Flannery

by Lisa Moore

It’s funny how you can know a person your whole life and forget certain key important points about who they really are. For instance, in that moment, when I witness Miranda’s fiercely blue Lycra-swathed body flying through the air like a flame from a blowtorch, I completely forget something about her that I have always known.

  Miranda can’t swim.

  It takes everyone a minute to realize that Miranda is also drowning and then the lifeguards, including Kyle, leap in. Kyle gets to Miranda first and, in flailing around, she punches him in the face, giving him a black eye — totally by accident, she later insists.

  And right about now you may be wondering what I’ve been doing throughout all this.

  I don’t move. It’s as though I’m not there.

  Afterwards, when we get home, Miranda promises Felix she will never, ever, ever leave him alone in the pool with me again and that yes, he can go to the men’s change room next week, and that yes, she will read to him before bed tonight. She will read to him all night long if he wants, until dawn breaks and she will love him forever.

  And she says that if I had been paying attention as she expected me to, none of this would have happened, and she would probably love me forever too. But taking into account my recent behavior, she’s considering a little vacation from the hard work of loving me, she says. She says she will have to think about a punishment.

  Your brother might have died, she says. She smacks the metal spoon against the casserole dish and touches the corner of her eye with her wrist, trying to make sure her tears don’t smudge her mascara. And when she puts my plate of macaroni in front of me, the dish clatters on the table. It all seems to me to be punishment enough.

  I creep into bed with Felix in the middle of the night so I can hold him. I’m holding him very tightly, because I realize how close I just came to losing him.

  I’m still awake when Felix’s door creaks open and Miranda comes in and gets in bed behind me, three of us in Felix’s single bed with the dip in the middle of the mattress and a spring poking through.

  The lit-up red S on the Scotiabank building downtown shines through the window and the trees thrash in the wind and I can hear the ice on their branches clinking.

  Miranda whispers that if they do cut off the heat we might do some winter camping and she would get a very good parenting blog out of it.

  I don’t want to winter-camp. Miranda puts her arm around both of us. I am very squished.

  Flannery, there’s something I have to tell you, she says.

  You have to tell me something now? I ask. I don’t like it when Miranda has to tell me things. There goes my heart again, like a school of tiny fish scattering every which way in the deep dark fathoms of the North Atlantic when a shark zips past.

  Do they have sharks this far north? Anyway, my heart is beating.

  Miranda presses her forehead against the back of my head and pauses. Then she sits up on the edge of the bed with her back to me, her fists pressed into the mattress.

  She speaks in a long single breath.

  Hank and his wife have split up and he’s back in town for the Christmas holidays and he’s asked me out, she says.

  You saw him?

  Ran into him by accident.

  Did you tell him? I ask.

  Tell him what?

  You know what, Miranda. Did you tell him about Felix? Did you tell Hank he has a son?

  I will, she says.

  And as I am drifting off to sleep another faraway but some might say pertinent thought occurs to me.

  Kyle Keating asked me out on a date.

  And I didn’t even have to use a potion.

  27

  They’d been drinking martinis, which Miranda had never tried before.

  They said you had to toss them back, Miranda says.

  She speaks from her bed with her eyes squeezed shut and the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

  Orange juice, she whispers.

  Orange juice? I whisper back.

  Shhhhh, she says. I mix her some orange crystals. It’s all we have.

  Get this thing off me, she says. I take off the tiara and lay it on the red velvet pillow on her bureau where she keeps it.

  I go to open the curtain and she yells, Not the light! She asks me to get her the little hand mirror on the dresser. She lifts it to her eyes, very close. First one eye, then the other. She touches the non-existent wrinkles in the corners of her eyes.

  I’m old, she sobs. She slams the mirror face down on the bed.

  What are you talking about, Miranda? I say.

  This guy, Hank’s new friend, the guy who’s a plastic surgeon … he said I need work, she moans. She picks up the mirror again and pulls her skin near her temples very tight so she can hardly open her eyes. The hand mirror falls against her nose. She’s faking a smile, but she’s puffed her lips out for the bee-sting look.

