“Come to the dance tonight,” I beg her without thinking.
This time, she’s the one who pulls away. “You know I can’t, Keira.” And her voice sounds so full of regret. Because of me.
So I tug her ponytail loose, and her hair flaps around my forehead—slinky! “Come for one dance. Doesn’t have to be a slow one. Two girls dancing together, just friends.” I almost believe it can be that easy. That no one—not even Tyler—will think anything about us. Sita and I danced together at her sister’s wedding, no big deal. “Girls danced with girls in junior high all the time. That’s all your church friends will think is going on.” I’m getting into this, now.
She actually laughs at me. We’ve had our first tiff, we’ve made it to the make-up make-out session, and my girlfriend (I have a girlfriend!) laughs at me. Her smile coils to the side.
“Your friends won’t even notice!”
“Of course they won’t, Keira.” She sounds sarcastic.
“They won’t! If two boys dance together, the world goes up in flames, but nobody ever cared when Sita and I danced together.” How easy it is to slip Sita’s name into past tense! “Just one dance. I promise, I’ll—”
She’s laughing again. Her feet scuff some pebbles and she leans against our fence to wait for James. “Doofus,” she zings at me. “Nobody from my church will think I’m a lesbian for dancing with a girl because nobody from my church will be at the dance.” This sounds like great news, until she finishes: “Nobody from my church will be at the dance, because nobody from my church—including me—goes to dances. Ever. No exceptions. Finito.”
“Oh,” I say, my quick-witted comeback. This is a blow. This is yet another scratch at my already bruised and scraped heart, which jumped back into my body as soon as Jayne’s lips touched mine. But I’m determined not to let Jayne see any surface scratches.
“It’s okay,” I tell her neck, which is where my lips have wandered. “We can dance right here. It’s Hallowe’en. Two girls dancing in an alley can’t be too weird, right?”
“What the HELL?!” So loud we jump away from each other. So loud the neighbours must think Trick-or-Treating has started early this year.
James.
He parked out front, then got out of his car and rang the bell when Jayne didn’t come out. My mom sent him around back. Shite, did it look like we were kissing? We were dancing, but did it look like dancing, here in the daylight and without any music? Shit on a stick. Jayne’s expression is a mixture of front page scandal and closed book. I try to deflect.
“It’s Hallowe’en ...” I start, as if the day’s name will work magic.
“Oh yeah? This some Satanic ritual?” James asks and jerks his head at us, as if performing some sort of ghoulish ceremony in a back alley makes more sense to him than dancing. Or maybe making fun of my inept cover-up.
“We were just fooling around,” Jayne tells him, stepping away from me.
“Satan’s funny to you?” James points his question at me. The good brother is gone; this James has “danger” scribbled all over his face, like all along he knew I’d be a bad friend for his sister, because he can’t trust anyone outside his church community. Maybe he can’t.
I straighten up, which makes me almost as tall as James. “No, sorry.” I smile at him gently, like he’s a wounded pet who needs convincing you won’t hurt him. “No Satan, no rituals, no joke. Just two girls goofing around.”
James doesn’t look convinced. He isn’t convinced. “You better stop,” he says to me, and to Jayne: “Don’t!” Then he grabs her arm, not hard, but as if he’s trying to remind her who her real connections are, and he pulls her back along to the street where he’s parked.
Takes me ten minutes before I can force myself inside. I will not cry, I will not cry. In the house, it feels like the furnace is turned way down, but I fake being happy, because Mom’s going to let me take Sam Trick-or-Treating, and she even lets us eat supper early, so Sam can hit the neighbourhood soon as the lip of the sun kisses the mountains.
“Get ready, get costumed, GO!” I yell from the entranceway, waiting for Sam to dramatically wheel in. Even Mom looks happy as she piles mini-bars and cheapo-chips into a bowl by the front door. Sammie’s Rubik’s Cube costume is a big hit, but even I get compliments on my Pinball Wizard boots and diamond-studded goggles from Tommy (the ’70s crack me up!). But you know what’s wrong with the world? People!
