Fiction

Solid Memories Have the Life-Span of Tulips and Sunflowers
by Michael Hemmingson

[Previously appeared, in somewhat censored form, in the anthology PROM NIGHT edited by Nancy Springer (DAW Books, 1999).]

I thought I saw a glowing disk in the sky, driving home.

Actually I did, I saw it. I stopped the car and got out and looked at it. Other people also stopped their cars. Then it took off into the sky.
I drove home, a bit numb; not because of the sighting, but the memory it brought back.

My girlfriend, Anne, was home. She didn't look happy. I told her about the disk.

"I met someone," she said.

"I see," I said.

"I could be in love," she said.

"I understand," I said.

"We discussed this before, right? Am I right?" she said. "We discussed this. If either of us ever had an affair with someone else, we'd talk about it. I should've mentioned it sooner, I know. I didn't think it meant anything at first. Now … it's becoming something."
"What's his name?" I asked.

"You don't know him. His name is Bill."

"Bill," I said. "A solid name. I said I saw something."

"You're not bothered?"

"Only by my memories," I said. "Sometimes I wonder how accurate they are."

She had an incredulous look on her face. "I could be leaving you!"

"I know."

"David," she said.

"Yes?"

"If we'd gotten married," she said, and said no more.

* * *

I'd skipped my ten-year high school reunion. My folks had passed along the information, the invitation, the request for a small bio from me. I wrote back David Stephens is alive and well. I couldn't go; I hadn't become everything I'd set out to be. In fact, I'd become nothing. I was unemployed, my acting career was going nowhere: three failed sit-coms, a lot of bad plays, never the roles I really wanted, the roles I knew I could do. I didn't want to see people I once knew; I didn't want to see my former best friend, Mark, or my former girlfriend, Ginny, or the girl I really loved, Helen. If she was still on this planet.

I was trying to remember the senior prom, and what really happened. It hadn't actually come to mind until I saw the UFO; you see, the night of the prom I had seen a UFO—I think—and I think I saw Helen board the ship, telling me her real place was with her people.

Or was this a dream? Prom night, thirteen years ago, and I can only recall patches—the rented tux, Ginny's dress, the limo, the hillside party, the drinking, Helen's green dress, Ginny's pregnant belly.

I've had dreams, over the years, that I was having sex with Helen; just as I've had dreams that I was reunited with Ginny and we were having sex as well. Sometimes I think about these dreams and wonder if they were not dreams, if they were really misplaced moments in my life that I've conveniently discarded.

I went to see Craig, a psychotherapist friend of mine.

* * *

"Hypnotize you?" Craig said.

"Yeah," I said. "That's what I want you to do."

"I'm not sure it'd be a good idea," he said.

"This is just between you and me. I'm not a patient. I'm your friend."

"That's the problem. You'll go from being my friend to being my patient."

"I have to know," I said.

"If you saw a UFO thirteen years ago?"

"I saw one three nights ago," I said. "I may have seen one thirteen years ago."

"Did you see aliens?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"I have a number of patients who claim to be abductees," Craig said.

"I wasn't abducted," I said. "And what do you think about these other patients of yours? Are they crazy?"

"Something is going on," Craig said. "Okay, look. We'll set a time for next week. Until then, I want you to concentrate on your memories. We may not have to use hypnosis. If we do, we do. But for the next week, just think back. Focus on details. Try to map out the night in question, anything and everything you can recall. From the moment you woke up, until the moment the night ended."

* * *

I tried, and I was afraid. I was alone, trying, and I was afraid. I'd come home and Anne wouldn't be there. Some nights she'd be home, some she wouldn't. She was with that person she talked about. Bill—the solid name. What had I done wrong?—all my life, what had I done wrong? This is why I didn't like to dwell on the past: I always re-discovered my blunders and over-analyzed them.

I was going with Ginny my last two years in high school. I had perused her; she wasn't interested at first, then something happened, then we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn't know what I was doing, she didn't know what she was doing. We were making it up as we went along. We were kids. We were in love. (I think we were in love.) Yes, we were in love, as kids like us could be in love; but I wanted more. I didn't know what "more" was. There was something missing. I think she felt it.

