Yours,
Mrs. Georgina Smith
Jared stepped over the women’s shoes and came to a stop at the end of the hallway. Bathrobe blocked the entrance to the living room.
“Oh, good gravy,” Jared said, turning back and walking straight to the kitchen. The last thing he wanted to deal with was the ghost.
“Entry-level biology is mostly memorizing,” Bathrobe said, appearing in front of the smudge drawer, blocking it as much as a ghost could. “When they assign you a chapter, make a list of all the bold-faced vocabulary then go to the glossary for the official definition. Then write the term and its definition five times. Then put it on a notecard and review every night before you go to bed.”
“Why are you here?” Jared said. “What do you want?”
“I’d really like to watch the new Doctor Who series.”
“They don’t have TV in heaven?”
Bathrobe grimaced. “So you’re one of those, are you?”
“Can’t you go watch it somewhere else?”
“I like it here,” the ghost said.
“Why?”
“Who else is going to tutor you for free?”
“You…want to tutor me. That’s insane.”
“Interdimensional time-space is a causality funhouse. The rules are a mishmash of whatever universes are overlapping at the moment. I’m not locked in one place, but it’s very easy to get lost.”
“Go into the light,” Jared said.
The ghost crossed his arms. “Thanks, Carol Anne.”
“Who’s Carol Anne?”
“You’ve never watched Poltergeist?”
Jared considered how fast he was burning through the sage and sweetgrass and how it didn’t seem to be doing any good anyway. Granny Nita said you couldn’t trust the dead. His mom said it too. Their thoughts were strange—death changed them. Still. He hadn’t figured out his physics homework and it was due Thursday morning. “What about physics?”
“So simple,” Bathrobe said. “I would use small words and go slowly.”
“I can’t think today,” Jared said. “But I wouldn’t mind some help with physics tomorrow.”
“Done.”
“Can you promise me some privacy?”
“Turn the TV to the science fiction channel and I swear by the great and mighty Time Lord you will not even know I exist.”
“No floating into my bedroom without asking?”
“Like I really want to be in that cesspit of temporal dynamic instability.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You won’t believe me and explaining basic physics to you promises to be a Herculean task, without getting into chaos theory.”
Jared went into the living room. He plugged the TV into the wall and turned to the science fiction channel. The ghost walked through the wall to stand in front of the recliner.
“So we have a deal?” the ghost said.
“If you get weird on me, the deal’s off.”
“You’re the strange attractor, not me.”
“What?”
The ghost plopped himself in the recliner. “Shut up and go away.”
“So who are you, anyway?”
“I’m Dent, Arthur Dent.”
“Arthur Dent.”
“Not Arthur Dent. Dent, Arthur Dent. I had it legally changed when I was sixteen because of my deep love of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.”
“Dude,” Jared said, “you are so weird.”
“The living are so annoying,” Dent muttered. “What part of ‘go away’ did you not understand?”
Jared’s alarm woke him at three. He dug around the fridge for a quick and easy snack. He found the bagel he’d left there yesterday. Dent’s eyes were still glued to the TV and he completely ignored Jared even though he was only a few feet away. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from a ghost, but it wasn’t this. Jared was putting the wrapper in the garbage when Kota knocked on the door and told him to shake a leg.
After their meeting, they grabbed a coffee and a cookie, and then sat on a sidewalk patio a couple of blocks from the apartment building. Well, Jared grabbed a cookie. Kota stuck to his espresso and the single square of dark chocolate that came with it. Jared couldn’t make himself switch to lattes. He’d repaid Mave for the textbooks and she’d asked if his loan had come in. He’d offered to pay a bill or two and she’d said when he got funded, they’d revisit their arrangement. Jared’d stuck the remaining seven hundred dollars under his mattress. He was looking at another three or four hundred for textbooks next semester.
Jared squinted at the sky. A smattering of trees on the mountainsides had turned golden yellow. Fall was coming. He realized Kota was talking.
“—bought Hank that car when I was flush,” Kota said. “I wanted to help them out. And, you know, rub it in my parents’ faces. You coulda had this. This coulda been you. I paid for Gran’s move. Set her up with new furniture. The best mobility equipment. Only decent things I did with my money. Only things I don’t regret. All the assholes I tried to impress. Christ. None of them would look at me once the money ran out.”
“Sorry,” Jared said.
“Yeah.”
“Hank and your gran—they’d still want you in their lives even if you don’t buy them things,” Jared said. “If they stuck by you through the last few years, I think—”
Kota’s eyes went beady. “Shut it.”
“—you’re more than a paycheque to them.”
“Holy fucking Christ, you just don’t know when to quit, do you?”
Jared finished his cookie. He sipped his coffee and watched the world go by while Kota stewed.
“I talk to you more than I talk to my sponsor,” Kota said eventually.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you should be my sponsor.”
“You just want someone you can push around.”
“No, you actually listen. And you don’t try to shove your opinions down my throat.”
“Have you told him that?”
“See? You listen.” After a while Kota added, “Maybe I should try the camps again. I don’t want to mooch off Hank anymore and I don’t want to work with him on security.”
