“He doesn’t live in Toronto,” Mom corrected me. “He’s buried in Oakville, though.” In less than three minutes she had informed me of the existence of a brother and then of his death. She said his name had been Eliot, and that he had died of SIDS just two months after being born, and the day after his burial she had filed for divorce.
“I celebrated you guys’ second birthdays with such relief,” she said. “I’d gotten you through infancy in one piece. I just didn’t know that there were bigger problems waiting to come along.” She reached over and ran a hand through my thinning hair.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” She acted like she hadn’t heard me.
*
Before I leave for school, I make Mom’s favorite breakfast and leave it on her desk with a cup of coffee. She always gets up, goes into her office, and works for an hour or two before considering food or a shower. Today, she’s getting taken care of.
Today’s her firstborn’s birthday. She doesn’t know I know. It took me awhile to find out, going through online records of marriage licenses to find out her first married name, and then through birth announcements in the newspaper archives. There was even a picture. Eliot was a pretty cute kid. I think. All newborns look the same to me: round and pink and flat-nosed.
“What are you sucking up to Mom for?” Elise asks with a shrewd look as we get into the car to go to school.
“Nothing. Just a feeling.”
“What feeling?”
“That she’s going to have a hard day.”
“What did you do, Jem?”
“Nothing.”
“Whatever you did wrong, Mom’s gonna find it. She has a sixth sense for bullshit,” Eric says. He doesn’t say it like a warning, more like he’s gleefully anticipating my head on a platter by dinnertime.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah right.”
Tuesday
It’s a blissfully sunny day in Smiths Falls, and unseasonably warm to boot. The sunshine perks everybody up and the warm weather means t-shirts for the optimists. I don’t hold out hope that the sunshine will last until noon.
Willa shows up to school in a warm-weather skirt and tee—all black, of course, except for her forearm-length purple gloves. It’s sort of weird to see her shins and arms.
“Aren’t you hot in that?” she asks.
“No.” Long sleeves work well for me in all climates, at least until I look human again.
Willa gets a lot of compliments on her outfit over lunch, both from the girls and from Elwood and Joey Moore. They both have dirty fantasies about the easy access that skirt offers written all over their faces. Just shoot me.
Then Willa reintroduces the topic of getting a group together to go skating. The rink is open for public skating tonight. Chris immediately accepts the invite.
“I’ll pick you up at four,” she says. I hate the way that sounds.
“Mind if I tag along?”
Willa shrugs. “Whatever.”
Whatever? Maybe that’s her polite way of telling me to piss off. Nah, she’s probably willing to say that to my face. Willa is blunt like that. Still, ‘whatever’ is so dismissive…
“If you don’t want me to go, I won’t.” The other people at the table look down at their plates. They all secretly want to exclude me anyway. This excursion is no different—Chris is going, which means Diane will go to see him break a limb (ideally all four) and Paige will tag along to worship him. Hannah might come, and Brian follows her around like a puppy. So where does Cancer Boy fit in?
“Don’t be so sensitive, Harper,” Willa tells me. “It’s narcissistic and boring.”
See? She really is that blunt.
Shut up.
*
After school, I ride back to the Kirk house with Willa. I’ll carpool with her and Chris to the rink.
“Do you skate much?” she says as we drive to Chris’s house.
“No, I’ll probably end up watching. Do me a favor and make sure Elwood bruises something, okay?”
Willa rolls her eyes. “Designated Pessimist; got it.” I’m annoyed that she didn’t explicitly promise that Elwood would end up injured.
Willa’s car doesn’t have a back seat, so when Chris gets in I have to slide over to the middle of the bench, which worsens Chris’ mood. He has designs on Willa, and doesn’t like Cancer Boy getting in the way.
You really need to stop referring to yourself in the third person. It’s narcissistic and boring.
At least she doesn’t like him back.
Chris starts to talk about some TV show that neither of us has heard of, so Willa turns on the stereo the second he pauses for breath. Her car is so old that the sound system only plays cassettes and radio. “She’s So Cold” by the Rolling Stones comes on. Perfect.
“You know this song?” Willa says when she sees me grinning. We both start to sing along with the chorus. Elwood doesn’t know the words. That dipshit. He tries to talk during the instrumental bridge and Willa turns up the volume and drums on the steering wheel. This chick is awesome when she’s annoying someone who isn’t me.
Chris is good and pissed by the time we arrive at the rink. Paige’s mom’s car is already here, and Willa recognizes her friend from Port Elmsley’s truck. We go our separate ways in the lobby—Chris to the changing benches, and Willa and I to the skate rental counter. Willa gets a pair of boy’s hockey skates.
“Are figure skates a threat to your masculinity?” I ask as she pays the clerk. Willa gives me the eye.
“They squeeze the balls of my feet.” She takes her skates away to the benches before I have a chance to return the riposte. I’ll get her back later.
Hannah and Paige are already on the ice, skating slow laps. They’re talking to Luke and two of his friends. I’m sure I met them that night at Joey’s house, but their names escape me. They’re flirting with the girls, but not having much luck. Or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Misery loves company.
