Dandelion Girl

by Isa Hansen

  She turned the page and spotted the name Hans.

  She left her finger on the name.

  The writer drew an enamored image of Hans—a blond boy, easy smile, hazel eyes. Hockey player with dimples and ruffled hair.

  Celia’s mind went to the awkward teacher at school who’d introduced himself.

  Hans … just Hans.

  She wondered how common of a name that was in Sweden. She continued through the pages, stopping at every mention of the name.

  Hans talking and flirting in school.

  Getting to know Hans better.

  Yippie!!! Going steady with Hans.

  Followed by a series of squiggly drawn hearts. Liv och Hans.

  Her breathing went shallow.

  There it was.

  Liv.

  She stared at the juvenile hearts and the two names. The girl’s name was Liv. The same name Maj-Britt had called out to Celia.

  There was now a connection between the diary writer and both of Celia’s grandparents.

  She sat up in bed, tucking her legs under her.

  Was Liv their child?

  Her thoughts raced. Was that possible?

  What year did her grandparents divorce?

  She focused on what she knew of her dad’s early history.

  He was born in 1963. He had moved with his father at the age of five, so that would have been around 1968. If Liv was the girl in the photograph and was three or four years old in 1972, then there was a chance she had been conceived before Lars left Sweden. So it was possible.

  Liv could be her dad’s sister.

  She returned to the diary, her heart rate quickening.

  There were only bits of content that she was able to snap up. At times there were clear passages, but a lot of it was just scribbles; a mumble and jumble that was hard to make sense of. It was almost as if the girl wrote from two different states of mind.

  A loud snarl screeched right outside the window.

  Celia jumped but exhaled soon after.

  It was just the cats.

  There were two of them—a raven-colored sassy thing with a white mitten and a fat orange tabby—who disputed the territory of Erik and Anette’s yard. Celia wished they’d take their brawl elsewhere. It was too dark now, but she’d seen enough of them before to know what their fights looked like, a scruffy ball of claws tumbling through the grass.

  She flicked through the diary to the end and read the last post again. The secret is suffocating me … I need to let it out and let it fly. Otherwise I’ll die.

  She closed the book and rested her chin in her hands, staring into the dark corners of the room.

  Was Liv dead?

  If not, then where was she now?

  At some point the girl had disappeared.

  Celia looked at the time on her computer. It was late, she should at least try to get some sleep. She closed the laptop screen, turned off the light, and listened to the cats brawl. Finally they quieted and she fell into hazy, fragmented dreams.

  ***

  The next day Celia was tired and unfocused and had to drag her way through her lectures. She was trying to adapt to the Swedish school format. Every day was different: classes varied, some days started early, other days she could sleep in. Some days she had long breaks and other days only short ones. It took extra energy getting used to the non-conformity of her schedule even though she quite liked the variety.

  Throughout her breaks she kept an eye out for Hans. Today she had a series of longer ones, but so far no sign of him.

  On her third break, she went to look for Ebba.

  Ebba was in the Aesthetic Program, her focus on art and theatre. After searching the arts lounge and corridor for Ebba who was nowhere to be found, she went to visit Oskar instead.

  The carpentry classrooms and workshops were hosted in a separate building toward the back of campus. To get there, Celia crossed the old wood bridge that arched over Liljeån. Below her the water gurgled in rapid twirls and flows.

  Arriving at the construction barrack, she strolled down to the end of the hall where she knew Oskar spent most of his time. He’d previously taken her on a tour of his side of school.

  It was a bit of a novelty how in Swedish high school you could just wander into any classroom as long as class wasn’t in session. She entered the room where several guys and a few girls milled around in t-shirts and grayish-blue construction pants.

  Oskar stood at one of the workbenches, focused on an iPad, reading a manual of some kind. He looked up when she approached, his face lightening. “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Thought I’d come by and see you.”

  Oskar clicked out of the screen. “Good timing. I’m on break for another few minutes.”

  A classmate of Oskar’s, rangy with a crew cut, bounded up to them. He eyed Celia, “You’re Oskar’s friend, the American girl.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Cool.” He bobbed his head and pulled out a round container from his pocket. From it, he took a small dark-colored pouch that he stuck underneath his lip.

  “What’s that?” Celia asked.

  “Snus,” he said.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Chewing tobacco,” Oskar clarified.

  The guy held out the container. “Want some?”

  “What does it do?”

  He lifted his shoulders.

  Oskar said, “It might give you an energy kick.”

  “I’ll try it, why not.” She could use an energy boost.

  She picked up one of the small pouches and held it under her nose: hints of mint, earth, and licorice. Not too bad, she thought.

  Without warning, another guy came up from behind snus boy and put him in a headlock. They wrangled off, letting out little grunts and yelps.

  A teacher who was bald and built like a block of cement yelled at the boys and pointed to the door.

  Celia turned to Oskar with her snus.

  “I just stick it under my lip?”

  “Yup.”

  She poked in the little pouch until it sat clumsily under her top lip.

  She started laughing. “I feel ridiculous.”