  Do I look younger now? she asks.

  At four this morning I heard several sharp bangs on the front door. Naturally, I thought we’d been invaded by aliens and they’d probably take Felix away, and I was just wondering if there was anything I should pack for him. Would he use his toothbrush in another galaxy? It was hard enough to get him to use it in this one.

  It was either aliens or Miranda had forgotten her key.

  I pulled on my housecoat and went running down the stairs. The hallway was awash in red and blue light and there were a few whoops of a police siren.

  This gave me a bit of a fright.

  There was a police officer at the door and then I thought Miranda was dead and I would have to raise Felix by myself. She had died without cleaning the bathroom as she had promised or paying this month’s rent.

  But she was not dead.

  She was on her knees in the snow bank, and an officer had her by the elbow, trying to get her up the front steps.

  Your father home? the officer asked. I did not bother to explain about my father and/or lack thereof to the police officer. He tried to look behind me.

  We found your mother on the corner of Prescott and Duckworth Street directing traffic with a salad fork, the police officer says.

  I was not directing traffic, Miranda yells. I was conducting the Aeolian harp.

  (Miranda believes that there are rocks on Signal Hill that make a natural harp. When the wind blows through a crack in the rocks, and when it’s coming from the northeast, you can hear a gentle moaning that sounds like a woman’s voice. Miranda claims when you hear it good things will happen. It’s an omen, but a happy one. It means fortune, true love and creativity.)

  I guessed that maybe helping me write the incantations for the love-potion labels had given her a taste for the occult.

  Miranda grabbed the doorframe with both hands, shaking the cop off her elbow.

  She eyed the staircase like it was a writhing serpent she was going to have to tame. Then she flung herself forward and landed face down on the stairs. She began to climb the steps on her hands and knees. Her tiara fell off and rolled on its side down a few steps and she caught it with her foot and jammed it back on her head.

  That’s her thinking cap, I said to the cop.

  So, no dad? the cop asked. Just you?

  And me, Felix said. He had just shown up at the top of the stairs in his Batman pajamas, his hair mussed to one side. He was clinging to the newel post.

  And my little brother, I confirm.

  Is he armed and dangerous? the cop asked. I glanced back at Felix.

  That’s just a Super Soaker. I don’t think it’s loaded.

  One thing that’s not loaded, the cop said. Better get her to drink some water. She talked about you in the car. Kept saying something about a magic potion? Said she’s really proud of you?

  After the cop left I got Miranda a glass of water but she was already snoring. Felix was asleep again, his arms and legs wrapped around his water gun which I gently pried from his grip.

  As I was falling asleep I heard the engine of a motorcycle ripping up Long’s Hil
l. Tyrone? That would mean that the Snow Queen finally had her other nostril.

  Who knew what would happen, now that she could breathe properly.

  I let the morning light in despite Miranda’s protests. She is going to have to wake up. She has a blog post to write about when to tell your kids there is no Santa. Because, unfortunately, there is no Santa. And there won’t be any presents for Felix if she doesn’t find a way to “monetize” that website of hers soon.

  I sit down on the edge of Miranda’s bed and pry the hand mirror out of her grip.

  So, how was the date? I ask. I mean, before the martinis kicked in. How was ol’ Hank now that he’s divorced the surfing lawyer? Did he recognize the error of his ways? Was he down on bended knee begging forgiveness?

  Hank, my mother spat. Oh, Flan, they were awful. Hank was awful. His friends were awful. All they talked about was money. I mean all they talked about was money. It was all they talked about. There was that plastic surgeon, two doctors, a dentist, two lawyers, and the wives. Some of whom were CEOs of this or that.

  So, you mean conceptual art didn’t come up?

