During the ceremony, Babci behind me speed-recites the entire Mass in Polish, like she said she would. After, I put on my creamy fleece cape that Babci made last night, in case it is cold on my arms, and it is, for October 31 (Halloween was the only available date at the church). I step awkwardly, holding up my swishy gown, into the limousine with Auntie Magda and Uncle Lowell. I want to be the first one to call him that.
They light up cigarettes like they’ve been waiting all day, and sip from a silver flask they’ve stashed in the limo. It’s engraved with their initials: L and M. They offer me some, and I want to, but I suddenly feel like the kid niece and I don’t want to take the chance of dripping on my dress. I tell them about Babci’s private head Mass. Auntie Magda howls. Uncle Lowell drinks some more.
I ask Uncle Lowell if I get to dance with him.
If you want, he says.
Auntie Magda nudges him.
Sure, he says. You pick the dance.
I have my hair done in an up-do. It’s got too much stinky hairspray, but it holds in the wind for pictures. We shiver for plenty of those, with multiple photographers, in the trees by the Legislature after the wedding. By the time we get to the reception, I’m starving.
The beautiful wedding dinner is at the Macdonald Hotel. The decorations are exquisite, all live greens and creams. We have a few speeches, even a short one from Babci, who gets teary and tongue-tied, ending up in Polish that only Auntie Magda and Mom understand, because they cry, too. Later Mom tells me what she said: Dziękuję Bogu za rodzinę, przyjaciółl i dziedzictwo, thank God for family, friends and my heritage. People have stopped listening and I get up and escort Babci back. It’s bad for her heart to get upset. She kisses me after we’re seated again at the head table, and some of her tears wet my cheek. I leave them there, pretending they are angel tears, because they are tears of joy.
She says to me, Kocham cię, Kasia.
I love you too, Babci.
Now, there is no one for her to worry about. Unless, now, it’s me.
I wait for my chance with Uncle Lowell, but he never catches my eye because he’s busy dancing with Auntie Magda. They look so good together in the golden light that everyone else only watches them. Charlie and Tom’s bleached blonde girlfriends in their little boutique dresses and borrowed pearls are also in awe, but they were sure chatting each other up while Babci gave her speech. Then, even Charlie and Tom looked at each other in solidarity, but they didn’t say anything to the girls.
After the speech, I’m in a washroom stall and I overhear the girlfriends.
So boring!
I was dying!
How can they stand it? All that Polish.
I come out with my best two-inch heel posture.
Because she’s Babci.
The girls blink at me. But I’m not finished.
You know how Charlie and Tom say the Eagle has landed? From when the guy walks on the moon? That’s what this is, for her. Talking through her speech was rude. Not cool.
They dash out of the washroom. They don’t even say sorry. I hope I never see them again.
Later I nibble on wedding cake, and realize that the bride and groom have also vanished, to change. They return in their going-away outfits. They are off to Hawaii for their honeymoon, both in stylish cream cruise wear that matches the roses in the room. Everyone takes photos. The band plays for them, and Dad brings Babci back halfway through the song because she’s had enough, her hand on her heart, and he takes me to the dance floor. In my heels, I’m almost his height. Dad’s eyes smile and wrinkle at me. I used to stand barefoot on his shoes when we danced. This turns out to be the last dance. The band packs up, we gather up the gorgeous flowers to take home and my night as maid of honour is over.
Not long after that, there are many phone calls from Auntie Magda. Mom quilts, her head at an angle to support the phone.
Magda, calm down. Slower.
I pick up the other extension. After all, I was part of the wedding. I should know.
Auntie Magda says, I thought we were good friends, and could enjoy each other’s company, and you know there are times when you need an escort, and he dresses so well ... but he only thinks of himself! He ignores me. He barely looks at me. He’s out with his buddy almost every night.
The same guy, Mom says. The one sitting with the parents at the wedding?
Yes. Him. The one who rented his condo. I honestly don’t know what’s going on.
But Magda, you knew Lowell how long before the wedding? Two months?
I had to. You know that. For Mama.
I thought so, says Mom, so quiet it hurts.
I knew I could get out of it if I had to, but I didn’t think it would be so soon. I thought after Mama...
And I see the wedding for what it was: staged, a play, a performance. Auntie Magda loves Babci so, so much that she fashioned a piece of art to show it.
Mom’s needle rides through layers of fabric in silent logical lines, while Auntie Magda’s wails unravel her fantasy. No one says anything to Babci.
Autumn Colours
Black is the new cool. I’m done with colour. My inner rainbow folds over, and colour melds into muck. I think of it as black, but it’s brown-grey-black. I’m hollowing to black from within. I smooth on the black eye shadow, which accents my darkened, thickened eyebrows.
Mom says I’ve got a little black rain cloud over me.
Ha. She should talk. I was flipping through old Chatelaine magazines for textured images to use in a collage and look what I found. I didn’t know Mom wrote poems. I made a secret photocopy before I gave the original back to her. She folded it up.
Oh. That, she says. I wondered where it went.
I like the black in it, I say.
