The New Normal

by Ashley Little

  “But it would probably take more than one treatment to get that result.”

  Damn. Thought I’d fooled him.

  “Looks great anyway,” he said. Then he looked at his shoes.

  “Thanks.”

  “How did your audition go?”

  “No idea. The cast list should be up now. Let’s go see if I made the cut.”

  As we navigated through halls teeming with hungry students, I told myself I didn’t care if I was in the play or not.

  The list was taped to the door. I scanned it quickly and didn’t see my name.

  “Tamar—”

  “It’s no big deal. I don’t care. I didn’t really want to be in it anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t care. I’m not upset that I didn’t make it.”

  Then Roy pointed to the top line of print:

  Auntie Em…………………………Tamar Robinson

  “Ah!” I said.

  “Ah!” he said.

  “I made it! I’m in the play!”

  “You’re Auntie Em!”

  Then I hugged him. I couldn’t help it. I gave him a huge bear hug, and he gave it right back. Then I jumped up and down like an idiot for a while.

  “Congratulations!”

  “Wow, I didn’t think…I mean…I thought maybe, but wow. This is so…I don’t know…”

  “Great? Wonderful? Fantastic?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go celebrate. Dairy Queen sundaes, my treat.”

  Sitting in that stained Dairy Queen booth, reading the initials carved into the table, was fantastic.

  S.M. + A.A. = TL 4-EVER!

  S.M. IS A FAGGOT!

  4:20 4-LIFE!

  I was on cloud nine. I had glossy hair, I had a role in the spring play, and I was eating a chocolate sundae with Roy Lee. Things were looking up. Maybe I would survive this after all.

  seven

  Our first rehearsal was the next day after school. Everyone introduced themselves, and then we got our scripts and did a cold read-through. I couldn’t believe that I had been chosen to play Auntie Em. My favorite line was We all got to work out our own problems, Henry. Which I say right after Dorothy does her rainbow bit. The girl chosen to play Dorothy was Beth Dewitt. Beth was in grade twelve and had blindingly blond hair that came almost to her ass. She was supershort, not even five feet. She wasn’t especially pretty, but she had breasts the size of basketballs, which gave her a significant edge in the ongoing popularity contest that is high school. She didn’t say anything to me at the rehearsal, but if looks could kill, I’d be deader than a doornail, whatever that is.

  There were nineteen people in the cast. Almost all of them were strangers to me. I knew a few kids, but not many. Cole Benson, the Scarecrow, was in my English class. He was always getting kicked out of class for making inane comments, but once in awhile he said something so ridiculous that the whole class, including Ms. Sanderson, busted a gut laughing. So Cole wasn’t a total waste of skin. He had short dark hair that was blond at the tips, and he usually spiked it up with gel, but I thought it looked better without it. They say that gel can make you go bald over time. When I had hair, I never used it. Cole was popular with the ladies and had about a dozen girlfriends a year. He was cute in the same way that a sloppy, slobbering puppy is cute.

  Sharon Strombolopoulous, also known as Yeti, was playing the Wicked Witch of the West. Kids had called her Yeti for as long as I could remember. She had a massive head of thick black hair, hairy arms and the damning shadow of a dark mustache. I would kill for a mustache right now.

  I also knew Marcy Mavis, who was playing Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. Marcy had fine, honey-blond hair that was naturally straight and probably never tangled and always looked freshly washed. Marcy was perfect for the role of Glinda because she really was supersweet and nice to everybody and never said or did anything that might hurt someone’s feelings. She had that soft, sugary sort of voice that makes you want to gag. Marcy was almost too good to be true. That’s why I didn’t want to be her friend, even though she tried to buddy up with me a bit last year. I went to her house once. We drank lemonade and painted our nails, but she didn’t have anything interesting to say. She was like a cupcake—sweet and pretty, but all fluff on the inside. I wanted to hate Marcy, but I couldn’t. She was too nice.

  And I knew Scott McKinnon, the gay guy who was playing the Tin Man. He didn’t know me though. He had light brown hair that he wore in a crewcut, and he was what my sisters would call superfine. Always well dressed, tall, cheekbones that could cut glass. He looked more like an adult than the rest of us.

  The line reading was kind of boring, but I guess you have to start somewhere. Ms. Jane was excited. You could tell because she kept leaping around the stage to stand close to whoever was reading, and she would smile at them and say, “Great, great, excellent.” Her enthusiasm was contagious. “I want you to know that The Wizard of Oz tops the list of my favorite plays of all time, and I know that all of you are going to make this a fantastic production!”

  She said that Dorothy’s story was the exemplary hero’s journey, but that we were all important on the journey; each one of us was necessary, and we should all be very proud of ourselves for taking on this challenge.

  I was just glad I didn’t have to kiss anyone in the play. Lisa Arseneault, the girl who played Juliet last year, ended up getting mono.

