Wallflower Girl

Whatever! Oh to be simply ogled by a gruff, big bellied truck driver even! Such thoughts wouldn't normally crack Anne's crusty, well-seasoned defences, but this stupid wedding had her in need of male attention like nothing she could remember.

"Help you with something, dear?" The question had come from a worn looking middle-aged woman with dark sacks under her eyes.

Anne chose a bottle of mineral water from a glass display fridge and paid for it. The counter was cluttered with gum stands and magazines. The small portion that was available to transact business had a brown speckled laminate surface worn white in the middle. Brushing the surface with her fingers caused another shiver of familiarity to caress Anne's being. It was like some rolling sequence of déjà vu just going on and on. In spite of the predominance of warmth and wellbeing, she was beginning to feel a little freaked out.

She hurried back to her car with as much haste as her cranky leg would allow, tossing her purse on the seat beside her and driving quickly on her way.

When arriving at the motel a little later, she found her room to be newly appointed, crisp and without any semblance of other worldly charm or calling. Anne dumped her suitcase and pulled on some slacks and a cute lace top. She paused on her way back out the door and checked in a mirror on the wall. They were having a meal and drinks at a bar of some sort; she and her fixed-up girlfriends.

Why not make an effort, mousy mouse? She flipped open her suitcase and pulled out the makeup kit her aunt had no doubt bought as a hint, then set to work. Thankfully a little page of instructions had been included. Primer over the entire lid. White highlight under the brow and in the tear duct area, light violet over the lid, and a thick smudge of indigo along the lash line. There was a purple pencil included and she drew a series of short dashes along her upper and lower lash line. It took several tries to remove the cellophane from the tube of mascara, and even longer to paint her eyelashes without clumps and without leaving little spidery lines all over her careful work.

And then it was all for naught. The cell phone rang, vibrating as it made a sound like twittering birds. Anne jumped and smeared the mascara all the way to her eyebrow. She grabbed the purse and rummaged, finding the phone just in time.

"Where are you, Anne?" It was Melissa calling. Melissa was to be Kelly's bridesmaid. Cynthia and Anne were Kelly's special guests, a smidge short of actual wedding party status, since the groom had insisted on having only the one groomsman.

"I'm nearly there!" Anne said, fumbling with her phone while trying to wash the damaged makeup from her eye and start over. The black and purple smears would never come out of the hotel's white washcloth. Propping the phone on one shoulder, she redid her left eye, checked once more in the mirror, and hurried to the car, ready to follow the GPS in what must have been busy Friday night traffic in such a small town.

She found her friends already revved up and giggly after a few drinks. They had been in town since mid-week, while Anne had to work up until that morning. It was a rustic steakhouse and bar with a lively crowd that kicked on beyond meal time to the music of a country western band. Several couples were taking a turn around the knotty pine dance floor in the centre of the room, while others leaned against the pillars that resembled barely hewn tree trunks, sipping more drinks and growing livelier by the moment. The girls stayed at the table, picking at their food and gossipping. By ten, Melissa and Kelly had to leave, as they had quite a day planned to start early in the morning.

There were two cute guys who had worked their way from the bar to join Anne and Cynthia at their table. Cynthia was married and made that known, but she quite skilfully redirected any interest in Anne's direction. Anne was in the mood for attention too, and when the one particular guy she was feeling very attracted to saw his friend off and stayed on, she was virtually wriggling in her seat with excitement.

His name was Mike. His friends had been calling him Micky. He was tall and a bit thin, but handsome with his intelligent eyes, dark blond hair that showed an inclination to fade to ginger, and a smile that lit up the conversation. He was looking at Anne a lot, directing his chat towards her and watching for her reaction to anything said. Anne was indeed wriggling with excitement, but also because she needed the ladies room. At last she excused herself with a faint blush.

"Hurry back," Mickey urged.

She hurried but had to wait in line. When she got back he was gone.

"What? Just like that?" she implored of her friend.

Cynthia was grinding her teeth with rage. "Forget him. He's just another dickhead!"

"But he was... he was really nice!"

Cynthia gave Anne her handbag and stood to leave. "Come on, sweetie."

"What? What did he say?" Anne's lip was quivering. She knew.

