by Foxglove Lee
But that’s not what she asked. She asked, “Bring a friend where, Bec?”
“To town,” I said. “If we go, like you said, for a girls’ thing.”
The perplexed creases in Aunt Libby’s brow relaxed as she processed my response. I guess she felt left out or downgraded, and I did feel badly about that.
“Sure,” she said. “Of course you can bring a friend.”
I smiled inwardly, but I didn’t want my aunt to see how happy that made me. The last thing I needed was for her to get all suspicious on me. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so at odds with my aunt. Maybe Uncle Flip was right. Maybe I was angry with my father and taking it out on everyone else.
Another question burbled up inside me, and I’d asked it even before I could process the repercussions: “Where did my dad go?”
Chapter 6
They knew. I could see it in their faces, in their agitated motions, in the way they wouldn’t look me in the eye. But they didn’t say anything. Not a word.
“Mom would tell us if he was just ‘getting better’ again.” I couldn’t say the word rehab out loud. “What happened to him?”
Uncle Flip stole the steaming pot of potatoes from the stove and drained the boiling water into the sink. Every time I watched someone else doing that, I held my breath because I was so afraid they’d burn their fingers. That’s what always happened to me when I drained potatoes.
Aunt Libby bent halfway into the oven to bring out her heavy red casserole dish. She’d made chicken thighs in mushroom soup, a staple in my family, but the meal overheated the cottage. I was sweating through my T-shirt, and only part of that was nerves.
“Is he dead?” I asked quickly, before my throat could close completely. Tears welled in my eyes. My whole head blazed. My face itched. I didn’t want to think about any of this. I didn’t even want to know the answer.
I was in Aunt Libby’s arms before I even saw her move, and it wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I realized I’d gone to her. We stood beside the hot stove, door open, warm air blasting our sides. My chest heaved against hers. I was sobbing uncontrollably into her neck, and she held me so tightly it just about compressed my sadness right out of my body.
“No, no, no,” Aunt Libby assured me. Her morning sing-song voice was back, and instead of annoying me this time it made me feel safe. “No way, dollface. Nothing like that.” Holding me at arms’ length, she looked me plain in the eye. “Don’t you worry about a thing, you hear me? Your father is very much alive.”
I cried even harder when she told me that, and I’d never felt so guilty in my whole life. What kind of daughter wanted her father dead?
“Shh, it’s okay, kiddo.” Uncle Flip placed one hand on my shoulder as my aunt consoled me. “There are some things that aren’t our place to tell you, Bec. You’re old enough to understand that, right?”
“Yeah,” I said through hiccupped sobs. “But can’t you tell me anyway?”
I could hear my aunt and uncle smiling sadly at one another.
“We made a promise to your mother,” Uncle Flip said. “She’ll tell you when she thinks you’re ready.”
“But I’m ready now!”
“Bec…” Aunt Libby kissed my hair and hugged me tighter, but I struggled out of her grip. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“Can I call her, then?” We weren’t supposed to use the cottage phone unless there was some kind of emergency.
“Becca…” Uncle Flip put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. I wanted to hit him hard, but I kept the feeling inside. “No, Bec.”
I tried to swallow the anger, but it stuck in my throat, anxious to spew all over the family that betrayed me at every turn.
“I just want to talk to my mother!” My words were fierce but stilted. “Why can’t I just talk to my own goddamn mother?”
“Bec…”
Rage surged through my legs, driving me out of the cottage. I’d left my flip-flops on the front lawn, and as I kicked my feet into them I spotted my brother. He was busy snapping heads off the bulrushes that grew in the ditch beside our gravel road. For a moment, I stood in the yard and stared at him, wondering why on earth he was killing things.
After a dazed few seconds, Mikey looked up at me. His eyes went wide, like he was astonished to find another person inside his private world. That’s when I realized he wasn’t tossing the bulrushes aside, but holding their tough stems in one hand like a bouquet of flowers. He must have been picking them for Aunt Libby or for the dinner table, or maybe to decorate our tepee out back.
