The Clay Girl

by Heather Tucker

  Mrs. Potter smirks at my locked-jaw. Jasper, spit something out, please. “Um . . . recently, Mr. West said, ‘Words have the power to hurt and the power to heal.’ I’m lucky because for every hurting word that has happened my way I’ve received libraries of treasured ones. This one is from my aunts: ‘I’m not dirt. I am clay. And I can make something spectacular out of it.’ And from my teacher: ‘I’m more worth than I am trouble.’ Tuck these words in your pockets, believe them in your hearts because they’re true for every person here. Especially this gem from my Uncle Iggy: ‘When life takes your legs, fly.’”

  After chairs are stacked, backs patted, punch and cupcakes served, Mr. Barrett announces, “In Oakridge tradition, young men of the graduating class find your mothers, and fathers, find your daughters for the first dance.”

  If I never have another thing in my whole life I don’t care. The music of Len’s heart beneath my ear is more beautiful than “What a Wonderful World” playing on our slow turn around the floor. “Enough partying, Papa. Let’s go home. I need you for a long time yet.”

  “Stay for the party. Chase said he would see you home.”

  Seems I spoke too soon about never wanting another thing. I want the twisting and shouting in the coolest dress, with the cutest boy this side of down-home Jake to never end.

  I’m not invited to the after-party at Sharon’s but Rhonda and I get taken to the Red Barn for burgers and shakes, then to the bowling lanes where I throw gutterball after gutterball in ugly rented shoes and the prettiest dress, and it’s maybe the best time I’ve ever had.

  TWENTY-NINE

  A fragment from June’s poems stays with me, What say those lines written on white flesh? Appleton cry, Appleton cry. All the sisters have stories on our arms, spidery threads where we tried to work out the mess inside. That grade seven summer when M&N discovered them on me they drove me to a mucky deposit of clay. We painted our naked bodies like earth spirits and danced like African queens. I asked, “Are you mad at me?”

  Auntie Mary imprinted a soft red hand on my cheek, smiling the kind of smile that looked more a sadness. “The earth is stained with the blood of women.”

  Auntie Nia plopped a great blob of mud on my head. “There’s great kindness in you, sweet girl. Don’t forget kindness to the one we love best. Ease your pain, but gently.”

  After that I never felt much need to add more blood to the earth, just a greater longing to touch it.

  Every week we visit Jillianne at the court-sanctioned treatment facility. Three weeks ago, Jacquie saw the closed books, Jillianne’s empty face, and the fresh cuts on her arm. Jacquie charged straight into the muck and wouldn’t let go until Jillianne spilled that some social worker named Tom was messing with her. By the end of the week Jacquie had wrung the world inside out with lawyers and reporters and investigators. Anyone important got earfuls and dire threats of holocaust proportions if they didn’t get our sister out of that place.

  They moved Jillianne to Springwood. Jacquie brings books. My gift is a batik phoenix to wear and Len’s offering is employment doing handwork.

  She fidgets with the beads. “Is . . . the lady that I . . . is she . . . ?”

  Len takes her hand. “She has recovered.”

  “Could you ask if there’s any way I could write and tell her how sorry I am?”

  “I’ll ask. Even if it can’t be sent, it would be a good thing for you to write.”

  When we are about to leave she asks if Arielle could come for a visit, and the air feels fish-jumping magical.

  Summer of sixty-seven, everyone in Toronto is looking for tie-dye and love beads. Upstairs, Babcia and Iggy turn out fringed bags and belts like horny rabbits. It’s a lucky break when the occupational therapist at Springwood calls to ask if there are more opportunities like Jillianne’s work for some of the other women. An especially lucky break for Len, because he’s done like dinner.

  Chase leashes Zodiac and I nab Len for a double dip at the Maple Leaf Dairy. We walk to the house to pick up the mail. Mum has cleared out her stuff and moved in with Dick Irwin and all the sisters are gone. “Len, don’t you think it’s about time you sold this bruise? June and Jory are likely never coming home. When Jillianne gets out, she can share my room at the store.”