  Having mono is terrible. I know because Abby got it when she was in grade eight and all she could do was lie in bed and watch game shows and soap operas for three months. Even though she wanted to go outside and actually wanted to go to school, she couldn’t. If she even came downstairs to get a drink, she would have to lie down on the couch for half an hour to rest afterward. So the four of us constantly took drinks and meals and homework and books and movies and stuff up to her room instead. She was a real whiny pain in the ass and would make you go back downstairs if you forgot to put sugar in her tea, and she hardly ever said thank you or anything. But we all kept doing it anyway, because that’s what families do. They look after each other.

  Sometimes, when I got my allowance, I would buy her a treat, like nail polish or a Seventeen magazine, to cheer her up. Her friends didn’t even come over to visit her. I guess they didn’t want to catch mono. One day, I went into her room to bring her some Gatorade, and she was lying face down on the bed, crying into her pillow. Her staticky auburn hair was all over the place. I put the bottle of Gatorade on her bedside table and sat down on the carpet beside her bed. She put the pillow over her head.

  “GO AWAY!” she yelled.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She started crying even harder. “Hefferewonfinksimafathlult!”

  “What?”

  She removed the pillow and turned over. “Everyone thinks I’m a fat slut.”

  “Oh…are you?”

  She threw the pillow at me. “I’m a virgin, Tamar! Okay? I’m a freaking virgin. How can a virgin be a slut?”

  “How can a virgin give birth?”

  “Oh god! Just go to hell already. Get away from me.”

  “Because you have mono, that’s why they think that?”

  “Obviously.”

  “’Cause you get mono from kissing?”

  “That’s not the only way you can get it. There are other ways too. It’s highly contagious. It’s probably the most contagious disease in the world.”

  “Right.”

  “What am I gonna do?” She flopped back on the bed, covering her face with her hands.

  “I say screw ’em. Who cares what they think? They’re probably just jealous because all the guys want to kiss you and not them.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Well, forget about them th
en. They’re idiots. You should be happy that you’re so pretty and so many guys like you. I’ve never even kissed a guy.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope.”

  “Tamar, you’re, like, fourteen already!”

  “So?”

  “So you should already be way past your first kiss! What are you, gay or something?”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s okay if you are. I mean, I won’t disown you or anything, but holy crap, you need to get some action!”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because making out is fun! It’s exciting!”

  “I think it’s gross.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t know, would you?”

  I shrugged again.

  “You’re gonna like it, trust me.” Then she sat up and studied my face carefully, as if she was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. She looked at me for what felt like a long time, then squinted. “ALIA!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How come nobody calls her a slut? You should see all the pathetic guys she goes out with. All these frigging loser skater boys that she meets at the punk shows. Frigging drug addicts.”

  “Well anyway, I wouldn’t worry about what they’re saying. People are morons. You know that.”

  “I guess. It really pisses me off though, you know? I feel like punching someone!”

  “Take it easy, Abby. You should be resting.”

  “Rest, rest, rest! I’m sick and tired of resting! I don’t want to rest anymore! I want to go outside and go to the mall and go to the movies and—”

  “You’ll be better soon.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe next week.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise you’re going to get better soon. You’ll be making out again in no time.” I stood up to leave.

  “Tamar?”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to watch 90210 with me?”

  “I can’t. I have a ton of homework.”

  “Please?”

  How could I say no? She was my sister, and she needed me. I sat on the end of her bed and we watched Beverly Hills 90210 together. Abby fell asleep about twenty minutes into it, but I stayed and watched the rest, because I didn’t want her to wake up and realize I had left her.

  No one in our house caught mono from her, so maybe it wasn’t the most contagious disease in the world. It was good that Alia had her own room, though, or else she probably would have caught it.

  She and Abby were born identical, but they looked less and less alike as they got older. They had totally different clothing styles, haircuts, attitudes—everything. Alia was a punk princess, Abby was a pop princess. But they were each other’s best friend forever. There was never any doubt about that. They even had their own special language. Silly words and phrases that didn’t mean anything to anyone else but the two of them. And sometimes I wonder, That night as they lay dying, bleeding all over the road, what did they say to each other? Did they use their last breaths to offer each other some small comfort? I hope so. And I hope whatever they said was nicer than what I last said to the two of them.

  To Abby, it was something like “Tarty. Now get out of my room” when she asked me how she looked. And to Alia, I was cold.

  “Can I borrow your black belt, Tamar?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause you’ll wreck it.”

  “I won’t wreck it!”

  “What do you even need a belt for? Your jeans are too tight already, Al. They’re not gonna fall down.”

  “I need a black accent, okay?”

  “Don’t you have a black belt?”

  “Only in karate! Hi-YAA!” She kicked the air between us and chopped it up with her hands.

  I stared at her without smiling, which was an effort.

