A Big Dose of Lucky

by Marthe Jocelyn

  Lucky thing, because Frankie is already waiting at the hostel, chatting to Linette.

  “Woo-hoo!” says Frankie. “Who’s this pretty girl?”

  I nearly choke with happiness. Linette flips up her thumbs and gives me a wink.

  MY FIRST EGG ROLL

  “Come on,” says Frankie. “Are you hungry? Let’s get Chinese.”

  We go to the Golden Bamboo Restaurant and sit in a booth beside the window. The seats are covered in red fake leather, and there’s a lantern hanging over our heads, entwined with plastic ivy. What Frankie calls a jukebox sits right on the table, with fifty songs inside. Each one costs a dime, or you can hear three for a quarter. I don’t know what a jukebox is until Frankie tells me, but I love the word. How did a song turn into a juke, I wonder.

  “Your choice,” says Frankie. “Who’s your favorite band?”

  “The Beatles.” Sure of myself on that one.

  “Yeah,” he says. “They’re cool.” He’s flipping a lever to look through the song offerings. “How about the Rolling Stones?”

  “Sure,” I say. I know what they look like from magazine pictures. But I’ve never heard them sing. I think, A dime for a single song? Maybe we shouldn’t be wasting our money like that.

  He slides a quarter into the slot and pushes two buttons on the front of the box. “K-4,” he says. “‘I Wanna Be Your Man.’”

  “What?” My cheeks go instantly warm.

  He laughs. “That’s the name of the song,” says Frankie. “But…since you mention it…”

  Warm to blazing hot. I grip the menu, staring without reading a single word.

  He laughs again. “Okay,” he says. “Next up…B-7. ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ by the Beach Boys.” His thumb presses the right buttons. “You pick the last one.”

  My turn to move the lever. I know he’s watching me. The pressure to choose a good song is so high that I have to blink a few times. Finally, I find it. F-9. “Till There Was You” by the Beatles.

  THE BEATLES

  Even poor deprived orphans in the countryside of Ontario know about the new band from England with their floppy bangs and funny tight trousers. On Sunday night the television in the common room got turned on at seven o’clock. First we watched Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, and then we sat enraptured by the performers who visited The Ed Sullivan Show. The little girls went pink waiting for the sassy mouse puppet named Topo Gigio. The best minute of the week was hearing them squeak in a chorus when the puppet sat on Ed Sullivan’s arm and said, “Eddie, kiss me goodnight…”

  The rest of us, since this past February when they made their first appearance, were always hoping for the Beatles.

  The musicians’ names are John, Paul, George and Richard, whose nickname is Ringo because he wears rings on his fingers even though he isn’t married. The Beatles play music that makes girls scream.

  John Lennon is a half orphan and so is Paul McCartney. That made us Seven love them all the more. John’s mother was knocked down by a car. The driver was an off-duty policeman. That guy must have felt really bad, especially after the boy whose mother he killed got to be so famous and everybody knew what he’d done. John’s dad had already left the family, so John is basically a true orphan.

  Paul’s mum got sick when he was fourteen, and he said it was a horrible shock. He also said, in an interview we read until we’d memorized it, that the worst thing about her dying was hearing his dad cry for the first time.

  “TILL THERE WAS YOU”

  When the Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan last February, they sang a song that we constantly crooned to each other, goofing around. Hands on our hearts, we’d warble, “There were bells on a hill…” our eyes rolling heavenward through the bits about never hearing them ringing. And someone would make a ding-dong noise as we all joined in for the swooning “till there was youuu…”

  More verses. Never saw birds winging, never heard love singing, that kind of thing. Maybe the lyrics are a bit sappy, but the melody is pretty and made us shiver, full of promise that someday we’d feel that way because of a boy.

