Plain Jane

by Kim Hood

  ‘Me? A representative of the hard-working, traditional-values contingent around here?’

  ‘I’m referring more to the frequency of which you are not in school.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I dismissed, though I did feel a slight flutter of guilt rising. I swallowed it down. ‘No time. You need to teach me how to get my houses to stop looking like they were built by Dr Seuss.’

  ‘See, here you are, distracting me from my own studies.’ He sighed dramatically and closed the text he had open in from of him. ‘And I was just at a really good part.’

  ‘Okay, show me where the problem is?’

  The happy feeling was coming back now that I was sitting across from Farley, sketch pad between us. He looked at each sketch like it was some sort of Mona Lisa – which none of them were, especially since I couldn’t seem to get the perspective right. I noticed that Farley was wearing his glasses again. They did give him a slightly less cool look, but I liked it. Geeky cute you might say, only not quite geeky enough, and a little too pretty to be cute. I sat on my hands to stop them from reaching up to touch that pretty face.

  My phone beeped. And beeped again. I ignored it until the fourth beep and then pulled it out of my pocket in annoyance. Annoyance and a tiny sliver of worry. I didn’t like it when Emma was in the hospital. What if I didn’t check my phone, and something had gone wrong?

  Dell had given up on ringing me. He was messaging me now. He never communicated through writing if he could get away with it so the messages were short. U OK, CALL ME JANE and even U NO I LOVE YOU – not even ‘luv’, but ‘love’. And finally PLEASE.

  Could he not leave me alone? Why was he hassling me like this? First Tracey had to remind me that I hadn’t rung him, and now here he was bothering me himself. White hot anger rose, and I couldn’t stop it.

  ‘Jane?’ Farley looked a little startled. ‘Are you okay? I don’t think I would like to be the sender of that message, based on that look on your face. You could slay a dragon with a flash of that scowl.’

  ‘Have you been to Verwood yet?’ Everything that was wrong with Dell suddenly converged in one image.

  ‘Really. Are you okay, Jane?’

  ‘Sometimes you would think you were stepping back in time when you walk down the street there, except that there’s a double-cab 350 parked in every drive instead of a horse. We have this one restaurant, this one pub, this one gas station – and kind of attached to it is this one store. It never has anything in it that you need. Like, if Mom would send me for a can of kidney beans, they would only have baked beans that day, and the next day, if Dad wanted baked beans they would only have kidney beans.’ The words kept coming. ‘But even though they never have what you need, they have all of these things that you would never need. Or maybe someone might have needed or wanted it in say, 1920, maybe before they could just get in the car and drive to Kendal or Red River. So some of the stuff has been there forever. Not just groceries, but weird things like ornaments and fishing gear and makeup. Well, maybe the makeup is recent enough.’

  ‘Jane, breathe.’ Farley had his hand on my arm, and I so wanted to think of that, but I couldn’t stop yet.

  ‘They also have a little section of jewellery. Mostly really tacky stuff for tourists. You’re American, you know the stuff tourists would think is Canadian. Gold nuggets on a chain, silver dream catcher earrings, bracelets with turquoise stones. That sort of thing. We don’t even have turquoise around here. Isn’t that Navaho or something?’

  ‘Whoa, where are we going with this exactly?’

  ‘Where we are going with this, is this is the place where Dell got my birthday present – my medal, his medal really. That is as far as he went – two steps from his work. That is as far as he can imagine me. That is why I can’t ring him back.’ I could see Dell, running in on his lunch break, asking Teresa behind the till to put some sort of present together for me.

  ‘I’m not really sure I understand the whole medal part, but the not ringing him sounds hopeful for me. Seriously though, is that all he did, not get you the right present, for you to be this mad?’

  Farley’s hand was still on my arm and I had this sudden urge to pull him toward me. He felt real in a way that Dell never had. I felt real.

