When the World was Flat (and we were in love) (10 page)

“Hi Jackson,” Melissa said, bending down at the window. She was wearing a sequined top that looked like it belonged to Sylv and her fake-tanned arms were covered with goosebumps in the chill of the evening. “Oh,” she said, seeing me. “Hi…”

“Lillie,” I said, as if she could forget my name when we had hung out for half of our lives.

A train horn sounded in the distance and a few of the teens straightened up, like prairie dogs.

“The 6.18,” Melissa crowed. “Who's up?”

“Me,” Jackson volunteered.

“What?” I looked at him as if horns had sprouted from his head.

“Come on, Lillie. Live a little.” He grinned and revved the engine, looking at the railroad crossing a couple of hundred feet ahead.

“Yeah, and maybe die a little too,” I said. “Forget it.”

The train came around the bend, its headlight lighting up the track.

“Get out of the car, Lillie.”

“So you can kill yourself? No way.”

Melissa snatched a sweater from one of her lapdogs and waved it in the air. “On your marks!” she called out.

“Get out,” Jackson ordered.

I knew he was going to do it. He had a look of determination on his face and his forehead was damp with sweat. I reached for the door handle, but the door was locked. “Jackson.” I began to panic as the engine revved louder and louder. “Let me out!”

“Get set!” Melissa shouted.

Tom was no longer reclining against his SUV, but standing upright, poised as if he were also going to race the train.

“Sorry, Lillie,” Jackson whispered.

“I said, ‘Let me out!'” I shouted, my fingers slipping and scrambling to pull up the lock.

“Go!”

The back tires spun in the gravel and we were off.

“Stop!” I screamed, staring wide-eyed at the train, which was seconds from the railroad crossing. I took in its size; it must have been at least twenty cars long. It would take about a mile of braking before a train like that slowed, let alone stopped. The driver blew the horn as our white hatchback approached, its piercing sound mixing with my screams.

I looked at Jackson as we reached the tracks. His eyes were wide with horror. He knew he had killed us both. All those months of waiting for the man-or-woman in the balaclava had been wasted. I was going to be murdered by a boy in baggy jeans instead.

The tires barely made a sound on the tracks. I guessed we were airborne. I closed my eyes, hoping it would be instantaneous. I thought about Deb, who would probably lay the rose quartz necklace on my grave and pray to the Goddess of Reincarnation. I thought of Jo, of her dead mother and dying father. I thought of Tom.

The thought was followed by an earth-shattering smash and suddenly I was being thrown in all directions, as the car spun around and around and around.

And then the world stopped.

The train horn continued though, and I wondered if it had followed me into the afterlife. I could hear Jackson breathing heavily beside me. Maybe I was a ghost, looking down on my death. I opened my eyes and saw him beside me, his hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles as white as his face. I felt a throbbing pain in my elbow. I lifted my arm and saw that my elbow was cut, bleeding.

I reached for the lock again, pulling it up with ease unlike my earlier attempts, before I opened the door and threw up on the road.

“Lillie! Are you OK?” It was Tom. His voice was hoarse, like someone had their hands around his throat.

I nodded, thankful my hair provided a curtain on either side of my face.

Suddenly, I heard Jackson being pulled from his seat. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Tom shouted. “You could have killed her!” I turned to see Tom pushing Jackson to the ground and following through with his fist. Once. Twice. The swings cut through the air and connected with well-practiced precision.

“Tom,” I climbed to my feet, leaning on the open door for support.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Jackson shouted, his voice cracking. He waved his hands in surrender, as blood poured from his nose, staining his top lip and mouth.

Tom grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the side of the hatchback.

“Tom! Please!” I screamed.

Tom looked up at me, a clenched fist in the air, ready to strike. His eyes cleared for a moment and I thought he was going to listen to me. I thought he was going to lower his hand and let his opponent lick his wounds, but his mouth tightened and his fist torpedoed towards Jackson, who screwed up his face, waiting for the blow. It landed inches from his face, as Tom smashed his knuckles into the car instead. I heard the metal buckle. It would have hurt his hand like hell.

