by Lori Weber
“And what is it you’d like to do? Type, sew, cook?”
“Very funny again. Where do other kids work around here? McDonald’s, Burger King, Famous Players, The Bay … you know, that kind of thing.”
Just then a woman’s voice calls down the hall. “Jim, who is it now?”
“It’s Cheryl. From next door.”
“The girl you was talking about?” the woman says. “The one you took up the hill? The one with the blue eyes?”
“Yes, Nanny,” Jim says, a faint hue of red riding up his neck. I wonder what else he told her?
“Well, bring her in b’ye. Where’s your manners to?”
Jim turns and I follow him down the narrow hallway into an equally narrow living room. A woman who looks like an older version of Jim—same narrow face and dark eyes—is sitting on a flowered sofa. She has white hair like an old lady, but smooth skin like a young one. It’s kind of jarring. Boss is curled up at her feet, covering them, like a fur blanket. The dog gives me a lazy glance, then goes back to snoozing, her snout between her paws.
“This is Nanny,” Jim says. “My aunt.”
“Cheryl, love, have a seat,” Nanny says, pointing to the cushion beside her on the sofa. “Jim, make us some tea.”
Jim doesn’t argue or answer back. He just disappears into what I guess is the kitchen.
Jim’s aunt smiles at me. “Right, my dear. You make yourself at home,” she says. Then she turns her attention back to the television, where a talk show is on. Three men and one woman are sitting on a sofa, trying to talk over each other. I have no idea who anyone is and I can’t tell what the topic is either. Jim’s aunt is staring at the screen, nodding her head the whole time, as if she agrees with what’s being said, even during the commercials.
Above the TV, a picture that looks like a stained glass window is hanging. Some guy in a long blue robe is standing behind an X-shaped cross, his right hand hanging over the middle where the two beams intersect. Underneath him are the words ST. ANDREW, PATRON SAINT OF FISHERMEN.
“They’re all on fire today,” Jim’s aunt says when the show comes back on and the arguing continues. I simply nod. Jim finally returns, carrying a tray that holds three delicate-looking teacups on saucers, and a matching teapot, milk, and sugar set in a floral pattern. The whole tea thing should look out of place in Jim’s big hands, but it doesn’t. He seems so comfortable holding it. He sets the tray down on the coffee table, then pours us each a cup, all without spilling a drop.
“Here, Nanny,” he says, handing his aunt her cup and saucer. He places it very carefully in her hands, securing it with his own until he’s sure she has it. “Watch out now, it’s hot.”
“Thanks, love,” Nanny says. Then she takes a sip of her tea, lifting the cup slowly to her mouth. That’s when I notice the shaking. Her fingers are vibrating so much that the tea sloshes around the rim of the cup but miraculously stays inside. When she returns the cup to its saucer it continues to rattle, but doesn’t spill. Jim looks over at me and winks, as if to say not to worry.
“Is it okay, Nanny?” he asks sweetly. This must be his at-home voice, all the sarcasm vanished. I think about my own at-home voice. It doesn’t sound at all like Jim’s. My parents were still huddled over the breakfast dishes when I left, like my refusals had paralyzed them.
“You makes the best cup of tea in St. John’s, Jimmy,” she says, laughing. When she laughs, her head nods and shakes all at once. “And what are you up to today?” she asks, rattling the saucer back onto the table.
“I’m going to take Cheryl to the village,” Jim says.
“That’s lovely,” says his aunt.
The village! What village? Didn’t he hear me? I want a job, not more sightseeing.
“I’m taking the car, if that’s okay,” Jim says. Well, at least we’re not hiking out to this village, wherever the hell it is.
“Of course, but drive safely, that’s all I ask,” says Nanny.
When I say goodbye to Jim’s aunt, she presses my hand warmly between her two shaky ones. “See you again soon, my love,” she says. “Mind yourself on the road, Jim.”
“You know I always do, Nanny,” Jim responds affectionately.
Boss follows us down the hall, until Jim orders her back to Nanny. “Not today, girl, not today,” he says.
