Days That End in Y

  “The boys must fall all over themselves when they’re around you. Have you got a boyfriend yet?”

  Before I can say anything, Mom emerges from the storeroom, her arms full of shampoo bottles. “Tina?” The bottles almost hit the floor, but Mom recovers, dumping them in the nearest styling chair, and rushes over to give Tina a hug.

  “Did I know you were coming?” she asks.

  Tina shakes her head. “Nope. I’m in town visiting my sister and thought I’d pop by and see if you could fit in a trim.”

  Mom gestures to a styling chair. “At your service!”

  “The word is you’re getting married, Annie.”

  Mom shows off her ring. “Guilty as charged.”

  Tina claps and bounces a little before wrapping my mom in yet another hug. Maybe constant hugging is something that friends do when they get older. Although when I try to picture Benji and me falling all over each other, it doesn’t stick. Mattie, of course, is already an experienced hugger.

  “Congratulations! I want to hear everything!” Tina shrugs off her purse and blazer and sinks into a recliner.

  Normally I’d find myself a magazine to read, but it occurs to me that since Tina knew Mom in high school, she must have also known Bill. I need to find a way to bring him up in the conversation.

  “Clarissa, can you get Tina a drink?”

  Shoot! The one time I want to stick around and eavesdrop and my mother is sending me out of the room.

  “You don’t want to miss out on Clarissa’s iced lemon-tea,” Mom says. “She makes it herself. Her secret ingredient is mint.”

  “How can I say no to that?” Tina says with a wink.

  I run up the stairs two at a time, while Mom fluffs out Tina’s hair to assess the job ahead of her. I’m in such a rush to get back downstairs that I miss the glass while I’m pouring. Lemon-tea sloshes down the side and onto the counter. I don’t have time for this! I can’t miss any of their conversation. What if they’re going to reminisce about the Good Old Days? I need to be there for every little detail.

  I am careful on the way back down, having already lost time wiping up my first spill.

  “Here you are; I hope you like it. I can add more lemonade or mint if you want,” I say, putting on my most professional and helpful daughter face.

  Tina takes a delicate sip. “This is delicious!” she says, smiling at me. “Clarissa, you’re a girl of many talents!”

  “Thanks,” I say, as I sit down and get comfortable.

  “Now, Annie, tell me about this man of yours.”

  “What do you want to know?” Mom says demurely. “His name is Doug Armstrong, and he owns a fitness centre here in town. We met almost a year ago, when I started training at the gym. Then we started dating a few months back, and things just went from there.”

  “Look at you — you’re positively glowing!” Tina says. Then to me, “Isn’t your mother beautiful?”

  “She is,” I say. “The most beautiful woman in town.”

  Mom raises her eyebrows at me, and I decide to tone down the perfect daughter routine. I may be laying it on a bit thick.

  Tina leans in, all conspiratorial. “What do you think of Doug, Clarissa? Is he good enough for our girl?”

  “He’s great! Really friendly. And tall. And nice to dogs …” I am struggling with things to come up with, but Tina seems to think this is enough.

  “Dog lovers are good people,” she says. “When’s the wedding?”

  “Two weeks, if you can believe it. We’re just having a small party in the backyard with a few friends.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Tina says.

  “So what’s new with you? How’s work?”

  Tina starts talking about her son and her job as a speech therapist, and I zone out for a little bit, trying to come up with things to say to direct the conversation toward high school.

  I have a pen and paper ready, so when they start talking, I can jot down names and anything else worth investigating later. As it turns out, I don’t have to say anything, because eventually Tina launches into it all on her own.

  “Have you seen any of the old gang lately? TJ? Alison? Stookey?”

  Mom shakes her head. “Not really. I lost touch with a lot of people once Bill and I called things off. Stookey wouldn’t look me in the eye, and Tyler Kellerman never spoke to me again.”

