Five Minutes More

by Darlene Ryan

  “I don’t care.” I have to shout for him to hear me as we get swallowed into the action.

  I let him pull me from booth to booth, past painted silk scarves, fat teddy bears in lace collars, and the softest angora sweaters made with the fur of real angora goats—which are also for sale at the same stall. We stop for a while to watch two mimes and again to listen to a couple of musicians, one with a flute and the other on guitar. The tune is fast, happy like laughter, the flute and guitar notes chasing each other.

  I try on a beaded denim jacket at one stall. “D’Arcy! Hi.” Someone grabs my arm. Marissa. She’s wearing a psychedelic bodysuit, all swirling green and orange, with her black leather jacket.

  “That looks great on you,” she says, looking at the jacket. I flip the tag so she can see the price. “Wow! Are they kidding?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. I put the jacket back on its hanger.

  “I like that one,” Marissa says, pointing to a design done with lots of dark beads. “I can just see my dad if I spent that much money for a jacket. He’d start squeezing the sides of his head between his thumb and fingers, and he’d say, ‘What does a stroke feel like?’”

  She half turns and smiles at the very tall guy behind her, who smiles at me. He has long blond hair in a ponytail and tiny black-framed glasses. “D’Arcy, this is Zack.”

  “Hi, Zack,” I say. Did Marissa tell me about Zack? I don’t remember.

  “Hi, D’Arcy.”

  I like his smile and the way all the lines in his face go up.

  “Did you try any of the food yet?” Marissa asks.

  “We haven’t been here that long.”

  “You have to try the smoked sausage. It’s in this big bun with tons of onions and stuff.” She looks around and then confides, “I ate a huge one.”

  Behind her, Zack holds up two fingers.

  “And there’s this place with apple fritters. Yum.” She squeezes her eyes shut with pleasure, then opens them, shaking her head. “God, I’m a pig. I’m so fat.”

  She slaps her thighs with her palms. Nothing moves. She isn’t fat anywhere.

  People are pushing past, bumping into us. “We’ve gotta keep moving,” Marissa says. “Some people are so ignorant. See ya.”

  Zack smiles at me as she pulls him away.

  Maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe it’s enough if I just show up and try to look normal.

  Brendan comes up behind me and slips his arms around mine. “I’m starved. Wanna eat?”

  “Umm, okay.”

  We make a circuit of all the food stands. I get spring rolls from Betty Fong’s, and Brendan decides on the smoked sausage Marissa was going on about, piled high with onions and sauerkraut.

  “I’m not sitting next to you and that,” I tell him as we snag an empty table. I pull my chair around so we’re opposite each other.

  “C’mon. How about a little kiss?” he teases, leaning across the table. “You’re not afraid of a little puppy breath, are you?”

  I bop him on the nose with one of my spring rolls. “No dog with half a nose would go near that thing.”

  Brendan drops back into his seat laughing. “You know the first time I ever ate one of these? It was the first time I was ever here. Me and you, your mom and dad. Your father said, ‘You like sauerkraut?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I wasn’t even sure what sauerkraut was.”

  He takes another huge bite and starts talking again before he’s swallowed it all. “Your dad could eat anything. Remember when we went to Spruce Point? He ate all those corn dogs, and then he got on The Plume and it didn’t bother him a bit.”

  “I remember.” I put down my half-finished roll. I’m not as hungry as I thought I was.

  “We were all green, holding our stomachs and he goes and gets—”

  “I remember.” I fling out my arms. “I remember. Okay?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. You have a problem.” I pull strings of cabbage out of my spring roll. “You don’t listen. I told you I remember and you just go on talking.”

  Brendan jams the end of his sandwich into his mouth, chews it maybe twice and swallows. “What? Is it that time of the month already?” he asks.

