Escape Velocity

by Robin Stevenson

  “Don’t start skipping classes, Lou. Education is important. I dropped out after grade ten, and look at me.”

  “You did all right.”

  He snorts. “You can do better. You got your mother’s brains.”

  I don’t agree. I don’t think I got anything at all from my mother. “So you had the surgery?”

  “I did,” he says.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Medicated,” he says, laughing.

  “Right.” I don’t think it’s funny, and I guess he can hear that in my voice, because he stops laughing abruptly.

  “Don’t worry. I’m good as new. Well, maybe not quite yet. But I will be.”

  “Okay.” I wrap my arms around my knees and hug them close. “I miss you.”

  “Miss you too,” he says. “How’s things going with you and Zoe? Better?”

  “Yeah,” I say, because I know that’s what he wants to hear. “It’s fine.”

  I decide to take advantage of Zoe being out to sneak the file back into the cabinet. I flip through it one last time, trying to commit every word and image to memory. I can’t figure out how the photograph of the family fits in. If the oldest girl is Zoe, then who are the adults and who are the younger children? I guess they could be cousins, aunts, uncles…what other family might I have that I don’t even know about? And what right does Zoe have to keep them secret from me?

  Finally, I close the file and carry it out to the living room. I slip it back into the cabinet, my ears straining for the sound of footsteps in the hall outside, my heart thumping and palms sweating. I wonder what Zoe would do if she caught me. She’d be furious, I know that. But there is a small part of me that is disappointed as I return the key to the drawer. If she caught me, at least there would be no more secrets between us.

  At four thirty, Zoe still isn’t home, so I decide to make dinner. I put on a pot of rice, chop up broccoli and peppers and mushrooms, and stir-fry them with some soy sauce and sesame oil. Zoe’s shining steel fridge and stove and gleaming countertops remind me of the cooking shows Dad and I used to watch on TV.

  Zoe walks in as I’m tossing the vegetables into the wok.

  “Well,” she says. “Aren’t you domestic?”

  It’s clearly not a compliment. “I thought you might like some dinner when you got home.” Her words from last summer echo in my head: ingratiating, trying to impress. “Anyway, I was hungry,” I say. “So I figured I might as well.” I gesture at the wok with the wooden spoon.

  “I’m going out for dinner,” she says. “I’ll be late. I’ve got a reading at the library tonight.”

  “Can I come?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m going there straight from the restaurant. And I’m going out for drinks afterward. With Simon.”

  “I could take a bus.”

  “I don’t know, Lou.”

  “Why not? What’s the big deal?” I stir the vegetables.

  The broccoli is starting to wilt, but the red pepper is still crunchy; I guess I should have sliced it thinner. “I already know where the library is.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  I turn off the burner. “What is the point then?”

  She shakes her head. “Why do you always have to argue?”

  “Why do you always have to push me away?” Tears sting my eyes and threaten to spill over. I do not want my mother to see me cry. Deliberately, but without letting myself think about what I am doing, I let my right hand bump the edge of the wok. “Ow!” I grab my hand. A raised white line appears almost immediately, tracing a curve across the pad of flesh at the base of my thumb.

  “Put it under cold water,” Zoe instructs, turning on the tap.

  I hold my hand in the stream, and the pain disappears almost immediately. Neither of us says anything for a minute. Finally Zoe sighs. “Are you okay?”

  I don’t know if she is asking about my hand or responding to what I said. “I guess so.”

  She leans on the counter. “It isn’t easy becoming a mother to someone who’s already halfway grown up. I know I’m not always very good at it.” She plays with her necklace, fingering the silver chain at her throat. “I don’t mean to push you away.”

  It was your choice not to see me until I was twelve. I turn the water off and study my hand. “I don’t think it’s going to blister.”

  Zoe doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then her cool fingers touch my wrist lightly. “It doesn’t look too bad.”

  I pull my hand away and wonder if she doesn’t want me to come tonight because she’s with Simon. Maybe having a teenage daughter tagging along would cramp her style. Maybe being a mom isn’t part of the image.

