In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo

by Tacon, Claire;

  Sometime around eleven, while the kids from The Burning are paddling down the river on a tab behind Photoshop, Jeremy sends me a text. We’re watching a movie at my place tomorrow. You in?

  It surprises me more than Cropsy’s shears rising up from the canoe and plunging into a camper’s neck. The first contact since I’ve been home and Jeremy thinks things are going to shuffle back to normal.

  After a few moments, he sends another. Still stuck in the hobbit hole?

  On the harmless side of the spectrum, he’s lonely. Maybe he’s looking for dude time now that his girlfriend’s pitched him. Or getting me out of the house is his way of making things up to me.

  Since the fight, though, not much about Jeremy seems benign. I think he’s pissed that things have changed. That I forced him to show that underbelly. I’m not the only one who was lucky Ina came along – what would Jeremy be facing if she hadn’t stopped things? How many more hits before I needed a stretcher? Assault causing bodily harm. Aggravated assault. Part of me wonders if Jeremy just wants me to come over to exonerate him. If we’re cool, then it was no big thing. Bros will be bros.

  Dude, I can see when you’ve read the messages. Don’t be a dick.

  He waits through another two minutes of non-reply.

  Fuck you. My folks think you’re a bad influence anyway.

  It’s the first weekend in a long time with no visits scheduled between our families. No dim sum lunch, no tea and contract bridge, no just-drop-over-for-dessert. A wedge I’m at fault for. It’s shameful for my parents, completely shameful, to have a son in trouble with the law. Perhaps the lawyer is someone they know through church and ripples of my misdeeds are spreading throughout the congregation, the Chinese Business Association, and now they’re too embarrassed to socialize. Or, angry with Jeremy for the fight, my parents spoke up for me and his parents refused to blame him.

  I switch off my phone and start on my thank you to Ina, one person I can square up with. At the mall I’d printed off a photo of me in Frankie’s costume on card stock. I glue it to an envelope with my old employee ID and stuff it in a shoebox, along with the mechanized spider I started before the trip. I was going to convert the body into a pincushion but I’ve replaced it with a dollhouse bucket, some soil and oat grass. With a gold Sharpie I stencil out Ina’s Community Garden. Maybe she can pull it out at parties, let the planter scuttle between the drinks.

  STARR

  ON THE WILLIAMS FACEBOOK PAGE THERE IS A PICTURE of two brothers who baked cupcakes to raise money for research. They are really cute! I click the like button and send a friend request. It would be nice to talk to someone else who likes baking as much as I do. There are lots of stories in my newsfeed today. One of Melanie’s friends from high school just got married and I look through all the party photos. I post a link to a video I’ve been watching a lot lately – twins singing an a cappella version of a Beyoncé song.

  There aren’t any messages in any of my other groups. Sometimes new people join and they’re having a hard time so it’s nice to send them a message. I’m here for you. Or you are not alone.

  Since I’ve been back from the trip it’s been good to have a rest but now the condo is too quiet during the day. Della’s at the community centre learning Crock-Pot recipes and listening to an Elvis impersonator. It was too late for me to register.

  Instead, Mom comes by to take me to the hair salon. I’ve been going through the Felicity DVDs that Della’s sister gave her and I’d like to get a cut like Keri Russell in season two.

  “A fresh cut for summer,” the hairdresser says. She hands me back the DVD case.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  Mom and I sit in side-by-side chairs and get our hair washed. It’s our favourite part – it’s so relaxing to have someone else massage your head. It’s very peaceful because there’s no risk of getting soap in your eyes or slipping on the shower floor.

  Mom gets a trim and a flatiron and when we’re done we look like a couple of babes. Since we’re next to the Walmart, Mom suggests going in to get our picture taken. She found a coupon in the paper for free wallet photos.

  As soon as we get to the automatic doors, however, I get nervous.

  “Are there going to be any balloons there?”

  “No, why would there be?”

  On a friend’s Facebook wall I saw some pictures with little babies that look like they’re being lifted up by balloons. They might have been taken at the Walmart portrait studio.

  “I don’t want to go,” I say.

  “I don’t think there will be any balloons.”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.” Mom holds my hand by the candy machines and looks me straight in the eye. “Do you want me to check first?”

  “No. I want you to stay with me.” I don’t want us to get separated.

  “I don’t see any balloons. If we see any balloons we can walk right out. We can ask them to move them.”

  “Good. Just stay by my side and don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

  Once we get to the studio and I can see that there are no balloons, things get much better. They give us feather boas and put a backdrop of an old cowboy saloon behind us. They even take a couple pictures with us holding guns like Charlie’s Angels. We get three different poses printed out, one set for me, one for mom and one for Melanie. I take a picture of one with my cellphone camera to send to Dad. I wait five minutes but he doesn’t write back.

  Things are different with him now. Mom and I fight a lot and I’m used to that. Even when I’m yelling, I know she loves me and she’s going to give me a hug when I calm down. But Dad and I never fight. He’s apologized about Chicago but the bad feelings just won’t go away.

