Harlow turned away angrily, startled by his abruptness. His eyes lingered on her as she hurried to catch up with Sophia, who was already a significant way down the road. She never heard the door close. By the time she had gone halfway down the road, her arms were covered in goosebumps and her ankle ached, her eyes were watering from the battering of the cold wind that frequently swept grains of sand and dirt up from the road in to her face. She couldn't wait to go home.
“Harlow.”
She turned around at the sound of his voice. He was running toward her. For a moment, her heart stopped.
He reached her quickly and handed over a black coat, “Here, sorry I couldn't find a girl's one. Are you sure you don't want a lift?”
“Yes,” she nodded, putting on the coat gratefully. “Thank you. I thought—”
“You should go,” he interrupted her, his eyes fixed on something behind her.
She turned around, following his gaze, and noticed that the street was empty. When she turned back to him, she found his back already moving away from her.
Chapter 7 – The Party's Over...We Had a Ball
On Monday, Harlow returned to school unaware of the commotion she had caused amongst the student body. The fault lines from Saturday were still blindingly clear. The orthodox hierarchy of the student body had been shattered. Divisions had torn friends apart into two opposing groups; old rivalries had been forced to the surface because of the furore caused by her humiliation.
She entered a class and people stopped talking. Some came over to speak to her as she hobbled in on her crutches, but most kept a weary distance. The older girls would snigger as she passed. In the crowded corridors and the queue for lunch, students would bump into her almost knocking her to the ground and then laugh unapologetically, melting back into the crowd.
“K.O.” someone shouted, and students in the lunch queue burst into laughter.
Her eyes misted with hot tears of anger so that the perpetrator's faces were blurred as she gathered her tray and its contents from the shiny white floor. There were sounds of a scuffle, then a heated argument. Harlow looked up as someone shouted, “You better hope she slaps you before I do!” That was how a previously unknown level of violence reared its head at Rutherfords. Students who had long been enemies settled old scores under the pretext of “Harlow's Justice.”
The week she returned, she witnessed six fights, heard of seven more, and stood back as class debates turned into shouting matches. It became unbearable. At home, her mind was on the hundreds of eyes that would follow her the next morning. The stalled conversations, the snide remarks that drifted past her ears. On Tuesday, she didn't return to school. As a result of feeling a sudden overwhelming pain in her ankle, she remained shut up in her room for the rest of the week watching reruns of Clueless from the safety of her bed. The pain in her ankle became so overwhelming that her parents derided her for proposing to walk on it, even downstairs, without the aid of crutches.
Her sister scrutinized her ankle knowingly.
Her phone remained silent, telling her that only T-mobile was interested in her sanity. She was enveloped by a black smoke of melancholy that choked her lungs, pressing down on her chest and against the walls of her room; normally pink, they were darkened by its stain. Only the glaring lights of the television and Alice's irreverent chatter pushed through the dark cloud.
On Friday, Alice complained that the room was too hot and made her nostrils feel stuffed up. She opened the windows to get some fresh air and it seemed to Harlow as if the thick black smoke were sucked out, leaving the room airy and bright. The walls gleamed their magnificent pink colour. That day, Alice convinced her that they should go for a walk. She agreed begrudgingly, limping along the road.
On Sunday, in the deepest darkest part of night not a single soul stirred in the Rain household, Harlow's bedroom was pitch black. The curtains obscured the light that emanated from the street lamps and the odd passing car. The soft sound of her breathing filled the room coming back and forth like the gentle sigh of the ocean. All of a sudden her desk began to shake. A bright white light broke through the darkness, disturbing the peaceful gloom. In her sleep, she heard a strange song being played. It seemed so familiar. The song ceased sharply. The sound of inconsistent tapping began at her window, breaking the silence. It went on for sometime before she finally woke up. She appeared in the window, letting in the light from the street. There was no one there. A few small stones and pebbles had made a home on her windowsill, but the pavement was empty. The desk rattled again and she went over to her phone; private number.
