Sugar & Squall

by J. Round

  A gust of wind blew up from below and ricocheted off the cliff face. I felt it roar up through the bottom of my jeans. It was accompanied by the smell of seaweed, wet sponges. The ocean reached up for me, but it was too late. I cleared the top rung before I even knew it and settled myself back into the chapel without letting go of the ladder.

  “I’m coming up,” Logan shouted from below, ascending the ladder steady and sure-footed as if it were a hundred-meter sprint.

  We were now both there in the chapel, our combined weight forcing the board below to buckle slightly and bounce up and down. We stood together, and silently I followed Logan’s lead back to the safety of solid ground.

  The chapel had taken on a completely different visage when I looked back. Without the warmth of the sun it was drained of color and life. The wooden beams that made up the interior looked black and sooty in the folding darkness. Even the stained glass was little more than varying shades of grey in the dwindling light.

  Waves could be heard swishing in and out in the distance. I stood while Logan seated himself on a nearby rock.

  “It doesn’t feel real, does it? All of this,” I mused.

  As if to prove it, he pinched his arm. “I hope it is. I hope you’re real.” He paused, looking to me. “I kind of like you.”

  There it was, laid out on a platter. Did I take it? No.

  “You ‘kind of’ like me?”

  He squirmed. “No, no, I mean, I just like you.”

  I threw in a little feint of disappointment. “You just like me. That’s it?”

  That seat he was sitting on must have been a thousand degrees, because he started to sweat. Even I could see that in what little light there was.

  “I really like you, okay?”

  Better.

  “I really like you, too.” I almost gagged at how stupid it sounded coming out of my mouth. His sugar-sweet smile said otherwise.

  He looked back down. “Maybe we can, I don’t know. You know.”

  “Know?”

  “I don’t know, you know. We can, maybe?”

  “We can…?” I was starting to get concerned. “What is it?”

  When he turned his eyes back to mine he looked suitably agitated. His hands were in his pockets and I noticed his sneaker was hurriedly creating circles in the dirt.

  He looked up at me. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  I laughed. “Dinner? But we have dinner every–” Then I saw his lifted eyebrow and understood completely. He was asking me out on a date.

  I’d miss a bus if I was standing in front of it.

  Puzzlement must have been my expression of choice. He looked completely confused.

  “You don’t want to?”

  I felt my face filling up with rouge. “I, um…” Find the words, you idiot. “Dinner sounds… cool.”

  Cool? Who the hell uses that anymore? I should have thrown in ‘rad’ to nail the coffin closed.

  “Cool,” Logan repeated, standing straight, his eyes lighting up. “It’s a date. I guess meet me at eight, in the dining hall.”

  “You?”

  “Me, in the hall.”

  “Hall, you. Right.”

  “Me and you in the hall.”

  “Hall?”

  “Right.”

  And with that extreme dose of awkwardness, he turned about-face faster than any human being I’d ever seen and started quick-stepping back towards the boys’ dorms. It was a pity, because had he of stayed he no doubt couldn’t have missed the stupidly wide grin that spread across my face.

  It’s a date.

  The words reverberated in my head. Each time the phrase grew louder, pushing where we were and what had happened further and further away. By the end of tonight, I told myself, watching his butt bounce off into the distance, Logan and I would be lovers. No ghost, body or hundred-year storm was not going to stop me.

  8. BARGAINING

  I’d never been one for proms or dances. Dad said we could hold one in the East Room, but I couldn’t have cared less. To me such gatherings were like annual swimming carnivals – best avoided. It’s not that I looked bad in a dress. It’s that I looked bad trying to move in one. But because he had asked, and there was little movement and thus potential for disaster concerned, apart from the unlikely event of everyone reappearing, I relented this once.

  Logan had been persistent on two points as I chased him back to Carver. The first was that I go to my room and give him a good hour-and-a-half to ‘prepare’. The second was that I dress up, and that no, a clean pair of jeans would not cut it. If we were to be discovered, he said, at least we’d be looking our best.

  I went scavenging through my roommates’ combined wardrobe once more. I didn’t imagine Carver to be the sort of place that would call for high-end fashion, but alas, there was plenty to work with.

  Amy had a silver satin gown. The bodice didn’t hold me quite right and the hemline ran right down to the ground. As a wedding train was the last thing I wanted, I kept looking.

  The rest was a bit too exotic for my liking, which left Jemma’s wardrobe allocation. I almost missed it at first, but hanging right at the back was an LBD that looked about right for a first date. Admittedly, I never wore black. It was quite short, too, but there was something about it that drew me in. It was very Audrey Hepburn sans pearls.

  Risqué was just what I needed, so it was done. It seemed to fit well enough, even if it did leave my shoulders unceremoniously exposed to the cold.

  I took advantage of the ongoing electricity to straighten my hair and pull it back into a tight ponytail. I was confident Logan liked my eyes, crazy as they were, so I let them take center stage… before asking myself how I’d become so prissy and pedantic at all. I made do with what make-up I could scrounge up, applying as little as possible to avoid the ‘powder shotgun’ look that so seemed to define Carver’s female population.

