by Teresa Toten
I eventually left with Madison and her grandfather. Sarah and Kit stayed behind. Sarah to keep flirting with George and Kit to keep an eye on Sarah’s flirting.
“Your mother looked lovely, as always,” the Judge said as we got into his Mercedes.
Eeew … what are you supposed to say to that? Adults are so weird. I wanted to say, “Back off, mister. They’re separated, not divorced. My mother is still in love with the guy you were sipping shakes with!”
Instead, I said, “Yes, sir.”
Madison, who was in the back with me, squeezed my hand. “Do you want me to come up with you?” she whispered. “I don’t think you should be alone.”
What the hell? “No, I’m cool, thanks though.” Madison knew I wasn’t all torn up about poor Luigi. “I’m going to do the laundry, to tell you the truth. With all of this drama, I won’t have anything to wear to school next week unless I start now.”
She leaned in close. “I saw him too.”
We didn’t say anything from Davenport Road to Mount Pleasant Road. We’d been through too much together. I didn’t insult her by asking who. Papa always said to never kid a kidder, and Madison was among the best. “It’s okay.” I kept her gaze. “I’ll be okay.”
She nodded reluctantly, not quite believing. That’s the other thing about us, all of us: although we trust each other, we don’t always believe each other.
“I really do have a big pile and I like being in the laundry room by myself with the chugging of the machines. It helps me think, calms me down, you know?”
Madison had no idea what a washing machine looked like, let alone sounded like, but she nodded again anyway. “Okay, but call me if you need me, if you want to talk.”
As soon as I got in I threw all my clothes into the laundry hamper, and, in an act of unspeakable generosity, I threw in Mama’s too.
The laundry room was relentlessly cheerful, covered in blindingly white subway tiles and decorated with five massive white washing machines and five equally massive and gleaming white dryers. The magic chugging of the machines wasn’t working though. Not this time. I still felt agitated and antsy.
David turning up was bad enough, but Luke? I was blindsided by Luke. Why did Luke come to the church? I paced a zigzag route in between the washers and dryers. That didn’t do it either. We were all by ourselves, the machines and me. “I need some answers here. Help!” I begged the laundry room.
And the laundry room answered.
After throwing the first load into the dryer, I wandered over to the laundry room’s famous collection of used books and magazines. It was a stellar, if wonky, stash. My hand went straight to the biggest book, the one with the shiny black cover under the True Confessions and dated Cosmopolitans.
Chugga shoosh, chugga shoosh, chugga—
Oh my God! I clutched the book to my chest. In a day bursting with signs, here was another one, straight from God to me. How could it not be? I was holding something called The Concise Encyclopaedia of Living Faiths! Here was my something, somewhere in this book of religions. Last year when I was walking into walls all confused about sex and how to be a woman, I got all my questions answered in a book Auntie Eva brought over called Sweet Savage Love by Rosemary Rogers. It was my bible on love. Now, I needed a new bible, maybe a Bible bible to get me through the bad bits. Clearly, God needed me to choose a religion and then He would make everything better. My life would be a daily dose of miracles. All I had to do was pick one! How clear was that? How brilliant was that? Hell, I bet they make a movie about this moment one day.
I was busy arranging my freshly laundered clothes on the floor of my room when Kit buzzed in. I glanced at the clock: 8:38 P.M. It already felt like the world’s longest day and the funeral party could go on for still hours more.
“Hey, how’s it going?” she asked, breezing into the condo.
“Okay.” I was holding a neon green and orange T-shirt when I let her in. “What’s up? Kit, you didn’t leave Sarah alone with Mike Jr. and George, did you?”
“Oh ye of little faith,” she snorted. “Don’t you trust in our Sarah’s pledge of celibacy, the one that she swore will restore and then retain her virginity until she’s safely wed?”
I examined the T-shirt, ashamed of my suspicious self.
“Yeah, me neither.” She slapped my back. “I just came from dropping her off. So what’s up?”
“Uh, I’m just folding. It’s a big deal with me.” She looked confused. “You know, because I don’t have a dresser or anything. I have to fold and arrange my clothes just so on the floor.”
