The Summer of Impossible Things

by Rowan Coleman

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

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  Lupo’s Tailoring and Alterations is only just open.

  Although I have never met him, I recognise the man behind the counter filling the cash register with change. I’ve seen a photograph of him; there is only one, the one that Mum managed to grab as she left her home. He is smiling awkwardly, eyes not meeting the camera, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than on the end of the lens. Trace elements of me are hard to see in a man of his age, with his tight, round belly and oiled back hair, but I am there, in the shape of his ear, the way his fingers splay out as they rest on the counter.

  There’s no reason I couldn’t sneak around the side and knock on the workroom door – I’m almost certain Riss will be in there already – and yet I open this door and a bell jangles over my head.

  ‘Morning,’ I say.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Leopold Lupo asks his granddaughter pleasantly enough. ‘Something you need altering? Or my girls can work to any pattern, even a photo from a magazine, if it’s a new look you’re after. Something a bit less tomboy, maybe?’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I was hoping to see Marissa, please?’ Grandfathers always like polite children, that’s what my Grandma Pat told me, when I was once too loud around Grandpa Martin.

  ‘You know her?’ he answers quickly, his accent mostly Italian, just a hint of Brooklyn flattening his vowels.

  ‘We’re friends and—’

  ‘I never seen you around before,’ he answers. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been around. I just need to have a quick word with her—’

  ‘Luna!’

  Riss appears, fresh faced, wearing denim shorts and a pretty floral cotton top, her hair tied back from her face with a headscarf.

  ‘Where you been? I don’t know this girl,’ Leo points out.

  ‘Really?’ Riss gasps with mock surprised. ‘There are people in the world you don’t know?’

  ‘Well, what does she want?’ He doesn’t register that she is joking at all, which makes her smile all the more.

  ‘Well, I guess if I ask her I’ll find out,’ she says, tipping the hatch in the counter, and jerking her head in the direction of the door as she steps through it. I notice her Super 8 in its neat carrying case is slung over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to fetch some breakfast … I’ll be back soon.’

  The bell jangles over our head as we leave.

  ‘Are you planning to film breakfast?’ I ask her, nodding at the camera.

  ‘No, I’m gonna film everything.’ She pops open the case, and carefully takes her camera out. ‘The street, everyone I see, you. All these things I take for granted, all these sights and sounds I smell every single day. I’ve grown up with them, it’s like I don’t see them anymore. If I do go, I want to have a reminder. Because I love this place, Luna. Wherever I go, whatever I do, there’s a part of me I will have to leave behind here, and knowing that kind of hurts.’

  Her expression stills for a moment and she lifts the camera, pushing the record button.

  ‘Smile!’

  ‘No!’ I yell, hiding my face behind my hands, afraid that capturing my image on film might somehow ruin everything; that there can’t be any proof that I was ever here. ‘Film the street, don’t film me!’

  Riss laughs. ‘Anyone would think you were on the lam or something.’

  Shrugging she turns the camera away from me, aiming at the shops signs, the people walking past. A young man blows her a kiss, two skinny little boys in shorts and nothing else pull faces. An older woman, in a printed cotton dress, huffs and puffs and waves Riss away with a dismissive hand, and yet she still smiles coquettishly at the camera. Everyone we meet, whether they know Riss or not, loves her. Even the street we walk on seems to adore her, I can feel it rising, preening in pleasure to meet her step. Then, laughing, she puts her arm around me and turns the camera on us both. This time, I don’t shy away. This may be our last moment together so I smile and kiss her on the cheek, making her laugh, and she is so beautiful.

  If I don’t end him tonight this will be the last time this ever happens for her, the last time she ever feels like a duchess on 3rd Avenue or anywhere else.

  ‘You OK?’ Riss asks, dropping the camera to her side, as we head away from the store. I steal a sideways glance at her, her nut-brown skin, the hair tucked behind that headscarf; this morning her beauty is the perfectly still surface of a lake, just before a rock is tossed into its midst.

