“What took you so long today, James?” Marilyn asked, her eyes not leaving the screen. Erica Kane was going to marry Tom Cudahy today, but she was in love with the Davis fellow. Everybody was already assembled at the church. Marilyn thanked her lucky stars that her surgery did not happen today or else she would have missed this episode.
“Listen, Marilyn. I’ve got something to tell you.” James sat down on the chair beside the bed, wondering how to start. He fidgeted with his hands.
“James, I want to watch this.” Marilyn bit into her powdered doughnut, white sugar falling on the pea-green hospital sheet covering her.
“No, Marilyn. We need to talk.” He stood up abruptly and clicked the TV off. Marilyn was startled. James had never spoken to her with such authority before.
After the word spread, the news of the thefts overtook the news of Mrs. Bevis’s suicide. Some of the neighbours paraded into the Johnson house as if it were an open exhibition. They wanted to see for themselves that Marilyn Johnson was a bona fide thief. To their surprise, nearly everyone who knew Marilyn found things of theirs in her “hobby room” that they hadn’t even noticed were missing. A few retrieved their belongings, cradling their various knick-knacks as if, upon rediscovery, the objects had gained new value in their owners’ eyes.
“Can you believe it? My garden spade? I mean, it is a good spade. See how it fits in my hand just so? Never had a callus with this one.”
Other neighbours left their things in the hobby room as if these objects weren’t truly theirs anymore. Marilyn had stolen from them, and yet oddly enough, many didn’t feel particularly betrayed. They gazed on the heap—mostly useless things, forgotten things. Assembled in their haphazard way, one on top of the other, as a collective, a mountain of life objects, the items felt substantial, as if their power came from being so unified. The initial tone of outrage shifted. Instead, many of the neighbours began to point out their things with a touch of pride.
“See that napkin ring there? Yeah, under the oven mitt and beside that screwdriver? That’s mine. She must have swiped it when she was over for a barbecue last summer.”
“There’s my fan! I got it as a gift for being in my brother’s wife’s bridal party. Imagine that! Ha ha!”
Nonetheless, the facts were the facts: the woman they had trusted had lied to them, had taken from their families. They feigned anger, but they were more in awe. The objects themselves were little things, easily replaceable. It was more the double life of Marilyn that triggered surprise. Marilyn, who had comforted them when the suicides happened, had a secret life of her own. They did not discuss the correlation of the deaths and Marilyn’s thievery. Instead, they silently nursed their own double selves and worried what they revealed or leaked.
When Marilyn came out of the hospital, she did so quietly. No one went knocking on her door, and James kept the drapes drawn. While some of the neighbours may have had choice words for her, they shared them only with one another and never knocked on her door to say them to her face. She didn’t dare go outside. Marilyn sunk into a silent despair, buried herself in sequined quilts and let James take over the household.
James ran errands alone now. People said polite hellos and have-a-nice-days as he went, and to their surprise, James became chatty. He remarked on the weather and the excitement of the city’s new baseball team. When he returned home, he filled the house with news of the outside world, and Marilyn, tucked on the couch, listened to his stories about whom he bumped into, the new chili-flavoured Hamburger Helper on the shelf at the supermarket, which neighbour’s grass was getting a bit too long and unkempt. His voice, something that Marilyn had never quite gotten used to because she heard it so rarely, became her favourite sound. They settled into a new life, a quieter one, and Marilyn found herself easing into it. Like a retired queen, she let James take the lead and dote on her.
James was gracious enough never to speak of the incident except once. He had been cutting tomatoes to make her a BLT. The bacon was sizzling on the stove, and she bit her tongue instead of telling him to turn on the fan as the kitchen filled with fumes. By then, Marilyn was already fully healed from her operation and walking fine, but James still insisted on her resting and him taking over the cooking duties.
“People may call you a thief, Marilyn, but do you know what you stole?” His back was turned to her while he continued to chop. She was sitting at the kitchen table as the room filled with the smell of fat and the swirl of the smoke from the pan. She held her breath, wondering if this was it. This was the moment he was going to confront her and leave.