  I won’t say I’m in shivers over Frankie Melchi, but then again, I’m not blind. He has shiny brown eyes and a smile full of mischief and a flop of dark hair that he brushes out of his eyes every once in a while. Definitely shiver-making ingredients…

  When the waiter brings our bill, Frankie pays for the whole thing! I try to say no, because he’s only an orderly, hoping to be a student, so I know that he must count his pennies too, but he says that he invited me, so it’s up to him to pay. He walks back with me to the hostel, and I get this nervous tingle—not exactly shivers but close. Is this the kind of situation where a boy might want to kiss a girl, and what do I know about that? Nothing, that’s what. I’m suddenly scared to bits.

  “Thanks for the Chinese food,” I say for the fourth time. “Here we are at my door, and I have to go now.”

  He grins, like he hears what I’m really saying, which is, Don’t kiss me, don’t kiss me, don’t kiss me.

  Even though, okay, I’m a little curious.

  But I’m more Frankie, don’t kiss me goodnight! ’cause what if I don’t know how?

  “This was fun,” he says. “I hope there’s a next time.” And he sticks out his hand to shake mine.

  “Oh!” I try to smile, but my mouth won’t move. I shake his hand and hustle through the door and up the stairs. No kiss. Yes, I’m relieved. But also…why didn’t he want to kiss me?

  Which is worse? To say no or to not have the chance to say no?

  Upstairs, the red-haired lady named Jean is back again. We smile and chat, and I take my pajamas to the washroom to get changed. What if I asked her if she ever wanted to kiss a boy so much her lips burned?

  I CAN SEE THEM FROM A MILE AWAY

  The only brown faces to come out of Parry Sound High School are headed in my direction. The one in front is Jimmy, waving.

  “You found us,” he says. “This is Pete. And Lucy. Guys, meet Malou.”

  Pete has darker skin than Jimmy. Darker than mine. That’s what I see first. Brown eyes, bright like Jimmy’s, but nappy hair like mine, cut close to his head.

  “You made it.” Jimmy makes it sound as if I’m meeting them on top of a mountain during a windstorm.

  We nod and stand there, pretending not to stare.

  Lucy is rounder and darker than I am, pretty, her long hair straightened somehow so it lies smooth and flat to her shoulders. How does she make it look like that? If I grew mine, it would stick out from my head like an enormous dandelion.

  “Huh,” she says, checking me out from face to footwear. “The new girl in town…” Not exactly friendly.

  “You look like that chick who works at the marina during the summer,” says Pete.

  “Ha!” says his sister. “You sound like a whitey. Marina Girl is the only dark girl you ever met—apart from me—so suddenly they look just the same?”

  “Well, she does.” Pete pokes Jimmy. “Doesn’t she?”

  “Maybe,” says Jimmy. “I’ve never been that close to the girl at Big Sound.”

  “Neither has Pete.” Lucy rolls her eyes. “Only in his dreams. He’s too busy getting close to Bethany Wilkes.” She says the girl’s name with heavy sarcasm, and Pete pretends to swat her, but I can see he has a crush on Bethany Wilkes, whoever she might be.

  “Let’s see this famous list,” says Lucy.

  I give the paper to Jimmy, and he points. His mom, their mom.

  “See?” he says. “Like I told you.”

  “What’s it for?” Lucy tries to take it, but Jimmy holds on.

  “I know you already told Jim where you got it,” Pete says to me. “But tell us again.”

  I give the short version: in the hospital archives. Then the longer version: how I’m looking for my mother, how the baby bracelet led me here, how I got hired, how I figured out where the “dead” files were and sneaked in to find the one to match the bracelet, how it was Sherry Fox. How
the list ended up in my pocket.

  “Do you recognize anyone else?” says Jimmy.

  Pete and Lucy shake their heads, still looking even though there are only seven names.

  I notice I’m not breathing while I wait for a miracle.

  “When’s your birthday?” I say.

  “March 16,” they say together.

  “Couple months older than us,” says Jimmy. I like the way he says us.

  Pete taps the paper. “What do you think it’s for?”

  “No idea,” I tell him.

  “I’m guessing they’re all women,” says Lucy. “And so far—if the four of us mean anything—a lot of dark skin.”

  I wasn’t going to be the one to say it, but yeah. “So you agree that maybe one of them is my mother?” I fold the paper back into my pocket.

