said quickly. “So why wouldn’t you tell me you were dating someone?”
“Well, I--”
“It’s not a big deal or anything,” she said. “It’s just your first girlfriend. Sort of big news.”
John closed his mouth and looked out from his window to the line of identical houses passing his eyes at twenty miles per hour, exactly the island’s speed limit.
His mother looked over to his uncomfortable face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird.”
“It’s okay,” John answered. “It’s my fault for not saying something about her sooner.”
“So her name is Molly, huh? I like that. Like Molly Ringwold.”
John looked down at the watch still adhered to his wrist and answered her absently, “No, not like whoever that is.”
His mother briefly looked over again. “I saw you pulling on that thing earlier in the hall. If it’s uncomfortable you should just take it off.”
“It’s not,” he answered quickly. “I was just trying to set the time.”