“Hey, sweetie,” she says. “Feeling better?”
I can’t believe her. She’s acting like nothing happened, like we’ll just carry on the way we were. Rage rises in my throat and threatens to exit as a howl. Instead I take a bite of cereal and the howl subsides. I’m going to have to speak to her sometime. Might as well get it over with.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“That’s good.” She hesitates. “We should talk...”
“No,” I say, “we shouldn’t. You did what you had to do. So did Donna. I get that. Now it’s my turn.”
“What do you mean? Your turn to what?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just wish I could get away from here. From you.”
I mean to hurt her and I can see that I have. Her mouth opens slightly and her eyes flutter. Her breathing slows—long slow inhales, deep exhales. Then she nods and says, “I can see that.”
What she can’t see is that my heart is pounding. Sweat is trickling between my shoulder blades, and my mouth feels like it’s full of cotton balls.
“What’s your plan for the day?” she asks, as if it’s any old Saturday. Why isn’t she more upset? Maybe I’m just playing into her grand plan—to get rid of me.
“Nothing much. I might go to the mall with Vanessa later.”
“Okay,” she says. “Do you need money?”
“Nope.”
“How about a ride to the mall?” Wow, she really wants me out of here.
“I’m good,” I say.
“Fine,” she says. “I’m going to run some errands. Leave me a note if you go out, okay?”
“Sure,” I mumble. As soon as she’s out the door, I scribble a note that tells her I’m going to Vancouver and I’ll be staying at the Y and not to come after me. I pack as quickly as I can. An hour later I am sitting in the backseat of a cab, going to the bus station. I’m listening to Lily Allen on my iPod and trying to stop shaking. Whatever happens in Vancouver, at least I’m finally doing something with my one wild and precious life.
Chapter Four
The bus is crowded, but I snag the last window seat and turn my back on the aisle. I hope nobody sits next to me. Wouldn’t you know, right away someone plops down in the seat beside me. It’s a girl, older than me, wearing a pink Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt with stains on the sleeve and frayed cuffs. Generic jeans. Cheap flip-flops. Drugstore earrings. She smiles at me as if we’re old friends and says something, but I can’t hear her over my iPod. She has a wide smile and crooked, very white teeth. I turn off my iPod as she leans over me to wave to a woman and a little boy, both flaming redheads, who are standing beside the bus. The little boy is crying and jumping up at the window. She blows him kisses, and then she nudges me.
“Is that your mom?” she says, pointing to a middle-aged woman who is waving at the bus from her car.
“Nope,” I say. “My mom’s dead.”
The girl shoots me a puzzled look, and then she waves at the little boy again as the bus pulls out of the station. She sits back in her seat, closes her eyes and exhales loudly, like a walrus. I pull a book out of my pack and hope that, between the book and the iPod, she’ll figure out that I’m not in a chatty mood. I glance over at her and see that she still has her eyes closed, but tears are streaming down her cheeks and she is trembling. I try to ignore it, but after a few minutes I reach over and touch her arm.
“Hey, are you okay?” I say, which is pretty dumb, seeing as how she’s sobbing.
To my surprise, she nods and puts her hand over mine. In a couple of minutes she stops crying and opens her eyes and smiles. “Thanks. I needed that. I’m okay now.”
I nod and turn back to my book.
“I’m Tina, by the way,” she says, sticking out her hand.
“Emily,” I reply. I don’t shake her hand. I can’t believe she doesn’t get that I don’t want to talk.
“Hi, Emily. Where you heading?”
“Vancouver. To see my dad.”
“Yeah? Cool. I’m going to college in Vancouver. Nursing school. Better late than never, right?”
“I guess,” I mutter and sneak another look at her. I wonder how old she is and who the redheads are. They don’t look anything like Tina. She has long dark-brown hair and eyes the color of caramels.
As if reading my thoughts, she says, “When I was in high school I messed up pretty bad. Drinking, partying all the time. My foster parents kicked me out. I met Janice—the woman at the bus station—at a music festival in Courtenay two summers ago. She took me in and straightened me out and made me finish high school. She really kicked my ass. In a good way. I used to look after Axel, her little boy, when she did night shifts at the bar. She’s got a job in an office now and a new boyfriend. It’s time for me to move on.”
