When the World was Flat (and we were in love)

by Ingrid Jonach

  The dream returned that night; the one where I was calling out to Tom, screaming his name. I was in the courtyard. The speckled sunlight had dimmed and my killer was there in front of me, his or her hands reaching out. I stumbled against the edge of the fountain, but before I fell backwards into the water I reached out and pulled off the balaclava, my fingernails catching in the scratchy wool.

  Long brown hair tumbled down around narrow shoulders and a fine-featured face looked back at me, flushed with anger. I gasped before I was pushed under the surface of the pond and the cold enveloped me.

  It was confirmed. The man in the balaclava was a woman. But what was more, she was… me.

  When I woke in a cold sweat, I wondered what Deb would make of my dream. It seemed symbolic. Maybe I was having an identity crisis. That was typical for a teenager. Right?

  My heart pounded in my ears as I lay in the gray light of dawn, wondering whether or not to go back to sleep. I finally rolled out of bed, deciding I was not ready to face myself again.

  12

  Tom skipped school on Tuesday. I looked for him all morning, scanning the faces that passed me in the corridors and hurrying to my locker between classes. My heart rose whenever I caught a glimpse of short brown hair or the blue of his favorite sweater in the crowd, and then sank like a stone when I saw it was just one of the jocks or the blue of a backpack.

  Melissa cornered me before third period, demanding to know what had happened between me and Tom on Saturday.

  “None of your business,” I said, as I opened my locker.

  She flicked her mane and stamped her foot, like a bad-tempered pony. “He was supposed to meet me for lunch on Sunday, but he stood me up.” These last three words were said with a what-the-fuck tone.

  “I think you should talk to him, not to me,” I said, loading my books into my bag. “Call him.” Maybe she could let me know what had happened between us too once she had talked to Tom.

  She adjusted the yellow handbag on her shoulder. “I would if he had a cell.” She trailed off, as if hearing his lie in her own voice. Of course it was a lie. Tom was rich enough to have every piece of technology ever invented, five weeks before it came on the market. He probably owned half of Apple.

  “Is that his jacket?” she suddenly asked.

  I slammed my locker shut, concealing the evidence.

  Her eyes became tiny slits of mascara and pink eye-shadow as she stepped forward, getting up in my personal space. “Listen to me, you skank.”

  Her grape bubblegum perfume gave me a headache. Or maybe it was the chemicals in her fake tan.

  “You think you have a shot with Tom? Talk about pathetic.” She laughed nastily. “As if he would be into a freakshow like you, whose mom thinks she is Cleopatra reincarnated or some stupid shit like that.”

  I blushed, wishing Deb had passed on the interview with the Green Grove Post when she was invited to become a member of the American Society of Psychics and Mediums last year.

  “Let me keep that in mind next time I go to his house,” I said coldly. Her eyebrows shot up. Of course, she had no clue that his house was Rose Hill.

  I picked up my bag and turned on my heel, well aware that I was at the top of her hit list now. I knew what they said about friends in high places, which meant I could guess what they said about enemies.

  Like Tom, Sylv had skipped school, leaving me to spend lunch with a girl who told me she was Jo, but who bore no resemblance to my best friend of sixteen years.

  Her mousey hair had been dyed jet black overnight and hacked into a ragged bob with blunt bangs. It looked alternative and I guess you could say sophisticated. It was kind of 1920s flapper. I half-expected her to pull out a cigarette and smoke it in one of those long holders while using words like “sugar” and “toots”.

  “Who are you supposed to be? Liza Minnelli?” I asked, but there was no smile, even though we both loved her character Sally Bowles in Cabaret. There was no answer either. She sat through lunch in silence, not touching her tray of nachos.

  She was reading The Catcher in the Rye, which I knew she had read a thousand times before. I rolled my eyes whenever I saw her circle a word, wondering what mistakes she could find in a book that had been in print for over fifty years.

  But when the bell rang I realized I would rather sit there for another forty minutes watching Jo edit than go to fifth period – Art Studies.

