by Carrie Mac
Zoe pretended she was a Mrs. Potato Head with a red plastic lipstick grin stuck in her mouth hole.
It was a few minutes before Alice opened the door. Zoe’s smile was slipping, but Alice didn’t notice. She barely opened the door before whipping back up the stairs, two at a time. “Lock up behind you. I’ve got to get back to the pancakes.”
She left Zoe alone on the landing, still trying to force a hello out of her Mrs. Potato Head grin.
Cassy tackled the stairs on all fours ahead of Zoe. Zoe forced herself to follow her up. All conversation stopped when they reached the top of the stairs. A handful of raggedy adults sat around one end of the long dining table, working on a jigsaw puzzle with pieces no bigger than nickels. Another half dozen residents were out on the deck, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee, checking her out through the windows. Three kids were lying on their bellies in front of the TV, two brown-skinned boys and a little girl in a long flannel nightie, all of them wearing the same knitted slippers each kid got in their Welcome Bag, along with a stuffed bear and a toothbrush.
“Zoe?” Alice’s voice carried from the kitchen. “That’s Anita, Raleigh’s her little girl. Carl, Ed, Josephine—those are her boys over there, Ricky and Dominic—Cleo, and you met Donelle last week, right?”
Donelle rubbed her hands together. “Bring that delicious baby over here so I can get a bite out of her.” She held out her arms. Cassy toddled over so eagerly she almost toppled over a soccer ball in her path.
Zoe was completely stuck. Her mouth was open, but she made no sound. It was as if she was being quietly suffocated by the memory of the night before.
“Yoo-hoo.” Donelle waved Cassy’s hand. “You gonna join us or you gonna stand there and wait for a fancy invitation?”
Zoe ignored Donelle and focused on forcing herself to move. She managed to corner Alice in the kitchen. “I need to talk to you.”
“Not when I’m at work, babe.”
“It’s really important.”
“Then I’m sure it’ll still be really important when I get off in an hour.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but nothing.” Alice pulled a tray of pancakes out of the oven and added two more off the griddle. “This is my job, Zoe. I’m here for the residents. You’ve got me all to yourself most of the time. This is just not one of those times, okay?”
“But—”
“Not now.” She glared at Zoe. A worker came in with a tray of dirty dishes and set it on the counter. Alice smiled her boss smile at him.
“If I don’t tell you now,” Zoe whispered, “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to later.”
“That is emotional blackmail, Zoe.” Ah, another one of her tapes. A series she’d started listening to since they’d moved. Emotional Blackmail—What Is It and Do You Do It? Emotional Blackmail at Work—The Invisible Tiger. Parenting and Emotional Blackmail—How To Parent Effectively Without Emotionally Blackmailing Your Children. It occurred to Zoe to ask, right then, if Alice really listened to those stupid tapes or if she just wrote down little sound bites that made her sound like she did.
“I will not hear this right now,” Alice whispered harshly. “Is that understood?”
If she hadn’t have been carrying the pancakes, she would’ve been wagging a finger at Zoe, something she was trying to do less lately, because one of her tapes said it was antagonizing and unhelpful.
Cleo held up her empty plate. “If those flapjacks were here on this thing I’d be able to eat them a whole lot easier.”
“We’ll discuss this later, Zoe. Keep an eye on the pancakes for me.” Alice set the tray on the table and stood back with her hands on her hips and a great big as-fake-as-they-come smile on her face. “Chow time, people!”
Donelle glanced over at Zoe and said something Zoe couldn’t quite hear, although she knew she heard her name. Alice threw her head back and laughed. Zoe half expected her mother to swat the air with an oven-mitted hand and gush, “Oh, aren’t you just a peach!” Instead, Alice leaned over and said something back to the woman and everyone at the table laughed. Zoe stared out the front window at the cold rain, which was falling harder. She wished she were out in it, getting drenched to the bone, rather than suffer this.
