Lucy Unstrung

by Carole Lazar

  The next morning, I’m sitting there eating cereal in front of the TV (I would not be allowed to do this at home) when the phone rings.

  It’s Muriel. I can only hear Grandma’s half of the conversation, but it sounds like there’s some kind of problem. There is. It’s me. Muriel wants to leave early. The bus they’re catching from Vancouver to the casino doesn’t leave until late afternoon, but she and Fred forgot that their son has their camera. They want to pick it up at his house in Vancouver first. Muriel thinks that if they are going in early anyway, they might as well go out for dim sum. I hear Grandma telling Granddad about it.

  “Well, call Kate,” he says. “She’ll just have to take Lucy with her.”

  I don’t wait for them to call. I know when I’m not wanted. I call Mom to see if she can come and get me early. I get no answer. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’ve never been left by myself before. I tell Granddad and Grandma they should go ahead and meet their friends as long as they don’t mind taking me home first. Grandma’s all apologetic, but while she’s apologizing, Granddad is loading their suitcases into the car and he tosses my backpack in on top of them. The matter is decided.

  It’s not quite nine o’clock when they drop me off at our trailer. Mom’s car is there, but things look pretty dead. She’s probably still asleep, so Grandma doesn’t come in.

  The dog comes pitter-pattering out from my bedroom. I pick her up and give her a cuddle. I take her for a little bit of a walk. It’s not until I come in the second time that I notice the pair of men’s running shoes placed neatly behind the door. They’re white with silver markings, and there’s a small, royal blue crescent-shaped logo on the side. The lining of the shoes is the same royal blue. I look around the place. I can’t see any clues as to who they might belong to. I creep down the hall. I stop outside Mom’s bedroom door and listen. I hear heavy breathing. My mom is a light breather. Someone with a deep voice gives a small cough. My mom is not alone in there. She has a man in her bed.

  She’s the one sleeping around, so why am I so embarrassed? I sneak back out of the trailer. If she caught me catching her, I’d just die. How could she do this?

  I start out toward the entrance to the trailer park. As I pass Jake’s trailer, I see his car’s there. It makes sense; he’d hardly bother to drive over to our trailer. I wonder if she changed her sheets. He probably wouldn’t even care.

  I don’t know where to go. Grandma’s on her way to Las Vegas. I don’t want my dad knowing Mom’s in bed with some guy. That leaves Siobhan. Her mother’s not going to drive all the way to Langley to get me, but if I just turn up on their doorstep, she’s not so hard-hearted that she’d just throw me out.

  I’ll have to get there on my own. I check my wallet. I have five dollars. There’s a bus stop just down the street from the entrance to the trailer park. The trouble is that this time I don’t have a trip plan from the bus company’s Web site to guide me.

  I wait until a bus pulls up, and then I stick my head through the door and ask if this bus will get me to Surrey.

  “Well, not directly,” he answers. “Where in Surrey are you going?”

  “Scott Road and Eighty-sixth Avenue,” I say.

  “You’ll need to make a few transfers, but you should start with the C61 to Langley Centre.”

  The bus pulls away. I stand there waiting for the C61. It arrives and I get on. At least this time, the bus isn’t crowded and there are lots of seats. I remember to ask for a transfer.

  “I’m trying to get to Surrey, to Scott Road and Eighty-sixth Avenue. Which bus should I take after this one?”

  The driver hems and hahs but finally suggests I try the one to Surrey Central.

  Three buses and two-and-a-half hours later, I get to Siobhan’s. And people wonder why we have gridlock on our highways. Why would anyone ever take a bus if it always takes four or five times longer than it would by car? I can’t wait to be old enough to drive and add my share to the pollution.

  Siobhan is totally surprised to see me, but at least she’s home and not out somewhere with Megan. Her mother is unpacking groceries, and all the kids are hanging around, whining or fighting.

  “Can I go out now?” she asks her mom. “Lucy and I want to go down to the mall.”

  Actually, I don’t want to go to the mall at all, but what are the choices? I can’t talk to her here, with her mom and all these kids listening.

  “I don’t have any money,” I say.

