Copyright © 2017 Karen Nesbitt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Nesbitt, Karen, 1962–, author
Subject to change / Karen Nesbitt.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4598-1146-1 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1147-8 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1148-5 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8627.E765S83 2017 jC813'.6 C2016-904483-1
C2016-904484-X
First published in the United States, 2017
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949051
Summary: In this novel for teens, fifteen-year-old Declan struggles to make sense of his older brother’s delinquency, his father’s sexuality and his feelings for a girl who is way out of his league.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover image by Getty Images
Author photo by Janice Wilson
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
www.orcabook.com
In memory of Dad and Fabien, who were loving men of quiet fortitude. And for boys who can’t ask for help.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Acknowledgments
One
I’m standing outside the rink on a smoke break. An old blue Ford Taurus with mags and no muffler pulls up beside me. I’m wondering what kind of loser thinks that’s cool when I realize my brother’s sitting in the passenger seat. He cranks the window down.
“Hey, dickhead!” he yells.
I shake my head and butt out my cigarette in the can attached to the side of the building. In two steps I can easily cross the sidewalk to the car, but I take my time. The gravel I just spread on the ice crackles under my boots. The sky is gray, like we’re going to get wet snow.
I lean close to Seamus because I can’t hear over the motor, but I don’t say anything. He’s being a jerk. The usual.
“Hey, asshole, you got any cash?”
“Nope.” Not for you. There’s such a cocky look on his face. I recognize the driver of the piece-of-crap car. He goes to my school and isn’t old enough to have a license. Seamus probably told him it would be easy to get me to hand the money over.
Seamus elbows his friend, who’s grinning like an eager puppy with its tongue hanging out. “Aw, c’mon! Me ’n’ Rob, we were hopin’ to score some E, and maybe some chicks!” He elbows him again. “It’s Sa’rday night, right, bro?”
My brother and his juvenile-delinquent friend chair dance in the car like they’re going to party right here in front of me. Seamus laughs way too loud. I’m embarrassed by them, but I can’t help watching. They’re such freaks. He pulls a big Evian bottle out of his coat, takes a swig and passes it to Rob. They’re drinking something murky and brown.
“Get lost, Seamus.” I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and turn my back on them.
“Huh? What did ya say, dickhead? C’mere.” His favorite nickname for me is dickhead. He thinks it sounds like Declan.
“Get lost. I gotta go back to work.”
“Oooh, didya hear that, Robbie? He tol’ me t’get lost!” I look back, slowly, cool. Robbie has an idiotic smile pasted on his face. None of this is sinking into his tiny brain.
“Go home, Seamus. You’re hammered.” I start back toward the rink.
“You’re fuckin’ gay, dickhead!”
I spin around with my fist ready to pound the car, but Robbie guns it, and I just catch the back fender as one whitewall sprays me with a grimy mixture of slush, sand and salt.
Fuckin’ asshole brother and his puke-faced friends.
Inside, I clean myself off with paper towel before I take down the Back in 10 Minutes sign and open the canteen window. I’m just in time for the rush on slushies after a hockey practice. Seven-year-old boys and their parents line up for crushed ice, sugar and enough food coloring to turn their teeth bright blue.
When the rush is over I wonder if I should call 9-1-1. Rat Seamus and Robbie out to the cops.
Then I decide not to.
Why?
I grab a cloth and start to Windex the fridge doors.
Why not call the cops?
Because he’s my brother.
Yeah right. He hasn’t been a brother for years.
Because they’ll put him in jail.
So? It’d be a night of guaranteed peace for the whole neighborhood. He barely sleeps at home these days anyway. Who’d miss him?
It’ll upset Mom.
Well, someone has to do something. One of these days he’s going to kill himself or someone else. Then what?
Because he’ll kill me.
Really?
I’m used to him being bigger and older and meaner than me. But I’m probably taller than him now. I was six foot two when the phys ed teacher measured us in the fall for some national fitness torture program. But I have to be honest. At 145 pounds I make a garden rake look hefty.
Whack!
Stunned, I turn around to see what hit me in the left shoulder. There’s a yellow ball, one of those foam things you get at the dollar store, rolling away from my feet. I look across the room at a kid, frozen, with a hockey stick in one hand.
“Hey! The sign says Absolutely no playing hockey! Do it again, you’re out!” I glare at him for effect. “Get it?” I squeeze the ball in my fist and stick it in my pocket.
He nods and walks over to his dad, puts the stick down on his bag and starts to drink his chocolate milk. He peers at me over the plastic container, and I give him the evil eye again just for good measure.
I actually like kids. You kind of have to if you’re going to survive working at the rink. But you have to get tough with little boys right away or they won’t respect you. Pretty soon they’ll be having food fights in the canteen. Then the parents will take them home, and I’ll get stuck cleaning up the mess.
