Thirteen Shells

by Nadia Bozak

  Jesse stops.

  Mum left the porch light on, curtains drawn. The brown Datsun is at rest in the drive. Jesse points up at the dark second-floor window where Mum has her sewing machine and typewriter.

  “That room yours?”

  “No.” Shell shakes her head.

  Jesse wipes his nose. He looks so hard at Shell’s house it might very well shatter, or fade away into blackness — the end of a movie, of a dream.

  “You hungry?”

  Jesse nods.

  “Then you better come in.”

  The clock on the stove reads one twenty-two. In silence and in dark, Shell makes a box of Kraft Dinner, slices of hot dog cooked right in. She seasons it with pepper and salt, then wraps the pot in a towel and takes it, as well as a canvas bag packed with bowls, spoons, knives, peanut butter, a loaf of brown bread, and a carton of milk, down to the basement. Jesse is sitting on Shell’s unmade bed, surrounded by quilts her grandmother made, while the pillow he leans into is covered in one of a pair of flowered cases Mum had made to match a set of curtains, now long gone. Jesse left his skateboard in the middle of the floor, and his scent — sweat and damp cigarettes — overrides Shell’s own sweet-and-sour musk.

  Without looking at Jesse, Shell arranges the food on the desk.

  “Sit here,” she says, unfolding a chair.

  Jesse pounces on the food. He emits a low hum as he eats, dialoguing with himself about the tastes and textures in his mouth. When he finishes the solids, he drinks the milk. Then he asks for a cigarette.

  “Okay, but you gotta blow it out the window.”

  Their bodies get close as they smoke out the small square window that had once been Jesse’s. Shell can almost taste his sweat, the cheese and peanut butter on his breath.

  “Strange to be back here?”

  “No,” Jesse says. “Not really.”

  “Look.” Shell gives Jesse the cigarette. Sitting down on her messy bed, she takes off her socks and, leaning back, holds out the bottom of her right foot. “See? Eighteen stitches. I still have the glass in my box.”

  Jesse ashes the cigarette on the window ledge. “What? What’s in a box?”

  “You know,” she tells him. “It’s in a keepsake box.”

  After a deep drag on the cigarette, Jesse blows the smoke right into the room. “Huh?”

  “Yeah, like things in your life that you value because they remind you of something that happened or of a person you met.”

  Jesse shakes his head. “I don’t keep anything for any sake.”

  Shell rolls over onto her stomach and stretches out, reaching beneath the bed for the horsehair button box. Her T-shirt rides up, baring her back to the cold. She wriggles and twists until she feels the rough contour of the box against her fingertips.

  But then she stops. Her grasp retracts. Jesse’s fingers drift along the length of her spine. And his touch is tender. He strokes the bottom of Shell’s scarred foot and then his sinewy body, inch by inch, impresses itself upon her own. Shell turns to meet him, his snarling rabbit face softening, and she lets Jesse’s bashed fist guide her hand down the loose waist of his army pants. He is all warmth and stickiness. And he has no underwear on. And soon neither does Shell.

  Jesse rises and falls, into Shell and out of Shell, twisting among the bedding of Shell’s mother and her mother’s mother, breathing and expelling the same damp air of the same damp basement where he had never quite been a boy. And Shell is surprised by how much it hurts, and the whole time she keeps thinking about what will come next. Like when they see each other at Dan and Maček’s or walking down Clayton, will everyone know? Of course, Shell will never tell. Maybe not even Carla, though she’d like her to know that kissing a harelip boy is not weird at all. It’s just your teeth clank a lot.

  They wrap up in quilts and again take their places by the window, blackening the screen with cigarette smoke. Jesse makes a peanut butter sandwich and empties the milk carton. Shell wants him to make her a sandwich too or offer her a bite, but he just sits there at her desk humming and chewing, fingering her books and pencils, clucking his tongue when the peanut butter sticks. There are burns on his arms from tending to fires and his hair is flat from wearing a cap. The quilt he’s tucked around his waist falls away and he lets it, not feeling the cold though his skin is prickled and nipples go to tacks.

  If Jesse would leave, Shell could have a bath and put her pyjamas on. Then she’d sleep on the couch in the living room and when Mum comes down, they could have porridge. Maybe Mum will make blueberry muffins like she does sometimes on Saturday, enough to take to school next week.

