by Hugh Breakey
‘Well, let’s at least get you out of the sun,’ Julie said. ‘We’ll carry it over there under the tree with everyone else.’ She turned to me as she tipped the box towards her. ‘Come on, muscles. Let’s put those guns to use. Grab an end.’
I hurried around to the other side. Nobody had ever called me ‘muscles’ before, to my knowledge. Hard to know how to feel about it. Squatting down with one knee, I edged my fingers under the box and lifted it up. Not too bad for me, but Julie’s lithe arms corded under the weight. Still, she seemed unconcerned, twisting her upper body around as she walked backwards. I followed, keeping up my end. My neighbours parted to let us through.
We arrived under the tree and Julie started to lower her side. As she bent, the box’s centre of gravity shifted suddenly towards her, and she tipped forward. ‘Whoa. Crap.’
There was nothing I could do. As the weight slipped away and down, with it went my control over the box. Julie began to topple forward, her fingers effectively trapped under the bottom edge.
‘Drop your weight!’ I yelled. ‘Widen your stance.’
Julie snapped her back foot further out, dropping at the knees. Her centre of gravity lowered, she braced her arms and shoulders against the box, halting its momentum. ‘There you go. You’ve got it now.’
She did have it. Better positioned, she lowered the carton gently.
‘There, all done.’ I smiled at Julie, but she was looking away, not paying attention to me, or to Mrs Davis’ thanks.
‘Jeez, that smoke.’ Her face flushed from the momentary exertion, Julie wiped at her eyes. ‘I should go. I’ve got four more deliveries before lunch.’
I bit my lip. Had something changed? Was it me? I had snapped at her. Drop your weight. Widen your stance. Where had those words come from? They’d just tumbled out.
No wonder she was annoyed. No one likes being bossed about, especially by a weird hermit like me.
Julie hitched her bag over her shoulder. ‘Can you help Mrs Davis get this up to her place later?’ She pointed with her chin towards the large box.
‘Sure. No problem.’
‘And could you just wheel the trolley inside for me? I could come by tomorrow and pick it up.’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
‘Great. And, you know. Thanks.’ She reached out as if to clasp my arm, but stopped halfway. The moment passed. She stuck her earbud back in one ear, flashed me her polite smile, and headed for the street.
Maybe she wasn’t so upset after all. Just eager to get on with her work day. She strode off with a quick step. The sunlight glinted off her short dark hair, picking up a red highlight running through the black. Reaching the footpath, she glanced back over her shoulder.
I only realised I’d been staring when her gaze met mine. A surge of guilt gripped my gut. For all the world it felt like I’d been caught doing something wrong. Creepy. But she didn’t seem put out. Her expression was completely neutral. Then she turned back in the direction she’d been going and disappeared from view.
My heart was hammering. That split-second glance was scarier than the whole fire episode. One of the problems with having no adult memories was that social interactions could be hard to understand. Meaningless events—two people looking at each other for perhaps two seconds—could so easily get blown out of all proportion.
I took a deep breath. Returned my attention to more pressing matters—like the state of my apartment. As the minutes passed, the firemen’s air of urgency faded. Their movements slowed and their barked communications gave way to chatter. A good sign, surely. Perhaps the entire affair really was all smoke and no flame.
Still, it didn’t look like we’d be getting back into our apartments any time soon. The only productive thing to be done right now was to relax and recharge as best I could, so I’d be able to make up for lost time tonight.
I slumped down on the ground, as Julie had done, and went through my backpack, hoping I hadn’t damaged any of the mementoes in my rush to stuff them in.
One by one I checked them. The carved wooden elephant rested heavily in my palm—it always felt denser than it looked—as I laid it out beside the bracelet with its midnight-blue gemstone beads, the crystal vase, the geode, the copper disk with the strange lettering engraved on its face and the key. They were all fine. Relieved, I put them away and lay back on the soft grass, fingers knotted behind my head.
