Stuck in the 70's Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group. Published by The Penguin Group.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2007 by D. L. Garfinkle. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher,

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street,

  New York, NY 10014. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. Published simultaneously in Canada.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Garfinkle, D. L. (Debra L.) Stuck in the 70’s / D. L. Garfinkle. p. cm.

  Summary: A spoiled, rich, seventeen-year-old girl is mysteriously transported from 2006 Los Angeles back to 1978, where she meets Tyler, a super-smart high school senior who promises to help her return to 2006 if she will give him some lessons on how to be popular. [1. Popularity—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction. 3. Feminism—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Nineteen seventies—Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction.]

  I. Title. II. Title: Stuck in the seventies.

  PZ7.G17975Stu 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006034460

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17692-4

  First Impression

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Judy Green, world’s greatest mother, who has stuck by me always.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s embarrassing how many terrific writer friends I needed to critique this manuscript, including Cieran Blumenthal, Diane Davis, Jody Feldman, Paige Feldman, Collyn Justus, Martha Peaslee Levine, Mary Beth Miller, Elizabeth Paterras, Marlene Perez, Lori Polydoros, Kate Tuthill, and Tony Varrato. I appreciate their helpful advice and blame them entirely for all flaws in this book.

  I’m grateful for Judy Green, April Holland, and Lane Klein, who are not only wonderful relatives but do great unpaid PR.

  I thank my agent Laura Rennert for making everything seem easy.

  And thanks to John Rudolph—kind person, insightful editor, and user of much red ink.

  I’m grateful to my husband, Jeff Garfinkle. After the normal government lawyer he married turned into an obsessed fiction writer, he hardly ever complained.

  And I thank my children, who on a daily basis confirm my belief in miracles.

  1

  There’s a beautiful naked girl sitting in my bathtub. It’s two A.M. and the splashing woke me. Or did it? Maybe I’m dreaming. I blink my eyes about fifty times. She’s still there. Still—blond-haired, thin-armed, and round-breasted—very much there. Even with L.A.’s inferior water quality, I can see her clearly. And clearly she’s gorgeous. Just a few melting bubbles play on her shiny skin.

  Oh, to be one of those bubbles. One clings to her knee, which pokes above the waterline. The girl’s head is thrown back. Her neck is smooth and pale and long. She holds a champagne glass in the air as if she’s making a toast. Her eyes are closed, but I don’t think she’s asleep. Possibly she’s meditating. Possibly she’s stoned.

  I do what any heterosexual seventeen-year-old guy would do: stand frozen at the door with my mouth open and gawk.

  Maybe not any heterosexual teenage guy. For instance, if I were a confident, popular guy like Rick The Dick Bowden, I’d probably strip off my L.A. Rams pajamas and join her in the bathtub. Not that The Dick would even own L.A. Rams pajamas. He probably wears a maroon smoking jacket like Hugh Hefner or sleeps in the buff.

  Maybe God’s answering my prayers in a big way. Or this could be a practical joke, an excellent one. Or a present. Christmas is coming soon, but I can’t think who would give me a gift like this. My best friend, Evie, wouldn’t do this. The last present she gave me was a glow-in-the-dark calculator, which was very cool, but geek-cool, not cool in the same way a naked girl in your bathtub is cool.

  Given the choice, I’d pick the naked girl.

  She opens her eyes. They’re Darth Vader black, very soulful and weary.

  My heart is going crazy. I think I’m in love.

  She looks at me, at the red wallpaper behind me, then finally out the small window at the end of the bathroom. It’s as if she’s searching for something, yearning and needful.

  I try not to ogle her body, but I can’t help it. I ask the girl, “How can I help you?”

  Her voice is velvet and I almost miss the words. “Who the hell are you?”

  She looks around, as if expecting to see people hiding behind the toilet or crouched against the bathroom cupboards. “Jake? Mariel? Where am I? What happened to the Jacuzzi tub? And what is that on the walls?”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “Is that wallpaper, like, fuzzy, or am I completely wasted?”

  “Both, probably,” I say. “You’re wasted and the wallpaper’s flocked.”

  “Flocked?” Then she starts shaking with laughter. Every part of her shakes, most importantly her breasts.

  I stare at the wall. “It’s new wallpaper. My mom picked it out. She wanted to modernize the room.” Wow, do I sound like a dork.

  “This is how your mom modernizes the room?” she asks. “That wallpaper is, like, total seventies.”

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s the point. This room actually used to be pink and black, which my mother says was popular in the fifties.” My heartbeat has slowed down, finally. Hearing me pontificate on room renovation could drag the life out of anything.

