The Jump

3 Departure

It was decided. Lucinda was going to leave Merrill's home the following Thursday. They mapped her journey out together, landing on Breeze Bay as her destination. It was a small tourist beach town and about a fourteen hour drive from Merrill's home. The location seemed perfect, since it was far away, but not far enough that Merrill couldn't visit.

In the days that followed, Lucinda took the time to gather her things from her home. Duncan was a big help as she sifted through her things trying to decide what to take with her. She figured she wouldn't need to take much other than clothing and toiletries, and the rest she could purchase at garage sales. A small part of her also wanted to leave the rest behind so that it could be there waiting for her when she decided to visit. But ONLY to visit. Breeze Bay would become her home.

As she sat on the floor in her living room, a spread of empty boxes around her, she paused and studied Duncan while he flipped through her music collection. Admittedly she had grown fond of him. Sure he was a silly teenaged boy, but he was transitioning into adulthood, and when Merrill wasn't around to tease him, Duncan actually had deep thoughts about the world. He looked up at her with his honey brown eyes, sensing her watching him and he blushed.

"Ever heard of them?" Lucinda asked as he held a vinyl of Thin Lizzy in his hands.

"No." He shook his head.

"Go ahead, put it on." She nodded toward her record player.

On his knees, he scooted toward the record player which sat on the entertainment center by the fireplace. He rolled up the sleeves on his red flannel shirt and carefully set the vinyl on the record player before moving the needle over so it could start. The light rhythm of guitars and drums filtered through the speakers and Duncan sat back on his heels to listen. Lucinda watched him with curiosity, wondering if he'd recognize the song.

"Isn't this... a Metallica song?" he asked with a tilt of his head as he scratched it.

"Whiskey in the Jar?" Lucinda laughed softly. "Nope. It's a Thin Lizzy song, which Metallica did a cover of."

"It's a lot slower than the Metallica one..." he stared off, as if trying to concentrate on the music. "I think I actually like it better slowed down like this."

"Me too." Lucinda smiled.

They sat there as the song played on and Duncan proceeded to flip through Lucinda's vinyl collection. "You like a lot of old stuff."

"They belonged to my parents. In fact, almost everything in this house belonged to them and I just can't bring myself to throw any of it away."

"Well, they had pretty good taste in music. I mean, look at this stuff," he said as he held out a spread of vinyls. "Jimmi Hendricks, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Blondie..."

"Yep and the best part is that they got to see almost every single band or musician in that entire collection of records," Lucinda replied as she scooted closer to the wooden crate full of her parent's music.

"No way!" Duncan narrowed his eyes skeptically. "You mean to tell me that they got to see Jimmi Hendricks before he died?"

"Yep!" She giggled, excitedly. "They actually saw him at the infamous concert where he lit his guitar on fire."

"No way!" Duncan exclaimed again. "That's incredible. My uncle has a poster of that in his garage and you're telling me your parents were there to see it, in person!? No wonder you're so cool!"

Warmth spread through Lucinda's limbs at his compliment and she clutched a vinyl of Roy Orbison to her chest. "You think I'm cool?"

"Of course! I mean, it's not every day I meet a woman who isn't scared of getting knee deep in mud in a pig pen, or who has such an awesome collection of music. Not to mention how you know how to drive stick shift, which not a lot of girls know how to do and you learned how to drive a tractor faster than anyone I know." He smiled up at her and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "You're pretty great."