When the World was Flat (and we were in love)

by Ingrid Jonach

  “For what?” Jackson asked.

  I tilted my head towards my former partners, who were deep in conversation thanks to my matchmaking.

  Jackson grinned again and then squinted at me, as if sizing me up. “Photographer?” he asked. “A stab in the dark,” he added with a nod to my camera. “I have psychic powers, you know.” He placed his fingertips on his temples and closed his eyes. “You also like the color blue. Pale blue. Like the color of an iceberg.”

  I startled as I thought of Tom and his glacial eyes. How did he know? But then I remembered I was wearing a pale blue sweater. I rolled my eyes. “OK. You got me on both counts.” I spotted a scribble of ink on the back of his hand. It was a map of the school, as if you could get lost between here and the main building. “Let me guess,” I said with a smile. “You like to draw.”

  His mouth fell open. “You cheated.”

  I shook my head. “I have psychic powers too,” I teased.

  He laughed and I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater as his thousand-watt smile gave me a hot flash.

  He leaned down and pulled a tattered sketchbook from an equally tattered bag. “Trade?”

  I hunted through my own bag, which was a bottomless pit of lunch wrappers, crumpled notes, film canisters, books and pens. Six months ago I would have had a heart attack that it had become such a landfill. These days I was more concerned about the man – or woman – in the balaclava than a few half-eaten muffins squashed at the bottom of my bag.

  I pulled out a bundle of photos. “This will be a lucky dip,” I said apologetically.

  The first photo was of the ant carrying the crumb, which had been taken minutes before Tom had criticized my photos of Sylv. I touched a shadow in the corner of the image, which I knew belonged to Tom.

  I flicked to the next pic.

  “Wait,” Jackson said, putting his hand on mine. I blushed and moved my hand in order to bring back the photo.

  “Let me guess,” he said, rubbing his chin comically as he studied the photo. “This is a statement on consumerism through the representation of mass consumption. The ant symbolizes the spread of the manmade world to the natural environment.”

  I stared at him. “Um. No. It’s just a photo of an ant carrying a crumb.”

  “Thank God.”

  “For what?”

  “I thought you were an art snob.” He pointed at the photography books I had pulled from my bag and I drew them into my chest, like a mother gathering up her children.

  When Jackson showed me his sketches I saw they were as detailed as my photos.

  “I use carbon, instead of graphite,” he told me and I nodded, as if I was up on my pencils.

  I traced a finger over the fine lines, recognizing the streetscapes of Green Grove: Main Street, the Memorial Fountain, the Fur Museum, Wal-Mart. I laughed as I recognized a figure on the sidewalk. “Jo!”

  Jackson frowned. “Really?” He studied the drawing and nodded. “Huh. It does look like Jo. Funny.”

  I continued to flip through the pages. “Green Grove. Green Grove. Green Grove,” I said as I surveyed the sketches.

  Jackson shrugged. “I like this town.”

  “You like this town?” I repeated incredulously.

  “I was born here.”

  I was going to point out that he had also been bullied here, but instead I said, “Me too, but… You like Green Grove?”

  Jackson laughed and then leaned towards me with an earnest expression. “If you want to talk about identity then talk about this town. Both of us are products of Green Grove.”

  I hesitated. I could hardly say I was a product of New York or LA, but to tell the truth I was a product without an ingredients list at the moment. It was kind of hard to hold onto your identity when you had died about forty times in the past four months, even if it was just in your dreams.

  I narrowed my eyes as I realized he wanted our major work to be about Green Grove. “No.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “No?” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then brightened. “What about family? Are you a product of your family?”

  I thought of Deb. “No.”

  “No again?” He pouted. “I thought Mr Hastings said this was about teamwork.”

  I laughed at myself. “Fine. I guess I will have to learn to love Green Grove.” It seemed like the lesser of two evils.

  He beamed again. “I can pick you up on Saturday. Yeah? Two?”

  He had a location in mind, but his lips were sealed.

  “A teeny tiny clue,” I begged.

  He shook his head.

  “What happened to teamwork?”