One of the firemen came over to address our little crowd. Good news. They’d put out the fire—it sounded like the older tenant might have been right, and it had just been kids lighting up one of the big rubbish bins. The smoke had almost cleared; we’d be able to return soon.
Hopefully the firemen hadn’t needed to enter my apartment. I didn’t want to think about a posse of thick-set men in heavy boots tromping, half-blind in the smoke-filled chaos, through my dominoes.
But frankly, after all the morning’s fears crowding in on each other, I didn’t have the mental space for more. Besides, the fire seemed to have been contained in the area near the bins, which sat near the lift on each level. My apartment was at the opposite end of the floor, so with a little luck they hadn’t gone near my door.
It took another thirty minutes before we received the go-ahead to return to our apartments. The group surged back through the front door. I was itching to get upstairs to check on things, but I could hardly leave an old lady in the lurch. We waited for the crowd to go in, then I hoisted the flat-pack box up onto one shoulder. Carrying it by myself was unwieldy, but I could manage. Muscles, Julie had called me. Maybe my long-sleeved shirts didn’t hide as much as I’d thought.
We took the elevator to the second floor, and I deposited the box in Mrs Davis’ tidy front room. Her niece was coming over later to help her put it together, she said, so I figured I’d done enough. I left as soon as politely possible, bounding up the fire escape stairs two at a time.
My apartment door was still closed; Julie’s hand-trolley stood nearby. The door handle slipped in my hand, a thin layer of soot smearing my palm, but inside everything was just as I’d left it. Even the smoke that had roiled in before I shut the door had disappeared without leaving a smell. I let out a burst of relieved laughter.
It didn’t take long to get everything sorted. The letter, the doctor’s certificate and the mementoes went back into their box and I wheeled Julie’s trolley into the kitchen.
The rest of the day continued without a hitch. I kept up a solid pace of work, and it felt good to be moving forward again. Julie turned out to be right when she said I could get away with putting down half as many barriers, and it was saving me time. It also meant the dominoes on either side of the barriers could be placed closer together: perfectly positioned for the final fall.
By late afternoon I began to tire, my brain weary and hands cramping. The frenzy of early-morning activity had taken its toll. Maybe in my remaining nine days I’d cram in a spare hour somewhere, but not today.
Anyway, I’d just got to the end of a carton of dominoes. It was time to break open another full one from the stack in the kitchen, and that meant I could gauge my progress exactly. A few quick calculations revealed I’d just crossed the fateful fifty-thousand mark. A warm feeling of achievement rose in my chest—only slightly spoiled by the knowledge that I’d been on track to get here two days earlier.
I made a quick dinner and ate sitting outside again, watching the sun set over the city’s west. I took my journal and pen outside after I finished eating, and used the last of the light to detail the day’s events.
The longer I stayed out, the more my mind went to the moment when Julie turned back to look at me. The stillness of her expression, as if a mask had fallen. In the back of my mind, I’d assumed she had a boyfriend, or a significant other of some sort. Not that she wore a ring or anything, but she was smart and beautiful and confident, so why wouldn’t she?
Now I wondered. Something in that final moment… It unnerved me, even as it squeezed my chest with a strange pleasure.
>
Idle thoughts from a tired mind. I emptied my water glass into a pot plant and took myself off to bed.
Day Nine
Nine days to go and more than thirty thousand dominoes still to be placed. But even that enormous number didn’t properly express the difficulty of the task before me. The problem wasn’t the sheer amount of dominoes remaining, but where they needed to go.
UP.
Onto the elevated platforms and bridges. Some of them I’d already constructed, but most were yet to be done. And unfortunately, setting those up took serious time.
I raced through my morning exercises, sweat dripping from every pore by the time I hit the shower. I ate my morning toast sitting cross-legged in the livingroom, working out a plan of attack and looking at my design sketches. By day’s end I wanted to have two more platforms up, and at least one of them filled with dominoes.
