Best Girl

by Sylvia Warsh

  BEST

  GIRL

  SYLVIA MAULTASH

  WARSH

  Copyright © 2012 Sylvia Maultash Warsh

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Warsh, Sylvia Maultash

  Best girl [electronic resource] / Sylvia Maultash Warsh.

  (Rapid reads)

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-55469-898-1 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-55469-899-8 (EPUB)

  I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads (Online)

  PS8595.A7855B47 2012 C813’.6 C2011-907540-7

  First published in the United States, 2012

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011942469

  Summary: A young aspiring musician’s life is turned upside down when she begins to learn the truth about her long-dead parents. (RL 2.6)

  Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  15 14 13 12 • 4 3 2 1

  For Jerry, as always.

  And for my muses, Nathaniel and Jessica.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  CHAPTER ONE

  My life changed on October 23, 2010. Suddenly I didn’t know who I was. Before the phone call, here’s what I knew: I was adopted. My real parents died in a car crash when I was four. Shelley was the only mother I’ve ever known. As soon as I could understand, she told me I was adopted. Shelley’s husband—I never thought of him as my father—wasn’t home much. When he lost his job, he went out west to work in the oil fields.

  I didn’t have a lot of friends. It was mostly Shelley and me. I always cared too much and didn’t want to get hurt. Because people let you down. People are liars.

  All the time I was growing up, Shelley and I argued. She never saw things my way. Then she could stay mad for days and not speak to me. In the end she’d be all lovey-dovey, as if nothing had happened. When I was a kid, I was always relieved when she started talking again. It was hard living with someone who ignored you. Once I was a teenager, though, I didn’t mind being left alone. When she saw it didn’t bug me, she gave up the silent treatment.

  The best thing she ever did for me was make me take piano lessons. She said her own family was too poor to pay for lessons when she was a kid. Her mother laughed when she asked for them and said she was too stupid to play piano.

  Shelley loved listening to music (mostly bad music). She couldn’t hold a tune. To her, musicians walked on water.

  Where she got the money for the piano I never knew. It’s been there since I can remember. When I was young, I hated practicing. I was always a little rebel. Anything Shelley wanted, I didn’t. So she made me feel guilty. Her usual line—if she could scrounge together the money for lessons, the least I could do was practice. She found a music student a few blocks away who charged less than the going rate, but it was still a lot of money for a hairdresser. She said she had to cut and style two heads of hair to pay for one hour of lessons. Sometimes we ate Kraft Dinner to make up for it.

  So I pouted while practicing my scales, up and down, up and down the keys. Until I realized I was good at it. Then I just pretended to hate it. Shelley didn’t understand why the piano teacher started me on Mozart and Bach. “Doesn’t the teacher know any Billy Joel or Phil Collins?” she’d ask. I’d roll my eyes and say, “She’s teaching me music that doesn’t suck.” I stopped piano lessons when I was fifteen because I got interested in the guitar. My voice wasn’t bad either. But I only sang when Shelley wasn’t home.

  The radio in her hair salon was stuck on the “easy listening” channel, so those old songs were background music while I was growing up. They made me want to hurl. Even going into Shelley’s, the salon she owned on the Danforth, made me want to hurl. It was old and dingy and badly needed a facelift. Her customers were old too. When I was younger, some of them would comment on how I didn’t look anything like Shelley. I took that as an insult because Shelley was hot. Tall and thin with a long neck. Her ears were perfect little shells with earlobes. I was always jealous of her ears because mine were ugly. They were big and flat with thin round edges like clamshells. And no earlobes! She laughed when I complained, and said no one would notice my ears if I wore my hair long.

  I thought Shelley would be happy when I told her I wanted to sing with a band. But she wasn’t. It seemed to make her nervous. And I didn’t even tell her I would be playing guitar, not piano, for accompaniment. She said I needed to make a living, so she taught me to cut hair. I fought at first, but then I started to like it. I had complete control over someone for an hour. They sat in my chair and they couldn’t move. Not if they wanted a really cool haircut. Shelley showed me how to dye hair, and after that I was the only one she trusted to do hers. She liked to change her hair color with the season. I dyed it a streaky blond for the summer.

  Then I pulled the rug out from under her feet. Without telling her, I registered for an apprentice job at a salon in Yorkville where the customers had style. I had to take classes in a hair school for a couple of hours a week too. The boss liked me and printed out some business cards with my name. Shelley was mad, but impressed with the cards and the snazzy address.

  I hadn’t told her ahead of time because I knew it would be a hassle. She’d yell and call me ungrateful. Maybe I was. But I wanted more than Shelley’s salon. She was really mad when I moved out—but hey, I was twenty-three! Now that I was making my own money, I could afford a studio apartment near the subway. I was so out of there. Couldn’t live with her anymore—she was a control freak. Okay, so we both had control issues. Even so, last month I came to her shop on a Sunday to dye her hair mauve-red for the fall (her choice). She was almost fifty but looked good for her age.

