Spring Fevers
Copyright 2012 Matt Sinclair
Published by Matt Sinclair at Smashwords
Cover design by Calista Taylor
Book design by R.C. Lewis
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents
The Haricots Verts by J. Lea Lopez
The Idea Exchange by R.S. Mellette
Connected by MarcyKate Connolly
The Adventures of Sasquatch by J. Lea Lopez
The Tree of Life by A.M. Supinger
Anything for Will by Yvonne Osborne
Only by Moonlight by A.M. Supinger
Remy and Charlie by Yvonne Osborne
The Elysar Sea by Matt Sinclair
The Evolution of Love by Robb Grindstaff
There’s an old Irish saying I love: bionn gach tasu lag. It means every beginning is weak. Things will improve, or they’ll languish and die. In my strange way, I find the saying filled with hope.
Relationships come and go. Some bloom into the most important friendships and loves that we ever know. Others pass like faces on the bus.
When Cat Woods and I began discussing ideas for this anthology, we thought it would be nice to publish stories about relationships of all sorts: love, requited and unrequited; friendships discovered and lost; family in its many guises. Writers, myself included, tend to be quite familiar with bittersweet emotions, and the stories we received were rarely warm or fuzzy. And we were reminded that love is not necessarily about romance.
Spring Fevers is a collection of the most memorable moments and characters we met. I thank all those writers who shared their tales. I hope you find these stories compelling and provocative, and I encourage you to look at the biographies of each writer to learn more about what compels them to write. While some of them have been published numerous times before, others are seeing their work published for the first time.
Spring is the time of new beginnings, new life, new love. And fevers can result in pain, unexpected visions, and an appreciation for health and normalcy. We open with a story that excited me from the beginning. In Mindy McGinnis’s “First Kiss,” we find a young woman whose love life promises to be fraught with hope and pain. The closing story, Robb Grindstaff’s “Evolution of Love,” takes science and faith on a speed date. And when they see the light … well, I’ll let you discover for yourself.
— Matt Sinclair
Out where I live, you hear a siren and it's coming for someone you know.
The day Brandon Telford died, I heard the long, wailing rise and fall across the evening mist while I helped Mom pull laundry from the line, the dry cornstalks in the fields around us doing nothing to soften the shrilling scream. My mother's grip slipped on a clothespin as it snapped shut, sending it spinning off into the overgrown green of our lawn, never to be recovered.
Sirens still do that to her.
She won't walk over the well cover, either.
"Where's it headed?" I asked. We both strained our eyes but could see nothing, only hear the peal that echoed off everything but seemed to come from the east.
"Is it Fern? She might've slipped again." I offered something innocuous.
"No." She shook her head. "Too far."
"Might be the new place the Jeffersons built. She's due any day now with the baby, you know."
Mom whisked the last t-shirt from the line, anxious to get indoors and away from the sound of danger. "That siren didn't sound like it meant anything good."
"I don't think it sounds different whether they're coming for a baby or a body," I countered. She shot me a look that told me I would've done better to keep it to myself.
The night the sirens had come for me, I'd already been in the old well shaft a good twelve hours, the kneecap of my left leg pressed against my cheek, the other leg dangling beneath me. Both my arms were pinned to my sides. I must've been kicking as I fell to end up stuck like that, a wine cork keeping the buried gases of the earth safely at bay.
Even at that depth, the sirens had found my ears, slipping past the dirt and the roots and the milling worms to let me know someone was coming for me. Someone more efficient than my poor mother had been, anyway. Her tears had gained momentum as they fell, so by the time they reached my upturned face, they'd struck like warm hail. I could do nothing more than flinch when they hit, but asking her to go away seemed a bit harsh.
More than a decade later, I'm still mastering the art of talking to Mom without hurting her feelings.
"I think it's the Telford place," she said as we made our way to the house, full laundry baskets balanced on our hips. "Their boy is about your age, right?"
"Two years older."
Mom's eyebrows pinched together as she held the screen door open for me. "Wasn't he seeing your friend Jess?"
"Not anymore," I corrected. "That went south."
She looked to the east once more, where the pulsating red and white lights bounced off the twisted black tops of the trees in the Telford front yard.
"Hope it's nothing serious," Mom said. "For Jess' sake."
"They broke up," I repeated, dropping my basket onto the hardwood floor.
We folded the laundry in silence, neat squares of washcloths, long rectangles for dishrags, and piles of our own clothes that we never bothered folding before hanging them in our closets. Another squad came, this one blowing past our house and sending Mother out to the front yard, hand to her mouth.
She's never learned how to control panic, something I've had on auto-pilot from the womb, it seems. Mom had told me the doctors were shocked I didn't cry when I slipped from her warmth into the cold, sterile light of the delivery room. I suppose that's a gene that must've come to me through Dad, though it failed him at least once in his life. I guess it might be specific to life-threatening situations, which getting your girlfriend pregnant doesn't qualify as. I don’t have the luxury of asking him how our shared stoicism works; I’ve never met the man.
With only one parent in my life, I should've clutched onto Mom, but falling down the well had starkly illuminated the differences between us. Once she fulfilled the initial obligation of finding me, she didn't have much else to offer. Her voice, thick with tears, carried down to me, and that in itself had been an escape from the closeness of everything but the existence of very little. Her lack of control caused an odd calm to settle over me. I couldn't fall farther; I couldn't climb. I had time to think, and even something to eat, if it had been possible to bring the cluster of grapes still clutched in my hand up to my mouth.
