Samantha watched her sister through the window as she jogged down the street, her ponytail bobbing behind her.
She made a face as Veronica disappeared from view. She pictured Ben leaning in and kissing her sister’s smiling mouth, and the two of them sharing a laugh and having fun together. A whole week had passed since she had shared that one kiss with him. Already she had doubts if it had actually happened. Had she only dreamed it?
The summer of the year Samantha turned twelve, she experienced her first genuine crush. A cute new boy had come to their little cove, a French Canadian with spiked, black hair and a thick, romantic accent. A tall lad of fifteen, Michel had been staying with his grandparents for all of July and August. When she’d finally gotten up her nerve and ignored the butterflies—no, the bats—in her stomach, long enough to approach him one afternoon, she’d found him skimming rocks over the water by the beach, and his face had lit up when he saw her.
Seconds later, she’d realized why. All he’d wanted was to hear about Veronica. Where was she? Did Samantha think her sister liked him? Then he’d gone on ad nauseam about Veronica’s silky, golden hair, that sexy, enchanting smile, her lovely laugh. Ugh! Sacrebleu!
This became the story of her life. She’d grown weary of hearing about yet another boy’s infatuation with Veronica, how one after the other had declared to Samantha their immortal love for her prettier sibling.
Despondent, Samantha turned away from the window. She knew how she sometimes appeared to other people, but it was the way she was wired. Whenever she spent time with others or went anywhere to socialize, she needed time by herself afterwards to process the event; to filter everything through her emotions and regroup. She knew she seemed unapproachable and distant at times, but she also knew how she needed to disconnect when social pressures became too overwhelming for her sensitivities.
When she was younger, she’d made sure to bring a book with her to family gatherings. Besides the fact she loved reading, her book had acted as a protective shield; a barrier she hoped would guard her from forced socializing where she often became tongue-tied or made a silly social gaffe. She’d overcome the need for that behaviour, but she remained quiet and reserved. But none of this meant she didn’t need someone to rely on and that she didn’t crave a scattered crumb of the attention Veronica so abundantly attracted.
Sitting opposite Darlene at suppertime, Samantha picked at her meatloaf and toyed with the peas and carrots on her plate.
“What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry?” her mother asked.
“I don’t like meatloaf.” The truth was she didn’t like Darlene’s pathetic attempts at meatloaf. It was doubly hard to stomach when it was served as a leftover. Grey, bland, and crumbly, it tasted nothing like Nana’s.
Darlene shrugged. “I’ve been invited to a party tonight,” she said, sounding distracted.
Samantha’s body stiffened.
“Now listen. Don’t say a word.” She stared pointedly at her daughter. “I’m not going to drink, I just need to get out of the house and have some fun. You know, meet new people and laugh for a change.”
“Is that right, Momma? Lying to me now, are you?” Samantha threw her a dirty look and got up from the table, ignoring the distress on Darlene’s face. She couldn’t imagine her mother at a party and actually refusing a glass of wine.
It occurred to her it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if she’d been adopted. She was so different from Darlene and Veronica. The two of them were blonde and blue-eyed, and they were both party girls through and through. What on earth happened to her?
***
The house is mostly quiet. The only sounds are the steady patter of raindrops on the windows, the pounding of distant ocean surf, and a soft, rhythmic snoring coming from the kitchen downstairs. Everyone is out except for Nana, napping on the daybed. Samantha tiptoes across the hall and into her grandmother’s bedroom, praying she doesn’t wake up. The old Nana wouldn’t have minded finding her in her room, but Samantha knows she is different now.
In a swift appraisal, she looks around at the heavy mahogany bed, dresser, and nightstand Nana brought with her when she moved in all those years ago. She takes in the violet-striped wallpaper and the pink, ruffled bedspread and curtains. The only pictures adorning the walls are school photos of Ronnie and Samantha, and Samantha’s drawing of Clawd. A fragrance of potpourri mingled with talcum powder hangs in the air.
