We Meet Again
By J.M. Ferguson
I signed up for Death and Dying because it looked like an easy elective. It’s a second year Religious Studies course. How difficult could it be?
Tabitha joined the class two weeks late. She slunk into the back and grabbed a seat next to mine. She had long brown hair. Her eyes were soft green. It looked as though she shopped exclusively at Sally Anne. Her smile didn’t seem to fit her face properly. I was enthralled. After class she approached me about getting my notes. I told her that I didn’t have any. She asked if I had the textbook for the course. I told her I did. She asked if I would like to sell her half of it. I asked her which half she wanted. She asked if I thought I was funny. I said I was generally not in the habit of thinking.
She gave me fifty dollars and kept the book Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I held onto it for the rest of the week.
Sometimes we’d grab coffee in the cafeteria. It was always small talk. She told me once that she was from Nova Scotia, but didn’t elaborate. She wanted to teach high school. Death and Dying counted towards her Social Studies credits for the teachers college.
I seem to remember writing some essays for that class, but I couldn’t tell you anything about them. It was all piffle to me. Restate some of the points the Prof had raised, add a little bit of research from the internet and voilŕ. If Dr. Doyle had given our papers more than a cursory glance, Tabitha and I both would have been written up for plagiarism.
Near the end of the term, Tabitha invited me to her place to study for finals. I had high hopes. I thought maybe, just maybe, we would become more than just friends. She had this intense way of looking at me. Or maybe that was just all the joints I smoked before class.
Her apartment was on the north side. It was smaller than my place. In one room, there was a mattress and a dresser. The other room was the kitchen. She had a rickety table with two chairs. Through the window you could see some sickly elm trees and past those a glimpse of the river.
“It’s nice,” I said. “Minimalism is cool.”
“It’s actually called lack of furniture,” she said, “but thanks, I guess.”
I sat down at the table and took the textbook out of my bag along with a binder of notes, few that there were.
She poured us each a mug of herbal tea.
“Let’s get at it,” I said, “unless you have something else in mind?”
“And what would that be, you creepy bastard?” she asked.
I looked at her through the steam coming off our mugs. She gave me her weirdest, most crooked smile.
“Well, Tabitha,” I said, doing my best impersonation of Dr. Doyle, “we have been hanging out after class all semester.”
“Does that mean something?” she asked. “Are we supposed to make out now? Does the fact that we share notes and pass in the same essay automatically make us fuck-buddies?”
My heart was racing. I managed a weak laugh.
“That’s a hardcore response,” I said. “You are tough.”
“It’s OK,” she said. “I’ve been stressing out lately. I’ve wanted to have this conversation with you since we met. Now that it’s happening, I feel incredibly weird.”
“Tabitha,” I said. “Are you off your meds?”
“Think back to when you were younger,” she said. “Try to imagine us sitting in the living room of your house. Your parents are out. I show you some photographs of a girl staring into space. I tell you that you take those pictures in the future and that the girl is me. You start to cry. I say that if you tell anyone, no one will believe you. Does any of this sound familiar?”
I looked at her for a long second before answering. How well did I know this girl? This was the worst type of stoner-talk. My chances of becoming more than just friends with her were now hopelessly dashed.
“I would guess, Tabitha,” I said carefully, “that you smoke more dope than I do.”
“What if you did something horrible to me in the future?” she asked. “What if I became so angry that I came back for you and caused your mind to explode?”
“I would wait for objects to start hovering in the air,” I said, “and then I would call Ghost Busters. Or maybe I’d open my eyes and find myself in a room with rubber walls. Either would be fine, I suppose.”
“Here’s what happens,” she said. “In ten years, we meet at a hotel bar in Winnipeg. I think you’re funny and we’re both kind of drunk. We hit it off and go back to your room. The sex is OK. It’s nothing to write home about, but it makes us both feel good for the moment. Later that night, after we go to sleep, you smother me to death with a pillow.”
“And this is when I have to leave,” I said, getting up. “Good luck with exams.”
“No, wait,” she said. “I can prove it.”
She went into her room and came out with a scrapbook.
“These are from the newspaper the week it happened,” she said, flipping through the pages. The newspaper cuttings were yellow and brittle. The first page revealed the discovery. “Halifax Teacher Murdered in Winnipeg,” the headline read.