He dropped Jackson, who slid to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“Come on, Lillie,” Tom ordered, stalking past me, towards the SUV.

I followed, stepping over the debris of the rear bumper, which had been ripped off by the 6.18. I thought I was going to be sick again as Tom reached for my arm and helped me into the passenger seat. Not on his leather seats, I thought, as my stomach lurched.

Tom shut the door and I leaned my forehead against the window until my stomach settled. When I lifted my eyes I saw Melissa through the dusk with her arms crossed and an expression icy enough to halt global warming.

“Are you OK? Are you sure?” Tom asked again, as he climbed into the driver seat and started the engine. His eyes searched mine as if looking for the answer. I nodded and then looked down at my hands, not wanting to be sucked into their depths.

A low hiss escaped his lips when he spotted my elbow. He reached under his seat and pulled out a first aid kit, before taking my arm. I had to remind myself to breathe as he swabbed the cut with antiseptic and applied the plaster gently to my elbow, running his fingers up and down until it adhered.

“Your hands are shaking,” he said, turning up the heat. “You might be in shock.” He leaned into the back seat and produced a black jacket. “Here. Put this on.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He acknowledged my thank you with a nod. “I think you should go to hospital,” he said, releasing the handbrake.

“No. Please.”

He studied me suspiciously. “You might need stitches.”

I shook my head. As silly as it sounded, I was thinking of Jackson. He had just committed a misdemeanor, if not a felony. He could go to jail.

“Lillie! You could have been killed,” Tom argued.

“Please, Tom.”

He considered me for a moment, before turning his attention to the road. “Fine.” He flicked on the blinker and pulled out, carefully crossing the railroad tracks and maneuvering around the hatchback, where Jackson was sitting in the dirt, holding his nose.

It was at least a minute before I broke the silence. “When you said you lived at Rose Hill, I thought you meant as a guest.”

“I did. It belongs to my grandmother,” Tom said curtly.

The silence settled again.

“I liked the ballroom,” I finally said. “And the gardens.” I hesitated, glancing at him sideways. “The greenhouse–”

“The greenhouse is out-of-bounds,” Tom interrupted. “There should be a sign. I told George–”

“His name is Fredrick,” I snapped.

Tom looked at me and his guard seemed to slip for a second. “Really?” He turned his attention to the road again as we pulled onto my street.

“Why were you at the railroad crossing?” I asked quickly before the opportunity passed by like the houses through my window.

He hesitated for a moment or two before he spoke and I thought he was going to sidestep the question. “I was off track,” he finally said and then added, “Mind the pun.”

I looked at him with a small smile. “Did you just make a joke?”

His lips twitched. “I guess I did.”

I laughed.

He pulled up in front of my house and then turned in his seat. “Are you sure about your arm?”

I nodded.

“Positive?”

“Promise,” I said with another laugh.

“You like to laugh, don't you?”

“And you don't.” It was supposed to be a question, but it sounded like a statement.

“I used to,” he said, looking at me sideways. For a moment I thought he was going to spill his secrets, but then he took off his seatbelt and leaned across to open my door.

As his hand rested on the door handle, I saw the knuckles on his right hand were grazed and swollen. I reached out and touched them tenderly.

He looked up at me and my lips tingled with anticipation, but then he flicked open the door and sunk back into his seat.

“Night,” he said.

“Night,” I echoed, climbing reluctantly from the vehicle.

Tom stayed at the curb with the engine purring until I reached the front door. I realized as I pushed it open that I was still wearing his coat. I pulled the collar up around my neck and breathed in his scent, laughing as I wondered what the girls would say. Sylv would probably tell me I was one step away from sniffing his underwear. I laughed again.

 

11

 

I had hoped to see Tom in my dreams that night, but instead I found myself back in the car with Jackson. I guess I should have been grateful that the man-or-woman in the balaclava was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear the train coming – the 6.18 – its horn blowing like the wail of an ambulance. I screamed in sync.

