“I guess I’ll make an omelette,” Mick says. He doesn’t sound like he wants to.
“That’d be great.” I’m starting to like cooking—especially for Mick—but I don’t always feel like it. “I’m kind of stressed about the college applications. I need to get it all done by next week. Katie’s already finished.”
“Katie’s an idiot.”
I know Mick’s saying that because I told him how all Katie cares about is doing makeup and going clubbing. I’ve decided it’s okay if I complain about Katie but not okay when Mick does it. It’s one more thing I don’t say. I could keep a list of all the things I’ve stopped saying around Mick. That list would be longer than the pros and cons I was working on before.
Mick’s in the kitchen. I watch him crack six eggs into a plastic bowl, then whisk them together. I love his shoulders. He must feel me admiring him because he pauses as if he’s posing for a photo.
“I hate making big decisions.”
Mick turns away from the egg bowl. “It’s clear to me what you should do.”
“It is?” For the first time all afternoon, I feel my body begin to relax.
“Absolutely.” I love the certainty in Mick’s voice. If only I could be more like him. Confident, certain about things, in charge of my own life. Strong. “You should go to that private college you’ve been talking about. In Creative Arts.”
“Ms. Odette thinks I should be an accountant.”
“Ms. Odette should have her head examined.”
I laugh when Mick says that.
“If you’re determined, Joey, and if you put in the time to hone your craft—really hone it—then I know you’ll make it as an actor. In fact, I guarantee it.”
“You do?” I know Mick can’t really guarantee I’ll make it as an actor, but I also know he’s right about being determined and putting in the time to hone my craft. I’m so lucky I’ve got him to talk to. And that he believes in me. I don’t know how I’d manage without him. But I don’t want to think about that. I don’t ever plan—not ever—to be without Mick.
I recycle the other brochures, keeping only the one for the private college and the Creative Arts program. I’ll fill out the application form after we have Mick’s omelette. The whole apartment smells delicious.
I feel as light as a fairy in one of Shakespeare’s comedies. My decision is made. So what if I didn’t make it myself?
CHAPTER 18
“He took me by the wrist and held me hard…”
—HAMLET, ACT 2, SCENE 1
Most days after school, I go to the loft. If Mick’s not at a meeting, we get a couple of hours together. Weeknights, I sleep at home. If I didn’t, Mom would get suspicious. My single bed feels sad and small.
All week I look forward to Saturday. We spend all day together and at night we fall asleep, our legs tangled together, William Shakespeare curled around my head like an orange fur hat.
When I let myself in this Saturday morning, Mick is on the phone. I can tell from the clipped way he’s speaking that he’s talking to his lawyer. “That’s ridiculous,” Mick says, scowling into the phone. “I’ll never give her that. Never. No way.”
When I wave at Mick, he doesn’t bother waving back. It’s as if he hasn’t even noticed me come in. William Shakespeare must be hiding. The cat is as sensitive to Mick’s moods as I am.
Mrs. Karpman is in Toronto. I take her key from the kitchen drawer where I left it for safekeeping. At least Sunshine will be glad to see me.
The canary chirps when I come in. I change his water and add seed to the plastic dispenser. Even though Mrs.Karpman said I didn’t need to change the wax paper at the bottom of his cage, I do it anyhow, sprinkling the fresh paper with gravel. When I do, Sunshine swoops down to the bottom of the cage as if to show me he’s grateful that it’s so nice and clean.
I’ve never seen so many knickknacks as in Mrs. Karpman’s apartment. It turns out she doesn’t only collect porcelain teacups and salt and pepper shakers. She’s also got a shelf full of thimbles and two shelves of eggcups. Who ever heard of an eggcup collection? If she ever did move to Toronto, she’d need an extra moving van for her collections.
But though the apartment is crowded with her stuff and smells of mothballs, there’s something surprisingly peaceful about being here. Maybe it’s Sunshine’s chirping or maybe it’s the spirit of Mr. Karpman, but when I sit down in Mrs. Karpman’s velvet armchair, I relax in a way I can’t seem to relax at home or even at Mick’s.
