Wake

by Abria Mattina

  “Hanging out with a damned cancer patient, now. She’s trying to give me an ulcer, I swear.”

  “So tell her not to invite him around.”

  “They’re assigned to do a school project together.”

  “Call the teacher?”

  I shrug. Doug’s suggestion has merit.

  “Frank…do you think that maybe Willa’s learned her lesson? You really think she’d hurt this kid?”

  “I’m more worried about her than that other kid. She wouldn’t hurt him; I’m sure of that. But if she gets attached and something happens to him, she won’t be able to deal with it. Again.”

  “She keeping clean?”

  “She is. And she thinks good behavior entitles her to pull a stunt like this.”

  Doug runs a hand through my hair, trying to comfort me.

  “Relax, he says. You’re supposed to be on vacation.” Doug thinks I have cabin fever from sitting around babysitting teenagers all day, and that it’s only fuelling my paranoia about the Harper kid.

  “She’ll be fine,” Doug says. “Willie knows what she can handle and what she can’t.”

  Jem: March 14

  Friday

  I love having a week off school to sleep in. I wake up at ten and head downstairs for breakfast, but when I get to the kitchen I can hear Dad on the phone. He’s talking about platelets, and so I turn around and head for the front door. Maybe Willa will take pity on me and provide breakfast.

  I didn’t tell her where I was for the first three days of March Break, and she didn’t ask. Dad took me to Ottawa to see some of his specialist colleagues at CHEO. He wants a second opinion on my condition every so often, and so we spent the days in hospital rooms and the nights at my grandparents’ house in Nepean. It’s dehumanizing, waiting in cold exam rooms to be prodded and exposed. Then I showed up at Willa’s house to do homework yesterday and the first thing she said to me was, “Please tell me you saw Tosh.O this week.” Normal, and perfectly so.

  I knock on the Kirks’ front door and Willa answers in her pajamas.

  “You a bible salesman?” she deadpans.

  “Feed me?”

  Willa rolls her eyes and opens the screen door. “Now I’ll never get rid of you.”

  Turns out Willa was already cooking. The blender is set up and four kinds of peeled fruit cover the cutting board. I steal a piece of kiwi to suck on while she works.

  “What are you making?”

  “Popsicles.”

  I grin from ear to ear. “Yeah, you’re never getting rid of me.”

  Would she try?

  Duh.

  “How’s your week so far?” Willa asks.

  “Shitty.” I hope she’ll let me hang out here for a while, because I know a conversation about platelets is waiting for me at home.

  “Well that’s a kick in the teeth.” She doesn’t sound the least bit sympathetic. I kind of like it. I reach for another piece of fruit and she slaps my hand away.

  “Bitch, I’m hungry.”

  “Be patient.”

  I make a point of glaring at her while she purées the fruit for popsicles. It seems to work, because she gives me some puree mixed with extra orange juice for breakfast.

  “Hey,” I ask as she pours the rest into molds, “how do you keep from getting fruit juice on your gloves?” Even though she’s in pajamas, Willa has her trademark fingerless gloves on, and they’re spotless.

  “I’m not a slob.”

  “Do you sleep with those things on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  Willa snorts. “No. Ever heard the story about the girl with the green ribbon?” I haven’t, so Willa enlightens me. It’s one of those old ghost stories, about a girl who always wore a green ribbon around her neck. She grew up and married her childhood sweetheart, and whenever he asked about it she refused to remove the ribbon. Until she got sick, that is, and then she asked him to untie it. Her head fell off.

  “So your gloves keep your hands from falling apart?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Your hat keeps the sky from falling.”

  “It does not.”

  Willa smirks at me. I don’t like it. “Whatever, Harper.”

  Willa: March 17 to 23

  Sunday

  I’m just putting away the breakfast dishes when I hear the front door open and Luke strolls in. The benefit of being like family: he makes himself right at home.

  “You look good.”

  I look down at myself. He’s joking. I’m wearing clothes that I can get dirty in: torn jeans and the plaid button-down that Mom used to wear during her stint as a house painter.

  “You ready to go?”

  “Yes.” I lock up the house and we get into Mr. Thorpe’s truck to drive back to Port Elmsley. Luke wouldn’t let me meet him there. He insisted on surprising me and told me to wear old clothes.

  “So where are we going?”

  “Disneyland.”

  I swat his shoulder and he laughs at me.

  “Okay, fine, we’re not going to the happiest place on earth—but it’s still a pretty sweet spot.”

  “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

  “Nope.” He flashes a cheesy grin at me.

  Luke takes the road toward the Perth Golf Course, but then makes a right onto an unpaved road that looks more like a driveway. The spruce trees encroach on it from all sides, brushing against the doors.

  “I usually come here by bike,” Luke says. When the path gets too narrow to drive we leave the truck and start walking. I can hear moving water not far off.

  “No one knows about this place, okay? It’s our secret.”

  “Sure.” By ‘no one’ I’m pretty sure he means all his friends already know. He’s probably found a great spot for bush parties.

  Luke takes my hand and pulls me into the trees. We both have to walk bent-double to pass under the lowest branches. Little flecks of light are all that make it through the foliage, and the space we pass through is dark and damp and starting to smell like spring. Luke smells like that sometimes, under the scent of teenage boy.

