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Alice in June
Author of 41 Stories |
God put a smile upon your face
By Blushing Sigh
Disclaimer: Dreamworks, Carl Ellsworth, Wes Craven and co. own 'Red Eye', not I. Coco and Shy-shy, you guys own the fair idea and the 'damn tree' line respectively. The practice kissing thing is inspired by Tom Cruise's life. Please Mr. Cruise, don't sue me. The title of this fic comes from the Coldplay song of the same name and so do the lyrics at the end. The 'Don't look away' part is borrowed from the song that was played at the end of the film 'Mr. and Mrs. Iyer'.
Congratulations to: Cillian Murphy on the Golden Globe nod and best of luck! Here's to hoping that you get the Oscar nod too and good luck on that as well. And Miss McAdams- you're a very talented and lovely actress. I do so hope that you get at least a nod or aprestigious award(I believe you got a nod for a Genie but here's to an Oscar and/or a Golden Globe) someday if not soon. On with the fic.
Two people met on a hot May say, and never later metioned their meeting. This was how it was.'
- A. S. Byatt, 'Possession'.
The world was half painted with bright, vivacious colours and half-cloaked in black darkness and he was moving fast to get away, to just be away. That was the last time Dylan talked him into something- or so he promised himself.
He kept on coughing, half-swaggering and almost knocking into 'respectable' families, he moved near the merry-go-around and choked to his heart's content. His body protested againstthe abuse he had inflicted on himself. He felt himself fall on the ground as a rush of sweet pain came over him threatening to make his backbone separate from his waist. There was a swirl of dust around his knees. The heel of his foot was injured and the skin of his knee was scraped. His torso jerked in a fast forward and backward motion. There were ashes covering his mouth and sticking to the tip of his tongue.
He could hear himself and there were dim voices in the background- laughing, yelling, arguing, crying, talking. The world was grey for a while and he felt like he was going to die. His soul threatened to escape through the constriction of his throat. He should have died.
He wheezed and choked a little bit before he began clearing his throat.
"Are you okay?" He heard a small, anxious voice ask him a question.
He looked up and saw a small figure.
It belonged to a little girl- a child with a bright, fair face and bright, bouncing, brown curls. There was something almost angelic about her, he thought with the heavings of his chest. Or perhaps the afternoon sun and the tears that were obscuring his vision were playing a trick on him. He was blushing and his breath was robbed of him. He may have seen her earlier. She was holding cotton candy and for a while she was distracted, looking desperately into the crowd for someone.
He felt snubbed for a second. But then he got up from the ground with as much dignity as he could, keds crushing the blade of grass underneath, and he dusted off the dirt from his worn jeans. He felt stupid as he put his hands to his black T-shirt. He quickly straightened his denim jacket and cleared his throat once again.
He felt awkward to suddenly have her eyes back on him. He was just about to inch away. She opened her mouth to speak.
"Are you okay?" Her voice was more confident now.
After that, he felt like the whole world disappeared and in that moment there were only the two of them.
It was odd to be asking a strange boy this question. He had never seen her in the town beforeand he had wanted to get away in case somebody had seen him or known what he had been up to. Oh, it would be so great if no one knew thathe had been smoking. He let her know what he thought.
"Fine," he said, brashly.
"Excuse me," she said. This time he looked at her with an annoyed expression.
"What?" He asked sharply. He regretted it though because she was shy and she seemed to need something.
"I happen to be lost. I ... I was with my cousin I was looking for him. He was with his girlfriend over there," she pointed towards a spot that a couple was occupying. "And now I can't find him."
He should help her. He should do something, just anything, to get away from her. Could she smell him?
"What was he wearing?"
"Brown shirt, jeans."
He looked around for a bit, turning his dark head here and there.
"He's a teenager, he's got sandy brown hair and his girlfriend was wearing a pink T-shirt and a purple skirt."
Oh, the terribly bad fashion that would be forever immortalized in history.
"Can't find them." He replied briskly.
