RE: Trailer Trash 50 pt 1 (Patreon)

“Well dear, I have news but it isn’t good news, I’m afraid,” Mrs. William’s voice was tinny and small echoing out from the Macintire’s handset phone. “No luck on that record you were looking for, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, um,” Tabitha quirked her lip. “Evanescence? Thank you for trying. I did know it would be a long shot.”

In a rare moment of privacy, Tabitha had locked the door to her room and was sitting with the phone on the floor in a mess of strewn out bows, ribbons, wrapping paper rolls, and the gifts she was preparing. She was already part way done, with a small pile of completed Christmas gifts on one side of her that filled her with excitement. She absolutely couldn’t wait to give out presents! In her past lifetime at this age her entire focus around Christmas time was what she might be getting—she’d been fixated on what she wanted.

Now, Tabitha was completely hyped for the gifts she had to give, and for the prospect of receiving things in return she felt only mild curiosity. Each of the Game Boy Color boxes for her cousins had been opened, a pair of double-A batteries had been installed in each, the respective Pokemon cartridges slotted in and ready to go before returning each to their boxes. She’d tested each of them to ensure they worked, with one of the games ‘tested’ the whole way to Cerulean City—so that she could nab an Abra, since trading its evolution Kadabra was the only way for her to acquire an Alakazam for her own game.

Which SHOULD have been simple, because I did remember where you could find wild Abras, Tabitha recalled with a roll of her eyes. Except, I DID NOT remember how low their encounter rate was, or how annoying they were to actually catch with them fleeing right away every time!

“Now hold your horses, I didn’t say it was bad news exactly, either!” Mrs. Williams sounded smug, now. “Didn’t mention anything this past weekend and get any hopes up ‘til I’d heard something back, but I just got word today, and now I’ve got a story to tell!”

“Oh?” Tabitha tilted her head to the side so that she could pin the handset phone between her shoulder and her ear. “Do tell!”

The VHS copy of Kiki’s Delivery Service she’d bought for Hannah was examined and inspected one last time, and then Tabitha carefully lined it up on the next roll of gift paper and measured out to make an appropriate cut. Everything was trickier while the cast was still immobilizing most of her fingers, but by now she was already using her cast hand regularly to hold things in place or make small adjustments to whatever she was doing with her good hand.

“So. This all started off with me asking around the ladies I know, and turns out my good friend Sharon from choir said she has a neighbor friend that lives over on Birch street, Patricia, who has family in Arkansas. A brother and sister-in-law, and their kids. We sat down and had lunch with Patricia, oh—back in November, when you first asked me about this. I’ll have to thank you for comin’ to me to ask about this, my word, or I’d have never met ‘Tricia! She’s a hoot!”

“Anyhow, Patricia’s sister-in-law Helen got a hold of another friend of hers in Little Rock, who has a granddaughter who—well, long story short is, that your friend Amy Lee and her friends do play together at a bar called Vino’s, there. And, Amy and her friends did release an EP album, whatever that is, but hon, I’m sad to say they say it sold out, way back earlier on in the year. Almost right away! I guess they only made a few dozen copies?

“Haven’t had a chance to ask any more than that, I’ve been so busy with preparing for Christmas. I’ve got you the phone number for Vino’s, though! Helena—Patricia’s sister-in-law—was able to jot it down from her Arkansas state yellow pages. Do you have a pen or pencil handy to write this down?”

“I—I’m ready,” Tabitha confirmed, grabbing a leftover scrap of Christmas wrapping paper and the felt-tip marker she’d been using to write in names on the gifts.

In a patient tone, Mrs. Williams recited an area code and then a phone number, which Tabitha repeated out loud and copied down onto the scrap in the squeak by squeak of marker.

“Now, I do have to warn you, you’ll want to ask Sandy first and get permission before you try making any long distance calls! Those aren’t cheap, I’m afraid.”

“Oh—of course,” Tabitha winced at the reminder. “Right. Well—thank you! Thank you so much, this has been—you’ve been an enormous help! I think that if I can’t ask around there and get someone to sell or copy me something onto a cassette tape, then… maybe I’d be able to find out when they perform next, and plan a trip out to see them. It would make Elena’s whole world! I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Oh-ho, a trip?” Mrs. Williams sounded delighted. “That does sound wonderful, but again to warn you dearie—Little Rock is an eight hour drive from here! That’d be a full day of driving to get there, a stay overnight, and then a full day to get back, just about. Hmm, probably more. Whenever our Methodist Youth drive out to a concert, oh, well you know the concert itself is sure to take up most of a day all by itself.”

“Hmm,” Tabitha tapped her lip in thought. “Definitely a big weekend trip then, whenever we can find out the dates and get it all arranged.”

“Well, keep me in the loop on that!” Mrs. Williams laughed. “I’ve gotta go check my cookies. Do you bake? I’m running out another batch every few days this month it seems, so I’ve been tryin’ to mix it up and do a little bit of everything, so we can have a whole spread.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun,” Tabitha grinned. “I want to ask Mrs. Macintire if I can do some little batches here with Hannah… but I’m not sure if I should. She went out and bought a Christmas tray of sugar cookies from Food Lion, but she’s already had to police them!”

The tray had been moved to a hiding spot out of reach up on top of the refrigerator—the cookies kept ‘disappearing,’ and Hannah’s indignant claim of innocence at the time had been marred by sugar crumbs on her blouse and colored sprinkle smear by her lip. Hannah was now only allowed one each day, contingent on excellent behavior, and only after she’d finished supper.

