Out of Order

by Robin Stevenson

  I want to say something. I have a bizarre impulse to jump up and throw my arms around her, but I am frozen to the sidewalk. And then the moment passes. She turns and slowly walks away.

  IN BED THAT night I lie awake, wondering if Gran will tell Mom. I pull up my comforter and Gran’s quilt, curl onto my side and clutch a pillow to my chest. When I close my eyes, it is Zelia’s face I see—her eyes are knowing and blue, and her mouth is twisted in a half smile.

  Nine

  ON MONDAY, ZELIA doesn’t show up at school until after classes are over. She is sitting outside on the steps at 3:30, waiting to talk to me. I want her to ask me how things are going, whether things are okay with my grandmother, but she doesn’t.

  “My mother is so freaking selfish,” she says. “I hate her.”

  I sit down on the steps beside her. “What’s going on?”

  “Michael. My mother. She just wants to do this honeymoon thing. I’m in the way.” She gives a humorless laugh. “I faked sick so I could stay home today. That really pissed her off.”

  “You actually look kind of sick. You’re really pale.”

  “Just tired. Can’t sleep. I was up all night and just napped a bit this morning. I feel like hell, if you really want to know.” Zelia looks at me and scowls. “I suppose you have to be home by four o’clock or something.”

  I can feel her anger flowing thick and hot beneath the surface of our friendship. She could turn on me in a flash.

  “Whatever,” I say. I flip my hair out of my eyes carelessly, a gesture I’ve picked up from her. Then, with something like relief, I remember that I’m riding tonight. My mother will be here any minute to pick me up.

  IN THE CAR, I lean my cheek against the cool glass of the window and think about Zelia. She seems so angry sometimes, like she hates everyone and everything, including me. I don’t know how she can hold in so much anger. I am afraid it will overflow and come spilling out, scalding everyone around her. I don’t want to be standing too close when it happens.

  The car pulls to a stop in front of the barn, wheels crunch­ing in the gravel driveway.

  Mom loosens her seat belt and twists to face me. “Sophie?”

  “What?” It has begun to rain; drops of water tap and splat on the windshield.

  “You’re very quiet.” She hesitates, pressing her fingertips lightly against her lips. “Are you feeling okay?”

  I wonder if Gran will tell her today.

  “I’m fine,” I say. The anger I felt a few days ago has evap­orated; the hard shell around me got torn away when Gran saw me panhandling. What do I feel? I don’t know. Empty. Apprehensive. Nothing I can explain to my mother.

  Mom sighs. “Honey...you don’t seem fine. Is school going okay?”

  I nod. “Yeah. It’s fine. Really, Mom.” I put my hand on the door handle.

  “I just feel like I never see you anymore. You’re never home, and when you are you never come out of your room.”

  “I’m busy, Mom. I have riding, I want to spend time with Zelia, I have homework to do...That’s all.” I open my door. “Okay? Quit worrying about me.”

  She shakes her head and gives a rueful half laugh. “I’m your mother. I’m never going to quit worrying about you.”

  I slip out of the car. That half laugh means I’m off the hook, for now anyway. “Well, try, okay?” I say. I smile, trying to reassure her. “I really am fine.”

  I DUCK INTO the barn, out of the rain. Sebastian, the big gray gelding, is standing in cross-ties, freshly groomed. Max’s head pops out from behind him.

  “Hey,” she says, “you riding?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Cool. Hurry and tack up. I’ll wait for you. Want to ride around the lake?”

  I nod again. “Yeah. Okay.” Max is grinning widely at me, her face alive and happy. I can feel a smile starting to play at the corners of my lips as I groom Keltie.

  I slide the bit into the horse’s mouth and slip the bridle over her head. Keltie leans into me, trying to rub her big head against my shoulder. I scratch between her ears for a minute before I lift the heavy saddle onto her back.

  Max is wrapping blue support bandages around Sebastian’s expensive legs. She is wearing black suede chaps over her blue jeans, a black hoodie sweatshirt and a green Gore-Tex jacket. There is no dark makeup around her eyes, but she still looks like herself.

  She crams her helmet over spiky, dark brown hair. “Ready when you are.”

