Alice, I Think

by Susan Juby

  He has been e-mailing some fish expert guy to get advice on his tanks. Apparently this e-mail guy is impressed with MacGregor’s “commitment to the hobby” and his “good, solid fish-keeping skills.” I know this because I’ve been reading their e-mails.

  The expert suggested that MacGregor bring his fish to a fish show and auction down in Terrace. The idea is incredible, when you think about it. People drag their poor fish down to some community center, make them do their stuff (whatever stuff it is that fish do), and then sell them. You have to wonder who thought this idea up. Somebody with a lot of imagination, apparently.

  At first it struck me as a little bizarre that MacGregor would be into a fish show. I mean, it seems exploitative or something. But then he explained to me that according to his expert, fish shows help to establish breeding standards and are very informative if you are planning to get into line breeding. Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Anyway, MacGregor’s very excited about meeting his pen pal, who is supposedly pretty famous among fish types for his research and because he’s bred a couple of kinds of fish that have never been bred in captivity before. I know I’m practically at a standstill with excitement.

  Mom said she would drive MacGregor down to Terrace for the show in a couple of weeks, and they filled out the entry form and e-mailed it off to Mr. Fish Expert. A few of the angelfish babies and their cannibal parents (I guess they won’t be strutting their parenting skills) and one of MacGregor’s bettas (the Siamese fighting fish) will be going to the show. I’ve convinced my parents to let me go by playing the guilt card. They are very conscientious about not playing favorites. I don’t have those hangups. I’m clear that MacGregor is my favorite.

  I want to go to the show to see whether there will be any tricks performed by the fish or whether it will be straight swimming. I also want to go because my life is boring.

  Mom told me that I am not to have one of my “episodes,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. Any episodes I have are a direct reaction to some unbearable behavior of hers. The sooner we get that straight, the better off we all will be.

  MY VANCOUVER COUSIN

  September 18

  Big news. Bigger even than fish shows. My cousin Frank is going to come to school here! This is so cool. Apparently after she ran away from here, she finally turned up home in Vancouver and actually did part of her drug treatment, but she didn’t need to finish because, according to Uncle Laird, she wasn’t as sick as most of the people in the program who hadn’t been given her advantages. Frank told Uncle Laird that what she really wanted was to go to school like a regular kid. Everyone is taking that as a really good sign. So Uncle Laird is working on getting her into some very exclusive private school for gifted geniuses in Vancouver. Frank isn’t exactly a model student or anything, so he is going to have to pull some strings and call in some favors. In the meantime Frank is going to go to school with me. Now there will be two of us who don’t fit in!

  I wonder if Frank will notice and be impressed by my new fashion statement. I’m ready for more peer interaction. I mean, I know Life Goal No. 2 is supposed to be about increased contact with people outside of immediate family. But Frank isn’t exactly family. She’s a distant-enough relative that she could be a friend, especially now that I’m a bit cool and more worldly than I was. I could be ready to take the big step into a friendship. Frank would be the perfect peer group. She is even more different than me! I wonder if she watches Buffy and reads The Lord of the Rings.

  September 21

  Frank is here. Her look has completely changed again. She has gone completely boy, with huge overalls, a black toque, and man-sized silver platform sneakers.

  Frank doesn’t seem interested in talking. I guess in that way she hasn’t changed. She went straight to her room when she got here and hasn’t come out yet. That was this morning, and now it’s almost dinnertime. Mom says that Frank has a lot of readjusting to do and that she is so talented and smart that it may take a while for the effects of her old lifestyle to wear off and for her to get used to normal family life again. I love the way my mom implies that Frank’s specialness is related to the fact that she’s a blood relative. Also, I think Mom has made a pretty big leap by assuming that our family in any way represents normal family life.

  Mom has arranged for Frank to go and see Death Lord Bob. A couple of gripping sessions with the greatest mind in modern teen counseling should set her right for sure.

