by T Swanepoel
Chapter 4 – Disturbances
Jennifer was such a tightly wound Jack-in-the-box today that I wouldn’t have noticed Lisa’s fretting if it wasn’t for the bright plum colour polish on her nails.
For the billionth time she picked up her mobile phone, pressed a few buttons then placed it back on her lap before continuing with her lunch. She had even done it during the algebra class earlier.
I knew Jennifer would nag Lisa if she noticed, so I decided to leave the matter until our philosophy class later that afternoon. Jennifer didn’t share any of our classes - law and science doesn’t have much in common - but Lisa shared algebra and philosophy with me.
Jennifer had chosen a table right next to the cash point of the campus dining hall, and she winked at every semi-decent guy who passed by. And then she imagined, out loud, the rest of her life with each one who winked or smiled back. I was used to her babble already and it didn’t bother me much. Actually, it made it easy to be around her.
Lisa pushed the salad around on her plate a little more and looked up. She waited for Jennifer to pause for a breath and then she squeezed in her question.
“Do you guys have a signal?”
“Huh?” Jennifer’s dumbstruck look quickly changed to a frown.
“Don’t know, dear. The only signal I’m worried about is the one the next hunk will give me.” She rolled her eyes. “I need to go. See you at dinner. Maybe.” And with that, Jennifer pushed her plate away, jumped up and took off.
Lisa just stared at the table.
I took my phone out of my bag. “The signal strength seems fine now, or at least better than yesterday anyway.”
Lisa sat motionless.
“Don’t mind Jennifer. She can be self-absorbed sometimes, but I don’t think it’s intentional.” I wasn’t sure if I should ask or wait for Lisa to tell me what the matter was.
“Are you all right?” I finally asked.
Lisa sighed. “Just fine. Hey, can I come with you to your next class... as a distraction?”
“Sure.” My heart fell to my shoes. The heat had made me lazy and my brain was still in shock from algebra earlier. I felt like a nice afternoon nap instead, so I tried my luck a little. “But you might not like it; it’s astronomy.” Traditionally only the nerds and over-ambitious prospective astronauts took astronomy. I took it as it was part of my course and so far it had been interesting, not at all what I had expected.
Lisa’s expression changed into a weak smile. “Anything will do right now. I just don’t want to be... on my own. And... and besides, astronomy sounds kind-of interesting.”
Oh. Alex had dumped her. I felt sorry for her.
“Let’s get going. It’s almost time.” I threw my bag over my shoulder as I got up and collected all three plates. “Can I grab you another cold drink for the way? This heat is killing me,” I offered.
“I know! That’s what’s making me even more worried!” Lisa freaked.
Her logic didn’t make sense to me, but she sounded close to tears.
“I guess there’s a storm building. I mean, with the heat and all.”
She didn’t respond to my feeble attempt to figure out her concern about the weather, so I went to get the drinks. She looked more settled when I returned. We walked in silence for a while, sipping the heaviness away.
As we walked, I scanned the area for a tallish guy with black hair. It was second nature by now, looking for Duncan whenever I walked around on campus or entered a public place. I had spent the last few weeks searching madly for him all over, and eventually gave up as I was only driving myself to the petting zoo.
Except for the fact that my glow exactly matched the colour of the sky every day, nothing abnormal had happened since. It almost seemed unreal by now. But my curiosity was still firmly intact. I just had to figure out a way to contact Duncan to find out what exactly had happened to me.
I finished my can and glanced at Lisa. I didn’t know what to say and decided to distract her.
“Hey, let me get you into the astronomy mood. About your phone: did you know that the sun can affect the weather and cause terrible mobile network interruptions? If I remember correctly, it has something to do with sunspots. Come to think of it, it’s very possibly the cause of what’s been going on over the last week!”
She didn’t react immediately. “That’s very... interesting.” She paused, then stopped walking. “Valerie, I... I think I need to go. Maybe astronomy isn’t such a good idea after all. I’ll see you later.”
I didn’t understand her sudden change of mind. Not to mention the unusual emphasis of the word interesting. I guess I scared her out of astronomy. Maybe I sounded too much like a textbook recital.
“Don’t worry about the silly class, you just take a deep breath and calm down. I’ll see you in philosophy. Or do you want me to stay with you?” I meant it. I didn’t feel like bunking anymore; the walk woke me up and besides, I was sorry for Lisa.
Lisa shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. See you later.” She turned and disappeared.
Even though the lecture was on the accelerated expansion of the universe, I spent the whole time trying to remember the previous lecture on the sun. I paged through my textbook looking for the section on sunspots but stopped after a reprimanding look from the Professor.
When the class finally ended, I rushed to philosophy to save a seat for Lisa. Philosophy was a big class and as it was compulsory for all the science students, it was always full to the brim.
I should have read the signs better. Lisa never showed up for class, so I took notes to share with her. It kept me busy even though the topic, evolution, didn’t interest me much.
My hand was aching by the time the Professor ended his lecture. “But remember, the concept of evolution is only a theory. Ladies and Gents, we will have a guest speaker next week, a Professor from our satellite campus. He will elaborate on where exactly during the evolution process dead became alive.”