Running the canteen is a pretty good gig. Easy. I get to do my own thing. And I get tips, especially from the moms. When it’s not busy, I shoot the shit with Phil, the Zamboni guy.
Things quiet down. Just before the boy with the chocolate milk and his dad leave, I chuck the kid his ball, and I’m by myself again. The only sounds for now are the blast of the coach’s whistle from inside the rink and the hum of the big fridge. In fifteen minutes, Phil will get the Zamboni out and do rink two. Just before the next rush.
I finish cleaning the fridge doors. Phil walks into the canteen and motions for me to come outside for a smoke. I grab a shovel at the door to pu
sh away the slush while I’m out there. I hate the in-between weather. Not spring. Not winter. Just god-awful slippery, filthy mess everywhere.
Phil’s holding his smoke pack open for me to take one as I walk toward him. I fish my lighter out of the pocket of my big winter jacket and light both our smokes. It takes a few tries because the wind is picking up. There’ll probably be a blizzard tonight.
The idea of Seamus and Robbie the Moron driving around drunk in a blizzard bothers me. I don’t like Seamus much, but I still don’t want him to kill himself. It would destroy Mom. So many kids get in car accidents on the narrow country roads out here. Seems like every year there’s a funeral, and there are flowers tied to trees and lampposts all over the place. Last June a kid trying to pass slammed head on into a gravel truck from the quarry. The truck swerved and ended up on its side, dumping sand all over the ditch, and the kid lost his arm because he had it out the window. Freaked everyone out. Must’ve hurt like hell.
Aw, why do I keep thinking about my asshole brother?
Phil taps his watch, stamps his cigarette out on the ground and kicks the butt onto the street. “Later.” He’s going in to do the rink.
I pick up the shovel and clear the crap away from in front of the automatic door. Two more cycles like this—break, canteen rush, clean up, Zamboni—and I’ll be on my way home.
If Seamus is partying, at least he won’t show up there.
Two
Snow is starting to swirl around me on the road. I put my hood up, switch my cigarette to my other hand, and jam the other one in my jacket pocket.
The sun is almost gone, but I can still see the colors of the houses as I walk along the road home. It’s quiet. It’s been ten minutes since I left the rink and the thriving metropolis of downtown Rigaud. I haven’t seen one car or person. Just me and the road, the trees and the snow.
I don’t mind the cold, and walking gives me a chance to come down. After school or a shift at the rink, I like having the time to think. Over the last two years, I’ve done some of my best thinking on the 138. For instance, it’s where I came up with my plan to make money by shoveling walks in town, so I could buy an Xbox. I ended up with about seven clients right in Rigaud, doing their front walks and driveways. It was all I needed. By the end of the season I’d saved enough to buy a console and a couple of games to go with it.
Walking past the rink every day on the way home from school gave me the idea to get a job there. My brother-in-law, Ryan, is a security guard at a medical center in the next town—one of those places with a clinic and X-rays and stuff all in one building. It turns out he knows the guy who runs the Rigaud Arena, and both buildings are managed by the same company. When I told him I was thinking about applying for a job there, he talked to his friend. The guy likes Ryan so much, he hired me as soon as I turned fifteen.
If it was up to me, I’d ditch school and work all the time. I hate school. The rink is my place. I do my job, I get along with everybody, I love being in charge of the canteen. No one gives me a hard time there.
At least, not until now.
Why’d my stupid brother and his moronic friend have to show up? Where does he get off bothering me at work? The only time he talks to me anymore is to ask for money. What if Mr. Bergevin had been there? No boss would want them hanging around. I don’t need Seamus causing trouble for me. I wish he’d just piss off.
My parents’ divorce didn’t turn me and my sister, Kate, into lunatics like Seamus. When he’s out, Mom is usually upset because he’s supposed to be at home. And when he is home, he makes everyone so miserable we all want him to leave. Where does he go when he’s not driving around and getting in my face? Actually, I’d prefer not to know. Two summers ago, he and his band of merry losers burned down a neighbor’s shed. The cops couldn’t prove it, but everyone knew it was them. Seamus and his friends were having a party in our backyard. The neighbors complained and the cops showed up, shut it down. Three days later, the shed was incinerated. Since then we don’t get along with the neighbors too well.
Stop thinking about Seamus!
I smell fireplace smoke through the trees. It makes me want to be home. I wish we had a fireplace. That would be special. I can imagine sitting in front of a fireplace, listening to music or just being quiet or hanging with my friends. I’ve seen mobile homes with fireplaces and woodburning stoves before. Maybe me and Ryan could put one in someday. That would be cool. Aw, but Seamus would probably burn the place down.
When I was in elementary school, kids called me and my brother trailer trash, and once a boy told my friend Dave that’s why he couldn’t come to my birthday party. When you’re eight, that hurts. After the divorce, when I was ten, money was really tight. We never had things other kids had. The school even gave us coupons for some special program for families who can’t send their kids to school with a lunch. The only other kid I knew on the program smelled funny. I hid my coupons and got used to being hungry.
