Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories

by Various

  She forced a breath. She could be steady. She would be brave.

  Her scream was horrible. Her grief was loud. But no—the scream wasn’t hers; her throat would never make that sound without bursting. It was broken ice sliding off the roof.

  It dawned on her, “Baby?”

  He wobbled out and grabbed her leg. Claire tugged him free and offered him to the light again. He shrieked and clamped his hand around her thumb.

  “I’m sorry please oh God I’m sorry Baby she’s your mother.”

  A pale hand extended from the brightness. It slipped over Baby’s arm and closed around Claire’s wrist. Clink chime. Not Baby.

  Surprising herself, Claire smiled. She would continue to love the Baby. If allowed the time, she’d ask how he’d got himself mailed. She’d planned to go back to the real world; she’d never said whose. Specifics were everything.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Claire stepped into the light.

  Originally published in On Spec Spring 2001 Vol 13 No 1 #44

  Nova Scotian author Catherine MacLeod spends too much time watching black-and-white episodes of “Gunsmoke” on youtube. Her publications include short fiction in Black Static, TalesBones, and Solaris, and several anthologies, including Fearful Symmetries, The Living Dead 2, and On Spec: The First Five Years.

  More Than Salt

  E.L. Chen

  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

  To have a thankless child!

  — King Lear, Act I, Scene 4

  The wino on the corner says he’s my father. Ha. My father is some serial jerk who didn’t stick around long enough to pick out baby names with my mom.

  “Cordelia,” the wino says in a bad English accent as I approach the crosswalk. Cordelia’s not my name.

  I eye the traffic lights. Still red. Great. I shift my schoolbag to my other shoulder and fake interest in the chipped black polish on my thumbnail.

  “Cordelia,” he says. “Do you not recognize your sire?”

  As if I could forget a loser like him. Greasy tufts of white hair and a face sewn from faded red leather. Sprawled against a rusted three-wheeled shopping cart piled with empties, mateless shoes, blankets, and whatever else homeless alkies keep in shopping carts. His voice rising and trembling and dissolving into the dull buzz of afternoon traffic. “Cruel Cordelia,” he says, “dost thou repudiate thy father, thy lord, thy king? O, unkind wench, as a serpent’s tooth pierces an egg thou rend my heart.”

  “My name’s not Cordelia,” I tell him.

  “What is thy name?”

  I say nothing. I wish he’d ask me for spare change instead, even though what little cash I have has to tide me over until I get birthday money next week.

  “If thou dost not know thy name, thou must be a Fool. Come, come, I have need for a Fool.” His sunburned face stretches and splits, revealing front teeth stained a malt liquor brown. I wince. He smells like the time I went to Diane Rybcynski’s party—back when we were still friends—and at least one person’s fake ID had been accepted at the LCBO.

  “I don’t think so,” I say, edging closer to the curb.

  At the first glimpse of green, a desperate grip holds me back from the crosswalk as my fellow pedestrians surge ahead without me.

  “Watch it!” I yank my arm away and turn to confront the old lech. “What do you think you’re—”

  The intersection bleeds and blurs before my eyes like a stain spreading on fabric. Only the old wino remains in focus—although he appears to be a different man, straight-backed and proud, his hair tamed by a circle of gold that must be heavier than it looks. I blink. “What—”

  FOOL: —saith my Lord? (Bows.)

  KING: Sweet Fool, make me forget that I hath like a trefoil leaf not one daughter but three. Would that I hadst pluck’d the green from the stem ere the rot touch’d me!

  FOOL: I shall make thee merry, Nuncle, and thou shalt forget. (Pauses.) Hey! What the hell—

  “—is going on?”

  I discover that I’m buried in a ragged sweater that appears to be made up of pieces of other ragged sweaters. I tear it over my head; it smells surprisingly clean, like fabric softener.

  “Gentle Fool, be merry, make me forget that I hath not one daughter but three,” the king says.

  King?

  I rub my eyes. The old man’s wearing a frayed Maple Leafs toque, not a coronet.

