Even Weirder Than Before

by Susie Taylor

  “Do it,” the man says quietly. “Girls like you like that kind of thing. Don’t they, Jude? And Carol tells me she’s your superior.” He says this in an eerily calm manner, still watching Wanda and me where we stand framed in the entrance from the hallway.

  Jude is shaking, her eyes glassy. She might be high or peaked out with fear. She’s only focussed on Carol. Carol is taller than Jude, tall and thick. She puts her hand on top of Jude’s head ready to push her down, but first she grins at her audience.

  Wanda flies. She leaps and I follow. Wanda grips Carol’s shoulder and spins her so she is backed up beside Jude. Wanda drives the palm of her hand into the metal door right next to Carol’s head.

  The sound of Wanda’s hand slamming into aluminum takes several seconds to subside. We are all suspended in the vibrating sound. Then the man laughs, not real laughter, laughter he forces out, a threat.

  “Guess you’ve got two more little girls to teach how to behave tonight, Sergeant.”

  A smile forms on Carol’s lips, even though Wanda still has her pinned to the garage by her shoulder. Carol’s pupils are small. She’s figuring out what to do next. It takes her a moment, and at once I realize both that she is stupid and that her stupidity makes her even more dangerous.

  I’m a few feet away. No one is looking at me.

  “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof woofwoofwoof. Arrrrr ArrrrrrArrrrrrr.” I put my head to one side as I bark and howl and roll my eyes around and hunch over. Everyone is staring at me, confused, except for Jude. She wrenches up the garage door and yells, “Run!”

  Burning lungs, we keep running until Jude stops, bends down, and clasps her knees. We are in the park. I glance back, sucking in air. No one is following us.

  “Don’t worry,” Jude spits out words between intakes of air. “Carol, is, fucking, slow.”

  “Fuck, Daisy, what was that?” Wanda says.

  “Rabies. I was acting rabid. If wolves are surrounding you, act rabid.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Friend of Dad’s. Once. Told a story.” I take a deep breath. “At a dinner party.”

  “Thanks,” Jude says, first looking at me, then at Wanda. “I didn’t think the party was going to be like that. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known Carol was going to be there. She’s always been a bully, but I didn’t know she was a neo-Nazi.”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Wanda has her arm around Jude’s shoulders. Jude’s crying now, letting out the shock and the built-up adrenaline.

  We lie on the grass, the three of us with our heads together. A shooting star goes by, and Wanda sticks her hand up and follows its trail.

  “Make a wish,” I say.

  “What did you do all summer?” Jude asks us.

  “Nothing,” Wanda and I say in unison.

  “What about you?” I ask her.

  “I learned how to fly,” Jude replies.

  “As if,” says Wanda.

  “No really, that’s why I’m in Cadets. I’m an Air Cadet. I want to be a pilot. This year I started lessons.”

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell us?” says Wanda.

  “You never asked,” says Jude. “And I’m telling you now.”

  “What’s flying like?” I ask her.

  “It feels like closing your eyes and falling backwards and knowing you’re never going to hit the ground.”

  twenty-eight

  I’m disoriented starting grade twelve. A couple of kids smile at me, but they’re all in groups or couples telling loud summer stories or enjoying last-minute kisses before classes start. I walk past Damon and Jana. They’re making out across from a group of grade nines, who are trying unsuccessfully to ignore them. My first class of the day is Drama. When I get there, the door is locked. To cover up my embarrassment at being early, I am pretending to be busy looking at my empty day planner when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around: it’s Jude.

  “Hey,” she says, and I grin at her.

  Gerry comes and opens the door. He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt and greets us with “Aloha, ladies!” The class is split between the musical kids, the play kids, and a handful who take Drama but have thus far avoided the drama of the school play. Damon rushes in at the last minute and plunks himself beside me and Jude. Jana blows him kisses from the door. It’s so obvious they are doing it. If it wasn’t obvious, I would know anyhow, because Cora came home one day and heard them at it in Damon’s bedroom. She said it was a risky thing to do, since someone is almost always home at their house.