In those days, I was glad our trailer was way back in the trees so no one could see it when we got off the school bus. Now I like it. It feels like we’re in the country.
I switch my cigarette to my other hand and check my watch. Mom will still be out with Kate. They took my niece, Mandy, shopping today, and then they’re going for pizza. I should get a couple of hours alone to chill at home, put on my music, play on my Xbox. Hey, I’ll finally get to read the comic Dave lent me. I even made myself a burger on the grill before I left the canteen. It’s in my pocket, wrapped in foil, keeping my fingers warm.
In between gusts of wind it’s so quiet I can actually hear snowflakes landing on my jacket. Through the blowing snow, I can just make out my driveway, across the 138 from the big green sign that says the highway to Montreal is up ahead. I’m almost home. We’re less than an hour from Montreal, but it’s like the middle of nowhere. I bet there are a lot of people in Rigaud who’ve never even been to the city. I’ve only been a few times, for school field trips, concerts. When I was a little kid, Mom and Dad took us to the Santa Claus parade. Apparently I cried when I saw some A&W bear mascot. It’s a family story that everybody still laughs at.
There’s a little pile of cigarette butts at the end of our driveway. They’re all mine. I don’t like to throw them on our property, so I leave them on the road. As soon as I turn up the driveway, I see fresh tire tracks in the snow—a dark-colored car is parked about halfway between the highway and the yard. Wanna bet it has mags and whitewalls? What’s he doing here? I was counting on him not showing up. He usually steers clear of home when he’s partying with his stupid friends. And why’d they park so far from the house? Were they trying to sneak in?
About an inch of snow has settled on the car. As I pass by, I clear off a circle on the window and try to see inside. The bottle they were drinking from is empty on the passenger seat. McDonald’s wrappers and smoke butts and a blue box that says POP POP are trampled into the floor mats. The steering wheel is wrapped in a fuzzy thing that looks like the Kleenex-box covers old ladies sell at the church craft fair. The driver’s window is down a crack, and I smell stale cigarettes and nasty aftershave leaking out. I bet Robbie has a water bed. He’s the cheesy water-bed type.
I continue up the driveway, wondering what I’m going to find when I get to the trailer. It’s long and low and gleams white in the dusk. Everything’s normal outside. Same old broken chair beside the front door. Same old pile of bald tires and cracked toilet on the lawn, starting to peek through the snow that’s melting around them.
The door’s open. There are two sets of snowy shoes in the mudroom at the entrance to the trailer. I hear voices for a second, but they stop when I open the inside door. Like when we were little kids, afraid of getting caught doing something we weren’t supposed to. It makes me wonder what they’ve been up to.
Seamus appears in the doorway to the kitchen, his sidekick nipping at his heels. I leave my boots in the mudroom, take my foil-wrapped bur
ger out of my pocket and chuck my wallet and keys on the table in the front hall. With the burger still in my hand, I wriggle out of my jacket and hang it up. There isn’t room for three people in the front hall. As Seamus brushes past me on the way to his shoes, he purposely pushes me into the table. My hand with the burger in it gets squished between me and the table, which hits the wall. I grab the toppling lamp with my free hand. Mom’s travel mug rolls off onto the floor, dribbling creamy coffee behind it.
I turn around. “Why’d ya do that?”
Seamus rolls his eyes.
They’re close to me now, and I can smell alcohol on their breath, and that nasty cologne. Robbie the Moron waves bye and says, “À plus!”
Later? Really? Not if I can help it. Does he ever lose that brainless grin?
I return the greeting by raising my eyebrows. He’s carrying a liter of apple juice. Seamus has the remainder of a block of cheddar cheese, which he’s just taken a bite out of. There’s a box of soda crackers stuffed under one arm, a bag of Oreos under the other. He’s leaning on the doorjamb to balance as he tries to ram his feet into his shoes. He doesn’t speak.
Seamus is eighteen, but because of his freckles and curly red hair, he still looks like a little kid. He has wide blue eyes, like our dad’s. I catch a glimpse of one of them before it flits away.
I shake my head and hold my hand up in a wave. “Thanks for droppin’ by.”
He walks out in front of Robbie, who turns around and waves at me again before pulling the door closed. He acts like Seamus’s puppy. I wonder if he pees in the backyard or still uses newspaper.
I navigate around wet snow on the carpet to lock the front door behind them and switch on the outside light. They’re laughing and talking as they walk back to the piece-of-crap car. I lean against the paneled wall of the mudroom and watch them for a minute through the window
I head to the kitchen to get a Coke and a plate for my burger. I open the wrapper. The burger’s not completely mangled. The top of the bun is split, and the tomatoes and pickles are all spilling out. I take the top off, rearrange the stuff and fit it back together like a puzzle. Pop the tab on my Coke.
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