The front door opened, and a tall heavyset man came in. He leaned into the living room, puzzled, and said, “Hi, there. I’m Jeff Emerson.”
Dulcie said, “This is James. He was a friend of Fred’s in France. Here, Jeff, take Freddie.” She wanted to go to the kitchen to get us some coffee.
The little boy squirmed willingly down from her lap and ran to Jeff saying, “Daddy.” Jeff picked him up, kissed him, and sat him on his knee.
“Dulcie and I are married,” he said. “Did she tell you?”
I wondered if I looked as shocked as I felt.
“No,” I said.
“Six months ago.”
“Oh.”
Jeff looked at me as if he expected me to say something else. So I said, “That’s nice.” I felt like saying, “Could she not wait a bit?” Jeez, Leeson was hardly dead a year. Well, close to two years, I guess. Still, he’d been so proud of her and loved her so much, no question about that. This would not have made him happy, having this big lug take his place and the baby calling him Daddy. Cripes, where was her heart? I wanted to get up and leave.
Dulcie came back in with cups of coffee on a tray.
Jeff said, “I told him about us getting married.”
Dulcie smiled at me. “It’s what Fred would have wanted,” she said.
How would she know? It would have broken his heart, that’s what. Maybe I should have said congratulations. Bit late. I drank my coffee. Dulcie passed me a plate of cookies. Store-bought.
I swallowed my coffee too quickly and burnt the roof of my mouth. Trying hard to put on a bright face, I said, “I should be going.” Dulcie walked me to the door.
While I was putting on my coat, she said quietly, “I mourned him. I cried myself to sleep most nights, knowing that he would never see his beautiful boy.” And then she said, “One day I woke up and realized that the sun was shining right in my eyes. I think it dazzled me into saying to myself, ‘My life continues.’ ”
She was looking at me. I knew I looked anything but happy, anything but understanding.
I said, “It’s hard to comprehend that other people’s lives go on.” I opened the door and stepped out. The rain was only a light drizzle.
“Thank you for coming and for bringing the picture,” Dulcie said. Suddenly, she called after me, “I’m sorry you’re still grieving.”
I nodded, waved, not trusting my voice. What an ass I was! What a phony! It wasn’t exactly Leeson I was grieving for. I almost felt like running back and telling her about myself. Instead, I continued plodding along, trying to avoid the puddles, until the street ended in a turmoil of drivers and streetcar-riders and pedestrians, each of them owning their own small portion of the world while mine was slowly crumbling.
Exams are over. I didn’t ace anything, but I passed. Summer stretches before me like the open sea. Wish I had a boat or even a raft, because we’re sure not going anywhere or doing anything that sounds like fun around here. At least I’ve stopped fantasizing about Tommy. I dream about him occasionally and wake up feeling as if I’ve been running a race and losing.
By the end of July, I notice that Jamie has color in his cheeks, a smile on his face, and energy to burn. Maybe not to burn, but he’s more like his old self. His classes at U of T will start in six weeks.
“Why not stay home and take correspondence courses?” Mother suggests, hopefully. She’s at the stove, boiling up the last of the strawberries for jam. I lean over the pot, taking in the aroma, almost drooling. “If you go away, who will keep an eye on you? Who, in the entire city of Toronto, let alone the university, will worry about you?”
“No one,” Jamie says, grinning. I stand beside him at the open window, taking deep, carefree breaths of summer—sun on grass, on snowberry bushes under the window, on the peeling paint of the back veranda. “Right now, I feel wonderful. If all it takes is a bunch of blood transfusions and some drugs, then I can live with that. If I start to wind down a bit, I’ll just check into hospital and get my engine battery recharged. I feel like I’ve moved to Dingbat Land.”
“Toronto isn’t Dingbat Land,” I say. “Where are you going to live?” I don’t want him to go. I can’t imagine him living anywhere but here.
“I’ve been looking. Found something in the Toronto Telegram yesterday. Not too far from the university, a bed-sitter with kitchenette and bathroom. I’ve got an appointment to look at it tomorrow.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mother says.
“No, thanks. I’ll go on my own.”