  I can’t believe my luck. Mom never talks about Bill so candidly. At least not in front of me. My heart is beating so hard, I can feel it throbbing in my fingers. I can barely hold the pen as I write down Stookey and Tyler Kellerman.

  “Those guys were always tight,” Tina says. “And you know what Alison was like: if Stookey said jump, she said how high.”

  “I know. They got married soon after high school. They’re divorced now.”

  “What about Tara B. or Krista Cummings?” Tina asks.

  “No one’s really seen or heard from Krista since she went off to university, and Tara moved to Toronto a few years ago. Last I heard she was working in TV doing publicity or something.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Do you ever hear from Matt?” Mom asks.

  Tina groans a little, embarrassed, then looks at me and explains, “Matt Van de Graff was my first boyfriend. I can’t believe you’re bringing him up, Annie!” She swats my mother playfully and continues, “I thought we were going to get married for sure.”

  “I always thought he was a sweetheart, even if he did try too hard. You were a cute couple.”

  “He was a sweetheart and probably still is.”

  “He’s working for his father now. He’ll take over Van de Graff Farms, if his father ever retires. He married Janet Simmons. They have three kids.”

  “Good for him. Matt is a great guy. Remember how he hero-worshipped Bill?”

  Mom nods. “I remember. It’s too bad. How come nice guys always look up to jerks?”

  “Because girls like a bad boy,” Tina says. “Then we grow up and kick ourselves for ever thinking like that. But Doug sounds like one of the good ones.”

  “He is,” Mom says.

  “How’s Denise?” Tina asks. “We’ve been trying to get together, but our schedules never match up. God, I miss that laugh.”

  I have to restrain myself from choking. Denise’s laugh, as distinctive as it is, is not something one should pine over.

  Once the conversation veers into a discussion about Denise and makeup products, I sense that my fact-finding mission has come to an end. I look at my list: Stookey, TJ, Tyler Kellerman, Alison, Krista, Tara B. and, perhaps most promising of all, Matt Van de Graff. Surely some of these people are still in touch with Bill. And at least one of them, Matt Van de Graff, still lives in town. Now all I need is a plan.

  WEDNESDAY WITH DENISE

  I have a one-track mind. Bill is all I can think about. Even though “Mission: BKJR 199” went bust, and I still haven’t decided what to do with my list of names, I’m not ready to give up. I need to gather more information, which is why I volunteer to pick up the punch bowl and plastic champagne glasses from Denise’s apartment.

  Mom gives me a quick squeeze before I go. “Thank you for being so helpful. This party is really coming together, thanks to you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Party? Don’t you mean wedding?”

  “You know what I mean. I’m really impressed with how calmly you’re taking all of this. I know it’s a lot to digest. You would tell me if you needed to talk, right?”

  Truth be told, the wedding is only the second most important thing on my mind these days. Maybe I should be thinking more about Doug becoming a part of our lives forever, but finding Bill feels more urgent. Who knows how long he’s in town for? The window of opportunity is small, and it feels like it’s shrinking every second I’m not out there doing something about it. He could have left already.

  The thought makes the back of my throat tickle, like I’m about to cough — or worse, cry.

  “I’d tell you,” I say, and in my h
ead I add silently, just not about what I’m really doing.

  “What did I ever do to deserve such a great kid?”

  I smile weakly and am out the door before the guilt makes me confess. If only she knew I was about to secretly pump her best friend, she of the famously loose lips, for information on my long-lost father.

  I’ve only been to Denise’s apartment a handful of times. Her building is one of four by the river. All of the apartments on the north side of the building overlook the water. It’s a nice view — just ask the people who used to have it. When the apartment buildings went up, they were wedged between the backyards on Dawson Street and the strip of woods that backed up to the river. The people who lived in the houses complained, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

  It was in the paper a lot. Denise used to read the stories aloud to Mom and me in the Hair Emporium. “Boo hoo,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Poor little rich people have to share their view with us regular people. Cry me a river.”

