by Beth Goobie
“Oh, it’s just some stupid joke,” Stella spat, taking another step back. “Just something some kids are doing. What does it matter? They’re all crapheads.”
“Agreed,” said Shir. “So tell me why the crapheads are voting for me.”
For a long moment, Stella stood staring at her, one hand clutching her throat. Shir could see it in her sister’s eyes—the fear of telling. What could possibly be going on that was so bad, Stella was afraid to explain what it was? She was usually raring to gloat over bad news.
From the other end of the hall came the sound of the apartment’s outer door opening. “Stella,” called Janice Rutz, kicking off her shoes. “You home?”
Obvious relief swamped Stella’s face. “Yeah, Mom,” she called back loudly. “I’m in my room.”
Taking a step forward, she raised both hands, palms outward, as if warding off a curse. “Get out now,” she hissed, low-voiced, at Shir. “Or I’ll tell Mom you barged in here without permission and were hassling me.”
Helpless, Shir stared at the sister who stood locked against her, mentally shoving her out of her life. “All I want,” she said slowly, “is to know what’s happening to me.”
“Get out,” repeated Stella, making quick flicking gestures.
Wordless, Shir turned and left the room.
Seven
She found out how bad the possibilities could get the following morning. It was 10:15, during the break between classes, and she was coming down a hall en route from algebra to English. Ahead, to her left, a group of kids had gathered around a guy with a laptop, who was seated on the floor. As Shir approached, she noticed Eunie Jahenny standing at an open locker next to the group and casually observing the laptop screen. Curiously Shir scanned the girl, noting the rings piercing her left nostril and the small snake tattooed across the back of one hand. What in the world, she wondered incredulously, could Mr. Anderson have had to talk about with a seventeen-year-old metalhead snake goddess?
As Shir came abreast, Eunie abruptly closed her locker and turned to head down the hall. Quickly, Shir swerved to avoid her, but not before the two girls’ eyes had met and she had seen Eunie’s widen in surprise. Chalking it up to the usual, Shir began to skirt the outside of the group gathered around the computer whiz, and unexpectedly found her gaze drawn across the crowded circle to where she could see her sister peering over someone’s shoulder. Immediately, Shir’s eyes flicked away. It was an unspoken agreement between herself and Stella—they never, never acknowledged each other at school. If one of them forgot her lunch or needed money for a pop, she was up Shit Creek as far as the other was concerned. In the halls, they passed like ships in the night. The few times someone had asked Shir if she had a sister, she had emphatically denied it. Without asking, she knew Stella did the same.
But today, something in Stella’s face drew Shir’s eyes back for a second glance. Though the other kids gathered around the laptop were grinning broadly, Stella was not. In fact, her expression was so markedly different, she could have been peering in at the scene from another dimension. Eyes narrowed and mouth sucked inward, her face seemed almost to be collapsing under a dull anguish. Momentarily, she looked twenty years older, a carbon copy of their mother.
At that moment, a girl standing at the edge of the circle noticed Shir. “Hey, look,” she said, poking the guy next to her. “It’s Dog Face.”
As the entire group shifted to face her, Shir saw Stella turn and take off down the hall. Quickly, she took a step back, intending to reverse tracks and return the way she had come, but a guy stepped forward and grabbed her arm.
“Rutz,” he said. “C’mere. Take a look at your total.”
The group parted, giving her room, and she was pushed toward the guy with the laptop. With a smirk, he swiveled the screen to face her and she saw it: an enlarged image of her grade-ten school picture beside two others, both Collier High students—a guy who was currently in grade ten, and a girl in her grad year. Beneath each picture was displayed a number, hers the highest by several hundred. Across the top of the screen ran the question: Who gets your vote as the ugliest kid at Collier High?
Stunned, Shir stood staring at the laptop. So this was what all the comments had been about, she realized—a web site set up by someone from Collier High, where kids could vote for their favorite ugly. And she was winning hands down. The other contestants weren’t even sniffing her tail wind.