“Where are your mom and dad?” I ask.
“My mom’s in Port Hardy, I think. My dad took off years ago. I was in foster care by the time I was three. I lost count of my foster families—I think there were five or maybe six. Some good, some not so good. A few really bad.”
“Don’t you miss your mom?” I ask.
“Not really,” Tina replies. “I never really knew her and, hey, I turned out okay.”
She winks at me and I laugh. Even though I have no idea whether I’m going to turn out okay.
“My aunt raised me,” I blurt out. “I thought she was my mother. Turns out my mother’s a crazy woman who killed herself.”
“Harsh,” Tina says. Then it all spills out of me. I rant and swear and moan and cry all the way to the ferry terminal. The other bus passengers glare at me, but Tina holds my hand and gives me Kleenex from her vinyl purse. By the time we roll onto the ferry, I am exhausted. She hauls me upstairs to the lounge and brings me weak tea with lots of milk and sugar, just the way I like it. She even finds a washcloth in her pack, wets it with cool water and drapes it over my puffy red eyes.
“Go to sleep,” she says. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
I hand her my iPod, which normally I don’t lend to anybody. She nods and smiles and says, “Sleep, little sister. I’ll watch your stuff.”
When I wake up, she’s gone. So is my iPod. I fling the washcloth at the back of the seat in front of me. I swear loudly enough to make a woman across the aisle hiss “Language!” at me. I flip her off. As I’m just about to find a ferry worker and demand that a search party be sent out, Tina comes out of the washroom. She plunks herself down next to me. She hands me my iPod and says, “Thanks. I ended up reading your poetry book instead. Hope that’s okay. ”
I feel hot and ashamed and stupid. I nod and babble something about how much I love poetry and how I’m named after a poet and how I want to be a librarian. When the ferry docks, we get back on the bus. Tina sleeps and I stare out the window all the way into Vancouver. My mom and I go to Vancouver a couple of times a year. We always take the bus because she hates driving in “the big city,” so when we get to the bus depot I know where to go to catch a bus downtown and how to find the Y. Tina looks totally lost.
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“With my cousin,” she replies. “He’s supposed to meet me here, take me back to his place. I’ll stay there until I can find my own place near the college.”
There’s no way I want to hang around the bus station, but I can’t just leave her there. What if the cousin never turns up? What if I have to take her to the Y with me?
“Tom’s always late,” she says. “He’s a busy guy. A real estate agent.” We’re exchanging cell phone numbers when her cousin arrives in a black suv.
“Jump in,” he barks at Tina without offering to help her with her stuff. In a flash, she is gone. As they peel out, she sticks her head out the window. She waves her cell phone and yells, “Call me!”
Chapter Five
When I get to the Y, the woman at the front desk tells me that my mother has called. She paid for my room on her credit card. Wow. She’s even willing to pay for me to stay away.
My room is small but clean. I am suddenly so tired that I curl up on the bed and sleep for two hours. When I wake up, I go to a sushi place on Robson and then come back to my room and go to sleep again. I keep thinking the un-mom will call me, but my phone is silent. She’s probably off celebrating her freedom.
The next day I walk on the seawall, check out the Art Gallery, eat cupcakes and gelato on Denman. All the stuff I usually do with my mom. It’s not nearly as much fun alone and it’s expensive. I have lots of babysitting money, but I’m going to have to be careful. Vancouver’s a pricey place. I don’t dare go into the clothing stores on Robson. Usually when we’re here, my mom (I can’t stop thinking of her that way) buys me one special thing—a pair of shoes, a purse, a skirt. Not gonna happen this time.
The next morning, after breakfast, I head out on the bus to Donna’s old school. When I get there it’s class change time. I try to blend in and cruise around. I check out the framed photographs that line the halls, thinking how all high schools feel the same. If I weren’t feeling so stressed, I’d probably find the old pictures of Sandra funny—debate club, chess club, math club (big surprise). She had huge glasses and crap clothes. Donna is only in the drama club pictures, just like in the annual. No math club for her. She played the lead in lots of productions—Show Boat, My Fair Lady. She was even Maria in The Sound of Music. I can’t find anyone named Ken or Kevin or Kurt or Keith in any of the pictures. I head to the office and look for the oldest woman in the room. There’s one in every school office. Someone who’s been there forever. Someone who knows where the bodies are buried.
