I subtly dipped my head close to one pit, then the other, to do a B.O. check. Thank God all I could smell was deodorant.
‘Do a couple of loads at my house later tonight,’ Phoebe whispered to me. ‘Cathy and Günter won’t mind.’ Cathy and Günter are Phoebe’s parents. Cathy is Chinese-Canadian and Günter is Swiss-Canadian. They’re both psychologists, and neither of them like being called Mom and Dad because it sounds ‘too hierarchical.’
‘I think I’ll take you up on that,’ I said to her. I held out my fist, and we did a fist bump.
•••
Phoebe had been my best friend since kindergarten, when the teacher made us bathroom buddies. Once I didn’t make it in time and I peed my pants. Phoebe helped me flush my soaking underwear down the toilet and never breathed a word to anyone – even after the toilet backed up and flooded the basement and the school tried to find out who’d clogged the drain with a pair of Elmo briefs.
Now that’s loyalty.
Phoebe also understood me better than anyone else, even my mom. Predictably, Mom flipped out over the Turd Incident. I’d been grounded for the rest of the Christmas holidays, including New Year’s Eve, which truly sucked since I had to turn down a whole bunch of party invitations – not. My mom never clued in that grounding me was pretty much a pointless punishment, since aside from hanging out with Phoebe – which I was still allowed to do, even when I was grounded – I had no social life.
But when I told Phoebe what had happened, this was what she said: ‘Wow.’ Then, ‘How big were they?’ Then, ‘I can’t believe they actually...’ Then, ‘I get that you were tempted. But I can’t believe you actually did it.’ And, finally, ‘You took out your anger on the wrong people.’
Then we’d dropped the subject and exchanged Christmas gifts. I gave Phoebe a notebook with a stick figure of a boy on the cover that said Boys Stink. Throw Rocks at Them. She gave me a Magic 8 Ball. It was as big as a baseball, and it could supposedly predict the future. You could ask a question, give the ball a shake, and an answer would appear, floating on a little triangle, in a small round window at the base of the ball. We asked it a lot of questions, including my favourite: ‘Will Ashley’s hair fall out in clumps this year?’ The Magic 8 Ball responded, It is certain.
It was an awesome gift.
•••
‘Violet, look,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘It’s your boyfriend.’
Jean-Paul Bouchard had just entered the room. He’d arrived at our school in late October, from Winnipeg. He was seriously cute, but he was just as seriously not my boyfriend. One, because a guy like him would never even look at a girl like me, and two, because I had made a vow to myself post-Jonathan that I would never have a boyfriend because love is more trouble than it’s worth.
We watched as Ashley subtly followed Jean-Paul’s movements through the classroom, like a hunter tracking its prey. She was talking to Lauren and Claudia and doing a good job of acting like she was giving them her full attention. But the moment Jean-Paul sat down, Ashley broke away from her friends and slipped into the seat in front of him. She turned around, flashed him a pearly white smile, and started chatting.
‘I hate her,’ I murmured.
‘I want to be her,’ Phoebe replied.
And the two of us knew that it was perfectly natural to have both those feelings all at once.
•••
Phoebe had a Mandarin lesson after school, so I picked up Rosie from her after-school care programme in the basement on my own. When I came in, she was sitting in a corner, sucking her thumb.
‘What’s wrong, Rosie?’
‘Isabelle tore my fairy wings.’ She took her thumb out of her mouth and held out the wings from the costume Dad had given her. One of them had a small tear. ‘She did it on purpose.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why are you sitting in the corner?’
‘Because I bit her.’
‘Oh.’
Alison, one of the daycare workers, joined us. ‘It’s the third time she’s bitten Isabelle this year,’ she said to me, like Rosie wasn’t there.
‘The girl tore her wings. They were a present from our dad.’
‘That’s still no excuse for biting. Will you tell your mother what happened, or should I write a note?’
I held out my hands and pulled Rosie to her feet, refusing to make eye contact with Alison. ‘I’ll tell her,’ I lied. Then to Rosie, ‘I might be able to fix your wings.’