  Okay. I’m losing my mind. I chuck the fool’s motley—the sweater—into the shopping cart and sling my schoolbag over my shoulder so violently that my textbooks and binders bite into my back. If I don’t walk away right now my head is going to burst with the impossibilities.

  “Sweet, gentle Fool,” he says, “wouldst thou forsake me too?”

  “Good sir—I mean—”

  I walk away.

  The apartment door swings in a wide arc and bounces off of Mom’s discarded sneakers. I kick off my boots and peel a crumpled form and a ballpoint pen from the bottom of my schoolbag. “I need you to sign this,” I say, stepping into the kitchenette. “Or I won’t graduate.”

  Mom looks up, one hand stirring a pot of spaghetti with a wooden spoon, the other holding one of her night school textbooks. She’s still wearing her polyester supermarket smock. “Not again.” She tucks the spoon under one arm, smoothes the form on the counter and scribbles her name on the dotted line. “I wish you wouldn’t be so rebellious.”

  “Mom, rebellion is saying ‘Screw you!’ Not ‘You couldn’t care less about how we do in your class ’cause your pension kicks in next year.’”

  “Is that what you said?”

  “Yeah. To Mrs. Daniels. ’Cause it’s true. She hates teaching English to us.”

  “Honey, just because it’s true doesn’t mean you should go around telling people.”

  I roll my eyes, anticipating her next words. One. Two—

  “You need discipline,” she says, pointing the wet wooden spoon at me. “If only I’d listened to Oprah and provided you with a father figure . . .”

  Three.

  “. . . you wear those ugly black clothes, you covered up your pretty hair with that dye . . . I wish you’d wear something pink for a change. Why don’t you go shopping with Diane?”

  Because I’m tired of caring about what people think of me. Because I just want to finish high school and go to college, get out of the city. Because Diane’s a bitch.

  I say, in my best Diane voice, “Because, like, pink is so out.”

  “And honey, call when you’re going to be late. I’ve got class tonight. I don’t have time to worry about where you are.”

  “Mom . . .” The word comes out as two long syllables. “It’s not my fault. There was this wino who wouldn’t let me go—”

  The spoon clatters onto the linoleum.

  “Oh my God.” Mom splays her book on the counter and picks up the spoon. “Oh my God. Are you all right? Did he—touch you? I’ll call Jerry and—”

  Me and my big fat mouth. I’ve unleashed Typhoon Mom. “No, he didn’t molest me.”

  “What did he do?”

  My mouth’s open like Pandora’s box, letting everything out. “. . . and the next thing I know, I’m wearing a Salvation Army sweater and treating him like a king.”

  Mom rinses the spoon in the sink and raps it against the edge of the pot. “Is this some kind of ploy for attention? Because if it is, it’s not funny. I know you don’t approve of me and Jerry . . .”

  “No, it’s not Jerry,” I say. “Forget it.”

  “Forget it? My teenage daughter is spending time with some drunken pervert and I’m supposed to forget it? Hon, I don’t think that’s the kind of extracurricular activity that universities want to see on your application.”

  “Mom . . .” Two syllables again, buying me time to scavenge the right words to get her off my back. “He’s just a crazy who thinks he’s starring in King Lear.”

  “What, does he speak in iambic pentagram or something?”

&
nbsp; “That’s iambic pentameter. And he’s probably just some middle-management guy who got laid off from his dot-com and then lost his marbles when his SUV got repo’d. He’s harmless.”

  “Well . . .” She starts stirring the pasta again, which means that I’ve almost pushed her over the edge to my side. Almost. “I’d feel better if we talked to Jerry.”

  So I’m nonchalantly strolling down the street with an oh-so sticky cinnamon bun, a Thermos full of chicken noodle soup and a pocket stuffed with large-sized ZipLoc baggies. Courtesy of Officer Jerry, Mom’s gentleman caller. They’re not serious, thank God—but they’ve been “not serious” for four years now.

  Sometimes I joke that she should run off to Niagara Falls with him, but she says she has to think of me. Ha. I’m not a kid anymore; I’m almost eighteen. It’s like she’s using me as an excuse to keep Jerry at arm’s length. Using me as an excuse for her ho-hum life of wasted chances. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m being optimistic—that it’s an excuse. It beats being a reason. It beats the truth.