  I’m angry that he got me in trouble with Della and her parents. Whenever I leave the apartment now Della asks when I’ll be back. She acts like she’s my mom and I’m eleven. Even though she’s the one who’s always leaving for day program or to visit her family. The other day I went out to buy a muffin and she asked again, “Starr, how long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not grounded.”

  When I came back I brought her a lemon blueberry muffin with icing and said I was sorry. But I got a call that night from my mom with another lecture about getting along. I don’t even think Della was still upset about it because we stayed up late and she told me about a new guy at the community centre who she has a crush on. Sometimes I want to tell all our parents to butt out!

  Late at night with Della is now my favourite time of day because her brother bought her a Wii. It’s supposed to be for Della to exercise with but she finds that program boring. Step on, step off. Bend down, lift up. So instead we’ve been playing bowling and tennis. We’re going to the mall with Cynthia next week and I’m going to buy some new games. We can eat dinner at the food court and make a night of it.

  Dad still hasn’t texted about the photo. “Is Dad at work?” I ask.

  “He might be at Melanie’s fixing up their bathroom. He’s been spending more time there.”

  “Why?” It feels like he’s forgotten about me.

  “He’s so good at repairs. I asked him to help your sister out.”

  Every day I think about the trip. I really thought we’d go into the movie and Darren and Luz would come out holding hands. It’s hard for me to replay what happened next. It’s like someone’s opened up my head to pour black car oil inside. Dr. McCuaig says I don’t have to think about it. She says that I can leave the memories on a shelf until I’m ready to take them down. That the way I feel is completely normal.

  But being angry at Dad makes me so anxious because I know something’s not right. I’m angry but I also feel badly for being angry. I don’t want to upset Dad. I don’t want him to be upset.

  Mom says, “Give it time.”

  “How long?”

  “Dad forgets that you’re not a little girl anymore.” Mom pulls out a pencil and te
ars the order paper off the photo envelope.

  “I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  She draws a cartoon car on the receipt. It’s at an intersection and she marks arrows in each direction. They point to new jobs, places to live. “Your dad always wants what’s best for you. So sometimes he sits up front and steers toward what he thinks will make you happy.”

  I nod.

  She erases dad’s head from the stick person at the wheel. “But if this is your life, who do you think should be here?”

  Of course, it’s me. “I should be driving.”

  “Your dad and I are trying to take a back seat for a while.” She keeps drawing out the scene, me in front and both of them behind. “We’re here if you need us but you know what’s best for you.” Everyone’s got googly eyes and it makes me smile. Mom writes Starr’s in charge underneath the picture and slips it to me. I’m going to post it to my profile later, along with the photos from today.

  “Do you understand, honey?”

  “Yes,” I say, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

  But the truth is that I miss my dad. I like that he always tries to take care of me, make me happy, that he still calls me his girl. What Mom says is important – it’s my life. Being told what to do gets tiring. But I also miss the way it used to be between me and Dad.

  It’s hard to wish for both.

  MELANIE

  DAD BRINGS HOME THREE STRIP STEAKS AND SPENDS a good half-hour cleaning and reseasoning our barbecue. “You won’t get grill marks if you skimp on oil.” Two wire brushes in his grip, ready to groom our grill like it’s a prize colt. “Rare, Chester?”

  “Medium.”

  Mom’s corrected him, but Dad always divides meat down gender lines: medium well for his wife and daughters; still walking for his son-in-law. Despite Chester’s request, the steak arrives on his plate only slightly less than raw. Underneath the meat, a ring of blood seeps toward the grilled veg.

  “Do you want me to nuke it?” I ask. Dad’s left to turn off the gas.

  “It’s fine.” Chester slides his knife through the one millimetre of doneness and lets the red juices drip onto his broccoli. “It’s an expensive cut.” He pulls his top lip up, miming a vampire.

  “Well, he’s making an effort.” Dad’s been fixing our bathroom for most of the afternoon and has assembled the groceries himself. I wait until he’s sitting down before starting. “Thanks for treating us.”

  We all clink our glasses, over-cheerful. Tomorrow we visit the clinic for the carrier testing results and it’s hard to think of anything other than the green folder labelled August 20–January 5. Right at the back of the filing cabinet, behind the instruction manuals, old tax returns, are two blurry laser printouts: a side profile at thirteen weeks; a hand and face at seventeen weeks. The last proof.

  “What are we listening to?” Dad asks.

  “It’s Brazilian revolutionary music.” Chester’s arm is long enough to reach the CD case. He hands over the liner notes and Dad dutifully studies the psychedelic illustrations.

  “I feel like we’re sitting in a Starbucks.”

  I flick my wineglass trinket around the stem – a stocking stuffer from my parents I only use to be polite. “Maybe if we’re lucky, someone will come out and offer us samples.”

  “You know who’d know the words to the song already?” Dad says. “Starr.”

  “It’s Portuguese.”

  “Remember Buena Vista Social Club?” Dad keeps sawing into his meat. He’s right – Starr probably would know the words after a few listens. But it’s irritating, having my father point out how extraordinary she is, as if I didn’t already know. “When this is done, feel like putting on some Paul Simon?”

  “We don’t have any.”

  “Sure you do. I gave you that anthology a few years back.”

