by Lori Weber
Jim is still studying his fossils. I wonder how many hours he’s spent in this same position, his hair hanging over his eyes.
“If we do go on that field trip to Horton Bluffs this summer, I might get lucky and find a rare fossil,” Jim says, straightening up.
“What’s so special about Horton Bluffs?”
“They’re world-famous for having the first amphibian footprints. A guy named Logan found them back in 1841. Some pretty impressive bone fossils have been found there, too, probably of an ancient fish called a Rhizodus. Scientists think it could walk on land, too.”
“Oh. That’s impressive, I guess.” I look down and it hits me that I’m in bare feet. Jim’s never seen my feet before. They’ve always been encased in black boots.
“Feel this,” Jim says suddenly. He places his palm right over the back of my hand and moves my hand around, as though it’s a computer mouse. He guides my fingers over the fossils, his index finger pressing down on mine as we trace the spiny lines together, slowly.
“The lines are so delicate,” I say.
“That’s because they’ve been washed over by millions of years of elements. You’re feeling sandstone and limestone when you touch these things,” Jim says. “All the layers that once covered them, even ice from the last ice age, ten thousand years ago.”
I try to picture the bony little creatures pressing against the stone, all those years ago. They were probably being chased by predators, and their only option was to burrow between some rocks. And now, Jim and I are feeling these etchings together, our eyes closed and our breath mingling.
“These are kind of neat,” I admit softly. Jim doesn’t speak. He just squeezes my hand, like he doesn’t want to let go. Then he lifts his hand ever so slightly and begins to trace the back of my hand with his fingers. His touch is light and delicate on my skin. His fingers brush down the raised cartilage, then dip into the hollows between. My whole hand is tingling, as though Jim is drawing all my blood to the surface.
“I can read you, too, the same way,” Jim says, bending toward me so that his face is really close to mine. I can feel him staring into my blue eyes, his breath on my skin. I’m not used to being studied up close like this.
“You can?” I say, pulling back a little. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just like that with some people. Like you meet them and you feel you’ve known them your whole life. You connect. Do you know what I mean?”
I nod. I do know. But the knowing feels so strange.
“Cheryl,” Jim says. “About today. I got the feeling I did something wrong, coming along. But I couldn’t say no to your mom, could I? Not when she came over and invited me along. I was being neighbourly.”
That’s a word I haven’t heard in eons. I used to know what it meant, when I actually had neighbours that I knew. In Murdochville, the two mining families on either side of us had already left the town. In Osoyoos, we were in an apartment building with mostly old people who were trying to nurse their bone trouble, and at the farmhouse in Saskatchewan, our nearest neighbour was miles away.
“Yeah, well, my parents and I aren’t really getting along too well at the moment,” I say.
“I could see that. Is it just because they brought you to Newfoundland?”
I realize that sounds lame. It doesn’t seem like much of a crime. I’d have to explain so much to Jim for him to understand, but I have to try.
“I just really wanted to go home, you know? I thought we were finally going home this time. They said it would just be a year, and then two, then three, and now four. I just want to go home, you know?”
Jim nods, as though he gets it. I guess he might, in a way. After all, he’s away from home, too. He probably left friends behind, and his family is all split up—in three different places. At least mine is still together.
“I’m playing with the guys tomorrow afternoon. But maybe I’ll see you after, okay?” He looks at me intently.
I start to say maybe, but that’s what I said when Jim brought me home from Quidi Vidi. He deserves a better answer this time. “I’ll try.”
“Well, that’s better than a no,” Jim responds.
Then he picks up his fossils and leaves.
•
MY HAND IS ON fire where Jim touched it. It’s like I never really felt my hand before. It’s just been there, inconspicuous.
If it weren’t so dark in here, I’d be able to see whether his strokes have left marks on my skin.