  “How often do you come here?”

  “Whenever.” He’s dodging, but it’s not worth it to push. When we step out of the trees, we’re on a sloping ridge of rock that breaks away into a pebble beach around a slow-moving stream. “Over here.” Luke pulls me farther along the shore, across a fallen log and over the lip of the opposite bank. It’s rockier on the other side of the river, where large chunks of granite rise out of the Canadian Shield.

  “What do you think?”

  We’re standing in a small cave, sheltered by smooth rocks as tall as Luke. The gap between two pieces of granite is almost ten feet wide, with a clear view of the pines above. It’s so quiet in here—no forest sounds and I can hardly hear the water passing nearby.

  “It’s beautiful, Luke.” It takes a great deal of trust to share a spot like this with someone and count on it remaining private.

  I notice a marking low on the rock wall. It’s marker ink, written on the rock in the form of a date. “I camped here, once,” Luke says. “Marked the event.”

  There’s something quietly thrilling about the fact that only Luke and I know about this place. We take some time to explore the surrounding rocks, caves, and crevices. Luke puts his hands on my waist and lifts me up to sit on one of the high rocks.

  “You can see all the way to the stream.” He points it out over the top of our sheltered little spot.

  “How often do you really come here?”

  Luke shrugs. I’m making him uncomfortable.

  “I’d come here every day in warm weather.”

  He chuckles. “You’d get eaten alive in the summer.”

  Luke hops up next to me on the rock. It’s so peaceful here, and I’m happy having this time with him. But one thought keeps intruding, unbidden: I’d like to bring Jem here. He could use a little peace and
beauty in his life—but not here. This is an unadulterated spot, just for Luke and I.

  Jem wouldn’t appreciate it properly, anyway.

  Monday

  Madame Bizot has a new game for the class to play. It’s supposed to help us learn and remember the conjugation of French verbs. I think it will only succeed in making me hate this class even more. She produces a rubber ball, borrowed from the gym, and explains that the object is to toss the ball around until all forms of a verb have been conjugated, and then the next person gets to change the verb. She even makes us arrange our chairs into a circle.

  I’m the oldest person in this class. I postponed my grade nine French credit in favor of Visual Arts, and when took it in grade eleven, at my new school, I blew off most of the classes and failed. Madame Bizot knows this and is prone to eyeing me like I’m a total screw-up.

  I zone out of the game, completely bored, only to get hit in the face by the stupid ball.

  “Son of a bitch.” A few people ask if I’m okay. “What the hell, man?” I ask the kid who threw it at me, even though I know it’s not his fault. I feel my nose dripping and sure enough, it’s blood. I’m actually inclined to consider the nosebleed as a worthwhile excuse to get out of class.

  I go to the nurse’s office to clean up and get an icepack. She takes one look at me and asks me if I’ve hit just my nose, or my head in general.

  “I took a rubber ball to the face. I’m pretty sure it’s just my nose.”

  The nurse gives me a wet towel for my neck, a box of Kleenex, an icepack, and sits me down in a chair by the sink. When she leaves to note this accident in the main office’s records, the white screen that divides the cot from the rest of the room moves.

  “What the hell did you do?” Jem asks dryly. I can see the top half of his head in the narrow gap between the wall and the curtain. If his lids were any heavier, they’d be made of concrete.

  “Occupational hazard of learning French.” Jem looks at me like I’m a complete idiot. “Feeling sick?”

  “More tired than sick,” he says. “Are you gonna be okay?”

  “It’s just a nosebleed.”

  “Do you need any help? She’ll be gone awhile.” He nods in the direction of the office door, where the nurse left. She and the secretary are talking, and it sounds like they’re gossiping.

  “I’m okay.”

  Jem still gets up and comes around to my side of the divider. He moves slowly, like a man exhausted, and he’s in socked feet. He takes the plastic chair next to mine and adjusts the cool cloth on the back of my neck.

  “Did you even go to English today?”

  “No. I barely made it through Soc.”

  I stand over the sink and try removing the wad of tissues from under my nose. It’s still bleeding pretty badly. I replace the Kleenex and rinse the sink where I bled on it.

  Jem is smirking at me. “Does your nose bleed easily?”

  “No. This was a random attack by a rabid freshman.”

  He chuckles tiredly at that. “I used to get nosebleeds so bad I’d have to go to the ER.”

  “Before or after you got sick?”

  “After, dummy.”

  I put on a tone of fake hopefulness. “So if I were to punch you right now, would you bleed to death?”

  “Nah, I’d survive just to spite you.” He leans his shoulder against the sink, slouching like he has a bad hangover.

  “As soon as I can stand upright I’ll help you back to the cot.” I test my nose again. Still bleeding. I’m stuck bent over the sink for a few more minutes.

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “You look exhausted. You should be in bed.”

  “But I want to be here,” he says simply. “I think you need it.” He takes a Kleenex and catches a drip of blood as it runs past my handful of tissue, over my upper lip.

  “I guess you do owe me.”

  He smiles sadly. “That I do, Kirk.”

