Beckoners (2 page)

The way Zoe looked at it, all the lamevilles she'd ever lived in were material for her to use later, not that she intended to make movies about dumpy towns in the middle of nowhere, but enduring them,
that
would make her a better filmmaker.
Every creative genius had a shitty childhood they grew up to exploit, right?

This would be, let's see...Kamloops, Trail, Vernon, Grand Forks, Lethbridge—if you count that three month “This is it, Zoe, he's so good to us and I'm totally in love” disaster— Kelowna, Williams Lake, Prince George and now Abbotsford. Nine moves in fifteen years, and not one of them to anywhere half decent. Was that fair?

Oh, but wait, we all know what Alice would say to that.

“Whoever said life was fair, Zoe? Did I ever say life was fair? Now I know I've said a lot of things about life, but I never said it was fair, did I?” No, she never did, but that didn't mean she was right. It just meant she knew how to rework tired old parental clichés.

For Zoe and Alice,
moving day normally looked like this: Alice screaming at Zoe from inside the U-haul, did you pack this or that and do you know where the whatsit is and could you bloody well hurry it up ‘cuz we don't have all day, you know? And Zoe, running up and down the walk with boxes and chairs and lamps and suitcases and black garbage bags full of stuff they ran out of time to pack properly. They always left a whole pile at the end of the driveway with a Free sign, either because they ran out of time, or they ran out of room, or it was junk they didn't want anymore anyway.

This move was different. The Fraser Valley Regional Homeless Shelter and Housing Resource Society, thankfully called Fraser House by most, was paying for the move. Alice and Zoe just lounged in their bathing suits and sunglasses on towels on the front lawn, lathered in suntan lotion. Zoe guzzled back lemonade in the dry heat, while Alice sipped hers, generously spiked with mint schnapps. All they had to do was pick up lunch for the road and make sure Cassy didn't end up packed in a crate. She was determined to help. She'd hooked her beloved purple plastic dinosaur cup on one thumb and was pushing boxes down the hall three times as big as her, grunting and muttering, “Cassy do it, Cassy do it,” until one of the movers gave her the job of sitting on a stool beside the door holding a “very important” empty tape gun.

Just as the three of them were about to leave, Harris drove up, his beat-up truck clunking so loud they heard him long before they saw him.

Alice pulled her sunglasses down briefly. “Here we go,” she muttered under her breath. “Prepare for a scene.”

Harris had come over
late the night before, after Zoe had finally finished packing and had gone to bed. She'd been asleep, but his truck woke her up. He and Alice had talked in the kitchen with the door closed, their voices starting out all hushed and civilized and then getting louder and louder until they were screaming at each other like afternoon talk show trash.

He was all, “What the hell makes you think you can just up and take off with my little girl?”

And Alice was all, “You knew damn well when we got into this that I wasn't making you no promises! You didn't even want her in the first place, and now it's breaking your heart to see her go? You think I'm some kind of idiot? You think I'm that stupid?”

There was a dangerous pause, and then something, it sounded like a beer bottle, smashed onto the tiles. Harris hollered at Alice that he'd see her in court; she hollered back at him that if he was that
organized she'd be damned surprised, and then he slammed out the back door so hard it bounced back on its springs three times.

The next morning, he'd switched to a different tactic— begging, complete with a dozen yellow roses, a little wilted from the heat.

“Alice?” he hollered from his truck. “Alice!” The movers squinted into the sun at him. Harris scowled at them. “What the hell you looking at?”

Alice shook her head. “You, you stupid idiot!”

Harris's mouth gawped open, like he was going to tear into Alice for that. Zoe could almost see him reeling in the nasties, as if they were on fishing line, until all he said was, “Don't I even get a chance to change your mind?”

“No, you do not, Harris Kellerman!”

Harris knocked his forehead against the steering wheel a couple of times before getting out and marching over. He must've done the night shift after their fight; he reeked of the cannery, fish and sweat. He thrust the roses at her. “I'm just asking you to reconsider, Alice. Please?”

“No.” Alice set the roses on the grass beside her.

“Come on, baby. Please? Think about it? Humor me? At least keep it in mind?”

“Keep what in mind?” Zoe asked.

“It doesn't matter, Zoe.” Alice sighed. “Harris, we've been through this a hundred times, and this is just the way it is. See that?” She pointed to the moving truck. “That's going to drive all our things to Abbotsford. And see that?” She pointed to the orange station wagon, with its bashed-in side and mismatched hood. “That's going to take my little family to Abbotsford. My little family: Zoe, Cassy and me.”

“That's not fair, Alice.” Harris put a hand above his eyes, shielding the sun.

Zoe looked at Alice, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to give him the whoever-said-life-was-fair line. Alice just stared at him, waiting for him to get on with it.

“There's nothing I can say? Nothing I can do?”

Alice shook her head.

“Alice.” He pointed a nicotine-stained finger at her. “You're one hell of a hard woman, you know that?”

“It's a free country.” Alice shrugged. “Think whatever you want.”

“Jesus.” Harris shook his head. “At least tell me you'll think about it?”

“I am not going to lie to you just because that's what you want to hear.” Alice's tone was fast shifting from just barely tolerant to right pissed off.

“Okay, okay.” He stepped back, hands up. “I give up, then. Obviously that's what you want.”

He waited for Alice to argue with that, but she just lit a cigarette and said nothing. Cassy toddled down the steps with her tape dispenser and plunked herself on Alice's lap. Harris stared at the two of them and sighed. He leaned down and kissed Cassy on the top of her head and Alice on her cheek. He would've kissed her on the lips, but she turned her head at the last second. He looked the three of them up and down, and then placed his hand on Cassy's head, feeling her soft curls and the sweaty heat of her, until Cassy grabbed onto his thick fingers and pushed him away.

