The New Normal

by Ashley Little

  “You should get some sleep,” I said, pulling back.

  “One more.” He leaned in and kissed me again. Then he got into the little red car and I watched him drive away as the night tilted toward morning.

  eighteen

  We all slept until late in the afternoon. I didn’t have to go to school. Then we had a big breakfast: banana pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit. Mom ground up a bunch of spices and made us chai tea, something she had learned to make at The Yoga Farm. It was milky sweet but also spicy. Delicious. We watched a corny movie and ate popcorn and played Jenga. It was nice to have my family back together—what was left of it anyway.

  On Saturday I worked at Mik’s Milk and Gas. The sky was a great gray cotton ball, threatening to rain.

  Between customers, Scott and I had contests to see who could make the best slushie combination. I got bonus points for most colorful: pink cream soda, orange crush, lemon ice and blueberry blast. But Scott’s tasted better: Coke with cherry on top.

  Around one thirty, Barney came in. Barney had to be pushing ninety. Wisps of white hair poked out of his mesh trucker’s hat. He came in every Saturday at the same time to play “his numbers.” He played Lotto 649 with the same six numbers every week, no extra. He had probably been playing those numbers every Saturday since the lottery was invented. I don’t know if he’s ever won. I doubt it, since he drives an ancient rust bucket and always wears the same clothes, a red plaid jacket and brown corduroy pants. I sighed as Barney left, ticket clutched tightly in his withered hand.

  “What’s wrong?” Scott asked.

  “I don’t know. Something about Barney depresses me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s never going to win.”

  “Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, but you know what he has got?”

  “What?”

  “Hope.”

  I nodded. Then two trucks and a car pulled in for gas, and Scott went out to fill them.

  I barely heard the beep-beep of the door opening anymore, but I did notice it when a short guy dressed all in black and wearing pantyhose over his head came in. He reached behind him and locked the door. Oh God oh God oh God what now? I pressed the emergency button that hung around my neck and held it down. He pulled a gun out of his jacket and leveled it at my face. There was one other person in the store, a fat red-headed kid by the slushie machine, filling a giant cup.

  “Open the cash drawer!” The man walked up to the counter and kept the gun pointed at my forehead. Then he turned it on the red-headed kid. “Don’t try to be a hero, bucko!” He turned back to me. “Are you deaf? I said open the fucking drawer!” He slammed his fist against the counter.

  “I—I can’t open it.”

  “Don’t fuck around with me, girl. I will kill you without batting an eyelash.” He held the gun an inch away from my eye.

  I stared into the black abyss of the barrel. I swallowed. My knees began to wobble so violently that I was afraid I was going to fall down. “It doesn’t open it unless I make a sale or…or…or scan something through.”

  “Jesus.” He picked up a pack of gum from the shelf and threw it on the counter. “Here.”

  I scanned it with shaking hands and pressed the cash button. The drawer popped open. The man kept the gun trained on my face. I looked past it and out the window. I could see that Scott’s back was to me as he filled a big truck hauling a horse trailer. He looked to be having an animated conversation with the driver. Useless, totally useless.

  “Come on! Move it! Move it! Move it!” The guy banged his hand against the counter again. “Take out the drawer! Dump the money in a bag! NOW!”

  I bent to get a plastic bag. The phone rang. My heart seized. I looked at the phone. It was right beside my hand.

  “Don’t answer that!”

  I looked at the phone again. It was so close. I could just press the Talk button and it would stop ringing, and whoever was calling would be able to hear what was happening and send help. It was right there. I didn’t press it though. I stood up. The phone kept ringing. I looked at the red-headed kid. The shrill of the phone finally stopped as we stared at each other. The kid took a noisy sip of his slushie and swallowed, his eyes bulging out of his head. Then the phone started ringing again.

  “LET’S GO!” the robber yelled, smacking the gun against the counter.

  I dumped the contents of the cash drawer into the plastic bag, and he grabbed it out of my hand. He turned around, pulled off the pantyhose, unlocked the door and walked out. As if he were just another customer, carrying a bag full of junk food. The phone was silent. Everything was silent.

  I sat down with a thud behind the counter. Everything spun around me. I stared at the phone. Then I picked it up and dialled 9-1-1.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “I’ve just been robbed.”

  “Are you injured?”

  I looked down at my body. My hands were shaking, my knees were shaking, and I wanted to vomit. “No,” I said. “I…I’m okay.”

  “Is anyone else injured?”

  I peered over the counter at the red-headed kid. He was staring out the window after the robber and gulping down his slushie like he was dying of thirst. “No,” I said.

  “Just sit tight, ma’am. The police are on their way.”

  After I’d hung up, I took off my emergency-button necklace, threw it on the floor and stomped on it until it was broken in a million little pieces. Then I took off my Mik’s hat, tossed it on the counter, grabbed my purse and walked out the door.

  “Hey, Tamar! Where are you going?” Scott yelled after me.

