Best Friends Through Eternity

by Sylvia McNicoll

  Copyright © 2015 by Sylvia McNicoll

  Published in Canada by Tundra Books,

  a division of Random House of Canada Limited,

  One Toronto Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6

  Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,

  P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934268

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  McNicoll, Sylvia, 1954-, author

  Best friends through eternity / Sylvia McNicoll.

  ISBN 978-1-77049-710-8 (bound).—ISBN 978-1-77049-712-2 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8575.N52B47 2015 JC813′.54 C2014-900835-X

  C2014-900836-8

  Edited by Sue Tate

  Designed by Rachel Cooper

  www.tundrabooks.com

  v3.1

  For Bob, my best friend through eternity

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Monday after School

  Monday at the Beach

  Retake: The Previous Monday Morning

  Retake: Monday after School

  Retake: Tuesday Morning

  Retake: Tuesday Afternoon

  Retake: Wednesday Morning

  Retake: Wednesday Afternoon

  Retake: Thursday’s Field Trip

  Retake: Thursday after School

  Retake: Friday Morning

  Retake: Friday Afternoon

  Friday: Back at the Beach

  Thursday: Third Time a Charm

  Second Retake: Friday Morning

  Second Retake: Friday Afternoon

  Retake: Saturday–The Engagement Party

  Retake: Sunday Afternoon

  Monday: D-day Morning

  Monday: D-day Afternoon

  Back at the Beach

  Between Two Worlds

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All kinds of support was needed for the creation of this work, and I am extremely grateful to the Ontario Arts Council (Writers in Reserve) and the Canada Council (Creative Writing Grant) for funding the research and writing time necessary for this novel.

  A huge thank-you goes to Becky Dumais and her chosen daughters, Sophia and Grace, for sharing their stories of finding each other. Reading Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran helped me understand some of the emotions behind international adoption.

  Thank you to Beena Patel for consulting and supplying anecdotes and information on East Indian culture. Much appreciation goes to Dr. Sarah Miyata-Kane, who volunteered at the Body Worlds exhibit in the Ontario Science Centre and helped many, including me, understand what a lung feels like. She also gave insight into the kind of character Paige would be and recommended reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, which I, in turn, recommend to you, if you have a strong stomach. Thanks also to my test readers, Michelle Fornasier and Dharma Patel; applause for an early draft certainly supported me emotionally and carried me through in the final writing.

  Monday after School

  I blame Jasmine for the fact that I’m dying. On Monday afternoon, she should be volunteering in the library. That’s what she tells her parents, after all. But, instead, she’s sneaking around with Cameron in the mall three blocks from school.

  She’s probably holding his hand, nuzzling his neck or even kissing him, and who can blame her? He’s a good-looking boy, baby-faced with a cleft chin, slow, measuring brown eyes and a generous mouth. His hair is a light shade of milk chocolate, and it has a gentle wave. There isn’t a girl in school who doesn’t want to go out with him. Including me.

  A week ago, I was thrilled that Jazz could snatch Cameron from Vanessa during their monthly breakup drama. Vanessa is the resident volleyball queen, a blonde, hazel-eyed power girl. What a victory! Geeks over jocks, 2–1. Gives everyone hope, even me. Someday I, Paige Barta, might be able to score the best-looking boy out from under one of the long legs of the fair-skinned girls. And really, like Vanessa, I believed the relationship was very temporary. For one thing, Jazz’s parents won’t let her go out with boys—and not just until she turns fifteen or sixteen. Not ever. For another, she likes books and theater, not ball games on big screens. In an instant Cameron would make up with Vanessa, and we’d be the brainy duo again.

  But a week later it already feels like an eternity. Here I am by myself again, shutting down the computers that were left on by the last class. Jazz ditching me, and even using me as a smoke screen for Cameron, has gotten really old.

  And it isn’t the first time I’ve been abandoned for the sake of a boy.

  Back in China, my birth parents gave me up because the state wouldn’t allow them to have more than one child. They needed a boy to carry on the name and the duties of the farm. Like girls can’t do that. Still, there’s a happy ending to that story. I was “chosen” by my adoptive parents, as they like to tell me.

  No one chooses to adopt me as their new lunch or afterschool buddy when Jazz abandons me. In fact, in gym class, Vanessa’s supporters shove me around, whapping me with balls and snapping wet towels at me, as though I have anything to do with the Great Romance.

  I sigh. Two banks of computers—most of them left for me to look after. How many times does the teacher have to tell the morons to save and shut down? I quit the windows as quickly as possible without even looking, pressing “No” to saving changes. Some people will lose their essays and notes, but really, why should I take the time to check which version and file name they need to keep, if they can’t be bothered?

  Third to last computer, Vanessa McDonald’s Facebook photo catches my eye. She’s puckering her lips and blowing a kiss in it. Her hair looks golden and windblown, her hazel eyes liquid and secretive. The photo makes her look like a model, way better than how she looks on the volleyball court, all red-faced and frizzy-haired.

  I skim through the messages, finger hovering over the “Enter” key, ready to close. Her friends seem to have two modes: one, sickly sweet…

  Kierstead Compo: Ur so purty Van.