  I tighten Keltie’s girth. “Let’s go.”

  A fine light rain, almost a mist, is falling. Everything seems very quiet and still, and we ride in silence for a few minutes. We follow the road for a short distance, and then we cut down a path that leads to the main trail circling the lake. I focus on the rise and fall of Keltie’s hooves and the gentle bobbing of her head.

  The area around the lake is usually busy with joggers, dog walkers and moms with small kids, but because of the rain, the trail stretches ahead, empty and inviting. I push Keltie into a steady trot, and Max follows a couple of horse-lengths behind.

  After a few minutes, she calls out, “Sophie, would Keltie be okay if I brought Sebastian up beside her?”

  “Yeah, she’s fine.” I steady her and slow down to let them catch up.

  Max looks over at me and shakes her head ruefully. “He spent a couple of years racing when he was a baby, so he gets a bit silly sometimes if he thinks he’s getting left behind.”

  Sebastian is sweating and tossing his head in excitement. I stroke Keltie’s silky neck, and we ride on in a friendly silence, the trail curving along the edge of the flat gray lake. I wonder if Max feels the same sense of peace that I do. I don’t know her well enough to ask, and I can’t think of any way to say it that doesn’t sound stupid.

  Around the bend in the trail is a gentle slope, and we let the horses have a good gallop. When we pull up, Max is out of breath.

  “Shit. Can we walk a bit?” She shakes her head. “I have got to quit smoking. I can totally feel it, can’t you?”

  For some reason, I don’t feel I need to pretend. “I don’t really smoke. I just started, kind of. I just do it sometimes.”

  “I hate it,” Max says, her voice low and intense. “I hate spending money to support tobacco companies. I hate the smell on my clothes and my hair. I hate how hard it is to stop. I hate that I’ll probably end up getting cancer or something.” She scowls. “I hate everything about it.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  She unzips her jacket. “It’s stopped raining.” She lifts her face toward the sky for a moment; then she turns back to me and gives a little shrug. “My older brothers smoke, my mom used to smoke. I started when I was eleven. I was too dumb to know any better.”

  “Are you going to try to quit?”

  “Yeah. Again. I’m starting on the patch tomorrow.” She holds her reins in one hand and twists her body to face mine. “Don’t keep smoking, Sophie. Seriously. You’re way too smart to do something that stupid.”

  Warmth spreads in my belly. She thinks I’m smart, and she says it like it’s a good thing. I remember the taunts: think you’re so smart, teacher’s pet, brainer girl. The sting is less sharp though, and instead of the usual instinct to smother the voices, I feel a frightening urge to tell Max about them.

  “Let’s go. Let’s have another gallop,” I say, pressing my heels into Keltie’s sides. She leaps forward, indignant at my abrupt­ness, and I lift my face into the cool damp air.

  Sebastian pulls ahead of us, and Max shouts over her shoulder at me, “Hey! Give us a little warning next time!”

  She is half-laughing, and I can see she isn’t mad. I grin at her a little wildly and we gallop, hooves pounding the soft dirt trail, until both horses slow on their own, breathing hard.

  Back at the barn, we rub our horses dry with empty burlap feed bags that feel rough and scratchy and absorb water well. They smell sweet, like alfalfa and molasses.

  A pair of boots and skinny jean-clad leg
s appear through a hole in the ceiling. Tavish, the guy who helps out at the barn, ignores the ladder resting beside him and jumps lightly onto a bale of hay.

  “Hey, Max,” he says, grinning at her. He turns to me. “Hi, Sophie. Good ride?”

  “A bit wet,” Max says, “but good. Are you riding?”

  Tavish shakes his head and brushes his streaky brown hair out of his eyes. “No, I’ve got to pick up a horse from another barn. A new boarder. And I’ve got a list of chores that should take me until next year.”

  Max shakes her head in sympathy. “Well, call me if you think you can squeeze a ride in. It’d be good to catch up.”

  Tavish winks. “Will do.” He grabs a long, dark brown rain­coat that is hanging carelessly over a stall door, gives a quick wave and is gone.

  “You know him?” I ask Max curiously.