•
“WHERE ARE WE going?” I ask when we’re settled in the car, an old, long four-door with a big steering wheel.
“You want a job at some fast-food joint or store or something, so that’s where I’m taking you. To the village.”
“What village?”
I try to keep the impatience out of my voice.
After all, Jim is doing me a favour. And I have been ignoring him for days. He could easily have said no.
“It’s a mall. The Village Mall.” Then he laughs. I wonder if Jim toys with everyone this way.
“You’re just too funny,” I say. But Jim’s not kidding. A few minutes later we pull into the parking lot of a big shopping mall.
“This is it—see? The Village Mall,” Jim says, reading the sign slowly, enunciating each letter, like a Grade One teacher. “Stores galore. Teenagers in every one.”
“Perfect,” I reply. “Just what I wanted.”
We spend the rest of the morning walking from store to store. I ask the same question in every one: “Are there any jobs here?” Almost everyone says sorry. A couple of places give me an application to fill out. Jim doesn’t say much. He looks uncomfortable at the mall and he barely glances at any of the merchandise in the stores. He just stands behind me as I ask my questions, his shoulders slightly hunched. I keep expecting him to point out that I’m probably scaring people off because I’m all in black, although I didn’t put any black around my eyes today, and I’m not wearing any chain jewellery around my neck. I think I look pretty tame.
“I’m dead,” I finally tell him around lunch time. “I can’t take another step. Want to get some pizza?”
“Lead the way,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll find it faster than I can.”
We find a pizza place—I knew there’d be one—and settle at a tiny table in the food court.
“The thing is, Cheryl,” Jim says between bites, “it’s too late in the summer. All the jobs are taken. If you’d come a few weeks earlier, maybe.” Jim actually sounds sympathetic. He’s probably right, but it’s not what I want to hear.
“But sometimes people quit, or they don’t work out and get fired. You never know.”
Then Jim starts to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“It just struck me as funny all of a sudden. You, coming to Newfoundland to find work, just so you could get out of Newfoundland. Don’t you know this province has the highest unemployment rate in the whole country?”
“Well, it’s not like I chose it, right? My parents did.”
“Last year someone tried to open a strip joint downtown. When they advertised for dancers so many girls came to apply it floored the owners. They came from all over the province, young and old, skinny and fat. Some were grandmothers for Christ’s sake, desperate to make a bit of money for their families.”
“Really?” I respond. “Do you think they’re still looking?”
“Could be, but you wouldn’t get in.”
“Oh, really. And why not?” For some reason it bothers me that Jim thinks I couldn’t get a job stripping. I’m in pretty decent shape and I have big boobs. At least that’s what Ewan and his dumb friends said. Ewan told me his friends referred to me as “the big-boobed girl in black.” I used to think it sounded like a great name for an all-girl rock band—Big Boob Babes in Black, or something.
“Keep your shirt on, Cheryl. Only ’cause you’re too young. In every other way you’d probably be okay,” Jim says, looking down at his pizza, a grin on his face.
“Gee, thanks,” I say, staring at the table. You don’t have to be psychic to figure out where Jim’s mind is wandering.
“Anyway, how come you don’t work?” I ask to distract him.
“Well, I do, kind of. I play in a small band with two other guys from school, Ned and Steve. I’m on the tin whistle. We usually set up down on George Street.”
“Are you any good?”
“We’re okay. We can pull in a fair bit of money most days. We do even better on foggy days, when us musicians aren’t visible to the crowds. It makes it seem like the music is coming from fairies or ghosts. The tourists love it. They gobble up all that mystical stuff the tourism places really peddle. Did you know St. John’s is called the City of Legends? They make it sound like we’re all changelings or something.”
“You’re all what?”
“Changelings. You know, kidnapped by fairies as babies and replaced? Aren’t there any changelings in Montreal?”
“Not that I know of.” Actually, if I am a changeling, it would help explain why I haven’t inherited any of my parents’ enthusiasm for new adventures. All those genes are sitting inside the girl who now lives with the fairies, probably up on Mount Royal.
