Crap. I hate feeling sorry for myself.
Blinking away the tears, I reach down, pick up the phone, and push the only number on my speed dial that isn’t Aunt Su’s.
Ring … ring … ring … ring … ring…
Click. Pause. And then a very foggy “’Ullo?”
“Dad … you up?” I can’t control a little trill of hope from seeping out into my voice.
“Lily? Z’at you?”
“Yeah.”
“Wass wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to talk.”
“What time …” Another pause. I can hear a shuffling of sheets and then a faint bang. “Jeez! Do you realize its three o’clock in the morning?” Dad’s voice is quite obviously awake now. I can’t help smiling. Maybe he’ll actually stay up and talk to me for a bit. Maybe I can even tell him about my sleeping crisis. And Mom’s nutty plan to condemn Aunt Su’s cabin. Maybe he can help. I take a deep breath.
“Yeah, Dad, I know how late it is.”
“What’s going on? Are you okay? Is there an emergency?”
I shake my head just as if he can see me through the phone. “No emergency, Dad. Really. I couldn’t sleep and I … I just wanted to talk.”
He sighs into his receiver so loudly, I can literally feel the gush of air on my ear.
“Bloody hell …” I hear him mumble. My smile falls into a frown. I know exactly what’s coming next.
“You know I’d love to keep you company, honey. But if I don’t get a good night’s sleep, my whole day at work will be shot. I’ve got to be on a conference call at nine and I have back-to-back meetings scheduled for the rest of the day.”
My fingers grip the phone so hard, I’m surprised the plastic casing doesn’t crack. A second later, I hear him muffle what sounds like an endless yawn. “You understand, don’t you, Sweetness?”
I know if I try to speak at that moment, my voice will break apart. So I just nod. As if he can see me through the phone.
“How ’bout you read a book or something to help you get to sleep? And I promise, we’ll talk tomorrow.”
A book? I’m dying from exhaustion and that’s his best suggestion for me?
Sigh.
“Okay, whatever, Dad.” Without even waiting for his goodbye, I click off the phone and let it fall to the floor with a clunk. A second later the guilt police pull up inside my brain. Crap, why did I just do that? Dad’s not like Aunt Su. He needs his rest or he can’t function at work. God, this lack of sleep is making me so mean, I can barely stand myself. My eyes fly up to the night sky. The moon shimmers, like it’s trying to cheer me up by being extra beautiful.
“Thanks, buddy,” I whisper. Yeah, I must be the only person in history to make friends with the moon. Sounds crazy, right? Well, I don’t care. Think what you want. The fact is, the moon is actually an angsty teenager in disguise. S’truth. Just think about it: it’s forever hanging back by itself in the sky — as aloof as a floating iceberg. And it’s constantly changing and passing in and out of phases. But it always finds a way back to its true self in the end.
“I’d really like to come out there and say hi,” I whisper, “but I’m kind of trapped at the moment.” I point to the lock on my window for emphasis. “Maybe tomorrow if I can think of a way to bust out of here.” The shimmering stops and a thin shadow passes across the glowing, white surface. A frown. My heart swells. Yeah, good friends always have your back.
Good friends.
I glance over at Aunt Su’s pomegranate jar, still perched on my desk, and my stomach does a nervous somersault. I feel so guilty about those ashes. For the life of me, I can’t seem to figure out what to do with them. For a little while, I was thinking about scattering them in the lake just beyond Aunt Su’s circular dock. After all, it was her most favourite place in the world. But then I started imagining her ashes getting gobbled up for breakfast by catfish and frogs and water snakes and that idea shot out the window. And then I thought about taking the jar with me on a moped ride through Big Bend. With the lid open. On a windy day. That way I could just let the ashes fly out on the breeze and fall where they wanted to fall. For about a minute, it seemed like the perfect plan. But then I imagined turning a corner and the jar tipping off the moped and cracking open on the road and all Aunt Su’s ashes getting run over and crushed by passing traffic. Not to mention the fact that General MacArthur would probably have me arrested if she knew I was driving a motorized vehicle without a licence. So the moped-scattering idea got turfed pretty quickly too. Now I’m out of ideas and Mom’s harping on me big time to get rid of the ashes. Do yourself a favour, my friend: if anyone ever tries to convince you that being responsible for another person’s earthly remains is an easy job, don’t listen to them.