When the fire truck got there, somebody had the big idea to drop the hose down to me, but since my arms were pinned, there wasn't much I could do other than bite it. I tried to yell up to them that my arms were stuck, but my voice ricocheted, coming back down to inform me that my arms were stuck. Some genius dropped me a walkie-talkie, but all that did was bounce off my face and rest on my shoulder. It proceeded to ask me, with a fair amount of static and the occasional break-in of the local AM channel, if I was all right, which was so ridiculous I probably wouldn't have answered even if I could.
Finally, someone intelligent had tied two tin cans together and dropped one down to me. I could talk, I could hear, I didn't have to press a button. I would've been profoundly grateful, except whoever did it was so excited about their bright idea they didn't rinse out the can. There's a nice big piece of pork from a can of Pork 'n' Beans stuck on my nose in the newspaper picture to prove it. That and a black eye from the damn walkie-talkie.
I looked scared in the picture, which was just as well. People expected a five-year old who'd been rescued from a well shaft to look that way. Turned out I didn’t have to fake it after something brushed up against me. From below. Most people assumed that the claustrophobia was the worst part, so I let them think it. I didn't tell them the worst part was discovering the space beneath me.
Mom came back inside, brushing a few stray tears from her face. "It looks bad, honey. Three squads now."
"Okay," I said, tossing the last of my t-shirts onto the misshapen pile of clothes.
"I understand if you don't want to talk about it, if it makes you think about—"
"Yeah, I don't want to talk about it," I said. I took my laundry and headed up the stairs to my room.
They hadn't let me not talk about it for awhile—cops, doctors, shrinks, my mother. As if stringing words together into sentences, or using only the black crayons out of the packs of sixty-four, would actually help anyone.
I couldn't draw what I hadn't seen, and there wasn't a color for nothing.
That's what had been underneath me. My five-year-old brain had finally processed the fact that my loose leg was swinging to pass the time until my rescuers got to me. It swung out into nothing, jauntily ticking away the seconds, blissfully unaware that its very freedom meant something was horribly wrong down there in the dark.
The limitlessness of the nothing beneath had sent a shock wave through my little brain, causing me to cry out into my lifeline, the Pork 'n' Beans can shuddering with the force of my shout. The man on the other end had reassured me that everything would be all right, they were drilling a shaft parallel to me and would be there within minutes, if I could just hold on—or if I wanted to talk. I didn't have a lot to say other than four-letter words I wasn't supposed to know, and "There's a piece of hot dog on my face and nothing underneath me," so I kept my mouth shut, the fear firmly clamped inside. Seconds before the invasive light of a headlamp broke through the earth beside me, I realized that Nothing was preferable to Something.
I don't know if it'd been there all along, watching my swinging foot with curiosity, or if it was only passing along its subterranean world, oblivious to the fact that I'd landed in it like a falling star. But it felt like an acknowledgement when it tugged on my foot, a recognition of my existence, or an attempt to be recognized itself.
The first thing I said when they pulled me up was, "It took my grapes."
Which was quite true. My little fist had curled protectively around the clump, some primordial sense wanting to Fight since I couldn't Flight. But the tug that had started with my foot moved on to my hand and I had known I didn't want it to keep going, like the boa constrictor in the song that Mrs. Johnson made us sing every week.
Mrs. Johnson still forces kindergarteners through to the inevitable end. They were making overly dramatic gulping noises as I ushered a tear-stained Jess through the halls just a week before, past wings we weren't supposed to be near in an attempt to find her some privacy. Somewhere like the primary section, where tears meant your puppy had died. No one there would think that Jess had found out the hard way some boys don't stop when you tell them to.
I plunked my laundry basket onto my unmade bed and went to the window. Squads still littered the Telfords' front lawn, but their lights were dead, the sirens silenced. Whatever emergency they were called to had been handled, or resolved itself.
My own ambulance ride had been anti-climactic, any sense of urgency undercut by my adamant denial that I wasn't hurt in the first place. My mother hyperventilated and passed out beside me, her clawed hand curled around my grimy one. The medics focused on her, which made them feel useful.
Once I was securely tucked into a bed at the hospital, I curled into a ball and faced the window, relishing the sight of the stars. Mom collapsed into a chair by the long windows, exhaustion pulling her down into sleep along with some assistance in pill-form from a sympathetic nurse.
The single sheet they'd given me had been thin, and I shivered as I watched a spider on some mysterious mission cross the window inches from my nose. I blew on him, unable to fight some inexplicable child impulse. His legs rolled towards his abdomen and he dropped to the radiator with a tiny metallic noise, as dead as the mummified flies he joined there. I didn't think much of it until the next day, when my flowers began to wilt. At least, the ones I had pressed against my face did.
The psychiatrist told Mom that my reluctance to let her touch me wasn't all that unusual after having been trapped for so long. I needed my space, he said. I suppose she kept telling herself that as the years passed, spreading the word so there were no awkward moments at family reunions when someone came in for a hug and I shoved them away. As I got older, I imagined the scenes playing out in my distant relatives' houses. "Remember the girl who fell down the well? Don't try to touch her. She's still a little bit … different."
And I was, and I am, and I've apologized for the small moments when I've forgotten. The tiny kiss I bestowed on my new kitten that resulted in a shallow hole in the side yard the next morning. The one time I left out a half-finished drink and Mom downed it, falling terribly and inexplicably ill. My pest-free garden full of dead plants.
Whatever dark gift my mysterious friend bestowed on me, it is fading. I now have to spit on things to kill them, and the maple near my bedroom window budded for the first time in a decade this past spring. The few tentative hugs I've given my mother haven't caused a relapse of the mysterious toxin that filled her blood screens.
