by Susie Taylor
“He’s sulking. Crystal dumped him, and Mom won’t let him go out with his friends. She’s worried he’ll fuck up his arm.”
“When did Crystal dump him?”
“Oh…about a week ago. Officially, anyway, but they’ve hardly seen each other for the past month.” It’s nothing to do with me I keep telling myself. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. I can’t help but have a brief Damon-and-Daisy fantasy. But Damon is not the one who holds my hand and calls me “babe.” Also, I have found out recently from Cora that Damon watches Star Trek.
Cora has her parents’ old record player in her room, and we listen to her dad’s Nazareth album recording of “Love Hurts” over and over again. She has glow-in-the-dark stickers on her ceiling just like I wanted, but wasn’t allowed in case they wrecked the paint. She has candles and incense she’s allowed to burn in her room. She even has an old black-and-white TV. Her bedspread is black, and she has a futon instead of a bed. It used to be on the floor, but when she got pregnant her mom insisted she use a frame. She has an old-fashioned dresser covered in makeup and perfume bottles. We have a cigarette out the window, but she only has a drag because of the baby.
“Don’t your parents get mad?”
“My dad smokes down there,” she says, pointing at an old coffee can. “We all pretend we don’t know when he sneaks out every night after dinner. They’ve never caught me smoking in here. They just think the smell is the smoke drifting up.”
Cora shows me a picture of her parents when they were first married. Mr. Jones has long hair and is standing in front of a motorbike. Mrs. Jones is sitting on the motorbike looking like Sandy from Grease. “Your parents are so cool,” I tell her, and she laughs at me. I tell her about Mum and Donald and Pat Rat.
“Men are bastards,” Cora says.
“Except Jimmy,” I say, protectively.
Cora shows me the baby clothes her friends have given her at her baby shower. They’re all black, except for one tie-dyed babygrow.
“They all got together one night and dyed them. Belinda’s mom had a fit because they used her washing machine,” Cora tells me. I wonder where all her friends are tonight, but I don’t ask. Instead, I ask if she’s scared about having the baby.
“I am not scared of anything,” she says, but she looks so young in this moment it is hard to believe her.
Mrs. Jones drives me home at ten. Cora doesn’t come in the car because her back is hurting.
“It’s nice of you to spend time with Cora,” Mrs. Jones says to me. I cringe. “Her friends haven’t been around so much this summer.” How does it happen, that people get old and forget the embarrassment they cause when talking about their children like this?
“You’re a good girl,” Mrs. Jones says, and I feel like a five-year-old being congratulated for playing with the retarded kid. Mrs. Jones looks tired.
Olivia is over when I get in. There are already two empty wine bottles on the kitchen counter. Grahame is white-water rafting this weekend, and I know Mum is feeling hurt he didn’t invite her. “Not that I’d have gone.” I overhear this refrain several times before I fall asleep. I hear the doorbell ring at around one in the morning and Olivia leaving loudly. At 2 a.m. I hear Mum in the bathroom repeatedly flushing the toilet.
It is 7 a.m. and Mum is vacuuming. She is pretending she is not hungover. She makes us both scrambled eggs for breakfast, but can’t eat hers, and admitting defeat, retreats to her bedroom with a cold cloth for her head.
On days like this, the thing to do is just tell her what I’m doing. Instead of saying, “Is it okay if Natasha’s friend brings me home?” I say, “Natasha’s got a drive home for me,” then I run around getting ready so there’s no time for an argument. I blare CFNY on my radio until I hear Mum’s quaking voice. “For God’s sake, turn it down, Daisy.” I do not tell Mum I’m bringing Jimmy to Natasha’s with me.
Jimmy meets me on the corner. He pulls me into a huge hug right there on the street, and I inhale the musty Jimmy smell. It turns out Jimmy and Natasha recognize each other. They’ve gone to the same softball games, and Natasha knows Jimmy’s aunt a little. Jimmy is surprisingly charming. He plays snap with Dwayne, as I sit on the edge of the bathtub and watch Natasha spray in hair product.
“He’s nice,” she mouths to me. Then, more audibly, “How’s your mom doing?”
