Toronto Collection Volume 3 (Toronto Series #10-13)

by Heather Wardell

  As I moved to close the email program, it signaled a new message.

  Larissa,

  Nothing to forgive. That's business, baby. Trust me, I did worse to you.

  Oh, and you're kind of stupid, if you don't mind me saying it, to commit that to email. See how I'm not admitting anything? That's how to protect your ass. You should really learn how.

  But thanks, I guess. I hope you feel better now.

  Hayley

  I hadn't expected an answer at all, never mind immediately, but since it was three in the morning my time it was only seven the night before for her. I deleted her email without reply, since there was nothing more to say, and went to bed.

  I would have thought I'd feel bad, stupid and crazy, because of how she saw my email, but I didn't. Though I'd never tell Janet what I'd done, I knew she would approve if she knew, be proud of me for listening to what I knew I needed to do and making it happen. The approval of my mental Janet felt good.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Amirah came to find me after school on Thursday. "We're worried," she said before she was two feet inside my door.

  I looked up from my marking. "Hi. Who is, and about what?"

  She shook her head, obviously frustrated. "About Khalid, Larissa. He's not happy."

  Her tone made me bristle. "Yeah, well, he tells me he hates me right in class. He's done it four times this week. I'm not happy either."

  She dropped into my visitor chair. "Don't get defensive, I'm not attacking you."

  Her tone hadn't changed, though. "Sounds like it. Look, I'm trying, okay? I really thought I'd connected with him but--"

  "So did I!"

  I took a breath to answer angrily but I saw the pain in her eyes just in time. I bit back my words and said quietly, "What do you think is happening with him?"

  She glared at me another moment then her rage vanished and she slumped deeper in the chair. "I don't know. I really don't. His mother, my sister Nour, is beside herself."

  I thought hard but could only come up with one possible explanation. "Maybe he really does hate me. He liked Katy, right? Maybe he doesn't want to have me here instead."

  She nodded. "He did like Katy. When she left, he cried for days and refused to come to school until Nour told him Katy would want him to. He likes you too, though. He talks about you all the time at home, Nour said."

  I felt myself blushing. "That's so cute."

  She smiled, then sobered. "But it doesn't explain what's going on. And why he says he hates you when he doesn't."

  "Did he like Helena?" Maybe he preferred her to me and was trying to make me leave so she'd come back.

  Her forehead beneath the band of her headdress wrinkled. "I'm not sure. I could call my sister."

  She looked at me questioningly, and I nodded, so she pulled out her phone. I wondered if I should leave to give her some privacy but a moment later realized how foolish that was as she let loose a stream of Arabic in which I understood only four words: Larissa, Khalid, Katy, and Helena. Omar had taught me a few words as we grocery shopped but none of those were included in Amirah's speech. She paused, clearly listening, then spoke again. After a few exchanges she said something that must have been a goodbye and ended the call.

  "Nour says that Khalid didn't talk about Helena very often. Only if she asked him about his teacher. He didn't seem to care about her one way or the other."

  He had seemed to care about me, but was now even angrier at me than he'd been at the start. I shook my head, lost. "Maybe Helena was different than me in the classroom?" I said, grasping at straws. "Maybe he liked her teaching style better?"

  Amirah gave a startled laugh. "I can't imagine that. Have you talked to Omar or Katherine about Helena as a teacher?"

  "No." I hadn't wanted to, in case they raved about her and I felt inferior.

  "She did what she had to do." She narrowed her eyes. "You understand? Just that. Not one single thing more. Whenever anyone acted up, they went straight to Janet. Khalid was there nearly every day. She did what was assigned to her but she never offered to do anything else like helping to repaint the gym."

  I blushed again at her meaningful look. "I don't have anything else to do this weekend." Leon was going to Dubai to see his mom who was coming in on a business trip, and since he hadn't suggested I come along I hadn't wanted to ask. I'd thought we were in a real relationship, but apparently not enough of one that he wanted me to meet his mother.

  "Helena would not have helped, no matter what she had planned for the weekend."

