by Roy Bright
Amy and Danny burst into laughter, and this time even Jonny can’t resist a chuckle as Amber sticks out her tongue at him.
They are still in hysterics as Charlotte and Chanelle approach.
“Okay, what’s so funny?” Chanelle says, smiling.
“Oh, you know,” replies Amy, “the usual – Amber keeping her man in check.”
Chanelle giggles, “Jonny my man, do you never learn?”
“What can I say,” he shrugs and takes a bite of his sandwich, “getting hit in the head repeatedly by the goddamn defense line has slowed my thought process.” He smiles, with bits of his food sticking out in between his teeth.
“Eww, gross,” Chanelle responds, “honey, you never had any thought process in the first place so how they gonna knock it out of you?”
Once again, the table’s occupants burst into laughter. This sort of banter isn’t unusual, it has been a part of the group’s dynamic since fourth grade. Of course, back then the boys hadn’t been love interests, they had just been boys who were fun to hang out with. But as the years passed and each person had grown, connections formed, feelings beyond that of playmates emerged, thoughts and emotions that only come from attraction. They began to gravitate toward one another and thus the final tight-knit weave to the group was created.
Charlotte smiles as she leans over and kisses Danny. “Hey babe, you okay?”
“I am now,” he replies, shuffling along the bench and allowing her to squeeze in. He smiles then kisses her back.
“Oh my God,” Chanelle says, placing her tray on the table and sitting down next to Jonny, “you had better not let Mr Hope see you two doing that, he will rip off your head, Danny Fitzpatrick, rip it clean off.” She smiles and sticks out her tongue.
Charlotte sighs, “Oh come on Chanelle, he’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Danny scoffs, “He once saw me holding your hand and went full Wookie on me.”
“Wookie?” Amber says her eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, you know,” Danny states, “Wookie.”
“No, I really don’t know,” she says shaking her head.
“Star Wars?” he says, somewhat annoyed, shaking his own head in return. “Chewbacca?”
“Yeah, Danny, I know what a fucking Wookie is, I just don’t get what you are on about when you say he will go full Wookie on you.”
Charlotte leans over, “He means rip off both his arms and beat him to death with them.”
The group exclaims ahhh in unison.
Charlotte rolls her eyes, “Really babe, you’re the captain of the football team – can you not describe anything without an over-abundance of Star Wars references?”
“What?” he replies, looking around the table, “Star Wars is cool, everyone likes Star Wars, right?”
“Lame,” Amy says, eating her chocolate pudding.
Once again everyone is in fits of laughter and even Danny manages to smile at his own ribbing.
“Okay,” Danny says, raising his hands and bringing the merriment to a halt. He looks at Charlotte and bows. “I will try to keep the Star Warsiness to a minimum, my fair lady.”
She nods back. “Good, and I will try to prevent my dad from killing you,” she smiles.
“Fair enough,” he says, smirking.
Jonny takes a big bite of his sandwich and, with the food still in his mouth, asks, “So what’s this about you going all Norman Bates in Fulster’s class Charley?”
Chanelle elbows him hard in the ribs, “Shut up, idiot. She didn’t go psycho, she just fell asleep and had a bad dream is all, nothing to get the school paper all excited about. Christ, who hasn’t fallen asleep in one of Fulster’s classes before? It’s no biggie.”
“Yeah,” Jonny says while rubbing his injured ribs and giving her a scolding look, “but Trudy Johnston said you were screaming ‘I am not afraid of you’ over and over. Freaked her out big-time. She was the one who said you went psycho, not me – I just repeated it.”
Chanelle tuts, “Trudy Johnston’s a fucking psycho bitch herself, what the fuck would she know about anything? Stupid bitch once cried for a month ’cos Eric Bailey dumped her before they even went out on a date, so I wouldn’t listen to the horseshit that comes out of her mouth.”
Danny turns toward Charlotte, concern on his face. “That right babe? You freaked out in history?”