  His dimples flashed. “Badlands Street?” he checked.

  I frowned. First Tom had known where I lived, now Jackson.

  “I used to live two streets down on Wyoming Crescent,” he reminded me.

  “Oh.” I searched my memory.

  “I knew you had forgotten. You remembered my nickname though: Jack O’Lantern.” He grimaced, but it turned into a grin as he asked, “Do you remember when Jo stole my school bag in fifth grade and you wrote Jack O’Lantern on it with a sharpie?”

  “I think so… I mean, yes. I do,” I said, my face flushing with embarrassment.

  “And then I wrote on both of your bags as payback. Jo was Freckle Face and you were–”

  “Buck Tooth Bandit,” I finished, wondering why he would bring up such a memory. Thank God for braces, I thought, touching my front teeth self-consciously. My mind automatically went to my tooth again, which I had decided I had chipped while eating nuts or candy. Hey. It was either that or acknowledge it had happened in my dreams.

  “We all got detention,” Jackson continued with a smile.

  “I must have blocked that from my memory,” I said, giving him a half-smile in return.

  “He sounds hung up on being called Jack O’Lantern,” Jo said after I recounted our conversation.

  “He probably came back to Green Grove for revenge,” Sylv said. “Like in that horror movie where that pumpkin goes bad-ass and kills all those kids.” She clicked her fingers as she tried to remember the name of what sounded like a forgettable film.

  “You said you wanted to sleep with him two minutes ago,” Jo said.

  “I do.” Sylv threw a grape and Jo batted it back. Her hand-eye coordination was second to none. Me, on the other hand, I could have missed a beach ball.

  “Where are you going on your date?” Jo asked.

  I shrugged, ignoring her use of the word “date.” “He wants it to be a surprise,” I explained, which of course made it sound even more like a date.

  “If he takes you to an abandoned farmhouse, slaughterhouse, warehouse,” Sylv ticked them off her fingers, “nuthouse, trainhouse–”

  “Trainhouse?” Jo and I asked in sync.

  Sylv grimaced. “I would have said train station, but I was going for a theme.”

  “Haunted house?” I offered.

  “Bingo! Anyway, if he takes you anywhere that ends in ‘house’ you need to–” She frowned. “Dammit. How did they kill the bad-ass pumpkin?”

  “They turned him into soup?” Jo suggested.

  I guffawed.

  Sylv shrugged. “You can thank me when he turns out to be a serial killer. Or worse.”

  “What could be worse than a serial killer?” Jo asked.

  “A virgin?” Sylv suggested with a smirk.

  But my mind went to the man in the balaclava. Woman, I corrected myself, remembering her hands. I shook my head, snapping myself out of my daydream. “This is non-negotiable,” I told the girls. “We have an assignment. Do you want me to flunk art studies?”

  “When will you girls understand that grades are not life and death?” Sylv asked.

  “Tell us that when your dad cuts up your credit card,” Jo said.

  Jackson was walking across the quad. He waved and I waved back, but like a moth to a flame, my eyes moved to Tom, who was leaning against brickwork of the main building. I was surprise
d to find him looking at me with an intensity that made me blush. He straightened and for one heart-stopping moment I thought he was going to walk over and strike up a conversation, but then he turned and disappeared inside.

  “I remember now,” Jo said suddenly. “We played cards during detention. You, me and Jack O’Lantern. I mean, Jackson. I think it was Snap. Or Uno?”

  I squinted as if my memory went hand-in-hand with my eyesight and then shook my head. “Not coming to me, sorry.” It was like my brain had become a sieve and my memories had fallen through the holes, hanging on like strings of spaghetti. Like my inability to remember how I knew Tom; how I knew his scar.

  I guess I was in good company. They say Einstein had a bad memory. He had once forgotten where he lived and had to phone Princeton University for his address. It was the one piece of trivia that I knew about him BT – Before Tom. Now I also know that they say he had schizophrenia, that his mother thought him deformed when he was born and that he had been expelled from high school. He must have had a principal like Turnip.

