Everyone applauds as I walk across the lawn, still eager to win my favour. Except, of course, the protestors, who continue to chant and boo from the police cordon at the edge of the great lawn. I’m led to a podium and I give a boring two-minute pre-written speech (Kaseema is taking no chances) about how excellent all of their proposals are, and how overwhelmed I feel by the array of choices in front of me.
After I sit down, a string quartet starts playing and the grand banquet begins. I make it through three courses of stilted conversation with the few city councillors that I’m sat beside (the mayor didn’t come to lead me in the first dance of the ball, which is another tradition I’m fine with breaking) before I excuse myself. I head over to the park building with the bathrooms, and see a woman going into the ladies’ room. I hesitate a moment outside the doors, then follow her inside. Her eyes widen as she sees me in the mirror, then she seals herself into a stall. I pick one at the other end, leaving a two-stall buffer between us.
When I exit my stall, the other woman is still in hers. I take a while washing my hands to see if she’ll come out and acknowledge me. I half-expect her to emerge, eager for this one-on-one opportunity to convince me of her cause. But she stays put, afraid to face me. Or maybe she just doesn’t have a lot of fibre in her diet.
I spend a few minutes standing beside the sink as the air dryer coughs gently on my hands. I’m just about to wipe them down on my pants when the door opens and Odessa Steps enters. She’s wearing a full regalia Royal Canadian Air Force uniform and her heels click.
“Hey!” I say. “Thank god you’re here. Where have you been all day?”
Odessa shrugs. She seems distracted.
“I was taking some self-portraits for a performance piece. I’m going to print them on little circles of paper—you know, the kind you get from a hole punch—and scatter them across the city from Top of the Stalk. Sander will know which day of the year is the windiest.”
“I wish you would’ve been here,” I say. “You could’ve made things less boring.”
“I have my own stuff to do, you know. I can’t always just be standing in the wings cheering you on.”
Her tone is frosty. Of course she’s feeling a little neglected. She’s used to being the star.
“I’m sorry if I’ve sidelined you,” I say. “Anyways, I’m glad you could make it.”
Odessa starts washing her hands thoroughly.
“It seems like a fun event. I haven’t been to a masquerade since I was in Venice. I met this guy who brought me to an underground Vivaldi party, where everyone was dressed as one of the four seasons. He gave me flowers to put in my hair and I was Summer.”
“That sounds incredible,” I sigh, imagining Odessa covered in a thousand pigeons in St. Mark’s Square. “Hands clean enough?”
Odessa’s still scrubbing energetically. She reddens a little then turns off the taps, avoiding my gaze in the mirror.
“Did you decide on a project for the year?” she asks.
“Not yet. Any ideas?”
“Oh I’m overflowing with ideas, of course. And why pick just one? That’s the whole problem.”
She doesn’t even bother to try the air dryer, preferring to wipe her hands on her trousers. She pulls out her own bright red carnival mask and I help her tie it on.
We make our way back to the ball, where we find that the tables are being cleared away. When the dancefloor is clear, Odessa offers me her hand and steers me across the lawn. It’s fun surrendering to the suggestions of her touch—sometimes firm, mostly gentle. After a while I spot Sander sitting at a table with Kaseema and make my way over to them.
“…but why is it such a big secret?” Sander is saying. “It only makes me revere the Melting Queen even more. If people knew about the Intrusions—”
“River!” exclaims Kaseema. She turns immediately to Sander. “Could you get me another drink?”
“Of course!” says Sander, eyes agleam. He gets up from his chair. “Gin and tonic?”
Kaseema lifts her empty glass agreeably. As soon as Sander’s gone she leans in.
“Your friend is very knowledgeable,” she says. “But it’s kind of exhausting.”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” I say, and we share a smile. Kaseema’s the best.
A figure plunks down in the seat beside mine, wearing a frayed black cocktail dress and no mask at all, although her makeup is caked on dramatically—blue and white stripes shooting back from the corners of her eyes, to match the streaks in her sleek black hair.
“I don’t like your friend.”
Magpie cradles a champagne flute and glares through the throng at Odessa, who’s smoking a cigarette by the riverboat’s prow.
“She thinks she’s so eccentric and interesting but she’s totally fake. I caught her in a lie about having read The Second Sex. All style and no substance. Trying to be everything to everyone. She’s a liar.”
“That’s worth a lot, coming from you.”
“Trust me, she’s a bad person. The kind of person who pretends to be an alcoholic because she thinks it’s glamorous. Or pretends to have depression because she thinks it’s romantic.”
I don’t say anything, but I’m grudgingly impressed by Magpie’s perceptiveness. Odessa has done both of those things.
“Excuse me,” says Kaseema, looking at Magpie with a surprising amount of distaste on her face, “but we’re having a private conversation and—”
“So what did I miss?” says Sander, settling on Kaseema’s other side and sliding a drink in front of her. “It’s something to do with the Intrusions, isn’t it? No? Give me a hint.”
Magpie looks at the two of them with total disinterest and stands.
“Come on, River. I need to talk to you.”
“It seems everyone does.”