“Hello,” she answered curtly.
“You sound tired. Sorry to wake you.”
“Sophia? What's up?”
“I'm outside, can you come down?”
“Okay, hold on.”
Harlow peeked in the window after hanging up and realised there was a red sports car outside that she had never seen before. It seemed out of place.
She brushed her teeth quickly, splashing her face with water, then washing it, before rushing down the stairs in her cow pyjamas, unable to brush down the bed hair.
“Hey,” she opened the door for her friend with her brightest smile. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Sophia smiled that easy smile, “Not really. Are you up for an outing?”
Harlow hesitated.
“It's important. I was going to tell you before, but I didn't realise you'd be gone for so long.”
“One week isn't long,” Harlow said defensively. “What is it?”
“I'll explain on the way.”
“All right, I have to get dressed. I won't be long.”
“Yeah right, I'll wait in the car.”
“No, come in. I promise I won't take long.”
“Um,” she hesitated. “I don't know if that's a good idea. Your parents will probably have a heart attack if they see me lurking around the place.”
“No, it's fine, my parents must like you, otherwise they wouldn't have given you the number.”
She pulled Sophia's hand, intending to take her to the sitting room.
“Your hands are cold. How long have you been outside?”
She stopped walking in the middle of the hallway.
“Sssh,” Sophia said, looking jumpy, “not long.”
“Liar,” she whispered. Sophia laughed.
“What time is it?” Harlow asked, feeling completely disoriented.
“Five-thirty. Come on, get dressed or we'll be late.”
“Fine, you might as well wait here.”
She left her in the sitting room and went back upstairs.
Then, running back down the stairs as quietly as possible, Harlow crept into the dark room.
“Sophia?”
She could make out her outline on the sofa.
“Yes.”
“I have a better idea. At least this way you won't surprise anyone,” she whispered as they ascended the stairs.
Collecting her clothes, she rushed to the bathroom, leaving Sophia in front of the TV in her room.
The car was moving incredibly slowly.
“There's no traffic,” Harlow said pointedly. “I thought we were late?”
Sophia didn't look at her, she just smiled and said, “Yeah, kind of,” and sped up.
“That's more like it. Gosh, you were driving like my grandma.”
“Better safe than sorry, right?”
“So where are we going?”
“It's a surprise.”
“I love surprises. So,” she asked, “where are we going?”
Sophia laughed, “We're almost there.”
The car stopped on a back road next to a cluster of worn-out-looking flats.
They got out, passing a bearded homeless man sitting cross-legged on the pavement, his legs covered with a thick worn out looking blanket.
“I can't see it,” Sophia said, marching forward.
“Whoa, this place is really dodgy,” Harlow commented, shifting her eyes over the dirty pavemen
t and the rubbish piled up outside the Londis. The orange background of the Londis shop sign, with the lettering in green, was now a faded brown colour. Groups of people flocked past them carrying bouquets of flowers in white and brown wrapping. They passed an ice-cream van and she almost tripped over a homeless woman sitting near the low wall of a park. She apologised ruefully and moved slowly with her crutch to the other side of the pavement to let a large bulky man pass by; he took up the whole of the pavement struggling under the weight of a small tree sleeping in a large pot. The homeless woman moved her polystyrene cup out of the way of the man's approaching feet, making it jingle.
The street ahead was bustling, the air icy cold.
“So how are you feeling?” Sophia asked tentatively.
Harlow tensed up, “I'm fine, now it's just—I had to have a few days off, you know, because of my ankle,” she trailed off.
“Well, I hope it heals quickly.” Sophia said thoughtfully, “Don't feel too bad. Worse things have happened.”
She was quiet as they came upon the flower market. The breaths of the market folk formed small icy clouds around them as they shouted.
“This one's a bargain,” a male voice called. “A dozen chrysanthemums for a fiver. Come on; get it now before it goes.”