“What’s that, James?” she asked quietly, bracing herself.
“You stole my damn heart, Marilyn. And I am grateful.” He never turned to face her and said nothing else. She listened to the hissing bacon, the rhythmic sound of James’s knife on the cutting board, and let out a long exhale.
Days emptied into more days. Things stopped disappearing, but people started to lock their front doors. There were fewer parties and instead of drunken neighbours hollering Good night and Thank you to each other in the middle of the night, the streets were silent. Now and then, Marilyn gathered the nerve to draw back the curtains a sliver, careful not to be detected. On some of these days, she would see that girl, that little Chinese girl, her eyes directed at Marilyn’s shadowy figure, standing on the street as if waiting for her. One day, Marilyn waved, and the girl waved back.
Wheels
The year after all those parents killed themselves, something equally earth-shattering happened: I fell in love. Ka-boom.
My mother had warned me it would happen, saying, “June, wait until you are head over heels for a boy!” She said “head over heels” a lot. Mom was also head over heels for Kentucky Fried Chicken, so I never gave it much thought.
I didn’t know when or why I first noticed him—he had always been there on the street—but it just sort of happened. Bruce belonged to the Wong family. He was two years older, but he hung out with Josie’s brother, Tim, so even though his house was on one of the other sister streets, he was on Winifred almost every day. Before the day I got hit or struck or smitten or whatever you want to call it, I only knew him to be one of the older boys who played hard and fast and high-fived each other and told jokes that made them bend over from laughter. I thought those jokes must have been very dirty.
They did not put up with a younger kid stupid enough not to be able to catch a fly ball or not strong enough to break through the human chain of British Bulldog. They yelled at you and let you know that you sucked, but you couldn’t cry. You had to be tough, get up off your bum and get back in the game. If you played well, they’d maybe rub you on the head like a puppy and mutter, “Nice going.” Josie lived for those “nice going” moments. As for me, I stayed as far away from them as I could, because their insults and their compliments equally made me nervous.
But then that day happened when he was really there in a whole new way, suddenly so bright I couldn’t help but see him. He rode by me too close on his bike, the wind snapping at his black hair like a kite. I felt the gust as he shot by, and I turned to look. He was riding standing up, pumping at his pedals, chasing another kid on a bike. He was laughing, and the sound of it surprised me because it sounded like it belonged to a man and not a child. In a moment, he rode past me again, and I could only stare, as if seeing him for the first time. His eyes were squinted toward the sun, his skin was golden and his mouth . . . I noticed his lips, especially his lower lip, plump like a bee had stung it, and my breath caught. I had never thought of boys as beautiful before, but I realized that he was.
On someone’s porch, a giant boom box was playing Blondie. The song was about a heart made of glass. They played this song so much on 1050 CHUM that I knew every word, and I had always thought it was a weird song until that moment. I finally got it. I felt like my heart really would fall out and shatter on the road if he didn’t look at me. He didn’t, not that day anyway, and Debbie Harry’s sleepy voice reminded m
e of how bonkers I suddenly felt.
But it did happen, maybe the next day, or the one after that. Or maybe I gradually appeared to him, emerging from the shadows as a girl-shaped thing. I was only a shred of a pre-woman in training, ponytailed, with dirt under my nails, wearing slightly pink tube socks because my mom was always too distracted to separate the colours from the whites.
Bruce had a bronze ten-speed wrapped with silver, gold and white stripes. He was with it so much, it was as if the bike were an extension of his body. My parents wouldn’t let me get a ten-speed, and I felt like a baby on my powder blue Schwinn with its banana seat and plastic orange ribbons trailing from the handlebars. He could pop wheelies in the air, lifting the front wheels off the asphalt like it was nothing. He reminded me of a sparrow ready to take flight as his bike glinted in the sunlight. I remember the other kids cheering and screaming, “Again, again!” I was one of the ones clapping, the short one in the back with my rabbit heart hopping. I tried to pop a wheelie after I saw him do it but fell, the asphalt taking a few layers off my knee. I never tried it again but hung back and watched him.
