by Kimia Eslah
“What?!” Mojegan had glared at Taraneh, her brow furrowed deeply in anger and abhorrence.
“It’s … it’s something people do … when they’re not … um, happy,” Taraneh had managed feebly and cowered into her cereal bowl.
“That’s something white people do,” her mother had said scornfully before she returned to scrubbing. “Besides, your father and I are happy.”
“Okay,” Taraneh had barely whispered. Then she had pivoted slowly, desperate to escape and disappear.
“Taraneh,” her mother had called coldly.
Taraneh had turned back but she kept her eyes on her bowl.
“Your father is a wonderful man who deserves our love and respect,” her mother had said severely. “He is a good father. You are lucky to have him.”
“Bale, yes, Maman,” Taraneh had conceded, and after a few moments, she had fled to her room.
The more Taraneh observed her mother defend her father while she reproved him privately, the more Taraneh found it difficult to trust her mother. She couldn’t rely on her mother to admit the truth about her father’s dysfunctional behaviour or to protect her against the effects of his belligerence and neglect. Her mother was first and foremost loyal to her father. To trust her mother seemed as dangerous as to trust her father. Taraneh accepted that she loved her mother dearly, but she refused to let her mother into her life. As long as her mother was tethered to her father, she was a liability to Taraneh’s well-being.
***
In front of the six-floor office building that housed the call centre, Taraneh locked up her bicycle, removed her helmet, and untucked her right pant leg from her sock. The evening shift started shortly, at four o’clock, and the fifty callers would be at the phones until eleven, phoning the Pacific and Mountain time zones for the last two hours. In the elevator, Taraneh held the door open for several people she recognized.
After a year of working at the call centre, Taraneh knew the regulars. Every week a handful of new people showed up. Often, they quit the job within a couple of hours when they’d had their fill of abuse. Taraneh had learned to hang up and move on. Having worked a dozen other jobs in her first year on her own, making calls beat scrubbing grungy pots, floors, toilets, garbage bins, and grease pits. Besides, she could work evenings all through school. School, which is now over! Taraneh thought happily as she threw her bag under the cubicle desk and adjusted the office chair.
As if reading her thoughts, Avanti leaped from behind the cubicle wall, grinning widely and with her hands high and fluttering. Taraneh smiled back in response to her friend’s enthusiasm, which seemed boundless.
Taraneh recalled her first day at the call centre, when Avanti had trained her with the same passion. Initially, Taraneh had acted aloof in response to Avanti’s high energy chatter and optimism. She wasn’t accustomed to being treated kindly by strangers. Most people ignored her and some reacted severely to her cropped hair and tattered clothes. In contrast, Avanti, who was a few years older than seventeen-year-old Taraneh, had been excited to meet and train her. On that first day, Taraneh had remained respectably detached throughout the one-on-one training until her first smoke break, when Avanti had joined her around the side of the building.
The two young women had stood with their backs against the concrete wall, staring out past a line of trees that sloped down toward car-lined Mt. Pleasant Avenue. To make a good impression, Taraneh had asked uncomplicated questions about expected sales numbers. Avanti had described the rise in her sales over her five years at the call centre. Taraneh had been impressed by her record, as were the office managers.
“Yeah, they want to train me to be a manager but I’m not so sure,” Avanti had said, frowning.
“How come? You wouldn’t have to make sales anymore,” Taraneh had replied in a bold manner that she soon regretted.
“Yeah, but I make better money than the managers.” Avanti had grinned but her smile faded again. “No matter, I probably shouldn’t be here at all.”
Avanti had described her family’s immigration from Trinidad and Tobago in 1977. Her parents, Dr. C. Francoise and Dr. R.W. Francoise, had both been established petroleum scientists at the federal Caribbean Industrial Research Institute. They had both accepted teaching positions at the University of Toronto, a demotion in many respects, with the hopes that their children would attend the prestigious North American university at minimum cost.