  “Makes sense,” says Pete, and Lucy nods.

  We stand around looking at each other some more.

  Jimmy says, “Do you think your mom or dad might recognize one of those other names?”

  Pete and Lucy exchange a quick glance, sharing some twin thought.

  “Dad’s not exactly—” starts Pete.

  “Our mom is kind of—” says Lucy.

  “There’d be too many questions,” Pete says. “It’d be a big drag.”

  “Right. Never mind.” Jimmy shifts his books from one arm to the other. “I get it.”

  “Wait.” I don’t get it. “What can be the harm in asking if they know a name?”

  Lucy shakes her head, like it’s hopeless to explain to someone as dumb as me.

  “Maybe,” she says, “since you don’t have a mother, you don’t realize how much of a problem a mother can be. It’s not all sharey-carey and—”

  “Lucy.” Pete cuts her off. “She doesn’t need to hear this.” To me he says, “We can’t ask her stuff about when we were babies. It makes her a bit nutty.”

  “I’ve got band practice,” says Lucy.

  “Yeah.” Pete glances at his watch. “I have to go to work.”

  Jimmy tips his head toward Pete. “We both pack groceries at the Dominion Food Store,” he tells me.

  “They have the cutest little uniforms,” says Lucy. “If you’re a big fan of mustard yellow.”

  “But we get to drive delivery wagons,” says Pete.

  “Yeah,” says Lucy. “Attached to bicycles. Woo-hoo.”

  “I’m Thursday and Saturday,” says Jimmy. “Pete has Tuesday and Friday.”

  For a second I wonder what happens on Monday and Wednesday.

  “And I’ll be late if I don’t go now.” Pete waves and heads off.

  “Wait, please,” I say to Lucy. “Can we just…I mean, aren’t you a little bit curious?”

  “It’s just some random piece of paper,” she says. “It could be anything. No big mystery that I can see.” She shrugs, like, Who cares?

  “It’s a clue,” I say.

  “Look, I have to go.” Lucy lifts her case, which I realize must hold some kind of musical instrument. “I’m not purposely being a witch. Just because you’re, uh, lucky enough to not have a mother tracking your every step doesn’t mean the rest of the world is going to start looking for her, with only a scrap of paper that’s not even evidence. Okay? Come up with something better and maybe I’ll listen.”

  THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY

  “Which way are you going?” says Jimmy. “I’ll walk with you.”

  “What the heck was that about?” Tears prickle my eyes.

  Jimmy sighs and rubs some dirt with his shoe for a few seconds. “I don’t exactly know,” he finally says. “Everybody says their mother is a bit psycho.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Mrs. Munro never leaves the house. Like, never. Pete brings the groceries home from the Dominion because she doesn’t even go shopping. She never goes to Pete’s hockey games or Lucy’s flute concerts. People say she’s afraid that if she goes outside God won’t be able to find her. And their dad, well, their dad is old and he limps and…Lucy shouldn’t have said that to you. But some days she must wish…”

  We turn the corner, and Jimmy stops dead. He walks backward three steps and pulls open the creaky glass door of a telephone booth.

  “I just thought of something,” he says.

  “You turning into Superman?”

  Superman is also an orphan. His parents died when the planet Krypton exploded, but they managed to send their baby to Earth before the catastrophe, so he could grow up undercover as a regular human, Clark Kent.

  “Ha,” says Jimmy. “No.” He opens the big book that is attached to a chain. “I should have thought about this before. The phone book.”

  I know what a phone book is, but I’ve never used one. When would I? I’ve only spoken into a telephone one time in my life, when a girl named Sheila was in the hospital on her birthday and we took turns cheering her up. I never had anyone else to call. All the people I knew lived at the Home.

  “We can look for the other names,” Jimmy says. “Show me the list again.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  He laughs. “Hardly.”

  I pull out the list, even though I’ve memorized it.

  There are five names we haven’t found yet: Judith Anderson, R. Connor, P. Golia, Patty Nelson and Harriet Thomas.

