Boy from the Woods (9781311684776)

by Minkman, Jen

“Great! I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

  Julia clicked off and rooted around in her bag to get her MP3 player. The bus slowly began to fill up. At every stop, more teenagers got on, all of them dressed up for a night on the town. She smiled – it was a good idea to get out of her slump and hang out at the pub with her friends all night. Sooner or later, she’d inevitably bump into Michael again, but at least she wouldn’t have to face him alone.

  “Okay, who wants beer?” Tamara asked, sliding off her bar stool. Gaby’s sister was getting the next round. She patted the leather of the seat and nudged Julia. “Here, you can have my stool. You deserve a seat.”

  Florian and Axel shot curious glances at Julia. They’d just walked in, missing the entire conversation between Julia, Gaby and Tamara about Julia’s nasty encounter with Michael that afternoon.

  “I deserve a beer,” Florian added. “After surviving this terrible stomach flu that had me eating through a straw for four days, I could do with a nice drink.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like you’re fully prepared to hold your liquor,” Axel grinned. “Make sure you don’t barf all over me, okay?”

  Gaby joined her sister to help her with the drinks, and Florian grabbed the stool next to Julia. “So, what happened to you? Why are you getting a pity seat?”

  “Oh, just – crap. With men.”

  “You wanna talk about it?” Axel said. “What man broke your heart?”

  “Michael Kolbe,” Julia mumbled, not feeling very forthcoming.

  “Kolbe? That uber-dickhead?” Florian exclaimed.

  “Hey, can you keep the volume down?” Julia shushed him uneasily. “Half the people in this pub celebrate his every move.” In a soft voice, she recounted the short version of her running into Michael to the guys, outrage written on their faces when she finished.

  “He only preys on the innocent,” Florian said scornfully.

  “Gee, thanks.” Despite Florian’s tactless words, Julia couldn’t help cracking a smile. He was undiplomatic, but he was also right, actually.

  “Maybe we should put up Michael’s picture on the dart board,” Axel suggested. “So we can throw darts at his stupid face all night.”

  “What a splendid idea for a game,” Florian agreed. “We’ll call it Kill Kolbe. Who knows, it might catch on. We could start a real O’Malley’s trend here.”

  In the meantime, Gaby and Tamara had returned with a tray full of drinks, proposing a toast to the start of the summer vacation. “Here’s hoping the people who hurt us in the past all drop dead,” Gaby wished vindictively, shooting a wicked grin at Julia.

  Julia grinned back, clinking her glass against Gaby’s drink. As she expected, it felt good to be out and about. She felt stronger in the company of her friends. On the other hand, she was more than glad not to have run into Michael by the time they left the pub at eleven.

  “We’ll go on a shopping spree together soon,” Gaby said, hugging Julia goodbye. “Or hang around in Mirabell Garden all day long to check out boys. I’ll get you through this. I promise.”

  “Thanks.” Julia hugged her friend back. This was the start of a new life full of new opportunities, and she’d make sure it would be beautiful.

  3.

  “I’m going to run to Gran’s!” Julia called out from the hallway while putting on her running shoes. “I’ll see the two of you there, okay?”

  “I’ll wait at the front door with a gold medal and a choir singing the national anthem,” Ms. Gunther teased her daughter, popping her head around the kitchen door. “Have fun.”

  Julia sauntered down the road leading to the woods, speeding up once she was under the trees. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and the forest was peaceful and still. All she could hear were the usual sounds of nature and the steady beat of her heart. That was why she loved running here – in the stillness, her worries always faded into the background. It was like meditation to her.

  Julia left the main trail and went off-track for a little ways so she could pause at the foot of her oak tree. Her breathing slowed down as she leaned against the tree trunk, opening the bottle of water that was in her small rucksack. Some clean clothes were sitting next to her water bottle, so she could freshen up at her grandmother’s house after her run. And last but not least, her final report card. Her gran hadn’t even seen her graduation marks yet.

  All her grades were good, but Julia was most pleased with her final results in Music Education. She scored the highest mark of her year for that elective because of the song she composed. If only Michael knew it was written for him… he’d probably laugh his head off.

