The Summer of Impossible Things

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘Look who I found on the street.’ Michelle propels me forwards. Shyness overcomes me, and there’s a beat before I can bring myself to look at her. How strange it is, how much I miss her, my mother, this stranger, this woman I barely know and would do anything to protect.

  ‘Luna, you’re back!’ Riss jumps up from her seat at the sewing machine, and hugs me briefly. ‘I’ve been thinking about you since the other night. I couldn’t figure out what it was about you, but something was driving me crazy and then, at two o’clock this morning, I got it! Now where is it …’

  What is she looking for, I wonder? A time traveller’s handbook and a photo of her mother that looks just like me?

  ‘Want a Seven-Up?’ Stephanie offers me a bottle and I take it gratefully. I see now that making the transition for there to here, or now to then, drains you like power from a battery. I crave the sugar, and it tastes better than anything I’ve drunk before.

  ‘She’s like a dog with a bone when she gets an idea in her head,’ Stephanie tells me, leaning against me, tilting her head towards mine. ‘She likes you. And when she likes someone, she’s all in. She doesn’t wait to see what they’re like.’

  ‘I like her,’ I say. ‘I like you all.’

  ‘I don’t know you.’ As she speaks, she watches Riss shifting through a pile of fashion magazines, throwing them at Michelle and Linda, who pick them up and thumb through the pages. ‘I don’t make friends as easily as Riss. I take my time.’

  ‘That’s a good policy,’ I say, and I can tell my choice of words has irritated her. ‘But look, I just like her, I like you. All of you guys. I just want to hang for a while. I mean, seriously, what harm can I do you?’

  ‘Not much, I guess.’ Stephanie looks me up and down. ‘I guess you’re OK.’

  ‘Here it is!’ Riss holds up a magazine, a copy of Vogue. ‘This is the April issue, but I’ve been dying to find someone to make this for, and it’s you. With your fair skin and dark hair you’d look a knockout in it, like a sexy Snow White.’

  Taking the magazine, I look at the spread: Farrah Fawcett, her skin golden and glowing, her blonde hair perfectly curled, wearing an Yves Saint Laurent gown, fitted top, loosely laced down the front, to reveal a glimpse of brown, bare skin, offset with a necklace of gold coins.

  ‘She looks great, but me …’

  ‘No, wait.’ Riss stops me. ‘I wouldn’t just copy it – I’d make it for you. So you could wear it, so, you know, a skirt you can dance in, maybe match a georgette to go over the silk, silk-look anyways. I’d shape it over your tits, so it’d look real good, get you out of those T-shirts, get you into something that will make guys crazy for you.’

  ‘What about one of these girls?’ I gesture at the others.

  ‘Nah, Stephanie is too short, Michelle is too shy, Linda’s too much of a pain in the ass.’

  ‘Hey!’ Linda complains, but shrugs at the same time.

  ‘You got to let me make it for you. I’ve been dying to, and I even got this nice bit of fabric left over from some little princess’s prom dress that will do just fine.’

  ‘Well, why not make it for you?’ I say, smiling at her enthusiasm. ‘I mean, it’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just that I don’t really do dresses.’

  ‘Why not?’ Riss stamps her foot in exasperation, making me laugh; it’s a classic Pea move. ‘I’ve got a wardrobe full of clothes already, and, besides, you’re going to need something else to wear if you’re coming dancing with us.’

  ‘I’m coming dancing with you?’ I laugh, the idea of me dancing is so preposterous.

  ‘Sure you are,’ Linda says. ‘We like you, but more importantly, Michael Bellamo likes you, and I saw him this morning and he was all starry eyed, so yeah, you’re coming dancing with us and you can torture that bastard like he tortured me.’

  ‘I told you not to mess with him.’ Riss wags a finger at her friend. ‘Michael’s one of the good guys.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have if he didn’t look so damn good in those tight jeans …’ The girls laugh, and I laugh with them.

  ‘You really think Michael likes me?’ I ask, before I can stop myself.

  ‘Oh, look at that, Luna’s blushing!’ Linda crows.

  ‘Shut up a minute.’ Riss stops stock-still as she hears something on the radio. ‘Oh God, I love this song. Turn it up!’

