by Susie Taylor
Sitting outside in the afternoon, we lie back and watch clouds run across the sky, and point ones out where we can see faces. I’m a little sore, but I feel accomplished. Every once in a while, Jimmy reaches over and brushes my lips with his hand. Everything seems in sharp focus—the grass, the blue sky, the taste of our cold glasses of Coke with lemon.
Jimmy’s spending the night, and the luxury of this is spread out in front of us. Walking to the plaza to buy popsicles, Jimmy holds my hand. We run into Steve, and he tells us about a big bush party on the edge of town.
“We have better plans,” Jimmy says, and winks at me.
The summer goes on. Mum sits on the porch and switches from Ella to Billie Holiday. Wanda and I go downtown and buy earrings from the vendors by Nathan Phillips Square. Jimmy and I make love and fuck in backyards (mine) and basements (his) all over town. Sinead gets faster, and Cora looks older. I don’t see much of Damon. I catch only fleeting glimpses of him skating by as I push Sara’s third-hand stroller and encourage Dwayne to walk slightly faster than standing still.
twenty-three
“I just want to relax and hang out here. Dan’s away and my mom’s going to be out,” Jimmy says.
“We haven’t done anything in ages. And I promised Wanda.”
“Anything?” Jimmy jokes.
“Anything else,” I say.
Jimmy agrees to come with me to see Nathan’s band play and watch the fireworks at the Labour Day party the town puts on every year. The event takes place at one of the big soccer fields behind the tech school. It’s on the edge of town, surrounded by concrete strip malls. There are no old churches or tall trees that might accidently catch fire. I catch sight of Cora and Mrs. Jones, and head towards them. They have deck chairs set up in the middle of the field and sit observing Millie running around blowing dandelion seeds. One drifts by Jimmy, and he sneezes dramatically, waking Sinead who was asleep in her carry cot.
“We made Damon carry the chairs. He’s around somewhere,” Cora says as she picks up Sinead and comforts her.
Jimmy stands a little apart from us. He doesn’t say anything, but I can hear him snuffling. I see Natasha in the distance and wave across the crowds.
“We’re going to go find Wanda,” I tell the Joneses.
“Are you okay?” I ask Jimmy, now we are out of Cora’s earshot.
“I have a headache. It might be allergies. Too much grass and stuff.” He sniffs.
I hear my name and turn. Wanda is up at the stage with Nathan and the band. She’s sitting on an enormous speaker swinging her legs back and forth. Nathan plugs things in and out of guitars.
“So great you came, Daisy,” Nathan says to me, jumping down from the stage to greet us.
“It’s the highlight of her summer,” Wanda says dryly, clambering down from her perch.
“Are you nervous?” I ask Nathan.
“Just excited.”
Jimmy rubs his temples.
“What’s up with Jimmy?” Wanda says to me.
“He’s not feeling well.”
“Clearly.”
Jimmy remains silent.
“You okay, Jimmy?” Wanda asks, observing him.
“I have a headache.”
“Too bad.”
“Do you want me to see if Cora has any painkillers?” I ask.
“Don’t bother,” Jimmy says, and I flinch.
“If you feel that bad you should just go home,” Wanda says.
“Maybe you should go home,” I say to Jimmy.
“I do feel pretty bad.” He looks at me with doleful eyes. “I don’t want to wreck your evening. I know you were looking forward to this.”
“Why don’t you go, and Daisy can stay with me?” Wanda interjects.
“I could stay with Wanda?” I say to Jimmy.
“Do what you want, Daisy.” Jimmy departs, scuffing his feet on the grass.
“You okay?” Wanda asks me.
“Yeah, he gets like this when he has a headache. He’ll get over it later.”
Wanda snorts.
The speakers crackle, and Nathan strums his guitar once. There are a couple of women standing up in front of the bandstand. Wanda nods her head at them in a brief noncommittal greeting. The crowd hasn’t hushed. Most people are still walking around and greeting friends, chasing children, or tying helium balloons around their wrists. About a dozen kids gather around the stage waiting to see what happens.