  Some of the musical kids are singing “Bicycle” by Queen.

  “I hate that song,” Jude says.

  “I know, it’s music for people who want to grow up and teach at preschool,” I say.

  “You guys are such snobs,” says Damon. Jude punches him on the arm, and he ducks away in exaggerated fear.

  Wanda, Jude, and I spend our lunch hours in the library. Wanda’s always studying, determined to get the kind of grades that get scholarships. Our table is pushed up against a large window and is littered with university brochures. Wanda and I sit on the long side of the table facing outside. Jude is at the head of the table, rocking her chair on to its back legs, and reading Pet Sematary. I swirl my hands through the glossy publications.

  “I don’t know why you’re so excited. It’s just more school,” I say to Wanda.

  “It’s not just more school. I don’t want to clean up blood and piss and shit at the hospital like Mom does every day. This is my way out of that.”

  “I wish I knew what I was going to do with my life.” I slump melodramatically on to the table.

  “You don’t have to know what you’re going to do; you just need to do something.” Wanda pats my head.

  We are distracted by a swoop of birds outside the window. They arrive in a mass and land on the roof. We can hear them, a hundred bird voices exalting their existence chirpily, and pattering on tiny feet above our heads.

  “There’s so many of them,” Wanda says, and we stand up and try and peer up at them. They take off from the roof again in a swooping formation of organized chaos, their wings making a rushing sound like an outgoing tide.

  “A murmuration,” says Jude.

  “What?” I say. Wanda and I cock our heads at Jude.

  “A murmuration of starlings. That is what you guys are looking at.”

  “A murmuration,” says Wanda, with newly glittering eyes.

  Jude walks over to the magazine rack and comes back with a science magazine. She flips through to an article entitled “Flight Patterns: Avian Dare Devils” and hands it to Wanda. There’s an image of a group of birds, much like the ones we’ve just seen, stark against a grey sky. Wanda carefully rips out the picture.

  She finds out about the place after reading an article in NOW magazine. It’s far east on Queen. I stare out the streetcar taking in laundromats, seedy strip clubs, and an illogical number of places selling fried chicken. The shop is wedged between an antique store and Lucky 8 Convenience and Psychic Readings. The bottom half of the window displays pictures of tattoos. Skulls with flaming eyes, Playboy rabbits, and four-leaf clovers, but Wanda has the picture in her bag. She wants a cluster of birds to travel across her shoulders.

  “I am nineteen. You are eighteen,” she says to me, before pushing open the door.

  There’s a man sitting behind a desk talking on the phone when we come in. He’s in his fifties with a pot belly and has a spider web of blurred green ink covering his bent elbow. He waves at us with his free hand and sticks his two free fingers up, then mimes at the phone. I walk down a wall covered in photographs of muscular male arms with portraits of women and various dragons tattooed on them.

  “Sorry,” he says, hanging up the phone. “Can I help you ladies?”

  “I have an appointment with Cherry?” Wanda says, like we’re at the dentist or the hairdresser.

  Cherry is the kind of beautiful that makes me nervous. Her hair is pulled back in a
ponytail, and she is wearing a white undershirt and black jeans. The muscles in her arms move beneath her tattooed skin with every gesture she makes. Her eyes are dark brown and her lashes are thick and black.

  She takes us into a back room.

  “I have to ask you for ID,” she says apologetically, and Wanda produces a license from her purse. It’s not fake, it’s her cousin’s, and I hold my breath waiting to see if it will work.

  “Great, Amanda, sorry I had to ask.”

  Wanda is lying on her front as Cherry leans over her. She has interpreted the picture Wanda gave her. There are twenty-one birds, just black shapes, but with definition at the end of their wings evoking feathers. Each is in a slightly different pose, and they fly from halfway across the right side of Wanda’s upper back up to the top of her left shoulder.

  “Good,” says Cherry. “This looks good. I love it when people want beautiful things.”

  “Does it hurt?” I ask Wanda. She has her eyes closed. “It doesn’t not hurt, but it’s not as bad as I thought it might be.”