  See? Can’t even keep my mouth shut when I’m talking to myself.

  “Cordelia!”

  The wino who thinks he’s King Lear raises a paper-bagged bottle in salute. “Hey there, Your Majesty,” I say. “Got room on your throne?”

  As I squat beside him on a flattened cardboard box, I realize that he’s got the best seat in the house—a panhandler’s-eye-view of one of Toronto’s busiest intersections. People scurry past, like roaches flushed out of the shadows by a flashlight, ignoring everything around them except for some point in the horizon.

  The old guy still smells like a house party, minus the pot. The mouldy sweat odour makes up for it, though. I don’t know how Jerry talked me into this.

  The bun, first. “I’m not Cordelia. I’m your Fool, remember? I brought you something to eat.” I hand him the cinnamon bun. I expect him to tear away the waxed paper and devour the bun in a single gulp, but he eats with dignity, tearing off bite-sized pieces with his fingers and chewing each thoroughly and thoughtfully.

  “My thanks, good Fool,” he says.

  “No problem.”

  The soup, next. I pass him the Thermos. His hand fumbles with the smooth surface; our fingers touch. The world splits and slides away, like parting curtains.

  “Damn,” I say. “Not—”

  FOOL:—again, Nuncle, what merriment shall I devise? I’ll make a Fool of you yet, and embellish thy noble countenance with smilets.

  KING:(Gesturing.) Take up thy sceptre, Fool, and sound thy unruly bells. I would see thy exertions.

  FOOL: (Rattles sceptre at passing maid.) Good mistress, spare a coin for a wise man and a Fool.

  KING: (Chuckling.) Who is the wise man, and who is the Fool?

  FOOL: Why, thou art Fool, Nuncle. Art fool for believing thou wert cuckolded by a cuckoo, when the cuckoo is thy child.

  KING: Impertinent knave! (Boxes FOOL’s ears.)

  FOOL: (Dances out of KING’s reach. Sings:)

  He who hath been grievously maligned,

  With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain;

  Must make amends lest he grow blind,

  For the rain it raineth every day.

  Nuncle, three servants approacheth.

  KING: ’Tis my daughters’ retainers. Speak, rascals. What saith thy mistresses?

  [Enter SERVANTS.]

  FIRST SERVANT: Oh my God, is this—

  “—what you’re doing after school now?”

  Diane Rybcynski raises over-plucked eyebrows, her lip-glossed mouth curled in a mocking smile. Dylan, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, and her new best friend/flunky Brittany have similar expressions on their faces.

  “That’s like, so gross,” Brittany says, wrinkling her nose.

  I finger my jester’s sceptre protectively—only to discover that I’m tracing the battered ridges of a faded plastic baby rattle. “It’s, uh, performance art,” I say, tossing the rattle back into the shopping cart.

  “Yeah. Right.” Diane snorts and struts away.

  “You are so weird,” Brittany says, trailing behind Diane, and I know that exaggerated accounts of my after-school activities will be scrawled inside a stall in the girl’s washroom by third period tomorrow.

  Dylan lingers like a bad cold. “Listen,” he drawls, “if you need a place to stay, you can crash with me. My parents are out of town this week.”

  “I’d rather live out here on the street, thank you very much.”

  The leer crumples into disgust. “Freakin’ dyke,” he mutters, loping after Diane and Brittany. I have to laugh.

  I watch Dylan’s hand stray to Brittany’s hip. She jumps and gives him a smilet—I mean, a little smile. Diane, of course, is oblivious. Some people only believe what they want to believe. Speaking of which—

  “Arrogant, brazen rogues! They dare show such insolence to a king? I am not in my dotage! Like a ruthless plague my daughters’ enmity hath infected them!”

  I take a baggie from my pocket and pick up the now-empty Thermos. The bag makes a metallic, slithering sound as the flask parts the thin plastic walls.

  “Farewell, Your Majesty,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

  “Christopher Melchior Barclay,” Jerry says. “Retired English prof, drunk tank alumnus and one-time murder suspect.”

