Beyond Blonde

by Teresa Toten

  What a mess. Was he going to bring a date? An entourage? I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It would be humiliating to ask and that boy had humiliated me enough. Besides, I didn’t care. Who cares? Nobody.

  “Ve, za Aunties and za Blondes and your Mama for sure, are to have a very top secret, for my eyes only, planning for za decorations, for za music, za food, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

  I was doomed. All those people, watching and waiting for some Sophie-sized disaster that I was sure I could deliver on. We might as well film it.

  “Uncle Dragan is going to bring his movie camera.” I suppose they’d notice if I wasn’t there. “It vill be for sure za sveetest Sveet Seventeen party!”

  I heard her snuffling into a handkerchief. “Yes, Auntie Eva, it will. I can feel it now. I’m sorry I wasn’t excited enough earlier. I’m excited, now.” Dear Lord. “Now that you’ve explained it all to me.”

  Snuffle, snuffle. “You are for sure don’t lying.”

  “I am for sure not lying,” I lied.

  “And you vill be Sveet Seventeen for all of us?”

  I thought about them conniving and conspiring at Auntie Eva’s dining room table. My motley crew of Aunties and Blondes.

  It was just one night. I’ve survived worse. “Can’t wait,” I said.

  As soon as I hung up, Mama and Madison burst through the door.

  “Look vat I found it in da elevators!” Mama pointed to Madison like she was a lucky penny.

  “Mama, call Auntie Eva.” I glared at Madison.

  Madison followed me into my room almost sheepishly until she actually got there, and then she looked around like she was seeing it for the first time. What was it with everyone and my room this year? You’d think they’d been coming to another Sophie’s bedroom all these years. My little altar was like this island of perfect prettiness plopped onto a moonscape. She wrinkled her nose.

  “Sophie, isn’t it time that you …”

  “Never mind that, Madison. You guys had a party summit with the Aunties?” I crossed my arms. At least she had the good grace to look sheepish again. And then she remembered who she was.

  “Have you met your Aunties, Sophie Kandinsky? When was the last time you successfully stood up to them and said no? Name once!”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Humph, I thought so, and while I’ve got you in the proper frame of mind about just how persuasive they can be, we, uh, agreed on a fifties theme. Your Sweet Seventeen is going to be a sock hop, just like on Happy Days.”

  “WHAT?”

  “It was their idea, but it’s good. Everyone loves that show, and we’re all going to rent poodle skirts at Malabar. We’ll get fitted in January.”

  I started to vibrate, discreetly.

  “And it will be so groovy having everyone in costume, all that fifties music, just think of it!”

  I agreed, but I wasn’t through sulking and fuming. “How am I supposed to turn up all poodle-skirted and ponytailed when this thing is a surprise?”

  “Oh, Sophie, everyone knows that a secret surprise party is never a surprise, or how can the guest of honour possibly look appropriately turned out? I mean really.”

  There was just so much I didn’t know. “So, this meeting was last week?”

  “Yesterday,” she said.

  Yesterday? “But Auntie Eva said she already heard from David and that he was coming!”

  “Hey, this is cool.” Madison picked up my rosary beads and began examining them closely. “Well, she mailed the invites this morning, but Auntie Eva sort of called him special yesterday.”

  “Oh Jesus H … Madison!”

  “I had to give her his number! It was like standing in front of an oncoming train!” she pleaded. “I swear on your altar!”

  “Fine, then.” I fell onto my bed. “I am going to have to leave the country.”

  She fell beside me. “He said sure right off.”

  “Aargh! He’ll find a fresh way to humiliate me.”

  “Oh come on, Sophie. I’m actually coming over to Sarah’s point of view on that one, and I think …”

  “He knows about Luke.”

  Silence. We let that sit for a while.

  “How?”

  “Haven’t a clue, but at your party … never mind. I can’t talk about that now. Let’s talk about something else, anything else.”

  She moved over closer. “I know Kit is holding something back.”

  I got up and started rearranging my altar.

