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by Lisa Allen-Agostini

  Julie pointed out a few styles on the shelves and I shrugged ambivalently. She was patient, though. “What about this? I think it’s a good brand. They look comfortable,” she said, picking up a white tennis shoe with glow-in-the-dark pink stripes. A bright orange sticker indicated it was marked down.

  I shrugged again. I didn’t love them, but they were on sale. Less expense for my aunts. A salesman came over and Julie asked him for my size. We sat on the chairs waiting for him to return with a pair for me to try on. I toed off my shoes and huddled my socked feet together, glued my eyes to the display wall of shelves and shelves of sneakers, and tried to shrink into my oversized plaid shirt and shapeless jeans. Julie checked her phone while we waited.

  “Try these,” the guy said, coming back holding a box and sitting in front of my chair. He handed me the shoes one at a time.

  I eased in my feet. The shoes were comfy. The thick padding inside made my toes and insteps feel as snug as a bug in a rug. Standing, I bounced a little to test the springy soles. The shoes were ugly, but boy, did they fit. I gave Julie two thumbs-up and a brief smile.

  “Wow, that was quick! You sure you want these?” In a low voice just for me to hear, she said, “We can try others, you know. Take your time. We don’t have to rush.”

  “No, it’s okay, Aunty. I like them. Can we get them?” I was so happy with how fast we got my new, cushy shoes. I didn’t want to take them off. I even kept them on while Jillian paid at the register. It wasn’t half as horrible as I’d imagined it would be. And we were done shopping for the day. I finally felt relieved as we left the mall.

  But only for a moment. Lunch was a distant memory and my belly began to growl as I slid into the backseat of the car. We still had to go to dinner at a Fancy Restaurant.

  * * *

  —

  We walked into Tacos and Tequila—we voted to have Mexican after all—and I nearly died.

  A boy who was seated at one of the tables in a corner with two neatly dressed, oldish white men was the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen. He looked about sixteen, with clear skin the color of an apple about ten minutes after it had been cut, sort of caramel brown but not so buttery. His curly hair was so perfect that it could have been in a shampoo commercial. He had hazel eyes, pink lips, a button nose, and a smattering of reddish-brown freckles on his high cheekbones. I had never seen anybody so good-looking in real life before. I mean, I’d seen movie stars, and they were attractive, but they were only about half my height in real life so I figured there were lots of things that clever camera angles could simulate, including a cute face.

  There were no cameras here. Just the best-looking guy I’d ever seen. And he was tall AF, judging by the length of the legs I saw folded under the table and the length of the arms I saw folded above it.

  Then Julie and Aunt Jillian caused me to have a minor heart attack in the middle of the restaurant.

  “It’s Nathan and Bill!” Julie nudged Jillian, pointing to the two men and the demigod of a teenager. “Wow, I haven’t seen them in ages! I wonder if they’ve ordered yet.”

  We had been walking behind the hostess who had met us at the door. Jillian stopped her and started to explain. “Sí, por supuesto, sure,” the hostess said with a light Latin Canadian accent, smiling as she gestured for us to go on.

  Julie waved and led the way forward. I barely noticed the restaurant, which seemed cheerful and bright with colorfully embroidered white tablecloths and centerpieces of low baskets of fresh flowers. There were hellos, long-time-no-sees, and plenty of air-kisses between the adults while the boy and I nodded at each other awkwardly. After Jillian introduced me to the adults, Julie added, “Nathan and Jillian were friends at university. He and Bill are partners in their own law firm downtown.”

  “And this young man is Joshua, my son,” Nathan said. I could see the resemblance between them. They were both tall and slim. Both had very symmetrical features, bright hazel eyes, and long eyelashes. But while Nathan was a blond white man, Joshua was clearly black. He must have got his adorable nose, those exquisite cheekbones, and his dark, curly hair from his mom’s side of the family.

  “Joshua is also Jillian’s godson, isn’t that right, Jillian?”

  Jillian nodded. “Though I haven’t seen him since he was in grade school! He grow up nice, eh, to use a Trini expression.” They all laughed except for Joshua. Was the Cute Boy blushing?