"He said nothing. Just that he had to run."

"When he saw me walk?" Anne forced the words out through the tightness in her chest as she tried to take a breath.

"Come on—let's go. He was just another asshole," her friend offered, squeezing Anne's hand and leading through the crowd.

It had happened plenty of times before, but that had been about the most obvious cut-and-run Anne had experienced. It hurt and she cried. She had managed to hold tough until seeing Cynthia off in the car park, but once alone in her car she gave in to the tears. She stopped at a traffic light and turned to see the guy, Mike, driving the car stopped in the next lane. He glanced at her, then his head turned to face directly ahead. She stared at him until he drove off without acknowledging her. She then turned and drove, but had to slam her brake on because the light had changed to red again, and she sat there half across the line in a state of severe disappointment.

There were no more tears, but any thought of finding a man at the wedding had been destroyed. Anne went through the motions. She wore her pretty dress and dark stockings, and she made up her face and pinned her floral and lace barrette in her hair. Her girlfriends were all over her at the reception. She was seated with Cynthia and her husband, and three other couples.

Anne got a bit drunk. She had left her car and caught a cab, intending to party as best she could on her own. She couldn't dance; not the wiggle and move type stuff. Cynthia sent her husband Josh to take her for a slow dance, and Anne closed her eyes and imagined as she clung to his broad shoulders and rested her head against his chest. She swayed with him, and he held her close. Cynthia was watching and smiling over, so Anne closed her eyes again and continued to imagine.

Later, Melissa sent her man to ask Anne for a slow dance, and she swayed and cuddled up against him too. He was older, almost grey. He smelled wonderful.

That night Anne slipped her hand down the front of her underwear and rubbed herself to one of her usual orgasms, then cried herself to sleep.

That night, she dreamed of glaring headlights and screeching brakes. Of being in the passenger seat of her father's pickup when an oncoming Mack truck had run the stop sign, slamming into her door, into her body. In a flash of agony, her thigh bone snapped in two, the break puncturing her flesh in a compound fracture that sprayed blood across the interior of the cab. The view through the windshield had been dizzying. Trees. Houses, street, houses, trees as they'd spun around and around. Her head slammed into the window before she was knocked into the centre console. The little trash bucket, shattered, cut into her cheek.

The scene shifted, and she was in a hospital, out of her head in agony as her broken leg was placed in traction. Waking up from surgery, unable to speak or cry, only scream over and over, the morphine unable to subdue the pain where two metal pins had been screwed into her femur. Jagged stitches marred her skin where the compound fracture had been fixed. More incisions from the operation, straighter, but just as much a disfigurement.

The doctor, grey haired and grim faced, informing her and her parents that she would need physical therapy, and might never heal.

Two days later, infection had set in, sending red lines streaking towards her heart. The flesh around her wound turned puffy and oozed horrible smelling fluids. Then had followed antibiotics, more surgery, skin grafts to cover the raw places. The jagged scar had become a mass of uneven tissue, ugly and twisted.

Her estimated recovery time had extended from six months to twelve, and she'd missed a whole year of school trying to heal. By the time she'd been well enough to attend classes, she'd been so far behind that there had been no choice but to retain her. Her classmates went on and she remained, joining a younger group who had never been her friends and made fun of her, and made the rest of her academic career miserable, so she didn't go on beyond the minimum, didn't live up to her potential...

Anne sat up, gasping for air. She hated that dream. Just what she needed to make her lovely evening complete.

***Chapter 4***

Nick was on the last run of bales. He had the steps down at the back of the trailer and had to climb carefully to position the remaining dozen prickly blocks, filling the seventh and eighth tier of the stack.

It was early yet, that summer afternoon. It would be light until after seven in the evening, and at five the sun was still hot against the exposed skin of his neck and face. He wore leather gloves and a thick cotton shirt to handle the straw, and jeans and boots were his standard attire all year round.

Nick positioned the last of the bales, and drove his little tractor around the grove of pines to where he had built his hay shed. He had stacked two trailer loads the previous day, and this was his second load for that day. He had another drink from his water bag, and tossed it aside.