My eyes drop back down to the lock on my window. My mom’s a real piece of work, isn’t she? Locking me in my room, keeping me away from Aunt Su’s stuff, threatening to tear down the cabin. I know General MacArthur’s trying to protect me in her own twisted, obsessive, controlling way, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit back and be a passive prisoner. I make a mental note to drop by Dad’s place on the way home from school tomorrow to apologize for being such a bitch tonight. While I’m there, I’ll take a look and see if he has a wrench.
Even a sledgehammer will do.
Turning away from the window, I lean over and pick the phone back up off the floor. Ever have one of those moments where you feel like you’re going to explode out of your skin if you don’t hear another human voice? Yeah, that’s me right now.
Flipping onto my side, I click the phone on and dial 4-1-1. Sometimes, a recorded voice is better than nothing. I wait. Robotic ringing fills my ear. And then:
“Directory assistance, how may I help you?”
At this time of night I was fully expecting to get a machine, so imagine my shock to hear a real live person’s voice on the other end. The voice belongs to a woman. Kind of motherly sounding. Not at all tired. Jeepers creepers, why didn’t I think of this before?
“Um, hi … how are you?” I stammer.
“Fine, thank you.” The voice on the other end sounds surprised. “Person or business?”
“Excuse me?”
The voice slows drastically down, like it’s talking to someone who doesn’t speak English.
“Are you looking to find a person or a business?”
I’m not picky, lady, I feel like saying. Anyone conscious will do fine. “I’m, well … before we get to that, can I ask you a question?”
There’s a short pause on the line. “Sure, I guess. What kind of question, hon?”
“I just wanted to ask … well, what time is it where you are?”
I have to know. If she’s in China or somewhere on the other side of the world, a live human voice would make a lot more sense. I mean, it’s daytime over there, right?
“You want to know what time it is?” she repeats.
“Yes, please.”
“It’s 3:21 in the morning.”
My heart jumps. Same time as here. Maybe this lady lives in Big Bend too! Or somewhere nearby. Maybe she’ll stay on the line with me until I fall asleep. This could be the answer to my problems!
“And what’s your name?” Introductions are always a good beginning. I mean, you gotta start somewhere, right?
There’s another pause. “I’m not really supposed to …”
My fingers tighten up around the phone. “Please. It’s important …”
She pauses and I can hear the voices of other operators in the background. I’m guessing she must be in a room full of people. Yeah, I’m probably the only person in the world who’s ever been jealous of a directory assistance operator. “My name’s Frieda, hon,” she finally replies. “What’s yours?”
Frieda. Good name. A mental image pops into my head. Friendly, plump, greyish curly hair, about Aunt Su’s age …
“My name’s Lily,” I practically sing. “Lily MacArthur.”
More voices in the background f
ill the bubble of air between us. I’m about to ask her if she can stay on the line with me for a while. I want to know where she lives, and if she has kids and pets, and what books she likes to read, and if she loves her job, and if she ends up sleeping all day long so she can stay up at night …
But then it all comes crashing down around my head.
“Well, Lily, I wish I could stay and talk to you all night,” Frieda’s voice is a whisper now. My heart sinks. I know where this is going. “But right now my boss is giving me a look like I’d better get on to my next call if I know what’s good for me.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, hon.” And she does sound genuinely sorry. I close my eyes. The mental image of the plump, curly-haired lady melts away.
“S’okay, Frieda.” I say.
“Did you still want that number?”
“What? Oh, yeah … I guess I do.”