  But back to the phone call. A woman named Diane called, asking for Amanda Jane Moss. That was me.

  “You don’t know me,” she said. “I was a friend of your mother’s. She was a good person.”

  “How do you know Shelley?”

  “I mean your real mother.”

  “What?”

  “She asked me to give you something. Can I come by this afternoon?”

  “There’s some mistake. My mother died twenty years ago.”

  “Is your birthday December third, nineteen eighty-six?”

  “How d’you know?”

  “Your mother told me. Her name was Carol Allan. You were born Amanda Allan. You were adopted by Shelley and Stephen Moss. Carol…your mother and I worked togeth
er. We were friends.”

  I was speechless. This was the first time I’d heard my birth mother’s name. Shelley always said the agency wouldn’t tell her who my parents were, only that they had died in a crash.

  Then she said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you—Carol died last week. It was cancer. I’m so sorry.” There was a pause. “Please tell Shelley.”

  In a daze, I gave her my address. Why did my mother give me away? She was alive all this time! It was like a knife in my chest. I could’ve met her.

  It was Monday, so I had the day off. I stewed for half an hour, getting madder and madder. Then I called Shelley.

  “You liar!”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “You lied to me! About my mother.”

  I felt the shock over the phone. I knew her too well. After my father left for the last time, there were just the two of us.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  “You talked to someone…”

  “She was alive all these years and you didn’t want me to meet her.”

  “No, no, that’s not true. You don’t understand…I…I was trying to protect you.”

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “There are some things…better not to know.”

  That was just like her. “I’ll never meet her now.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “She’s dead.”

  A long pause. “It’s better that way.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “Believe me…”

  “I’ll never forgive you.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. Good.

  “I didn’t tell you because—she was evil.”

  I slammed down the phone.

  Diane showed up at my door, a worn-out woman around forty who must have been pretty once. She wore a rain jacket over her jeans and carried a black canvas tote bag in one hand, her purse in the other. Nice hair—kind of a pageboy dyed chestnut. She stared at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Wow, you look just like your mother. When she was young, I mean.”

  I asked her in, nervous and excited both. When she took off her jacket, she was wearing a green scrub tunic. We sat down on my old IKEA sofa, her purse and tote bag between us.

  “Are you a nurse?” I asked.

  Diane smiled and nodded. She said no more about herself, and I didn’t ask.

  I went on to what I really wanted to know. “What was she like?”

  Diane looked away, remembering. “She was strong. Inside, you know? She knew who she was. No bullshit. Pretty though.” She turned to me. “Dark hair and white skin. Blue eyes. Like you.”

  I got a shiver down my back.

  “Here’s some pictures.” Diane took a manila envelope out of the tote bag and handed it to me.

  I peered inside the envelope. My heart jumped. I pulled out a photo.

  A cute young couple with lots of hair smiled at the camera in front of Niagara Falls. She wore a short white dress. He was in a suit. They looked happy.

  “That’s Carol and Freddy on their wedding day,” she said. “They were both twenty-one.”

  Freddy. My father’s name was Freddy!

  I turned the photo over. Someone had written in: September 20, 1985. I was born one year later.

  I took out more photos, staring at the mother I would never meet. It was like looking into my own face. The same wary eyes, the high forehead. Then I was looking into my own face. Me as a baby. Then as a toddler. My mother, a bit older, sitting on a stoop holding me on her knee, both of us smiling like crazy. There was something weirdly familiar about that stoop. Could I really remember it from when I was that young?

  “That’s your dad,” said Diane.

  I picked up a picture of Freddy. His longish hair was pulled back into a ponytail, his head turned a bit so I could see his ear. And there it was! The clamshell ear I hated on me. No earlobe. Only it looked good on him.

  Tears filled my eyes. Embarrassed, I stuck my hand into the envelope again and pulled out something else. A faded flyer: three young guys playing music onstage. The Tranzac Club. The date at the bottom was August 2, 1984.

  “That was Freddy’s band,” said Diane.

  “My father was a musician?” Young and skinny, Freddy played the guitar, looking spaced out on bliss.

  “Vandal Boss. They did okay.”

  “The one with Stu Van Dam?” I asked.

  Vandal Boss was local, and I was interested in bands so I’d heard of them, though they never made the big time. Their claim to fame was Stu Van Dam. I peered more closely at the shot. The lead dude in the middle practically chewed on the microphone. That was Stu. He’d become a star on his own in the nineties with a hit song—they still played it on the radio. Blond. Full of himself. Behind them sat a guy on drums. I was trying to remember what happened to them. They’d dropped off the radar.

  My father had played with a band! I was excited. That’s where I got it from!

