by Carole Lazar
I sort of know what he means. I’m not a fun person either. Everyone says I’m too serious. Sometimes the kids at school give me a hard time about the way I talk. They say I sound like a teacher or something.
“I think part of it is being an only child. Both your mom and I had older parents too. That’s why I thought we were well-suited to each other.”
“Just because you both had old parents?”
“No, because we were both weird only children with no social skills.”
I don’t like him talking like this. It makes me very uncomfortable, probably because I bet some people would say that I’m a weird only child with no social skills too.
It’s time to change the subject.
“You know,” I say, “You could just be feeling down because you need to eat. Look how late it is. Grandma says low blood sugar can really affect your mood.”
I get the loaf of bread out, put six slices on the cutting board, and start buttering them. “Will ham and cheese be okay?”
“Sounds good,” he says.
*
When Dad drops me off at the trailer on Sunday evening, the dog is just crazy-excited to see me. She is jumping all over me and doing those doggy bows that mean she wants to play. She puts her butt up in the air and her chest on the floor, and unless you make a fuss over her right away, she barks.
Mom is lying on the couch, reading a book. She laughs at the dog. “Take her out for awhile, Lucy. She’ll like that and it will calm her down.”
That’s true. I toss my backpack on the chair and pick up her leash from the corner of the counter. I don’t forget the plastic bags.
When we get back, the dog is much calmer. Mom is still lying there, reading. It’s a fat library book, and she’s almost finished it.
“So how was the nightclubbing?” I ask.
“Noisy.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Well, I guess it was educational.”
What kind of an answer is that? What did she learn? Do I really want to know? “Did you dance?”
“A bit. Mostly we just sat around and talked, which was pretty weird.”
“Why’s it weird to sit around and talk?” That sounds to me like a civilized way to spend an evening. Why go out with your friends if you aren’t even going to talk to them?
“It was weird because we couldn’t hear each other. I spent all evening yelling over the music. My throat was so sore I could barely talk when I got home.”
“Who did you dance with?”
“You don’t really have to dance with a particular person. People just dance in a group sometimes.”
“So you’d dance with Ian and Gina, the three of you being a group?”
“We met Jake there too.”
Who’s Jake? I don’t remember her talking about anyone named Jake. She must notice that I’m puzzled.
“Jake. You remember Jake. The guy who lives down the way here. He helped us the day we moved in.”
How could I forget? He’s the one I thought might be hot if he cleaned himself up a bit. “Did he get cleaned up to go to the nightclub?”
Mom looks at me like I’ve lost it. “Of course he was cleaned up. Did you think he’d crawl out from under the hood of his car and head out to a nightclub just as he was?”
I don’t answer. So he probably looked hot.
“So what did you do yesterday?” I ask.
“Mostly just read this book,” she says. “There isn’t much housework to do around here, is there? It’s not like having a big house.”
“How many drinks did you have at the club?”
“A couple.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, maybe there’s a reason you’ve spent the whole weekend lying on the couch.”
She’s sitting up now, glaring at me.
“You sure you don’t have a hangover?”
“Lucy, go to your room. Right now, before I do or say something we’ll both regret.”
She says this without even raising her voice, which is not like her. Still, she sounds like she means it. I go to my room, but now I’m really worried. When I accused her of having a hangover, I didn’t really think she had one. I just wondered about it because, even if I am a weird only child with no social skills, I know that most people do not go to nightclubs and drink coffee. The way she reacted, though, makes me sure I hit a sore spot. Siobhan and I were reading some brochures Mariah brought us from her Alateen group last week. Most alcoholics feel guilty about their drinking and are really in to denial.
twelve
On Monday, I’m on the phone with Grandma when Mom gets home. I say good-bye and hang up just as she comes in the door. Mom heads down the hall to her room to change. She’s still in her room when I hear a funny sound, like someone is bumping up against the side of our trailer. The dog starts to bark. I look outside but don’t see anyone right away. The dog is still barking; she wants out. I open the door and follow her outside. She heads for the lean-to at the side of the trailer, and just then, our landlord, that Randy, comes around the corner.
“Why are you hanging around our shed?” I ask.
He looks surprised to see me, but still he acts friendly. “You’re Kate’s daughter, right?”
“Right,” I say. “What are you doing out here?”
“You’re Lucy, right?”
“Right. What were you doing behind our shed?”
He laughs. “It’s my shed. I have an agreement with your mom. She gets the trailer, but I get to keep my stuff in the shed.”
I remember the first time Mom showed me the trailer. I wondered then if there would be a door to the lean-to from the inside of our house. There isn’t. I haven’t thought anything more about it. “How do you get in there?” I ask.
“Door’s on the other end there,” he says, pointing. “But don’t even try. That’s one big lock I have on it. I don’t want anyone ripping me off. It’s a problem when the whole world knows you’re in camp for weeks at a time.”
“It seems kind of early for camping,” I say.
He looks puzzled, but then he smiles at me. “I’m not camping, I’m logging with an outfit up in the Queen Charlottes. We fly in there and stay in camp for ten days, then I’m home for five.”
“So where do you live when you’re not in camp?”
