Solstice - Of The Heart (16 page)

Mr Omes went on to say we would have
to move the liver to one side to fully expose the
stomach.

I felt I should do the cutting. I
didn’t want Aaron touching the pig, at least not bare
handed.

“Here,” I said, handing Aaron the
instructions. “You talk, I’ll probe.” (In more ways than
one)

I put a lab glove on my left hand. I
held out my right hand.

“Touch me,” I said.

“Why?”

“Thought you said you liked touching
me.”

“I do.”

“Well, then touch me.”

Aaron looked puzzled. He reached out,
slowly, cautiously. “You’re not static are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Static electricity. You’re not going
to shock me, are you?”

“No, but you might me.”

“And you want me to?”

“Just touch me, will you.”

Aaron did. He touched me.

I felt nothing. No weakness. No
vigor.

“Thanks.”

I put my other lab glove
on.

“What was that about?”

“Thought you were going home at lunch
to shovel snow.”

“Julissa.”

“What?”

“It’s raining outside.”

“Yes. Yes I guess it is.”

I probed the pig. “What do I do
next?”

“It says to cut open the stomach
lengthwise with the scissors.”

“So what’d you do at
lunch?”

“Hung with Beau and Bel.”

“Oh yeah? Where? Cause I didn’t see
you in the quad.”

“You ate lunch in the quad? It’s cold
and wet out there.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“We were in the halls with the rest of
the crazies.”

“Doing what?”

“You drilling me?”

“If that means, am I making
conversation, yes. What’s next?”

“Clean out the stomach and note the
folds. It says they are called rugae and they are filled with
glands that secret hydrochloric acid.”

I scooped out the crud from the
stomach.

“Why do you think so many students got
sick today?” I wiped my forehead with the back of my glove. “Well,
besides having to clean out wart hog stomachs.”

“Hogwarts.”

“Okay. Hogwarts.”

“I don’t know. Over exertion I
guess.”

“I’ve been hearing a
rumor.”

“Not surprised. This school runs on
them.”

I stopped probing. Slime
ran down and pooled at the end of my instrument. A bit of green
coloring made its way to my forehead. I felt sick to my stomach at
having to excavate a Hogwart’s stomach.

Into the romance I waded.

“Are you Romeo?”

Aaron smiled big and wide.

How could he do that? My tippy world
righted itself. The faintness vanished. My question
didn’t.

“Not yet,” he said. “We’re still
studying the script.”

“But you got the part.”

“It’s not supposed to be announced
yet.”

“Well, consider it leaked to the
press.”

“By who.”

I looked ahead to where
the drama queens sat. The lab stations were built for two
occupants. Brittany was partnered with another student, but that
never lasted long. The trio squeezed themselves into Charleen’s
station.

“Give you three guesses.”

“Not surprised.”

“So who’s going to be
Juliet?”

“I could tell you, but then I would
have to kill you.”

“Tell away. I’ll take my
chances.”

“I don’t know.”

“Cop out.”

“I really don’t. Not sure it has been
decided.”

“Stomach clean. What’s
next?”

“Pull out the small intestine. Lay it
out. It should be five times the length of the pig, same as
humans.”

“Not something I care to know. I think
I need to trade you on this one.” I offered up the
probe.

Aaron shook his head. “You can do it.
You’ve got bite today.”

“More like a bark. Here, you take
over.” I set the probe down and grabbed the instructions out of his
hand.

“Thanks partner.”

“You’re welcome.”

Aaron unraveled the small intestine.
“What are you doing after school tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? Not tonight?”

“Can’t tonight. But I’m free tomorrow
night.”

“You asking me out on a
date?”

“If you want to call it
that.”

“People generally do...call it
that.”

“Okay. Do you want to go out on a date
tomorrow night?”

“Let me check my calendar.”

I paged through the pig dissection
instructions.

“Yep. Think my calendar’s
clear.”

“Good. Confirmed. The intestine is
five times as long as the Hogwart.”

“That’s comforting.”

“What else does it say to
do?”

I looked at the clock. It said 3:35pm.
“I think it’s time to clean up.”

Mr. Omes agreed.

We folded up our pig’s intestines,
packed it away, and cleaned our tools and trays.

“So,” I said, as Aaron and I walked
out of the classroom, “you didn’t say where you were taking me
tomorrow.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Well, how should I dress?”

“Appropriately, but you might want to
bring a pair of hiking boots along. Make sure they’re
waterproof.”

12 DEATH

I was bursting at the seams to share
the story of my day. Not to mention questions were stacking up in
my mind. I hardly noticed how cold and sopping wet everything had
become.

On Aaron’s and my walk to school in
the morning, the landscape had been dusted with a blanket of
white.

Now the scenery lay like a used
doormat, smudged by rain and dirt. Rivulets of water gushed from
the banks of dirt lining the sidewalks. Debris and mud covered my
concrete path home, but after the events of the day, the
inconvenience of tromping through this wasteland became an
afterthought.

The Lincoln Continental
wasn’t in the driveway at Cherrie’s place when I
arrived.

Of all the
luck.

