Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets

by Jessica Fox

  Tonight, I decided, I would have to cancel with Mark because I needed to be home for Euan’s Skype call. I could see in myself that I was starting to arrange my life around Euan but I didn’t care. I moved Mark’s card away and reached for the pen. I had my pen. I felt prepared.

  “Things are so tight here, you know.” I heard my boss echoing. “So we’ve moved you on as a contractor.”

  “Oh, that’s good news,” I said, writing down contractor.

  My boss coughed. I could tell he was nervous. “Look, we’ve tried our best to keep you on, we really have. We’ll wait a couple of months, and try again.”

  Contracting was obviously a nice way of saying laid off – again. My heart sunk. “Thank you” was all I could muster. My mouth was dry. I put the pen down. “Who should I get in touch with about contracting?”

  My boss cleared his throat. “I’m your contact. I’ll be in touch about the contracting.”

  “Great.” It didn’t feel great, and I heard him quickly hang up the phone.

  So that was that. What about Jay’s project? What about my documentary on the rocket kids? I could feel my face flushing. They didn’t want me. What about my ideas for linking the inner world with the outer cosmos? What about improvisation as the key to innovation and communication? All my ambitions were evaporating as quickly as my boss had said “contractor”.

  So here I was, free to move in whatever direction I chose, but instead of spreading my wings and enjoying the soaring sensation, I felt glued to one point like an anchor: self-doubt. They didn’t want me… I felt heavy with the thought. My pride was hurt. I had never failed at a job before.

  Late in the evening, I lit some candles and set up my computer on the kitchen counter. I had been looking forward to my chat with Euan all day, especially given my rough morning. He had promised to stay up late tonight for an extra-long Skype session, and I was right on time, with three minutes to spare.

  I heard the familiar whirring sounds as I started Skype. In bubble letters appeared the words “just breathe”. Skype was better than my yoga teacher. As soon as the application opened, I heard it ringing and my heart leapt. Euan was anxious to speak with me? No. It was my parents.

  Reluctantly, I clicked the green button, afraid if I missed their phone call they would be worried. In truth, Jewish parents trump any screenwriter with the lengths to which their imagination will go. The ideas that come to their mind as to why I’m either not there or not picking up the phone would put any blockbuster to shame.

  A screen popped up and two beaming faces appeared before me. My father was wearing his Pi shirt and my mom’s beautiful eyes looked at me from behind her thin-rimmed reading glasses with concern. She could always tell immediately when something was wrong. We said our hellos and I reluctantly told them the news about NASA.

  “It’s their loss,” my mother said. I wished I felt that way.

  “Don’t shake your head, Jessica. Your mother is right.” My father’s voice continued. I was distracted. In the left-hand column on Skype, I could see all the people online and Euan wasn’t there. My eyes flickered towards the clock. It was already 5pm, 1am for him. He was an hour late. It was unlike him.

  “It must be getting hard for them to justify hiring a storyteller,” my father went on. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”

  “She looks tired, Arthur. We should let her go.” My mom said suddenly aware I wasn’t paying attention. I instantly felt bad. My parents, two of the kindest people in the world, were trying to support me and calm my fears and I was mentally absent for most of the conversation. What was worse was that they could tell.

  All I could manage was a half-hearted “Thanks, Mom, thanks, Dad,” and I clicked “end” to our Skype conversation. The screen went blank.

  I sat back into my chair, dejected. Two thoughts flashed across my mind simultaneously. I was a terrible daughter, and Euan hadn’t showed up. I waited two more hours online, patiently sitting by my computer, then finally gave up.

  The next day I had no emails from Euan, or calls. Another day passed and still nothing. Rose took me out to lunch at Greenblats and we sat in our usual booth, chatting. My hands kept on checking my phone, counting the hours until it would be too late to hear from him. I struggled to stay present through the conversation, my mind drifting to where Euan could be.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rose’s voice was offended.

