Beyond Blonde

by Teresa Toten

  “Got it!” said Kit bringing up the ball. She snapped to me, I snapped to Madison, Madison dribbled and ducked and snapped to Sarah, who made the shot and got the foul, even though I’d have to say she had charged the Oakwood player. Since that was like throwing yourself onto a skyscraper, we noticed that the refs tended to err our way on those fouls. She made the shot. The horrible hankies levitated. Our bench went wild, the buzzer blew, and we trotted off at the half with a tie. Sarah glided off the courts. I snuck a peek at the stands.

  “He left when David called you off,” whispered Kit. Before I could say anything, she threw her arm around my neck. “Welcome back, captain. Haven’t seen you play like that in forever!”

  David threw me a towel. “You’re playing like you’re hungry.” Pause, slight nod. “I want you hungrier in the second half.”

  I mean one lousy little smile. Seriously, would it kill him?

  I gave him hungrier. I was going to show him and those Oakwood Goliaths. We used their size against them. I, we, played recklessly, drawing out all possible fouls, and the refs, God bless ’em, called them. We were diving like the Italian soccer team. My right arm was shot. It didn’t matter. Kit was limping and dragging her butt from one end of the court to the other. Madison had to sub out in the third quarter and couldn’t go back in, and Sarah was on it. She was the centre and they could not throw her off her game. The horrible hankies were hoarse from screaming. And what the hell, they just may have made the difference.

  We won 57 to 55, no overtime.

  The Aunties were down like a bullet, hugging the ref, Coach Wymeran, and David. You’d think we had just won the city championship. Which in a way, maybe we did. After getting our heads handed to us in almost every single game last year, we had just beat Oakwood—a team that we were sure to face in the finals and a team that had gone out of its way to humiliate us. David high-fived everyone, while I was smothered by Mama.

  “Let go, Mama!” She just rocked me tighter. “Mama!” She let go only when Auntie Eva ripped her off me and then smothered me herself. “Remember I’m not going home with you guys,” I mumbled into her well-padded shoulder. “I’m sleeping over at Kit’s.”

  “Ve know. Your Papa is outside parking in za no parking zone.” Then she tackled David. The look on his face was worth every suicide David had thrown at us this season. My fivefoot-two, girdled-and-gilded Auntie smothered my six-footfour-inch, rock-solid assistant coach. “Bravo, Valter David!” She set him free long enough to pat his cheek. “Bravo, such a coach you are being and so, so nice to look at, eh, Sophie, eh?” More cheek patting.

  To stop this, I was going to have to puke my guts out enough to make Kit stand back in awe. Wait. Was he smiling? Valter David was smiling. He was probably just relieved to be set free again. That and he must be used to it. One of the many unbearable things about David was that he was so aware and comfortable with the nuclear effect he had on girls, women, and now, Aunties. The team started filing into the dressing room.

  I turned to Mama. “Guys, we gotta …”

  “Da, da, da!” Mama whipped out her hanky, which led to one last waving and cheering spree. “Congratulations, bravo, bravo!”

  David and I were the only ones left in the gym. “God, I’m, uh, sorry about that, them, uh, they’re like tornadoes. Truth is, I like to think I can control them, but I can’t, not even a teeny bit.”

  David opened the door to the dressing room still smiling. I mean, right at me, both dimples blazing. For a second my world opened.

  “Congratulations, captain. That was leadership and fine ball.”

  Oh. Right. Yeah. The game. I finally had his respect as a basketball player. Great. Really. It was what I had wanted all these weeks. David winked and stepped toward me, placing his hand on the small of my back. “Bravo, Sophie,” he whispered. Then he gently pushed me through the door. Did his hand linger on the small of my back? No, I’m sure it didn’t. But my back burned even while I showered, and it burned all the way over to Kit’s. I swear I felt the press of his hand for the rest of the night, and I swear it helped.

  I’ve had a million sleepovers with the Blondes since grade nine, and every single one of them turned out great. Every single one. And for every single sleepover, including going over to Kit’s tonight, I vibrate with anxiety. I know it all goes back to grade six and my first almost-sleepover. Mama had to come and rescue me at four in the morning. After an everescalating evening of humiliating the “murderer’s kid,” we played hide-and-go-seek. I hid in the closet. No one came to seek. I heard them laughing, eating pizza, talking … about me. I was there for over three hours before I tiptoed, terrified, into a pitch-black hallway and called Mama. That was five years ago, and I was still on high alert for any fresh disgrace.

