by Susie Taylor
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Jude asks.
“It will be fine. I’ve smoked up loads of times before.” The lie floats from her lips without any hesitation.
I don’t feel anything. I stand around not feeling anything. Then I start giggling. I giggle at everything. I look at Jude, and I’m going to tell her something really funny, then I forget what it is, and I think this is hilarious. I laugh so hard I can’t tell her that I forgot what I was going to tell her anyhow.
Wanita pokes her head out of the back door.
“Shhhh! Act normal,” hisses Wanda.
“You okay, girls?” Wanita observes us. She is swaying slightly in the door, and everyone is singing to Meat Loaf in the background. She looks angelic. The glow of the house lights illuminates the smoke pooling in the doorway behind her.
“You look like an angel,” I tell her.
Jude and Wanda are laughing so hard that snot is bubbling out of Wanda’s nose. Wanita laughs. “You fucking kids! Get your shit together before your mom sees you, Wanda. Your eyes are like fucking saucers.”
The music inside is calming down, and we can hear Chris de Burgh mellowing out the party. When we go in, couples are shuffling together in the middle of the living room, and intense conversations are taking place in the kitchen. I have no idea what time it is. Wanda grabs a bowl of Cheezies and a bag of chips, and we head to her room. Jude goes looking for dip for us and returns with a jar of mayonnaise. We use a spoon we find in a bowl under Wanda’s bed to smear mayo on our chips. The party continues outside Wanda’s door. Her mom pokes her head in to make sure we are all accounted for, then we hear her laughing in the kitchen. The conversation ebbs and flows, and eventually the stereo goes off, and there is the sound of one acoustic guitar and a few earnest voices singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Sonny’s Dream.”
In the morning I wake up stiff on Wanda’s floor with my head resting on a stuffed pink hippopotamus. Jude and Wanda are both snoring away. I look at the clock radio on Wanda’s bedside table and see it’s already ten. Everything smells like smoke, including Hippy, who has been holding my delicate head. I am vaguely concerned that movement might make me puke. My mouth is oily with mayo residue. I slowly raise my head.
When I come out of Wanda’s room, I can hear voices in the kitchen. Wanda’s dad and a couple of his buddies are drinking beer at the table.
“Hair of the dog,” he says, grinning at me through bloodshot eyes.
“You need a ride, Daisy? Billy here is about to head off.” Billy raises his head from where he’s been resting it on the table.
“No, I’m all right. Thanks. The walk will do me good. Thanks for having me.” I fumble getting my boots laced up and then step into the cool, clean air.
“Daisy, Natasha called.”
“I’ll call her later. I need to have a shower.” I crave the feeling of cleanliness. I am going up the stairs pulling off my socks, preparing for my arrival in the bathroom.
Mum puts her hand on my arm, stopping me from my ascent. “Her dad’s in the hospital. It’s bad. Her mom’s with him. Natasha needs someone to look after the kids so she can go to the hospital too. She’s upset, and she said she didn’t have anyone else to call.”
Mum comes up with me to the apartment. There’s an empty glass on the counter. Natasha has been drinking. Mum ignores the overflowing ashtray, the vodka vapors, and the kids still in their pajamas; she bosses Natasha into clean clothes and insists on driving her to the hospital.
I get the kids changed and stick them in front of the TV. I can’t stand the smell of sweat and smoke on my body so I use Natasha’s shower. Her Coconut and Flower shampoo swirls around me. I come out of the bathroom dressed, but still drying my hair with a thin and dirty Sesame Street towel I found on the floor. Sara says I smell like her mom. I empty the ashtray and do dishes. I make the kids pancakes. Dwayne eats his with peanut butter. Sara pours sugar on hers with nothing to soften it. She coughs when she takes the first bite, and I convince her to shake some of the sugar off and try a little syrup. I call Jimmy. I can hear the bleeping music of his video game over the phone.
“That sucks, Daisy,” Jimmy says.
“It’s really sad about her father,” I say.
“Uh huh.” I can hear shooting lasers and Danny in the background. “Pay fucking attention, man!”