  School tomorrow and I get to bring Frank! Excellent.

  September 22

  Frank did not disappoint today. My mom had to knock on her door for about half an hour this morning before she finally answered.

  “Meet you downstairs,” Frank yelled from behind the door.

  They were the first words she had spoken since she arrived. MacGregor and I were waiting near the front door, and Mom was whispering worriedly with Dad at the kitchen table about what they would do if she wouldn’t come out of her room, when Frank finally emerged. She appeared at the top of the stairs wearing the back-to-school outfit from hell.

  Frank had on knee-high athletic socks with what looked and sounded like white patent leather tap shoes, one of those yellow poodle skirts like they used to wear in the fifties, a tiny pink T-shirt with DADDY’S LITTLE SWEETHEART written on the front in glittery silver letters, and a blond wig with the ends flipped up. She sounded like a team of polo ponies coming down the stairs in her tap shoes.

  We all stared as Frank reached the main floor, twirled, sending her skirt flying out around her, and held out her miniature stuffed-animal backpack and asked for some lunch.

  Outstanding. Frank is going to be even more fun than I had hoped.

  Later

  Frank came with me to Math for Reluctant Adders at the Alternative school. At the start of class Doug the Concerned said, “Hey you guys, I want to introduce you to a new classmate. This is Frank, and she is joining us from Vancouver.”

  Everyone had been staring at us since we walked in, like maybe Frank was joining us from Mars. Frank looked directly at Doug with a smirky little smile on her lips. She turned her head and slowly, one by one, scanned everyone in the room. Then she flipped her wig hair around a few times, clicked her tap shoes against the floor, and stared out the window. She didn’t say a word.

  About fifteen or twenty minutes later Frank put up her hand.

  “May I be excused to use the washroom?” she asked.

  Doug very jovially gave her permission, informing her, “We don’t stand on ceremony around here. Do what you need to do. Just make sure you come back, eh? Ha ha.”

  She grabbed her knapsack and out of the room she clicked. And didn’t come back.

  I caught a glimpse of her at lunch. She was in the middle of a bunch of jocks with square heads. I didn’t get a very good look, but she seemed to be doing some sort of a tap routine. The boys stood in a circle around her, looking dumbfounded.

  Frank didn’t get home until after midnight. Mom and Dad were huddled downstairs in their matching ratty bathrobes, probably discussing how to break it to Uncle Laird that they had lost Frank again, when what sounded like a muscle car without a muffler pulled up. I lost no time getting downstairs so I wouldn’t miss any of the action.

  We could hear male laughter and shouting as the car sputtered, growled, and belched. Then the sound of doors opening and slamming and opening and slamming. More laughter. Then what sounded like someone getting sick and somebody else screaming out obscenities. A chorus of chugging noises and cans being crumpled. Then in walked Frank.

  She looked pretty much the same as she did when she left in the morning, but she was wearing a fluorescent orange Canadian National Rail vest over her T-shirt and her wig was on crooked. The bangs lurched into one eye and the flip was askew.

  Frank clattered into the house, weaving slightly starboard, and asked brightly if she had missed dinner. Outside, the car was revving its engine and somebody with a disturbingly old voice shouted, “I love you, baby
!” Then tires squealed as the car screeched away. Frank didn’t seem to hear. She blinked at Mom and Dad, wished us good night, and made her way unsteadily up the stairs to her room. My mother and father looked shell-shocked. I probably should’ve prepared them for this sort of thing a bit by going out sometimes. Poor things.

  I’ve borrowed all of Bob’s episodes of Buffy and left them around so Frank can see that I am into cool cult-type TV shows. Maybe she’ll want to watch a few episodes with me.

  September 23

  Another outstanding Frank day.

  Mom took a more aggressive approach to getting Frank out of bed this morning. When Frank didn’t answer the first knock, Mom marched right into her room, totally crashing Frank’s personal boundaries in the process. It was a big step for Mom, because she takes the whole personal space thing very seriously. I think that waking Frank up was supposed to be some kind of harsh punishment designed to put her on the straight and narrow. I have my doubts about how effective it will be.

