In Between Dreams

by Iman Verjee

  She would remove the crumpled item from the pocket of her navy parka, pushing at it with the heel of her palm to drive the creases from it, and then read it out loud. Sometimes, she would re-read particular ones, closing her eyes at the parts she had memorized. Dear Marienne, we wish you were here with us. Annie, New York is unbelievably beautiful in the winter time. Ann, what did we tell you about behaving at Aunty Dolly’s house?

  At first, James would listen quietly, neither with encouragement nor dissuasion. He had slowly grown used to Marienne’s company and had started to think that her voice was quite pleasant and so he didn’t mind listening to its throaty, wistful lisp. But as winter dragged on into an even colder and bleaker February, which disappeared with a spring burst in March, she started to pause between lines and ask for his opinion, listening to him with a wide-eyed trust, as if everything he said must be true and adhered by. He thrived on this attention; it reminded him of the feeling he had discovered that previous summer, though not as clear nor as strong. The sense that he was needed made him feel grown up and right. James often caught himself, in the husky silence of his home, craving Marienne’s speedy, stumbling questions or the particular way her accent snatched up the ends of her words.

  Sometimes, when he wasn’t ready to go home in the evening, he would walk Marienne to her house and Dolly would invite him in. He would be greeted by the muddy, unmistakable scent of marijuana that always left him mildly dazed as Dolly took his coat and kissed both his cheeks. When she fell asleep on the couch, as she was apt to do whenever he was over, saying, ‘Can’t see a thing with my eyes closed, kiddos,’ the two of them would climb up to Marienne’s bedroom.

  One time, as they lay on her bed together—after much coaxing, she managed to move him from the chair near her desk—passing a stolen joint between them and counting the ridges of her ceiling, James felt ready to tell her everything. To confess so that she could carry his secret for a while and he could remember what it felt like to be clean.

  ‘Alison had dark hair just like yours,’ he said. His eyes flickered shut and for a moment he forgot where he was, and when he said her name, he allowed himself the impossible hope that perhaps he had dreamed it all. Marienne turned toward him and he felt her warm breath on his nose.

  ‘Who’s Alison?’

  ‘She was—’ he stopped himself just in time. ‘She was just someone I used to know.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ There was an edge of jealousy to her question that flattered him and he stared at her for the briefest of moments. He touched her button nose and told her how cute it was. She rubbed it.

  ‘It’s a baby’s nose,’ she said, scrunching her face, and he thought she was pretty when she did that. ‘Doesn’t fit in with the rest of my face.’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ she asked again, wouldn’t be deterred.

  ‘She got really sick,’ he said and sat up straight. ‘People just do, right?’ he spoke pleadingly, as if he were trying to convince himself, and Marienne sat up next to him and stroked his back. James swallowed the lump in his throat and felt a little better.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and when she started to lean into him, he slid off the bed.

  ‘I should go now,’ he said and pretended not to see the way the disappointment curled her features.

  As he walked home that evening, though he hadn’t told Marienne the entire truth, he felt better than he had in a long time. It had felt good to say Alison’s name; to feel its young, rounded letters on his tongue because it made him believe that perhaps he hadn’t been to blame after all.

  Each day he was with Marienne, the past summer became a little less clear; the edges of its memory increasingly blurred until he could play with it, sometimes even pretending none of it had ever happened. No longer did he feel cornered by the looks cast toward them in school. Instead, he began to respond to them with a quick nod; the familiar, lost grin of the playful boy of twelve they had all forgotten. This unanticipated return to teenage normalcy, his desire to cling to whatever part of it he could, brought him closer to Marienne. When she leaned down to whisper in his ear while people watched, James felt a spark in his chest that fell to his gut and ignited a tickle of pride and happiness. He was grateful for her friendship; for her ignorance and adoration of him, for the relief her company gave him because it allowed him to be normal again and that was greater than any respite his previous isolation had ever provided.

