The Most Dangerous Thing

by Leanne Lieberman

  “Sure. When?”

  “Don’t know yet.” Fen grins. “Think you’ll make the whole ride this time?”

  I roll my eyes. “That was just that one time.” On our last ride, Fen and his dad had to come find me in the car because I bonked out on the ride back.

  Fen’s got his backpack and jacket on now and is ready to head outside. “You coming?” he asks.

  “What about Sofia?”

  “Ah, she’s flirting with the new math teacher again. I saw her on my way out.”

  I shrug and start walking beside Fen. Maybe I’ll keep Paul’s texts to myself for a while. I’m not sure what to make of them yet anyway. Who sends cloud pictures?

  Fen and I head outside into the gray day. It’s not raining, but the air is so damp it feels like it is. We get on our bikes and say goodbye. Fen’s going to his dad’s house, and I’m heading west across the city to Zeyda’s house.

  Traffic moves slowly, leaving me lots of time to think. Why is Paul sending me pictures? Sofia would say it’s because he likes me. She’d ask me if I like him, if maybe I might be in love, and then she’d tell me some long-winded story about her aunt in Croatia who fell in love and what happened to her. It would be one of Sofia’s stories that comes to a weird ending with no real conclusion. I’ve never thought of Paul as a potential boyfriend. I’ve never thought of anyone that way. Most girls seem to want a boyfriend the way they want a designer purse or a really expensive pair of leather boots—as a status symbol.

  Back when we first met, Paul was shorter than me, barely over five feet, and he had a little kid’s voice. Now he’s at least six inches taller than me and, well, he’s a guy. He wears his hair differently too. It used to flop into his eyes. Now it’s shorter, and he gels up the front. I pause for a red light and reach for my phone to take a picture of the taillights reflecting in a puddle. I could send that to Paul, call it my ride, but maybe that’s not the right thing.

  I forget about Paul as I get closer to the ocean, closer to Zeyda’s neighborhood. He lives on the west side of the city, past Kitsilano, on the way to the university. From the road his house doesn’t look like much, just a front door level with the sidewalk and a garage, but the back of the house descends a cliff to the beach, with four different levels and the most amazing views of the ocean, the mountains and downtown. Zeyda and Bubbie built the house in the seventies, and it has a distinctive west-coast style—all cedar and glass—that hasn’t been updated in years. My bubbie had a thing for Chinese antiques, and the house is stuffed with vases, ornate tables and scrolls. On clear days you can sit in almost any room and watch the boats go by—sailboats, motorboats, cruise ships and giant container ships going to and from China.

  Zeyda has lived alone in the house ever since Bubbie died three years ago. Mom and Dad have been trying to convince him to move to a retirement home because he had a stroke last year, but he refuses. Zeyda can talk and walk again, but he doesn’t move very fast and he can’t climb stairs, so he lives on the main floor of his house and his caregiver, Crystal, comes every weekday. Zeyda is the most stubborn, opinionated person I know. He’s also racist, sexist, grumpy, rude to strangers and cheap. He regularly fights with Mom and threatens to write her out of his will. Still, I visit him all the time. I know he’s lonely, and it’s my job to help him. Also, I love him.

  Zeyda and Bubbie spent a lot of time taking care of Abby and me when we were little, especially me. When I was seven, I fell down the stairs in our house and broke my leg. I was in a cast for a long time. I remember lying on a mattress in the living room, first in a lot of pain and then in total boredom. Mom took some time off work, and Bubbie and Zeyda looked after me the rest of the time. Zeyda spent hours lying on the floor with me, designing winter wear for my paper dolls and teaching me how to play every card game he knew. He also tutored me in my schoolwork, especially math. Bubbie cooked and read to me and told me stories and taught me Yiddish songs. We spent a lot of time looking at her collection of fashion and home-decorating magazines.

  Zeyda used to own a coat factory, but ever since he sold it and retired, he spends most of his time managing his money. He’s teaching me about investing, and in exchange I’m giving him lessons on how to use a computer so he can do online trading. I’ve also been showing him how to use social media, but he’s not interested in people, only money. Zeyda gave me five thousand dollars for us to invest together. Then he decided we needed to invest another five thousand in Abby’s name. It wouldn’t be fair to your sister, Zeyda had said, even if she doesn’t come and visit.

