Few Kinds of Wrong

by Tina Chaulk

  A man in a white coat, his hair in a crewcut, spoke to Mom through echoed words, asked if she was Mrs. Collins.

  “Yes,” she said and grabbed my arm. “And this is my daughter Jennifer.” Her fingers dug into my flesh, hurting so much I wanted to cry out, but somehow feeling anything except scared felt good, a strange relief.

  The doctor stood before Mom, closed his eyes, and shook his head in what looked like a practiced move. In the months since, I have seen that move many times in the moments before sleep and just as I wake. I can almost picture the doctor looking in a mirror or standing before a wife and asking, “Is this sombre enough? Should I keep the sigh or just shake my head?”

  In a sudden sludge of time when things moved at the speed of a broken clock, the doctor opened his mouth and I watched the words “I’m” and “sorry” come out of his mouth like they were enclosed in a cartoon bubble.

  “No,” my own bubble said in a long, slow, low sound, and I wrenched away from Jamie, holding onto me on one side, and Mom, on the other, walked past Bryce, leaning against the wall by the door, and out into the hall, where the sluggish world sped up again until I was running, running like Donovan Bailey, through the waiting room, trying to catch a breath while hyperventilating.

  The hospital doors opened to rain that battered my face. No idea where I was running to, but sure of what I was running from, I kept going, almost across the parking lot, past the doctors’ parking spaces, the police parking, the cancer patient parking — hair soaked, clothes soaked, skin soaked — when a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  Jamie held onto my arm, his other arm spread out to embrace me. I yanked away from him and stepped back then moved in next to him again. I grabbed his arm, tearing at it, panting but unable to get a breath. I moved next to his ear.

  “Don’t say it,” I whispered. “Please don’t say it. For God’s sake, Jamie, don’t say it.”

  I pulled back and looked at his face. He stared at me long seconds, the rain drenching both of us, rain falling down his long bangs and off his nose. He just looked at me, obeying my order, my threat. Until I broke the spell and turned away. What was it in my eyes that held him still until I looked away?

  I turned back to him again. He touched my face and before I could beg him again, he spoke in a whisper, “He’s dead, babe. I’m so sorry but he’s dead.”

  The roar inside of me came out in fists and screams and kicks until Bryce and Mom pulled me off him. Blood ran down his cheek from a cut somewhere and his top lip was swelling as they pulled me away. Bryce held me up off my feet, my legs flailing, wanting to make contact with Jamie again.

  “Never again,” I said to him as they brought me to Bryce’s car. “I don’t want to ever see you again,” I shouted, stretching the limits of my vocal chords so I’d be hoarse for two days after.

  And I didn’t see him until the next day when I called his mother’s house and cried into the phone for half an hour. He stayed on the phone, not saying a word the whole time. But I’m not sure I ever forgave him for not listening to me, even though he’d just told me the truth. A truth I had to hear. Still, sometimes when I look at him, I remember the rainy face that whispered sadness into my life.

  Jamie and I are in the office, locked in shivering silence, when I hear shouting across the garage.

  “Jennifer,” a voice I recognize as Michelle’s yells. “The door was unlocked.”

  “Idiot,” I say, slapping Jamie’s chest. I hop up, grabbing my shirt as I do. If I can just get the shirt on, it’s long enough to cover everything important. “You left the door unlocked.”

  “I didn’t know how long I’d be here.” He pulls on his pants as he speaks.

  “Oh,” Michelle says, eyes and mouth wide. “Oh.” She raises her voice then. “Oh my God. Oh my God. This is so great. I knew you’d get back together.”

  “Stop talking now.” I pull on my jeans and Jamie slips into his white button-up shirt, covering the tattoo I’d almost forgotten about: J , the same one I used to have on my shoulder blade where scarred, lasered skin is now. “Why are you here, Michelle?”

  “Your mom left a message on my machine, saying she was worried about you and could I try to find you?”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. A while ago.”

  Looking her over, I realize she’s wearing a short, black dress, fancy updo, and extra makeup. Rather like adding icing to an already iced cake.

  “Where were you until then?”

  “The mayor had a thing and Steve was invited,” she says of her closeted gay politician friend who often takes Michelle to public functions.

  “Well, everything is fine here. Mom doesn’t have to worry. And we’re not back together.” I search for a missing sock.

  “We’re not?” Jamie raises his eyebrows. “I thought we were.”

  “I needed something to make it go away. There was only so much Bacardi left so you had to do.”

  He stares at me for a few seconds then looks down at the floor. “Goodbye, Michelle,” he says before he walks out of the office.

  I give Michelle the stay sign and run after him. After a few steps I slow down, my feet not as coordinated as I thought they’d be. I remember all the rum I drank before Jamie came.

  “Jamie.”

  He stops and turns around, eyes heavy with hurt.

  “You didn’t think it was anything more than that, did you? It was the office floor, for God’s sake.”

  “You cried on me for the past half hour. Do you honestly think any guy would do that for you? Would you open up that much to anyone but me?”

  I have no answer. At least not one I care to express.

  “You’re so selfish, you don’t care how you make anyone else feel, do you? You used to care.”