  Jesse swallows the last of his sandwich, crawls into Shell’s bed, and stretches out, careful not to touch her.

  “What will happen tomorrow?” she whispers, stupid and naked.

  “Don’t know.”

  Jesse’s breath is deep and steady, catching in the back of his throat. Between Shell’s legs, it is sticky. Maybe the blood will have stained the mattress, like the first time Shell menstruated — upstairs, in this same twin bed. Stiff and careful, Shell lies down, covers pulled up to her chin. She blinks into the indigo light coming through the window, cigarettes butted on the sill, and wishes — with all her might — that it was winter: white and cold and very still. Maybe Dad will be out front shovelling the walk for Shell and Mum and the mailman, and before any of them are even out of bed. He’ll put on the coffee when he comes in and he’ll put the weather report on the radio.

  And then she falls asleep, to the sound of Dad’s shovel breaking snow crust, scraping the pavement below.

  By seven, when Shell’s headache wakes her, Jesse is gone. She wraps up in her housecoat. The bloodstain on the sheets is in the shape of an eggplant, a paisley, or some kind of amoeba. Arms full of dishes, she climbs upstairs, ladylike, as if she is riding a horse. Really, though, she is just sore.

  Morning is grey now. A cool breeze comes in the window above the sink and also through the back door, ajar by two or three inches. Jesse left the pantry doors open too — the top two shelves empty of crackers and cookies, Cheerios. Even the basmati rice and brown sugar are gone, and there is nothing in the fridge either: no block of marble cheddar, egg carton, butter, bagels, chicken meatballs wrapped in foil.

  Shell cries washing the macaroni pot, wooden spoon, bowls and utensils and cups. Then, upstairs in the bathroom, she eases herself into a warm bath — bubbled with Mum’s Yardley Rose — and, with soap and loofah, scrubs. The water that drains is thin pink, and bits of grass and sandy dirt float on the surface, like the stale bird bath out back.

  Mum’s alarm goes off. Shell runs downstairs to get breakfast on — the most important meal of the day. Even when she and Carla wake up hungover in some party house, having slept head to foot on a cat-piss couch, Shell, first thing, wants breakfast. Everyone else has a cigarette and what’s left in stray drink cans, but Shell makes Carla struggle down to 7-Eleven or a doughnut shop to buy at least a hunk of something bready and a carton of milk.

  Apples and walnuts will go with the porridge. Shell chops and grates, stopping to shake from her head the wet crack of Bruce Cockburn’s breaking face, the look of Jesse’s raised knuckles, or the throbbing between her legs.

  Then Mum comes in.

  “Hi, Mum!” Mum’s got her runners on, XL Amnesty International T-shirt, and sweatpants with paint on the knees. She had mentioned a tai chi class first thing Saturdays, but Shell’s never awake to witness it. “Up and at ‘em, eh?” That’s what Dad used to say. Or he’d sing “Lazy Bones.”

  Mum’s lips are very thin. “Shell, where is my wallet?”

  Shell freezes, knife poised, the tip just breaking the apple’s waxy skin. “What? Why? What do you mean?”

  “It was in the hall by the phone. I need to go, Shell. I looked all over. Did you take it?”

  Shell moans. Her head fa
lls, the apple, the knife. She steps over to Mum and puts her arms around her soft neck, drawing her in close.

  “Mum, Mum, no.”

  Mum lets herself be hugged. But then she untangles herself and grabs Shell by the wrists. “Shell, my wallet. Where is it?” Her eyes, behind her glasses, are grey, drawn tight at the corners, rimmed in red.

  “Mum,” Shell whispers back.

  The lid on the porridge pot explodes into a clatter; grey goop spills over, sizzling on the element. Shell gathers up the length of her housecoat and thumps down the basement stairs. Her room smells of Jesse. The weight of his head is still crushed into the pillow. Shell falls to her knees, twists onto the floor, reaching under her bed. “God, God, please,” she whispers, fumbling, blind. At the familiar touch of the coarse horsehair weave, she breathes easy.