  ‘I’m not mad at him,’ I said, only just now recognising that this was true. How could I be mad? Dell couldn’t help that Verwood practically defined him; the small-town boy in the small town. And that wasn’t a bad thing either; it’s just that … it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me, and Dell didn’t even get that.

  ‘I’m sorry, Farley, I have to go.’ I pulled my arm away and started to shove my sketch pads back in my bag. I needed to go before I lost my nerve. I knew now what I had to do.

  ‘Are you mad at me?’ I looked up at Farley. This wasn’t banter. It was real concern. His cracks were showing, insecurity leaking out.

  No, Farley, I am afraid I may be mad ABOUT you. That’s what I thought. What I said instead was, ‘How could I be mad at you? All that peace and love floating around you.’ I took one of my sketch pads though, one that was full, and slid it across the table. ‘Hold on to that, will you, so you can tell me what I need to learn to be better. Tomorrow.’

  I hoped that I would know what I needed to be better by then. The buzzy, happy feeling I had welcomed was beginning to feel ominously more buzzy and less happy.

  ‘Jane, are you coming today?’ I’d never liked talking to Emma on the phone. It wasn’t just that we didn’t really do conversation; it was that without seeing her face I could never be sure that I wouldn’t say something to upset her too much. Not that I had been doing such a great job of restraining myself in person lately.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure yet. I’ve a few more tests.’ I hadn’t gone to the hospital again on Tuesday, and the sick and study excuses wouldn’t hold up much longer. The truth was, I hadn’t made it to many classes at all. I’d had too much to do, trying to catch up on learning how to draw. I’d had the most fantastic week, and now it was just … hard to make myself go back to the usual. It didn’t feel right now.

  ‘That’s what you said last week, Jane.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t exactly schedule the exams. Some of us actually have to go to school.’ I let the anger hang there for a minute. I hated it, but I couldn’t seem to not feel it. If I didn’t deal with Dell soon I was going to explode.

  ‘I get it,’ Emma finally said.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I just … it’s just that I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Talk away.’

  ‘No, not on the phone. Here.’

  I could almost see the bad feeling rising, twisting in black swirls up through my intestines, swallowing the bright colours of hope that had been trying to bloom there.

  ‘What’s the point anyway?’ I continued, and with every word, the blackness advanced. ‘You and Mom don’t need me there. I am invading your private, little world aren’t I? It’s not like I belong there one bit. You know what; I don’t want you to belong there either. Emma, you have to get out of there. They have to let you out. I can’t do it anymore.’

  ‘Are you okay, Jane?’ When did Emma get old enough to ask me that? And why did people insist on asking me that, just when I was more okay than I had been in three years. I was wasn’t I? I just needed to deal with Dell. It was eating at me. I just needed to do that and everything would be perfect. Well, as perfect as it could be anyway.

  I meant to ring Dell. I really did. I was even going to just go and see him. But one minute it was six o’clock, and the next minute it was two o’clock in the morning, with not even much drawing to account for the time gone. Something was happening to the time.

  History is not a terrible first period. Generally, we are at least discussing places and times that are not here. I like that.

  Also, history teachers really like it when you can spew back dates at them. If you put up your hand to answer, for example, that the Canadian Railway was completed on November 7th in 1885, you a
re golden. A history teacher will assume that you know everything if you can give her that date. And I am good with numbers, and dates are essentially numbers. I have gotten away with knowing very little else but dates and time lines.

  Usually.

  Today, I slid into first class, opened my text, and got ready to spew a date or two before tuning out completely for forty minutes. I had to pace myself. I had to put in at least a three class day today. It was ages since I had.

  It should have registered with me that I was in trouble when nobody else took out a textbook. I wouldn’t have even noticed but Ms McGuire was late, so I had time to look around, and everyone around me had a pen in their hand, but nothing else. The keener students had another two pens on the desk in front of them. Almost everyone was sitting up straight, not slumped in their chairs like they usually were.

