by Tanya Kyi
Keeping an eye out for the security guard who’d chased us before, we strolled into the department store at the mall and made our way to the fifth floor — home furnishings. Amanda immediately stretched out on a three-thousand-dollar black leather sofa, calling, “Bring me a martini, will you, dahhling?”
Ignoring her, I wandered through the displays. Each couch was surrounded by its own living room — rugs, end tables, lamps, TVs. I could imagine a family of four squishing onto the big plaid couch to watch sitcoms, or a group of elderly women having tea, perched on a set of flowered sofas.
Amanda found me again just as I was testing a model that I liked. It was pale green velvet, squishy enough to be comfortable but not squishy enough to swallow me.
I stood up and, after being ignored for a few minutes, managed to wave a sales-clerk over.
“I’d like this one.”
“If you can give us fifteen percent off,”
Amanda said, elbowing in front of me. “It’s a bit over our budget.”
I gaped at her, and the clerk cleared his throat nervously. Amanda looked at him confidently until he said, “I’ll check with the manager and see if there’s anything we can do.”
“What are you doing?” I hissed at her as soon as he left.
“Trust me. You’re supposed to bargain for these things.”
The clerk reappeared. We both tried to look nonchalant. Like we bought couches every day.
“It looks like this item may go on sale in a few weeks. I can give you an early discount of five percent.”
Amanda made a dissatisfied sound.
“We’ll take it,” I said, “if you’ll include these two lamps in the price.”
Twenty minutes later I walked out of the store with a receipt, a warranty and forty dollars and change still left over. The couch (and lamps!) would be delivered in two to three days.
“Come on, that was way too tame. One little adventure before we leave the mall…” Amanda teased.
I shook my head, too pleased with my purchase to risk any adventure. “I’ve got to head home. Thanks for your help though, Master Bargainer.”
“Booorrring!” She called after me across the parking lot.
When I got home, Mom was standing on the front walk again. Not yelling this time, just tapping her foot impatiently. Ted stood with his back to the door, arms crossed over his chest.
Mom looked relieved when she saw me. “Listen, I don’t want his key and I don’t want inside the house. I just came to see if I could take the two of you for coffee.”
“Like we’re going to believe that,” Ted mumbled.
Mom ignored him, appealing to me instead. “You can’t just lock me out for the rest of your lives. You don’t want to move in with me. I get it. But at least come for coffee.”
I looked at her closely, my eyes narrowed. “You’re going to have to be nice to me the entire time,” I said.
Her lips narrowed into a thin line, but she nodded.
“Excessively nice,” I said.
She nodded again.
“I can’t believe you’re agreeing to this!” Ted spit, looking at me as if I was crossing enemy lines.
“Look, you stay here and wait for Dad to come home,” I told him. “Think of this as a scouting mission. Like in your video games. If all is safe, maybe you’ll want to go next time.”
He rolled his eyes at me and opened the front door. Then he slammed it closed behind him.
When I got home, he was waiting in the hallway for me, tapping one foot and looking very much like Mom had earlier in the afternoon. I could hear Dad doing dishes in the kitchen.
“So?” Ted demanded.
“So it was okay. I mean, the whole apartment looks like it sprouted from the pages of a magazine. It could use a few of your dirty little fingerprints.”
He still looked suspicious. “Was she nice?”
“She was,” I assured him. I didn’t tell Ted that Mom had known about the fifty dollars that I took from the dresser. She had talked to me somewhat nicely about it. Once I promised her that I wouldn’t grow up to be a criminal, she had seemed surprisingly cool. Maybe actually making the leap and getting her own place had relaxed her a bit.
I grinned at Ted. “After I made her repeat her promise to be nice, I showed her this.” I flashed my new belly button ring at him.
Ted’s eyes grew round. “You got…” he started to yell. Then I put a hand across his mouth and tickled him until he promised not to tell Dad.
