The Boxfield Elm

by Cinda Swans

  Bri and Mark watched the strange man, wondering if he’d get out of the car. The door opened.

  Bri’s dad was short and grey-bearded. He looked, Bri realized for the first time, like a loony old professor. He wore the same corduroy jacket, no matter the weather, and he was skinny except for a little bit of a beer belly. “Ah,” he said, coming towards them. “Your plans didn’t fall through after all, then.”

  Mark laughed and clapped him on the back. “Norm!” he said. “How are yah? You remember me? Your old neighbor?”

  Bri’s dad smiled and nodded. “Course,” he said. “Cynthia’a son. Marv – Matt – I’m sorry. Your name escapes me, son.”

  “Mark,” said Mark.

  “Of course,” said Norm, clapping his palm to his forehead in feigned frustration. “How are your parents then, Mark?” he asked.

  “Oh, they’re ok. They’re doing real good, actually.”

  “And what are you doing, back in these parts?”

  “Well, I have been working for my brother. He’s got a little building company – we mostly do repairs and stuff on old houses. It’s pretty good money, but I’m looking to move in to the city soon.”

  Norm nodded. Then he looked to Bri. She was standing and staring at both of these men, feeling left out of their conversation. He hadn’t even hugged her hello. “Wellll then, what now?” he said.

  “I’m pretty hungry, it’s about dinner time. What do you say we go and get some grub?” said Mark.

  Norm looked nervous for a second.

  “Pizza sound good?” said Mark.

  “Well, yeah, it does,” said Norm.

  Bri shook her head – no one had asked her what she thought about the plan. But she was hungry and pizza did sound good.

  “We’ll meet you at Lars’ place, alrighty? See you in five,” said Mark.

  Norm nodded and got in his car. Mark and Bri got into Mark’s truck. Bri slammed the door and looked over at Mark. She felt, suddenly, like the pouty 12 year old version of herself.

  “I know,” said Mark. “I knew you didn’t want to hang out with the old man much, but listen, I figured…pizza is pretty fast, and I am hungry after all. Then, later on tonight, we can meet up with my brother and Gary and those guys – they got plans to make a fire on the beach.”

  “Hah!” said Bri. “You all still do that?” She said it like she was making fun, which she was. Back in high school, those boys had made fires and drank beer out on the rocks or down by the tidal wall at Loring beach all the time. She had hung out with them a couple times, but she never wanted to drink cheap beer, and she had always felt anxious about finding someone sober enough to give her a ride back home.

  But now the idea of an old-timey fire on the beach sounded like a good time, and Mark could tell. She wondered if he had called it on purpose – for her.

  “Well,” he said, “You never used to come when we had them back in high school. Nah, we don’t do it so often these days. Happens that Geoff and Ian and those guys are in town for a little bit too, and we thought we’d do it for old time’s sake.” He looked over at her and smiled, and she nodded. “You haven’t been back up here much since you’ve been back in Massachusetts, huh?”

  “Nah,” she said, slipping into the same intonation as Mark. “Couldn’t see the point, really. This place gives me the creeps, kinda.”

  They were driving through the center of town, now, which still seemed pretty small and old fashioned. In her mind, she remembered everything as having changed beyond recognition, but somehow, having this old friend next to her and driving her around in his truck, the town seemed just like it always had. Old, quiet, full of secrets.

  “I know what you mean,” he said. His answer surprised Bri. She imagined that Mark was the type to take a sentence like that not so seriously. Maybe she remembered him as being a lot more dude-like and rough and dumb than he’d actually turned out to be.

  The thought interested her. Who was Mark, after all these years?

  “I spend a lotta time in these old houses, and I gotta tell you, you start getting a feeling sometimes, like maybe this town…I don’t know. Like maybe not everyone in this town is…I don’t know. Like there’s been a lot of weird things have happened in this town, but no one really talks about em.”

  “What?” she said. “Like what kinda weird things? Ghosts? You believe in ghosts?”

  “Damn straight I believe in ghosts. I seen some of em. But not just ghosts. I mean like supernatural stuff.”

