The New Normal

by Ashley Little

  I flopped down on my bed and closed my eyes. I was tired. I was tired of school and tired of home and tired of having two dead sisters. I wished there were some way I could hit Rewind and go back to a time when the three of us were best-best-best friends and they worshipped me and I adored them and we played Barbies and Lego and Crazy Eights all day.

  But there was no going back. This was my reality: I was sixteen and being hunted by a drug dealer. My hair was falling out and my sisters were dead and my parents were broken and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about any of it.

  four

  On Monday I was late for school. It’s true what they say about Mondays—they suck. They always have, and they always will. My first class was Drama, and the teacher, Ms. Jane, asked me to stay after class. Ms. Jane had curly hair the color of taffy, and it was always a frizzy mess. I figured she was going to give me grief about being late, but she didn’t.

  “Tryouts for the spring play are coming up this week, Tamar.”

  “Yeah.” So what? I thought.

  “I think it would be excellent if you auditioned. You’ve shown real potential in your monologue projects this year.”

  “What’s the play?”

  “The Wizard of Oz.”

  I smiled, because my favorite movie is Return to Oz, which is sort of a perverse sequel to the original.

  “This is the audition piece for female cast members.” She handed me a sheet of paper. It was Dorothy’s ramble at the very end, about how it wasn’t a dream, it was a real live place. And you and you and you…and you were there.

  “I don’t know, Ms. Jane. I can’t really carry a tune.”

  “That’s all right, actually, because we’re doing the nonmusical version.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just promise me you’ll consider it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fabulous! Auditions will be held here in the theater at four o’clock this Friday.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hope to see you there!”

  I folded the piece of paper and put it inside 1984, the book we were reading for English. Then I pushed through the theater doors and out into the crowded hallway, where hundreds of students scurried around like rats in a maze.

  I found five bucks someone had dropped in the cafeteria and shoved it in my pocket. Only $995 to go. By Friday. If only I could find a way to get every kid in school to give me a dollar, I’d have a grand by the end of today. Maybe I could set up some kind of booth. Have a bucket and a bell like the Salvation Army Santas. For the price of a bag of chips you can save a bald girl from her dead sisters’ drug dealer!

  After school, I went to the bank and cleaned out my savings account. Ninety-two dollars and seventy-six cents. It was everything I’d saved from birthday and Christmas money, odd jobs and allowance. And now I had to give it all to some dipshit dealer. It was amazing to me that Abby and Alia could still manage to piss me off and screw me over from their graves.

  On Tuesday I went to chess club and played against Roy, even though I knew I would lose. I told him I might audition for The Wizard of Oz.

  “That’s cool, Tamar. I think you’d be great.”

  “Really?”

  “For sure. Well, better than you are at chess anyway.” He laughed.

  “You’re a jerk,” I said. But I didn’t mean it.

  After Roy won, I started a game with Brian Walton. Brian’s a nervous little grade-eleven guy with greasy glasses, shaggy hair the color of straw and tragic acne, but no one denies that he’s probably a genius. My mom met Brian once at a school fundraiser thing. She said he was cute in a supergeek kind of way, and to be extra nice to him because he might end up being my boss someday.

  “How are you, Tamar?”

  “Not too bad, Brian. How’s it going?”

  “Good, and you?”

  “Um, you already asked me that.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He moved his knight out, and we didn’t speak again until the end of the game when we both said “Good game” at the same time and shook hands. His hand was slimy and gross, and I didn’t want to shake it, but those were the rules of the chess club. Every game had to end with a shake. Brian beat me too, but not as badly as Roy had. They say that every game makes you a better player, no matter if you win or lose, so I guess it wasn’t a total waste of a lunch hour. I decided to go outside and get some fresh air before my next class. I walked out the back doors, where all the kids with their puffy jackets and sideways hats and dark bandanas huddled around, smoking and spitting and talking trash. I walked onto the field, turned around and realized they were all staring at me. It’s probably my bandana, I thought. They’re probably thinking I’m down with a rival gang or something. Shit. Maybe it’s time to get a wig. My heart hurt when I thought that, because it was like admitting defeat.

  There were still some long, stringy pieces of hair clinging to the back of my skull, creating the illusion that I had hair, but up top I was as bare as a baby’s ass. I was losing more and more hair every day, and soon I would be completely, utterly, undeniably bald. I sighed and looked up at the cloudless sky. An airplane’s white streak sliced through it like an ugly scar.

  The bell rang and I cut through the huddled mass of kids.

  “Hey! Who you claimin’, girl?” a guy in a black bandana yelled.

  “Please, that bitch ain’t shit,” said a fat chick dressed in white.

  “She’s got a hefty debt though!”

  “No doubt!”

  Then there was harsh laughter from all around, like gravel in a washing machine. I ducked inside, refusing to look at anyone.

  So they knew. Everyone knew. I wondered what would happen if I couldn’t get the money by Friday. Would Pug Face and his crew beat me to mush with baseball bats? Cut my face open? Burn my house down?

