The French Toast Saga 

Part Four - The Fellowship of Jersey 

“Yeah were going to go to Hackett’s Town. How much is that?” I asked leaving my credit card on the counter. The clerk sat across from me. Her blank expression showed the years she had worked dealing with commuters to New Jersey.

“That’s fifty five dollars” The clerk said while popping her gum.

“Whoa!” I heard Casey cry out. As usual she was the reason why we stood in Penn Station. The morning had been trying. Casey had made me wait three hours while she got dressed. I, on the other hand, took only thirty minutes.

I turned to ask  for her share of the money. Only to see a puff of smoke where she had been standing. I then turned back to see to my horror the clerk swiping my card and printing out the tickets.

“Here you go...NEXT!” The clerk said with a monotone tone.

I wandered in a daze trying to grasp what had just happened. I found Casey at the bottom of the stairs on her phone.

“David, Rose wants to talk to you” she said handing me the phone.

“What?” I said confused.

Casey then shoved the phone in my ear.

“Hello?” I said as the clouds of confusion where parting.

“Yeah where are we meeting?” Rosa asked.

“Hacketts Town” I replied.

“Where’s Hacketts Town?” Rosa asked.

It was at that moment that I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. It turned out Casey had never coordinated the meeting with Rosa. I had just assumed she had and that Rosa knew the area around the convention. When I asked Casey why she never did this, she looked at me puzzled and said.

“I did, don’t you remember? I asked you if you wanted to talk to my friend on the phone” Casey said annoyed. I had a brief memory of Casey asking me if I had anything to say to her friend. At the time, I was confused as to why she had asked such a strange question. Now I knew what she meant, only it was coded in Casey speak.

I wanted to strangle her at that moment. But there was no point, I was already in the train station. I had committed to this journey. I figured I might as well see it through. I only wish Penn Station had a return policy where I could have gotten my money back. We coordinated to meet at Elisabeth and then head to the convention. Rosa had a car so the commute would be easier. So we boarded the train. I sat by the window and prayed to get some kind of peace on this trying day.

“I want to sit by the window!” Casey complained and climbed over me.

I was quickly shoved to the isle. Dumbfounded, I had brief urge to punch her in the face. A feeling that as a feminist disturbed me. Casey quickly got comfortable in her seat and put her earphones on. I asked her to give me my ears buds to distract myself with some music.

“Oh, I lost them. Sorry” Casey said not looking up from her comic book.

My patience was beginning to buckle.

An hour of me trying to decide if I could get away with murder went by. Two train rides later, we arrived in Elisabeth New Jersey. A beat up blue Toyota Corolla pulled up in front of us. From the car window, a smiling Spanish girl popped her head out. It was Rosa.

“Hi!” She said in a perky squeaky voice. Her black hair in curls swished in the wind.

I quickly grunted hello and jumped into her backseat. I didn’t speak in the entire drive to the convention. I was furious. Casey’s clueless and selfish behavior was driving me insane. The small frat boy in my head tried to mention breasts, but I punched him repeatedly in the face.

It was seven o’clock when we arrived at the hotel. The crowds were pouring out of the convention doors. I felt a knot in my stomach.

“Hey excuse me but where do we get tickets for the convention?” I asked a man dressed as Batman.

“What are you talking about? The convention is over for the day” He replied looking at his watch.

I will let you sit with that for a minute.

So our journey ended at the lobby of a hotel. We had failed in our quest. I glared at Casey, who looked confused. There were only two questions I saw in her eyes.

Didn’t the world revolve around her? Why would the world not stop to accommodate her schedule?

“Well at least we are in time for the after party” Rosa said with a grin.

It was at this moment that I realized Rosa was a beacon of light in this darkness. The next few hours are a bit of a blur. It turned out Rosa was well known at the convention. After years of attending the con, she had become a bit of a local celebrity. We were invited to private parties, drinks were given to us for free, and I had a line of men trying to grill me for information about Rosa's romantic life. By the time the parties began to disperse, it was midnight.

This posed a problem, the trains had stopped running. We were now stuck in New Jersey. Rosa happily invited us to stay the night at her home. Having only known this girl for a few hours, I was hesitant. But her perkiness and bubbly personality had won me over. So I agreed to spend the night in Rosas basement. What I didn’t know was that it would be a night I would never forget.