The True Story of Jack and Gill

Merit Badge awarded for 3rd place in the Mystic Moon Press Writing Competition




Excerpt:


It had been sixteen years since Gillian had laid eyes on Jackson Cooper.

There had been many a moment over the years when she imagined she saw him: in the street, in a crowd at the town fair, or driving one of those big rigs that powered down the main road bringing supplies.

She often wondered what she would say to him if he turned and fixed those grey eyes on her once more.

Yet here he was, walking down her road wearing that stupid hat his grandfather had given him twenty years ago.

She pretended not to see him as she reached up to fix the sheets on the washing line. The cotton swirled around her legs like the wedding dress she had never worn. She watched him silently from her hiding place among the different sized socks, pretending she really didn’t care he was back.

He wore a dark jacket that, on a timeline, seemed to match his hat, making him look ten years older than Gillian knew him to be. His jeans were rumpled from travel, crinkled down over heavy black shoes. He carried a small leather suitcase, too small to indicate the length of time he intended on staying.

However she already knew what the answer to that was. Jackson’s parents sold their farm nearly ten years ago and moved to the city, but recently the new owners had confessed to Gillian they had received an offer for the land they couldn’t refuse.

What she couldn’t work out was why he wasn’t driving. The way he walked, his swagger, one of a contented man on a Sunday stroll, seemed like he was in no hurry at all. If his car had broken down, he didn’t seem fazed at all.

However, she thought to herself, anyone who walked up this road had usually spent the last few hours in the pub. It was the only hotel for miles and was usually too much of a temptation for anyone to forego.

A dust cloud rounded the corner behind Angus Spencer’s 4x4, and as he pulled up alongside Jackson, Gillian smiled. Another question answered. He’d been back five minutes and had already hooked up with his childhood friend again.

She heard Jackson laugh as he climbed into the vehicle and it sent a chill up her spine. A flood of memories came back to her, like the nights she had spent behind the school house, laughing and talking under a blanket of stars with friends. Occasionally when it was just the two of them, Jackson would become somebody else. For those moments he was just hers. Nobody else knew the wayward teen like she did.

Had Angus mentioned her to Jackson? Did Jackson realise while he had been sitting there drinking a cold draught and reminiscing about old times that she was all around him? He probably sat on one of the stools she cleaned every morning or had been shooting pool with Angus on the table she had bid for at the town auction, wiping his beer ring from the bar with towels she washed every week. Did he see her name on the Proprietor’s Certificate hanging behind the bar? Probably not, but what did she care anyway?

Her anger boiled inside her, she was so mad at the feeling which rose in her stomach the moment she saw him. How could she feel this way for a man who had abandoned her so many years ago?


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You can now find the rest of part one of this series on the Mystic Moon Press website. Part 2 to be released in December 2008, and Parts 3, 4 & 5 before March next year.

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