She still looked blank so she headed off to my room. I followed her. What was up? “Wow, clothing as art,” she said, admiring my convoluted little piles. “I keep forgetting you don’t have any furniture.” She shook her head. “You guys still saving or what?”
“No, it’s me,” I admitted. “I just can’t get it together to fix it.”
“Well hop to it, buttercup. You’ll be off to university before you know it.”
“Kit, I know you didn’t come over to razz me about my room.”
She threw herself onto my bed. “No.” She waved at the laundry. “Pray continue, fair maiden.”
I picked up where I left off with the T-shirt. The creases had to be just so. That way, when I put the other clothes on top, I never had to iron anything.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
“Yeah, why? Are you okay?”
“You first.”
So something was up. I watched Kit roll onto her back and investigate my beige ceiling.
“I’m cool, nothing special …”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She rolled back onto her stomach and looked at me. “I know the signs, remember? You’re holding something, Soph. Tell me and I’ll tell you.”
She had me. I was officially worried. Kit was twisty. I mean more than usual. She knew I’d start freaking about whether she’d slipped back into her habit of puking on demand, so I coughed up. “Luke was at the church.”
“Today? No guff.” She bolted up and frowned. “I didn’t see him.”
“He was at the very back and he left early. Madison saw him too.”
She grabbed a pair of jeans and started folding. “What the hell was he, is he, how dare he!” Then she seemed to remember I was there. “And?”
“And I’m good. I guess. A bit more stunned than usual, but that’s just my life lately, you know?” Kit nodded and frowned at the same time. Was she worried about me? “But it’s cool, you know why? I’ve decided to get some help from the big guy.” I walked over to my mirror. “I’m going to get myself some religion.” I liked how I looked when I said that.
“Religion?” I could see her in the mirror. She looked angry. “Religion, what the hell for?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, still tracking us in the mirror. “I just want more backup, you know?” I turned around. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since Mama, me, and the Aunties snuck into that AA meeting last month. The drunks might be on to something. You should’ve seen them, Kit.” She was folding and refolding the same pair of jeans. Her attention to my creases was alarming. “Kit?”
“Religion will give you a rash,” she said through gritted teeth. “It’s for chumps. A waste of time. The only thing the Commies got right is that saying about how it’s the ‘opiate of the masses.’”
Whoa! “Okay, first of all. I don’t like creases in my jeans.” She refolded them flat front without skipping a beat. “Second, I don’t mean religion with a capital R. Not Anglican like you guys, or even Catholic like my old schools.” The memory of lying to Father Gregory pricked me. “Definitely not Catholic. Just some nice, cool, laid-back religion that I can pull out of my pocket when I need it, you know?”
“There’s no such thing, Soph!” Why was she so cranked up? “Religions are anti-everything, anti-life. It’s just rules. If you want to feel like a sinner, if you want to feel like a
freak, by all means, get yourself a religion. Even my shrink says—”
“No, Kit. I said I’m not going to pick one of those!” I snatched my jeans back. “I’m going to get a mellow one, like the Beatles and yoga.”
“Okay, that’s an exercise not a religion.”
“You know what I mean—that Indian stuff, with the sitars. Maybe I’ll even pick a couple and blend them. It’s all in my book here.” I tossed her the encyclopedia. “I started reading it in the laundry room. I mean if a bunch of stoners like the Beatles found a religion to like …”
Kit didn’t even glance at the cover before dropping it back into the laundry basket. “Well, so long as you’re okay.” She looked at her watch. “Damn, I’ve got to go. Dad needs the car back like half an hour ago.” She bolted through the living room and was almost to the door before I realized she was going.
“Wait, Kit!” I was still holding the stupid jeans. “I told. You said that you would tell. Something’s up. What’s up?”
Her back was to me, but I could still see her tense up. “Later.”
The door swung open. “Hello, Princess!” Papa beamed at me. “And my Princess’s beautiful left guard!”