  “What?” The word flies out of Mom and me as one voice.

  “Are you sure?” Mom asks.

  “The fingerprints were pretty clear,” he says. “Pulled up a recent drunk driving conviction. Name rang a bell, so I did some more digging.” He hands her a sheaf of photocopies. “Last summer they fished his runaway daughter out of Lake Ontario. Her sisters said that before she left, she’d had a big fight with their dad over her boyfriend, so he was a suspect.”

  “So he’s an alcoholic ex-con,” Mom says in a pointed I-told-you-so voice.

  “Not exactly. He’s old, and the traffic cops nabbed him before he hurt anyone, so he got off with a license suspension and community service. And the judge recommended rehab and grief counselling.”

  “I don’t think it worked,” I mutter, peering over Mom’s shoulder. Although the photocopy of Emma Barclay’s newspaper picture is blotched and streaky, I can make out the dark lipstick, the heavily outlined eyes, the stringy black hair with pale roots, the pout that’s just the right combination of boredom and contempt. She probably said a lot of things that people didn’t want to hear, too.

  “This Christopher Barclay didn’t kill her, did he?” Mom says.

  Jerry shakes his head. “Nope. It was the no-good psycho boyfriend. Was twice her age and had a history of domestic abuse.”

  Mom blanches. “Poor girl,” she says, looking at me, as if there’s a lesson to be learned from Emma Barclay’s misfortune. This is what happens to teenage girls who dye their hair black and wear too much dark lipstick.

  I take Emma’s photo from Mom. The youngest of three daughters, the caption says. The misfit, her sullen expression says. The youngest daughter in fairy tales, the one who’s too smart and mouthy for her own good and tells her father that she loves him more than she loves salt. I bet that’s what they were fighting about before she ran off.

  Or maybe they were fighting over her appearance, like Mom and I fight over mine. Mom thinks that all I have to do is strip the dye from my hair and start shopping from brand-name lifestyle franchise stores, and then everything will be okay. Happily ever after. Like fairy tales.

  Although now I know that the stories rarely end well. Even though the prince and princess get hitched, the stepmother dies a horrible death. Forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she drops dead. Or rolled through town in a barrel with spikes and nails driven into it.

  Mrs. Daniels, my English teacher, says that comedies usually end in weddings because the loner protagonist becomes integrated into society through marriage. Think of outcast Rosalind. Fresh-off-the-boat Viola. The fugitive lovers of A Midsummer Night�
��s Dream.

  But one person’s comedy is another’s tragedy. Malvolio leaves town humiliated. Phebe settles for second-best because the love of her life is actually Rosalind in disguise. Demetrius never receives an antidote to the love potion, which I always found creepy. And all sorts of nasty, R-rated things happen in fairy tales to those who don’t quite fit into the new status quo.

  Bad things happen when you don’t fit in. When you’re too smart and mouthy for your own good. When your name’s Cordelia and you refuse to suck up to your dad.

  “Obviously Barclay’s fixated on you because of the surface resemblance to his daughter,” Jerry says. “But she’s in no danger,” he adds, turning to Mom. She’s still looking at me. I duck my head and scratch at my nail polish. Little black flakes fall to the faded carpet like freshly ground pepper.

  “The boyfriend definitely killed Emma,” Jerry says. “Barclay’s probably just mad with grief. I mean, can you imagine? You have a big fight with your daughter, words are said that you can’t take back, she storms out—and you think that one of these days you’ll forgive each other, but you never see her—”

  Mom’s gaze bounces off of me to Jerry. A stricken expression flashes across her face. Maybe she was remembering her own father, who died before I was born.

  “Sorry,” Jerry says, after an awkward silence. “I’m rambling. Now, your mom says you’ve been sharing hallucinatory experiences with this guy?”

  The way he puts it makes me realize how crazy it sounds. “Uh—”

  “Did Barclay give you anything?” he says in a patronizing voice. If his station interrogates suspects with the old good cop/bad cop routine, he must be the good cop. “Something he said would make you feel good? Open your mind? Make you cooler than the other kids?”