  ‘I am, are you? Henry’s due to leave first thing tomorrow, right?’

  ‘Oh God, I know, I can’t eat or sleep. I’m a nervous wreck!’ Her laugh is high and tense. ‘Henry’s got me a ticket, my passport is in my nightstand. I could go. I mean, I could throw some stuff in a bag and just go! But somehow, I’m still here, treating today just like it is any other day. Going to work for Pops, acting like everything is just fine. Poor Pops, he acts like the tough guy, but deep down you know, he’s like marshmallow. He don’t deserve what I’m doing. I don’t like lying to him.’

  She links her arms through mine, dragging me around in a circle.

  ‘Oh God, Luna, tell me what to do?’

  ‘Just trust your heart, I guess?’ Pathetic. How did I ever land a job in PR, even in an alternative timeline?

  ‘The thing is, I know that I love Henry and I want to be with him. But to just disappear tomorrow, to run away, that doesn’t seem real, it’s doesn’t seem possible. I just have to figure out a way to tell my family what I am doing and hope that they forgive me. I’ll figure out what to say to Pops, and then I’ll follow him in a week or two. That’s not crazy, that’s real mature, and Pops will see that. At least I think he will.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ I say. ‘Don’t tell them. This is your life, live it your way, just go, go now and find Henry, and stay with him until it’s time to go. Just go before you lose your nerve. Do all the talking later.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Riss stares at me as if that is exactly what she thinks. ‘If I don’t tell them first, then they’ll never forgive me. I’ll never see them again. They’re my family, they are me. Of course I have to tell them, to their faces. And, look, I know you aren’t a believer, that’s fine, you’ve got your own thing. But I know if I can get Father Delaney onside then it will make the whole thing a lot easier.’

  Anguish seems to build up in me, flooding into my gut and chest. I could offer Riss up as bait for the man I am intending to make my victim, but even the thought of putting her in harm’s way is unbearable, and what if I fail?

  I can’t fail; this is my last chance.

  I have no idea how to kill a man, how to even attempt it, and the thought of it, the thought of finishing off a human life, even his, makes me sick inside, fills my mouth and nostril with black fear, and yet … I can’t let him go on to live his monstrous life. On this day, as it turns into the darkest of nights, it’s Riss that I have to protect, Riss and all those other girls.

  ‘Let me come with you when you see Delaney,’ I say, with no idea what I’ll do in that moment when I look into his eyes again, only that somehow I need to do it. ‘I can be your chaperone.’

  ‘Really?” Riss looks bemused. ‘A chaperone? You really are English.’

  ‘I know you think I’m crazy, and maybe I am, but I have to go soon too, and I like you, Riss, I like who you are. You’re smart and funny and strong. And you’ll make something wonderful of your life, I know you will. One day, years from now, when you’ve been married for a really long time and you have daughters of your own, you’ll realise how grateful you would be to someone taking time to watch out for them. And that really is all I am trying to do for you. So would you just let me see you safely through tonight?’

  ‘Sure,’ she says, studying my face, her own full of confusion. ‘If it will make you feel better then, sure, come with me. Meet me tonight, at home. He said he’
d come over about nine thirty.’

  Riss put her slender arms around me, drawing me into a hug. Returning it, it feels like the universe is threatening to explode in all the spaces between us, parts of what make me real and whole detonating within, that as every second passes a little less of me exists.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you for caring about me. That’s something nice I didn’t expect, to have a friend walk into my life out of nowhere. I’m so glad to know you, Luna.’

  ‘Me too.’ I smile for her. ‘I’m so glad to know you too.’

  Riss nods towards the bakery, Michael’s bakery. ‘Want a bagel? Because I think there’s a guy in there that would like to see you.’

  ‘I … I better not,’ I say, turning, walking back towards the bridge.

  ‘Why not?’ Riss calls after me. ‘Shouldn’t you be listening to your heart?’