An ambulance pulled away from the Telfords', passing our house with its lifeless burden, siren silent, lights out. I put my hand to the windowpane as it went by, holding on to the memory of my first kiss.
The Haricots Verts by J. Lea López
"Why don't they just say green beans?"
You look across the table at him through eyelashes and candlelight. See if you can make him understand.
"'Haricots Verts, the thinnest, sweetest, most delicate variety of French green beans. Everything thin and pretty deserves a special place of honor, a fancy title."
You fumble with the water glass, fingers uncoordinated. He's watching as you look down through the clear liquid and ice cubes; through the water, your fingers appear as thick as they feel. What does he see when he looks at you?
"You know the haricots verts."
"I know what?" He laughs at you, softly, nervously.
"You know who the haricots verts are. The homecoming queen, the guy with the slick tongue and Daddy's money. I bet you knew one in high school, or maybe college. She was completely out of your league, but you asked her out anyway. Right?"
He sits back in his chair, looking past you, over your shoulder, and it's your turn to chuckle.
"Even after she turned you down, you still let her copy your class notes every time she asked, didn't you?"
His eyes meet yours again, a little colder this time, less twinkle.
Apologize. Tell him it was only a joke.
The waiter interrupts by announcing your entrees and setting your plates in front of you. It looks beautiful, as it should, haricots verts and all.
"I guess you never had any problem getting your own haricots verts?" He doesn't sound too annoyed. Only slightly. "Always had any guy you wanted, no doubt."
He holds your gaze for a long time, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. He's waiting for your answer. You shake your head.
Tell him he's wrong. Tell him you're more the canned string bean kind of girl and you know it. The ones that inevitably turn all children against vegetables—all perfectly the same stout size, always too mushy, with a bitter, tinny flavor. They could never hold their own next to haricots verts. Tell him you never tried.
You push your pretty little vegetables around the plate. Tell him you would have let him copy your class notes, too. Tell him:
"I should’ve ordered mashed potatoes."
The Idea Exchange by R.S. Mellette
"We need to return to the McCarthy era."
Jerry Falwell 1980
"There's no such thing as a constitutional right to privacy."
Pat Robertson 1984
"Allahu Akbar."
Various Suicide Bombers 1990s-Present
"So, what are you doing this weekend?"
At sixteen, those are hard words to say. Particularly to the girl you've been dreaming of all year. Peter had trouble keeping his voice in control.
"Nothing much," she said. "Some of the girls are going to a movie on Saturday."
"Sounds like fun."
"Yeah, loads."
Her manner gave away that it was not her idea of a good time. He noticed, was encouraged by it, but could only bring himself to say, "Well, see ya."
Her face fell. "Yeah, see ya."
That was Friday. By Sunday's rainy afternoon, Peter had grown tired of the ridicule he'd tortured himself with over his conversation with Linda, the object of his affection. He needed a new idea, a new approach to get close to her. But it was a Sunday, and this was the South, so the Idea Exchange was closed. Damned Blue Laws. All he could do until it opened was flip through his old ideas to see what he either hadn't tried or what he might exchange on Monday.
First—he was cool. "Never let your emotions show." Rule One. That was a keeper.
Second—pay more attention to yourself than to her. That one he wasn't sure about, but it seemed to work for other guys.
Next—don't talk about anything serious. Girls hate that. He got that idea from his friends in the computer club at school, along with the old standard, "Do as I say, not as I do."
Other than the basic social rules anyone learned by the age of sixteen, that was about it as far as girls were concerned. Most of these ideas he'd picked up in the streets and from watching jocks. They always seemed to be so good with girls. At least they always had them around. Peter wasn't sure why. They did lots of things that he knew couldn't help, like drinking until they got sick, beating up their friends, or both. Peter wasn't ready to try those yet. Nor was he interested in having his body smashed to pieces four days a week playing football. Been there, done that, had the tailbone injury to prove it.
So Monday after school, Peter headed to the Idea Exchange. "There's nothing new under the sun," read the logo on the door. The little shop seemed to take this as a design concept. It was a mess packed inside the brick walls of a two story boxcar apartment. With the nooks and crannies, shelves, drawers, and cabinets all full of junk of every description, Peter could spend a lifetime of looking in here and never find the same thing twice. There seemed to be no order to the way things were stored, but George, the old man who ran the place, could always get his hands on what he wanted. That is, what George wanted.
That was the problem. Peter had been coming to the store for years, and the old man never gave him what he was looking for. When Peter was very small, he came in to buy an idea to help keep his friends from using his toys all the time. Little Peter wanted "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." He figured a black eye and a loose tooth would teach his friends a lesson. But the old guy would only sell him, "When you share you own the world." Peter was mad for a week, until one of his friends got a new kite and let him borrow it. That's the way it had always been with him and George. Over time, Peter had come to trust him.
When Peter opened the door on this Monday, the familiar bell rang throughout the shop. It wasn't one of those tinkling bells that hang over doors. This one had a sharp, singular tone and seemed to come more from inside your head than the store.
The proprietor was at his desk, as usual, hunched over some books and papers. A bare light bulb hanging over his head gave the illusion that he was a cartoon character that had just had a bright idea. Peter always thought George was like Mr. Scrooge might have been after his Christmas Eve nightmare, and seeing him scribbling and happily mumbling to himself only reinforced the image.
"To the Kilimanjaro Corporation," he said as he addressed a package, "Sherman Oaks, California." Then, without looking up, he asked, "What can I do for you, Peter?"
"What's the package?"
"It's a six pack of new ideas for a writer in California. He's written so much he ran out of his own years ago, so he orders them from me."
