Even Weirder Than Before

by Susie Taylor

  I am still standing. I can’t do it. Every time I try, my body freezes to the spot.

  “Daisy, just relax, it’s easy,” Jude encourages me. I try, but I as soon as I start to feel myself falling a sweep of panic travels up my spine, and I start taking steps and right myself.

  “Wanda, come here and get behind me. I’ll demonstrate.” Jude takes my place in the centre of the room.

  Wanda stands behind Jude, about four feet back. Jude closes her eyes, crosses her arms over her chest, and falls back. Wanda gently catches her shoulders and tilts Jude, who remains stiff, back up.

  “Okay,” says Jude, “now take a step back.” Wanda takes a step back and Jude falls again. She has no hesitation, just drops into Wanda’s waiting hands with complete trust. They do it until Jude is falling her full body length, and Wanda is catching her about a foot from the floor. There is elegance to this. Cathy and I watch in silence.

  Wanda and Jude reverse rolls. Wanda takes a faltering step the first time she tries it, but the next time she falls gracefully.

  “Okay,” Jude says, “now try again, Daisy. I’ll catch you. Cathy, stand beside Daisy and Wanda can catch you at the same time.”

  “I’ll just watch,” says Cathy.

  “I’m not going to drop you,” Wanda says to her. “Come on.”

  Cathy reluctantly gets up. It’s quiet and dark in the room. We’re all talking in hushed tones. Jude gets us into position. Cathy and I stand side by side. “Close your eyes, fold your hands over your chest, and on the count of three,” Jude says quietly. I glance over at Cathy; she smiles at me, then I see her squeeze her eyes shut before I do the same. I hear Cathy gasp as I start to fall back, then we are both laughing as we have done it. It is like a synchronized dance routine. Cathy and I are tipped back up, Wanda and Jude take a step back, and we fall again. It is scary and exhilarating every time.

  “You did good,” Wanda says to Cathy, when we’re done. “It looked like you were meditating or something.”

  “I was just praying you wouldn’t drop me,” Cathy says, and Wanda laughs.

  I wake up that night at 3 a.m. from a nightmare. I can’t remember the details, just the fear. Wanda is sitting on the side of my bed gently rubbing my arm to wake me. “Just a dream, Daisy. You’re just having a dream.”

  “I’m okay. I’m okay,” I whisper, now I am conscious. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I can’t sleep. I kept thinking of that stupid story of Cathy’s, about the girl cutting off her own tongue.”

  “Get in,” I say, and Wanda gets under the covers with me and holds my hand until we both fall back asleep.

  thirteen

  When Steve walks towards Wanda on the last Wednesday of the school year, she hides her pack of smokes in her bag before he can ask for one.

  “There’s a party Friday.”

  “Where is it?” Wanda flicks through her notebook as she replies.

  “Jimmy Hill’s mom’s going away. It’s at his place. It backs onto the park, so we’re going to have a fire in the yard.”

  “We might come by if we’re around,” Wanda gestures in the general direction of me and Jude, who has just walked up and joined us. Steve bobs his head. Wanda, Jude, and I head out to share a smoke before our next class.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell Mum I’m going to a big house party at Jimmy Hill’s, and I feel so guilty when I lie to her.”

  “Guilt is a useless emotion,” Jude says.

  “We won’t see each other all summer. You have to come,” says Wanda.

  Jude is going to Cadet camp all summer, where she will clean guns and polish her boots excessively. I am babysitting five days a week, while Cora takes summer-school courses. Wanda is leaving the first week after school ends and flying out to Newfoundland to stay with her grandparents. Her parents will drive down at the end of August with their tent trailer to pick her up.

  When our family went camping, we all had to sleep in one tent on the hard ground, and then spend the day going for long, hot walks. Wanda’s parents roast marshmallows, and her dad plays the acoustic guitar until the park rangers come by and tell him it is too late, time for bed. They are exactly the kind of campers who played the oldies station loudly on the radio and made my mum and dad mutter about peace and quiet as we all sat in silence waiting till it was dark enough to go to sleep.