It had been an amazingly good day — one of the best that I could remember. Even Dad’s dinner was edible.
Chapter Twelve
I knew something was wrong as soon as I walked into the school on Thursday morning. The homeroom bell was still five minutes away, but the halls were quiet. Clusters of kids stopped talking when I walked by, their eyes following me.
I went to my locker and rummaged for my books, trying to figure out what was going on. When I didn’t hear anything, I made my way to Amanda’s locker. She saw me coming and grinned wickedly.
“Got arrested last night.”
“You what?”
“I stayed at the mall and tried to lift a pair of earrings.”
“And you got arrested for that?”
“That security guard has a baton up his ass,” she said, not looking at me. “He went on and on about lack of respect, how I was going to grow up to be some hardened criminal, blah, blah, blah. If the cops hadn’t arrived I might have puked on his polyester pants.”
“What did they do?”
“They took me to the station and called my foster mom. Then I got another speech about disappointing people. Apparently the store is still deciding whether to press charges.”
“Does that have anything to do with people acting weird this morning?”
Amanda raised one eyebrow quizzically. She didn’t have to say anything — I knew it was a dumb question. The moods of the student body were not exactly governed by Amanda’s criminal record.
“People are acting weird?” she asked, only half interested.
Before I could answer, the bell rang.
“Hey, guess who called me last night,” Amanda asked as I turned to go to class.
I looked back.
“Brad. He thought I might want to hook up for coffee.”
The world was getting stranger and stranger. And I still hadn’t figured out what was going on in the school. When I got to class, Jaz, Rocker Rob and I sat waiting in silence until Ms. Samuels walked in.
If she weren’t a teacher, I would have thought she’d been crying. Her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she hadn’t slept.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly.
“Dodie Dunstan died last night,” she said.
Strangely, my first thought was that Dodie had a last name. Other than Doorknob, that is. Dodie Dunstan. Was that how you talked about a dead person? You used her full name?
Ms. Samuels’ voice caught, but she continued. “The police don’t suspect foul play.”
“That means…” Jaz said.
Ms. Samuels nodded.
“That means what?” I asked, confused.
“She offed herself. Suicide,” Jaz said, turning his intense stare in my direction for the first time all morning. He pursed his lips, considering. “She seems like the pill type to me. She wouldn’t want to see blood.”
Ms. Samuels looked like she wasn’t sure how much to tell us, but eventually she nodded. “It was an overdose.”
“Did she leave a note?” Suddenly all I could think of was my lipstick graffiti on the bathroom mirror. It burned neon red in my head.
Ms. Samuels shook her head. “They haven’t found a note. Classes are cancelled for the rest of the day. There are grief counselors available in the gym, the auditorium and the office. I think everyone should speak with one.”
Jaz was practically out of the classroom before Ms. Samuels finished speaking. I followed slowly, though with no intention of visiting the cou
nselors. What would I say? We were so mean that it killed her?
The funeral was on Monday.
I had spent the weekend cocooned inside the house, watching TV from the living room floor until the couch was delivered on Saturday afternoon. Then I watched TV from the couch.
Amanda called five times. Ted took messages for me. I think she swore at him the last time she called, but he didn’t tell me that. Just said, “You should call her soon. She’s starting to sound a little mad.” I thought about calling Mel, but she’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to talk to me.
Dad patted my head once, which I think was supposed to be comforting. Then he left me alone.
On Monday I skipped school and arrived at the church to find the parking lot filled with other kids. Girls who would never have been caught dead talking to Dodie sobbed and clutched each other. Even Brad’s posse was there. One of them was talking to a TV reporter about how “regrettable” the situation was. I glared at them as I passed. The whole scene reminded me of when Princess Di died. All of a sudden, millions of people around the world were mourning like she’d been their best friend. “You didn’t even know her!” I wanted to scream. That’s what I wanted to yell now, right into the news camera.
I was halfway to the stairs of the church when I saw Amanda. She was heading inside, with Brad’s arm slithering around her waist.