The pancakes! Zoe turned to the stove just as the smoke alarm went off. The laughing stopped. Alice ran over and moved the griddle. Carl grabbed a tea towel and waved it under the alarm until it stopped. They all stared at Zoe, even the kids, the cartoon blaring behind them, ignored.
“What the hell are you doing over there?” Ed said. “All you got to do is flip the goddamn things.”
“Let’s watch our language around the children.” Alice enunciated each word crisply. “Zoe Michelle Anderson, I do not know what has gotten into you. Go down to the office and wait for me there. And don’t touch anything.”
“You almost burnt down the goddamn house, Zoe Michelle Anderson.” One of the boys pointed at her with a plastic boomerang held like a gun. “Pow! You’re dead, stupid.”
“Sorry about the pancakes,” Zoe mumbled.
Alice pointed to the stairs. “Just go.”
Zoe took a deep breath. She went to take Cassy with her, but Alice shook her head.
“She’s fine up here with us.”
“Yeah.” Donelle cuddled her tight. “She’s no trouble.”
No trouble. Zoe imagined Alice cutting primly into her pancake as she left the room. “Zoe, on the other hand...” Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, and all of them laughing.
Which was ironic, Zoe knew. Alice was always going on to her friends about how good Zoe was, how she never got up to anything. She told perfect strangers that she was mother to the most well-adjusted teenager she’d ever met, like that made Alice some kind of parenting success. “Aren’t I lucky?” she’d say, although what she meant was “Aren’t I a great parent?” “I don’t have to worry about a thing. Zoe’s more like a little sister, really. I can’t imagine her ever needing anything.”
When Zoe heard Alice say things like that, it made it really hard to ask for help. When she was a latchkey kid in elementary school Alice told her to never, ever call her at work when she was home alone after school unless it was a matter of life or death. So Zoe didn’t, not even when she wiped out on her roller skates on the cement floor in the basement and broke her arm. She’d waited until Alice got home; then on the way to the hospital Alice gave her the royal what-for for not calling her at work.
“But it wasn’t a matter of life or death!”
“Come on, you’re smarter than that,” Alice said as they pulled into Emergency. “And don’t go telling them you did this two hours ago, or I’ll have to get Allan to babysit you after school. You want that?”
Ucky Allan Bates who adjusted his crotch way more than necessary? No, thank you. Zoe kept her mouth shut as the doctor set and plastered her arm. She didn’t even cry.
“She did it just now,” Alice told the doctor, more than once.
“Just now?” He shone his light in Zoe’s eyes again.
Zoe looked away. “Just now,” she mumbled.
“Hmm.” He swung the light so the beam shone in Alice’s face for a moment. “Just now, huh?”
By the time Alice came downstairs with Cassy toddling behind her, clutching a pancake in one hand and her dinosaur cup in the other, Zoe had decided not to tell her about Jazz. Not then anyway. Not yet. Probably and most likely not ever. In fact, she might not tell her mother another thing, ever, period. She was definitely and absolutely glad that she hadn’t told her about the scar.
“Now, Zoe.” Alice sat in the other swivel chair and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “Let’s take a few minutes so you can tell me what’s going on for you, okay?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Didn’t sound like nothing upstairs. You might feel better if you get it off your chest. I’m here for you.”
Alice was using her work language on her. Zoe hated that. She started counting the little holes in the c
eiling tiles, anything to avoid setting her eyes on her mother’s holier-than-thou, I-feel-your-pain look. “I figured it out for myself.”
“There, now, you see?” Alice sat back and crossed her arms. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You didn’t need me after all.”
On the way home from the shelter, Alice stopped at the grocery store, leaving Cassy and Zoe in the car while she dashed in.
She was gone a lot longer than a dash. When Cassy started to howl after a while, Zoe let her howl. She sat scrunched up in the front seat feeling deliriously sorry for herself. When Alice finally came back an hour later she was furious that Cassy was covered in snot and tears and was gasping for breath, she was crying so hard.
“Why didn’t you comfort her?” Alice scooped her out of the car seat and cuddled her. “Hey, baby girl. It’s okay.”
“What took you so long?”