  I didn’t bother telling him Abby would visit if he stopped saying sexist things in her presence.

  I wheel my bike past the side gate at Zeyda’s house and lock it to the fence. The ocean is gray, the tide right in against the base of the house. I take a quick picture of the rocks against the cliff with the ocean coming in. It’s not bad, better than the one with the puddle and taillights. I hesitate a moment and then send it to Paul. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s a good picture, and if clouds are Paul’s thing, then the ocean is mine.

  When I was in seventh grade and my anxiety first became really bad, I thought being near the ocean might save me. I thought that if I walked on the beach every day, I could fight off the nervousness I constantly felt. The waves would carry away my unease and leave me with some other feeling, something fresh and new. I biked to the beach almost every day, and if the tide was low I ran as fast as I could on the hard wet sand, until I was breathless, watching the seagulls take flight in front of me. Sometimes running helped, sometimes it didn’t. Still, I carried the idea around in my head for a long time, like a chant. The ocean will save me. Sometimes I imagined walking into the water and letting it swallow me up. Not to drown, just to feel the water instead of fear surrounding me. I wasn’t crazy though—the ocean is freezing here, except maybe on the hottest summer days. Now I think riding my bike might save me.

  I come back to the front of the house and ring the bell. Crystal answers the door. She’s barely five feet tall and wears jeans and a sweatshirt, with her hair in a long braid. She has the biggest smile of anyone I’ve ever met. Even when she’s complaining about her kids or worrying about money, she’s laughing. I always thought she was about twenty-five until I saw pictures of her kids, who are in their twenties.

  “Hi, Sydney,” Crystal says. “Your grandfather is waiting for you.”

  I take off my shoes and jacket and leave my backpack in the front hall. Zeyda’s in his usual spot, slumped in his recliner, looking out at the sea. He turns to look at me. “You’re late,” he says, not smiling.

  I kiss the top of his bald head. “I said I’d be here around four.”

  “If you say 4:00 PM, you should be here at 4:00 PM.”

  “There was traffic, and I didn’t want to get killed on my bike. Besides, you had somewhere to go?” Zeyda doesn’t leave the house much anymore, except to go to his shul on Saturdays and occasionally to the casino, if Crystal will take him. She’s under pretty strict orders from Mom not to take him too often.

  Crystal brings me a mug of mint tea and a cookie like the ones Bubbie used to make, and I sit next to Zeyda by the big window overlooking the sea. “See any whales today?” I ask.

  Zeyda shakes his head.

  My phone beeps, and I take it out of my pocket. Nice photo, Paul writes. Where?

  I write back, Near Jericho beach.

  Send another?

  Zeyda sits up in his chair and rubs the bags under his eyes. “Who is sending you messages? Your mother?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “Your Sofia?”

  “No, a different friend.”

  “A boyfriend?”

  “Not a boyfriend. He sends me pictures of clouds.” I hold up the phone to show Zeyda the fallstreak hole.

  “What kind of boy sends you things on a phone?”

  I’m not sure how to answer that. “A nice one?”

  “You like this guy?”

&n
bsp; I shrug.

  “Is he Jewish?”

  “Who cares?” I type, Maybe later, kinda busy now.

  Okay, see you tomorrow.

  “I care,” Zeyda says. “It used to be important who you dated, who you married. Now”—he lifts up his hands—“it’s nothing.”

  I try not to roll my eyes when Zeyda says, “That’s not how we did it in my day.” And then he’s quiet, and I know he’s thinking about the past again, about Bubbie and his life before his stroke. He used to be more interested in the world around him. Now he doesn’t want to go anywhere. I take a breath. I’m supposed to be cheering him up.

  “Did you check the stock prices yet?” I say, pulling out my tablet.

  Zeyda’s eyes clear. He nods. “The TSX is up, but my oil stocks are down. It’s those environmentalists protesting again!”