  Nathan insisted we join them. They hadn’t ordered anything but drinks, and those hadn’t been served yet; Nathan hailed the hostess and asked for a new pitcher of margaritas and another table for us. We stood in a quiet group as a waiter brought over an extra table, joining them together to make one long rectangle. After fixing our place settings, three to a side, he dashed away. The hostess reappeared and gave us menus once we’d taken our seats, Jillian and Julie and Nathan on one side, Bill and Joshua and me on the other. Rushing back, the waiter brought margaritas for the adults, with four weirdly wide glasses with salt-encrusted rims. Next he came with glasses of ginger ale with ice for me and Joshua. He ran to the front again and got a pitcher of water, too, pouring some for everyone as the hostess oversaw. In Trinidad we don’t tip, not usually; it’s just not something we do. But these two people were working so hard, even I, a Trini, had to admit they were earning a nice one tonight.

  The adults helped themselves to their drinks in the odd glasses. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joshua darting a look at me as he picked up the ginger ale and offered to cheers mine with a shy smile. I didn’t want him to see that my hands were trembling. My voice was shaky too when I croaked, “Oh, thanks.” My throat was a dune in the Kalahari.

  I couldn’t believe we were having dinner together, me, next to the most gorgeous boy I’d ever seen in real life. I wished I could call Akilah instantly to discuss the new development of the Cute Boy and the terror I felt, but I knew if I pulled out my phone it would be rude and Jillian and Julie would be disappointed in me. So I ducked my head and tried not to pass out from lack of oxygen.

  I should have said steak. It wasn’t as messy as Mexican, and between the guacamole, salsa, and tortilla chips there was all kinds of potential for food falling on my clothes, my clothes that I obviously shouldn’t have worn. My outfit was cool for the mall, but now there was this guy and we were at dinner and I felt I looked like a slob in ripped, baggy jeans and a flannel shirt. I was so scared I’d make a fool of myself and drop the food like a baby. Oh God, and those hideous sneakers! I should have at least put on some ChapStick. My mouth was dry and my lips felt ashy. I was horribly unprepared for the moment. There was a sour, cramped feeling in the pit of my stomach. Imagining how I must have looked to the Cute Boy, I was filled with self-disgust. I lost my appetite, though minutes before I had been hungry enough to eat my own arm.

  Jillian looked at me from time to time while she chatted with Nathan and Bill. She made eye contact with Julie, who turned her attention to us. “So, Joshua!” Julie said, beaming.

  He blushed. “People call me Josh,” he told her.

  “Lovely to meet you, Josh,” she said, before adding to Jillian, “This gorgeous kid is your godson?” She asked Josh directly, “Where has Nathan been hiding you?”

  “I live in Brooklyn with my mom,” Josh said. “I’m with my dad on vacations.”

  “Oh, so you’ll be here for a few more weeks, then?” He nodded. I swallowed, watching a determined expression settle on Julie’s face. Something told me she was going to try to get us to be friends. She wouldn’t…would she? But I was right about the glint in her eye. She pointed to me. “She’s here for a while, too. Maybe you two can spend some time together,” Julie suggested. I tried to keep breathing but it was a challenge. My throat still wasn’t working that well. I made a grimace that I tried to pass for a smile.

  The waiter came back and took our entrée orders. I went last, having the same thing as Julie, c
hicken mole. I had no idea what it was; I’d never seen Mexican food in Trinidad. But I thought, who doesn’t like chicken? The truth was it was easier to order what someone else had, to just avoid choosing from the menu.

  “How is your mom, by the way?” Jillian asked Josh. “I haven’t seen Shelly in…gosh, I don’t know how long. Is she still an awesome dancer?”

  Nathan jumped in mischievously. “She never was as good a dancer as you, Jillian.”

  “Ha!” They shared a fond look. My aunt laughed and shook her head. “Nathan used to run after me back in the days when he thought I was straight,” she confided to me across the table in an outrageously loud whisper, much to the Cute Boy’s mortification and the other adults’ amusement. Good, I thought, watching him blush. At least I’m not the only one who has to suffer through this ordeal of Death by Shame.