“With Jake,” he says, and he points down the road to Jake’s trailer.
The dog has quit barking and is now standing beside Randy. Randy bends over and gives her a pat. Then he walks away. I watch him go off and I go back inside.
As soon as Mom comes out of her bedroom to start making dinner, I ask, “Did you hear the dog barking while you were getting changed?”
“I’d have to be deaf not to. What set her off?”
“It was that Randy. He was in the shed. He says he’s allowed to go in there whenever he wants.”
“Yeah, he’s storing some of his things there. Did he say if Jake was home?”
“No, he didn’t say anything about Jake. Have you seen what he has in there?”
“Where?”
“In the shed.”
“No, who cares what he has in the shed? Did he say when he got back?”
Sometimes I wonder if my mom suffers from attention deficit disorder. She can never seem to keep her mind on the subject. “It could be something illegal,” I say. “Anyway, it makes me nervous, him just sneaking around here like that. What if I’d been alone?”
“I’ll ask him not to come without calling first.” She slides the casserole she made this morning into the oven.
“I’ll go over right now. I want to talk to Jake anyway,” she says.
She’s out the door before I can ask her what Jake has to do with it. I’m tempted to follow her, but instead, I watch from the front window. I can see Jake’s place from there. She knocks on the door, but she doesn’t go in. I can’t see who answers. She talks a minute and then co
mes back.
“Why did you want to talk to Jake?” I ask.
“Nothing important. He wasn’t home anyway. He’s on a run to California.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Delivering stuff, I guess. He drives a truck for a living. I told Randy he scared you and he shouldn’t come round without calling me first.”
This is just so not the point! “Don’t you wonder at all what he’s got in that shed?”
“No, I don’t wonder at all. It’s none of my business. Or yours. I have more important things to worry about. Now set the table.”
You really can’t talk to her when she gets in one of these moods, so I give it up for the time being.
After dinner, I sit down at the table to do my English homework and Mom settles down with her book. I’m doing this exercise where we pick out the subject, the verb, and the object in each sentence. It’s easy. I’m good at English. I’m almost finished all the questions when I hit this weird one. The sentence reads, “Most of all, Susan hated jogging.”
I write “Subject–Susan, Verb–hated, Object–jogging.”
Then I look at it again. The subject and the object are always nouns. Jogging is a verb. Who did the action? Susan. What did she do? Hated. What did she hate? Jogging. Jogging has got to be the object, but it’s not a noun.
“Mom, will you look at this?” I show her the sentence and explain why I’m confused.
“This is a bit much for grade eight,” she says. “I wonder where your teacher got this worksheet.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Well the word jogging is a gerund. I don’t think I took gerunds till I was in grade eleven or twelve.”
She explains that I’m not going crazy and that “jogging” is the object but it is also a verb. She says gerunds are verbs that end in ing and are used like nouns. She gives me a bunch of examples. Anyone hearing us talk about my homework would think it was a really dull conversation. They’d never guess how much excitement it was going to cause in my life.
It’s two days later, in English class, that this stupid gerund gets me into a mess of trouble. Or maybe the real problem is that I never know when to keep my mouth shut. Ms. Phillips has marked our homework assignments and is handing them back. I have every answer right except one. I had said that jogging was the object of the sentence. There’s a red X by that answer.
I put my hand up and ask, “Why did you mark this one wrong?”
“It’s a verb,” she answers.
“No, it’s not,” I reply. “It’s a gerund.”
“What do you know about gerunds?”
I tell her. She looks at the sentence again and agrees that I’m right. She explains it to the class. She tells everyone how brilliant I am, how this is grade twelve material, and how she’d overlooked it herself. She says I must be really advanced.
From behind my left ear, I hear these sucking noises.
“Brandy,” says Ms. Phillips. “It’s rude to whisper to Lucy when I’m speaking.”
“Sorry.”
We go on with our work.
Brandy jabs me in the back with her ballpoint pen.
“Oops,” she says. “Sorry.”
I’m glad when class is over so I can get away from her, but I don’t get much of a break.
I’m sitting with Harbie at lunch when Brandy and her two friends come up.
“This is the motormouth.” She sneers down at me. “Teacher’s little pet.” She turns to her friends, “You wouldn’t believe this kid. She’s such a dweeb.” She puts on this silly high-pitched voice, “Oh, Ms. Phillips, this is so exciting. Is it a noun or is it a verb … blah, blah, blah!”
She’s standing so close to me that I have to lean back in my seat or her boobs would be touching my face. The more she talks, the madder she sounds. It’s like she’s working herself into a rage. She gives my shoulder a shove.
“Hey guys, what’s happening?”
I look past Brandy. A boy’s come up and is standing by Brandy’s two friends. He’s smiling. He’s obviously not in touch with the situation.
“No problem, is there?” he asks.
Brandy looks at him and shrugs. “No, I guess not. I’m just venting.”
He nods. “Well, sometimes you need to do that. Anyway, see you around.”
Then he sits down next to me with his tray of food. Brandy and her friends walk away and go to another table.
“Thanks,” says Harbie, who’s been sitting there speechless all through the rant.