Her gaze falls on the object she has come here to fetch. On the dresser, crammed among the religious figurines, the little costume jewellery boxes, and a worn, dog-eared Bible, lies Samantha’s library picture book of horses, the one Nana keeps claiming as her own over the past two weeks. She picks it up, flipping through its pages, once again admiring the golden palomino—her favourite. The book is due back today at two o’clock when the bookmobile arrives in Calmer.
When she turns to leave the bedroom, she jumps, startled. Nana is standing in the doorway, her eyes ablaze. Samantha recoils as she comes closer. Her normally gentle face, inches from her own, twists into a menacing sneer.
“What are you doing in here, Darlene?” Spittle flies from her mouth, a speck of it hitting Samantha in the forehead. “Are you stealing my books again?”
“I’m Samantha, Nana,” she protests. “I’m your granddaughter, not your daughter! And this isn’t your book. I have to return it today, Nana, I already told you.” Samantha makes an attempt to get past her, but her grandmother’s arm shoots out and grabs her by the back of her hair, clutching a fistful as she swears. With the other open hand she strikes Samantha in the arm, knocking the library book from her grasp.
“Let go!” she cries, surprised by the old woman’s strength. But Nana isn’t finished. She strikes her in the side of the head, inflicting a starburst of pain. Struggling to free herself, she feels her hair pulling from her scalp. Blindly, she kicks at the old woman, finally connecting a blow to her shin that sets her swearing afresh.
“Stop, please! Stop, Nana…” Samantha sobs into her pillow. But someone keeps shaking her.
“Wake up, Sammie! You’re having a nightmare.”
Blinking, she looks up into her mother’s face. “I—I was fighting with scary Nana again.”
Darlene winced. “I wish you wouldn’t call her that. Please! You know she was sick when she did those things.”
Samantha was fully awake now. She peered at her clock on the nightstand. One-thirty in the morning and her mother was home, leaning over her, the unmistakable reek of alcohol on her breath.
“But she was scary. She pulled my hair, and cursed at me and—”
“That’s enough. She was your grandmother, and you know she couldn’t help any of it. You know it was the Alzheimer’s. Now go back to sleep.”
Darlene got up from her bedside and made her way to the door, her gait unsteady. Moments later, Samantha thought she heard soft sobbing in the living room.
She met Veronica in the downstairs hall. When they reached Darlene, they watched helplessly as she rocked back and forth on the couch, crying into her hands.
“What is it, Momma?” Veronica asked.
“I wish I still had my momma,” Darlene said, through tears. “I can’t get her face out of my mind, how she cried when we told her she had to go in the home. I broke her heart that day.”
“You had no other choice, Momma,” Samantha said.
“I had no idea how much I would miss her,” she sobbed. “Especially at times like this.” She pulled tissues from her pocket and blew her nose. “The final divorce decree came in the mail this morning, girls. You’re looking at a single woman. Actually, a divorcée.”
Samantha’s throat went dry. She didn’t know what to say. Veronica too remained silent.
“Momma warned about rushing into marriage. Take it slow, she kept harping, but would I listen? Of course not, I was young and in love. It was Jack and Darlene, the ‘Love Story.’” She snorted out a laugh. “I knew better than her. Most of my friends had already married�
�I didn’t want to be left behind! All those hormones raging, that youthful lust for life, wantin’ to have babies right away—take it slow? Finish training for my nursing degree? Start a career? Oh no, I was havin’ none of that.” Her words piled out on top of each other, her voice ragged and finally catching in her throat. “But she’d been right all along. Jack hadn’t loved me enough to stay when everything went to hell in a hand basket.”
Veronica turned on her heel. “I’m going back to bed,” she muttered.
Samantha sighed and sat on the couch next to her mother. She put her arm around her, pulling her close until Darlene laid her head against her shoulder and allowed herself to be rocked ever so gently. “Don’t cry, Momma. It’ll get better, I promise. Please don’t cry.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was hard not to notice the change that gradually came over Veronica. In the course of the following week, Samantha saw her sister morph from a bubbly teenager in love, into a sullen, cranky stranger who barely said two words to anyone.