Nathan starts up with a cover of “My Sharona.” He stares at Wanda and dances, pointing his finger in her direction. She averts her eyes, but he keeps doing it, hamming it up, and clutching at his heart.
“I told him not to do that. I hate it. It’s embarrassing.”
Nathan continues despite Wanda’s discomfort. And there are so few people gathered around the stage it is obvious his attention is meant for her. The kids, most of them are around nine years old, are up dancing and jumping around. They point at Wanda too, imitating Nathan.
“This next song is dedicated to the coolest girl I know.”
Nathan sings the opening line to “Wild Thing.”
“Come on, Daisy. We’re going.” Wanda turns and marches away from the stage. She doesn’t look back. I follow her. Nathan’s voice trails behind us, still going but less exuberant. Past the crowds, we keep going through the parking lot. People are still streaming towards us, heading towards the music, and we thread our way through in the opposite direction. The sidewalk is crowded with latecomers, and we walk for three blocks until we’re alone. At the empty parking lot outside the closed AAA Mechanics, Wanda sits down on the curb. She puts her head in her hands for a moment. I sit down beside her.
“I have to break up with him.”
“I thought you weren’t going out.”
“Nathan thinks we are. I slept with him.”
“I slept with Jimmy too.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
“Honestly?”
“It’s the thing that we do best together. How was it with Nathan?”
“To be honest, it was kind of like riding a mechanical bull, and I kept looking down at his face, and it was all contorted, and I just kept thinking, really? Why does everyone make such a big deal about this?”
“Oh Wanda, I’m sorry.”
“His lips taste like cold cabbage.”
Wanda pulls out a pack of smokes, and we watch the fireworks from a distance. At first we are silent, but as the fireworks get bigger, we start cheering along with the crowds in the distance. The grand finale comes, with a cacophony of loud bangs, and we start walking home. The street gets busy with cars coming from the park passing us. A van pulls up beside us, and we both ignore it out of instinct, then I realize Nathan is driving it.
“Hey! Hey, where did you go? Let’s go somewhere,” Nathan calls from his window, his elbow resting on its frame.
Wanda looks at me. “Can you drive us to my house? Daisy’s not feeling well.” I try and look sickly. Wanda gets in the passenger seat, and I climb in the back with bits of drum and guitar cases.
“Why don’t I drop Daisy off at home, and then we can go somewhere?”
“No, her mom’s away, and she’s going to call to check Daisy’s at my place later.” Lies coming out of Wanda’s mouth start to sound like the truth. When we get to her house, Wanda opens the passenger door of the van, but stays seated.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she says to me. I head up to the house and linger at the front steps.
I can see Wanda and Nathan illuminated inside the van. Wanda’s open door keeps the inside lights on. Nathan puts his hands on Wanda’s shoulders to draw her near, but she plants her hand against his chest and pushes him away. I see her lips moving and her head shaking. I see Nathan throwing up his hands. Wanda gets out of the van. Nathan reaches over and grabs Wanda’s arm, but she shakes him off and shuts the door. The interior light goes off in the van; Nathan reverses out too fast and speeds away.
When school start
s, the cable from the phone jack in Mum’s room is permanently stretched across the hall and into my room. I’m lying on my bed, my homework strewn around me. I doodle in the corner of my English notebook as I talk to Jimmy.
“I’m working all week. Two of the guys are gone; they only wanted to work for the summer,” Jimmy tells me.
“When are you going to do your homework?”
“You’re not my mom, Daisy. It’s not like we learn much the first week of school anyway.”
“I guess.”
I flick through my textbooks. I have twenty Math questions assigned, but instead of that I’ve read three quarters of Hamlet. I call Wanda at exactly 10 p.m. It’s prearranged, and she snatches up the phone as soon as it starts, so there is only a tiny second of it ringing, and we don’t disturb her parents.
“Did you see Jude at school?” she asks me.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And nothing. She said hi, asked how my summer was, then walked off with Cathy.”
“She didn’t say anything else?”
“No, Wanda. Nothing.”
