by Susan Juby
As previously noted, I was not a member of the academic elite. My friends and I hung out in the smoking area; many of us had boyfriends who drove large trucks and loud cars and hadn’t appeared in any graduating class photos. I had permed, feathered hair and a strong preference for black eyeliner and clothing with extra zippers. When I wasn’t sleeping during class, I was talking.
In spite of my status as a waste of space in a classroom setting, Mr. Lee was pretty nice to me. As well as Directed Studies, he taught English. Maybe he had a bit more tolerance for me than did the other teachers because we shared an enthusiasm for reading. I read everything on the assigned reading list in the first month of school and, unlike most of my classmates, I actually loved the books chosen. And I liked talking about them in class, even though my comments were usually less than penetrating.
“Can anyone tell me the theme of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four?” he’d ask.
I would raise my hand into the deafening silence.
“Yes, Susan?”
“It’s about when the whole world becomes like school. It’s a drag. You can’t get any privacy and stuff. Total fascism, man.”
“Hmmm, yes. I see,” he’d say, diplomatically.
The difference between Mr. Lee and the rest of the teachers is that he actually called on me when I raised my hand. Few others dared.
Our agreement on the general excellence of books didn’t mean I was producing top-notch work or anything. I wasn’t scoring straight A’s in English, belying my otherwise abysmal performance in school. Any hopes Mr. Lee had that my interest in the class readings would translate into academic success were dashed when I produced mediocre, last-minute papers. But Mr. Lee didn’t give up or treat me like the C student I so obviously was. And even though I wasn’t about to show it, that meant a lot to me.
Even so, when Mr. Lee came up to me after class one day and asked if I was interested in taking DS my jaw nearly hit the floor. Me! In Directed Studies! With all the chess club people! Surely he meant Detention, Special. No, he assured me, he actually meant Directed Studies.
My first instinct was to say no. After all, particle physics was not my bag. My math studies had stalled somewhere around grade eight or nine. (To this day I require one of those tip calculators when I go to a restaurant: let this be a warning to all those young people who don’t feel math is important.)
“What would I do?” I asked him.
“Well, what are you interested in?” I’m sure part of him must have been worried I was going to propose a course in dating minor drug dealers. But I didn’t. I was too astonished by his question.
What was I interested in? The truth is that the worse I’d done in school and in life, the less I was interested in. I’d given up riding and writing, my two main passions. The chess people, the ones who discussed the latest articles from Harper’s and The Economist in hushed tones in the hallways at lunchtime, now they had interests. Even I knew that “partying” and drinking were more like avocations than hobbies.
Mr. Lee told me to go away to think about it and that afternoon, I did.
I was interested in clothes. A passion for fashion didn’t have the same “getting above myself” quality that an interest in, say, microeconomics or golf course design would have. I could bring up the topic of fashion out in the smoking area without hitting a wall of blank, fish-eyed stares that told me I’d crossed yet another line. In fact we often had lively discussions out there about topics such as how acid wash denim was really made and shared the latest news about innovations in curling irons.
So the next time I saw Mr. Lee I announced I wanted to study fashion.
He nodded gravely.
Then I surprised both of us. “Historical fashion. Nineteenthcentury costume design,” I blurted, thinking of a book I saw once in the library and had glanced at for a minute or two.
His eyebrows rose a bit and he nodded.
“Okay. Write it up.”
I spent the evening writing up a proposed course of study. It was the first night I’d spent doing homework in my entire high school career. It was as though merely being asked what I was interested in made me want to come up with something good. It was even sort of fun. Not as fun as getting wasted on wine coolers, obviously, but not bad, either. I proposed spending one term researching nineteenth-century fashions and one term actually making a reproduction of a ball gown from the era. The fact that I (a) had no research skills whatsoever and (b) couldn’t sew didn’t stop me. I was going to be in DS! We DS types were not afraid to take on a challenge!
Our first DS meeting consisted of me on one side of the room, reeking of cigarette smoke, low self-esteem, and perm solution, and all the smartest kids in grade eleven on the other. I was sure my presence rattled them. What kind of meritocracy allowed a smoking area C student into the ranks? The DS kids weren’t mean to my face. By that time, I’d moved fairly solidly into the ranks of the “fairly popular.” I went to all the parties and had pretty friends and dated older guys. Instead, they adopted a cautious, slightly soothing manner with me, as though I was an unpredictable and none-too-bright animal, like a young badger or a yearling moose that someone had very inappropriately brought to a party.
Among themselves they had considerable camaraderie. Mark, a tall, dark-haired, round-shouldered boy, teased Samantha, the serious, white-haired editor of the student paper, about her plan to study bias in the media coverage of the federal election. He teased her about her fondness for “soft science.” I was appalled. These people made jokes about soft science? What in the fuck was soft science? And what were they going to think when I announced I wanted to study fashion design for a year?
Mark, emboldened by his flirtation, actually spoke to me. “I hope you’re pursuing something a bit more quantifiable,” he joshed. The people around him shrank visibly, probably concerned that I didn’t know what quantifiable meant and, maddened by frustration, would physically attack him. They weren’t far off.