"Oh." Her mouth made a small motion. She was embarrassed evidently.
He moved away now, nothing to bar him from leaving except himself. Something had grounded him to the ground and made him look back. She was standing there, scared and alone, in desperate need of company and hope. He didn't know her, he didn't have to be with her. It would probably be of no use. He looked around still- all around the fair, someone, two normal people, dressed in the described attire. His effort went to waste for he found no one who matched the description. They probably hadn't gone far.
He turned to steal a glance at her, she looked at him. She didn't want to be alone.
He felt something heavy in his chest- pain, regret, annoyance, frustration, loneliness and all the other rewarding feelings his age brought him.
He moved towards her.
"You still can't find him."
She shook her head, sad. Maybe she would cry. What would that be like?
"You should probably stay here, stay put. He probably hasn't gone too far."
"Alright," she replied. "I wasn't planning to go anywhere."
"You're probably not lost. How long has it been since they've ... disappeared?"
"Not long, really."
"Oh. How old is your cousin?"
"15, 16."
That explained everything. He tried to suppress a dirty sort of grin.
"Ah."
"He's Curt Taylor, you probably know him or something."
The name, not surprisingly, did not ring a bell.
"No, I haven't heard of him."
She was feeling awkward, at least she wasn't alone. Her hazel eyes bore the hope that she could get away and just be away.
They were walking together and Curt had given her a little money to buy cotton candy.
There was something about him that caught her eye the first time she saw him, she could still recognize him when he was onethe ground. It was probably wrong to have called him and he could understand her perfectly. She swallowed, uncomfortably. She probably shouldn't have called him but it was better than just standing somewhere, asking random people if they had seen two other random people. She was a big girl and she would find them. Soon.
He looked so sad when he was on the ground and she oddly felt the urge to come up to him. He didn't really look like the helpful type and it was odd for her to have done what she did, but if one made a bed, one had to lie on it.
"I would have gone home alone, you know. I know the way home. Sort of."
"Mmm hmm." His response was noncommittal. The statement that followed however was not. "But they would be worried about you."
"I know, that's why I'm waiting for them. Besides, I'm sure if I went home I would have to explain everything and Curt would get an earful." She replied bravely, meeting his gaze.
"Smart girl." He commented, amused. And here he was, underestimating her.
She wished that the awkwardness would just shift and they would gain a sort of peace. They were under some sort of obligation now to stick together.
He looked at her again and she smiled. Another obligation to fulfil. He smiled back and let out a sort of sigh.
"Do you see anything?" She asked politely.
"No, sadly, no. Don't worry, though, I wouldn't give up hope yet if I were you."
She didn't really feel like responding, she wasn't really worried. He made her feel comfortable for a while. Besides it would really be no use to just sit down on the ground and weep and yell, 'I want momm-meee!"
"Sure." She shrugged.
She gulped again, she was quite sure he was used to this action of hers. She wasn't really sure what to make of him. There was a rather suspicious aura about him which most people felt. She noticed that his thin frame moved with an odd sort of grace, almost catlike. He was short, dark-haired and in a way she guessed he looked like a certain pop culture icon. He had lovely and unusual facial features (great cheekbones) as she noticed between embarrassed glances and empty stares in to the crowd. But one of the most attractive features he had were his blue eyes. They were beautiful- haunting and lovely and there was something about them. Oh, if she only knew what it was. Also there was something subtly pleasant about his features and she just knew that when he grew older it wouldn't be so subtle. It would be prominent and the world could see just how beautiful and bright he was. She supposed he was probably now a victim of bullies or a bully himself. She just made a guess.
He looked at her suddenly and she quickly averted her gaze, blushing. There was probably nothing she could say to him to amuse him or some such. He was a young gentleman and he made no comments about her behaviour- at least not aloud.
He didn't really know what it was really like to be lost, he had always been grounded and well aware of who he was or where he belonged. He let out a sigh. Poor child, wanting to go home so badly. To push her down, threaten her, taunt her, oh that would be something so frighteningly delightful that it would actually make sense if it were a sin.
