Authors: Geoff North
What the hell, you only live twice.
He sat back down and yelled after her. “Hey,
come back here!” He patted the ground beside him when she looked back. “It’s
not that cold out!”
She walked back, slowly, and stood between
his legs for a few moments. “You sure about this?”
Hugh pulled her down on top of him, tugging
off his shirt at the same time. When they were almost completely naked he dug
into his discarded pants, desperately searching through the pockets.
“Mr. Innocence himself,” she panted against
his chest as he fumbled with the condom.
Thank you, Gordo.
He’d stolen a couple from his brother’s
room the year before, just in case the need ever arose.
The sun set completely, the coyotes
finished howling, and the two young lovers finished half an hour after that. On
the drive home Mandy lit a cigarette and offered one to Hugh. He shook his
head. “Those things will kill you.”
She blew smoke through the open window and after
a few moments of thought started to giggle. “Virgin my ass.”
Hugh checked his watch as the wedding brawl
continued. That had all happened twenty-four hours ago. And now this.
Icing on the cake…or off.
He couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his
face. Even as he watched Donald collapse beneath a swarm of tuxedos, his grin continued
to spread. Lloyd Wolowich took a drunken swing at his father, Steve Nance
answered back with a more precise blow of his own. Tears had smeared black
mascara streaks down Sandy’s pink cheeks. Her dress was coated with gravy, sour
cream, and burst perogies. Gordo helped her back into her chair, stroking the
hand he’d stepped on. “It’s okay, sweetie. Everything’s going to be alright.”
She tore the hand away and studied her
fingers. “You bent my ring, asshole!”
Another aunt of Sandy’s wandered aimlessly
between tables, yelling at the top of her lungs. “It’s bad luck when the
wedding cake breaks! The marriage will never last!”
She’s right, Hugh thought, it wouldn’t.
Maybe there was something to those old superstitions. He found a half-bottle bottle
of champagne not yet knocked over and took a long swig. The fisticuffs had
stopped and the room was finally coming back under control. The festivities had
ended, but Hugh wasn’t disappointed.
He’d lost his
virginity last night.
***
His father shook him awake the next
morning. Hugh blinked a few times and looked around to see where he was. His
mouth was dry and his head was pounding. He sat up on the short couch and
remembered coming back to his parent’s hotel room. The alarm clock on the end
table read 8:12 AM. “What’s the big hurry, dad? Check out can’t be until at
least eleven.”
Steve Nance sat at the end of the couch and
turned the television volume up. “You’d better see this.” A commercial for
disco classics was on. Hugh slipped into a pair of jeans he’d set out the day
before. He heard his mother saying goodbye to someone on the phone in the bedroom.
She came out and nodded somberly at her husband. Her lips quivered and Hugh
could tell she’d been crying.
“What is it, mom?” Had someone been
seriously hurt in the fight?
She couldn’t answer. She shook her head and
pointed to the television. Hugh recognized the rusty, orange Mustang
immediately. It was sitting in a ditch, half-submerged in mud and water, its
back end mangled beyond description. Police officers walked back and forth
across the screen, bathed in steady, flickering flashes of red and blue light.
“Billy?”
“He’s alive,” his mother said. I was just
talking to his mother. “There were three of them in the car. The two in front
just got a few bumps and bruises. The one in the backseat...”
Hugh leaned back against the couch and shut
his eyes tightly.
“Are you okay, son?” His father asked.
His mother sat down next to him, stroked
his hair and kissed his cheek. Her tears felt cold against his face. “Thank God
you came to Winnipeg with us.”
Caroline Sterling would’ve been in the
front with Billy.
Mandy had gone to the dance with them.
It took a whole month before Hugh could
bring himself to stand before her gravesite. He never once blamed Billy for the
accident. The booze he’d bought from Reynolds Liquor Mart earlier in the week
was found in the front seat, all three bottles unbroken and unopened. The grade
twelve student that had struck them with a half-ton truck was the only one who
had been drinking. He’d passed out behind the wheel and plowed into the Mustang
before Billy had time to react.
Mandy, Hugh was assured, had died
instantly. He couldn’t even bring himself to hate Trent Almey, the drunk
driver. Hugh blamed the entire tragedy on himself. If Billy had died like he
was meant to a couple of years earlier, Mandy would still be alive. If Hugh had
never interfered in
anyone’s
life she probably would have gone to the
dance with Bob Roberts.
If Hugh had remained dead after his own car
accident, the split second collision that killed Mandy never would’ve taken
place. They would never have had that night in the park.
Fresh flowers were still being brought
daily. There was a golden necklace hung around the grave marker, probably a
favorite of hers. He’d never seen it. Framed pictures were propped up on the
ground. Mandy with her parents. Mandy with her friends. Mandy with her pet cat.
Memories of a life he didn’t have time to share with her.
Hugh pushed two flat shale stones into the
hardening mound of earth and left the cemetery. He vowed never to return to her
gravesite again.
So many people would have been better off
if he had just stayed
dead.
They were
cowardly, self-centered thoughts, he knew it. He had no intention of committing
suicide. Hugh had a family to reunite in the future. Nothing would keep him
from that. No more side trips.
September
It was the first day of school in the last
year of Hugh’s education. Again. He studied himself in the bathroom and patted
a dab of aftershave on his face.
Did Cathy even like Aqua Velva
?
He ran the hot water, scrubbed his cheeks
and neck and sniffed the air. That wasn’t as bad. He grabbed a piece of unbuttered
toast from the kitchen, kissed his mother goodbye, and ran out the front door.
He jumped into his black ‘77 Grand Prix and headed into Braedon. In his first
life, Hugh hadn’t bought a car until he was nineteen, the year he moved into
the city. This time round he had to be sure. He had to impress the new girl, Cathy
Alexander; he had to get her to take notice on this first day, the day they
met.