Her family had arrived at Montreal’s Mirabel Airport in March. Avanti and her two younger sisters had stared wide-eyed through the airplane window at the snow at the edges of the tarmac. The two doctors, who had travelled extensively prior to starting a family, were familiar with northern climates and had been less enthusiastic. The girls, on the other hand, had filled their hands with snow at the first opportunity.
“It burns,” they had exclaimed.
Soon after, the three sisters had started at a prominent private school for girls. Having previously attended an all-girls private school in their hometown of Chaguanas, the sisters were accustomed to the insidious animosity among privileged children. While they were themselves privileged, they were not privileged and white. Following a difficult two months in the eleventh grade, Avanti had decided to get a job instead of getting her high school diploma. Her parents, who had planned a career for her in the sciences, were deeply upset by Avanti’s decision.
“They don’t want me working here at all.” Avanti had sucked her teeth in an ironic act of defiance. Had her mother been present, Dr. R.W. Francoise would have grimaced primly at Avanti’s display of bad manners.
Blinking away a sad smile, Avanti had switched to Trinidadian English, “‘Course, they may be angry but dat doh change de price of cocoa.” Avanti was referring to the reality of racism and her refusal to subject herself to another day at the private school.
“If I asked a question that they didn’t like, then they called me disruptive. If I told them their information was wrong, then I was being disrespectful. If I laughed at something they did not think was funny, I was being unruly,” Avanti said following a drag of her cigarette. “I told my parents.”
“What did your parents say?” Taraneh had asked, overtly curious.
She had been enthralled by Avanti’s decision to involve her parents in her school problems. When Taraneh had been mistreated by a physics teacher who ignored her consistently and labelled her as a failure aloud, Taraneh hadn’t bothered to mention it to her parents. Asking her parents for help hadn’t even occurred to her. Her father had never shown any interest in her schooling, except to confirm that she was near the top of her class, and her mother had been too busy with work, chores, and parties to ask about school. From the time she had enrolled herself into middle school, Taraneh had learned to manage on her own. Neither parent had ever asked about homework, tests results, or course selections; she had assumed that they were demonstrating their confidence in her. Being independent had seemed natural, and it was strange to think that Avanti, who seemed so competent and extroverted, would have turned to her parents for help.
“They agreed that the system is messed up,” Avanti had exhaled. “They called the school and met with the head mistress.”
“What?! Your parents went to your school,” Taraneh had felt her eyes widen in disbelief.
“’Course, they did,” Avanti had shrugged. “They really didn’t want me to drop out.”
“But you did anyway,” Taraneh said, prompting her to continue.
“Yeah, it’s my life,” Avanti had said.
“Did they kick you out?” Taraneh had craned her neck forward, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“What?! No!” Avanti had looked at her with a confused expression. “They’re my parents. They don’t want me on the street.”
“Oh,” Taraneh had replied meekly and turned back toward the busy traffic to take the last drag of her smoke.
&nb
sp; One year later, Taraneh sometimes still reflected on that conversation. Every so often another detail or a new layer occurred to her. She mulled over the implications just as she might have pondered the meanings imbued in lyrics. She wondered why Avanti ever turned to her parents and why Avanti’s parents didn’t punish her for dropping out. As incomprehensible as a message written in a language long dead, the dynamics between Avanti and her parents confused Taraneh thoroughly.
To see Avanti standing before her, still without a high school diploma, still working as a call centre agent, and still living happily at home with her parents, Taraneh felt she was witness to an act of sorcery.
“Terry, are you ready to party tonight?” asked Avanti in a singsong voice as she shook her shoulders and hips, drawing in close to Taraneh and shimmying back.
“Sure, sounds good,” Taraneh smiled at her dancing. “You know I finished school today.”
“’Course, I know. That’s why we’re gonna party!” Avanti twirled on the spot and nearly fell into Taraneh’s lap.