Oh, well it wasn't like he was actually going to do something bad to her. It most certainly didn't hurt to think of or study people.
He liked studying people, all kinds of people, he would look at his classmates at random times, trying to make sense of their behaviour, trying to learn these little things about them. It wasn't just classmates or the other children in the orphanage, sometimes he looked at adults in the same way. So he looked back at her a few times. Oh, she would be a heart-breaker when she would grow up.
He looked at the merry-go-round, watched the happy children going up and down and the bright spiral pillar thingy. She shared something with them. Innocence.
It was that thing about her that made him want to run in wide, open fields or lie on the grass to watch clouds move. She was innocent but she wouldn't remain innocent for long. He, on the other hand, wasn't innocent. Technically, he wasn't a child but some would classify him as one. He was mature for his age.
He was, at most, 3 years older than her.
Sounds filled up the space that silence had been occupying between them.
"So?" He asked, trying hard to sound cheerful and putting up a front. "You're not from around here."
"No," she replied, surely. She looked up and there was something about his gaze that made her feel odd. It was a feeling she had been having recently. "I live in Florida."
"Ah, you're visiting family then." He looked around the place still but he gave the notion that he was paying careful attention to her.
I'm here for a wedding."
"Hmm."
"Who's getting married?"
"Remarried actually," she allowed herself to smile and he found the left corner of his mouth being pushed a little. Now, he was getting somewhere. "My aunt. Curt's mom," she replied, smiling.
"So Curt is your what? Paternal, maternal..." He asked quizzically. "You don't really have to tell me though."
"No, I mean it's alright I suppose. Curt is my father's sister's son."
A fine dimple formed on her right cheek. Yep, she was going to be heart-breaker- lovely cheekbones, a charming and precious smile (finely practiced in front of elders, among other people), a perfect jaw line...
He averted his thoughts, of course. He didn't (couldn't) really think of her that way. She wasn't equipped to accommodate his fantasies.
"Is Curt upset about it or something?"
She pondered. Curt was going to move soon after the wedding, he had reasons to be upset.
"Not really."
He didn't press on about any questions about whether Curt's mother was divorced or if she was a widow.
He stayed silent for a while. He looked in the back in earnest, waiting for the irresponsible boy to appear.
"Eep!" She squeaked and jumped back a little, almost reaching for his jacket.
"Oh, that..." he found a rather large worm crawling in front of them, he had gotten quite the scare. "That can be taken care of."
He was about to put his foot over it.
"Don't!" She said firmly and loudly, urging him away from the worm. "Don't do that." She muttered warmly.
And so he didn't. It puzzled him; were her parents humanitarians or something?
"Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside
Nor crush the helpless worm ..."
She gave a little uncomfortable smile. He looked at her intently.
"The frame thy wayward looks deride
Required a God to form."
He finished quietly. He smiled back, hoping to rid her of her embarrassment. She knew the lines of Thomas Gisborne's 'The Worm'. He remembered the last lines suddenly:
"Let them enjoy their little day,
Their humble bliss receive;
O! Do not lightly take away the life thou canst not give."
"You read?" It came out a bit mocking, despite the fact that he was actually kind of impressed.
He was half-expecting her to break into laughter and talk about the latest novels for pre-teens and how she was mentioned as the 'Reader of the month' in the last month's edition of the Archie comics.
"Ah, not really."
"What? It's not like I kill snails or rip off butterflies' wings." It slipped out, just like that.
She looked at him rather angrily. Cocky egomaniac.
"It wasn't really because of you. I never thought of you to be one of those boys." Not anymore.
He looked at her, even more impressed.
Her eye caught something and moved away quickly and when she had, he was still looking at her.
"I'm sorry." He really was.
He had done a lot things he wished he hadn't done and he knew there would be more to come but right now he was sorry he hadn't been nicer to her or he couldn't help find her cousin or that he had thought those mean thoughts about her.
She shook her head a little.
"So do you read?"