  I knew Jackson would be there with his puppy-dog eyes – or one puppy-dog eye, because the other was bruised and swollen. I had seen it at lunch, before I had turned my head and pretended to be deep in conversation with Jo. Yeah, right. As if. She had already shut down my attempts to ask her about her new look and whether her dad was OK. “I will let you know when he dies,” she had said snippily, leaving me as stunned as a mounted deer head.

  When I walked into the Art Block I was, for all intents and purposes, going to sit on my own or even with Dirk and Mary Sunshine, otherwise known as Kate. But then I saw Jackson, sitting there with an empty seat beside him and those aforementioned eyes. His left eye was the bruised one, a mottle of blue-black tinged with red and yellow that ran down the side of his nose, courtesy of Tom.

  I slumped in the seat next to him, realizing I was going to have to talk to him sooner or later if I wanted to pass Art Studies.

  Mr Hastings was talking about the Renaissance. I noticed his voice was animated and above twenty decibels. I looked around the classroom, checking if Turnip was sitting up the back assessing him or something. Nope. Maybe the school board had a camera installed. I decided to work on my acting skills too, by impersonating a model student. I opened up my folder and began taking notes on a fresh, lined page.

  “Lillie,” Jackson whispered.

  I chewed on the end of my pen, looking at the front of the classroom, as if spellbound by Mr Hastings and his talk on linear perspective in painting.

  “Lillie,” Jackson whispered again.

  I wrote, “The Renaissance began in the Fourteenth Century”, taking my time with my cursive, like those monks who wrote in old-fashioned calligraphy. They say a lot of them died of poisoning from the mercury in their ink.

  “I want to apologize.” He drew in a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, I thought with each stroke of my pen.

  “I was an idiot,” Jackson continued. “Why did I do it?” He groaned dramatically. “Why?”

  “I think they call it peer pressure,” I hissed.

  Mr Hastings gave us a look.

  Jackson sighed. “I know. I have a problem.”

  “Maybe you should see someone about that,” I said snidely.

  “Lillie,” Mr Hastings warned. OK, there must have been a camera, because normally you could talk on your cell in his class without complaint.

  A moment or two passed before Jackson muttered, “I would have thought three years of therapy after I left Green Grove had done the trick.”

  My eyebrows shot up.

  “Spare me your surprise, Lillie. You know how it was for me in Elementary.”

  “Then why did you come back to Green Grove?”

  Mr Hastings raised his voice another twenty decibels. “The first Renaissance artists emerged in Florence in the 15th century during a competition to sculpt a set of bronze doors for a cathedral.”

  Jackson bent down to scribble a few notes and I thought that was the end of our discussion, until he slid his notebook across the desk.

  I looked at the words, “At the end of a fear of flying course you have to take a flight.”

  I looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “And?”

  “Green Grove is my flight,” he whispered.

  “And your parents agreed with your therapist?” I pictured them uprooting their new life to return to their old one.

  “My mom is my therapist. My parents are both shrinks.”

  Mr Hastings cut into our conversation. “Jackson, please move to the other side of the classroom.”

  My mouth
fell open. Mr Hastings was doling out discipline? It was as if both he and Jo had gone through extreme makeovers overnight.

  Jackson swept his books and pens into his bag. I touched his hand, as he stood up.

  “Sorry.”

  He looked at my hand and then at me, his lips twitching into a small smile. “Me too.”

  “Jackson,” Mr Hastings warned.

  “I hope no one turns you in,” I added.

  “Me too.”

  That afternoon I waited for Jo in the quad as usual, scanning the sea of bobbing heads for her new haircut.

  I checked the time on my cell at the four minute mark. And again at the six. And then at the seven.

  “Two more minutes, Betty Boop,” I muttered, as if she were telepathic. “OK. Three.” It was about five minutes later that I spotted her across the quad, at the entrance to the cafeteria. She was talking to Mr Bailey. I groaned and slouched against a brick wall, realizing we could be here for hours.