  “You look cute,” Oskar said, his cheeks and ears flushing light pink.

  She prodded at the snus which sat so awkwardly at the top of her gum that she thought it might fall out.

  While looking around the workshop, scanning the construction equipment, an idea struck her. “Remember the diary that we found at my grandfather’s house?” she said to Oskar. The snus made her words come out muffled, like she had bread in her mouth.

  He gave a slight grin and nodded.

  “I found this taped to one of the pages. I think it might be for a padlock or a storage unit or something.” She retrieved the key from her bag. “It has a logo on it. Any chance you could find out where it goes to?”

  Oskar took the key and examined it. “Could go to anything, but the logo might help. Can I keep it, ask some of my teachers?”

  “For sure.” Then remembering, she said: “Oh, and here.” She fished out a slip of paper where she’d copied the code from the diary. “I’m not sure what this number is, but it seems to be connected to the key.”

  He took the paper, wrapped it around the key and stuck the wad into his wallet.

  “By the way,” Celia said casually. Or as casually as she could with the snus bobbing around under her lip. “I never caught the name of your girlfriend. Does she go to school here?”

  “My girlfriend?” Oskar blinked.

  “The girl at the beach?”

  He held a quizzical expression for a moment, then clarity hitting: “Oh no, she’s not,” he said. “She’s an ex.”

  Celia wasn’t sure why she asked, wasn’t sure why it mattered, but for some reason she felt glad about Oskar’s response.

  “How do you talk with this thing, anyway?”

  She tasted the juices of the snus flowing down her mouth and into her throat. The pleasant smell i
t had when dry didn’t translate well into the taste that was now burny and acidic.

  Seconds later the burn got more intense. She was struck by a light-headed dizziness. “I need to get rid of it.” She hunched down on the floor, taken over by nausea.

  Oskar disappeared and came back with a piece of paper towel. “Here, put it in this.” He handed the paper to Celia.

  She spit the brown guck as discretely as she could into it.

  Clutching the paper, she put her hands over her face hoping she wasn’t going to be sick.

  A few of Oskar’s classmates gathered around. The bald teacher came over with a glass of water for her. Celia took a sip and set the glass down, wishing her head would stop spinning. She heard the teacher and Oskar exchange words in Swedish. Oskar said the word snus and mentioned her being from the USA.

  The teacher knelt down. “You OK?”

  Celia nodded and said, “tack,” already feeling a tiny bit better.

  She grabbed her bag while Oskar gave her a hand up.

  As they headed out, the teacher addressed his students and summoned their break to an end. Moving into the hall, she thought she heard him say something about not feeding snus to the exchange students.

  Laughter erupted from the classroom.

  Oskar closed the door, dampening the noise. “Where’s your next class? Do you want me to walk with you?”

  Celia muttered, “I feel so stupid…”

  “Don’t worry about them,” he said, nodding toward the classroom. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’ll be fine, thanks,” she said.

  Her nausea was easing; instead her cheeks heated with embarrassment.

  She was still cringing when she sat with Ebba in the student lounge, relaying the snus incident. They were seated in a sofa with their backs to the entryway, a buzzing of kids flowed in and out of the room behind them.

  “Knowing Oskar, he’s going to feel bad about it,” Ebba said.

  “Why?”

  “That’s just the way he is. He’s always taking responsibility for things.”

  “Well, it wasn’t his fault, so he shouldn’t,” Celia said. “I sure gave his class a good laugh.”

  “A lot of the guys in carpentry are jackasses. Not Oskar, though—he’s tops.”

  “Yeah, I feel I can trust him. I gave him the key from the diary. He’s going to look into it.”

  “So you think our dandelion child is Liv?” Ebba reflected.

  “She would have to be, don’t you think? The way Liv’s name was in the diary, and then my grandmother calling me Liv. But it’s driving me crazy. Like, who was she?”

  A male voice from behind the sofa: “You want to know about Liv?”

  Ebba and Celia spun around.

  There he was. Hans.

  Celia didn’t like how he was always creeping up on her from behind; it didn’t seem like a very teacherly approach.

  She and Ebba exchanged glances.

  When there was no response, Hans said, “I knew there had to be a relation…” He looked a little sheepish over that he’d eavesdropped. “There was no way, just no way—”

  “What do you know about Liv?” Ebba demanded.

  “I overheard you … sorry.” He took a quick look around.

  Celia instinctively did the same thing. The lounge was humming with activity and laughter. No one was paying attention to them.

  “Do you want to meet later? I can tell you about her.”

  “OK—”

  “Ming House on Drottninggatan.”

  Hans’s eyes stayed on Celia.

  She felt herself squirm.

  His stare was just so intense, the way his head tilted and pupils dilated. Kind of the way a newly-smitten boy would gaze at his first love, as though her face was a mystery and he was wondering how to fit together the pieces.

  Problem was, she wasn’t Hans’s love, and he was old enough to be her father. Ebba must have noticed it, too, because she gave Celia a warning nudge with her knee.

  Celia cleared her voice. “Can’t we just talk now?”