  They talked about real estate. They talked about flipping houses like they were pancakes. Flipping houses and mega-barbecues and lawnmowers you sit on. What has happened to Hank? Oh, and get this. They don’t call him Hank. They call him Henry. Before we went into the restaurant he actually warned me, “By the way, I’m Henry now.” I still didn’t even know who they were talking about for the first half of the evening. Apparently he’s going to be making a fortune, had offers from three firms in town. He wanted me to know how successful he’d become.

  But after the restaurant? Did you and Hank talk?

  Did we talk? Henry and I did not talk, Flannery. I found a back door to the restaurant and wandered out into an alley. I had to escape. I was so drunk I could barely see. I mean, it seemed like there were three roads instead of one. Every person who passed me in the street was staggering all over the sidewalk, and they had three heads. It was alarming. Thank God I heard the Aeolian harp. It sang me home.

  Actually, a police officer brought you home, Miranda, I say.

  Really? says Miranda. She sits up on one elbow, and gives her long curly hair a toss.

  Was he cute?

  A few days later I’m in the school library after classes and I happen upon a computer screen that someone’s left open and I do a double take. I see it’s Miranda’s blog. I want to throw my coat over the monitor until I can get the page shut down.

  Someone is reading Miranda’s blog? I look over my shoulder and then I slide into the chair and start reading. I haven’t really been paying much attention to Miranda’s blog lately.

  When I’m done I’m flushed with rage.

  Magnificent Mothering with Miranda

  A sixteen-year-old girl with a broken heart is reckless. Those of you who have daughters in love, listen up! How vulnerable our young women are, with their too-long limbs, their new curvy bodies, and their too-big hearts.

  Don’t let those tulip-tender faces and those beautiful hazel-green eyes so full of trust fool you into thinking they are gentle girls. Our daughters feel desire as big as the universe and they are willing to do what it takes to get what they want.

  They are changelings now, and they are growing away from us and they have to do that. They must.

  They have to rebel and they have to love and they will probably get on the backs of motorcycles and smoke pot and drink too much and generally put themselves in danger, just as we did when we were sixteen, just as some of us are still doing, and we have to be vigilant and we have to watch out and we have to know what’s going on and we have to hold our daughters close. But we also have to let them make mistakes. We have to let them put their hearts of glass out there on the sidewalk. Little glass hearts just waiting to be smashed. We have to trust that they will be okay. They are out there making magic, every single day, and they will find love.

  28

  I fling the front door open and I am about to yell my head off at Miranda.

  Hazel-green eyes? Motorcycle rides? Making magic?

  That is so obviously me, and it’s up there for everybody to see. It’s up there in cyberspace forever. I plan to go straight to the basement to get the ice pick and slam it right through the computer. I’ll show her tulip-tender! What does that even mean?

  But then I smell chocolate. Miranda is in the kitchen stirring something on the stove. I can tell, even from the front porch, that Miranda is in a very happy mood. She’s got the Canadian opera singer Measha Brueggergosman playing on the iPod and she’s lip-syncing, half-dancing while she stirs, jabbing the mixing spoon in the air to punctuate the beat, then leading the invisible orchestra, splattering melted chocolate all over the windowpanes.

  I drop my schoolbag on top of the shoes and that’s when I see the gold spray-painted army boots.

  Tyrone O’Rourke is in the kitchen. What is Tyrone O’Rourke doing in my kitchen?

  Guess who’s here? trills Miranda. She thinks I will be happy.

  I am not happy. I am stunned that he would dare to show up here.

  Okay, let me back up a bit.

  Yesterday I ran into Tyrone O’Rourke with Dave McGrath and Sebastian Rowe and Jordan Murphy in the mall. They were giggling and their eyes were very bloodshot and they were loping through the aisle of mirrors at Sears, gently banging into each other and finding this extremely funny.

  All I could think about was Tyrone kissing me. I felt my face getting red. Seeing him coming up the aisle I could feel that kiss again, almost as if it was really happening right there amid the small appliances and ironing boards and the mirror aisle of Sears in the Avalon Mall.