Chapter Five
On the Rock Alone
I AM AWAKENED BY RAIN, lashing against my window with incredible force, like a million tiny fists pounding to be let in. A pool of water is collecting on the sill then spilling over, creating a small waterfall. I’m sure it’s not the first time this has happened, judging by the yellow streak on the wall and the blackened wood, the size of a plate, on the floor under it.
Across the room, the lamp on the desk is still lit, casting a circle of light on the map where Jim’s fossils lay last night. I guess I forgot to turn it off. The rest of the room is grey, with no hint of sun, even though the radio clock says 11:00 AM.
I lie here thinking about the fossils, and it strikes me that they are kind of yin and yang. The rock they’re embedded in is hard, yet they contain something as delicate as those etchings, thin and wispy as silk. Maybe that’s why Jim likes them, because they’re a mixture of so many things—hard and soft, past and present.
My dad says he’s only interested in the present. That’s why he’s an anthropologist and not an archaeologist. Otherwise, we’d be going around living on dig sites. Here, he does his digging in disguise, camouflaging himself as a normal person. I guess my mom and I are part of the disguise—his normal family, following the working husband around.
Downstairs, I find a note on the kitchen counter, in my mother’s shaky handwriting: We’ve gone to the university. Be back later. Have a good day, Mom and Dad. I know my father wanted me to go see his office, too. They probably waited a while after breakfast, then figured it was best to let me sleep. They’re probably hoping that rest will put me in a better mood.
I fix myself a grilled cheese sandwich and take it into the living room. Of all the rooms in a house, this one is the hardest to feel at home in. Our last place was also furnished, and I always felt like I was intruding in the living room. I guess because it’s the living room, the place where people gather together and live. I can just imagine hundreds of birthday and Christmas celebrations taking place in here over the years, for Robbie and his family. They didn’t leave any family portraits lying around, but they didn’t have to. I can feel their presence everywhere.
I plunk myself down on the brown plaid sofa. Across from me sits a matching chair, with a pop-out foot rest. The bookshelf against the back wall is practically bare. I guess Robbie’s family boxed up all their personal stuff, except for a row of Encyclopaedia Britannica and some other big hardcovers, to give us space. On the bottom shelf is a stack of board games, including Monopoly, Clue, and Risk, stuff I used to play when I was ten. On top of the bookcase sits a row of pictures that they forgot to hide. What’s odd is that there is a bridge in each one, with some member of Robbie’s family standing in front of it. Then I remember my dad saying that the mother is an engineer. Maybe her specialty is bridges. If so, she sure lives in a strange place.
Our laptop is sitting on the coffee table, but it’s completely useless without an Internet connection. If we were online, I could check my email and catch up with Janna. I haven’t had any contact with her since the day she met me downtown in Montreal, on our way here. My parents had gone to visit the family that was renting our house, just to check things out. Janna came downtown, and we walked around, soaking up the city and catching up. I could’ve cried on Saint Catherine Street, I was so happy to see concrete, tons of it, piled up to the sky. Later, we hung out in the hotel room, and she talked non-stop about Stephan, her new boyfriend. She kept wanting to know if I had a boyfriend, too. S
he assumed I’d have a string of them across the country. It was hard to explain that that was so far from the truth. She didn’t seem to get that when you’re trying to fit in at a new place, it’s all kind of awkward. Then, as if she couldn’t wait to show me, she pulled out a round case of birth-control pills. She even took one there, in the bathroom, making a point of telling me how easy it was to forget.
I finish my sandwich and put my dish in the sink, balancing it on top of a stack of plates, bowls, and pots that are still sitting there from last night. My mother usually likes to do dishes because the hot water is soothing on her fingers. She always ignores the dishwasher, if there is one. I wonder why she didn’t do these. Maybe her fingers were so sore she was afraid she’d drop something. It’s happened before.