  ‘I Feel Love’ fills the workshop, spilling out of the building, onto the street, the layered, repetitive rhythm of the electronic keyboards, Donna Summer’s pure, high voice, full of yearning, lust and need. Just at that moment each note, each nuance, reflects exactly how each one of us feels, looped up in the swirl and beat of the track. They dance, they sing out, voices high and thready, blotted out by the volume, each one of them perfect pitch.

  Riss throws her tape measure around her neck as if it’s a feather boa, grabs a stapler and sings into it. Without thinking of what I’m doing, I take the camera and begin to shoot them, walking around them as they throw themselves into the song, and for its duration I feel part of them, part of their group, as the base line vibrates against my ribcage and Donna Summer’s voice soars up from through the tips of my toes. Will they be in this moment that I’m photographing, or will it be empty shelves and dark dusty corners? I don’t know, and for now I don’t care, this is the only time there is, this very second with her. As the track fades away the girls slow down to a standstill, looking at each other, laughing as they catch their breath, and the moment is gone.

  ‘I love that song,’ Riss repeats, picking up the magazine and pulling her tape measure from around her neck, beckoning me to her with a crook of her finger. ‘Come here, I’m going to make you look amazing.’

  It would be so easy to forget why I am here, so easy to forget who I am, as the girls laugh and dance and gossip around me. Whatever danger I expected to feel, whatever sense of purpose I had, hasn’t materialised; instead I feel safe, at home, like I belong here, and I might never need to go back. And then Riss brings up Henry and my heart stops dead. And I am a woman out of time once again.

  ‘Henry is the best kisser there is,’ Riss tells Linda, who has been regaling us with her dance-floor antics with some guy called Sonny.

  ‘Well, you oughta know.’ Linda’s smile is wide and sharp. ‘You’ve kissed half of Brooklyn.’

  ‘The male half,’ Stephanie adds.

  ‘Kissing doesn’t count.’ Riss smiles. ‘And anyway, now I’ve got Henry, I don’t want to kiss anybody else ever again. You don’t get it, Stephanie, none of you do; none of you have ever truly been in love.’

  The howls of derision drown out the radio.

  ‘So you’re really going to go and live in England and wear a hat and drink tea?’ Michelle asks.

  ‘I don’t think you have to wear a hat,’ Riss says, as she pins in darts around my waist. ‘Luna, do you have to wear a hat?’

  ‘Yes, it’s compulsory, all of the time,’ I tease her. It’s hard to be this close to her and remember that this girl, one day, will be my mother, though she isn’t now. She has the same smell, of course, a sweet coconut and warm skin. And the look of concentration she has as she works on her garment is one I know so well. I miss her; even though she is standing within inches of me, I miss her. The woman who would always stop to talk to Pea and me, to listen, no matter what she was doing. She would always make time for us, except for those long days and weeks when she just stopped completely, stopped talking, stopped seeing us. Those days when we’d hover outside her closed bedroom door and whisper to each other about what we thought had made Mummy so sad and so sleepy.

  ‘Well, anyway, I don’t know.’ Riss shrugs in exasperation. ‘I mean, I don’t know what to do. I don’t really want to leave home, Stephanie, you guys. But he’s got to go on the fourteenth, he’s got another job lined up. He’s stayed as long as he can. And I love him, I really do. And he loves me, I know he does.’

  ‘You could be pen pals,’ Stephanie suggests, lighting a cigarette and blowing
smoke towards the open door. ‘I bet he writes a nice letter.’

  ‘It’s not his letter-writing skills she’s into,’ Michelle adds, with a sly grin. ‘Jesus, Riss, if you go, your dad will have a fit. The Pope will excommunicate you.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Riss’s smile is secretive. She takes a step back from me to examine her handy work. ‘I’m going to meet with Father Delaney, see if there’s any way he can help smooth things over. If the Church is OK with me and Henry, then Dad will have to be. I mean, sure, Henry’s not Catholic …’

  ‘He’s not anything,’ Michelle reminds her. ‘Apart from a hippy.’