  Hey, said Tyrone, and he patted my back. How are you, Flannery?

  I was terrified he was going to mention the kissing. Or not mention it. Or do it again. Did the kissing mean anything? Had he just kissed me out of pity, or curiosity, or mockery? Or did he understand now that our fates were intertwined for life?

  All of this passed through my brain in a matter of milliseconds. Okay, we bumped into each other by accident. But there he was. And there I was! And we had kissed. By a waterfall. And he had shown me a very personal piece of art. A piece of art he had not revealed to anyone else in the whole world.

  I was holding a bottle of floor cleaner. It was neon lemon, the kind with the picture of the bald guy who has an earring. It suddenly seemed like the floor cleaner was the strangest object in the world and unbearably heavy. How had it got into my hand?

  I remembered what it was like when Felix was three, and I used to piggyback him. When he finally got down off my back, I would feel as though I was going to float to the ceiling. Standing in the aisle with Tyrone and his friends, I felt hot and floaty.

  I thought about Tyrone’s lips and how he’d tasted like the dope he had been smoking and there had been the smell of fresh falling snow. The tip of his tongue touching mine.

  I was suddenly overcome with the idea that if I spoke I would tell Tyrone O’Rourke that I was in love with him.

  I wanted to say absolutely anything at all that wasn’t I love you Tyrone O’Rourke. I wanted to say, Can I do your math homework for you? Can I wash your floor with this yellow stuff? Can I help you graffiti all of downtown? Can I shine the chrome on your motorcycle? Can I kiss you again, right here, right now, in front of your goofy ultra-stoned friends?

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

  Tyrone patted me on the back again, several hard little slaps.

  Okay, kid, he said. See you in the food court in a little while. We got to check out some music.

  Food court, I said. Okay. Food court. Gotcha.

  I ordered a plate of fries in the food court and got two little fluted cups of ketchup and sat down with my bag of yellow stuff and that’s when I saw Amber and Gary Bowen and the other guys from Gary’s band and their girlfriends. They were several tables over. They were laughing and talking and Amber was blowing the paper
sheath from her drinking straw up into the air. Gary was trying to steal her fries and she was pretending to keep them away from him.

  I know she saw me sitting by myself.

  Tyrone came up behind me and slammed his lanky body into the swivel chair next to mine. He let it sway back and forth. Dave and Sebastian dropped into the two other chairs. They go to Gonzaga and I only know them a bit.

  I didn’t look over to see if Amber was watching, but I could feel her eyes.

  Ha! You’re not the only one with a boyfriend, Amber Mackey.

  This is the life of a girlfriend, I thought. You’re at the mall and the boys fill up the seats all around you and you’re like one of the guys, except you’re something better. You’re a girl with all the guys around you.

  I was sure everyone in the food court could see how popular I was. Even dipping my French fry in the ketchup was done just so: dip, dip, dip. Every gesture I made, every giggle and sigh, was utterly false. I was acting so that Amber could see how I was totally cool simply enjoying my French fries with the boys.

  But suddenly the three boys looked like they had suffered an electric shock. They sat bolt upright and then they jumped up all at once and took off in three different directions, running. I mean, one minute they were there at the table loafing around, joking, laughing, and the next minute they had flown out of their chairs.

  They were knocking into people, making them drop their bags. Sebastian actually stumbled over a woman in a wheelchair. Their abandoned swivel chairs swinging left and right with mad whines and squeaks.

  Tyrone was galloping down the escalator, weaving through the people who were just standing still on the steps. When he got near the bottom he actually leapt over the rail.

  That’s when the security guard showed up at the table. He had a moustache and he was as pale as an uncooked cod fillet. His arms were crossed over his chest.

  He asked me to come with him. He put his hand on my arm and hoisted me right out of my chair.

  Hey!

  With his other hand he pressed a button on a radio speaker attached to his shirt and it crackled with replies and two other security guards came running over to my table.