  Everything is inside the button box as it should be — pasta shells, tape cassettes, rusty nails, postcards, keys, hunk of serrated bottle glass. And something new: a single Polaroid. Within the glossy white frame, the photograph is gold-hued and grainy. The girl in the picture is asleep, her lips parted and breasts uncovered, hair streaming across her pillow. Because she is almost beautiful, Shell has to look closely to believe it’s her.

  Left Luggage

  Somerset is less than two hours from the U.S. border, but Shell and Mum have never been to the States. Even before Reagan, Dad wouldn’t step foot in the place. The mechanic at the high school where Mum teaches said Mum’s brown Datsun station wagon is decent enough to make it down south, and with her permanent contract Mum can finally afford to do a Christmas trip.

  “Now you’re sixteen, Shell,” Mum says, “you should see there’s more to life than Somerset. Or Toronto.”

  “But, God, Florida is so tacky,” Shell says. “Go with one of your teacher friends.” Shell can take the bus to Dad’s for the holidays. But Dad, when Shell calls, says,”Why don’t we catch up for New Year’s?”

  Mum is at the harvest table stirring honey into her tea and flipping through bright Season’s Greetings! grocery flyers: crackly brown turkeys with pieces of holly stuck in them, thick mugs of eggnog with candy cane stir sticks, potatoes already wrapped in gold foil.

  “We’ll do something special,” Dad says. He’d like her to meet a new friend. Her name is Valery.

  “Oh,” Shell says. “Okay.”

  If Mum would find a boyfriend like Vicki’s mum, the constant prickle of Mum’s loneliness would finally go away. Then Shell could stay over at Carla’s or visit Dad in Toronto without sudden flashes of Mum hunched over the kitchen sink washing her dinner plate or standing alone on the Greyhound platform. Worse is the silhouette of the back of her head when she drives away in the Datsun. Shell could just drink beer and smoke cigarettes and hash to have fun, not to drown out that sinking feeling that Mum is sad and needs Shell like Shell needs her. How will Shell ever go away to university? And she’ll never go to France with Carla like they’re planning instead of finishing grade eleven. Carla’s already saved enough Harvey’s paycheques to buy a one-way ticket to Paris. Shell’s glad she only has fifty bucks so far. Then she won’t have to say she can’t go anywhere too far from Mum.

  Mum checks the Penny Saver and gets a good deal on a condo in Fort Myers. The lady on the phone says Conch Lane is a little out of town yet “just steps from water.”

  The semester finishes on the twenty-third of December. They’ll leave for Florida at five the next morning. “Pack a swimsuit, Shell,” Mum says.

  Shell snorts. Mum doesn’t own a swimsuit either. Like last year at Lake Erie, Mum just rolls her pant legs up to her alabaster knees and carries her clogs down the beach.

  Mum spends the whole week getting ready. She packs a box with dry pasta and cans of soup, beans, tomato sauce, and calls Environment Canada to ask about coming storms.

  “Wow. Look, Shell.” The glossy photograph in the Somerset Public Library’s Budget Guide to Florida could be some minimalist painting: Rothko or something by Georgia O’Keeffe. On a closer look, though, the three horizontal strips — white, bottle green, and azure on top — are in fact a faultless beach. A lone figure stoops over in the distance, “shelling,” as Budget Guide calls it.

  “Let’s go there,” Mum breathes.

  “Hmm,” says Shell, cutting herself a great hunk of cheese.

  Mum’s new suitcase — finally, one with four wheels and a wide pulley strap — was on sale at Eaton’s. She fills it with travel-sized toiletries, lightweight pyjamas, summer blouses, homemade jeans, and an array of sun hats, then test drives it around the house.

  “See how civilized this is?” she says, smiling. When Mum was Shell’s age and sailed to England, her luggage was the brass-hinged steamer trunk now at the end of Mum’s bed. Inside are quilts and framed pictures, Shell’s baby clothes, a few pieces of Mum’s pottery, the wind-up clock from the farm where she grew up.

  While she’s packing, Mum stuffs a Goodwill bag full of old clothes. “Out with the old,” she keeps saying. She tosses stained tea towels and a stack of National Geographics in the garbage bag too. Does Shell have anything to add? Mum has been clearing closets and drawers all school year. Most of Dad’s stuff is gone now. She hired some men to take away the appliances he’d salvaged — the extra washer and dryer and the leaking chest freezer in the back shed. And Kremski and some other artists Dad knew have been coming over and, piecemeal, taking away the wood and metal scrap Dad stored under the back porch. Shell watched through her upstairs window while Kremski rode away with his basket full of kiln bricks, a bundle of hockey sticks tucked under his arm.