  “About you, yeah, but you decided to change that.”

  He laughs. “Man, you don’t know anything, do you? You don’t see anything. You shut all of us out — me, your mom, BJ, Michelle. You shut us all out in one way or another. And as long as you’re miserable and angry, you want us to be too.” He raises his hands. “Well, if it makes you happy, I have been miserable. I miss you. I miss the way you laugh, and your awful scrambled eggs, and how you rob all the sheets from my side of the bed, and those ugly green track pants you wear on Sundays, and the small of your back, and the way you kissed me and …” He looks around the garage and pulls his hand through his tousled hair. “And the—”

  “I get it, Jamie, I get it.”

  “No, no you don’t or you wouldn’t have said that to me. No Bacardi so it was me. Fuck.”

  Jamie shakes his head and shuffles. A minute passes before he speaks, locking onto my eyes. “She was the only one since you, and I never saw her again after that day. Everyone tells me to get past you, I should let it go. But I don’t. I don’t want someone new because … not one of them knows how ticklish my shoulders are or how I faint at the sight of blood or where that little scar over my left eyebrow came from. And I don’t want to have to tell anyone new those things. I don’t need to because everything I ever wanted is right here in front of me. And nothing will change that. Not even how rotten you’ve been all this time.”

  I dig my fingernails into my palm to focus my energy on the pain there instead of the threat of tears in his eyes.

  “So, you might think we’re not back together but I don’t. I’ll wait for you. For Jennifer. The one I married. I’ll wait forever for her. But I won’t wait long for this girl who fucks a guy on the floor just to get a little relief from life.”

  My hand nearly makes contact with his face when he catches my arm. “Don’t bother to pretend you’re insulted. You know the truth better than me. That’s why you’re either working or drunk all the time. It’s not that you can’t face your father being gone. It’s that you can’t face yourself.”

  He turns and I scream at him as he walks away.

  I don’t move for a long time. I just stare at the doorway Jamie left through.
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br />   “Jennifer?” I hear Michelle say after a few minutes. “Everything okay?”

  I wipe my eyes before I turn around and answer her. “Can I get a ride home?”

  She jiggles the keys in an affirmative. “You okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Good.”

  She smiles and I can’t help thinking how happy I am that it was Michelle and not BJ who found us.

  The next morning starts with a pain in my neck. I’m face down on what feels like a small hill. I open my eyes and see that it’s the highest and hardest pillow I’ve ever seen. I lift my head, wiggle my neck around, turn over to see where I am, and scream.

  Clowns surround me. They line shelves on the wall, are piled into bookcases, and hang from the ceiling on strings. I know where I am now.

  Michelle runs into the room, and asks if I’m okay. Her hair is wild, her makeup from last night faded but not removed. She’s wearing a short nightshirt that reveals more than I want to see despite how she keeps pulling it down.

  “I’m in clown hell. No, I’m not okay.” I rub my neck. “What kind of weird pillow is that? I can hardly move my neck.”

  “Oh, that’s a massaging pillow and if you plug it in it also puts out different smells like roses or lavender. Want to try it?” She walks toward the pillow and bends to pick up the AC adapter, flashing me way too much information about her personal area.

  “No, no, no. I don’t want any rose or lavender smell.” I rub my neck again. “How are you even my friend?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “For what?”

  “Keeping you safe. You passed out in my car. I was afraid to leave you alone at your house so I brought you here.”

  Her huge, silly grin reminds me of what she saw last night. The time between lying with Jamie in the office and getting to Michelle’s comes back to me little by little. The whole night comes back to me and I curse my memory for working so well.

  “Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.” I remember Jamie’s shot last night, about how I treat everyone. “I really do.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome.” Michelle sighs in the doorway and says, “Jamie loves you so much.”

  I want to throw up. “I have to get to work,” I say, trying not to move my neck too much as the rest of me stands up.

  I follow Michelle out to the living room and look at my watch: 7:45. Jamie’s probably not at work yet, so little chance he’s fired Bryce. I called Jamie just before I left the garage last night and left a message on his voicemail: “I’ll be in at one, and I don’t want Bryce there when I get in. Fire him.” And then I hung up.

  “So, you and Jamie, hey?” Michelle’s smile keeps getting wider and I know for sure where I don’t want to be.

  I pick up the phone, dial, and give the cab company Michelle’s address.

  “I’ll get a cab to the house and get cleaned up,” I say, pulling my sneakers on and then getting my coat on. “Thanks for putting me up.”

  “Just wait a few minutes for me to shower and get ready and I’ll drive you.”

  “No, I really have to go. Thanks a million. I’ll see you at brunch.”

  I shut the door and realize it’s raining. I’m standing outside for ten minutes and am drenched by the time the taxi gets there.

  I’m soaking wet and sitting in a cab as the taxi drives along Water Street when I see the intersection for Patrick Street.

  “Stop.”

  The taxi driver slams on his brakes, causing the driver behind us to veer his car around us and honk his horn.

  “What?” the taxi driver says.

  “Can you go up Patrick Street? I want to go there.”

  “I thought you wanted to go to Thorburn Road.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  I hadn’t really. A question popped into my mind when I saw the intersection and now nothing matters but the answer.