  “It’s not the puking and it’s not California. So …”

  I wanted to tell her so, so much. I wanted to at least prep her, to give my friend some lead time in accepting the big thing about my other friend. If nothing else, it would maybe soften the reaction when and if it came. No not if. Kit would tell her. She would tell them all, and it was Kit’s to tell. Still, on the not-so-altruistic front … it was such a juicy big thing and I was desperate to tell her, watch her shock, have her marvel that I knew. I could feel the words coming up and reaching for air … and I switched them. “I saw Luke again and he’s asked me to meet more, uh, where we’ll have, more privacy. And I think I’m going to.”

  “Oh my God, Sophie!”

  “Not right away or anything. We’re still going to meet at the park next time. He loves me, Madison.” I remembered the double-double coffee and winced. “Anyway, he’s got this whole plan for his life, his education, me.”

  Madison sort of smiled but she also sort of looked angry, or disgusted, or sad around the edges. I couldn’t tell which one, but it was one of them.

  “I gotta go. I just came to give you the heads-up about the fifties thing. Edna’s back at the house.” There was a lump of quiet between us as we walked to the elevator. When the elevator opened, it startled us both. She got on and then, without warning, she jumped back out and hugged me. “You deserve better, Sophie Kandinsky.” Then she stepped back in.

  “Easy for you to say,” I said to the elevator doors.

  It was the prettiest Christmas tree we ever had, large and fat and full, but getting it up and into the elevator was a monster challenge. Once we got it in we had to stop at every floor, given that the branches kept pressing all the buttons, but we did it. Papa stayed around to string it with our seventy-two thousand multi-coloured lights. Every time we moved, Mama and I thought we’d forgotten the Christmas lights and we’d buy a new box. By the time we got to the condo, we had enough to light up City Hall. Where we lost money on new lights, we saved on actual decorations since they were all made by me. I was a glutton with a glue gun, and Mama had packed away every single questionable creation. The total effect was one of being a well-lit mess and, still, it was the prettiest Christmas tree we ever had.

  Papa was around a bit more throughout the holidays, not enough, but more. His presence quieted me like a blanket of snow. He seemed to have the opposite effect on Mama. Whenever Papa came by, she flitted around the room like a hummingbird on uppers. For my Christmas present, Papa bought me a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, and the Tao Te Ching, translated of course. They were so gorgeous I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t doing any of those. In fact, the books were so pretty that, rather than correct him, I instantly decided I would add a drop of Hindu, Muslim, and Taoism into my spiritual practice. When I had the time.

  Papa smiled across our living room, tracked me as I unwrapped each package and fingered the pretty gilt on the tissue-like pages. “They’re beyond beautiful, Papa. Thank you so, so much!”

  He couldn’t contain himself anymore. Papa strode over and crouched down beside me on the floor. “Princessa.” He sighed. “Sophie, I know you prefer to be called Sophie rather than Sophia. I know you like all your coffees black and very sweet, and I know you’re trying to be somewhat faithful to a blend of Buddhism, reform Judaism, and even some Catholicism.” He picked up the Koran. “These, these are for your future.” He kissed my forehead. “I think that you will always quest. I also think th
at those of us who are blessed to be near you will be rewarded by your quests. I’m proud of you, Sophie.”

  Proud. I gulped down a shot of shame remembering the last few months with Luke and the things I’d contemplated doing with Luke, was still contemplating. It wouldn’t stay down. I didn’t know where to look. I was playing with doing stuff that wasn’t okay in anybody’s holy book, no matter how many religions I rifled through or blended together. But, then again, Luke was my everything, the real deal, pure love. Everything was righteous in the name of pure love, right?

  Right.

  I finally looked up into my father’s clear blue eyes. “Yeah well, me too you, Papa.”

  Mama, not to be outdone, presented me with a little silver menorah on the first night of Hanukkah and followed up on Christmas with my very own L’Air Du Temps Eau de Parfum, complete with intertwined crystal swallows. I put a drop on my wrist right away. I smelled like gardenias and fairy tales for the rest of the day.

  The Aunties got together and presented me with “cash monies” at Christmas Day dinner at Auntie Eva’s. They said that I could spend it any way I liked. Two hundred dollars! They gave me two hundred dollars! I could buy a car or something.