  Jo turned into Jell-O around Mr Bailey, stuttering and stammering to the point where it took her about ten minutes to say hello. It made me wonder how she had managed to top his class, considering he had been her teacher for two years and counting.

  Today she seemed to have developed a nervous tick too, punctuating each sentence with a flick of her jet-black hair. Hold on. I squinted across the quad. Was that her hand on his arm? Seriously? I straightened up, as Jo threw back her head and let out a laugh that echoed around the quad. Oh my God. She was flirting with Mr Bailey. Flirting!

  My mouth hung open as Jo waved goodbye with a flutter of her fingers.

  “Are you… OK?” I asked, as we walked down the driveway.

  “Fine.”

  I bit my lip. “Cross your heart?”

  “And hope to die.”

  Wrong answer. I frowned. “But–”

  “What are you? My mother? I said I was fine.” She quickened her pace and I had to skip a few steps to keep up.

  The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

  There was a stack of books next to my bedside table which Deb had given me after I had asked about the meaning of dreams. I shook my head at myself as I opened one of them – a dream dictionary – and flipped through the pages until I got to “death”.

  “To dream you are dying indicates a transitional phase. You are about to reach enlightenment.”

  I closed the book and leaned against the pillows. Good news, I guess. I was about to become enlightened. I picked up another book. This one was a dream guide. My eyes scanned the chapter headings, “Premonition”.

  “Dreams can be a message from the universe,” I read, skipping the boring bits. “You may be visited by a loved one, or even by yourself. Blah, blah, blah. Bad news or a warning. OK. Prophetic.” And then this: “Abraham Lincoln dreamed about his death two weeks before his assassination.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. Maybe the dreams had been warning me about the railroad crossing. But that had come and gone, and the dreams had continued. I bit my lip as I considered this conundrum. When had the dreams started? The beginning of summer? I sat in bed with the book open for a long while, not reading.

  How much longer do I have? I wondered.

  13

  My breath caught in my throat when I saw Tom at his locker the next morning. It was like my body temperature increased to a thousand degrees whenever he was around. I noticed his hair was less tousled. He must have had a haircut.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” he responded, his attention on the contents of his locker.

  I dropped my bag at my feet and looked at him sideways. His lips were slightly parted, as he busied himself with his books, and I realized he was drawing in deep breaths, as if calming himself. I was the one who needed to be calmed though, as I watched his chiseled chest rise and fall under his T-shirt.

  I spun the dial on my own locker. “I missed you yesterday,” I said quietly and then blushed. Of course, I meant he had cut school yesterday, not that I had missed him, even though I had. I needed to change the subject ASAP. “You got a haircut.” And now I sounded like a stalker. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

  “Lillie.”

  “Yes?” I asked breathlessly.

  “What do you want?”

  You, I thought, looking at him like a junkie at a crack pipe. What had Melissa called me? Pathetic? Yeah, no kidding. I turned my head from side to side and whispered, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  I returned to my locker, but in my peripheral vision I could see him looking at me, one hand fiddling with his locker door. I kept my eyes on my Algebra book, thinking how stupid it was that I had spelled “Mathematics” in full on the front. Not once had I said, “I have Mathematics homework tonight,” or “I have a Mathematics quiz next period.” It was always Math, short and simple. It would be like calling Tom, Thomas. I wondered if his full name was Thomas. Thomas Windsor-Smith.

  Thomas William Windsor-Smith, a voice whispered in my mind. “Is your middle name William?” I suddenly asked.

  Tom looked alarmed, but then composed himself. “I made a mistake last weekend,” he said.

  I closed my eyes, telling myself he was talking about being at the railroad crossing with Melissa and the Mutts, not about driving me home. But I was kidding myself. If Melissa was a pony then Tom was a stallion. And me? Well, I was a donkey. Yep. Like the T-shirt I happened to be wearing at that exact-same second. A complete and utter ass.

  I pulled his coat from my locker. “Here,” I said, pushing it at him.