  I cut Zeyda off before he gets going on politics and tell him about investor’s club and the contest. He looks through my stock options and makes some suggestions, mostly about investing in mining and gold. Apparently natural resources and high tech are what it’s all about. At least talking keeps Zeyda in the present and not lost in missing Bubbie and thinking about the way his life used to be. I need to keep him cheered up so I don’t get dragged down with him. Zeyda’s cloud is even heavier than mine today, and if I’m not careful we’ll both be falling into the same dark place, and who will get us out then?

  Two

  I RIDE HOME ALONG THE WATERFRONT, taking the bike path past Kits Beach and then over to Vanier Point. It’s late afternoon, and there aren’t too many pedestrians, so I continue through Granville Island and then over to Olympic Village. It’s slower than riding the main streets but prettier, although it’s raining now. The roads shimmer in the streetlights. Once I get to Main Street there’s no choice but the steady uphill slog home.

  Mom and Dad both work late on Monday nights, and Abby and I are in charge of making dinner. Usually that means we eat something like tacos or defrost something from the freezer. I hang up my jacket and bike helmet and toss my backpack by the back door. There’s something that looks like lasagna defrosting on the counter, so I guess that’s what Abby’s chosen.

  Our house is a small bungalow on what used to be the not-so-fancy side of the city. Now our neighborhood is trendy and expensive. On the main level of our house there’s a living room, kitchen, dining room and office. My parents’ bedroom is in the attic, up this crazy-steep set of stairs, and Abby and I have bedrooms in the basement and our own rec room with a TV and beanbag chairs. A few years ago Abby and I created a tent in the rec room by hanging fabric from the ceiling. It’s big enough for both of us to lie down on cushions. Abby also strung up some Tibetan prayer flags she found in a shop on Main Street and fairy lights. If you turn out all the lights in the room except for the fairy lights, you can pretend you’re in a tent in the desert. Most days when I come home, this is where Abby is, curled up with a book or her phone.

  I peel back the fabric and crawl onto the cushions. Abby sits up and pulls out her earbuds. “Hey,” she says, “where you been?” She smooths her flouncy orange-and-pink skirt over her leggings.

  “Visiting Zeyda.”

  Abby scowls. “Really? How can you spend so much time with him?”

  I shrug. Abby and I have had this conversation before.

  “Rose and thorn,” Abby says. She stretches out her arms expectantly.

  I lean back against some cushions. Still sweaty from my bike ride, I peel off the long-sleeve biking shirt I wore riding home. I consider telling her about Paul, but Abby will pounce on this and devour it, and I’m still mulling it over, so I say, “The TSX is up fifty points and I had a great bike ride, so that’s my rose. And the thorn, well, Zeyda wasn’t in the greatest mood.”

  Abby says, “Figures,” but I can tell she’s more interested in telling me her good news, her rose, than listening to my day. “The best part of my day,” she announces, “is that I came up with a fantastic idea for the senior drama festival.”

  I try to look interested. “Which is?”

  “I’m going to put on The Vagina Monologues.” Abby claps her hands, waiting for my reaction.

  The Vagina Monologues isn’t a play with characters and a plot. It’s exactly what it sounds like—a series of monologues about vaginas. Mom took us to see it last year at the university on Valentine’s Day. Parts of it were sad and parts of it were funny, but mostly it was embarrassing to listen to women talk about their private parts, especially sitting next to Mom. I’m not sure what Abby thinks I’m going to say, but all I can manage is “Ew” and then “Really?”

  Abby doesn’t care that I’m grossed out. She’s too excited by her own audacity. “It’s going to be amazing.”

  I clutch my phone to my chest. “You want to talk about girl parts at school?”

  “Yes. I think it’s so important.”

  “I can’t imagine Mr. Edwards is going to approve that,” I say.

  “He already did.”

  “He did?”

  “Yep. Okay, it’s pending administrative approval, but Mr. Edwards said sure.”

  “Has he read the script?”

  “Parts of it. And I already have five other girls who want to be in it.”

  I shake my head. “And you think I’ll come see the play?”

  “Yes!” Abby grabs my hand. “Of course you will.”

