Little Red Lies

by Julie Johnston

  “No, no,” Jamie says, “I can’t possibly eat that much.”

  “What? You think my cooking is no good? Huh! In the old country, friends know how to eat. Look at you, James. Look at your waist, tiny like a girl’s.”

  He puts small amounts of vegetables onto his plate to accompany the meat, but Velda scoops on more. “Oh!” She reaches for a bottle of wine on the sideboard behind her. “Most important of all.” She pours a healthy tumbler of red wine for Jamie. “Taste it,” she says.

  He takes a sip and nods. “Not bad.” She’s about to pour one for me, but he puts his hand over my glass. “She’s too young.”

  “Piff-puff!” Velda blows the remark away. “It’s harmless. A drink for babies in old country.”

  Jamie seems to find the wine easier to enjoy than the dinner. Velda pours him another glass. When he isn’t looking, I take a large gulp from his glass. It tastes like medicine.

  Just then a young woman bustles in—Velda’s niece. She throws off her coat, drapes it on a chair, and sits down at the table. She’s beautiful, with red hair ornately piled on top of her head. Her eyes are a heavenly blue, set off by the longest, thickest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Her name is Opal. Jamie stands up to shake her hand and says, “James McLaren. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  I stare hard at him, because what he says sounds like Pleased to mash your potatoes.

  Opal helps herself to gobs of meat, potatoes, vegetables—in short, everything edible—douses it all with salt and pepper, and forks it down as if it’s her personal last supper. Velda pours more wine. It really is a delicious meal, I think, as I take another slug of Jamie’s wine. Velda tells us more about the old country, about how her family was rich until bad men robbed them of all their wealth. I could listen to her stories all night.

  “Where do you work, Opal?” Jamie asks.

  She holds up her finger for him to wait. It takes her a moment to swallow her mouthful. Velda answers for her. “Like a nurse only different.”

  “In a hospital?”

  “She works for private,” Velda says.

  “I was in a hospital,” Jamie says.

  “You are sick?” Velda asks.

  “Nope, not anymore. I’m all better.”

  “He’s been faith healed.” I try to sound convincing.

  They smile, surprised. Opal asks, “What did you have?”

  “I was just down a pint or two of blood,” he says, looking darkly at me. A warning. “But the doctor topped me up, and now I’m right as rain.”

  Velda and Opal drink to his continued good health. Jamie stands up, glass raised high. He thanks them and tries to toast their good health, but he loses his balance. Falling back into his chair, he says something like, “Words cannot express,” and sits smiling, like a sultan in his harem. At least he refuses more wine.

  We barely get finished the dessert pastries, when Jamie staggers to his feet and pulls back my chair. “Time we were going, Ladies. Delightful evening, but it’s my sister’s bedtime. Most enjoyable dinner.”

  I think he sounds pompous, but I guess it’s the effect of the wine.

  “What? So early?” Velda says. “Why not let sister stay with me? No problem, I keep an eye on her. You have no proper space up there. She can sleep in extra bed in my place, all cozy and nice.”

  Jamie says, “She can have my bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.” He pushes me ahead of him out the door.

  Velda stands in the doorway, folded arms propped on her shelf, shaking her head. “No, no, no! Bad for your health. Why did God give us beds, I ask? Not so we can sleep on floors.” Opal appears beside her. Velda looks over her shoulder. “Or Opal will take her in.”

  “Nope,” Opal says. “I’m a working girl. I need my beauty sleep.”

  Jamie is dragging me up the stairs by the arm. “Thanks, anyway. We’ll be fine.”

  I twist around and call, “Thanks for dinner. It was really delicious!”

  Inside his apartment, I complain loudly that he’s being an obnoxious bore, that we could have stayed a little longer, that there was a plate of chocolate cake we didn’t even get to. Rose meows, agreeing with me.

  Jamie ignores us both. He hands me the bag I brought and hustles me into the bathroom to get ready for bed. His bedroom, initially an alcove in some earlier, grander part of the house’s existence, has no door.