I was having a hard time that day. I went for a walk in a park near the hospital, waiting for Babci’s pacemaker operation to be over. There were crows.
This time it’s my turn to say it. Oh.
There’s no title, so I add that.
There Were Crows
Crows watch the weather:
beaks pointed all the same,
black parasols in a tall dead tree,
spaced,
exposed,
poised for an onslaught.
The calm is uncanny.
No calls from these bleak birds,
only intermittent
chatter of the lesser kind,
oblivious to portents of disaster.
Crows wait.
Until,
in utter unison,
they unfurl umbrella wings to delinquent skies,
screeching in dread delight
at the drenching, glistening release of rain.
I used to like shine, but not anymore. I’m going to black like a portentous crow. I reject facial jewellery, arm decoration, chain links, buckles, buttons and studs. I’m minimalizing. Zippers are okay, but silver only. No gold of any kind: yuck. My wardrobe has been purified to neutral: black, white or grey. White is strictly for contrast, to make the black look blacker. My skin is naturally white, and I’m hardly ever outside. I snack on ropes of black licorice, the thinner the better. I drink:
Black coffee.
Coca-cola.
Pepsi.
Dr. Pepper.
Root Beer from A & W, if I cheat.
I wear black-rimmed sunglasses when I eat dinner, to thin the glare of colour in food. The new me.
Sixteen.
Sophisticated.
Cool.
Mysterious.
Dark.
Deep.
I’m back to charcoal. I found a box of charcoal sticks and pencils from when I was seven, when I made that robin sketch that Mom moved upstairs to her new master bathroom.
I blame that red. The red of that robin.
I started using colour too early. I need to go back to black. Start over. Feel line, crusade for contour.
Picasso.
Miro.
Rodin.
I’ve added to my charcoal box, more thicknesses in browns and greys and new blacks, and I’m working on texture and shade-fades. I’m back to essentials. I’m at home with bare tree branches. I’ve put the pastels away (was I once so seduced?) and the paints I used to taste (so juvenile, like Stella, who eats dog biscuits when she’s feeling ratty) and the hundreds of collected European pencil crayons (my first intense love) for later, much later, or maybe never. Right now it’s all about line.
Graphite pencils are for when I’m on the go.
On a napkin at Tim Horton’s (over a lonely cup of cheap black coffee).
My arm (temporary tattoos).
My notes (de rigueur for arties).
A faded brick wall, waiting for the bus (removable graffiti).
Charcoal dust marks my fingers, roots in my hand lines, scuffs into black jeans (no more cotton drawing gloves).
You must be an artist.
It’s this guy at the bus stop. I’m drawing a dog. I reply after a pointed pause.
I like to draw.
I wish I could do that.
Which is what they all say. Passion envy. I recognize this guy, Brian, a jock.
Why, I say.
Why not?
It’s a curse.
Because you like to do it?
Because you have to.
Or what?
Or you feel scummy.
Scummy?
Yeah. Like you suck.
So, it’s like an addiction.
Yeah.
What else do you do?
I don’t answer. Usually people are scared off when I don’t answer. Actually, the dog I’m drawing is barking at him. But this guy must like dogs. He keeps asking.
You wanna walk?
Over the bridge?
Yeah. To the next bus stop.
Why?
I dunno. Autumn colours?
I guess it’s okay to look at them. I don’t have to ...incorporate them. Brian reads the newspaper, or the headlines, anyway. At least I think that’s ink on his fingers. Sports section.
I put on my black-rimmed sunglasses from Auntie Magda, the foundation for my recent new look, and we walk. Brian is pretty chatty; I am purposefully restrained. I listen, sort of, and stop to gaze from time to time, posing: my neutral against the canvas of nature. I feel pretty cool in the breeze on the bridge. I don’t let him have my sketchbook, but Brian, two heads taller than me, carries my math book, which I’ve personalized in black pleather. His hand is sweating all over it. I’m going to have to wipe it off on the grass. Brian talks about school, the news, basketball.
So do you want to go?
Okay.
Before I realize, I’ve agreed to an hour in a stinky gym, with yelling people and shrieking whistles and high-top shoes screech-stopping at the pitch of screams. Streaking red-yellow-blue-green uniforms and hairy armpits. And bouncing, the incessant bouncing of a large orange ball: my brothers’ innate weapon against my personal serenity. I haven’t played basketball since Annie left. I can pin it by that gap. And since Charlie and Tom went away to university, the basketball net at home has been abandoned. Brian has snagged me in a moment of nostalgia.
I’ll take you for pizza after.
I’ll probably just have coffee.
See you tonight. He grins.
He wipes off my book on his sweats and in a whirl of leaves, amber-wine-aubergine, he gets on his bus. By the time my bus arrives, I feel confined in my black tights, knit skirt and layers of grey-black-white tops. My feet complain that, to walk in comfort, my black Mary Janes can’t compete with Brian’s size thirteen Nikes. I give in to the streaming flow of tree colour, traffic blur and bus motion. For once the colours don’t blend to brown muck, but flick light and strands of green-yellow-blue and I wonder why, mesmerized.
