The Shape of Things

THE SHAPE OF THINGS.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Jackie."

We sat together, on old logs partly covered by moss and a few fungal growths that poked their pale spotted heads out between my legs. Roy held a thin metal rod with marshmallows speared on it over our campfire. In his other hand was a large paper plate with two blue serviettes folded neatly on top of it.

"You're overthinking things," he said, his voice low and gentle. "Really. I bet you're just as good as anyone else, if not better. You just haven't realized it yet."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked.

He turned his head to look at me. The flames shone through his mane of hair, casting his face in soft round profile. Framed against the dark woods surrounding us, he seemed like a character pulled right out of the pages of some children's dark fantasy storybook. He probably was too, though for a while now I'd been too stupid or drunk to admit it. Either way he looked down at me, and I could see the firelight reflected like lanterns deep in the dark wells of his eyes.

"Well..." He turned his head away and made a show of thinking deeply about his answer, a gesture that made his thick eyebrows furrow up in fake concentration. "Well I've known you for a while now, Jackie, and I think you're a pretty amazing person."

"Thanks."

"I mean it. Seriously. You're being too hard on yourself."

"Always the optimist," I said dryly, and then added, as an afterthought: "You're probably one of those people that think there's still good left in the world and all that."

"Yep," he said. "It's one of my many charms."

"A man of talents. I like that."

He laughed at that. His voice was a rich sound, and every time he laughed it had a deep rumble to it that went right through me and seemed to vibrate in my chest like an extra heartbeat. It was a weird feeling all right, and I was still caught up in thinking about it when his sudden gasp and second laugh startled me quite a bit.

"Oop," he said. "The marshmallows are melting."

"Here." I took the paper plate from him and removed the serviettes as he slid out the browned, sticky treats onto the plate. "Got charred too much on this side," he was saying. "But I guess they're still manageable."

Some marshmallow got on my fingers. I placed the plate on my lap and licked them off one by one, savoring their sweet, slightly smoky taste as they melted like cream in my mouth.

"Mhmm they're good."

"Try them with crackers," Roy said, reaching behind him for the box of plain crackers I'd gotten at the supermarket earlier in the day. "The first bite is like one huge wave of happiness that just rolled over and exploded on your tongue."

I snorted out a laugh. "I'll be the judge of that."

But he was right, and the marshmallow and cracker sandwiches we made were so good that we spent the next few minutes eating in silence and enjoying each other's company. Sometimes Roy would break off eating and look down at me with a burning look in his eyes that I didn't quite know what to make off. I suppose it spooked me deep down in some old, primal part of my heart, a part left over from when my ancestors still lived in caves and hunted bears, but I never could bring myself to admit it then, and even now, years after that lovely night in the woods, it hasn't become any easier.

A soft breeze blew over our heads. The trees at the edge of the clearing rustled. Further back where I'd parked my van and set up camp I could hear the canvas tent rippling slightly as the breeze passed over and around it.

"Backpacking through the country," I said, a while after we were done eating and our used plates curled and blackened up in the fire in front of us.

Roy glanced at me. His dark eyes twinkled. "Come again?"

"Backpacking through the country, a crazy, firsthand account from an insane backpacking girl. That's what the book is called."

"Oh."

"Sixty-five rejections so far," I said with a bitter smile. "You'd think after sixty-five rejections I'd have gotten used to the whole carny business by now. But I've not, and it still hurts every damn time." I paused for a moment and glared at the flames crackling in the firepit.

"Know what the last publisher said?"

Roy shrugged. "Humor me."

"That it was strange and unrealistic. Actually in their words: 'we don't deal with fictionalized accounts of travels to such familiar places as described in your manuscript'. There. Didn't even bother to send a return envelope with the letter. Probably chucked the whole thing in the trash anyways."

"Well that's life for you," Roy said. "Nothing good comes easy, remember? After all it was you people that wrote that basic little fact about life in the first place."

"Yeah well I put a lot of time and money into the book and all of it is gone now," I said, and wasn't in the least bit surprised by the bitterness in my voice. "Twelve years down the drain, Roy. That's real shitty luck, admit it, and there's nothing you, or anybody else can say to change that fact."

"Doesn't mean you're a failure though."

I looked at him and let the disgust of my own failure show on my face. "Doesn't it?"

"Nope," he said, with a cheerfulness I couldn't quite comprehend, even though I'd already downed two full bottles of whiskey before he'd showed up. It was strong stuff too, or at least that's what the label on the bottles said. Probably watered down a mile, because the only thing I was feeling apart from failure was a whole load of nothing, which I suppose was pretty ironic given the circumstances I was in.