  Softly, she hummed the tune to herself, feeling incredibly lonely for a moment as she rested her head against the cracked bark of the tree trunk. Above her head, the leaves rustled in the wind that suddenly picked up, as if the forest was responding to her by singing back. Somewhere in the distance, a bird chirped.

  After a few minutes of reminiscing, Julia decided her break was over. She jumped to her feet and stretched her legs, putting the water bottle away. The muscles in her legs felt warm and taut after stretching. Light-footed, she cut back through the trees to continue along the dirt road running through the woods, reaching the edge of the forest close to Eichet after fifteen minutes. The main road leading to the village was deserted. Julia stuck to the middle, her sneakers hitting the asphalt like a peaceful mantra. In the heat of the late June morning, she could feel the slick sweat on her skin, vigor coursing through her body. This was just what she needed. Running always revitalized her after she’d spent too much energy on everyday worries, and lately, people had been sucking up her energy far too much.

  Michael telling her, I’ll see you soon. Her father’s voice mixing in with Michael’s words: I’ll come and visit you girls as often as I can. People promising her things without meaning a single word.

  Her best friend Gaby was a breath of fresh air in that respect. She was always completely honest, not bothering to beat around the bush. When Julia and Gaby met in high school, Gaby had already been in the habit of wearing strange outfits, carrying around a black backpack decorated with Placebo and Nirvana patches for a school bag, despite the teachers’ rebukes.

  “I don’t mind sitting next to you,” Gaby had declared to a bashful Julia on their first day of school. She’d plunked her old, tattered backpack down on the seat next to Julia’s. “You’re the only real person around here.”

  “How – how do you know?” Julia had asked, a bit taken aback.

  “Your eyes tell me you’re not that fond of people. So you don’t bother lying to them either. You’re not a fake.”

  Julia had immediately felt protected by Gaby’s extravagant and rebellious behavior in class. Later, Gaby had told her that she felt safe around Julia because she exuded such peace and tranquility. Gaby’s parents were loud and extroverted people with a wide circle of friends, who didn’t have a lot of time to spend with their two daughters. Tamara had adapted, playing the good, oldest daughter who was never a burden to her parents, and Gaby had dug her heels in and decided to dress just like the rock stars she adored and her parents abhorred. Despite that, Tamara and Gaby got along very well.

  Julia turned into her gran’s street and caught sight of her grandmother waiting for her in the front yard.

  “Faster, Julia,” she called out. “Tea’s getting cold!”

  Her mom and sister had come by bike and were in the living room with tea and slices of ginger cake. Julia kissed her grandma on the cheek as she barreled inside, kicking off her sneakers in the hallway.

  “Just gonna freshen up,” she panted, taking the stairs two steps at a time. The water from the shower heated up quickly, so it only took her ten minutes to wash up and get back down for her own share of tea and cake.

  “Any plans for the summer?” Gran inquired curiously. “You have three months off, after all.”

  Julia shrugged. “Don’t know. I could find a job, I guess.”

  Her mother didn’t have the m
oney to take her and Anne anywhere special. Julia had counted on spending her vacation in Salzburg, but now that summer was here, the three months ahead seemed to stretch out endlessly. Uni would only start at the beginning of October, leaving her plenty of time to get a summer job and save up, but frankly, she wasn’t stoked about the idea. Last year, picking orders in a musty garment factory had driven her absolutely nuts after two weeks.

  “Axel told me he was planning a trip to London,” Gran said. “Didn’t he go last week?”

  Julia shook her head. “Florian got sick, so they postponed.”

  “Why don’t you join them? That might cheer you up.”

  Julia looked down at her hands, feeling caught. Her grandma seemed to have a sixth sense for these things. If anything was ever the matter with her, Gran always knew immediately. “I’m okay, thanks,” she replied, not wanting to worry Anne and her mom. She quickly dug around in her backpack to find her report card. “Here, have a look at my scores.”

  Gran chuckled. Julia couldn’t help but smile as well. This was stupid – she sounded like she was trying to prove her life was great by showing off her grade point average.