I was pretty good at all the sports we played on the street, but once I noticed him, I turned into Jell-O. When he showed up, or even if he hadn’t shown up yet, I couldn’t move or speak or sometimes even breathe. One day that summer, Josie got mad at me when I missed an easy volley during a game. “What’s up with you, June? We’re three points down!” Josie was very competitive and had always been since the day I met her in Grade 2, when she challenged me to race home from school.
Bruce yelled, “You’re not even paying attention, June. You’re useless.” It was the first time he had ever spoken directly to me and said my name. He was kicking at the concrete, not even looking at me.
Tim said, “Yeah, she’s a baby. Go back to your crib, little baby, and don’t try playing volleyball.” They snickered, and Josie frowned, her loyalty now charged up.
My face grew hot, and I bit my lip to keep from crying. That was the only day in my young history when I went home before the street lights came on. My babysitter, Josie’s older sister, Liz, asked me what was wrong when I stomped into the house. I ignored her and planted myself in front of the TV and watched her soap opera. She’d recently turned into a curvy seventeen-year-old, and Josie and I were fascinated by how she would suddenly disappear to go make out with a boy. So far, we had caught her sucking face three different times with Manny, one of the Portuguese kids, in Josie’s garage. I would stare at Liz’s big boobs, wondering if one day my chest would rise like Pillsbury Crescent Rolls too.
No boys were around this time, and Liz was glued to the TV. All I could think about was Bruce calling me useless. I didn’t understand why it mattered to me.
The soap opera was stupid, so I made a mental list of all the reasons Bruce was boring. He went to the Catholic school that was farther down the road on Samuel than ours. Catholic school was for nerds. He was also no different from the other fourteen-year-old boys who did disgusting things like drink Coke and belch the alphabet. Still, he did have a very soft baseball glove that he asked his dad to run over with the car every night to loosen it up, which was pretty cool. And there were those wheelies . . . I tried to think of other things, like how to get my parents to buy me a blue Adidas track suit with the yellow stripes, but my mind kept wandering back to Bruce like a disloyal dog.
Some days later, my friend Nav was over for lunch, and over Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli, he told me that Bruce had a crush on me, which at first seemed like a mean joke—I liked him, but what were the odds that he’d like me back? I thought about the previous day when he was being a jerk to me. I punched Nav hard on the arm and regretted it right away. He screamed and gave me a hurt look. Nav was not the type to be mean ever. “Sorry, buddy,” I said, but my mind was already elsewhere. I finished my pasta quickly and urged Nav to hurry up so we could go outside.
In the crowd of kids, I saw Bruce, his ten-speed balanced against his hip at the curb, staring right at me. He was too bright again, and I looked away quickly, my heart doing that weird skip again. I was worried everyone would see me acting funny, so I ran in the opposite direction, down the street to Samuel and all the way to Mac’s Milk. Only when I ran inside and felt the cool air conditioning prickle my skin did I realize that Nav had chased after me. We both waved at Danny behind the counter, like everything was normal, before heading to the freezers. “Yo, kids!” he called to us before putting his head back in his comic book.
“How do you know he likes me?” I whispered to Nav as he followed me down the aisle.
“C’mon, June, he’s always looking at you. And before lunch, he asked me where you were.” He eyed me. “You like him too,” he added.
“No I don’t. Don’t be stupid, Nav.” I pulled out a Creamsicle.
“Your face is red.”
“Shut up! I mean it.” I spun around, showing Nav my fist and trying to look ferocious, and Nav looked startled and started coughing. I thumped his back. Nav was more like a girlfriend than a boy, a bit delicate and very quiet around most other people except for Josie, Darren and me. When he laughed, he shook like a piece of grass getting rained on. One of my favourite things in the whole world was watching a summer storm with the screen door wide open in the kitchen. I loved the tinny smell of it and especially the drops hitting the blades of grass in the backyard. It was pretty, kind of like Nav.