"I thought you said there were no new ideas."
"There aren't. That's why God invented marketing." He set the package aside to give the boy is full attention. "What can I do for you?"
"Well … I thought … I thought, maybe … I'm uh, sort of looking for—"
"Help with a girl?"
"Yeah." Peter lost most of the bravado he had come in with, and was presently studying the condition of his shoes.
The old man smiled. "I think I've got just the thing for you."
Peter followed him to a section of the store the boy never noticed before. It seemed to be a combination of the children's section of the library and the editorial cartoons in the paper, a strange mix of childishness created by adults, and the adult world interpreted by the honesty of a child's mind.
Out of the mess, the man pulled out a bound copy of THE ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE BROWN AND THE LITTLE RED-HAIRED GIRL. "This might be a little young for you," he said, "but look it over while I see to my other customer."
Peter hadn't heard the bell ring, but when he looked to the counter, a man waited without much patience. He was obviously someone important because he had that "don't you recognize me, I'm someone important" look on his face.
Peter flipped through the Peanuts cartoons, but his attention kept floating to the conversation up front.
"Afternoon," said the store owner.
"God bless," said the stranger.
"What can I do for you today?"
"Do you have an order for the Reverend Dowell?"
The old man fumbled through the piles on his desk. "Dawell? Dowul? Douwal?"
"It's Dowell."
"Yeah, that. Let me see. Can't seem to find things around here when I need them."
Peter thought that was strange. The old man was never at a loss for an order, or a name.
"What sort of order was it?"
"A hundred and fifty thousand copies of the Ten Commandments, and the same number of 'There are only two things in the world: Right and Wrong.'"
At the mention of the second part of the order, the shopkeeper began to show his age. His eyes wrinkled with a wince of sadness.
"You're one of those TV preachers, aren't you?"
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"I guess it's either all right or all wrong according to your idea. Can't just be something wrong."
"There is nothing wrong with the word of God."
"I see." George considered this for a second. Peter watched as the grizzly old salesman worked up the energy for a pitch that would put the best flimflammer to shame. "Reverend," he said like he was about to show him a used car, "I can't seem to put my hands on your order just yet, so while my brain is working on that, let me show you this little ditty. You'll like this, I think."
With great care, he pulled out an old, yellow parchment from his desk. On it was a hand-drawn circle that had been bisected with an S-shape. One side of the circle was almost completely filled in with scribbles—only a small space was left untouched. The other side was the opposite, most of it was left empty, except for a small dot in the middle.
"Look at this," said the man with a touch of mystery in his voice. "It's an antique from the Orient."
"I'm sorry. I'm not interested in pagan Easternisms. I would just like my order, please."
The old man tapped at his head in an attempt to look absent-minded. "I'm working on that, but in the meantime take a closer look at this. Good craftsmanship on this idea. Holistic structure."
The reverend was hesitant to inspect the parchment.
"What's it going to do, bite you? All right, you don't have to look. I can just explain it to you."
"You're not going to even look for my order until you pitch this nonsense, are you?"
"That's a possibility, but I tell you what …" He put the Yin and Yang symbol aside and pointed up to the light bulb over his head. "You see that?"
"It's a light bulb, what about it?"
"What does it make?"
The preacher sighed, sifted his weight to show his impatience and said, "The light bulb makes light."
He pointed to his customer's shadow on the floor. "But it also makes darkness." He then took up the ancient icon again. "Can't have one without the other."
Not only did the reverend not understand, he also didn't care.
"You get it?" said George like he was explaining a bad joke. "The light makes the shadow. Without the light, there's no shadow."
"Are you done?"
"Yeah, I'm done." With one finger he slid the parchment across the desk toward the reverend. "So what do you say?"
"I say that I would like you to stop pushing pagan Buddhisms that aren't worth the price of tea in China, and find my order."
"For free, I'll give you this idea." No response. "With your order, I'll throw this in for free. That's my final offer."
"Just my order, please."
The old man got up from his stool and removed a box he was sitting on. "Here."
"Thank you. How much will this cost me?"
"A vow of poverty?"
"There's nothing in the scripture that says one should not be paid an honest wage for an honest job, and what can be more honest than selling the word of God?"
"Giving it away for free, I think."
The reverend glared. "How much do you want for these ideas?"
"What I want, you can't pay. Take them. Out of your darkness some light must come."
"God bless a man who knows how to give," said the reverend as he beat a hasty retreat.
"If that's the only people God blesses," the shopkeeper mumbled to himself, "then I'll see you in Hell."
The conversation had tired the old man, but he turned to Peter with as much energy as he could muster, "So. What do you think of Charlie Brown's attempts to impress the little redheaded girl?"
"Well," Peter had to improvise since he'd spent most of the time eavesdropping. "He doesn't seem to ever get around to talking with her."
"Very good. You just got yourself a free idea."
"What idea? I already can't seem to get around to talking with her."
"In that, there is an idea. You just have to unwrap it."
Peter saw the gleam in George's eye that had faded during his last transaction return to its usual place. George popped up from his desk and retrieved a thick, worn book from a nearby shelf. It looked hundreds of years old—almost as old as the shopkeeper himself, who opened it and pointed to a line of text. "Here," he said to Peter, "read this."
"'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.' Newton. I know that one. You showed it to me years ago when I first came in here."
"Good. Now, here's the idea you're looking for: 'The Laws of Nature very often apply to the Laws of Man' …" then as an afterthought, "… and women," and then in a babbling mumble, "I should say 'people,' I suppose, but it just doesn't meter right. Call me old-fashioned, I guess, I don't know."