  I walked home after school, scouring the sidewalk for change. I found a nickel and three pennies. Pug Face would just have to accept installments. There was no way I could get the money by Friday. No freakin’ way.

  On Wednesday night, I talked to my mom about getting a wig.

  “Have you considered just shaving the rest of your hair off and wearing it like that lovely Irish woman?”

  “What?”

  “You know…” She started singing, “Nothing compares! NoTHING COMPARES…”

  “Stop!” I covered my ears.

  “To you!”

  “No.”

  “Alia did that, remember? In grade seven, she shaved her head and dyed her scalp purple? She looked great!”

  “I can’t pull that off, Mom! I need hair!”

  “Sinéad! That’s her name. Sinéad O’Connor.”

  “No Sinéad, Mom.”

  “All right,” she sighed. “I just want you to understand that wigs made from human hair are very expensive, so we might not be able to get you the one you want. Money’s a bit tight right now.” She chewed her lower lip.

  “This is important!” I slammed my mug of tea down on the counter, and some tea splashed onto my shirt.

  “I know it is, honey, I know. Come here.” She reached toward me, but I turned away from her and ran upstairs to my room.

  Since the accident, my parents had both been off work. My dad was the manager of a Honda dealership, and Mom was a dental hygienist. I didn’t know what kind of benefits they were paid or if they’d run out. We had been eating a lot of casseroles lately, so I figured they probably had. Well, shit, they had credit cards, didn’t they? I could pay them back. With interest. I would get an after-school job. I would pawn my CDs. I would collect bottles if I had to. I was getting a wig. End of story.

  When I got home from school on Thursday, I memorized the audition monologue and practiced it in front of the mirror a few times. I wondered if I should do it lying down, s
ince Dorothy is in bed at the end of the play. I practiced it once lying in bed, but I decided against auditioning that way, because your voice changes when you lie down, and you can’t project as well. I wondered if I’d get a part. If I did, I hoped it wouldn’t be as a Munchkin. Afterward I took the Yellow Pages and the cordless up to my room and made a few calls to get quotes on human-hair wigs. The cheapest one I found was $590, on sale from $700. The store was in Kensington, and I planned to drag Mom there on the weekend and force her to buy me a wig.

  After dinner I got my bike out of the garage and rode down to Fish Creek. The wind shrieked in my eardrums. Black blotches of clouds drooped over the park. I landed a few jumps and flew down a single track, then stopped on the bridge to watch the icy water rush over the rocks. I thought about my sisters. What would they do in my situation?

  I rode home, put my bike away and locked it up. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sell my mountain bike to pay their debt. She was my horse, my prized possession, my Black Beauty. And she was mine. There had to be another way.

  I had little moths flitting around in my stomach all day Friday. It was a rough day, because I had a math test, a biology quiz and a history test, and I hadn’t studied for any of them because I had been too busy practicing the monologue and trying to come up with a grand.

  The day dragged on, and I kept expecting Pug Face to pop up from behind a desk with a machete or something.

  Finally, the school day was over. I had some time to kill before the four o’clock audition, so I went to Dairy Queen and got a hot-fudge sundae. I sat by the window and watched all the kids coming out of school and breaking off into little groups of two or three or four. I saw the kids who had hassled me on Tuesday and gave them the finger. Even though they couldn’t see it, it felt good. F-them and F-Pug Face. He would just have to deal with it.

  I ate one last big spoonful of sundae and pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to stop the brain freeze that followed. I thought about my visit to Dr. Lung. I had been taking the herbs he’d given me and noticed that I had a little more energy than usual. But maybe it was just nervous energy—after all, I had a massive debt to pay, an audition to get through and a new wig to acquire. I went back to the theater. There were kids sitting on benches or walking around talking to themselves—rehearsing, I guess. Everyone looked nervous as hell. One of the weirdo goth chicks in grade twelve was the stage manager, and she gave me a piece of paper with a number on it and wrote my name on her clipboard. I was number seven. She smiled at me with her freaky black lips and flipped her dried-out black hair over one shoulder.

  I walked down the hall to the water fountain and took a long cool drink.

  “Save some water for the whales, eh!” said a guy behind me. I could feel my face flush as I stood up and wiped my chin with my sleeve. I knew it was one of Pug’s henchmen by the way he was dressed. Baggy black pants, black hoodie and black bandana. Same uniform as Pug Face. He scowled when he saw it was me.

  “Hey. Mac says to tell you, be at your bus stop tonight at seven. Bring the cash. Come alone.”

  I felt a bitter surge in my belly and ran down the hall to the bathroom. I nearly smacked into a massive rugby player named Eric Gaines. He’d been a friend of my sisters and was always really friendly to me. “Whoa! Where’s the fire, Tamar?” he called as I zoomed past.

  I made it to the toilet just in time to vomit my ice cream sundae into it. I rinsed my mouth and washed my face. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I took deep breaths and stared at myself in the mirror. “You’re going to be okay,” I told my reflection. I bit down hard on my lip to keep the tears away.