  Sarah bought me a stash of Yardley Pot O’ Glosses in every shade there was, and Kit gave me a gorgeous mood ring that she swore she got in self-defence to give her a head’s-up on how crazy I was in any given moment. Madison floored me. She gave me a 1977 diary just like the one she had, only, instead of being in her buttery turquoise leather with silver engraving, mine was a buttery purple and it was engraved in gold; Sophie’s Secrets it said. Jesus. I didn’t even know that purple was my favourite colour until I saw it there with my name on it.

  I didn’t deserve any of it.

  And then Luke called.

  After all this time and all this drama, it was the first time Luke had ever called me. He called on the first week of January, the first day back at school, at 4:14 P.M. I noted it in my purple diary. I guess his coast was clear. He said he’d had my phone number memorized for over a year. My heart throbbed in my throat from the “Hi Sophie” on. I could barely hear him in all that pounding. I listened, recording the sound of his voice in my head while I imagined him, imagined us. It was exhausting.

  Even while we were talking it dawned on me that this is how it would have been, should have been, if we were just a normal boy and girl. I would giggle too much, even though I wasn’t much of a giggler, and move my hands around too much, even though it was just a telephone conversation. His voice would roll over me like spring fog. My boyfriend would call and we would arrange to meet at the park on Saturday, January 15, right after my shift at Mike’s. That’s what a normal boyfriend and girlfriend would plan on the phone, and that’s what we did. I don’t remember the rest of the holidays, what I did or with who. I don’t remember that first week back at school. I don’t even remember doing anything with the Blondes.

  I do remember not telling them about any of this.

  On January 15, I shot out of Mike’s the moment my shift was over. I ran in my boots, parka, and scarves. I should’ve worn a hat, but I’d look like a dork. Couldn’t risk it. When I got to the top of the reservoir, it was clear that we’d have the park to ourselves. All I could hear was my own breathing in that weird way you can when it’s freezing and you’re all covered up. The snow was blinding, lit by the late afternoon sun, and, even though there was no wind, the air still pierced you. “Too cold to snow,” as Auntie Eva used to say. “Too cold to cry.”

  I practised a head-spinning series of poses. How do you look fetching in so much fake down?

  At 3:25, I saw him coming up toward me over the rise and waited, sucking in my stomach the whole time. Luke wore his Northern Varsity jacket. No hat, no scarf, no gloves. He smiled the whole way.

  “You’re here,” he said and reached for me.

  “Of course I am.” I stepped back. God he was lovely.

  I wanted to trace his face with my fingers. Instead he took my arm, and we walked over to the biggest and best oak tree.

  “How was Christmas?” he asked.

  “Good. Great. I got some amazing gifts, an engraved diary, this bottle of perfume from Mama, brilliant things for my altar.” Then I remembered he didn’t know anything about my altar. He wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Luke smiled, one dimple declaring itself. He didn’t ask. He leaned into me, resting an arm against the tree trunk.

  It was hard to think. “How about you?” I said it automatically, realizing too late that I so did not want to know. Don’t answer!

  “Okay.” He shrugged.

  Stop! Stop! No more.…

  “Mainly with my folks, you know. The baby was fun, I guess.” He leaned in closer.

  The baby. Their baby. Luke’s baby. I felt nauseated and clammy, like you do right before you hurl.

  Luke did not take his eyes off me. He was searching for something while telling me how he would be working for his dad by this time next year.

  At 3:31, he asked me to come over to his apartment.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “She took the baby to her grandmother’s place in Simcoe. Gone for the whole week.”

  When I was six, after much pleading and visible begging, Mama gave me a nickel for a kiddie ride, the mechanical horse at the Woolworth’s five-and-dime store.

  “We’ll be alone.”

  The horse threw me, impossible, but true. Somehow I went flying over the front of the stupid thing and I swear, I landed on my stomach at the other end of the store. The sucker-punch of pain from the wind being knocked clean out of me was stunning.

  This was like that.

  “Just you and me.”

  Who was he? Who did he think I was? What was I doing here? He had a baby.

  “I …” I shook my head. I just couldn’t quite get a grip on the breathing thing.

