In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo

by Tacon, Claire;

  Starr is crying. Not a full-scale panic attack but she’s embarrassed. She says she’s ruined everything. Chester sits her down while the rest of us scurry to salvage the meal: Melanie plates, Kathleen squirts out portions of creamy ranch, I palm the legume shrapnel. Usually Starr would be able to slip into our protocol for accidents. They happen. It’s normal. But her anxiety levels are elevated. We’re well into the lasagna before she relaxes.

  Some bruises from our trip still linger.

  We eat dessert in the basement. My present to Starr is that I’ve hooked Franny Feathers onto the grid. I’ve also programmed the band motions to match one of her current favourite songs. Starr claps, genuinely pleased when I pull the sheet off the flamingo. Even Kathleen and Melly applaud. Tonight, however, for the first time I can see how weird Chester must have thought this was. How incongruous the plush fur and high-camp costumes look in our otherwise typical suburban basement. Apart from Starr, none of us are good singers. No one else would invite us to belt out the words to “Islands in the Stream” while a half-circle of puppets wriggle behind us. We’d be upstairs playing Balderdash or whatever it is his family does.

  Cotton-candy pop comes out of the speakers, a bouncy tune with a beat like a squeeze toy. Right on cue, right to the exact second, Starr comes in so you can barely hear the original singer. “I, I, I, I, I know just what you’re thinking.”

  Starr’s hair is pink and spidery in the lights. She bends to weave back and forth a bit while she sings. Starr likes the song because it was sung by a girl on a talent search. Sometimes I think if they aired a show called Canada’s Next Subway Busker my daughter would tune in every week. Secretly I like watching them with her too, especially during the auditions when you can see the contestant’s life story.

  I wish we weren’t down here in the basement, the couches sagging from years of abuse. That we didn’t have to shelter to provide this one corner of the world for her to live out her fantasy. If we’d had the money when she was younger, we could have hired her vocal coaches, sent her every year to those music camps in the States. I wish we’d had the resources to turn her into the poster child we saw on 60 Minutes. The musical prodigy the journalists were gushing over.

  As she’s singing, Starr turns to each of the band members and nods to them. “You, you, you, you, you know my heart is breaking. Hey!” she skips a line and points to Frankie’s mouth. It’s opening in perfect time to the staccato procession of pronouns. “Awesome!” She dances in place, waiting for the chorus. If all goes as the doctors promise, next year there could be a baby with us. A niece or nephew, a grandchild. No small quantity of joy.

  It will be good for Starr, for all of us. Despite my worries about attention shifting, the fault line of split affection.

  In her blue polka-dot dress, the T-shirt fabric clinging to the waistband of her leggings, Starr still looks so young. Like the whole world, her whole life, is open to possibility. Up there, Starr is exuberant, her voice breathy in the mic, her audience cheering her on between bites of ice cream cake.

  It’s a gift to be able to provide her with that. This brief, unadulterated glee.

  The lights snap on when the music ends – a lesson I learned the hard way because it’s easier for Starr to see the edge of the riser, the one step down.

  “Who’s next?”

  A duet. Melly and Starr channelling Dusty Springfield. Kathleen slouches closer toward me. One arm around my wife and my girls performing onstage. The twin Dustys are selling themselves for scraps of love and I’m just so goddamned happy. If I could freeze this moment, all of us together.

  The song ends and Starr returns to her half-eaten cake, now puddling on the plate. Mint chocolate chip on a cookie crust is her favourite but she never manages to finish her slice.

  “We haven’t been to the Funhouse in a long time,” she says. She’s right, we haven’t been since I was fired. Greyson’s finally sold and, even if I was welcome at the Mississauga location, I don’t think I could walk through those doors.

  At my new pay grade, Kath figures I can punch out in ten years. She can retire in twelve. It’s a fair trade, even if it feels like a loss. Skee-Ball and arcades are stale. The five-year-olds know this. A grown man shouldn’t find much magic in an animatronic squirrel.

  Starr gathers up another half-spoon of crust. “Maybe that’s where we can have my party next year.”

  “No,” I say. “We won’t be going back.”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FIRST OF ALL, MY THANKS TO THE CANADIAN Association for Williams Syndrome, who put me in touch with several families as I was researching this book. I would like to thank the following families for their generosity in answering my questions and sharing their experiences: Orvella Small and Sheena Small; Marisa Melino; Christena Cote and Renee Cote; Tom, Jan and Thea Wolfe; Jemma Wolfe; Susan Noseworthy; and Elizabeth. Special thanks to Maria Mallozzi – not only did you provide extensive research guidance, but you have also become a treasured friend.

  My gratitude to the following people for their assistance with other research questions: Ron MacKay, Tina Pickett, Carolyn Williamson and John Dimitri Gibson. Also to Daryl Dippel, who patiently explained the inner workings of arcade games and animatronics. My love and thanks to my sister, Daphne, who shared her insights from thirty years working in social services, as well as her passion for reading.

  Thank you to the Ontario Arts Council, who supported the development of this book through the Writers’ Reserve program.

  Thank you to Noelle Allen and the team at Wolsak & Wynn for taking the book on and bringing it to print. Huge thanks to editor Paul Vermeersch, who not only championed the book, but also came up with the title. Much gratitude to Ashley Hisson for her skilful copy-editing. Thanks also to Stephanie Sinclair and the team at Transatlantic for being so welcoming and for finding the book such a splendid home.

  I’m indebted to all my friends and fellow writers who supplied endless encouragement. Especially Amy Stuart, Catherine Livingstone, Lisa Harrison, Eileen MacArthur, Elizabeth Zahorchak, Jamella Hagen, Dina Del Bucchia, Kellee Ngan, Michael Wheeler, Ria Voros, Chioke I’Anson, Dan Evans and Kelly Jones.

  Above all, thanks to my family for their love and support. Particularly, my parents, Paul and Susan Tacon, and my in-laws, Julio and Elizabeth López. From the practical help with childcare to always believing that writing is a worthy use of time, I appreciate you more than you know. A special mention to my Aunt Karen. Thanks also to my talented niece, Georgina Alonso, who sat through hours of “The Shape Song” with a two-year-old, so that I could write a new draft of the novel.

  This book has been a labour of love for almost a decade. While I was writing about parenthood, my husband and I went through the roller coaster of infertility, miscarriage and, finally, the births of our sons, Javier and Rafael. Julio, I couldn’t have asked for a more loving and compassionate partner. You make me laugh every day and this book wouldn’t be here without you.

  Claire Tacon’s first novel, In the Field, was the winner of the 2010 Metcalf-Rooke Award. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Bronwen Wallace Award, the CBC Literary Prizes and the Playboy College Fiction Contest, and has appeared in journals and anthologies such as The New Quarterly, SubTerrain and Best Canadian Short Stories. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and is a past fiction editor of PRISM international. Claire is a lecturer at St. Jerome’s University and runs the fiction podcast The Oddments Tray with Chioke I’Anson.

  © Claire Tacon, 2018

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Poplar Press is an imprint of Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.

  Cover and interior design: Michel Vrana

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bsp; Cover image: Elements from iStockphoto.com

  Author photograph: Julio Lopez Romero

  Typeset in: Garamond Premier Pro and Budmo

  Printed by Ball Media, Brantford, Canada

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada.

  Poplar Press

  280 James Street North

  Hamilton, ON

  Canada L8R 2L3

  Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada.

  ISBN 978-1-928088-57-8 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-928088-86-8 (epub)

  ISBN 978-1-928088-87-5 (mobi)