  Isn’t there an expiry date for this level of dread?

  The Blonde modus operandi, no matter where we were, was to lay in a ton of junk food and haul over all of our manicure/ pedicure machinery. We usually had sleepovers at Madison’s, since her room was the size of our condo and Fabi kept the junk food stocked to ultimate levels, but we also had them at my place, Sarah’s, and Kit’s. I’d just never had a one-on-one sleepover at Kit’s.

  I responded with championship house-guest angst. Sleepover stress had morphed into house-guest horror. I reviewed my sleepover etiquette, my mantra. I must strive to be easygoing but not a wuss. Funny-edgy but not biting. Complimentary but not NutraSweet. Quick to laugh but not idiotic. And finally, helpful and adorable to the parents/ siblings/servants but not cloying. I had to be vigilant about all of these since I was the only one who didn’t drink. I totally understood them drinking; how else do you survive a sleepover? I got pissed at Papa all over again for depriving me of a necessary rite of passage.

  And all of that was just while you were awake, for God’s sake! What if you snored, scratched your butt, or farted while you were asleep? What then? You can’t stay awake all night. Believe me I’ve tried. I twitched all the way to Kit’s.

  “Hey!” called Mr. Cormier. “How’s my favourite right guard?” Mr. Cormier was a dentist, although I could never really picture him doing needles and drills, especially since he was wearing an apron. “So, how did it go, ladies?”

  “Great! We won, Mr. Cormier.”

  “It was never in doubt!” He wiped his hands on his apron. Well, I’m sure it was actually Mrs. Cormier’s apron, but since she took off before I arrived on the scene, it looked entirely proper on Kit’s dad. “Never in doubt!”

  Kit groaned quietly. I understood quiet groaning. Mr. Cormier knew even less about basketball than the Aunties did. I once pointed out that her brothers played hockey. “So?” she said. “He learned about hockey for them. Why can’t he learn about basketball for me? I mean, your mom comes all the time and she knows squat about the game. No offence.”

  “None taken,” I assured her. “Thing is, he’s got this big important job, two kids in university, a daughter at home, and meals to ruin. No offence.”

  “None taken,” she assured me.

  “And he’s doing it by himself. The guy’s tired. Mama would be too, if she was a regular human, plus I’m her only kid.”

  “Come over to the counter, ladies,” he called. “I’ll explain dinner.” More quiet groaning. “That’s beef stew in the Crock-Pot. I have late rounds at the Free Clinic, and I’ll grab a sandwich there, but I’m sure the stew will be great!” We all looked at this massive white thing with a lid that was sitting in the middle of their kitchen counter.

  “Brace yourself, Soph. We’ve exploded one lamb and one pork stew so far. We’re working our way through the protein group. The cleaning lady went ballistic.”

  “Nonsense!” Mr. Cormier patted the machine gingerly. “It’s the cleaning lady’s recipe this time. It’ll buzz or clang or something when it’s done,” he looked at his watch, “in ten minutes or so.” Then he adjusted his tie and slipped on his jacket.

  “A jacket and a tie, Dad? For the Free Clinic?”


  Mr. Cormier’s ears reddened. The man was stupendously out of his element when it came to his daughter, but that never stopped him. Maybe he couldn’t come to our games, but he always tried to buy the right tampons and the perfect leg-shaving cream and even ventured into dangerous Crock-Pot recipes. “I’ll be meeting one of my, uh, colleagues.” He started for the door.

  “I smell date,” whispered Kit.

  “I heard that! Ten minutes, girls.” And the front door shut.

  “Okey-doke!” Kit clapped her hands. “Let’s grab a dinner plate and we can put it in front of us for protection.”

  BRRRRRRRRING!!!

  Even waiting for it, I was startled by the noise. We approached the beast warily. Kit went for the lid while I kept my plate in front of my face.

  “Damn, he did it!” She shook her head, stunned. The warm and sweet aroma of the stew invaded the kitchen. “Wow, he pulled it off. Who knew?” She ladled three big dollops onto my plate.

