Under the Dusty Moon

by Suzanne Sutherland

  “Yeah,” she said, “I am. Seeing crowds like this makes me miss him a lot. I wish he was here to see this.”

  But I didn’t want the answer I was looking for once I had it. Mom looked a bit misty and faraway over her webcam, but maybe that was just the exhaustion.

  And then the screen froze up. It was a sad sort of freeze-frame that almost made me feel sorry for her, stuck and lonesome, even though she was the one out having adventures.

  “Mom,” I said, “you’re cutting out. You’re frozen. I can’t hear you.”

  The screen stayed stuck a minute or two longer and then the call was cut off.

  I tried redialling her, but it wouldn’t let me connect again. It was hard to know what to think of Mom’s news. It was great that things were going so well, but it was weird, too. I was too young to remember it back when Dusty Moon was famous, so I’ve never really known my mom as a big rock star. Was that what she was turning into again?

  I went downstairs, still in my pajamas — a giant thrift-store T-shirt with a picture of a cat on the beach and a pair of blue plaid boxers — fully anticipating that Gran would have already left for the day. However it was she spent her days, I had no clue. She was mostly retired, but always seemed to be on her way to a meeting or a conference or something. Or maybe she was just trying to avoid me. In any case, it was pretty surprising to see her actually puttering around the kitchen like she was a normal grandmother who was busy doing something incredibly typical. Like making me a birthday cake?

  “You’re finally up,” she said, as I came into the kitchen.

  “Morning,” I said. “I was just video-chatting with Mom. You know, for my —”

  “Yes,” Gran interrupted, “how is she? She’s barely able to make time for a phone call.”

  “Yeah, you know. I mean, she’s busy,” I said. “She’s really busy. She’s in, uh, Kyoto, I think she said? Sounds like the tour’s going really well. People are really getting into the music.”

  “I’d hope they would if she’s going to fly all that way to play it for them.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, nodding as I scanned the kitchen counter for a present, or even a card, that I might have missed. Maybe I just hadn’t given her the right opening to wish me a happy birthday? “So …”

  “So,” Gran said, “what are your plans for the day?”

  “Well …” I paused, sure she’d catch herself. But then the pause went on for too long and I felt like a moron. “I mean … it’s my birthday.”

  “Of course it is,” she said. “You didn’t think I could forget that, did you?”

  “Oh,” I said, stalling further, waiting for an uncharacteristic hug or even some impersonal present like a GAP gift card.

  “Yes,” she said, touching my arm. “Happy birthday. You’re how old now?”

  “Seventeen,” I said, slumping my shoulders. Gran took her hand away. There was no hug here. No gift card. Probably not even a stupid birthday card.

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “You’re growing up. And I’d be happy to make you a birthday dinner here tonight if you’d like. You could invite a friend.”

  And it wasn’t like I was some spoiled reality-TV-show brat, but Gran’s pathetic offer to heat up some frozen fish for me and one friend — Lucy was still babysitting in Richmond Hill, and there was no way she’d even let Shaun into the house — was the total opposite of how I’d pictured my birthday.

  “No thanks,” I said, “I’ve got other plans.”

  I was shocked to see Gran look disappointed that I’d turned down her offer. The corners of her mouth fell, but she nodded her head.

  “Fine,” she said. “So where are you planning to have dinner tonight?”

  “My friend Lucy invited me,” I heard myself say, “for a sleepover.”

  “And it’s all right with her parents?”

  “Yeah, Gran, it’s fine,” I said. “It’s, like, a birthday sleepover. We did one for Lucy’s birthday too, back in February.”

  “And your mother knows about this?”

  God, I was going to get caught in a lie for sure. Fortunately, Mom was probably already off doing shots and singing karaoke with the leech, and there was no way Gran could get ahold of her before tonight, tomorrow morning her-time.

  “Yeah,” I said, “it’s fine. We do it a lot. It’s no big deal.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But be back early tomorrow. I don’t want you to overstay your welcome.”

