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

by Ingrid Jonach

  I consulted the filing cabinet of my mind, looking for a reason for the familiarity, but found locked drawer after locked drawer, until a memory from when I was about five or six years old opened.

  Deb had brought me here. We had dressed up as if we were going to a wedding or an expensive restaurant. I had worn a yellow sundress, and Deb had worn a red dress and white sandals, instead of her uniform of happy pants and peace beads. Her hair had ended at her shoulders back then and I remember her spending half an hour or so in the bathroom, blow-drying it into shape while I sat as stiff as a board on the couch.

  As Jackson drove down the avenue of trees, I caught glimpses of freshly mown grass and a man-made lake, rectangular like the Reflecting Pool in DC, but deep and dark. I wound down the window to breathe in the fresh air and listen to the trill of birds as they flitted through the branches. Red birds. Like in my dream, I realized with a start.

  The tires crunched on the white gravel, sounding like someone shushing us – or shushing Jackson, who was commenting on the size of the lake and wondering about catfish.

  “I should have brought my rod.”

  Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.

  The driveway curved and I drew in a deep breath as a white building came into view. I exhaled, as another drawer unlocked in my mind. I remembered Deb holding my hand as we had walked up the front steps. I had been complaining about a piece of gravel in my shoe.

  “Ow. Ow. Oooow!”

  Deb had crouched to pull off my shoe, giving it a shake. I must have been younger than five or six, maybe four, because she had also wiped my nose with a tissue and combed her fingers though my hair, before rocking back on her heels to study me, giving me a nod of approval.

  “…a hotel,” Jackson was saying as I tuned back in to his channel. “It has, like, fifty rooms. How much do you think it costs a night?”

  I shook my head.

  “Go on. Guess.”

  “A lot?”

  He laughed, but before he could answer his own question, a man dressed in old-fashioned coat-tails met us in the circular drive. He looked at the hatchback like a cow had ambled into Rose Hill, but he told us we could view the gardens, provided we minded the out-of-bounds signage.

  As we walked towards the front entrance I was overcome by my connection to the estate. “I am in love,” I breathed.

  Jackson grinned. “Good. Because I was thinking we could call our major work ‘From Green Grove with Love.’”

  I wrinkled my nose. “James Bond?”

  “Bingo.”

  “From Green Grove with Love,” I repeated dubiously. Boys.

  I stopped a few feet from the steps that led to the front entrance and raised my camera to take a photo. The shutter clicked as a figure descended and my heart rate suddenly went through the roof. Tom.

  I tried to remain cool, calm and collected, but I knew I was gawking. I have to say, he looked like he belonged at Rose Hill. He was dressed in a light gray T-shirt which hugged his chiseled frame, and there were no tears in his designer jeans today. Jackson looked like a kid in comparison, with his loose shirt, baggy jeans and skate shoes.

  Tom paused when he saw us and, in that moment, he looked like some kind of modern day Mr Darcy on the steps of Pemberley. I frowned. When had I read Pride and Prejudice? Jo was the bookworm. Maybe I had seen the movie. I think it starred Colin Firth. And maybe Keira Knightly? Or was that the BBC series?

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, lowering my camera as he descended.

  “I live here.”

  “You live here?” Of course. His family was loaded. Living in a hotel was probably as normal as having butter on bread. I guessed this was where he had been hiding out during his first few months in Green Grove.

  “What about you?” Tom asked, his eyes moving between me and Jackson. I became acutely aware of my childish T-shirt and scuffed sneakers. I thought about the girl in the photo, who had looked as polished as the brass handrail on the front steps. “What are you doing at Rose Hill?” It sounded like an accusation, as if we were trespassing on private property.

  “Assignment,” Jackson said, rolling his eyes as if it blew.

  The gravel driveway crunched behind us and I turned to see the valet pulling up the Benz. Tom must have forked out for a panel beater, because its hood was free from hail damage. Or maybe it was a brand new car.

  “I have to go,” Tom said.