  I didn't know what to say, and after a moment she said, "Well, I'm glad we talked."

  I wasn't sure why, since we hadn't gotten anywhere, but I said, "Me too."

  She smiled and got to her feet. "Keep trying with Khalid, please. He really is a sweet boy."

  I'd seen one glimpse of that but he'd been sour ever since. "I will."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The caretakers were supposed to remove everything from the gym Thursday night so we'd be able to start painting first thing on Friday, but Friday morning I got a text from Janet letting me know that hadn't happened so we wouldn't be starting until noon.

  This left me with a few free hours I hadn't expected to have and no idea how to use them. I'd already showered and dressed in my oldest gym clothes so I wouldn't spoil something I cared about with paint, so I didn't need any more time to get ready.

  Leon was in Dubai, and Omar and Katherine were no doubt together and didn't need a third wheel. I'd spent time with them, of course, and though they weren't deliberately flaunting their relationship their delight in each other shone out of them and it made my relationship with Leon seem dimmer by comparison, so I'd been trying to avoid seeing them together when I could.

  I had mentioned, once, how happy Katherine seemed to be now, and she'd nodded and said, "I didn't like trying to be who Gunther wanted but I hadn't realized how... restrictive it was. Like I was locked in a cage. Hindsight is 20-20, I guess."

  Dad had always said, "Hindsight is 50-50," and I'd thought that made sense because you were either right or you weren't. As I realized how often my dad's words ran through my head, Katherine had added, "But I'm free now and I can be me, and that feels amazing. You're so lucky Leon likes you the way you are."

  Somehow I'd managed to smile and nod, but it hadn't been easy. He only liked me when I acted cool and calm and under control. I wanted to be that way too, wanted to be the kind of woman I'd grown up idolizing, but I disappointed us both when I fell short of that goal. So I worked hard to keep up the front and hide the real me so I wouldn't disappoint us. I needed Leon. He was the first guy in ages who'd actually seemed to like me and I did not want to risk that by wishing we were more mushy like Omar and Katherine.

  So, since I couldn't see Leon and I didn't want to see Omar and Katherine and Tara had the flu and was at home in bed, my only real option was spending the morning alone. Dressed as I was I didn't want to go shopping or anything like that, and I felt like being out of my apartment, so I decided to do what I'd meant to do for ages and go for a walk down by the Gulf.

  Though it was only April, the weather was already hotter than I'd have faced in the worst heat of summer in Toronto. I'd heard it would get well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in July and August, and I wasn't looking forward to it, but today's high eighties were surprisingly pleasant since it wasn't too humid.

  A concrete path traced the outline of the Gulf, but I soon left that and walked along the edge of the shore. People dotted the sand here and there but the beach wasn't particularly busy. Of course, the Kuwaitis still wore long sleeved shirts, so to them this wasn't beach weather.

  I kicked off my sandals and carried them with me as I moved out into the water and dug my toes into the cool wet sand. Each wave lapped at my ankles, and I stared out at the distant horizon, and the guard boats floating there to protect Kuwait from any invasion, and it sank in that I was here. Nothing I saw looked like Canada, and I couldn't say I was s
orry. I'd needed a fresh start, and though it wasn't going as well as I'd hoped it was probably the best I could manage.

  I spotted a large rock near the water's edge and sank down onto its cool surface then began idly tracing patterns in the wet sand with my big toe. Circles, stars, arcs like rainbows, I drew them and then let the waves smooth them away and then drew them again.

  After a while, I wanted more detail in my pictures so I found a stick and brought it back to the rock, where I drew a heart with an arrow through it but didn't quite manage to get my initials on it with Leon's before the water took it. I tried again, and by scratching the design with less care I got it all assembled.

  As the water swept it away I looked at my hand holding the stick. The henna design there was dramatically faded but a hint of what I'd had still decorated my skin. I'd surprised myself by how much I'd enjoyed seeing the patterns there as I gestured and used my hands, and I wondered if I could get it redone in Kuwait.