There was smoke rising from the chimney of the cottage, which meant dinner was being prepared. He imagined what Patricia might be wearing right then; imagined her at the kitchen sink, and how he would take her from behind right there with her wash gloves on and her hands in the soap suds.

***

Anne woke feeling all cried out and resiliently angry. She was back on the road headed for home and to find out what her brother had done to her perfect world; her safe place. The silly déjà vu thing started again as she passed the truck-stop. She slammed on the brakes and stopped, looking at the faded truck on the roof. She suddenly felt it had been her idea to put it there or something, although she had never been to Hammond before and the damn truck was probably older than she was. What a strange sensation. It was quite strong, that feeling. She had come up with that idea. But that was impossible. It must be the strange mood from the wedding, and the nights of disjointed dreams and restless sleep giving her funny ideas.

She shook off the weirdness and drove on out of town and past all the grotty workshops and machinery places. The sunflowers were watching her again as she passed them, and she wondered if they actually turned their heads to face the sun, as they were all looking the same direction.

She crossed the rickety wooden bridge with the planks rattling their bolts. The sensation made her shiver. That thing felt unsafe. It should be replaced with something sturdier. It would be less picturesque to be sure, but safer. Maybe they could put this little historic bridge elsewhere, where people could see it, but wouldn't have to wear out their shocks driving over it, and risk ending up in the creek. Emerging from the tree line, she slowed and peered around, noting that all the big round bales were gone. Actually, there were still some, but they were in a line way up the back of the field.

Anne stopped at the padlocked gates where she had felt the most powerful nostalgic sensation the other day. She got out of the car and approached, touching the thick chain as a warm breeze caressed her face and the scent of pine and fresh hay assailed her and carried her mind up into the tops of the trees that surrounded the old farm buildings in front of her. She ducked through the gates and walked into the grove, looking in a small timber room that had a concrete wash tub and a rusted washing machine with the rollers on top.

There was a larger building that housed a small red tractor. It had flat tires; the rubber cracked with age, and there was bird poo all over the rusted old vehicle. She touched the emblem on the front: MF. She then ran her fingers along the name plate on the side of the little old chug: Massey Ferguson. Its name was Chug. Anne inexplicably remembered that, as a tear welled and a surge of panic and absolute exhilaration overwhelmed her.

She looked around at a heavy timber workbench with a cast iron vice bolted to it. There were pegs for tools and spools of wire and metal boxes. An engine sat under the workbench along with what looked like the gearbox from a car. Through a doorway in the back of the shed, she found another building, or rather the skeleton of what must once have been a simple shelter or hayshed. A few sheets of corrugated iron hung from the top of the tall timber frame, some lay on the ground, and still others, that looked to have blown off, leaned haphazardly amongst the trees.

Anne approached the foundations of what must have been the farm house. There had been a fire. She could see the half burnt timber walls and charred floor where grass and weeds had grown up through and taken over. There were concrete steps that would have led to the back doorway of the house. She walked up them and, in a complete daze, she turned and sat down. She closed her eyes and her world disintegrated, crumbling all around her in a rush of utter ecstasy that swept her backward and thumped her into a soft, cushioned seat.

Anne opened her eyes to a brightly decorated living room. She was sitting on a boxy, dark-green sofa with large decorative pillows that matched the colour and sported big white circles. Across the room a small, fat television sat on stocky wooden legs. It was the round-screen, box type with a dial for a channel selector and levers for volume, brightness and contrast. There was a copper coiled antenna on top. Above it, a silver and brown clock that resembled a many-pointed compass showed that it was quarter past five. A zephyr of chicken and onions wafted into the room; the aroma of a baked dinner. There was a sizzling sound coming from her left. It took a moment to rationalise it as the sound of water boiling over on a stove.

She jumped up to see to it as if she had been waiting and listening for it. She felt as if she had just dosed off; as if the meal she was preparing was something very important to her, and she didn't want it to spoil. As she hurried from the living room into the kitchen she noticed that the wall above the sofa had been decorated with a long, horizontal canvas in an abstract jumble of green and black flowers.

Anne shifted the pot of boiling beans to the side of the coiled stove element and wound the setting back to simmer. The stove was white, not green, as she suddenly remembered the kitchens of friends she'd never before recalled having. They joked about her plain white stove. But it complimented the bold orange and yellow flower print on the wallpaper.