  “Like, what’s new? We never have any money. But guess what?”

  I can’t guess.

  “All that’s going to change! I’ve got a real babysitting job for next Saturday.”

  I don’t know why she’d be excited about a babysitting job. She’s always babysitting, and I don’t even think she likes it.

  “Five dollars an hour and they only have two kids. Sure beats being treated like slave labor.”

  Siobhan’s mother rolls her eyes and reaches for her purse. “Well, I can’t compete with wages like that, but you have to consider that I do provide you with free room and board.” She hands Siobhan a ten dollar bill. “Don’t spend it all in one place. And that’s for tonight too, so don’t get any funny ideas now that you’re in demand.”

  “Maybe Lucy could stay over and help me with the kids tonight,” Siobhan says.

  She makes it sound like this is something I’d be dying to do. Still, it would better than having to face my mom or dad.

  “I’d have to ask my mom,” I say.

  “You can use the phone in my room,” Siobhan says.

  I’m praying Mom is home because otherwise she’s going to turn up looking for me at Grandma’s in an hour or two. I’m in luck. She says she was just heading out to go grocery shopping. I tell her Grandma and Granddad left early, and I’m at Siobhan’s. She doesn’t ask how I got there. She says I can stay over if it’s okay with Siobhan’s mom, which it is.

  On our way to the mall, I tell Siobhan about what I walked in on this morning. “You have no idea how sleazy it feels,” I say, “knowing your own mother is in bed with some guy just a few feet away from where you’re standing.”

  “And you were standing with your ear right up to the door?”

  “Right. I’m absolutely sure it was a man’s breathing and a man’s cough … I mean, I’d have known anyway, what with the shoes out there by the door.”

  “So you think it’s that Jake?”

  “That’s what I’m assuming. There was no other car. He lives close enough to walk over.”

  “Or maybe it’s Randy. He lives in the same place, doesn’t he?”

  “I didn’t think of him,” I say.

  We’re so wrapped up in our conversation we don’t even bother to go shopping. We just go into one of the coffee shops and order colas and fries.

  “You know, just because there was no other car there doesn’t mean it had to be someone who lived close enough to walk,” Siobhan says as soon as the server walks away to fill our order.

  “How else would he have got there?”

  “Well, if your mom met someone at a club or at the pub, she might have just brought him home. Especially if one of them had been drinking too much. They’d just leave their car at the bar overnight.”

  I think about it. I suppose she’s right. Sometimes when I’m feeling bad about things, Siobhan is a really good friend to have. She can completely take my mind off my troubles. This isn’t one of those times. It felt bad enough when I thought Mom was in bed with Jake, but that’s not as bad as thinking maybe she picked up some stranger when one or both of them was too drunk to drive.

  “I have no idea what’s got into her,” I say.

  “This has been a really exciting month for your mom. You know, first she got accepted for that course, so she knows she’ll be quitting her prissy old job at the convent. And now your parents have sold the house, so she’ll have all this money and she can do whatever she wants with it. Maybe she just wants to make a fresh start and be like a total
ly different sort of person. She’s only twenty-eight. She’s still got time to change if she wants to.”

  I feel like kicking Siobhan. Maybe because she’s just said exactly what I’ve been thinking. I wish I’d said it. And I wish that when I did, Siobhan had told me I was crazy.

  Instead, all I say is, “She’s twenty-nine next week. I get tired of hearing how young she is. I’ll be glad when she’s thirty.”

  I’ve babysat with Siobhan before. It’s not too bad if her parents don’t go out until seven o’clock or so, like tonight. Her mom’s got the little ones in bed already. Rebecca and Jasmine, who are a bit older, are bathed and in their pj’s. Their mom has told them they can watch one show. Kevin and Damien are the most trouble. They’re nine and twelve. They hate it that Siobhan gets to be the boss of them. They never want to do what she says.

  Just as her dad is getting into his jacket, Siobhan says, “Dad, tell Kevin and Damien what time they have to go to bed. I don’t want to spend all night fighting with them.”

  “Damien, Kevin, Nine-thirty. Got it? I don’t want to hear that you’ve given Siobhan a hard time or there will be consequences. Understand?”

