Lesley Anne Cowan

by Something Wicked (v5)

  I know that if this actually happened, I’d probably hate my life. I’d find it totally boring and fuck it all up, because it’s like it’s too late for me now. But who knows? Maybe after some time I’d get into it.

  Some kind of bug lands on my neck and stings me. “Agghhh!” I shout, and slap my hand down hard. “Bitch!” I shout some more, really annoyed now, and then look back to my mom and Scott, who don’t even turn to see what the problem is.

  Then it’s as if reality settles in, and I sober up. I shake my head, pissed off at the dumb fairy tale I was constructing. It was a stupid thought and I am an idiot for even letting myself get so far into the idea.

  “I’m cold, I’m going,” I announce, standing up and shaking the sand off my ass. I friggin’ hate sand.

  “Yeah. Okay.” My mom waves absent-mindedly and goes back to her deep conversation with Scott. With nothing else to do, I decide to head back to the room and drink a beer. I don’t even like beer, but I’ll do anything just to shut my mind up.

  Twenty-Four

  It’s always a little bit awkward when I walk into Eric’s office. It’s hard to shift gears from thinking about nothing to thinking about something. I spend every day just trying to forget how I really feel and then I have to face it all when I see him.

  “Hey,” I greet him, toss my backpack onto one of the empty chairs, and unzip my jacket.

  “Hey yourself. Good timing—I just walked in. How’s it going?” Eric takes off his own coat and puts down a Starbucks cup on the table.

  “Okay,” I answer, sit down, pick up two stress balls that are in a basket on the table, and start to juggle them while Eric puts away a folder and finishes writing a number on a yellow sticky note. He makes some small talk about stuff—school and my work—before he brings up what he really wants to discuss.

  “So, how was the weekend away?”

  “Actually, it was really good.” I try to toss the balls up and down in one hand. One of them goes flying down to the floor and I’m too lazy to get it, so I just lean back and start squeezing the other one in my hands.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I am. I didn’t think I’d like it.”

  “Hmmm … I’m glad. You like Scott?”

  “Yeah. I can’t really complain. Which feels weird. I guess part of me wants to hate him. And I guess I wanted to have a terrible time.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “’Cause it would be a lot easier than getting hurt in the end. It’s obvious Scott and my mom aren’t going to stay together. He’s rich and has a nice house. And he’s all proper and polite. And this perfect little life we have with him is just borrowed. I mean, you just can’t go from a shitty apartment and living in a shelter to some mansion in Rosedale. It doesn’t work like that, even though my mom promised, one day, we’d have a home. A real home, you know?”

  “I’m sure she meant it when she said it.”

  “Yeah. I remember exactly when she said it. We were in the shelter after Bradley died. We were sitting in our crappy room, on the bed.”

  “That’s right, you were there a couple of months. What was that like?”

  “It was okay. We slept in a dorm room with something like ten beds. There were a couple other kids in there, but no men. Only women.” I close my eyes and start to move around the room I see in my mind. “There were bunk beds, and me and my mom had two lower bunks side by side. In between us was a table we could put our stuff on. And a little cupboard underneath the table we could lock and keep some clothes in. We had to change in there with everyone else around. It was really awkward. But what was most terrible was sleeping. Hearing everyone breathe and snore and fart. And sometimes I heard my mom crying. That was the worst. I remember that really scaring me.” I pause a second, because I hadn’t thought of all this in such a long time and it’s weird how real it still feels to me. “I remember waking in the dark, really late, and always hearing the radio playing down the hall, at the security desk. There was never total silence. Which probably should have been comforting, but actually was kind of creepy.”

  I open my eyes again. “The worst was the toilets. There was an open shower area, without any drapes. Just a few shower pipes with, like, five shower heads around each one, so all the women had to stand naked in little circles. It was really gross. It was the first time I saw women’s bodies.” The recollection makes me shudder.

  “Where did you eat?”

  “In the cafeteria. It was a big room with longish tables. We usually sat alone or with a friend of my mom’s, who also had a kid who was a few years younger than me that I got stuck basically babysitting while they talked. There was a playroom. I remember that being cool, even though I was too old for it. I’d colour, and play this game with marbles. A lady used to play with me. She was young. I think she was a volunteer. One time I made chocolate chip cookies with her in the kitchen.”

  “So you’ve described what it looked like. What about the general feel of the place?”

  “I don’t know …” I try to think about being twelve again. Imagine myself walking around the place. “I don’t really remember being sad. I was more worried about my mom. The place itself wasn’t awful. It’s only later, when I got older, that I put negative feelings into the memories. It’s like at the time, it just was. There were always people around, you know? And nothing was ours—not the sheets or the pillows or even the soap. But it wasn’t that bad. It was more the idea that no one wanted to be there that made it depressing. I guess if it was a place people wanted to go, it would have been fine. But since it was a shelter and no one wants to be in a shelter, it was like reality turned everything a certain grey and you couldn’t see the colour.” My lips stop moving and it’s as if I’ve just returned to the room after being far away in my mind. “Oh,” I remark, “I’ve been talking a lot.”

  “It’s okay. That’s what we’re here for.”