  ‘But, you know, does that really matter nowadays?’ Riss counters. ‘If we marry in a Catholic church, in our church, and all our children are raised Catholic, and if Father Thomas is on my side, he’ll get Dad to come round too, I know he will …’

  Even his name on her lips makes me feel so angry and sick. It’s all I can do not to scream at her to stay away from him, not to tell her what I know. The sense of serenity I’d had is gone, and I struggle, desperate to find a way to stop this awful thing in its tracks.

  ‘When are you seeing him, Father Thomas?’ I ask and Riss gives me a puzzled look.

  ‘Why do you care? Do you want to come?’

  ‘Most women do when they get a look at Father Thomas,’ Linda quips, and Riss laughs and crosses herself at the same time. ‘May God forgive you and, anyway, what is he, fortyfive or something? He’s really old.’

  ‘He’s mature. I like my men to be mature,’ says Riss.

  ‘You like your men to be alive,’ Michelle says.

  ‘I’m just saying, that man is too good to waste on God, amen.’ Linda puts her hands together in mock prayer, and Riss turns her back on her.

  ‘Father Thomas is good to me; he’s really looked out for me since Mom passed.’

  ‘Like Thorn Birds good to you?’ Michelle winks at me. ‘I’ve heard about that book.’

  ‘Like a good priest should be,’ Riss tells her primly. ‘He cares about me.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever noticed that he seems to care about his pretty parishioners just a little bit more?’ Stephanie asks, working on something of her own. ‘Look, see Father Thomas, maybe he will help, but Riss, you really going to go and leave me here alone with Pops?’

  ‘You won’t be alone, you’ll have these guys.’ Riss sees how unimpressed Stephanie is. ‘And Curtis. Curtis would do anything for you.’

  ‘Christ, Curtis.’ Stephanie lights another cigarette. ‘He’s like a stray dog, show him one bit of kindness and he’ll follow you anywhere, forever. Sometimes I feel like I can’t shake him loose.’

  ‘He’s OK. He’s nice-looking at least.’ Michelle sighs. ‘I’d like a guy I can’t shake loose.’

  ‘Curtis ain’t bad-looking, but he’s running with a dangerous crowd,’ Linda points out.

  ‘So what?’ Michelle says. ‘It’s not like Mr Lupo ain’t pretty tight with that crowd himself.’

  Stephanie shoots Michelle a warning look, and she shrugs.

  ‘You know it’s the truth. It ain’t no secret that your dad got this building through doing a few favours for the right people.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Stephanie shrugs. ‘But that don’t make it something you can gossip about. Anyway, Pops grew up with those guys, they’re like brothers, they take care of each other. It’s different with Curtis. Curtis wants in all the way, and he’s got to fight hard to get there. I don’t want that, that danger, that not knowing if my fella will come home at night, you know?’

  ‘You seen the cars they drive?’ Linda asks. ‘The clothes their wives wear? I’d put up with a little danger for that.’

  The conversation has already moved on from Father Delaney, like he’s a nothing, an afterthought.

  Riss takes the dress fabric off of me and, seeing a chance to catch my breath, I walk to the open door. As much as these girls have taken me under their wing, I’m still feel a stranger, an outsider. What possible reason can I come up with to stop Riss from spending any time with Father Delaney?

  ‘Riss.’ Michelle lowers her voice. ‘You made it with Henry yet?’

  ‘No!’ Riss’s eyes widen. ‘I mean we done a lot of stuff, stuff I never done before.’

  ‘Like what stuff—’

  ‘When are we going dancing?’ I interrupt.

  Time travel I can take, family skeletons and secrets too, even meeting my own mother as a young woman, and dark and frightening buildings, but I can’t take listening to details of my parents’ sex life, and, besides, I have no idea how long this visit will last, or when I will be ripped out of here. The more I am here, the more I can influence what happens, find another key moment to fix on to, to have a chance of doing something to prevent her being alone with that man.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s got to be soon. Henry’s flying back on the fourteenth. I got to talk to Father Thomas before then, too. Maybe get everything sorted out with Pops before Henry leaves, and that way I know that he’ll come back for me, and we’ll be together, everyone happy.’

  ‘Riss, you’re a fool if you think that’s going to happen,’ Stephanie warns her. ‘Pops doesn’t even know about Henry, and suddenly you want to spring the news that you’re going to marry him. You’ve got to give it time, break it to him in little bits. So he can take it in without that vein on his forehead exploding, or calling in a few favours and putting a price on Henry’s head.’