  “What? Mark!”

  “You remember it too, don’t you?”

  “Mark,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”

  He pulled the truck into the Lars’ parking lot. He shrugged and got out of the truck without answering.

  A moment later, her dad pulled in and parked next to them. He looked, he looked funny. Old. Bri felt strange. What would they talk about? Well, Mark seemed to have a handle on it.

  They sat in a booth by the window. The tables had that fake plastic coating on them with a red-and-white checkered pattern, like an old fashioned table cloth. The light was harsh and florescent, and the menu was a giant glowing yellow board up above the counter. There was a tubby man waiting behind the counter to take their order.

  “Well sh’we get a large? What toppings everyone like? Onions? How bout onions, Norm,” said Mark.

  “Like onions,” said Norm. “Peppers? Green ones?”

  “Bri?” asked Mark. The first time her opinion had been asked, she realized.

  “Sure,” she said. “I like olives,” she piped up.

  Norm made a face to show what he thought of olives.

  “I’d like chicken. You like chicken on your pizza, Norm?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Alright,” said Mark. “We’ll take one large for here with onions and peppers on the whole thing, olives on one half and chicken on the other.”

  The tubby man nodded and rang them up. “To drink?” he asked.

  “Three fountain cups,” said Mark.

  The man hefted three paper cups onto the counter and pointed toward the soda machines. The whole thing felt so old fashioned, Bri thought. She took her cup and filled it with iced tea and sat down.

  Norm came and sat next to her. There was a moment of silence. Then he said, “So, how you like that apartment Claire got? Pretty nice I bet.”

  Bri nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Very fancy.”

  Norm nodded. “Claire’s always been…well. She’s got friends in high places, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not really,” said Bri flatly.

  “She’s connected to it,” said Norm, trying to explain.

  Bri shrugged. She figured he was making fun of Claire’s success – like he was bitter about it or something.

  Mark sat down. “They said it will be about fifteen. Minutes.” He sipped on his coke.

  “Claire knows about some pretty special things, I mean,” said Norm. “I’ll betcha there’s some interesting stuff in that apartment.”

  “Like what?” asked Mark.

  “Oh,” said Norm. “Some books I’d really like to get my hands on, is all. Some rare books she collected. Who knows she read them or not. People are always giving her things.”

  “What kind of rare books?” asked Mark.

  “Well she was friends with some people who were studying some rare plants,” he said. “They were doing some interesting research is all. But anyways, Mark, uh, what houses you been working on lately? I see there’s some construction on the old Miller house. You behind that?”

  Mark nodded. Bri felt her eyes get a little wider. The Miller house – that was the one Aeron had lived in, wasn’t it?

  “Yep. New family moving in,” he said. “They want us to redo the attic for a kid’s bedroom.”

  “Ah,” said Norm. “You been up into it yet?”

  “Just for a look around. We had to start with putting in new cabinets in the kitchen. Old ones so outta date, had a couple-a broken s
helves too.”

  “Yep,” said Norm. “I’ll betcha. Cool old house, huh? Weird families have lived there a bunch.”

  “Weird?” asked Bri, imagining her picture of Aeron’s mom. It was filling out. She could see the woman’s dress, something yellow, the knees a little dirty from kneeling in the soil, close to the plants. She was starting to feel a strange affinity for this woman she hardly remembered.

  “Well, there was that Harris woman. That was her name? Single woman, no man, had a son and all, in that big old house. Couldn’t help but wonder what was that about.”

  “Dad,” said Bri.

  “They didn’t live there for too long before they went off somewhere. Who knows where. I never did figure out what was the connection to the Millers – why she lived in that house. Betcha there’s some weird stuff up in that attic.”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah, it’s – I don’t know, we’ve found some pretty interesting stuff, doing this construction thing. One house over on Rose street, we found this musical instrument, no one knew what it was. It was like some kinda violin guitar thing, with wooden keys.”

  Norm looked interested. “Whadju do with it, then?” he asked. “Sell it on ebay for a pretty penny?” he looked at both of them and laughed, like he’d made a great joke.