  “Kit, don’t you think that, maybe, it’s time to ‘cut him some slacks’ as Auntie Eva would say?”

  “Nope, he owes me.” I must have looked shocked because I was. “It’s his fault she left.”

  Wow. She couldn’t believe that. No normal breathing, human-type woman would leave her children, leave the country, to go and “find herself ” unless she was married to a mass murderer. The topic of Mrs. Cormier got the Aunties going for outraged hours on end. And, on this one lonely point, I agreed.

  “Kit, how about it was her decision to go? That maybe she was thinking more about herself than you guys?” Well, so much for House-Guest Rules number one through twenty-seven.

  Kit sat down and tried out the stew. “Pretty good!” She took a bigger mouthful. “You always blame the woman, Sophie.”

  “Do not!” I said, stunned and offended at the same time.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  I tried the stew. It was almost as good as goulash. “Nooo!”

  She grabbed our plates for seconds even though I had just had a couple of bites from my firsts. “Sophie,” Kit plopped on more stew, “you blamed your mom for your father’s drinking and for him leaving.”

  We sat side by side on the stools at her kitchen counter.

  “Well, yeah, but the thing is …”

  “And … you blame Alison Hoover for—”

  “Oh my God, Kit, she got herself pregnant!”

  “Oh my God, Sophie,” she parroted. “Do you think Luke had anything to do with that?”

  I blew on the stew to cool it and me down. “Touché.”

  “You told me last year that your mom made your dad drink, remember?”

  Okay, so, I may have thought that for a minute, last year.

  “I don’t think anyone makes someone drink, not your mom, not you.” Kit looked up at the ceiling. “And maybe I’d rather blame my dad about Mom taking off ’cause it’s easier than blaming me.”

  “You?”

  “She waited until my brothers finished high school, but she didn’t, couldn’t, wait until I was through.”

  “That’s seriously nuts, Kit. You don’t really—”

  She held up her hand. “Yeah, I know that now, most of the time.” We cleared up and then examined the fridge for dessert options. Kit grabbed a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream for herself and I embraced a gallon of chocolate fudge. She snapped off both lids and offered me a tablespoon. It was quiet for a minute as we let the ice cream work its magic. “Thing is, she wants me to go to California and do my senior year there.”

  I was so stoked about having an entire gallon of ice cream to myself that I almost missed that. “What?!”

  “Before we get to that ‘what,’ there’s something else.” She got up again. Put her spoon down. This was serious, Kit was walking away from the ice cream. “It’s heavy.” Kit started pacing. She was scaring me. The whole conversation had been scary, strange, off. Hell, Kit had been strange, okay, stranger lately.

  I examined her while she paced. Perfect, skinnyish, blonde, beautiful. She was dying.

  “I need a drink. Want a drink?”

  I shook my head.

  Ohmygodohmygod! I could hear her reach for the glass in the library bar, the tinkle of the ice cubes, the glugging of the Southern Comfort. She promised that she hadn’t puked in over a year. Jesus, Moses, Buddha, I hated that word.

  Kit came back with her drink and took a swig. She was dying of the puking disease. I should have said something sooner, earlier, before now. It was all my fault. I am gutless.

  “Shit, Sophie, you look worse than I feel. Take a snort.”

  I took a gulp and gagged. “Too sweet.”

  “Easy, buttercup.” She patted my back.

  “Are you dying?” I asked as soon as I could get words out.

  “No, you moron.” She handed me back my tablespoon and shoved the chocolate fudge down to my end of the counter. “But you’ll think it’s worse.”

  I wanted to slug her. “You have a venereal disease?”

  “I’m a virgin, remember?”

  Right. “Then what? Tell me!” I got up and grabbed her. “Nothing’s worse than the pictures in my head! I suck at suspense! I can’t take the anxiety, Kit! What?”

  “Okay! I’m a … thing is … I’m, well, I’m pretty sure that I’m …”

  “WHAT?” I shook her.

  “A lesbian, I think, a bit, maybe, I mean probably. No, I’m sure. I think.”

  I let go of her. “Is this like a test or something?”

  She shook her head. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! My thoughts were thumping and my heart was racing, or the other way around.