  In my pajamas, now, I watch him throw back the covers, brush out a few toast crumbs, and grab one of the two pillows and the extra blanket from the foot of his bed. In a moment, I patter across and climb into bed. “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “On the chair, if Rose will allow me.”

  I watch him turn out the main light and feel his way back to the chair. I can make out his silhouette slouched there, pillow behind his back, his legs stretched out in front. He flips the blanket over them.

  In a few minutes, he says, “Are you asleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you have to bring up that thing about being faith healed?”

  “I don’t know. Something to say.”

  “Well, it’s nobody’s business.”

  “I know. But I was just wondering something.”

  “What?” He sounds wary.

  “Now that you’re cured, why did you blame Mother for replacing you with a new baby?”

  “Go to sleep, Rachel.”

  “I was just wondering.”

  He puts his head back and pretends to be asleep, snoring like a large motor in need of repairs. He slings his long legs over one arm of the chair. The next time I look, he’s propped them on another chair. I watch the cat, on the prowl, leap onto his shoulder to purr in his ear and lick his stubbly cheek with her raspy tongue. Eventually my busy day catches up to me, and I sleep.

  I awake to spring sunlight and my brother softly snoring. He has moved in beside me on top of the blanket and is curled up like a snail. A moment later, he’s awake and staring into my eyes as if he can’t remember who I am.

  I say, “Doesn’t this remind you of when I was little and used to cry in the night when I had a bad dream and you came and lay down beside me and told me nursery rhymes to make them go away? Tell me one.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Come on.”

  After a moment, he says, “The only one I can think of is ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall …’ ”

  I sit up. “Don’t say that one. I hate it!”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “He dies!”

  “For Pete’s sake, he’s just an egg. C’mon, get up. We’ll go out somewhere to have breakfast. You can have a dead egg.”

  The coffee tastes like wet sawdust, and my leathery fried eggs have been dead for weeks. I watch Jamie nibbling on toast as if he’s trying to avoid swallowing. My spirits are so low, they drag on the floor. I will soon have to face my father. I don’t want to go back home. Leaning on my elbows, I say, “I need to talk to you about something important.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I want to come and live here with you. I mean, I can go to school here as easily as in Middleborough. You could find a nicer place, big enough for two.”

  “Don’t be insane.”

  “Look, school is awful. If I could move in with you and go to a different one, I could escape.”

  “Escape from what?”

  “I don’t mean escape. I just need a breather, a chance to think about the way my life is going.”

  “It is about some boy, isn’t it?”

  “More or less.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Whatever temptation is causing your problems with schoolwork, don’t give in. Don’t do it.”

  I want to tell him how I feel about Mr. Tompkins, but the disturbed look on his face changes my mind. He’d be shocked. He wouldn’t understand. Even I don’t understand how I can be both attracted and repelled by the same person. I long f
or Tommy, day and night, and hate myself for it, day and night. I need out.

  “We’d better go back. Dad will be here to pick you up pretty soon.”

  “I know, but why can’t I stay with you?”

  “Because you need someone to keep a close eye on you, to guide you, and I can’t always do that. Mother and Dad have to do that.”

  “Mother and Dad are in a world of their own, with no idea what it’s like to be me. All they think about is their future little bundle of joy. I want to move out. If I stay at home, I’ll end up as a convenient babysitter.” I let out a big anguished sigh. “I hate my life so much. I wish everything could go back to the way it was.”

  He puts down his half-drunk coffee and gazes sadly out the window. “Wouldn’t that be nice!” He pays the bill and we leave.

  The sun does its best to warm us in spite of a raw spring wind as we trudge back to the apartment.

  “Maybe it will be born dead,” Jamie says.

  Shocked, I pull him to a halt. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

  “I’m a horrible guy.”

  “Is that what you hope, that the baby dies?”

