Just Plain Weird (43 page)

         
“Hawaii,” he growled. “Who said anything about Hawaii? What the hell would I do in Hawaii?-- pick coconuts?”

         
“You finally got a job. Believe me, that’s surprise enough,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “Just… where are we moving?-- please.”

         
“Illinois,” he finally admitted.

         
I was appalled. “Illinois? What’s the big deal about that? We’re in Indiana. It’s almost the same state. If you take away Chicago and the line between the two states, it is the same state.”

         
“Well, you know…” he said, which was his standard explanation for everything.

         
I left the kitchen, to go searching for my mother to tell her which state, when a thought struck me, forcing me back into the kitchen and back to my father.

         
“Where at in Illinois?” I asked.

         
“It’s a nice little town--”

         
“The name, Dad,” I demanded.

         
He frowned at me, as though not understanding my sudden impatience.

         
“Batavia.”

         
At the mention of that single word, goose bumps rose on my arms and chills ran down my spine. It had to be a coincidence, right? As I stumbled from the kitchen in a daze, I could vaguely hear my father call after me, “Well, don’t you at least want to know anything about my job?” But I didn’t want to know anything else, just then, my mind filling with the possibility of seeing Eliza again. She had said Batavia, right? It seemed so long ago, I had troubling remembering. About nine months had passed since I last spoke with her, saw her eerie green eyes, heard her throaty laugh. I still thought about her often, but also had all but given up hope of ever seeing her again. The end of the year I’d promised to wait before doing anything was fast approaching-- it already seemed longer than that, much longer. In the end, I shrugged off the idea that I was experiencing the beginning of some cosmic plan that would bring us back together. It was nonsense, of course-- I had to be. As much as I tried to believe it was fate, I failed; to believe in fate, you also have to believe that fate conspires to lead some people to tragic endings, and if you can’t accept that, you can’t become a true believer.
 
So, naturally, our moving to Batavia was just a fluke, right?

I had little doubt that we had the largest yard sale the town had ever seen. It was amazing all the junk, masquerading as keepsakes, our family had accumulated over the years. My mother had the entire history of small household appliances covered; she had irons and toasters and blenders, some handed down from her mother and grandmother. If you looked at them all lined up chronologically on the picnic table in our yard, you could see the evolution of household gadgets from Stone Age to present day. My father had every manner of tools, from ancient to power. Most of them had been given as presents, which was a great mystery, because he probably never learned to use a single one of them properly. The mere fact that he was selling them all off should have been enough to lower the premiums on his health and life insurance. When my brother moved out, years ago, he had left cartons filled with books stacked in the basement. All those were sold, along with my workout equipment-- weight bench and weights and barbells, etc.-- much to my concern. The whole idea was that since we were moving so far away we were to take only what was absolutely necessary. We even got rid of most of our furniture. After we settled in in Batavia, supposedly, we would replace many of the things we sold. That was the plan, anyway.

         
The yard sale lasted two weekends, and by the time, we were ready to move, all our worldly possessions fit into a small rental truck.

         
I wasn’t sure exactly how long it took to drive to Batavia. It seemed as though we were stopping every twenty minutes for something or other. If it wasn’t my mother needing to go to the bathroom or having to buy cigarettes, it was my father pulling over to the shoulder of the road to nurse a leg cramp. He was driving the rental truck with my mother as passenger-- God help them both-- while I followed them driving the family station wagon. Once we actually stopped just because my mother wanted to switch and ride with me for a while. All she did as I drove was chain smoke while she complained about the way my father drove. After about fifty miles, I had to pull over and send her back to the rental truck. It wasn’t just that the air conditioner of the old wagon couldn’t clear out her cig smoke fast enough, but she was one of those people who absolutely had to turn the car radio off when she spoke and so you were forced to focus on everything she said. It wasn’t until that trip that I realized how truly annoying my mother could be.

         
Surprisingly when we finally reached our new home, it was everything my father had promised, and more. It was much better than our old house, a hundred-year-old frame bungalow that sometimes seemed older. This house was actually made of brick and appeared at least to have been built in the twentieth century. It was designed in a ranch style. There were no stairs and in front part of the house there was a brick wall with three large archways behind a line of pines trees, which created a cozy little enclosed area where you could sit on lawn furniture in the summer and remain cool and unseen. Inside the rooms were huge-- and would seem huger still, until we finally got furniture. My bedroom was about twice the size of my old bedroom, and the view from the window was considerably better than the view I had from my former bedroom window, which had been the driveway next door. It was so nice that I hardly minded the idea I would have to sleep on the floor for a month or so, until my father would be able to buy me a bed. The kitchen was large and modern and seemed to be made mostly of stainless steel-- everywhere you looked, things were shiny and gleaming-- and the sight of the room had to be inspiration for my mother to learn to cook finally.

         
We settled in quickly, the vast spaces of the house swallowing our meager possessions. On the second evening we spent in the house, someone rang the doorbell, which resonated throughout the mostly empty rooms. It is an odd thing to move into a new house and hear the doorbell for the first time. Your immediate response is,
What the hell is that?
followed by embarrassment when you realize it is only the doorbell and not some kind of warning alarm.