We lost our virginity together.

She had a horrible mother, a tyrant of a mother, like one of those wicked witch anti-mothers from children's fantasies; the bad antagonist you must do battle with and overcome. Ginny and I certainly did battle with her. Her mother, whom we called The Monster, hated me. She thought I was a bad choice of a boyfriend, and maybe I was; my parents were no one special, I didn't have a job or a car, and my only interest in the future was acting. I wanted to be an actor.

The Monster often hit Ginny in the face. "Hit her back," I suggested once.

"She would murder me," Ginny said.

"Like kill you?"

"Once, there was this news item on TV," Ginny said. "About a woman who stabbed her son to death. The Monster said, ‘I bet he drove her to it.'"

Two or three times a week, The Monster would ask questions like: "Did you fuck him yet?" "Are you pregnant yet?" Ginny answered in the negative; sex was our secret.

Sex was a secret in high school, as well as fuel for gossip—who's having sex with who, which teachers have had sex with their students, what wild thing happened one drunken night. The first item of gossip I'd heard about Helen was that she was drinking tequila in a car with two boys (this was at the movies) and she performed various oral sexual acts with both of them. When I looked at Helen, I couldn't believe this tale of debauched drunkenness; Helen was quiet and demure, with pale skin and pale blonde hair and gold-rimmed glasses. She dressed in skirt suits and fine dresses, and held herself—when she sat, when she walked—like royalty.

It was half-way through senior year that I was convinced I was in love with Helen. And I didn't even really know her! She sat near me in my Spanish and Political History classes, and sometimes we talked (her soft, bird-like voice). I started to have dreams about her, which translated into daytime fantasies. The worst of it all was that I spent my time, then, with Ginny, when I really wished to be with Helen.

And then Ginny got pregnant, and I really wanted to be with Helen; I escaped into my fantasies with Helen. Perhaps I just wanted to escape.

* * *

When Ginny told me she knew she was pregnant, I went, "Oh." Oh—oh I don't know. I didn't want to think about it. We didn't talk about it. We went on like it wasn't true. But it was there—her sickness, her body changes. She was six weeks gone. I was hoping it would go away. I thought about Helen a lot more, I created worlds of the future for us. She came to me in my dreams. She said, in my dreams, Helen said, "Open your eyes, Stephen." "They're open," I replied, "they are!"

* * *

I didn't want to go to the senior prom, which to me was scenes of horror and destruction in that movie, Carrie. You know, Sissy Spascek, the meek telekinetic, thought she was the sad little girl whose dreams had all come true, the lout turned to princess, only to find out it was all a practical joke. So what does she do? She kills everyone. (I had a fantasy of Ginny getting those powers and doing to The Monster what Carrie did to her evil mother.)

Ginny wanted to go to the prom, and my mother wanted us to go. My mother took me to be fitted for a tux rental; I thought I looked rather well in it, standing before the mirror, turning sideways, then spinning forward, my hand out like a gun, the James Bond theme running through my mind, the way impressionable young men dream of being heroes. My mother even rented a dress for Ginny, because The Monster certainly wasn't going to lift a finger for this event. I don't know what my mother was thinking, about Ginny and me. Did she think we were going to get married? What would my mother say if she knew Ginny was pregnant? The whole time I kept thinking these things—especially when she took me to get my finger fitted for a class ring. What would my mother say if she knew she were going to be a grandmother?

Perhaps she would've been happy.

I wasn't happy.

I was scared as all hell.

* * *

Anne came home.

"Hello," I said.

"Hi," she said. She wouldn't look at me.

"Home tonight?" I asked.

"You want dinner?" she said. "I was thinking of making dinner."
I joined her in the kitchen. She was starting to make spaghetti.

"I want a quiet night," she said. Something was wrong, I could tell by her voice.

"What?"

"Don't ask me about Bill."

"I won't. I wasn't going to."

"Oh," she said. "How've you been?"

"Did you go to your senior prom?" I asked.