  “I QUIT!”

  As I walked home, I watched the sunset unfurl like a dying rose. My heart was like a jackhammer inside my chest. Everything looked blurred around the edges. I felt cold and sick to my stomach. Just keep walking. Go home. Go home. I tried to focus on my breath. In. Out. In…and out. I couldn’t get it back to normal. But I was breathing, I was still alive.

  When I opened the door, my mom and dad were sitting on the couch playing cards. One look at my mom, and I crumbled.

  “Tamar, what’s the matter?”

  I fell into my mom’s lap and exploded into tears.

  “Shh, it’s okay, honey. I’m here now. Don’t cry.” She smoothed my bare scalp with her hand.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Dad asked.

  “Tell us what happened, Tamar. Did somebody hurt you?”

  I nodded yes, but I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me, but I was bawling too hard to tell them. Tears and snot sprayed out of me in all directions. It took me about half an hour to calm down. When I finally got it out, they were horrified.

  “I’m calling the police!” Dad said.

  “I already did,” I said.

  “I’m calling them again then.”

  “Why? What’s the point?”

  “I’m calling the store!” Mom said.

  “No. It’s done. It’s over now.”

  They looked at each other and moved to be on either side of me. Then they wrapped themselves around me like a blanket. I closed my eyes and let myself be held. Together, we waited for the tremors to subside.

  nineteen

  After I had calmed down enough, Mom made me change into my pajamas, even though it was only five thirty. She made me chamomile tea and toast with butter and honey. Eventually, I stopped shaking.

  Scott called later that night to see if I was okay. He had figured out what had happened, and I guess the red-headed kid had stuck around long enough to puke up his slushie and talk to the cops. Scott had called the owner, Pete, and Pete didn’t even let him close down the store. He brought in a new float and put the pumps on self-serve so Scott could keep working by himself.


  “Tamar, I am so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I should have been in there with you. I could have done something.”

  “There was nothing you could have done, Scott. I’m just glad I wasn’t shot to death.”

  “Oh god, me too! I never would have been able to forgive myself. I am so sorry this happened to you. I never would have…I never thought—”

  “I’ll survive. I always do.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. If you need anything, anything at all.”

  “Okay.”

  “Just call me. Anytime, day or night.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Promise me you’ll call me if you need anything, even just someone to talk to.”

  “I promise.”

  “Oh, and Tamar?”

  “What?”

  “The police said they need to talk to you too. To help them fill out their incident report or whatever. I said I’d tell you to call them.”

  “Okay.”

  Yes, I was shattered. Traumatized, even. But, on the upside, the whole experience had made me feel lucky to be alive, and I hadn’t felt that way in a long, long time.

  I was glad it was the weekend, because I just wanted to chill. It actually turned out to be a long weekend for me, because the parents and I decided I shouldn’t go to school on Monday. It was nice having Mom back home, and Dad was coming around to his old self again, finally. He’d had his cast taken off and we all went for a little walk through the flat part of Fish Creek Park together. The trees were popping out their bright green buds and the creek was higher than I had ever seen it. We saw a buck and doe with their awkward new fawn, ten or fifteen black squirrels and a bunch of different birds, including a red-winged blackbird.

  When we got home, Mom and I made a big pot of chili and Dad made bread. After dinner, we played Scrabble. I won with a triple-word score on the word xenophobia. Mom told us she had seen God during a meditation at the Yoga Farm, that they had made their peace and now she wasn’t afraid anymore.

  “What did God look like?” I asked.

  “Like the brightest star you’ve ever seen.”

  “Like the sun?”

  “Brighter.”

  On Tuesday morning, I was dressed and down in the kitchen eating cereal at seven thirty. But I had accidentally poured orange juice on my cereal and milk in my glass. I was still getting used to the whole breakfast thing. I decided to eat it anyway, as it all goes down the same hole. My mom sat down at the table across from me with her coffee and looked at my bowl.

  “Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “You don’t have to go to school today if you don’t want to. We can just take it easy for a while.”

  “I should probably just go. I can’t hide away from the world forever.”

  She smiled. “I’m proud of you, Tamar.”

  I pushed my orange-y flakes around in my bowl.

  Later, as I was going out the door, my mom said, “Hey, Tamar, it’s a little chilly out today. Maybe you want to wear a toque?” She handed me a black cap. I pulled it on and realized I had almost left for school with a naked head. Maybe tomorrow I would. After staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, somehow being bald didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

  Roy came up to my locker at first bell.

  “Guess what I got this weekend?” he asked, grinning.

  “Uh, robbed at gunpoint?”

  “No…”

  “Oh, because that would have been a coincidence.”

  “What?”

  “Because I did.”

  “What?”

  I nodded and bit my lower lip.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack.”

  “Holy shit! Tamar! Are you okay?”

  “I think so. I didn’t get shot anyway.”