What is going on now? Samantha wondered. Were Ronnie and Ben having problems? They were still seeing each other, but she did notice it wasn’t nearly as often. Most of her sister’s days were taken up with her running routine and her shifts at the convenience store; if she worked an early shift, she ran in the late afternoon, and if she worked late, she went running first thing in the morning. When she was home, she stayed in her room most of the time, avoiding them.
At first Samantha thought Veronica was upset with their mother for having returned to her old habits. The wine bottles reappeared first, followed by the empty promises to them of quitting again ‘when things calmed down’ for her.
Darlene mentioned recent talk of upcoming layoffs at the call center. Because she was one of the more recent hires, she’d taken to scanning the newspaper want ads, all the while bracing herself for bad news in the form of the dreaded pink slip. This worry, along with the knowledge of their father’s new girlfriend and the finalization of the divorce, was far more than a sober Darlene could handle, Samantha reckoned.
But when she confronted her sister one night after their mother left for work, she guessed something else must have been bothering Ronnie, besides Darlene’s backslide into the alcoholic abyss. She found Veronica in bed, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, dabbing at her eyes with a handful of tissues.
“I guess you’re troubled about Momma too?” Samantha asked, perching on the corner of her sister’s bed.
Veronica reached for the giant stuffed panda she’d won at the Regatta with Ben. Absently fingering the red satin ribbon around the panda’s neck, she shook her head. “Not that I’m thrilled with her either,” she said. Her tearful gaze flickered for a moment upon the wall where Ben’s newly sketched portrait hung in a dollar store frame. But this time, Samantha’s painstaking work didn’t seem to cheer her up any.
“Then it must have something to do with you and Ben?”
“Hah! Wouldn’t you love to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Veronica gave her a withering look. “You better keep your paws off him, ya hear me, Sammie? You don’t fool me; I know how you feel about him.” Her lip curled into a pout. “The very last thing I need is a little shagger like you nosing around where you don’t belong.”
Samantha hopped off the edge of the bed with a sigh.
“Get your own boyfriend to obsess over,” Veronica added. “There must be at least one boob you can latch onto in this loser town. Now get the devil out of my face.” With that, she rolled over on her side, turning her back on a bewildered Samantha.
Fine, she muttered under her breath. But then she wondered, was her affection for Ben that glaringly apparent to everybody? Including Ben?
And nothing was fine. Far from it. Samantha tried to avoid the animosity around her for a while, but it proved futile. She could scarcely ignore one elephant in the room, let alone two of them. What in the heck did they expect…for me to disappear? That would teach them. But she had nowhere to go, unless she called her father.
No. No way.
So while Pachyderm Number One drank herself into a state of oblivion every day and hardly spoke, Samantha tried to look the other way. And while Pachyderm Number Two struggled through whatever relationship difficulties she was experiencing, Samantha did her utmost to stay out of that too. She granted them both a wide berth.
But in spite of her best efforts, and as if by some weird osmosis, she couldn’t prevent their negativity from slowly taking control of her, followed by a mood of futility in everything she did. As much as she loved working with the kids, she was relieved this was her last scheduled week at the youth center. It took everything out of her to paste on that fake smile for them every afternoon.
One evening Mandy called on Veronica to hang out, but she declined, mumbling something about an upset stomach. She asked Samantha if she wanted to hang out instead.
Samantha didn’t need any time to think it over. “Gladly. Let’s go.”
They decided to visit Kalen and check out his new place on Queen’s Road. The heritage-style two-storey needed a new exterior coat of paint, but the inside was large and comfortable. His mother, Rita, a petite woman with a smile like Kalen’s, let them in, directing them through the hall to the rec room downstairs where she told them they would find the boys.