  “My mouth is tired.”

  Eric laughs. “Then let’s give it a rest, shall we?”

  Twenty-Five

  I try to pretend to myself that I’ve stopped thinking about Michael. I pretend to everyone that things are fine, but inside I’m really dying. Each morning I wake with the hope that maybe today he will call. And each night I go to bed, sad that he didn’t. When I can’t sleep, I lie in the dark and go over every single second we ever spent together, from beginning to end. I play it like a movie in my head, so I even see myself in the scenes. Then sometimes I imagine him calling me.

  “Hi.”

  “Michael?”

  “Yeah. Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “I know you’re mad, but I’m coming back for you.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah. Not now. In two years. I love you, Melissa. I want to be with you forever. Wait for me. When you’re eighteen, I’ll be there.”

  “Eighteen? That’s so long. Why eighteen? It’s just a number. I can’t wait. I might be dead by then.”

  “You won’t be dead. You’re too strong, baby. We’re going to be together. I know it.”

  “But if you love me, how can you be away from me?”

  “I need to get my shit together. You need to get older. If we’re together now, we won’t last.”

  “Yeah, maybe it’s true. But I can’t be alone so long. You have to come back.”

  “I will.”

  “I don’t think I can wait so long.”

  “Wait, baby. Wait. I will wait for you …”

  And it goes on and on like that. But I wonder how long I can go on like this—waking with hope, falling asleep in tears. It feels endless, but I suppose it’s bound to stop. One day I’m bound to wake without the thought of Michael beside me in my bed. Aren’t I?

  Twenty-Six

  The minute I swear off men, I meet someone remotely interesting. His name is Fortune, he’s nineteen, and he’s so incredibly gorgeous it’s almost impossible not to want to jump him. He’s got a baby face, beautiful brown skin, short dreads, and the
most amazing body. “It’s as if he puts sexy into every movement,” Jess says. Hot, hot, hot! He’ll be standing in front of you then suddenly reach up over his head to stretch, revealing his six-pack stomach. Or he’ll lean one arm up on the fridge door at a party, deciding for the longest time on what beer to take, while all the girls in the room stare at his fine ass.

  I’ve seen him around before. I always thought he was cute, but it was obvious he was a player, so I didn’t consider him. He’s the kind of guy who makes girls fall in love with him, gets what he can out of them, and moves on. Any girl—Chinese, black, Hispanic, brown, anything. Even the guys are drawn to him. He always has a permanent posse of wannabes hanging around.

  But on Saturday night, at Jasmyn’s friend’s friend’s friend’s place, here Fortune is, beside me on the couch, treating me like I’m the only girl in the room. His thigh pressed against mine. His sexy voice up close in my ear, so close I feel his cheek against mine. I’m so fucked up on some stuff Jasmyn gave me to snort that I decide to tolerate him. He is telling me I’m different than the other girls. He is telling me he’s been watching me a long time.

  “That’s bull,” I argue.

  He laughs. “You see? You’re smart. I like that. You don’t let me get away with shit and I barely know you.” He reaches his arm around me, resting his hand against my tit as if it’s unintentional. “You walk around like you don’t care about anyone. Like you’re a dyke or something. Your friend Allison kind of looks like a dyke. What’s up? Are you a carpet muncher?”

  I slap him in the chest. “No!”

  “You sure?” He puts his hand back again.

  “Is this why you prey on sixteen-year-olds? Because they buy this shit?” I pull away firmly this time.

  “Hah!” He laughs. “Usually.”

  I don’t know how it all happens, but Fortune drives me home and we end up messing around in his black BMW E 36 with tints and blackout grilles. He blasts 2Pac on his sweet boomin’ system. I feel the vibrations in the seat. He apologizes for the apparently indecent sound quality. “I got a blown sub and I’m gonna put in a Pioneer 500-watt ten-inch Fosgate,” he says. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  We pull into the parking lot out back of my building for a while. We don’t have sex because I have my period. His phone rings a thousand times, and he answers it no matter what we’re in the middle of doing. His conversations are the same: “Yeah. Right. Twenty. Fifty. Yeah.” And I know he’s dealing, which makes me like him even more, because it means he’s got a brain.

  “See ya, babe,” he says when we’re done, giving me this most luscious kiss.

  “Yeah. Later,” I say, shutting the door. Then he pulls away, without giving me his number.

  I go up to my room, lie in bed, and think of him. I think of his lips. His hair. His smooth skin. His biceps. His thighs. His fingers.

  I feel sort of guilty about Michael, but part of me wants to hurt him for leaving me. And when he comes back, I want him to think I moved on so he’ll be jealous and see how good a catch I really am. But for tonight, even if I am drunk, I feel happy, and it’s just so delicious to fall asleep with the thought of someone else for a change.

  Twenty-Seven

  Uncle Freestyle and I talk about the craziest things. Sometimes I really love him. He comes over every Monday night to watch football and we usually go out on the balcony at halftime and blaze. It’s like our own little counselling office.

  I tell my mom that I don’t have to go see Eric, that Freestyle is just as good.