  When Ms McGuire finally did come in, with a handful of stapled booklets, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day.

  Okay, here is the truth. My system isn’t just a system for avoiding school; it’s also a system for making sure that I never get less than a C. I miss assignments, I make them up, I do enough on the bus to keep up, and I skip the classes that aren’t that important. There’s surprisingly little that you have to do to get by if you just figure out what is essential and what is not. Teachers won’t tell you that shit of course, but if they think a student’s sister might tank it any day, they cut her some slack; they let her in on some of the secrets.

  So maybe I wasn’t as completely out of control as I seemed. I kind of wanted to be, but I was also kind of too scared to be.

  Today was different. I honestly did not know that we had a major test until the papers were put on each of our desks. My mom tells me that she still has dreams of forgetting that she has registered for a class, and then having to write an exam having never been to a single lecture. She thinks it comes from being in school for so long, that she never really stopped being a student at heart.

  I don’t know about that, but I can tell you that the feeling in real life is as terrifying as any nightmare. There was not a single question that seemed like something I had heard anything about. It was worse though, because I couldn’t stop going over and over in my mind, searching for how I possibly missed that there was a test scheduled for today. It felt like I was in some kind of weird fog, where I couldn’t move, couldn’t remember before yesterday. And then when I tried to think of other classes, to anchor myself, thinking maybe it was just this class; I couldn’t think of a single thing that had happened in any of my other classes.

  It wasn’t until the guy who sat across the aisle looked at me strangely that I realised that I’d just been sitting there while everyone else was furiously writing. I flipped the pages back to the beginning, but when I tried to read the first question, I couldn’t concentrate enough for the words to make sense.

  What subject was even next? I couldn’t remember my timetable! Everyone around me kept writing as fast as they could, and the more I tried to flip through the pages, to remember anything, the more I panicked. I knew there were tricks. I knew I could do the multiple choice questions and the matching section and get at least a few points by default. But I couldn’t concentrate enough to read the directions. The words kept jumping around on the page.

  The place was so quiet that I could hear my own thoughts booming through my brain, repeating phrases WHEN DID IT … HOW DO WE KNOW … WHAT DO YOU THINK? What did I think? What did I think? I couldn’t think.

  ‘Will you stop it!’ the guy across from me whispered. It took me a second to realise that I’d been tapping my pen on the desk. I don’t think I was doing it quietly either.

  I looked up at Ms McGuire at the front of the room, but she hadn’t even noticed. She was reading a book. Couldn’t she see that the test didn’t make sense? Couldn’t she tell that she had picked up the wrong test? Everybody else just kept writing; they didn’t know either. They had cheated; they had all seen last year’s test, they were answering those questions, but they didn’t know that this one was different. Only I knew; but I couldn’t do anything about it.

  I counted to two hundred, hoping this panic would pass, and when it didn’t I almost ran to the front of the class, thrusting my empty paper at the teacher. I seemed to have startled her, because she looked a bit shocked, but I didn’t stop to think about that. I just turned and counted my steps out of the class – willing myself to walk, to not run.

  There was a bathroom right beside 212A, which is the room I took history in, and I have never been more thankful for a bathroom in all of my life. As soon as I opened that door, it felt like I was back in my mind. I stood at the sink, hands shaking, looking at a face that slowly became my own. Slowly. At first I couldn’t register who it was. I didn’t like the face. She terrified me with her demon eyes and pale skin. And then, blink by blink, frame by frame, the face became me and it was okay.

  Obviously, I couldn’t stay in school, even though I had resolved to be there for the morning. I was slightly freaking myself out. As soon as I left the building though, I felt a hundred times better, which was a thousand times better than I had felt during the history exam. I wasn’t going crazy; I was just tired. I had missed reminding myself about the test because I was tired. I hadn’t really slept properly for, how long? I didn’t know.