  Chase asks, “What’s with the blue?”

  “When we met, Ari’s mother said she would like it this colour, so I painted it for her.”

  “My dad’s company could sandblast it in a day for cost. It’d sell better.”

  “Arrange it, please. We’ll put it up for sale when we return from our trip.”

  “Just say you’ll never get rid of me.”

  “You, Ari, will always be my corka.”

  Len’s cousins, Sabina and Otto, take over running of the store. Aunt Dolores takes over Granny duty. Jennah promises to visit Jillianne. And we’re off for the month of August. Our minibus is loaded like the Beverly Hillbillies, except instead of a rocking chair we have a wheelchair and instead of a banjo there are two guitars and a concertina.

  Never in my fourteen years on this earth did I know a body could laugh so big. We sing and dance our way through Expo 67, filling passports and bellies. Then, day’s end, from Babcia to baby, we’re baptized in the hotel pool. Once Uncle Iggy plunges into the warm water there’s big trouble getting him out, not because he doesn’t have legs but because it’s the closest thing to flying free he can remember. I sit, legs adangle watching Jacquie on the pool steps sparkling in waterworks from Arielle’s excited handslaps. Franc kisses her cheek, whispering something in her ear and she leans love-happy into his chest. Len splashes up beside me. “Having fun, corka?”

  “Best time ever.”

  “Your friends are good company. Would you prefer Chase go with you to Mary’s? I know a young girl prefers the arm of a young man.”

  Len and I are planning to take the train east while the bus heads back to Toronto. I slip down into the water and link arms with him. “That’s just what I’ll have.”

  “Are you and Chase . . .” He pauses. As he hunts for the word, I steel myself against hearing the word sex come from Len’s mouth. “Are you . . . courting?”

  How to explain what’s going on with this guy and how much I like it? “He’s more of a soul man than a skin guy. He’s looking for a woman to have an existential experience with.”

  “To what?”

  “A meeting of the minds. It kinda works for us.”

  Len absorbs the passing August pictures as we ride the train through Quebec. “So beautiful. I’ve been in Canada over twenty years and this is the first I’ve really seen it.”

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  “Did you see your mother before we left?”

  Does anyone ever see my mother or understand why she spit out a diamond to chew on a hunk of donkey shit? “She came by to see Arielle, shakier than a Parkinson’s ward. Jacquie couldn’t even let her hold the baby. She pocketed twenty bucks from me then turned around and asked Jacquie for more.”

  “You and Jacquie work hard for your money. Don’t give her more to destroy herself with.”

  “The crap gene pool I come from scares the liver out of me.”

  “When I look at you, you are so unlike your mother that I can scarcely believe you are her child. And what I know of your father I despise. But I despise not a single hair of you, so you are far removed from any likeness to him as well.” Len smiles down as he stands. “Babcia says you were created by the fairies and dropped as a surprise, a surprise for me.” He extends his hand. “Lunch?”

  On all my train trips I’ve never sat in the dining car with white china and linen and tea in little pots. A boy sits at the end of the car. These days, I always notice when there’s a boy. He’s a college type with a bit of travel bristle on his tanned face and he’s studying me. My jeans fit tight and my birthday blouse from Babcia
folds like a waterfall. My braid falls past my bum with party spirals coiling around my face and I know for certain if I wanted a kiss I could get one. But lunch on an August train with Len fills me better than a thousand cute boys.

  Having Len at Skyfish brings all my constants together. We walk the shoreline, tasting, touching, smelling, and we return, always, to Skyfish. As Len turns clay on the wheel, Mary’s head tilts, echoing the graceful arc of a pot. “You’re a natural at this, Len.”

  “My heart beats without trying when the clay moves under my hands.”

  I look up to the clatter at the door and the step dance in my chest begins. Jake drops his delivery and reorders his hat-hair. “Ari Appleton, how is it you’re prettier than last summer?” He catches my leap, swinging me full circle. “Coming to the bonfire tonight?”