  I feel brave enough to look at her again and force my jaw not to drop. Now I not
ice her smooth skin the color of Pringles and a scent fresh as—well, fresh as someone in a mildly bubbly bathtub.

  “So, what, your mom’s like a Martha Stewart?”

  “Who’s Martha Stewart? My brain isn’t exactly in top condition at two in the morning,” I say.

  “It’s two A.M.?”

  “Not exactly. It was approximately two seventeen when I got out of bed a few minutes ago.” Nerd alert! Nerd alert!

  “What the hell went on today?” She blinks like crazy. Is she about to cry? Please, no. I won’t be able to stand it. Not that girls cry in front of me all the time, but when it happens it kills me. Cheryl Thompson cried in Honors Algebra class after she got caught looking at my test answers. I hear Mom cry in her bedroom sometimes.

  “So who’s Martha Stewart?” I say, hoping to get the girl’s mind off whatever is giving her the urge to cry.

  She swipes her eyes with her hands, and I get to see a close-up view of her breasts—both of them, completely unblocked. They’re the greatest, most fantastic, amazing sight I’ve ever seen. Or probably ever will see.

  “Martha Stewart. That zillionaire who makes her own soap and stuff,” she says.

  I nod, but have no idea who she’s talking about.

  She sniffs in, big, as if taking back all the potential sobs and saving them for someone more worthwhile. “I need to get out of this damn tub.”

  “Of course.” No! Please, God, stay!

  “Can you get me a clean towel? Large and fluffy, preferby. Ferably.” She’s obviously drunk as a skunk. Finally, she pronounces the word properly—“ pre- fer-ably”—spending approximately three seconds per correctly enunciated syllable.

  “I’ll bring you a towel.”

  “I still don’t get this seventies look in here. What about 2006?” She shakes her head.

  To stave off a possible heart attack, I have to look away again. Yikes! I’m facing the mirror and staring at the naked girl’s reflection.

  I close my eyes. “In 2006, they might not even use wallpaper. Perhaps thirty years in the future they’ll just project holographic beams onto walls.”

  “Thirty years? Are you drunk too?”

  “Twenty-eight years, actually,” I say. “Two thousand six minus 1978. Equals twenty-eight years.” Help! Geek on the loose!

  “It’s 1978?”

  “Yes.” I hold myself back from saying duh.

  “You’re telling me I’m no longer at Jake’s house, it’s no longer daytime, and it’s no longer 2006? I’m in a stranger’s house, in the middle of the night, thirty years before 2006?”

  “Actually, twenty-eight years.”

  “This is so not funny anymore. Jake? Mariel? Mom? Where’s my cell phone?”

  “What’s a cell phone?”

  “Please, just get me a towel and then get me the hell out of here.”

  I rush to the linen closet and pray that the girl will still be in my bathtub when I return.

  2

  I’m sitting on a furry gold toilet lid, wrapped up in a thin Jaws beach towel and slapping my cheeks, hoping to sober up from a horrible hallucination. I put my hand on the wall and feel fuzz, or flock as the guy calls it, and tell myself I’m never drinking again.

  What the hell happened tonight? Think, Shay, think.My head hurts. I close my eyes.

  The last thing I remember, I was in Jake’s Jacuzzi tub. His parents’, really, and Mariel was yelling at me in Spanish. That was it. Nothing, like, incredibly strange. So how did I end up here? And what’s with this boy telling me it’s 1978? Think, Shay.

  There’s a knock on the door and a whisper. “It’s me. Tyler.”

  Now what?

  I crack open the door.

  He’s got a big fugly T -s hirt neatly folded in his arms. “You can wear this for now. Come into my room and we can rap.”

  “Rap?”

  “You know. Work it out.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not having sex with you.”

  “I d idn’t.” He blushes, b ig-t ime. “That’s not. What I. That’s not what I meant.”

  Sure he d idn’t. I may not know much, but I know guys. I shove the bathroom door closed, leaving him out in the hall.

  But I don’t come out of the hallucination, and Jake d oesn’t rescue me. So I put on the fugly shirt and make my way to Tyler’s room. He’s sitting on his twin bed with the light on.

  “I d on’t want to rap or whatever,” I tell him. “Can I just sleep this off and find my way home when it gets light out?”

  “Sure.” He pats his bed.

  I stay in the doorway. “ We’re not sharing your bed.”

  He sighs. “ I’ll get a blanket and sleep on the floor.”

  So I lie on Tyler’s bed with my face to the wall, hoping this dude w on’t turn out to be a mass murderer or something, though I doubt murderers let their victims borrow their clothes. I want to sleep, but I can’t. How did I get here? In this boy’s house, in between these scratchy, cheap sheets. I bet the thread count of these sheets is barely in the triple digits. And I’m not used to wearing a T-shirt to bed. It’s nowhere near as comfortable as silk.