As I crossed the road to the cabin, I
looked down the road. The LC sat parked down by the intersection.
The road, covered with compacted snow, had turned to white ice
under the pressure of tires.

I stepped lightly, easing my way
across the divide.

I remembered Cherrie told me our road
was one of the last ones to be plowed, and those who lived up here
on the hill would often park their vehicles down below during
storms. My spirit rose. It was highly likely Cherrie was home in
bed curled up with Professor Hawkings.

I pounded on Cherrie’s door. When I
didn’t get an answer I let myself in. I found her in bed, asleep. A
book lay open on her lap. But this wasn’t Stephen Hawking’s A Brief
History in Time.

The book cover was blue with a hand
drawn map of the world. Calligraphy symbols adorned the four
corners.

I leaned in and read: The Lost Land of
Lemuria by Sumathi Ramaswamy. I picked the book up and noticed the
page corners were torn and worn. The pages looked yellowed and dry,
almost to the point of cracking. A paragraph had been highlighted
in yellow and underlined. A note had been scribbled beside it and
said: Bernard?

I read the paragraph.

Lemuria is a place that is lost until
its place makers summon it into existence. If not for them it would
remain unknown, vanished, even nonexistent. Because of them it
reappears as lost.

Cherrie opened an eye and
yawned. “Hey Julis.”

“Where’d you get this?” I held up the
book for her to see.

“It was my grandfathers.”

Was?

“What’s he doing with it?”

“He liked to read that
stuff—Leprechauns and trolls.”

I set the book aside. “You’d never
believe my day.”

“What time is it?”

It’s dark in Cherrie’s basement.
Besides the small window in the door, there’s only one other
window. She had it closed off with blinds.

“It’s afternoon, Cherrie. Four
o’clock.”

“Is it still snowing?”

“No. It’s gone. It’s raining. But
there’s a sheet of ice on our road so I don’t think you’re going to
get the LC back up tonight.”

Cherrie sat up, stretched, and yawned
again. She put a cigarette in her mouth. “What’d you say about your
day?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“With you, probably not. But go ahead,
tell me anyway.”

“Aaron walked me to
school.”

“Really.”

“Yes. And you know how I am always
slipping and falling on ice..?”

“No, but I believe you.”

“Well, he held my hand and I didn’t
slip once.”

“Usually happens. Four legs are better
than two on ice.”

“There’s more to it.”

“How so?”

“It’s hard to explain, but it’s like I
had this balance I’ve never had before. I didn’t slip or slide. I
felt energized and strong.”

“Love sick puppies do that for their
masters.”

I gave her a prickly look.

“What? Master says obey, love sick
puppy does.”

“Not the same thing.”

“So are you cracking his shell or not?
You two getting lovey-dovey?”

“Maybe. He asked me out.”

“Oh yeah. When?”

“Tomorrow night. We’re going
hiking.”

“Hiking?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t say.”

Cherrie pushed her back against the
wall. She chewed on her cigarette.

“He didn’t tell you where and you’re
still going?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Maybe because you don’t know him that
well?”

“I do.”

“You think you do, but you
don’t.”

“I know him well enough to know he is
kind and gentle. I don’t think he could hurt anyone.”

“Not on purpose anyway.”

I pointed to the blue book. “Okay.
What do you know I don’t?”

Cherrie looked away. She ground the
end of her cigarette to mush.

“Why’d your grandfather write Bernard
next to this?” I held the book up and showed Cherrie the opened
page. “Or was it you?”

“Grandpa did.”

“He thinks Bernard is one of the
place-makers?”

More silence. More mashing of the
cigarette.

“You’re not going to tell
me.”

“It’s not an easy tell.”

“I’ve never known you to bite your
tongue.”

“Well, maybe you don’t know me like
you think you do. Maybe you don’t know the Delmons that well,
either. You’re a babe in the woods. You just haven’t figured it
out.”

Cherrie’s talkback startled me, not so
much for what she said, but the tone she used and her cantankerous
mannerism. She had never spoken to me that way before. I gave her
the benefit of the doubt. I woke her up from a deep sleep, one
where, if I hadn’t interfered, she might have slept through the
night.

“How about telling the
babe in the woods what she should know?”

“Babies need to drink milk before they
chew steak.”

“More folk wisdom? Grandpa
saying?”

“First Corinthians.”

“I was raised Catholic, baptized in
the holy Catholic church of St Pius in White Bear Lake. I attended
Sunday school and was nearing graduation from catechism when Dad
died. Dierdra had been born and raised Zion Lutheran, so after Dad
passed she returned to her roots, in a lot of ways.

I should have remembered the verse. I
felt guilt at having strayed this far from my biblical teachings,
but then Cherrie had, after all, bastardized the verse to the point
of nondescript. I gave myself this out. After all, I helped Dierdra
teach Sunday school at the First Lutheran Church in WBL. I figured
that should count for something.

“Of course,” I said. “I remember the
verse. It also says I did not give you solid food because you’re
not ready for it, that I won’t understand. I think I’m
ready.”

“But will you understand?”

“How will I know unless I
try?”

“You got a point.”

I tried to lighten the
mood.

“Like which comes first, the chicken
or the egg?”