The early rising stall holders at Columbia Road Flower Market had filled the road with pots of beautiful multicoloured flowers for sale. Plants and trees of different varieties were placed on and around the stalls. The road was crowded. People were milling from stall to stall, selecting pots of flowers.
“This is cool,” Harlow remarked.
Sophia spoke as if she hadn't heard Harlow. “When you fall down, the best thing to do is to get back up again and brush yourself off. Don't give people power over you. Honestly, Harlow, you told me yourself if you pay attention to what everyone else thinks you won't even drink water.”
She nodded, taken aback by Sophia's seriousness.
The street was filled with trendy types all dressed in black, wearing Ray-Bans even though there was no sun. People brushed past her and she grabbed onto Sophia's arm as she threatened to disappear into the crowd. The heavy weight of someone's leaden foot held her shoe down as her feet went forward. The shoe almost slipped off and Harlow whipped her head around in annoyance.
“Sorry,” the girl muttered as Harlow apologised simultaneously. The girl carried on her conversation in rapid French and Harlow followed her friend through the crowd. She released her arm.
The air was full of shouts. “A palm for a pound. It's a bargain.”
The mixed conversations of German, English, and possibly Japanese, then the English with an American twang filled her ears as people pushed past, and they squeezed through the crowd.
“It's just, it was so embarrassing,” she whispered as Sophia led the way through the crowd to one of the stalls.
“You're the new girl. It takes some time to adjust,” Sophia said.
Tourists with their faces crammed against the glass of a small tea shop were visible behind the stall owner’s lithe body as he gesticulated wildly to sell the palm. The tables on the pavement outside the shop were full despite the awful weather and the heavy grey, overcast sky. Sophia shivered holding onto Harlow's arm.
“It's fricking cold.”
“Where are your gloves?” Harlow asked.
“I forgot them.”
The aroma from the bouquets lined up in front of her was delicious. She leaned into some magnolias and sniffed them, then leaned back, quickly sneezing.
Sophia was silent for a while and then said, “It wasn't that bad.” Harlow took a pack of tissues from her bag.
“You didn't see it,” she said wiping her nose delicately with the tissues. He completely humiliated me, she thought. How could I ever have liked someone like that, someone so thoughtless and cruel?
“Actually, I did see, but only the end part,” Sophia admitted quickly.
“That's even worse,” Harlow said, her eyes hardening with anger. “I worked so hard to get into this school and now I wish I'd never come.”
“So what?” Sophia asked, “what's the big deal? You made an effort for someone you like.”
“Liked,” she added bitterly. “He's a complete—” She couldn't find the expletives to finish the sentence as a wave of resentment washed over her like newly fallen rain.
“Idiot,” Sophia offered. She reached for a bunch of daisies. “I think you caught him on a bad day.” She gave Harlow a quick probing glance to see if she was pushing her too far.
“I have bad days, but you don't see me going around,” she gave up, lost for words. “I could have drowned.”
All I ever did was show him that I care. What's so bad about that? Am I so revolting? She thought of the look of distaste Amy had given her before shoving her into the water, like she was a bag of festering garbage that was burning everyone's noses. Like she didn't belong there.
“That was Amy,” Sophia interrupted reading Harlow's face.
“It had nothing to do with her!” Harlow said. “She shouldn't have involved herself.”
Sophia shrugged, “It was a bit uncalled for.”
“A bit!”
“But then, he is my brother, so I'm always going to be biased. He's always had girls swarming after him. I'm just surprised that they've started fighting over him.”
Harlow put the daisies back down, “Your brother?”
“Yes,” Sophia admitted uneasily.
“Oh my God. No! How?” Harlow exclaimed.
“He's my younger brother. Only a year younger, though; we're practically the same age.”
“Why didn't you say so before?”
Sophia walked away, moving toward the other stalls. “What difference would it have made?” She asked, studying Harlow's face.