  I hadn’t worn heels since I was a little girl. God knows why I felt compelled to wear them. Given that, it started to feel like I was walking a tightrope instead of the dormitory hall. I rushed for no reason other than some misguided assumption I’d be stood up. Obviously, that was hardly going to be the case when you were the only girl on the island, but I couldn’t push it from my mind completely, nor how stupid I’d look if the student body did materialize.

  When I walked into the dining hall the lights were out except for the teacher’s table. They sat at a long dining table against the far windows raised up on a makeshift stage. I had assumed this gave them not only a more sweeping view of the surroundings but also that extra air of superiority over the peasantry below.

  And there it was, number four on the DNB – the super date, my only girly vice.

  Lit by candlelight, Logan stood on the stage next to the table. Walking closer, I realized he was wearing a black suit and tie. He was smiling and held out a single, long-stemmed rose in front of himself, its red bulb glowing fiery.

  “It’s for you,” he said, handing it over to me as I stepped up onto the stage.

  “You look beautiful,” he remarked.

  “You look good, too. I mean it,” I replied, as if the first part wouldn’t suffice on its own.

  He straightened himself up at this, holding the lapels of his suit and puffing his chest out.

  “I had to borrow the suit from the vice principal. I would call it a marginal fit.” He held out the area of the suit jacket around his waist to reveal a wing of loose material and lifted his shirt to show the three safety pins that were preventing his pants from swimming around his ankles.

  I had to use both hands to hold in the laughter.

  “What? You think this is funny? I’ll have you know this took a lot of effort. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but safety pins aren’t exactly growing on trees around here, and neither are suits, nor roses, for that matter.”

  “I know. It’s just you’ve gone to a lot of effort for just little ol’ me.”

 
“You don’t think you’re worthy of a little effort?”

  “Well–”

  “You are,” he interrupted. It was a statement.

  “Here, your seat, mademoiselle.” He pulled out a chair in the middle of the table. I sat, feeling Jemma’s dress tighten awkwardly around my torso. Logan had set the table. There was a large plate in front of me, napkin and two sets of utensils. I laid the rose down above the dinner plate.

  Mom had been a stickler for keeping knives and forks in their correct places. She’d balk at the mess Logan had made of it.

  Not quite seeing the humor, he laughed a little himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, fidgeting with the table-cloth. “I tried.”

  “It’s great,” I enthused. “Really, no one has ever done this much for me.”

  Apart from the silver service every night back home.

  “Glad you like it. Now…”

  He looked around like he was expecting some waiter to turn up and take our order. I giggled again, probably more to hide my nervousness than anything else. I could feel myself sweating. I had no idea why.

  Good thing you wore black.

  Logan stood and paced off to the kitchen, returning to the table with two bowls. Apparently he wasn’t just my date tonight, but the chef and waiter all in one.

  “Spaghetti de la Napolitano,” he said, faking an Italian accent and placing the bowl in front of me. It did smell delicious, but it was penne, not spaghetti, and I quietly laughed to myself again.

  Logan looked immensely pleased. “Ladies first,” he said, motioning at the meal before seating himself down.

  I took a forkful. It was good, damn good.

  “Not bad,” I said, with half a mouthful, completely unladylike all the while.

  Logan smiled and tucked in himself.

  I looked around. “Where did you find the candelabras and stuff?”

  “Drama department.”

  “And the candles?”

  “Some history teacher’s room, believe it or not, and no, I really don’t want to think about why she had them in there.”

  “The rose?”

  “Courtyard.”

  “Clever.”

  “See anyone out there?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  We continued to eat, silently. It was surreal – a candlelit dinner in a castle with the handsome prince. Save for a sword in a stone and the small matter of a mass disappearance, half a body, this was practically a fairytale.

  I felt so feminine, which was, in a way, uncomfortable.

  We had no problems polishing the ‘spaghetti’ off. The extra utensils were just for show apparently, especially with my still-secret aversion to knives, but there was dessert.

  “This one’s my very own,” Logan said. “Apple crumble, with cream.”

  Dad’s favorite, and mine.

  “Wow, you’ve really outdone yourself. And you made this from scratch? The apples, they’re real?” I mumbled, throwing in a spoonful.

  “I’d hardly serve you plastic now, would I? I had a bit of time the afternoon we split up, so I came down here after the guitar thing and started putting it together. A friend used to make it. I couldn’t believe they had all the ingredients here. It’s like it wanted to be made, fate or something.”

  “Fate, right,” I babbled, furiously filling my gob. “Whatever it is, it’s damn good. Compliments to the chef.”

  Logan gave a little bow.

  Suitably stuffed, I could swear the center of my dress was starting to pull at the seams. I slumped forward in my chair and leaned in over the table. Logan did the same. He slid his hand out into the middle ground of the tablecloth, inches from my own. It was a deliberate movement, loud in the silence.

  My heart was somersaulting. I imagined the candles wouldn’t be putting out that much heat, yet it was physically hot. A drop of moisture slid down from the sauna under my arm. I shuffled my arms tighter into myself. Of course, all this achieved was to bunch up my cleavage and make myself appear even more overt.

