Plain Jane

by Kim Hood

  ‘She can’t be serious. Your name isn’t really Farley, is it?’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘As in Farley Mowatt? The guy who wrote all of those books about owls and wolves that they made us read in elementary?’

  ‘Obviously without the Mowatt,’ he said, still grinning. ‘You didn’t think he was the only Farley in the world did you?’

  ‘It’s not something I spend a lot of time contemplating, Farley.’ Extra emphasis on the Farley. Usually I try to temper my sarcasm, especially after the debacle with Brenda and Aishling, but this guy seemed to invite it.

  ‘So, what do you spend time contemplating?’ As if we knew each other; as if, naturally, I wanted to share that with him.

  ‘Well, Farley, I was contemplating leaving now.’

  ‘Can’t,’ he stated. ‘You’re meant to be here.’

  ‘What, did the stars tell you this?’ I didn’t seem to be able to rattle Farley. And it didn’t seem like this was any strange pick-up scenario. I wasn’t sure what it was.

  ‘Not strictly speaking the stars, but I suppose they are a part of it.’ He wouldn’t stop grinning like a bloody Cheshire cat.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Farley, but I think you have hooked yourself to the wrong star.’ It was just about time to leave I thought, before he started trying to sell me some kind of hippie book that was somehow going to transform my life. Fat chance of that happening.

  ‘No, serendipity tells me I haven’t.’

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I was just saying to Kaitlin – that’s Kaitlin by the way.’ He pointed to the woman behind the counter, who gave a wave, without looking up from her magazine. ‘I was just saying that the weather today reminded me of the opening scene in Mary Poppins, where the wind is blowing and you know someone magical is going to come along. And then you did.’

  ‘Farley, it’s not even noon. There’s a whole day for this “someone magical” to actually come along – if you think that is going to make your day.’ I didn’t even know this guy, but somehow his optimism bothered me.

  ‘Oh, you’ve already made my day.’

  ‘Good. Then I can go now.’ I stood up.

  ‘So what is your name?’ Farley asked, as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and prepared to go back into the wind.

  ‘You mean the stars didn’t tell you that?’

  ‘Nope.’ That infuriating grin did not waver.

  ‘It’s Jane. Plain Jane. No magic here.’ And strangely, saying that made my eyes prickle, which made me feel not just annoyed, but angry. I didn’t need some weirdo who wouldn’t stop smiling to tell me there was some sort of destiny at work in his life. He was pretty stupid if he thought there was, and he could go off and believe what he liked – but he’d have to find another random stranger to pretend with.

  I stomped to the door, turning just long enough to say, ‘See. Quite capable of leaving.’

  ‘For now,’ and he waved as I slammed the door shut.

  As soon as I was out of the door, I wanted to be back in, which was weird because I was still angry. Maybe feeling anger was better than feeling nothing.

  Now, with the anger fading, all I was feeling was cold. And I still had to waste a couple of hours. A woman across the road got out of her car, racing the wind to the convenience store, so I headed there. At least I wouldn’t be the only one in there. Maybe I could get away with looking through magazines, pretending I gave a shit about whoever the current celebrity divorcing some other celebrity was.

  It wasn’t until I was just about to follow the woman in that I remembered that I didn’t like coming in this shop. The little bell that tinkled when she opened the door reminded me of the times I used to stop here to pick up the newspaper for Grandad. He had read a ton of them, but whichever one I had bought him, using my own money usually, it had somehow always been the wrong one. ‘Nothing but gossip. Left-wing rhetoric. It’s not Sunday – The Globe saves all the best articles for then.’ Even stepping in the door made me feel like

  I was going to disappoint him, though it was too late for that. It was too cold to indulge my avoidance of Grandad memories by walking out though, so I pushed those thoughts away, and concentrated on doing my best casual saunter instead. So much for picking a store that had more than me as the potential customer though. The woman I’d followed in didn’t look like she was going to take her time. She went straight to the dairy fridge and then headed to the counter with her milk.