“Yes, but—” Harlow paused. “You could have told me that he wasn't interested.”
“I really had no idea. We're not very close. Besides, I didn't know you liked him. You never said,” Sophia explained. “To be honest, when it comes to what Roberto thinks or does or is going to do, your guess is as good as mine,” she replied finally.
They walked on to the other stalls and Sophia disappeared, swallowed up into the crowd around the stall. A few seconds later, she returned with a lemon tree.
Harlow raised an eyebrow, “I don't even know what to say to this. I'm all out of jokes.”
Sophia gave her a wry smile. “It's not mine.”
“Possession is nine tenths of the law.”
“I thought it might cheer you up. Your room looks a little bare.”
“Oh, I thought it was for your mum or something,” she replied.
“No,” Sophia said. A shadow passed over her face. Her eyes steely with repressed grief as she said, “She's dead.”
“Oh, I'm sorry. Um, thanks,” Harlow said awkwardly, reaching for the lemon tree. She should have remembered that one little thing, but it was hard to connect what she'd read about Sophia in the glossy magazines with the ordinary girl with sadness in her eyes who stood before her.
Sophia recovered her composure, hiding the unhappiness like a magician hides a watch making it disappear with one quick effortless movement. She said, “If you have plants in your room you'll feel better soon. I read it in the Metro. When you put plants in a patient's hospital room or they have a view of the garden, they're more likely to be back in good health faster than those who don't have it,” she trailed off with a smile.
The next morning, Harlow left for school with much trepidation, grabbing her backpack and making her way slowly downstairs. The pain was gone, but she stepped lightly, weary of agitating the injury.
“What about breakfast?” her mother called as she headed toward the door.
“I'm not hungry,” she called back, opening the door. Her mother rushed out from the kitchen. “Wait, wait,” she called holding a plastic box. “I made you lunch.”
“Thank you,” Harlow said with a wide grin.
“I put
some extra snacks in there just in case you get hungry before lunch.” Her mother handed her the box then waved good-bye as she left to catch the 07.31 train to Rutherfords.
She saw Sophia standing idly outside the class room door. The hallway was full so nobody took notice of her.
“Harlow,” a girl shouted from behind her. “Harlow.” She turned to find Mei running to catch up with her, her brown hair swishing freely behind her like a Pantene advert. She looked meticulously clean, neat, and well presented as always. A couple of people turned around to look at Mei. Harlow braced herself for the onslaught of mockery as a few students grouped together gawking at her. Mei caught up with her. Sophia gave Harlow a short pep talk before heading off to her class and Harlow followed Mei into history class.
Mei looked anxiously at her, “Where have you been?”
“I didn't feel well.”
“Are you okay now?” Mei probed.
“Yes, much better,” Harlow said looking around the class. A few heads turned as she came in and she quickly took her seat next to Mei in the first row, averting her gaze, avoiding making eye contact with anyone.
Mei looked over at her with concern as the teacher entered and Roberto followed. There was a purple bruise around his eye. He passed by, taking a seat somewhere behind her. For a few seconds, everyone was quiet. Then something hard hit her back and she turned around quickly. A piece of scrunched up paper lay idly on the ground next to her feet. Another thick ball of paper hit her on the side of the face, catching her by surprise. She wanted to burst into tears, angry frustrated tears, and balled her fists under the table. She wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her cry, especially not over this, not over him.
“Oww!” she cried as another paper thudded against her temple.
Another paper bounced off her nape. Laughter erupted from the back row.
She jumped up shouting, “Who threw that?”
The papers lay scattered at her feet. The teacher shocked from his preparations reacted by shouting, “What's going on?”
Harlow glanced at the teacher quickly, his face red with irritation. She saw Roberto in the back row, surrounded by his cronies, Patrick, James, and Howard, looking around innocently. She fought the fit of temper that she knew was coming.
It Never Rains in Colombia Page 6