“Okay, okay.” Taraneh laughed and nudged Avanti toward her cubicle across the narrow aisle.
Dancing back to her seat, Avanti said over her shoulder, “We’ll head to the Groundhog after work. I’ll spread the word.”
Taraneh turned to the luminescent green letters on the black screen, put on her headset, and pressed the Enter key to start her shift. The phone rang and a person answered.
“Hi, this is Terry, with the…” Taraneh managed to say before the person hung up.
***
After three hours and ten newspaper subscription sold, one of the young sales managers, who was tired and disheveled from juggling two jobs, emerged from the office where the managers monitored calls and announced break time. Immediately, the call centre erupted into chatter as the call agents, who had been watching the clock closely, discussed their plans for the half-hour break. A couple of agents who were in the process of closing sales jumped to their feet and silently waved their hands for quiet. The sales manager responded with a loud clap to silence the room and a finger pointed toward the exits to encourage everyone to leave for break.
The dingy windowless room, painted in tones of grey and green, with its rows of flickering fluorescent tubes lighting the worn-out cubicles, smelled like a blend of carpet cleaner, stale coffee, heated vinyl, sour body odour, and synthetic fragrances. As the room emptied, the silence made the drab atmosphere seem even more miserable, and Taraneh grabbed her bag and headed for the pop machines in the staff room.
As she entered, Avanti passed her with an unlit cigarette between her lips. Her familiar nod indicated that she would meet Taraneh shortly in their usual spot outside. Taraneh nodded back.
Except for a group of new hires, the staff room was empty. The four teenagers sat at a small round table in the corner, each with a bag of chips and a can of pop. Taraneh headed to the pop machine. She stood within arm’s reach of the newcomers but she tried not to draw any attention. She was accustomed to seeing new hires every week, and teenagers rarely lasted more than a couple of days. Listening to their conversation, Taraneh guessed they wouldn’t be there long either.
“The guy yelled ‘How’d you like me to call your house?!’ Dickhead,” relayed a boy wearing a yellow Polo shirt on top of a green Polo shirt, both with the collars turned up.
“That’s nothing,” vied a girl sporting a crown-like fringe that met with a high ponytail on her left side. “One woman told me to go to hell.”
“Yeah, I would’ve told her to eat my shorts!” replied the two-Polo-shirts boy. This caused the other three to laugh and shake their heads.
“You guys gonna go out after work?” asked a boy with dark windswept hair. “That Avanti girl said she would get us into the bar across the street.”
At the mention of Avanti, Taraneh froze. Heading to the Groundhog on Friday nights was common for a few of them, including Taraneh, who was the only one underage. The grungy basement bar attracted the underpaid clerks, temps, and call centre agents in the neighbourhood, who streamed in eagerly like salmon returning to spawning grounds. From the sidewalk, they descended the dimly lit stairway, sidestepping the perpetual shards of glass and avoiding contact with the dirty walls plastered with faded concert posters. Before opening the heavy wooden door that led into the cave-like bar, patrons could feel the thumping drumbeat of rock music.
What the Groundhog lacked in taste, it made up for in volume. The watered-down beer cost only a few dollars for a pitcher. Seats and tables were always sticky but there was ample room to corral tables for rowdy coworkers consumed in gossiping, complaining, and flirting over the din. Ferris, the long-time owner, played a repetitive and mismatched set of soft rock ballads and ear-splitting hard rock tracks. Misguidedly, he cranked the volume to compensate for his amateur disc jockeying.
Along the back wall of the rectangular bar, the bartender served drinks to the few older patrons, most of whom were friends of Ferris and preferred to sit on their designated barstools. The space behind the bar was brightly lit but the rest of the Groundhog was shadowy, with yellow and blue neon signs advertising Labatt, Molson, and Budweiser between a few dim wall lamps.