“Nanny’s full of stories about all that old stuff. She comes from a small place where they used to believe it all. Stupid superstitions, that’s what my father called the stories and whatnot. In a way, I think he was glad to get away. My mother and Nanny would just talk about fairies and things to get him going, and he always fell for it. Nanny’s never been anywhere else. I can’t even imagine it. Her health’s not too good, you may have noticed,” he says.
“Did something happen to her?”
“Yeah, but nothing physical. It was when her husband, my uncle, died. It happened twenty-five years ago this February. She never got over it,” Jim says.
“How’d it happen?”
“He was working on an oil rig out in the ocean when it collapsed. It was big news around here, the collapse of the Ocean Ranger. I wasn’t even born yet, in 1982. He was my dad’s best friend, too. He started dating my dad’s youngest sister, Nancy—we call her Nanny—when she was fifteen. His body was never even found. I think that’s the part drove my aunt over the edge. The thought of him becoming fish food.”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. Imagine loving someone so much that a quarter century after their death you’re still shaking? That seems incredible. Beside me, Jim is nodding, as though he’s saying hi to someone. I turn around and see a group of teenagers staring over at us. The girls are giggling, the guys grinning.
“Friends?” I ask.
“Nah, just kids from school,” Jim says. “Nobody I give a crap about.” I look back and see that they’re walking toward us. Jim shifts in his seat.
“Hey, Jim,” one of the girls says. She’s pretty, in that plastic kind of way, with lots of makeup, streaked blond hair, and huge hooped earrings. “What are you up to?”
“Not much,” responds Jim. “You guys?”
“Just hanging out,” the same girl says. She’s looking at me now, checking out my hair. “Who’s your friend?”
“Cheryl,” Jim says flatly, like he doesn’t really want to tell her.
“I like your hair,” says the other girl, who’s obviously trying to be a clone of the first one, but can’t quite pull it off. The tight, pink spaghetti-strapped top that she’s wearing, with Princess written in glitter across her boobs, keeps riding up over her stomach. And the streaks in her hair are more pinky-orange than blond.
The two guys standing behind the girls are shifting their weight and laughing.
“Yeah, how do you make it stand up like that? You must use a ton of gel,” the pretty girl says. “Either that or stick your fingers in a socket.”
I just glare at the two girls. I can’t believe they think they’re funny. They remind me of some of the girls who gave me a hard time in my last school. Girls in the popular clique who probably would have been mean even if I hadn’t been a complete stranger. They never passed me without saying something nasty, something they thought super-clever. Like, if they saw me drinking at lunch they’d want to know if it was blood. And what was in my sandwich? Crushed spider? Then they’d crack up.
“Hey, way to go, Jim,” one of the guys says suddenly, wrapping his arm around the bigger girl.
“Yeah, way to go,” the other guy joins in. Then they all crack up. I suppose “way to go” is a reference to Jim being with me. They make it sound like he just won me at some carnival booth or landed me on the end of a fishing rod.
The way they say it also implies they’ve never seen Jim with a girl before, which means he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I figured he didn’t, but you never know.
“Didn’t know you’d know where it goes,” says the first guy, at which the entire gang cracks up.
“Let’s go,” Jim says, keeping his cool.
“Sure,” I say. I get up slowly and deliberately, so they don’t think they’re scaring us off. I let my chain belt clink hard against the back of my chair as I push it under the table.
“See ya,” Jim says. I nod in their direction, and Jim and I head back toward the car.
“Who were those guys? What jerks,” I say.
“I’m used to it,” says Jim. “When I first showed up at Holy Heart they made fun of my accent all the time. I worked at toning it down. Now they just think I’m a loser,’cause I’m into getting good grades and stuff. I got a bit of that in my old school, too. Lots of my classmates just gave up when our school closed, but I wasn’t going to do that. I have goals, like going to Horton Bluffs and other stuff. That’ll just be the start. And I’m trying to get a scholarship.”