When I think of Mick, and as if on cue, I hear his voice booming through Mrs. Karpman’s wall. “No way!” he’s saying, and then I hear a thud. My shoulders stiffen. I hope Mick has just banged down the phone and not punched another hole in the wall. And I hope William Shakespeare isn’t freaking out.
I don’t want to go back to Mick’s straightaway. I should give him time to cool off, calm down after the conversation with the lawyer, but the thought of William Shakespeare, who startles when he hears a loud noise, makes me go back a little sooner than I want to.
I wish Mick didn’t have such an explosive temper. That’s the right word for it: explosive. And it’s hard to know what’ll set him off. I know it comes with being passionate and creative. Mick gets upset because he cares so much— too much, maybe. I could never be with someone who wasn’t passionate and creative or who didn’t care too much. Even if that someone never lost his temper or raised his voice or put his fist through a wall. I know I’d be bored to death with anyone but Mick.
I let myself back into the loft as quietly as I can. I’ll just check on William Shakespeare. Maybe I’ll make some tea. Mick likes tea in the morning. He says it’s bracing—whatever that means. Two spoons of sugar, no milk. I drink mine that way now too.
At first, there’s no sign of William Shakespeare. I think of calling out for him, but even that might upset Mick if he’s still angry.
Then I catch sight of William Shakespeare’s orange tail. He has crawled under the bed, but he seems to be considering coming out now that I’m back. “Hey, William Shakespeare,” I say under my breath, and a small paw emerges.
Mick is at the table, tapping furiously at his laptop.
“Sorry,” I say.
“What are you sorry for this time?” he asks, without looking up.
“I’m sorry things are going badly with the lawyer. I’m sorry you’re upset.”
“That lawyer is an asshole. I hired him to work for me, not her.” The angry way he says her makes me feel a little better. Sometimes, when I’m in my own bed at home, I worry that Mick might get back together with Nial’s mother, for Nial’s sake. But Mick could never go back to someone he hates so much. So passionately.
“How about a cup of tea? Two spoons of sugar, no milk.” My voice rises on the word milk. I sound like some lady on a TV commercial for margarine or paper towels! It’s because I want to fix Mick’s mood, but I don’t know how.
It’s a crisp, sunny February day. The cold spell we’ve had all week has broken. With the temperature hovering around zero, it’s a perfect day for a walk on the mountain or maybe a drive to the Laurentians. There, Mick and I wouldn’t have to worry about running into anyone we know. We could just be ourselves and not have to hide who we are to each other. But now isn’t a good time to mention going for a walk or driving to the country. I reach for the teapot. Even though Mick hasn’t said he wants tea.
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m a child.” When Mick says this—out of the blue—I’m so surprised I nearly drop the teapot.
My mistake is talking back to Mick. I should’ve waited for his black mood to pass. For the sky inside his head to turn blue again. “I wasn’t talking to you like a child. I only asked if you wanted a cup of tea. I thought it would help calm you down.”
“Calm me down?! You think a bloody cup of tea with two sugars and no milk”—Mick is imitating me now, the way I sang out the words before, and the imitation is so good, it makes me cringe—“will calm me down?! You have no idea wha
t I’m going through. No idea at all!”
“I do. I swear I do.”
I’ve just stepped on a land mine.
Without thinking, I raise my elbow so it covers my face.
“What do you think I’m going to do, hit you, Iris? Is that it?”
Oh no, I think. I’ve made things even worse by covering my face. Why am I such an idiot?
“No, I don’t think that,” I say, and I realize I am cowering too, like William Shakespeare under the bed. I don’t know what to do to get Mick to calm down. I don’t know where to go to get away from his anger. I have nowhere to go.
What happens next happens so quickly it’s hard for me to keep track of what is going on. To process it. Mick grabs the neck of my T-shirt. “Let go,” I say. “You’re hurting me!”