“Nathan left me a poem.”
“Where?”
“In an envelope shoved under the front door.”
“Isn’t he gone? Didn’t his parents drive him up to university?”
“I thought so. But I guess he’s still here.”
“What was the poem like?”
“I didn’t read it; I just threw it away.”
It’s midnight. We keep saying we should get off the phone, but then one of us has something to say.
“I don’t see why Ophelia has to die?” I’m telling Wanda. “It’s not like Hamlet’s all that great. He’s obsessed with his dead father and wants to screw his mother, according to Kleinberg anyway.”
Then I hear something in the background at Wanda’s end of the line.
“Can you hear that?” she says to me.
“Yes, what is it? A cat or something?”
“I hope so. I’m going to look.”
I hear Wanda get up. I know the route she pads from her bed to the window.
“Fuck, Daisy, he’s out there.”
The sound of Wanda’s window getting pushed wider comes to me through the phone. It squeaks in its aluminum track.
“Get out of here, Nathan. You’ll wake up my parents.”
“Wanda, I miss you.”
“Don’t go out there,” I say into the phone.
“Go home, Nathan.”
“Why are you so mean to me, Wanda? I didn’t deserve this. All I did was love you, and you broke my heart.” He sounds angry.
“It’s late, Nathan. Go home.”
“Why are you being such a bitch?” This is loud.
“I’ll take care of this, Wanda.” Wanda’s dad. His voice is distant—he must be outside.
“Call the cops, I don’t care,” Nathan screeches. I realize he’s drunk.
“I don’t need the cops to handle my problems, b’y,” Wanda’s dad says.
I hear Wanda slide her window shut.
Nathan doesn’t show up again. I phone Wanda every night and do my homework with the phone wedged under my ear. Jimmy is always working.
twenty-four
Wanda insists we will get into a club if we dress right.
“Jimmy says there’s no way they’ll let us in without ID.”
“I went to see Nathan’s band twice; no one ever carded me.”
Wanda picks out my outfit. She hands me the green shift dress Cora gave me and digs Elizabeth’s cast-off high-heel boots from the back of my closet. I wear my usual half heart from Wanda and my snake ring. I’m redoing my ponytail, but Wanda shakes her head. “You look too young. You have to wear it down.” She takes my brush from my hand and scours it roughly through my hair. She twists bits of it around her finger and sprays them with hairspray. Wanda wears tight jeans and a tight red velvet top with her leather jacket.
“How come you get to wear jeans?” I complain to her.
“Because I don’t write song lyrics all over the thighs of my pants,” Wanda says.
It’s 6:30 when we catch the bus downtown. We’ll have time to kill, but we have to get out of the house before Mum comes home and figures we’re up to something because of our outfits. I told her I was going to watch movies and sleep over at Wanda’s. I feel very conspicuous in my finery. Everyone stares as we get on the bus, and, to my horror, Jude is sitting with Cathy at the front.
“Hi,” I say to them when they see us. Wanda doesn’t say a word, just sweeps by. I stumble in my heels down the narrow aisle after her.
“I don’t look like a hooker, do I?”
“Of course not, hookers don’t carry handbags,” says Wanda, pointing out the leather purse she has made me take instead of my backpack.
Jude and Cathy get off at the mall. Cathy waves goodbye to me, but Jude just stares out the bus doors and completely ignores us. I think Wanda hasn’t noticed until she says, “Well, fuck her.” She delves into her purse and pulls out her newest purchase, a stainless-steel hip flask, which she takes a sip from right here on the bus. Then she passes it to me.
The first bar cards us and we don’t get in. I’m mortified, but Wanda just shrugs her shoulders at the bouncer, and we head down the street. The next club is called Dead Flowers. There’s a short line of goths and punks and we join the back. While we wait, we finish off Wanda’s flask. She drinks without trying to hide what she’s doing. I can see a couple of older guys checking her out. This time the bouncer cards two guys at the front of the line and then waves the rest of us in.