“Yes?” says the woman behind the counter. I can see right away that she’s too young to help me. Her hair is frosted and her nails are acrylic.
“I’m doing a paper for my, uh, English class. It’s about the history of the drama club, so I, like, need to talk to Mrs., uh, Mrs....you know, the school historian.”
“You mean Mrs. Mitchell?” says the woman. “She’s hardly the school historian, but she has been here for years.”
“Yeah, Mrs. Mitchell. She’s supposed to be great.” I figure a little sucking up can’t hurt.
“You could say that,” says the woman with a laugh. She points to a desk by the window. “Wait over there.”
A few minutes later a tiny woman scurries back to the desk, gripping a teapot in one hand and a mug in the other. She looks like a mouse. She has brown hair, brown clothes, brown shoes, small darting brown eyes, a twitchy nose.
“Oh, I didn’t realize I had a visitor,” she says. Even her voice is squeaky. “Tea?” She holds up the pot.
“No thanks. I just need some information for a paper. About the drama club.”
She pours her tea and clasps her mug in her tiny pink hands. Now that I have her attention, I don’t know what to ask. To buy a little time, I drag the annual out of my pack and plunk it on her desk.
“I’m researching the years between 1988 and 1992, and I’m just wondering if you could tell me about some of the students.” I pretend to search for a picture. “Donna Bell, for instance. She was in so many plays.” My palms are sweating as I turn the pages. I feel sick to my stomach, the way I feel on the high diving board at the pool.
“Oh, yes, Donna. Darling girl. Very talented. And so pretty. So different from Sandra. It was tragic, what happened to Donna. Such a waste.”
I can’t tell if Mouse-woman is referring to Donna’s death or her pregnancy. I want to defend Sandra for some reason, to tell this old busybody that there’s more to life than being pretty and popular. Like being sane, for instance.
“What happened?” I ask.
Mrs. Mitchell leans across the desk and whispers, “She got herself pregnant. Left school. Never came back.”
I try to look appropriately shocked. I guess I succeed, because Mrs. M. reaches out and pats my hand and says, “It happens more often than you’d think, my dear, but I’m sure you know that. And I’m sure you’re too smart to let it happen to you. Back then, though, girls didn’t stay in school when they got pregnant. I heard that Donna gave the baby up for adoption. Probably all for the best.” She sighs and folds her hands in her lap. “It certainly left a hole in the drama club. And then Mr. Keene left. It’s never been the same, in my opinion.”
The expression “the penny dropped” suddenly takes on new meaning. I feel as if a giant piggybank full of pennies is crushing my chest. I struggle to fill my lungs.
“Why did Mr. Keene leave?” I try to speak slowly and calmly but the words come out fast and loud.
Mrs. M. tilts her head to one side and says, “You don’t go here, do you, dear?”
“No,” I gasp. “I’m the baby. Donna’s baby. I’m trying to find my father.”
The mouse-woman’s bright little eyes close for a moment and when she opens them, she stands up. She smoothes down her skirt, takes me by the hand and leads me out to the hall. We stand in front of a picture of the cast of Annie Get Your Gun. Off to one side in the photo is a man in a dark suit. She points at him and says, “Michael Keene. They were always together, he and Donna. He was fired right after she left. Runs a bar called the Bull’s Eye, the last I heard. You have a bit of his look about the eyes, dear. He wasn’t a bad man. Very smart. Very young. We all liked him.” She pats my hand again and says “Good luck” before she scuttles back to the office.
I stand and stare at Michael Keene for a while. He looks ordinary, but the mouse-woman is right. I do look a bit like him about the eyes.