  Vanessa McDonald: Aw! Luv u 2 Kbear.

  Laura Gingham: Best friends 4ever. Can’t wait till we get an apartment together.

  Kierstead Compo: It’s gonna be party heaven!

  And the other mode, psycho evil…

  Morgan Pellam: Saw Cameron sucking face with the Bollywood Biatche.

  Kierstead Compo: Can’t believe he would dump purty Van for her.

  Vanessa McDonald: Bollywood has 2 pay.

  Keirstead Compo: Let’s get her after school. Make Jasmine a hazbin. LOL

  Morgan Pellam: Yeah! Let’s surprise Hazbin at the overpass. Rip off her face.

  Laura Gingham: Knock out her teeth.

  Vanessa McDonald: What about Banana?

  Keirstead Compo: Let’s take her down, too.

  Four little thumbs-up icons show that Gwyn, Emma, Zoe and Rebecca like this.

  I’m Banana.

  My mouth goes papery dry. Yellow on the outside, a reference to my Asian looks—although I prefer to think my skin has more of a golden hue—white on the inside, referring to the fact that I am being raised Caucasian.
I can’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese, not that Mom hasn’t tried to send me to class. I don’t even know what to choose at the Chinese buffet.

  Jasmine and I still meet at four-thirty in the parking lot to walk home together. Even though Jasmine says it’s our girl time—since she spends the rest of her life with Cameron—it’s really so her parents won’t suspect. They’re Hindus the way mine are Catholics, not that serious or strict about observing all the details. Still, Jasmine certainly isn’t supposed to be “sucking face” with a boy, as Morgan so quaintly puts it.

  What to do? I squint out the library window. Through the inky black, I can make out white. Like clumps of soggy cloud, the snow drops heavy and fast.

  The sky is falling. I swallow hard. In class, with a teacher around, Vanessa’s team managed to shove me into the wall, hit me in the face with a ball and trip me. What will happen without any adults around?

  “Certainly coming down out there,” Mrs. Falkner, our librarian, says. “Maybe you should head home, Paige. We can shelve the books tomorrow.”

  It’s four o’clock on a Monday afternoon. Too early for Jazz to come back. I text her but doubt she even looks at her cell phone when she’s with him. If I leave now, I won’t be able to warn her in person. What good will a warning do, anyway? Like a pack of hyenas, they’ll track us down sometime when no one is around. I lick my teeth … smooth. I like the way they look since the braces came off. I don’t really want to chance having them kicked in.

  If I leave now, no one will be on my tail. I’m not their prime target, anyway. If I don’t hang with Jazz, I’ll be safe. “Yeah, I’m going to pack up and head home.” I snap the last computer off and rush out to my locker. I throw on my coat and shove my hat down over my head, flipping the hood over it. Vanessa’s gang needs to have memorized my clothing to know it’s me. But the way their eyes take hold of us when we walk down the halls, I don’t doubt they have. I kick my sneakers into the locker, pull on my boots and grab my backpack. I won’t walk our regular route in case those girls catch up with me somehow.

  Instead, I’ll take the shortcut along the track. My house backs onto the city of Burlington’s railway line, so I know the schedule pretty well. The four-thirty GO Train shouldn’t be by for another half an hour, maybe later because of all the snow. By that time, with any luck, I’ll be sipping hot chocolate over my algebra.

  I duck out and see Mr. Brewster, my science teacher, brushing off his car. He’s a cool guy—should I ask him for help? What can he do? Will he drive me out to look for Jazz? That has to be breaking some school board rule. Besides, he can’t give us a lift home all the time, can’t guard us every moment of the day. I don’t wave or call hello, I just scuttle out of the parking lot.

  I trudge through the snowdrifts covering the sidewalk. Houses line the streets here; I should be safe. Still, I move quickly and, when someone calls out from behind me, I fall down, instantly covering my head with my arms.

  “Hey, Paige, you okay?” a guy in a tuque asks. When his face appears right in front of mine, I stare into his smiling brown eyes. It’s Max Liu, the Chinese guy from science class.

  “Peachy,” I answer. Max being Asian is enough to bug me, enough for me to want to avoid him. His looking amused at me right now makes me want to shove him into the snow.

  His friend reaches his hand out to help me up, but I scramble to my feet by myself.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you like that,” Max says.

  “Of course not.” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Sorry.” He shrugs and they continue on, laughing and jostling each other.

  Down the street, a plow flashes its alien blue lights as it pushes the snow into piles along the side. Piles you could easily stuff a body in, there has already been so much snow this winter. “Wait up, Max!” I call, but he doesn’t seem to hear. I wish I could just get over myself and chase after him. Safer. It isn’t his fault he’s Chinese—or a boy, for that matter.

  I jog for a block, but then my feet slide out on some hidden ice and I crash-land on my butt again. I look around. No one chuckles or laughs. I’m alone. Good. When I get up, I walk slower, checking over my shoulder for movement or shadows, anything to hint that one of the volleyball girls is stalking me.