I held Rosie’s hand as we walked the two blocks to Main Street, my backpack slung over one shoulder, her backpack slung over the other. The hoods of our jackets were pulled up to protect us from the cold January rain.
When we reached Main Street, we stopped so Rosie could press her nose against the window of the Liberty Bakery and gaze at the mouthwatering baked goods on display in the glass cases. A few blocks later, we crossed King Edward and stopped to inhale the aroma of bacon wafting from Helen’s Diner. Another block up, we arrived outside the William Berto School of Hair Design. I opened the door, and we clomped up the stairs.
The school took up the entire second floor of the building. By the windows facing the street, a row of stations were set up for the students, with swivel chairs and giant mirrors. On the far wall was a row of sinks. A few students were at their stations, cutting and colouring customers’ hair. Because they always needed heads to practice on, the school advertised five-dollar haircuts, and they got a steady stream of walk-ins.
‘Girls, hi!’ my mom said, waving us over. She was giving her friend Amanda a trim. She stopped what she was doing to give us each a hug.
Even though she was in her late thirties, my mom was still super-pretty. She had thick brown hair that fell just past her shoulders, green eyes, and lips that my dad used to call irresistibly kissable. She’d even managed to keep her figure, for the most part.
It was her clothes I couldn’t stand. She’d started dressing differently after the divorce papers were signed. Her jeans were too tight, and her top was cropped to let her stomach show, a stomach that had had to stretch not once but twice to hold babies. A soft layer of flab drooped over the waist of her jeans. To top it off, her belly button was pierced – a belated birthday gift from her friend Karen after they’d had a few too many margaritas one night.
I sat down in the chair next to Amanda’s. ‘Good to see you guys,’ Amanda said, giving us each a high five. Amanda was younger than my mom and wore really cool clothes, a combination of secondhand stuff and amazing sweaters she’d knit herself. But even though she probably could have pulled it off, she didn’t expose a lot of flesh. If only Mom had taken her fashion cues from Amanda and not her other best friend.
‘Thanks for the hats; we wear them all the time,’ I said to Amanda as I took off my toque. She’d knit one for me and one for Rosie for Christmas. Mine was a dog hat, complete with eyes and whiskers, and the flaps on the sides were knit to look like beagle ears. Rosie’s was a kitten hat, with little cat ears sewn onto the top.
‘Can you cut my hair when you’re done?’ I asked my mom.
‘I thought you were letting it grow out.’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘I wanna play in a chair,’ Rosie said. She loved to spin around and around in one of the chairs until she was so dizzy, she couldn’t stand up.
‘Sure thing, sweetie. Take the one in the far corner.’ Rosie skipped away.
Once she was gone, Amanda grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Violet, you know I love you. But cat turds?’
I turned to Mom. ‘Did you have to tell everyone?’
‘Amanda isn’t everyone,’ Mom replied. ‘She’s one of my best friends.’
‘As long as you didn’t tell your other best friend,’ I said, just as I heard a cackle behind me.
I didn’t need to turn around because
I could see her in the mirror: Karen, approaching at high speed. You know those old cartoons where the character has an angel version of himself sitting on one shoulder and a devil version on the other? Well, Amanda was like my mom’s angel version because she brought out the best in her. Karen was like my mom’s devil version because she brought out the worst.
‘Cat turds!’ She laughed, an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. ‘I’ve gotta hand it to you, Violet, that’s a new low.’
‘Hey, Karen. Nice top,’ I said, nodding at her two-sizes-too-small sheer black top that announced, in big gold letters, COUGAR. I could clearly see her pink bra underneath. She wore a thick layer of make-up, and her hair was dyed platinum blonde.
Mom and Karen had what my mom referred to as ‘history’. They used to work as a team in the film and TV business – Mom as the key hairstylist, Karen as her assistant. Karen was even there when my mom met my dad. Shortly after Rosie was born, Mom left the business to stay home with us, but when Dad took off, she needed to find a job fast. A job with regular hours and a steady paycheque. That’s how she wound up teaching at the William Berto School of Hair Design. It was in the neighbourhood, the pay was OK, and they loved my mom’s work. Within a year, she was promoted to assistant manager. Six months later, Mom hired Karen, after she was fired from two productions in a row for showing up late all the time.