Turning once again to escape, she blundered into a guy standing behind her. “Watch it!” he said, lifting an arm and elbowing her. Pain bloomed startlingly in Shir’s left breast. Raising both hands, she slammed her binder into the guy’s chest, then lunged out of the group, gasping and gasping for air.
“Jesus, Rutz!” said a voice behind her. “You don’t have to freak about it.”
Ahead, the corridor was full of kids coming and going. No one was looking at her; everyone but the small group gathered around the laptop seemingly unaware of its contents. But Shir wasn’t kidding herself. From what she had just seen, at least 279 Collier High students knew about the web site—that was her posted total. And it would soon climb. She had gotten her first comment about voting yesterday, so the web site had probably only been up for a few days. If the voting continued at its current rate, Friday would see her winning by more than a thousand. That meant a thousand Collier High kids taking time out of their busy family-and-friend-packed schedules to log onto their computers and express their personal opinions about Shirley Jane Rutz’s face. A thousand kids, she thought helplessly. A thousand!
As Shir staggered forward into the oblivious crowd, she caught a glimpse of Eunie Jahenny to her right, standing motionless at her closed locker. On her face was the same professionally bored expression that she had given Mr. Anderson at the store; still, it was obvious that she was watching Shir. Not avidly, not even with what could be called apparent interest—perhaps the look on her face could have been described as mild curiosity, as if Shir was an interesting object, a rat in an experimental maze that had no way out.
Had Eunie logged onto the web site and voted? Shir wondered wildly. If she hadn’t, she knew it existed—the awareness was all over her face, a slight gleam in those casual hooded eyes. But no sympathy, realized Shir with a sickening lurch. Nowhere in that slack, professionally bored expression, was there the slightest hint of warmth.
Ducking her head, she blundered onward down the hall.
Gym bag slung over a shoulder, Shir worked her way around the outside of the third pillar and stepped onto the peak of the arch. Seven meters below, water rippled quietly past; up and down the river, trees stood guard over an afternoon of dull blues, browns, and a faint lacy green. In every direction, peace stretched uninterrupted, without another human in sight. Myplace, Shir thought wearily. She was home.
Heaving a sigh, she slid her back down the pillar and settled her butt. Then she simply sat for a while, letting her gaze roam the budding trees, the mud-covered riverbanks, and the large stone houses opposite. Old and rich, that was what those houses were, she thought musingly. Owned by people who had made it in life. People with money to burn. What would it be like to live in a place over a hundred years old, with no one in the next apartment yelling or crying, and your own long stretch of lawn to laze around on?
Thoughtfully, she unzipped her gym bag and took out a can of Molsons. Just one, she had only the one this afternoon; not enough really, considering what she had been through today, but something in her hadn’t been able to stomach the prospect of another backyard wrangling session with Gareth. It had been only twenty-four hours since the last one, and he was sure to have come up with a few new taxes, oil price hikes, or natural disasters to justify a raise to four bucks a can. An earthquake in Peru, thought Shir. Something like that.
With a snort, she popped the tab and downed her first swallow. It had been a long day and an ugly one. Word about the web site was spreading quickly and, though not everyone had clued in yet, those who had seemed determined to
let her know that she had their vote. She hadn’t been able to escape the comments anywhere. Even barreling through the halls at top speed hadn’t stopped them. In spite of the overhead cameras, guys had stepped into her path, tripped her up, or gotten in their twisted one-liners by ducking under her lowered head and delivering them directly to her face. One guy had finished his off by spitting—the gob had missed her cheek but had landed, bubbly and slimy, in her hair. Not having a Kleenex, she had been forced to mop it up with her shirt. The stain of it was still there, the guy’s gob now a faint gray smear on her sleeve.
Classes had been just as bad, kids passing her notes every time the teacher’s back turned. Not that she had read more than the first few, just brushed them angrily to the floor, but still they had kept coming—comments about dog shit, rotting Halloween pumpkins, doing it with animals and corpses. None of it was new—Collier High kids all pulled their thoughts out of the same gutter; it was the amount of the crap that got to her. On an average day, she had to endure five, maybe ten Dog Face jokes, but nothing related to necrophilia. The web site, however, was gradually tuning more and more kids into the same brain wave; everyone seemed to be logging onto her face and refusing to get off.
