The Sweetest One

by Melanie Mah

  16

  *

  IT’S QUIET AT the store. People come in one at a time and mostly leave empty-handed, or with a ten-dollar toque or cheap mitts. Small beans considering we also sell saddles and cowboy boots, running shoes and jeans. One guy does buy a few pairs of deerskin gloves, though. When he leaves, it’s just my mom and me, Country Christmas playing to an empty store. A dead evening look on her face. December 1. It should be busy. Is she blasé or sad? Either way, it’s hard to handle. What did she look like before it all fell apart? I don’t remember.

  Trina’s alive, though. I’ve known for more than a week. My mom would want to know, and I want to tell her, but I can’t. She’s standing there drawing eyebrows on a piece of scrap paper. I’m thinking, I could change your life in five seconds. For the better or for the worse, though? Who can say? It’s not like me to hide things. Well, big things, at least.

  I haven’t told her about the letters because Trina told me not to. Because my mom’s already made her peace about Trina being gone. Because if Trina’s not coming back, she’s going to die out there. Because it’s unkind to tell someone their daughter was alive all this time but never called and continues not to call for no good reason. Because the letters were for me and they’re private.

  I start walking to the back. There’s something about lying to someone that makes you not want to be around them, like if they spend enough time with you, they will catch you out. Plus, guilt.

  The phone rings when I get there. It’s 8:01. I wanna see you. I like you. I pick up the phone and hang up. Coffee machine, sewing machines, a stack of pants waiting to be hemmed. I wait. The phone rings again. I pick it up this time.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” he says. His voice.

  “I can’t talk to you.” It hurts to say.

  “Why?”

  “Doesn’t feel right.” The phone jiggling against my face.

  “We can go slow,” he says.

  “Why would you want to be with someone who resists you so much?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  I don’t know what to say. I should say something. “Yeah, maybe,” I say. Do I mean it?

  “Okay. Well, I’m gonna go, then,” he says. He sounds sad. He hangs up and the sound goes hollow.

  AT SCHOOL A couple of days later, Kay comes to my locker to walk me to Math.

  “Are you okay?” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, I’ve been talking to Carcadian. We’re worried about you. Haven’t seen or heard much from you lately.”

  There’s nothing to say. I just nod. She starts asking about my weekend plans and university, starts talking about Chiggers, this new rap album, and it’s boring, her talking at me for five minutes that feel like forever. All class, I can feel her there, feel everyone around me, and it just feels wrong. Kay’s flipping through papers, puzzling through a quadratic equation like it’s the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Erasing, scribbling, erasing. Effort. If I look at her, I’ll wanna help. I don’t look. When the bell rings, she turns to me and says, “Wanna go to kfc?”

  “Sounds good,” I say, “but I’m busy.”

  After school, I’m in the library again. I get the atlas and trace possible paths to Whitehorse, and from there to Dawson City. I can’t drive, though. I’d have to thumb for a ride. What would she do if I showed up? She’d abandon Billy, or would she? I stay with a stack of books — wildlife guides, someone’s old meteorology textbook, something from the sixties about the northern peoples of the world — not reading any of them, till they turn out the lights at six.

  On the way home, I see her car. I don’t realize it at first, but when I do, I wave my arms and start running. “Trina!” I yell. “Trina!”

  But she doesn’t stop. She goes fast, up Fiftieth Ave., before turning down Fifty-Second Street and disappearing altogether. I walk around for an hour but don’t know where she’s gone. When I get home I tell my dad I don’t feel well enough to eat, then go to my room and have crackers and cheese.

  She’ll come when she’s ready. She wouldn’t be here unless she wanted to see us. She’s just not ready. She’ll be here tomorrow. Guess I’ll just have to wait. Maybe Kirk knows something. I dial his number, hear his mom’s ghosty voice calling his name. It takes a while for him to come on.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  “Not much.”

  Not much, except I’ve seen him with Miranda Lewis, and he’s working at the car wash now. I saw him there the other day on the way to the Co-op. Dirty blue coveralls, holding the wand. What thoughts can you come up with at that job? How much water he’s using, how cold it is, how much his skin is rotting? I don’t tell him he’s too smart to wash cars. “Guess you haven’t heard anything.”