"That's it? I'm trying to get a date with the girl of my dreams and you show me Newton? What am I supposed to do with this?"
The man pointed to the book. "Every action …"
The boy didn't catch on, but he knew from experience that the shopkeeper never spelled out the complete idea for anyone. He always said that figuring out the easy parts was the hardest thing to do, so he left that up to the customer.
A moment passed while Peter looked around the shop. He had come here every now and then, about twice a year, until he turned thirteen or so. Lately, he'd been coming in more often because there seemed to be new ideas each day. George said they had always been there, but that Peter had never noticed them before. "It's like learning a new word," he said. "First you've never heard it. Once you know it, you hear it all the time."
This silence was a new thing between customer and salesman. Peter had known the man all his life, but not enough to be so quiet around him. Strangers and acquaintances talk—good friends don't have to.
A new question derailed Peter's train of thought. "Can I ask you something?"
"That's what keeps me in business."
"Why did you give that 'Right and Wrong' idea to the reverend? Isn't that one of those … what are they, again?"
"Philosophical absolutes?"
"Yeah. You told me they are dangerous."
"Some of them are," said the old man with a smile at the subtle irony.
"So why did you did you give it to him if you think it might be dangerous?"
The man thought for a second. The boy had asked a harder question than he knew. Finally, "Come with me."
The boy followed him down a narrow hall and stopped in front of two doorways across from each other. Each open passage led to a space about the size of a small bedroom.
The man pointed to one on his right. "You see this?"
Peter looked inside. The place was filled with books, paintings, thoughts written down on bar napkins, little statues, CDs, laptop computers, silk screen T-shirts, buttons with slogans, etc. "Yeah, I see it."
"All of this stuff says in its own way that you shouldn't judge your fellow man. You should respect other cultures, other people, and try not to get in the way of their lives. It's a good room." He then pointed across the hall. "You see that?"
Peter looked. It was a similar hodgepodge of stuff. "Yeah, so?"
"That is full of thoughts that warn of the dangers of indifference, of allowing power-hungry tyrants and evil influences to thrive in a free society. It's a good room, too. So. Do you see the problem?"
"How do you take actions against tyranny," Peter asked, indicating the second room, "without first passing judgment?"
"How do you limit hate-speech, without ending free speech?"
"And which would be worse?"
"You're a very smart boy," said George. "I'll let you in on a question I've been wrestling with." From his back pocket, he pulled a small leather-bound journal. The pages were full of doodles, quotes, and math equations. He opened it with a string bookmark and read, "'How can a tolerant society tolerate intolerance?'" He closed the little book and tapped it a couple of times against the back of his hand. "I've been struggling with that paradox a lot lately. I tell you, you answer that question, I'll exchange it for all the ideas in my shop."
"Yeah, right," was the boy's first thought, but he didn't voice it. Actually, he'd lost interest in most of this philosophy stuff. Right then, he just wanted to figure out how to get the girl.
II
All night he wrestled with his new idea. 'The Laws of Nature very often apply to the Laws of Man.' What the hell was that supposed to mean? "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." That wasn't a new idea for him, but he knew that a lot of what he got from the Exchange depended on previous acquisitions. "You can't start a pyramid in the middle."
Action/Reaction; equal and opposite. He loves her, so she hates him? No, that can't be right, though the thought had crossed his mind on more than one occasion. He is attracted to her, so she is repelled by him? No, the Laws of Nature say that two heavenly bodies will attract each other—and Linda certainly had a heavenly body. He liked this one. He liked it so much that he was soon drifting off to sleep with fantasies of attraction and a tender heart.
The next day at school, Peter noticed something about Linda. Her teeth were not perfect. This was a good thing. Peter came to realize that one of the physical things he liked about her was her odd little smile. A smile that was not perfect. All day, Peter noticed things about Linda that were—for lack of a better word—human.
But how did this new observation relate to his idea? He struggled with this for a while, but soon came to realize that he had Linda on a pedestal. In his mind and heart, he'd raised her up to be something more than anyone could ever be. In lifting her up, the equal and opposite reaction had pushed him down. Only by seeing her as a real person could he ever hope to get close to her.
She happened to walk by when Peter had his epiphany in the hallway.
"Peter? You okay?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You've got a funny look on your face."
"Oh, well. I just realized something."
"Must have been a big something."
"Actually, it was a little something, but sometimes those are the biggest kind."
"Yeah, okay, whatever." She continued on her way.
Normally, Peter would have continued on his, but this time he stopped her. "Linda?"
That weekend Linda went to the movies with Peter. The film was not memorable—none of them seem to be anymore—but holding her hand was. At the restaurant afterwards, he noticed she'd touch his arm or hand as they talked. It seemed quite natural, but he noticed, and she noticed he noticed.
Finally, there came the front door. Peter hadn't been on many dates—actually, none—but he knew that the front door was where it all came together. To say he was nervous wouldn't do his emotions justice.
She stopped at the door and turned. The light was perfect. She was an angel, and the Laws of Nature do very often apply to the Laws of Man. Heavenly bodies attract each other. He got the kiss he had dreamed of and learned that his dreams had set the bar way too low.
III
The next day was Sunday. Peter's phone rang him out of a daydream. It was Linda's father. Peter was not to see her anymore. It was "wrong." No further explanation was made.
Peter was crushed. So many emotions hit him at once that he could act on none of them. He went for an aimless walk and after about an hour found himself in front of Richard's house. Richard was his best friend, as only high school friends can be.
"Man, were you the item at church this morning," Richard said before hello.
"What?"
"You and Linda?"