  And then another thought occurs to me: maybe Heather will show up again. Maybe that is why my mother wants to keep me away. In which case, I can lie as well as she can. “I guess I’ll do some homework,” I say slowly. “Can I use your computer to check my email?”

  She nods. “Of course. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy since you arrived. I don’t want you to feel unwelcome.”

  “It’s okay. I mean, I know it wasn’t your choice, having me here. So, you know, I don’t expect you to… to rearrange your life around me.” As I speak, I realize that I have chosen the same words that she said to me the day I arrived, and I can see by the way she winces that she recognizes them too.

  “I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you here,” she says. “There’s just a lot going on, with the new book coming out and everything. I’m used to living alone.” She shrugs. “It gets to be a habit, being alone. I’m probably not as flexible as I should be. I find that having certain routines, having my own space, seems to help me maintain a sense of balance. You know?”

  I don’t really, but I nod anyway. “Um, are you sure you don’t want any of this?” I find a plate for myself and scoop rice and veggies onto it.

  She shakes her head. “I’d better go change.”

  I sit down with my food, no longer hungry, and try to figure out a way to go to the reading without my mother knowing.

  Seventeen

  When Zoe reappears, she is cool and distant, her surface as smooth and unruffled as ever. It is as if our conversation never happened. “I’ll probably be late,” she says. She’s wearing a short black skirt with tall leather boots, and silver hoops swing from her ears. I can smell her perfume: musk, and maybe roses too. Zoe isn’t the type to care about other people’s allergies or sensitivities.

  “Whatever,” I say, choosing the word deliberately. Why shouldn’t I sound adolescent?

  After Zoe leaves, I turn on her computer and find the library’s event listings. My mother is scheduled to read at 7:30 PM. Two hours from now. I need a plan.

  I pick up the phone and dial Justine’s cell number. She doesn’t sound surprised to hear from me. “I have a problem,” I tell her. “Well, an opportunity maybe.” I explain about my mother’s reading and my theory about why she doesn’t want me there.

  “So you want to go to look for Heather but you don’t want your mom to see you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Huh. Too bad Halloween is still a few weeks away.

  You could go in costume.”

  “Ha ha.” Actually I had thought about disguising myself somehow, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it without looking ridiculous and drawing even more attention to myself.

  “What if I met you there?” Justine says. “And you stayed outside somewhere? If you told me what Heather looked like and I saw her, maybe I could get her to come outside and talk to you.”

  “That could work,” I say slowly. “You’d do that? I mean, you don’t have to.”

  “I don’t mind. I’m sort of hooked into this whole story about your mom and her mom.”

  “It’s not a story, Justine.”

  She makes a frustrated little sound, like she is taking back what she said. Negating it. I can picture her shaking her head as she speaks. “Mm, mm, mm. I know that. Sorry if that sounded bad.”


  “Nah, it’s okay, I know what you mean. I feel like that too. Like it’s going to make me crazy if I can’t figure this out. Fit all these pieces together, you know?”

  “So we’re going to do this then? Tonight?”

  “Yeah. Junior detectives. Bring your binoculars.”

  Justine laughs. “Seriously?”

  “No, Nancy Drew,” I say. “Kidding.”

  At seven o’clock, I get off the bus and walk quickly to the coffee shop near the library, where I have arranged to meet Justine. It’s dark and a cold wind is funneling down the street, blowing plastic bags and dead leaves along the gutter. I keep looking around nervously, scared that my mother will drive by and see me. My hood is pulled up, and I keep my face down, eyes on the sidewalk, shoulders hunched inside my too-thin jacket.

  I open the door to the coffee shop and a blast of warm air greets me. Justine is already there, sitting in a corner.

  She lifts one hand and waggles her fingers at me. I try to grin, but my stomach is in knots. What if my mother comes in to grab a coffee before her reading?

  “How’d you feel about just walking around?” I ask her.

  She wrinkles her nose. “I’m just starting to thaw out.”