  “Where?” I asked compulsively.

  He looked at me for a moment and then at Jackson. “Tell Lorraine at reception to let you into the ballroom.” He turned towards his SUV and then hesitated. “And steer clear of the out-of-bounds signage if you go into the gardens.”

  His tone made my blood simmer and boil as I watched him climb into the SUV. “Who does he think he is? Lord of the manor?” I muttered, looking at his silhouette behind the tinted windows. The accelerator was pressed down and the vehicle moved off with the slightest spin of his tires, as if it were a message to me – “F-you.”

  It was like we were in the middle of an argument that had started before he came to Green Grove. I was ready to bury the hatchet, but he continued to hack at my heart with his mixed messages. I put a hand to my chest as I watched him drive through the gates and into the Open Valley.

  I let my hand drop as I followed Jackson up the front steps and through the double doors.

  “See?” he said, gesturing around the white marble foyer. “James Bond would love Green Grove.”

  “Technically this is the Open Valley,” I grumbled, but I had to agree as I surveyed the sweeping staircase with its ornate banister that looked like it had been hand-carved from mahogany or some other expensive, well-oiled timber. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, which featured a dome of ornamental plaster the size of a small continent.

  Lorraine was an equally glamorous woman pushing sixty. She wore a caramel-colored skirt suit with an oversized gold brooch pinned to its lapel. Her bright red nails were as fake as her botoxed brow. She was about as Green Grove as the Statue of Liberty. She looked down her powdered nose at us like we were a couple of stray dogs, until Jackson mentioned Tom. Suddenly, she was all smiles and bleached teeth.

  “Follow me, darlings,” she said in a posh accent, which I could tell hid a Texan twang.

  Jackson stopped about halfway down the passage to sketch an antique vase that occupied a recess lit by downlights. I walked ahead, as Lorraine doubled back to tell him its history. I passed a number of doors on both sides, but I knew I wanted the double doors at the end. You could call it intuition, I guess. Like how I knew about the scar on Tom’s chin.

  I placed both hands on the brass handles and pushed. The ballroom looked like it belonged in Versailles with its mirrored walls and chandeliers, and, as I stood on the polished parquet floor with my reflection multiplied a million times on either side, my stomach was filled with the same sensation I got when I looked at old photos. A longing.

  “Who would use this in Green Grove?” I wondered aloud.

  “No one in Green Grove,” Lorraine said, coming into the room with Jackson in tow and smiling at me like I was a stupid child. “The owner used to throw lavish functions here, before it became a hotel.” She must have seen the incredulous look on my face, because she added, “Long before you were born. A good forty years ago, I would say.” She laughed softly, looking around the room, as if imagining a bygone party. “My, my, that shows my age.”

  Jackson wandered around the ballroom, holding up his hands like a photo frame and squinting at the view. I should have been taking photos, but I peppered Lorraine with questions instead, wanting, needing to know all about Rose Hill.

  Luckily, Lorraine was keen for company. Apparently, she had worked at Rose Hill on and off since she was a teenager. “This place has a hold on me,” she admitted. “I came back last year after a decade working at the Bellagio in Vegas.”

  “Has the owner come back too?” I asked, wondering who would own such a decadent estate.

  Lorrain
e shook her head. “Her daughter and son-in-law used to pop in now and then. The last time I saw them was before I headed out west. They brought their son with them. I spoiled him rotten. I have to say, I was tickled pink when he returned this year.”

  “Son?”

  “Tom,” she said lightly, as if she were jogging my mind instead of blowing it.

  I did a double-take as I thought back to him standing on the front steps, looking like he owned the estate. He did.

  Lorraine bit her lip, accidentally smudging her front teeth with lipstick. “He skipped out on his grandmother in England,” she said and then lowered her voice, as if his grandmother could hear across the Atlantic. “She thinks he is at boarding school in Kent. I agreed to keep mum about it.” She sighed and patted her wavy auburn hair. “Can you imagine saying no to that boy?”