“I did not freak out, Danny, I just had a little nightmare, sort of.”
“What do you mean, ‘sort of?’” he says, shaking his head and looking at the others.
“Sort of,” she repeats, shrugging her shoulders, “I sort of had a nightmare, how hard is it to understand?”
“Well, either you did or you didn’t, and if you did you did, and if you didn’t you didn’t, so the question is did you or didn’t you?”
She stares at him for a few seconds, a look of bewilderment across her face and then grunts, “Oh, for fuc— can we just, drop it please, it was nothing… nothing!”
Danny knew better than to argue with her for too long. She might have the demeanor of a girl who wasn’t up for a fight, but he knew otherwise. She was a determined and resolute woman who, once provoked, could give just as good as she gets and he should know as he had been on the receiving end of her ire on more than a few occasions.
The group falls silent, exchanging glances between each other as Charlotte fixes her gaze on her lap.
Breaking the silence, Amy leans over and places her right hand on top of Charlotte’s left. “So honey, are you excited to be having your final exam this weekend? It must be pretty amazing for you to be almost ready to pitch for the Olympic gymnastics team.” She holds her hands up in the air. “Yay! Go Team USA!” She smiles and looks around the table.
Putting the somber mood behind them, the others join in congratulating her, even Jonny although he’s still stuffing food into his mouth at the same time.
Danny smiles and puts his arm around her, pulling her in close. “We’re all proud of you, babe, you know that. I’m really proud of you.” He kisses her left cheek, soft and gentle.
She smiles and laughs a little, tucking her head into her chest, then looks up and smiles at him once more. “Thanks, babe, I am excited, it would be so cool to represent my country.”
She’s lying. The final exam isn’t in gymnastics or indeed anything her friends think it is; it is nothing more than an illusion, and one that will soon be over. She has enjoyed the masquerade for as long as it has lasted, but her next sword session with Judas will be her last in this reality.
She looks at Amy and turns her hand around to hold hers and smiles. “I am so gonna miss you,” she looks at the others, “all of you.”
The table falls silent once again, with each member taking their time to lower their heads and think about just what that statement means. Her words have had the effect of making them all realize what is about to transpire, that after the summer they will go their separate ways – different colleges, opportunities, jobs, countries. Nothing will be the same again.
For once, Jonny breaks the darkening mood. “Fuck this! You know what, that’s like nine weeks away or something. All that leaving each other bullshit. For now, we are all together and we have one heavy summer of partying ahead of us. We will do all this teary-eyed bullshit later, but at least it will be at the end of a fucking bottle. Now cheer up you pricks, and let me eat my fucking lunch in blissfully unaware, er… bliss. Fuck it man, you know I ain’t good with words and shit.”
Charlotte smiles and leans over the table as far as she can. She kisses Jonny on his right cheek. “That was beautiful, thank you.”
“Right, well, good,” he replies, looking around and taking a last bite of his sandwich. “So let’s chill the fuck out, yeah?”
Chanelle smiles and shouts, “Summer vacay, baby. It is time to party!”
Jonny reacts with a triumphant ‘woo-hoo’, spraying food into the air.
The entire table curses him while laughing, causing Jonny to burst int
o fits of laughter himself, and once again the jovial mood returns, the previous conversation put behind them in favor of thinking of better things, the stuff that makes teenagers happy.
They continue to chatter among themselves, swapping stories of first introductions and of old injuries caused to and by one another from doing insanely stupid things, remembering all of the crazy-good stuff that has happened during their childhood together.
As they laugh and joke Charlotte watches them and thinks about how humans feel secure and safe in a group, how experiences shared makes them feel bonded, and that those connections happen on an almost atomic level, like a sixth sense.
Having spent many years in this realm, studying people, their reactions, their triumphs, their failings, and their behavior toward one another, she has wondered at times whether humankind was even worth saving given the terrible things that people were capable of doing to one another. But as she watched her friends engage in this perfect social dance, fueled by love for each other, she knew that she must do all she can to return the world to this state, to this wonderful and beautiful operating mode.