  Chester offers to hunt through the AV cabinet.

  “No, wait – don’t worry,” Dad says. “I was just remembering all the good times we had singing along with Graceland.” He hums a few bars of “Call Me Al.”

  It’s Starr who loves Graceland. She’s the one I gave the anthology to.

  “Have you heard any Bedouin Soundclash?” Chester knows my dad’s hit a sore point. “One of the guys I work with – huge Paul Simon fan – says it’s the first album he’s bought in years.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I’ll get him to burn you a mix.”

  Last night, Mom confided that she’s told Dad about the appointment, the termination. Which, in some ways, is a relief. Keeping the secret felt too much like shame. When Dad called from the border and asked for help, it could have been a fresh start. But here we are again, talking around what’s important. What did I expect him to do, wish us luck? I don’t know if I’m angrier at him or at myself for being hopeful.

  “I’m meeting your wife at work on Tuesday,” Chester says. “We’re developing a fire safety club and she’s giving us a deal on badges.”

  “Like the old swimming ones?”

  “Exactly.”

  Several times a year, Chester goes into elementary schools to give talks and demonstrations. He’s been trying to progress things beyond stop, drop and roll.

  “Remember when your mother would sew your badges onto your suits?” Dad dots his hands down his front, marking out the rainbow grid. “I think Starr’s had about twelve by the end.”

  Again, the selective memory. Chester was ribbing me at my folks’ a while ago, teasing me about what might have happened had I gone to BC for film. That I’d have been sending home pictures of cherry blossoms instead of scraping ice off my windshield. Dad had looked at us blankly – he’d totally forgotten that I’d been accepted at the Vancouver Film School but chose Ryerson to be closer to Starr.

  What more I can prove to him? I blurt out, “Why do you filter every conversation through my sister?”

  He drops his eyes, stung.

  “Just once, I want you to see me. Not me in relation to Starr. Just me.”

  “I’m here now,” he says, defensive. “What is it you want me to see?”

  The enormity of the pent-up hurt and frustration is too much. Nothing comes out. Even in thought I can’t articulate it. Instead, I sit here with a concentrated pulse of emotion, the throb from an injured limb. I didn’t want it to be like this, to throw a fit like a toddler and have only noise and thrashing to show for it.

  “Where is this coming from?” Dad asks.

  Speaking out isn’t going to make it better. There’s no point in breaking something you don’t know how to fix.

  Chester lays his hand on top of mine. “Sometimes, Henry,” he says, “it feels like you forget that we’re all pulling for Starr.”

  Later, as Chester changes into his pajamas, I rail, low-voiced, against my father, sounding more and more like a petulant teen. “I don’t always want to be the other daughter.”

  Chester pulls me toward him. We look like a cartoon, the little woman beating her hands against the big man’s chest. “I know, I know,” he says. “But right now your father isn’t what I care about. I just want to know what’s in that report.”

  The genetics counsellor’s office is one floor of a postwar apartment building. It’s been taken over by a fertility clinic but the lettering is still visible in jaundiced brick relief above the squat entranceway – Victoria Terrace. The last time we were here was for the autopsy report.

  Most of the other patients are in for diagnosis or standard treatment. Clomid, artificial insemination, cycle monitoring. There are clusters of brochures on every surface: Living with Endometriosis next to Smoking and Infertility on the receptionist’s desk; PCOS, Complications of Multiple Births and Premature Ovarian Failure tucked onto side tables. Today there are three other couples in the waiting room, all seated under canvas prints of soft-focus orchids. Chester holds my hand and bounces it against his thigh. It’s hard to meet the other women’s eyes.

  Dr. Decker leads us into her office. In
her houndstooth wrap dress she doesn’t look old enough to have all those diplomas on the wall. She seems like someone who’d be on our show, who’d want a spa bath in the basement to unwind after a day of distressed couples. I wonder if she’s single or if it would be one of those femme/masculine split designs like in the second season. Both partners wanted a retreat from their kids and the room ended up like a den for a cross-dressing Bruce Wayne.

  “It’s good news,” she says, smiling. “The trisomy-18 was an anomaly.” Dr. Decker tells us that, in fact, we’re in good shape, genetically – my age is a huge asset, my egg quality likely excellent. If we try again, she’s optimistic we’re going to be fine.

  “And IVF with genetic testing?”

  “I think you’re a better candidate for trying again naturally. We can schedule you in for an early CVS because of your history, just for reassurance.”

  CVS has a one in two hundred risk of miscarriage, which is supposed to be safe. It’s the same number they told us was high risk for anomalies, the statistics flipping from comfort to warning. At my age, the chance of an anomaly was only one in a thousand. The chance of getting pregnant the first month, first try one in four. Williams is one in ten thousand. We buy tickets to the SickKids hospital lottery every year – One in ten is a winner! – but we’ve never even come home with a clock radio. It either happens or it doesn’t. The statistics are nothing we can plan our life by.

  “It’s good news,” she repeats, surprised by our flat reaction. “You’re in a much better position than most of our couples. When you get pregnant again, you can come back here for the testing. But I expect you’ll never have to see me again.”