But things didn’t move quickly. It was almost a week since I’d put up the last platform. I’d been in a groove with it, and now I wasn’t: remembering all the steps slowed me down. Just getting used to handling all the little tools again took time, and by mid-morning the first platform was only half done. I’d just finished screwing in the base when the familiar rat-tat-tat echoed from the door. Julie, of course, come to pick up her trolley.
She wore a slim-fitting white top, open at the shoulders, and a pale blue skirt fell loose around her legs. This time everything matched. The pixie-cut hair, the green eyes and matching earrings, the simple top and fluttering skirt; even the sturdy black boots.
My heart pounded.
‘Hey.’ This time her smile looked a bit more genuine. Things had changed since the fire. I just didn’t understand how or why.
‘Hi.’ I grinned back. ‘You look…’ I searched for the right word. ‘Different.’
Different. Really?
‘Oh.’ Julie looked down at herself. ‘I have Fridays off, so.’
So she transformed into this fearsome creature.
‘Come in. The trolley’s in the kitchen.’ I ushered her in. Her skirt swished above her knees as she walked, its loose hem fluttering alarmingly up and down. I’d supposed her legs would be lithe, like her arms. Not that I’d really given the matter much thought. But solid muscle rippled from the legs under the skirt’s dance.
Eyes forward. The kitchen. The trolley.
The best plan seemed just to get her out of my place as fast as politely possible. ‘Here it is.’ I strode over to the trolley in the corner. ‘A little soot got on it, but I wiped it down.’
‘Wow. You have a nice view.’ Julie was looking out the back windows. ‘Can you see the river from your balcony?’
‘You have to lean out a little.’
‘Nice.’ Her left hand started curling around her earbud lead.
‘Do you want to see?’
‘Sure.’ The earbud popped out into her hand.
I opened the door and followed her outside.
‘That breeze is divine.’ She went straight to the rail. ‘You can almost smell the storm season coming.’
The wind whipped her skirt. Sent it flapping up her legs, and a quick jolt of adrenaline through my body.
‘Look,’ Julie said. ‘I thought so.’ She pointed into the distance, not in the direction of the river but south. ‘You see that red building there?’
I joined her at the rail and squinted into the morning sunlight. Julie shifted closer, one arm resting on my shoulder, the other still pointing out, her flank pressed against the side of my chest.
Focus, Robbie. ‘See the building there—next to the tall blue one?’ She leaned closer and a hint of sharp, sweet scent washed over me. I doubted if I could have seen a nuclear explosion where she was pointing, but I nodded anyway.
Julie carried on talking. ‘That’s my place. I just moved there two weeks ago. Third floor, so no views, I’m afraid. Not like this.’
Then she leaned away and out over the balcony, craning her head in the opposite direction. ‘Ha. River views indeed.’
I smiled. Her appreciation of the view made me feel almost proud, though I could hardly take responsibility.
‘Well. My trolley and I should get out of your hair.’ Julie faced me with a smile. ‘Thanks for sharing your view.’
She turned back to go indoors, the wind taking a final tug at her skirt. I followed her inside, fixing my gaze resolutely beyond her. All I had to do was survive a few more moments and I’d never have to see her like this again. Next week it would all be back to baggy uniforms.
The thought made me both relieved and a bit sad. It wasn’t Julie’s fault, of course. The problem was my limited history with women. And my even more limited future.
Back in the livingroom, Julie was surveying my morning’s work as she plugged the earbud back in. ‘Do you ever need help on this? The dominoes, I mean.’ Her words came out fast, almost blurted. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’m off work. If you like, I could come over and help you out a bit. It looks like fun.’
My mouth went dry. Had Julie just asked me if I’d like her to come and visit? And not as a grocery deliverer, but as something else, something more like a friend?
‘Thanks, that’s very kind of you to offer,’ I fumbled. It was unthinkable, of course. Company was dangerous at the best of times—let alone just nine days before the forgetting. The very time I was meant to be barricading my doors against the outside world, not flinging them open. And in any case, these last five minutes had shown how much I struggled with social situations.
