by Carrie Mac
“Jesus.” Harris shook his head. “At least tell me you’ll think about it?”
“I am not going to lie to you just because that’s what you want to hear.” Alice’s tone was fast shifting from just barely tolerant to right pissed off.
“Okay, okay.” He stepped back, hands up. “I give up, then. Obviously that’s what you want.”
He waited for Alice to argue with that, but she just lit a cigarette and said nothing. Cassy toddled down the steps with her tape dispenser and plunked herself on Alice’s lap. Harris stared at the two of them and sighed. He leaned down and kissed Cassy on the top of her head and Alice on her cheek. He would’ve kissed her on the lips, but she turned her head at the last second. He looked the three of them up and down, and then placed his hand on Cassy’s head, feeling her soft curls and the sweaty heat of her, until Cassy grabbed onto his thick fingers and pushed him away.
“See ya, kid.” He opened his arms to Zoe.
Zoe hugged him, not because she was sad to see the last of him, but because she felt sorry for him, the way Alice was brushing him off, and Cassy too, like none of them ever really wanted him in the first place. For a second, Zoe felt bad about all the things she wrote about him in her diary, like the way he stank of fish all the time, and how he just barged in without knocking, and the way he yelled at Cassy if she came anywhere near his beer or cigarettes or Prince George Pirates hat. She watched him drive off real slow, stepping on the brakes more than necessary, and then she and Alice packed up the car and Cassy and left, taking the long way to the highway so they wouldn’t pass his house on the way.
abbotsford
Abbotsford smelled like cow shit, thanks to the surrounding farms. The small city was blanketed in a disgusting yellow smog that crept down the valley from Vancouver like a slow mob of foul ghosts, but worst of all was that the small city was full of the same boring crap as Prince George: fast food chains, rundown motels, gas stations, car dealerships, boarded-up shops and a half empty strip mall every ten blocks or so. The only difference Zoe noted at first, and it was rather alarming, was that there were so many churches it looked like religion was the industry, like Abbotsford’s claim to international trade fame was producing factory-model Christians for waning congregations all over the world: perfect, tidy, wide-grinning Jesus freaks of all shapes and colors.
Rejoice In His Name, the mother lode of all churches—the parking lot alone took up two square blocks—was just down the road from their new place. It had a hundred-foot-high white neon cross cabled up on the roof that Zoe could see from the crusty, rather un-Christian motel they spent their first night at, and it was all the way out by the highway.
As for the first person she met, that did not go well. While Alice went to get the key at Paradise Heights, a scabby condo complex that was not paradise and was not high up to anything, Zoe and Cassy found a little playground, and there she was: perched at the top of the jungle gym, stocky, about Zoe’s age, short auburn hair stuck up all over on purpose, olive green cargo shorts, black tank top, a cigarette pinched between her first and second fingers like a joint, bare feet dangling over the edge, a pair of skater shoes and a puddle of butts on the ground under her.
Cassy tilted her head back to look up at her. The girl frowned down, took a drag off her cigarette and flicked it onto the sand at Cassy’s feet, barely missing her head. Cassy squatted and peered at it. She carefully set down her dinosaur cup and reached out to pick up the smoldering butt.
“Cassy, no!” Zoe yanked her away. She glared up at the girl. “What the hell did you do that for?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see her.”
“You looked right at her!”
The girl shrugged again, and then pushed herself off her perch. She was at least eight feet up, but she landed smoothly on both feet. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head back just so, all tough-girl slick.
“I said I didn’t see her.” She took a deliberate step forward.
“Like hell you didn’t see her.” Zoe turned to leave with Cassy. She might rag on her little sister a bit, but the fact remained that she was more of a mama bear than Alice would ever be when it came to Cassy. “What a bitch.”
The girl clamped a hand on Zoe’s shoulder. “Look, if you want to make this a big deal, go right ahead, little girl.”
“Little girl?” Zoe was taller than she was, by a good two inches. “She must be talking to you, Cassy,” Zoe baby talked at her. “What do you say? You wanna make a big deal, honey?”