Raising her can, Shir nursed another grim swallow. Slow, she told herself firmly. It was slow with the magic fluid today—she was on a very limited supply. And she also had to stop thinking about Collier High shit now. She was at Myplace, and she didn’t want to contaminate its special holy beauty with that kind of garbage. Besides—
From behind her came the sound of a scrape, followed by a soft grunt. Startled, Shir froze, then peered around the outside of the third pillar toward her bike, but it was still standing, locked to the church parking-lot sign with no one in the vicinity. Satisfied, she settled back into place only to hear another scrape, followed by the unmistakable sound of a pebble rolling off concrete into the river. Cautiously, she leaned toward the inside of the bridge and peered around the pillar, but saw only stalks of dried grass along the riverbank, bending under a gust of wind. Still, she continued to lean, her body rigid as she stared around the pillar, willing the sound to have been a rat under the bridge, an angel skipping stones, or the church rector out for a walk.
Abruptly, a hand appeared, gripping the outside of the second pillar on the bridge’s eastern side. Breath sucked in, Shir watched, riveted, as a leg and torso slid into view, then a boy’s face, fiercely concentrated under a black knit cap. Taking a moment to reorient himself, the boy stood hugging the pillar, then crouched down and began the climb toward the third pillar and the peak of the first eastern arch.
Heart pounding, Shir retreated behind her pillar. It was the same guy, the one she had seen yesterday, sitting directly across from her usual spot. Obviously, he intended to do the same today. What should she do—crawl forward across the western arches, heading for the opposite bank, or work backward the way she had come and take off on the Black? But why should she, goddam it, she thought, suddenly furious, when she had gotten here first, and had only just started her beer? And besides, this was Myplace—the small private wonder-corner of a spot that the city, the planet, maybe even God Himself had set down on this earth just for her.
A hand slid around the pillar opposite, then a foot, and the boy began to edge himself onto the peak of the arch. Busy working himself into position, he didn’t notice Shir until he had gotten himself completely around the pillar. “Oh,” he said, holding onto it and blinking at her in surprise. “Hello.”
“Fuck off,” said Shir, her eyes darting out over the river.
“Thanks a lot,” said the boy, sounding aggrieved. Silence followed, broken by a gust of wind, teasing the dead grass along the riverbank. Grimly, her mouth set, Shir glared at a distant tree. There was no need to glance at the boy to see what he was doing; she knew from experience—standing with his mouth agape and ogling the massive distorted contours of her face. Convulsively her hand tightened on her can of Molsons, and it creaked loudly. For Chrissake! she thought wildly. All she wanted was to drink one can of beer privately, alone and in peace.
“Molsons,” the boy said companionably. “Light or Canadian?”
“Fuck off,” repeated Shir. “It’s mine.”
“Okay, so it’s yours,” said the boy, sliding his back down the pillar opposite and stretching out his legs. “I’m a Moosehead fan, anyway.”
Rage erupted in Shir, savage, overwhelming. Necrophilia, bestiality, and now a moose head—here, in Myplace!
“Shut your goddam mouth!” she snarled, turning to glare directly at him. “I am not a moose head!”
Stunned, the boy stared back at her. “No,” he stammered finally. “Not you. Moosehead beer. Y’know, the label. They make it in New Brunswick.”
Shir’s rage withered as quickly as it had surfaced. “Oh,” she said lamely, her eyes drifting out over the river. “Yeah, I guess.”
There was another long moment of silence. “God!” the boy said finally. “That’d be a great way to make a good first impression—calling someone a moose head.”
“Better than what I get from most people,” mumbled Shir. The hand holding her can of beer had begun to shake, and then her arm—quick tiny trembles that ran from her fingers all the way up to her shoulder. A long day, it had been a long, tiring day, she thought bleakly. And now this.
