Love, Heather

by Laurie Petrou

  20

  There is a trip today to the recycling plant for the Environmental Science Club, or frankly, anyone who realized the trip was an option. I heard about it on the announcements yesterday and need to get out. I cannot sit in class right now. I feel a rumble of anger bubbling inside me as I start my day with Pete, who teaches things that used to matter to me but seem unrelated to real life anymore. I remembered how Ava was always trying to get me to join the club, and Mr. Wilson is so desperate to get students involved that he agreed to all the last-minute slackers who provided him with a permission form.

  It is sticky and warm, and if you’re the kind of person who cares about environmental science, a little alarming, even for May. Most everyone is on their phones, even those who are pretending to listen to their friends. Dee isn’t there. I stand alone, watching two squirrels chase each other around a nearby tree, one of them finally catching the other, pinning it down and humping it like a squirrel robot. Then he scoots off and the first squirrel just lies there. You never really see a squirrel lying on the ground unless it’s dead, but I guess she needs some time to collect herself. We file onto the bus while our teacher checks our names off a list.

  I sit close to the front on the left-hand side. I grapple with the window for a while, trying to jimmy it down a couple of inches, but I can’t do it. I slump down in the seat, which lets out a defeated wheeze. Someone sits down beside me and I turn to see that it’s Lottie. I look around and see there are no other seats, and so that’s why she’s sitting here with me.

  “Oh, hi,” I say.

  She smiles a little, and says, “Hey.”

  “I didn’t know you were in this club,” I say.

  “I am very concerned about the environment.”

  I let out a low laugh as she takes a book out of her bag and begins to read.

  The bus comes alive and starts moving, and right away we are jiggled about like a train in an old-timey cartoon. People are laughing and goofing off because being in a school bus is like getting into a time machine, and you just can’t help but turn nine again. Lottie is reading, and I look out the window and it feels like nothing and everything has changed. Our bodies bump into each other as the bus hits potholes. I miss being next to her and wish we could just hook arms, feel that closeness again.

  “Sorry,” she says, as she is knocked into me.

  “It’s okay,” I say, and my heart feels like it’s cracking.

  We move out onto the main drag and pass the No Frills, and the hair salon where my mom used to work before she decided to open one in our house. I used to hang out in the basement salon with her, reading old Cosmos and trying out the curling irons and straighteners. I loved the smell of it down there. The hair sprays and permanents and dyes, and how the smells were always on her, even after she showered and changed. It’s different now. Ever since Reg. Now he hangs out down there. He reads the magazines and sits in the hair-washing chair with the footrest and makes comments on all the women in the pictures. He flirts with Mom’s clients and they all laugh at his jokes. They think he is charming and that she is lucky, but they don’t know that he stole my mother from under my nose, just leaving me with one more hole in my life.

  We are on the highway now, going fast, Lottie reading beside me as scraps of songs float like pieces of garbage in a wind up from the back of the bus. We drive past a long, low building with a sign for a company called Earth Boring, past offices and plazas and car dealerships and warehouses. I look down at the people in the cars driving beside us and wonder about their lives. Is she going to eat that sandwich later? Why do they have so many blankets in the back seat? How can he stand smoking in the car like that? There is a woman singing along to the radio, and I smile just watching her because she is so into it; she is on stage and not in a little Hyundai Sonata. She shakes her hair about and pounds her palms on the steering wheel.

  We reach the recycling plant. It doesn’t look that big from the outside, but I realize later that it is, and that the entrance is almost like the doorway to Bilbo Baggins’s hobbit hole.

  A man in safety goggles ushers us into an empty room with tables and chairs and two pop machines. “Okay, now listen up here, because it’s really loud on the tour, so it will be hard to hear me all the time. You’re each going to wear a safety vest and glasses,” he says, while another man walks around with a bin of gear for us to put on. We follow them into the factory, single file. Lottie is in front of me, her messy, crazy hair in all directions, her hands at her sides, in fists.