Mick is so angry he’s sputtering. All the while I’m thinking he isn’t really angry with me. I haven’t done anything wrong. Just offered him a cup of tea. If only I hadn’t shielded my face with my elbow. I insulted him by doing that. So I let my elbow drop back down. I do it slowly, so Mick will notice. “Calm down, Mick. Please, calm down,” I say, my voice starting to break. “Please!”
Mick’s eyes are cold as marbles. I watch his fist coming through the air like a baseball. This time, there’s no wall behind me. I try ducking, but I’m not fast enough. Again, I get the weird feeling that part of me is watching from a distance. That I’m both the actor and the audience. That my mind manages to duck in time but not my body—and my mind is somewhere up near the ceiling, watching the terrible scene unfolding below.
Mick punches my right cheek. The pain is so sudden and intense, I crumple to the floor, doubled over. The inside of my head is ringing. How, the part of me watching from a distance wonders, can flesh ring?
“You had it coming, Iris.” His voice is coming from far away. Why isn’t he calling me Joey the way he always does?
Besides the terrible pain in my cheek all the way up to my right eye, I only know one thing: Mick sounds calmer now. Much calmer. Like himself again. And despite the pain, I’m glad the storm is over.
CHAPTER 19
“…I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king
of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
—HAMLET, ACT 2, SCENE 2
I don’t expect Mick to apologize. He doesn’t believe in apologies, the way other people don’t believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I haven’t heard him apologize to the lawyer after he’s yelled at him on the phone, and I’ll bet anything he’s never apologized to Nial’s mother either. Not apologizing is a point of pride for Mick.
Personally, I don’t see the problem with apologizing. I apologized to Katie for missing her party. I apologized to Mom for being too busy to meet up for regular Saturday brunches at the bagel place. I even apologize to strangers when I’m trying to pass them on the escalator in the metro and our elbows bump. Apologizing makes me feel better, not worse. If anything, I probably apologize too much.
Even though I’m the one with the bruised cheek and eye, I actually feel sorry for Mick. He has to look at me this way, and every time he does, he has to remember how he lost it and ended up hurting me. That must kill him. Even if he won’t say so. I know it would kill me.
I tried icing my face right after the incident—I used a bag of peas from Mick’s freezer—but it didn’t help much. Later, I couldn’t sleep on my right side the way I like to.
When I got up this morning, I went straight to the bathroom to inspect my face. It was as if I’d somehow expected the swelling to magically go down, maybe even disappear altogether. Only of course it hadn’t. And now there’s bruising too. It breaks my heart to look at my mangled face. The skin around my eye’s the worst, probably because it’s so thin. It’s as purple as a ripe eggplant, and it hurts when I blink. I feel ugly—not just outside, but inside too. If only I hadn’t been so stupid. So what if I make the honor roll? I’m starting to think I need to be in a remedial section of life!
I call in sick to Scoops. Phil says not to worry; he’ll find a replacement. “You sure you’re okay, Iris?” he asks.
I cover the side of my face when Phil asks me that. There I go being stupid again. It isn’t as if he can see me.
I won’t be able to leave the loft all day, that’s for sure. I don’t even want to think about Monday. I’ll have to come up with some excuse when people at school ask what happened. Because this time, they’re definitely going to ask.
I also need to figure out what to tell Mom. That’s when my eyes land on Mick’s kitchen cabinets. Perfect. I’ll say I bumped into a cabinet door. That I didn’t realize it was open. That I can be such a klutz sometimes. I’ll need to put my acting skills to good use. I’ll demonstrate what happened. I’ll throw my head back to show how startled I was. “I know it looks awful,” I’ll say, and then I’ll laugh lightheartedly. “People’ll think someone hit me! Can you imagine that? Someone hitting me?”
“How do you want to spend the day, Joey?” Mick asks me over Sunday breakfast. He must’ve heard me talking to Phil. Mick has made poached eggs—I know it’s his way of trying to make up for last night. What’s weird is how when he looks at me Mick doesn’t seem to notice my swollen cheek and eye. Maybe, I think hopefully, it’s not really that bad. Maybe I’m making too much of it, overreacting. If Mick doesn’t notice…except then I lift my knife and catch my reflection in it. I’m so ugly I have to put the knife down. I want to cry and never stop, but I know I can’t cry in front of Mick. I don’t want him to think I’m weak or to know I’m feeling sorry for myself.