  I jump up. My chair tips over, hitting the concrete floor with a bang that gets swallowed by the crowd noise. “Shut up,” I yell at him. I shove my way through the crowd until I can’t see the table anymore. Both of my hands are twisted into fists. If I had any fingernails, they would have poked right into my palms. All of a sudden I want to go home. There’s too much noise; too much everything.

  Off to one side, people are laughing, pointing. I see a juggler on a unicycle, weaving around the tables and the people. As he gets closer, I see that it’s apples he’s juggling, circling so fast I can’t count how many there really are.

  How does he do that?

  The juggler stops right in front of me. He is young and thin, with white face paint and shaggy reddish hair. His feet rock on the pedals and somehow he stays upright and in place. I’m mesmerized by all that motion. I think maybe it’s what the inside of my head is like. The juggler grins at me. Suddenly his hand goes up, and he flips his top hat into the moving circle and back onto his head again. Then he twists his wrist somehow, and all at once I’m holding a shiny red apple.

  We’ve drawn a crowd. They clap and laugh. The juggler tips his head at the applause and gives me a sideways wink before he moves away.

  I get a shivery feeling like someone ran a finger up the back of my neck. I turn around and there is Seth Thomas, just a few feet away, still and quiet as people push by him. When he sees me looking at him, he walks over.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi.”

  “Did you get caught up on all that math okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  We stare at the people swirling all around us. I don’t have anything else to say, and I guess neither does he.

  “He’s pretty good,” Seth says then.

  “What?” I say.

  He gestures at the apple I’m still holding on to. “The guy who was juggling and riding the unicycle.”

  “I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure.”

  “You could juggle. That’s easy.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so. He must have had five apples going around. I think about trying to do that... no way.”

  “So maybe you couldn’t do five, but you could keep, say, three balls going.” Seth pushes the hair back from his face. I notice he has very long fingers.

  “You can juggle?” I say.

  “Uh-huh. My...” He stops for a second. “I haven’t been doing it that long,” he says. He runs his thumb back and forth over the ends of his fingers. “You don’t think about it. You just kinda shut off your mind and do it.” He shrugs. “I could show you how sometime.”

  I wonder if he could show me how to shut my mind off, but I don’t say it.

  Seth looks at me and I get that shivery feeling again, as if somehow he knows how much work it is to act normal. But how could he? “So, I’ll see you,” he says.

  I nod.

  I watch him walk away and wonder why it seems he knows things about me that there’s no way he can know.

  “Mmmm. It smells good in here,” Mom says as she comes through the door.

  “Baked potatoes, hamburger casserole and string beans,” I tell her, waving my oven mitts at the stove with a flourish. The kind of meal a real family would eat. We can be a family. A normal family, just the two of us. We can do this.

  “I don’t believe you did all this. I couldn’t even remember whether I’d taken anything out of the freezer or not.”

  “You didn’t. But it didn’t matter. I nuked the hamburger to thaw it. I think it’s all ready if you want to eat.”

  “It all looks so good and it smells terrific, but I’m really not hungry. I’m sorry, D’Arcy. I’m just too tired to eat.”

  “I could make you something else,” I say. “What
about toast and tea?”

  She rubs the back of her neck. “Thanks. But I think what I really need is just to soak in a hot tub and go to bed.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll just save this, and we’ll have it tomorrow.”

  “Sure. Good night then.”

  I watch her head upstairs. She did look tired. Really she did.

  I fill a plate and take it into the living room. I switch through all the TV channels until I find something with a family in it. And then I sit back and eat my supper.

  Sometimes I think we don’t exist—Mom and I. I wonder where everyone went. Dad would decide on Saturday morning to have people for dinner, and in a few hours he’d be at the stove making paella, and there would be candles glowing everywhere and exotic drum music coming from the stereo that seemed to make everyone’s heart beat faster. I don’t know what happened to all those people who laughed and talked and ate in this house. Do they think death is like a disease they could catch just from being in the same room with us?

  eleven

  Monday morning as I come down the hill toward the school, I see Seth sitting on the low brick wall that wraps around the old part of the school. He sort of smiles when he sees me. Is he waiting for me? My feet start walking over, and I make myself keep going because it’s the normal thing to do, even though I meant to duck inside the bottom door and hide out in the girls’ bathroom until the first bell.