  “Fine, whatever,” I said, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter — which sat next to the bowl of wax fruit, Gran seriously had no idea how to decorate — and went back up to the spare room. I threw some stuff into my bag, and then headed for the door, texting Shaun before I’d even reached the end of the block.

  I’m coming over. OK?

  By the time I’d hit the bank so that I actually had subway fare to get back downtown, Shaun had replied.

  My parents are going out tonight. Come over after 8. They’ll be home late.

  I was bummed that he didn’t want to spend the day together. Eight o’clock felt like it was days away, but his message sent a shock through my body and I broke out in all-over goosebumps. This was it. This was what I wanted. I was going over to Shaun’s. I’d convince him to let me stay over — something told me that it wouldn’t be too hard — and we’d, well, do it. That was what Shaun did with girls, he’d been with enough of them. And I wanted to. With him.

  It was totally fine. It made sense. I really liked him and it was my birthday.

  My seventeenth birthday.

  My seventeenth freaking birthday with my mom on the other side of the world, and Lucy stuck in the suburbs babysitting while I was being babysat by Gran, who didn’t even give enough of a crap about my special day to buy me a grocery-store birthday cake with pink frosting.

  Yup, this is it, I told myself as I pushed through the turnstile at the subway station. I’m going to sleep with Shaun. No, not “sleep with” — how old was I, Mom’s age? — I was going to have sex with Shaun. For sure. I mean, he was practically my boyfriend now anyway.

  God, I thought, as I boarded the train. Was he my boyfriend? It was kind of hard to tell. We’d hung out a few times, and we’d made out a whole bunch, sure, but was he my boyfriend? Then I had a worse thought: was he hanging out, and making out, with other girls, too? It was at least a possibility, and the thought of it made my stomach squeeze itself tight like it was trying to turn the sad banana I’d had for breakfast into a diamond.

  I decided to head to the Eaton Centre downtown, and in between the people-watching and the consolation birthday shopping I did — including some new underwear that I immediately changed into in the mall’s food court bathroom — I managed to keep myself distracted, even if it was a pretty pathetic way to spend the day.

  I parked myself near the fountain in the middle of the mall for almost an hour and drew weird little left-handed portraits of the people around me in a new sketchbook I’d decided was a birthday necessity. Once I gave in to how childish my left-hand drawing was, it was actually kind of fun to see how distorted my portraits came out — how grotesque they made the pretty people around me look. And for once it didn’t feel like I was doing it wrong, or that my art wasn’t good enough — I was just enjoying drawing. For the first time, I realized, in a while.

  When I got tired of the mall, I crossed Dundas Square and went to the movie theatre across the street. I’d never gone to a movie by myself before, but I figured that I didn’t have much choice since I still had a few hours to kill before I could head over to Shaun’s place. I got a ticket to Pure Joy, a horror movie Shaun was obsessed with about a summer camp run by a cult, and bought myself a giant bag of popcorn, a bucket of Coke, and a pack of Junior Mints. I figured that if no one else was going to buy me a birthday dinner that I’d just have to be my own date.

  The movie was freaky but so good, and my popcorn/Junior Mint/Coke dinner was about the best meal I’d ever eaten, mostly because I was so
hungry. When the credits finally rolled, and I dug my nails out of the armrests, I checked my phone and realized that it was close to eight. Time to head over to Shaun’s.

  I walked down to Queen to catch the streetcar and grabbed a single seat by the window. My nerves, which I thought I’d managed to completely exorcise with my day of distraction, came back in full force as I watched Queen Street whip by. As we got closer to Lansdowne Avenue, Shaun’s stop, I was convinced that I’d somehow pissed myself, I was sweating so hard — everywhere, but especially between my legs. Who knew that you could even sweat there? I was mortified, and made a note to make sure that I cleaned myself up in Shaun’s bathroom before letting him get close.

  The thing was that I really liked Shaun. I did. He was gentle with me. He was sweet, when he wasn’t making fun of me for being a lightweight. He asked me questions and laughed at my jokes and was for sure the only guy I knew who regularly wore sunscreen.