  You have to buzz to get in, and then take the elevator up. Denise lives on the fourth floor. I’m so full of anxious energy, I could probably run up all four flights and keep on going to the tenth floor, but time is ticking, and I don’t want to waste a second.

  “Welcome, welcome!”

  Denise’s house is a mess. No matter where you look, it appears as though she were interrupted in the middle of something and forgot to go back and finish. The table is full of breakfast bowls with cereal bits dried to the bottom and dinner dishes with crusts of hardened spaghetti sauce. A coat, two pairs of shoes and a blouse lie on the back of the couch, as if she changed clothes on her way out the door. Romance novels lie open — pages down, spines cracked, making little tents — on the couch, the kitchen counter and the floor in the bathroom.

  I am something of a neat freak and the whole messy place sets my teeth on edge.

  “Don’t mind the mess. When you live on your own, no one sees it, so what’s the point?”

  “Personal hygiene?”

  “Oh, you’re such a funny girl. Want a root beer?”

  “Yes, please.” Denise disappears into the fridge, which is just as jam-packed as the rest of her apartment. When I catch sight of a watermelon balancing on an egg container, I have to avert my eyes. I can’t help counting the disasters waiting to happen.

  “How’s the wedding planning going?” she asks.

  “Fine, although Mom still refuses to acknowledge that it’s a wedding. She keeps calling it ‘the party.’”

  Denise shakes her head. “Has she changed her mind about music at least?”

  “No! I suggested a whole bunch of nice, non-wedding songs, and she still thinks it would be too formal.”

  We don’t agree on much, but music at my mom’s wedding (or non-wedding) is one thing Denise and I are both pushing for.

  “Well, we can keep at her, but if Annie doesn’t want to do it, she won’t.” Denise gives me a very pointed look. “Must be a family trait.”

  I ignore the last bit and take the root beer she offers me.

  “Do you think she’ll change her name?” I ask.

  “I doubt it,” Denise says.

  “Annie Armstrong sounds too much like a country singer. Delaney is a good last name,” I say carefully, looking for a way to ask what I really want to know. “I like being Clarissa Delaney. I’m glad she never went with Davies. Clarissa Davies sounds like a high school secretary.”

  “With press-on nails,” Denise snorts. “But Davies was never in the cards for you, kiddo.”

  “Why not?”

  Denise narrows her eyes at me. “Why do I feel like this is a trap?”

  I play innocent. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why are you bringing up your father’s last name?”

  I look down at my drink and fiddle with the pop tab. “Mom and I found her old yearbooks. It just made me think.”

  “Don’t you have enough to think about right now? Why bother wasting your time and energy worrying about him?”

  “Was I always going to be Clarissa Louise Delaney? Did she even think of Davies?”

  “You’re her child; why shouldn’t you take her name?”

  “And my grandparents, I mean, on his side, they were okay with it?” I can’t bring myself to use his name, Bill. I’m afraid that if I do, something in my voice will give the truth away. She’ll guess that I’ve seen him and have been out looking for him.

  “Haven’t we had this conversation before?” Denise asks, trying to change the subject.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Yes, I do believe we had this exact conversation at your house, sitting at the kitchen table, not so long ago.”

  “Well, now I have more questions.”

  “Lord, give me strength.” Denise downs her root beer in one long gulp and rubs her forehead.

  I decide to come clean. Well, partially clean. “I saw a picture of my dad.”

  “Who?”

  Honestly. Between Denise and Benji, you would think that I popped out of the world completely fatherless: a miracle of immaculate conception.

  “What do you mean, who? Bill Davies, obviously.”

  “Why would you go looking for him?” Denise says with a sigh.

  My heart stops. How does she know? Then I realize she means looking for him in the yearbook, not looking for him in town. I have to swallow hard to keep my voice casual.

  “I wasn’t looking for him; he was just there, in the yearbook.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second, but okay, if you say so.”