"What?"

"Prom," I said.

"Of course," she said, thinking. "Of course." She stirred the noodles.

"Who'd you go with?"

"Hank," she said.

"Another solid name," I said.

"Please," she said.

"Meat sauce tonight?"

"All we have is marinera."

"Did you love Hank?" I asked.

"No, no," she said. "He was a jock. Football. Someone to go with. He asked me, I said yes. He was a good lay, too. Now that I think about it. A good hard fuck."

* * *

"So, wait," Anne said as we ate dinner, "you were with Ginny, but you didn't want to be with Ginny."

"No."

"You wanted this Helen."

"I think so."

"You said you loved Ginny."

"I loved her," I said. "Yes, I loved her very much."

"But you loved Helen."

"No."

"You were afraid," Anne said. "Ginny was knocked up, you couldn't deal with it, so you had eyes on Helen."

"That's what I've been saying."

"Geez," Anne said, drinking red wine.

"It was a shitty thing."

"You were a kid."

"It was still shitty."

"What happened to Ginny?" Anne asked.

"She's married, as far as I know," I said. "Two kids. She became a Born-Again Christian."

"I hate it when that happens. What about Helen?"

"I don't know."

"Wait. Ginny has two kids?"

"Last I heard."

"One isn't yours?"

"No," I said. I realized that for all the time Anne and I had lived together, she didn't know me. I didn't know her. We'd never really talked about our pasts, like this.

"What happened to your kid? She was pregnant."

"Well," I said, "we didn't have it."

* * *

"Just relax," Craig said.

"I'm relaxed," I said. I was sitting in a deep, plush, comfortable arm chair in his office. He stared at me with his abysmal blue eyes.

"Just relax," he said, "and listen to my voice."

I don't know how he did it—I don't want to know—but I went under. It's a funny thing. First you think: I'm not really hypnotized, I'm aware of everything. Then you realize something is different: you have total access to the past, and it's happening right before you. You're going through the motions like you're back there again, you're that age. You can feel it, you can smell it.

"Senior prom, thirteen years ago," Craig said.

"Ginny and I are in the living room of my parents' house," I said. "My mother is excited. She's taking all kinds of pictures. I'm in my James Bond penguin suit and Ginny is in her dress. I keep looking at her stomach, I keep thinking about the life that's growing in there. I'm afraid. How the hell will I tell them? Will they understand? They'll understand, of course; it happens. But I'll have responsibilities. I'm not ready for this. I don't want this."

"Focus on Ginny's face."

"She's glowing. She's smiling."

"What happens next?"

"While no one's looking, my father shakes my hand and says, ‘Have fun, kid.' He has slipped a one hundred dollar bill into my hand. I'm surprised. He was against renting the limo. He's been drinking, I see. I want to be drunk. I'll get drunk later on, I know."

"Let's move to the prom itself."

* * *

A hotel ball room near the beach. It was a nice feeling, arriving in a limo, when few couples here had a limo. There was food, and Ginny and I had food. There was dancing, and Ginny and I danced. There was a photographer taking photos of all the couples, and Ginny and I stood in the line and we got our photos taken: she sitting in a chair, me standing beside her, one arm around her shoulder, one hand taking her hand.

I saw Helen. She'd come stag, apparently, with several other girls. How could she not have a date? I wondered. She was exquisite in her green dress, black gloves that came to her elbows. She wasn't wearing her glasses, and her blonde hair was bunched up, strands falling over her forehead and eyes. I think Ginny saw me looking at her—she cleared her throat. I forced myself not to look at Helen.

Something felt empty, in me. Something felt wrong. I was in the wrong Universe. This wasn't the way things were supposed to happen, I wasn't intended to graduate high school and go straight into fatherhood, maybe even marriage.

I looked at Ginny; and for a brief moment, I felt resentment.

I wanted to say something to her, but tonight was certainly not the night.

I was scared.

Ginny and I danced a slow dance. We returned to our table. I was trying to be sly, my eye seeking out Helen—she danced with a few guys, but mostly remained with her friends.