  “Can you blame me?” Nathan asked, fake leering at Jillian. “Look at you. What’s not to love? Besides, you never told me you were gay back then.”

  Jillian laughed again. “I never told anyone I was gay back then. Coming out was a process. Besides, Shelly was so much more into you.”

  “Good thing I married her,” Nathan quipped. “Though God knows that didn’t go how we planned.”

  His joke fell flat. A short, uncomfortable silence fell over the table. I guessed Nathan and Shelly had had a rough divorce. The fact that she’d moved to another country afterward was probably a giant clue.

  “How do you like Edmonton?” Julie asked Josh, changing the subject.

  Before he could say anything, Nathan answered for him while looking squarely at me. “Biracial kids like Joshua have a hard time living in largely white communities like Edmonton.” He sounded like he’d read that in a manual. I nodded, choking down a dry tortilla chip I hastily grabbed from the basket in front of me so I wouldn’t have to respond.

  I personally thought Edmonton was as homogenous as you wanted it to be. I saw plenty of black and brown people in the city when I walked around.

  Julie seemed to agree with my thought. “Come on, Nathan. I think you can safely call Edmonton multicultural. Even right here in this restaurant, there is diversity: I was born in Canada but I’m South Asian, Indian to be specific. And Jillian and her niece are black, from Trinidad. The waiter is Indigenous. The hostess is Latin American. And at least two of us at this table are gay, a minority in itself—don’t you think that counts as diversity?”

  Nathan hemmed and hawed while he tried to figure out how to reply. I could tell he and Bill were work partners, not romantic partners, from the way they talked to one another. For some reason Nathan hadn’t hung out with Jillian and Julie for a really long time. As Nathan kept talking, I began to guess why. “Yes, yes, I guess Edmonton has those people….” He waved his hand in a vague, dismissive gesture. I presumed by “those people” he meant gay people, black people, Caribbean people, Asian people, Native Canadians…pretty much anyone who wasn’t a straight white man. I wasn’t crazy, because even Bill began to look at him with a frown. “Yes, there’s diversity. But compared to New York? To Toronto, eh? Those people still aren’t the ones in power. Look at Edmonton’s City Council. Hardly any of those people there.”

  There was something in his tone that made me ashamed of my skin. It made me feel insignificant, even though he was saying words that should have been inclusive. Instead, I felt invisible. I wondered what he called black people when his son and other people of color weren’t around. Josh just sat there with his face turning redder and redder; soon he was the same shade as his freckles.

  I didn’t say anything. I toyed with my phone, spinning it around and around on the table. The food arrived in record time and I instantly regretted my order when I saw how much sauce there was on the dish. While the adults kept their conversation up, I scraped off the sticky brown goop and cut up my chicken. I dipped the slivers of meat cautiously into the sauce and ate them one at a time. Or tried to. I had never been so hungry but so completely incapable of eating. My anxiety made my mouth arid. Everything took forever to chew, ending up in an pasty, tasteless lump at the back of my tongue. I had to force myself to swallow with a gulp. It was noisy. My ears burned in mortification. There was a fiery ball where my stomach should have been.

  But it wasn’t all bad. Even though eighty percent of me was freaking out, there was a good twenty percent left. That part of me was focused entirely on Josh. I heard him breathing. I smelled his cologne; it was nice and reminded me of a park or something sunny and fresh. We had plenty of space between us but somehow, I could feel how warm he was from all the way in my seat.

  Josh and I kept sneaking peeks at each other when we thought the other wasn’t looking, a fact that wasn’t lost on Nathan, who thought it was a good idea to draw attention to our glances.

  “These two can’t keep their eyes off each other, Jill,” he chortled.