Yup. That was my mom in a nutshell: always wanting to see the best in people, even when it was clear to everyone else that they were nothing but losers.
‘Maybe you need to see that therapist again,’ Karen said to me as she reapplied her lipstick in the mirror. ‘That’s pretty twisted behaviour.’
My cheeks burned. Oh, how I hated her sometimes.
‘Karen,’ my mom said in her warning voice, ‘I’ve dealt with it. And Violet’s going to properly apologise, aren’t you, Violet?’
‘We really need to get the washing machine fixed,’ I said.
‘I know. And we will, in a couple more weeks. I’m still paying off Christmas.’
‘If you could’ve seen Dad’s new house—’
‘Violet—’
‘What about his new house?’ asked Amanda.
‘It’s huge. They just bought it. Dad’s obviously loaded. He has way more money than when you guys first split up.’
‘Violet, enough. We’ve been through this. I don’t want to take more of his money.’
‘But why?’
‘Because she doesn’t want to get handouts from that cheating son of a bitch, right, Ingrid?’ Karen said.
‘Karen, do not trash-talk the girls’ father in front of them,’ Mom said.
‘Oops,’ Karen replied, not sounding the least bit apologetic. ‘I’m going out for a smoke.’ She tottered away in her platform wedgies. Amanda raised a discreet eyebrow at me in the mirror, and I raised one back. I was pretty sure Amanda wasn’t nuts about Karen, either.
‘I’m going to have to ask you to get supper for you and Rosie tonight,’ Mom said, as she turned her attention back to trimming Amanda’s long red hair. ‘There’s a pizza in the freezer.’
‘Why, what are you doing?’ I asked, dreading the answer.
‘I have a date.’
Amazing how four little words can make you feel like you want to throw up.
‘Please tell us you’re not going out with Alphonse again,’ said Amanda, wrinkling her nose.
Alphonse was this creep my mom had met on Havalife, an online dating service that Karen had convinced her to join. He was about the fifth guy she’d met that way. They’d all been losers, but Alphonse was in a category all his own. Twice, he’d taken my mom out to really fancy restaurants. Twice, he’d ordered the most expensive things on the menu. Twice, he’d ‘forgotten’ his wallet and Mom had to pay.
‘No, not Alphonse, give me some credit.’
Amanda and I shared another look. We wanted to give her some credit, we really did.
‘This is a new one. And I didn’t meet him online. I met him in the flesh.’
‘Where?’ asked Amanda.
‘He came in for a haircut last week.’
‘So we know he’s cheap,’ I said.
Mom ignored this. ‘He seems really sweet.’
Which is exactly what you’ve said about all the other losers you’ve dated, I wanted to say.
‘Really... genuine.’
Ditto.
Amanda pursed her lips. But all she said was ‘Too bad we couldn’t set you up with him.’ She nodded at an eight-by-ten glossy photo that hung over Mom’s workstation, beside a bunch of photos of Rosie and me. Smiling out at us from the picture was George Clooney.
Mom loved George Clooney. She’d loved him long before he’d become super-famous. Mom loved him from the first time she’d seen him in a sitcom called The Facts of Life, which was on TV when she was a teenager, back in the Dark Ages. I’d seen it a few times myself, on one of those cable channels that airs nothing but sitcoms from the 1980s, which seems to be a decade where everyone – even George – had really bad hair.
The photo my mom had was older than me, but it was personally signed to her because she’d actually met George Clooney. When she was still new to the business, she’d do what were known as day calls, filling in for stylists who were sick. One day, she’d been called to a movie set, and who walked into the trailer but George himself. She actually got to do his hair. That’s right, she touched his head. And he obviously liked her because he’d written on the picture To Ingrid – May Our Paths Cross Again.
Even now, as she gazed at the photo, her expression went all mooshy. ‘He was amazing. So sweet, so charming. So freaking gorgeous... he was perfect.’
•••
‘I wanted one pink streak! One!’