  “Nah,” said Mark. “Family who got that house, they were pretty loaded, so. They donated it to that museum over in Franklin. They think it’s something Celtic. No idea how it got here.”

  “Yah. All these folks comin into our little town are loaded, aren’t they. Where they got all their money beats me,” he said.

  Mark shrugged. “Well,” he said. “They pay well for their repairs, I’ll tell yah that. I got some cash saved up now, so I can move into the city. Looking forward to it. This town – you can’t stay in it too long, you know?” He looked over at Bri, as if wanting a second opinion.

  She was looking at the clock, at the tubby man behind the counter, who was laughing at a show on a TV. He stood up, and she hoped that it was to fetch their pizza.

  Norm looked offended. “Town’s not so bad,” he said, as the pizza appeared on the table in front of them.

  They ate, slurping the soggy cheese. It tasted delicious. Bri couldn’t remember the last time she’d had pizza. It was pleasantly quiet for a few moments as they concentrated on eating, the noise from the TV the only sound.

  Norm finished his first piece and then sipped on his soda. “Seems I remember,” he said, “that Harris woman had a real nice garden when she lived in the Miller house. She and yer Aunt Claire were good friends. Now it’s all gone to seed. Not much nice to look at. You usedta play a bunch with her son, Bri. He seemed like a nice kid.”

  Bri wondered for a moment whether to tell her dad that she had met him again – only a few days ago, though now time seemed to be speeding up and that night seeing him for the first time at the bar seemed like a longer and longer time ago. She felt like she knew Aeron, and, suddenly, she missed him. She wanted to be eating pizza with him. She wanted to ask him questions about his strange life, about his mother, about what he was doing working in a kitchen in Boston. She wanted his hand to rest on her knee, she wanted him to tell her those strange, dark secrets that seemed to flit around behind his eyes.

  “He was kinda weird though, that Harris boy. You ‘member him much, Mark?”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah. He was real quiet. I never talked with him much, but I knew who he was. Name's Aeron.”

  Bri concentrated, trying to remember seeing Mark and Aeron interact. She imagined the hill up to the old elm tree. She imagined … she imagined meeting Aeron there. He would sit in the branches, she remembered, he would hide from her, and she’d have to walk around the base of the tree, peering up into the branches to try to find him. She’d have to call to him to get him to come down – he was like a cat, or a bird, or some strange sprite or sprit. She took to bringing him chocolates from her house, to tempt him down with his own sweet tooth.

  Funny, these memories she hadn’t even remembered having until now.

  But where was Mark in this memory? Had she played in the woods before becoming friends with Mark? Must have been.

  Aeyr’s little-boy laughter seemed to be echoing at her from up in the trees. She suddenly felt tears almost rise to her eyes. She wanted to go back to that time, that spot. Why hadn’t she just asked Aeron to come back to Boxfield with her, instead of meeting Mark for this dumb dinner with her rude father?

  She picked up another piece of pizza and took a bite and then put it down on her plate. Norm was chewing with his mouth open. He’d just gotten weirder and weirder ever since he and Bri’s mom got divorced a few years ago. It seemed strange to her that her put-together mother had been married to this guy. Maybe she should call her mom and talk to her about all of this mess, too. Maybe she had things to add.

  Dinner seemed to drag on, but the pieces of pizza dwindled – Mark and her father each ate three pieces, while she sat nibbling on the same piece, picking off the olives and chewing each one slowly.

  Then, finally, it was over. Everyone stood up.

  “Oh,” said Norm. “You pay already?’ he asked Mark.

  “Yep,” he said. “No problem. My treat, Norm.”

  Norm shrugged. “See you later then, Bri?” he said.

  “Sure, dad,” she said.

  He opened the door for her, and she went straight for Mark’s truck and got in. She felt moody, frustrated.

  Mark got in next to her and started the truck without saying anything for a moment. When the engine was running and they were pulling from the parking lot out into the street, he said, “Bri, what’s on your mind, woman? You got a brooding look on your face like you wish you hadn’t come up.”