Did he say Holy Heart? That means Jim goes there, too. I never thought to ask him. Then those loser kids would be at Holy Heart, too—part of my welcoming committee, which is all the more reason to get out.
“Thanks for bringing me,” I say as we wind our way through the parking lot. “I know you probably had better things to do.”
“What could be better than taking you to the Village,” Jim says, “and running into a group of assholes?”
“You could be out looking for whales, I suppose.”
“Oh, yeah, whales. Don’t worry. We’ll see whales. They’ll be here all summer.”
All summer? I guess I should remind Jim right about now that I won’t be here all summer. And what’s with the “we?” Maybe I’ve given Jim the wrong idea by hanging out with him today.
“Anyway, you wouldn’t want to come to the mall every day, would you? All those stores squished up together under those artificial lights,” Jim says as he turns the key in the ignition. “I get lost in there.”
“Are you serious? This mall is tiny compared to the ones in Montreal. We have the biggest underground shopping complex in North America. You can walk and shop for miles through connecting tunnels. It’s really neat.”
“Sounds horrible to me. I’d suffocate. Can you believe the town I’m from has only one store? But you can buy everything at it, from seal sausage to underwear.”
“Wow. How practical,” I respond. “The two things people are always running out of.” Jim laughs. I have an image of men’s underwear hanging next to a string of sausages. It’s not exactly pretty. I don’t dare tell Jim, because he’d crack some joke about me being perverted.
•
“HOW ’BOUT SEEING a real village now?” Jim says when we’re back on the main road.
“Where?”
“It’s not far, but it’s really cool.”
“Sure, why not? Any jobs there, you think?”
“Probably not. It’s really small.” Jim gives me a sympathetic look, as if he’s really sorry I had such crappy luck today.
As we drive, I think about how different Jim was with those kids from Holy Heart. I can’t imagine him joking around with them like he does with me. It’s like the mall and their presence changed him, like he couldn’t be himself, or at least the self that I’ve seen both times I’ve been out with him. I guess that means Jim is comfortable with me, which is strange. My mom’s always telling me I
have the opposite effect on people, with my dark clothes and attitude. I guess they don’t seem dark to Jim.
“The fog’s still in,” Jim says, as we drive along. “I’ll turn down and drive along the harbour. I like seeing ships in the fog, don’t you?”
“Oh, sure, I do it all the time. All that fog we had in Saskatchewan,’cause of all the lowlying clouds and cold sea air.”
“Ha. Very funny,” says Jim. “And I thought you said you lived in BC.”
“I did, but then we moved to Saskatchewan.”
“You guys sure move around,” Jim says, as though it’s a good thing. I don’t respond. I’d rather watch the fog, which is nowhere near as thick as it was a few hours ago. It just covers the ships that line the harbour with a thin veil of mist, like they’ve been in a long, steamy shower.
“Are these all fishing boats?” I ask.
“No. Different kinds. The big ones behind us are container ships. That’s where all the island’s supplies come in.”
“Like sausages and underwear?” I ask.
“Yeah, except seal. Those are homemade, on the island. I don’t think mainlanders would go for seal sausage, do you? They’d think they were eating the world’s cutest animal or something.”
I think of those white baby seals, the ones with big baby blue eyes, that you see on posters to protest the seal hunt. I’m not sure I’d want to eat them, either.
“I knew they were killed for fur, but I didn’t realize people ate them,” I say.
“They’ve been eating seal on Newfoundland for hundreds of years. Kept a lot of people alive.”
I turn around and look at the giant cranes that are lifting containers into the air. One of them might actually be carrying the rest of the boxes that we had shipped from Saskatchewan.
“These smaller ones are fishing boats, skiffs, and schooners,” Jim says. He drives slowly so that I can read the names scrawled across their sides and backs—the Darling Dora and Little Lizzie III.
If my father fished, I guess his boat could be called the Cheery Cherry, or something embarrassing like that. Or the Elegant Ellen, after my mother.