Plain Jane

by Kim Hood

  ‘I could save you the bus ride to Red River,’ he said. ‘You could introduce me to your sister.’

  Damn it. I really had to change the privacy settings on my profiles. So much for having something of my own. I didn’t want to talk about Emma. I didn’t know until then, until he had ruined it, how good it had been to have one person who didn’t think about her every time they saw me.

  ‘So, did it make for good browsing last night, Farley? Did you check out the YouTube video her dance classmates put together to raise funds? How about the Facebook page my parents’ friends thought was such a great idea. Notice anything? She’s ten in every picture, every dance video. Well, guess what? She isn’t ten anymore. And it isn’t cute anymore. It isn’t even sad anymore. It is mind-numbingly never ending.’

  Five minutes ago I had been laughing so hard my ribs still hurt, and now I was so angry I could spit. ‘So if you are looking for some star to hang your do-gooding hat on, you can look elsewhere.’ I turned away, so irate I didn’t even want to see him.

  Neither of us said anything for the rest of the drive. He had ruined it and then I had made sure it couldn’t be fixed. Now I was not only angry at Farley’s voyeurism, but I was sick at the thought of losing the one interesting thing in my life.

  Farley parked the car in the spot he had collected it from. I was about to get out and walk away, when he took my hand and laced his fingers between mine. The anger melted. I wanted to hold his hand forever.

  ‘You met my grandparents; I kind of just wanted to meet someone in your life,’ he said, and I could see that he had recovered from the visit now. He was wearing his calm, sure expression again. ‘Maybe you have a cat or a dog for me to meet? A pet might be a safer bet.’

  One thing about not going to the hospital or to Dell’s house was that I was seeing more of Dad. At first, I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Here is the thing; my dad is probably my favourite person in the world. I know that doesn’t sound like a very cool thing to say, but it’s true. He is the calm in our family, the one who never seems to get riled by anything. He has this way of making me feel like everything is okay.

  That’s how he was before anyway. But now, he is just … not really there anymore. Maybe it’s that he is tired. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s that it’s mostly just me and him in the house, and without Mom’s hyper vigilant lookout for anything that isn’t perfect, his calmness just ends up being nothingness. All I know is that I had been so tired and bored myself, and when I was around Dad it just made me feel even more like that. Like together we couldn’t find one bit of happiness. Somehow it made everything worse to see him like that.

  But since I was home more when he walked in the door, instead of coming in when he was nearly asleep, it seemed like we had more to talk about. Well I did anyway, and he was more awake to listen to it.

  ‘Lasagne is in the oven and the coffee is just brewed,’ I said when Dad slumped through the door at six o’clock that evening. My coffee making skills had improved, and I was finding that if I started to drink it early in the evening, I could sketch half the night and still feel great in the morning. I took his parka before he draped it over a chair arm like usual. He settled into his favourite chair to watch the news, while I got us each a big cup of coffee.

  ‘So you didn’t go to the hospital again today?’ he asked, as I handed him his cup.

  ‘Catching up on school work,’ I said quickly before I moved on to more truthful topics. ‘Did you know that there are forty-three muscles in a human face? Think of the infinite possible expressions you can make by combining those muscles in different ways.’ I demonstrated a few of those expressions for Dad, and he actually laughed.

  Farley had suggested I do a little studying of bones and muscles, if I was interested in drawing people. He’d lent me an anatomy book, but I preferred to surf through websites, finding out interesting facts, like that one.

  ‘There’s some controversy about whether expressions are universally the same, or whether they’re culturally learned. I have been checking out some YouTube clips to see which side of the fence I am on with that one.’

  Dad was looking kind of dazed. I suppose it was a bit of a shift for him, from falling asleep in a heap every evening, to listening to my scintillating conversation.

  ‘Have you watched any of those Bollywood movies, Dad? Did you know that India produces double the movies that Hollywood produces?’ I remembered that I needed to put the garlic bread in the oven. ‘Back in a sec, Dad.’