“Person or business?”
“Um, person. No, scratch that. Business.”
“Okay. Want to tell me the name and address, hon?”
“Yeah.” I scramble to think of a business I might want to call at this time of night. There’s only one that comes to mind. “McCool Fries on Main Street in Big Bend.”
“Okay, I’ll connect you now.”
“Wait, Frieda …”
I want to say thank you for talking to me. And I want to say sorry for getting her in trouble. But she’s gone before I can say anything more. All of a sudden, there’s the sound of ringing in my ear. And more ringing.
Crap. What am I doing?
Hang up, Lily. Why are you calling him? You know he’s just going to be rude to you. Hang. Up. Now.
A burning knot of anger starts to form in my chest as my mind flips back to our last conversation.
Just. Leave. Me. Alone!
That rage in his voice. And that look of pure panic in his eyes. My index finger hovers over the phone’s “off” button, but for some reason I just can’t seem to make myself push it. What’s wrong with me? He told me to leave him alone. Why can’t I do it? I put the receiver back up to my ear. After what feels like an hour, the ringing stops. There’s a click. And then a voice. Ben’s voice.
“Hello, McCool Fries.”
God, he sounds so tired. The knot of anger inside me loosens.
“Hi. It’s Lily.”
I don’t know why, but my throat suddenly feels like tissue paper.
“Hi,” he says.
“Yeah, hi.”
Ugh. Did I really just say “hi” twice?
Pi-length pause here.
“So, why are you calling?”
Good question. Why exactly am I calling him?
“I-I don’t know. I-I …”
I can’t finish that sentence — my mind is suddenly, totally, completely blank. I can feel my cheeks start to spark and for a moment I’m seriously thinking about hanging up and forgetting I ever knew a boy named Ben Matthews. And then he says this:
“S’okay. I’m glad you called. I was actually thinking about you.”
It’s like hot chocolate with marshmallows sliding into my ears, each word warming every single millimetre of me up from the inside out.
“You were?”
“Unh-huh.”
It takes a few seconds to swallow the sticky wad of nerves rising in my esophagus.
“So … I didn’t wake you up?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay …”
There’s a long, surprisingly easy silence. I hear Death Cab for Cutie playing in the background and then the voice of a radio DJ announcing the next song. I bend my head toward the window and stare out at my moon. It’s tinted yellow tonight — the colour of parched grass.
“It’s so late. I wasn’t sleeping …”
The mention of sleep brings out a long, yodel-sounding yawn from the phone. “Yeah, about that. I did a bit of research on your problem.”
My mouth falls open. “Y-you did?”
“I did.” Another yodel yawn. “And I found out some pretty freaky stuff. Do you know that people who are seriously sleep deprived usually suffer from anxiety, blurred vision, slurred speech, and concentration lapses?”
Don’t forget the heart palpitations, I think to myself.
“Not to mention hallucinations and paranoia,” he continues.
Hallucinations? My thoughts reel backward to the moment the drive-thru speaker morphed into a snarling panther. Suddenly it feels like there’s a knife pushing into my chest. “In other words, they go crazy. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess you could look at it that way.”
Great! As if I’m not strange enough already. Now I have to add “imminent insanity” to my growing list of problems. Just call me the “odd girl out of time.”
“So, how many days did you say it’s been now?” Ben asks.
“Twenty-five.”
I think I hear him whistle through the phone. “And have you been having any of those symptoms?”
I just can’t bring myself to tell him the awful truth about the panther hallucination. Or the heart flutters either, for that matter.
“I guess I have been pretty grumpy. More than usual, I mean.”
For a few seconds, all I can hear is the sound of my own breath in the receiver.
“Yeah, I’ve been sort of grumpy too. I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day at school. I’ve been … I just haven’t felt like myself lately. I guess this graveyard shift thing is getting to me.”
“Thanks.”