Kaseema looks at me for a moment like she’s going to beg me to take her with us, but then she turns dutifully back to Sander as Magpie pulls me away.
“You really are stalking me, aren’t you?” I ask as we go around the perimeter of the dancing lawn.
“I thought you’d miss me,” she says.
“Considering you left me unconscious in a public park, I don’t see how you could’ve thought that for a minute.”
“I didn’t know what was happening and it freaked me out,” she shrugs. “You’re looking much better, I might add.”
“Are you trying to flatter me? Because it’s not working.”
“Well, I had to try.”
She leads me over towards the riverbank, where a crumbling stone promenade looks out on the waters. We walk along the broken flagstones, beneath bare branches.
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
Magpie leans against the stone balustrade that looks down over the river.
“Oh nothing really. I just thought you wanted to get away from your little entourage, so I provided an excuse. Look, the ice is all gone. Wait. Is there someone down there? There is! Look! Someone is skipping stones on the river.”
I come up beside her and place a hand on the stone railing. I look down at the trees beside the riverbank, rustling in an evening breeze. I feel a spark of panic arc through me like chain lightning. I look at Magpie. She raises her eyebrows.
“You gonna pass out on me again?”
“I swear this is all your fault. It happens most often when you’re around. You’re a witch, aren’t you?”
A wave of dizziness washes over me, an undertow pulling me away from my own body. And then I blink, and everything has changed.
The old man sits beneath a display case with a leafy green dress in it. A gentle mist rains down on the gown, supposedly keeping it fresh after all these decades. Even from here I can tell that those leaves are fake. Nothing could’ve survived for ninety years.
“Now, Mrs. Pass-qua-most-toast,” says Kastevoros Birch, a holy-shit expression on his face after all those syllables.
“Paskwamostos. Ms.”
“Is that Greek?”
says one of the identical old white men beside Birch. “It sounds Greek.”
“Cree.”
“Well it’s all Greek to me,” he says. All the other men and women laugh along with him. They all have uncomplicated names like McDougall and Ritchie and Oliver.
“It says here that you’re recently divorced,” says Birch. The others cluck their tongues, sigh in regret.
“I am.”
Birch takes another piece of paper out from his big file. I don’t know why they even bothered calling me here. They know everything already. They’ve already made up their minds.
“Why did your husband file for divorce?”
Birch taps his pen against the paper.
“Doesn’t it say right there in that file?”
“It says that he was the one who initiated your separation. But not why he wanted to divorce you. So? What did you do?”
I meet his stare.
“That’s personal.”
Birch sighs, and a woman beside him takes up the interrogation.
“We need a stable, gentle Melting Queen,” she says. “After your predecessor’s war on religion, we need a true, compassionate mother to knit our city back together again. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m afraid she may have Named you as one last act of defiance against us. Normally the Melting Queen respects our input. But respect is something that Oswin Thompson knows nothing about.”
“All she did was convince the government not to fund Catholic schools anymore. Seems fair to me. We don’t fund any other religious schools.”
“That’s not the point,” says another man down the table. “Did you go to a Catholic school?”
“Yes.”
“See, well, then you understand. This is a matter of conscience. Of religious freedom. We should be free to choose where our children go to school. Not have some activist Melting Queen make that choice for us.”
“My parents weren’t given a choice,” I say.
The fifteen white people in front of me seem both ashamed and irritated. As if I’m being rude by bringing it up.
“Yes. Well. We all know that’s very tragic,” says Birch. “But we can’t rewrite the past, can we? All we can do is make a better future together. And having a strong Melting Queen is crucial, especially considering recent events. The Great Tornado killed dozens. Then Mr. Gretzky abandoned us. Now Mrs. Thompson has torn our city apart with this issue. Spirits are low. The Melting Queen has her work cut out for her.”
“I have an idea,” I say. “I know what we can do to make things better.”
“Traditionally, the Melting Queen chooses her project from the petitions at the Melting Queen’s Picnic,” says Birch.
“I don’t need to do that. I know exactly what I want to do. We need to build a fountain. A beautiful, giant fountain. A gathering place where people can come. Soak their feet. Be at peace.”
The ECHO people look at me like I’m nuts. Birch turns to another page in his file.
“We’ll discuss your project later,” he says. “There are more important things to worry about.” He circles something with his pen, then looks at me over the top of his glasses.
“You have no children.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The same reason I have no husband,” I say. “None of your goddamn business.”
A willowy woman at the end of the table blinks in shock.
“But you can have children, correct? I don’t mean to be indelicate, but you are capable of having children, aren’t you?”
I look from old white face to old white face. They can’t think I’m that stupid.
“Why are you asking me all these goddamn questions? If you already know, then why are you wasting my goddamn time?”
“Mrs. Paskwamostos—”
“No. I can’t have children. Not since I was eleven. Not since they called me a moron and cut out my ovaries. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
The ECHO people are utterly silent. Birch’s face is grey.
“This is a disaster,” he says. “This will not stand.”