I look at her and then look back at the boy. I’m confused. He looks familiar. Harbie seems to know him, but I’m sure he isn’t one of the people she’s introduced me to.
“This is my brother,” she says. “Rob, this is Lucy. She’s new.”
He looks straight at me for the first time. “Have we met before? You look familiar.”
I look back at him. I feel my cheeks getting warm. I look down at my half-eaten container of yogurt. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m the dog poop girl.”
He’s just taken a drink from a can of pop, but when he hears my reply, he sprays ginger ale out of his nose and starts laughing.
Harbie looks confused. Rob still can’t talk, so I tell her. “I was walking a dog and she pooped in your yard. Your brother made me clean it up.”
By now, Rob can talk again. “That was our grandparents’ place.”
That makes sense. They wouldn’t be going to school here if they lived in Surrey. He asks if I moved. I tell him I did, but that when I was up by his grandma’s place, I was just visiting. He’s actually quite nice, also rather good-looking.
I wish I had an older brother. He could walk me home from school and provide protection. What will happen if I’m alone and I meet up with Brandy someplace? It’s bound to happen sooner or later. How am I supposed to avoid someone who lives almost next door to me and goes to the same school as I do?
For starters, I decide I have to find a different way to get home. That afternoon, instead of walking toward our trailer park, I go down the street in the opposite direction. Then I cut over a few blocks and walk back, so in the end I’ve gone in sort of a circle. It takes me almost an hour.
I’m dragging myself up the steps to our door, thinking how good it will feel to get a snack and just veg out for a bit, when I hear the dog start to bark. How could I forget the dog? I’m going to have to take her out. I’ve walked over a mile out of my way to avoid Brandy, and now I’ll probably bump into her anyway. I look at the dog. Why couldn’t she be a German shepherd or a pit bull?
We do the world’s shortest walk. We don’t meet Brandy.
thirteen
As if I don’t have enough stress in my life, we’re barely finished the dinner dishes when Gina arrives. Has she never heard of the phone? Does she always just have to show up uninvited? She probably wants Mom to go out drinking again this weekend. The dog starts to bark at her. Good for the dog!
“I just made tea.” Mom takes two mugs from the cupboard and goes over and sits down with Gina at the table.
I’m standing there with a dish towel in my hands. There’s nothing left to dry.
“You can finish up there, Lucy. There’s just the pots left.”
Just the pots? We had barbecued ribs! The sauce has baked onto the rack and the pan that goes under it. It will take me all night. I can’t believe this. We are probably the only people in Langley without a dishwasher.
At first I’m banging pots and pans around and not paying any attention to what Mom and Gina are talking about. But then I hear Jake’s name.
“So where are you two going?” Gina asks.
“We’re not going anywhere. I told you, I never said I’d go out with him.”
“Well, that’s not what he told Ian.”
“When did Ian talk to him?”
“That night, while you and I were in the washroom.”
“I don’t know how he got that idea. I went over there yesterday, thinking I could straighten it out,
but he’s on a run to California. Randy says he won’t be back till a week Friday.”
“That’s the night he’s expecting you to go out with him. You can’t just meet him on the doorstep and tell him it was all a mistake.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Butt out, Lucy,” Gina says. Then she turns her attention back to Mom. I look at Mom too. She’s glaring at Gina like she’s about to give her a piece of her mind. Then she glances over at me. I just give a shrug. Gina’s always rude. I’m not about to take it personally. Mom goes back to picking at the pattern on her mug like she expects bits of the glaze to flake off.
Gina has skin as thick as a rhinoceros; she hasn’t noticed a thing. “But you like him, don’t you?”
“He seems nice enough.”
“Come on. I think it’s a bit more than that,” Gina says. “You couldn’t take your eyes off him all night.”
“Well, he kept talking.”
“So? What’s that got to do with it?”
“I couldn’t hear him over the noise. I’d catch bits, but a lot of the time, I was trying to fill in the blank parts by lipreading.”
“But you just kept smiling and nodding. He thinks you’re crazy about him.”
Mom blushes. So she should.
“Has anyone bothered to tell Jake that you’re married?” I ask.
They both look at me.
“He knows she’s separated,” Gina replies.
“She’s still married, even if she and Dad aren’t living together. She’ll always be married to him in God’s eyes.”
Gina scowls at me. “Look, Pope Lucy, your mom’s only twenty-eight years old. You can’t expect her to live the life of a nun.”
“Well, I don’t expect her to behave like a slut either.”
“What a mouth you’ve got on you. If you were mine, I’d smack you one. Maybe you should worry about your own sins for a change.”
Mom’s sitting motionless, holding her head in both hands. Then she gets up like she hasn’t heard anything and picks up the dog’s leash. “Come on, Lucy. Let’s go for a walk.”
The dog never needs to be asked twice. She scrambles up from her place on the couch, and she and Mom walk out and leave Gina and me alone in the trailer, looking at each other. We might have started arguing again, but just then the phone rings. I answer it. It’s my dad. I’d have thought things couldn’t get any worse, but they do. When I tell him Mom is out walking the dog, he asks me to give her a message.