  A pause. “No,” he says.

  “I think I saw her car today.”

  Silence on his end.

  “I have a good feeling,” I say. “I got some letters from her.”

  “Really?” he says.

  “It makes sense she’d be back now. She’s thinking about us, she wrote me letters. It makes sense, right?”

  “I guess,” he says, like he’s tired of all her shit. I am, too, but you don’t give up on a person you love. “I don’t know, Chris,” he says. “She wanted to see the world. So let her see it.”

  THE NEXT DAY, I sleep in, stay home. My dad comes up around ten while I’m making toast — nowhere for me to hide — and asks me why I’m not at school.

  “No school today,” I say. But then someone from school calls around eleven, asking where I am, and I don’t want trouble with my dad, so I sneak out the back door and go.

  I’m there in time for third period, Bio, and when I walk in, I seize up. That smell. Throat, stomach, nose, dry heave. A small white pail — garbage — I run towards it. Little grey pigs inside. The smell is formalin, the universal chemical preserver of dead things. I make a show of holding in my puke, and people laugh. I should’ve known this was coming. Last year, Trina came in to Bio early, stole the bucket of pigs and hid them because she didn’t want to see them all cut up.

  I tell Ms. Germaine I won’t participate on ethical grounds. Something in her eyes I can’t read, but she lets me go. I have an hour and fifteen minutes. After that, there’s an anatomy quiz. I go to the library, look at the picture of a split open pig in my Bio textbook and read that pigs have all the same organs as humans. That’s interesting. So I find a book about pigs. It says they have personalities and are smarter than dogs and as smart as three-year-old children, that the way they’re normally raised is cruel. Kept in little pens, separated from their moms. I study the anatomy a while, then go outside. Blue sky, sunshine, playground, highway. I walk west, past the woods and track, and on the far end, coming out of the woods like the Sasquatch, is Trina.

  Finally.

  I run ahead. It’s really her. Black ponytail, red coat, black jeans. Simple and still so cool. How has the road treated her? Maybe bad, maybe okay. Where’s Billy? I knew that she’d come back. She’s couldn’t stay away. Has she seen me? What if she hasn’t?

  I start yelling her name. “Trina!” Then, “Katrina!” Then, “Katrina Wong!” Variety makes it fun. She’ll think I’m fucking loony by the time I get there. The people outside for gym are staring, but who the fuck cares? It’s her. “Trina!”

  She’s looking at me. What has she seen? Is she home to stay? Friday, which means at least a weekend full of talks — I hope. How much money do I have? Enough for a pizza?

  “Trina!”

  Dirt on her face, a dark tan. Twenty feet away, I see it’s not her. Sometimes you want something so much, you see what isn’t there. It’s Carson Bigchild, a short, thin Native guy I know from the store. Long hair. Probably wondering why I was yelling. What’s he doing in the woods?

  “Sorry, man,” I yell. “Thought you were someone else.” Fucking idiot.

  “It’s okay,” he shouts back.

  LATER, I’M IN a cold bathro
om stall with my feet propped up so no one can see I’m here. Brown metal door and walls, little tiles with dirt in between. It smells like shit, crotch, piss, someone’s tampon, but there’s nowhere else to go to be alone.

  The bathroom door whines open as someone says, “That fucking nutso Chrysler Wong.” It’s Carrie Pratt, I think. “She’s on the track after lunch yelling at this Indian guy, and he’s just looking at her.”

  “Oh my god,” someone else says. Meaghan Kennedy? “She’s always been weird. Got even worse when her sister died or whatever.”

  Doors slam, zippers, shimmying, pissing. I wanna kick them, keep kicking till they pass out, bruises, internal bleeding, but I just sit there, make as little noise as possible, my feet against the door. I picture it springing open. I can’t fight them, but I could go to a good school, go be a doctor while they’re stuck here working at the parts shop with kids and rig pig husbands. Except that I can’t leave. There’s no revenge. We’ll be the same when we graduate, stuck in this buttfuck town, working crummy jobs, except that I’ll be alone and I won’t wanna be here. A toilet flushes, another. They slam the stall doors open, turn on the taps for two seconds, then leave, the sound of air rushing in and the spring in the door. I count to fifty before I go.