  I glance toward the road Jasmine and Cameron may come down. If I see them, I can warn her. But it’s still too early for her to return, unless she uses her brain and comes back early on account of the storm. I can slow down and wait. Maybe Cameron can walk with us, tell those girls to back off and leave us alone. But Jazz doesn’t usually use her head when she hangs around with Cameron.

  And I do not wait.

  I hear a dog barking at me from behind a picture window, and I keep moving. All I want is to make it to the crossing on Appleby Street and turn onto the gravel alongside the track. No one will see me walking. Those girls won’t catch me there. They are planning to catch Jazz at the overpass, not hunt for me. I won’t have to stand up for the best friend who has abandoned me for the cleft-chinned brown-eyed boy.

  Blinking the snowflakes from my eyes, I duck my head into the wind. Not far now. I make sure the tracks look clear. They have to clean them quickly for the commuter traffic.

  I turn onto one of the sets of tracks. On either side of them, a six-foot-high chain-link fence blocks animals and kids from dashing across. People don’t understand that trains can’t stop like cars. For their average driving speed, trains need the length of sixty railroad cars to stop, Dad told me. If an engineer brakes with less space than that, the whole train derails and chances are whatever is on the track still gets creamed.

  I should be safe now. No one will look for me here. Huge drifts fill the gaps between the two sets of tracks and the chain-link fence, so I have no choice but to walk dead center between two metal rails. I sigh, take out my iPod and plug my earbuds in. Trouble is, Jazz and I created the mix together BC (before Cameron), and the first songs in the shuffle are her pick. Soft, sentimental love songs that kind of make me want to stuff snow down her neck so she’ll wake up. I know she wanted a boyfriend, needed one really, to prove to herself she’s beautiful enough to fit in.

  We both have this straight black hair that can’t do anything but lie flat. I have a round face, with typical Asian dark eyes. Virtually no eyebrows, but I hide that by wearing black horn-rimmed glasses. Jazz has caterpillar brows that she plucks like crazy, but beneath them she has these incredible pale green eyes and a narrow face. Jazz is beautiful. She doesn’t need Cameron to prove that. But to really feel like you belong, a boyfriend like him means everything. For me, too.

  I forward ahead on the iPod till I hit a loud, pulsing, hip-hop song. My choice, yeah. I swear the beat rumbles through my feet—great stuff. I walk faster. The wind picks up and drives the snow against my face. I live four long blocks down the track. Not far in good weather. It’s just the snow stings now and the wind pushes hard against me. I can imagine that it’s Vanessa shoving me against the gym wall.

  Is that thunder? I hesitate for a second. Is there even lightning in the winter? All kinds of strange weather seem to be happening with the climate warming. Maybe the rumble is in the music. The next song is one both Jazz and I like: techno rock.

  I think of her and wince. How will she make out alone? Could the two of us have stood up to those girls? No way. Not if all ten of them show up at the overpass. Sometimes it’s even worse having a witness to your humiliation. I text her again: Stay away from the overpass.

  The beat crackles like lightning. The drum thumps hard and quick. Have to hand it to the music people, they really take creative risks. I hear the wind howling in between the crackles, which sounds really cool.

  Alone against ten, how bad will it get for Jazz?

  Only another block to go. The tracks themselves shake. What a storm!

  Jasmine all alone.

  My watch says 4:10. I face slightly away from the wind and see a light from the corner of my eye. This is nuts. There’s still time to head her off. I
turn around.

  A train throws sparks from the rail not one car length away.

  I scream and jump.

  Monday at the Beach

  When I wake up, I’m standing on a sandy beach by the ocean. Puffy white clouds dot the baby-blue sky. Waves of turquoise water lap gently at the vanilla-colored sand.

  My toes dig in, and the hot sugar texture feels good against my feet. The sunshine warms the air blowing gently off the sea. Palm trees, like long-necked ladies, shake their feathery green hair out in the breeze.

  This is my kind of heaven.

  A tiny figure kneels near the water: a little girl. She wears a one-piece red bathing suit spotted with black to look like a ladybug, and she scoops sand from a hole. She looks so small and alone, something makes me want to protect her, to hug her. Everyone starts as these sweet innocent children. Too bad little kids have to grow up into obnoxious jerks. Ones that snap towels in other people’s faces.

  I sigh. Something about her seems familiar, tugs at me. Affection? Something I don’t feel a lot of for little kids. But I had a bathing suit like that once. Is it those shiny black pigtails, so perky and cheerful-looking? I used to wear my hair like that, too.

  She turns my way and smiles, a gap-toothed grin, her cheeks swallowing her eyes till they are happy slits. She looks like … like me when I was seven years old. I feel sorry for that person from long ago. She was so lonely. I walk toward her.

  “Hi, Paige,” she says and stands up, reaching out her arms. “I’m so glad to see you!”

  “You can’t be…,” I start and shake my head. No more eating chocolate bars before going to bed.

  “It’s me, Kim. Come on. You don’t remember your best friend?” She stands up and hugs me now, squeezing tightly.

  “Wow. I can’t believe I’m dreaming about you.” I hug and squeeze back. Normally, that would wake me. You can’t hold on to a dream person and feel solid flesh touching you.