  ‘Do you want to see some more of my photos?’ I asked, coming back in the room. He had been kind of interested the night before, but tiredness had taken over before he could get through half of them.

  ‘Yes, but only if you sit down, Jane. I’m just too tired for all of this bouncing around the house.’

  ‘I’m not bouncing. I’m happy,’ I said.

  ‘There’s happy, and then there’s happy.’’

  ‘Of course there is,’ I retorted. ‘And all of it’s good.’ It was, wasn’t it? So why did Dad’s questioning make me feel so defensive?

  We were sitting at Farley’s usual table. I was trying to claim half of it, shifting his pile of obscurely titled texts to one of the chairs, hanging the violin case on the back of another chair, so that I could make room for my sketch pad.

  ‘So, are you ever going to play me that thing?’

  ‘The way you say that makes me highly sceptical you’d be an appreciative audience,’ he said, still trying to read the book in front of him.

  ‘You could be right,’ I said. I had this picture of Farley in a suit, with a bow-tie, sitting with an orchestra. It kind of ruined the image in front of me. I was warming to his layered, woolly look. It suited him.

  ‘I like the way I can always count on you to give me straight up honesty, Jane.’ I liked the way he never seemed offended by it.

  ‘But, then again I could be impressionable when it comes to music. I basically only know what I hate.’ I thought of the stuff Dell liked – actually what most people I knew liked; I’d never understood how anyone could feel passionate about any of it.

  ‘That makes me even more sure that you don’t need to hear me play.’ He turned a page in his book, eyes still down.

  ‘Still, it only seems fair. You’ve basically forced me to show you my art. Don’t you think you should show me yours?’

  ‘Fine.’ He sighed, and closed the book he had been trying to read. He shouted over to Kaitlin, who was at her usual station behind the counter. ‘Throw me your keys will you? I need a studio space to serenade Jane in.’

  Farley had to warm the car up before he could play, which also gave him time to figure out how he was even going to make space to play in Kaitlin’s miniature car. He’d moved the front seats right up, so he could stretch his lanky self out in the back seat. That meant I was squished into the remaining space in the passenger seat.

  ‘You’re sure you want to hear this? I’m pretty sure you are going to hate it.’ For just a moment I saw – felt it more than I saw it – his trepidation.

  ‘How bad can it be? You’re one of the best aren’t you?’

  ‘Okay. Let’s just do this.’

  What he played was good; I could tell it was good even though the only classical music I knew was from the radio station my mom listened to – the same one my Grandad had listened to. I’d never paid much attention to it. You couldn’t help but pay attention when Farley played though. It was pretty stunning, in a way that almost scared me. He seemed to have absolute control over every note, like each one was held on the strings until he launched it in precisely the direction he wanted it to go. As he played, his face mirrored that precision, every muscle taunt, his eyes intensely focused on some spot in his mind where he controlled the notes.

  When he stopped, I didn’t know what to say. There weren’t any words for what I had heard. Farley saved me by speaking first.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with this.’ He lifted the violi
n from his knee and laid it back down. His face was back to being Farley, only a little sad. I didn’t know how he could be sad about being able to play like that.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing makes my dad happier than me playing this music. Do you know what that’s like?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t, but his question sounded uncomfortably like Emma’s plea for me to listen to her.

  ‘What would you do, if you didn’t want to do it anymore?’ Farley asked. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. He was looking at me like I had an answer.

  ‘Do what?’ I asked.

  ‘This – play classical violin. But it isn’t only about me. I don’t just do this in my spare time. I’ve trained for years, and the week before I came here I was offered a place in the Boston Symphony Orchestra.’

  ‘That’s a good thing isn’t it?’ As supportive as I was trying to be, it didn’t sound like a good thing for me.

  ‘It should be, but it doesn’t feel like it.’ Farley said. ‘I’ve been delaying my decision, but they won’t wait much longer. Should I go?’