We do our block and the next over. Mom says not to stay out past 7:30, but come on. The dance doesn’t even start till eight, which means no one wants to be the first dweeb through the auditorium doors. So Sammie and I hold hands crossing the street and whip through the third block. She’s got an edge over other kids cuz she can stash the heaviest candy in the pouch under her seat. And the farther we get from our own house, the more likely people will believe Sam’s near-empty pumpkin-shaped bucket means she’s only just started.
We roll up the sidewalk to the last house on the block. A woman holding a baby comes out in her PJs. The top is covered with a pattern of licorice allsorts bursting out of their boxes, and the bottoms have rows and rows of red and black licorice ropes. I think this is supposed to be the woman’s costume, but maybe it’s just whatever she had on this morning.
Sam holds out her once again nearly empty container and belts out, “Hallo-ween ap-pulls!”
The woman pours a handful of mini chocolate bars into Sam’s orange pumpkin container. Score. We high-five and turn to go, but one of Sam’s wheels gets stuck in a gaping cement crack in the driveway, and as I’m loosening her chair over the lip, I hear the woman call out: “You’re so good with her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Squeeze you, she doesn’t even know you!” Sam throws out her favourite rejoinder.
“It’s good of you to escort this crippled child on Hallowe’en.” Pyjama woman doesn’t know how to let go.
“Uh-oh,” says Sammie.
“This crippled child is my genius sister!” I scream. “And I’m the one who needs an escort tonight, not her. Sammie here, she’s ... she’s the boss, she’s the head-freakin-cheese!”
And I realize my anger is waaaay off the charts. No matter who I kiss or don’t get to kiss any more, I’m Sammie’s big sister, and I’m boiling over with sibling lava. I don’t care that kids all over the street can hear me. That their parents will gleefully report this outburst to my parents. Great. Good. More grounding, more being forbidden to do any of the things that I’m not doing anyway. Sam’s worth it. But as we roll down the sidewalk, I realize that my anger’s also about Sita and Surge and Tyler and Jayne. And, oh yeah, about scaredy-cat me. No more later: now.
“Whew, somebody’s having an allergic reaction to those PJs,” Sam chirps into her hand.
That kid really cracks me up.
Guess we come in more quietly than I think, because when I go to the bathroom I hear Mom and Dad quarrelling in their bedroom. Long before bedtime, even.
“I tell you, Lenny, this girl’s brother was yelling at them. Who knows what they were up to? But he yelled at them to stop.” Oh, fabulous, the Mom Police overheard Brother Law.
“You worry too much, Alice. Keira’s a good girl. Practically a ballerina!” Hmm—that’s what my dad really thinks of my skating passion? “And ballerinas don’t like other ballerinas, okay?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t let her go to the dance. You ungrounded her too soon, even though she’s offered no apology and no explanation for lying about the phone. Maybe we need to rethink that decision.” My mother the backstabber.
“We can’t ground her for no reason, darl.” Yay, Dad! “Look, you told me this girl’s family is religious, right?” Silence as my mom must be nodding. “Well, perhaps the brother doesn’t think she should be friends with pagans.”
“Lenny!” This time Dad gets a laugh out of Mom.
“Speaking of which, I have to hightail it to work to make sure all the devil-worshippers spend the night consuming copious amounts of their favou
rite devil brew.”
And I hightail it to the kitchen, where I dutifully divide Sammie’s spoils, so Mom can once-over the loot and give this candy haul the thumbs up.
“If you stay, you can steal my best loot,” Sam pleads, but I leave the house as soon as Mom has Sam out of her costume and parked by the front door to greet late Trick-or-Treaters.
Suddenly, I’m burning to get to the dance. Burning to show up and flaunt my evil, single self. Because I deserve that, at least. I don’t know what I mean by “at least,” but I mean it wholeheartedly. Tyler’s already left for the dance. Or so he’d told our parents. I’m pretty sure he went straight to party number one in a long list of parties he’d glide through tonight. Soon as Mom’s attending to the twins from across the street dressed as Batgirl and Robin, I throw off my stilt-high boots, pull on my regular kicks, and head out.
The streets teem with movie characters and demons. I see a green blob and her ghostbuster and a cute pineapple milkshake, complete with rings of yellow covering her pigtails. These kids are awesome, I think, and wish I could snap a pic of them lined up with Sammie, but I pick up my pace and zoom toward Backstrom.