  “Okay, I do have a black belt, but it’s too wide for these loops. Please, Tamar? I will never ask you for anything ever again. I promise.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  She put her palms together in front of her heart and made whimpering puppy sounds.

  “Here.” I opened my closet and threw the belt at her. “Now leave me alone. I’m trying to find the angle of this hypotenuse.”

  “Sure thing, Ms. Brainiac.” She saluted me on her way out the door.

  If I had known these would be the last times I would see either of them alive, what would I have said?

  I’m sorry I wasn’t the big sister you ordered. I’m sorry things between us weren’t better. I wanted them to be. I never stopped loving you. I never stopped hoping things would change.

  You think you have so much time. When you’re sixteen, you think you have all the time in the world. But you don’t, and you never know when your time will run out. I know I should have tried harder to be patient, to be kind. But it got to the point where I couldn’t stand either one of them and could scarcely believe we were related.

  Regret is like a heavy stone you carry around in your pocket. You know that it’s useless. You know that it’s weighing you down. But you just can’t seem to throw it away.

  eight

  When I had told the parents that I would be playing Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz. Their reaction wasn’t quite what I had hoped for.

  “That’s wonderful, honey. When is the play?” Mom asked.

  “Congrats,” Dad said.

  No high fives. No hugs. No whoops of joy. No champagne. No taking me out for dinner to celebrate. There was none of the enthusiasm and zeal I had imagined. Maybe they just didn’t care. I know, I know, there are extenuating circumstances. But the twins are gone. I’m still alive.

  When I opened my locker the next morning, a note fell out of the door. In big red bubble letters it said: YOU ARE WAY TOO UGLY AND STUPID FOR ROY. STAY AWAY FROM HIM. I felt a sudden and severe seizing in my chest. I looked around. Everyone was acting normal. Chattering, laughing, zipping and unzipping backpacks. Everyone looked like they belonged there. No one was looking at me. I felt a wave of nausea well up from my guts. All the sounds of the hallway became muffled, and my vision blurred. I slid against the lockers and the floor rose up to meet me. I was dizzy. There was a weird swish-swish noise inside my head. Maybe I should start eating breakfast, I thought.

  I turned the note over and over in my hands. It was an awful, awful message. Who would write that? It was on the same lined paper that everyone used. There were no other marks on the page. It had been ripped out of a three-ring binder and folded in half, twice. I didn’t know what to make of it. I had never gotten a note before. Maybe the person who wrote it had slipped it into the wrong locker. Maybe it was meant for someone else. Maybe it was a joke. Or maybe…maybe someone was supremely and utterly jealous…of me. I didn’t know what to do with the note and I didn’t want to keep it, so I stuffed it into the recycling bin on my way to math class. I decided to try and block it out of my mind. But I had a little cry in the girls’ washroom after math. I couldn’t help it. It was just so hateful. I didn’t do anything to anyone! I didn’t do anything wrong. Roy was my friend! Why would someone give me that note? There are truly awful people in this world.

  I didn’t tell Roy or anyone else about the note. I was trying to learn my lines for the play, keep my grades up, keep my wig on and keep my parents from going insane. I didn’t need this right now. I hated whoever had written it for making me waste so much time thinking about it. Asshole.

  When I got home from school there was a message on the answering machine from Cr
uisy Chicken, a fast-food restaurant I had applied to. It was the manager, Don, asking if I could come in for an interview on Friday at four o’clock.

  I was thrilled. I had an interview, and maybe soon I would have a paying job. But I couldn’t go in on Friday at four because I had rehearsal. Dammit. Maybe I should skip the rehearsal. But I couldn’t. Ms. Jane had said that if we missed two rehearsals without a doctor’s note, we were out of the play. I looked up Cruisy Chicken in the phone book and dialed the number.

  “Cruisy Chicken, how do you cockadoodle do?”

  “Hi. Um…good. Can I speak with Don, please?”

  “Can you hold?”

  When Don came on the line, I told him I’d like to come in for an interview but wouldn’t be able to make it on Friday.

  “No problem. How about next Tuesday?”

  “Um, that’s not good either. I’m in the school play, and we have rehearsals most afternoons.”

  “I see. So when were you planning on working?”

  “Weekends?”

  “Only two days a week?”

  “Yes?”

  He sighed into the phone. “Well, then, just call me the next time you can make it in and we’ll see if we can work something out.”

  At chess club the next day, I told Roy I had an interview at Cruisy Chicken.

  “Wow, you’re lucky.”

  “I am?”

  Roy’s parents wouldn’t let him get a job, because they wanted him to concentrate on school. He had already sent out applications to University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge and University of Toronto, and as soon as he got his marks back from this term, he would apply to the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University. He wanted to study engineering. I don’t know what kind of engineering. And I’m not sure Roy knows either. Roy is an only child. He has a lot of pressure on him to excel. I’m now an only child too, but it isn’t the same only-ness as Roy’s.