  “I’m heartbroken.” I had meant it to be a joke but my eyes watered as I said it.

  “That cake does look ridiculously good.” Rose looked down as a massive piece of gooey, icing-covered chocolate cake was placed before us.

  We laughed. “No, it’s not the cake… I just miss Wigtown, I guess.”

  “Uh huh. Wigtown.” Rose smiled. “How’s Euan?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him in a while.”

  “Do you love him?” Rose sipped on her soda, her blue eyes piercing through me.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Well, it’s not that. I… you think you already know the answer to that, don’t you?” I crossed my arms, feigning shock at her audacity.

  Rose smiled, then quickly changed the subject.

  My usual quip to people that “we are always our own blind spot” echoed in my head. It was a phrase I liked to repeat when counselling friends, but I stupidly never applied it to myself, which proved the statement all the more. Like Narcissus, we all look into a blurry mirror of our own watery reflection, but rarely wonder why others seem clearer to us than we do to ourselves.

  I did. I loved Euan. Shit.

  “Well, why don’t you get a calling card and call him?” Rose said.

  “I guess I could.”

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and eat the chocolate cake instead. It’s your fault I ordered it anyway.” She was a woman of feeling, but also of action. I dipped into the chocolate cake and felt inspired.

  At home, I took the calling card out of the bag and opened its plastic seal. What if he doesn’t want to speak to me again? If he wanted to talk perhaps he would have called.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, my stomach full of chocolate cake and butterflies, and nervously typed in his number. It rang twice, then a familiar baritone BBC accent answered. “Hello?”

  My heart was pounding a mile a minute. “Hi, it’s Jessica.” I felt unsure.

  Suddenly there was a burst of relief from the other end. “I have been trying to get in touch with you for days. I thought you were cross with me, that I had done something wrong.”

  Euan explained that Skype had been blocked, and his emails were being sent back. He’d tried my phone but it sounded out of service.

  “I couldn’t get in touch with you. I thought I’d lost you.” He was stumbling to get the words out. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  There was a pause.

  “I can come back, you know.” I couldn’t believe the words that were tumbling out of my mouth.

  “Really?”

  I tried to sound casual but my heart was racing. “We could do it for a month or two, see how it goes?”

  “What about directing, your work?”

  “I can make films from anywhere.”

  It was as if I could hear Euan smiling. “You’ve seen Wigtown at its best, you know. It gets deadly quiet in the winter.”

  “That’s okay. I like quiet.”

  “It’s a small town. You might get bored.”

  “I won’t get bored. Euan, I don’t want famous guests or exciting parties. I want to be with you.”

  Chapter 23

  “…His heart skipped a beat involuntarily. In his 38 years on Earth Jack Theery had never felt such a sensation like that one. Later, when re-telling the story, he would attribute it to panic. However, you (and I) know better. It is commonly understood that only two sensations can stop the heart: fear and love. Jack, in that instant, felt both.” – THE THEERY’s, GREEN SERIES, BOOK 1: Chi
ldren’s section, out of stock.

  A knock on the door woke me. I had fallen asleep again, hitting the snooze button each time the alarm went off. My clock was useless on days like these, where I had nowhere to be and no reason for getting out of bed.

  Through my sleepy eyes I could see a figure waiting patiently outside my front door. I slipped on a robe and opened it to see my landlord holding out a package.

  “Here” – he quickly put it in my arms – “this just arrived. Someone must like you,” and with that he headed back up the stairs.

  The package was heavy and I got a jolt of excitement when I saw the return address: “The Bookshop”.

  The package slid easily from my arms onto the table and without hesitation I ripped the tape off. It was full of things. Euan had sent British films he thought I’d like: Withnail and I, A Matter of Life and Death and Gregory’s Girl. Also, stuffed into the box were pictures of the town, books and my favourite sweets: Yorkie Bars, Maltesers and Jelly Babies. It was a proper Wigtown care package.