I wanted to smile, but my lips wouldn’t move. I stared at my brother for another few seconds, then took off down the gravel road.
Chapter 7
I didn’t stop running until my right foot pushed through my flip-flop, yanking the rubber thong out of its spongy base. My toes slid into gravel and pain streaked through me like I’d landed on sandpaper. I knew without looking that my foot was cut and bleeding.
“Damn it!” I yelled, then quickly checked if there was anyone around to scold me for swearing. I was right outside a white cottage with black shutters and shingles. It was bigger than my parents’ house in the city. The Hamiltons lived there year-round, not just in the summer. Mrs. Hamilton kept a blooming vegetable garden out front, but she wasn’t there at the moment.
Picking up my broken flip-flop, I hopped to the ditch and dunked my foot in the water. My toes weren’t actually bleeding, just a little red, but I sat on the slope anyway, watching green leaves and bits of plants float down the little river that always formed along this stretch. The land was hilly, so the stream ran quick and clear.
When I was a kid, back when my grandparents were still alive, I would spend hours floating little bits of things down the ditch every spring thaw. Now, I was tempted to float my flip-flops down the river, and I probably would have if I hadn’t been too lazy to go chasing after them.
I fixed my broken flip-flop while my blazing foot waded, then picked the only ripe raspberries on Hamiltons’ prickly bushes. This wasn’t stealing, I decided, because the raspberries were on the outside of their property. It would only be stealing if they were on the inside. That’s what I told myself.
Crickets chirped all around me, but I couldn’t spot a single one. Crickets were tricky like that—ever-present but impossible to see. I wished I could be more like that, but maybe I already was.
We’d barely been at the cottage twenty-four hours and I’d run away from my family three times already. I felt like a stupid kid, unpredictable and irresponsible. That wasn’t me, not even close. Even so, when I put my flip-flop back on, I didn’t walk toward the cottage. I meandered toward the mint green store.
Since the Jones’s cottage was compressed by the store in the front room, they always ate dinner on the covered veranda out back. When I approached, I heard cutlery on plates, the clinking of water glasses, and voices. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, or even whether they were young or old. My heart thumped hard at the thought of seeing Tiffany again. She’d probably gotten dressed by now. I doubted very much Mr. and Mrs. Jones would let her wear pyjamas at dinner. Not that it mattered what she was wearing, as long as she was there.
The store was closed, or course—it was no 7-11, though the Joneses were always happy to sell you the basic necessities, even if it was ten o’clock at night. Anyway, it wasn’t the store I’d come for. It wasn’t even Tiffany. It was the Bell payphone out front.
I pulled all my change out of the front pocket of my shorts, but I didn’t know how much it cost to call the city. Aunt Libby and Uncle Flip always said it was expensive, which is why we weren’t allowed to make calls frivolously. But what did “expensive” mean, exactly? Fifty cents? One dollar? Two? I only had six quarters in my pocket, and a few dimes and nickels. There were instructions on the phone box about how to place a call, but it didn’t say how much you had to pay.
“Oh. It’s you.”
I nearly jumped out of my flip-flops as I spu
n to meet Tiffany’s gaze. She didn’t seem particularly happy to see me, but she didn’t seem irritated either. Maybe she was still too hung over to feel emotions over the pain. At least she recognized me.
My mind instructed me to say hi, but instead I handed her a quarter. “I left the wrong change before.”
She looked down at the money I’d placed in her palm. “Oh.”
I could feel her eyes on my clothes, so I looked down at what I was wearing. My shorts were denim cut-offs, but long ones, almost down to my knees, and they were much darker than the jeans that were fashionable. And they were dirty. My legs were dirty too, and I hadn’t shaved in ages, so they were also stubbly. The T-shirt I had on was a men’s small which masked my chest and my butt. It was heather grey and thick cotton, with a Toronto Maples Leafs logo silkscreened across the front. The families my mother cleaned for gave her lots of old clothes, which we all resented but wore anyway.