  “In the yearbook he seemed … fun.”

  “Oh, he was fun all right,” Denise says, but she doesn’t elaborate.

  “There was this picture, I think it was from prom. They were both all dressed up, but he was joking around for the camera, in sunglasses.”

  Denise nods. “I remember that picture,” she says.

  “How come he never came back here? Doesn’t he have family?”

  “His parents were divorced and he lived with his dad. As far as I know, Mr. Davies moved away years ago. He had an older brother, but I don’t know what happened to him. I doubt he has much of a reason to come back.”

  Except for me, I think. Aren’t I enough of a reason?

  “In the yearbook it seemed like they were really in love.”

  “They were young and beautiful, of course they were in love. It doesn’t mean it was going to last. You can’t believe everything you see in a yearbook. Those things are meant to make high school look perfect, when lots of the time it was far from it.”

  “Do you have yours?”

  “No, I got rid of them ages ago.”

  “How come?”

  “They made me sad.”

  “They’re just some cheesy old books; how can they make you sad?”

  “This might be hard for you to believe, knowing me as I am now: great skin, great hair, all put together—”

  Bite your tongue, Clarissa, I think. This is not the time for a snarky comment, even if there are a hundred things to say.

  Denise continues, “But when I was in high school, I was a bit of a dork.”

  I think of her school pictures, the big smile and big hair, but I stay silent.

  “Thank goodness for your mother; otherwise, no one would have looked twice at me. But I always thought, just wait, I’m going to move to L.A. and make everyone jealous.”

  Denise gets up and starts to pace, like she did in those first few weeks after she gave up smoking. At her side, her fingers drum against her thigh: yet another one of her smoking withdrawal signs.

  “Back then, I used to think I would be a makeup artist on movie sets — the kind of person who could charge a thousand bucks for a few hours on Oscar night, glamming up celebrities. And what do I do now? The same thing I’ve done for almost fifteen years: I sell makeup in hick towns to people who think blue eye shadow is still the height of fashion.”

  “But you have a job, and this apartmen
t …” I’m about to add “and your health,” but it feels like something a guidance counsellor would say.

  “My job is a joke, and I don’t own this dump; I rent it,” Denise says savagely. She stops pacing and makes a beeline for a cupboard, fumbles around and pulls a package of cigarettes out from behind the coffee mugs. Uh-oh, this isn’t good. Denise stopped smoking more than a year ago when my mother was in treatment. Now she only smokes when she’s stressed out. I just wanted some answers; I didn’t mean to drive her to smoking again.

  “Don’t tell your mother,” she says, indicating the cigarette.

  “I won’t, as long as you don’t tell her about this conversation.”

  Denise blows a stream of blue-grey smoke out both nostrils. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Look, I don’t want you to think I’m some sad, old single lady. I’ve got plenty of good years in me yet, and I’m going to make some changes. Oprah always says you have to be the change, not just wait for it.” Denise exhales, closing her eyes. “But you can see how I wouldn’t want a bunch of old yearbooks around, mocking me. Making me feel like the same old geek I was back then.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m uncomfortable giving advice to my own friends, let alone adults. I drink my root beer and wait for the mood to change. How did this mission get so completely off track?

  “Just a second — don’t go anywhere.”

  Denise disappears, leaving me on the couch, sipping my root beer and trying not to touch the piles of clothes on either side of me. Who knows how long they’ve been there or whether or not they’ve been recently laundered? She returns with an album, baby pink and laminated, with enormous pastel circles and squiggles on the front. It is the ugliest photo album I have ever seen.

  “This is all I have left from high school. Sort of like my own yearbook, except I got to choose all the pictures.”

  Denise lets me flip through the pages, which are stiff and covered in slightly greasy laminate. Most of them are shots of Denise and an impossibly young-looking version of my mother, modelling hairstyles and playing for the camera.