Neither Willa nor Elwood wait for me to finish lacing my skates, but at least Willa tosses me a “See you out there.” She does a quick warm-up lap and skates over to Luke for a hello hug. I’d hate to be Elwood right now—cold-shouldered by the chick he wants to move on and supplanted by Cancer Boy and a sixteen-year-old. Maybe he’ll get struck by lightning, too.
I follow them into the ice. It feels indecently cold in here, so I push through a lap to warm up. It’s still really freaking cold. I catch up to Willa and her friends, who have broken off into two groups: those that want a slow, leisurely skate, and those that want to race. I stick with the slow pokes, but eventually they all get into the racing spirit until it’s just Hannah and me.
“You don’t have to stay with me. I’m not very good at this,” she says. Hannah has had a few stumbles so far, but she hasn’t fallen down. She seems to think that I’m skating with her out of pity, and I don’t tell her that it’s only because I’m in no condition to be tearing around a rink.
“You’re doing great.” I give her my arm to steady her. Hannah’s hand feels awfully light on my elbow, like she doesn’t want to touch me too forcefully. She doesn’t look at me either, but that could be because she’s focused on staying upright on her skates.
As we glide along slowly, something occurs to me: no one is staring. It’s been months since I could go out in public without getting curious looks from strangers. But every skater I pass looks at me and finds nothing out of the ordinary. When everyone is bundled up in a cold rink, my hat doesn’t stand out so much. I seem normal, unless the other patrons look closely enough to notice my lack of eyebrows, not that any of them do.
“Cold?” Hannah can feel me shivering.
“One more lap.” I’m not ready to let go of my pretend normalcy yet. Up ahead of us, Elwood sneaks up on Paige and grabs her around the waist. He fails to see the six-year-old in front of her, though, and they both fall down in an attempt to avoid bumping the kid. Elwood lands on his shoulder and lies there whining and crying like a baby. T
hat’s going to make it really hard for Paige to worship him.
Why am I surrounded by sluts and morons?
*
Paige volunteers to take Elwood in for x-rays. He’s convinced that he broke his ‘shoulder bone.’ He clearly has no idea what he’s talking about and the fact that he keeps repeating it is embarrassing.
As soon as Paige and the moron drive away, everyone drops the somber act and starts making plans. Joey suggests a trip to the diner around the corner for an early dinner. Willa declines to go, and there’s no point hanging out with these people if she isn’t around, so I pass on the invite as well.
“Are you okay with driving me home? I can call my brother if you’re not.”
Willa gestures to her crappy car. “Get in. I’ll even let you control the music since you went a whole hour and a half without whining today.”
“I don’t whine that much.”
“Just did. I’m revoking your tuner privileges.”
When we get into the car I try to control the stereo anyway and Willa slaps my hand. “Pass me ‘Decent Day.’” She points to the glove box. Turns out that compartment is jam-packed with homemade mix tapes, all with stupid labels: Hungry; Blue Days; Whining Scene Bands; Creepy Lead Singers; Attitude Adjustment.
“I assume there’s a system.”
Willa cranks the volume. “I label the tapes like theme music. Today was a decent day.”
“Just decent?”
“Good days are just bad days waiting to happen. Decent is as good as it gets.”
That’s a horrible outlook on life, but I don’t tell her so. I’m hardly an optimistic person either. Besides, this mix tape isn’t bad. It’s all acoustic folk with some top-forties, and when we pull into my driveway she lets “Beautiful Thing” by Slaid Cleaves finish before turning off the car.
“It was kinda cool, you coming out today,” she says. “Did you have fun?”
“It was interesting.” I wasn’t part of the group, precisely, but I managed to blend in for once.
“You should come out with us more often.”
I agree for the sake of agreeing and invite Willa in for dinner.
“Thanks, but I have to go feed my brother.” Willa wishes me a good night. I like the way she says goodnight, like by wishing it on me she can actually will the night to be good. Then she reaches out and gives me a sideways hug across the seat.
Willa doesn’t hug me like I’m made of glass. She wraps her arms right around me and holds me like she wants me there. She throws herself into it and genuinely lends me her body for the space of that embrace.
“Now get out of my car.”
Elise has her face pressed to the front window as I walk up to the porch. I bet she watched that hug. Now I’m never going to hear the end of it.
Wednesday
Willa and I spend the Social Studies period making graphs to chart the progress of our soil contamination project to date. She has call Luke written on the back of her hand again. She just saw him yesterday; what could she possibly have to say to him already? I make the mistake of asking and Willa deadpans, “We talk about you behind your back.” Her sarcasm does wonders for my mood.
Thursday
I habitually panic every time I hear the squeaky wheels of the book cart coming through the Dialysis Clinic. Then I see it’s an old man in a green volunteer vest today, and I relax. Luckily, I haven’t seen Willa here for a while. It was embarrassing to be seen just the once. I didn’t know how to deal with it; I had no visitors other than family when I was still sick, and it’s hard to prepare for an awkward meeting like that.