The girl tensed. She lifted her arm slightly, like she was either going to push her bangs out of her eyes or belt Zoe in the face, but before she could do either, Alice came down the path and called for Zoe and Cassy to come see the new place.
Number eleven Paradise Heights smelled like stale bedding and pork chops. Zoe’s new room stank of stale bedding, pork chops and cat pee. Kid scribbles decorated all four walls.
“We can paint as soon as there’s some extra cash,” Alice said, lingering at the door.
Zoe didn’t even bother to nod. She just added the suggestion to the very long list of things Alice said they could do as soon as there was some extra cash.
Alice took a small step into the room. “Where’re you going to put your travelling star?”
Zoe was six when Alice first brought the traveling stars home halfway through the school year, a few days after Alice had announced she’d got a job in Grand Forks that started in a month. Zoe told her mother that if she left her a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and some apples, she’d stay behind and live in the garden shed and go to school on time every day and wouldn’t bother the new renters at all. Alice said she’d think about it.
The next day, she brought home a handful of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars wrapped in a square of purple silk. She said they were travelling stars, given to her by the moving fairy, who thought it’d be a bad idea for Zoe to live in the shed all by herself. According to Alice, the fairy put a spell on them, so they’d capture all the good stuff from Vernon and carry it to their new place in Grand Forks. After that, whenever they moved, they were the last thing to come down, and the first to go up, a ritual, which up until now, Zoe had always looked forward to.
Usually she’d wander around any new bedroom, trailing her fingers along the walls, waiting for the perfect spot to speak to her, but this time she just reached up from where she was sitting and stuck one on the wall. Maybe it’d lost its magic, or maybe there was no good stuff to bring from Prince George. Or maybe it was just a stupid ritual to placate little kids.
Alice frowned at it, lopsided in the corner. She pointed her beer bottle at it. “You can pick a better place for it once we’ve painted.”
Zoe didn’t want to pick a better place. She wanted to pluck it off the wall and chuck it out the window along with all the other trash out there rotting on the carport roof.
“We’re going to be fine, Zoe.” Alice touched the star, as if for good luck. “I just know it. This move is a great opportunity for positive change. You’ve just got to—”
“Give it a chance,” Zoe cut her off. “I know.”
Later, while Alice looked through the phone book for a motel to stay at for the night, Zoe pushed open her window, careful to brace the cracked glass. She climbed out onto the carport roof and stepped around the trash to the edge. She stared into the night, past the blue TV shimmer of rooms lit behind curtains, over the roofs and across to the little playground.
The girl was still there, on a swing, pumping hard, so high the chain slackened before letting her down. Then suddenly she stopped, digging her bare feet into the sand. There was a tiny flash of flame as she lit a cigarette, the tip bright orange as she inhaled. She kicked herself in circles, tightening the chain until it wouldn’t turn anymore. Then for a second, she stared across the night between them and right at Zoe until she let go, spinning into a dark fast blur.
first day of school
The next time Zoe saw the girl was on the first day of school. H
er name was Beck, short for Rebecca, and she was definitely what Alice would call “a piece of work.” Zoe was herded into the gym that first morning along with all the other new students to get paired up with someone who was supposed to show them around. Mr. Cromwell, the fat counselor in charge, called them “volunteer ambassadors.” Most of them looked like factory-fresh Christians, with perfect haircuts and preppy clothes, the girls with careful lipstick, the boys with polished shoes and buttoned-up shirts tucked in; but some of them obviously did not want to be there, including Beck, who strolled in while Mr. Cromwell blathered on about the school’s district-wide famous zero tolerance policy on drugs.
“So nice of you to join us.” He frowned at her. “I was looking for you.”
She mimicked his frown. “You found me. Congratulations.”
He pointed a shut-up finger at her, and finished with his threats of expulsion and police involvement. Then he started down the list, pairing them off. He called Zoe’s name and Beck’s in the same breath. Up in the bleachers, Zoe slowly stood. Not really. Not her. No way.
“Not her, Cromwell.” Beck shook her head. “Just this one little favor?”
Cromwell waved for Zoe to hurry up.