That pool of ice water in her hands yesterday couldn’t have helped. I can’t believe she’d hurt herself like that, just to get me to feel the ocean. It’s like that time in Osoyoos, when she hiked far up into the mountains to collect rare wildflowers that grew there, in bright purples, pinks, and oranges that were so lustrous they looked like they’d been coated in lipstick. We’d seen them the day before, from the car, when we drove up to the lookout on Anarchist Mountain, a name that made my mother laugh. She said that name was totally unjustified, because even an anarchist would have to be impressed by the beauty of the view—the Rockies, the lakes, and the desert cacti. Anarchists liked chaos, but this, according to my mom, was proof that a higher power was trying to make some order in the world.
After her hike, she made up a big bouquet, just for me, and left it in my room. The colour exploded when I opened my door, as if the flowers had an interior flash. It almost made up for the hard day I’d just had, trying to find my way around the new school. The classes were going apple picking the next day, and we had had to organize ourselves into groups of six. I ended up in the group of stragglers, or leftovers—all the kids who were either too shy or too unpopular to get chosen by anyone else. The apple picking itself was kind of fun and mindless. A tractor pulled us into a huge orchard, and the farmer ordered each group off at different spots and gave us canvas bags to hang over our shoulders. We couldn’t eat the apples in the field, though, because they’d been sprayed. My arm muscles ached the next day.
I decide to do the dishes. I haven’t done much to help out since we got here, so I guess it’s not going to kill me. Scrubbing and rinsing will also help kill time. Jim said something about getting together later today, after his band plays.
Before last night, I had decided that all the places Jim has shown me can’t mean anything. And neither could he. But it’s all different today, and all because of those fossils.
•
NUNNERY HILL IS not quite as charming by day without the lights of the ships shining on the harbour. It’s still pretty, though. The rain has stopped, leaving a veil of mist around the water and the Narrows. I decided I didn’t want to spend the day waiting for Jim to show up. I also didn’t want to be home when my parents returned, full of excitement about my dad’s new office and questioning me about when I was going to come see it. So, I’m walking around downtown on my own, something I haven’t done yet. I figure I might even see Jim.
Another cruise ship is in port, which will be good for Jim and his band. When I hit Duckworth I turn right. The street is full of people going in and out of gift shops where wooden ships and suncatchers, with colourful row houses or puffins, decorate the windows. I see lots of wool sweaters, too, with fat stitches depicting ocean scenes, and I wonder if any were made by Jim’s mother. I pass the cafés that Jim described, where people are sitting outside, reading newspapers and sipping coffee, even in the mist. It’s true that I can’t picture Jim here. He’d be too restless without rocks or whales to look for.
A sign on a huge, grey, stone building across the street reads Court House. Beside it, a long staircase runs down to the street below. A group of tourists are on their way up, huffing and puffing, their cameras bumping against their chests. As I pass them, I wonder if they see me as a tourist or not. It’s possible that I’m actually blending in. I’ve seen a couple of people dressed like me, but more punk, with purple hair and safety-pin earrings.
On Water Street, I find more of the same—gift shops, restaurants, a few music stores, some banks. It’s busy down here, too, but nobody seems to be in a great rush. People kind of meander, as though they don’t really have a destination. It’s sure different from the way people walk on Saint Catherine Street in Montreal—like their destination might vanish any minute. And nobody waits for green lights to cross, so each corner is a tangled web of pedestrians and cars, competing for space.
I come to a corner where artists are selling jewellery and other crafts at kiosks that wind around a corner onto George Street. I think Jim mentioned George Street, when he told me about his band. It seems pretty lively. A blend of music fills the air, wafting out from all the bars. In the corner, a wide staircase splits in the centre and goes off in two directions to the street above. In the middle, on a sort of landing, some musicians are playing folksy tunes on a violin, tin whistle, and banjo. A small crowd is gathered around, bopping along with the music.
When the music stops, the crowd disperses, still clapping. That’s when I see Jim, holding his tin whistle.