“Hungover and grumpy today. It’s her own fault.”
Natasha looks at me.
“Give her a break, Daisy.”
I turn my head from Natasha, riding a wave of self-pity that I worry will make me cry. Natasha doesn’t let me escape her gaze. She reaches out, grabs the side of my chin, and turns my face and eyes towards to her.
“Cheer up. I just meant being an adult can be hard. And don’t have sex on my couch.”
She leaves us saying, “Don’t do anything I’d do!” and laughing. I put Sara to bed and Jimmy puts on the TV. Dwayne sits beside Jimmy in the middle of the couch.
“Jimmy said I could watch for half an hour.” He gazes at Jimmy with adoration. I sit on the other side of Dwayne, and Jimmy puts his arm across the back of the couch and places his hand on my neck. Dwayne starts yawning, and I bring him into the bedroom and check on Sara, who is sleeping soundly. When I come back out Jimmy has turned out the lights and put on MuchMusic. I sit down beside him.
Jimmy and I make out until Jimmy says he has to stop for a minute to get himself together. I know he has a hard-on but I pretend not to notice. Natasha comes home when Jimmy’s in the bathroom; she has a guy with her. She’s a little drunk and kisses me dramatically on the cheek before we leave. “Wish me luck,” she whispers. She hands me five bucks and half a pack of smokes, and tells me she will make up for her lack of cash next time.
On the way home, Jimmy holds my hand and makes me stop to look up at the stars. We are holding hands and looking at them when he asks me to be his girlfriend. “Before we go back to school, I thought we should make it official.” We kiss some more, and because we are standing up, I can feel him harden against my thigh. I can’t help but think of Wanda and her sound effects. Bloop.
When I get home, Mum calls to me from her bed.
“Daisy, I didn’t hear a car. You didn’t walk home by yourself, did you?”
“No, Mum, one of Natasha’s friends and her boyfriend walked me home.” I cross my fingers and pretend to myself that this is the truth.
“Come in here so I can talk to you.”
“I have to pee. I’ll be right in.”
My lipstick is smeared and my hair is dishevelled. I’m worried Mum will see the way my body is still vibrating from Jimmy’s attention. I fix my hair and lips, and hover at the edge of her doorway.
“I thought you’d be asleep.”
“Of course I couldn’t sleep until you were home.”
“Mum, I was babysitting around the corner.”
“Anything could happen, Daisy. I’m not comfortable with strangers bringing you home.”
“They weren’t strangers; they were Natasha’s friends. Why do you always have to overreact to everything?”
“We’ll have to talk about this in the morning.”
“Fine.”
When I go to bed, I can hear her crying. I am guessing she hasn’t heard from Grahame. I want to go back and say I’m sorry. But I’m not sure what I’m sorry about. The electrical tingle flowing inside of me has been swept away, and I lie down and listen to her until I start to cry myself.
sixteen
Jimmy kisses me, pressing my back against my locker, and I see, when I open my eyes, a bunch of niners walking by averting their eyes. I push him away. I’ve got to get to class. At lunch, I’m sitting between his legs and I can feel him hardening against the small of my back. He keeps kissing my neck. It’s embarrassing in front of Jude and Wanda. I suggest to Jimmy that we go for a walk. We wait until his erection goes down before we walk through the school. Jimmy takes me back into the short hallway by the seldom-used newspaper darkroom, and we make out. One of
the grade thirteen guys walks by and whistles, but this doesn’t faze Jimmy at all. A part of my mind is on the making out; I am definitely responding to Jimmy’s probing kissing and starting to feel hot and sticky, but part of me is starting to worry about my math test. Did I remember my protractor? The bell goes, and I literally unstick myself from Jimmy. Sweat has made our arms meld together.
After school, his mom is out and his older brother Dan is too. As soon as we get to his basement, Jimmy’s hands are on me. He starts creeping up inside my shirt and under the elastic of my bra. It is like a fire breaks out in my body, and I want to be touched everywhere. Jimmy sits on the couch, and I sit on top of him. He takes off my top, and then I take off my bra. Sitting astride him, I feel exposed but powerful. I can feel him hard underneath me, and he kisses my breasts. My body is greedy, and I find I’m grinding against him. When I open my eyes, Jimmy is smiling. He takes my hand and gently guides it to the front of his pants.