Tiffany had on a dress that reminded me of the pyjamas she’d been wearing earlier—white and flowing in the slight summer breeze. Her belt was thick and elastic, but it shone like gold. The buckle was shaped like a flower and full of rhinestones. Around her neck, she wore thick chains and beads all twisted together, which culminated in a big fancy cross with some kind of gemstone stuck into it. It rested between her breasts. Every time she breathed, it shifted slightly.
Before I knew it, I was reaching out to touch the cross. When I tugged gently, it pulled her closer. She moved like the waves at the beach: toward me, then away. Still, I held tight to that cross, running my thumb over the smooth stone, which shone in streaks of copper and gold.
“Is this real?” I asked.
“Is what real?”
I pressed my thumb against the gem, which was almost an oval, but not quite. “Is this real or fake?”
“It’s tiger’s eye,” she said, which didn’t answer my question.
“Oh.” I held the cross in the fading light of dusk, and it shimmered between us. “It’s a gem?”
“Of course it’s a gem. Don’t you know anything?” She yanked the cross out of my hand and held it so that only she could see the face. “Tiger’s eye. It’s, like, a rock and it’s shiny. Haven’t you ever seen one?”
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the duh-duh-duh-duh, rising up to the challenge of our eyeballs.”
I pumped my fist in the air as I sang, thinking she’d be impressed with my Rocky impression. At first, when Tiffany laughed, I figured she thought I was clever and funny. Then she said, “You don’t even know the right words.”
My heart fell into the pit of my stomach when I realized she was laughing at me, not with me. My hands dropped to my sides.
“It’s rivals, not eyeballs,” she said. “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rivals.”
“Oh.” I felt like an idiot, but I laughed despite myself. “Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.”
Tiffany turned her necklace so the tiger’s eye faced me. “How can you rise to the challenge of your eyeballs?”
“I don’t know.” Laughter effervesced in my belly, and I suddenly heard myself giggling. “I guess, like, if you see something and you want to defeat it. Like at Christmas when you pile your plate up with turkey and potatoes and stuffing and cranberry sauce, and you think ‘I’m going to eat all this food if it’s the last thing I do.’”
My stomach rumbled at the thought of food, but Tiffany was laughing too hard to hear it. Her greeny-blue eyes shimmered like the sea and her pink lips strained so tight that creases carved themselves across her cheeks. ‘Laugh lines,’ my mother called them. So I knew Tiffany wasn’t just humouring me. She actually did think I was funny.
When her laughter tapered out and she stared down at my top, I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, I felt nervous as well as hungry.
“Do you…?”
“Is that…?”
We both started talking at once, then right away stopped.
“Sorry, you first,” I said.
“No, you.”
“No, it’s stupid.”
“So’s mine.” Tiffany fiddled with her necklace. When I didn’t ask my question, she pointed to my T-shirt. “I was just going to ask if you’re a Maple Leafs fan.”
“Oh.” I rolled my eyes. “Not really. I mean, they’re okay, but I usually root for the Oilers.”
“Edmonton!” Tiffany’s eyes lit up. “That’s where I was born.”
“Oh. What’s it like?”
“Don’t remember. We moved when I was two, down to Texas. I don’t remember much from there either. We moved again when I was five.”
“Neat.” I tried to think of something to say about either of those places, but hockey was my only frame of reference. “Gretzky’s pretty spiffy, huh?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean, I’m not really into sports or anything, but Wayne Gretzky’s bigger than Jesus.”
I giggled, even though giggling made me feel like a total moron. I couldn’t help it.
Tiffany looked out across the lawn, and I followed her gaze. It landed on a chipmunk eating sunflower seeds on one of the boulders by the front walk. After a silence, Tiffany said, “Yeah, Gretzky’s a total studmuffin.”