  I close my eyes and try to figure out how this happened. I was late to school yesterday, I know that much. Blame it on my hair. After a major effort of drying, moussing, and combing, it still looked scraggly and wild. A bad hair day is always a sign that the next t wenty-f our hours will suck.

  So, yesterday morning. Nothing too bizarre happened. School was its usual bore. While my teachers droned, I wrote a bunch of lists. M ust-h aves: black cashmere sweater, more thongs, a purse like in this month’s Vogue. To-do list: pedicure, new cell phone ringer, eyebrows, my birthday party invites.

  Things got more interesting at lunchtime when I drove to Jake’s house. I ate too much pizza there. Two monster slices of sausage and olive, before Jake started kissing me at the kitchen counter.

  Is that why I feel so sick? From all the meat and cheese and carbs in me? Not just from the booze?

  Jake looted his parents’ champagne from the fridge. He said it was, like, three years old. Obviously, his rentalswon’t miss it.

  We got a couple of glasses and took everything upstairs. Jake made a toast to fantastic sex, which I thought was kind of tacky, besides being wishful thinking. But then we got naked and got in the tub and fooled around. I never did it in a J acuzzi b ath before. Can’t say I was particularly impressed. Though the Jacuzzi itself was nice. Especially compared to the little tub I awoke in tonight.

  Jake and I were still in the Jacuzzi when the doorbell rang, and kept on ringing, like, forever.

  Jake went, “What the hell?” He got out, threw on the only decent-size towel in the bathroom, and headed for the front door.

  Only a little hand towel remained for me. I’m thin, but not that thin. So I poured myself another glass of champagne and lounged in the tub.

  Jake came back upstairs, h alf-s taggering from the champagne /sex combo, but still hot. Jake Robbins probably has the best legs of any guy in the senior class. Long, muscular, hairy but not g orilla-h airy. He stood beside the Jacuzzi, ogling my boobs as I sipped the champagne. “This lady Mariel’s downstairs, asking for you. She’s all pissed off,” he said. “I pretended like I didn’t know you, but she recognizes your Jag out front.”

  I rolled my eyes. I c ouldn’t believe she drove around looking for my car. She’s always after me. None of our old housekeepers cared what I did.

  I said to Jake, “It’s just our housekeeper. No biggie. Tell her I ’ll be home in an hour or so.”

  But a minute later Mariel stomped upstairs and threw open the bathroom door. She d idn’t even pause when she saw me naked. “What you do? The school call look for you,” she said.

  “Do you mind?” I sank my body into the bubbly water. “My mother i sn’t paying you to be a damn detective.”

  She crossed her arms. An attempt to look tough, I guess. Which went nowhere, since Mariel is shrimpy and pudgy and barely speaks English. “I
am not pay so much to put up with you, crazy girl.”

  In her barely literate way, she’s right. I feel bad for her, with her broken English and cheap clothes, and badly drawn dragonfly tattoo on her wrist, and total lack of job options, obviously, since she has to work for my mom.

  None of the other housekeepers lasted as long as Mariel, and she’s only been with us about a year and a half. There were lots of them before her. Anita, Rosa, Guttermouth Gloria, what’sherface who stole, and what’shername who I made cry. My mom should start shelling out more money, like six figures, so she can keep someone around me for a change.

  Plus, even with all her stomping around, I think Mariel really likes me for some dumb reason. I could be wrong. She could be faking it for the sake of the job. My own mother d oesn’t want to hang with me, so why would Mariel?

  I looked past her and said, “Get me a towel, Jake.”

  He stood in the hallway, still half-n aked, peeking in on us. All guys love a girlfight.

  “Big and fluffy. Please.”

  He licked his lips, then walked down the hall.

  Mariel was still scowling. “Hurry and put on the clothes and come to home. Is no good what you do. Your mother got to be mad.”

  “You better not tell her,” I said. “ She’ll blame you for not watching me close enough, and s he’ll look for another housekeeper or whatever, and y ou’ll be out of a job.”

  “Loca!”Mariel shouted, loca being the first of, like, ten Spanish insults she hurled at me as I sat in the bathtub. I knew exactly what they meant, thanks especially to Guttermouth Gloria. I yelled right back at Mariel in Spanish and Spanglish, louder and dirtier. One good thing about Mom pawning me off to housekeepers all my life is that I can speak Spanish.

  But soon I got a headache. Either from her yelling or mine, or maybe it was the champagne. I closed my eyes and put my hand over my forehead, grinning through Mariel’s attack. Coming from her—all, like, five feet of her, in her high voice—it almost sounded cute.