Jimmy zips himself up and gets me some toilet paper to wipe my hands on. He pushes me back on the couch, undoes my jeans, and slips his hand inside of them. It feels so good with his hand touching me. He doesn’t have a lot of room to move inside of my clothes, but all of a sudden his fingers find the right place, and I’m moving against his hand. I cry out when I come. I feel self-conscious now we’re finished, and aware of the fact that I’m half naked. I gather my shirt and head into the bathroom to get dressed. I can hear the upstairs door being unlocked and cupboards being opened in the kitchen. When Jimmy’s mom comes downstairs, I am drawing a triangle with my geometry set and Jimmy is playing Super Mario.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hill,” I say as she looks me over.
Every chance Jimmy and I get to be alone, we explore each other’s bodies. I’m less embarrassed when I’m naked. Jimmy goes slower and learns how to touch me gently and make me more desperate for his touch.
A month goes by and I’ve hardly seen Wanda. I tell Jimmy I’m going to her house because I need to study without distraction. I’m supposed to be doing homework, but our text books lie abandoned beside us.
“Are you having sex with Jimmy?”
“Not yet, but we’re serious. We’ve done other stuff, just not gone all the way.”
“What’s it like?”
“It feels good. I was worried I’d feel guilty, like I was stealing candy or something, but it just feels great. Natural.”
“I gave a guy a hand job over the summer. Allen, a friend of one of my cousins. I was going to have sex with him just to get rid of my virginity, but he came too fast. All that stuff all over my hands, and I couldn’t face going through the whole thing all over again. He kept apologizing and that made it worse.”
“No one tells you how much stuff actually comes out, or what a penis is really like. The top of Jimmy’s penis is so soft, it almost feels like velvet.”
“Do you get off when you’re with him?”
“Sometimes.”
“What does he do?”
I’m starting to feel hot between my legs, talking about this with Wanda.
“Girls,” Wanda’s mom calls out, and we both sit up quickly like we’ve been caught at something.
When I get home, Mum is on her way out. She’s headed to Grahame’s. “Don’t wait up, I might be late,” she says. “I left his number on the fridge.” I call Jimmy.
Mr. Kleinberg asks Damon and me to stay after English class. He tells us that he thinks we should try out for the school play. He makes everyone read out loud at the beginning of every class, and the two of us are better than most of our classmates. Damon folds up the flyer and sticks it in his back pocket. I hand Wanda the paper with the tryout date and instructions on preparing for an audition when I meet her and Jude for lunch.
Wanda laughs. “No way, who would want to spend more time in this hell hole than they have to?” and then returns to examining her eyebrows in her compact.
Jude, on the other hand, is drawn in. Despite her struggle to be non-conformist, the lure of organized fun is too much for her, and she agrees to come to the tryouts with me.
Jimmy and I are at the arcade after school. Both of our mothers are expected home early. I stand at Jimmy’s side as he plays Street Fighter II. He karate chops the limbs off his animated opponents. I now know the minute details of the Street Fighter gaming console, each cigarette burn, the Led Zeppelin someone has scraped into it in jagged lines, and the SUCKS etched in in larger letters.
“I’m going to try out for the play,” I tell him.
“Uhh huh. Shit. Take that, motherfucker. Did you see that?”
I go and buy a single cigarette from Mr. Linn, the owner of the arcade. He doesn’t sell them during school hours. I hand over my dollar, and he passes me a cigarette from under the counter and lends me his lighter.
I return to Jimmy’s side. “So the play.”
“Yeah?” Jimmy takes a drag from my cigarette and then puts another quarter in the machine.
“I’ll have to try out.”
“Shit…see that?”
“Jimmy? The play?”
“Yeah, go for it if you want to. Now watch this.”
