Getting knifed pretty much put an end to everything that matters to me: skating and competitive finals. Having a girlfriend. Oh, and managing to stay in the closet.
Sita tells me that “the incident” is Backstrom’s latest hot topic. So much for me sinking back into invisible dorkdom when I finally get back to school. Sita says the cafeteria literally buzzes with comments about how I’ve been knifed for being queer. “And Oh-Em-Gawd, Keira, when Jason Billings brayed out ‘Keira-the-lezzie’ right in the middle of assembly, three of his jock pals stood up and yanked him to the floor. And not gently.” Sita’s happy to report any hostility toward Jason-the-Pillings. But who cares what other kids think? I’m me, now. At last, just me. Here to stay.
Sita shows up every frigging afternoon and tells me funny stories about Drama Club dress rehearsal malfunctions and mandatory school assemblies. “Amanda has disappeared from our lunch table, but whether it’s because you might be contagious or because I am, who knows?” Sita grins wickedly. “More room for Daz. And your crutches, when you join us.”
Yep, Daz. After the noisy dance kissing, Daz and Amanda parted bodies for good. Sita and he performed out-and-out mutual forgiveness, and now live deep within make-up land. While Sita tells me stories, he covers for her in Drama Club, and texts her info about their next play (a stage version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—harmless, funny, and safely set in the future). She flirts with Daz on the phone when he can hear I’m right there, and now sometimes even flirts with me.
I don’t know how she does it, exactly. I get violently yanked out of the half-way closet, and she’s already able to make light of everyone’s sexuality and flirt in non-threatening ways, and reassure me that she’s not freaking out that I’m going to jump her just because my lesbo-insides have trumped my het-instincts. No wonder boys fall for her. No wonder Daz falls for her all over again.
Today I get to go home. Mom’s over by the window, arranging more flowers. I hear Tyler and Sam in the hallway, spinning. “He’s a right shit-for-brains,” I hear Tyler say to Sammie when she asks him when Dad’s coming to the hospital. Will Dad be at home when we get there? Will he still be gone? My belly clenches at both the image of Dad at the table with his newspapers spread all around him, and him not there at all—a family photo with a Dad-hole smack in the middle. Sam rolls up to my hospital bed and strokes my arm with one hand, brandishing a deck of cards with the other.
“You have figured out that I cheat at Cheat, right?” she asks, pulling my food tray closer. “I’m dealing in everyone because Tyler will get in here if we make him, and the Mom Police will play, too.”
Sponge-alert! “Sam, it’s time to retire that nickname.” Especially since I definitely prefer a concerned cop-like parent to a father who could only fake being Lenient Lenny. I’ve figured out that Dad was a benevolent dictator: he didn’t have to enforce the rules because things usually went his way. It’s why he didn’t want to admit my Jayne-related inclinations. As long as he didn’t talk about it, his daughter stayed too young and innocent to be a freak. But as soon as I got attacked, he couldn’t glide over my awkward soul any more.
Sammie’s finished dealing the whole deck. “Pay attention, Keira. Cheating is how come I always win. And it is the point of the game.” We both laugh just as Mom returns from a pizza run.
“Come join,” I invite her. She’s never played cards with us, not even when we’re on vacation. Because she’s always too busy working overtime or cooking healthy meals, or because we’ve never asked her?
“Come on, I’ll teach you the rules.” I gingerly sit up. My gut throbs, but it’s not unbearable.
“Except none of the rules matter,” I say. “You can cheat as much as you want, as long as nobody catches you.” Mom sits down and pulls Tyler in beside her. We each grab a slice and awkwardly hold our cards in one hand and spicy pizza in another. “But I should warn you, Mom, no matter what play you pull off, Sammie always wins.” And I wink at Sam, who shrugs at Mom, as if she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
On the good news front, Joline and I are actually friends now. Really friends, not just sit-together-because-our-mothers-think-we-should friends. She calls me and we text (Mom brought in my phone). Joline even showed up one afternoon when Sita really couldn’t afford to miss another rehearsal and hung out until—as she said—“it was time to limp home” (yes, she still mocks me). Hey, the girl saved me, I think I can manage to like her just a teeny bit. When I thank her and tell her how grateful I am that she was around that night, she says, “Okay, but I don’t want any lezzie-germs rubbing off on me.” For a second I think she’s serious, but it’s such a ridic thing to say we both burst into hysterics. We make arrangements to meet at the mall once my legs are crutch-worthy, and maybe catch an afternoon matinee. “Hey, and with your crutches, maybe we can get a disability discount, too, eh?” The girl doesn’t know how to stop when she’s behind.
Sita might not like that she has sarcasm competition, I think, but it’s amazing how far being an invalid will get you these days. Ha, now I’m doing it. My leg hurts, my stomach hurts, my girlfriend has been literally wrenched out of my life. The Olympic dream is now just the stuff of dreams. But as I reach for my phone, I can’t help but shake my head.
“Ridic,” I text to Sita, “life is ab-scama-lute-ly ridic.”
SEQUEL ALERT: HIGH SCHOOL—ONLY 2.7 YEARS TO GO...
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many people help bring a book together, some through direct involvement and some through tangential splendour, and this book is no exception.
Thanks to Susan Holloway and Joa Markotić for graciously providing info and details about Junior Rangers, to Rosemary Nixon for suggestively rebuffing my pleas to co-write a kid’s book, to Susan Holbrook for sharing a constant state of overwhelmedness, and to Louis Cabri for living with “panic” during the early, okay, also the middle, and certainly the final months of this manuscript!
I worked on a first draft when I lived in Australia for a few months, and I thank Leigh Dale as well as numerous faculty and staff at the University of Wollongong for offering administrative support and assistance, library access, and all manners of pleasant bookish exchanges.
I massively thank Debra Dudek for tremendous help integrating, acclimatizing, and navigating the Wollongong campus and surrounding areas, and for her brilliant advice on book titles and local wineries.
Writer Glen Huser gave me valuable early commentary, and I thank him for his overall wit, his smarts about YA books, and for his astute suggestions.
The Thor allusion on page 104 is thanks to Catriona Strang and Nina Houle, and the monster joke on page 139 is thanks to Zorien Markotić.
Endless thanks to the entire Arsenal team: Brian Lam for wanting this manuscript, Oliver McPartlin for designing such a terrific cover, Cynara Geissler for her marketing and publicity skills, and all others who helped this book along the way. Most notably, I thank and thank and thank Susan Safyan, for her keen eye, for her editing skill, and for her delicate determination to hack away at all my cheese!
Photo: Don Denton
Nicole Markotić is a novelist, critic, and poet who teaches Children’s Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Windsor. She has widely published in Canada, the USA, Australia, and Europe; her most recent book is the poetry collection Whelmed (Coach House). She works as a fiction and poetry editor and publishes a chapbook series under Wrinkle Press. Her previous book with Arsenal Pulp Press is the novel Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot.
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