  Damien and Kevin scowl at Siobhan, but they nod their heads. Then they disappear down the stairs to the basement to play some video game. Siobhan goes into the kitchen. She changes the time on the clock on the stove. Now it says eight o’clock instead of seven. Then she changes the time on the microwave, and on the alarm clock in her parents’ room.

  At seven-thirty, when the TV show they’re watching is over, Siobhan tells Rebecca and Jasmine it’s time for bed. They’re pretty good about it, especially when I tell them that once they’re tucked in I’ll read them a story. They find the one they like. It’s called Curious George Flies a Kite. They sure didn’t pick it for the cover. The book is old, and it looks like it’s been dropped in the bathtub or left out in the rain. It smells funny too. Why do they even want me to read it? They have it memorized. When I try to hurry things up a bit by skipping parts, they catch me and make me go back.

  Siobhan is down checking on the boys. When I’m finished the story, she comes in and gives her sisters goodnight kisses. Then she turns out the light. We go to the kitchen and make some popcorn. We can hear the girls talking and giggling a bit, but after awhile, it’s quiet.

  Siobhan takes some of the popcorn to the basement for the boys.

  “Nine o’clock,” I hear her say. “Here’s a snack. You need to get into your pajamas pretty soon.”

  I look at the clocks around the kitchen. Right. They all read nine o’clock.

  Half an hour later, she herds them off to bed. They complain. She threatens to tell her dad. They grumble. They argue with her and with each other. I just stay out of it. There are times I’m glad I’m an only child. Finally, when all the clocks say it’s ten-thirty but it’s really nine-thirty, things quiet down. Siobhan goes around and changes all the clocks back.

  “If I’d started trying to get them to bed when it was really nine-thirty, I’d still be fighting with them an hour later,” she says. “It works better this way.”

  We both flop down on the couch. Siobhan had turned the TV off when she was trying to get the kids to bed, so now it seems very quiet.

  “What a day. I think we deserve a drink,” she says.

  I agree. I don’t know what she has in mind. Her family never has pop in the house. Siobhan’s mom always says that water’s better for us. When we get to the kitchen, Siobhan doesn’t even go to the fridge. She pulls a chair up beside it, steps up on it, and begins looking through some bottles in the high cupboard over the fridge.

  “Here it is,” she says. “Baileys Irish Cream. I tried it at Christmas. It’s not like most booze. It tastes really good.”

  I’ve never had alcohol before, but even Grandma takes a drink now and then. She says Jesus did, too. It’s only a sin if you get drunk, but one glass is okay.

  Siobhan steps down, opens another cupboard, and takes out glasses. She fills one for each of us. When I have mine, we wander back to the living room. We’re still wondering what to do about my mom.

  “She’s never been the smartest about sex, has she?” asks Siobhan.

  “No, I don’t think she knows much about things like condoms.”

  “My parents neither.”

  I take a sip of the Irish cream drink. It’s quite good. It’s almost like chocolate milk, but with a little bit of a bite to it. I take a bigger drink.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” says Siobhan.

  “Very.”

  She takes another sip too. “Yes,” she says, “you really should have a talk with your mom.”

  “I’d be too embarrassed. I don’t even want her to know that I know.”

  “I know it will be hard, but if she’s already bringing guys home to spend the night, she needs to be using some kind of protection.”

  We talk about it for quite awhile. Siobhan thinks maybe I could print out something about condoms from the Internet and just leave it where Mom would find it. I’m more interested in finding some way to persuade Mom not to sleep with these guys at all. How do I try to talk her out of being a floozy without telling her I know she’s been acting like one?

  “I guess I’ll have to …” I start.

  I’ve only drunk about two-thirds of my Irish Cream, but I’m feeling odd: queasy and funny in the head.

  Siobhan takes another big swallow from her glass. “It’s probably too late to talk to her about just saying no,” she says.