  She shrugs. “Sure. We’re friends.” She picks up a hoof pick and leans against Sebastian’s shoulder. “Come on, Seb, pick up your foot.” She scrapes the mud from his hoof; then she glances up at me. “So,” she asks, “how about you and Zelia? Have you been friends for long?”

  I have the feeling she has been waiting to ask me about Zelia, and I feel a little wary. “We met at the beginning of the year,” I say. “First week of school. Her locker’s beside mine. Keller and Keenan, you know?”

  I have no words to explain what Zelia means to me. I’m not sure I even understand it myself.

  Max just nods and I wonder what she is thinking. I brush Keltie’s mane and tail and paint oil on her hooves and heels to protect them from the Wne cracks they sometimes develop in wet weather.

  “You want to come over sometime?” Max asks suddenly.

  I am startled and pleased. “Sure. Yeah.”

  “It’s a bit crazy, our place,” Max says. “My older brothers have moved out, but my mom’s remarried and I have twin half-brothers. They’re two. It’s pretty intense.”

  “I like kids,” I say, stroking Keltie’s velvet nose. “I’d love to come over sometime.”

  Max dumps her brushes into Sebastian’s tack box. “I’ll call you,” she says.

  Ten

  ZELIA IS NOT at school all week, and no one answers the phone when I call. I eat lunch with Max and her friends, Maisie and Jas. Jas is a tiny South Asian girl with long hair and a loud laugh that contradicts her size. Maisie is her opposite: tall and solid, quiet and fair haired. Despite her constant smok­ing, she’s on the school swim team. They all wear black, and they all pretend not to notice the fact that I throw my lunches, untouched, into the garbage. I drink Diet Coke and listen to them talk, their voices rising and falling in an animated conversation about teachers, boys, music, parents, the weekend’s parties.

  Max has gone on the patch. She is determined to quit smoking. When we finish eating, Maisie and Jas head to the smoking area, and Max and I walk around, not smoking. Max sucks on mints or chews the end of her pen, and we talk—at first about horses, but gradually about other things too.

  Today is Friday and she is celebrating four days nicotine free. We go for a celebratory Diet Coke at the pizza place. It is cool and the air feels damp; we are the only people sitting outside in the tiny, roped-off patio area.

  “So where is Zelia? Did you get hold of her?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. It’s weird. She hasn’t called me all week. I haven’t seen her since Monday. I tried calling about twenty times, but no one ever answers the phone.”

  Max raises her straight dark eyebrows. “Huh. Maybe they’ve gone away?”

  “She would have told me,” I say. “I’d know.”

  “I hope she’s okay,” she says.

  Her voice is neutral, and I feel like she is just being polite. I think back to when I first met Zelia, and I try to remember my first impression. Confident. Strong. I think that was partly what drew me to her. You couldn’t imagine anyone bullying Zelia.

  “You don’t like her, do you?” I ask.

  Max looks uncomfortable. “I don’t really know her,” she says after a long pause. “You two just seem very...different, that’s all.”

  “What do you mean? Different how?”

  Max frowns and fiddles with the ashtray on the table. “Zelia has a hard edge, you know? You seem...softer.”

  I don’t like this. Softer. As in easy to push around? As in fat?

  Max is watching my face carefully. “Maybe that’s not the right word,” she says. “I don’t know. Zelia just always seems like she’s pissed oV about something. Or else she’s really insecure. You don’t seem like that.”

  “Zelia’s not insecure,” I say, surprised. “She’s stronger than I am.”

  Max looks unconvinced. “If you say so,” she says. “But you seem pretty strong to me.”

  A picture of my grade nine self flashes into my mind: hiding in a washroom stall listening to Chloe and the others mock me, terrified that they would guess I was there, crying silently with my hands pressed against my mouth. Voices in my head are whispering fat cow, fat bitch, fat fat fat. I wonder how strong Max would think I was if she could see the movies play­ing in my head.

  ON SATURDAY MORNING, the phone rings early, waking me up.

  Mom calls to me, “Sophie! It’s Zelia. Are you awake?”

  “Yeah.” I rub my hands across my eyes and sit up, swing­ing my legs over the side of my bed. I pick up the phone from my nightstand.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. So, are we going downtown today or what?”