I cling to the numbers the doctors and nurses give me on my blood tests, watching my kidney function fluctuate between sixty and eighty percent. My renal system was shot to shit by last November, and I was staring a kidney transplant in the face. But I got lucky: once the chemo was over my kidneys bounced back a little bit. I’ve been getting better, slowly. Maybe I won’t need dialysis in a few months.
Mom tosses aside her magazine and turns to me for conversation. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“How are your friends?”
“They’re okay.”
“Elise is sure getting close with that boy she’s been mooning over.” Jesus Christ, I thought that phrase died with the dinosaurs.
“Is she?” Maybe that’s why Elise hasn’t been hanging around me lately, demanding attention; she has someone else to fix her annoying energies on. I’m almost hurt by that.
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Have you heard anything? Does he seem like a good kid?”
“You know he’s eighteen, right?”
“Age is just a number.”
“Not when your sixteen-year-old daughter is involved.”
Mom smiles condescendingly and strokes my cheek with the backs of her fingers. “You worry so much for such a young man,” she says. “You always were like that; an old soul, I guess.”
“Mom.”
She just chuckles at me. “When you were a baby the slightest things used to upset you. You were such a sensitive child.”
Time for a subject change. “Are you really going to let Elise go out with that guy?”
“He hasn’t asked her out yet.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Your dad and I haven’t discussed it.”
Dad will never go for it. Elise is a Daddy’s Girl; he’ll tell her to wait before dating…hopefully until she’s thirty.
Friday
We have a work period in Social Studies, and after she finishes the assigned questions, Willa begins to make a grocery list in her notebook. When she’s done that she starts making a list of stuff that can be found at the hardware store.
“Building something?”
“Yeah,” she answers absently.
“What?”
“Doing this project…”
“What is it?”
She’s so distracted that a noncommittal grunt is the only answer I receive. I prod her again and she adds, “With Frank and Luke.” She’s been hanging out with Luke a lot. He smiles at her too much. And touches her too often. I bet he has designs on her, too. Every guy seems to.
Do you?
Shut up.
She’d never go for it.
I don’t think of her like that.
Right.
She’s annoying.
I bet she’s a moaner…
Jesus Christ.
“Your shirt looks nice.”
“Eyes off the tits, Harper.”
“What tits?”
Perfectly palm-sized tits.
Will you shut the hell up?
She sees through you, you know.
She doesn’t know a goddamn thing about me.
That terrified, are you?
Willa puts a hand on my face and physically turns my head to get me to stop staring.
*
It’s Dad’s day off today, and he suggests we go to dinner as a family. I feel tired and my head hurts, but stuff like this means a lot to him. I’ll probably end up ordering the Jell-O dessert off the kids’ menu, but I can play along and pretend to have a good time.
We go to Swiss Chalet. Elise snags a children’s menu and a pack of crayons from the hostess station—she could have a promising career as a pickpocket—and orders the sorbet and Jell-O dessert so I don’t have to. The waitress has the nerve to give her a judgmental look.
“I bet she thinks I’m anorexic or something,” Elise says when the waitress leaves. I ordered the spring rolls on Elise’s behalf. She insists on keeping the kids’ menu though, and colors the cartoons on it while we wait for food. She’s half-finished with the duck on skis when she very suddenly quits and folds the menu away into her coat pocket.
“Did you suddenly remember your age?”
Elise completely ignores my question and leans back in her chair. I follow her gaze and see a table of teenagers across the dining room
. Her favorite basketball player is among them. Mom notices too and smirks at Elise’s behavior.
For the next five minutes, Elise covertly watches the other table from around Eric’s shoulder. She looks a little peeved when the waitress flirts with them—only trying to improve her tip—and begins to fidget while we wait for food. Now is a really bad time for her to have forgotten her Ritalin.
“I have to use the restroom.” She pushes her chair back and gets up. It takes me a second to realize that the path to the restrooms will take her right by the other table.
“Me too.”
Elise doesn’t immediately notice me following her, but when she gets close to the other table her pace slows a bit, like she’s planning to stop and try the ‘I didn’t see you there’ line. My hand on her shoulder solves that problem as I march her forward to the restrooms at the end of the hall.
“Jem!” she hisses.
“Please, we’re in public—and you look desperate and stupid when you try to flirt.”
She gapes at me for a few seconds, and then the water works start. She kicks me in the shin and whirls away into the women’s restroom. I can hear her crying from the hallway. Shit.
I limp back to the table just in time for the food to arrive.
“Where’s Elise?”
“Restroom.”
I don’t have much of an appetite, but Eric is already laying into his chicken and I told myself I’d play along tonight. I pick at the Jell-O and sorbet Elise ordered. Mom knows something is up. She quietly slips away from the table a few minutes later and heads toward the restrooms. She’s gone for twenty minutes.
“What happened? Where’s Elise?” Dad asks when Mom finally gets back to the table.
“She wasn’t feeling well. I took her home.”
Aw, hell.
When we get home I try to apologize to Elise, but she won’t open her bedroom door and yells some very colorful things at me when I try to apologize.
“Let her cool off until morning,” Mom says. I wonder how much Elise told her about what happened.
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