  ‘Pop’s wouldn’t do that!’ Riss exclaims. Stephanie raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, even so, I don’t want to wait,’ Riss says. ‘I don’t want to wait to be with Henry and for my life to begin. You don’t get it, none of you have—’

  ‘Ever been in love,’ the other girls chorus, erupting into laughter.

  It overwhelms me suddenly, to see her so happy, so at home wearing her heart on her sleeve, despite the flak she is getting for it. The thought that this sunny, optimistic girl becomes so consumed with what’s about to happen to her, and with what she did, hurts. Once again I return to the open door, looking for answers in the long, late-afternoon shadows. The sun has sunk low enough to edge the skyline with burnt copper, even burnishing the edges of the alley.

  Riss appears in the doorway. ‘You don’t really mind, do you? Me making you a dress?’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’ The metallic light burnishes her skin, setting her aglow. ‘I think it’s lovely. I guess I’m just a little overwhelmed.’

  ‘I just feel like we’ve been friends for a really long time,’ she says. ‘And when I live in England, I hope you will still be my friend, my first friend over there.’

  ‘You sound so certain about what you want,’ I say. ‘I’m nearly thirty and I’ve never been certain about anything really.’

  ‘Wow! Are you really that old?’ Riss looks horrified, and I laugh.

  ‘I am, is that bad?’

  ‘You don’t look it … It’s just that I’ve never been friends with anyone that old before, well, not unless you count Father Thomas. Come on, there must be something in your life you feel totally sure about.’

  ‘I used to think it was my work, my research. But now … now I think the only things I am sure about are my family, and how much they matter – it’s my mum that taught me that.’

  ‘Well, your mom is right, family is important, but we all only have one life to live, right?’ She nods back inside. ‘They think I’m crazy to even consider leaving the country to be with a man I’ve only known four months, but it doesn’t feel crazy, it feels right. Like the future is full of opportunities, and none of them can be bad. I just think … I think, if I can make Pops see how much I love Henry, and how much he loves me – I think everything will work out. I kind of feel like it will, you know?’

  I see a narrow chance and take it.

  ‘Do you need to see the priest? Maybe it would be better to just go with Henry, and let it all sort itself out afterwards?’ I bite my lip hard, hoping that it might just be that easy. />
  ‘I can’t.’ Riss dips her chin. ‘If I disrespect my father, his faith, my faith like that, he’ll never forgive me. Having respect, especially from your daughters, means a lot around here. If I hurt him like that, I’ll never see him again. And sure, he plays at being a tough guy and a gangster, but deep down he ain’t none of those things. He’s just my pops, who took care of me and Stephanie when Mom died, even though he barely knew how to stay alive himself. I can’t lose him. I need to have both, Luna. I need to be with Henry and I need to know my family are OK.’

  She wraps her bare arms around herself, and her bravado slips away just a little; I see how scared she is.

  ‘I just need for it to be all right. I need for everything to be OK, and then I can be happy. I know I can.’

  ‘Then it will be,’ I tell her tenderly, as if she is my daughter. ‘I promise you.’

  ‘How can you?’ She looks up at me, seeking reassurance.

  ‘I just can,’ I say, holding her gaze until she breaks away.

  ‘Riss, we need to clear up, Pops will be back any minute.’ Stephanie puts an arm around her sister, instinctively sensing she needs a hug.

  ‘Come by tomorrow?’ Riss asks me. ‘I’ll have your dress ready.’

  ‘That quickly?’

  ‘I’m very good.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘My mom always used to say, don’t try, do.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I say. ‘So did mine.’

  She returns inside and I wait for a moment before heading into the sunset that is blazing down the avenue, trusting that sooner or later I will find a way back.

  If I’d ever been in doubt before about what I needed to do for my mother, for Dad and Pea, now there is none. I need to find Delaney and stop him from attacking my mother. Stop him from changing that wonderful, hopeful girl who loves to dance into nothing but a shadow, a ghost of herself.

  And if I succeed? There is one outcome that I haven’t allowed myself to contemplate yet, but I suppose it’s one I can’t avoid for much longer. If I succeed in stopping the awful act that created me, then what becomes of me?