Something Wicked

by Lesley Anne Cowan

  The thing about getting older is that you sometimes realize maybe you’re an idiot after all. Even more frightening is the sudden awareness of your “self ” in all of the mess. Before, you were always pointing a finger outward. Everything was outward. But then you turn sixteen and all of a sudden it occurs to you that perhaps you are part of the problem. Perhaps these fucked-up people around you are fucked up partly because of you.

  Apparently, when you’re a little baby there’s some point when you suddenly realize that your body is separate from the rest of the world. That “you” actually end at your skin, and the rest of the world begins. I think you get a similar, second realization like this when you’re a teenager. Only it’s not about seeing you’re separate; it’s understanding that stuff you do actually influences other people’s lives. And then, on top of life sucking, you have to deal with the guilty burden of all that.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I’m not going to do it again.” It feels so good to finally have said it to her.

  She smiles. I know my words meant a big deal to her. “You have to stop hanging out with those people,” she adds.

  “I will. I don’t even want to see them again. I only want to see Ally or Jess. No one else.” I’m sure everyone knows I overdosed, and I feel like an idiot now. I want different friends. And if I can’t get different friends, I’d rather stay alone.

  “I want you to take lessons or something. Maybe dance, or piano? You used to be good with music.”

  “Mom. We don’t have a piano.”

  She laughs. For the first time, I notice wrinkles around her eyes. “Well, something. The flute? That’s light. Anyway, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. I feel like something just happened between us. Like I’ve barrelled through some kind of blockade. Like I’ve reached out to her extended hand and let her pull me over to the other side. Her side.

  Sixty

  Freestyle says that to become someone new, the old person in you must first die. You have to fully let that person go. He tells me I need new friends, a new school, and a whole new way to have fun. “Believe me, kid, I’ve tried many, many times to start a new life. But it don’t last if you don’t kill that old you first. It’s just too tempting to fall back.”

  I don’t think it will be that hard for me to do. I already have a new school. It’s not like any of my friends are that special to me, except for Ally and Jess. And it’s not like I do anything interesting in my life, other than party at random apartments with strangers. So it’s no great loss. But I know for sure there is one person I have to get out of my life forever before I can move on.

  Michael,

  It’s crazy to be in love with someone so much that you lose yourself. The more lost you feel, the more desperately you love. There’s no stopping it. Except this … there comes a moment when ou begin to hate yourself for being so pathetic. And then, it’s not like the love is gone, it’s just that you can’t reach it in your heart anymore. And that once-unstoppable love stops right away. Just like that. Gone. And all you’re left with is embarrassment and shame for the pitiful person you have become.

  I let you go, Michael. You are free.

  And so am I.

  M.

  I take the letter to Michael’s apartment building and go up on the roof where we used to hang out at night, smoking cigarettes and sometimes listening to music. So many summer nights, us up there, away from everything, like we were the only people in the whole city. Now it’s so friggin’ cold I can even see the air coming out of my nose when I breathe, like I’m some kind of dragon. I light a joint and sit on the roof ledge by the stairwell door, taking shelter from the freezing wind.

  It’s dark. Late. About eleven o’clock. The city is resting quietly below, under a light, new snowfall.

  His building is close to the airport, so all the roofs have red lights flashing and pulsing up long antennas. Michael used to say they were urban shooting stars and that meant you could make a hundred wishes a night if you wanted to. I look at them now without interest. I’m so tired of wishes.

  A plane jets by overheard, shaking the air. I can smell the gas vapours.

  With frozen fingers, I take the letter out of my pocket. I can’t decide if I should burn it or tear it into little pieces or just crumple it into a ball and let it fly away in the wind. I sit there a while longer and smoke another joint. I make myself go over, for the last time, all our experiences together. I think of Michael’s face and his hands and his voice and the way he looked at me and his kindness … and I so don’t want to let it all go. My tears are so heavy and slow I wonder if it’s possible they can freeze on my cheeks.