  “No,” I answered honestly. It was as clear as the crystal chandeliers that hung above our heads that Tom was used to hearing the word “yes.”

  Lorraine sighed. “It seems someone did say, ‘No,’” she confided. “A girl.” Her lips pursed. “She broke his heart and that was why he came to Green Grove.”

  My mind went to the photo of the girl again. I suddenly realized that they were in the middle of an argument, not me and Tom.

  I lowered my eyes to the gilded columns that lined the room and homesickness settled in my stomach again. I thought back to when Deb had brought me to Rose Hill as a kid. We had walked around the gardens for what seemed like no more than ten minutes before Deb had asked the woman at reception – Lorraine? – about a man called William.

  It was such a small detail that I wondered how it had made it through eleven years of schooling without being overwritten by fractions or verbs or the capital of Sri Lanka, not to mention my amnesia of the past few months.

  “Do you know someone called William?” I asked Lorraine on a whim.

  She smiled. “You must mean Tom’s father.”

  I frowned. Why would Deb be asking about Tom’s father? I was about to ask Lorraine if she remembered us coming to Rose Hill all of those years ago when we heard the phone ring at reception, tinkling like wind chimes.

  “Enjoy the estate,” Lorraine said, as she trotted towards the passage. “But please note the out-of-bounds signage in the garden.”

  I would have moved on when I saw the black lettering that dictated “Keep Out” if not for the triple-dipping on the warning. They may as well have led me here and unclipped the chain across the path. My mind was running through the reasons for the sign, which swung in the afternoon breeze. Maybe it was about public liability. The flagstone path looked uneven. I frowned and moved in for a closer look. I had seen that path before…

  It hit me like a slap in the face. It was the path from my dreams, the path that led to the courtyard with the fountain. My chest constricted.

  “Excuse me, Miss.”

  I yelped and spun around to see an old man crouched by the rose bushes. I took in his beige coveralls and the pair of gardening shears in his hands.

  “Sorry,” I said with a hand on my chest, as if holding in my heart.

  “This section of the garden is out-of-bounds,” he said apologetically.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged as he pruned a rose bush. “Ask the boy. He put up the sign.” He chopped a branch with gusto, muttering under his breath. I caught a couple of words that made me blush.

  I guessed “the boy” was Tom. I had to shake my head at him turning up and taking over. This old man had probably been pruning these rose bushes for fifty years.

  “And he calls me George when my name is Fredrick,” the old man continued to complain, dropping his shears and picking up a spray bottle.

  I made a sympathetic sound as I looked at the path again. There was no way, no how that this was the path from my dreams. I was blurring the line between my sleeping and waking hours again. I turned towards the stables, telling the old man goodbye and myself to get a grip.

  My grip lasted about three minutes, which was when I saw the greenhouse. It was hidden behind a row of small trees and I had to pinch myself when I saw its glass glinting in the sunlight.

  I cut through the long grass and saw that unlike the greenhouse from my dreams its windows were smashed and coated in grime. I held my breath as I peered through a broken windowpane. It was empty. There were no pots or baskets, and no lilies.

  I exhaled and lifted my camera to snap a shot of the interior of the greenhouse, focusing on a vine that was creeping up the metal frame, before turning the lens on a mound of rubble. I frowned, wondering if it could have been the concrete wall of the pond in my dream.

  “Hey.”

  “Jesus!” I yelped.

  “You can call me Jackson,” Jackson said with a wink. He stuck his head through a broken window. “I think they should have a word with their gardener,” he said with a laugh.

  “Do you want to get decapitated?” I asked, pulling at the back of his T-shirt.

  Jackson looked up at the shards of glass and withdrew his head with a shiver. “Should we check out the stables? I think I saw a horse.”

  I nodded, following him back through the long grass and onto the lawn. I looked over my shoulder, thinking I had to have rocks in my head to think I had seen both the path and the greenhouse from my dreams.

  I squinted in the sunlight and for a moment the greenhouse took on a pinkish hue, as if it were filled to the ceiling with lilies.