  As soon as we go through the door into an enormous, endless warehouse, it is impossibly loud: a racket of noise and garbage, tiny pieces of paper flying around like dirty magic dust. The tour guide leads us down some metal stairs and along a pathway that cuts through the middle of it all, on one side forklifts raking and lifting piles of junk mail three stories high—a pyramid of paper—and enormous bound cubes of crushed cans like metal haystacks are being somehow organized on the other side. The tour guide shouts at us from the front of the line, but I hear nothing. I look at a woman working a switchboard of machinery in a cagelike contraption to my right. She wears her hair back in a ponytail and has on the same glasses we all do. She smiles at me and returns to her work, pulling switches and dials in the world’s filthiest video game.

  We continue up more clanky metal stairs and across a metal bridge that oversees the whole operation. Below us, conveyor belts covered in trash move at a remarkable clip while workers pick off the occasional piece and throw it into a bin behind them without looking. Juice boxes and bags and broken toys and cans and long tangled jumbles of ribbon and plastic rings for pop and twisted pieces of metal and more, more, more. We clump down the stairs and file in behind the sorting line, which is what it is called, to watch. I catch a snatch of information shouted from our tour guide about how their job is to pull anything that isn’t plastic from the line. I watch as employees, bored from hours and days and years of this job, methodically pick through the wave of crap that whizzes in front of them. They are missing so much, so many pieces that aren’t plastic, and some small obsessive-compulsive part of me is seizing up. There, there, there, that piece, what about that, quick. But they are accustomed to the job, I suspect, and so they move at a measured pace. Each person has a large bin behind them, and some of these are decorated with mascots and treasures that must have been pulled from the line. On one, there is a Barbie horse—a white one, with silvery hair. It’s scuffed and the hair is tangled, but I could totally see why it was saved, and it makes me kind of sad. We keep walking.

  Lottie’s head is down, and she’s covering her ears. I see the scar on her arm from where she fell off her bike when we were eleven. I remember how bad the cut was, full of gravel and dirt, but she was so tough. Pete cleaned it and put a bandage on it and gave us ice cream with cookie crumbs on it, and I remember that we said that it looked like the dirt from her arm. It tugs at me, seeing that scar, and her with her hands over her ears. She stumbles as we finally walk through a closed door and into an area where we can hear again. We gather in a crowd while the man who works there tells us the stats about how they recycle up to ninety-seven percent of the material that goes in there, and how the recycling plant we are in is a charity that transforms so much of what goes in into something else. He opens a bag he’s holding and holds up a piece of crown molding.

  “This,” he says, “used to be a Styrofoam takeout box. It was crown molding trapped in the body of Styrofoam, and we helped it become what it wanted to be.” He chuckles and so do a few other people. The man gestures for the group to follow him into another room, and the crowd starts to move.

  Most of the group have gone through the doorway when Justin, a guy standing beside me, nudges Lottie in the back. “Like your mom,” he says.

  His friends snicker and act like they are shocked and offended between giggles. I look at her, her lower jaw sticking out, and feel a rush of old loyalty burst up, surprising me.

  I turn to him. �
�Shut the fuck up,” I hiss, loudly.

  He raises his eyebrows and makes a face of mock concern, clutching his chest. “Oh, sorry. Did I offend your girlfriend?”

  I glance at Lottie.

  “Stevie, don’t,” she says.

  I ignore her. I look back at Justin. “You are such an asshole, and let me tell you: guys like you? Your time is up,”

  “Oh really?” He smirks. “Lemme guess. You’re part of that Heather shit. We all know about you and that tranny teacher.”

  “What did you say, you transphobic dick?” I shout, thrusting my body forward like I’m going to start a fight, like I’m going to beat this guy up who could flatten me. Because he’s still Pete, after all, even if I can’t count on him like I once could; he’s part of me, somewhere deep inside. I won’t stand for anyone trying to take shots at him.

  Justin laughs, but nervously, because I notice there are a bunch of other students who have turned around and are snapping their fingers and smiling at me. “Preach,” someone murmurs, and someone puts their hand on my shoulder.