We were milliseconds from the railroad crossing, but time was passing in hours. It was relative, as Einstein would say. But I knew what was about to happen. I knew we were going to hit the tracks and sail through the air. I knew the train would clip the rear bumper, making the hatchback spin out of control. Of course, then came the throwing up and Tom punching Jackson.

But before we reached the railroad crossing, Jackson decided to slam on the brakes.

The car skidded towards the tracks, its tires screeching on the asphalt. My eyes grew wide as I realized it was too little, too late. There was no way, no how that the hatchback was coming to a standstill before the railroad crossing. We were on a collision course with the train and the split second delay meant this time it would take off more than the rear bumper.

The headlight shone through my window, burning into my retina, and then the world went white and the cold spread through my body.

 

The next morning I tried to call Jo on her cell twice, before phoning her landline. We had become ships passing in the night and it was about time we dropped anchor.

“Hello?” a male voice answered.

“Mr Green?”

“Pipsqueak!” he exclaimed – his pet name for me. “Now who the heck is Mr Green? For the hundredth time, call me Dave.”

“How are you?” I asked, unable to call him by his first name. I was one of those old-fashioned girls who said Mr or Mrs, unlike Sylv who called adults by their first name whether she had their permission or not. They say your manners reflect your upbringing, but I think mine reflected my personality instead. If Deb had given birth to Sylv she would be barefoot and pregnant by now.

“Brilliant, thanks to hearing your voice, sweetie,” Mr Green said.

He told me Jo was working at Wal-Mart, so I pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain yellow T-shirt, deciding I was unlikely to run into Tom in Main Street, let alone in Wal-Mart.

 

Wal-Mart was packed. Well, packed for Green Grove, with about thirty people browsing the aisles.

I had worked there with Jo for three weeks over the summer before they let me go. I thought I would be a model employee. I had aced the interview, but that was before the nightmares kicked in and I began to daydream. Of course, I had daydreamed before, but not as much as I did these days. It seemed my mind wanted to wander all the time. Exhibit A: my hallucination – I mean, daydream – of Tom in the darkroom. And then you can add my amnesia.

Jo was working checkout. Dammit. If she had been on customer service we could have talked. I stood in line behind an elderly woman buying hosiery, and two women with prams who were buying baby clothes and toys. I say women, but one was about two years older than me. Stephanie Crossly. She had popped out her first kid when she was fifteen and named it Beyonce. Yep. After the singer. Her second kid was named Jay-Z. I kid you not.

“Hey,” I said when I reached the counter.

“Hi,” Jo said, glancing up from restocking the plastic bags.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

Her tone told me otherwise. It was neither warm nor cold. It was monotone, as flat as the Great Plains. “Really?” I asked.

“Really.”

“Cross your heart?”

She was supposed to answer, “And kiss my elbow.” It was our favorite line from
Breakfast at Tiffany's
. But instead she looked at the line behind me. “I have customers.”

“My house then? This afternoon?”

“I have to work.”

“Your dad said you finished at two,” I said, calling her bluff.

Her lips tightened, but she nodded. “Fine. See you then.” She smiled at the next customer, a little girl holding a deck of cards and a ten-dollar bill.

I went next door to grab an energy drink at the Ezy-Buy.

Humpback Harding was at the counter buying Advil and a lottery ticket.

“Hoodlums,” I overheard her saying to Mr Kershaw, the owner-operator. “I hope the police catch them and teach them a lesson.”

“You would think the kids in this town had a death wish,” Mr Kershaw agreed, shaking his head. “A dollar thirty-nine,” he said when he saw me with the drink.

I handed over the money.

“I say, ‘Lock them up,'” Humpback Harding grumbled, looking at me like I summed up the youth of Green Grove. “That should stop them from racing trains.”

My stomach churned. The train driver must have reported the accident. The cops were bound to find out who it had been in a town like Green Grove. Forget two degrees of separation. It was more like one.