OCTOBER, 1990, OLYMPIA, WA

FALL FELL RAPIDLY upon Washington, bringing with it a wind chill and cloudy days that only insulated the frigid air. It was the first week of October, yet Reagan already required one of her heavier jackets to be bundled up in every time she left her house.

Besides the weather, nothing else had noticeably changed about Reagan's day-to-day life. She was working just as many hours at Wilson's as she normally would, and her family continued to be the sun that she orbited around. There was no use in wishing for anything different.

The reminiscence of Reagan having played for Nirvana had long faded like an old memory, and even the myriad of times she had retold the story to Chris did not make it feel any more real. She'd even revealed to her best friend that she had had sex with Dave in the back of the Comet Tavern. At this, Chris had high-fived her.

It was a Friday and luckily, Reagan had nabbed another day off from work. She was spending it with Chris, roaming the suburbs of Olympia and occasionally stopping to chain-smoke at random parks. They had finally found one with a swing set that wasn't falling apart. It was a good place for talking, so there they sat in the swings' bucket seats, dragging their feet absentmindedly on the ground.

"I still can't believe it," Chris said wistfully, pinching the butt-end of a cigarette between her fingers.

"Can't believe what?"

"That you played for Nirvana in Seattle at an actual show with actual people watching."

Reagan laughed, dismissing Chris's reverence of the event with a shake of her head. She looked into her lap. Recalling the night of Nirvana's show had a double meaning for her, one that she was not sure she altogether liked.

"I don't think it's that big of a deal anymore. I haven't even spoken to Kurt or Krist since it happened."

"You don't have to be on speaking terms with them for it to have been a big deal, Reagan. You went from no band, to a band, to no band again. Amazing."

"I suppose," Reagan reluctantly agreed. She stuck a Marlboro between her lips and cupped her hand around the tip, struggling to keep the flame of her lighter burning against it. Just like everything else in her life, it escaped her.

"I guess I'm just really proud that you did it," Chris said, shrugging her shoulders.

Reagan smiled at her, truly thankful that she had someone as loyal as Chris to root her on. Even if she did want to think less of the September concert and more about the present time, she was happy Chris cared enough to remember it. She had not even been there, yet she acted as if she'd watched the whole thing proudly from the crowd.

"You're the best, Chris."

"I already knew that," Chris teased, nudging Reagan's knee with her shoe.

They swung together, oscillating back and forth and breathing smoke clouds into the air. Even if it was cold and dreary outside, Reagan liked this weather the best. Something about the rain and cold combined made it easier for her to think and exercise the passions that she wished to see come to life. She even found that she drummed better on the rain-darkened days.

"Do you still think about him?"

Chris's question, asked quietly by chance, diverted Reagan's attention. She did not need clarification about who 'him' was. She'd avoided saying his name since the night they'd met.

"Yes," she answered honestly. "I do."

"Reags, why don't you just call him? It won't hurt," Chris said lightly.

"No. I can't call him. I ran away from him like a bat out of hell, right after . . . what we did. I probably pissed him off."

"From what you told me, he doesn't sound like the kind of guy to be easily pissed off."

Reagan curled her free hand into a fist atop her thigh, remembering what it had been like to sit at a high top table with Dave and talk. Even when she'd thrown out her usual mouthy remarks at him, he'd remained collected, only interested in making her smile.

And of course, he'd made her smile plenty that night.

"It doesn't really matter what he thinks now," Reagan said. "I've already made an ass out of myself. I'd be too embarrassed to call anyways."

Chris began to protest, probably planning to give a list of reasons as to why Reagan shouldn't have been ashamed of her unsociable actions, but Reagan caught her before she could speak.

"Do you want to come with me to pick up Robbie?"

Chris frowned, but did not pursue the argument of why Reagan needed to contact Dave. She was a persistent friend, the kind that would have heckled Reagan to do what would only make her happy, but it wasn't worth dealing with Reagan's stubbornness.

"Sure. What's he listening to these days? Has he finally progressed from Kenny Loggins?"

Reagan grinned, evoking the memory of her and Chris sitting in the front seat of her car, listening to the mixtape Robbie had crafted himself. They'd listened to 'Danger Zone' on repeat that day while bringing him home from school.

"I think. I showed him some Fugazi and Germs tracks not too long ago, so we'll see."

They walked back to Reagan's house to retrieve her car, stubbing out their cigarettes before climbing inside and gearing up the meager heating system. The car's air vents choked to life, spitting out all the warm air that they could. Reagan blew into her hands and Chris did the same.

There was no use in either of them pointing out that Reagan's old Honda could barely survive the colder seasons. Reagan could not afford a different car, so as she saw it, complaining was silly.

Even though they could not roll the windows down as they normally did in the summer, wind lapping against their faces as they blared music, Reagan still turned the volume dial all the way up as she drove. Chris sang along to an old Wipers song, practically shouting the lyrics to 'Mystery.' Reagan stole glances at her friend, laughing as Chris mimicked playing air guitar.

It was so easy in those moments to feel like she wasn't missing out on something.

The span of time that had dragged on since Reagan had met Dave had been more painful than she would have ever thought possible.

Reagan had once prided herself on the level of self-awareness that she toted around, crediting it as one of her strongest personality traits. She didn't need anyone to cringe with sympathy when they examined her life from the outside looking in, because she was already cognitive enough to know it just plain sucked.

But she'd pushed on, promising herself that a better future was waiting for her somewhere on the horizon. She thought that she could survive a few more grisly years working at Wilson's, churning out labor to support her family and live to see another pleased smile on her parents' faces.