His apology makes me feel a bit better. But I can still hear those secrets in his voice. I know there’s so much he’s not telling me.
“Hey, want to come by the drive-thru?” he says. “We could take another walk to the Docks. I can make a fresh batch of fries.”
Yes, I want to come so badly. I look at the lock on my window and my eyes fill with tears. I shake my head. I’m impossibly imprisoned. And even if I wasn’t, Ben needs his sleep.
“No, not tonight.”
I wait for him to say goodbye and hang up. Go back to his nap and leave me alone with the night. Instead, he says, “I want to help you, Lily. Help, you know, figure out this sleep thing.”
His voice is tender and soft — like a goose-down pillow against my ear. My throat feels tight. It sounds just like something Aunt Su would have said.
I flop back onto the mattress. My arm comes up to cover my eyes like a blindfold. I’m running out of time, Ben. At this point, I seriously doubt anyone’s going to be able to help me find my sleep.
I don’t say that.
But I do say this: “Why do you want to help me? I mean, half the time I’m not even sure you even like me.”
“I do like you.” His voice is just a hum now.
“Why?”
Short pause.
“I think because you’re different. I mean, every single thing about you is like nothing I’ve ever known. Does that make sense?”
Blood floods my brain. I shake my head, trying to chase off a sudden rush of wooziness. “No. No sense at all.”
“It’s just, you make me feel things … see things … I don’t know how to explain it.”
Someone’s poured a bucketful of sand down my throat. “Try,” I somehow manage to squeak.
Another hour seems to pass while I wait for his answer.
“Everything’s different when I’m with you,” he finally says. “I-I like it.”
Different. Difference. You’ll make a difference in someone’s life, Lily-girl. That’s what Aunt Su wrote. In her suicide note. Aunt Su.
The cabin.
I sit back up.
“I guess there is one thing you could help me with Ben, but it’s not about sleep.”
“Okay, what?”
“This is going to sound strange, but you wouldn’t happen to know anything about repairing old buildings, would you?”
A big blob of silence oozes into my ear. So big that, for a moment, I
actually think Ben’s hung up.
“Hello?” I whisper into the phone.
“Yeah. I’m still here,” he whispers back.
“So?”
“So, what do you want to know?”
A Short and Very Excited Note from Me
You’re not going to believe this! So, it looks like I finally found out Ben’s secret. Well, one of them at least. Turns out his dad owns a construction business. And not just any old construction business; it’s the biggest bloody one in the whole entire province. Ben is supposed to take it over one day and he has a bunch of builder friends who might be able to help me with the repair. He’s going to stop by the cabin this Sunday for a quick look and tell me what I need to do to get it up to safety standards.
I feel like laughing. Ha! Take that, General MacArthur!
And singing. No white flags above my door, Mom!
And dancing. With Aunt Su’s pomegranate jar. Around and around and around.
And so I will.
Toodle-oo …
SIXTEEN
September 20th
Emma. Again.
I see her red hair approaching out of the corner of my eye. Bounce, bounce … wave, smile. For the first time all month, I don’t cringe at the sight of her glee. In fact, after just a dewdrop of hesitation, I actually shift my Arial Narrow butt a millimetre to the left to make room for her Curlz. A puff of perfumed wind rises up as she drops onto the cafeteria bench beside me.
“Hey, Lil!”
I push a bit of nice into my voice. “Hey, Em.”
And I even manage to smile back at her. Hey, look at me!
She plops her lunch bag onto the table. It sits there for a moment, all bulging and round, like a brown paper stomach pouch. Then, one by one, she begins extracting the contents.
Egg salad sandwich. “So, have you heard the latest buzz?”
I shake my head. “Hardly.”
Granny Smith apple. “Apparently, Todd’s pretty torn up about you.”
I practically choke on a mouthful of chocolate milk. “Excuse me … what did you just say?”
Ziplock of baby carrots. “Yeah, seems like he’s gone all emo over your ass.”
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