  After some time, my bum turns numb from sitting so long on the cold concrete ledge. Then Ally calls.

  “Yo. Mel. You wanna come over?”

  “Where?”

  “Just chillin’ at Devon’s with Jess. Watching a flick. Nothing big. But we have juice.”

  I actually think about it for a second. It’s a while that I’ve been out of the hospital now. I’d love a few drinks. And it is Friday night. I shouldn’t go. What about all that time and effort I’ve put into changing my life? Part of me feels like the new me is delusional. Some kind of out-of-body experience. Like I was abducted from my life for a while only to be plopped back down in the centre of it, now, here on the roof, with Ally on the phone. It’s like, “Fuck it, who was I kidding?” People can’t change everything about them just like that. Sometimes you just have to accept that you’re not going to be the perfect person everyone else seems to be.

  “Nah.” The word comes out of my mouth before I even realize I’m turning her down. I can’t believe it! It’s like I’m possessed, ’cause I didn’t think it’s what I wanted to say.

  “Okay. Thought I’d ask,” she says, letting me off the hook too easy. “Later.”

  And then she hangs up.

  I’m stunned for a second. I can’t believe I just said no. I can’t believe she just let me. And the thing is, I feel like I’m not really missing much anyway. I’m not that disappointed. I’m just as happy, for now, to go home and watch boring TV.

  I jump down off the ledge, raise the letter to my mouth, and kiss it. “Goodbye, Michael,” I say. Then I tear the paper up into little pieces, open my fist to the wind, and watch them spastically flutter downward like amputated dove wings.

  Sixty-One

  My mom and I go to the mall on Saturday afternoon to buy her a new pair of jeans and something for me for Christmas. Even though she’s over three months, she barely shows. She refuses to go to the maternity store and get those elastic trousers, and so we search Old Navy for jeans that will fit her belly but are two sizes too big for her legs. We share a change room and we contemplate each other’s choices while posing in the mirror. It makes me feel good to see my mom fatter now. It makes me feel less clunky.

  “Eric told me I had to tell you something,” I say while I’m slipping one leg into a pair of cargo pants. I’m about to tell her about our conversation about Bradley. At first I didn’t think I’d ever be saying anything, but lately I’ve been thinking more and more about it, and I think that maybe there is something eating away at the inside of me. I figure if I’ve gone this far with the truth, I might as well cross the finish line. No more Echo. Now it’s only “Melissa” with my mom.

  “What’s that, Hon?” She reaches out to straighten the collar of the blouse I’m trying on. “Wait, there’s something wrong with this button. There, that’s better.”

  My heart races. I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just words.

  Up, up, up.

  “It’s kind of dumb. But he’s making me say it,” I say, which is a total lie because Eric said only if I felt up to it.

  “Okay.”

  “He wants me to tell you that I have some bad feelings about Bradley dying.”

  She puts her hands down and steps away a bit. I realize I’m totally hitting her out of the blue
with this. I regret having brought it up now, especially when we’re squeezed inside this tiny closet of a room. There is nowhere to hide.

  “Oh … I can understand that. What kind of feelings?”

  “Well. It’s like … I’m sad he died. For sure. And I love him. But since I was a kid, and I had kid feelings at the time, I guess I felt sort of angry.”

  “At me?”

  “Yeah. At you,” I agree too quickly. I was trying to tell her about Bradley, but it’s so much easier talking about being mad at her. “’Cause we had to go in a shelter. Even though I know, now, that it wasn’t your fault. It’s like the kid in me already made the memory.”

  “I’m sorry, Melissa. I really tried my best. That’s why we went to the shelter—to stay together. They advised me to go to the hospital, but I insisted on outpatient care. I couldn’t leave you.”

  “Yeah. Well …” I pause. I can’t say the words. My mouth is dry. I try to swallow. I don’t look at her face, but instead concentrate on the back of her head reflected in one of the angled mirrors. “… I was also mad at Bradley.”