“I just want to stay in,” I manage to tell him, but then I realize maybe that’ll make him feel guilty so I add, “I need to finish off that college application.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let’s make it a day for organizing— and lying low.” Mick doesn’t say it in a way that suggests I’ve got a reason to lie low. It’s more like we’ve been busy and we need to catch up on chores around the loft. “I’ve got a lot of computer work to do,” he adds.
I’m going to be gentle with myself today. Someone has to be. I take my time finalizing the application, reviewing every line, and then, after making sure no one’s in the corridor, I go to Mrs. Karpman’s to feed Sunshine. I sit in Mrs. Karpman’s armchair, surrounded by the photographs of all her children and grandchildren. I can’t remember the eldest grandson’s name, but Mrs. Karpman’s right— he is good-looking. In a boyish way. Something about his face—the openness, maybe—reminds me of his grandfather. No wonder Mrs. Karpman’s so crazy about him.
When I get back to Mick’s, he is busy on his laptop. I don’t ask whether he’s heard from the lawyer or if he’s writing an email to him now. There’s no way I’m going to step on that land mine again.
I wander back to the bathroom, where I hoist myself onto the edge of the sink and really look at myself in the mirror. I start with my left side, then turn my head slowly. I’ve always liked my profile, the way my nose goes up a little at the bottom, but not too much. My lips are nice too, even without lip gloss. They have a nice bow shape.
Mom says that when I was a baby, she used to stand over my crib and admire my lips. Was my father with her when she did that? Were things already bad between them? Maybe next time I talk to my dad, or if he comes back to Plattsburgh, I could ask him.
Slowly I turn my head so that I can see the right side of my face. I wince when I do. It looks like it belongs to a monster.
Part of me still wants to cry, but Mick would hear, and I don’t want that. Besides, crying won’t do me any good. My salty tears might make things worse, might make the skin look even puffier.
I let the cold water run until it’s so cold it makes my fingers ache. Then I take a small square washcloth from the towel rack and hold it under the water. I squeeze it out and fold it in two so it makes a compress. I sit down on the toilet and hold the compress to the right side of my face. I’m careful not to press too hard. The skin is so sensitive.
I take a deep breath. Maybe the cold compress will help bring down the swelling. And I’m pretty sure I saw some Vitamin-E oil in Mick’s bathroom cabinet. When I get up, I’ll look for it. I read somewhere that Vitamin E speeds up healing. I need Vitamin E all over everywhere.
After I find the Vitamin E and dab a little on with just one fingertip, I suddenly feel very, very tired. More tired, even, than I’ve felt on the nights I used to go clubbing with Katie. Or even after a double shift at Scoops. I need to lie down.
“I’m going to take a little nap,” I tell Mick.
He doesn’t look up from the computer. “Good idea.”
I lie down on the bed, and it isn’t long before I feel myself falling into a half-doze. Resting will help me heal; I know it will. The sun is streaming into the room, but when I close my eyes (it hurts a little when I close them), I’m in a deep, dark forest. The trees are so tall that even when I tilt my head, I can’t see all the way to the top. When I look back down at the ground, there’s no path for me to follow. The trees are so dense that hardly any light can get in. How will I ever find my way out of here?
From somewhere a world away, I hear a gentle clattering. Has someone come to rescue me—to lead me out of the forest? Then I realize I’m half-asleep in Mick’s loft. He’s gotten up to close the curtains so I’ll be able to sleep better. I smile because Mick is looking after me. Smiling hurts my face. Then I hear Mick mutter something about how the sun is in his eyes and he’s having trouble reading what’s on the computer screen.
I go back and forth between the apartment and the forest. The forest floor sinks under my feet when I try to take a step forward. What if I sink too? Who’ll find me here? No one will know where I am. And no one is coming to save me. I need to save myself. But how, when I’m afraid to even take a step?
So Much It Hurts Page 10