  “I’ve got the list of extra-credit problems if you want to look at it,” Seth says, holding out some papers. He has blue eyes, I realize. It’s the first time I’ve ever looked close enough at Seth to notice his eyes.

  “Oh, thanks,” I say. I don’t even look at the work; I just jam it in my backpack.

  “And these are for you.” He’s holding out what looks like two purple tea bags.

  “What are those things for?” I say. “Are we supposed to figure out their volume or their surface area or something?”

  Seth makes a face and grins at me. I think he’s the only person at school who talks to my face and not some spot just past my right ear. Everyone else is all awkward and jumpy, almost like they’re afraid of me. Like I have the smell of death on me and they might get it on them.

  “No, they’re for juggling. I thought maybe you’d like to try it.”

  “No, no, no.” I shake my head at him. “I can’t do stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, you can. Watch me.” He slides down off the wall and holds one of the tea-bag things in each hand. “Look, it’s easy,” he says. “Toss the beanbag in your right hand up and over into your left hand.”

  “Uh, that’s not juggling,” I say. “That’s throwing. I can do that.”

  I set my backpack on the wall and sit beside it.

  “Exactly,” Seth says. “That’s all juggling is, throwing things from one hand to the other. This time, when this bag starts heading down to my left hand, I’m going to throw the one in that hand over to my right hand.” And that’s what he does. It looks easy.

  “Here, try it,” he says, putting the two beanbags back in my hand.

  The first bag makes a perfect arc in the air, but I’m still holding the other one. What do I do?

  “Help!” I toss the bag at Seth. He catches it. I can see he’s trying not to laugh.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” I say. “I told you I can’t juggle.”

  “You didn’t drop anything. That was good.”

  “Show me again,” I say, flipping the second bag over to him.

  He shakes his hair out of his face and starts tossing the beanbags back and forth from hand to hand. I try to watch both of his hands at the same time, but it gets too confusing.

  “Spectacular finish coming,” Seth says. The bags arc twice as high this time. He catches them both and bows.

  I clap wildly.

  Seth’s face gets red. He holds out the purple beanbags. “Here,” he says. “Just practice throwing one from your right hand to your left hand.”

  I stuff them in the pocket of my fleece jacket. “I don’t know about this,” I say. “I’m not coordinated. I’m not athletic. The first time we played baseball in gym in grade nine I hit the ball right over the fence.”

  “That was a home run, D’Arcy. That’s good.”

  “Miss Bell yelled run. Everyone on my team yelled run. So I did. The wrong way around the bases.”

  “No way.”

  “Uh-huh.” I pull my pack onto one shoulder. “I still think it should have counted.”

  “Juggling is easier,” Seth says, grabbing his own backpack off the ledge. “Can you make toast? Can you tie your shoes?”

  “Yeah.” Somehow we start walking for the door, side by side.

  “Then you can learn to juggle.”

  I give him a yeah right look.

  “One bag, right to left. Just try it.”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” I hold up my hands like I’m about to surrender. “It can’t be any worse than baseball was.”

  We stop at the stairs just inside the building. I’m going up. Seth is going down. “I’ll see you in math then,” he says.

  Before I can say anything, the bell rings. Seth is swallowed up by the push of kids through the door, and I get swept up the stairs.

  “Why am I taking history?” Marissa asks as we head down the main stairs after our last class.

  “Because it’s a required course,” I tell her. “Besides, you know how much you love listening to Mr. Bailey talk about life in the Middle Ages.”

  Marissa crosses her eyes at me. “Yeah, isn’t that when he was a teenager?” she says. “Hey, look.” She points toward our lockers. “Stud Puppy’s waiting for you.”