  ‘Play me something you love,’ I blurted, not wanting to honestly answer his question about what he should do.

  ‘How do you know I didn’t love that?’ he asked.

  I did know, but it took me a minute to think of how I could articulate how I knew.

  ‘When I draw a sketch that I end up loving, I feel it, from a place where there isn’t thought. It’s like … I’m not in control.’ Somehow, it seemed okay to talk like this with Farley. ‘What you played was …’ I searched for the right words. ‘It was incredible, and perfect, but I didn’t feel it. You didn’t feel it.’

  Farley just stared at me, his mouth open. I was afraid my honesty had gone too far this time.

  ‘Nobody knows that. Everybody else feels it.’

  ‘Maybe they want to, because it’s obviously that good. Seriously though, Farley. You don’t get that good randomly. You love something about this – so show me what it is.’ It was weird; with Farley I just trusted my gut that I knew what he felt, what he meant. I could say these things without being afraid he would look at me like I had two heads.

  ‘Okay. I’ve been playing around with Irish fiddle tunes. God, my dad would kill me – all those lessons, all of that classical training going to waste … I’ve just been listening to tunes and playing what I like, figuring them out by ear. The patterns are simple, but even so, I’m not that good yet.’

  ‘Show me.’

  You know when you see someone you really care about, doing something they love? It’s like all of the best things about them are suddenly visible, where they weren’t before that. And you know this – this is exactly why you love them, this thing that you can’t even articulate, but you recognise immediately.

  It was exactly like that to see Farley play the music he loved. His eyes were closed, but even so I could tell his eyes were smiling in that most Farley way. His whole posture was soft and fluid, just like he walked when he wasn’t caring who was watching him.

  I don’t know one thing about Irish music, but it was like everything Farley loved about it was contagious. He kept playing for about ten minutes; his fingers, those beautifully slender fingers, flying, pressing each string with such ease, and the bow almost singing. The music was just like Farley, it was so incredibly optimistic.

  And then he switched and played this really slow music, with all of these little slips of notes that looked just like tiny flowers in my mind. It was so beautiful and sad.

  I tried to hide behind the seat to wipe my eyes, so Farley wouldn’t see he’d made me cry. It seemed so sappy to be sobbing over music. My voice gave it away though. It was a little wobbly.

  ‘You need to keep playing that, Farley.’

  ‘It isn’t that easy, Jane.’ I didn’t like the way his eyes lost all mirth when he said it.

  ‘How can you be all ‘trust-in-the-stars’ and not know in your heart that it really is that easy.’ I’d never heard music that could make me cry.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe any of that?’

  ‘I don’t. My straight-up, no bullshit, assessment brings me to exactly the same conclusion as your ‘trust in the stars’ in this case.’ It was true, but I couldn’t help thinking that I’d just heard music that was nothing less than magic.

  The weekend came too soon. Something was happening to time. It was moving too quickly. I was used to it barely moving, and now here it was the weekend and I wasn’t ready for it. It had been such a good week. But now it was ‘D Day’. ‘D’ for Dell.

  For once, on the ride home I could have done with some mindless chatting with the girls, but none of them were on the bus. Tracey had been meeting her mom, and Brenda and Aishling were hanging out in town.

  I needed something to stop me from thinking about having to see Dell. It made me feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

  Today was the day I was supposed to go back to him. And I just couldn’t.

  I didn’t go see Dell. I didn’t even ring him or message him. I left a message on the table to tell Dad that I had the flu and that I just needed to sleep. It was sort of true. I sort of felt ill. Only I didn’t sleep. I just kept quiet when he came in. It was easy to do that. Pencils don’t make any noise.

  ‘I still really don’t feel well,’ I said to Mom when she got up on Sunday morning. I almost believed it myself I was getting so good at being sick. She had let me ‘sleep’ all Saturday afternoon. I’d made a brief appearance for dinner, and it had been easy to not eat anything. Food was kind of making me feel ill lately. Maybe I really was sick.