But before I could say anything, Mr. Lee took control. He introduced each of us and described our projects. Art would be studying neuroscience; Tina: Japanese calligraphy; Samantha: media studies; Matt: astrophysics. Christopher was going to put Wordsworth in perspective. Bing: economic recovery in postwar Germany. And Susan: nineteenth-century costume design and its social relevance.
As he mentioned my topic, I looked from face to face. No one appeared all that impressed by my intellectual ambition, but no one laughed out loud either. It was as though my self-esteem, thirsting through a desert of alcohol-related escapades, had been administered a life-saving sip of water.
Over the course of that year I read about the insane yet telling history of fashion and what it reveals about women’s roles in society. I struggled to learn basic sewing skills and spent every extra penny (other than those needed to keep my hair in a state of advanced permed-ness and to buy enough booze to get started on the weekends—boyfriends always provided the booze to finish us off) to buy the equipment and materials to make my enormous reproduction ball gown. I enlisted the help of a whole host of women, from the local seamstress to the public librarian, all of whom became quite fascinated by the subject.
I also got to know my fellow DS students and soon began to appreciate the fact that I didn’t have to dumb down my vocabulary around them or pretend to be stupid to amuse them. That was something I’d learned to do in my early years at middle school to avoid the dreaded accusation: “Why do you always got to use such big words?”
The Directed Studies kids were so far outside my social circle they might have been my parents’ friends. But I grew to like several of them and they seemed to like me.
During the presentation at the end of the year, Christopher put Wordsworth into perspective (turns out he was pretty important). Tina gave a demonstration of Japanese brushwork. Matt talked about what he’d learned about astrophysics. And I came out on stage in a reproduction of a nineteenth-century ball gown complete with velvet bodice fastened by dozens o
f tiny buttons. The skirt was held out by a crinoline the size of a two-man dome tent and had a hidden pulley system to raise and lower different layers of jewel-toned satin. I talked about how upper-class women were put on pedestals as untouchable symbols of femininity and how their fashions made them literally remote. (I thought, but chose not to mention, that my tendency to projectile-vomit during benders had the same basic effect.) I discussed how during the Extravagant Period, fashion influenced architecture. Doors were made wider to accommodate the giant skirts. Women at the time wore dead birds and insects in their hair as decorations. I talked about how women drank vinegar to increase their pallor and did all kinds of other unhealthy things that made them fit a senseless standard of beauty. It was all very understandable in the eighties milieu. When the talk was over, I had an A in Directed Studies (the only one in my high school career) and had decided to go to fashion design school after I graduated.
The dream of going to college and the entire experience probably kept me in school. It made me realize that even though my lifestyle was fairly out of control, I could still relate to people who didn’t party like their lives depended on it. And the fashion school goal was actually achievable, unlike a goal of going to university. I learned this from Mr. Lee’s wife, who was the guidance and career counsellor. She helped me find an institution with achievably low standards. The best thing of all was that the school was in Toronto, which, I was fairly sure, was big enough to cure me.
11
The College Months
WHEN MY FLIGHT landed in Toronto, I was greeted by a slender, soft-focus blond woman. She worked for the fashion design college I’d enrolled in, and simply being in her company while I waited for my inexpensive but brand new suitcases made me feel good. This, I thought, was the new me. The urban me. The me who was greeted at the airport by nicely appointed blond ladies.
As she drove us along Highway 401 to the student cooperative where I’d be living, I could practically feel myself changing, growing, and getting better and better. I knew no one in this city of two and a half million people, and I’d never felt more alive to the possibilities of life. I stared, exhilarated, at the high-rises that crowded the freeway and at the endless lanes of traffic streaming around us. I was going to start fresh. This wasn’t going to be like the time I moved to Salmon Arm.
There are probably people in the witness protection program who feel less relieved to get out of town than I did when I moved from Smithers to Toronto. I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. I was going to be a better person. Maybe even all I could be. I was going to fulfill my inner destiny, which was to be a cutting-edge fashionable person who lived in a major city. No longer would I be the girl who drank too much at parties. The girl who’d been flailing from one crisis to another since she was thirteen. The problem had been my environment. It hadn’t allowed me to flourish. But in Toronto all things were possible. Heck, after I got my fashion design career underway, I might even start writing again. Probably get another horse and start to compete and probably go to the Olympics. I would start drinking like a lady or at least not like a guttersnipe. Surely, being in a world-class city like Toronto would do the trick. During a stopover in Calgary, I’d bought myself some wide-legged plaid pants and had my hair spiral-permed. I was already different!
I experienced a moment of fear when we pulled up to the house and knocked on the door. No one else was home. I took the keys that had been mailed to me and opened the door. The lady helped me carry my luggage into the Victorian brownstone. The grand old house had been carved up into sixteen separate bedrooms. There was a kitchen (dirty) on the main floor and bathrooms (also dirty) on the second and third floors. It was, I thought, the nicest house I’d ever seen. There were very few brick buildings in the northern interior of British Columbia. I’d never seen a house so solid. And so old! The floors were hardwood rather than linoleum or carpet. There were mouldings! Never mind that the hardwood floors were scratched and little nails popped out here and there and the mouldings were covered in flaking paint. I took a few steps and knew instantly I was meant to walk on hardwood floors, even if there were quite a few silverfish underfoot.