  “Yeah, people make it into such a big deal. But it’s not really. You’re doing great,” Cherry says.

  “Those birds are so real looking,” I tell Cherry.

  “Starlings for darlings.” Cherry smiles at me. “What about you? I don’t have another appointment booked. You want something done?”

  “You could just get a small one. One starling.” Wanda is enthusiastic.

  “It’s a pretty tattoo. You could get one now and if you like it, add to it later,” Cherry says. She can see I’m tempted. “Honey, I’ve regretted many things in my life, but never a tattoo.” I eye the flowered garden that sweeps up Cherry’s arms.

  Wanda talks to distract me, and gets up occasionally to haul up the back of her shirt and admire the new markings on her back in a mirror. Cherry’s touch is gentle, and after the initial sharp pain, the area goes numb. It only takes a few minutes. A lone bird on my shoulder, swooping up.

  I scoop cones of pumpkin pie and maple walnut for most of Thanksgiving weekend. I fill in on shifts like this once in a while so that Alice or Ingrid can have a day off. Mum is looking at houses with Olivia.

  Monday the store is closed. Taking a break from homework, I go for a walk. It’s the early evening and I smell turkey roasting, see extra cars parked in driveways and guests arriving clutching pots of rust-coloured mums. Maple leaves have imprinted on the sidewalk, and wood smoke is in the air. It is a perfect Thanksgiving day, and I feel so lonely. I’m being sentimental, remembering Thanksgivings of my youth when Elizabeth and I made placemats by ironing leaves between waxed paper and Dad got the stuffing ready as Mum peeled potatoes. Through my melancholy comes the sound of wheels on pavement. I look up, and Damon is coming dangerously and beautifully down the middle of the smooth street on his skateboard. He makes an elegant U-turn and stops beside me.

  “Shouldn’t you be eating turkey?” I ask him.

  “Nah, we did it yesterday, and now we’re all sick of being stuck in the house together.” It occurs to me just how small his house is for six people.

  “We’re skipping Thanksgiving this year. Where’s Jana?”

  “I don’t know,” Damon says with don’t-ask-questions finality. “Wanna go smoke a joint?”

  We walk over to our old schoolyard and smoke, lurking amongst the trees by the fence, and then we sit on the swings, making trails in the sand with our shoes.

  Damon pushes me and I swing sideways out of control, laughing. We goof around giggling and half-heartedly shoving each other off course. I write my name in the sand with the toe of my boot.

  The weed wears off, and we walk slowly back to our houses. Neither of us wants to go home, but there isn’t anything else for us to do.

  “You want to come to my place?” Damon asks, but I’ve already been gone for longer than I should have.

  “I saw a house I really liked today,” Mum says when I come in the door. “How would you feel about switching schools? I know Wanda won’t be there next year. I’m ready for a change. There’s nothing keeping us here.”

  “I’d be okay with moving.”

  Mum nods. “Do you want scrambled eggs or baked beans?” she says holding the bag of bread in her hand.

  I reach up into the cupboard to take out a cup, and the neck of my sweater slips down.

  “Daisy.” I freeze and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, before turning to face her.

  “You better show me.”

  I stretch my sweater down exposing the whole tattoo. She doesn’t say anything, but when I cover my shoulder back up, she hugs me for a long time.

  Christmas break looms ahead once again with Mum and me trapped in the house together, trying to fill the various voids in both of our lives. Elizabeth is vague. She might come, she might not, and then she calls and announces she is coming and she has a surprise for us. I lie awake worrying what this surprise might be.

  Mum braves the traffic, and we drive through light snow to the airport to get her. We see her once more through the glass of the security area as she escalates down to baggage collection; she’s looking for us, smiles and waves. Mum reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. Elizabeth hugs us when she sees us, and I take her heavy bag. She’s dressed in a flowered cotton skirt and a flowing white top. The skirt has bells sewn to the bottom that tinkle like glasses clinking together as she walks. Over this she wears a sensible wool winter coat which makes her seem older and more grounded than usual. We’re getting ready to leave the airport when I notice Mum staring at something; I follow Mum’s eyes and see the unmistakeable gold band on Elizabeth’s finger.