  Walking helped. It wasn’t even that cold today. I could keep walking and I would keep feeling better. It was like coming out of a nightmare. Cold was even good. Well, it was better since I had remembered mittens today. Small things are good.

  By the time I had reached the main street I had a plan. Ten laps. Ten laps of the five blocks by five blocks that made up Kendal. I wasn’t sure that five by five fully encompassed the town, but it was a good workable number. Five by five was twenty five by ten was two hundred and fifty. A good goal to aim for. A measurable goal.

  I only made it one lap before I started to feel panicked again. How had I forgotten it, that exam? I had known it was coming up. I tried to remember what day it was. Friday. How hard was that?

  But what had I done on the weekend? I didn’t remember seeing Emma. I’d been sick, hadn’t I? I had been sick so I didn’t need to see Dell, or Emma, or anyone. But I hadn’t slept. There had been too many pictures in my head to do that.

  The buzzing was back and I couldn’t think. Nothing would stick. I was trying to grab thoughts and make them stay. Even a bad thought. Just stay. ‘Stop bouncing’, ‘Sit down, you are making me dizzy’, ‘Too much energy’. Too much, too much, too much, too much.

  My phone. I took it out and messaged the only person I could even hope to save me.

  I tried to concentrate on breathing while I sat on the bus, waiting for Farley to save me. He’d told me to get on the bus; that he would be there.

  I took out all of my books and laid them on the seat beside me, and then put them all back in my bag again. Where was the bloody day planner? It had my timetable in it. I shuffled through all of my binders and texts looking for it, and then went through my bag again, finding it behind a lunch bag that smelled ominously like oranges gone bad. When I opened to my timetable though, I didn’t feel any better. There, in colour coded order, was what my week – every week since September – looked like. Every Friday was history, then English, then P.E. Still, looking at the day, it seemed no more familiar. It was like my own life was just evaporating.

  I shoved the book back behind the rotten orange. I didn’t want to see the thing. It just made me feel scared, with its concrete proof of how out of control my life was. Instead, I took out my history binder and opened up to a blank piece of paper and started to draw.

  Farley bounded up the steps, violin case slung over his shoulder. I felt like crying I was so relieved to see him.

  ‘I’m here,’ he stated simply as he sat down beside me.

  ‘You are.’ It was more like a sigh than it was a statement. Just seeing him made me feel better. I was afraid to say much though. My thoughts seemed all jumbled
up, and I wasn’t sure I could get out words that made sense. So I didn’t say anything. I just kept drawing.

  Only with Farley could I do this without being afraid of looking crazy, which was ironic since I was feeling the sanest I had all day. He didn’t say a word; just put his arm around me. And I let him.

  When I put my head against his chest I could feel his heart beating, steady, steady, steady, and his breaths slow, slow. I tried to slow my breathing down to match his, tried to shut out any thoughts, any pictures. Think of breathing, think of breathing. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Blood, everywhere. A picture exploded in my mind. I knew it all too well. Shit. I didn’t want it there. I’d kept it away. I’d refused it entry.

  ‘I found my grandfather dead in his house. He shot himself.’

  ‘Ok.’ It was like I had told him I’d had toast for breakfast.

  Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. The slide show in my head would not move from that picture. Where had it come from? I could see it, I knew I had been there, but I couldn’t feel anything about it. It was like something you see posted on some news site.

  ‘Do you think we should get off the bus and call, I don’t know, the doctor or someone?’ Farley asked finally when I didn’t say anything more.

  I sat up and started to laugh. And Farley’s expression, trying to stay calm and supportive, made me laugh even more. I couldn’t stop.

  ‘Not today, you numbskull!’ Grandad had been dead for nearly a year. It wasn’t a day my family talked about, not because of how he died, because we had never talked about that, but just because Emma was so close to him.

  ‘Oh, okay then.’

  I didn’t know what made it come to me, right then, that picture. Maybe it was that I felt exactly like I had the day I found him. Crazy. Only now it was a fucking test, and that day it had been …