  He strides ahead, and I have to run to catch up. “No, it’s not what I hope.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  Dad’s car is in front of Velda’s house. Inside Jamie’s apartment, he stands looking out the window at the sad backyard, with its overflowing garbage cans, motorcycle parts, washtub heaped with what looks like the rest of the motorcycle, and clothesline on which hang ladies’ fancy and colorful undergarments. He turns and shakes his head at us, with a deep sigh of disappointment.

  “Rachel, why did you do this to your mother?”

  I stoop to pick up the cat. “I didn’t do anything to anybody. I needed to talk to Jamie. You may not have noticed, but he doesn’t have a telephone.”

  He frowns at Jamie. “Why don’t you simply have a phone installed? They’re not that expensive.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  One arm propping the other, Dad presses his fingers into his forehead. “Could you turn a light on in here? It’s dark.”

  Jamie flicks the light switch. “Would you like to sit down?” He indicates the one comfortable chair now covered with cat hairs. Dad doesn’t seem to notice them and sits, willingly enough. I spoon cat food into a dish for Rose. Jamie perches on a rickety wooden stool.

  Dad looks as if he’s about to say something but, instead, shakes his head. After a moment, he says, “It’s pretty hard, you know. These are difficult times.”

  “Yes,” Jamie says.

  “Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do.”

  Jamie says, “Yes.” There is another stretch of silence. Then Jamie says, “Rachel says she was just kidding about running away with some boy. She wants you to trust her.”

  Dad nods sadly. “Perhaps I was being a little overly protective.”

  “A little!” I say. “You were threatening to make my whole life unbearable.”

  “I’m sorry.” He leans over his knees, head in his hands.

  “You can’t go snooping around, quizzing my friends and the teachers.”

  Jamie makes that throat-clearing sound that Granny does, when it’s time for someone to step in and change the general mood. “Don’t rub it in, Rachel. Dad’s sorry. Isn’t that enough?”

  Dad sits back, leaning his head against the chair-back, and gives me a weary look.

  I keep it up. “It’s spying, that’s what it is. You might as well lock me in my room and throw away the key.” I stand directly in front of him so I can burn him with the heat of my anger.

  “Rachel, what else can I say? Your mother and I have a lot on our minds right now.”

  I realize it’s over. Fathers don’t apologize, usually. I’m used to a world where fathers know everything, and daughters just accept it. “Okay,” I say. He nods.

  Nobody can think of what to say next. Rose prowls back and forth, flicking her tail across my ankles. I scoop her up and plunk her in Dad’s lap. “This is Jamie’s cat. How do you like her?”

  Tentatively, he pats her, but she jumps down, preferring to keep contact with my ankles. “I didn’t know you had a cat, son.”

  “Neither did I until your daughter introduced us.” The atmosphere is lighter now, by several degrees.

  Dad stands up. “Well, Rachel, you’d better gather your belongings. I don’t like to leave your mother for too long.”

  I consider rebelling but decide that, if Jamie won’t take me in, there isn’t much point. While I throw my few items back into my bag, I hear Dad ask Jamie how university life suits him.

  “A bit tiring.”

  “Are you feeling all right, son?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You look rather pale.” I watch him peer closely, as if he’d like to study Jamie under a microscope. For the first time since I arrived on his doorstep, I notice how haggard Jamie looks, as if he’s been off somewhere, fighting a war. And losing.

  At home again, life does not change dramatically. I study, write my spring term exams, and actually pass them. My brain must be like a dark little attic. Lots of stuff in it, but you can’t tell what’s there until you pull the string on the lightbulb. Somehow it got pulled, just in time.

  Mother is about the same, except that she keeps asking me if I’m hungry or warm enough or tired.

  A letter arrives for Jamie, with “Please forward” on the envelope. As I’m hunting in Dad’s desk for a bigger envelope to put it in, to readdress it, the phone rings. Dad hurries along the hall to answer it.

  “Yes, Doctor Latham,” I hear him say. “Yes, I see. Yes, by all means.” It isn’t a lengthy call, but I can barely contain my curiosity.