  “Okay,” I say, snuggling back under the covers. “After I ride.”

  There is a silence.

  “So, are you riding with Max?” Zelia asks.

  “Maybe. If she’s there.”

  “Whatever. So, you want to meet downtown this afternoon then?”

  I am about to agree. I open my mouth to say yeah, sure. Then something heavy shifts and settles inside me. Gran still hasn’t told Mom. I haven’t talked to her since last Saturday, down on the sidewalk by the bookstore. I don’t want to hang around downtown today. I don’t want to sit on that sidewalk and mock the people passing by.

  I bite my lip, hesitating. “Why don’t you come here a bit later?” I say.

  It is only after I hang up, still half-asleep, that I realize I forgot to ask where she has been all week.

  MAX ISN’T AT the barn, so I ride alone. The sky is a sharp clear blue, and the cold air tastes like burning leaves. When my mom comes to pick me up, Zelia is in the passenger seat.

  “I was bored,” she says, “so I went round to your place, and your mom said I could come along for the ride.”

  Zelia makes excuses to hang out with my mom a lot. This is probably paranoid, but sometimes I even wonder if she just wants to be friends with me because she likes my mother so much. I’m always holding my breath when they are together, scared that my mom might say something about what I was like before we came here. In a way, I’m glad I never told Mom about the things that happened at my old school. It makes it easier to keep it a secret.

  I rub at a patch of dirt on my hand and watch the Welds roll past. I don’t know how to talk to Zelia with my mom sitting there beside her. It’s like I’ve split into two people this fall: one for Zelia and one for my mom. The two parts don’t Wt together, so I just stare silently out the window.

  Zelia fills the void, chatting away about nothing in partic­ular. As the Welds give way to city streets, she twists around to grin at me and then turns to my mother. “Can I stay for dinner?” she asks.

  Mom pauses for a moment before answering. I can tell she wants to say no, but I know she won’t. She never does. “Gran is coming over...and a fellow from the university. A colleague. I might do some teaching up there in January.” She sighs and shrugs. “Oh sure, stay. The more the merrier, right?”

  Gran. I had forgotten that she was coming today. I hadn’t realized that I would have to face her tonight. I slouch down in the backseat, glad that Mom can’t see my face.

  Zelia and I go up to m
y bedroom. She sits on my bed, lean­ing back against the pillows. I perch on the end, cross-legged.

  “So?” I ask. “Where were you all week? I kept calling.”

  “Lee kicked me out,” Zelia says.

  “What? Kicked you out? What do you mean?”

  “She wanted to be alone with Michael, so she sent me to stay with my aunt.” Zelia grabs one of my pillows and hugs it to her chest. “My freaking old hippy aunt who’s stoned half the time.”

  “Seriously? What did you do?”

  Zelia shrugged. “Not much. She lives way out of town, out in Sooke. She doesn’t even have a phone or a TV. Mostly I read her weird meditation magazines and tried not to die of boredom.”

  I can’t imagine. “You should have stayed with us,” I say.

  Zelia brightens. “Really? You think your mom would let me?”

  “Of course.”

  She sighs. “I wish I could live here with you all the time.” She stretches her legs out and pulls Gran’s quilt over her feet. “So, did you miss me?”

  “Of course,” I say again.

  She looks at me sideways, sliding her eyes toward me with­out turning her head. “Did you hang out with Max?”

  “Yeah. Some.” My stomach is starting to hurt.

  Zelia’s eyes are narrowed and her pupils are pinpoints.

  “I don’t think you should hang out with her,” she says.

  Her words hit me, sink in and drop into my belly like cold stones.

  I arrange my face to look unconcerned. “Yeah? How come?”

  Zelia waves her hands dismissively. “She’s a Clone. Just a diVerent kind of Clone. Not like Tammy and those girls, but come on, please. Her and Jas and what’s her name, the fat one.”

  “Maisie,” I say, quietly. The fat one, the fat one.

  “Whatever. They all think they’re such individuals because... what? They wear black? They wear weird makeup? It’s so lame. They all dress exactly the same and then act like they’re so unique.”