  Then, to my surprise, I wondered if I could get something like it as a tattoo. I'd never particularly wanted a tattoo but the idea of keeping those patterns with me forever suddenly had appeal. Not all over my hands, of course, but maybe on my shoulder or around my wrist or ankle. Something with flowers and birds and stars. Something pretty.

  Leon would hate it, though, like he'd hated the dress I'd tried on in Dubai.

  I sketched the dress in the sand, redrawing it over and over each time the water cleared the slate for me. Leon had hated it, yes, but I'd loved it. I'd felt so right in it.

  Gunther's reaction, and Leon's reaction to Gunther, had made the whole scene seem ugly in my mind, but I tried to push past that and remember how I'd felt as the dress slid over my head and settled around my body. I couldn't get the full feeling back but a dim echo of it sang through me in a faint but clear voice. I had loved it.

  I'd never own one like it, since I'd never wear it because it wasn't my style. I didn't want to be the kind of woman who fluttered around in ruffly pink dresses and Manolo heels and annoyed everyone around her by being so girly. So I wouldn't be. I wouldn't own a dress like that. But I might try on another one some day so I could get another hint of that feeling.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  When I walked into the gym several teachers were building a wooden climbing structure on the playground outside its open double doors, and the smell of fresh-cut wood reminded me immediately of how Candice's carpenter husband Ian always smelled. I hadn't thought about him much at all since I got to Kuwait, and certainly hadn't felt the pangs of my crush on him, and as I breathed in the scent I found it reminding me more of my dad in his workshop than Ian in his.

  Maybe the feelings I'd thought I'd had for Ian, who was a good person but really not my type, had been more about wishing my dad had been more like him as a father. I felt sure that however Libby and Eric ended up, Ian would cheer them on and not tell them they should be different.

  If I'd been at home by myself I would have thought more about that unexpected realization, but the gym's atmosphere was more party-like than work-like. About half the staff had decided to join in, and quite a few mothers had too, and kids roamed freely being their goofy selves. They weren't in their school uniforms, of course, and they looked so different without them. They had fun, but they weren't much help until the afternoon: the adults did get down to painting, after a few minutes of socializing, but I didn't see a student do so much as touch a paintbrush for most of the day.

  It was hardly arduous work, since after about an hour Janet insisted we break for lunch, and an hour after that we had to have coffee. We laughed and chatted both during the breaks and while we worked, and though Leon had called me a sucker for agreeing to spend my days off painting for free I didn't feel like one. I felt like I was working on a fun project with friends.

  All four walls were going to be painted sand beige, but after we'd finished the mint lemonade a mother had had delivered for our third break of the afternoon I looked toward the far wall of the gym where the blue gymnastics mats were piled and had a brain wave.

  "Janet, what if we made the mat wall look like a beach? We have the beige for the sand and the blue mats, and we could do a bit of the wall blue as well to be the water and the sky."

  She put her hands on her hips and studied the wall, and I realized she'd lost quite a bit of weight. The guy Leon and I had seen her with was still around, was in fact helping us paint, and he also seemed thinner than I remembered. I hoped he wasn't being too mean to her about not having lost all her excess weight yet, especially since he wasn't exactly fashion-model-skinny himself.

  "How would we make it work? I can't hire an artist to do a mural or anything."

  "I can do it." It was so clear in my mind it almost seemed like it was already on the wall. "I can draw it and we can paint it in."

  She picked up a napkin from the floor beside us and pulled a pencil from her pocket. "Show me."

  I pressed the napkin against my leg for support and sketched a shoreline like the one I'd seen that morning, including the big rock on which I'd sat. I'd seen some skinny cats skulking through the rocks around the path on my way home, and I added one of them for realism.

  When I finished, she didn't speak, so I said, "Okay, no worries. Sorry. Stupid idea."

  She cleared her throat. "Actually, I was going to say how amazed I am that you can draw something like that. I can barely draw a stick figure without instructions."

  I blushed, and she added, "I love it, Larissa. I can't wait to see it when it's done."