“I think you need me to make sure it isn’t infested with bedbugs or cockroaches.”
“I have eyes, Mother.”
And that was the end of it.
“What does ‘remission’ actually mean?” I ask a week or so later. I don’t try to hide the fact that I read the letter on Mother’s desk from Doctor Latham. We are still at the table finishing dessert. It’s Saturday and Granny is with us.
“It means my disease has been sent back to hell, where it belongs,” Jamie says.
“Jamie!” Mother’s reproachful voice.
“For good?”
“Rachel! Don’t quiz your brother.” Mother has sudden tears in her eyes, an event that happens often these days.
Dad scrapes up the last of the chocolate pudding in his dish and clunks his spoon down. “Let’s be open and honest about Jamie’s condition. I think it’s time we all had a chance to discuss this, dear.”
“Discuss what?” Mother’s voice is edgy.
Granny makes an issue of clearing her throat, usually a warning sound.
Dad doesn’t back off. “I think we all need to clear the air a bit and be perfectly honest with each other. About the nature of Jamie’s disease and about remissions.”
Mother puts her napkin on the table and takes her own and Granny’s dessert plates. “Come along, Rachel, I need some help in the kitchen.”
“Wait. I want to know what Dad means.”
“Your father is trying to open a great big hole, and we’re all going to fall into it and never be able to pull ourselves out.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Dora, just sit down a minute,” Dad says.
I notice Granny beam her powerful eyes at Jamie. Mother does not sit down.
Jamie says, “Look, um, I don’t know what to say. I feel fine right now, and I don’t want to spoil that. I’d like to be excused from this discussion.” He pushes his chair out. Mother hurries to the kitchen.
“You’re going to get sick again, aren’t you?” I blurt.
There is silence. The bomb has dropped. We wait for the explosion.
We can hear Mother in the kitchen, crying in big drowning gulps. I get up from my chair beside Granny and go around the table to my brother. I try to cradle his head against me, but he bucks me away. He stands up, letting his chair fall backwards with a clatter. In the kitchen, Mother drops, or maybe throws, something that smashes.
Jamie leaves the room. Dad remains at the table, his head in his hands. It’s Granny who begins to pick up the pieces. “Get yourself out there to that wife of yours,” she says. “She needs you, badly.”
“Why? She thinks I’m useless.”
“Well, you’re a useless stump in here. Go!”
With great effort, he pushes his chair back and leaves. Granny sits, slumped like an old crone, and I go weeping up to my room. I don’t know which is worse—my brother’s disease or my mother throwing a fit as well as a dish hard enough to break it. If I did that, she’d be flaming mad at me for the rest of my life.
I actually know what remission means. I looked it up when I saw the letter from Doctor Latham lying open for anyone’s eyes on Mother’s writing desk. I just want to know what it means when applied to Jamie. A remission is like a holiday. If he can stay on holidays for the rest of his life, that’ll be just fine. That’s what I want to hear someone say.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, Mother’s. I bury my head in my arms in case she comes in. I don’t
want to talk. The footsteps go past my door and into her room. And then I hear Dad. He, too, passes my door and quietly but firmly closes their bedroom door. I sit up and get a hankie out of my pocket. I can hear my parents talking in low voices, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
It’s Jamie who finally looks in. “May I come in?”
“Yes,” I mutter into my arms, facedown on my bed, again.
“So, what’s up?” he says.
I groan into my bedspread. “What’s up? Our family is coming apart at the seams, and you wonder what’s up?” Rolling over, I sit up. “What’s happening to us?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Everything’s fine.”
In one minute, I will have to leap at him and slap the sides of his face to wake him up, to make him give me a straight answer. But the minute passes. He leans his elbows on my dresser with his back to me, examining pictures stuck in the mirror.
“How come you have this picture of Coop and me? It’s an antique.” They’re posing with their fishing rods and the day’s catch, almost a match for the one in Coop’s bedroom.
“Just for the fun of it. You can borrow it if you like.” I watch him tense, clench his jaw, his fists, keeping his emotions from escaping.
“Why would I want to borrow it?”