  Brendan is leaning on my locker. Marissa always calls him Stud Puppy. She says he’s about as smart as a big dog. “Hi,” I say as we get level with him.

  “Hi, big guy,” Marissa says, reaching up to mess his hair. I shoot her a warning look, but Brendan doesn’t care that she’s making fun of him.

  “Why aren’t you at practice?” I say.

  “Cancelled. They’re doing something to the floor in the gym, and the track’s too wet outside. So I can drive you home.” He looks at Marissa. “You want a ride?”

  “I already have one,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows, which I think is supposed to look sexy. She shoves books into her locker, pulls others out and finally grabs her jacket. “Call me later,” she says over her shoulder as she walks away.

  I grab my own stuff and pull on my jacket. Brendan slips his arm around me as we head down the hall, turning my face against his shoulder. He leans down and tickles my ear with his tongue.

  “Hey, stop that,” I say. “You’re going to get us caught.”

  Mr. Connell, the vice-principal, doesn’t approve of PDAs in the halls. That’s what he calls public displays of affection.

  “There’s no one around,” Brendan says. He doesn’t worry about things like that. He’s Mr. Hotshot Basketball Star, so the rules aren’t quite the same for him.

  In the car I let Brendan talk, and the words just slide all around me. I hear maybe every fifth or sixth one. As we turn onto my street, I catch a whole sentence.

  “...don’t have to be there until six. So we have a couple of hours all to ourselves.” Before I can say anything, he swings into the driveway. “Shit!” he exclaims.

  My mom’s car is in front of the garage. I let out the breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. “There’s still a lot of paperwork,” I say. “She doesn’t stay at work the whole day.”

  “I never see you,” Brendan says. I know that’s not exactly what he means.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I better go in. I’ll call you later.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again as I get out of the car. But as I watch him drive away, all I feel is relief.

  I’m coming from the bathroom, my wet hair cold on the back of my neck. My eyes slide past the half-open bedroom door without really looking, and I take two or three more steps
before it registers that something’s different.

  I back up, nudge the door all the way open with my foot. The quilt is gone from the bed, all those different shades of green replaced by a dull gray polar fleece blanket. The quilt had been an anniversary present for my mother. I remember my dad telling us about the old ladies who had done the quilting. One of them had been a hundred and one and had flirted like crazy with him.

  Where is it? Where did she put it?

  I haven’t been inside my parents’ room—my mother’s room—since it happened. I take a step across the floor. Then another.

  It isn’t right. My dad’s clothes should be falling off the chair in the corner by the window. His comb and his watch should be on the dresser. Why aren’t his shoes in the middle of the floor, like he just stepped out of them and kept walking? Where’s the stack of books next to his side of the bed?

  I’m breathing very fast but I can’t seem to get any air. I jam my knuckles in my mouth and bite until it hurts. I bite until I can breathe right again.

  My father’s dresser is empty. I yank out every drawer but nothing of his is left behind. I jerk the closet doors open. Mom’s clothes are hanging on one side but the other side is empty. Not even a hanger.

  Where is everything? When did she do this?

  There is nothing of my father’s left in this room. His shoes are gone from the closet floor. The hat with the earflaps he brought back from Alaska is missing from the shelf. And his Indiana Jones hat is gone too.

  Why? Why?

  I sit in the closet, my back against the wall. If she really loved him, how could she pack up all his things just like that? I feel as though someone’s fist is jammed up inside my chest. It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard to swallow. I don’t even know I’m crying until the tears drip onto my hands.

  I wait until after supper the next night to ask my mother about Dad’s things. We’re in the kitchen. Mom is putting stuff in the fridge, and I’m flattening the pizza box.

  “What did you do with Dad’s stuff?” I ask.

  Her back’s turned. She stiffens and pulls her arms in against her body. She doesn’t turn around. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean his clothes, his books, everything. Where is it?” I smash the corners of the box lid flat.