  I positioned myself to be ignored, keeping most of me between the magazine shelf and the shelf lined with pasta sauces, out of the line of sight of the man at the till.

  ‘It’s a cold one,’ he said as he rang up the woman’s milk.

  ‘It can blow all it wants as long as the snow stays away,’ I heard her say. ‘You can keep the change. Where’s your jar for that little girl in Verwood?’

  ‘Here, put it in the SPCA box. The jar is full and nobody has stopped by to empty it in a while. I was thinking maybe she didn’t make it, poor thing. Haven’t heard anything for ages.’

  ‘If it was one of my kids, I don’t know how I’d go on at all. They say it’s the worst thing that can happen, losing a child.’

  The page in the magazine I was trying to read went out of focus I was staring at it so hard. It felt like I couldn’t move, like I wasn’t in control of my body. I wanted to feel upset, or angry, but I didn’t. Not even five minutes ago I had been irate at a guy I didn’t even know, but now I felt nothing about someone talking about my sister as if she were dead.

  This was the worst bit, that sometimes I felt like I should feel something more about the whole thing with Emma, but mostly I couldn’t. There was just this numb sort of hole where there used to be a confusion of love and resentment and pride and all those sorts of sister-emotions. Now, when that hole filled up with anything, it was always with pure toxic feelings – like dread, or fear.

  I may have continued to just stand there, searching for a feeling, but as soon as the woman left, the man called to me.

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’

  Putting the magazine down, I walked to the counter, hoping I had enough in my pocket to buy something – anything. I found the chips Emma likes on the rack and put them on the counter before fishing in my pocket for change.

  ‘She’s still kicking it,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Emma. Her name is Emma, and she is still alive.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good news indeed. She is such a sweet little thing; I hope she beats this bastard cancer.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry. There’s sure to be another tragic case coming up soon for everyone to gossip about.’ I slid the change onto the counter. I was pretty sure it wasn’t enough, but he didn’t even check it before putting it in the till.

  ‘Oh, well…’ he stumbled on the words, but I saved him the effort by leaving before he could think of something appropriate to say to me. I knew how it was. The concept of tragedy is so much more pleasant than the actual reality of it.

  Sometimes I use the time on the bus to do a little homework. I guess spending so much time on a bus is my saving grace; it’s what has made it possible for me to maintain my current status, a solid C average, while attending so few classes. Maybe that just speaks to our poor educational system – that I can be nearly absent for three years and still get by.

  Mostly though, I open a book and leave it there on my lap while I lean my head against the window pane instead. The scenes passing are pretty familiar at this point. Trees, trees, trees, a house, trees, trees, a little farm, trees, a glimpse of a deer.

  There are little stories if you notice the details though. At one house – a big white dog and a woman throwing sticks for it on nice days has given way to tricycles and plastic peddle cars, the dog only seen as a blur of white fur behind the fence now. At another – a ramp connecting the front door to the drive appeared over a week of construction. I’ve seen the old man livin
g there pushing his wife down that ramp more than once since. The bus never slows enough for me to see their expressions, but I make them up in doodles I add to the margins of my copy books. Sometimes both are very sad. In others her expression is vacant and mindless, his determination etched in every deep line marching across his face.

  I doodle roads that lead from dark pine forests to wide open, manicured parks with fountains and lakes where little boys sail toy boats. I doodle monsters with open mouths that swallow houses and cars. Mostly people though. Mostly faces with a million different expressions.

  I don’t know when these doodles started. I don’t remember drawing when I was younger. Not that I would call what I do now drawing. It’s just this mindless place I go to, that results in bits of pictures and patterns. Sometimes I cover them with criss-crossed lines of obscurity when they’re done. Occasionally I like the scribbles though and so I tear the pages out and stuff them in the back pocket of my backpack, behind my laptop. I don’t know why. I’m never going to take them out again. The bag is beginning to bulge with the crumpled papers.