  “If my mother sees me…”

  “I’ll say I called you and you came out to help me with some school stuff.”

  “And it just happens to be near the library?”

  “Please. It’s a library, not crack house. So what—she suspects you of sneaking in extra study time?”

  I laugh reluctantly. “I guess.”

  “She doesn’t know you’re trying to find Heather, right?”

  “God, no. She’d put me on the first flight back to Alberta.” My stomach twists, and to my surprise, I realize I don’t want to go back. I mean, I want to see my dad and all that, but I don’t want to leave Victoria yet. I need to figure this out, this stuff about me and my mother. More than that though: the thought of returning to Drumheller fills me with an awful despair. Stuck in that hot smoky house with Dad drugging himself into oblivion and those red hills full of ancient bones and that crushing blue sky…

  “What is it?” Justine asks, her eyes narrowing as she watches my face.

  I shake my head, not answering. I like Justine a lot, but I’m not good at explaining things. Out of practice maybe. It’s funny that I have made a friend after only a few days in Victoria, when I had none at all after a year in Drumheller. Except Dana Leigh, I guess. I glance at my watch. “Twenty-five minutes until the reading starts. You should probably get there a few minutes early. Get a good seat, like near the back or at the end of a row, so you can get out if you see her.”

  “Tell me what Heather looks like.”

  “Short,” I say. I hold my hand at my chin. “About this tall. And really skinny. Frail-skinny, you know? And long hair, down her back. Blond, but there’s lots of gray in it too. When I saw her before, she was wearing a long skirt and sort of a scarf or maybe a shawl? Something kind of fringy around her shoulders anyway. She had a big backpack with her, and a bag too. She looks…” I shrug. “Eccentric, I guess. You’d notice her.”

  “Are you going to stay here? Shall I bring her here if I find her?”

  I nod. “If she’ll come, yeah.”

  She stands up and buttons up the front of her voluminous black duffel coat. “Wish me luck then.”

  Watching her go, I think about Dana Leigh’s words: Don’t go looking for trouble. Life’s hard enough without stirring up hornets’ nests. Cold fingers on the back of my neck, a shudder deep inside. I wonder if we are making a mistake, if I am doing something I will regret. But I watch Justine walk out the door and past the glass window, and I say nothing.

  Waiting is agony. I chew my nails until they are ragged edges lining crescents of raw pink skin. I order two hot chocolates, one after another, and the combination of sugar and caffeine makes me shaky and nauseous. Time stretches and slows to a trickle. Every hour or so I look at my watch and discover that only five minutes have passed.

  I feel like pacing, but I don’t want to look like a crazy person, so I force myself to sit still even though my bones are aching to crawl right out of my skin. I figure that even if Heather shows up, Justine might not get a chance to talk to her until after the reading. I pick at my hangnail until it is bleeding; then I push it against a beige paper napkin, over and over, making a pattern of little bloody prints.

  I wonder which section of Escape Velocity my mother is reading and hope she doesn’t read one of Alice’s parts. I feel sort of sick when I think about Justine listening to those words and knowing that messed-up Alice is somehow based on me. Or on my mother’s imagined version of me anyway. I wish I never told Justine about that. It’s awful enough that my own mother sees me that way. I don’t really want anyone else to know about it.

  A group of girls comes in and sit at the table beside mine. One of them is the girl I met at the drop-in center, the one with the snake-bite piercings, but she looks right past me without a flicker of recognition, so I just slosh the dregs of my hot chocolate around in the bottom of my mug and say nothing.

  Every time the door opens, my heart speeds up and my hands start to sweat. An older couple; a mom with two boys, their hair buzzed army-short; another group of teens. I look at my watch again. 8:45 PM. My hopes seesaw wildly. I can’t decide if finding Heather gets more or less likely the longer I wait. If Heather wasn’t there, surely Justine wouldn’t bother staying for the whole reading. On the other hand, if Heather is there, what is taking them so long?