And then, September twenty-second had come along. Kurt and Krist had come along. And worst yet, Dave had strolled into her life and made himself comfortable in the corner of her brain that nagged at her worse than even Kimberly ever could have.

Suddenly, Reagan had gone from the accepting, hard-working daughter to the girl who wanted to ditch it all for something that she was unsure she could even see happening. She was not positive as to what was ahead or even what she wanted to be within her reach.

A position finally playing in a band? Living in a big city? Writing for an underground punk fanzine?

Or maybe being with Dave?

As his name zipped through her thoughts once more, she snapped her teeth together and felt her muscles turn to cold lead.

It was all so ridiculous.

They'd had sex once and exchanged maybe a few sentences of conversation, and yet Reagan felt like she could not forget the drummer boy with long hair and a shy smile. He had snuck up on her like the most unexpected surprise and inadvertently changed everything.

She couldn't stand that -- she would have never let a boy change a thing about her world.

Even if those changes could have been positive in their own special way, she would have never banked on it being true. Reagan presumed that people always disappointed you in the end. Why would Dave be any different?

"Stop being quiet," Chris complained. "I miss the old Reagan. Loud, bitchy Reagan who always tried to out-sing me in the car."

Reagan made a noise of frustration as she pulled into Robbie's middle school parking lot. Chris's comment was more than just a playful dig. She didn't like being told that she had changed, especially when she'd done everything in her power not to change since that fateful night playing with Nirvana.

"I'm the same bitch as I was yesterday, last month, a year ago," Reagan ranted. "Don't get your hopes up thinking I've finally learned to shut my mouth, because I haven't."

"There's my girl," Chris grinned.

They idled the car towards the back of the parking lot, away from the long strip of vans and hatchbacks waiting for kids to pour out of the school's front doors. Reagan was tempted to light a cigarette while they waited, but decided against it. She didn't want to smoke in front of Robbie.

"Should we really embarrass him?" Chris asked mischievously, sifting through the stack of tapes that Reagan had shoved in her glove box. She selected a case displaying the Ramones and waved it.

"The Ramones aren't embarrassing, they're cool," Reagan insisted. "We would need something really, really mortifying. Like 'Careless Whisper' embarrassing."

"Aw, damn. You got any George Michael in here?"

"Do you have any New Kids on The Block in your car?" Reagan quipped back sarcastically.

"Okay, I know that was a stupid question."

They didn't have any more time to debate their music selection. Robbie appeared from out of the double doors and when he saw Reagan's car in the distance, a smile broke out across his face and he flew towards his waiting sister.

"It's you!" Robbie yelled happily, opening the door to the backseat.

"Hey Rob," Reagan smiled. She looked over her seat's headrest, watching as Robbie threw in his backpack.

"What, are you not excited to see me too?" Chris demanded.

"I'm excited to see both of you," Robbie assured her. He sat down and bounced his knees giddily, his day clearly having been made by Reagan's surprise appearance. He really did despise riding the bus.

"We were going to blast music really loud and make you blush in front of all the other kids, but we couldn't find anything humiliating enough," Chris openly admitted as she turned around in her seat.

"Reagan doesn't have bad music taste, so that makes sense why you couldn't find anything," Robbie explained articulately.

In her rearview mirror, Reagan looked at her brother and smiled softly. He was smiling right back at her, an adoring shine in his eyes; his green eyes, almost the precise shade that Reagan's were. She and Robbie were the only two Abner siblings to have irises of sage.

"He's totally kissing your ass right now," Chris muttered to Reagan.

"Heard that!" Robbie hollered.

Reagan cranked up the stereo volume again, drowning out Chris and Robbie's playful bickering. If anyone could entertain her brother, it was definitely Chris, but she was more interested in listening to music rather than their verbal sparring match. The Wipers tape she'd inserted had been replaced by the Circle Jerks; they were now all listening to 'Live Fast Die Young.'

"Hey Reagan," Robbie called over the sound of Keith Morris's violent shouting. "Did Mom tell you about your phone call?"

Reagan twisted the volume dial down, once again raising her eyes to the rearview mirror and peering back curiously at Robbie.

"What did you say?"

"Your phone call. The other night while you were at work, some guy called and asked for you. Said he was in a band named Nirvana. Mom told him you weren't home, which was true, 'cuz you were at work."

Reagan suddenly felt strange, like she was drunk all over again and sitting slouched at the Comet Tavern with a beer in her hand. She might as well have been, considering the woozy state that fell upon her as Robbie finished his story. She looked over at Chris who appeared to be just as alert as she was.

"Who was it? What did Mom say?" Reagan asked through tight lips. She was trying very hard to concentrate on the road in front of her.

"I dunno', I never heard his name. But Mom said you weren't home but she'd tell you that he called."

Kimberly had most certainly forgotten, or flat out refused, to tell Reagan about the apparent phone call. The last few days in which Reagan had crossed paths with her mother had been totally absent of any announcements about any kind of phone call at all.

It didn't take much guessing before Reagan's heart started to race. Not enough information had been given for her to make rash conclusions, but she knew one thing to be true, and that was that her mystery caller was a member of Nirvana. That meant there was one-thirds of a chance that it was who she thought, or maybe even wanted it to be, who had called searching for her.

"You're sure it was a guy? From Nirvana?" Reagan clarified, quickly aware that Robbie was her only hope of finding out the truth. She silently prayed that his talent of eavesdropping had finally come to good use.

"Oh, I'm sure," Robbie said complacently. "Mom repeated the name because I think she thought it sounded funny. And hey, you know what else? I think he said he was the drummer too."