  He caught it in the stomach, like a medicine ball. “Lillie,” he said in a pleading voice. “Please understand. I came to Green Grove to be on my own – not to get involved with anyone, especially you.”

  His last words were like a slap across the face. Especially me? I glared at him. “If you want to be on your own then maybe you should stop hanging out with Melissa.” I slammed my locker shut and hauled my bag over my shoulder.

  Loser. Loser. Loser, I chanted in my mind as I walked through the corridors, not sure if I meant him or me. The sound of my shoes on the linoleum seemed to echo the rhythm. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. “Lo-ser. Lo-ser,” until it became, “Lil-lie. Lil- lie.”

  I took a break from the world at lunchtime and went down to the darkroom to develop the film from the weekend.

  As I watched the negatives develop in the tray I realized there would be no break from Tom, because there he was in the first frame, walking down the front steps of Rose Hill.

  His association with Rose Hill meant I saw him in all of the negatives after that. He was there in the ballroom, leaning against a pillar. He was standing on the grand staircase in the foyer. He was walking towards me, out of the frame and although the image was in black and white I could see the pale blue of his eyes, burning through me like the center of a Bunsen burner.

  I cringed as I thought about wearing his jacket, about smelling the collar. I really was pathetic.

  I was relieved when the bell rang and I was able to leave the negatives behind on the line to dry. I took my time with walking to my locker, knowing I had World History with Tom.

  I spotted Jo in the quad and called out her name.

  “Want to cut class?” I asked when I had caught up. “I think we both need a break.”

  She shook her head. She was wearing a bucket load of gray eye shadow and heavy black eyeliner today, which had smudged under her left eye, giving her a look that was half-goth, half-hooker. “I have English last period.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mr Bailey will be here tomorrow and the next day. He probably comes in on weekends too.”

  “I have to hand in an assignment.”

  “But we can get rocky road milkshakes from the Duck-In Diner,” I angled. “My shout.”

  She glowered. “What? Do you think you can bribe the fat girl with food?”

  “Jo. No. You know I–”

  She raised her hand like a traffic cop. “I said ‘no’ and I mean ‘no,’ Lillie. Maybe ne
xt time you should throw in a couple of Twinkies.”

  My blood boiled as I watched her walk to class. Who was this girl and what had she done with my best friend? I wanted to bombard her with photos of us swimming in the river at the Rainbow Retreat. I wanted to tape her eyes open and make her watch a twenty-four hour musical marathon. I wanted her to be Jo again.

  “Have fun with your boyfriend Mr Bailey!” I yelled, my voice bouncing off the brick buildings and turning a few heads.

  Jo spun around with a face like fury.

  I stood my ground as she stalked towards me, her black boots clomping on the concrete.

  “And you have fun with Tom and Jackson,” she spat, stabbing a finger into my chest. “Maybe you could spare a few for the rest of us.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Was she calling me a slut? “Maybe I would if you dressed like yourself, instead of like a freakshow.” It was what Melissa had called me and I was sorry as soon as I said it.

  Jo stared at me for a moment and I saw her chin wobble, before she turned and clomped across the quad to class.

  Shit. Shit. Shit, I thought as she went.

  I decided to cut class on my own. I went via the playing fields, instead of the driveway, where Turnip would have swooped on me in a second.

  Jo and I had agreed to disagree a thousand times during our friendship, but I could count our fights on two fingers.

  Once was when we were ten years old. Jo had accused me of cheating while playing Casino, a card game made up by Sylv, where we had dressed up like hookers and smoked twigs like they were cigarettes. Sylv had decided to start a fire with a lighter and our twigs, and I had thrown a couple of cards onto the flames. Jo had hit the roof because one of the cards happened to be from her hand and she had been about to win for the eighth time in a row. It was three years before I admitted that I had known it was the ace of hearts, which trumped all other cards in Casino.

  The second was when Deb had bought me a training bra. Jo had thrown a tantrum because her dad was as likely to buy his little girl a bra as he was to turn vegetarian.