  “My parents are going be away that night with my little brothers. I’ll tell them I’m sleeping at your house, Wanda, and then we can all crash at my place. If you tell your mom you’re staying at mine, it won’t even be a lie, Daisy,” Jude says.

  “Are you sure it’s okay if we show up even though Jimmy didn’t invite us personally? What if he doesn’t let us in?”

  “Daisy, you’re making me nuts! It’s a party. The whole point is that people come,” Wanda says. I give her the finger when she turns her back to me.

  One of Jude’s Cadet friends has picked up a mickey of rum and six beers for us. We buy three small bottles of Coke. Wanda pours half the Coke out of each bottle, tops it with rum, then screws the caps back on so we can take these to the party.

  It feels like we have forever to get ready. Jude gives the back of my head a fresh buzz with the clippers. I put on a plain black T-shirt and take it off and try on my ancient U2 shirt. I take the U2 shirt off and try on a black tank top. I put the original T-shirt back on. Wanda tells me the tank looks better, and I change again. I fix my makeup for the fourth time. We’re outside sipping beers and smoking. Wanda notices the time, and we realize it’s already eight and the party started at seven. We gulp down the last of the beer. After walking for two minutes, I have to pee.

  It seems further to the Hill house than we realized.

  “How much further is it, Wanda?” I ask.

  “Ten minutes.”

  “I really have to have pee,” I admit.

  “Me too,” Jude says.

  This makes me laugh, and the laughter makes my bladder tighter. We hit the park, and it’s about a five-minute walk still to get to the party. As soon as we are in the bushes, Jude crouches behind a tree and pulls down her pants.

  “Me too,” says Wanda.

  “I don’t know how to pee outdoors,” I say, hopping from foot to foot.

  “Pull your pants right down and hold them out away from you with one of your hands, stick your bum back and let go,” Jude instructs me. I get behind a third bush and heave my pants and panties down to my ankles. Just as I’m starting to pee, a car swings down the road, and I panic and sit back on my bum fast. I sit on the ground and lift my ankles and pants in the air, and a puddle streams in front of me.

  “I think I got pee on my shoes,” I tell Wanda and Jude.

  Now that we have made room in our bladders, we uncap our bottles and start sipping our rum and Cokes as we walk along the path that goes through the park to get to the back gate at Jimmy’s house.

  “Be quiet,” Jude says, as a cop car pulls into the parking lot across the pond, and its headlights sweep over us.

  We stop talking and focus on looking sober. I glance back to the parking lot. The cop is knocking on the window of a parked car, completely disinterested in us.

  I am dishevelled and shiny eyed from the booze and the walk when we arrive at Jimmy’s. Jimmy is dousing the fire with Zippo fluid when we walk into the yard. Flames shoot up. Raucous laughter and Pink Floyd are coming from inside the house. About fifteen kids mill in and out between the kitchen and the yard. It’s impossible to imagine the end of the party, here at the beginning.

  My rum and Coke is gone, and I’m sharing a bottle of beer with Jimmy Hill. I’m sitting next to him on a log around the fire, and he has his arm around me; occasionally, his hand lingers near my breast. I don’t really care. There’s a certain excitement about the proximity of Jimmy’s body. He has a particular musty smell I associate with the rummage sale at church and my grandmother’s curtains. He occasionally strokes my hair. I’m waiting for him to kiss me, and wondering vaguely w
here Jude and Wanda have got to.

  Damon and Crystal appear across the fire pit. “Hey, Jimmy, Daisy, how’s it going?” asks Damon.

  I wave and laugh.

  “That good, eh?” says Damon, as he swigs from the cooler he’s sharing with Crystal.

  “This one was loaded when she got here,” says Jimmy. “I’m going to get us more beer.”

  Damon and Crystal sit across from me, and Crystal cuddles up next to Damon. I realize I’m staring at them.

  Jude appears before me. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Come on, Wanda’s really drunk. We need to get her home.”

  When I stand up, I stumble towards the fire. Damon is up steadying me by the shoulders before I know what has happened.

  “Whoa, Daisy, take it easy.”

  “She’s a mess,” Crystal is saying.

  I see Wanda, and propel myself out of Damon’s hands. Wanda and I stand clutching at each other and laughing, and Jude stands beside us clucking like a mother hen and saying, “Come on, we need to go. We should go now.”