Hurrying across to the simple dark veneer cabinets, she opened one, instinctively knowing there would be plates inside, and took down two; white with yellow flowers around the rim. Wait, how had she moved so fast and freely? She glanced down at herself. She was wearing a floral house dress and a frilly white apron. Her feet were bare. She had no limp and the skin of her right leg was without blemish. She looked down at her legs, completely confused as she lifted the hem of her dress and marvelled at how perfect they were. She touched her hair. It was thicker and longer, and she sought her reflection in a mirrored cutlery cabinet to find another girl looking back at her.

It was no dream; no illusion. Anne's thoughts were entirely lucid: It was Sunday. She was on her way home from her friend's wedding. Her name was Anne Elizabeth Thompson. It was the year two thousand and thirteen.

But at the same time, it clearly wasn't. Another quick scan of the room revealed white laminate countertops, a double oven like her great aunt still swore by, and a pedestal light in a shade of yellow that hadn't been in style since her mother's day. There was a green rotary dial phone on the shelf of the cabinet. A big floral calendar on the kitchen wall displayed the year 1968.

Anne patted her cheeks, feeling them for the bone structure that was not her own. She was slightly taller and had fuller breasts. Her hands were someone else's; her fingers longer and thinner. There was a diamond ring and wedding band on her left ring finger that sent a flutter of tingles alight in her belly. She picked up a silver framed wedding photograph of the woman whose body she was currently residing in and an absolutely gorgeous man with grey eyes, dark hair and a perfect smile.

She sought the mirror again, shifting some plates to get closer. Who are you? She stared into the stranger's eyes, but no, they were not a stranger's eyes. They were her eyes; her plain old hazel eyes. She was looking at herself. It's me! I am you—me! The weirdness of the situation was flawed. There was something deeper; beyond Anne's confusion. She could feel a hazy sense of familiarity. The déjà vu, the warm nostalgic sensation she had experienced driving past the other day; this was not unreal at all.

Anne checked on dinner. She knew she had been cooking dinner when she woke up in the chair. It was her first thought. It was as if she had dropped into this body and taken it over, but not completely. There was still a basic sense of what needed to be done. The chicken and baked potatoes in the oven were ready. She took out the baking dish and set them aside to make the gravy. Cooking was another bridge between the two experiences. Only, in 2013, she only had Graham to cook for, and he didn't care in the slightest; would have been just as happy with freezer pizza. Something, this part of her that belonged to the earlier existence, knew that for the man in the photo, a proper dinner would be appreciated, needed. He worked hard. He was a... what?

There was the sound of a tractor starting up outside and she parted the kitchen curtain to see. She remembered Chug again, only it was newer. It was moving and came into view with a man in the seat. It was the man from the photo. "My husband," she uttered with her hand covering her mouth and that flutter of tingles in her belly rising up again, all the way to heat her face that time.

"Oh my!" she squeaked, closing the yellow daisy curtain and thinking about running and hiding somewhere. "Oh my God—a husband!"

There were two places set at the table, and she added the plates, completing the settings. She brushed at her apron and patted down her hair, peering into the mirrored cabinet again as she pawed the rings on her finger. Oh my God—a husband? She implored inwardly. "What the hell am I supposed to do with a husband other than feed him?" she prattled on under her breath as she parted the living room curtain, this one green with a brown paisley pattern, and watched him stop at a wooden bench with a bucket of water under a tap.

It was a wash stand of some sort. He splashed in the bucket and lathered up a bar of soap to scrub his arms. He then stripped off his shirt and Anne squeaked again at the sight of his magnificently toned body. He wasn't a big man. He was about average height and build, but his chest and stomach were chiselled perfection. The late afternoon sun was casting shadows in the definition of his pecs and abs. His jaw was square, his face lightly whiskered. His lower arms were darkly tanned while his upper arms were white. His biceps were huge. The suds were trickling down his chest and stomach to the belt of his jeans. His hips were narrow and his backside looked tight, and Anne imagined how firm it would feel. Oh my God—stop it, she told herself. His thighs were defined in the blue denim fabric, tightening it and straining against the slender cut.