  The bell rings. People trickle then pour out of classrooms. Won’t be long till they all know. I find Nancy walking down the hall, probably going to the library. I follow her.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey.” Not even a glance in my direction.

  Ms. Jamieson, the librarian, perks up as we walk in. No talking allowed. Nancy goes towards the carrels.

  “Wait,” I say. She turns around. I could make a scene. She knows it’ll make her look bad. She comes back out to the hall.

  “What’s this about?” I say.

  “I just want to read.” Her eyes on the lockers on the other side of her as a couple of people pass us, whispering.

  “You’d rather read than hang out with me.”

  “Let’s hang out in a couple of weeks,” she says, her voice low. “Or we’ll talk on the phone. Just —”

  “You don’t wanna be seen with me.” She looks like she’s about to say sorry. Or not. “What kind of friend are you?” I say. More people pass, stare, give her the eyebrows.

  She lowers her voice. “Sorry.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Chris, don’t be like that.”

  “I don’t need you,” I say, and storm away. Around the corner, I hear people laughing. A crowd. Mike Brown’s in the middle of it screaming, “Treeeee-naaaaa!” Everyone laughs till they see me. Then they watch, smiling, to see what I’ll do. A few of them don’t look at me. They act noble like they weren’t just laughing or like they feel sorry for me. Fuck ’em. I won’t need anyone else when she’s here.

  The nearest exit: the front doors. Another thirty feet of shame before I reach them. I crash through, then walk past the church, where Ty Rodriguez is leaning against some girl, her arms draped down his back, his hands invisible. It’s cold out. I go down side streets, past the drugstore window advertising Christmas, paper Jesus on a crucifix, a nativity scene. I’m still looking for Trina, still looking for her car, past the clinic and the saan store. I slip in through the back. It’s 12:05. I go upstairs and lock the door, read then fall asleep. Thank god it’s Friday.

  I WAKE TO a smell and come out squinting. Spareribs for dinner. My dad made them especially for me. My mom hates meat. My dad can’t take the sugar in the sauce. He puts a piece in my bowl, on my rice. It’s garlicky and coated with hoisin sauce, one of my favourite foods before today. Pigs have personalities and are as smart as three-year-old children. I retch, then eat all the rice the rib didn’t touch, and throw out the rest. I hide the rib, refill my bowl. When I sit back down my dad asks if I’m on a diet.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say.

  “A little bit won’t hurt,” he says. I shrug but he puts another rib in my bowl.

  The purpose of a rib is to protect vital organs. This one was taken from a pig that loved its mom and kids. It liked eating. What else? Was it silly, sad, affectionate? I think of those guys on Sunday, just living their lives and looking for plants to eat, then boom, a car. I don’t even know what kinds of animals they were. How is an animal food? Silently, I thank the pig and apologize to it, to the other animals.

  I go back to my room, unsatisfied, my stomach half-empty. Nothing fills you quite like meat. The house smells like barbecue pork, the plate on the table is still full. My dad is hurt, confused, worried about me. He comes from a peasant background. Meat is precious — the most expensive and best kind of food. It doesn’t make sense to him for me to not eat it. I’m wasting it if I don’t, and insulting his cooking. It’s the main thing he does these days, and he’s fucking good at it. Maybe he’s thinking, Am I losing my touch? Maybe he’s thinking, We moved to Canada and we work hard — just so you can eat this.

  When I come back out, my parents are in the living room watching the Miss Hong Kong pageant. Schmaltzy music. Thin, short women in ugly shoes. My dad points at a horsey-looking one and says, “Kuey emdem leng.” She seems pretty.

  My mom looks up, she’s surprised to see me. I ask if she can talk a sec. She gets up and we go to the other side of the house, by the washing machine. I wrap my arms around her as tightly as I can without hurting her. It feels good. I wish we could stay like this. Would she mind? I wish I could climb back into her, all small and cozy and safe. I could come out when Trina came back. But while I’m waiting I wouldn’t know my mom at all, wouldn’t see her with her socks half on, scowling like a kid when she didn’t wanna eat something or my dad happy and excited about animal shows or this special food he made just for us. I wouldn’t see a sunset in Easter colours or hear Joy Division without it sounding like I’m under water. No.