  People were kind of making me feel ill too. People required talking, which required thinking, and all I wanted to do was not think. I wanted to draw. There were so many images, and not enough time.

  ‘Maybe you should stay home today, Jane,’ she indulged me. ‘You are looking quite pale. Probably better to stay away from Emma if you aren’t well.’

  I nodded. For once I was glad that she thought of Emma before me.

  ‘Dell is worried about you,’ Tracey said when I got on the bus on Monday. I hadn’t told Tracey anything about my birthday, or that I had told Dell that I didn’t want to see him for a week. Or that I hadn’t seen him again this weekend. I was trying not to think about it. He had tried to ring me a couple of times; I’d turned the volume to mute so I didn’t have to decide whether to answer when he rang.

  ‘Is he?’ I said, trying to look surprised, like there was no problem at all. ‘Did you run into him?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said. She hesitated a moment, doing that thing where she bites her lip when she wants to talk, but can’t. ‘He. Well. He wanted to just talk to you, but you wouldn’t answer.’

  ‘Oh, yeah I know I missed a couple of calls from him. Studying has been crazy.’ I kind of forgot that this was Tracey I was talking to, who knew that almost anything could distract me from studying. ‘Can you believe I just said that?’

  I started to laugh, but Tracey didn’t. She was still looking at me in complete seriousness, which made me feel strange. She was right. I knew it wasn’t funny what I was doing to Dell, but I still couldn’t feel that.

  ‘Jane, you have missed dozens of calls from him and not rang him back once.’

  It didn’t seem like he had called that much. Obviously Tracey had a more accurate count than me though.

  ‘I’ll talk to him. I really will.’ I wanted the conversation to just end. I had been looking forward to showing Farley my newest sketches, which I had worked on all weekend, and I didn’t want thoughts coming into my head that would ruin that.

  It was just so good to feel happy for once, but maybe because it had been so long since I had felt that way, it got ruined too easily. It was like I was walking this ridge, on top of the world, sun shining, but the path was so narrow that anybody only had to give me a little yank and I would tumble back into the dark of feeling nothing on one side, or into the fireworks of horrib
le feeling on the other side.

  ‘He’s really having a hard time, Jane. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘I know, alright!’ There, she had ruined it. ‘Can I not have one bit of peace for a week or two? Do you think that it is too much to ask for? Why does everyone think this is a bad thing?’

  Now I had ruined it as well, because Tracey was blinking back tears as fast as she could. And even though I desperately wanted to feel bad – there was nothing but this anger.

  The pictures saved me. Pictures in my mind. All of the photographs I had taken over the last few days started to come into my head and they pushed out any thought. Any thought that wasn’t about the images. Pictures of Emma, of the trees in the park, of Farley driving, of Dad asleep, of our house, of my room, of the streets of Kendal, of Farley’s grandparents’ house, taken between pushes of the car, of my grandfather’s house.

  That one I hadn’t taken. There was no way I was going back there ever again. Where had that picture come from?

  But now I couldn’t stop the images. They kept coming. Every time I blinked, a new picture, like the digital photo frame Mom kept on the mantelpiece, that wouldn’t stop flipping to a new picture, even when you just wanted to look at that last one a little longer.

  I closed my eyes tight, trying to stop the slide show, silently cursing Tracey and willing with all my might for that happy feeling to return.

  Kaitlin was at her usual station when I walked in, leaning over the counter, staring out the window like it might bring customers in. I got the nod. She wasn’t much of a talker, but that was okay. She’d never once made me feel like I shouldn’t be there either, even when I didn’t have any money to buy anything, which was most of the time. I vowed that when I had money I would keep coming here and spend every penny I had on weird bread and healthy drinks.

  ‘You know that you are exactly the bad influence that my father fears I will fall under, don’t you?’ Farley greeted.