The snow had almost melted, and water dripped from the trees like liquid crystals. I turned my face to the sun and felt its warmth.
I was completely floored by the reactions I got at school. It was nothing like the ridicule, wisecracks and torment I had expected to face. Some popular people actually acknowledged me in the halls! They nodded or said, “Hey, Tamar.” And the look in their eyes wasn’t pity. It seemed to be respect. Some preppy grade-twelve girls told me they loved my scarf! They asked where I got it. I couldn’t believe it.
“That’s so terrible what Beth did to you,” a tall blond said to me.
“She’s always been a bitch,” said her friend. “I’ve known her since preschool. Even back then she was nasty.”
“Uh, thanks, I guess.”
The girls kept walking. They were two of the most popular girls at Canyon Meadows High. And they had just taken my side over Beth’s.
At lunchtime I went to chess club, and for the first time ever, I beat Roy. I beat him! He told me he let me win, but I know he was lying, because he would never do that.
“So, if I beat you, and you were ranked fifth-best youth chess player in Canada, then that must mean that I’m the fourth best!”
“Not really,” he said.
“No?”
“No, that’s faulty logic.”
“Oh, please. What are you, a Vulcan?”
He got this really hurt look on his face and I felt bad, but then he held up his left hand and separated his middle finger and his ring finger. He looked very serious. We both busted a gut laughing. Some of the other chess players shot us dirty looks because we had interrupted their concentration. We tried to stifle our laughter, but every time we looked at each other we started giggling again, so eventually we got up and left. We went to the cafeteria and split a small order of fries.
“I like your thing,” Roy said, poking around in the fry basket.
“My thing?”
“Your…head…thing.” He waved his fingers around his head.
“Thanks. Hey, what the hell happened to your uncle?”
“My uncle?”
“Dr. Lung.”
“Oh, he had to go to China.”
“China. Really?”
“Yeah, his friend is really sick. So he went to be with her.”
“So he just dropped everything and split town?”
Roy shrugged. “What are ya gonna do? You never know how much longer people are going to live.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You never do.”
On Tuesday when I walked into the theater for rehearsal, the whole cast burst into applause. I don’t know why—it’s not like I’m a hero or anything. I just did what anyone would have in the same situation. Maybe they thought I had cancer or something, I don’t know.
“Welcome back, Tamar,” Ms. Jane said as she put her arm around my shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and I went to join the cast circle on stage. We did some vocal warm-ups and some interpretative dancing to loosen up, then began rehearsing the scene where Dorothy is screwing around on the farm and falls in the pigpen.
Beth didn’t say anything to me except her lines. I noticed she still had a small scrape on her face from where I had scratched her. And I couldn’t help feeling a little bit pleased about that.
After rehearsal, Scott McKinnon came up to me while I was tying my shoe.
“Hey, Tamar.”
“Hey, Scott.”
“What are you doing after this?”
I shrugged. “No plans.”
“Want to grab a coffee?”
“Um, sure. Why not?”
I had no idea why Scott wanted to hang out with me all of a sudden. Maybe because in the eyes of the other kids, he was a freak, and now, so was I. Maybe somehow that bonded us. He had a gentle voice and eyes the color of caramel candies. If he wasn’t gay, maybe I would have had a crush on him, but he was, so it didn’t matter.
I told him about getting fired from Cruisy Chicken, which I hadn’t told anyone except my dad. I still felt ashamed for not being able to keep that crappy-ass job.
“I got fired this year too,” he said.
“Really? Why?”
“I was working at the movie theater, taking tickets, and when Andrea and her friends would come—this is when we were together—I would let them in for free. It wasn’t hurting anybody. The movies would show regardless of how many people were in the theater. Anyway, one day the manager asked to see their tickets and Andrea’s friend told him I always let them in for free.”
I groaned.
“And that was the end of that.”
“That sucks.”
He shrugged. “I got another job right away.”
“Where?”
“Mik’s Milk.” He took a sip of coffee. “I could probably get you in there too, if you’re looking for another job. Someone just quit.”
“Yeah, I am, actually. I can only work weekends though.”
“Me too. We’d be working together.” He smiled.
“Cool.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Pete.”
“Wow, thanks. That would be great.”
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
I nodded and wrapped my fingers around my mug, letting the heat seep through my hands.
“Were you, um, were you born bald?”
“No.” I pressed my lips together and sighed. “This is a recent development.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Do you know why it happened?”
“I guess it’s some rare disease or post-traumatic stress disorder or a combination of the two. Something like that.”
“That’s rough.”
“Yeah, it’s been a difficult year, to say the least.”
He nodded. “Is it painful?”