“I’ll let you know when I know more.”
“Okay. Bye, Daise.”
“Love you,” I say.
“Me too.” Click.
The kids ask when their mom is coming home. I give Dwayne an orange-juice box instead of an apple one, and he throws it on the floor. Sara starts crying. The apartment is smaller than I remember it being when I arrived. At 6 p.m. there is a knock on the door, and I put my eye to the peephole. It’s Mum.
“I’ve been at the hospital,” she explains. “I’m not sure when Natasha is going to make it back, so I thought we’d take the kids out for dinner.”
It’s good to get out of the apartment. Mum gets burgers for us all at the drive-through, and we eat them in the parking lot of Mr. Burger Giant. There is a sign for Mr. Burger Giant on a tall pole. We watch it as we eat. It is a huge lit-up burger face wearing sunglasses and a top hat. It flickers a little, and then while we are watching, the left side burns out like it’s had a stroke.
The kids are in bed. I find teabags in a tin with a rusty lid on Natasha’s counter. Mum and I sit on either end of Natasha’s couch drinking the stale tea with our feet on Natasha’s coffee table. My head lolls back and I close my eyes. The phone finally rings and Mum answers it.
“Okay, okay,” she says. “I’m so sorry to hear that. No rush, dear. You stay with your mum. We’ll wait as long as you need us to.”
“At least it’s over,” she says when she gets off the phone.
On Christmas Eve, looking out from the dirty bus windows, the scene is like the beginning of a Christmas movie. The rundown motels on the edge of town and the empty fields all look softer and cleaner under the dusting of fresh snow. Jimmy holds my hand on the bus and puts his jacket over his lap and tries to convince me to touch him underneath it.
“People will see!”
“Come on, Daisy, it’ll be fun.” I cross my arms and stare out the window as we head downtown.
At Nathan Phillips Square, the skaters laugh and couples hold hands. I see two women going around holding hands. One of them pecks the other on the cheek; I get caught staring, and she smiles at me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lesbian in real life before, only TV. Once my parents were watching the news about a pro-choice rally; one of the women they interviewed was wearing a necklace of plastic fetuses and her hair was cut really short. Behind her another bald woman yelled and held up a bunch of coat hangers. “Lesbians,” Dad had muttered.
“Look, Jimmy,” I nudge him.
“What is it?”
“Those women, holding hands.”
“Kinky. You don’t really want to skate, do you? The skates are so expensive to rent. It’s a waste of money.”
“I do kind of.”
“Well, you can get some and I’ll watch.”
“Never mind.” We watch the other skaters go around. On Queen West, we find a café where the menu is written on a chalkboard behind the counter and all the spoons are old mismatched silver patterns. The waitress has a tattoo of a snake running up her arm. I order coffee, black with sugar. Jimmy orders hot chocolate. It comes in a bowl, and he complains it has no handles.
I look through dresses in a second-hand store. Jimmy says the shop smells weird and is giving him a headache. We leave and I walk past stores full of unknown treasures as we abandon Queen Street and head to the really big Sam the Record Man’s at Yonge and Dundas. Jimmy flicks through CDs.
There’s a clerk, around twenty, with short black hair, black jeans, and a T-shirt. He’s helping an older bald man in a suit. The bald man waves his hands around.
“It’s a love song. About a guy on a bus who
sees this girl. And her name is in the song. Heather or Claudette or Fran…something like that? And the tune goes kind of like this.” The customer starts humming in an off-key manner. The clerk sees me watching, shoots me a smile, and shakes his head. I smile back, then look away.
“What?” says Jimmy. He’s holding up a disc by Queen and telling me something about why Freddie Mercury is a genius.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking of something else.”
“Let’s get out of here.” Jimmy grabs my hand, and we walk down Yonge past strip bars and tiny restaurants that smell of curry and smoke. An endless stream of “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Frosty the Snowman” pours out of open doorways. We end up at an arcade. The clientele is different in this place, not like the teenagers at the arcade by the school. It’s full of men who are too old to be here, with long hair and leather jackets and younger girlfriends. They hang around smoking. The place feels dirty, despite the old man with a greasy grey pony tail pushing around a bleach-filled bucket and an industrial mop. Jimmy plays Street Fighter II. I start to shuffle from foot to foot and sigh.