It’s dark, loud, and smoky. I’m desperate to pee and Wanda makes me go alone. The ladies’ room is full of goth chicks with eye makeup like artwork and black clothes that cling across cleavage and float around hips. They are smoking up and sitting on the radiators. “Nice dress,” one of them says to me as I wash my hands. I meet her eyes in the mirror. I can see she’s not being sarcastic, and I say thanks. She nods back at me.
I locate Wanda through the dark and the flashing lights: she has acquired two drinks and is having her smoke lit by a guy with a Mohawk and home tattoos running down his arms. He lingers around but she ignores him, and after she hands me my drink, we shuffle towards a less populated area of the bar. When Home Tattoo approaches again, Wanda slugs back her vodka and tonic, and abandons her jacket on the chair. I find myself doing the same, and follow her to the dance floor. For the first time in my life, all my adolescent bedroom dance practice comes in handy. I surrender myself to the music and forget to be self-conscious. We drink and dance, and I am unconcerned about what time it is or potential police raids or what Jimmy is doing, and just enjoy this: being here, now, on this dance floor with Wanda.
The last bus home leaves Finch Station at 12:30. Getting off the subway at the end of the line, we run down the underground hallway, checking the clocks that hang from the ceiling. Bursting out into the bus station, I see the tail lights of our bus already disappearing around the corner.
My sweat cools from the running. The bus station lights start to turn off, and it’s like we are standing on a film set. Everything is in black and white. It feels unreal to be here with all the buses gone and a security guard padlocking the doors shut with a chain behind us.
“Come on,” Wanda says, and we go. As we start walking, the distance home becomes more tangible.
“We could hitch,” says Wanda.
“What kind of person is going to pick us up at one in the morning looking like this?”
Wanda looks at me and shrugs. I’m coming down from the booze, and the September air is much colder at night than in the day. It will take us about three hours to walk home from here. We don’t have enough money for a cab, and neither of us even considers calling our parents. We are walking north down Yonge Street, and by the end of the first block, I deeply regret my choice of footwear. The traffic starts to decrease the further it gets from last call; we hide in the shadows when we see a pol
ice car approaching in the distance. A car comes barrelling by; a bunch of men yell something indistinguishable out the window, and I start to cry.
“Come on, Daisy, it’s not so bad.” Wanda lights one of our last three cigarettes, and we share it as we stumble along. For half an hour we walk until we’re in one of those weird wastelands between towns. There’s a golf course on one side of the road and a cemetery on the other. It’s such a familiar place, one I’ve seen so many times through the grey-streaked bus windows, but outside the bus at night, it feels like the enchanted forest from a fairy tale.
Our progress gets slower and slower, and Wanda finally says, “Let’s take a break.” The fence of the golf course is really high, so Wanda and I go through the stone pillars that mark the entrance to the cemetery. It looks empty but we’re still cautious. I’m afraid. I pee in a place with no actual headstones and apologize silently to the dead people around me.
“I’m so tired, Daisy,” says Wanda, and she looks sixteen now, not twenty-six like she did earlier.
“If we stay here we could get the first bus in the morning. That’s only about five hours,” I say.
I glance around, looking for bad men in the shadows. It’s like the beginning of a horror film, two drunk sixteen-year-old girls alone in a cemetery. I’m cold and tired, and I have blisters burning on my heels. Wanda and I stick to the older edges of the space, where there are faded headstones and it is dark and dense with trees. This is probably the most dangerous place, but the shadows feel safer than open ground. At the back end of the cemetery is a garden shed, and when I check the door, miraculously, it isn’t locked. Wanda flicks on her lighter, and we cautiously look in. It’s clean-smelling, dry, and occupied only by a lawn mower, a weed whacker, and some garden tools.
I find some twine inside the shed and use it to tie the door closed behind us. Nothing else seems to matter, except that we are inside and sheltered. Huddling together in the far back corner of the shed, we push our bodies close and hold hands. Wanda flicks on her lighter again and illuminates some burlap for wrapping trees, and we use it like a blanket; eventually I start to warm up. Neither of us speaks much as our voices sound loud and unnatural in the silence.