‘The thing is…I’m trying to reach a sort of record. The dominoes have to be assembled just by me. It’s an individual sort of thing.’ In its way, that was all true enough. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh. Is it like a world record?’
‘I know it might seem a bit silly, but—’
‘Not at all. That’s kind of cool.’
Silence fell. Awkward as hell, but I couldn’t for the life of me think how to break it.
Julie said: ‘Does the rule just apply to setting up the dominoes themselves? Would it apply to building the platforms and bridges? I spent the best part of two years doing set construction, so I’m pretty good with power tools.’
Panic surged again. My chest tightened till it felt like my ribs were squashing my lungs. There had to be a way of saying no without hurting her feelings.
‘We could add some better supports to the platforms you’ve already got up.’ She pointed with her chin. ‘The way they are right now I worry the dominoes aren’t the only thing set up for collapse.’
‘It’s not a good idea.’ My voice cut over hers.
‘Oh.’
You jerk, I mentally hissed at myself. You utter jerk.
Her polite smile didn’t reach anywhere near her eyes. It didn’t even seem to reach her mouth. ‘Okay. Whatever.’ She plugged in her second earbud. ‘Probably for the best. I work fast, and it’d be a shame to rush it.’
She turned her trolley to the door, then paused. ‘I’m sorry if that seemed…’ She shook her head, cutting off her own sentence. ‘It’s just, it’s my birthday tomorrow and I’m new here, that’s all. So that’s why. Sorry. Bye.’
The door clicked shut behind her.
How had it all gone so wrong so fast? One moment she was admiring the view, the next she was slamming the door in what looked for all the world like embarrassed rejection.
Jerk. Pain pinched deep in my gut, and my mouth tasted bitter. I hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. Up until a few minutes ago, I hadn’t thought of myself as having the power to hurt anyone’s feelings.
This was the problem of having a condition that everyone around you didn’t—couldn’t—know about. What had it looked like to Julie? She’d reached out to me, and I had cut her down.
A thought flashed across my mind—Julie’s card was in the box of records. And her number. I could phone her back. Rescue the situation. Maybe I could say I’d checked the rules for domino records and found it was okay for her to help with the platforms.
She might say no, of course. Maybe she’d still be upset that I’d cut her off. But at least she wouldn’t feel rejected. If I called her quickly enough, she wouldn’t have time to feel upset about it. Chances were she hadn’t left the building yet.
I made it as far as the records box before sanity returned.
What was I thinking? I’d been so mortified at Julie’s embarrassment I’d forgotten everything else. The whole point of the dominoes was to do a project created by my past, done by my present, and given to my future. It had to come from me. Letting anyone else into that moment was like a sculptor handing his chisel to a stranger for a couple of taps.
Besides, I’d just struggled to manage a five-minute visit. Someone with a bit more experience might have been able to deal with her offer without leaving her feeling rejected, but not me. Imagine the trouble I might get into if she came over for a whole afternoon.
I put Julie’s card back in its place and returned to the livingroom. Actually, scratch that—at some point the tide of dominoes swelling across the floor had taken over. It had become the dominoes room.
The day’s work still stood before me. I hadn’t finished the first platform. It was almost a relief to focus on the work. Putting up the platforms left little mental space for anything else since I had to hold the screw in place with one hand while twisting the screwdriver with the other and balancing the wooden board itself on whatever body part was at the right level—shoulders, elbows, knees. Sometimes even my head. It was tough work, the contortions a weird mirror of my early-morning stretches.
A second set of hands would make things go a lot faster. I didn’t know what set construction was, but it sounded impressive. Julie said she’d done it for two years. For all I knew she might be an expert at this sort of thing…My gaze drifted towards the telephone.
I dragged it back again. Reminded myself how much I struggled to concentrate around Julie. Far from moving me forward, having her ‘help’—no matter her skill-set—would probably see me reeling backwards.