  You invited yourself over, I thought to myself as we cruised along a lot faster than I would have liked. You invited yourself over, so he’s going to think that you want to have sex with him. That you’re ready.

  Are you ready? I asked myself as I rang the dinger and got off the streetcar.

  Are you ready?

  I had absolutely no idea.

  Eleven

  I walked as slowly as I could, but still, a few minutes later I wound up at Shaun’s door. I’d been there once before. When he and I were in the same drama group at school we’d rehearsed our one-act play at his place. It was me, Alexis, this girl Allison who acted like she was too good for everything, Shaun, and a stoner friend of his, Sammy, who was so perma-baked that he couldn’t even open his eyes all the way. We’d done a modern retelling of Alice in Wonderland, where Alice goes a party and gets roofied. It didn’t make a ton of sense, which I guess is what happens when five people try to write a play all together.

  I recognized the Christmas wreath that looked like Santa’s head hanging on the door. The wreath had been appropriate enough when we’d met to practise our play back in December, but now it seemed more than a little unseasonal, even though someone had taken the care to stick a little pink cocktail umbrella into Santa’s beard. I stared at that tiny umbrella, willing my heart to slow to less than a million beats per minute before I knocked on the door.

  When I finally realized just how long I’d been standing there, I rang the bell. A minute later, a little boy, about nine or ten, answered the door. He had to be Shaun’s brother, with matching red hair and freckles he looked almost exactly like a mini-Shaun, minus the shaved head.

  “Shaun’s upstairs,” he said, opening the door just enough for me to squeeze my way inside.

  “Cool. Thanks,” I said, bending down to unzip my four-years-old knee-high gladiator sandals. They’d belonged to one of Mom’s friends originally, who paid too much for them when they were first in style. They’d only been handed down to me once they’d been worn practically to death, but I figured there was a decent chance the style would come back in again eventually since it seems like nostalgia is the new black these days. Besides, they still looked kind of sophisticated and cool, even if they were on their last legs. Or, at least they would have, if the zipper hadn’t gotten stuck halfway down.

  The right sandal came off, no problem, but I was midway down my calf when the zipper refused to budge any further on the left.

  No biggie, I thought, zipping downward with slightly more force, and wishing I had two good hands to work with. Nothing. I tried to press the zipper tight at the top with my cast and tugged even harder down with my right hand, but still the stupid thing wouldn’t move. I started to panic and tugged the zip tab up, hoping to unstick it, but the flimsy piece of metal broke off in my hand. I shoved the little tab into the pocket of my shorts — cutoffs that were, I only noticed then, riding up on my thighs. I quickly adjusted them, hoping that mini-Shaun wasn’t looking, and then started trying to jiggle my foot free of its sandal prison.

  Why the hell had I worn these things today? They only made my calves look bigger, I realized now. In them, I was practically a mutant. And the straps seemed to tighten around me the more I tried to shake them loose. Which I realized was totally impossible, but didn’t stop the vision I had of having to amputate my foot just to get me out of these stupid sandals.

  “You down there, V?” Shaun called down a minute later when I still hadn’t gone upstairs to meet him.

  “Yeah,” I said, with more than a hint of anxiety in my voice. “Just, uh, my, uh … just give me a minute.”

  Mini-Shaun finally looked up from the couch where he was parked to stare at me. “I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” he said.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said, as a bead of sweat rolled from my forehead down to my chin. “Can you —?” I asked, pointing to my foot.

  “What?” his eyes were back on the screen. I only realized now that he had a PlayStation controller in his hands.

  I’d reached peak embarrassment with my horrible hand-me-down gladiators and didn’t care anymore about trying to play it cool. “Could you come here and pull this thing off my foot?”

  “Fine,” he said, not at all fazed by the request. He paused his game and lumbered over to me, his feet landing heavy on the shiny hardwood floors as he dragged himself over like a bear who’d been shot with a tranquilizer dart.

  “Thanks,” I said, sitting down on the floor and stretching out my foot. “Just pull.”

  “This thing’s like a prison for feet,” he said, eyeing the dozen or so straps running up my leg.