  “I eloped.” She beams at us.

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Mum practically moans. “But why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Because we’re in love, because we want to be together.”

  Ian will be arriving to meet us the next day.

  Donald is informed of Elizabeth’s marital status and says he will book an extra seat for our Boxing Day dinner. The Joneses coo and cluck at Elizabeth’s news, and Mrs. Jones says it all sounds so romantic. Cora and Millie ask about the how and where and what was worn. I go to work and scoop gingerbread and candy-cane ice cream and feel cheated out of a bridesmaid dress.

  He’s old, at least thirty. He has those too-blue Vancouver eyes and a winter suntan from skiing. He owns a coffee shop, which neither Donald nor Mum seems impressed with; they have always viewed entrepreneurship as somehow disagreeable.

  I am ready to hate Ian, but I don’t. He brings us all presents and lots of coffee. He buys wine and offers to do dishes, and he looks at Elizabeth like he loves her without it being all creepy.

  After dinner and presents on Christmas Day, Ian and Mum wash up, and Elizabeth says, “Come on,” and I put on the bulky Guatemalan sweater she has given me, and we head out into the crisp, cold air.

  “Are you okay?” she asks me.

  “I’m okay,” I say.

  “Good. So what do you think of my husband?” She pronounces the word carefully, still trying it out.

  “I like him. He’s different from other guys.” I’m thinking of our dad and Jimmy.

  “Good, he likes you too.”

  Mum, Elizabeth, and I go visit the house a few days after Christmas. “It’s a good time to make an offer; it’s been on the market for a while,” the real-estate agent tells us. It’s small, two bedrooms, and there’s a scary dirt-floored basement down a rickety set of stairs. The wooden floors upstairs are honey coloured, and in the front room is an old fireplace with art-deco green tiles and a cast-iron face.

  “Does it work?” Elizabeth asks the agent.

  A For Sale sign sprouts out of the snow on our front lawn. Dad comes over to pick up a few boxes of his stuff. He offers Mum his unsolicited advice.

  “It’s not a good time to sell in the winter.”

  “It’s not really any of your business anymore, Donald,” Mum tells him.

  All toothpaste is washed from the sink. We a
void using the living room, and the sofa cushions are constantly plumped. We exit the house at odd times when our real-estate agent alerts of us a showing. On a Tuesday at 7 p.m. we find ourselves driving around, past the high school and then by the town hall.

  “I’ve got an interview lined up for a new job. I wasn’t going to say anything, but if it works out I’ll have to commute until we can move.”

  “Where is it?”

  “It’s at Caufield’s Caskets. They make coffins.”

  “Coffins? Really? Do you want to work there?”

  “I’m not sure, but the location is great. It’s by that house we looked at, in an old warehouse.”

  I get home to find her slumped on the couch after the interview. “I screwed it up, Daisy.”

  “How?”

  “She, Mrs. Caufield, asked if I’d felt any hesitation about working in the death industry. I told her I thought it might put more qualified candidates off, and I’d have a better chance at the job.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She laughed.”

  I answer the phone the next day. “It’s Audrey Caufield,” I say, handing the phone over to Mum.

  “Thank you, yes, I’m very pleased,” Mum says into the phone, while doing a silent dance of joy.

  In the spring, Damon and Jana star in the school production of West Side Story. Wanda and I sit at the back of the audience during the final night. Damon is wearing tight leather pants. As soon as he walks on stage, Wanda grabs my hand and squeezes.

  “I don’t think he can bend over,” she whispers to me.

  “He’ll never be able to have children after wearing those. They must be cutting off all the circulation,” I whisper back. Wanda guffaws. The people beside us—parents, he’s in a suit and she’s wearing a church-service dress—give us censorious glances. We can’t look at each other for the rest of the play for fear of causing another involuntary outburst of noise.