  Hans shot that down. “We need somewhere more private. Be there tonight at eight.” He shrugged, his body language suggesting that it was all the same to him: Celia could take it or leave it.

  Then he turned and left in as an abrupt manner as he had arrived.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Holy buckets,” Celia whispered. “He is Hans from the diary! He went out with Liv. It’s confirmed.”

  Ebba and Celia quickly left the student lounge and had gone out into the school grounds and were discussing the strangeness that was Hans.

  “Or maybe he’s just some random perv,” Ebba said, one eyebrow cocked. “And has nothing to do with anything, heard us talking and dived right in, pretending to have answers.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Celia said, breathless. She stopped to catch the emotions that were swirling around. She was taken aback by how exhilarated she was by the encounter. “I need to go meet him. Will you come with me?”

  “Of course,” Ebba said. “But not without some ground rules.” She held up her hand. “We stick to our public meeting place.” She folded down her first finger. “We buy our own drinks.” Another finger came down. “Three, we never leave our drinks alone with him and we never leave each other.” Ebba gave a nod, having made her points. “He’d have to drag us out screaming and kicking, and Ming House is in the middle of town; he’d never get away with that.”

  “OK,” Celia said, bouncing from one foot to the other. “I’m a little nervous. I guess I’m not used to having much action or intrigue in my life.”

  The large clock at the back of the main building chimed, reminding Celia of the time. “Ooops, we’ll have to talk more later. I have to get to Spanish class.”

  She and Ebba hugged before going off in separate directions.

  “Promise you won’t go alone,” Ebba called after her.

  “Promise!” Celia called back.

  ***

  All of the social science international students were required to take two additional languages besides English and Swedish. Celia was enrolled in French for beginners and intermediate Spanish.

  She had studied Spanish back in high school in the States. As such, this was the one class that was easy for her—thankfully, since all the other classes felt like an uphill battle. Celia hoped it was just the fatigue from her first week in a new environment and that things would get easier with time.

  In Spanish class, Celia paired up with Elin. They’d found a spot on the couch at the back of the classroom. She tried to focus, but her mind kept drifting. She was so lost in thought that Elin put her hand in front of Celia’s face and waved.

  “Hallå? Are you there?”

  “Sorry…”

  “Are you in löööööv?” Elin teased. “That didn’t take long. Who is it?”

  “Nope, not in love,” Celia said and went back to her text. She was trying to memorize a list of Spanish adverbs. They weren’t sticking.

  A shadow came over her laptop screen.

  Celia glanced up from her adverbs.

  Alex appeared in front of her.

  “Hola,” she said to him.

  He settled next to her, against the raised edge of the sofa. “Want to do something tonight?”

  “Sorry, I wish I could. I have a lot of schoolwork to catch up on.”

  She also had a weird teacher to meet, but this wasn’t the time to make that announcement.

  “Already?” Alex knitted his brows. “We just got back from summer break.”

  “Well, yeah. You guys move at a pace I’m not used to. And there’s stuff that you’ve covered that I haven’t even touched.”

  School had always been easy for Celia. She’d been ahead in most of her classes without trying much. This wasn’t what she was accustomed to and she was finding it all a bit overwhelming.

  “All right.” Alex slid off the arm of the sofa. “Let me know if you ever need help. I can get you
caught up.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Celia said. “I might take you up on that.”

  After Alexander wandered off, Elin nudged Celia. “It’s Alex!”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “He likes you.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Alex doesn’t just offer help like that.” Elin gave her a devious smile. “He’s hot for you.”

  Celia shrugged and looked away. She liked being around Alex, but she didn’t have any romantic feelings for him whatsoever. She hoped Elin was wrong.

  ***

  Sometime in the afternoon it started to rain.

  By the end of the day it was pouring down as if the sky had opened up and a heavenly dam was letting out all its excess water.

  Celia collected her things. Her locker was in the main building on the second floor, away from her classmates who were in a different building altogether, maybe because she’d started the program later than them.

  After gathering her books, she headed out into the storm.

  Cold rain tore over her as she ran to the bus stop. The rain pounded against the glassed-in shelter where Celia took refuge. Clumps of wet hair stuck to her face. She pushed the hair away from her eyes, not that she could see much anyway with the torrential downpour.

  Soon the bus arrived, noisily rolling to a halt.

  Celia lifted her bag over her head to shield herself and ran from the shelter to the bus. She climbed the steps and greeted the driver while flicking her pass and made her way down the aisle.

  There were a few dozen riders on board.

  Celia climbed into an empty spot toward the back of the bus and tucked her wet hair behind her ears. She checked her phone: she had a text from Ebba and a few from Oskar.

  Ebba: Are you home? Can I come over?

  Celia texted back: On the bus. I’ll be at my stop in ten mins.

  Instant response from Ebba. I’ll be there.

  Ebba’s text had just come through when a call from Anette showed up on her phone.

  “Hey,” Celia answered.

  Anette’s voice on the other end of the line: “Hi Celia, I’m at the store. Just wondering if there’s anything you want me to pick up.”