“In some ways…”
He looked into his mug, and his caramel eyes glazed over. “I know what you mean.”
I took a sip of coffee.
He looked into my eyes then, as if he was searching them for something. “Do you think it will grow back?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
We finished our coffee and Scott walked me home. The sky was a bruised plum. A group of song sparrows flitted by us, and I felt my heart lift a little.
“That was nice,” he said as we came to the end of my driveway. “We should do it again sometime.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”
A wide grin split his face, and my heart skipped inside my chest.
The next day I wore the painted scarf from Stellar’s Island and got loads of compliments on it too. I hoped my mom would bring me back more scarves from the island—if she ever came back, that is.
I overheard someone refer to me as “freaky bald chick,” but I let it roll off…water… duck’s back…whatever.
At lunchtime I met Roy at his locker.
“Hey, Tamar. Do you want to go see Rocky tonight at the cheap theater?”
“Um, I don’t know. I think I have to wash my hair.”
We both laughed.
“Come on, it’s my favorite movie of all time.”
“Rocky? Really?”
He nodded.
“Well, in that case…”
“Sweet.”
All day there were annoying announcements over the PA for the grade twelves to hurry up and get their prom tickets because tomorrow was the last day they would be on sale. There were prom posters everywhere I turned. I overheard girls gushing about what their dresses were like or what the dresses they wanted were like, and who they were going with or who they wanted to go with. It was enough to make you puke. Canyon Meadows High always had its prom earlier than the other sc
hools in Calgary. A few had theirs in April, and the rest in May; we were the only ones in March. It was supposed to help avoid conflict or public drunkenness or whatever the hell school administrators were afraid would happen if thousands of kids around the city were celebrating at the same time.
I met Roy at the theater at six forty-five. He bought popcorn and I bought black licorice, and we sat in the sticky red bucket seats and waited for the movie to start.
“Are you going to prom?” I asked him, just to make conversation.
“I don’t know, are you?”
“No, I can’t. I’m in grade eleven.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“Grade elevens can only go as a grade twelve’s date.”
“Okay, shh, it’s starting!”
I rolled my eyes in the dark.
thirteen
The next day when I was at my locker between second and third period, getting my biology textbook, Eric Gaines tapped me on the shoulder. Eric is a semipopular grade twelve. He’s on the rugby team and writes the sports column in our school paper. He sometimes says hello to me in the halls, I think because he hung around with my sisters. Eric is taller than any of the teachers. He has thick, charcoal-colored hair and his skin always looks tanned. He’s what my mom would call big-boned. Solid, not fat.
“How’s it going, Tamar?” He leaned against the locker beside mine.
“Oh, hey, Eric. What’s up?”
“I was wondering…do you, uh, do you want to go to prom with me?” His ink-black eyes darted from my face to my feet and back again. He smiled, displaying a mouth full of teeth as white and square as Chiclets.
There was what you could call a pregnant pause as I considered the implications of his question. He stared down at me, mouth slightly agape, eyes shimmering with what looked like hope. I heard the voices of my sisters yelling in the back of my head, “Yes. Yes! YES! Say yes, you moron!!!”
“Um, okay. Sure.”
“Yeah?” His dark eyes gleamed like two polished stones.
“Yeah.”
“That’s great! I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at eight, okay?”
“Okay.”
“See ya!” Then he hurtled away.
I stuck my face into the cool darkness of my locker and waited for my crimson blush to subside. I grinned into the sleeve of my coat. I knew it was cheesy and totally overrated, but I couldn’t help being a teensy bit excited. I was going to prom!
I ran home after school and ransacked my mom’s and my sisters’ closets for a suitable dress to wear to the prom. I settled on a floor-length black dress of Mom’s with a slit up the side. It had rhinestone spaghetti straps and tiny sparkles running through it. I tried it on in the parents’ room in front of their full-length mirror. I looked slender, leggy and, as Mom would say, busty, if only a little. I found a rhinestone choker in her jewelry box that matched perfectly. The only thing left was to decide what to do with my hair—or lack of hair, as it were. I tried on the black dragon scarf, but it didn’t seem formal enough for a prom. I could wear my wig, but I felt so fake and weird about it now. What if I just went with a naked head? Could I do that? Should I?
I tried it out. I looked at myself from every angle. It certainly was…striking…daring, even. I would be the only bald eagle at the prom. That was…unique. But could I really do it? Could I pull it off? “Maybe with some bright red lipstick,” I heard Abby say. “And some black eyeliner,” Alia added.
The phone shrilled and I grabbed it before it could ring again. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Hey, Roy.”
“Tamar?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you be my prom date?”
