Stranger Things

by Gwenda Bond

  “I was just exploring my options.”

  He nodded. “I promise you my work is the best of them.”

  Brenner continued, explaining to her parents how important he was without saying much of anything.

  I wanted us all to be able to leave. I figured I’d better discover if it was possible in some easier way first…

  Before Terry broke into his office again looking for evidence. Those plans had seemed to stall out. Terry had been quiet after their field trip to the Brickyard, a jaunt that had proved fascinating. Gloria had Alice take her around and explain all the workings of the race cars to her, even though only a few were on hand that day. It had been the “fun activity” that Alice promised.

  And that underlined how not-fun the lab was. Gloria was now at pro level of managing not to take her acid, or at least not the full dose. She pushed it into her cheek with gum and then spat it into her palm when no one was watching. Her interrogations continued and she faked being ditzy sometimes to keep it interesting. This was the opposite of science.

  The things we’ve done to stop it are more scientific. Alice’s handmade electroshock machine. She’d never been more terrified of anything in her life.

  Before she’d sent the current through Alice, Gloria had imagined every possibility if something went wrong and the shock hurt her. No one would believe she’d volunteered. No one would believe a girl like Alice, not formally schooled, could create such a thing. People would’ve been all too ready for the scandal of Gloria Flowers embroiled in some oddity in the woods that hurt a young woman. With an unmarried man in tow.

  Sure, she’d been worried about being caught by the lab guys, but her concerns had been larger, too. Some lives were easier to ruin than others.

  “Nothing’s ever going to be fair, is it?” Gloria interrupted Brenner’s oratory about his great work.

  “No,” Dr. Brenner said. “The world isn’t a fair place.”

  Her father’s forehead wrinkles deepened, the way they did when he gave something thought. “In this house, everything always will be that can be. But outside, no, I won’t lie to you. Dr. Brenner is correct.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” That Brenner was here at all proved it.

  Her mom picked up her own fork. “I’m glad to hear that Dr. Brenner appreciates you girls, both of you.”

  Gloria took a bite of pink salad.

  The last thing she wanted to do was upset her parents, who’d done nothing but try to help her.

  * * *

  —

  Dr. Brenner finally left, after pushing his luck for an after-dinner drink with her father. It was like having a poisonous snake in the house.

  Alice hung around, and Gloria was grateful. She’d have hated to be alone with him here. She also wanted to know what Alice had come to see her about. Gloria said she was going to walk Alice out to her car.

  A light drizzle of March rain fell, so they stayed on the porch while Gloria looked to make sure no strange vehicles could be seen on the street.

  “He’s gone. What is it?” Gloria asked. “The reason you came, I mean? I’m sorry you had to endure that man somewhere besides the lab.”

  “He really won’t let us go, will he?” Alice asked.

  “Terry would say we’ll make him.”

  “Terry’s why I’m here,” Alice said. “It’s about the future. I’ve seen her in it…It’s not good and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know whether to tell her or not.”

  Gloria didn’t want to know any more awful secrets. But sometimes that was what having friends meant.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  2.

  Terry checked again in the slender dorm room mirror that she’d put her shirt on right-side-out. Yesterday it had been lunch before a kind stranger pulled her aside and touched the tag on the back of her peasant blouse’s neck. She’d gone into the nearest bathroom and taken it off, cringing at the deodorant stains revealed by the correction until she could dash back to the dorm and change.

  Yes, today her shirt was on right. A pretty paisley pattern Andrew had once told her made her look like a painting. A skirt that was a little snug. She’d been starving lately, but had barely gained a pound. Her body was changing its weight distribution somehow, though.

  She assumed this was one of the side effects Brenner had warned her of. She wasn’t going to ask him about it.

  Terry checked her makeup. After that, her hair. She peered out the dorm window again.

  She had never been nervous about Andrew. Possibly the only boy she’d ever liked—definitely the only one she’d ever loved—that she felt instantly comfortable with and about. He was so straightforward. Andrew said what he meant. He might change his mind, but he’d tell you that, too.

  His emerald green Barracuda pulled into the lot below and she rushed to get her big bag together, Polaroid camera tucked inside, and dashed out. She stopped in the hallway. Did she lock the door?

  Who cares?

  She rushed down the stairs, unwilling to wait for the elevator, and by the time she got to the lobby doors Andrew was approaching them. She bolted forward with a push that swung the doors out and then launched herself at him.

  Andrew started to laugh and caught her. “Babe!” He held her and they rocked back and forth. “I guess I don’t have to worry that you’re not happy to see me.”

  Go to Canada. Never leave. Stay here always, with me.

  “I don’t want it going to your head so maybe I should play it cool,” she said without loosening her hold on him.

  “Never play it cool.”

  “I don’t think it’s even an option.” She pushed back so she could look at him. Really look.