"What happened?"
"You tell me."
"Nothing," said Peter which was both true and a lie of omission, which he corrected. "I mean, we kissed good night and that wasn't nothing. It was great! But that was it. It was harmless. What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is the neighbors saw you."
"So?"
"So, her father is a deacon."
"So?"
"So, the sermon was on Right and Wrong."
Peter could see it coming.
Richard continued, "Mrs. Hearting raised a big stink, asking if it was right for a deacon's daughter to be acting like a hussy."
"'Hussy?' What kind of word is that?"
"It means—"
"I know what it means." Peter now had a focus for his pent-up feelings. "I gotta go."
"But you haven't heard the rest."
"I know the rest. Do me a favor. Linda's Dad is bound to check her e-mail and screen her calls, so can you call her and tell her …" Tell her what? Peter had no words.
"You're thinking about her."
"Yeah. Thanks, man."
Peter ran out the door toward the Exchange.
He would see Linda in school. If the Laws of Nature did apply, it would take more than the force of her father and a snooty old neighbor to break their attraction, so he wasn't exactly worried about that. He was just angry. He was mad that a cheap idea was getting in the way of his life.
By the time he got to the Idea Exchange his anger peaked. It was late, but he banged on the door with his fists, then his feet. "Wake up, old man. It's me, Peter."
A light clicked on in an upstairs window and Peter heard movement inside. When George opened the door, Peter blurted out, "I've got the answer."
"Really?" He was as calm as Peter was excited. "Come back when you've got the question to go with it."
"No, it's the answer to your question about judging and good and evil. I think I've figured it out."
George leaned on the doorjamb. "I'm listening."
"Judging is not evil. We all judge everything we see every day. We decide if it's good or bad, something we like or don't like. We must judge things, otherwise we'd have no opinions." Peter was babbling, barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth. "Judging is not evil, but acting on those judgments is—or, it can be. Particularly when the person making the judgment, or taking actions, has not been affected … or … or bothered by those he's acting against. Or in this case, she's acting against."
Peter had talked himself out, so the old man summarized for him. "In other words, that noisy church neighbor should mind her own business."
"Exactly!"
"That's good, Peter. You've gone from your specific experience to a general observation. Very good." Seemingly from nowhere, the man produced a little leather-bound journal just like his, only this one was new. He handed it to Peter. "Write it down."
"Write what down?"
"All of it. Some of it. Write down your ideas. Bring them by. We'll talk about them."
"Yeah, okay." Peter was a little baffled, but glad to have had the discussion.
"You know," said the old guy, "I've been thinking of starting a franchise. What do you think about that?"
Peter smiled. "I think you should write it down. We'll talk about it."
____________________________
"Judgments are private things. Actions are public. Both should be treated as such."
"Judge not, lest you be judged. Act against, only if an action has first been made against you."
From The Young Man's Journal
Connected by MarcyKate Connolly
"Chance"
How many times we must have met
Here on the street as strangers do,
Children of chance we were, who passed
The door of heaven and never knew.
-Sara Teasdale
This is officially the second worst day of my life. And it's only 8:15 in the morning. I fume on the dirty subway platform, waiting for the T to arrive and cart me off to class. Five minutes ago, some jackass barreled into me and knocked me to my knees. My vids fell off and the bastard stepped on them. Who the hell steps on someone else's glasses and doesn't even say they're sorry?
They should outlaw screening and walking for morons the way they do with driving. Way too distracting. It's a flipping crime.
The worst part? Now I've got nothing to take my mind off Rob on the half-hour train ride. All that time waiting and sitting among strangers and nothing to do but think.
Thinking is the last thing I want to do. Watching streaming videos of puppies and kittens is much more my speed at the moment.
Cracks form spider webs across the tiny screens of my vids. This has been my lifeline for the past two weeks. Ever since Rob dumped me in front of the entire cafeteria. It was on everyone's social vid stream within seconds. Now that was the worst day of my life. Hooking into anything other than my school's network is the only way to escape the humiliation. Unless I ditch school every day for the rest of the year. Mom and Dad would freak and then probably take my vids away.
I kick the concrete wall in frustration and pain bursts through my Chucks. I hop back on one leg, grimacing and praying none of the cameras capture this for my classmates to tap into. Maybe I broke a toe. That would be a legitimate reason to get out of school. But the pain isn't bad enough.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure I'll live.
A roar echoes through the underground as the train pulls into the station. The crowd shuffles aboard, and it drags me closer to what's bound to be an even more miserable day at school than usual. I sink back in my seat and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the masses who didn't have their vids crushed this morning. People laugh and giggle as they screen. It only makes me angrier.
Bastard. Who does he think he is, stepping on my vids?
"Hey." The voice next to me almost makes me leap out of my seat. A boy sits there, grinning.
Weird. People hardly ever talk to strangers on the train. Why bother? They can talk with whoever and watch whatever they want on their vids. Strangers are highly overrated.
"Hey," I say back, not entirely sure what to do.
"Are you OK?" he asks with an odd look on his face.
I frown. "Yeah, I'm fine."
I close my eyes again, but that doesn't stop him from talking.
"You don't look like you are. Anything I can do?"
My eyes start to burn. I'm not even sure why. I don't know this boy. And he doesn't know me. Anger flares. Yes, this day sucks already. My vids are broken and some stranger on a train won't leave me the hell alone.
But my parents taught me to be polite, so I keep the glare out of my face when I say, "Didn't your parents ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"
He laughs. The sound makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. There's something electric about it.
"They may have said something about that," he says with a wave of the hand, "but I'm really not the best listener."