Mark joined us. Mark was my best friend. He was a tall, overweight guy who was into a lot of the things I was: acting, literature, rock music. We had a good connection. We'd spent many nights driving around in his car, looking for adventures that never came to us.

Mark had also come stag, with a couple of other guys.

Mark tried to get dates, but it never happened.

His tux didn't quite fit him, either.

Mark was full of talk, and he was talking to Ginny, which distracted her enough for me to watch Helen's movements.

What the hell was I doing? This was the senior prom! I was supposed to be having fun…

"Mind if I dance with your date?" Mark said to me, that usual hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"Not at all, sir," said I.

So Ginny danced with Mark—it was a funny sight: Ginny was five-two, Mark was six-three.

Helen was looking at me. She had a drink in her hand, and she was looking my way. I didn't know what to do. She waved. I waved back. Then I looked away.

What the hell was I doing? I should've went over there, I should've asked her for a dance. Helen was in two of my classes, right, she sat next to me, right—so Ginny would understand.

Ginny and Mark returned.

"Dance with me?" Ginny said.

"Yes," I said, standing up.

"Me and my big clumsy feet," Mark said.

* * *

I used the hundred dollar bill to get a motel room. Ginny and I had gotten a motel room a few times—it was an exciting teenage thing to do. We drove around in the limo until our time was up. "You're the quietest couple I've had in a while," he said, "usually proms are pretty wild." I tipped him twenty bucks at the motel.

"We are quiet," Ginny said when we went into our room.

"We're getting old," I said. "This is scary."

We undressed and got into bed.

"Senior prom," Ginny said. "Do you want to make love?"

My hand was on her slightly protruding belly. "I don't know."

"I'm not in the mood. I will if you want to."

"I'm not in the mood," I said.

"Okay."

"Oh God."

"Oh God is right."

"We're talking like some kind of old married couple," I said.

"We're comfortable," she said, hugging me.

There were knocks at the door.

"Mark?" Ginny said.

"Probably," I said.

I got dressed and let Mark it. Ginny pulled the covers to her chin.

"Old man," Mark said, like he was reading my mind. "I come to whisk you away for an adventure. The both of you."

"No adventures for me," Ginny said. "Sleep is for me."

I looked at Ginny.

"Go ahead," she told me. Her eyes said it was all right.

I did need to get away from this scene.

Mark and I left and got into his car. There was plenty of booze on the floor. I picked up a bottle of Jim Beam and took a good swig.

"You're getting boring," Mark said.

"Fuck you. Where we going?"

"Everyone's headed to Presidio Park."

"And that's where we're off to?"

"You bet," Mark said, revving the engine. "It's the end of our lives tonight! Ha! Hey, you think I might get laid up there?"

* * *

"Presidio Park is on top of this small mountain," I said under hypnosis. "It's basically the big party hangout—people gather and party until the cops come and tell them to leave. The cops aren't going to come tonight, not on this special night. Even cops have hearts sometimes. So Mark and I are there, drinking, and there's all these kids from school, and from other schools too. There's a lot of loud music. It is here that I saw the UFO."

"You see it now?" Craig asked.

"Not now, no. I see Helen. I'm stunned. She's still in her green dress, and those gloves. She's alone, drinking a beer. I know this is my one and only chance. I can't blow it. I grab a bottle of tequila from Mark's car and tell him I have to meet my destiny. Can you believe that? I actually say that. ‘Destiny!' But I'm already drunk. ‘Oh fine,' Mark says, ‘just leave me all alone.' ‘Bitch,' I say to him. ‘Double-bitch,' he says to me."

"Tell me about the sky."

"It's a very clear night, a lot of stars out."

"Tell me about Helen."

"God, she's gorgeous. She sees me coming her away, and she smiles. Her teeth are perfect and white."

* * *

"Hey there," Helen said, "hello."

I wanted to tell her she was the most perfect woman in the world; I wanted to tell her she was the invader of my dreams.

"Hi," I said.

"Nice tequila bottle," she said.

"Yes," I said, "yes, it is."