  Now he was the shyly self-conscious, anxious one. He stood under her gaze but so uncomfortably. His hair was clipped short, almost to the scalp. No more parentheses. But he was no less dangerous to her.

  He owned her heart.

  “I like it.” She reached out and ran her fingers across his scalp, the short hair soft against her palm. “Ooh, I really like it. This is very soothing and calming.”

  “Stop it, I feel like a piece of meat,” Andrew said, but he smiled and relaxed.

  “Speaking of…Do we have somewhere we can be alone?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Yes, Dave has given us run of the apartment. He’s coming back for a beer around five o’clock.”

  Terry grabbed his hand and towed him behind her. “Let’s go then. We don’t have time to burn.”

  “It feels like a shame to waste your favorite top,” he protested.

  “It’s your favorite top,” Terry said and winked at him. “That’s why I wore it.”

  “Oh, well, in that case.”

  No mention yet of the fact he deployed next week. But there was no need. It hung between them, the unsaid fact about to ruin everything.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew wrapped himself around Terry’s back and they snuggled and it was almost normal.

  But the sheets on the bed weren’t Andrew’s soft cotton sheets. They were Dave’s, maroon satin, and even though she could smell that they’d been freshly washed and put on, they were wrong.

  Andrew’s room belonged to Michael now. Michael had been with Dave and Andrew in Halloween masks to protest Nixon’s speech. Just like Dave, he would not be in Vietnam next week. Dave and Michael still had student deferments on their side, and, even after graduation, their draft numbers had been so late in the drawing that the chances of either of them getting called up were slim. Nothing was fair.

  The sheets were different. The room was different. Everything was different except the two of them.

  But even they didn’t feel quite the same. Already.

  “Terry,” Andrew said, and she
tensed. He called her “babe” almost always. “Terry” was for when he was talking about her to other people.

  “Andrew.” She wasn’t going to make it easy. She rolled over to face him.

  “You know I love you.”

  “And you know I love you.” She memorized the fringe of his eyelashes. The different angles of his face with his short haircut. Not enough time. Not enough time…

  “I want you to be you, without me like a shackle around your foot.” Andrew rushed the words out in a way that made her know he’d rehearsed them.

  “Andrew Rich,” Terry said, pretending it didn’t hurt. She propped herself up on an elbow. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do.”

  “I’m not,” Andrew said. “But…”

  “But?” Terry stayed where she was. No way this would be easy for either of them.

  “But I don’t know if I can do what I have to, not if I know you’re definitely here waiting for me. I won’t be able to think of anything but you.”

  Terry didn’t even know what he meant. “Good. Good, you can think about coming home to me, about our future together.”

  Andrew sighed and rolled onto his back. “I knew you’d be like this.”

  “How did you want me to be?” Terry focused on the poster for The Who on Dave’s wall.

  Andrew pulled the covers over his head. “I don’t know. Don’t listen to me. I’m trying to pretend I’m not freaking out, but I am.”

  Now this was Terry’s Andrew. This she understood. Honesty.

  “Sam, it’s okay,” she said, tugging the covers down. “You’re going to Mount Doom. No one knows what’s going to happen to you there.”

  “I know that the Enemy isn’t there.” Andrew turned his head to look at her, though.

  Terry nodded to him. “That’s right. We all know that. You’re a good man to go.”

  “Am I?”

  “You’re a good man.” She would not cry. She would be strong—stronger than she knew she could. Ken had predicted it. “I’m not letting you break up with me. This is…It’s my fault. Dr. Brenner arranged this somehow. I didn’t want to tell you but…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. It’s my fault. I think he did this to you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Andrew was quiet for a moment. He leaned forward and kissed her lips so softly she barely felt it. “It’s not your fault. If he did or didn’t, who can say? It might have happened anyway.”

  She couldn’t manage to speak. She nodded.

  “And this is not a breakup,” he went on. “It’s your freedom. I want you to not be waiting around for me, not if something else comes up. I can’t do what I have to do thinking I’m holding you back. I don’t want that. So we take a break while I’m gone…I won’t stop loving you. And I hope I will come home and we will be together.”

  Terry wanted to say, You will. We will. That’s not necessary.

  But she couldn’t promise that. She didn’t see the future. No one saw the future for soldiers. Or if they did, they didn’t talk about it. Too often it was something no one wanted to see. He’d obviously practiced that little speech.

  Terry sighed. “If that’s what you need, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Andrew exhaled. He lay back as if in utter relief.

  Terry jumped out of bed and rummaged in her bag for the camera.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Mind out of the gutter,” she said. “I just want a portrait to remember us by.”

  “Oh,” he said. “But won’t we need someone else to take it?”

  Terry shook her head. “No, long arms. You hold one side, I’ll hold the other, and then I’ll reach up and push the button. I’ll put it in position.”

  Alice had been the genius who came up with the idea you could take pictures of yourself with the camera. It would never have occurred to Terry to try.