“Hard to take a pay cut?”
“Shut it.”
“I made buttloads of money selling pot cookies,” Jared said. “It was a big comedown working at Dairy Queen. All my party buddies came and made fun of me and my hairnet. I was always broke, living paycheque to paycheque.”
“You aren’t selling regular jobs.”
“I did what I had to do for my sobriety.”
“That’s not the way it works. We live in a—” Kota’s cell warbled. He checked it. “Aunt Mave and Hank are coming to pick us up.”
“What?” Jared said.
“Aunt Mave wants her Jelly Bean and her Henry-kins to get along. She’s got something planned and it’s supposed to be a surprise.”
“Bye,” Jared said.
“Jared.”
“You can’t force people to like each other just because you want them to.”
“Welcome to the clan.”
“What?”
“Fucking sit your ass back down. Sit. You’re doing this. If I have to hear about you and Hank fighting anymore, I swear to God I’m going to shove a pen through my eardrums.”
Jared sat and gulped the dregs of his coffee. After a few minutes of sulking he saw Hank’s anonymous grey Honda Civic pull up and parallel-park in front of them. Mave rolled down the passenger window and waved to catch their attention.
“Yahoo!” she said. “Jared! Kota! Fancy meeting you here! Hop in!”
Free rent, Jared told himself as he got up. Free rent, free rent.
“Hi,” Jared said as he got in the back seat.
Hank glanced at him in the rear-view mirror but didn’t turn around. Kota got in the seat behind Hank. Jared remembered the seat belt rule.
“How was your meeting?” Mave said.
“Good,” Jared
said. “What’s up?”
“I thought we could go out for a little supper,” Mave said. “My treat!”
“I’m kind of full,” Jared said.
Kota reached over and gave the side of Jared’s head a warning slap. “We’re in.”
“Have you ever been to Banff, Jared?” Mave said.
“No.”
“It’s so lovely this time of year. So many places to hike. I’ll be working all weekend, so my hotel room will just be sitting there. Empty.”
Mave went on about the things you could do in Banff and Jared got the feeling she was hinting around that she wouldn’t mind some company, but she didn’t want to ask him directly. He looked out the window, trying to figure out where they were going. They were still in East Van, but had dipped down to one of the side streets and seemed to be circling, looking for free parking.
At last they parked. When they got out, Mave grabbed his hand and held it, like he was a toddler. Jared swallowed his resentment. Kota smirked. Hank kept checking his watch. Mave let go of his hand when she opened the front door of the offices of the Lu’ma Native Housing Society.
“Hi, Mave,” the receptionist said, lifting up some papers. “I see you have the whole gang with you.”
“Have you met Jared?” Mave said.
“I’m Blanche. Pleased to meetcha.”
“Hey,” Jared said.
“Mave asked us to put you on the rental agreement and make everything official, which means—you guessed it—paperwork.” She handed him a clipboard.
Jared stared at the clipboard.
“A little birdie told me you were feeling a tad insecure about the informality of our arrangement,” Mave said.
Jared glared at Kota, who mimed surprise.
“You don’t have to,” Jared said to Mave.
“He’s like a personal chef,” Mave said to Blanche. “And he’s really good at killing spiders.”
“Can’t let that go,” Blanche said.
Jared wanted a moment alone to absorb things, so he went and sat on one of the chairs and bent his head over the paper, pretending to read it.
“Just sign it already,” Hank said.
He did.
They had dinner at White Spot. Afterwards, Kota and Hank argued about the fastest route home all the way back to the Drive. Hank missed the turnoff for their street and parked in front of Mave’s store, the Sartorial Resistance.
“And now, the pièce de résistance, if you’ll excuse the pun,” Mave said. “New clothes!”
“No,” Jared said, trying desperately to open the car door.
“Child-locked,” Hank said. “They have to be opened from the outside.”
“Screw you,” Jared said.
Hank grinned at him in the rear-view mirror. “Better you than me.”
“Double screw you.”
Hank and Mave got out of the car.
“Fucking relax,” Kota said. “Let her buy you some weird-ass shirts, wear them a couple of times and stick them in the back of your closet like the rest of us did.”
Hank stood by his door. “Tick-tock, Jared.”
“You have epic control issues.”
“I’m going to count to three.”
“He will drag you into Aunt Mave’s store,” Kota said.
Hank pressed a button on his key and Jared heard all the locks unclick. Kota got out and moved into the front passenger seat, pulling out his phone and scrolling through it.
“I hate you all,” Jared said, getting out.
The Sartorial Resistance had an Entrez, Nous Sommes Ouverts sign on the door. A chime went off as they came in, a strange, off-kilter, gong-like sound. A very tall, very thin woman in a plain black dress with a jagged hem paused in arranging a rack of clothes to look over at them. The store was spare. Clothing racks hung from the ceiling on wires. The floor was industrial grey with sparkles. Jared sighed. Sparkles in the floor were never a good sign.