She laughs to herself. She can’t be sure that what she has studied all these years is how people indeed are in her time, or just conjured imaginings of Judas’ mind, locked in another world. Was it the sole purpose of these artificial entities to make her want to do this, to want to risk everything to save the world? Is that all it was, a huge charade and not a true reflection of the people she was meant to save? No! She knows Judas would never manipulate her in such a way. She has lost count of how many times he has told her how he believes in her, in her abilities, and her strength of character. Of how she will be able to bring the world back from the brink by using such qualities. He has always supported her and she knows that with this artificial reality he has shown her how beautiful the world was and can be again. She knows he is giving her all of the incentive that she will ever need to get out there and fight.
Danny brings Charlotte out of her trance with a nudge. “Hello! Earth to Charley,” he laughs.
Smiling, she shakes her head. “I’m sorry babe, what were you saying?”
He raises his eyebrows and laughs again. “Wow, you were really zoned out there. I was just saying that we are going over to O’Malley’s after school and wondered if you’ll be back on the planet to join us.”
She screws up her face. “No, don’t think so, sorry I gotta meet my dad after school – he’s picking me up. I got some serious training to do tonight, honey, but I’ll meet you after I’ve finished, okay?”
He throws his head back, offering an over exaggerated sigh. “Oh come on, baby, you’re always training, can you not just take one night off?” He looks at her forlornly, searching her face for a sign that she might crack and for once blow off her gymnastics training, instead choosing to go have fun with him and the rest of the gang.
She touches his face, “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have to go to training, you know that. Please, don’t make me out to be the bad guy here. I will do the session and then come meet you. We will still have most of the evening left and it’s a lovely night for, say, taking a ride over to the creek.” She smiles, seductive and temptress-like.
He takes her hand from the side of his face and cups it with his own. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
They kiss, soft and tender, their eyes shut tight, hands on each other’s cheeks, lost in the moment.
Someone coughs from across the table.
Danny breaks off and smiles. He looks at Jonny, the originator of the cough, and realizes Jonny’s index finger rubbing under his nose, jerking back and forth, attempting to bring something to his attention. He’s pointing toward the fence around the school perimeter.
Danny looks, puzzled. “Shit!” he says, rubbing the back of his head, “Charley, your dad is stood by the school fence, I think he saw us.”
“What?” she turns to look to the fence. “Oh for the love of God, what does he want?”
At the fence, Judas (or Jude, as people here know him) stands, arms folded, looking unimpressed. He beckons to Charlotte.
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I won’t be a second, guys. Best just go and see what he wants.” She smiles, somewhat crookedly, and lifts her legs over the bench.
Danny grabs her hand and the corners of his mouth lift a fraction.
She squeezes back, offering a similar smile of her own and then trudges over to her dad, shaking her head as she approaches him. “Why are you here? Are you trying to make me look like the un-coolest kid in school? Jeez, I thought we talked about this.”
“Tonight is the last night,” he says, looking around, “we leave after the final test. You got the rest of the day, but I want you home by six at the latest. We do what we have to and then we are gone, understand?”
She crosses her arms and pouts. “Why tonight? Why does it have to be tonight? How about now, not even bother with the goddamn test?”
“Because!” he says, blunt and to the point. “It just has to be this way, okay? Things are starting to happen and we need to mobilize. Enough time has been wasted here even if it doesn’t translate in our world. We have a job to do, so say your goodbyes to your imaginary friends and let’s get on with it.”
She huffs and blows out her cheeks. “You don’t need to call them imaginary like I’m some sort of goddamn basket case. You made this place real, it’s hard to behave like it isn’t.”
He sighs, softening his tone a little. “I didn’t make it Charlotte, the Council did. I just gave them the blueprint for what I thought would make you happy. A little slice of perfect American suburbia.”
“Whatever. You and your overabundance of eighties culture.”
