The majority of the ninety-minute drive from Chicago to Rockscoe was conducted in silence. Adriana felt awful about causing such a scene back at the studio. Nobody was sure exactly what to say, and by the time they arrived back at her home, everyone was tired and wanted to go to bed. Everyone except Adriana and Peter.
Later that night, after everyone had wandered off to bed, Adriana motioned for Peter to follow her to the sliding door that led out to the deck. They slowly tiptoed past the sleeping Micky on the couch, and sliding the door open, they stood in the crisp, cold, early December air.
“Peter,” Adriana began, “I’m sorry for bringing you out here, but we have to talk.”
“I know,” he said quietly, zipping up his midnight blue snow jacket.
“Come here,” she said, taking his hand and walking over to the edge of the deck. “You see that star up there,” Adriana asked, pointing into the night's sky.
“Which one,” Peter asked, trying to follow where her white gloved finger was pointed.
“That one,” she said, directing him, “the really bright one to the right of that cluster there.”
“Oh, I see it now,” Peter answered with a smile. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yea, it really is,” she said dropping her hand and wrapping her arms around herself. “It reminds me of you.”
“Really,” Peter began, his face lighting up, then a look of confusion evaded his face, “but I thought…”
“This is really difficult to say, Peter, but I’ll try to explain the best that I can,” Adriana started. “That star is beautiful, but it’s so far away. I can stand here on the deck and watch it from a distance. It lights the sky and adds to the entire picture of the night. But, if I tried to get close to the star, do you know what I’d see?”
“I don’t know,” Peter said, looking up at the sky and squinting.
“If I had the star next to me, it would be this burning mass, standing on it’s own. I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at it. It wouldn’t be as beautiful close up as it is in the distance. I’d think I’d want to get closer, but when I do, I just discover that it doesn’t belong with me. It belongs in the distance. Where I can still admire it and adore it,” Adriana continued.
“So,” Peter asked, looking over at her, his brown eyes shining with sadness, “I’m a disappointment? You want to keep me at a distance?”
“Oh, no, Peter,” Adriana said, placing a hand on his arm, “not at all. It’s just, I’ve realized that what I felt for you was nothing more than a crush. I watched you from afar for all those years thinking that if I only had you, my life would be perfect. That we’d fit together just fine. Now that you’re here I see that being together wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
“I think I'm beginning to understand,” Peter said after a few moments of silence, looking up at the star.
“See, to me you are like that star. I still think you are one of the greatest people I’ve ever known, but it wouldn’t be fair to you or me, if we begin a relationship based on a fantasy that I’ve had in my mind. We’d end up disappointing each other,” she said, looking earnestly at Peter.
“You’re right, Adrian,” Peter said, turning to face her, “I guess I just got so caught up in this whirlwind of time-traveling and music, that I began to forget where you were coming from.”
“Peter,” she said, reaching to touch his face, “I still want to be your friend. You deserve someone who can love you they way you love them. You’re too great of a person to have to deal with someone like me.”
“Hey,” he said quietly, touching her check, smiling his famous dimpled smile, “you’re not so bad. I guess I should have known better. You, know, read the signs. You always had that far off look in your eyes. I know you’ve fallen for someone else.”
“I didn’t know it was that obvious,” said Adriana, looking down.
“Yeah, I guess I was just trying to deny it,” Peter said, grabbing her hand in his own and pulling her towards him for a hug. “The only question is, who is it, Mike or Micky?”
“Davy,” Adriana said sarcastically, resting her head on his shoulder, stifling a giggle.
“Yeah, right,” Peter said, hugging her tighter and laughing that precious laugh. “But seriously, Adrian,” he said, pulling her back and looking her in the eye, “whoever it is, you have my blessing. And I am more than happy to be your friend.”
“If I could turn back time, if I could find a way. I’d take back those word that have hurt you, and you’d stay,” Adriana sang from inside the studio.
The Monkees were doubled over with laughter as she danced and did her best Cher impression. “If I could reach the stars, I’d give the all to you. And you’d love me, baby, like you used to do!”
“Oh, stop, please,” Davy said, holding his stomach, laughing, “I can’t take anymore.”
“Okay,” she said, pressing her lips together in her best Cher face, “I will.”
“Oh, thank you,” Mike said, putting his hand on his own stomach, bending over, “I thought I was ‘bout to burst.”
“That was great, Adrian,” Peter said, wiping tears of laughter.
“Hey,” Micky said, smiling at her, “I think I’d like to see some more.”
“Oh, that’s enough for tonight,” she said, leaning against the wall, catching her breath. “Did you guys ever know Sonny and Cher?”
“They had a couple songs on the radio,” Mike said, “but we never met them.”
“That’s right,” said Adriana, “I don’t think their show came on until the seventies.”
“I watched it the other night on VH1,” Micky said, “I didn’t think it would be very funny, but Cher did this great skit about single life.”
“Oh, I love that one,” said Adriana, laughing, “but that wasn’t on the Sonny and Cher show. It was on the just ‘Cher’ show.”
“Hey,” Micky said, “I’ve got an idea, why don’t we bring Sonny and Cher into the future?”
“Please don’t,” Mike said, who obviously was not a big fan.
“We could do it,” continued Micky, “set the date to the early seventies in the van, then BLAMO, bring them back here and have the Monkees and Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour!”
“Nah,” Adriana said, “nobody would ever buy it. I don’t think they’d go with us to the year 2000 anyway. Not like you guys.”
“Hey,” Mike said, “I like it here.”