  About two minutes from Jimmy’s house, Wanda vomits. She gets on her knees and vomits under a bush as Jude holds her hair back. The park is dark and empty. All I can hear is the lap of a light breeze over the pond, and Wanda retching. I hold out my hands and spin around, looking up at the dark branches of the trees.

  “Go sit on that bench, Daisy, and do not move,” Jude instructs me. I stagger to the bench and try and sit up straight.

  “I’m okay. I’m fine. Get off me,” I hear Wanda say to Jude.

  She comes and slumps on the bench beside me. Jude urges us to get going, but Wanda and I stay sitting. Wanda hunches forward and pukes all over the ground. The smell hits me, and I find myself leaning with my head between legs as chunky vomit streams from my mouth.

  I wake up in Jude’s bed with my shoes off and my clothes on. My arm is slung around Wanda, who is asleep and snoring. I’m not sure how Jude remained so sober or how she corralled us home. I have a vague memory of Wanda lying on the sidewalk and me trying to convince Jude we just needed a little rest and then we would be fine.

  My mouth tastes of sweet, rum-flavoured vomit, and I feel like I am covered in Jimmy Hill’s handprints. I go home and get straight in the shower, and then I go to bed at noon and sleep till five. When I come downstairs Mum asks what we were up to.

  “We stayed up all night watching movies,” I tell her.

  “You crazy girls,” she says.

  fourteen

  In the mornings Cora emerges from her bedroom after her parents leave for work. We nod, but don’t talk. I make coffee and hand her one just like mine, black with one sugar. Millie erupts from her room. She practices karate chops down the hall. I sit her in front of the TV and get her cocoa puffs with chocolate milk. This is the only thing she will eat for breakfast.

  I’m trying to convince Millie not to take her bike to the park, when Damon emerges from his room and dashes into the bathroom with nothing but a towel draped around his waist. Cora whistles at him, and I try and pretend I didn’t see him.

  Millie rides her bike for two minutes and then wants to walk. I carry the bike, the pedals bumping against my shins making them bruised and grease covered. Millie accosts the first kid she sees who’s her age at the playground. “Let’s play!” and they zoom around, poking sticks in the gravel and calling to each other from the top of the slide.

  Two of the mothers sit on the bench I’m on and begin an intense conversation. They are discussing haemorrhoids and comparing brands of breast pumps. I open the book I brought with me and use it as a protective shield. Millie sings or hums almost constantly. I listen for her, and the moment I can’t hear anything my head snaps up.

  A group of older kids show up at the park and start hogging the swings. Most of the moms, nannies, and I watch, shaking our heads, but too afraid to confront the four twelve-year-old boys. One of the younger moms, Natasha, marches over and tells them to take a hike. The kids leave, yelling “Fuck off” at her as they jump on their BMX bikes.

  “I know who your moms are, you little shits!” Natasha yells, and then she comes and sits on the bench beside me.

  “Do you know their moms?” I ask.

  “No, but they don’t know that.” Natasha has gravel in her voice. She offers me a cigarette, which I accept.

  The other moms on the bench give us disapproving looks, get up, and push their strollers to the other side of the playground. I decide I won’t care about what they think. Millie is pointed away from me on a swing and she won’t notice.

  Natasha tells me about her weekend. She went to the Gasworks, and this guy she is pretty sure is the drummer from Frozen Ghost bought her a drink.

  “I’m always looking for someone to take the kids on Friday nights if you’re interested?”

  “I’ll have to ask my mum.” I feel like a loser as soon this comes out of my mouth.

  “See what she says,” says Natasha, and she goes and corrals her kids.

  Millie and I go home and I get her a snack. We watch TV until we hear the key in the door, and Cora comes in.

  “Summer school sucks,” Cora says. “You want some iced tea?” In the backyard, Millie runs through the sprinkler, and Cora talks to me about school as I look through the baby name book. Damon comes home. He sits on his skateboard and picks out really stupid names from the book. “Angel… Dick…Gaylord!”

  When I get home there is a postcard from Wanda. There is a picture of a whale on the front, and on the back she has written:

  The ocean is freezing.