Mom tore her gaze away from George Clooney. Three stations away, an older woman was shrieking at a cowering male student. Every hair on her head was hot pink.
Mom took a deep breath. ‘I’ll have to cut your hair another time, Violet.’ She put down her scissors and walked away to deal with the crisis.
I said goodbye to Amanda and collected Rosie from her chair. She wobbled and fell in a heap of giggles onto the floor. ‘That was fun!’
‘C’mon,’ I said, pulling her to her feet and adjusting her glasses, which were crooked from all the spinning. ‘We have lots to do when we get home.’
And I wasn’t just talking about doing the laundry, finishing my homework, and making supper.
Because when Mom has a date, she isn’t the only one who has to prepare for it.
3
He sat parked across the street in a banana yellow Toyota Corolla. Not a new model. I couldn’t get a clear picture of him through my binoculars.
I was kneeling on my red beanbag chair, peering out the small dormer window between my bed and Rosie’s. With my free hand, I dug into a box of Life cereal – a pre-pizza snack.
Suddenly Rosie came tearing into the bedroom, wearing nothing but her pants. A colander was perched on her head. ‘Lemme see, lemme see!’ She started jumping on her bed, careful not to hit her head on the sloped ceiling, then she launched herself onto the beanbag chair and tried to yank open the curtains.
‘Rosie! You almost blew my cover,’ I scolded, as she tried to grab the binoculars away from me. ‘Cut it out! He’s opening his door.’
I glanced at my watch. It was exactly 6:00 p.m. This put him a step ahead of Larry the Unibrow, who, during the brief period he’d dated my mom, showed up anywhere from half an hour to ninety minutes late. Of course, this made a lot more sense when Mom found out he was married. With four kids.
I tried to get a good look at her new date as he crossed the street, but he glanced up toward the window and I had to duck out of sight.
We listened as his feet thumped up the old wooden stairs. Then he rang the bell. We knew he’d rung the
bell, even though we didn’t hear it. It had been broken for over a year.
Rosie stood up, but I gripped her arm. ‘Rosie, you know the rules. Not yet. Besides, if you want to go to the door, you have to put on some clothes.’
Rosie slipped on the clothes she’d been wearing earlier while I grabbed my Magic 8 Ball from its perch on my bookshelf.
I knew Mom’s date was ringing the doorbell again. I knew he was starting to worry that he had the wrong address, or, worse, that he was being stood up.
‘Will this guy be any better than all the others?’ I asked the Magic 8 Ball, giving it a good shake and flipping it over.
Highly doubtful, it read. I placed it back on my bookshelf.
Finally – like I knew he would – he knocked.
‘Violet, can you get that? I’m still putting on my face,’ my mom hollered from the bathroom down the hall.
‘Got it,’ I shouted back.
‘And be nice!’
I slowly made my way to the stairs. Rosie, the colander still on her head, tried to scoot around me, but I spread my arms to block her path.
‘Lemme answer!’ she shouted.
‘Rosie. What have I told you?’
Rosie sighed. ‘Play it cool.’
As we continued our leisurely descent, I said my little prayer: Dear God, or Allah, or Buddha or Zeus or Whoever-You-Are, please let this one be OK. Please don’t let him be a cheater (Jonathan), a cheapskate (Alphonse), an alcoholic (Carl), a creep (Guy), married (Larry), or a general, all-round jerk (Dimitri, Paulo, Jake, Yuri).
I said this prayer even though I’m a cynic when it comes to love because I know that my mother is not. You’d think, after what had happened with Dad, that she’d have given up on men and found contentment in a life dedicated to child-rearing, hard work, and celibacy. But, no. Despite a growing list of epic failures, she had this freakish need to have a man in her life. So she dated like there was no tomorrow, always hoping the next guy would be The One.
Did I think this was a kind of sickness? Yes! Did I find it tragic? Of course! But I also knew that she wasn’t going to stop until she’d found her version of The One, and that once she found him, Rosie and I were going to have to live with it too because, let’s face it, we were a package deal.
My Messed-Up Life Page 2