  I try to read a newspaper someone has left on a table, but I can’t concentrate long enough to get through a single sentence. Finally I give up, lay my head down on my arms and think about what I will say if Heather shows up. Hi, I’m Lou. Your granddaughter. Nice to finally meet you. So what’s the story with you and Zoe anyway?

  Or not.

  The door opens again, and I lift my head and look up as Justine calls my name. She is alone, clutching the folds of her coat closed, standing by the doorway. I walk over to her. “No luck, I guess.”

  “She was there,” Justine says, out of breath. Her cheeks are red, and her words trip over each other. “Come on, quick.”

  I follow her out the door, slipping my arms into the sleeves of my jacket as the cold air fills my lungs. “What happened?”

  She walks in the direction of the library. I follow her, half running to keep up with her long strides. “She slipped out right after the reading, while people were still asking questions. So I followed her out and tried to talk to her.” Justine stops walking and turns to me. In the streetlight, I can see a thin sheen of sweat glistening beneath her eyes. “She wouldn’t come with me. She thought I was messing with her.”

  “Did you tell her I was here? Waiting for her?”

  “Yeah.” Justine hesitates. “She said she doesn’t have any grandchildren.”

  I stare at her. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Lou, she was heading up Blanshard. I don’t know where she’s going but…”

  I break into a jog. “I’m going to try to catch her.” I glance over my shoulder. “I’ll call you, okay?” I run as fast as I can, right past the main entrance to the library, praying my mother won’t walk out and see me, and around the corner onto Blanshard. I dodge a middle-aged couple leaving a restaurant, run past a group of guys my age, and then I see her. She’s a block away, but from behind, even in the dark, I am sure it is her. When I get close, I slow down to a fast walk, not wanting to freak her out. I fall into step beside her.

  “Hi,” I say. “I’m Lou.”

  She looks at me blankly. She is wearing a heavy overcoat, unzipped, over the same long black sweater she was wearing when I saw her before. Her gray-blond hair is tied back in a loose ponytail.

  “Your granddaughter,” I add.

  She shakes her head. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else. I don’t have grandkids.”

  She starts to move away from m
e, and I reach out a hand, touch her arm. She flinches, and I let my hand fall to my side. “You’re Heather, right? My mother is Zoe.”

  She stops walking and stares at me. The blank look is gone, replaced with a sharp focus tinged with suspicion.

  “Zoe? Zoe is your mother?”

  I nod. I feel like the air has all been sucked out of my lungs and I can’t talk. Can’t catch my breath. My back is slick with sweat trickling down my spine and sticking my shirt to my skin.

  Heather starts to laugh, but there’s nothing warm about it. It’s a witch’s cackle, a nicotine wheeze. “Zoe’s daughter. Well, how about that.” She looks past me, over my shoulder. Her gaze is so intent that I turn to see what she is looking at, but there is nothing there except the lights of the movie theater across the street. “You don’t look like her,” she says.

  “She says I look like my dad.” A drop of rain lands on my face, and another, and then within seconds it is pelting down cold and heavy, the kind of rain that soaks you in seconds. I pull my hood over my head and shove my hands into my pockets. Heather doesn’t seem to notice.

  “She told you about me?” Heather turns back to me and narrows her eyes, squinting at me.

  I shake my head. “Not exactly. I saw you at her reading the other night. You were clapping…and I wondered… I wondered who you were.” I hesitate, but I have nothing to lose by asking. “What happened between you and her? How come you don’t see each other?”

  Heather starts walking, and for a second I think she is leaving, but she stops under an awning and shakes a cigarette out of a pack. “Zoe hasn’t told you?”

  I shake my head. “She hasn’t told me anything,” I say, and my voice comes out sounding so bitter than it actually surprises me. “I didn’t even know you existed.”

  “Makes us even. I never knew she had a kid.” Heather lights her cigarette and takes a long drag. “She’s doing all right, though, Zoe. Turned out okay. Always was a smart girl. Pretty too.” She flashes me a grin, and I can’t help noticing that she’s missing a couple of teeth. I picture Zoe’s perfect white smile and wonder how she could possibly let her own mother live like this.