  It was during a reading of her parents’ newest letter that Marienne tried to kiss him. They were sitting cross-legged on the bleachers of the auditorium, their lunch on their laps. Her mother had sent the lyrics to a Beach Boys’ song and Marienne was singing it softly, ‘Barbara Ann’ floating away from them and filtering out into the empty court below. Somewhere between rockin and a-reelin, James felt the cherry-tinged muscles of her mouth against his and her eyelashes frozen against his cheekbone. The tactile sensation reeled him. No one had touched him so gently in weeks and now Marienne was moving through him in a steady vibration that made him pull away, more out of surprise than anything else. She watched him, putting a hand to her lips as if she was just as shocked as he was.

  ‘I’m sorry. I just thought…’ Her eyes were wet with embarrassment. ‘You do like me, don’t you?’

  He tried to speak but his windpipe had been licked clean and nothing but the fruity scent of her chapstick rose from his burning mouth. He wished he could reassure her. He wanted to lean down and put his forehead to hers and explain to her that it wasn’t her fault, something else was wrong. But he couldn’t shake away the image of an impossibly still, dark-eyed baby from his mind.

  ‘I really should go.’ Before he stumbled down the stairs, it almost broke his heart to see a tear slide down the curve of her cheek, collecting in the gentle dip that joined the end of her nose to the tip of her trembling mouth.

  The next morning, the silence weighed down on him as he made his way up the muddy tracks alone, his left shoulder straining to feel the weight of Marienne’s satchel. The nerves in his mouth were wide awake and while they called up the memory of a warm, swaddled body, a small fraction of them ached for Marienne. The sensation of her on his mouth had been pleasant, had satisfied a little bit of him, and now he missed her constant, noisy presence; the way her hand would brush his and she would leave it there, thinking he wouldn’t realize she had done it on purpose. The loneliness her absence had unexpectedly cast him back into was disconcerting and he stopped to greet unfamiliar faces bobbing by him in the hallway, whispering a hello into the air just to hear the sound of his own voice.

  He didn’t see her until lunchtime and it was a relief to find her sitting alone in the cafeteria. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her, only knowing that he had to make things right. She watched him approach and he stumbled, unsure of what to do. When she gestured to the seat in front of her, a smile drew gratefully across his face.

  ‘Harry asked me to the dance,’ she said, even before he had sat down. His neck jerked up.

  ‘Harry Miller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They hadn’t talked about the Spring Formal and although he hadn’t wanted to go up until that moment, he knew Marienne had been waiting for him to ask her. The thought of being so quickly replaced, forced back into inky silence; to know that someone else would hear her read those letters he had come to love, made his stomach churn. He had the inexplicable sense that she was someone he should not let go of. She scraped back her chair, hesitating for a moment, as if waiting for him to say something.

  ‘I said yes, James.’

  He continued to look down, his vision blurred blue by the tray in front of him. When he eventually forced his eyes up, the cafeteria had emptied out and the cling-clang of plates against metal forks reverberated around the empty walls, petering out into soft echoes that loudly mocked his sore heart.

  James left school immediately, sitting on the cracked steps of the cemetery they passed every day
on their way home. The jealousy that had pooled in his stomach was foreign to him, but once he recognized what it was, he welcomed it eagerly. It would help him fight for her. He stared down at his watch, the thin silver fingers of its dials crawling toward and slipping past the designated time and he worried that Marienne had taken a different route home.

  He drummed his fingers absently on the stone step until she came up the pathway, ten minutes late and not alone. A deep voice had tangled itself in hers, laughing and flirtatious. James considered hiding but she saw him before he could move. He stepped through the iron gates, disappearing around the corner where he could still hear them talking.

  ‘I’ll be alright from here,’ she told Harry. ‘Thanks so much for walking me.’

  ‘I’ll see you in school tomorrow, then,’ Harry’s voice grew thinner the further he went from her and, several moments later, Marienne was staring down at him.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘You were waiting for me?’ she sounded pleased. He came out from behind a forgotten tombstone, accidentally crushing some old roses that spread around it.

  ‘Can I walk you the rest of the way home?’ he asked. She put her small, gloved hand into the crook of his elbow as a response and followed him out onto the path. ‘I missed you today,’ he said, staring down at the stones crumbling beneath his feet, startled that he could say it so easily and even more so at the truth of it.