  I stop, and turn around. I know what my heart wants.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

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  ‘Hey sweetheart,’ Michael’s dad greets Riss as she walks in, and he produces a bag with her name written on it marker. ‘My finest bagels, still warm, just for you.’

  Hanging back from the counter, I inhale deeply, almost tasting the freshly baked breads and cakes, the scent and sweetness of sugar hanging is the air. Since the sun rose with me, everywhere I go seems to be glazed in gold, everything brighter, sharper, saturated with colours, just like the films taken by the Super 8.

  ‘I’ll take a couple of coffees too,’ Riss says. ‘I’m just going to sit awhile with my friend here.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Michael’s dad says, as if he doesn’t know I’m the woman that drew Michael away from his shop twice. ‘I’m Sam Bellamo.’

  ‘Hello, Sam.’ I take his hand and shake it, wishing there was a way I could avoid the look of quiet concern in his face, afraid that somehow what I know about his son’s future might show in my face. But all that might change too, I remind myself; everything will change a little after tonight. And a little is all it takes to save a life.

  Sam leans a little over the counter and speaks in a low voice. ‘Listen, my boy and me we go at it sometimes – it don’t mean we don’t love each other. It don’t mean I don’t look out for him. He’s talked about you, almost non-stop actually, you’ve really gotten under his skin.’ He cocks his head, and smiles at me. ‘And his mother’s too. Though you should know, no girl will ever be good enough for her son.’

  ‘Really, I’ve just come to say goodbye,’ I tell him. ‘I have to leave soon.’

  ‘He’s gonna be sorry about that,’ he says. ‘I guess, if I’d met a fine-looking woman like you, back when I was his age, I’d have gone a bit crazy for her too. You related to Riss?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Strange, no one has ever told you that you’re the spit of her?’ Sam shakes his and laughs. ‘Like two peas in a pod, you two. Cut from the same cloth. When you get home, you ask your mother if she ever met a Leopold Lupo on her travels.’

  He grins and I laugh too, liking him all the more because of the comparison he made between me and Riss, when, all my life, in every life I’ve ever lived, it’s usually only the differences that anyone has ever noticed. Perhaps I am more my mother than anyone, after all. What a wonderful thing that would be.

  He lets go of my fingers and I sit down in the booth opposite Riss. A slight, fair-haired girl in an apron brings us two cups of black coffee, in red-and-white paper cups with fold-out handles. It’s strong and bitter, and just what I need.

  ‘He warning you off?’ Riss asks me, amused.

  ‘He’s just worried about Michael, he thinks I’m dangerous,’ I say, and my body tenses at his name, the thought of seeing him fizzes through me. I want to see him, but before I even have, I am afraid to miss him, afraid of how much missing him weakens me.

  ‘Dangerous?’ Riss laughs. ‘You’re a strange chick, Luna, but dangerous, that’s the last thing you are. Anyways, Michael’s like two feet taller than you and a hundred pounds heavier, what are you going to do to him, apart from teach him a few things about women and maybe break his heart. And that’s OK; he’s done his fair share of the breaking. Do him good to know what it feels like the other way around.’

  ‘You’re here.’ Michael arrives, staring at me as if I have just fallen from space, and I stare back, dimly away that Riss is filming us. ‘I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again.’

  ‘I didn’t know if you would either,’ I say. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Good isn’t the right word, there isn’t a right word to describe what it means to see the only person who can quench the thirst you didn’t know you had until you first tasted them.

  ‘How long are you here for?’ He seems unaware of the whirl of Riss’s camera.

  ‘Until tonight,’ I say, ‘and then I have to go. For good.’

  ‘Are you leaving tomorrow too?’ Riss asks me, putting her camera down. ‘Why didn’t you say? I bet you are on the same flight as Henry. You could travel together.’

  Neither Michael and I speak, we only look at each other.