His father had started to take him to
construction jobs during the summer. The pay was good and the work was easy.
Hugh still marveled from time to time how strong his young body was, how much
energy it could store. Even after a long work day with his dad there was still
plenty of juice left to mow lawns in the evening.
So Hugh had a nice car and he had cash. Now
all he needed was the girl.
He arrived at the school parking lot a few
minutes before the first wave of buses. She wouldn’t be on any of them since
she right lived in town. Although he hadn’t seen Cathy yet, he knew her family
had moved to Braedon two weeks earlier. Billy Parton had told him so. Hugh had
kept away; he was desperate to see again her but didn’t want to risk meeting
her before he was supposed to.
Jessie’s Girl played on the radio as he
waited. The first two buses pulled in and a crew of familiar faces piled out.
Fresh haircuts and styles, new clothes and binders. Most of the kids were smiling
and chatting excitedly as they entered the collegiate double doors. A smaller
amount walked alone, hugging their new books tightly to their chests. These
were the loners, the ugly kids, the outcasts. Hugh felt for them. School was
and always had been for him, a momentous struggle. He was smart, his grades
exceptionally high, but he never enjoyed going to school. It was a twelve year
popularity contest that for some was destined to be a losing battle. And for an
unfortunate few, the results would be life-lasting.
He kept a close look to the building’s
northwest corner. That’s where all the town kids that walked came from. Tonya
Reynolds, Gary’s two-hundred pound, five foot tall niece waddled around into
view and Hugh wondered how the kid managed to stay so overweight considering
her half-mile trek each morning and each afternoon. Freddy Thomms and Conrad
Fultin, two asshole jocks now in Grade eleven followed, snickering and pointing
from a safe distance. A third bus unloaded, and a forth. More kids came from
around the corner. Daryl Meads, a quiet kid who would turn drug-pusher in the
mid-nineties and commit suicide during a millennium new-years party, trotted
along with his little sister. Melinda? Belinda? She was starting Grade seven.
She would find her brother on a cold January morning sitting in his car, the
engine running and the garage door shut.
The 8:55 buzzer sounded and Hugh jumped. It
was the five minute warning for all students to get to their home classes,
prepare for another day, another semester, another year of learning, competing,
and private suffering at Braedon High.
The last bus pulled away and Hugh’s heart
sank. She hadn’t come. He waited until the second buzzer went off before
getting out of the car. Being late for math was the furthest concern from his
mind. He was half way across the parking lot when a girl came running around
the corner of the building.
My God, she has eighties hair!
It was all bangs and poof, enough hairspray
there to hold up a small building without nails. Her jeans were tight and
tapered in at the bottom. She wore ankle high white sneakers, the kind that
went out of style with mullets and Mohawks. Her new textbooks were held tightly
against her ample chest. She always was self-conscious about that. A pencil
case was clamped between her teeth.
She caught him staring at her and slowed to
a fast walk. Her high cheek bones were a healthy pink from running, her dark blue
eyes sparkled in the early sun.
She’s beautiful.
He smiled dumbly at her. He’d never been so
happy in his life…in his lives. She was no longer a distant, fading memory. She
was real and he’d her missed her so much. He wanted to hold her, to smell her
skin and kiss the end of her nose. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her
and how sorry he was.
She walked by and turned her head to see if
he was still watching. She spit the pencil case out on top of her books. “Take
a picture, it’ll last longer.”
Yes!
He should’ve taken a picture of her into
the past instead of a lottery newsletter.
Hugh had met
Cathy once again.
***
He had to wait until his third class of the
morning before seeing her again. She was sitting by herself near the front of
the room, a ring of empty desks around her. Students never felt that
comfortable cozying up to the new kid on day one. He sat at the desk beside her
and opened up a new binder filled with fresh loose-leaf. She watched as he
scribbled his name on the first page. He glanced over and she looked away.
“I’m betting you don’t like history too
much.”
She stared at the blank chalkboard in front
of her. “What makes you think that?”
Because I always had to help you with
it.
“If a kid likes a subject, they’re usually
ready to get cracking at it. You’re just sitting there with your arms crossed
and your books closed, so I’m betting you don’t like history.”
“So my books are closed and that’s why I
hate history?”
“I never said you hated it.”
Kids were beginning to fill up at the desks
around them. Cathy, forever shy in public, lowered her voice. “So what else do
you know about me? Probably got a head full of ideas from the way you were
staring at me this morning.”
“Yeah…sorry about that, I just hadn’t seen
you before” Hugh had to think for a moment. He had to make her laugh, had to
make himself appear less creepy. “Hey, I’m the first one that noticed you,
right? That makes me kind of special.”
“Special needs maybe.”
“That’s pretty clever. My name’s Hugh.”
She blushed and finally looked at him. The
tight-lipped, jaw-jutting scowl vanished. “I’m Cathy.” She held out a delicate
hand and he shook it gently.
Seven years he’d waited to touch her again.
Seven long years.
“So was I right?”
“About what?”
“That you don’t like history?”
She gave him her first genuine smile and
Hugh’s heart warmed. “I
detest
it.”
Hugh knew she detested recent history the
most, her own in particular. Her step-dad was an abusive alcoholic, her mother
a pathetic enabler. “Well hopefully I can brighten the subject up for you this
year, Cathy.”
“Don’t count on it.” She was still smiling.
Mr. Bragg entered the room and introduced
himself to the class. Hugh didn’t bother to listen to a single word the stuffy
old fart said in the following forty minutes. He spent most of the time with
his eyes closed, smelling her perfume and re-imagining a new history, a better
history. Bragg may have been competent in the subject, but Hugh was a master.