  “That’s insane,” she says. “That man has no capacity for moral guidance. Look at his life.” She’s talking about his three kids with three different women. And his smoking pot. And his endless art projects that never get started. And his long string of home repair jobs.

  “He says pretty smart stuff.”

  She looks at me in disbelief. “That’s because you’re a kid. You think everyone sounds smart.”

  “No I don’t.” I want to say I don’t think she sounds smart. Or her friend Crystal. Or my CYC at school. But the thing is, Freestyle is super smart. When he was little, he skipped two grades. He got kicked out of high school, but he can play Jeopardy and get every question right. He’s the one who taught me how to smoke poppers and to blow out the smoke through a toilet paper roll stuffed with Bounce sheets so my mom won’t smell it. And he’s this amazing painter. His stuff is so good, it could be in galleries.

  I look carefully at my mother, thinking there must be more between them that I don’t know. “Why do you hate him so much?”

  She rolls her eyes. “We’re related. That’s what brothers and sisters do—they hate each other.”

  “Bradley and I didn’t hate each other.”

  “No.” She smiles warmly. “You didn’t hate each other. You were too young. You probably would have later, though.”

  When I tell Freestyle out on the balcony that he should be a counsellor to teenagers, he says he’s got enough problems of his own, that he wouldn’t want to sit around and listen to other people’s issues all day. To make conversation, I end up telling him about my weekend. I always tell him what’s up with my friends, and which guys I’ve been with. He doesn’t like hearing about the sex that much, but he doesn’t get all fatherlike about it. This time I tell him about Fortune.

  “He’s black?”

  “No, he’s orange. Yeah. So?”

  He shrugs his shoulders.

  “What, you from the Dark Ages? What’s wrong with a black guy?”

  “Nothing.”

  He annoys me a little. How can he be so cool yet sometimes so ignorant?

  “You on the pill?”

  “Yeah. Sort of. I have this thing in my arm. Mom made me get it.”

  “Good.” He switches his tone. “So, why do you think you’re with so many guys?”

  “I’m not with ‘so many guys,’” I say defensively.

  “Enough guys …”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, maybe. But once you start, it’s like, ‘Why not?’” Then I tell him what I always tell Eric:“It just feels good.”

  “Well. Hell! Yeah! Of course! Lots of things feel good. But that doesn’t mean you have to always do it. Sure, sex is excellent, hot … but it doesn’t mean you screw every guy you see.”

  I get pissed at him. “I don’t!”

  His silence is his objection. It pisses me off. If we were done our joint, I’d go back in. I fold my arms and wait for him to pass me the last bit.

  “What do you think the guys say about you?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, knowing full well what he means.

  “You think they respect you, or do they think you’re trash?”

  I laugh.

  “No, I’m serious. You think they talk about you?”

  I shrug my shoulders.“I don’t know.And I couldn’t care less if they did.”

  “You would if you heard what they said.”

  I start to get angry.“How do you know what they say? What do you know?”

  “I know guys. I was your age, and I’m still a guy. I definitely know guys.”

  “Well, I don’t fuckin’ care what they say. I do what I want to do.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you this: they don’t respect a girl who’s with everyone. They might be nice to your face, but they say shit to each other about you. And I don’t see any of them wanting to be your boyfriend.”

  Now I get really mad. “Shut up.”

  “I’m just saying it like it is, Melissa.”

  We’re quiet for a bit. I’m too mad to talk and he’s probably trying to find a way to end a pathetic conversation on a positive note. I consider telling him about Michael, but it would only be for me to prove a point. And in the end I know I’d regret it, ’cause he’d just get pissed about how old he is and get all worked up about wanting to go find him and kick his ass.

  “I’m just saying, Melissa, that there’s a reason you’re doing it.” His voice changes to this caring
tone. “And if you have sex with so many guys—”

  I contest, “Not so many!”

  He lights a new joint and passes it over. “So, anyway, the question is, what do you think you get out of it?”

  “Now you’re really sounding like my counsellor,” I say, taking the joint and inhaling.

  I stand there awhile, staring at the red embers and thinking about it. He’s right. Damn, he’s smart sometimes. There must be something more. I don’t do it to get a boyfriend, like Shayla does. And it’s not like I don’t feel pretty enough to get a guy so I have to be a slut, like Allison. So what is it?

  “I guess I like that I’m good at it,” I conclude, not really satisfied with my own answer. I turn and look directly at him. “Why do you like it?”

  He laughs and then lights up a cigarette.“I never said I liked it.”

  “Whatever. You have three kids.”

  He doesn’t respond, so I let it drop. Like me, Freestyle has a short attention span, and once he’s done with a topic, it’s done. He turns and looks in through the window to check the TV. “Those goddamn cartoon beavers on those commercials. Are they faggots or what? Let’s go in. It’s cold out here.”

  Twenty-Eight

  I usually take the codeine pills from work, just two or three a week. Just enough to keep me going on the boring Saturday and Sunday afternoons when I’ve partied all night and want to crash the next day. I can never really sleep. Not fully, because the E or the coke or whatever is still pulsing in my blood. So I put on a DVD, close the curtains, get under a bunch of blankets on the couch, and pop a pill.