“I ran into Wish,” Mom said. “You could’ve come and found me, you know. You’re not helpless.”
When they got home the red light on the answering machine was blinking. Alice pushed play, and Janika’s gravelly voice filled the room. Zoe pushed past her and hit the erase button.
“Someone sure has their shirt in a knot.” Alice frowned.
“Someone is feeling ill.” Zoe stomped up the stairs. “Someone would appreciate it if you told anyone who calls that someone is sick.”
Zoe slept all afternoon, a miserable sheet-twisting sleep that didn’t feel restful at all. When she woke, it had stopped raining. She felt guilty enough about letting Cassy cry in the car that she took her over to the playground as an apology. April was there with Lewis, and Shadow too, of course. They’d built up a bank with holes along one side of the wet sandbox. Lewis was very carefully parking a car in each little cave.
“Hey,” Zoe said.
“Hey.” April took a handful of cars from a plastic tub and lined them up for Lewis to park.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” She lined them up by color. Reds first, blues, then blacks.
“Well, I just—” Zoe looked away. “I just wanted to say thanks. For looking after Cassy last night.”
April shrugged.
“You were so asleep when I got home, I figured why wake you.” Zoe nodded for no particular reason. “I thought you might wake up. But you didn’t.” Zoe nodded again. “You’re not talking to me?”
“It’s supposed to be the other way around, last time I checked.” April eyed Zoe, and then glanced down the path. “So what, the Beckoner’s are around the corner, waiting for some kind of signal?” She gave Zoe the finger. “How about that? Is that what they’re waiting for?”
“I’m all alone. I swear.”
“Uh-huh.” April started collecting the cars. “That sounds familiar.”
“Hey! Stop it.” Lewis grabbed a car out of her hand.
“Put the cars away, Lewis.”
“No!”
“Put the cars in the tub! We’re going.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Lewis dropped to his knees and doubled over, clutching the cars to his stomach.
“I’m not going and you can’t make me!”
“It’s okay, Lewis.” Zoe took Cassy’s hand. “You stay. We’ll leave.”
“Fine.” April folded her arms.
Zoe tried to pick up Cassy, but she was not about to cooperate. She arched her back and screamed, hitting Zoe in the face with her sandy fists. April watched for a second, and then wordlessly lifted Cassy from Zoe’s arms. Cassy rested her head on April’s shoulder. She sniffled and glared at Zoe.
“Never mind,” April said. “You don’t have to leave. I wasn’t sure if you were really alone, that’s all. I thought it was a trap. I just thought that maybe after last night you and the Beckoners—”
“Don’t worry.” Zoe pulled her jacket under her bum and sat on the damp edge of the sandbox. “I’m done with the Beckoners.”
“Done?”
“Sick of them. Finished. Done.”
“Done, huh?” April set Cassy down beside Lewis, who had resumed his parking project. “How’d you manage that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t just walk away from the Beckoners.”
“Well,” Zoe shrugged. “That’s what I did.”
“You might think you did.”
“I did. I’m finished with them.”
April laughed. “But they’re not finished with you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, we will, won’t we?” It was bizarre, the two of them using “we” like that, like they were in something together, other than Mrs. Henley’s Private Club for the Bright and Bullied.
April moved the line of cars forward, beeping and putt-putting for Lewis. Zoe considered telling her about the party, but the couple of times she opened her mouth to start, whatever she had to say fell out onto the wet sand and flopped there like a dying fish.
Zoe watched them play; Cassy driving a red fire engine up and down the edge of the sandbox, Lewis parking his cars, April handing out the cars like she was God of Small Four-Wheeled Things. In the moment, Zoe wished she were Cassy and the only thing on her mind was keeping all her wheels on the ground. Shadow stood and stretched. He came over and rested his grizzled chin on Zoe’s knee. He smelled sour and old and wet. Zoe stared into his cloudy brown eyes, feeling her weight leaving her in a trickle, until she was thin air, hovering above everything, watching from a safe, untouchable place.
magic words
There were three other high schools in Abbotsford. On the Monday morning after the party, Zoe tried to convince Alice to drive her to the one furthest away from Central and sign her up as a transfer.