  I get up to go to the bathroom. “Excuse me. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I’m a bit dizzy. I bump into the coffee table. When I get to the bathroom, I go to hit the light switch, but I miss it. It takes me two or three tries. Mind you, it is dark, but I don’t think I usually have any trouble. My stomach feels awful. I’m trying to think of what I ate today. Pretty soon I know. I barely make it to the toilet, and I hurl; it looks like popcorn mostly. It takes me by surprise. I didn’t get the seat up. It’s splattered all over. I take some toilet paper, and I’m down on my knees in front of the bowl, trying to clean up, when it hits me again.

  This is so totally gross. I’m here on my knees, hanging on to the sides of someone else’s toilet. Where is my mother when I need her? I’ve got it on my shirt. I pull myself up to the sink and use a washcloth to try to clean it off. The smell of the puke makes me gag. I barely make it to the toilet again. The sweat is pouring off me. I just sit there on the floor for awhile, leaning against the wall next to the toilet. I don’t know how long I’m there. I’m starting to feel a little bit better, so, being careful not to make any sudden moves, I start trying to clean up the mess I’ve made.

  Siobhan must think I’ve died in here. I’m surprised she hasn’t come to check on me. I wash my face. I look at myself in the mirror. I’m awfully pale. Maybe I’m coming down with something. That Irish Cream probably didn’t help any.

  When I think I’m okay, I come out of the bathroom and walk back down the hall. I bump into the walls a couple of times, but I don’t have any major problems. When I get to the living room, I see why Siobhan hasn’t come to check on me. She’s sound asleep on the couch. Our dirty glasses are sitting there. Both of them are empty. I thought I’d left some in mine. Whatever. I take them to the kitchen and put them in the dishwasher. I tidy up a bit, even though I’m still kind of clumsy and keep bumping into things. It’s eleven o’clock. Siobhan’s mom and dad will be home pretty soon. We should be getting ready for bed ourselves. I really need some sleep. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.

  “Siobhan, wake up. Time for bed.” I give her shoulder a little shake.

  Then I laugh at myself. That sounds weird, telling someone to wake up because it’s time for bed.

  “Siobhan!” I say it louder this time, and I give her shoulder a harder shake.

  She doesn’t even open her eyes. She’s breathing slowly, like she’s in a really deep sleep. At least she’s breathing. Why won’t she wake up?
I grab her by both shoulders and shake her hard, yelling at her to wake up. Her eyelids flicker, but she just drops back into the corner of the couch like a rag doll when I let her go. Water! Maybe I should throw a glass of cold water on her. It would get on the couch. Her mother would have a fit. I run to the kitchen and soak a dish towel with cold water. I’m coming back to put it on her face when I hear the car in the driveway.

  I wipe her face down and pinch her hard on the soft part of her inner arm.

  “You girls still up?” I hear her dad ask.

  Then both he and her mom are standing there, looking at us.

  “I can’t get her to wake up,” I say. “She’s breathing and everything, but she won’t wake up.”

  Siobhan’s dad is standing over her. He half lifts her off the couch and shakes her hard. Her eyes flutter and she makes a bit of a grunt, but that’s it. Her head lolls on her chest. If he let go, she’d fall in a heap on the floor.

  “I’ll call 911,” Siobhan’s mom says.

  “Never mind,” her dad says. “I’ll carry her to the car. It will be faster than waiting for an ambulance.”

  Siobhan’s mother bends over Siobhan so she can help carry her. She sniffs. “Liam, she’s been drinking. I can smell it.” She looks at me. “What have the two of you been in to?”

  “We just had a glass of that Irish Cream.”

  They’re walking toward the front door. They each have Siobhan under one arm. Her feet are dragging along the carpet. The bathroom is just two doors down the hall.

  Siobhan’s mom sniffs again. “Who’s been puking? Has she been sick too? I can smell it.”

  “No,” I say. “That was me. Siobhan wasn’t sick, but now she won’t wake up.”

  I’m following them, and I misjudge where the railing is and bump into it.

  Siobhan’s mom looks like she’s going to cry. “You’re not in much better shape than she is.”

  They get her downstairs and out to the car. I’m following them. I don’t have a jacket on; I’m shivering. Siobhan’s dad gets her into the front seat, and her mom leans over from the driver’s side to fasten Siobhan’s seat belt.