  She put her knee on the bed and looked through the viewfinder—the short hair was nice—and when she was happy with the angle, she waved for him to lift his hand. He held it as she dropped next to him, her palm cupping the other side. She snuggled in close so both their heads would be in the shot.

  “Smile,” she said, and then reached up to hit the button.

  “Wait!” she said when he began to lower the camera. Polaroid film was expensive but this was important. She leaned up to grab the print as it came out the front.

  “This should be part of basic training,” Andrew said, as if holding his arm up was killing him.

  “One more for me,” she said and lay back down. She turned her face to kiss his cheek and felt his grin widen. She reached up and pushed the button. Another whir, another photo dispensed.

  He dropped the camera to Terry’s side, where it lightly bounced on the mattress. They cuddled closer and waved their photos, waiting for them to develop.

  Terry wished there was a trick that would allow her to take a photo of this moment and stay in it until nothing stood in the way of a million more moments like it.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew drove her back to the dorm in his Barracuda, and he didn’t even bother turning on the radio. He planned to drop her off and then return for that last beer with Dave. But when he pulled up in front of the building, he lingered. He picked up his Polaroid from the dash and looked at it. Both of them grinned out of it, Terry slightly forward as she leaned up to push the button.

  “Thank you,” Andrew said. “For this.”

  “Thank you, babe,” Terry replied.

  She’d cry later. Not now.

  I wish you could stay. Don’t go. I feel like there’s more to say but I don’t want to say it because then it’s like admitting I’ll never see you again.

  Andrew set the photo back down. He took her hands in his. “I want you to be well. Take down your lab asshole. Look out for kid sister.”

  Terry had to smile at that, but it almost forced the tears out. “Working on it. I swear.”

  “You got this. I wouldn’t go up against you.”

  “Well, you’re not a monster.”

  Andrew still didn’t know the full truth of Alice’s monsters and when they were from. Terry wouldn’t bring up the future, not now. She’d bring it up when he came back. When they had a future in front of them.

  “I better get going. You avoid unnecessary monsters,” Andrew said. “And write me sometimes.”

  “Back at you.”

  And Terry kissed him, not knowing if it was the last time or not.

  3.

  Ken wasn’t foolish enough to arrange a meeting at Terry’s diner, where someone might recognize him as her friend and mention it to her. Instead he met Andrew at a campus greasy spoon with the best black coffee the area had to offer. That he added three sugar cubes scandalized the waitstaff. But he liked his coffee how he liked his coffee.

  Andrew dropped into the booth opposite him and dragged a hand over his buzz cut. Ken recognized the gesture from the last time he’d gone from long to short—years ago now—and kept searching for his missing locks whenever he was stressed-out.

  “Man, you better be right,” Andrew said. “That was tough.”

  “She’s going to have a hard enough time.” Ken didn’t know the specifics. In fact, he kept feeling lost at sea where Terry was concerned. He got waves of certainty that she was strong and getting stronger, but the picture was incomplete. It frustrated him and he wasn’t sure he’d made the right call contacting Andrew and advising him to break things off while he was gone. “Like I said, she’s been struggling, and it could put all of us in more danger.”

  “She would hate you going behind her back.”

  “I know.” Ken sighed. “I’m not supposed to meddle in big things. I think I told yo
u, my mom taught me that when I was a kid.”

  Andrew waved over the waitress.

  “What do you want, hon?” she asked, chewing gum all the while.

  Andrew hesitated. “A chocolate milkshake.”

  When she left with a nod, he said, “May as well live it up.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “As far as meddling goes…These are small things, aren’t they? Our lives. That’s the whole point. We’re all disposable.”

  Ken didn’t agree. And…“You better not say things like that over there.”

  “Pretty sure I won’t be alone.”

  Ken had a moment of weird transference looking at Andrew then. It could just as easily have been himself going overseas—still could, if the war was still going on when he graduated. His draft number was relatively high, so he was safe for now. He wondered what being in the military would be like for him. Not good, he imagined. Or good as long as he kept to himself, kept his secrets. He was used to that, but it didn’t mean he liked it.

  “No one’s disposable,” Ken said. “People make that mistake all the time.”

  “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.” Andrew drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What’s your deal anyway? The psychic thing is real?”

  Ken stared out the diner window for a few breaths, waiting for a feeling to come. Should he answer? Should he be honest?

  You can trust this man, like you trust Terry.

  Okay then.

  “My family always believed in this stuff, and it feels real to me. That’s what I can tell you. I’ve lived life negotiating these feelings about what might happen.” Ken sipped his coffee and replaced the cup on the table. He rotated it nervously. “And I always thought family protected family, but now I think we choose who we protect.”

  “What changed?” Andrew seemed genuinely interested.

  “My family treated me as disposable.” Ken smoothed his hands on his jeans. He hardly ever talked about this, almost never. His palms were sweating. “They were okay with one kind of different, the kind they understand, but not another.”