  “Julia had the highest score in Music Ed,” Anne chimed in, beaming proudly at her sister. “She played one of her own songs.”

  “Why don’t you play it for Gran later?” her mother suggested.

  Great. She’d feared as much – having to play the infamous song that reminded her of that one particular person she wanted to forget about. “Yeah, I will. Let me drink my tea first,” she grumbled.

  When Julia fled into the back yard after finishing her tea and her reluctant musical performance, her grandmother followed her, falling into step with her on the path along the rhododendrons.

  “My sweet Julia, what is the matter with you?” she asked gently.

  Julia sighed deeply. “It’s nothing, really. I just… have to let go of things I should have left behind a long time ago.” She slumped down on the bench between two large bushes.

  “So what’s his name?” the old woman asked after a few beats of silence.

  “Michael,” Julia whispered, her voice catching in her throat.

  “Did you write that song of yours for him?”

  “Gran, you really are a psychic,” Julia exclaimed huffily.

  Her grandmother gave her a lopsided smile that bordered on a grin full of mischief, then looked serious again. “He inspired you, and that is beautiful. You will always have that. The love you felt for him is not lost – you will learn to give it to someone else, once you’ve left his memory behind.”

  “Give it to someone else? I don’t know if I can. It all felt so intense that it left me drained. Even if I know now that he didn’t deserve my love.”

  Julia fell silent, her eyes trained on the dark-green witch ball on a stick standing next to the rhododendron bush. In the convex glass of the sphere, she looked alien, a strange, distorted version of her staring back from a far-away, green-tinted world. How nice it would be to crawl away and disappear inside a dream bubble like that.

  She closed her eyes and fought back new tears. This was ridiculous – she should cheer up. Gran had said such sweet and wise things to her. Still, she couldn’t help but bawl when her grandmother settled on the bench too and put an arm around her shoulders. “You should allow yourself to mourn the things you lost, dear girl. But please remember to cherish the things you still have.”

  Gran was right – she still had all the poems she’d written in her diary while sitting under her oak tree, dreaming of Michael. She still had her song – the haunting melody she’d performed during the graduation ceremony in front of an enthralled audience. Her mother had been so emotional when she’d brought Julia a bunch of flowers on stage right after the performance. These were moments she’d keep close to her heart for a long time to come.

  That afternoon, Julia’s song filled the rooms of the cozy house in Eichet for the first time. In her mind, she had always called this Michael’s Song, but no longer. She’d made up her mind: it was time to push away all the dreams she’d had of him and her, and make room for new things.

  “Come on Jules, it’s going to be awesome,” Gaby’s tinny voice piped up on speakerphone.

  The weekend was over. Julia was busy trawling job ads in the local newspaper. She reckoned that having a summer job might be a good idea after all – she’d be able to save up some money to go on vacation with Gaby. So far, she was feeling sort of blah about the classifieds page, though. All the jobs advertized in the Salzburger Fenster were lame – the highlight of today’s sorry selection being a modeling agency looking for size-zero girls with blonde hair. With a frustrated grunt, Julia crossed out the ad with her red marker.

  “So, how much are the tickets?” she asked, trying to sound more eager than she felt. Gaby was suddenly convinced they all needed to go see a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover band playing at the Shamrock pub that night.

  “Nothing, you silly,” Gaby blared through the phone. “It’s a cover band. And they’re doing a Monday night show. Need I say more? Who in his right mind would pay for that?”

  Julia snickered. “Okay. Stupid question, I guess. But I thought you wanted to go out for dinner with the gang tonight?”

  “Still do. We can do both. The band won’t start until ten. So you can’t say no.”

  “I’m beginning to get that, yes. Are Axel and Florian coming too?”

  “Oh, I’ll convince them to join us when I see them this afternoon.” They’d agreed to meet at Florian’s place. He lived in a mansion along the river Salzach, and his roof terrace was almost as big as his spacious second-floor bedroom. In summer, their circle of friends often sat outside on the terrace, playing old records, drinking beer and sneaking in a joint every now and then. Florian always put a ladder against the façade of the house so people could climb up without going through the house and bothering his parents. This morning, Julia had bought cans of beer and bottles of herbal soda so Florian could make Radler drinks for all of them.