  Frank didn’t wake up even with Mom standing at her head calling her name, so Mom physically lifted her out of bed. It was really excellent to watch. Mom tried to get her to sit up, but Frank was like a floppy rag doll. Dad made me come away and stop watching. He said it was none of my business and that I should “stop being such a little voyeur.” That from the King of the Voyeurs!

  Finally Mom came downstairs, alone, red-faced, and winded, with her hair mussed up.

  “Frank will be down shortly and then we are leaving!” she announced in a voice that suggested she was ready to take on anyone who dared argue with her. Another bonus of having Frank come to school is that now we get a ride to school, I think because my parents are worried she won’t get there on her own.

  Then Mom turned to my dad.

  “I suppose it would have killed you to help me with her?”

  Dad put down his coffee cup and informed her that this whole thing—meaning, I suppose, Frank staying with us—was not his bright idea.

  Mom went off about how she needed his support in the affairs of the household and he said that the household had about twice as many affairs since Frank moved in, and they argued back and forth until Frank finally came downstairs.

  She was wearing her monster overalls with the silver sneakers and a BMX shirt, and for some reason she had a racing number tied to her back. The crotch of her overalls hung down almost to her knees, and when she moved, it looked like she had short mutant legs. Unless you saw her from the side, in which case the giant overalls dipped so low at her hips, you could see her striped boy underwear and a good portion of her bare legs.

  Frank also had on huge mirrored sunglasses and the black toque pulled low. She seemed shrunken since yesterday and got even smaller when Dad asked her loudly how her hangover was. Mom bustled around trying to act like she was in control of her life and yelled, needlessly I thought, for us all to get in the car. It was awesome to feel like the golden child for once. This must be how MacGregor feels all the time.

  We all piled into the antiglamor wagon and off we went. Frank pulled a huge pair of headphones out of her knapsack and sat huddled in the corner of the backseat and bobbed her head weakly. I hope she stays with us forever. She seems so frail.

  Later

  Frank lasted almost all the way through Ms. Swinke’s class on Positive Life Choices. She might not have made it that far, but she fell asleep almost as soon as she sat down. Ms. Swinke, who was just coming off a week on stress leave, was upset—“Excuse me? Excuse me!”—and to me—“What is wrong with your cousin?” I told her that Frank suffered from narcolepsy. Ms. Swinke immediately got all proactively supportive and positive and was glad that we had some mentally ill, special needs, handicapped-type participation in the class. In my opinion we’re a little overrepresented in that department already, but I’m not complaining. Swinke gave a fist-pumping talk on equal access to education and the rights of the differently abled. That was okay, since she stopped talking about positive life choices for a while, which is possibly the worst subject in the world.

  When Frank finally woke up, stretched, and asked if she could be excused to use the washroom, Ms. Swinke fell all over herself giving directions to the handicapped washroom and urging Frank to pass on any comments she had about the school’s facilities to her, Ms. Swinke, who would be honored and empowered to give them to the proper authorities. Frank scratched her head under her toque and said, “Yeah, thanks,” and left. She didn’t come back.

  September 24

  Frank didn’t come home at all last night. Mom got completely unhinged and Dad suggested that perhaps all her New Age philosophies hadn’t prepared her for the reality that life isn’t all love and miracles; sometimes it is just screwed-up teenagers who are completely selfish and out of control and best left for professionals to deal with. Then they had a huge argument and Dad went to sleep in the basement.

  They still weren’t speaking this morning, but by dinnertime they seemed to have worked things out. My mother told MacGregor and me at dinner that even though she wanted to help Frank experience a normal life, she and Dad were not going to allow Frank to tear our family apart.