“Hah! Well, I can understand that, I must’ve gained another pound or two just since Thanksgiving!” Mrs. Williams guffawed. “It’s my own fault—heck, I’ve got a batch of peanut butter crunch almost out of the oven, and the whole house just smells delicious.”

“Oh no!” Tabitha felt genuine sympathy for her—just imagining the scent of fresh-baked cookies had her stomach growling. “That’s just… that’s simply terrible!”

“I know!” Mrs. Williams agreed. “Someone save me from myself! I’m doing just about everything but Snowballs, this year—I’m not a huge fan of coconut, so the Williams men here just have to tough it out without them.”

“Those poor, poor souls,” Tabitha chuckled.

“I know! All they have are chocolate crinkles, ricotta puffs, brownie brittle, ginger bakes, peanut butter blossoms… aw shoot, hon. I think these are ready, I really do gotta go.”

“Don’t let them burn!” Tabitha exclaimed. “Happy holidays, and thank you again!”

“Happy holidays, dear!” Mrs. Williams called out.

At the muffled click and then tone, Tabitha hung up the phone and carefully set it to the side.

I feel… much better, Tabitha decided. I had an awful few days after seeing my parents, sure. But, I had a great birthday. I’ve played with Hannah since then, I went out with my friends—it was so cool. Just driving around and talking! Every hour I spent alone and miserable last life was just such a waste.

She carefully folded the wrapping paper over the VHS tape for Hannah in neat creases and closed the excess with tiny bits of Scotch tape from the little clear plastic dispenser. It had been decided that Hannah’s present needed to look extra, with all the bells and whistles like an overwrap of ribbon and a giant bow. She didn’t want it to be hard for the little girl to open though, so she pre-cut the ribbon after it was tied, and then closed the cut with a little hidden bit of tape. Hopefully, the whole thing would tear away easily and not be a frustration.

“Hopefully the tape won’t just unstick and have the ribbon fall off,” Tabitha lifted it up and turned it this way and that, checking her work. “Because, the big stupid bow? It’s super cute.”

Getting Elena an Evanescence album before the band exploded into popularity had been a bit of a long shot, but Tabitha wasn’t too put out about it. If things worked out okay, she’d be able to coordinate with Mrs. Seelbaugh and work out some kind of surprise trip down to see Amy Lee play live sometime around Elena’s birthday. She felt like a rift was forming between them, and Tabitha didn’t want to push on the time travel argument and create more distance.

Unless it’s SUPER clear that yeah, Evanescence is AWESOME, and I totally knew it from the future, Tabitha sported a wry smile. Hah. Need to just actually PROVE something. Words are cheap. And, Elena really is a good friend. She was wrong about the Julie thing, sure. But she still made sure someone knew. Just in case. Like I should have done back then. That’s important, and I know it couldn’t have been easy for her to do. It’s never been easy for me to talk to anyone about the Ashlee stuff.

Her first idea for Elena’s Christmas present was, however, kaput. The fallback plan was already in place, but would need a bit of work. On a trip several months ago with her grandmother, they’d snagged a snazzy black leather jacket from Salvation Army. Tabitha’d had eyes on the particular jacket for a while as she went through the rows of hanging items browsing for finds, planning on maybe wearing it and a pair of shades to the Matrix premiere with her friends next year.

Rather than branded fashion or simple classy wear for over a suit it seemed to be one for motorsports—it was designed to be a snug fit, had extra closure snaps, and the elbows and shoulders seemed reinforced with extra layers stitched in. More to the point, it looked really cool! So, when the day rolled around to where blue tags were half-off, Tabitha had bought it for six ninety-nine. Its sleeve didn’t fit around her cast, so she never got to properly try it on, and in addition its zipper was broken, but for seven bucks it was hard to complain.

I’ve never replaced a zipper, but even worst-case scenario, I imagine we could just shuck it off with the seam ripper, rig up buttons and eyeholes in like, seven or eight minutes.

Alicia was harder to shop for. Following her first gut instinct, Tabitha wanted to introduce Alicia to anime and manga properly. However, this just wasn’t much available here in 1998, yet. This was the strange before times, where manga did not occupy an entire gigantic wall of every bookstore. Hot Topic had a few anime titles, and from a brief inquiry with Casey recently Family Video also had three or four anime videos for rent, but that was it.

I feel like in my last life, Alicia must’ve for sure been into anime in the coming years, Tabitha pursed her lips as she leaned back against the bed. Maybe had lots of Inu Yasha drawings, or Cardcaptor Sakura sketches, Escaflowne, CLAMP, stuff like that. She seems the type. Loves movies, has that huge infectious enthusiasm for the stories she loves, that just kind of beams out of her when she smiles. Alicia’s cuter than she realizes when she smiles! And, she’s already made a Star Wars costume—she’s like a proto-cosplayer, already.

“So—it’s nineteen ninety-eight, and it’s semi-rural small town Kentucky,” Tabitha muttered to herself. “And, I just have a week or two left. Where am I gonna find bootleg fansub tapes of stuff like Revolutionary Girl Utena? Sandboro? See if Ziggy has a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend into anime? Mrs. Williams managed to do it for Evanescence…”

( 49, Feeling blah. | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 50 pt 2 )