Beside me Roy nudged my arm with a large elbow that felt like he'd shifted the bones in there a wee bit. Then he smiled at me, and in the firelight I could see how long and white his teeth were.

"Come on, cheer up," he said. "You can't give up just like that, I mean, you're still young after all."

"Forty-six isn't exactly young, Roy."

"It is to me."

"Yeah, well, you're different," I said. "And, given what I've known of you so far and from what you haven't told me yourself, you obviously are different. In fact I think you might be a—"

"What I'm saying is that just because you haven't succeeded yet doesn't mean you never will," Roy said, raising a hand to cut me off mid-sentence. "You're not a failure if you don't give up, Jackie, and there's nothing wrong with you. I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it till you believe me."

"You know, it's crazy the way you seem to have more confidence in me than me," I said, and he rolled his eyes at me and growled in faint annoyance. His ears twitched back and forth. In the silence that followed I found myself staring at them for a long while with a strange sort of fascination, so long, in fact, that I hadn't even heard when he spoke again.

"Jackie."

"Jackie."

"JACKIE!"

"Hmm?"

"You're not even listening to me."

"Oh," I said, coming back to myself and to the cruel cold fact of my own failed reality. "I zoned out a bit there. M'sorry."

"It's okay."

"You were saying something," I prompted.

"Well, I was asking you if it would rain, do you think?"

"Dunno," I said. "Why?"

"Looks like it."

I glanced up at the dark sky above us. There was no moon, and I could see a few twinkling stars, a few bright constellations. The breeze moving through the clearing all around us was steady, so steady, in fact, that the idea of rain seemed almost impossible.

"It's a clear night," I pointed out to him. "There aren't even any clouds."

"Doesn't matter," he said. "It'll rain soon."

I laughed at that. "Either you can control the weather too, or you know something I don't. Besides, we're not even in the right season for rain, not for another month or so."

Roy shrugged. He had very broad shoulders, and not for the first time I imagined how tiny I must look, sitting on a log next to his much larger frame. I figured it was a good thing he was so nice and friendly, because, well, if he wasn't, I'd hate to think of how terrifying he would be, especially to those he considered his enemies.

He stood up. The log, suddenly free of his weight, rolled back and almost tipped me over into the dirt.

Roy chuckled. "Sorry."

"You did that on purpose."

He chuckled again, then sighed and turned away from me. "It's late," he said. "I've got to get going."

"Oh." By then I too was already on my feet, and I think he must have sensed the disappointment in my voice because he turned back towards me and took both of my hands in his much bigger one.

"I really enjoyed our conversation, Jackie. Really. But I have places to be. They'll be worried back home, and—"

"It's okay," I said, and this time it was my turn to smile up at him. "I enjoyed our conversation too. Just promise I'll see you again."

"Well, I'm not really sure about that—"

"Promise me, Roy!" I said, squeezing his hand.

"Okay. Okay I promise."

"That we'll meet again?"

"Yeah," he said finally. "I promise that we'll meet again, Jackie. There. You happy?"

"Mhm," I said, still smiling up at him and watching the firelight play over his soft rounded features. "And it's a good thing you promised too, because if you didn't I'd have given you a walloping."

"Yeah I know," he said. "You're crazy like that, and I actually think it's one of your most endearing traits."

I pulled him in for a hug then, or rather I pulled myself in closer for a hug, and when we finally broke apart we stood looking at each other for a moment with no sound between us but the soft breeze and the crackle of the fire. We'd said all that needed to be said already, and there were no more words left. I knew I was drunk too, most definitely drunk, but as I looked up into Roy's dark and twinkling eyes I didn't feel drunk at all. Instead, I felt seen; I felt alive. It's not an easy thing to explain, I know, but there it was in all its strange and glowing detail.

I felt alive. And, just for a moment, I thought of leaving everything and everyone behind and going with him to wherever he was going.

Thunder rumbled overhead. The breeze freshened at once, and it came on through the clearing in a sudden cold gust that made the flames of our campfire sputter.

"Told you it would rain," Roy said with a snigger.

And then he was walking away, towards the dense darkness of the woods standing tall all around us. I watched him go, watched him walk all the way past the flickering nimbus of light cast by the fire and towards the shadows of the closest trees. By the time he got there the first few drops of rain had already started to fall.

He paused just before he melted into the darkness. He turned back towards the fire, towards me, and smiled, and from where I stood I could see the flash of his long bear teeth even among the shadows.

Then he dropped down to all fours, shook his great shaggy head, and said, before he left:

"Remember, there's nothing wrong with you, Jackie."