“Who knows?” My voice is flat. “It’s only a picture of you and your best friend, who’s missing in action.” Leaning against my headboard, knees drawn up, I can see in the mirror over my dresser how red my nose and eyes are. He sits on the side of my bed and lets himself fall back.
“What’s going to happen, Jamie? I’m so scared.”
He sits up again, his eyes straining against tears. “Nothing,” he says. “Ha-ha! Get it? Something, then nothing. Someone, then no one.”
“Jamie, stop.”
“No sense letting fear get the better of you.” He stands up. “I think I’ll go over to Mary’s,” he says and leaves.
I guess that’s how he plans to keep out of the clutches of fear. He has his big crush on Mary to hide behind. I can hear my parents getting into bed, early as it is. At least they have each other’s comfort. I hug my knees until I think they’ll crack. And who do I have? Me, myself, and nobody. Except Granny. What I really need, though, is someone my own age.
Ruthie’s away at her aunt’s cottage. Even so, I couldn’t go over. This fear of losing someone you love isn’t a topic you can share with a girl like Ruthie. Yes, she’s my best friend, but it doesn’t mean our minds are on the same wavelength. It’s like pain. You can describe it, but you can’t make anyone else feel it.
Wait a sec. What did it say on that sign? I’m remembering something I saw a few weeks ago. Maybe there is something I can do to fight this monster.
I scramble off my bed, thump my knuckles against my teeth as I plan my next move, and grab a couple of books from my bedside table. I shoot down the stairs.
It isn’t even dark yet. “I’m going to lend Hazel Carrington some books,” I call to Granny in the kitchen, where she’s finishing drying and putting away the dinner dishes. I wave my books in the air.
“Don’t be late.”
I set off in the direction of the Carringtons’, but change course as soon as I see the first sign on a telephone pole: ARE YOU SUFFERING?
It takes me twenty minutes to walk there. A huge tent is pitched in a clearing in Kavanagh Park, beside the community center. Crowds mill about the tent entrance, waiting for the action to start—mostly women, but a few men and a scattering of noisy children. I stay back under a tree, ready to change my mind, shivering in spite of the heat, my heart thumping because what if this works? What if I find a way for Jamie to be cured?
Just then, a man comes out and ties back the tent flaps. People push through, plowing their way toward the seats in the front. When nearly everyone is inside, I sidle in and stand at the back so I can see but also escape if this thing turns out to be as stupid as my mother says it is. Just inside the entrance, two young girls about my age hold baskets, in which people drop coins and sometimes bills. I have no money, but they say it’s all right.
The tent is stifling. Sweating bodies are crowded so close, they overflow onto each other’s chairs, welded to each other like a string of cutouts by their upper arms and thighs. I breathe into the books I’m carrying to block out the smell of body odor.
The preacher, Reverend Lennie Lasco, glows, maybe from sweat, but it may just be his personality. His eyes beam huge behind glasses that make them seem even larger, as if he can see more than the average person. His teeth are almost luminescent. He flashes them around the tent like searchlights. He wears a shiny dark blue suit and highly polished brown shoes.
“Repent and ye shall be saved!” he shouts, making me jump. “Have faith and ye shall be whole!” The tent almost balloons with the force of his resonating voice. There’s a lot more babble about how he’s a messenger of God, how he has been singled out to heal body and mind. “An angel of the Lord has spoken to me, Ladies and Gentlemen. In the audience tonight, there is a young person sorely in need of help. This I know!”
Tingles go up and down my spine, and I feel myself turning red. Can he mean me?
“There is a young woman here tonight who can be helped. Yes, there are many, tonight, who will be helped and made happy and whole, I say, by the Lord’s power burning through me.”
This is followed by Mrs. Lennie Lasco striking some chords on a piano. The same girls who collected the money sing a duet in two-part harmony. Their faces gleaming, eyes focused on a vision near the top of the tent, they sing about light and darkness and beating on your drum to make the devil run.
Again Reverend Lasco takes the microphone. His voice gentler now, he almost whispers into the mike, his flashing eyes taking in the entire audience as if he were looking at each member personally. “All ye who are troubled and who are heavy-laden, come forward. All ye who would seek a cure, step up to the fold. There is healing in the air. The Lord is with us. All rise and accept the presence of the Lord.”