  Justin shakes his head, laughing. The noise of that place rattles around in my brain like we’re inside a machine. It’s echoing all over.

  I am still staring at him angrily when I feel another knock on my shoulder. I look up and see that Lottie has shoved me.

  “Hey—”

  “Seriously? What is wrong with you?” she shouts over the din.

  “Wrong with me? Me?”

  “Why do you have such an ax to grind about everything?”

  “An ax? What?”

  She looks at me for a long time, and then says, “You know, you don’t need to make everything about you.” And she starts to walk away.

  “Fuck you, Lottie!” I yell. “You are not the only one struggling.”

  She turns around, lifts her hands, and yells back, “Who said I was struggling?” I start to respond, but she continues, “You know, Stevie, everything doesn’t have to be a battle. Everything isn’t a chance for you to have the spotlight.”

  “What the—”

  “Join the drama club or something. Get an outlet for your, I dunno what this is. Look, we get it: you’re pissed at the world. Just—stay the fuck out of my life!”

  A bunch of the guys are shaking their fingers and saying “Ooh, burn” as they turn to leave, and I could kill them, honestly. But my fury is for Lottie right now. Lottie, leaving again. She turns, moving through the door with the others, and I am here, in an empty room with wisps of recycled paper drifting around me.

  21

  When I get home that day, Reg is watching TV in our family room. I walk in, eating an apple.

  “Where’s my mom,” I ask him, stone cold.

  “She’s on her way.” He looks at me. “How you feeling?”

  “What? Fine.”

  He mutes the TV and turns around, all serious. “Listen, kid. Your mom told me what’s happening at your school lately. And, you know, it makes sense why you’ve been acting so agro.”

  Aggressive. Jesus H. Christ, this guy.

  “And I gotta say, I get it. I’m not proud of it, but I used to give some guys at my school a hard time when I was your age.” Big surprise there. “Bullying is serious stuff, man. I hope you know that you can come to me and talk about it if anything happens to you or one of your girlfriends or something.”

  “Talk to you.”

  “Yeah.” He leans in and opens his hands, all welcoming. “I get it if you can’t tell your mom stuff all the time, but you can confide in me if you need to. Maybe it’s because I never grew up”—he snickers—“but I understand kids.” He raises his eyebrows. “It’s hard to get any shit past me, let me tell you.”

  “Right …” I close my eyes, and when I open them, he’s changing the channels again. “Tell my mom I went out.”

  I turn on my heel and get the hell out of the house. I get on my bike, gripping the handlebars so hard my knuckles hurt. I am riding through my neighborhood. Faster, faster, faster. As I’m zipping down the road, pumping my pedals like mad, I turn down Lottie’s street and see a truck in front of her house. It’s not a huge moving truck, but it is a pretty big one, and I know what it’s for. I’m not even thinking about seeing Lottie. I just see Pete and can’t stop pedaling.

  Pete, who for my whole life was there for me, who made me lunches and cuddled me when I cried, who was Snowy Owl in Brownies and caroled with us at Christmas, and is now mopping his brow with a handkerchief. Since when does he have a handkerchief? And why the hell is he moving out? What the hell is wrong with our parents?

  The closer I get to the house, the madder I get, and I stand up on my pedals, yelling, “Hey! Hey, Pete!” as I careen crazily down the hill toward the house, my hair whizzing around. He looks up, focusing on me, and starts to wave, but it turns into a whoa, whoa motion since I am not really slowing down. I know I’m going to crash. If you’ve been riding a bike as long as I have, if it’s like a loyal old horse to you, you know when she’s going to toss you, ass over teakettle, but quite frankly, I couldn’t give a shit. Good, I think, as I half-assedly try to stop but slam right into the side of the truck. The pain feels good.

  And it hurts like a bitch.

  Pete is gathering me up, returning my head to my neck, putting my arms back onto my shoulders, snapping my feet into my ankles and wiping my bleeding elbow with that goddamn handkerchief.

  “When did you get that thing?” I mumble, sounding like a drunk baby.

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “That thing. That handkerchief. I’ve never seen you use a handkerchief before.”