  “Yeah, exactly,” I said. “So, on three, all right?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Okay,” I said. “One, two …”

  Shaun appeared at the landing looking down just as I called out “three.” He was halfway to saying something like “What?” or “Huh?” when mini-Shaun wrenched the sandal prison from my foot. The leather straps dragged across my skin, leaving bright-red chafe tracks behind them.

  “Ow!” I tried to stop myself from crying out, but the sound was out of my mouth before I’d even realized what was happening.

  “Whoa,” Shaun said. He’d somehow made it down the stairs in the time it took his brother to pull the offending footwear off of me. “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said in a tiny, squeaky voice, “no problem. Thanks, uh …”

  “Miles,” Shaun said, nodding at his brother, who’d already reclaimed his spot on the couch. “That looks like it hurts. Your foot, I mean.”

  “Nah. It’s cool, really,” I said, even as the red scrape marks on my foot throbbed even brighter.

  “Let me get you, like, something medicinal.” He smiled and walked back toward what I assumed was the kitchen.

  I wondered if I should follow him or if that would make me look too clingy. I decided to hang back. I’d just barely recovered from the sandal incident, I reasoned, and needed a second to relax just to keep from bursting out in stress-hives. I walked halfway and then paused to check out what game Miles was playing. It was an RPG I didn’t recognize.

  “Mind if I watch?” I asked, sitting down on the arm of the couch where he’d stationed himself.

  “Whatever,” Miles said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

  “Hey,” Shaun called, “do you like gin? It’s, like, all my parents have.”

  I’d never had gin. It seemed kind of like an old-lady drink, but I definitely wasn’t going to say no. I was glad I’d finally weaned myself off my painkillers since I could still hear Mom’s lecture about my night with Lord Windermere in my head.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, “sure, that’s cool. Oh, I almost forgot, I saw Pure Joy!”

  “Oh man,” Shaun said, popping his head out into the living room. “Did you love it? It’s so good.”

  “Oh my god, yeah,” I said. “So freaky. It was awesome.”

  “Totally,” Shaun said, ducking back into the kitchen.

  I looked back at Mile
s’s game.

  “What are you playing?” I asked.

  “Dragonfury Infinite,” Miles said, and I realized I’d heard of the game before.

  “Oh yeah, cool. That’s an Archford game, right?” I said, naming the same developer that made Lore of Ages.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, his eyes never leaving the screen. If that trivia had scored me any points with him, he wasn’t showing it.

  Shaun came back into the living room with two drinks in his hands. “Gin and juice,” he said, handing me what looked like a tall glass of OJ.

  “Now remember, Miles. It was, like, the gin goblins that took it, okay?”

  I laughed, but then I started looking around the living room. The whole place was stacked with old books that were practically falling all over each other. It’d been tidier the last time I’d been here, but I liked the mess better. The whole place had a scatterbrained-professor vibe to it now, and it relaxed me.

  “You want to take these upstairs?” Shaun asked, elbowing me gently in the side.

  “Sure,” I said, “sounds good.”

  Shaun ruffled his brother’s hair. “Our secret, right?”

  “Whatever,” Miles said, turning his full attention back to the game.

  “All right,” Shaun said, gesturing toward the stairs. “Let’s go. Oh, maybe you should take your sandals with you, you know? I’ll, uh, grab your drink.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, forgetting for a moment that I was supposed to be an invisible visitor.

  I grabbed my busted gladiators and followed him up, staring at the back of his head and his shirt as he climbed the stairs. His hair was growing in again, a little fuzzy crop of orange that stood out all around his head. He was wearing some goofy shirt from a bait and tackle shop in Florida. The back had a giant marlin wearing sunglasses with the tagline MASTER BAIT (& TACKLE). He’d cut the arms off and his biceps and the back of his neck were speckled with freckles and sweat.

  The house was definitely warm, it was one of those old Toronto houses that didn’t have air-conditioning. It made me feel a little less bad about the fact that our tiny apartment is always such a sweat box.