  “I do wish I hadn’t. I forgot how much I don’t like spending time with my dad.”

  “I know, Bri. I know it’s pretty tough. He’s a weird old guy. Don’t let it get you down so much, you know?”

  “Ugh,” she said, still feeling olives, caught in her throat. How could she explain to Mark exactly what annoyed her so much? That feeling that Norm wasn’t listening and didn’t even know anything about her. It was so frustrating.

  She looked over at Mark. He seemed to get along so well with her father. Was he the dumb and domineering football player she’d seen him turn into when they entered high school? Or was he the strong, sunny man she’d seen shine through when she first ran into him the other night? She wanted to be able to depend on him a little bit, suddenly. Could she trust him with the story she was learning?

  And then…the thought occurred to her, that her father, too, had mentioned some books that Claire had. And Aeyr’s mother’s garden. But he seemed to not take Aeyr’s mother seriously, or not to know that the books might have been hers’. Stranger and stranger, things were getting.

  What would Aeyr do with the books when he had them, anyway? Geez, and what on earth could her father want with them. Suddenly, the thought of her father pawing through anything that belonged to Aeyr or his mother made her feel disgusted.

  Aeron. His sad eyes, he’d forever be homesick. She saw him as a boy, again, sitting in the elm tree, singing a song that sounded like it was in another language. It had been a song about going home, she remembered him explaining. His mother must have taught it to him.

  “Well,” said Mark. “We swing by the liquor store, I’ll pick up a case of something. What you want to be drinking?”

  She shrugged, opinionless. She didn’t really feel like hanging out with a bunch of boys anymore. She wanted to see Aeron.

  “Bri?” he said. “Come on, cheer up! I’m still excited to … to like, get to know you again, after all these years. It’s been so long. You’re still, you’re just the way I remember you, you know. You could always run faster than me, you always knew how to do things better than me. I missed you, you know, when we stopped being friends. You used to teach me things.”

  “Teach you things?”

  “Well, you showed me how to r
ead, and got me to write. Remember we used to write those letters, to those...the people, the other-people, in the trees?”

  “You remember that?” she said. Chills started to run up her spine, Mark mentioning the games they played.

  “Course I do!” he said. “How did you think all of those things up, I wondered since then. I wondered…I don’t know, I wondered a lot of things about you, later on. If you were making those things up, or if you...”

  She looked over at him and saw his eyes glowing a little bit. She felt suddenly nervous, shy.

  “Well, I’m just gonna get something middle-shelf. Some Blue Moon, maybe? Girls usually like that,” he said.

  Bri was instantly annoyed all over again. She rolled her eyes, silently. Not that she cared, Blue Moon was an okay beer.

  When they finally got to the beach, Bri had goose-bumps. They weren’t from the cold, it was the eerie feeling of real-life déjà vu.

  Everything suddenly reminded her of the past - only, it was like she was actually walking through the memory in real life, in present time.

  To get down to the place where you could light a little bonfire without attracting too much attention, you had to climb a ways on the rocks. Mark carried the beer, which clinked loudly as he moved over the rocks. In contrast, Bri felt lithe. She had left her shoes in the car, which Mark had balked at, laughing.

  Her feet had become city-feet, tender on the bottoms, and not like when she was a child, running barefoot all the time. She picked her way carefully, feeling the rocks jab her feet, but never once missing a step. It brought her great pleasure, to walk down on the rocks this way. In the dark, it was even easier to remember more. Bri felt like some part of her brain that had been frozen for years was unmelting.

  How long had she and Aeyr been friends for, before he went away? How old had they been? Bri looked back on herself as a child, and thought about how she’d always felt sort of old, somehow. She’d always felt like she understood a lot. Even in college, sometimes she’d felt sort of older than her friends. She remembered Paul, her college boyfriend, again for the first time all night. Mark kind of reminded her of Paul, she realized, hopping gracefully from one tall rock down to a lower one, Mark clinking around with that big box behind her.