  “I love you,” I say, arms still around her.

  “I love you,” she says back, by rote, without thinking.

  “Have you ever thought Trina might come back?”

  Her baby scent, her bones. The hug quakes. She’s shrugging, not a thing that comes naturally to her.

  I let go. “Well, where else would she go?”

  “The city,” she says, enunciating the T.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “She like shopping.”

  Pause. “I had a bad day at school,” I say. Her face. It’s like I’m not even talking. My mom never knows what to say. “Some kids were making fun of me.”

  “Why?” she says in a concerned mom voice.

  There’s no one else to tell. “I thought I saw Trina today.”

  She’s alert.

  “Out by the woods near school,” I say. “But it wasn’t her, and now everyone thinks I’m crazy.” I tell her about Mike Brown, the crowd of kids around him, Carrie and Meaghan in the bathroom, Nancy, how it’ll get worse once the whole school knows. “Maybe I should quit school, or do it from home or something.”

  “You almost graduate. Just a few more month. Can you be tough?”

  Can I be tough? No. “I don’t know,” I say.

  “You have to be more normal.” She says it like it’s my fault.

  “This doesn’t have to do with me being normal,” I say, even though it does.

  THE WEEKEND IS a kind of reprieve: two days without the mob at school, two days for it to blow over, for me to figure out my next move. But Monday morning comes, an unwelcome guest. I wake up and know I’m gonna get it. I skip first period English so I won’t have to talk to anyone. Second period, Band class, I’m late as usual. Sloppy Scott Joplin as I walk in. The music farts.

  “Class, look alive,” Mr. Buckner drones. “A late arrival is not a licence to stop playing.” Half the class’s eyes are on me as I grab sheet music and my baritone from the front of the room. I go to the back, sit next to Luke. His eyes on his music, he finds the notes with his right hand while waving hello with his left. When he gets to the end of the page, I reach over and turn it for him. H
e gives me a thumbs-up.

  Band’s not bad. There’s safety in the moment, this jaunty carefree brass moment from a hundred years ago. People with fancy clothes in ballrooms did the quickstep to this song. I think of people cheering on around-the-world car races, the first passenger flights, long voyages on massive boats — women with dresses, hats, handkerchiefs, and black lipstick waving goodbye.

  As we play, though, I feel it in the air like it’s about to rain: nerds poised to make themselves feel better about themselves at my expense. Right now, there’s not much they can do. They’re busy and Buckner is watching. But when the bell rings, the teasing starts. I pack up my baritone and something pings off my head. A ball of paper. I know I shouldn’t open it, but I do. On it is the word CRAZY and a drawing of a penis spurting semen. People leave in groups, whispering, tittering, giving me a wide berth.

  The rest of the day I feel the eyes, hear whispers and conversations and assume they’re talking about me. So when I go into Home Ec and Mike Brown sees me and yells “Treeee-naaaa!”, I’ve had it.

  “You miss my sister, eh? Not getting any or what? In case you’re wondering, she’s not into limp dick losers.”

  That shuts him up. No one talks to me for the rest of the day.

  ON THE WAY home, I check the post office. There’s another letter from Trina. She and Billy tried going to Dawson City after hearing about the arts festivals and the Top of the World Highway, which is all hills in different, zany colours. Partway there, though, some guy at a gas station said the Top of the World was closed till summer. Who ever heard of a road closed in the winter! Trina wrote. Too bad. So they went to Alaska instead. There’re festivals in Anchorage, too, a fur auction, a running of the reindeer, a big dogsled race. They’ve been trying to take their time getting there, going down whatever side roads they’ve seen, going on little trips. They got to Prince William Sound, one of the prettiest places she’s ever seen, that way. She said things were going well with Billy, only a few disagreements, but at a town called Mentasta Lake, Trina went off road, down a hill because she could, and got stuck in the mud. It’s gorgeous like you wouldn’t believe. So many mountains, all that water. She bought a cd in Valdez, this Alaskan punk rock band. She said she made friends with the people who helped her out of the mud and that this was a great country, where someone could help you if you needed it, even if you didn’t necessarily deserve it.