  BJ’s house is a two-bedroom, fully attached house on Patrick Street. She bought it for $70,000 seven years ago, has renovated a lot — hardwood floors, claw bathtub, chrome faucets, handmade antique washstand—thousands of dollars to make the old house look old again. Her flair for style, renovations, and a real estate market full of buyers drooling for an older style home downtown means that BJ’s recent appraisal by a real estate agent brought the house in at over $200,000.

  No doubt, the fact that the house is owned by BJ Brown, weatherwoman on the nightly news, helps. BJ is the queen of visiting community events for live shots. Whether it’s a potluck fundraiser supper, a doggie fashion show at the SPCA or a ribbon-cutting at the latest Fill-In-Your Disease/ Disorder-Here Centre, BJ is there, holding a microphone and wearing a warm, caring smile.

  The taxi stops outside BJ’s house. I step out of the car and make two steps to her front steps. I knock for five minutes. No answer. I know light-sleeper BJ sometimes sleeps late in a sensory deprived state, blindfold over her eyes and earplugs in her ears. I give up and walk around to the back of the house.

  I throw small rocks at her window, then when they don’t work, I go bigger. When the rocks get big enough that I’m afraid I might break the glass, I finally see the princess in the window, silk blindfold pushed up to her forehead. She furrows her brow.

  “What’s wrong?” she yells, her voice muffled through the glass. She pulls the earplugs out of her ears. I motion for her to go to the door and let me in. I’m not about to shout at her, figuring the neighbours have already called the police about a potential crazed stalker in BJ’s backyard. Before I get through the door BJ is talking. “You can’t be that big of a sook.”

  “What?”

  “Waking me up early just to get me back for waking you yesterday morning. Come off it. Even you’re more mature than that, for Jesus’ sake.”

  Was that yesterday morning? It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in the space between then and now.

  “It’s not that early. It’s almost eight. Most normal people are up now.” BJ and I step from her foyer into her living room through an archway on the left. BJ runs upstairs and comes back down with a towel which she passes to me. I take off my coat and shake most of the water off. BJ holds it with one finger and thumb and lays it across a radiator.

  “Something happened last night,” I say.

  “Really? What?” BJ asks, her one eyebrow raised. “Is everything okay?”

  We sit on her white leather couch and I notice the new decor. BJ changes around her living room like some people change their kitty litter. I’d been at her house three weeks before, with its blue walls, white trim, sheer curtains, and beige sofa. Now the walls are chocolate brown and the trim a baby blue, a new trend I don’t understand.

  “You didn’t get a call from Mom last night?”

  “No.” Concern enters her voice. “I was on a date. Had my phone off. I didn’t get in until almost two. Is everything okay?”

  “I dropped by Mom’s house last night after work. Late. To surprise her.” I run my finger along the seam on the leg of my jeans. “It was me who got the surprise.”

  “Really?” BJ says, but I catch something in the second before her perfect camera face takes over.

  “You knew,” I say, sitting up straight. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”

  “Knew what?” BJ says, innocent face painted on perfectly.

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.” She shakes her head.

  “Then why did you look guilty for a second?”

  “I didn’t.” She lets out an exasperated gasp.

  We sit in silence for a minute or so until I decide to end it. “Why don’t you guess what I saw?”

  “Was she alone?”

  “See, I knew you knew,” I say, hopping to my feet. I start pacing. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  “I don’t know anything.” She raises her voice. “I swear to God I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. I saw it in your face.”

  “What happened? Did you catch them in bed or something?
”

  I nod. “But not like you think. Mom was there asleep in bed with him. They seemed so at home in that bed together. I think it would have been easier to see them … well, I can’t even think of that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t ask who it was,” I say, my voice lowering to almost a whisper.

  “I dropped by on her one night too,” she says, picking at the red nail polish on her left index finger, “and he was there then. He was just sitting on the sofa. There wasn’t anything for sure there. Just …”

  “Just what?”

  “Just something in the way she acted, the way she kept glancing at him. The way she shuffled her feet and didn’t know what to do with her hands. Like she’d been caught.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” I look away. “I can’t trust anyone.”

  “What was I supposed to say? Oh, guess what? I went by your mother’s house and Bryce was there watching TV and your mom acted funny.”

  “Sure. Like you didn’t ask her about it after. Like she didn’t tell you what was going on.”

  “Jennifer, I’m not that kind of a friend with her. We went to cooking class a few times and now we go out for coffee and swap recipes. I don’t tell her about my relationships and she sure as hell doesn’t tell me about hers. The only time we ever talked about anything serious was the other night when she called me all upset and wanted me to talk to you about the fight you’d had.”

  I sit down and rub my forehead. “I wanted to be sick. I stood there just looking at them. It was like I couldn’t not look but I didn’t want to see it.”

  BJ reaches out and touches my hand. I pull away.

  “I’m okay,” I say, standing up to lean against the old cabinet hi-fi BJ had converted into the world’s largest MP3 player.

  “Then you should be happy for them. They both lost someone they loved and now they’ve found a new relationship with each other.” BJ tilts her head at me. I’d find the look challenging from anyone else.