In a haze I block out dinner scramble, dog panting, soup spill, sister whine, parent callouts on times and places for pick-ups, and escape upstairs.
White bedspread.
Buffed hardwood.
Clean surfaces, tools neat.
Papers stacked, books in colour order.
Grey-white-black clothes hung up with space between. Colours in baskets below, discarded.
Sanctuary.
Changing into my faded black jeans, I consider dying my hair black. It’s already espresso dark brown, but black would be better. This weekend.
Brian pulls up in an electric blue midsize after everyone has gone out. Louis is there at the door to meet him. Brian gets both hands full of dog slobber. The dog and Brian are in fits of mutual adoration as I hug my sketchbook over my coat.
Cool, he says.
Maybe he means Louis. I think he means the sketchbook. Maybe he thinks I’m going to draw him. I am. I need to reduce his world to black and white.
But I don’t draw at the game. I’m magnetized. I can’t take my eyes off him, because he’s usually the one with his hand covering half the ball. With the ball he’s a god with long muscular arms. His legs are springs, hopping from spot to spot. He’s so nimble, hyperaware of where all the other players are. He doesn’t hog the ball, but his teammates usually pass it back to him and he scores over and over again. And if he fumbles, he doesn’t fume about it like my brothers do; Brian calmly recovers it on the rebound. His confidence emboldens me. I cheer for him, by name, at each play; I’m sitting on my sketchbook now. I want to dance with him, have his hand flat on my back. He doesn’t look at me once; he’s totally focused on that ball and that basket. And so am I, right up to the standing screaming 45 to 39 finale.
Waiting for him to shower and change, I’m one in a tight cluster of girlfriends, younger siblings and parents expelled from the steamy gym. Behind the locker room door, I hear water streaming, guys hollering and laughing, locker doors slamming.
I’m waiting for a true athlete to take me for pizza. But I feel like a waitress. I’ve got my sketchbook under my arm like a menu. Should I dump it in the garbage can? Run it up to my locker? Split? What was I thinking? A Grade Twelve guy? A jock like Charlie and Tom? Who eats whole pizzas folded and stacked like quadruple-decker sandwiches?
But he’s so hot. And I want to be cool.
I escape from the clutch of people discussing details of the game (is that what I’m supposed to do?) but Brian catches up to me like I’m not running away and steers me to his car.
We’re meeting everyone at Boston Pizza, he says.
I want to go home, I say.
Are you sure?
He sounds kind of hopeful. Like maybe no one else is home yet. He looks at me sideways. I change my mind. This is a group date. Everyone. I wonder who they are.
Okay. Let’s go to Boston.
Okay.
And he’s not fussed about it. He’s easy. Like he intercepted a fumble and scored. So I tell him.
You were amazing. That was a great game.
He grins. Did you get a sketch?
Sorry.
Too fast for you?
Yeah. Maybe.
At Boston, the pizzas are already on the table. Did he preorder? Or is this a regular deal? The other guys don’t take notice of me, but the girls do. They have French manicures, hour-long hairstyles, recently shaved and tanned legs and clothes fresh out of an expensive shopping bag. To them, I’m an art rat.
The blonde busty one says, Cassie, right?
Hey. What are you having?
The guys eat, says Tiffany, chewing her gum.
We never eat. That’s Morgan.
We have tea. Herbal. The bleached alpha boobs, Jennafor, as in forward.
I’ll have coffee, Irish.
> As if I’m eighteen and legal. Which I’m not. But Brian is, and orders it right away.
The pizza smells and looks delicious. Brian offers me a bite from his piece and I take one, closing my eyes for effect. When I open them the girls’ mouths make identical 0s. I select a whole piece for myself.
I count up the jewellery points on the triplets. I used to be attracted to bijoux and glitter, but trees are naturally without it. I’m going to have trouble at Christmas time, because even the thought of tinsel on a tree makes me ill. But Brian’s shimmering arms and shoulders transfixed me during the game, so I tell Brian that the silky blue and gold basketball uniforms are eye-catching.
Anything to catch yours.
That shuts up the girls. They watch me request extra ground black pepper on my own slice of three-meat pizza with black olives.
I flirt with the guys some more, and tell them I’d like to draw them in motion at practice. I want to see those muscles move again. Brian’s, specifically. They thumbs-up the idea, and talk about framing sketches for their moms for Christmas. The girlfriends’ eyes swell and stare at each other.
After my Irish coffee, I look up at Brian like we’ve known each other forever, and we get up, wordlessly, in sync.
He helps me put my coat on, and his hand on my back as we walk out feels great. I can also feel Tiffany, Morgan and Jennafor eyebeam me as we leave.
I don’t think Brian usually brings a date to after-the-game pizza. I think he’s trying to get the attention of Morgan. Of the three, I hope it’s her. Her smile to me seemed real. She senses what Brian is up to. I’m out of my league, and she knows it.
In the car, Brian says, I’ll check with Coach, and I guess I’ll see you at practice.
Monday after school?
You’re sure, he says, like he’s not.
I need some more figure drawings for my portfolio. I’ll be there.
Art Lessons Page 10