“Aw, you always know what to say to a girl, Mr. Kandinsky.” She grabbed the door from him. “Catch you guys later.”
As Papa headed for the kitchen and the Turkish coffee utensils, I trotted out to the elevators after Kit. She had just stepped in and hit G. “Relax, sweetcheeks, I’m not puking.” She put her hand on her heart just as the doors were closing. “I swear.”
Okay. What then?
“Did I chase her away?” called Papa from the kitchen.
“No, Papa, she had to get the car back.” He came over and kissed my forehead.
“How’s Auntie Eva and everyone back at the party?” I asked.
“It’s just the hard core and, oh, Mario and Maria are still there too. They were singing Luigi’s favourite soccer songs as I was leaving.”
“Even Mama?”
“Even your Mama.” He smiled and kissed me again. “Eva is putting on the show of her life for those two cousins.” He poured himself a shot of the dark black liquid and held up the carafe to me. I snuggled into the image of having him back in the kitchen, back at home where he belonged. But why was he at home where he belonged?
“No thanks, Papa, I’m all coffeed out. So …?”
I watched him squint at the laundry basket. “I could not do one more milkshake. I just needed a minute away from all that, well …”
“Brandy?”
“Yes, I needed a breather from all that brandy.” He smiled like he was sharing a joke with himself. And I just wanted to see you, too, without drama. He picked up my book. “The Concise Encyclopaedia of Living Faiths?”
“Yeah, cool, isn’t it? I found it in the laundry room, I’ve been thinking of dabbling in a bit of religion and then, presto, God leaves me his holy encyclopedia in the laundry room! Talk about a miracle, eh?”
Unlike Kit, Papa didn’t look so much alarmed as amused. “Well, Princess, last year it was all that purple prose and romance, so why not a spiritual quest this year?”
Papa got it. Papa always got it, got me. I felt the punch of missing him all over again, even though he was sitting right there.
He ran his finger down the index page.
“It’s probably a phase, typical teenage individuation,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“It means separating from your parental units. We learned about it in guidance. Or it could just be plain old rebellion, given that you and Mama are such surefire atheists.” I watched for his reaction given what I now knew about the Twelve Steps.
“Nothing is for sure.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “That’s the only thing an alcoholic knows for sure.”
I wanted to ask when does an alcoholic know for sure that he’s no longer an alcoholic, and when does that alcoholic then come home for good and make everything normal again? Instead I said, “I skimmed Zoroastrians on page 209, which sounds like a real blast.”
“I agree,” he said when he flipped to the page. “Very swashbuckling. It must be the Zoro part.”
“Yeah, but difficult for Toronto. See, thing is, when you die, you need this special structure called the Tower of Silence. Look at page 215.”
We examined the photo. Papa whistled. “That’s fantastic!”
“Yeah, so when you die your body is put in there and then it’s picked apart by vultures and the rest decomposes by using this special stuff and your ashes, or remains, or whatever, return to the earth all pure.”
“Vultures!” He scanned the pages. “Definitely pick this one.”
“Can’t. I bet we don’t have a single Tower of Silence in the whole city, and you can’t just whip one up, you know?”
“I see your problem, especially since the Tower is probably the most compelling part for you, right?”
“Right!” I took the book back.
“I see your dilemma.” He pulled me over and kissed my forehead again. “But, let’s face it, you are at the very beginning of your search. I know of poets who search their entire lives for the meaning of God.”
“Yeah, well, I’m giving myself a week,” I said.
“Seems reasonable.” He nodded absently. I’d lost him. “So … how is she?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Your Mama.” He poked me. “Who else?”
“Well, you see her … you just saw her!”
“Sure, but I mean really, is she okay?”
I thought about all those weekends shut away. I closed my encyclopedia. “Papa, separating parents should not be putting their vulnerable offspring in the middle of these awkward situations with these awkward-type questions.”
“Guidance again?”
I nodded. It was actually a whole session devoted to divorcing parents, but I wasn’t about to plant that little seed.
“Sounds like a hell of a class!” He threw his arm around me. “Well, I better be getting back to my happily inebriated mourners and see who I should be driving home. Oh the irony, eh, Princess?” He winked.