The laugh is out before I can think better of it and I slap a hand over my mouth. The boy's blue eyes sparkle for a moment before going wide.
"Oh, do you want a bandage?" He fumbles around in his book bag, spilling a notebook on the floor. He doesn't even flinch as he peels it off the grimy surface.
"What? I don't need a bandage. What are you talking about?"
He points to my right hand. "You're bleeding."
I'm shocked to see he's right and heat climbs up my neck. "Oh, I didn't even notice that."
"What happened?" He glances up from his very thorough bag search. A few books, a couple soda bottles, a laptop, and even a crumpled package of gum sit precariously on his lap.
"Some idiot walked into me on the platform. Knocked me down and broke my vids. Guess I scraped my hand, I just didn't realize it."
"Too upset over the vids, huh? They're pretty expensive."
I open my mouth to retort, then clamp it shut. He doesn't have any vids. There's no hint of a case in his bag. By now, he's pulled out almost everything.
"Yeah, my parents are going to kill me," I say instead of my planned snarky response.
"Here we go." He pulls a cellophane-covered pink strip from a hidden pocket in the depths of the bag along with a sealed wet wipe and hands them to me.
Pink bandages? This guy gets stranger every second.
He grins. "It's my little sister's. She loves pink. Sometimes I take her rollerblading after school and if she skins her knee, she won't let me put anything other than a pink bandage on it. And that girl can scream."
I laugh and try to clean the cut with the wet wipe. When I struggle to fasten the bandage with one hand, he stops me and takes the pink strip. "Let me help."
He presses it gently over the cut and then throws the wrapper in his bag. "See, all better."
"Uh, thanks." My stomach flips.
"My name's Jack." He holds out a hand and tilts his head at me. "Now who are you?"
"Emma," I say, warily shaking his hand. It's soft and warm; tingles shiver up my arm.
"So, Emma, where are you headed this morning?"
I groan and slouch in my seat. "School. Senior year at Parker High."
"That bad?"
"Worse."
"Why? You seem like a normal, well-adjusted young lady." He winks. "I'm sure your friends are cool, even if the classes suck."
"A couple. But mostly," I glance at the broken vids on my lap, "they're just jerks."
He nods. "Let me guess, the vids are how you keep them out of your head?"
"It was."
"Well, hey, only one more year, right?"
"Amen to that."
My gaze wanders over the other people on the train. No one even so much as looks at us. Everyone is entranced by their vids. Is that what I do every day? Shut out the entire world? Jack is ... odd, but in a good way. I think. He's also kind of cute and that definitely helps keep my mind off other, unpleasant boys.
He taps my shoulder in a rapid motion, again nearly startling me out of my seat. "Dude, this is the best part!"
When my look informs him he may as well be speaking Swahili, his shoulders slump and he sighs. "You don't know what I'm talking about do you?"
"Sorry, no clue."
"Just wait. It's brilliant, you'll see."
The train is packed full of commuters. I'm hyperaware of his closeness now and the warmth of his leg pressed against mine. I fidget as the train rises faster, equal parts curious and antsy. The darkness of the tunnel ebbs and then—
Golden, blinding light. Ocean. High buildings, low buildings, and the morning sun playing over them all and bouncing off the ripples of the bay. The horizon's edge is still tinged with the pink of dawn.
A faint glimmer of recognition buzzes in the back of my brain. I've seen this before, once or twice when I was little. But it's been years—and I take this train every day.
"Perfect, isn't it? It's just a little different each morning. The light never quite reflects the same and the colors are always unique." If Jack grinned any wider, I swear his head would fall off.
"You're weird."
He pretends to be crushed by my words. "Me? Weird? No, but I do paint. I ... I might go to art school. I'm thinking about it. This—" he points to the Charles River "—is my favorite spot to paint."
"It's beautiful." I mean it. I've seen the river on the vids a hundred times, but the real deal here in my face, is something else entirely. What else have I missed by keeping my eyes glued to my vids?
If that stranger hadn't walked into me this morning, I would've missed meeting Jack. Warmth spreads out from my fingers and toes, creeping up my arms and legs.
A tiny part of me, miniscule really, is almost glad my vids are broken.
"Next stop, Park Street Station," buzzes the voice over the intercom system.
Dang, that's me.
The train shoots back underground and Jack cranes his neck to see as much of the sky and the water as he can before it disappears. There's something puppyish about his expression—and it's way better than cute animal vids.
Jack turns back to me. "Did you know that in the summer they have free concerts on the Esplanade by the river?"
"Sounds vaguely familiar, but I've never been."
He shakes his head and tsks. "You should tell your boyfriend to take you. That view plus music is amazing."
My cheeks burn as my face does its best impression of a tomato, and I pick at a crack on my broken vids. "He, well, my ex-boyfriend, he wasn't really into that kind of thing. He probably wouldn't have gone even if I'd begged."
Goodbye resolution not to think about Rob.
The train screeches to a halt. "Park Street Station!" cries the intercom.
I stand, but Jack catches my hand. "Then he's an idiot." His eyes soften and he grins again. "You're a catch."
I completely forget how to breathe. The train doors open and a mass exodus ensues, carrying me along before I can even pull myself together to respond. In seconds, I'm back on the platform. The pushing rush-hour crowd releases me just in time to see Jack's smile, then the doors slam shut.
* * *
I wait at my stop, bouncing on my toes. I want to see Jack. Last night, my parents took me to get my vids fixed and now they're snugly packed away in my bag. Escape is only a flick of the switch away, but I resist.
I need to see him.
I want to apologize for yesterday. For not responding to what he said. The words ring in my ears.