  I let out a nervous breath and tossed my eyes up to the ceiling. Then I felt Logan’s fingertips touch my own. Something shot forth between us, a spark. I looked down first at our hands, flat and overlapping, and then up to his eyes.

  He was focused on me with everything he had. His expression was locked upon me. He said not a single word, but right then, in that hanging time, I understood completely.

  Why I then shifted my hand back I’ll never know.

  “Any new ideas on the mystery at hand,” I rushed out, frantically trying to sway the subject. I was desperate to keep the attention off myself. This little black dress was starting to feel invisible.

  Logan drew back, sitting upright again.

  “I’m all out of logical theories,” he said. “I’ve put it down to the supernatural, ghosts. You’re still sticking to your evacuation theory, I take it?”

  “It adds up. There was a big storm coming, someone probably fell over in the rush to get on the boat, cut their leg open. Maybe it was the security guard, or he got pushed off the pier accidentally. I mean, it looks like everyone left in a hurry. Maybe ‘They’re coming’ meant help.” But holes started to form before I’d finished. I was babbling.

  Logan took this in. “I take it you don’t believe in the unknown, of things that can’t be explained?”

  Damn, back on me. “Not really. I’m not good with existential stuff, ‘feeling’ things out all airy-fairy-ish.”

  “But you are,” and again it was a statement. “You’ve been running on feeling over the last few days here. And it felt good, didn’t it, to be free?”

  “It did,” I said, straightening myself up. I couldn’t work out where he was going. “The last few days have been great, which I know sounds weird given what happened.”

  “And you’ve felt alive, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all that matters then.”

  I thought back to the DNB. Could I go through with five? I didn’t know. Truthfully I couldn’t see it happening without the aforementioned supernatural intervention.

  Something occurred to me. I felt compelled to ask the question.

  I regretted it as soon as it spilled out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner you saw me down at the beach?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were down there with that guy?”

  Touché.

  Logan shifted back in his chair. “Are you sure you guys didn’t…?”

  “Have sex? Hell no. I told you, he’s an asshole. The little prick tried to drug me actually.”

  There.

  Logan’s expression flipped from curiosity to anger. “He tried to drug you?”

  “Spiked a can of beer, roofies or something. When I woke up in the morning everyone was gone and all I had was a huge headache.”

  Now he looked furious. “Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have left you. That was stupid, so stupid. And you’re sure he didn’t do anything?”

  “No. I remember him undoing my jeans, but that’s it. Maybe he couldn’t go through with it or something. If I ever see him again I’m seriously going to put a halt to his reproductive ability.”

  “It makes sense, you know.”

  “What, that someone would try and force themselves upon me?”

  “No, not that. I just mean it wouldn’t have been hard to get the drugs. Everyone here has parents in high places – doctors, surgeons. A guy in my room was peddling Viagra for crying out loud.”

  Logan paused, cupping his chin and mouth. “I can’t believe he’d go that far.”

  “Are you saying you don’t believe me?” I asked timidly.

  “No, of course I believe you. He just better hope he never shows his face around me. That’s all I’m saying, and I’m sorry, sorry for not protecting you. That’ll never happen again. I promise.”

  “I know,” I replied, knowing full well I wouldn’t let it come to that. I could handle things myself.

  Strange feelings
circled. I was connected to Logan. I knew that now. I was sure he liked me. I had not imagined his hand reaching out to mine. That was as real as my own five fingers. Why then could I not act on my own feelings? God, you’re an idiot.

  Refusing to let me help, I was forced to sit while he flapped about clearing plates. Afterwards, he pulled out a chair closer to mine, loosening his tie. I still sat knees and arms together like I was waiting outside the principal’s office.

  “Have you ever read The Secret Garden?” he asked.

  “The book?”

  “Sure.”

  “When I was like ten. Why?”

  “Well, Carver has its own secret garden, on the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  “Right up on top. You can’t see it from anywhere but up there. I thought I’d show you… if you want. To take our minds off this disappearance thing for a while.”

  “Again?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  It occurred to me then we’d never been up on the roof, and especially not one with a garden. “No, I’d like that. Besides, I need some fresh air. What about all this mess?” I’d amazingly managed to get through the pasta without staining the dress. The table hadn’t fared as well.

  “Eh, don’t worry about it,” he said, dismissing it with a flick of his wrist. “Come on.”

  Logan led us up to the third level and right to the end of the hall. He waited at the cleaning supplies room.

  “It’s through here?” I was a little confused, having checked the room prior and not finding any additional doors inside.

  “It’s one of the first places I checked when I couldn’t find anyone,” Logan said, leading us in and switching on the light, which buzzed and flickered into life. “The reason you couldn’t find the door to the roof is because it’s behind this set of shelves over here, or, at least, should be.”

  He moved to the back of the room. There were shelves stacked with no-brand bottles of chemical cleaning solutions, rolls of toilet paper and the like. With an impressive bit of might he pulled the whole thing outwards from the wall. The door was indeed there, but wedged into the corner at such an angle and in such a drab color that it blended seamlessly into its surroundings.

  A large padlock prevented access. Logan procured a key from his pocket and slid it into the lock, whereupon it clicked open with a simple ‘snap’.