"Oh just the usual. I know the poem because my grandma framed it in her living room." That and she had recited it in a recital in her school. "Do you read?"
He smiled. He did read. He liked reading.
He remembered Alex talking over the phone with someone about this assignment they had on Romantic poets. The boy was complaining and he dropped off the name Thomas Gisborne. He recognized it as he had seen it in a poem book of his. After that he went and read 'The Worm'. He liked that poem, it had a nice rhythm.
He had managed to look at Alex's assignment and after that he looked up more poets and damn, Alex was right. In the Romantic era, all the poets could write about was the damn tree. He read other books too now and then- Dickens (Miss Madeline passionately loathed that man for the portrayal of some of his heroines) and he loved short stories.
"I do." Their eyes met.
"What do you read?"
"Textbooks mostly." He gave her a winning smile, making her colour her cheeks. "Seriously speaking, we have nice textbooks."
There was going to be colour and life in his pale face for a while.
The atmosphere lightened and she looked brighter than ever. It made him feel good. He wanted to make her feel better.
"You play sports, don't you?"
"I do," she replied, liking the fact that he had genuine interest in her. "I play soccer and hockey."
"So? What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I dunno- doctor, engineer, actress?" They laughed.
"I have no real ambition, either."
They smiled at each other. She looked around.
"Nice place."
"We're not of the same opinion. I want to get out here someday."
He hated this place, this stark lack of opportunity in this place that was not so small and yet not so big. She, on the other hand, he could tell had prospects- a bright future.
They both wanted so many things out of life but they were scared. And lo, time would inevitably manage to disappoint them both like a parent disappointed eager and naive children.
People said he was smart, that he could get out of there and go to some college. He wasn't so sure. It was the lack of wealth and his knack of being in the wrong places at the wrong time that reinforced his doubt.
"I hope you do, if you want to." She shrugged. "I haven't been here for long," her voice faltered. "I don't think I'll ever come here again so I won't really know what's wrong with this place."
He felt something sink in his chest and make its way to his stomach. He was never really going to see her again. He definitely could not even hope to find her somewhere during the holidays. He could never check up on her. This was it. He felt something in his eyes.
"This place isn't so bad, really."
"But why..." he looked at her firmly and she stopped being so inquisitive.
For a while they had forgotten about everything and they were in a comfortable space. She wished that she hadn't wrecked it. Oh, what the heck? Who said the softness that in his eyes was there because of her?
"You should stay for another 10 minutes or so and maybe then we can move around a bit and if we still can't find Curt, we'll go to your aunt's house."
"Right."
He looked at her, suddenly realizing everything.
"You haven't really touched your cotton candy." His voice was warm, deep, soft and gentle.
She felt that feeling again. She was growing up. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.
How silly of her, she had been so worried. Curt had disappeared with Laura right after she took the first bite out of the cotton candy.
It must have been the heat; they had been sweating a bit.
She made a little movement and he realized that he would miss this little girl who wore a pretty blue frilly frock and smiled around. He would remember the lingering softness in her motion and other little details.
Of course neither of them would really remember the very important details because memory and time were not very kind.
"Here," she said, holding out the stick with the candy strip in front of him.
She had crushes on other boys before. But he was different, a one of a kind, not a dozen a dime. She wanted to give something for his patience and so he would remember her.
He took a small bite out of the pink strip, hoping it would maybe get rid of the unpleasant feeling in his mouth. It was in his mouth for a second- and then it was gone. There was a little sugar amongst the cinders.
"Thank you."
"You never told me your name." She asked shyly.
He gave a wistful smile.
He used to being teased so often about his height and how he would never talk much but that was a long time ago. He wasn't very popular now, anyway. However, he did catch girls look at him now and then. Some of them would blush when they would come talk to him or when he would talk to them. The girls in the orphanage used him to practice kissing. Sometimes it was positively disgusting but he would do it anyway. He got kicks out of it now and then. He wasn't a bad kisser and he knew that because although some of the girls would die rather than admit it, they enjoyed kissing him.