I wanted to beg him to stay, plead with him to stop leaving, for God’s sake. I can keep you sober here! I’ll do it this time. Promise. Instead, I just got up. “I’ll walk you to the elevator, Papa.” We strolled elegantly, arm in arm, into the hallway, and I blew back kisses when he threw them to me from inside the elevator. There. See. That’s better. How mature was that? I was sixteen now after all. I felt very composed, very controlled, and—as soon as the doors shut—very alone.
Kit smacked the back of my head as I slid into our booth at Mike’s.
“Ow!”
“What the hell did you do to that boy?” she demanded. “And more importantly, can you stop doing it? I mean fourteen suicides, Sophie. Geez!”
“I know,” I moaned. “I’ve been telling you guys for days, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Well, I believe you now.” Madison winced as she pulled herself into the seat. “He hates you all right.”
“Who hates my Sophie?” asked Mike as he came over with our standing order for post-practice coffee and fries. “I’ll kill the bum.”
“David Walter,” Kit volunteered. “Our new assistant coach. He made us all do like ten extra suicides and blamed Sophie for every one. ‘You are outta shape, Ms. Kandinsky, which means your team is outta shape. Assume the position!’”
We all winced. It was a good imitation.
“But he’s just conflicted is all,” insisted Sarah.
“He hates her all right,” said Kit.
“Naw!” snorted Mike. “He don’t hate Sophie. Nobody could hate Sophie.” Mike wandered back to the grill to throw on some buttered Danish, which we used as a chips-and-gravy chaser.
“No offence, Soph.” Madison leaned over. “But the Aunties have got to him. Mike used to be razor sharp in the character assessment department.”
Kit nodded and called o
ut to Mike. “David is a senior. He played some football, but his real thing is basketball and he was best friends with—”
“I know who the kid is.” Mike flipped the Danish onto an already heaping plate and plopped it onto our table. “And he don’t hate our Sophie.”
I was too tired and sore to argue. As soon as he left I said, “I think Auntie Luba has messed with his mind.”
“Stands to reason,” nodded Madison. “You’d think Coach would—”
“Coach?” Kit reached for a Danish. “Coach is happier than a pig in poo. He never would have got us in such good shape. Speaking of which, anyone got a cigarette? I’m out.” Madison and Kit whipped out their packs.
What had I ever done to him? I was playing my guts out at every practice and he barely looked at me.
“What is it, Soph? You’re not here with us,” Kit said, lighting up. Even Sarah lit up. I hadn’t seen her smoke since she’d quit last year when she thought she was pregnant. I watched her inhale. For the millionth time, I thought about smoking. “No, I am, I am … it’s just that I was thinking … maybe it has something to do with Luke, right? I mean, we were a big secret, except that a lot of people were in on it when you stop and think about it. There’s you guys and your families, the Aunties, Mama and Papa, and Mike, and maybe Luke told him, so, well, maybe David knew and is blaming me for Luke, or he’s pissed about Luke two-timing Alison, or … I don’t know.”
The Blondes nodded as if I had just said something that other English speakers would recognize.
Luke again. What was he doing in that church? Why did he come? How did he know? Did David tell him? It was as bad as before. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Maybe he couldn’t stop thinking of me. Maybe …
“… just lucky you’re still captain,” Madison was saying.
“That’s just because he hasn’t worked out how to annul the vote,” offered Kit. “Figure him out, Soph, or you won’t last the season.”
Thankfully we moved on to the next order of business, which was whether Madison should continue seeing Billy Wainright or not. Billy was the captain of the Lawrence Heights football team. This was all well and good imagewise, but it was a logistical nightmare for Madison, and by extension, us. Since Billy was captain, Madison, as the official girlfriend, had to put in an appearance at least at Lawrence’s home games, plus, because of our position in our school, we had to attend all our home games, plus there were all our practices and then, for a brief period, an overlap of our actual basketball games. As nuts as this was, apparently that wasn’t the real problem.