  The jewel in this treasure trove, however, was a small clear box. In it there was an iPod and a note: “I hope you enjoy the treats. I think about you all the time – I put some songs on this that I thought you would like.”

  As I went to make some tea, I was still holding Euan’s note in my hand. My gaze shifted over to the large bulletin board that was hanging above my desk. On it I had images, which inspired me, tokens from my tour with the Dresden Dolls, past productions and quotes. A yellow sticky note caught my attention. It was scrawled with my best friend Cole’s handwriting, a quick note he had written and slid under my door when we lived together in New York. “Fox, remember,” he had said, “you must do the thing you think you cannot do… love Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  Thank you Mrs. Roosevelt. I was going to do it; I was going to dive into Nietzsche’s eternal yea and, like Joseph Campbell, say “yea to it all”. I was going to return to Wigtown.

  First, though, I had to think. If I was going to go back to Scotland, I would need time to move out of my apartment, move my car back east and to visit my family. Adrenaline started flowing through me. The thought of leaving Los Angeles thrilled me with possibilities. It was time to go. Tennyson’s “untravell’d world whose margin fades/For ever and ever when I move” loomed before me and I felt the familiar fresh excitement of impending adventure.

  However, it was not so much an untravell’d world to which I would be returning. I knew Galloway and Wigtown well enough, but it was the person to whom I was returning that held the question marks. Adventuring across different countries was one thing, but traversing the landscape of relationships was territory that terrified me.

  “You set the wheels in motion,” I heard a voice say. “Don’t you want to see where they take you?” Melville was back, sitting on my living-room sofa, looking uncomfortably out of place. Oddly enough, he was dripping wet, his coat and boots creating what I imagined to be a massive puddle on the floor. He didn’t look the least bit apologetic.

  “Yes, of course,” I said, watching him carelessly fling a piece of seaweed off his shoulder. “But I never really saw my life going in this direction. It’s just…”

  “Unplanned?” Melville interrupted me, “Now that’s a true adventure.”

  “I thought you were only supposed to help me with my writing.”

  Melville waved his hand. “It’s all connected.”

  A dog’s distant barking disturbed my thoughts. All my senses felt incredibly sharp and aware.

  I had two choices looming before me: buy a return ticket to Wigtown or consider my adventure with Wigtown and Euan over – complete and perfect unto itself – and move on.

  Achievement or love, plans or adventure, my films or the unknown. I had been searching for a way to change the “or” to “and”.

  On the computer screen, I opened up a travel website and prices and dates for flights quickly appeared. Had I made the decision? Surely, yes. This was no time for self-doubt. Like Hamlet, I could theorise my whole life, caught in the whirlpool of my mind, and never act. Instead, for once I would trust the intelligence of the flow of impulses and instinct. Then again, was I mad? I clicked to the next month, November. The day after Thanksgiving, it was uncharacteristically cheap to fly to Scotland. The Day After Thanksgiving. I liked the sound of it. There was something symbolic about leaving the day after my whole family would be gathered together, like a natural send-off.

  It also was a month away, giving me ample time to give up my apartment, sell my things and say a proper goodbye to Los Angeles. My eyes flickered away from the computer and scanned my studio. I had been so lucky to find this place, was I really going to give it up that easily? A pang of attachment sprang up in my heart – a feeling I was not used to. Los Angeles had been extremely good to me. While many have had their hearts broken in LA, it was the place that had healed mine – I had had my first taste of true freedom here, my self-confidence had been transformed, I’d made new friends, had a wonderful job and weather and food that made my heart sing. It was a city that had spoken to my self and my needs at that time, but I had changed, and now my outer world needed to change, too.

  My arrow key moved over the date November 28th, and I clicked “purchase ticket”.

  I called Euan immediately. He answered the phone and I couldn’t tell if his voice was filled with tempered excitement or fear.

  “So, does the Fox return?” he asked.