“Why don’t you go play Tetris? I saw a machine when we came in.”
“I’m okay.” There aren’t many women here, and none of them are alone. There’s a girl about my age teetering on high heels. She has bare legs, despite the snow, and is wearing one of those jackets made up of a patchwork of little pieces of rabbit fur. She’s laughing and hanging off a guy who mostly ignores her. Every once in a while, she casts a glance towards the door of the arcade and her face hardens.
“I’m bored, Jimmy. And it’s cold in here too.”
“Just let me finish this game.” I stand beside Jimmy, acting, as the other women do in this place, as a living accessory. Jimmy types his name into the game at place number 27 and seems satisfied. In the headshop next door, I buy Jimmy a black-light Led Zeppelin poster as an early Christmas present. The store sells pussy-scented incense, concert tees, glass bongs, and those Mexican ponchos you see kids at school wearing when they come back from March Break trips. This place smells sweet, a little like overripe strawberries, and mustier than the second-hand store we were in earlier. On the subway home, we get one of the two-seaters at the front of the train. Jimmy’s hand creeps onto my thigh, but I keep pushing it back. Jimmy walks me home from the bus stop, and on the front porch we say goodbye. He kisses me long and hard, and then guides my hand to his front pocket.
“Jimmy, my mum’s inside,” I hiss at him.
“Come on, Daisy,” he says. I slip my hand in his pocket and find a small box. I pull it out and open it. Inside is a silver charm bracelet with a daisy hanging from it. Jimmy puts the bracelet on my left wrist where it gets tangled with my leather cord and the half heart Wanda gave me in grade eight.
“You can cut off that later,” Jimmy says.
He walks backwards down the driveway, and I blow him kisses until I can’t see him anymore.
I untangle my new bracelet from the half-heart pendant. I take off the silver bracelet and put it back in its box. I wash my hands, rubbing the grime of the city and the sticky surfaces of the arcade off my fingers.
nineteen
It is the last week of January. The snow that was romantic in December has taken on an ominous persona. Everything is white and bleached of colour, the ground and the sky. My nostrils are sticking together in the cold, and the exposed tips of my ears burn with pain. I scrape up the snow that has accumulated overnight and pile it on the dirty ridges of the stuff on either side of the driveway. Mum is busy brushing snow off the car.
“Put your hood up, for heaven’s sake, Daisy.”
I’m walking to school, and the air is so cold it cuts into my lungs with each breath. I find Wanda and Jude before classes start, and they are in the usual place at the top of the stairs. Jimmy has yet to arrive, and as it gets closer to the start of classes, I realize he’s not going to make it in time for first period.
“Do you guys want to do something?” Wanda asks.
“What do you mean?” Jude asks.
“I don’t know, get out of here. Do something. Anything but be stuck in here all day.”
“I can’t skip, Wanda, you know that. My parents would ground me for two months if I got caught,” Jude says.
“Daisy?”
“I don’t know. Jimmy might show up later, and he’ll be pissy if I skipped without him.”
“Really, Daisy? Because Jimmy always consults with you before he doesn’t show up to school?” Wanda says.
“I’ve got to go to my locker. You should just go to class; it’s not worth the hassle if you get caught.” Jude leaves us.
“Goody two-shoes,” Wanda says mildly as Jude leaves.
At first the sound of kids going to class is like a herd of elephants, then there is only the sound of a few late kids running. The national anthem plays, and I stay sitting beside Wanda. All the other kids will be standing by their desks. The low tone of droning teacher voices starts seeping through the closed doors of classrooms.
Wanda leans her head on my shoulder, and I stroke her head twice.
“Okay, so we’re skipping? Now what?” I ask her.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Mr. Hunter spies us heading towards our lockers as he leaves the shop room. He is holding a Maple Leafs toque and a pack of smokes in his hand, sounds of sawing and male laughter come from his room as the door swings shut.