I steal a copy of Streetcar Named Desire from the back of the English classroom. I pick out a speech by Blanche DuBois and say the lines again and again. Then I pose in front of the bathroom mirror and practice. I produce tears by staring at the same spot on the wall without blinking. The morning of the auditions, I wake up early and go for a walk around the block, pretending I am Blanche. Jimmy isn’t at school. At lunch I reread my lines again and again, sitting with Wanda and Jude. Jude hasn’t memorized anything new; she plans to recite “In Flanders Fields,” which she memorized for a school assembly in grade eight.
Jude stands on the staircase landing and looks down at Wanda and me sitting on the stairs below her. She stands at attention and salutes before she begins. She rhymes off the poem perfectly, but with almost no emotion. I take my place up on the landing. I put the back of one hand to my forehead and my other hand on my thrust-out hip. I concentrate on making my eyes well up, but as soon as I start with my southern accent Wanda and Jude start to giggle. A grade nine boy comes into the stairwell and looks at me and my dramatic pose like he’s worried I’m having some kind of palsy. I drop my hand and try to look natural. Other students start using the stairs. Jude and Wanda stand up to get out of the way, and I never finish my piece for them.
Gerry is in charge; he teaches English and Drama. The only person who calls Gerry Mr. McDonald is the principal. I thought Mr. Kleinberg would be running things, but he’s just organizing the stagehands. He sits on the sidelines.
Gerry talks for thirty minutes. He likes to use the names of the kids he knows and addresses parts of his introductory talk to them. He says “damn” a lot, and “groovy.” He swings his arms around. He throws a piece of chalk at Kleinberg, who reacts too late and doesn’t catch it. Since he doesn’t know me or Jude or Damon, we aren’t favoured with his special glance or his hand on our shoulders as he wanders around the classroom telling us how glad he is we’re here, and that we’re going to create something awesome. Gerry has chosen three plays and wants us to vote on which one we want to perform.
“I want you to think of this play as a gift. When we choose a play, we are picking out a present to give to our school. I want you to think hard about what you are going to give to your community. What would they like, and more importantly, what do they need?”
Mr. Kleinberg stares at his shoes during this speech, and I recite my lines over and over in my head and breathe deeply getting in the right frame of mind for my performance. The grade twelves and thirteens watch Gerry and hang on his every word.
“An updated version of Romeo and Juliet, Hair, and Arsenic and Old Lace, these are your choices. Arsenic and Old Lace is in there because my pal Carl felt we should have one classic option.” Gerry smiles patronizingly at Mr. Kleinberg as he says this.
I write down Arsenic and Old Lace solely out of loyal
ty to Kleinberg. I shove my piece of paper in a yellow envelope Gerry has circulating the classroom. Gerry assures us he will carefully tally our slips and report the winner of our dramatic election at the meeting next week. Gerry takes the envelope and puts it in his bulging brown leather briefcase. He grabs his coat, and then Jana from grade eleven bravely asks when we are going to perform our soliloquies. She’s wearing a brown- and-cream Indian-print cotton caftan over a pair of faded jeans. I know her from the smoking area. When the weather is good, she spends lunch playing Cat Stevens songs on her acoustic guitar while sitting cross-legged on the lawn of the school.
Gerry smiles. “If you’re here in this room you have a part in this play. Asking you to prepare a piece was my way of finding out that you were serious about this production. You know you did it and I know you did it. There’s no need to waste our time listening to them. When we choose our play, then we’ll start figuring out who’s the best player for each part.”
Gerry leaves first, and Kleinberg waits for the students to leave, fiddling with a bunch of keys so he can lock the door behind us.
Jimmy’s waiting outside the rehearsal for me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Principal’s office, I got called in with my mom. She just left.”
“What happened?”
“If I skip any more classes I’ll be suspended. The principal thinks I should transfer to the tech school like I’m some kind of dumbass.”
“I’m so sorry, Jimmy.” I reach up and hug him, but he is stiff in my arms.
“I’m okay, Daisy; it’s no big deal. Jesus, suspending me would be great. A whole week off school. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m sick of this place.”
“I can’t, Jimmy. I’ve got homework.”
“Just come with me for half an hour.”
“I can’t, I have to get home. Mum’s expecting me.”