  We find two maybes in the phone book, an Arthur Nelson and an H.L. Thomas.

  “Arthur might be the husband of Patty,” says Jimmy. “And H.L. could stand for Harriet. Harriet Louise maybe?”

  “Harriet Linda? Harriet Lavender?”

  “Harriet Lollipop.”

  “Harriet Lovebunny.”

  Malou Nelson, I try in my head. Malou Thomas.

  “So now what?” I ask.

  “We have the numbers,” says Jimmy. “You want me to call?”

  MORE DEAD ENDS

  I’m squished halfway into the phone booth. Jimmy whisper-reports everything that Arthur Nelson is telling him. Arthur is Patty Nelson’s brother-in-law. Patty and her husband, John, used to live in Parry Sound but moved away a few years ago.

  “It’s actually their kid I’m trying to reach,” says Jimmy into the receiver.

  I poke him. How does he know they have a kid?

  “That’s him,” he says. “Danny.”

  I step out of the booth. I know what that means. I’m not their kid.

  Jimmy listens for a while. “That sounds nice, Mr. Nelson. Thanks for filling me in. Goodbye.”

  He hangs up.

  “Danny goes to a boarding school in the States,” he says. “Term ends next week.”

  “Like here,” I say.

  “Uncle Arthur went to visit his nephew last month.”

  “And?”

  “For his sixteenth birthday.” Jimmy’s dark eyes look into mine.

  “So Patty Nelson is not my mother either.”

  “Right,” he says. “Too bad. But it still helps, don’t you think? To check somebody off? And…isn’t it getting weirder?”

  Yup. That’s a lot of birthdays close together.

  “I wonder what color he is,” I say.

  “Not something you ask on the telephone.” Jimmy digs in his pocket and finds another coin. “I’m feeling lucky. Let’s try H.L. Thomas.” He slips the dime into the slot and dials. After about a minute, he shrugs and puts the receiver back in place.

  “No answer.”

  “That’s your lucky?”

  “We’ll try again later.” Maybe he reads my mind. “Don’t lose hope. A week ago you didn’t know a single thing. You didn’t even know where you were born.”

  “I still don’t. I only thought it was in Parry Sound when I was Baby Fox. Now it could be anywhere. I could be anyone.”

  His smile fades, but he’s not giving up. “You wouldn’t have the bracelet if you weren’t born here.”

  “Huh. Probably true. You’re pretty smart,” I say, “for an Anishidababbywabby-whatever-you-are.”

  “Ha,” he says. “Plus, a week ago…you
didn’t know me yet.”

  EIGHT

  A WEEK AGO

  A week ago I lived in the Home. The Sevens, the Littles and the teachers were all the people I knew. I never really considered the rest of the world except in geography lessons or as settings for books.

  A week ago I had never talked to a boy close up or bought my own clothes or tasted lemon meringue pie. I’d never met another brown teenager or seen anyone brown at all except on Joe’s television.

  A week ago I wouldn’t have guessed I could get on a bus by myself or have a job interview without flubbing it or scrub a floor. I didn’t know I even cared about who my mother was, let alone thought I might track her down like I’m a detective. I didn’t know there were all these other parts of me tucked inside the Malou I’d been up till then.

  That bus ride didn’t just take me to a new place, it scraped off my outside and made me new too. It has only been a week since the fire, but it’s as if I’ve travelled through time, hurtled forward and landed with a bump in a universe only half familiar. My space pod split open and here I am. All the qualities required to function in the new world are unfurling to reveal the new Malou, with wings and spikes and sharper taste buds, like it’s part of evolution, only faster. A week instead of a millennium.

  And who will I be another week from now?

  NEXT DAY, AFTER WORK

  Frankie is waiting for me outside the staff locker rooms at the end of my shift. It’s his day off, so I get kind of warm-cheeked, pretty sure he’s here on purpose to see me.

  “Guided tour of Parry Sound begins in five minutes,” he says in a funny announcer’s voice. “Don’t miss a single hot spot! Special discount for new arrivals includes supper at Bert’s Beanery.” He’s talking fast and cocky.