         
I was lying on the carpeted floor of my bedroom and enjoying the central air-- which actually worked-- when the doorbell rang. I could hear the murmuring of faraway voices, and then my father called up the staircase for me to come down.

         
I didn’t know really what to expect-- maybe a visit from the neighborhood church group. As I walked down the stairs, I got a partial view of the front door. My mother and father were standing just inside the door and talking to someone outside. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw the woman just outside. She was attractive and I guessed she was in her forties, though she looked younger. There was something in her manner that suggested that, despite her looks, she was well seasoned. She seemed fairly pleasant and she spoke, smiling often, telling my parents about all of the points of interest in the neighborhood. I lingered behind my parents and off to the side as I studied the woman-- that one fact about myself remaining true, that I was socially maladroit. My father finally glanced back and saw me standing there.

         
“Travis,” he said. “Don’t be shy. Come and meet the neighbors.”

         
I walked forward quickly, to prove I wasn’t at all shy, my eyes focused on the woman. I squeezed between my parents, and the woman let me shake her hand. She told me her name, which I hardly heard, trying really hard not appear bumbling or idiotic. Then she introduced me to her husband, standing at her side, of whom I’d taken no notice. When I turned toward the man, determined for once in my life to make a good first impression, and got a good look at him, my lungs hedged and I must turned ghostly pale. It was Doc. He was standing there with his hand proffered, tilting his head curiously as he studied me.

         
“You all right, son?” he asked, and shook my hand, which must have been shaking. I tried to say something, but nothing came out of my mouth. “Well, we were just telling your parents,” he went on, still eying me-- more with concern than with suspicion, “that it’s probably a very good thing you moved here during the summer. It’ll give you a few weeks to get familiar with the area. You know we probably could see that you’re shown the neighbor. My daugh--”

         
Her and his wife stood closely, and he stopped speaking when an arm slipped between them and tried to pry them apart. When Doc stepped aside, obviously a bit irked at the rudeness, I saw Eliza standing there. She looked the same as I remembered her, with dark blond wavy hair and bright green eyes and a mouth always on the verge of smiling or laughing. It was like remembering something from a dream, something that couldn’t possibly exist in reality, and yet there it was. The only difference I could discern were that her clothing appeared better, more expensive-- designer jeans and a white short-sleeved top-- and she actually had a suntan, not really a dark tan but shaded enough to hide the roadmap of veins beneath her skin. After staring at me a moment, she boldly thrust out her hand for me to shake, and cried, “Hi-ya, Travis!” Her green eyes sparkled with mischief and her tone was so sure and knowing, I was absolutely convinced she remembered everything that had happened. I knew that was impossible, but still the way she acted….

         
The moment, with all its shocks, was too much for me to handle. I had endured plenty in the past year, endured injury and pain and surgery and pain and rehabilitation and pain and moving from the only home I’d ever known-- not to mention everything that had occurred to me before we set everything back on its natural course; such as, being driven off a cliff, learning about the artifact, being
 
telepathically connected to an alien intelligence, accidentally destroying the world, being attacked by a seven foot cockroach, getting laid for the first time, and so on-- every experience of the past year loaded my brain, and what was transpiring now sent it into overload. I reached out to shake her hand, and only made it halfway before my eyes rolled up and everything went black.

         
Well, so much for finally making a good first impression.

         
When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the living room floor. Although my parents and Doc and his wife all showed grave concern, Eliza stood there not looking down at me but trying to look everywhere else as she nervously chewed her lower lip.

         
“Well, it looks like his color’s coming back,” my father said.

         
He and Doc help me up to my feet. I was still pretty wobbly, and there was talk about taking me to the hospital.

         
Just then Eliza waded in to save me from the emergency room. She reached out, grabbed me by the arm, and began towing me out of the house, announcing to everyone, very tersely, “He’ll be all right. I’ll show him around.”

         
Shocked silence filled the living room as we left. The only thing I heard anyone say behind us was Doc mentioning, in a very blasé way: “My daughter can be very strange, sometimes.”

         
We left through the front door, Eliza walking quickly, as though she couldn’t get away fast enough. When we cleared the front lawn and reached the sidewalk, she slowed down some, but still didn’t release my arm.

         
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “You actually fainted. You know what that tells me? You didn’t listen to me-- again. You just never listen, do you? You went ahead, like you always do, questioning everything. In all these months, didn’t you ever once remember everything I told you about fate? Obviously not-- or you wouldn’t have been shocked enough to faint….” She went on some, mostly mumbling to herself, and I was glad to see was as odd as ever. I knew she was really mad, though, and so I didn’t say anything for a long while. By the time I hazarded to speak, we were already far from the house and strolling down the sidewalk under the bright sun of a mid-summer day. She’d let go my arm, and was now walking with her arms crossed before her. She seemed to be thinking hard, considering something, maybe.