  I got back to the theater just in time to hear goth girl call my number. I looked at the black abyss that was the door to backstage and felt the sickness well up inside me again. I swallowed it back and stood up, straightening my shirt and adjusting my bandana. My hands were shaking as I walked onto the stage. I desperately needed to pee.

  There were three people sitting together in the center of the theater, but I couldn’t see their faces because a spotlight was shining directly into my eyes. No matter where I stood or where I looked, that spotlight was blinding me. It was so bright, brighter than the sun.

  “Name, please?” It sounded like Ms. Jane, but I couldn’t be sure because I couldn’t see a damn thing.

  “Tamar Robinson.”

  “Thank you. When you’re ready, Tamar.”

  I coughed and cleared my throat so it wouldn’t catch during my monologue, and I pushed the flittering moths down into the basement of my body. I gave myself a little shake and then jumped right into it.

  “Oh, Auntie Em! Auntie Em!”

  And a funny thing happened while I was doing the monologue. I wasn’t even thinking of the words at all. I wasn’t thinking of how nervous I was or what came next or what facial expressions to wear. I wasn’t thinking about the past or my sisters or Pug Face or my hair loss or any of it. It was like I became someone else for a few minutes—I became Dorothy, and I was just there in that bedroom in Kansas, telling them all how it went down in Oz. I was totally, 100 percent, there. And I liked that.

  When I was finished, the voice said, “Thank you, Tamar. Cast list will be posted in the hall a week from Monday.”

  And that was it. No “Good job,” no “What part would you like to play?” Just “See ya later—don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” I thought for sure I hadn’t made the cut.

  As I was walking home, it started to rain. Then it started to hail. Some of the hailstones were as big as golf balls, and I could hear metal denting as they dropped on cars. I pulled my jacket up over my head and ran at top speed all the way to my house. When I burst through the door, Dad was standing in the living room, staring out the window. He was wearing his ratty green robe and drinking a glass of whiskey.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He looked at me and gave me a meager little half smile.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked. “Yoga?”

  “Right.”

  He turned back to the window and I stood beside him, and we looked out on to the street. The hail pummeled the roof and bounced off the sidewalk. A black cat ran across the street and hailstones pounded its head. I felt a little bit sorry for it, even though I hate cats. I’m deathly allergic to them, and they make my lungs seize up. Dad says they’re my kryptonite. My sisters used to give me a really hard time about being allergic to cats because they desperately wanted one.

  “Why can’t you just get a shot?”

  “Why don’t you just hold your breath?”

  “Why don’t you just go live in the shed and the cat can live in the house with us?”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, you shut up.”

  “You shut up first.”

  And it would go on like that. From the time they were about twelve, they started ganging up on me, and things were never the same after that. There was never anyone to take my side, and the two of them almost always got their way.

  We did end up getting a cat, a hairless cat. The breeder claimed it was hypoallergenic. It was the most hideous thing in the world, and I was still allergic to it. Alia named it Skinny. We kept it about a week to see if I could adapt, but finally I went on strike. I set up a tent in the backyard and refused to come inside until the parents agreed to get rid of the cat, which apparently was a difficult decision for them.

  “Are you coming in for dinner, Tamar?” my mom had called out to me.

  “Are you getting rid of the cat?”

  “Well, we have to discuss that, honey.”

  “What’s to discuss? I can’t breathe!”

  My sisters had already fallen in love with the ugly sack of skin, and they bawled like banshees when he had to leave. You would think I had chopped off their arms by the way my whole family treated me after that. I don’t think the tw
ins ever forgave me for ousting Skinny, and they never let me forget it either.

  I turned back to my dad. He was unshaven and his eyes looked tired; they were gray with shards of blue, like the sky.

  “Dad, I need some money.”

  He rummaged around in the pockets of his jogging pants, pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill and held it out to me.

  I looked down at it, but I didn’t take it.

  “I need nine hundred and two dollars.”

  He put the five back in his pocket and shrugged. “I don’t have that.”

  I sighed.

  “May I ask what you need nine hundred and two dollars for?”

  “A wig.” Obviously, I couldn’t tell him it was for my sisters’ drug debt.

  “What? Why? Did you get invited to a ball at the royal palace?”

  “No.”

  “You going to a fancy costume party? Or hosting a telethon or something?”

  “No.”

  “Then what the heck do you need a nine-hundred-and-two-dollar wig for?”

  I pulled off my bandana and looked down at the carpet.

  “Jesus,” he said under his breath.

  I realized then that he hadn’t even known! I had taken it for granted that Mom had told him, but she obviously hadn’t. He had no idea. He put his arms around me and pulled me into him. The ice cubes in his glass clinked behind my back, and a couple of tears slid down my face. Even though he stank of whiskey and B.O., I wanted to stay there for a very long time. I started sobbing then. I couldn’t help it.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Tamar. You’ll be all right. Don’t cry.”

  But he didn’t know that—no one did—and I cried into his chest as hailstones ricocheted off the windows of our house.