You're a catch.
Did he mean it? Am I? And more importantly, does he want to catch me?
I board the train, scanning every face up and down the aisles. The train lunges forward and I grab onto a bar, craning my neck to see if Jack is here.
No hint of him anywhere. I don't remember where he boarded. Was he already here and just found me after? Or did he get on while I was lost in thoughts of my ex?
Dejected, I sink into an empty seat near one of the doors. This is the same car I was on yesterday. If he wants to see me again, then staying here is a sure way to be where he can find me. Right?
Every time the train stops, blood swarms to my face and each muscle in my body tenses to spring on him.
And every time I'm left disappointed and cold.
Four stops in and my hopes begin to fade. This time yesterday morning, we were already chatting. He's not coming. Did I imagine him? Have I watched so many vids that I'm seeing things now?
The fraying pink bandage still clings to my finger. I should've changed it, but it came from him. I want to hold onto to it. It's the only piece of him I have.
So many people. How, out of all of them, did he find me yesterday? How did he know that was just the day I needed him?
He didn't, of course. I'm being foolish. He just said those words because I looked pathetic and sad. Which I was. And now am. Again.
The train roars under me, screaming at me to face the truth. I'm never going to see Jack again. I know his first name, that he has a sister who likes pink bandages, that he likes to paint, and nothing else. This might not even be his usual train. It could've been a onetime venture into the city.
More people pile on, jostling each other without noticing as they screen. Everything else around them is tuned out. The dirty train car. The cans and half-filled bottles rolling and sloshing up and down the aisles. Even the smell can be tuned out with the newer vids.
I'm tuned in to everything around me, but today I'm alone. It isn't the same without Jack. At least with the vids, that hollowed out feeling in my gut has something to fill it.
We reach the part Jack said he liked best. The train thunders out of the ground and crosses the Charles River. Soft morning light glitters over the city. I squint—just like yesterday—but refuse to blink so I can take it all in. The boats with their screening passengers, the shining water, and all the varied buildings making up Boston's skyline. The old and new architecture side by side.
The train resumes its underground track and my heart lowers into my Chucks. I feel like I've lost something precious and I don't even know what it is.
Only one thing will take the edge off that uncomfortable sensation.
I pull out my vids and relief settles over me. These are familiar. The train's rumbling and bumping fade into the distance as I place the glasses on my face and flick the switch.
He buttons his shirt and shuffles to the mirror, gives a tired smile to his reflection and smoothes stray tufts of spiky, gray hair. His time-worn fingers trace his sagging cheeks, searching for stubborn whiskers that escaped the morning's shave. With experienced hands, he straightens his tie and pushes his collar back into place. He searches the dresser, opens the jewelry box and peers inside.
"Where'd I put my watch?"
His question is met with silence. He turns up his hearing aids and calls again. The only answer is a meow from his pillow, an orange and gray stray Belle had taken in. Tabby stretches and trots away, her tail high. He feels certain the insult is deliberate, though ever since Belle got sick and lost her voice, the man and cat have fallen into an uneasy truce. Tabby quit hissing at him, and the man no longer locked the cat outside at night. Occasionally, like now, he found himself talking to it, filling in the gaps that had once overflowed with Belle's constant chatter.
The clock chimes the quarter hour. He heads to the empty kitchen and resumes his search for his watch. He's running late, Belle is gone, but he still doesn't want to take the car. The walk to church has been a ritual that started the first Sunday after their honeymoon. It is their time to be alone, yet together. Only one snowstorm had forced them to take the car in all those years, and he doesn't plan for a lost watch to get in the way now.
Yet, he can't leave without it.
Tabby jumps on the counter and mews again. He swats at her half-heartedly. "Don't you let Belle see you up there. She don't approve of cats on the counter. Not even you."
Tabby stares at the man, licking a delicate paw. She must know Belle isn't home or she would never risk the smack on her backside from her beloved caretaker.
"Why don't you go catch a mouse or something?"
Her tail swishes against a tin of cat food in answer.
"Ahhh, looks like it's my turn to feed you." His face scrunches in disgust as he fumbles with the opener. The stench of processed meat fills the air. He sets the can on the floor and walks away, not bothering to dump it in the dish. Only Belle would treat the cantankerous feline like royalty.
Tabby sniffs once and follows him into the guest bedroom, down the hall to the bathroom and back to the living room. His watch is still missing. Not that he needs it to keep time. Already twenty-five years old, the watch had ceased long ago to tick away the moments of his life. It doesn't matter. As a gift from Belle for their golden anniversary, he never dresses without it.
Especially not today, on their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary.
"Don't you mean eternity?" Annabelle had said with a tinkling laugh at her ninetieth birthday party last month. Next to her, he still felt like a schoolboy. Even after all those years, her silky voice and infectious smile made his heart flutter and his palms grow hot with desire. Belle delighted in this knowledge and teased him away from her guests with a twinkle in her emerald eyes.
They danced, gently swaying to the music of their lives. Later, in the same bed they had bought as young bride and groom, they replayed their years together and couldn't find a single regret. Mistakes, yes. But no regrets.
The clock startles him into the present. He has run out of time. He pulls on his jacket over his white shirt and dips his hand into the heavy right pocket. With satisfaction, he slides his gold watch onto his wrist and heads out the door. In his other pocket, he finds Belle's gloves. She never leaves without them, and he knows she will want them today. He runs his fingers over the softly worn linen. At one time, the white lace edging had come apart at the cuff. He’d sat for hours that day watching her replace it with purple lace. It was the longest she'd ever sat still.
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