  “Better get permission from my old man.”

  He sets me down, wipes his hand on his pants, and extends it to Len. Len doesn’t know what to do with the muck on his but Jake helps himself to a shake anyway.

  Mary, Nia, Len, and I saunter through blonde August grass toward a great orange sun that is hurrying off for a swim in the ocean. It hits and in unison the women say, “Ssszzzttt, ahhhh.” Len’s guitar rests on my shoulder and already cells in my body are jumping with the music rising from the shore. An hour in and Len is blended like another Butter into the beach band.

  A half-dozen boys buzz around Sadie. She’s an auburn-haired, green-eyed mermaid and the kind of friend who lets you know you’re worth a trillion boys. Those of the female persuasion have set their compass on Mr. Tupper. A girl has to be prepared for competition when it comes to a fine-bodied fiddler. He looks across the fire to me and it’s hard saying what I see back, like defining what’s reflected in a churned ocean. Gold peppers his sandy hair and questions so load his eyes I can barely tolerate settling in his gaze. His sweetness makes my teeth ache and the salt in him burns my tongue. Music pours out; still, I know desert silences stretch inside. And his face is shadow-light, full sun meeting dark night.

  When Len and Huey settle into some starry lullabies, Jake puts his fiddle down and disappears behind a rock. Annie Crawley follows and I feel a dying just east of my centre. But ocean wind carries his voice back to me. “Jesus, Ann, can’t a man piss in peace?”

  Jasper stretches for a look at what’s taking so long. He’s at the shore washin’ his hands. Here he comes. Here he comes.

  He abandons his fiddle, anchoring himself on the log just over my shoulder, close enough that his fiddle fingers can play a tune on my hair. I sense navigational questions: Move starboard? Turn the boat around? Hold course? Everyone yawns and heads toward home. Auntie Mary tosses a quilt our way. “Put out the fire, safe.”

  I can never tell with the aunties. Bonfire or lust fire? Likely both.

  Jake asks, “You cold?”

  “The ocean’s creeping in. You?”

  “Some.”

  I open the blanket over the log. “You taught me that two bodies wrapped in a blanket produce more than two-hundred watts of heat.” He smiles; sits. I settle between his legs, pulling the blanket and his arms tight around. “My best adventures have always been with you.”

  His cheek settles on my headtop. “What’s the best?”

  “Maybe the puffins on Bird Island.” My face lifts to his. “Or maybe this very minute.”

  I’ve never felt Jake scared of anything, but he swallows down some terror and looks at the fire. “You like Toronto, Ari?”

  “When I’m sixteen I’m coming home.”

  “I know I’m coming on eighteen and you’re just turned fourteen but when you’re ready . . . if you ever wanted . . . I’d be waiting.”

  “You mean it?”

  “Who else could I ever be waiting for?” He must be teasing but I feel an I love you in the way he holds me close.

  I climb into bed between Mary and Nia, holding onto every sweet minute we have. Auntie Mary strokes my hair. “Ari, what if you could come here for high school?”

  I snap up. “Really?”

  “Elsie says you shouldn’t be around that man your mum’s with and Len’s worried she’ll decide you can’t stay with him. We hate to uproot you again but if Len could get guardianship would you want to come here?”

  “I want to come home so bad. Could Len come, too?”

  “He could come and go as much as he pleased. We all just want you settled.”

  Wabi and Cork mine their way up the middle of the bed between us, and I sleep, dreaming of maybe.

  Nia whispers through the early morning grey, “Go get Len.”

  I creep in, gentling his shoulder. “Come, Papa. Be tip-toe quiet.” August’s end has deer thinking about hungry winters and a half dozen of them come for a juicy McIntosh. Nia flashes a picture when a brown-eyed lovely lets Len touch her nose.

  He smiles soft. “Who knew heaven was a train ride away.”