  You would think that I would feel comfortable in the hospital by now. I’ve spent a good chunk of my memorable teen years there. I don’t though. Every single time I get off the bus and start to walk toward it my body begins to tense. It doesn’t help that the hospital is the most imposing building in the whole town. It isn’t exactly like there are any other tall buildings in town – so the four stories and one block of space it takes up make it kind of stand out. It’s the way it seems to stare me down as I walk toward it, leaning toward me the closer I get, almost like it disapproves of me and would like to swallow me up like a pile of bricks, that makes me feel on edge.

  I don’t let it beat me though. I can’t. I’ve a little sister inside, and I won’t let the hospital keep her.

  Emma, however, seems completely oblivious to being in the belly of a monster. She is perfectly at home, even when the drugs are stealing every bit of colour from her body or turning her insides out. Which wasn’t the case today, thank god.

  Today Emma was smiling. And the bloody DVD player was firmly shut. It was a good day.

  ‘What’s up, Ems?’ I greeted, throwing her the bag of ketchup chips I still had in my pocket. For some reason, ketchup chips are the one thing she can always eat, no matter how sick she is. ‘What has your frown turned upside down?’

  That was from this picture book Mom used to read to us when we were little. It had all of these cartoons where the picture changed completely if you turned the book the other way around. That part was pretty cool, but we both used to hate the stupid story that went with it. It wasn’t even a story; it was some unimaginative adult’s idea of teaching kids about emotions. At some point lines from that book had become a code for how we know how each other is feeling. Me and Emma need that kind of system. We don’t do emotional stuff well.

  ‘A break from the Adriamycin,’ she declared, like I knew what that meant. Emma and Mom speak ‘cancereze’ fluently. Dad, he gets by, asking for a bit of translation every now and then. Me? I am a definite foreigner. Nobody ever offered to teach me, but I never volunteered myself for lessons either. The problem is, so many conversations in the hospital are conducted in this foreign language. It’s better when Emma is at home; everyone starts to speak English again. I’ve given up counting on those spells to last, though – they never do.

  ‘Is that a good thing?’ I wasn’t entirely being sarcastic. In my limited, foreign understanding, the times when Emma was most sick, were the times just before she started to get better. ‘I thought you were down for another week of that?’

  ‘Yep. I was.’

  ‘So, what, they just decided the puking was a sign to stop?’ It had never been a sign before. In my estimation, the goal had always been to kill off every bit of Emma, before bringing her back from the brink.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Emma shrugged, but the space between where her eyebrows should have been gave her worry away. Since she was little, when she was scared or unsure, Emma’s eyebrows would come so close together it would look like she had a uni-brow. It used to happen to her all of the time on the way to dance performances. I’d glance over at her, in the back seat beside me, where she would be sitting, completely still, giving nothing of her nervousness away besides her eyebrow thing. It wasn’t so obvious now that she had lost her dark brown eyebrows.

  ‘But it is a good thing,’ I stated, even though we both knew it probably wasn’t. When plans changed, it always meant something was wrong. Emma would follow my lead though. Mostly it’s as if Emma has never moved past being ten. She still believes anything I tell her. ‘Any day I can play Monopoly with you instead of holding a puke container is a good day.’

  Sure enough, she smiled again and I got the board out of the cupboard. Emma loves Monopoly, even though she almost always loses. Sometimes I hate that she is so easy to please. It makes me so difficult by comparison. I’d always sort of hoped she’d grow into a rebellious teen. It happens doesn’t it? The nicest, most compliant kids decide one day that they have had enough of that and suddenly they’re the ones having house wrecker parties and doing community time for shop lifting.

  Instead, she got to be a perpetual child and I had to keep being the rebellious one for both of us. And it wasn’t even fun anymore. How do you rebel when nobody cares? How do you rebel when you no longer care yourself?