“What the hell for?”
“I just don’t like this one.”
“You’re not in trouble, are you?”
Zoe shook her head.
“Zoe, I don’t have time for this crap.” Alice fought with Cassy’s zipper. “Central’s practically out the front door. You are not transferring. No way.”
“I could take the bus.”
“You could, but you won’t, because you’re staying put and that’s that.” Alice steered Cassy towards the door. “And if I hear you’re skipping, you’ll be sorry.”
So Zoe hid in the Art room until well after the first bell rang, and then she walked very slowly to English. Mrs. Henley wasn’t there yet. Neither was Beck or Lindsay or Jazz or April. Zoe had just about decided, with indescribable relief, that Beck was skipping, but then in she straggled, wearing sunglasses and nursing a bottle of water. Lindsay and Jazz followed her.
“That is the last time I drink that much.” Beck sunk into her seat. “I feel like shit.”
“You always say that,” Lindsay said. “The trick is to stick to one kind of drink. That’s what I do, and I’m fine.”
Lindsay did not look fine. She looked pasty and bloated. Jazz looked the worst by far, though. She seemed smaller to Zoe, like she’d shrunk three inches and lost ten pounds since Saturday night. Jazz folded herself into her seat, legs tucked under her, hands clasped in her lap. Zoe tried to catch her eye across the aisle, but Jazz just stared at her hands.
“Where did you disappear to anyway?” Beck looked over her sunglasses at Zoe. “Did you seduce some unsuspecting film student from the college?”
“I got sick,” Zoe replied, eyes fixed on Jazz.
“Yeah, I heard you put on quite the puke show on the patio.”
Zoe willed Jazz to look up and give her some kind of sign that what Zoe had seen wasn’t what she thought she’d seen.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” Beck looked at Jazz too. “She went home early too, or so Janika and Lindsay say. I don’t really remember much. Janika said she was looking for you everywhere. Why didn’t you tell us when you left?”
“I didn’t want to wreck the party.”
“It would have been impossi
ble to wreck that party. It was the best.” Beck stopped talking as April came into the room. She smiled at Zoe as she headed to her seat. Zoe smiled back.
“What are you looking at?” Beck stuck her leg out, blocking April’s way. “Got a problem, bitch?” April ducked her eyes to the floor and shook her head. “Say the magic words and I might let you pass.”
April shook her head. She backed up and started down the next aisle, but Beck swiveled in her seat and blocked her that way too.
“Let me go,” April whispered.
“Those are not the magic words. Neither is woof-woof, bow-wow or arf-arf. I know those are your favorites.”
April glanced up at Zoe.
“Don’t look at her. She doesn’t have the answer.” Beck nudged April’s white pants with her boot, leaving a nasty dirty streak down her calf. “Look at me, bitch.”
“Please,” April mumbled. “Please?”
“That’s not it either.”
“Pretty please?”
“Try again.”
April stared at the pile of books she gripped in her arms. Her notebook was on the top. “Just let me go?”
“Dog doesn’t know the magic words, class.” Beck raised her voice. “Can anyone help her remember them?”
“Yes, teacher,” Lindsay piped up in kindergarten falsetto. “I can.” She stood behind April.
“Repeat after me...” Beck stood too, sandwiching April between them. “Dog. Smells. Like. Shit.”
April shook her head.
“Say it.” Lindsay smacked the back of her head.
“Beck,” Zoe said. “Leave her alone.”
“Stay out of this, Zoe.”
Lindsay smacked April again, harder.
Zoe winced. “Don’t hit her, Lindsay.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Zoe.”
“Come on, Beck.” She put her hand on Beck’s arm. “Tell Lindsay not to hit her.”
“All she has to do is say the magic words and I’ll let her pass.” Beck was nearly nose to nose with April, her glitter gloss lips just inches away from April’s lips haloed with too much Chapstick. “Isn’t that right, Dog? You know how this works. This is one of Dog’s best tricks, isn’t it?”