  Luke leaned against me, body on body, well, parka on leather jacket.

  “Come home with me.”

  Home? No matter how hard he cleaned up, they would be there. All these weeks, I had successfully blocked any images about his life with her. But now that I had started, I couldn’t get the pictures out of my head. There would be baby paraphernalia everywhere. I saw Alison’s hairspray in the bathroom, her cheap dangly earrings on the coffee table. I could smell her stale cologne on the sofa pillows. Mrs. Lucas Pearson might as well be sitting there. How could he ask?

  At 3:42 Luke told me he loved me.

  If I could just get one normal decent breath. “No you don’t,” I gasped.

  “Sophie, are you okay?”

  “No!” I pushed him off me. “You don’t even know who I am.” He didn’t. He couldn’t. How could he, when I didn’t know myself? But what we were became crystal clear in a heartbeat. The realness of what we were doing, of what he was asking, barged in and dirtied the innocent, but doomed, romantic fantasies I’d been playing non-stop in my head since I had caught sight of him at Luigi’s funeral. This was not my L’Air du Temps. We were not in a field of gardenias and fairy tales.

  Luke pulled me to him again. “I know you enough to love you, Sophie.”

  “Let go.” He didn’t. “You don’t love me, Luke. You love the idea of me.”

  I finally took in a deep breath and exhaled, perfectly. The truth did that. “You never got a chance to love me.”

  He let go.

  “We never got a chance.” I put my hand against his chest. “And this … what you’re asking … I can’t. I’m too young to be so old.”

  “Sophie—”

  “I’m going to be seventeen next month,” I interrupted. “And there’s going to be a party. Bet you didn’t know about either of those things. How could you? I’m going to be seventeen, Luke, and I want to be seventeen. Seventeen, not thirty-seven. I’ve been too old for too long, cleaning up after my dad, prison, the moves, Mama’s moods.” I pushed him away. “I just want to be seventeen, you know?”

  He shook his head.

/>   “I deserve to be seventeen!”

  Luke looked gutted. I wanted to snatch the words back and throw myself into him, but instead I exhaled again. “You, because of her …” I waved my arms pathetically. “You have to be a grown-up now. Luke, you’re a father, somebody’s papa. You can’t escape into me.”

  “I’m not escaping!” A bewildered little boy grabbed my arm. “I told you my dad’s got it all laid out.”

  “This is wrong, Luke. We’re wrong, all wrong.” I shook my head. “Go home.”

  At around 4 P.M., he pulled me to him. “You’re wrong, Sophie.” He kissed my hair over and over. “Maybe it didn’t start out that way, but I do love you. I love you so much.”

  I wanted to crawl into him.

  “And you’re right.” He kissed my face, my eyes, kisses so sweet they could crush you. And they did.

  “You deserve better,” he whispered.

  I pushed him away at 4:05 P.M.

  “Go.”

  Lucas Pearson shoved his hands into his pockets. A boy with a heart full of hurt. He tried to smile, couldn’t, so he walked away. I watched him recede ever smaller, all the way to the far end of the park’s slope. Then Luke stopped and my heart stopped with him. Turn around. I take it back. But he didn’t. Luke Pearson never turned around; he just disappeared over the horizon.

  My heart began beating again. Mary, Mother of God, it was cold.

  But not too cold to cry.

  Auntie Eva was wrong. I cried all the way home, not caring who I startled or alarmed.

  I heard the music as soon as I got off on our floor. Nat King Cole was crooning up and over swelling violins and out into the hallway. “Autumn Leaves”: not a good sign. Mama played that song over and over during the worst periods of Papa being in prison. I let myself in quietly and tiptoed over to her bedroom door. I couldn’t hear crying, well, maybe just a little under Nat’s velvety voice.

  I should go in and check on her.

  No. Whatever was going on between my mother and my father was between my mother and my father. It was enough that I had done the right thing. Luke, sweet Jesus, Luke. In my room, I lit my candle and made the sign of the cross. I could barely see the flicker through the blur of my tears. Dear God, Buddha, and Moses. If I did the righteous and good thing today, why in the name of all of you did it hurt so much?