  “Yes.” It was almost a whisper.

  Chapter 24

  “When you’re young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling time up in your hands, tossing it away. You’re your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too – leave them behind. You don’t yet know about the habit they have, of coming back.” – Margaret Atwood, THE BLIND ASSASSIN: Fiction section, middle shelf, left of the window.

  “Happy Birthday!” A chorus of voices filled the air. Through the dim lights of the Mexican Cantina, with its red painted walls and paper hangings, I could see the inebriated faces of Rose, Max, Josh, Spencer and Anna smiling at me. I looked at my dear friends, cheeks flushed and beaming, and felt incredibly happy. We hardly ever got together as a big group, but this was a rare occasion, and I told them it was the best birthday present I could have imagined.

  There was a crashing sound from the left, and a waiter, carrying a large cake, stumbled out of the kitchen. Everyone began to sing and a Mariachi band gathered on one side of our table. The sound of guitar and castanets filled my ears and I felt dizzy from the copious amounts of sangria I had been drinking. This farewell meal had stretched into the late hours of the evening. My bags had been packed, my apartment was empty and I was leaving for Boston the next day. It was my birthday, my last night in Los Angeles, and I was determined to enjoy myself to the full.

  A white cake set aglow with sparklers was placed before me. I laughed and tried to blow them out, but the sparks kept reigniting. Rose leaned over to help me, and Josh took a camera from across the table. I folded my arms to hide my burrito-filled belly and smiled for the picture. A white flash went off and we quickly plunged back into the dark redness of the restaurant.

  I handed a sparkler to Anna and Spencer, two good friends whom I had met during my first weeks in LA, when I had lived with Rose in West Hollywood. “I’m going to miss you guys,” I said, wondering why we didn’t have more gatherings like this.

  Max, a dear friend and screenwriter, leaned over across the table and filled my glass.

  “Less talk of leaving, more drinking, Fox,” he winked at me.

  It had taken a while for me to build the confidence to tell people I was returning to Wigtown. I had kept it a secret at first, mostly because I hadn’t wanted to deal with anyone’s criticism. For days after talking with Euan, the choice to return had felt like soft tissue, easily bruised and vulnerable to even the hint of a raised eyebrow. But, though I had yet to develop a protective outer shell, I was exhil
arated, like the lady on the flying trapeze, without a safety net – or trapeze for that matter. I was flying through the air.

  The first person I had told – out of necessity – was my landlord, exactly a month before my birthday. The news had been met with an anticlimactic nonchalance. Typical Californian.

  “Go, go, of course, you must go,” he had said. Not even an eyebrow raised. I had found his encouragement rather insulting. Having gone through such a rigorous interview process to get the apartment, I had thought he would have been more upset to lose me. “What city are you going to again?”

  “It’s not a city. It’s a town. Wigtown’s small, less than 1,000 people.”

  He had looked at me with a hint of disgust. “What will you do there?”

  “Write, make films. Enjoy myself.”

  My landlord hadn’t looked convinced.

  “I fell in love with it… and with someone.” I sighed, relaxing into the truth.

  He suddenly smiled. “Well, that’s rad.”

  It had taken my landlord one day to find my replacement. When he appeared with a woman at my door, I had packed my books and clothing, and was waiting for Anna to come and take away my bed. It had been painful to see the lovely furniture that I had worked so hard to buy vanish piece by piece. I had built a castle and now, for some masochistic reason, I was taking it down brick by brick.

  The woman was tall, with blonde hair, and had the vulnerable air of someone who had recently suffered a trauma. Her cowboy boots clicked against the hard wood floor as she stepped into my now empty home and I tried to see the studio through her fresh eyes. The white clean walls looked airy and open with half the furniture missing, and the garden appeared particularly dazzling in the late-afternoon light. My favourite candle was burning, filling the room with a warm, spicy scent.

  “So where do you live now?” I asked, trying to make conversation.