  The truce lasted until Mom realized that Frank probably wasn’t coming home tonight either. Then she and Dad had a fight about whether they should call the police or go out looking for Frank themselves. Dad thought they should watch TV and go to bed and said that Frank had more street smarts than the rest of the town combined, and that instead of rescuing Frank maybe they should post warnings for the innocent townsfolk that she was on the loose. Mom was not amused.

  She was even less amused when this fortyish biker type with a droopy mustache, still-wet slicked-back hair, and a leather vest arrived at the door with flowers and asked for Frank. It was great to watch Mom try to be polite yet cool and maintain her New Age delusion that bad things can’t happen to good families, even with seedy semi-outlaws showing up on the doorstep to court her runaway teenage niece.

  Today at my session all Bob wanted to talk about was Frank and “how we were going to help her.” It was a relief since Frank is more interesting to talk about than me. It was particularly a relief since I got a big intervention at school today in the counseling boiler room.

  Doug the Concerned took me aside after Life Skills class (How to Get Out of Bed and Have Breakfast and Why You Should 101) to ask how I was. He said I seemed distracted, but not in my usual way. Apparently he is worried that I feel displaced by all the attention paid to Frank. Man, I can’t believe him. We are each allotted a certain amount of child-in-crisis time at the Alternative. Because I am fairly new, I was getting quite a bit more child-in-crisis time than most of the other people in my school. Plus it’s probably more interesting for Mr. Richards and the other professional carers to use their psychological techniques to try to get me to talk about my problems than to have to listen to Violet the Victim tell one of her well-known ghastly tales again. Frank better come back. She makes life worth living.

  September 26

  Frank came back today. Well, she didn’t actually come back on her own. My mom had to go and get her from the back office at Zellers, where she was being held for shoplifting. I thought she had better taste, and I said so to Mom, who, defensive as always, informed me that Frank had been into the watches, which were actually quite nice. Apparently Frank was wearing stuff from all over town under her monster overalls. She was so layered up with stolen goods that she had trouble running when the security guy went after her, which is how she got caught.

  Mom somehow convinced the store not to press charges, and the police told her that she had better keep her niece under control. I think it may even have been Officer Ross from the parking lot fight who let Frank go. He must have a bit of a soft spot for my mom and her teenagers. As a family, we are probably getting a terrible reputation with the authorities, which is sort of funny when you think about it, considering how hard Mom tries to keep our happy hippie family image together. I personally think it’s
kind of cool that we’re known by name to law enforcement officials.

  Mom took Frank straight from Zellers to an appointment with Death Lord. I wonder how many Franks Bob has come across in his extensive counseling experience. Hah! I wonder if Bob’s going to do a Mrs. F. under the strain. It took me four years to get Mrs. F. to the breaking point. Frank’ll probably crack Bob in just a couple of days!

  Anyway, Frank is in her room now and has said she’s going to clean up her act. Mom is convinced that the session with Death Lord has turned things around. I have my doubts. Frank is actually going to stay home tonight. I asked her why, and she said something about Friday being amateur night and then went upstairs to go to bed. It was four o’clock. Frank certainly is old for her age.

  Later

  Mom and Dad informed me and MacGregor at dinner tonight that we are going to take Frank on the Annual Family Trail Ride with the Northern Saddle Sores tomorrow. Mom used to have horses when she was young, and for some reason she is convinced that trail riding is this tremendously bonding and healing activity for us as a family. The Saddle Sores trail rides are the only community-type events that our family does. Horse people are pretty wild, and these rides always degenerate into serious debauchery. How Mom could think that these events are healthy is beyond me. I doubt Frank has ever been on a horse. But who knows? The trail ride might be my chance to really get to know Frank. We could use the time to get our friendship going. So far we haven’t really talked much. I don’t know if she’s noticed all the changes in me yet. It’s time I showed her. I am ready to let peer pressure take its toll! I am willing to be influenced! I am going to accomplish Life Goal No. 2: Increase contact with people outside of immediate family.