  They walked slowly to her door where she extracted her arm from his. Not wanting to leave her just yet, he pushed his toes into the ground and said, ‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?’ slowly stepping back. She caught his wrist as he moved away, tugging at it with such force that he stumbled into her.

  ‘Are you going to kiss me or what?’ she said and so he did. The coldness of her tongue felt good. The fact that she didn’t mind when he fumbled and paused, calmed him. The sensation of her leaked into him slowly but surely, washing away the ugliness inside him and leaving him empty. It was a good kind of blankness. She pulled away with a shiver, her skin glowing. He wanted so badly to feel the same way, for his body to ring with the thrill of waiting for and finally getting her—to feel the need to put his mouth to hers once more, but if she never kissed him again, he wouldn’t mind. It was the security her company gave him that he craved; or perhaps it was the hope of something more, that caused him to hug her close and keep her there for a long time.

  And when Marienne had disappeared into her house, James walked home with a slow assurance to his footsteps. He felt settled and cheerful; the strain in his rib cage relented and he was able to breathe easily the cool, sweet air, allowing it to spread through his body. The night seemed sharper to him now. The black-navy of the sky and the silver edges of the stars had never seemed so clear, smiling down at him. It was because, when he looked for it, the hazy fear that had clouded his life for the past half-year was nowhere to be found.

  He wanted to believe that; to be certain of the fact that it had been that moment that had brought him out of the terror of the previous summer. The way Marienne tucked her fingers into his afterward, smiling into his shoulder, looking just the way people their age were supposed to feel. But it wasn’t. What had saved him was Alison and the fact that, at barely four months old, his younger sister had died, swiftly and suddenly in her sleep just as the town drank and kissed to the start of a bright and shiny new year.

  ‌11

  ‌Whitehorse, Yukon. September 1992

  When I wake up the next morning, I can still feel his fingers intertwined in mine, pressing against my bones, crushing them under his weight. My ears are wet from his breathing and my throat hurts from struggling to keep all the noise within me trapped inside it.

  ‘Hey, hey. Come on, wake up.’ The sound is new; it doesn’t belong in my crimson thoughts and neither do the insistent hands on my shoulder, shaking me awake. I sit up with a start, pulling the sheets against me. I am confused because he is not with me; disorientated because the shapes of my room are all wrong. It comes at me again. ‘Nightmare?’

  A tall girl is leaning over me and as I sit up, she moves back to sit on her bed, smiling sympathetically at me. ‘I…’ I try to speak.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. We all get them from time to time.’ She stretches out her large palm and I take it, watching as my own folds and disappears into her fleshy skin. ‘I’m Judy, by the way.’ She smiles widely and her teeth are charmingly crooked; too big in the front and smaller everywhere else. ‘I would have introduced myself last night but you were fast asleep by the time I got back.’

  ‘Frances,’ I say, as I struggle to sit up, pushing myself out of the tangled sheet and blanket that have tied themselves around my feet. ‘I’m Frances,’ I repeat, trying to shake my vocal chords awake.

  ‘You slept right through the alarm,’ Judy says. ‘That might be a problem.’

  Everything is slowly becoming clearer and I worry that I might have said something in my sleep; something that I don’t want Judy to know.

  ‘I was really tired, I guess,’ I say. ‘I’m usually a light sleeper.’

  ‘Here’s your uniform.’ She hands me a stack of perfectly folded, starched clothes. ‘I ironed them for you but you’re going to have to start doing that yourself.’

  ‘I don’t iron my clothes.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ She grins some more. ‘All the other girls are already downstairs for breakfast,’ she looks down at me, ‘but you look like you could do with a shower.’ She talks fast, all her words running together.

  My mouth feels dry and acrid and when I run my tongue along my teeth, I discover a thick, overnight fuzz. I like the way it feels. I have never forgotten to brush my teeth. I was always prepared, in case he came.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. She doesn’t wait for me, already out of the door, and I grab yesterday’s clothes, tripping into them and hurrying after her.