At first I thought it must be someone else. Someone who looked like Amanda from the back. But at the top of the stairs they stopped. He murmured something into her ear. She turned toward him and I saw her profile. I saw her hand, adorned in its heavy silver rings, reach to smooth his shirt. The world was getting stranger and stranger.
After that I stood in the middle of the parking lot and let everyone swirl around me. It seemed like every kid in the school was there. There were teachers, too, and people I didn’t recognize. At the end, a black car purred up to the stairs and a haggard-looking woman stepped out with a little girl, a smaller version of Dodie. The woman glanced at me for a second. Then someone stepped out of the church to take her arm, and they disappeared inside. The parking lot was quiet.
I’d never been to a funeral before. Not that I went to this one. Instead I sat on the front stairs of the church, my legs tucked close to my chest and my coat wrapped tightly around me. It had rained earlier in the morning. Now it was windy and the clouds were low — one of those days that seemed dark even in the middle of the afternoon.
I could hear the hymns from inside. I heard a woman’s voice, but I couldn’t hear the words. What would you say in a eulogy for someone who committed suicide? She loved life? She had great hopes and dreams? Apparently not.
When I thought too much about Dodie, when I thought about the lipsticked mirror or the spilled orange juice or her ripped shirt, I felt like my chest was closing. I couldn’t breathe. So I tried not to think of her at all, but she surfaced in my head like the oil slicks on the puddles in the parking lot.
I heard the scrape of wood against wood and the rustle of people rising. Before someone could open the double doors and find me sitting there, I ducked around to the wall in the shadow of the stairs. Still clutching my coat around me, I watched everyone spill slowly outside.
“Terrible,” I heard the principal say to one of the teachers, shaking his head and clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“That poor woman. She looks like she’s aged a decade overnight,” another teacher whispered to the man beside her, nodding her head in the direction of the woman and little girl who had arrived last. Was that Dodie’s foster mom? Was the girl her sister?
“Brad! Quit it!” Amanda’s bright voice was out of place, a splash of color in a black-and-white film. “Shhh …” she giggled. “You’re going to get us both in trouble.” She skipped down the stairs, followed closely by Brad, who seemed to be trying to nibble her ear. Nibble her ear? Had I fallen asleep and ended up in some other dimension?
“Amanda,” I called, stepping out from the shadows. “I didn’t see you go in,” I lied. I avoided looking in Brad’s direction.
She stopped and looked at me coldly. “So you’re back, are you? You disappeared this weekend. I guess you’ve rejoined the world of the living now?”
“I guess,” I shrugged.
She sneered, reaching behind her for Brad’s hand. “Too bad the world has passed you by.” Her laugh made heads swivel in the crowded parking lot.
“Amanda,” I hissed. She turned slowly back to me.
“How can you be like this? What if this was our fault?” I could feel my voice growing loud and shrill.
“Shut up!” Amanda grabbed my arm, hard. “You’re not making sense. What did we have to do with it? No one kills herself over a ripped shirt. Understand?”
I nodded mutely. Brad pulled at Amanda’s other hand, looking uncomfortable.
“I’m leaving. We’re not going to say another word about this. Ever.” She looked at me steadily for a moment to make sure I had heard her. Then she tossed her hair and nuzzled close to Brad once more.
Ducking my head, I wove quickly out of the parking lot.
Chapter Thirteen
“Don’t hang up!” I said as soon as Mel answered the phone. “I know I’ve been a jerk.”
“You have been a jerk,” she said warily.
It was almost nice to have someone actually say that. Everywhere I’d gone all week I had seen people who thought I was better than I am. I got an A on the history paper that Ms. Samuels helped me rewrite. My dad was practically glowing with the news. Even Mom called to congratulate me. Then she asked if I wanted to come for dinner on the weekend.
“I sleep at home after?”
“Wherever you’d like,” she said.