  “Oh my god. I can’t believe this. Why didn’t you call me?”

  I shrugged. “What could you have done?”

  “I could have been there for you.”

  “My family was there.”

  “But—”

  “It’s okay, Roy.”

  “Jesus.” He put his arms around me and held me tight. I could feel him shaking his head in disbelief.

  After a minute or two, I pulled away. “So what’s your news?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “No, come on, tell me.”

  “I got two tickets to the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show in July, that’s all.”

  “What? Really? That’s awesome!”

  He nodded, a micro grin curling up the corners of his lips.

  “How did you get those?”

  “Do you know anyone who would want to go with me?” He looked up and down the hallway, pretending to search for someone to take.

  “Yeah.” I hit him lightly in the chest. “Me!” I couldn’t help bouncing up and down. I couldn’t help giving him a giant smack of a kiss on the lips.

  twenty

  It seemed like July would never come. I was still thinking of moving to Vancouver with Roy at the end of the summer, but I didn’t mention anything to the parents about it. They were busy. They were repainting the kitchen. A warm, sunny yellow, Mom called it. Actually, it was more like the color of urine, but no one asked my opinion. They both spoke of going back to work soon. They had begun to sort through Abby’s and Alia’s things, deciding what to keep, what to donate and what to throw away. They talked about making some sort of presentation at high schools about drinking and driving. They seemed sort of shy around each other, tentative. As if they were just getting to know one another instead of having been married for twenty years already.

  Dad said if anything happened to me before the concert, he would have to go in my place. I think he was a little jealous that I was going, but he had gotten to see Pink Floyd on their Wish You Were Here tour in 1975.

  The first Friday in May, we had the dress rehearsal of The Wizard of Oz and performed it for the Canyon Meadows Elementary kids. I wore my Auntie Em wig, which was gray and curly, and actually didn’t look too bad. I wasn’t that nervous—the audience was only about twenty twerpy little kids, after all.

  There were a few screwups but nothing major. The lighting was sketchy in some places. The spotlight didn’t come on over the right part of the stage and had to sweep across it twice to find the person it was aiming for. Our techie wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, as they say.

  In our notes afterward, Ms. Jane told me to smile more.

  On Saturday night, I was nervous. I left almost all of the food on my plate at dinner.

  “Why aren’t you eating? You need to eat,” Dad said.

  “I can’t. I might throw up.”

  “Why would you throw up?” Mom asked.

  “Opening-night jitters.” I shrugged.

  “T, don’t be ridiculous. You know all your lines. You did fine in your rehearsal, right? What do you have to be nervous about?”

  “I don’t know? The fact that I’ll be on display for everyone to stare at. If I screw up, I could ruin the entire play. Anything could happen, and everyone would see. I could trip, fall on my face, a spotlight could fall on my head—”

  “Tamar, honey, relax. Okay? Deep breaths. Here, try this. Cover your right nostril with your thumb and inhale through your left nostril.”

  I did as she showed me.

  “Good. Now cover the left nostril and exhale through the right. Good, good, that’s it. Now, inhale right and exhale left.”

  “What are you doing?” Dad laughed.

  “It’s called nadi shodhana, alternate-nostril breathing. It’s a calming yogic technique
,” Mom said sharply.

  He put up his hands. “Just asking, that’s all.”

  “I think it’s working,” I said.

  “Of course it is,” Dad said, rolling his eyes. “When you’re finished that, I want you to eat at least six more bites of your dinner, or else you’ll have no energy left for Auntie Em.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “And I want to help you with your makeup,” Mom said.

  “We have people for that, Mom. They have to use the really thick theater stuff. It’s not normal makeup.”

  “Well, I’ll do your eyebrows then.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  “And don’t forget to call your grandma so she can tell you to break a leg,” Dad said.

  “Do I have to? I have to go pretty soon; you know how she goes on.”

  “Yes, you have to.”

  “And don’t forget to pee before you go onstage,” Mom said. “That will help with the jitters.”

  “OKAY!”

  Twenty minutes later, I slammed out the door to go get my makeup and hair done and get into costume. On the walk to school, I thought about how, even though they could be irritating as hell, they were cute, my parents, in their own way.

  Roy was my best friend, my boyfriend, my Rock of Gibraltar, and I had no idea how I was going to get through my last year of high school without him, but how could I leave my parents right now? They were so fragile.

  My costume looked good, my wig looked good, and Marika, the makeup artist, assured me that my makeup would look great from far away. I had on dark-mauve lipstick to make my mouth stand out, fat gray eyebrows, thick black eyeliner and tons of mascara, and heavy, heavy taupe foundation. As I was getting the rosiest pink cheeks in the world painted on, there was a loud knock on the door of the dressing room.

  “Yeah?” Marika yelled as she dusted my face with powder.

  A bald man stepped into the room. “Special delivery!” he said. He held a bouquet of flowers in one hand, and in the other, a single red rose.