  “But you’ll be performing something so embarrassing.” I shudder and pull my hand back. It was bad enough to sit through the play once, but having to watch Abby perform it will be worse. And Dad will probably want to come. I shudder again. Maybe I’ll change schools or get a new last name so no one knows we’re related.

  “Syd!” Abby gets up on her knees. “This is important. It’s not just theater—it’s about women’s bodies. There are women all over the world who are not in control of their bodies, especially their vaginas. There are women who are denied birth control, and women who are mutilated. Plus, there are all kinds of women and girls who don’t know how wonderful—”

  “I get it.” I cut Abby off before she says something really gross. “Are you going to tell Mom and Dad about the play?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  I stare at her until she throws a pillow at me. “Stop that,” she says. “You know it freaks me out.”

  I can’t help staring at Abby. It’s like she’s from another planet. Not only do we not look alike—Abby is very petite, with a curvy body and super-curly blond hair, whereas I’m taller, with straight brownish hair and angles instead of curves—but we are also totally different people. It’s not just that I’m shy and she’s not. She doesn’t seem to feel shame, and I find this weird. Last week Abby was babysitting down the street, and she accidentally locked herself and the kids out of the house. Colby, who is only five, remembered that one of the neighbors had a key to the house, but he couldn’t remember which neighbor. So Abby dragged Colby and Morgan, who is only two, up and down the block until they found the right house. Abby cheerfully told me all about it when she got home. I tried to imagine what I would have done. Probably the same thing, but I would have died of embarrassment as I knocked on each door. I’d probably never be able to babysit Colby and Morgan again.

  “At least there won’t be dancing in the play.”

  “Says who?” Abby stands up and puts her hands on her hips. “Maybe I’ll create a dance of the vaginas just for you.” Abby starts to sway her hips and tap her foot. “If my vagina were a dance, what would it be?” she announces to an imaginary audience. She lifts her hands above her head and starts to clap as if she is doing some folk dance. Then she unties the scarf from her hair and starts waving it around. “I know it would definitely be a striptease, perhaps the dance of seven veils.” She swings her hips back and forth, the scarf still above her head. “And you, Miss Sydney Mizner? What kind of dance would your vagina do?”

  I stuff my head under a cushion while Abby dances herself out of the tent.

  Someti
mes I think I need to start a support group for introverted people with extroverted siblings.

  My vagina does not dance. And neither does the rest of my body. While Abby has spent years in programs with dubious (and mortifying) names like “Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance!” I have spent my time on my bike or with Zeyda or running on the beach. Personally, I don’t need to talk about bodies, especially vaginas. A vagina hides because it’s private. It does private and sometimes disgusting things to do with sex and babies and periods. And the word vagina—it doesn’t even rhyme or break down into any parts. It only rhymes with angina, which is something to do with your heart not working, and Regina, which is a place that should be renamed because saying it makes me blush. Luckily I don’t know anyone from there.

  The sex ed we get at school hasn’t convinced me that vaginas are happy places either. Every year, gym class is interrupted without warning, and instead of volleyball or gymnastics we get shuffled into a classroom to watch doom-and-gloom videos about vaginas and sex. Last year it began with a film on pregnant teens, saddled with babies who sucked up their time and made them poor and unpopular. Then there was a movie on STIs, all the infections you can get from having sex, complete with gross pictures of diseased parts. Basically, it was an hour of oozing sores and miserable-looking girls who wished they’d used a condom before they slept with that guy. The video culminated with a girl who had contracted HIV and might die before her sixteenth birthday.

  In the class on birth control, we learned about a bewildering array of pills, injections, patches and weird things to insert in places I don’t like to think about, all to avoid pregnancy and all with varying side effects, like weight gain and hair loss. Again we were reminded of the teenage mothers who hadn’t protected themselves. The icing on the cake was a film on protecting yourself from harmful relationships. The film focused on girls who were manipulated, stalked, coerced and even beaten by their boyfriends.

  By the end of the week I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to have sex, or even a boyfriend or girlfriend. Anything involving a vagina was possibly connected with disease and danger. Since I didn’t even talk to boys, I was happy to forget about anything sexual. I believed the sex-ed videos: sex was for adults who could deal with adult problems.