I took a drink. She was just looking at me. "Would you like some?" I said.

"Sure." She tossed her beer away, took the bottle, and took a good long swig.

"So," I said, looking at all the people here.

"Where's Ginny?" she asked.

"Not here."

"Oh."

"She's not—"

"It's okay."

"What?"

We looked at one another. What the hell was going on here?

"I know this spot," she said. "Do you want to go?"

Oh, yes I did.

* * *

"She takes my hand," I said to Craig. "My hand is in her small hand, and we're leaving the general party area. She seems to know where she's going. She knows this place well. I've only been up here a few times. She's been up here many times. She's gotten fucked-up up here, I know, she's drank and smoked pot and maybe even had sex with a few guys. Then she says something to me, which scares me. Like she's reading my mind. She says, ‘Yes, I've been up here many times.' We're on the other side of the park, alone, and it's dark, and we can see almost all of the city—at least this part of the city on this side. Helen and I sit under a tree, and we drink from the tequila bottle."

* * *

"It's nice here," I said to her.

"Put your arm around me," Helen said.

I did.

She leaned into me. "That's nice."

"Yeah," I said.

"I know," she said. "I've seen it in your eyes. I've felt you looking at me."

"What?"

"I know," she said, and kissed me.

I was nervous.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I'm being abrupt," she said.

I kissed her. It was a long kiss. She stopped me.

"I know what you want, David," she said.

"You think I'm bad," I said. "Here I am, with you here, and I have a girlfriend—"

"And she's pregnant," Helen said.

"What?"

She smiled. "Come on."

"How'd—how'd you know?"

"Girls know," she laughed. "And I'm psychic."

"Oh," I said.

We were silent, and both took drinks from the bottle.

"I've seen her sick in the bathroom," Helen said. "I've seen her eating crackers. It's so obvious."

"Oh," I said, and drank.

"You're not ready," she said.

"No."

"It sucks."

"It does."

"I like you."

"You should've been my prom date," I said suddenly.

"No," she said, "no. And," she said, "you don't love me."

"I do love you."

"No."

"You've been in my dreams," I said.

"I know," she said. "because you keep thinking about me. I feel your thoughts. So I go into your dreams."

We drank.

I laughed. "Are you a witch?"

"You're getting drunk."

"You're not?"

"Not yet."

"Get drunk with me."

"I will."

"And?"

"And," I said.

"You want to screw me," Helen said. "That's all you really want."

* * *

"And?" Craig said.

I was silent, which prompted him.

"We're kissing," I said. "Man, are we kissing. Her lipstick is all over me, and her perfume. I'm grabbing at her tits and she's rubbing my cock. I try to unzip her dress, from the back. Then something funny happens. Helen pushes me away, she has this weird look on her face. I ask her what's wrong. She says, ‘There is much you don't understand.' She doesn't seem drunk anymore. She says, ‘Look up at the sky.' I look. And I see it. My God, I see it!"

"The UFO?"

"YES! It's right there, hovering near us. Well—not at first. At first, it's just this glowing dot in the sky, moving strangely. Then it gets bigger, coming toward us. Then it is there. Huge. Disk shaped. Flying saucer, but really just a lot of glowing light. I look at Helen and she's smiling. ‘I have to go,' she says, ‘do you want to go with me?'

"The light is intense, too intense. It hurts my eyes. I scream. I'm scared. NO! NO! THIS ISN'T WHAT I WANT!"

I screamed.

"David," Craig said, "you're coming out from the memory on the count of three—one, two, three!" He clapped his hands.

I caught my breath. "Shit."

* * *

"Shit," Anne said, "you're bullshitting me."

"No," I said, "I remember now."

"So there's this UFO there, and she what?"

"Yeah," I say. "and she tells me, ‘I have to go home now.' ‘I have to return to my people.' I'm like, ‘What?' and Helen says, ‘I was hoping we'd have a moment, but my people are calling me back.' The next thing I know, she's standing under the ship, and this beam of light comes down, engulfing her, and she disappears."

"And?"

"And then I watch the UFO fly away."

