The Suggestion Box (Volume 1)

Part 3: Golden Gate Wishes (2)

Based on the following Suggestions:

Names: Neal D. Parker, Suzannah
Times: Winter Solstice, 5 minutes to midnight, 11:59 PM, 1988
Places: San Francisco Bay Area, cave hidden behind a waterfall
Objects: baby, electric A-frame guitar

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The next morning, on the east side of San Francisco, Neal Parker was getting ready for work. He dressed, grabbed breakfast in his apartment kitchenette, and walked down to the sidewalk. Two blocks down, and three across, and he arrived at Turntable Records. The chime sounded through the empty store when he entered. Sarah was already there, sorting returned records and making sure everything was in order for the day. She glanced up, her dull dark-blue eyes almost ready to accuse him of something.

Neal tried to smile disarmingly. "Hey," he greeted her.

"Hey yourself, Crooner," she muttered back.

Neal winced at the nickname, but tried to hide it as he moved over to the "library" side of the music store, with all the tablature books, sheet music, and fake-books.

Ever since Sarah learned from an overenthusiastic fan that he was the son of the famous "Voice of the 20's" Cal Parker, she had never missed a chance to needle him about it. The fact was, Neal had grown up determined not to ride his famous father's coattails; he was his own man—he could take up engineering if he wanted to. Never mind that he had actually inherited his father's talent for music; Neal knew there wasn't a career to be had in music, and he didn't have much time for hobbies right now. Too much of his time was spent trying to find a decent job to cover the rent, while also trying to fit in community college classes to acquire the necessary education to move to a job that could earn him a decent living. Till then, he just had to endure or ignore the teasing of his fellow record store employees.

Thirty minutes before they were scheduled to open, the front door chimed again, and the owner of Turntable Records, Beulah Moran, entered. She was reading the newspaper when she walked in, but left that out on the counter as she threaded her way back to her tiny office. Neal glanced at it as he moved to sort the CDs on the long rack at the center of the store. Ms. Moran had apparently been reading about the death of one Elena Knight. Neal smirked; he'd heard of the woman. Her mother, Teresa Mallow, had been one of the first female archaeologists in the early 1900's, always going out to digs and traveling to remote corners of the world and discovering places no one else knew existed. Everyone talked about what a shame it was for a girl like Elena to grow up without knowing her mother, since Teresa had died in the late 1930's while at a dig in Upper Egypt. If there was ever someone who would understand the aversion to continuing a "family legacy", it would be Elena Knight. She had purposed to do everything she could to avoid her mother's fate; she married a laboratory scientist who worked mostly with numbers and computers in an office, and she had encouraged her daughter—named Teresa after the famous grandmother—to pursue interests and courses of study that would keep her close to home. So far, her methods had been effective—but only time would tell which of her ancestors young Teresa would honor after her mother's death—Elena or her grandmother.

"Hey-o!" Sarah barked from behind the register. "Showtime, Crooner!"

Neal grit his teeth and glanced at the clock; eight AM—Turntable Records was now open for business. There would be time to fret over the state of his life later.

~<>~

It took Suzannah at least ten seconds to remember where she was when she finally awoke the next morning. At first, being on a mattress with her suitcase beside her confused her, but then everything that had occurred the previous day returned to her in a rush. Hunger gnawed at her belly as guilt gnawed at her heart. She knew there was no going back to the way things had been. She rolled to the edge of the mattress and heaved herself up onto her feet. Stumbling through Jordyn's bedroom to the bathroom, she turned on the faucet and splashed the cold water on her face. The mirror before her gave her an opportunity to take stock of her appearance. She saw angled features, limp, tangled hair with outgrown highlights (because last summer He had told her she'd look good in them, and by the time He'd changed His mind, the deed was done and she didn't have the money to undo it) and hazel eyes with a haunted depth to them. Not an altogether appealing picture, but it was the one she had, so she might as well make the best of it.