“I’d like to sleep at home.”
“That’s fine,” she said, as if we were discussing pizza toppings. “Ask Ted if he’d like to join us.” Ted said no, of course, but I told him that I would serve as the advance force. (I think he understands these things better in video-game language.)
“Hello, are you still there?” Mel’s voice echoed in my ear. I’d almost forgotten her on the other end of the phone line.
“Listen, I’m not hanging out with Amanda anymore and I’m sorry I treated you so badly and I hate fighting with you.” I said all that in one breath, not giving myself a chance to chicken out.
She was quiet for a minute and I could almost see her biting her bottom lip, considering. “How’s the belly button ring?” she asked, finally.
“I took it out. It killed whenever I did up my jeans.”
Mel cracked up, and it appeared that I was forgiven.
Forgiveness seemed to be coming easily — almost too easily.
After the scene with Amanda in the parking lot of the church, I’d kept my word and not mentioned being mean to Dodie. Still, Ms. Samuels caught me after class one morning.
“We’ve all said things we regret,” she said softly. “But Dodie’s been troubled for a long time.”
I shrugged, but as soon as she said Dodie’s name, my eyes started to water.
“This isn’t your fault,” she continued, touching me on the shoulder.
I nodded and turned to go, then changed my mind. “It’s not that it’s my fault, necessarily,” I said quietly. “It’s just that I made this situation worse. Maybe I could have made it better.”
“Caz…one more thing,” she said as I turned to go. “I think your art teacher would like to speak with you. We’re putting together a memorial display and he would like to include one of your sketches.”
I knew which one it was without asking. It was a charcoal portrait of Dodie in her new shirt, ripped sleeve included. I had drawn it in the days between her death and the funeral.
I nodded. When Ms. Samuels had gone, I collapsed into a chair and plunked my forehead down on the table. My chest hurt. It was as if my throat had grown smaller on the day Dodie died, leaving only a straw width for air to pass through. Every time I managed to suc
k in a breath, I sucked in guilt.
“I’m a terrible person,” I muttered to the table.
Suddenly I heard a chair creak. I looked up to find Rob gazing at me — directly at me. Rob never looked directly at anyone.
“I didn’t know you were here,” I said.
“You’re not so bad. Not terrible. I think you’re good underneath,” he said.
Stunned, I looked behind me to see if anyone else had witnessed him speaking. There was no one there.
“I thought you didn’t talk,” I said stupidly. Rob looked at me for another minute, silent. Slowly, he started rocking again, his finger tapping on the table.
I repeated his assessment in my head. “You’re not so bad. I think you’re good underneath.” Was it true? It hadn’t been true lately. As I sat there, my throat seemed to open up a notch and I took a deep breath.
Maybe I could make it true.
About the Author
Tanya Lloyd Kyi grew up in Creston, British Columbia, where someone she knew once punched a hockey player, inspiring the opening scene of My Time as Caz Hazard. Tanya has worked as a waitress, an aerobics instructor, a newspaper reporter and a graphic designer. She now lives with her family in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is the author of Truth, Crystal Connection, Canadian Girls Who Rocked the World and Fires!
NEW Orca Soundings novel
Charmed by Carrie Mac
Cody Dillon comes and rescues me (RESCUES ME!). He takes me to his apartment (HIS OWN APARTMENT!) and runs me a bubble bath. He lights a bunch of candles and turns the light off. He sits on the floor and keeps me company. He says I can stay here as long as I want. Um, hello, heaven? Izzy McAfferty has arrived, in case anyone wants to know.
Izzy’s mother works far away and leaves Izzy at home, alone with Rob the Slob. Angry at her mother and trying to deal with school, friends and the attentions of charismatic Cody Dillon, Izzy finds her life swirling out of control. After “borrowing” money from her mother’s boyfriend she is forced to leave home until she can repay it. Ending up with Cody and living in the city, Izzy makes misguided choices that are all wrong.