  “You were?” she asks, surprised.

  “Yeah. For dying.”

  “Oh …”

  “Well. I didn’t think so before … I mean, it wasn’t on my mind,” I interrupt her before she can respond, “but now that I think about it, maybe I was. I told you it was dumb.”

  “Oh, Hon. It’s not dumb. It’s just life. God, if you knew my feelings, you’d understand the real meaning of dumb. Don’t worry. I get it. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”

  “It’s okay,” I breathe out heavily, as if I’ve been holding it for the past four years.

  She smiles and holds out her arms to hug me. So much hugging lately. I roll my eyes and move into her embrace. It feels so stupid. Like some stupid Christian TV family drama. After a few seconds she pulls away. “So you’re cured, then? No more charges? Fights? A’s in school from now on?” She laughs and playfully pushes my shoulder.

  “Ha ha,” I say, and push her back, just a little harder. “What do you think of these?” I ask, turning around and pushing my bum out to show her the cargo pants.

  “Perfect.”

  And it’s like nothing and everything has changed between us.

  Sixty-Two

  As much as you might want to leave your life, just step out of it for a while and hide, it finds you. It sneaks through the window, over the phone, or even walks straight in the front door.

  I’m watching the old show Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer when Giovanni opens the apartment door and enters the living room. I’m wearing a tank top with no bra and my short shorts because the building’s heat is so friggin’ strong that we have to keep our windows open in the middle of winter. Seeing Giovanni is my biggest nightmare. I’ve managed to avoid him until now. The sight of him makes me sick. I think he feels the same, because when he sees me, he stops and stares wide-eyed, like he’s shocked I’m here.

  “Where’s Janet?” he asks.

  “Out.”

  He pauses, like he’s considering whether to say something to me or not. Like he’s thinking about fucking me. And I get scared. My stomach churns. I can’t breathe. I instinctively reach for the blanket to cover up my body, but then I stop myself ’cause I don’t want him to think I’m scared. And if what happened between us before is what saved us from getting evicted, then I’d have no choice but to do it again.

  He picks up our pile of mail on the table beside him and looks through it, like he’s really interested in it. But I can tell he’s just killing time. Building courage. I try to watch the TV, but I can’t. The tension is too much. I want to get it over with.

  “So, you want to do it?” I ask. I don’t know why I said it. ’Cause he expects it? ’Cause I don’t want us to lose the apartment? It’s like the words just ran out of my mouth. Suddenly I’m not Melissa. Suddenly I’m some other person who’ll do whatever she must to get what she needs. I reach up behind my head. I try to look sexy, as sexy as possible without throwing up. I do this and I just don’t know why.

  His mouth drops. He looks angry. Then he looks away. I’m surprised. Something’s wrong. I sit up a bit and grab the blanket to cover myself. He looks over his shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one is around, then slowly approaches.

  I get nervous. He looks too serious. My heart beats a million times a minute. I feel like I need to put something between us, block him. With what? Words? “Thanks for helping my mom,” I blurt out, referring to him not throwing us out.

  He stops a few feet away and sits down on the coffee table. I relax a bit. He puts his hands on his knees and sighs deeply. “Melissa. This is a terrible situation. I feel awful about it.You’re a young woman. My niece’s age. I don’t know what happened.”

  I avert my eyes from his now gentle stare. “I was messed up on drugs. I barely even remember,” I say.

  “You’re sixteen?”

  I nod my head, suddenly feeling like a child and not the sexy woman I thought he wanted to fuck. I don’t know what to say. I feel totally embarrassed now. I pull the blanket up to my chin. Then I bring my hand up to cover my eyes, because I just want him to disappear. I think of what Eric told me, about experiences being like seeds planted inside you. Maybe my plan of recording over the memory of what happened with Giovanni with a recollection of Bradley will only bury the experience deeper, to grow stronger later.