  A flicker of fear touched me at the idea of translating my rough drawing to the huge wall of the gym. "What if I mess it up?"

  Her forehead creased. "Do you think that's likely?"

  Wishing I'd kept quiet, I said, "I hope not but I don't know. And if I do it'll be ruined. Then what?"

  The creases deepened. She moved a little closer and said softly, "Then we paint over it. Larissa, I hope someday you realize how talented and skillful you are. You're a great teacher, and clearly a strong artist too. You make a lot of sarcastic cracks about how you screw everything up, and I always thought you were joking, but now I'm afraid you've been meaning them all the way along. I have never seen you actually screw anything up and I don't believe it's going to happen. Okay?"

  My throat tightened so hard I couldn't speak, but I nodded. The sincerity in her voice made it impossible to do anything else. Janet believed in me. I hadn't realized I'd been expressing my doubts about everything I did, but I'd try not to do that any more. Remembering that at least my boss believed in me would help.

  She smiled, stepped back, and said, "Now get to work, Michelangelo."

  "No, Miss, her name's Miss Larissa."

  We laughed and Janet said to Muneera, "What was I thinking? Thanks, honey."

  Muneera beamed. Her dad, who had shown up although Janet had told us that most Kuwaiti fathers would not consider painting the gym a task worthy of them, gave me an embarrassed smile. I knew why he had made his appearance: Muneera had told me several times, "Mom is away so I'll make sure Baba comes instead." Clearly she had. I smiled back at him, glad he'd come because I knew how much Muneera had wanted it, then headed off to draw the beach on the wall.

  The rest of the painting ground to a halt as one by one the workers abandoned their brushes to watch me work. Janet had gone out to pick up some more paint, blue for the water and orange and white and brown for the little cat and the rocks, and when she came back I expected her to complain about the lack of work but she joined the crowd of observers and I heard her cheerfully telling Omar, "Anyone who's available can come back tomorrow too. It'll all get done Inshallah so why worry? It'll all be fine."

  I kept saying that to myself as I drew with a pencil on the wall, and it helped. If they were all seeing this as a fun project, I could too. It would all be fine.

  I did make a few lines that didn't work out, but when I tried to fix the first one Muneera came bouncing up with an eraser and said, "I'll fix i
t, Miss."

  I let her, and she followed me around watching each line I drew and looking delighted when I messed one up and she could spring into action.

  One of Omar's students was there too, and he tried to get Muneera to share the eraser duties but to no avail. Khalid was also there, brought by Amirah, but he didn't say a word. When I glanced at him as I neared the end of the sketch he was watching me with his eyes wide and a strange mix of emotions on his face, and when he saw me look at him he blushed and looked away. I felt myself blush too, though I knew it was silly. Just connecting with the kid, even on such a weird level, felt like it mattered.

  Once I thought I'd finished, I stepped back to survey the wall.

  Everyone waited in a hushed silence.

  "I think it's okay," I eventually said, my words sounding weak and wobbly as they fell into the quiet room.

  "No, it's perfect," Janet said firmly, and the group burst into spontaneous applause.

  I blushed again, and Katherine, wearing jeans and a ruby-red t-shirt that bore a few smudges of beige paint, grinned at me. "I'd never have thought of that, and if I had I wouldn't have been able to carry it out. I wish I were artistic like you."

  The words, "I'm not," tried to come flying out of me, but I made myself just thank her instead. It was amazingly hard to do. The urge to deny the label she'd given me pulsed through me like a sickness.

  Everyone else congratulated me too, and I thanked them all and returned the shy smile Khalid gave me from a distance, and for a few minutes I was too busy directing people to begin painting what I'd drawn to have time to think.

  Once everyone was engrossed in their tasks, though, I withdrew to have a quick sip of lemonade and my reaction to Katherine's words again came back to me.

  Why had they bothered me so much? I had just free-drawn a mural on a wall, and when I looked at it I knew it did look decent. Being able to draw did make me artistic. So I was. Somehow, though, the word made me feel uncomfortable.