“Doctor’s appointment,” says Wanda, and Mr. Hunter nods, accepting that doctor’s appointments are something teenage girls do together. At our lockers, I start to sort out what books I’ll need for homework tonight.
“Just leave them, Daisy. Let’s just leave it all behind for the day.” Wanda gestures around us at the dented lockers and the metal water fountain with a piece of gum stuck at the drain.
Outside the cold claws at us as soon as we exit the school. We’re not really headed anywhere, just away, when we see the bus travelling south on Yonge Street, and we both run to catch it.
Taking the route to the city is instinctual. At Finch Station, we head to the automatic entrance furthest from the ticket booth. Wanda shoves me in ahead and slips in the token then grinds her body into mine. The turnstile goes forward, then stops for a second. I think we’re going to get stuck, the two of us jammed here red faced and squeezed together as passersby stare. Then it starts moving and we push through. I stumble when I get spit out on the other side.
A train is pulling out when we hit the platform, and we just make it through the closing doors. We slump in seats next to each other. It takes five stations until Wanda convinces me the transit cops are not hunting us down after seeing us on their security camera. It’s cold even on the train, and I have my hands shoved between my thighs to keep them warm.
It is Wanda’s idea to go to the museum. The wind whips us as we walk down the street from the subway towards it. The city dwellers are wrapped in scarves and hats with only their eyes and nostrils poking out. My fingers in their black stretch gloves are so cold they feel hot, and I try to remember how long it takes to get frostbite. We push through tall front doors into a foyer blasting hot air; the change in temperature hits me with a little wave of nausea.
I’m busy checking my fingers and tentatively rubbing my earlobes. “Shit.” Wanda’s eyes are up roaming over the admissions prices. “I had no idea it would be so expensive.”
We are standing contemplating the impossible price when a flood of teenagers comes through the entrance. Through the doors we see three yellow school buses issuing forth kids our age, an unmistakable suburban homogeny, and we are soon lost among them. A parent helper hands us two worksheets and then two of the little plastic things you attach to your lapels that gives you permission to enter a place like this. A guard takes down a velvet rope to let the massive group through. We both merge with the crowd as it goes past the ticket booth into the museum. The school groups swerve towards the geology exhibitions. Afraid of be
ing recognized as interlopers, we dip into a washroom and hide for a few minutes before heading out to explore.
“This is amazing,” Wanda whispers as we climb a massive staircase. Away from the school groups, we have the place mostly to ourselves. A few guards eye us, but with little interest, as we peer at different displays.
We find the mummies. A gnarled fossilized toe pokes out of the ancient wrap in one mummy’s open casket. We stand staring at it for a long time.
The dinosaur area is hushed; we ignore the informational signs and stare up at the antlers on an enormous prehistoric elk.
“I’ve never been here before, you know,” Wanda says.
“I came when I was little. But it wasn’t as fun. Dad was measuring specimens in the basement, and we didn’t see much because it only took him an hour. We skipped the dinosaurs completely. This is way better.”
“Better than skipping to get finger fucked by Jimmy Hill in a public bathroom?”
“Shit, Wanda.” One of the security guards looks up when I swear.
“Sorry, it sounded funny in my head. Really, I’m sorry.”
In the natural history section, Wanda shows me birds she has seen in Newfoundland, gannets and kittiwakes. I pull out a drawer below the display and gasp when I see what’s inside: a dozen tiny songbird corpses, all neatly labelled.
“Poor things,” says Wanda. She places her hand over the Plexiglas where the birds lie, one by one by one. We stand in silent vigil for each tiny body.
“Where were you?” Jimmy asks me later on the phone.
“With Wanda, I skipped,” I whisper. I’m in the kitchen, and I’m not sure of my mother’s location.
“I looked all over for you. I only missed first. You could have called me; we could have spent the whole day together. Both our moms were at work.”
“Do you want to come with me to Carly’s party on Saturday? I need to let her know if we’re coming. She’s collecting cash, and her sisters are going to pick up beer. Everyone is going, Wanda, Jude, Steve, Damon…”