“And you,” he said to Zoe when she joined them, “Wipe that look off your face. You’re too new to have grudges.” He checked Zoe’s name on the list. “Rebecca.” He snapped his fingers. “Get over here, pronto.”
“Don’t call me that.” She pushed herself away from the wall and sauntered over, glaring at Zoe. When Mr. Cromwell looked up from the roster, Beck smiled at him. “Come on, Cromwell. Don’t do this to me.” She hooked an arm through his. “I’m the last person she wants to hang out with.”
“All the more reason, then.” Cromwell removed her arm and handed them each a piece of paper. “You two can work it out. This is Zoe’s schedule.” He looked over his glasses at Beck. “And if I hear you’ve ditched Miss Anderson at any point during the day, we’ll be having words, or more to the point I’ll be having words and you will be sitting in a chair listening attentively.”
Zoe walked a couple paces behind Beck as she led her all over the school, like Zoe was some half-wit who wouldn’t realize what she was doing.
“Come on.” Zoe was not about to go back down the stairs they’d just come up. “Are you taking me there or not?”
“Oh, look, we’re there.” Beck pointed down the hall at a green door with a Shakespeare poster under the little window. “I’ll be back for you after class.”
“Don’t bother,” Zoe said. “It’s obvious you don’t want to do this. Forget it.”
“I said, I’ll be back for you after class. If I don’t babysit you all day, Cromwell will have my ass, okay? Happy?”
“Why did you volunteer then?”
“I don’t volunteer to do anything. This is Cromwell’s idea of ‘rehabilitation.’” She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag and stuck one between her lips before taking off down the stairs.
A tiny woman with a sweep of silver hair piled high on her head opened the door just as Beck disappeared.
“Do tell me you are not going to stand out here all day.” Mrs. Henley pulled Zoe into the room by her elbow. “Take a seat, child.” Zoe made her way to a desk at the back, thirty sets of who-the-hell-is-she eyes locked on her.
“You’ll have plenty of time to alienate her later, people.” Mrs. Henley picked up a clipboard. “Now, all I ask, please, is that when I call your name you answer anything but yeah.” She raced through the list, hardly waiting for the “heres” and “presents” until she called out “Rebecca? Miz Wilson?” Silence. “Has anyone seen her this morning?” Silence. “No one has seen the illustrious Beck yet?” She looked down her nose at two girls in particular, a chunky blonde with harsh eyebrows, and a tiny South Asian girl with hair down to her bum. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”
Everyone stared blankly forward.
“April? You were in the gym just now, was she there?”
A skinny girl with limp wheat-colored hair looked up from scratching her knees. She turned in her desk to look at Zoe. Zoe slouched in her seat and looked right through her. April turned back to the front and nodded, lanky hair falling across her narrow face, fingers worrying a gold cross at her throat, a WWJD bracelet slipping down her wrist. Until then, Zoe had thought the whole What-Would-Jesus-Do thing was a joke. She didn’t believe people actually wore that crap, let alone believed in it.
“Well? Was she or was she not in the gymnasium with the other volunteer ambassadors?”
The class snickered.
“Yes,” April whispered.
“Hark!” Mrs. Henley cupped a hand to her ear. “Is that the sound of verity I hear before me?” She noted something on her clipboard before smiling generously at April. “Thank you, Miz Donelly.”
Beck was waiting in the hall after class, although it was only to pass Zoe off to Simon, a pale, slender boy who towered beside her, dressed all in black, from boots to porkpie hat. Beck pushed him forward.
“Simon’s taking you to Chemistry.”
Simon wiggled his fingers at Zoe. “Hey.”
“I have to take off.” Beck glanced down the hall. “Pretend Simon is me, except ugly and with a lisp.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.” Simon scowled at her.
“What about Cromwell?”
“I’ve got an emergency. If you see Cromwell, tell him I’m busy being bulimic or something.”
“Welcome to Central.” Simon folded his arms and watched Beck hurry down the hall. “Home of freaks, geeks and mental cases. Just your average run of the mill public educational institution, where chaos reigns supreme.” He draped an arm across Zoe’s shoulders and led her down the stairs, taking two steps for her one.
