Jackie came home smelling like creek water and trudged into the bathroom. Her hair was stringy and damp and matted together in clumps. Her clothes were ruined. Ruined! She was dirty and smelly and gross but worst of all was that she couldn't believe that Steven had let her fall into the creek and then laughed. The only good thing that she could see in the disaster that was the evening was the fact that Sam hadn't been around to witness her humiliation. That, and the fact that she was pretty sure that she had managed to keep Donna and Randy from doing whatever it was that they had been intent on doing when they insisted that they had wanted to be paired together on the pointless hunt for Kitty's ring in the woods.
She knew that Eric and Donna had broken up, but she still couldn't just stand by and see Donna move on so quickly; her loyalty to Eric dictated that. And especially when she was now almost absolutely certain that something was up with Eric.
She frowned, squeezing water out of her disgusting hair. It wasn't anything he said for sure, but it was more of the things that he didn't say, and she had a sinking feeling that something was off with her only friend.
Sure, she supposed Fez can be vaguely included in the category of friend, she thought guiltily, after all she did live with him, but she didn't really talk to him like she talked to Eric. He was too close to Steven and Donna, and besides, he was easily distracted and his life was more or less dictated by whatever candy he had or whatever needs he had to take care of at a given moment.
Stepping into the shower, she let her thoughts drift to Eric. They had spoken on the phone earlier in the evening before she had left for the carnival, and he had been deliberately evasive. Particularly obvious since she had expressly asked him if there was anything notably life-changing about his experiences in Africa, because she was almost definitely sure that there was. His reply had been to skate around her question, talking instead about Masego, his favorite student, and how he was trying to persuade some of the families from a neighboring village to allow their children to school with him.
If there was one thing that Jackie learnt from her two years with Steven, it was that there was a time to press the issue and there was a time to let it drop. She decided that that was a time to let it slide, and so she listened to him talk, and found that she really liked hearing him talk. And when he did, the pictures he painted in her mind were vivid and real and it was almost like she was right there with him.
Her fingers snagged in her hair and she plucked out a twig, and Eric faded as thoughts of Steven once again featured front and centre.
He had called her a bitch. A bitch! It was bad enough when he stood by and watched Sam call her that, but to say it himself… She angrily swiped at the tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes, upset that she was crying over him yet again.
She recalled the time where he would punch the lights out of someone just for using the word on her and she ached so badly she had to sit down in the tub to catch her breath. She searched through her memory of tonight to see if she had done anything to offend him that would justify his use of the term and she drew a blank. Truth was, she had been deathly afraid for him. He was drunk most of the time these days, and seeing him drink like that was slowly killing her. She worried about him.
She let the water rain down on her till it turned cold, cold like she was on the inside. She viciously scrubbed at her skin one last time and stepped out of the shower. As she wound a towel around her form, Eric floated back into her thoughts. She worried about him too. He seemed different. Darker, grimmer somehow, and she had no idea why.
Oh Eric. What is up with you?
Dear Eric,
I got my first paycheck from my new job at Fez's salon today, so I went to the mall. I wanted to buy something new and pretty for me, but somehow ended up at the bookstore where these caught my eye.
Ta-DAH! Colored chalk! For you! To use in your classroom, obviously. You do have a blackboard don't you? You never said. But anyways, I bought you three boxes in three different colors so you can add some fun and pretty up your lessons there. Tell your kids 'You're Welcome' for me, won't you?
Yours,
Jackie
P.S. Please say you have a blackboard.
Sunday afternoons were much like any afternoon in the village, but to Eric, it was the one day that he declared No School, so he was free to spend it at his leisure.
He was wandering the village early in the afternoon, when he stumbled upon a man with bushy white eyebrows and a pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth. Several beautiful wooden figurines sat on the table in front of him and he was busy at work with another in his hands. Eric stood and observed him for several quiet minutes before the man finally noticed him and looked up with a smile.
Eric raised a hand in greeting and offered him a smile in return. "Jambo." Hello.
"Jambo. Ah know you. You are dat teacher. Meester Air-reek."
He had kind eyes with deep crinkles in the corners, and Eric liked him on sight.
Eric nodded amicably. "Are you whittling?" He indicated the object in the man's hands and mimed scraping with a knife.
The man grinned and nodded, exposing a missing front tooth. "Eet's a hob-bee. You try eet. Calms da mind." He offered a knife to Eric, hilt first.
Eric took it and ran his thumb lightly across the blade. "I'm not sure," he said uncertainly. "I, uh, haven't really done this before. How do I start?"
The man handed Eric some wood and gestured for him to sit down next to him.
"Yer knife wee-l shape wad-evah yer heart tells it to." He patted his chest above his own heart. "So jus let yer hands do da wer-k and be careful not to cut yerself."
Eric looked at the block of wood in his hand.
"Oo-kay," he muttered. "Whatever my heart tells me. Yeah."
The first cut he made he did because he wanted to get the ball rolling. The second and third soon followed and Eric fell into it, the rhythmic sound of a knife scraping against the wood the only thing that was heard between the both of them for the next few hours.
When the sun began to cast long shadows on the ground, Eric sat up and stretched. His shoulders were stiff and the muscles in his neck strained as he cracked it from side to side. He looked at the crude shape he had spent the entire afternoon whittling. It was far from a masterpiece and not quite finished, but its form was unmistakable.
"Huh."
The old man looked up and saw the figure in Eric's hand. "Ahh, Mees-ter Air-reek. I see you have horses in yer heart." He reached across and indicated the bit on its forehead. "But. You have missed something here."
Eric smiled and shook his head. "No, I don't think I did."
He fingered the crudely fashioned object in his hand. Then held it up to the man.
"It isn't a horse." Eric touched the bit on the forehead with the pad of his thumb. When he looked at the man, his eyes were a clear green and soft with some emotion.
"It's a unicorn."