As everyone stands, a hush descends. Lightbulbs, hanging from the ceiling, go out. The only light emanates from two tall candelabra near the altar, where the preacher stands.
A line of people forms near the altar. With everyone standing in front of me, it’s difficult to see clearly what’s happening. “Praise the Lord,” the audience murmurs from time to time. I worm my way over to the side of the tent for a better view.
As a person in line reaches Reverend Lasco, the two singing girls move in behind him. The preacher takes the sufferer by the shoulders and seems to press down. He stares hard into his eyes while he whispers to him, gives him a shake, and releases him. The girls steady him, and an usher accompanies the healed man back to his seat.
I recognize three of the people. One is the old bum who hangs around the beer parlor at the Empire Hotel, looking for handouts; one is Mrs. Russell, a woman who sits a few rows ahead of us in church, who had her entire arm and shoulder removed because of cancer. And one is Mrs. Popkey and her little boy, Danny, in a wheelchair, who live in the apartment over Dad’s drugstore. From what I can see, they return to their places unchanged.
The line is becoming shorter. A red-haired young man with a face full of freckles appears next on crutches, dragging one useless leg. After his shake-up, he falls a bit sideways, but the girls catch him and he straightens up. Suddenly he stares at the ceiling of the tent, his eyes aglow. With both hands, he grabs the top of his head as if it’s in danger of blowing off. Then his crutches fall away from under his arms, clattering to the ground. His smile is radiant as he walks, shakily at first, arms out for balance, but almost without a limp by the time he gets back to his seat.
A sigh goes through the audience, as well as whispers. Did you see that? Who was that? This preacher’s darn good.
Jamie should be here. Not me. I edge past people to leave and hurry home in the deepening dusk.
Granny is waiting for me. “Well,” she says. “I was about to s
end out a search party. Did the Carringtons have to kick you out?”
“Yup,” I say and go straight upstairs, clutching my books close so she won’t see that I’m bringing them back home. I have too much to think about to continue with my book-lending lie.
According to the posters downtown, the healing tent is open for business Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as well as weekday evenings. I decide to go back in a few days. I know I’ll never get Jamie to go, but I have a plan that might just work.
Tuesday it pours rain, so I don’t go. Ruthie is still away, so on Thursday after lunch, I say I’m going back to visit Hazel Carrington. Who needs lipstick called Little Red Lies? Not me. I walk swiftly to the park, hoping to get a chance to talk to the preacher before he starts healing people. The tent entrance is closed. I walk all the way around it, looking for another way in. The flap at the back is also closed, but behind the tent, I discover a trailer attached to the back of a truck.
From inside I hear voices getting louder and louder. Before I can knock on the door, it bursts open, and one of the singing girls storms out, almost stumbling on the three steps to the ground. She calls back into the trailer, “I’m a singer, not an actress!” Behind her, the door slams. She notices me then and says, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you. He’s liable to bite your head off.”
I take her advice and wait for the show to start. It’s much the same as the last one—not as crowded, but just as smelly. This time I find a seat closer to the front. Both girls are in place, ready to warble their song accompanied by Mrs. Lasco at the piano. When the line forms, they take their places behind the sufferer. I don’t recognize anyone in the line. There’s one gray-haired woman with glasses who is terribly hunched over, her chin almost on her chest. After her shake-up, she stands nearly straight and returns to her seat, glowing with surprise and relief and looking years younger.
I’m determined to talk to Reverend Lasco. I make my way with difficulty against the throng pushing their way out of the tent. By the time I reach the front, Reverend Lasco is nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Lasco is at the piano, gathering up her sheet music and putting it into a carryall. I quickly squeeze past the last of the audience and manage to catch her. I know how hot and sweaty and red-faced I look, but she’s mopping her face, too. She’s a fleshy woman with a cinched-in waist that makes her look as if she’s wearing a corset a couple of sizes too small. Coils and waves of blonde hair are intricately pinned up on top of her head, but a few wisps have escaped.
Little Red Lies Page 12