“Are you going to be okay here by yourself?” asked the nice lady as I stood in the middle of the foyer staring around me with wonder-filled eyes.
I nearly laughed out loud. If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed by the classiness of my new situation I might have. I wanted to tell her that I was going to be fine for the first time in my life. Instead I simply thanked her. When she left, I went upstairs to my new room, on the third floor. It had a sloping ceiling and two beds. I would have a roommate, which was going to be a great novelty and adventure like in those books about boarding schools that I loved to read. My roommate wouldn’t know any more about me than anyone else in Toronto. She wasn’t going to know about my tarnished reputation. She was going to see a girl from B.C. with an undeniable vivaciousness that matched her wicked new spiralpermed curls. We were probably going to become best and lifelong friends!
Once I’d decided which bed to take, leaving my new roommate the good one because I was now a thoughtful person who did that sort of thing, I decided to explore the neighbourhood. A smalltown resident from birth, I was not a natural urban navigator, so I proceeded cautiously. I left the house, making sure the door was locked behind me, and walked around one block. I was relieved to find myself back in front of the right house after four left turns. Next, I ventured two blocks, then three. Each time I found myself back in front of the house, my confidence grew. I was walking around a major city!
On one of my circuits, I noticed that I’d been passing a liquor store. I’d been so focused on not getting irretrievably lost that I hadn’t paid attention, but on that trip the store seemed to leap out at me.
What if guests stopped by my new room? I should have something to offer them. What if I got invited to a party? I couldn’t show up empty-handed. For all I knew, there might be an official cocktail hour before dining hall.
I ducked into the liquor store and looked at the shelves. I could get a six-pack of beer. But a full case was really a better deal. I picked up a box of Labatt Blue, showed my ID, which the clerk examined very carefully because I looked approximately twelve, especially with my enormous head of fake curls and new clown pants. Then I struggled to carry the beer out of the store and the rest of the way home. The case was heavy and didn’t match my outfit, but I persevered.
When I opened the front door, fighting to maintain my grip on my beer, I noticed someone behind me. Another student. Finally.
I held open the door for him while I stared at the floor. (My new confidence didn’t extend to meeting a stranger’s eyes.) Then I climbed the stairs to my third-floor bedroom. About halfway up the first landing, I realized the man I’d let in was right behind me. Nearly touching me. A glance back told me a few things at once. The man was probably not a student. If he was, he was an extremely mature older student, aged fifty-eight or so, and it looked as though he’d spent his summer vacation sleeping under a park bench. By averting my eyes when I let him in, I’d missed the long, tangled beard, the unkempt and filthy hair under the toque, and the layer upon layer of reeking clothing, complete with bits of newspapers sticking out here and there. The man was a homeless person! I’d heard about those!
I gave a little scream and accelerated up the stairs, the case of beer banging against my legs. I made it up two flights of stairs in about four steps, as though I had a jet pack on my back. Another few leaps and I was at the door of my new room and working the locks. With superhuman dexterity, I let myself and my beer inside, slammed the door, and locked it behind me. I stood panting and listened for noises from the homeless invader or very mature student on the other side. When I heard nothing, I put the case of beer down on my desk.
After trying for a few minutes to think what to do, I decided that the best course of action was to have a drink. I opened one of the bottles and drank half of it. Then I went over to the win
dow and leaned out. A couple walked along the sidewalk below.
“Excuse me,” I shouted. “There’s someone in the house. I mean, I think there’s a homeless man in here.”
The couple looked up to where I was leaning out of the window.
“Can you see if he’s still here?” I asked.
“Well,” said the young man, “I guess we could.”
“Why don’t you call the police?” asked the woman.
The two of them were remarkably unfazed by this third-floor request for assistance.
“I don’t have a phone. I’m not from here,” I shouted down. My enormous spiral perm was probably evidence of that.
As I watched, the couple walked to the front door and disappeared from view. A few seconds later, their heads reappeared. The man looked up at my window.
“We can’t get in,” he said. “The door’s locked.”
“Oh,” I replied. “That’s right.”
“Can you let us in?”
It dawned on me that I didn’t know these two any better than I did that homeless guy who was probably hiding outside my room right now, thinking of all the things he’d like to do to an out-of-towner in plaid pants. I’d read literally dozens of books about serial killers. I knew the score.
Who to trust?
I ducked back into the room and quickly finished off the beer. Then I returned to the window.
“Never mind,” I said. “I’m fine.” Then I belched, loud and wet.
“You sure?” asked the girl.
I nodded down at them. Finally, they walked off down the street and I sat on my bed to wait. I reflected that it had been a stressful day so far. A person, even an urban one, might need a second drink to take the edge off. So I had one. Then, because I was trapped in my room by a possible serial killer, I had a third.
Half an hour later, or maybe longer, I heard voices and footsteps outside in the hall.