The old man’s eyes are swimming with tears, as if he’s heartbroken that he has to tell me I’m unfit to wear the crown. Of course all his identical cronies are looking so sad, so upset. We’re sorry. We’re sorry that you can’t have kids. We’re sorry that they did this to you. But most of all we’re sorry that you’re ugly, and dumb, and dirty. We’re so sorry. Everyone’s sorry. What a sorry life you’ve had.
“We’re sorry,” says another old woman, cracking under the pressure of silence. She’s thin as a sheet of loose leaf. I could crumple her into a ball and throw her away with one hand. But she’s sitting behind a desk. She’s got a pen and a stack of important papers. No touching her.
“It really isn’t your fault,” says an old man with well-manicured fingers. “We see that.”
“But Oswin Thompson pulled a horrible prank on you,” says Birch. “There’s no reason for you to be burdened with this responsibility. If only you could—”
His lips keep moving but suddenly everything is silent. I speak but I can’t hear myself. I look out the window and I see snow on the ground, then flowers blooming, then leaves falling from the trees.
“River.”
A face hovers over mine, some girl with black and blue hair and crazy makeup. She wears a thin necklace with a little gold cage dangling from it. Inside its bars, an evil black stone stares out at me.
“I didn’t leave this time. I think I should get some points for that.”
She sniffs and rubs her nose with the back of her hand.
“Who are you?” I ask.
She raises her eyebrows.
“I’m River Runson,” she says.
“No,” I frown, coming back to myself. “I’m River Runson. You’re René Royaume. You’re Magpie.”
“Well, it was worth a shot,” she says with a shrug.
I sit up and Magpie passes me a chipped mug filled with cold tea.
“Where are we?”
We’re in a nondescript spare bedroom. Paint-by-numbers prairie landscapes cover the walls. The bedspread I’m lying on looks knitted by hand. Everything is clean but impersonal.
“We’re at Clodagh’s house,” says Magpie. “She was the one skipping stones, down on the riverbank. We carried you to her car after you passed out. She explained what was happening and it seemed like the best thing to do. Kidnapping’s not normally my thing, but you are a queen. There’s probably a good ransom in it.”
“Who?”
“Clodagh Pasta-something. Nice lady. Big. Said she was the Melting Queen once. Do you think you can get up? Clodagh’s cooking us a midnight snack.”
My stomach gurgles and Magpie cackles. I get up off the bed, follow her down the hallway to the kitchen. The decor reminds me of Odessa’s house—everything is old and well cared for, although here there are no expensive trinkets from around the world.
The kitchen has an avocado-green refrigerator and Formica countertops. A mountain of a woman stands at the stove. She glances up as I walk in.
“You.”
The depressed travel agent who taped up my boots grunts in recognition. She turns over a slice of bacon and it sizzles in the pan.
“Sit down,” she says.
I go to the kitchen table with Magpie.
“I used your postcards,” I say to the travel agent. “I made them into a dress on Melting Day.”
“It was pretty awesome,” says Magpie.
“I’m glad you used them for something,” says the travel agent. Two slices of toast pop up and she fishes them out of the toaster with a fork.
“Well I know your name,” she says, “but you don’t know mine.”
“Clodagh,” I say. “Clodagh Paskwamostos. Melting Queen 88. 1991.”
She cuts a tomato and doesn’t look at me.
“What did you see?” she asks.
“The ECHO people were trying to convince me to step aside. Convince y
ou, I mean.”
Clodagh comes over to the table. She sets down our sandwiches, pours us fresh mugs of tea and sits down at the end, her chair creaking.
“I always really wanted bacon every time I had an Intrusion. No idea why. Just a craving.”
We set to work on our bacon and tomato sandwiches, which are crunchy and salty and immensely satisfying. I wait for Clodagh to say something, but she just chews. I glance at Magpie, who’s using a diabetic test strip to check her blood sugar level.
“You wanted to build a fountain,” I say, remembering the Intrusion in bits and pieces as the memory is absorbed into mine.
“Yes,” says Clodagh self-consciously, eating her sandwich, not meeting my eyes.
“But they didn’t let you.”
Her face is faded and haggard and paunchy. I can tell that she’s become good at guarding it, at holding her muscles in one configuration so nobody can know what she’s feeling. But I can see by the bunching-up of the wrinkles around her eyes that she’s crestfallen. I’ve dredged something up.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, and sip my bitter tea. She served it black, without any milk or sugar. I take another crunchy bite of my sandwich.
Clodagh clears her throat and takes a long gulp of her own tea.
“I was sterilized when I was eleven,” she says. “I was Cree and Irish. A half-breed. A mongrel. Mixed race, I guess I’m supposed to say now. They didn’t approve of mixed races then. Plus I was officially declared a moron. Too stupid to reproduce. I would’ve contaminated the gene pool.”
She uses the crust of her bread to wipe up the bacon grease on her plate.
“I wanted to build a fountain,” she says. “But then these fancy young lawyers came to me. They wanted to make a name for themselves, launch a class-action lawsuit against the government for the Alberta Eugenics Board. The province sterilized almost three thousand people, you know. People like me. Certified morons.”
The Melting Queen Page 13