“Holy crap,” Jared said, suddenly noticing a framed poster featuring Mave wearing a deep-blue gown, half her hair plastered to her scalp by blood. She stood with one hand on her hip, staring directly at the camera, lit by a burning car as cops and protesters clashed around her, a mist of billowing tear gas softening the skyscrapers in the background. The Sartorial Resistance, the poster read. Fashioning the Revolution.
“I know,” Mave said. “But Timothy’s an old war photographer and he wouldn’t stop focusing on the fighting.”
“Is that real blood?” Jared said.
“It was a head cut. They always look dramatic.”
At that moment Hank said, “We’re going to head ’er.”
“Thank you, Henry-kins.”
“Later,” Hank said.
Jared watched him get in the car, and then watched him and Kota arguing as they drove off, wishing he was going with them.
“This is Gwen,” Mave said. “Gwen, this is Jared.”
“Charmed,” Gwen said.
“Is Justice here tonight?” Mave said.
“She’s on a vape break.”
“Ah,” Mave said. She took some T-shirts off a rack, checked the tags and handed them to Jared. “Try the Secret Cyborg line.” She gave him a heavy stare, then turned to Gwen. “I know he’ll appreciate your work because he’s always trying to unbrand himself.”
“I loathe our billboard culture,” Gwen said. “Clothes should scream your style, not corporate logos.”
“Go on,” Mave said. “Try them on.”
The dressing room was flat black. A single basketball-sized bare bulb hung from the ceiling, which vanished in the darkness. The T-shirts fit and had lots of room in the neck. They weren’t too fancy or weird, but he couldn’t find any price tags.
“I’m passing you some jeans,” Mave said. “We also have some dressy-casual pants for job interviews. Back in a sec!”
“I have a job,” Jared said.
Skinny-legged jeans were not his thing, but the pants were okay. Again, no price tag. Jared picked a T-shirt and the pants. He heard Justice and Mave laughing in the store. He put his own clothes back on. When he walked up to the counter, Justice and Mave smiled at him.
“I see you liked them,” Mave said.
“Yup,” Jared said.
“Hello, Jared. How’s school?” Justice said.
“ ’s okay.”
“I can never get him to shut up,” Mave said. “Chatter, chatter, chatter.”
They laughed again and Justice rang up the clothes.
“Do you want to come back to my place for tea when you finish?” Mave said.
“I’m driving Gwen home,” Justice said.
“Ah, well,” Mave said. “I’ll see you later, my darling girl.”
“Sweet dreams, Maamaan.”
They air-kissed.
Justice handed him a purple bag with silver tissue wrapping the clothes. She winked. As Jared and Mave walked home, the lampposts flickered on. Mave linked her arm in his.
“You could come to Banff if you wanted,” Mave said. “I have enough frequent flyer points to bring you for free. I’d be out all day and you’d have the room to yourself.”
“I’m just getting the hang of school,” Jared said.
“It’s only for the weekend.”
“I have studying.”
“So very earnest,” Mave said. “As Maggie said you would be.”
“You guys talk?”
“She texts. She’s worried about this David character. Otherwise, her and Mother want nothing to do with the baby-stealer.” Mave was leaving herself open to questions that Jared wasn’t ready to ask. She let his arm go when they reached the apartment entrance.
Dent, Arthur Dent was watching TV when they came in. Mave sighed, picked up the remote and shut off the TV.
“Hey!” Dent shouted.
“Edgar was the TV fanatic,” Mave said. “He’s programmed the damn thing to turn on and I can’t figure out how to stop it. Would you mind if we got rid of the cable?”
; “We had a deal!” Bathrobe said. The living room light flickered.
“I can pay it,” Jared said.
“Don’t be silly,” Mave said. “Fine, we’ll keep it. But could you try to figure out how to stop the idiot box from blaring nonsense at all times of the day and night?”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Jared said, as Dent glared at him.
When he was sure Mave was writing with her headphones on, Jared phoned Sarah’s mom and told her he’d had a Sarah sighting but couldn’t get any information out of her and she wasn’t answering his texts anymore.
“Tell her Mother’s come home,” Meredith said. “She left…left Father with his family in Brno. She…she…I…can’t. She’s refusing…treatment…”
He listened to Meredith crying. After a while she whispered, “Everyone’s leaving me.”
The line clicked and Jared heard dial tone. He had accepted Mrs. Jaks’s death a long time ago. She told him more than once that this year was borrowed time. He held the phone and listened to hum, to static, frozen. He should text Sarah.
We’re all alone in the end, he thought. Whether or not people care about us or don’t. But he wished with everything in his being that Mrs. Jaks would be okay even when the evidence overwhelmingly said that she wouldn’t be.
23
“How can you not get this?” Dent said. “The acceleration is minus 9.8 metres per second squared. It’s dead simple.”
Jared took a large swig of coffee. He’d made it extra strong. He’d woken up ready to tackle his physics homework, trying to work himself out of his melancholy mood. But nothing was staying in his head. “Is that the g?”
“Of course it’s g. Acceleration due to gravity equals g.”
“Why is it negative again?”
“Oh, my God! Acceleration is downwards! How hard is that to remember?”
“Shouting isn’t helping, okay?”
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