Sighing, I pulled out another Creamsicle and handed it to him. He nodded and went over to talk to Danny at the cash. Since Nav’s parents owned the store, when we were with him, we usually got our stuff for free as long as it was in “good faith.” Nav’s dad put a lot of stock in good faith.
We headed out and plunked down onto the curb to eat. We slurped at the Creamsicles quickly. It was a hot day, and the orange dripped down our arms.
“What do I do, Nav?” I asked between slurps.
“I dunno. I’ve never been in love before.”
We walked back to Winifred Street, where everybody was deep in a game of Frisbee football. Nothing was out of place, but it still seemed that things were not quite right. Georgie was already at his post in the garage, having been there for a full year since his mother died. He watched the Frisbee fly through the air as the game continued. I felt stupid suddenly that Georgie was there in his garage where his mother killed herself and here I was thinking that I had problems.
On the street, my friends were running hard on the concrete, and multiple hands reached to the sky to catch the disc. In the middle of that mob was Bruce. I couldn’t describe his face because I didn’t know the words to understand how it made me feel looking at him. Things seemed the same, but I realized that maybe it was me who was different.
The next day, Josie was sent to give me a message. “So . . . Bruce wants to know what you think of him.” She had taken me into her garage and closed the door so we could be alone. Wanting privacy was new to us, and as best friends, we felt special when we separated from the others to go talk alone. My eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness. She had her hands on her hips and was popping her watermelon Bubblicious like she was conducting a business deal.
“Why does he want to know?” I asked, trying to sound normal. I picked my shorts out of my bum. My dad said they were too short now and to throw them out, but they were terry cloth and my favourite, so I wore them.
“He likes you, stupid. He wants to know if you want to go around.” She kept smacking her gum, talking to me in a tone like she was the adult and I was the child. Josie did that sometimes, making a big deal of being four months older than me. “It’s like in ‘Mandy.’ He feels like that about you.” Josie had lately been interpreting all of our experiences through Barry Manilow songs.
“Really?” I asked, sounding like a complete dork.
“I knew it!” she yelped, darting out of the garage to go tell Bruce. I froze, not knowing what to do. The last thing I wanted was to walk out of that cool, dark garage and face Bruce and all of my
friends. Everyone would be staring. But I couldn’t stay there forever. I left and was temporarily blinded by the sunlight. When my vision came back, everyone was in the middle of a skateboard race down the street and didn’t even notice me, already on to the next phase of their lives. From that day on, Bruce and I were considered a couple.
He started by calling my house. I was always the first to answer the phone when it rang since everyone in my family expected it to be Josie. Even though we saw each other every day and lived two doors apart, we still talked up a storm on the phone. My dad called us “the twins.”
But when I answered that night with my usual “Josie?” I was surprised to hear that man/boy voice ask back, “June?”
That night, I sat on the kitchen floor, my back against the wall, and had my first phone conversation with a boy. He shot questions at me while I traced the swirly patterns on the green linoleum tiles with my finger. My favourite colour was green. His was blue. My favourite game was snow football, and his was volleyball. My favourite song was Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You,” and so was his, a fact I privately celebrated. We had something in common! The most important thing was that my best friend was Josie and his was her brother, Tim. Our relationship began to feel comfortably inevitable, like it was meant to be.
Then Bruce asked, “So, do ya like me?”
I giggled and said, “Yes.” I made sure not to say it with an exclamation mark because Josie and I had agreed that sounding too excited made boys think you were easy. I didn’t know what “easy” entailed exactly, but I sensed that I should not let him know that I liked him too much.
“Do you like me?”
“Yup. Yup, I do, June. I like you a lot.” His certainty sent me into hysterics. Did he know about being easy? I put a hand to my forehead to see if I was dying. My face was burning. The phone receiver shook in my hand. “Um . . . thanks,” I muttered. I couldn’t wait to tell Josie.
That Time I Loved You Page 7