  “Where’s Freddy now?” I wanted to meet him!

  Diane looked at me strangely. “You really don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  She hesitated. “I met your mother when I worked in the infirmary. She got sick a few years ago. The chemo helped for a while, but then…I got to know her. She was a kind person. She didn’t do what they said.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Diane squirmed on the sofa and looked away. “It’s hard for me to tell you.”

  I got a bad feeling about what was coming.

  “It was a prison infirmary.”

  “She was in jail?” I gasped in spite of myself. “What did she do?”

  Diane cleared her throat. “She was in for murder.”

  “Murder?”

  Diane stared straight ahead.

  “Who?” But I knew before she said it.

  “They said she killed Freddy. But she didn’t do it.”

  My hand went to my mouth. Maybe Shelley was right. Maybe it was better not to know. I was the kid of a murderer. Tears dripped onto my arm.

  Diane sat on the edge of the sofa, watching me. “This is what Carol told me: Vandal Boss toured around the country. Freddy was always out of town. Groupies followed them wherever they went. They liked Freddy. He was the quiet one. He could’ve had any of them, Carol said. She knew, but she was stuck at home with”— she looked at me—“a baby. They always argued when he came home, she said. One night Carol was asleep when he came back from some gig. She woke up when she heard screaming. She ran downstairs and found him lying inside the front door. A knife in his chest.”

  I was breathless. But I had to think. “She didn’t see anybody?”

  Diane shook her head. “Nobody saw anything. The cops said she planned it, so that made it first-degree murder. She got life.”

  She’d been alive all this time. My brain had to adjust to that idea. “But if she didn’t do it…” I said. “Who did?”

  Diane shrugged. “She was sure it was a jealous boyfriend. She warned Freddy— all his fooling around would catch up with him one day.”

  “She didn’t see anybody outside the house?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did anyone check around to find the guy?”

  “She didn’t have any names. Freddy didn’t talk about his girlfriends. The cops concentrated on her. They said it was almost always the jealous spouse.”

  I hated being negative, but they had a point.

  She must’ve sensed my doubt. “Here.” She lifted the tote bag and held it out to me. “Some of the women prisoners wrote to you. And there’s a notebook. They found it under her mattress when they were cleaning out her cell.”

  I pulled out a lined notebook, the kind kids use in school. Diane watched as I opened it to the first page.

  January 12, 1992

  Hey, Universe, You happy now? Everything I had is gone—the only man I eve
r loved. My little girl. And my freedom. What about the guy who killed Freddy? I’ll bet he’s living in a nice house and driving a fancy car. I see red when I think of him out there. I try to picture what he looks like so I can hate him better, but all I can see is devil horns on his ugly head. I keep going over that last night in my head—me waking up in bed. The scream. Me coming downstairs. Freddy lying in the hall. The knife, the blood…No! I won’t think about that. Who was it? Who took my Freddy from me?

  I felt dazed. My head was going to explode. I couldn’t move when Diane stood up.

  “Here’s my address and phone number if you want to reach me.” She put a slip of paper down on my coffee table.

  I couldn’t get a word out, but somehow she understood and quietly left. I turned the page of the notebook.

  January 19, 1992

  Hey, Universe, All the women here say they’re innocent and that they’re in jail by mistake. I don’t bother to say, Me too. I know no one will believe me. Every night I pray I’ll wake up from the nightmare, and every morning I wake up in this cell.

  January 26, 1992

  Hey, Universe, I dreamt about Mandy again. I can’t stand thinking I’m not there while she’s growing up. She’ll never know me. Or worse, she’ll hear about me and think I killed her father. She’s too young to understand now. And when she’s old enough, she’ll be in the middle of a new life. She’ll have new parents that love her, and the best thing for her is if she never knows I exist. It hurts so much that I’ll never see my little girl again.

  I tried to remember being five. That’s how old I was in 1992 when she wrote the note. My chest felt tight.

  I flipped numbly through the pages in a daze. The letters to the Universe were all variations on the same themes. She missed Freddy. She missed me. She was innocent. She had written once a week for nearly two years. A hundred pages; that was all the notebook had. Her last entry:

  November 19, 1994

  Hey, Universe, No one will ever believe I’m innocent; I have to accept that. I’ll never see little Mandy again, I have to accept that too. I have to move on. I’ll never stop loving Freddy. The only thing I have left of him is his guitar. I keep seeing us when we were teenagers and he taught me the chords. I hold it close to me and I can almost smell him in the wood. The women here like to listen to me play. They say it calms them down. Christmas is coming, and they want me to give a little concert. Maybe a sing-along. They hum the songs when I practice. I’m trying to figure out the chords to some carols. Maybe after Christmas we can put together a choir! Wouldn’t that be rich? I’d be teaching music again.