Samantha’s ears perked up. Could it be? Sure enough, Ben sat on the sofa too, playing a video game with Kalen. He smiled and said hello, then quickly returned his gaze to the screen. The stereo was cranked and R.E.M. was playing. Following Mandy’s lead, Samantha plopped cross-legged on the carpet to watch the boys play Mortal Kombat. Listening to Michael Stipe croon of Andy Kaufman and a man on the moon, she peeked at Ben out of her peripheral vision. Her pulse quickened, reliving the sensation of his mouth on hers on Regatta Day.
He appeared more subdued than usual. If his mood had anything to do with Veronica and her own ill humour lately, or if he was simply engrossed in an attempt to beat his opponent, Samantha couldn’t tell.
Kalen, on the other hand, looked genuinely pleased to see them.
“You girls are about to see my buddy get his ass whipped,” he crowed. “Ha! Ben keeps thinking he’s going to topple the master, but we’ll see about that.”
Ben’s jaw twitched. Samantha sensed he was about to lose. The game continued until, startling her and Mandy, Ben swore and Kalen laughed in victory.
“I remain undefeated! Tough luck, Benny, my boy.”
Surprising everyone, Ben jumped to his feet and threw the controller at the television. It bounced off the screen with a crack before it dropped to the floor.
“Don’t call me that, you little tool!”
“Stop it!” Mandy shouted. “Ben, what’s got you so contrary? He’s only funnin’ wit ya, boy! Don’t be such a sore loser.”
No one had noticed the stereo had finished playing. The door at the top of the stairs creaked open.
“What’s going on down there?” Kalen’s mother called. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s cool, Rita,” Kalen called back. “Bit of wrestling, that’s all.”
“Well, you better not break anything.” The door closed again.
“Chill, dude,” he said to Ben, who sat back down with a grunt.
Mandy’s mouth curved into a mischievous grin. “Hey, Sam, did you know about the ghost here on Queen’s Road?”
Samantha chuckled. “Yeah, of course. The boogeyman told me about it.”
“Seriously. Most of the older townies know about it. It’s the ghost of a sea captain from hundreds of years ago, and folks swear they’ve seen him. And he’s headless!”
“I heard about him,” Kalen said.
“As the story goes,” Mandy continued, “this captain sailed between England and Newfoundland, and whenever he came to port here, he continued his affair with a certain local woman. But one night when he left her bed, her jealous lover was lying in wait with a sw
ord. He beheaded the captain. To this day, the headless ghost still lurks around the spot, looking for the unpunished murderer.”
“I heard about two female ghosts on Victoria Street,” Kalen said. “Eyewitnesses saw one of the women and heard her screaming, dragging the other one around by the hair through the house.”
Samantha shivered, hugging her knees to her chest.
“My Pop told me about a ghost in the fire station in the east end, where he used to work,” Mandy said. She sounded gleeful as her voice dropped to a whisper. “This one was a woman too, who committed suicide in the building and has haunted it ever since.”
“And,” Kalen said. “Did you hear about the four dead sisters on Temperance Street, where—?”
“Lord dyin’,” Ben said. “This your idea of fun? Ghost stories? What are we, ten?” On his feet again, he grabbed his black leather jacket off the arm of the sofa. “Out of here,” he muttered.
Kalen stared at him in exasperation. “What? Don’t get your drawers in a twist over a few silly stories. Jeez.”
“I’m gonna take off too,” Samantha told the others. Kalen shook his head.
Mandy looked at her in surprise. “Why don’t you just let him go?”
“Wanna make sure he’s all right.” At this point, she didn’t care what the others thought. She quickly followed Ben up the stairs, catching up with him outside. On the street, a cool, penetrating fog had moved in. It cloaked the neighbourhood in a sinister shroud as darkness fell. Samantha spied the silhouette of a head in a window across the street, looking in their direction. Shivering again, she pulled her jacket more tightly around her.
Ben spun around. “What do you want?”
“To find out what’s eating you.” Samantha stood her ground. “And if Ronnie has anything to do with it.” What had happened to the sweet boy who’d kissed her at the Regatta?
“What does she have to do with this?” Ben looked down at the asphalt. “It’s Kalen. You already know I hate when people call me that. That name.”
Calmer Girls Page 12