Chapter Six
It’s not like I’ve never been to a bar before, but usually I’m wearing heels and carrying a fake id. When I get to the Bull’s Eye the next day, I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt that says My Dashboard Hula Girl Can Beat Up Your Dangling Jesus. The only other shirt I brought has an Emily Dickinson quote on it—Forever is composed of nows. I figure the hula girl one will go over better in a bar. The Bull’s Eye is a dive. A dark, narrow, smelly dive. The best thing about it is the neon sign outside—a blue arrow flying over and over into the dead center of a red and white target. Inside there are a few banged-up tables and a long bar. Even though it’s only noon, there are guys draped over the bar and lounging at the tables. Every last one of them is smoking, despite the No Smoking signs. As I walk in, they all look up and watch me make my way to the bar. A couple of them offer to buy me a drink. Another one suggests we go back to his place and party. What a self-esteem boost.
“I’m looking for Michael Keene,” I say to the guy behind the bar. He is standing with his back to me, washing glasses.
“That’s me,” he says, turning around and drying his hands. “But I don’t serve minors, no matter how cute they are.” He grins. I grin back, like an idiot.
He can’t be Michael Keene, unless Michael was teaching high school when he was five. This guy can’t be more than twenty-four. A very hot twenty-four.
“You’re Michael Keene?”
“Yup. Technically, I’m Michael Keene Junior. Call me Mike.”
Mike. Junior. No wonder Donna was forbidden fruit. Michael Keene Senior was married. With a kid.
“And you are...?”
“Sandy.” I try not to stutter. “Sandy Dickinson. I go to Northwood. I’m doing a paper on the drama club, and Mrs. Mitchell suggested I talk to... your dad.”
“Ah yes. Mrs. Mitchell. Dad told me about her. He called her the Mouse. She got my dad fired.” Mike frowns and adds, “Well, to be fair, he got himself fired, I guess, but she didn’t help. But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that stuff. He was an amazing drama teacher. The best Northwood ever had.”
“I’d like to talk to him. Get his stories firsthand, I mean.”
“Not possible,” Mike says.
“Why—is he out of town?”
“Permanently. He died last year. Car accident. He was in a crosswalk and a drunk driver plowed into him.”
I sit down and try not to let him see how freaked out I am.
“Can I have a Pepsi?” I ask. “No ice?”
>
“Sure,” he says. “Coke okay?” When I nod, he continues. “I can try and help you with your paper, though. Or you could talk to my mom. Even though he got fired, Dad loved to talk about Northwood. About all the plays he directed, how some of his students went on to Broadway and movies.”
Not all of them, I think. I take a sip of my Coke and watch him wipe the bar. I took an ethics class last year, and I can recognize an ethical problem a mile off. This is definitely a big one. The hot guy behind the bar is my half-brother, but he has no idea who I am. Am I morally obliged to tell him? Or can I just pump him for information about my dad and then split? I must have been silent for a while, because he nudges my elbow and says, “Are we done here? ’Cause if you don’t want to talk, I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Can I see a picture of your dad? That would really help. All I’ve seen are group photos.”
“That’s him,” he says. He jerks his thumb at a framed black-and-white photograph behind the bar. A professional headshot. It shows a smiling man of about forty. Dark hair, dark eyes—my eyes—slight overbite (thanks, Dad), a tiny scar on his forehead. Mike Junior has the same smile, but he’s blond and his teeth are perfect. “He acted around town—little theater groups. Anywhere that was doing a musical. After Northwood, he gave up directing. Said it was too messy, whatever that means. My mom is a teacher too, but little kids. She says one teenager was enough for her.” He laughs and asks, “You giving your parents a hard time yet?”
For once I tell the truth. “Not really,” I reply. I have never given and never will give my parents a hard time. It’s technically impossible.
Mike takes care of bar business while we talk. He’s full of stories about his dad, and I try to act like a good little student and scribble away in my notebook. It’s obvious that Mike’s family went through some rough years after Mike Senior left Northwood, but Mike is vague about the details. I don’t really think I can ask, “What about Donna Bell and her baby?” What he is clear about is that his parents worked it out. Whatever “it” was. He also keeps saying what a great guy his dad was and how much he misses him. I want to ask what kind of a great guy knocks up and abandons one of his high school students, but is that fair? According to Donna, he thought she had an abortion. He even paid for it. I wonder what Donna did with the money. I doubt she used it to buy baby clothes.
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