  “All right, Gab, count me in. See you later!”

  As she was putting her phone in her handbag, her eye fell on a small ad for the bookstore in the city center. Höllrigl was looking for sales assistants. That sounded like something she might enjoy. Who knows – she might even be entitled to an employee discount on books if she worked there. She was a total bookworm, just like Axel. He’d probably dance with joy if she took up a job there and sold him books at a lower price.

  When Julia stepped out of her bedroom, Anne was lying on the couch in the hallway reading the all-too-familiar storybook. Obviously, her sister was turning into family bookworm number three.

  “Don’t you want to be outside?” she asked Anne, who started and sat up. “You can read that out in the yard too, right?”

  “Oh, I’ll go outside in a minute. I’m meeting Sabine so we can go to the woods. We want to build a tree house.”

  Julia raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Hmm. Sabine has a handy brother or something?” Anne’s new neighborhood friend was only nine. Surely the two little girls couldn’t build a tree house without any help?

  Anne giggled. “No, he’s sort of ham-handed, actually. But he’s cute! Shall I introduce him to you?”

  “No, never mind, you little matchmaker.” Julia whipped around and hurtled down the stairs. Cute or not, she really didn’t need boys in her life at the moment, even though Gaby insisted she needed the distraction.

  Ten minutes later, she was on the bus with her iPod on, Loreena McKennitt playing a soothing harp song during the ride to town. Loreena was her antidote for the abundance of loud punk music she’d be subjected to later in the evening. Admittedly, she had never heard anything by Siouxsie and the Banshees before, but if Gaby’s full-size posters of the band were anything to go by, she was pretty sure her eardrums would have a painful experience tonight.

  After a thirty-minute ride, Julia got off the bus and walked the last bit to Flo’s house. The weather was
lovely, and the white castle of Salzburg on the mountain overlooking the city shone in the bright sunlight. She looked up at the fortress longingly. Maybe she should take the long walk uphill sometime again and buy herself a generous slice of cake in the castle lunchroom. She hadn’t done that in a while. The last time was when Gaby had joined her – and her friend had suffered from muscle ache in her calves for days after their adventure together, the wuss.

  Julia kept a brisk pace and soon reached the old, pastel-green house on the Imbergstrasse that belonged to Florian’s family. The ladder was waiting for her, leaning against the façade. She could hear Bob Dylan talk-singing through old speakers on the second-floor roof terrace. A few years ago, Florian had discovered the sixties and gone on to plunder his parents’ entire vinyl collection.

  “Peace, man,” Axel greeted her when Julia’s head popped up above the roof terrace railing. He put up two fingers in a peace sign and smiled at her, his eyes partly hidden by a green pair of star-shaped shades.

  “Give it a chance,” Julia shouted back, walking up to the sitting area where Axel, Florian and Tamara were sprawled on the big lounge sofa, sipping drinks and singing along to Dylan’s ‘I Want You’. “Where’s Gaby?”

  “She’s picking up some flyers from the pub where that cover band is performing tonight,” Tamara replied. “If we hand those in, we’ll each be entitled to one free drink.”

  “That band is beginning to sound desperate for attention.” Julia chuckled and set down her bag of bottles next to Florian. “Here, look what I brought. Now you can make me a Radler.”

  “I would be honored, Lady Julia,” Florian said with an ingratiating smile.

  Axel scrambled up to put the next record on the turntable and allow Marc Bolan’s frail, unearthly voice to flood the terrace. Julia let out a satisfied sigh, leaning back on the sofa to look up at the bright, blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. This afternoon was heaven.

  “Halli-hallo!” Gaby shouted as she suddenly appeared at the top of the ladder, enthusiastically waving a hand full of Shamrock flyers. “Look what I got. Free pints of Guinness for everyone tonight.” She plunked down on the couch next to Julia and gave her a broad smile. “How was your weekend, babe?”