He was too old for his age. He wasn't naive and he knew that everything wasn't black and white. If it were, Dylan wouldn't be taking his pack of cigarettes with him while taking his sister out to ride the Ferris wheel.
He would never meet her again and it probably wouldn't matter.
"Jackson." It wouldn't matter, anyway. He didn't really have a real name- the hell with his birth certificate. Jackson Rippner was like an alter ego named after the notorious serial killer. He thought up the name while watching some show (the Ripper is quite the pop culture icon) after being accused of something he accidentally did in the kitchen.
"Is it ... Jack for short?"
"No, never." He stopped dramatically.
She didn't persist.
She wished that they had met before. She wished that he could be the boy next door who she could bump into now and then and exchange greetings with. They could have watched each other grow up.
Oh, this boy should never have to lose his beauty.
"My middle name is Henrietta, if it makes you feel better."
"What's your first name?" He was coy.
"Lisa."
"Lisa." He said to himself. He hadn't smiled so sincerely in a long time.
He hadn't felt like this in a very long time- their moment was short and it filled him especially with sadness and a quiet joy.
"Oh my," she said catching a glance at the crowd.
It was Curt, whose sense of timing was impeccable. The teenager still hadn't found her. Heand his girlfriendlooking nervous.
He looked into the crowdsuddenly, finding the people he had been so eager to discover some time ago.
"I have to go," her voice faltered again.
They looked at each other sadly and there was a sort of urgency in their expressions.
He wished that she would always smile that same smile, that she would never be depressed and that fate wouldn't curse her if she were a stranger to true sorrow (yes, he had read Alcestis's quote somewhere). She had so much hope in her eyes and there was so much that she had to live for. He prayed to a Higher Force that all the gifted qualities he had liked in her be intact and that she would be safe. She also made a prayer to the same Higher Force- she prayed that all things he had in be always present; that he would get what he deserved. They both had a feeling that their prayers would probably not be granted but still, they both prayed that the other would have a happy and healthy future.
He swallowed saliva down his dry throat and she did the same.
"Nice knowing you, Jackson." She held her hand out to him, longing to feel his touch.
He considered for a moment. He shook it and revelled in its softness.
He felt his mouth and the melted sugar was there in the crevices.
Another boy would have said 'goodbye' but not he.
"Farewell, Lisa."
They felt a clichéd connection and they felt a certain feeling wash over their hearts.
It was bittersweet and sad. She felt that her voice would crack.
"Farewell," she would probably cry but she told herself that she wouldn't. He wouldn't be delighted if she did.
Curt had finally caught sight of her, bringing relief to his girlfriend and himself, and she ran but notbefore looking at him as she backed away to her cousin.
They held each other's gaze until the perfect moment came and they broke their eye contact simultaneously.
She heard him apologize and he walked away to find Dylan. All the while they suppressed the urge to look back. Curt held her hand and she was going to walk home with him. They both tried to forget each other for that moment and forget the treachery fate had inflicted on them and they were unaware of the more treacheries, among other things, that were to come. They merely looked forward to their destination.
Don't look away, don't look away, don't look away, don't look away, don't look away, don't look away...
I've gotta say I'm on my way down
God give me style and give me grace
God put a smile upon my face
Where do we go to draw the line?
I've gotta say I wasted all your time, (oh honey honey)
Where do I go to fall from grace?
God put a smile upon your face, yeah
Now, when you work it out I'm worse than you
Yeah, when you work it out I wanted to
Now, when you work out where to draw the line
Your guess is as good as mine
Where do we go nobody knows?
Don't even say you're on your way down, (when)
God gave you style and gave you grace
And put a smile upon your face, ah yeah
Now, when you work it out I'm worse than you
Yeah, when you work it out I wanted to
Now, when you work out where to draw the line
Your guess is as good as mine
Its as good as mine
Where do we go nobody knows?
Don't even say you're on your way down, (when)
God gave you style and gave you grace
And put a smile upon your face.
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