  We just had the board set up when a doctor came in. That always happens. I don’t know how Emma even manages to have a pee some days without being interrupted. Mostly it’s the nurses at random times though; doctors tend to keep to the schedule of morning rounds.

  ‘Thought I’d check on you before I put my head down for a while,’ he said. His bright blue scrubs labelled him as an intern. Not that anyone would mistake him for anything more qualified anyway. He looked like he was about twelve. A cute twelve, but still twelve, and unlikely to know anything about treating a case as complicated as my sister’s.

  ‘Hi, I’m Dr Jonathan,’ he introduced himself to me, sticking out his hand for a handshake. I didn’t take it.

  ‘Do they not let you blue-coats use your last names?’

  ‘Um, no. There aren’t any rules to it.’ I’d thrown him, but he recovered. ‘The coats and the gear are enough to make lots of kids scared, without dealing with a surname as well.’

  ‘Which is?’ I persisted.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Most definitely.’ I couldn’t let it go now.

  ‘Ballerini. It’s Italian.’

  Emma and I both started to laugh. How perfect was that?

  ‘And there is that,’ he sighed, smiling though. ‘Kind of difficult to be taken seriously once the name is out there.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Emma said. ‘This doctor knows his stuff, Jane. He was the only one who knew exactly what to do for my rash. I just had to put some garlic on it.’ She held up her arm, showing me her elbows that had been red and raw for weeks, but that now looked considerably better.

  ‘Technically it’s the ajoene in garlic that helps,’ Dr Jonathan said, before putting his finger to his mouth. ‘Shhh. Herbal remedies are not exactly popular around here. They’re practically contraband for us blue-coats.’

  ‘But it worked,’ Emma protested.

  ‘Working, and being funded by the pharmaceuticals is an entirely different thing,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks for checking me. I’m a ton better.’ She was. I knew it from the way I felt like giving her a shove for her sickening sweetness.

  By the time Mom came back I had three complete sets of property, and Emma had a lot of different properties that were going to earn her nothing. Mom immediately picked up Emma’s chart, even though she had only been gone less than an hour and could have asked us if someone had been around.

  ‘Mom, there are nurses employed for that you know,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of why Emma is here.’

  ‘It’s an agency nurse today,’ she said absently. She lo
oked wrecked.

  ‘Listen, I could stay here tonight. You could go home.’ I wasn’t sure if I hoped she would accept or reject my offer. I pretty much knew what the response would be though.

  ‘I can stay by myself,’ Emma said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She meant that for both of us. She had taken on Emma’s illness with the same stubborn obsessiveness she previously had for her law business. We all knew there was not a chance she would let me take her place or let Emma stay on her own at this stage in Emma’s treatment. Especially if it wasn’t one of the regular nurses on.

  I don’t know why, but for once I wanted to ask Mom to come home, to leave Emma for one night and to come home. Maybe it was the weird morning that had jogged my brain out of autopilot, where I no longer hoped for anything to change. Was one trip home, just her and me in the car, too much to ask for?

  Now that I had thought it, I wanted that, even though it couldn’t happen. I wanted her to ask me about my day, and I could tell her about the disco-haired boy – only changing the context of how I had met him of course, to avoid questions of why I was wandering the streets of Kendal. I wanted her to confide in me, to tell me why Emma was off the drug that was the one that was going to work this time.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say Mom, Emma is much better today – just for once, can you come home with me?

  Before I could ever hope to say something that foreign for us both though, she spoke the words that were much more familiar.

  ‘You better get going, Jane.’ She fished around in her handbag and came out with a twenty dollar note. ‘Pick up some of those burritos Dad likes on the way home. The fridge must be almost empty.’

  That’s what hope got me; thinking something didn’t make it happen. The most I could hope to get from Mom was burritos that would be stone cold by the time I got them home. She hardly even looked at me as she resumed her usual place in the chair beside Emma, kicking off her shoes so she could curl her feet under her, like a cat getting comfortable in a familiar chair. I’d never seen her sit like that at home.