“I know,” she said, looking at the guys, “but now the year 2000 better get ready for the ‘Past Lives’.”
“So, the ‘Past Lives’ are really the Monkees, huh,” Tyler Stevenson thought to himself as he crept past his usual eavesdropping spot outside the Past Lives’ studio door.
“Boy, the Press and the C.I.A. are going to love this. Thank goodness for Father and his connections. But first, the kind soul that I am, I’m going to let them have a chance to get out before things get out of hand.”
The antagonistic Tyler, glancing at his reflection in a window, ran his hand through his slicked back red hair. Smiling at himself, he made his way outside to his black Porsche to sit and wait for Adriana Wilson and the “Past Lives” to leave so he could follow them home.
“Hey,” Peter asked from the backseat of Adriana’s van later that evening, “has anybody else noticed that black car that keeps following us?”
“Wha' black car,” Davy asked, turning in his seat to look out the back window. The Porsche had disappeared behind another car.
Peter turned to look out the back window again. “I could have sworn that car had been following us ever since we left Chicago,” he said.
“Well,” Mike answered, “maybe he’s just headed our way.”
“Yeah,” Adriana nodded in agreement, “a lot of people travel around the holiday. Christmas is only a few days away. I’m sure people are just headed home.”
“I guess so,” Peter sighed and turned around to face the front.
“Deck the halls with bows of holly fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la,” the guys sang as they lifted the Christmas tree that they had picked up on the way home from Chicago unto a stand in Adriana’s living room.
“I think that has to be the perfect tree,” Adriana said as she entered the living room with a huge box of decorations in her arms.
“Let me get that for you,” offered Micky.
“No, let me,” said Mike.
“No, no, that’s okay, I got it,” Adriana said as she set the box down on the floor. “I love this time of year.”
“Me too,” Peter agreed.
“Everything always seems a little bit more peaceful at Christmas. Quieter,” said Adriana, glancing at her friends. “And here I thought I’d be spending this Christmas alone.”
“We thought we’d be spending Christmas at the pad,” Mike said.
“That doesn’t sound so awful,” answered Adriana, opening the large box labled "Christmas".
“Well,” Mike continued, “it’s pretty bad when you ain’t got no presents, not much food, and no electricity. Things didn’t look too good for us this year job-wise.”
“At least you have each other. This year it would have just been me and Shorty here,” Adriana said, bending down to pick up her gray and black Tabby cat.
“We’re all ‘ere now,” Davy said, “let’s decorate this tree.”
And so the five friends spent most of the night decorating the Christmas tree in Adriana’s living room. When they were finished, it looked...different. Each of them put on their special touches, so instead of one theme, it ended up looking like a collage of tastes. But, Adriana loved it. And she loved spending time with the guys. Watching the face of the man that she had begun to adore light up with the Christmas tree was enough to make her happy, but at the same time, sad because she didn’t know if he reciprocated her feelings.
Later on that night, the doorbell rang.
“Hark,” Davy said loudly, “I hear a knock upon yon door!”
“That’s not a knock you idiot, that’s a doorbell,” Mike corrected him.
“Hark, I hear a doorbell upon yon door,” Davy shouted.
“Who could be here at this time of night,” Adriana asked looking at her watch. It was nearly 11:30pm.
“I’ll go with you to answer it,” Micky said, standing up and walking with Adriana over to the door, “you never know who it could be.”
Carefully opening the door, Micky and Adriana came face to face with Tyler Stevenson and a man in a dark suit with a nametag. All Adriana could make out were the letters C.I.A.
“Now,” Tyler began, “you can invite us in or you can just wait for the early edition.”
“I don’t believe this,” Adriana shouted, “on top of everything he threatened to call the media and tell them about the time machine.”
“I think he’s bluffing,” Davy said.
“I don’t think so Davy,” Mike said, “as much as I hate to admit it, that C.I.A. guy meant business. He said if we don’t come in for questioning tomorrow, he’s gonna tear the house apart, confiscate the van, and have us on twenty-four hour surveillance for the rest of our lives.”
“He can’t do that,” said Peter.
“Oh, Peter,” Adriana said, folding her arms and stopping the pacing she'd been doing since the two visitors left, “I’m pretty sure he could. The C.I.A. is a very powerful organization. They could ruin all of our lives with just one move.”
“If we go in for questioning tomorrow, they’re bound to find out we’re not from this time period,” Micky said, nervously drumming his fingers on the coffee table.
“What are we going to do,” asked Peter.
Adriana took a deep breath and sighed. Looking at each of her friends she said the words she hoped she’d never have to say.
“Tomorrow morning, I gotta send you guys back to 1967.”
“What,” they all asked in unison.
“I’ve got to,” she said, “I can’t be selfish and keep you guys here. When the C.I.A. finds out about the time machine, they’re going to either destroy it or exploit it. When you don’t come in for questioning tomorrow, I know they’ll come here looking for you, but you don’t have to be here. I’m going to get Link and Jessie to take you back. I have to work for half a day.”
“On Christmas Eve,” Peter asked.
“Yes,” Adriana continued, as she paced back and forth again, “I hate to do this, but if we don’t take you guys back, who knows what will happen. The van will also have to be destroyed. I’m going to have Link take it to a junkyard after he takes you guys home.”
“Adrian,” Davy began, looking at his friends,“we don’t want to leave.”
“I know you don’t, Davy, but I have to think about the big picture,” she said, turning to walk to her room, as the urge to cry was beginning to be too much. “It’s just not safe for you here anymore. And I won’t be responsible for ruining your lives.”
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