The Probable Future

“You are forgiven,” Liza said. “At least by me.”

The external world had maps and signs, but none of these would do for a man who’d lost his way as thoroughly as Will had. A man like Will needed absolute faith, in something, in someone. He needed peace of mind and someone to believe in him, and that was not so easily found.

“I’m forgiven?” He tested the words to see how they might feel in his mouth. He’d never even looked at Liza Hull, and now he couldn’t get enough of her. Now, he believed every word she said.

Out on the green, Juliet was sneaking a cigarette. The orange light of the ash burned with every intake, a single firefly. “Well, I was wrong. Your uncle’s not the one Liza has the hots for. It’s your father.”

The girls had perched on the Civil War monument.

“You think Liza’s in love with my father?” Stella had laughed out loud. “Oh, my God, you are so wrong. Liza? She’s like his exact opposite.”

“Thereby proving nothing. Opposites attract, honey pie. Don’t you know that? It’s some scientific fact, like the way magnets work.”

“Polar opposites.” Stella could feel the cold of the monument right through her jeans, dyed black that very afternoon in the tub in Liza’s bathroom, along with all the rest of her wardrobe. Even her underwear was black now, along with her socks, her T-shirts, her flannel bathrobe.

“Exactly. That’s why they’re drawn to each other. Each makes up what the other lacks.” Juliet had stubbed out her cigarette on the ledge of the monument, leaving Stella to clear away the ashes with the palm of her hand.

Stella was still thinking about polar opposites on Sunday, while Liza was studying herself in the mirror, while Juliet smoked the last cigarette in the pack taken from her aunt’s purse. Stella and Juliet were headed to the train station and for once they hadn’t much to say.

Polar opposites. Definition: a magnetic force that was uncontrollable. Stella knew that magnetic fields could affect human behavior; there were cases of unusual strength during storms, for instance, of women who lifted cars off their baby’s carriages, of men who picked up ponies and carried them to safety when rivers rose. But could such things affect love? Or was it another case of the pin and the candle, a foolish test to measure a phenomenon that could never be understood?

Stella recalled a case Hap showed her in a science journal, the story of a man who could set things on fire with his breath. He was tested again and again. Each time he held a cloth to his mouth and breathed, the fabric would burst into flame. Were some people made of fire, others of water, or earth, or air? Were there those a person was drawn to, no matter how much she might fight her attraction, and others that repelled, no matter how they might try to please?

“This is truly one of the bumpkinest places I have ever been to,” Juliet decreed. She was looking down the road. Hap Stewart had said he would try to meet them, but he hadn’t showed up. “It wins the prize for most hicks contained within a square mile.”

They could hear the whistle of the train in the distance as they approached the station. Juliet fished her return ticket out of the bag. There was still no sign of Hap. For once, the sun was shining. The air was so clear it nearly hurt to breathe.

“I’ll bet good old Hap thought I was a freak,” Juliet said.

“No. He liked you. He told me so.”

“Yeah, sure.” People had started to congregate on the platform, and Eli Hathaway’s taxi pulled up to deliver Sissy Elliot and her daughters, Iris and Marlena, all headed for the ballet in Boston. “Actually, I am a freak,” Juliet said quietly.

“So what? Hap likes freaks. He once showed me an article about a man who could set fires with his breath,” Stella said. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“That’s one really bad case of indigestion.”

Juliet and Stella started to laugh.

“The worst ever recorded,” Stella gasped.

They laughed so hard people could hear them inside the station, but when Stella stopped, Juliet didn’t. In no time her ragged laughter turned into tears. Stella took a step backward. She hadn’t even been sure that Juliet could cry, and now here she was, sobbing.

“This isn’t about leaving, so don’t think it is.” Juliet wiped at her eyes; black eye pencil and mascara had begun to leak. She was tearing little chinks out of her train ticket. “I don’t even like this place. I’m a city girl.”

“I know. You are. Completely.”

“I’m happy to leave. I’d go nuts in a place like this.”