  CBC is on in the kitchen. Overnight programming from the Netherlands; the morning show doesn’t start for another half-hour. Mum and Shell slurp Cheerios and coffee; outside, the world is still dark. Shell throws books and tapes, jeans, T-shirts, and cigarettes into her knapsack. She hopes the border guards won’t find the twenty-sixer of Jameson wrapped up in her pyjamas. Mum keeps calling out, “Make sure all the luggage is in the car and that the bedroom windows are locked.”

  Shell laces her Doc Martens, bundles up in her parka, and carries her bag out to the car. The back seat is stuffed with umbrellas and food and extra shoes, but there’s still room in the trunk, right on top of the Goodwill stuff Mum forgot to drop off.

  “Have everything?” Mum asks again and again, locking the door behind them.

  Shell says yes.

  “Your bag is —?”

  “In the car.”

  “And mine?”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Did you get the suitcase from my room?”

  Shell yawns, last night’s Jameson nightcaps throbbing in her right temple.

  “Yeah. In there too.”

  Except for the forest of fast-food signs along the freeways and warehouses selling firecrackers and ammunition, it’s not so different here from their part of Canada. Maybe that’s why Dad and his friends think America is so evil — because it looks so familiar. The farther south they drive, the more exotic the fast-food restaurants get: Cracker Barrel, ihop, then Waffle House diners start popping up every fifty miles or so. Mum and Shell start counting the yellow-and-black signs and stop at the twenty-second one for lunch. They’re in Ohio. Mum gets a club sandwich and tomato soup and Shell the all-day breakfast: two eggs over easy, bacon, and hash browns — which is what Waffle House is famous for rather than the waffles.

  Shell flips through the glossy colour plates in the middle of the Budget Guide and Mum pores over the road map. After the holdup at the border, getting to their reservation in Macon, Georgia, before dark is going to involve some gunning.

  “It’s Sanibel you like, right?” Shell holds up a collage of local seashells.

  Mum nods. “Teachers at school say it’s beautiful.”

  Mum takes the book from Shell, wowing at the mottled cowries and yellow cockles, conches pink as bubblegum, and tulip
mussels in indigo. “Sanibel’s treasure,” Mum reads, “is a junonia or Juno’s volute. At four to six inches in length, the shell of the predatory sea snail is so rare that shellers who find them are said to be descended from the goddess they are named for.”

  Shaking her head, Mum says, “I’ve always wanted to see a shell with counter-clockwise spirals. Those ones are complete anomalies.”

  “Since when are you so into shells?” Shell says, reaching over to snatch back the guidebook. But Mum holds tight. She stares across the table. Shell stares back. Finally Mum relinquishes the book.

  “Since before you were born, Shell.”

  Shell and Mum can’t believe how beautiful it is in Kentucky and then in Tennessee.

  “It’s nicer here than even Algonquin,” Shell says.

  As the mountains flow by — soft and blue — Shell relaxes into daydreams. They don’t say much. The music is enough: Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the Billie Holiday tape that almost went in the Goodwill bag. Looking out the window, Shell understands where her life’s best music was truly born, and when they’re side-swiping Chattanooga and “Visions of Johanna” comes on, Shell cries behind her sunglasses.

  By the time the sun starts falling — coffees and cookies and a bag of oily peanuts later, coats off because it’s getting warm — Mum says her legs are numb.

  “Okay, Mum.” Shell folds the map. “Only about twenty miles to go.”

  “Miles or kilometres?”

  “Miles. No, yes. Miles.” Like Davis.

  But really it’s kilometres, and then they take a wrong turn and can’t find the on-ramp again — “Shell, you watch for me: make sure it’s east not west” — so it’s dark when they get to Macon and darker still when they pull up in front of Priced-Right Inn and Suites, set back on a dark road lit only by fast-food signage and no street lights anywhere. Their room — seventy-six — is in a rear building, main floor. Mum seems to know the drill. They drive right around, parking out front of the room.