My stomach twisted at the mention of Wayne Gretzky’s looks. Sure I could appreciate that he was an attractive man, and that other girls might be drawn to him, but I didn’t want Tiffany to be one of those girls. If she liked him that way, chances were she wouldn’t like me that way. And, God, I wanted her to like me that way.
“So, I guess you don’t wear this for religious reasons, huh?” I took hold of Tiffany’s cross and ran my thumb across the tiger’s eye again.
She cackled, like the idea was absolutely preposterous. “It’s just flash. Madonna’s my fricken’ hero. My parents hate her.”
“My dad likes her,” I said.
Tiffany raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I think all dads like her.”
“Not that way.” I shuddered to think of anything sexual related to my parents. “My dad’s a musician.”
“Shut up! For real?” Both eyebrows went up this time, but they fell just as fast. “Wait, you mean like he plays the tuba, or he’s a real musician?”
“Real,” I said. “He plays in a band.”
“Omigad! Like, a rock band?” Tiffany jumped up and down in her bare feet, and her necklace jangled against her breasts. “Which one?”
I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to tell her. Twisting my fingers up in the hem of my T-shirt, I said, “They’re not popular or anything. You’ve probably never heard of them.”
“Shyeah right! I bet your dad’s, like… Sting.”
I rolled my eyes, but I had to laugh. “My dad’s not Sting.”
Tiffany stopped jumping around and cocked her head so her long blonde hair fell to one side. “Fine, so who is he, then?”
There was something in her pose that made me instantly angry. “Quit grilling me, okay? He’s not famous!”
I didn’t mean to raise my voice so much, and I could tell Tiffany was taken aback because she actually physically took a step away from me. “Whatever, spaz. Take a chill pill.”
The chipmunk on the rock made a high-pitched clicking noise, and we both glanced over at it, then accidentally met each other’s gazes. For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe.
My stomach rumbled, and this time Tiffany definitely heard it, but she looked away quickly. “I need to finish my grub, then help with the dishes.” She flicked her hair. Just when I thought she might invite me to share whatever the Joneses were having for dinner, Tiffany turned and said, “Later.”
The garden gate clicked and she disappeared behind the cottage.
I didn’t forget about the Bell payphone. I didn’t forget about my mother or my father, or the strange way my aunt and uncle had reacted when I asked about him. For the moment, I was walking on sunshine.
Chapter 8
“Do I look l
ike I’m laughing?”
Aunt Libby stood beside the open door to my bedroom with her arms folded across her chest. Her lips were pinched so tight they’d gone white.
“Answer me, young lady.”
“I didn’t do that!” I said.
My room was a mess, everything everywhere. Clothes were hanging out the open drawers of my dresser, the dusty oil painting of foggy mountains hanging askew. My bedding was clumped in a big ball on the floor, even my curtains had fallen to the ground. The only thing in the entire room that hadn’t been touched was… Yvette.
“I suppose you’re going to blame the fairies,” my aunt said. The lingering trace of a Cape Breton accent always came out when she was angry. It exploded into an unmistakeable brogue just now.
“Maybe it was Mikey,” I said, almost apologetically.
“Your brother played outside until dinner—which you missed, thank you very much, young lady—and after that he didn’t leave our sights.”
“Libby,” Uncle Flip whispered, coming in beside my aunt. “Ease up on the girl. There must be some explanation.”
I knew in my gut my brother would never have gone in my bedroom without permission. But somebody obviously had.
“Hey!” I flashed with anger. “What gives you the right to go poking around my personal property? I never said you could you could look through my room.”
“We only opened the door because we heard the curtain rod fall.” Uncle Flip’s tone of voice was significantly softer than my aunt’s. I could see in his face that he felt sorry for me, or confused, thinking I’d become a destructive little monster overnight. “That’s understandable, right Bec? We just wanted to see what the noise was all about.”
I stood mute before them. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“Where were you all this time, anyway?” Aunt Libby asked. She didn’t shout, but she certainly scowled. “It isn’t safe to go running over hill and yonder after dark. You should know that, growing up in the city.”