“Look,” she said carefully. “I’ve gotten nothing but shit all day. So would you mind terribly much crawling back the way you came and leaving me alone? Like, just get the hell out of here?”
Another pause followed as the boy contemplated her suggestion. “Yeah, I would mind,” he said calmly. “I like this place and I just found it last weekend. So I think I’ll keep sitting here. But I won’t give you any shit—I’m not into that kind of thing. And I promise not to beg, wheedle, or steal any of your beer off you.”
Wearily, Shir stared down at her can of Molsons. “Why?” she asked slowly.
“Why what?” replied the boy.
“Why no shit?” she said.
The seconds ticked by without response, the water rippling benignly past, the wind rustling along the riverbank. Finally, Shir glanced warily at the boy to find him studying her. Immediately, her eyes flicked away.
“What d’you mean by shit?” he asked quietly.
“You know—shit!” she exploded. Who was this guy trying to kid? One look at her face should tell anyone what kind of shit she meant.
Again silence inhabited the opposite arch. “I dunno,” the boy said finally, hunching his shoulders against a particularly sharp gust of wind. “Would you come to a place as beautiful as this just to give someone shit?”
Something shifted inside Shir then—dull, thick, and surprised. A bit, just a bit of the tightness in her chest loosened. “Most days,” she said bleakly, “it’s hard to figure out why people do anything they do.”
“Yeah,” agreed the boy. “People are like mad, tight fists. Or scared fists. I figure I’m one of the scared fists. But in this place, it’s different. You come here and the fist opens up.”
This time it was definite—surprise, opening in her like breath. Yeah, thought Shir, looking out over the river. He had gotten it. The boy with the black cap had described this place exactly.
“So,” she said, shooting him a sidelong glance. Eyes on the opposite bank, he appeared lost in contemplation. “How come you only found this place last week?”
“My dad and I moved here last summer,” said the boy, still studying the river. “So I don’t know this city well yet.”
Swiftly, Shir scanned his profile, taking in the large-but-not-monster-sized nose, the narrow sloping face, and the tufts of dark hair sticking out from under his cap. Then the way his jacket sleeves rode up his wrists. Whoever this kid was, he didn’t run with millionaires. “What school do you go to?” she asked casually.
“Stanford Collegiate,” replied the boy. Turning to look at her, he ran his eyes carefully over her face. “You?” he asked.
“Collier High,” said Shir, lifting her beer and gulping a few swallows to steady her nerves. She had to give the kid credit, she thought wryly. He had a good shock-absorption system. It had only been five minutes and there was no longer any double take in his gaze, not even any lingering disbelief.
“Collier’s a slag heap,” said the boy. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“So’s Stanford,” Shir shot back. Stanford and Collier maintained an ancient football rivalry, so ancient it went back to the Dark Ages. Any self-respecting Collier student who heard the phrase “Stanford Sabers” made an automatic gagging sound, followed by a gesture that was nowhere near respectful. It was a matter of principle.
“Yeah,” the boy agreed again, “but Collier’s worse. Too many snotty little rich kids. Add money to a crowd and it gets ten times worse. Stanford’s just your average slag heap.”
“Maybe,” said Shir, trying to ignore a sudden memory of Wade Sullivan’s grinning face. “I don’t particularly hang around with rich kids.”
“Me neither,” said the boy. “I don’t particularly hang around with anyone.”
“Why not?” asked Shir, glancing at him curiously.
The boy shrugged. “Too much going on inside my head, maybe. Too much no one else wants to hear about. What’s the point of having a conversation with someone if it’s about nothing? Most people just want to go on and on about nothing. TV,” he enunciated in absolute disgust.
Raising her can, Shir downed the dregs. So her first impression of this kid, she thought with satisfaction, had been wrong. In spite of his dime-store appearance, the guy thought he was a hotshot. “What’s going on inside your head,” she asked suspiciously, “that makes it special?”
The boy threw her a wary glance. “It’s interesting to me,” he shrugged. “It’d probably be nothing to you. Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I just came by for a couple of minutes on my way home from school.”