I didn’t spend another thought on evolution and headed back to the dorm. On my way, I noticed again how the colour of my glow matched the blue of the sky exactly. Reliving the whole incident with Duncan again in my mind, I suddenly noticed the time and my courage dropped to my knees.
The dorm would be busy, as it always was in the afternoons. It was customary for juniors to look down and bow to every senior as they entered, and I usually did it as fast as possible. I definitely did not want to draw any type of attention, especially not after the incident with Betty.
The worst thing happened to her, almost a week before. Betty was an overweight first-year from the fourth floor. It had been a hot day like today and she was tired after the walk to and from campus. Trying to spare her legs a little as she still had to climb the stairs to her room, and thinking she’d had enough exercise for one day, she didn’t bow to Carla, a second-year.
Carla simply walked to the intercom and announced that Betty had a problem with bowing. Two minutes later the entire dorm was downstairs, crowding around Betty. It was clearly standard procedure; all the seniors knew what was coming.
They marched poor Betty to the communal garden between all the girls’ dorms and under a roar of cheers and laughter and whistles which only attracted more and more curious students, made her make out with the statue of the first dean of the university.
At first, Betty turned all the shades of pink and red imaginable, but soon she started crying. Luckily the crowd was humane enough to disperse at this point, and they left the broken Betty alone to reflect on her crime.
My legs were weak from all the bowing by the time I reached my room. I dropped my bag just inside the door and fell face-down onto on my bed, relieved at making it safely to my den.
I almost fell off the bed when someone cleared their throat right next to me.
Lisa sighed. “Sorry Val, I didn’t know you were really sleeping. You came in only a second ago!” She was bent down over my bed.
“Oh, hi Lisa,” I yawned. “No it’s fine.�
� I slowly sat up.
“You don’t look so good, you know - you have really dark circles around your eyes. Are you ill?” she asked.
I thought about it for a while. “I guess I’m more tired than I’d like to admit. I’ve had so much on my mind recently since the... the virus and I’ve been struggling to sleep. Not to mention the heat and the lectures and the exercise from climbing stairs and bowing all day.”
Lisa got up off her haunches and stood next to my bed.
“Well, if that’s the case, why don’t you go visit your parents this weekend? I’m sure they’d love a visit from you, and you’ll recharge properly there.”
It was a tempting idea. One that grew on me the more I thought about it. It had been more than two months already.
“Maybe I should. I only have two scheduled classes on Friday morning and if I pack tonight, I’ll still have a small part of Friday with them. Great plan. Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“Hey, I took notes for you in philosophy. It was a boring lecture on evolution. You didn’t miss a thing.” I took my notes from my bag and handed them to Lisa. “Did you want to talk to me about something?” I asked, remembering for the first time why she hadn’t been in philosophy.
She sank down slowly on the edge of my bed before she answered. “It’s Alex.”
“Oh, don’t you worry one bit about Alex. He’s such a loser for leaving you. You’ll find someone better.” I tried to cheer her in an attempt to prevent any waterworks.
She frowned. “No, Valerie. He didn’t dump me. I’m... worried... about him.”
Hello World! Meet Valerie, a complete and downright idiot. My face went hot.
“Oh.” I barely managed to get the one little vowel out.
“There’s something the matter with him, physically. I don’t know how to tell you this, it might sound ridiculous. Valerie, I think he has the same... virus that you had.”
Her words shocked the marrow from my bone. Lisa had no idea what she had just said. I considered the thought for a brief second only. I didn’t doubt that Alex was ill, but there was simply no way at all that I could believe Duncan had been able to do to Alex what he had done to me - whatever it was.
“Impossible, I wasn’t even diagnosed!”
I realised I was almost screaming, so I tried to calm down a little. “Why... why do you think that?”
But before Lisa could answer me, Jennifer flew in through the door and draped herself next to Lisa on my bed.
“Think what?” she asked inquisitively.
I was irritated with Jennifer on the spot.
“You really need to learn how to knock, you know!” I growled at her.
She stared at me for a moment, then lifted her hand and knocked on the wall, twice.
“Think what?” she insisted.
I took a breath and counted to ten. “Oh, we’ve a... we’ve been talking about the astronomy class - Lisa was curious about astronomy. I was trying to convince her to take it with me by telling her about the amazing lecture that we’ve had on the sun... did you know that the sun’s light takes only a few minutes to reach earth? If I remember correctly it’s eight minutes,” I gabbled. I knew Jennifer wouldn’t listen if she heard something academic in a sentence. I was kind-of proud of myself for thinking so quickly – I had just grabbed the first fact from my mind.
Lisa mouthed a ‘thank you’ in my direction from behind Jennifer’s back.
“Gross, you guys! You’ve had classes all day and now you’re still on about it. I have the biggest nerds ever for neighbours!” Jennifer teased with a dash of seriousness.
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not that bad,” I half-heartedly objected and plunked down on my desk chair. Lisa didn’t respond at all.
The three of us sat in silence for a short while.
“Oh. Now I remember why I came in here. Guess what, guess what!” Jennifer was like a shaken bottle of Coca Cola with the cap half open.