  ‘You know what, I’m going to go.’ Riss tucks the camera back in its case, and slides out from her seat. ‘It’s going to be a real hot day today. Wherever you two go, make sure you stay out of the sun.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at your place,’ I tell her as she leaves, and she waves assent as she walks past the plate-glass window. ‘At nine thirty.’

  ‘Can you get away now?’ I ask him.

  Michael shakes his head. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Michael’s dad, who has been listening intently, calls over. ‘You can have the day off, kid. We’ll manage.’

  ‘For real?’ Michael asks him.

  ‘You only got until tonight. Go and make the most it.’

  Michael grins at me and offers me his hand.

  ‘I remember what it was like to be in love, you know,’ Sam calls after us. ‘And then I met your mother.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ Michael asks, taking my hand. ‘I mean what can we do, with your incredible powers? Travel anywhere in space and time?’

  ‘Or we could just think about now,’ I say, bringing his hand to my cheek. ‘Just this moment. And just … hang out?’

  ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘I know a place.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ I ask him.

  ‘Home.’

  Michael’s bedroom is small and dark, with a small triangular window in the end wall that lets in only a little light. The faded blue wallpaper is printed with small pink flowers and is almost hidden behind an array of posters – Bruce Lee, Al Pacino and girls, lots of beautiful young women in revealing bikinis.

  Two mismatched bookshelves stand side by side, full to the brim with well-read paperbacks, some with spines so cracked you can barely read the titles anymore. On a shelf on the wall, there are some school trophies, and a photo of him when he was younger, all awkward and angles, grinning like a loon, braces glinting in the flashlight. I look at it for a long time, pretending I haven’t noticed him hastily shoving discarded clothes under the bed.

  ‘Mom’s away visiting,’ he says; he’s nervous. ‘Normally she handles this stuff.’

  ‘Maybe you should tidy your own room if you’re thinking of bringing girls back here,’ I say with a smile, as I turn to look at him.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t thinking about bringing a girl, bringing you, back here. I thought you’d gone forever, it was driving me crazy not knowing if I’d ever see you again. I just wanted to get old, old enough to be able to go and look for you, and then I realised, I had no idea where … when … you’re from.’

  He crosses the room, stopping short just inches from me.

  Longing populates the air around us and, more than that, desire.

  ‘After today I’ll never see you again,’ he says, leaning towards me.

&
nbsp; ‘No,’ I say. ‘You won’t see me again.’

  ‘So tell me.’ He edges closer. ‘Tell me where I’ll find you? In the future?’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t tell you because …’ I am about to say there is no future, not for me, but instead I finish, ‘I have seen the future; once I had a future but I don’t know what the future will be after tonight. Every time I come here, it changes.’

  A sea of goosebumps washes over me as I take his fingers in mine, and it feels as if a layer of my skin has already vanished, every touch, every sensation seems more acute; I can feel the ridges and swirls of his fingerprints, the rise and fall against my skin. Taking a step closer to him, I can almost see the heat of his body coming off of him in rainbow waves.

  ‘I never have,’ Michael says; there’s a tremble in his voice. ‘I’ve never brought a girl back here before, just you. So what do want to do, you want to listen to some music, or … would you like a drink? We probably have something in the fridge … Or I could read to you?’

  ‘I never expected to meet you here,’ I say, bringing his fingertips to my lips, speaking against them. ‘In this place that I was never supposed to be. And I suppose that’s a good thing, because if this was my life, then you and I … would be impossible. But now everything I do is impossible, you and I seem likes the most sane thing in this world. Like a fixed point in all this madness. I didn’t expect it, but I am grateful for it, for you. Being with you, it’s taught me how to fall in love.’

  ‘Jesus, Luna.’ He closes the small space between us, circling his arms around my waist. ‘I just, I don’t know what to do with the way I feel about you. I feel like I’ve known you forever, since before now and always. I’m in love with you, Luna.’

  When I close my eyes a tear rolls down my cheek, and, as it does, I know now that even the tears I have left to cry are numbered.