  When I went to sleep that night I thought I would have another date with death, but instead I found myself with Tom.

  We were surrounded by lilies; tiger lilies, oriental lilies, asiatic lilies. They sprouted from pots at our feet or hung in baskets above our heads and I realized we were in a greenhouse.

  I followed Tom to the edge of a small pond. It was also filled with lilies – water lilies. The sunlight filtered through the glass walls and ceiling, making the surface of the pond sparkle.

  I watched a goldfish swim between the lily pads, as Tom sat on the concrete wall that circled the pond. He dipped a hand into the water and splashed me, making me squeal. He laughed as I splashed him back and as he did I knew it was a dream. Tom laughing? As if.

  I was scooping up another handful of water when he grabbed my arms and pulled me towards him. My heart fluttered as I leaned in for a kiss and, at that moment, I woke.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to return to the dream. Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze. Damn. Damn. Damn.

  It had been so detailed that I could recall his scent and the scent of the lilies. I put my hand out in the dark, searching for the warmth of his body, but found only empty space instead.

  9

  I took my time preparing for my date with Jackson on Saturday. Yep. You heard me. I had turned into Jo and was calling it a date, even though I knew our outing was for business, not pleasure. The thought of being picked up by a boy had my butterflies in a flutter. If it had have been Tom instead of Jackson I think I would have been completely carried away.

  My selection of “date” clothes was limited. I pulled on my good pair of jeans – dark blue denim with a skinny leg cut – and tried on the three tops I had laid out on my desk the night before.

  One was a white linen top with embroidered yellow flowers around the collar.

  “Too hippie-ish,” I muttered, throwing it back on the desk.

  Another was a pale pink t-shirt with a sketch of a donkey on the front. “Too casual.”

  The third was a crème-colored halter-neck top made from satin, which billowed around my waist.

  “Hmmm…” I turned in front of the mirror. It looked good, but I pulled it off over my head. “Too formal.”

  I yanked open the window to check the outside temperature, holding out my hand and letting the sunlight warm my palm. I ended up pulling on the donkey T-shirt, deciding there was no need for a jacket.

  I applied my mascara and cherry lip gloss, and brushed my hair at least a hundred times before putting it up into a ponytail and then letting it down again. The girls said wearing it up showed off my cheekbones, but I knew it also showed off my pointy ears, which was why I let my hair hang straight, a hand-length past my shoulders day after day. It must have been a decade since my ears had seen sunlight.

  I checked my reflection again, tilting my head up and down, and pursing my lips as I applied another layer of gloss. I considered asking Deb for her concealer to cover my dark circles. Thanks to the nightmares, I was starting to look like a vampire.

  I called Jo for a pep talk, but there was no answer either at home or on her cell. I guessed she was at work and left a voicemail message asking her to call the cops if I was missing in the morning.

  Deb was sitting at the kitchen table, which was strewn with beads and gemstones and tangled heaps of fishing line. She barely batted an eyelash when I told her I was going out. I suppose I should have added “with a boy,” but I wanted to save myself a talk on Venus, the Goddess of Love, or worse, the Three Virgin Goddesses.

  Her eyebrows crumpled with concentration as she beaded. She had been commissioned to make fifteen necklaces for Tree of Life. I saw she was halfway through her first and was wrestling with a knot in the line, cursing under her breath.

  I decided to give her a hand, considering I had about forty minutes before my so-called date. I made a necklace with a mixture of clear beads and pink gemstones.

  “Rose quartz,” Deb commented as I connected the clasp and held it up to the light. “The crystal of love.”

  I hesitated as she restarted her first necklace, wondering if she knew about Jackson. I held the necklace against my chest and turned to check out my reflection in a saucepan on the stove. Maybe I should wear it around Tom, I thought.

  This thought was cut short by a knock at the door. I peered down the hallway and saw my “date” through the front window. He was twenty-five minutes early.

  “I have my cell,” I told Deb, as I dropped the necklace on the table. I raced down the hallway and barreled past Jackson. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he responded, surprised by my speedy getaway. “I thought your mom would want to meet me, check my license and registration, and all that. Maybe call the cops to check my record, which is clean, by the way.”