“I’ve organised us a group date for tonight!” she exploded, beaming with pride. “Lisa, you bring Alex along. And Val, you can thank me when you see him!”
“See who? Oh. Oh no! Oh no. You haven’t!” Although a very small part of me did like the idea, I wondered what Jennifer had told the poor oke to convince him into a blind date with me. I felt embarrassed already and here she thought she was doing me an astronomical favour.
“Like I said, you can thank me when you see him. I have a looker too!” she exclaimed, flashing her eyelids.
Lisa jumped up. “See you later. I need to go to Alex.”
“Be ready at eight!” Jennifer called after Lisa.
I was irritated with Jennifer all over again; I still needed to talk to Lisa and now I had a blind date instead.
I was about to lose it when Jennifer grabbed my arm.
“Oh, come on Val, you’ll enjoy it. Just relax and be young for once. You’re always so serious. Be a student a little, come and have fun! You don’t need to see Ronald again if you don’t want to.”
It felt strange, Jennifer urging me to have fun in such a serious note. But she had a point.
“Arrgh! Fine! I’ll go. But then you need to leave right now. I still have to pack and do an assignment for tomorrow.”
“Great! I’ll bring your dinner in a while or so, you go ahead and do your thing,” she said closing the door behind her on her way out.
The thought of Alex being ill had me really upset. I wanted to find Lisa again but there were too many things to do and it was five o’clock already; I‘d talk to her tomorrow morning before class. I quickly prioritised my mind and sent my mom a text message before I started packing.
Mom, Im coming home 4 t weekend. C u tom @ 4.
The thought of home made me happy: free of seniors and classes and strange things, just home. It didn’t take too long to pack what looked like my entire room, even my text books fitted nicely inside my suitcase. But Jennifer’s ‘be-young-be-free’ exhortation haunted me and I took my text books out again.
Jennifer walked in with my dinner just as I was about to close my suitcase. She looked at the heap of text books next to my suitcase but didn’t say one word. She placed my dinner on my desk and mumbled something about knocking next time before she walked out again.
Honour bound to eat after such a gesture, I quickly gulped two bites down before feeling satiated. I pushed the plate aside and started with my astronomy assignment from today’s lecture.
Paging my way to the chapter about measurements, I passed the chapter on the sun and recalled the quick sun fact that I had told Jennifer and Lisa earlier.
I found the bit that I was looking for below a small calculation:”Light takes 500 seconds to travel from the sun to the earth, a little more than 8 minutes.”
Something triggered in my mind. At first, I couldn’t quite remember where I had heard it and why it was so important to me. Then, suddenly, I realised the connection: Duncan. Even though I had been in a mist of surprise and shock and pain, I specifically remembered him asking if it had been eight minutes already.
My intuition told me that Duncan’s eight minutes were the same eight minutes as the sun’s, although it didn’t seem possible and I definitely didn’t understand it. I sat there arguing this way and that, but couldn’t logically see the link.
I was still pondering the idea of the sun having a larger influence on things than I thought when I heard a knock on my door. Jennifer walked in normally, all dressed up and ready to go in a yellow and white striped summer dress.
She gave me one look and freaked.
“What on earth are you doing? We have to go! The guys are waiting outside already!” She looked around and her tantrum escalated. “Where are your clothes? What are you going to wear? Come on Val, I even brought you dinner!”
I gulped. I forgot to leave anything out, not that there was anything in there to choose from.
She must have noticed the panic in my eyes. “I’ll bring you something of mine, go jum
p in the shower. Just hurry, please.”
It was the fastest and coldest shower I had taken in a long time, but refreshing. It had the effect of calming my nerves a little, nerves that threatened to mess with my sanity.
Jennifer was sitting on my desk when I ran in with the towel wrapped around me. “I’ve told the guys to wait a few minutes, so calm down. If you’re so flustered, you’ll only look flushed,” she frowned.
“This’ll suit you,” she said pointing at the outfit on my bed. It was a short, sleeveless cat suit, silver in colour. I wanted to seriously object, but she glared at me with a gimlet eye.
“See you downstairs when you’re finished.” She shook her head, spun round so that her dress swayed to the side, and left.
I held the thing against me and measured it against my length. It was really short, in spite of the fact that Jennifer was slightly taller than me. At least the shoes were wearable – low heel black sandals.
The picture in the mirror was fashionable, but it wasn’t me. My legs were naked and suddenly very prominent. I held my hands intertwined in front of me, but they didn’t really cover any part of them. I tried to pull the little thingy down a bit, but it only looked out of proportion and I couldn’t walk humped all evening. I left my room feeling uncomfortable and self-conscious and hurried down the stairs, speeding past any possible stares. I had the suspicion that Jennifer had chosen the most revealing outfit in her whole closet on purpose.
Outside the building, I could hear Jennifer’s laugh somewhere in the darkness. I walked toward the sound of her babbling, to find the silhouette of her clinging to someone. Another guy was standing a little to the side of them, who I assumed was Ronald.
I recognised Jennifer’s date immediately: Duncan!
***