When I arrive, there are swarms of kids hanging out by the doors, leaning against the walls of the gym, crowding the giant speakers against the stage. With the exception of a few Goths (who just wear what they usually wear), and the zombie die-hards (get it? even grief-stricken, I crack me up), practically nobody’s in costume. Most kids at Backstrom are too cool to play dress-up. Whatever. Makes it easier to spot who you’re trying to avoid.
I catch a glimpse of Joline huddled with The Two, both wearing the “men-in-black” uniform, including cheesy sunglasses indoors (the ’80s do not crack me up). Joline’s wearing blue jean cut-offs with black nylons underneath and a floppy halter top. Cheap, yes? But where do I get off being a snob? Who the hell am I to preach about fashion?
I don’t see Sita, and that should be a relief, that I don’t have to suffer through her budding friendship with Talia, and her oh-so-out-in-the-open boy-girl relationship with Daz. Or Tony Baloney. Or whoever gets the role as the next Boy Number Lucky. Except: I’m done with relief. I’m done with being safe. I’m just mad that I’m finally in high school, finally know who I want, but I’m here all alone.
To be alone with my loneliness, I head for the girls’ washroom. That’s when I spot Amanda dancing with Daz. Uh-oh. Could be it’s just one dance, but the look on Amanda’s face says she hopes Sita comes by. She hopes Sita sees both of them hanging onto each other like that. I thought Amanda was coming to this dance with Titus. And what’s Daz thinking? Or is he just dancing with his girlfriend’s friend? Amanda sees me and waves a shimmering emerald sleeve at me furiously, like we’re best friends, then she moves her hand lower on his back. Then even lower. She’s smiling like she’s doing all this for me, like I’m going to be happy that she’s pissing off Sita. I dunno why, but Amanda being mean to Sita to get on my good side totally gets on my bad side.
Enough.
Enough, enough, enough.
I head over to the crowd of drama dweebs to see if Sita’s hanging out with Daz’s friends while he dances with another girl. Not Sita’s style, but then again, maybe I don’t know her style any more. She’s not.
Next stop, the girl’s washroom. But it’s crowded with girls blowing their curls, re-applying lipstick, tracing black lines under their eyes. No costumes, just the regular girl disguises. Next, I try the bathroom on the second floor. Fewer girls, but almost as much perfume, so I head up two more levels. On the fourth floor, I’m amazed to see Sita at her locker. Or rather, I see an open locker, with Sita’s legs below the locker door. So I walk up and start to talk to her locker door, because that seems to be the only way we talk now.
“Sita, I’m sorry. I really am sorry. For not telling you earlier, for not telling you the right way, for not sending that text message earlier. But not ... not for being attracted to girls.” I sort of get scared saying this. “Or both girls and boys. Or whatever. I’m ... whatever, okay? Okay?”
What if this really is it? What if Sita cannot take me for who I am? I gulp and keep going. “And I’m sorry I freaked out telling you. I don’t know what I am most of the time. But I know I’m your friend. And it shouldn’t matter who we kiss, as long as we always tell each other about it, right? Right? Right?!”
The locker door stays open, blocking my face from hers. I don’t know what else to say. If the only other thing I can say to make Sita forgive me is to take all of myself back, then I guess we won’t be friends any more. I can’t stand that. I’m ready to grovel, but—after everything that’s happened this week—I can’t put myself back inside any box.
Sita slams her locker door shut and with such force that I almost walk away, but I see that she’s crying. Not relief tears, not dainty droplets on her cheek because we’ve finally made up; this is huge, grief-stricken panic weeping.
“I slept with Lucien!” she blubbers. Yikes to the nth degree!
And then I get the whole story of Sita’s rough patch. After I ran away from our Lactose Tolerant conversation, she was a bit freaked out. She’d asked me if I liked girls because she suspected me, because I never seem interested enough in boys. But she was half hoping I’d just reassure her to the contrary. Then, when I didn’t and screamed at her that no way would I ever want to kiss her, and said that maybe she was curious about me for some reason—
“I did not say that,” but I’m smiling at her, not chastising. I need to listen to Sita’s story right now. All this time, she’s been needing a friend.