  “What?” He looks at it, then back at me. “I don’t know. A while ago, I guess.”

  “Why?” And I’m crying. “Why did you get a handkerchief?”

  “Why did I get this handkerchief?” He lifts me up, and I move all my joints to make sure they’re working. He’s looking in my eyes, and they are full of love and I miss them.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, I liked it,” he says, softly. “Why did you get that shirt you’re wearing?”

  “Like, is that part of your big transformation?” I wipe my eyes.

  “What do you mean, hon?”

  “Next thing you know you’re gonna be living somewhere else and buying fair-trade coffee with your new girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or whatever.”

  He takes a breath and looks back at the house, and I know he’s wishing that someone would rescue him. “Ah,” he says. “So this isn’t about my transitioning but about my leaving.”

  “Yes, about ‘your’ leaving, Mr. Grammar Cop. Why the hell are you leaving? Why does everybody leave?” I hear myself, blubbering, snot running into my mouth.

  He touches my shoulders with both hands. “I’m not really going anywhere, Stevie. I’ll still be here. Just not in this house.”

  “Right. Not here. Just like Lottie’s never here, and my mom’s mentally not ‘here’ anymore, and Dad has Eleanor, and there’s always that goddamn douchebag in my house—”

  “Sorry, what douchebag?”

  “Where is Lottie, anyway?”

  “Lottie’s not here, I’m afraid.” He tries to wipe my face with the handkerchief, and I swat him away.

  “Oh? She’s not here? Well! No shit, Sherman. What a surprise.”

  “Listen, Stevie, is this about all that Heather stuff? Did you want to talk about anything?”

  “No, Pete, I do not want to talk. I’m done talking.” I pick up my bike, which is definitely on the wobbly side now, and steer her off the driveway, spitting a little blood on the road as I go.

  “Well, that was just awesome,” I hear Pete mutter, and my ears go red because that’s what happens when I act like a dick.

  I am riding again, a little lopsidedly, with no set destination, but I hit the main drag and pull in at Tim Hortons. Through the window I can see the outline of Dee. Well, actually, specifically, the outline of her hair. Her hair has more presence than I do. I drop my bike a
gainst the brick facade and push open the door.

  “Wow. You look like shit,” she says, calmly sipping a coffee. “What happened?”

  “One vanilla-dip doughnut with sprinkles, please,” I tell the kid working at the cash. We know each other from school but pretend not to. He hands it to me; I pay and head to Dee’s table, sitting heavily on the plastic chair, which swivels around beneath me. I can feel all the life whiz out of me like a balloon with no knot to hold the air, flying around the room, getting smaller and smaller. I realize I haven’t eaten in a really long time, and this doughnut is amazing. But I still feel like something isn’t working, like the bike chain of my brain fell off and no one knows how to put it on right.

  “Nobody sticks around, nobody’s good,” I mutter.

  “‘Nobody’s good’?”

  “I can’t think of anyone. I mean, everyone’s making the wrong choices, everyone’s copping out, or not being here. No one is ever around, no one is a friend, no one is good!” I am still eating the doughnut, but I’m crying now, again, which would have struck me as high irony at another time, since the vanilla dip with sprinkles is the happiest of all the doughnuts. But I’m really having a go at crying, blubbering away with sprinkles all over my bloody lips. Dee hands me a napkin and I wipe my face, and that just makes me think of Pete and his handkerchief and what a jerk I was to him.

  “And Reg, that asshole. He’s, like, brainwashed my mom. And it’s not even like I can leave. I mean, I am so fucking stuck.”

  “Jesus.” She looks out the window.

  “Yeah. And also there’s Pete. I cannot believe that he is leaving. When he was a mom, he never left.” I sniff and wipe my nose, knowing how stupid I sound, but I don’t care. “And Lottie. I don’t even know what happened with us. It’s just, like”—I make a poof gesture with my hands—“gone.”

  “Her loss.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” I pause. “I mean, it’s not like she’s actually gone. She just doesn’t want me anymore.”

  “Wanna go for a walk?”