My heart hurled itself against my chest like a caged bird. “I’d love to—”
“Cool.”
“But I can’t.”
“Oh.”
“Someone else already asked me.”
“I see.”
I could hear the disappointment in his voice, and I felt like yelling into the phone, “Why didn’t you ask me sooner, you stupid idiot?”
“Well, have a good time then.”
“Thanks.”
“Bye.”
“Bye, Roy.”
I listened as he hung up, and then I belly flopped on the parents’ bed and screamed into a pillow.
On Friday I couldn’t hear any of my teachers. Their mouths were moving, but all I heard was, “Okay class, blah blah blah. And blah blah blah you know your blah will be coming up soon. So blah blah blah…” Paper airplanes were zooming around in my stomach all day. In rehearsal I screwed up a couple of lines, and it threw everyone off. It was embarrassing. But Cole Benson didn’t even know all his lines yet and still had to call out “LINE!” for prompts all the time, so I didn’t feel that bad about it.
Ms. Jane let us go early. She said our energy was through the roof but so scattered that we were useless.
“FOCUS, PEOPLE! That’s your homework. I want you to go home and think about focus. What it means to really”—she put her hands to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut, took a big breath in and let out a huge, long, noisy breath through her nostrils—“focus.”
We all left the theater, chattering and giddy. Outside, it was raining lions and tigers and bears (Oh my).
Scott McKinnon walked me home, and I was grateful because he shared his umbrella.
“So my manager should be giving you a call this weekend,” Scott said.
“Wow, that’s great. Thank you so much.”
“No problem.”
I sidestepped a puddle. Scott walked right through it.
“Would you want to go to prom with me tonight, Tamar? As friends, obviously.”
My belly did a backflip and I tried to keep my face composed. Damn, damn, double damn. “I’d really like to Scott, but I’ve already said yes to someone else.”
“Oh yeah, that figures.”
“Thanks for asking me though.”
“I just thought it could be fun, that’s all. I haven’t danced in a while.”
I nodded.
“Do you like to dance?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a few years. I probably shouldn’t do it in public.”
He laughed. “Every Wednesday is salsa night at the Rose and Bull.”
“Yeah?”
“You should come with me sometime.”
I smiled. His hair looked good wet. “I’d like that,” I said.
I had a vision of me in a ruffly red salsa dress with my naked head, and Scott with a rose clenched between his teeth. I had to suppress my laughter.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you on Monday then.”
“Thanks for sharing your umbrella.”
“Anytime.” He spun on his heel and sauntered away. I watched his black umbrella bobbing up and down all the way to the end of my street, until he turned the corner. I wondered if he would always be with guys now or if he would make exceptions.
I heated up one of Mom’s lasagnas for dinner. No one could make a lasagna as good as my mom’s. No one. I flipped the calendar page over. She had been gone two weeks. Neither Dad nor I had heard from her since she’d left. Not a postcard, not a collect call, nothing. I guess they didn’t allow contact with the outside world at her assram. That would be the only logical explanation.
“Dad! Dinner’s ready!”
We were going to eat at the kitchen table like a proper family. Because I didn’t want lasagna all over my lap, because TV rots your brain and dulls your eyes, because…because it was prom night, damn it. Dad sat down in his usual chair and I set a glass of milk down beside his plate. His eyes were bleary, and his hands had little red slashes all over them from his can cutting. We began to eat without saying g
race, which still seemed strange to me.
“Dad?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think Mom’s coming back?”
He set down his fork, swallowed and wiped at the sides of his mouth with his napkin. “I have no reason to believe otherwise,” he said.
I nodded and we finished the meal in silence.
“Do you?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I do.”
He looked at the calendar on the wall. “Is it March already?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she’ll be back soon then.”
“What if they brainwashed her?”
He smiled. “I think it was a little late for that, don’t you?”
We both had a small laugh.
“It’s a special night tonight, Dad.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“I’m going to prom.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s fantastic, T. Who’s the lucky fella?”
“His name is Eric Gaines. He’s on the rugby team and he writes for the school paper.”
“Wonderful.”
“But get this…”
He leaned in.
“I was also asked by two other guys.”
“Of course you were. You’re probably the prettiest girl in school.”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
“I know you’re the smartest.”
“Dad!”
“So, how did you make your decision?”
“Well, Eric asked me first and I said yes, and then the other guys asked me later, so I couldn’t go back on my word.”
“They must have been devastated.”
“I doubt it.”
“Well, I guess the early bird catches the worm, as they say.”
“Are you calling me a worm?”
“I meant worm as in caterpillar, and caterpillar as in butterfly. Beautiful, elegant, graceful butterfly.”
The New Normal Page 11