Jenny, the only waitress Taraneh ever saw, weaved all night long between groups and dancing couples to carry drinks from the bar to the tables. Though she seemed indifferent to the patrons and their inanity, Taraneh was keen to make a good impression. A year earlier, on Taraneh’s first night at the Groundhog, Jenny had asked for her ID, and Taraneh had produced her false age of majority card. The waitress had looked twice at the card and smirked to indicate that she wasn’t fooled. Handing back the card, Jenny had said, “Okay, but don’t overdo it.” Taraneh had feigned a nonchalant nod.
The Groundhog lacked any qualities that might endear it to Taraneh. Despite her rugged appearance as a street punk, she disliked dirt and disorder. The limp day-old fries the kitchen passed off as bar food, the furniture that leaned precariously, and the grimy washrooms covered in graffiti and hardened smears revolted her middle-class sensibilities. Taraneh came to the Groundhog for the comradery. When she was surrounded by her coworkers at the bar, she was most pleased with herself. They laughed at her cynical jokes, griped along with her work grievances, and razzed her as much as they did each other. It was a feeling of belonging and trust that she didn’t experience anywhere else.
At the alternative school where Taraneh completed the last two years of high school, she was surrounded by thirty other outcasts. Collectively, they were labelled deviant or incompetent and rejected by mainstream schools. Although, they experienced similar misfortunes and they ached for acceptance, they seemed unable to bridge the wide gap that separated their loneliness from companionship. Like the others, Taraneh hadn’t attached herself to classmates. When they gathered for their smoke breaks on the sidewalk out front, the conversations were layers of bravado and apathy, without genuine concerns or insights.
The only person Taraneh had grown close to was the principal of the school. Two years earlier, on the day Taraneh was kicked out of her house, she had met Roy. During first-period history at the mainstream high school, Taraneh had yelled at the teacher and stormed out of the classroom. Dumfounded by the unexpected outburst of a typically reserved girl, the seasoned history teacher had followed her into the hall and found her sobbing and tearing apart her textbook. He had steered Taraneh to the empty office of the guidance counsellor and phoned Roy.
“Hi,” Roy had said when he arrived at the doorway of the office fifteen minutes later. “Can I come in?”
Taraneh had been alone small room and she sat in a crumpled state at one end of the lumpy sofa. She had glanced briefly at him and shrugged.
“Thanks,” Roy had said as he sat on the edge of the office desk. “I hear you want to drop out.”
Taraneh had grimaced at the term but nodded silently. Dropping out of school scared her as much as
swimming in dark waters. Despite her dramatic home life, she had stayed afloat academically. Her tainted self-image always included one vague tableau of a professor in a packed lecture hall asking for her opinion. Quitting school hadn’t occurred to her until that morning. It would be a way to reduce the mounting pressure on her to measure up.
“Why do you want to drop out?” Roy had pushed himself back and sat with both feet dangling.
Taraneh had noticed that his brown pants matched his plaid socks and loafers. Not eager to answer his question and curious about his identity, Taraneh had sat up, narrowed her eyes, and frowned directly at him. He appeared to be an old man, with short wispy hair, a pockmarked and wrinkled face, and large thick glasses that distorted his eyes. “Who are you?” Taraneh had asked rudely but quietly.
“I’m Roy. I’m the principal of the alternative school down the street,” Roy had replied calmly with a modest smile. “And, who are you?”
“I’m Terry, and I’m dropping out, so … do I need to complete any forms?” Taraneh had asked belligerently.
“Okay, well. You’re sixteen. You can sign the forms at the front desk,” Roy had explained and folded his hands in his lap. “Before you do, I think you might want to talk to your parents about it.”
To avoid crying, Taraneh had sucked in her lower lip and inhaled deeply. “They don’t care,” she had replied quietly. “They kicked me out this morning.”
Roy had placed his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. “Okay,” he had replied quietly, too. “Do you know where you are going to stay tonight?”
Following another deep inhale, Taraneh had rolled back her shoulders and answered, “No.”