“After we finish this term, I go into Education and become a high school teacher,” Tabitha said. “I was attending our yearly professional development workshop when we met.”
“What about me?” I asked. “What am I doing there?”
“You’re going to fail your exams this semester and drop out,” she said. “After that it’s a series of random service industry jobs. You’ll be unemployed when we meet, but you’ll tell me you’re a sales rep for an internet service provider.”
“Except now I don’t have to be there,” I said. “I can stay home that night. I can be anywhere else in the world besides Winnipeg that night.”
“Maybe that’s true,” she said, “but I’m still dead, so for some reason you decide this needs to happen. This is you on the day you are arrested,” she said, flipping a page.
I saw a picture of an older, puffier man who looked like he could be me being led somewhere by a police officer. His hands were cuffed in front of him. His eyes were directed at something or someone outside the frame.
“How much time do I get?” I asked. “Do I go to jail for killing you?”
“You go to jail,” she said, “and kill yourself with a bed sheet before the trial.”
“Tabitha, you seem nice, but this is nuts. I think you really need to get help.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” she said. “I’m OK. It’s fucking miserable being dead, but I’m used to it now. I just thought I’d go back a few years to see what you’re like before you kill me. I want to know you as a person and not just as the sick asshole who murders me for no reason.”
“And what do you think?” I asked. “Am I living up to your expectations?”
“You’re pretty much the way I thought you would be,” she said. “Not intelligent, but smart enough to get by. You’re self-obsessed and obtuse, but there are no obvious signs that you’re a raging psycho. I think you end up murdering me just to see what it feels like to do that to someone, and then wake up the next day and realize you’ve made the worst mistake of your life.”
“You can keep the textbook. I’m good with my notes,” I said, standing up and putting my bag over my shoulder. “I’ll see you around, Tabitha.”
“Oh, you can be sure of it,” she said. “After you leave, I’m going to visit you when you’re younger. You’re never going to forget me.”
She was right about that. After our conversation, I was too rattled to study. I tanked in all my courses.
Tabitha came to visit when I was twelve years old and scared the hell out of me. She babysat me one night and showed me pictures which I’d taken on the night of her murder. I buried the images deep in my mind to the point where I almost completely forgot they existed. Then they exploded throughout my psyche after we met in university. Tabitha was staring at the ceiling. Her hair lay limply on the white pillow. Her mouth was slightly open. I imagined her ghost slipping out with her last breath.
I went to see a psychiatrist, but it wasn’t any use. He kept asking who I thought this person was. The doctor thought maybe she was a composite of other people in my life, or that she was a second personality taking root. He wanted me to take medication and undergo electroshock therapy. There was no way I would submit to any of that.
I did a little bit of investigating. I asked about Tabitha at the registrar’s office, but they had no record of her ever having been a student at my school.
From there, I just sort of spiralled. I waited to see her again. I was sure she would make another appearance before we met in Winnipeg. Everywhere I went, I was on the lookout for her. It was a long time before I got married. Her name was Jenny and she didn’t look or act anything like Tabitha. I began to think that I had imagined it all. But I had to be sure.
It was the middle of December, ten years after we met in Dr. Doyle’s class. I checked into the hotel early in the afternoon and then spent several hours pacing around the room and watching TV. There was a teacher’s conference at the hotel that weekend. Tabitha was listed as a presenter in the conference program. I tried to convince myself not to go downstairs, but in the end, I did. It was early in the evening. Truth be told, I had a few drinks before heading to the lobby. I just wanted to see if my funny stoner friend from college was right. And I planned on getting smashed as soon as I discovered that she wasn’t there.
Everything about that night seems hyper-real now. I left my wedding ring in the nightstand drawer. I showered and spent nearly an hour trying to make sure I looked sharp. The trip to the bar seemed to take an hour. I could swear I knew the bartender from high school. The music on the sound system and the hockey game on TV all seemed slower than they were supposed to.
And there she was, leaning against the bar laughing with one of her co-workers. Her hair was long and brown. Her eyes were soft green. My heart surged when she looked in my direction and gave me that wild, off-kilter smile.
Forget her? I’d been waiting for her my entire life. It was happening after all.