“Well, there you were,” she sniffs, “telling me that kissing a boy turned you into a lesbian or something, and maybe that meant you wanted me to be one too, except I’m apparently too repulsive to kiss” (she hand-waves to show she’s teasing). Sita’s story is going all over the place, but it doesn’t matter. Not any more. She’s talking to me; we’re back together again. “So I texted Daz, and when he called back, I blubbered a bit, but wouldn’t tell him why because I didn’t know if you’d told me to keep this a secret, so we had another fight, this one about me keeping things from him. And—” the tears start pouring down her face, “he dumped me. Again. Over the phone. And, and, and...!” She’s crying again, so I pull her over to a window ledge where we can sit and view the latecomers arriving outside and still enjoy some cone-of-silence privacy.
“And then he called me a slut.” Somehow, saying that word out loud about herself calms Sita. Maybe because this means Daz isn’t worth crying over? I hope so.
And then, she tells me, despite older sisters who have warned her and warned her and warned her about the wild-animal zoo-trip that is high school dating, Sita rushed over to Lucien’s. “And I practically jumped at his invitation to hop into—”
“—bed with him?”
“Couch, actually,” she corrects. “His mom wasn’t due home for hours, and my parents knew I’d be with you all evening.”
Sita’s first time going all the way, and it’s revenge sex. She’s bawling now, and I get it. Not only did Sita screw up, but she screwed up in a colossally un-Sita-like way. She’s the one who only kisses or feels a boy up or lets a boy grab her private parts if she wants to. Never just because they want to. But she was so furious at Daz that she flew into another boy’s lap, just to prove him right.
Sita and I haven’t talked for weeks, so most of it comes out in a jumble. When I didn’t have her to talk to, it seemed like the days slowed down to mush-speed. But as soon as we hug, the world speeds up again. At some point, Sita will give me more details. But right now, I hug her and hug her some more.
“Let’s get out of here, okay?” I say. I don’t need to be at the dance any more, not if I can hang out with Sita. “Your place, my place, or just walking. There were some pretty good ghouls out before. Some of our neighbours went ballistic with the creaky coffins and floating ghosts. And Sam will let you steal her best chocolate bars.”
Sita nods and gets
up, but adds, “I have to say goodbye to Talia. We came together.”
Oh. My heart does slam into the floorboards at that. But Sita deserves friends right now, as many as she wants. “Sure, I saw her dancing when I walked through the gym earlier.” And I tell her, “I was looking for you,” to make her realize she’s the one who’s important. That me stumbling across her standing at her locker wasn’t an accidental meeting.
“Yeah, I talked to Talia about Lucien.” Sita hand-waves. “Not that she had great advice, but at least I could tell somebody. With you AWOL ...”
Now Sita doesn’t have to explain becoming friends with Talia Sitkins. Why would I think I’m the only one with a calamitous love life? The two of us practically run down the steps together and toward the auditorium.
“By the way, I really never did get the text message you were talking about,” she tells me as we enter the gym. “You think I would have ignored an apology?”
But I was so sure I pressed “send.” I saw the little bars fill up the screen. Which is why I figured I had a right to be angry at Sita for not responding, for being too mean to accept my apology. My one measly apology. That, apparently, I never even managed to send.
But just as I’m about to delve into mega-mea-culpa mode, the curtains part, the spotlight goes on, the music swells. Okay, none of these things happen, but I do suddenly spot Jayne across the dance floor. Standing there looking soooo like a sore thumb.
I grab Sita’s shoulder and squeeze it hard. “Um, there’s something else I have to tell you,” I blurt out, just as—
“Keira!” A voice booms louder than the speakers, booming out to everyone on the dance floor. A guy sporting a hand-drawn pirate patch is running toward me.
On the ice, I can leap too wide during a jump and land slightly off-target, knowing I won’t have left myself enough room for the spin that comes next in my routine. But in the fractured second it takes to feel my body a few centimetres too close to the boards, I can adjust. I can add a three-turn or skate backwards or add extra crossover steps, then tighten the spin so I don’t lose any time, don’t miss a beat. Not on this dance floor.
Rough Patch Page 15