  I thought the restaurant floor should open right up and swallow me whole, but it didn’t and I was stuck there, sitting next to the Cute Boy and feeling sicker and sicker. The lumpy food and Nathan’s offhand comment stuck in my throat. I started to sweat, which made everything worse because now I was feeling not just badly dressed, but damp, too. As soon as I could, I excused myself and dashed to the bathroom. For a while I leaned my wet forehead against the large, cold mirror, trying to collect myself, trying to ketch mehself, as Trinis would say. I stood back. The mirror was surrounded by tiny sombreros and maracas and chili peppers. The décor here was super cheesy, and at another time I might have laughed about it with Akilah, but it didn’t matter to me now. All I felt was my deep shame, and the awful pain in the center of my belly. Looking at myself, all I could see was a skinny, ugly girl in garish, mismatched clothes that didn’t fit.

  I took ten deep breaths, as Dr. Khan had taught me in our first session when I described what a panic attack felt like. He’d said the breathing should calm me down, but it didn’t, not now. I reminded myself that I was in a public restroom and it was no place for a meltdown. I kept repeating in my head, trying to convince myself, I will not scream, I will not scream, I will not scream. Somebody was trying to come in, pushing against the door, so I went into one of the three cubicles to hide. Locked in, I went through the mantra again. I will not scream, I will not scream, I will not scream.

  I reached a shaky hand into my pocket for my phone, but it wasn’t there. I must have left it on the table when I fled.

  I will not scream, I will not scream.

  Nope.

  I screamed. I stuffed my fist in my mouth and I screamed and screamed again. It was a little scream, but it burst the dam and I started to cry. I tried my best to muffle the huge, ugly gulps and gasps, pressing my face into my hands to hold in the noise, my tears, and the trailing clear snat that dripped from my nostrils. When the woman in the stall next to mine asked very timidly, “Are you okay in there?” I quickly got my act together and ceased crying and stopped my hands from shaking and generally tried to sound normal.

  “Oh, fine, fine,” I said. “Just letting off a little steam.” I closed my eyes and felt my sense of hopelessness rising higher and higher. Once again, I wished I had my phone. But even if I had it, should I call Ki-ki and burden her with my crap again, for the second time today? I was a sandbag, dragging down everyone around me. No wonder my mother didn’t want me and sent me away. I was worthless all over again. Why was I even alive?

  The woman left the bathroom and I stayed where I was for a minute. I put the seat cover down and sat on it, rocking back and forth and squeezing my eyes shut to try to not feel so bad, but nothing was working. My pounding heart felt like it wanted to jump out of my mouth.

  It must have been a long minute. Eventually, Julie came in.

  “You all right in there, muffin?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. If I’d tried to, I’d have started bawling really hard. Her soothing voice was the last th
ing I needed. All it did was remind me of the mom I wished I had. Home home, Cynthia had once or twice found me crying. All she ever said was “You want me to give you something to cry for? Is a good cut-tail you want!”

  Instead, Julie said, “Honey?” She sounded concerned. “Open the door. Let me in.”

  Numbly, I unlocked the stall for her. She took a look at me and hugged me tight and said it’d be okay. That didn’t help much, only made me want to cry more, and so I did. I also started hitting my balled fists against my thighs. Something inside me had come undone.

  I’m on some pretty strong antidepressants and antianxiety meds, and have been ever since they took me to the hospital after I overdosed on painkillers to try to kill myself.

  I remember a group of doctors, quiet as a cloud, drifting from bed to bed in the children’s ward. A kind-faced older man seemed to do the talking for the team as he explained my wonky brain chemistry, and said that I might have to take meds for the rest of my life. Nice.

  Anyway, the medication isn’t the only thing they prescribed. I was also supposed to go to group therapy with a counselor, but my mom couldn’t afford to pay a shrink and, since arriving in Canada, I had rejected any suggestion of it when Dr. Khan brought it up. Every now and then my aunts tentatively raised the question but I always changed the subject. I was taking my meds—antidepressant in the morning, antianxiety pill at night. Dr. Khan had made me promise to write in a journal. That was all I could do for now and since I had been in Edmonton it had worked to keep me more or less okay. I had felt panic sometimes, like at the bus stop earlier, but I didn’t generally want to tear my own face off; I felt sadness, but not the giant abyss that I had wanted to fall into the day I took the bottle of pills, to fall and never return.