“Why’d she take off?”
“Lady Heather slit her wrists again.”
“What?” Zoe stopped. “Who did what?”
“Heather Arlington-Moore, best friend of Beck, better known in some circles as Central’s suicide queen. She had another one of her...how should I put it?” He made quotations with his fingers. “Episodes.” He continued down the stairs backwards, perfectly poised as the crowd jostled past him. “She’s all right though. She does this all the time. I’ve told her how to do it properly, but I suppose that’s not what she’s really after.”
“What’s she really after?”
“Oh, who knows what goes on in that pretty little head of hers? She does this every once and a while. It’s never really serious.”
Never really serious? Was he serious? Zoe followed Simon to the science wing and into a dim lab at the end of the hall. Mr. Turner, a loafers-and-polyester man who fiddled obsessively with his moustache, hung around just long enough to take attendance and make sure everyone signed for their textbook. That done, he left the room without a word.
“He won’t be back.” Simon checked his watch. “Time for his mid-morning gin and tonic.” He stood. “Coming?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Smoke hole? Corner store? Home?”
Zoe watched the majority of the class gather their books and leave. “I don’t think so.”
“Suit yourself.” Simon hitched his pack on his shoulder and left too. Zoe stayed, along with a couple other bewildered new students too nervous to leave and two geeks who were already digging into their textbooks, highlighters in hand. Zoe spent the hour writing in her diary, speculating on what exactly might be the correct way to slit your wrists.
the beckoners
Zoe met Central’s suicide queen on the second day of school when Simon dragged Zoe out to the smoke hole at lunch. Halfway across the parking lot he stopped mid-stride, opening his arms to the crowd gathered under the trees and around the makeshift hut.
“You’ve got your skids, your punks, pushers, users, Goths, slags, geeks, hippies, rejects and other standard garden variety misfits— the ones that smoke, at least.” He sighed. “Home sweet home.”
&nb
sp; And then he abandoned her there, out in the open to fend for herself, exposed, every sullen smoker giving her the loaded eye, while he went off to smoke hash in the ravine with his boyfriend, Teo, who just happened to be the most beautiful creature Zoe had ever laid her eyes on. His eyes were dark green, his skin the color of strong tea, muscles humming all over the place, and a walk that absolutely demanded you stare at his ass.
Zoe was distracted for the moment, watching the two of them approach the trail. They were an odd couple: Simon’s frenetic gait beside Teo’s calm, confident stride.
Zoe could’ve turned back to the school then, but that would’ve been tantamount to falling to her knees and screaming, “I’m not worthy!” Hell, she had as much right to be there as anyone else. She took a moment to square her shoulders and then walked confidently forward, as if she knew exactly where she was going, meeting the eyes of every waster who took the time and energy to stare at her.
Beck was sitting at the end table in the hut with a bunch of girls surrounding a supermodel wannabe perched cross-legged on the table, long legs tucked under her, mascara running in two neat black lines down her cheeks. That would be Heather, judging by Simon’s description. She tucked a long strawberry blonde curl behind her ear and looked up.
“Yeah?” She managed perfect snob pitch, despite the tears. “What?”
“That’s the girl, from yesterday,” Beck said.
“Oh.” Heather pulled a pack of menthol slims out of a little silver backpack. She held the cigarettes in Zoe’s direction. “Want one?”
Zoe shook her head and watched the three other girls vie for the privilege to light Heather’s cigarette. She recognized two of them from English, the ones Mrs. Henley had looked down her nose at.
“You seen the smoke hole yet?” Heather swept a slender arm in an arc. “This is the smoke hole.” She pointed her cigarette at the girls around the table. “That’s Lindsay, Janika, Jasvinder—we call her Jazz. And you know Beck.” Lindsay was the chunky blonde from class. Jazz was the one with the hair to her bum, although today it was in a messy knot at the nape of her neck. Janika was black, with a mass of thin braids held away from her heart-shaped face with a red bandana. Heather widened her eyes at Zoe. “Well, that about covers it. You can go now.”