  I have never been in a shower room before so I don’t know what to expect. It’s cold, despite the leftover steam hovering around us, trapped between the air-vents in the ceiling and the floor. The stark granite of the shower recesses stand sharply angled against the wet cement floor and it smells faintly of urine and cheap soap. I can’t imagine feeling clean here after showering with so many girls.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Judy says, as if she can tell what I’m thinking. Perhaps she had the same thought when she first came here and stood where I stand, surrounded by the streaked white tiles. ‘There’re some showers back there that have curtains, but they don’t work very well.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say gratefully. ‘I’ll use those.’ I don’t want anyone else seeing my body; seeing what only belongs to the two of us.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she calls after me but I don’t hear her as I rush toward the back. ‘I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast. And try to hurry up otherwise you’ll miss it.’ She leaves me in the watery space. There is nowhere to hang my clothes so I lay my skirt down like a carpet on the damp floor and put my uniform on top of it, out of reach of the shower. I turn on the water and it takes a while before it eventually comes spitting out and although I stand under the jumping stream for over ten minutes, it never warms up. The water feels uncomfortably oily and eventually I give up and turn it off. I forgot to ask Judy for a towel in my rush to follow her, so I stand against the cool wall, waiting for my skin to dry off. I am ice cold but I enjoy the sensation. It sinks into my brain, freezing over all of my thoughts and worries and all I am able to think of, be aware of, is the hard cement under my curling toes and the smooth white tiles spreading across my bare back. Knowing that I should hurry, I pat myself half-dry with the shower curtain and then put on my uniform and old underwear, making a mental note to unpack before tomorrow morning.

  After throwing my wet skirt onto my bed, I rush downstairs, hoping I haven’t missed breakfast and I get to the dining room just as the last girls are leaving. My stomach protests loudly; a low, gurgling sound when I see that a black metal gr
ille has been pulled over the kitchen windows.

  ‘Frances!’ Judy calls to me from the back and she is sitting alone, waving me over. Sister Ann isn’t here and I wonder if I will see her today.

  ‘I got you some porridge.’ She pushes a bowl toward me and I thank her. I spoon the lumpy liquid into my mouth while I am still standing. It’s cold and tastes sour but I don’t mind. Even when it’s finished and there’s nothing left, I keep scraping the spoon against the sides and sucking on it.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get you any more.’ Judy is watching me with an amused expression and I blush.

  ‘No, that’s okay.’ I let the spoon drop and it swings against the curved inside of the bowl before settling down again. ‘Thanks for keeping this.’

  We get up together and I place my bowl into the bucket near the door, hearing it crash and slide into the other dishes. I am already accustomed to one of the rules of the Academy. I glance at the time above the door. There are the same clocks in every room; a constant reminder of the rules and regulations I must now follow. It’s only seven thirty. He will be going to work now; will he pass my room on the way out, pausing to look into the clean emptiness of it? It thrills me to think that we are dreaming of each other simultaneously.

  ‘What happens now?’ I ask as we go back upstairs.

  ‘Assembly is at eight o’clock and classes start at eight twenty.’ Judy is collecting her books, placing them, one at a time, into her open satchel. ‘We have to walk across that field, to get to that building.’ She gestures out of the window. I kneel beside my suitcase and unzip it. I lean into it, waiting to smell something that reminds me of home but it offers up nothing. My mother went shopping for me a few days before I left. I can’t let you go with nothing but these old clothes, she had said. She tried to persuade me to go with her and when I refused, closing the door in her eager face and saying, ‘The brochure said we have to wear a uniform. Maybe you should have read it before deciding to send me away,’ she went alone. She came back with no clothes but had bought a pile of stationery instead. Pens of every color, pencils of all types. A long ruler, a short ruler, a ruler with a wavy, ocean edge, all packed into a new, purple pencil case. She had placed it in my bag, on top of everything else, with a little note tucked inside it. I find and unfold it now. Remember me every time you use this. That means you’ll think of me every day, just as I am always thinking of you. I want to tear it up with my teeth and rip it with my fingers, but I am aware Judy might be watching, so I crush it in my hand and let it fall to the floor.