He half-smiles and cocks his head to one side. “Fair enough. Maybe I did go a bit too John Hughes with the design. I’m sorry. They’re not imaginary friends, they are people that have existed for you,” he smiles weakly, “so I guess that would make them as real as anything.”
She smiles back and then looks down. “So six o’clock, yeah?”
“Six o’clock sweetie. Please.”
She looks at him. She always loved it when he called her sweetie. She grabs the chain-link fence with her right hand and gives it a little shake. “Okay, I’ll see you at six, dad, I promise.”
He winks, then turns and walks away.
She looks up at the sky and sighs. “Six o’clock,” she repeats quietly, then turns and walks back to her friends.
Four
The atmosphere within O’Malley’s diner feels electric. The kids of Marshall High have taken control of the fifties-style diner, having flocked to the establishment in their droves as they often do after school, and the noise is ferocious with the over-exuberant shouting and screaming of teenagers. The property of one Seamus O’Malley, a balding, fourth generation Irishman with a fake accent who believes with a firm heart that he has just stepped off the boat from the motherland even though he was born and raised in Marshall, O’Malley’s is the place to be. And while attending to his customers’ needs, he would often corral them into corners, recounting ‘how it is back home’ stories (not that he had ever set foot there), but today there are none. No, today is a full-on, no-holds-barred day for grumbling. Every afternoon for the last 10 years he has done the same thing – flit around serving school kids coffee, soft drinks and French fries and moaning about it, even though it’s keeping him and his floozy of a wife in the very comfortable lifestyle to which they have become very accustomed. He grumbles when it is full, when it is empty, when the kids order too much and when they order too little. He grumbles when it’s too hot outside and too hot inside, and when it’s too cold (he’s a skinflint when it comes to turning on his heating). He just enjoys grumbling, and today Seamus is in fine mood for it as he scampers around the diner, his portly five-feet six-inch frame knocking into tables as he hurries past them toward the serving hatch.
He mutters under his breath, cursing his waitress, Ton
ya, who hasn’t shown up for work. Some bullshit about her kid being sick, or was it her mother? Who gives a shit, he tells himself as he slams four coffee cups onto the hatch surface, I’ll give her ‘sick kid’, I’ll give her the goddamn sack for this, making me work on my own in the busiest goddamn week of the year. Friggin’ school kids breaking up soon and they all think they can come here at the same time and start making me sweat. Well, Seamus ain’t having it, no siree – I ain’t having it. He becomes aware that he has been speaking aloud to himself as a couple of the kid’s eye him in puzzlement, wry smiles plastered across their faces. “Yeah, and what are you lot looking at?” he says, scowling, “are you gonna order more stuff or just sit there with stupid looks on your faces?”
They giggle and shake their heads as he toddles off, grumbling under his breath once again. It’s just another day in O’Malley’s diner.
Charlotte smiles as she watches Seamus’ mini-meltdown. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot help but be amazed at the artificial world created for her. At how the people within it can live their lives as though they believed with absolute certainty that they exist in reality. She often worries about the moral and ethical implications of such a world, about its inhabitants and their feelings, and today she once again feels that same anxiety. What is to become of them when she leaves? Will they just simply cease to exist, or will they know and fear the end as people had done in the opening stages of the Apocalypse that gripped her world, her timeline? It bothers her a great deal, and she contemplates Seamus’ fate, knowing that in a matter of hours he and the rest of her friends will disappear and no amount of his moaning will change that fact, not one little bit. She shakes her head, Stop thinking like this Charley, she tells herself, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Dad explained it. They don’t exist, never have, and never will, they are just a video game that you are playing and when it’s turned off, it’s turned off. That is all, nothing more. So why did she feel sick to her stomach about their shutdown, their impending doom? Is not self-awareness the key to any species’ validation of its own existence? She shakes her head once more, Charlotte Hope, just stop this. You leave this reality after the final exam tonight and that’s that. Judas may care for you as his very own child, but when he says something is happening, then that thing is happening, and there is just no persuading him otherwise.