  It took two and a half rolls of film for me and one sketchbook for Jackson before the sun began to set over the Open Valley and the light was leeched from the sky.

  “Goodbye Jackson,” Lorraine said, as we walked through the hotel. “And…”

  “Lillie,” I said.

  Her eyes seemed to bulge. “Lillie?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Tom said you…” She hesitated and then bit her lip. She may as well have applied lipstick straight to her teeth. “It is just such a thrill to see Tom making friends,” she finally said and then gave a slight shrug of her shoulder pads. “Although that boy has always been a people person.”

  I swallowed a guffaw, thinking how biased she was about the antisocial Tom. He was hardly a social butterfly. Maybe he had been outgoing as a child.

  Or maybe I have a lot to learn about Tom, I thought, wondering what he had told Lorraine. I was about to ask when she suddenly remembered that she had to speak to the kitchen about a room service order. “Lovely to meet you, Jackson and… Lillie.”

  There were no bouncers, but it felt like we were being kicked out of Rose Hill. I followed Jackson down the steps and into the dying light, wondering whether I would be allowed back again or whether I would just have to continue to visit in my dreams.

  10

  Jackson talked non-stop as we drove from Rose Hill. It was starting to drive me nuts.

  “Have you noticed that people have stopped using their blinkers?” he asked and then continued to talk without waiting for a response. “A truck came close to cleaning me up this morning before I picked you up. I was like one second from being killed, all because of a stupid blinker.” He shook his head and whistled under his breath. “And what about the road rage in this town? I mean the truck driver flipped me the bird. Me!”

  I wondered when he breathed.

  I stared out the window as he went on about being honked at for stopping at a stop sign, my eyes flicking from tree to tree. As they thinned, I saw rows of vines, their leaves turning red and falling from their branches. In another few weeks they would be bare, like stick figures hung out to dry on the trellises.

  I wanted to see Rose Hill again, but it was over the rise. I closed my eyes and saw myself walking through its corridors with rooms on either side. I wondered which room belonged to Tom, or should I say which rooms plural? He probably had a butler too. He may as well have been King of the World for how much of a shot I had with him. I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest, wondering
whether I even wanted a shot with Tom. My attraction to him was making my head hurt, not to mention my heart.

  “What the–?” Jackson exclaimed, slowing down.

  I looked through the windshield at the railroad crossing ahead. Through the twilight, I could see a few cars parked and teens milling about on the side of the road. I recognized Blake, slouching against his Mustang. Melissa was sitting in the passenger seat with the door open, her silver pumps on the asphalt.

  “They play chicken with the trains,” I explained. It was how teens in Green Grove got their kicks. Yep. It seemed that racing a speeding locomotive was as good as it got in this town.

  Jackson slowed and wound down his window as we approached the crossing.

  “Go. Go. Go,” I begged, as Melissa slunk out of the car and approached, like a lioness stalking its prey.

  “OK. Stop,” I said, as I spotted a certain SUV through the dusk.

  Tom was leaning against his SUV. His face was in shadow, but it was turned in our direction. I suddenly realized it was me who was wrong, not Lorraine. He was a social butterfly after all.

  “Hi Jackson,” Melissa said, bending down at the window. She was wearing a sequined top that looked like it belonged to Sylv and her fake-tanned arms were covered with goosebumps in the chill of the evening. “Oh,” she said, seeing me. “Hi…”

  “Lillie,” I said, as if she could forget my name when we had hung out for half of our lives.

  A train horn sounded in the distance and a few of the teens straightened up, like prairie dogs.

  “The 6.18,” Melissa crowed. “Who’s up?”

  “Me,” Jackson volunteered.

  “What?” I looked at him as if horns had sprouted from his head.

  “Come on, Lillie. Live a little.” He grinned and revved the engine, looking at the railroad crossing a couple of hundred feet ahead.

  “Yeah, and maybe die a little too,” I said. “Forget it.”