  The mouth-watering smell of cinnamon buns and coffee arrives before Auntie Mary does. The deer know her by heart and don’t startle away. They like Len, too, even aside from the apples on his lap and the corn in his pockets. I hear a treasure before it disappears into the doe’s ear, “After my corka, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I love watching Jake fiddle on stage but this girl wants a dance. All I get is a cheek-peck when he leaves. Last night I asked Auntie Mary if I should love him so much and she said the two of us were like putting clay to the wheel and she thought something spectacular might come of it. She did tell me not to hurry the piece but the wind was in my ears by then.

  Len has turned in and Mary, Nia, and I are finishing up our end of a summer’s lay on Skyfish floor. “Nothing is ever as good as being here.”

  “Maybe we can get you back before school is too far in. Let’s to bed now, there’s a long journey ahead.”

  As Nia pulls the door closed Jake jumps out of Huey’s truck. “Just came back for my fiddle.”

  Mary laughs. “First time that’s ever happened. Pull the door tight behind you.”

  I wait, just to make sure the door is locked. A sad smile tugs on the corner of his mouth. “So, write, okay?”

  A girl can’t make things any plainer than a finger on a button, a wetting of the lips, and an eye wander in his hazel-wood. I tiptoe up to his lips. They’re wind rough and his breath peppermint sweet and he softly takes the want from my lips as I help myself to hope on his.

  On the train back, I tuck under Len’s wing, our reflection caught against the whirring miles. “I often saw the giraffe in you but I had to get you to a place where you could spread your wings to see the other half.”

  “And what did you discover?”

  “Who I inherited my eagle side from.”

  “Your Jake said he would help me if I opened a store.”

  “My Jake?”

  “Imagine a Papa’s joy, releasing his precious seahorse into an ocean of kindness.”

  THIRTY

  Every oppressed eighth grader dares to dream, believes really, that high school will be a better place.

  “You’re trying way too hard.” Jacquie pops off my headband. “Lose the skirt. Wear your jeans, a black tank, and moccasins.” She tames my nervous hair. “Always have a book so you can look like you don’t care if you’re alone. Something mysterious.”

  I rummage through the pile Chase keeps feeding me, picking The Stranger by Camus.

  “Perfect. Now, just drink breakfast. If you hurl you don’t want Froot Loops floating in it.”

  In the back seat of Tyler’s car on the way to school Chase gives me his ring. “How about you and me take this place on?” I slip it on my silver chain because in Toronto he’s my safe harbour.

  The hierarchy begins before entering the building: coolest arrive driving their own coup, next down, a friend with wheels finds you worthy enough to ri
de in their car, next is the bus, then walking by yourself, and near fatal is climbing out of a parental car and having mummy yell, “Sharon, sweetie, you forgot your lunch.”

  Sharon’s looking a little bromidic, wouldn’t you say?

  Positively insipid, Jasper.

  The table situation is the ultimate test. Minor niners are barely allowed entrance to the cafeteria and can only survey the possibilities that lie ahead if they survive. Harvard hopefuls, prefects, jocks, druggies . . . have reserved spots. Then there is the table everyone aspires to: the cool kids, rebels with a cause, say the right thing, wear the right thing. If they play an instrument it’s sax or drums. Their sport is football, the really tough positions like linebacker. They’re on student council to fight for world peace and organic French fries in the cafeteria.

  In a spectacular table-turn I discover that Chase is the emerging king of the school, positioned in the cafeteria to move up the ladder to the supreme cool table.

  Skipping the bottom rungs may not be fair but walking past my former tormenters hand in hand with Chase is a double chocolate sundae, with Ari on top.

  Casualties line the hall, the small, the dorky, the bespectacled limp in tatters; and it’s only second day. Margaret Mink collects her binder and its guts spill across the floor. I gather up flotsam while Chase mops up the jetsam. She mirrors a kitten plucked from the drink. “Chase, this is my friend Margaret. She saved my life last year.”