  I am tired of salt beef.

  My Nan is driving me crazy!!!

  I miss you.

  I’m walking home from the park with Millie; it’s humid hot. Millie and I are both sticky from an accidentally squeezed juice box that shot warm apple juice out of Millie’s hands and all over her arms and mine. Jimmy Hill rides up beside us on his bicycle. He’s wearing mirrored sunglasses and looks a little creepy. Millie grabs my hand and stares at him, her mouth set and her eyes wide. I can feel the dirt on her hand where the sand from the playground has stuck to it.

  “Is that your little sister?”

  “This is Millie. I’m her babysitter.” Jimmy looks at Millie, or at least his sunglasses point in her direction, and she turns away and kicks at the dirt.

  “We should do something sometime. Can I get your number?”

  “Sure, that would be cool, but I don’t have a pen.”

  “Oh.” We both look around like a pen and paper are going to appear in mid-air.

  Millie pulls on my hand.

  “Let’s go, Daisy. I need to go home.” This means she has to pee, soon. Sometimes, very soon.

  “It’s under Donald Radcliffe in the phone book,” I call over my shoulder, as Millie pulls me along, suddenly walking fast, which she only does when she’s desperate for the bathroom.

  “Radcliffe, Radcliffe, Radcliffe.” He nods his head slowly up and down. “I’ll be talking to you, D.,” he calls out. As he rides away, he pops a wheelie.

  “Do you like him?” says Millie. “He smells funny. How come he has long hair if he’s a boy?”

  Damon’s home when we get in, and Millie yells to him as she runs to the bathroom, “Daisy has a boyfriend who has a ponytail.”

  “Are you seeing Jimmy Hill?” Damon asks, and I feel mortified.

  “We were just talking. Millie’s making things up.”

  “Daisy and Jimmy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-N-G. First comes love then comes BABIES.” Millie is peeing with the door open and sings this accompanied by a loud stream of urine.

  “I didn’t think he was your type.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Forget it, Daisy.”

  I wait for Jimmy Hill to call. I sit by the phone at home and check it’s still working every five minutes. He doesn’t call. There are two phones in the house: one in the kitchen and one in Mum’s room. I wait by the one in her
room until she comes home, then I mope around the kitchen. I insist on doing the washing up, even though I can tell Mum wants me out of her hair. The weekend comes and goes, and Jimmy does not call.

  The next Wednesday, Natasha’s at the park. I’m on a bench, using Wuthering Heights to protect me from the mothers.

  “Is that for school?” she asks me.

  “Not exactly,” I say. Natasha just shrugs.

  “Could you look after my kids on Friday night?” She doesn’t say please or add a maybe to the question, and I don’t know how to say no to such a direct request.

  “Okay, but I have to be home by midnight, or my mum will freak out.”

  “Daisy, you’re a lifesaver.”

  She takes out a pen and a piece of paper from her tasselled purse and scribbles down her address and phone number. “Come by for six, and I can settle you in before I go out.”

  It’s an apartment about five minutes from my house. I can’t decide what to tell Mum, but I figure I’ve already committed so she’ll have to let me go.

  Mum is not pleased.

  “You agreed to babysit for a woman whom you met on a park bench.”

  “It’s not like that, Mum. She’s really nice and it’s so close to here.”

  “Anything could happen to you there, there could be…”

  “What? What could happen?”

  “Daisy, I’m not happy, but I’ll think about it.”

  Mum agrees I can babysit as long as she gets to talk to Natasha. When I call Natasha and ask her to call my mum, she is unsurprised.

  “Of course I’ll talk to her, Daisy. I’d do the same thing if it was my kid.”

  I listen from the top of the stairs when the phone rings. I hear Mum say, “Well, I am just a bit concerned about…” I plug my ears and rock back and forth. I am terrified of Mum being a snob or acting like I’m twelve. When I unplug my ears I hear laughing. The conversation goes on for longer than I can bear, and then I hear Mum say goodbye and I lunge down the stairs.

  “Okay,” she says. “But I want you to call when you’re done. Otherwise Natasha will have to get the kids out of bed to bring you home.”