  He clears his throat.

  Silence.

  “I feel sick about it. Just sick. So sick,” he continues.

  Leave. Leave. Leave.

  He clears his throat again. Silence.

  Big sigh. Cough. He clears his throat again. “I’m going to help you and your mom not because of what happened, but because of what happened …”

  Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

  “Okay? You get it?”

  “No,” I say, both hands covering my eyes now.

  Leave. Leave. Leave.

  “Let’s forget it ever happened. And don’t tell anyone. Especially your ma. Ever. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, and pull the blanket up over my face. And suddenly I am only sixteen.

  Sixty-Three

  Crystal comes over the next afternoon. She has her own key. God, does everybody feel free to just walk into our apartment?

  As usual, I’m reading a book and watching a movie at the same time. Other than going to school, it’s all I’ve been doing lately.

  “She’s not here,” I say when she appears in the living room doorway. I don’t even raise my eyes from the page.

  “Oh, I’m not here to see your mom,” she announces, waltzing into the room. The shimmering silver Christmas star earrings she’s wearing catch the TV glare. Her big tits sway under her baggy blue T-shirt. I wish she’d wear a bra.“I’m here to see you!” She plops down beside me, too close, and then plunks a pink satin satchel down on the coffee table. I now keep my eyes locked on the TV screen; I don’t like her forcing all that huru-guru hippie stuff on me. She raises the converter and turns it off. Then she leans over and carefully unties the purple string, as if she’s about to reveal diamonds, only she ends up spilling out a bunch of blue and green rocks.

  I eye them quickly, pretending not to notice how pretty they are. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  “I brought you these to revitalize your energy,” she says, all perky. She gingerly picks up each stone with her skinny fingers and holds it up in front of my face, blocking my view. “This one is to help with your spirit. This one will help with appetite. This one is for nourishing the starving soul. And this one is to soothe your sexual goddess.”

  “Huh?” I look at her for the first time. “My what?”

  She smiles that stupid smug smile, like she’s won. “Your sexual goddess within. We are all sexual goddesses, Melissa. Sometimes we women forget that—God knows I must remind your mother all the time—but we are all goddesses of the earth.”

  “And they t
hink I’m crazy,” I say, holding my hand out to take the stone.

  “Mel, it’s none of my business—”

  “You’re right, it’s not your business,” I interrupt her, because she has no right sticking her nose in my life.

  She pouts. “But you don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”

  I shrug my shoulders. I couldn’t care less.

  “Well, I’m going to say it anyway. And I’m going to say it straight out. Sexual relations, Melissa, are a gift in life.”

  “Oh, God …” I turn away as if her statement is making me sick.

  “Hear me out, Mel. There’s a lot of crap and suffering in life, but sexual contact is a gift. It’s something that can be really beautiful and special. I’m not talking about saving yourself for marriage. Even a one-night encounter with someone you find irresistible can be gratifying. Ha!” Her voice starts to wander. “I’ve had some beautifully erotic encounters on foreign beaches under a full moon that—”

  “Okay!” I interrupt again, holding my hand up to indicate stop. It’s just disgusting to hear old people talk about sex.

  “Anyway. You get what I mean. The important thing is the connection between two people. If you reduce sex to something as common as a handshake, then you’re missing out on that connection. People need to connect to other people, Melissa. It’s something integral to your soul. And you need to feed your soul, Mel. Feed it, or it will die. You will die inside. You will be empty.”

  I pretend I’m not listening, but I am. Because what she’s saying sort of makes sense. And if it weren’t for me being with Michael, feeling how special that was, I don’t think I would ever have come close to understanding her point.

  “Tell me, Mel. Why do you think you give your body away so freely, while you hold on to your words, your feelings, so tightly? It seems to me it should be the other way around. Shouldn’t it? You’re a teenager. You need to talk about how you feel.”