  “They’d like to try blood transfusions, again,” is all Dad says. “Get Jamie back into remission. He’s agreed to go into hospital.”

  “Has something happened?” Mother asks.

  “I don’t know. I think this is what occurs from time to time.”

  I feel an instant chill. Upstairs, sitting at my desk, wrapped in a blanket, I stare at my math homework, believing I’m solving problems. I could be working in Egyptian hieroglyphics, for all I know.

  Jamie’s stay in the Toronto hospital is longer this time or, at least, seems longer. He phones us, from time to time, to bemoan the fact that he’s missing so many classes.

  The following Sunday, a bleak day that threatens rain, we drive to Toronto to visit him. I am first through his door.

  “What’s the occasion?” he says. He quickly puts a stack of handwritten papers he’s been leafing through into the top drawer of his bedside table.

  Mother and Dad fill the doorway. He says, “My whole family! I must be about to croak.” I grimace. Has the faith-healing myth worn off?

  Mother looks pained when he says that. She leans over to kiss him, her swollen belly pressing against his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. He could be asphyxiated right now, I think, killed by his unborn sibling.

  “We brought you a treat,” Mother says. She hands him a box of Laura Secord chocolates. He opens the box and passes it around. Mother declines, but whispers, “Save some to offer the nurses. They’re always so nice to you.”

  “Where’s Rose?” I ask.

  “Velda’s looking after her.”

  Mother busies herself folding Jamie’s bathrobe and stacking newspapers in a neat pile. “Who?” she asks. I translate for her, even though I’ve already told her about the cat.

  Jamie and Dad talk about the work he’s missed and about his final exams. “They’ve got to let me out in time to write them. I wish I had my books. I need to study.”

  “Don’t push yourself too hard,” Dad says. “They might give you your year, based on your marks to date.”

  “I don’t want to take that chance. I want to make sure I get back in, next fall.”

  “I think you should talk to your professors or the dean and tell them about your situation,” Mot
her says.

  Jamie closes his eyes. “What exactly is the situation I’m supposed to tell them about?” He opens them. “That I am burdened with a cat named Rose? That I might be dead by next fall? That my mother is busy baking another little gingerbread man to take my place?”

  I stop breathing. Both parents look as if they’re being sucked backwards, into an abyss. Their faces are bloodless. How can someone as sensitive as Jamie be so heartless? He suddenly puts his fist to his mouth and bites down hard on his knuckle, as if he thinks physical pain will wipe out the emotional pain he’s inflicting on all of us, but on Mother most of all. My brother, the jerk.

  It’s as though I can see myself, in slow motion, pick up the glass of water from beside his bed. In quick-time, now, I throw its contents in his face. He looks as shocked as if I’ve turned a fire hose on him. He wipes the water from his eyes with the sleeve of his pajamas.

  Mother’s hands cover her face, but tears escape down her cheeks, anyway. Dad puts his arm around her and helps her out of the room. Comforting her, he takes out his washed and ironed hankie and wipes her tears. Then he rubs a knuckle past the corner of his own eye as they head down the hall toward the waiting room.

  While I’m deciding whether to stay and say something to Jamie or leave with Mother and Dad, he says, “Go. I need to be alone. The world will be well rid of the likes of me.”

  We fumble our way out of the hospital, like three blind mice, turning this way and that, until we find the right door. A different kind of family might stay, go back, ask for an explanation, an apology, comfort. We don’t seem to know how to be that kind of family. There doesn’t seem much point in staying.

  Mother stops crying and looks through the rain-spotted side window of the car. Through the windshield, the view is of gray streets lined with ghostly trees and colorless buildings, half-hidden in a weeping fog that the wipers can’t obliterate.

  On the seat beside me lies an envelope addressed to James McLaren. “Cripes!” I say. Mother doesn’t even flinch at the word, deafened either by the drumming rain or her grief. “Dad, stop the car! We have to go back.”