  Kit drained her glass and plonked it onto the counter. “I need to know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  Thinking? I did what I do best—worry, worry, obsess, and fret. In a nanosecond I did the tour. It was like the stations of the cross. I worried about Kit, her father, her mother, the Blondes, and then Kit some more, but God help me, mainly, I worried about me. What did this all mean for me? How was it going to affect me? And oh, sweet Buddha, did she have a crush on me? Help. Help.

  Obviously, I couldn’t tell Kit that. Tears pooled in her eyes waiting for a release signal.

  “Breathe, Sophie. What are you thinking?!”

  “Well, I’m trying to think what Buddha would do?”

  “What the hell?”

  “Or Moses or Gandhi.”

  “Okay, I’m pretty sure the last guy isn’t a religion and that you’re nuts.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled. “Breathe, Kit.”

  She smiled back.

  “Are you sure? How can you be sure? I mean you spelled out Rick Metcalfe’s name in hickeys on his stomach for God’s sake! It could be a phase, or lots of people talk about being, um, I think it’s bisexual, which means …”

  “I know what it means, Sophie.”

  I followed her down to the rec room not even feeling my legs. “I know what it means because I’ve been seeing shrinks for two years, remember? Two years, Sophie. I’ve been exploring the crap out of this. I am what I am.” She plopped down on a beanbag chair. I plopped on the one opposite her. “It’s why my mom wants me to go to California with her. She says it’ll be easier all around.”

  “Your dad?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  We sat there. Lesbian, she thinks she’s a lesbian.

  “Say something, Sophie.”

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.”

  Kit groaned.

  “Okay, oy vey!”

  That stopped her in her tracks. “Oy vey, Sophie? Seriously?”

  “What? It’s a Biblical Hebrew thing and hence it is an exclamation that is entirely in keeping with one of my faiths.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you really want to ask?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that, well, lesbians and California, it’s too much, too many big things to process, these big things, I mean.” She folde
d her arms. “Okay, have you ever, uh, well have you …”

  “Made out with a girl?”

  I nodded.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know? See, that’s my point, you—”

  “I know. One knows these things. It’s the laws of attraction. I tried to make myself like Rick or any guy. I tried, Sophie, I tried really, really hard.”

  My heart was going to break out of my chest, but I nodded my most calm and understanding nod. “Well, thing is, I’ve got to be wondering, just a bit, not a lot mind you, but like, have you ever been, well, attracted to, well for instance, someone like me?”

  “Someone like you or you, Soph?” She snorted. “Relax, you’re adorable, and I can see why the guys like you, but no, you’re not my type.”

  I didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved. I was leaning toward insulted when she jumped up to go upstairs and get another drink. “How about Madison?” I asked.

  “Yeah, way back in middle school.” She loped up the stairs and loped back down a moment later with drink in hand.

  “Well, everyone has a crush on Madison for God’s sake, that’s why she’s Madison. That just proves it!” I insisted. “It is a phase. You read about this kind of thing all the time in novels about the British boarding school system. The girls all make out together while they’re studying for their A levels. Just because you weren’t attracted to Rick in the end …”

  “But I was attracted to a player on the Jarvis team last year, and one on Lawrence’s this year, and then my female shrink in California, and then …”

  “Okay, stop. I get it.”

  “No, you don’t.” She kneeled. “I can’t help it, Sophie. It’s the way your God made me. The burn you felt when Luke touched you?”

  I nodded.

  “A guy can’t do that for me. It’s a lot … I know. I’ve been practising telling you all summer and all of September. Can you live with, with it?”

  Live with it? Me? My fret cycle went into overdrive. Well, yeah, I suppose, if I have to, if she can’t switch back I mean. Jesus God. I was going to have to check it out in the Living Faiths Encyclopaedia. I may have to change religions again and find one that will accommodate one of your best friends being a lesbian. And I knew I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight no matter what she said about me not being her type. And, of course, this was going to have to be a secret. What a whopper! How much would I have to lie? How was I going to keep a straight face when we all talked about guys? If I couldn’t stand all the not knowing, how could she? What does it feel like? What would happen when she told? And there was no way I was going to let her run off to California. Her family, her life, her friends were here, right here.