I lean back against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, hoping I’m hidden. I’m a bit shy about seeing him, after what happened last night. The band starts up again, and I watch Jim play, raising and lowering his instrument as he blows into it, tapping his feet. They actually sound pretty good. At the end of the set, one of the guys picks up a top hat and passes it around. Almost everyone tosses in some money. It would be hard not to, with the musician standing ten inches away, staring you right in the eye. I’m thinking all this when it dawns on me that Jim is looking straight down at me. It’s like he knew all along that I was here, watching. Now he’s waving me up.
“Hey, guys, this is Cheryl. Cheryl, this is Steve and Ned.” They both nod in my direction. Steve is scooping out the change and counting it. He drops a handful of coins, including a bunch of toonies and loonies, into Jim’s hand.
“See you tomorrow, okay?” Ned says. “Nice to meet you, Cheryl.” They wave goodbye and walk off, leaving me and Jim alone.
“You were right. You guys are pretty good,” I say.
Jim winks. “We’re all right. There’s lots better, but we do okay.”
“Do you play every day?” I ask.
“Try to. But it doesn’t always work out. Sometimes I have better things to do,” he says, staring at me.
“Like forcing girls up Signal Hill?” I ask. Jim laughs.
“Or being suckered out to Middle Cove by their parents,” he says.
“Where’d you learn how to play?”
“We had a great music department in my old school. Lots of people are surprised by that’cause it was such a small place. Holy Heart’s not bad either. Ned and Steve had the idea and asked me to join. They’re okay. They were pretty curious about where I’m from and stuff, more than most guys. They have plans to get to Europe next summer. They want to see the world, but I just need the money for Horton.”
“Do you actually make good money doing this?”
“You’d be surprised. Hey, do you play anything?”
“Just the flute … a little, but really elementary. I wouldn’t have the nerve to play in public like this anyway.”
“Too bad. Girl in a band, helps draw in the guys,” Jim says. “Especially if she’s …”
“All dressed in black,” I cut in.
“No, I was going to say pretty,” Jim says.
I look down at the ground, at my black boots, so Jim won’t see my face. Luckily, he starts down the stairs.
“So, what d’ya think of our great big cosmopolitan downtown, big-city girl?” Jim says when we’re back on Water Street.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” I say.
“Oh, well, I’m so glad it meet
s with your approval. We’re a bit short on skyscrapers though. Unless you count that one,” Jim says, pointing to a modern building that rises about seven floors into the sky.
“That is definitely not a skyscraper. It’s barely a treetop-scraper,” I say.
“Yeah, but remember I told you fog is low clouds. So, technically, that building does scrape the sky. In fact, all our buildings do. Ergo, we have more skyscrapers than you do in Montreal.”
“Okay, you win,” I say, laughing.
“Hey, are you doing anything for the rest of the day?” Jim asks.
“Nope.”
“Good. Let’s go home and get Boss and my aunt’s car. We could go somewhere, if you want.”
This is my last chance to keep Jim in the background, like that lighthouse in the foggy mist, but I want to go.
“Why not?” I say, shrugging. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
“Gee, thanks. Try to hide your enthusiasm,” Jim says.
“No, I meant that sounds good.”
We walk back up more hills, through narrow lanes, and over streets that connect like a jigsaw puzzle. I could never memorize this route, no matter how many mental snapshots I took. Every now and then Jim blows into his tin whistle, letting out a high note as he turns to see if I’m still with him. I feel the calf muscles in my legs straining. No wonder Jim looks so fit.
“I just need to go tell my parents,” I say, when we finally reach Gower.
“Okay. Meet me at my place. I’ll probably have to get my aunt some tea first. I’m like Pavlov to that lady. She sees me and she salivates for tea.”
My parents aren’t back yet, so I leave them a note on the kitchen table. I have no idea where we’re going, so all I say is, “I’m out with Jim. See you later.” I grab a hooded sweater, a bright red one with UBC written on the front. I usually don’t wear it outside, but I remember how windy it was on Signal Hill. Knowing Jim, we’ll be going somewhere near water.