  Tuesday

  I turn in our progress report for the soil pollution project. Jem is absent today, and it doesn’t surprise me. It’s going to be a long, boring period without my smartass project partner, but at least I can get some work done.

  Mrs. Hudson announces that we’re going to be moving on to the Family Life unit. She hands out the syllabus for the next three weeks. It includes fertility and reproduction, infant care, parenting and attachment theories, and an ‘egg project.’ I need someone to remind me why I took this crappy elective.

  Jem calls me after school to ‘find out what he missed.’ I didn’t think he was that dedicated a student. But it would be mean to call bullshit on him, so I tell him about the new study theme.

  “Do you think we’ll have to watch that birthing video they show to the Health classes?”

  “God, I hope not. Once was enough.”

  Like the truly insensitive jerk he is, Jem takes this opportunity to remind me that I have the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to reproduction. I encourage him not to breed, lest idiocy be genetic.

  I end the call when Frank gets home and start to prepare dinner. He casually informs me that our parents called to check in today. Apparently my progress report was good.

  “They’re starting to relax about you being here, I think.”

  “They made it sound worse than it was at home, didn’t they?”

  Frank doesn’t answer, but I feel a soft touch on the back of my head. He pets my hair once and murmurs, “I’m glad you’re all right,” on his way out. End of discussion.

  Wednesday

  I buy a relatively small turkey for Easter, since we won’t have to feed many people. Apart from cooking, Easter Sunday is going to be a pretty quiet day. Frank and I are nominally Presbyterian because our dad was raised that way, but we haven’t practiced for as far back as I can remember. In the Kirk house, Easter is four days off work to watch TV and eat turkey. It’s fairly low-key, except for Sunday dinner, when Oma (lapsed Catholic) will probably get plastered, take her teeth out, and prank-call the pizza place. Don’t even get me started on Christmases with her. On Canada Day she smokes weed on the front porch.

  “Hey Willa,” Cody Russell greets me at the checkout counter. He’s a friend of Chris’s and we run in similar circles, but I don’t know him very well. He asks me if I’m cooking for a big crowd as he rings up the turkey. It’s only a seventeen-pounder.

  “Not so big, no.”

  “Family in town?”

  “Not really.” Mom and Dad are staying in Newfoundland for the holiday, so it will just be Oma, Frank and I. Cody says, “You’re such a healthy girl,” as he checks and bags all the fruit and vegetables. He says it sweetly, like a responsible diet is adorable.

  “Are you hanging out with Paige and the usual crowd this weekend?”

  “Maybe. I don’t have any definite plans.”

  “It would be cool if you did.” The receipt printer chugs out the slip of paper very slowly, like it’s trying to trap me in this conversation. “You’re into group things, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah?” What is that supposed to mean?

  “You should have come to the dance. We all went as a group, anyway.”

  “Oh.” I drop my bags back in the cart as quickly as I can without being rude. I shouldn’t have given him the opportunity to start this conversation, because it’s too tempting to be scathing in return.

  “Are you going to the grad dance?”

  “It’s not really my thing.” Not to mention that I won’t be graduating this year.

  “It can be fun; depends who you’re with.” He smiles and winks at me. The hell? “Later, Willa.”

  I can’t help but look back over my shoulder as I leave. Cody waves, and I start to wonder if he’s a few bricks shy of a full load. Or was that flirting? How do normal people come on to each other?

  Thursday

  Jem is in an especially bad mood today. He picks a fight with Paige at lunch over Harry Potter, for Christ’s sake. They can’t agree on who it wa
s that played Dumbledore in the first two films. What kind of dork is he that he knows that?

  Paige is getting pissed, which means she’ll soon get catty. I know Jem’s moods well enough to know that he won’t take that in stride.

  “Come on.” I nudge Jem’s shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk. You two can settle this later.”

  He seethes quietly all the way out of the cafeteria. I ask him who pissed on his parade and he tells me to shut up.

  “Change your tampon or something, Christ…”

  “I told you to shut up.”

  “Why are you so tense?”

  “I am n—” He cuts himself off with a lurch and brings a hand up to his mouth. Jem shuts his eyes and swallows with great difficulty. Damn, he’s so worked up he’s making himself sick.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jem cautiously lowers his hand. “I’m fine.”

  “Did you eat too much?”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  “Easy, now.” I don’t want him to work himself up again if he’s going to lose his lunch over it.

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “Fine, puke your guts out.”

  “To hell with you.” He shoves my shoulder. Not very hard, just enough to make me take a step back. “You think—” He cuts himself off again. One hand goes to his mouth and the other around his middle, and he bolts. Luckily we’re not more than ten feet from the boys’ washroom.

  “Shit.”

  I dig through my pockets for mints. I have a couple for him. I should stock up before Social Studies. I think Jem is going to be in there for a while, so I go back to the cafeteria and buy a bottle of water for him.

  When Jem does come out, he does so like he’s trying not to be seen. Then he notices me waiting nearby and stops. “Were you out here the whole time?”

  I pass him the bottle of water and neglect to answer. I drop a couple of mints into his palm and suggest he cut class to go to the nurse’s office.