"And?"

"I don't know," I said. "I remember walking back to the party. The cops were there, dispersing people. Mark grabbed me and said, ‘Let's go!' In the car, he said, ‘Where the hell did you take off to?' I said, ‘I don't know.' And I really didn't. I was in a daze. Mark thought I was drunk off my ass."

"And Ginny was at the motel room."

"Yes."

* * *

Ginny wasn't in bed. The bathroom door was closed, and I heard her crying. The door was locked.

"Ginny," I said.

"Go away," she said.

"Let me in," I said.

"No," she said, crying.

"LET ME IN!"

She opened the door. She was a mess. She pointed to the toilet. There was blood everywhere.

"It's gone," she said.

* * *

Anne and I washed the dinner dishes together.

"She had a miscarriage," Anne said.

"Yeah," I said.

"How'd you feel?"

"I don't know. Remorse, in a way. It was our baby. But also relief. I wasn't going to be a father. I didn't have to tell my parents anything. Responsibility was gone. I was free. I looked into Ginny's eyes and I saw the same, but I also saw a mother who'd lost a child. I think I aged five years in that single moment."

"You were too young. You weren't ready, neither of you. Think of what your life, your life and her life, would be like right now."

"Sometimes I think about it," I said.

"So what happens next in the story?"

"What happens next," I said, my hands covered in soap suds. "We still lived a secret life. We couldn't tell anyone, and I called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. They cleaned her out. Prom night was over. She started to go to church a few weeks later. She said God was telling us something. She became Born-Again. She wanted me to join. I wasn't into Jesus and sin. We broke up, I guess. She met a guy in church, he got her pregnant. They got married. I went to state college."

"Helen?"

"Never saw or talked to her again."

"She went back to her planet," Anne laughed.

"Sure."

"Sorry."

Anne and I went to the bedroom. We undressed, and got into bed.

"Senior prom," Anne said. "I went with a jack whose only interest was to shove himself up my cunt. Do you want to make love?"

My hand was on the wiry pubic hair of her sex. "I don't know."

"I'm not in the mood. I will if you want to."

"I'm not in the mood," I said.

"Okay."

"Oh God," I laughed.

"Oh God is right."

"We're talking like some kind of old married couple," I laughed.

"We're comfortable," she said, hugging me.

We made love anyway.

"What about," I started to say.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Tell me, dammit."

"Solid Bill," I said.

"There is no Bill no more," she said softly.

* * *

I drove up to Presidio Park the next night. It was mid-week and there were a few high school kids drinking beer and hanging out. I parked my car, and started walking to the place Helen took me to, thirteen years ago. I hadn't been up here since. I had a small bottle of tequila in my jacket. I found the tree Helen and I had sat under, and I sat. The tree looked the same, if memory serve me. Memory was my nemesis, this I knew. So I drank. I tried to think of Helen's kisses, her skin, the way she smelled, the way her tits felt. I knew those sensations during my hypnosis sensation, but I couldn't grasp them now. I could only think of the way Ginny felt, tasted, and smelled. I looked at the city. The sky was mostly clear, a few clouds. Lots of stars, as always. I imagined one star coming alive, and getting bigger, and coming near me. It's a ship. And Helen gets out. "Hello, old friend," she says, all dressed up in a silver suit.

I finished the bottle.

None of it ever happened, of course. It was just a way to escape.

I needed to get more in tune with reality.

Walking back to my car, I passed a young couple heading for my tree. I smiled at them. The boy looked away, the girl smiled back—bashfully. I was just some old geek to them, I'm sure.

I got into my car, and drove home.

From the sky, a flying, glowing disk appeared, and hovered for a moment over my car, and flew away.

I got out, and watched it.

I went to the flower store. They were just about to close. I bought a bouquet of tulips and sunflowers. I hate roses. Ginny loved roses. I remember, once, seeing Helen walking to a class, holding a sunflower someone had given her.

Anne was watching TV when I got home. A game show.

"We're in the wrong universe, David," she said.

"These are yours, please," I said.

She took the flowers, and she kissed me.