  I laughed. “If you knew my mother you would know how silly that sounds.”

  “Hmmm…” He made a show of racking his memory, putting a closed fist under his chin and squinting up at the sky. “Happy pants? Peace beads? Camper van?”

  I laughed again. “OK. You remember Deb.”

  “I remember she came to school in third grade to teach us how to tie-dye T-shirts.”

  I cringed. “Really?”

  “And she took you and Jo to one of those Rainbow Retreats at Elkhorn Crossing after fifth grade. You guys were gone for like half the summer,” he said as he opened the passenger door.

  “Wow. What a memory,” I said, as I sank into the passenger seat. I wondered whether I should be worried and my mind went to my stalker, the man-slash-woman in the balaclava. A cold shiver ran down my spine and I closed my eyes, conjuring up the red light of my aura and doing aura aerobics until my body temperature rose a few degrees. I know. Just call me Deb.

  Jackson drove an old hatchback which was off-white with pockets of rust on the hood and side panels. The tan seat covers sagged like granny panties under my body weight.

  He was as tight-lipped about our destination as he had been at school.

  “You realize I know these roads like the back of my hand,” I told him, as he turned onto a road that led to the railroad crossing. “This road goes to the vineyards.”

  He frowned. “I should have blindfolded you.”

  “What can I say? Sixteen years in Green Grove versus…?”

  “Eleven.” He paused to check for trains, before driving across the tracks. The railroad crossing marked where the landscape went from sepia to color, as we went from the dustbowl that was Green Grove into a world without water restrictions.

  The Open Valley had been a well-known wine region before prohibition in 1920. They had reopened it in the Eighties, dividing the private estate into seven wineries again. The valley was as refreshing as a cool glass of water on a stinking hot day. Yes, the vineyards themselves – row after row of grapevines – could get old, but there were also the formal gardens that belonged to a few of the wineries and the old brickworks, on which I had used up a t
on of film over the years.

  We passed a couple of vehicles as we drove down the narrow avenues, out-of-towners on a weekend getaway. Jackson hugged the side of the road as a red SUV flew by and a white sedan followed, throwing up pebbles. I flinched as they sprayed against the side of the hatchback like a hail of bullets.

  Jackson laughed. “Are you worried about the paintwork?”

  I smiled, but sudden sounds were not my friend at the moment. Last night Deb had dropped a spoon on the floor with a clatter and I almost had to breathe into a paper bag for half an hour afterwards, as if the man-or-woman in the balaclava was going to spoon me to death.

  I shifted my attention to the window and saw that Jackson had put ten miles or so between us and Green Grove. Here the road merged into one lane with ponderosa pines crowding us on either side. I wondered what would happen if we came across an SUV now. Not that we would. If Green Grove was the middle of nowhere, then this was the middle of the middle of nowhere. All we needed now was an abandoned farmhouse.

  My eyes moved to Jackson, who was humming off-key and nodding his head in time to the music that blared from the radio. The speakers crackled with the heavy bass as his fingers tapped the steering wheel. They were slender, like the hands of the man-slash-woman in the balaclava.

  He caught me watching and grinned. “Got you now, Lillie.”

  My armpits prickled with sweat. Had I misheard him? “What?”

  “You thought you knew Green Grove. What did you say? Oh yeah. Like the back of your hand.” He laughed and then looked through the windshield with a smug smile. His tone was bright though as he added, “Jackson: One. Lillie: Zero.” He was like a ray of sunshine compared to Tom. If one of them was my killer it would be the latter.

  I allowed myself to sag into the seat again.

  Jackson eased off the gas as the woods ended and we passed through open gates. My stomach stirred, as if with homesickness, as I looked at the ornate wrought iron. The stone pillars that supported the gates bore a well-polished plaque.

  “Rose Hill,” I read, my lips wrapping around the words as if embracing a long lost friend. I had this sudden sensation that I was coming home. The words stuck in my mind, like corn in my teeth. What did I mean by coming home?