“See ya, kid.” He opened his arms to Zoe.

Zoe hugged him, not because she was sad to see the last of him, but because she felt sorry for him, the way Alice was brushing him off, and Cassy too, like none of them ever really wanted him in the first place. For a second, Zoe felt bad about all the things she wrote about him in her diary, like the way he stank of fish all the time, and how he just barged in without knocking, and the way he yelled at Cassy if she came anywhere near his beer or cigarettes or Prince George Pirates hat. She watched him drive off real slow, stepping on the brakes more than necessary, and then she and Alice packed up the car and Cassy and left, taking the long way to the highway so they wouldn't pass his house on the way.

Abbotsford smelled like cow
shit, thanks to the surrounding farms. The small city was blanketed in a disgusting yellow smog that crept down the valley from Vancouver like a slow mob of foul ghosts, but worst of all was that the small city was full of the same boring crap as Prince George: fast food chains, rundown motels, gas stations, car dealerships, boarded-up shops and a half empty strip mall every ten blocks or so. The only difference Zoe noted at first, and it was rather alarming, was that there were so many churches it looked like religion was the industry, like Abbotsford's claim to international trade fame was producing
factory-model Christians for waning congregations all over the world: perfect, tidy, wide-grinning Jesus freaks of all shapes and colors.

Rejoice In His Name, the mother lode of all churches—the parking lot alone took up two square blocks—was just down the road from their new place. It had a hundred-foot-high white neon cross cabled up on the roof that Zoe could see from the crusty, rather un-Christian motel they spent their first night at, and it was all the way out by the highway.

As for the first person she met, that did not go well. While Alice went to get the key at Paradise Heights, a scabby condo complex that was not paradise and was not high up to anything, Zoe and Cassy found a little playground, and there she was: perched at the top of the jungle gym, stocky, about Zoe's age, short auburn hair stuck up all over on purpose, olive green cargo shorts, black tank top, a cigarette pinched between her first and second fingers like a joint, bare feet dangling over the edge, a pair of skater shoes and a puddle of butts on the ground under her.

Cassy tilted her head back to look up at her. The girl frowned down, took a drag off her cigarette and flicked it onto the sand at Cassy's feet, barely missing her head. Cassy squatted and peered at it. She carefully set down her dinosaur cup and reached out to pick up the smoldering butt.

“Cassy, no!” Zoe yanked her away. She glared up at the girl. “What the hell did you do that for?”

She shrugged. “I didn't see her.”

“You looked right at her!”

The girl shrugged again, and then pushed herself off her perch. She was at least eight feet up, but she landed smoothly on both feet. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head back just so, all tough-girl slick.

“I said I didn't see her.” She took a deliberate step forward.

“Like hell you didn't see her.” Zoe turned to leave with Cassy. She might rag on her little sister a bit, but the fact remained that
she was more of a mama bear than Alice would ever be when it came to Cassy. “What a bitch.”

The girl clamped a hand on Zoe's shoulder. “Look, if you want to make this a big deal, go right ahead, little girl.”

“Little girl?” Zoe was taller than she was, by a good two inches. “She must be talking to you, Cassy,” Zoe baby talked at her. “What do you say? You wanna make a big deal, honey?”

The girl tensed. She lifted her arm slightly, like she was either going to push her bangs out of her eyes or belt Zoe in the face, but before she could do either, Alice came down the path and called for Zoe and Cassy to come see the new place.

Number eleven Paradise Heights
smelled like stale bedding and pork chops. Zoe's new room stank of stale bedding, pork chops and cat pee. Kid scribbles decorated all four walls.

“We can paint as soon as there's some extra cash,” Alice said, lingering at the door.

Zoe didn't even bother to nod. She just added the suggestion to the very long list of things Alice said they could do as soon as there was some extra cash.

Alice took a small step into the room. “Where're you going to put your travelling star?”

Zoe was six when Alice first brought the traveling stars home halfway through the school year, a few days after Alice had announced she'd got a job in Grand Forks that started in a month. Zoe told her mother that if she left her a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and some apples, she'd stay behind and live in the garden shed and go to school on time every day and wouldn't bother the new renters at all. Alice said she'd think about it.

The next day, she brought home a handful of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars wrapped in a square of purple silk. She said they were travelling stars, given to her by the moving fairy, who thought it'd be a bad idea for Zoe to live in the shed all by herself.
According to Alice, the fairy put a spell on them, so they'd capture all the good stuff from Vernon and carry it to their new place in Grand Forks. After that, whenever they moved, they were the last thing to come down, and the first to go up, a ritual, which up until now, Zoe had always looked forward to.

Usually she'd wander around any new bedroom, trailing her fingers along the walls, waiting for the perfect spot to speak to her, but this time she just reached up from where she was sitting and stuck one on the wall. Maybe it'd lost its magic, or maybe there was no good stuff to bring from Prince George. Or maybe it was just a stupid ritual to placate little kids.

Alice frowned at it, lopsided in the corner. She pointed her beer bottle at it. “You can pick a better place for it once we've painted.”

Zoe didn't want to pick a better place. She wanted to pluck it off the wall and chuck it out the window along with all the other trash out there rotting on the carport roof.

“We're going to be fine, Zoe.” Alice touched the star, as if for good luck. “I just know it. This move is a great opportunity for positive change. You've just got to—”

“Give it a chance,” Zoe cut her off. “I know.”

Later, while Alice looked through the phone book for a motel to stay at for the night, Zoe pushed open her window, careful to brace the cracked glass. She climbed out onto the carport roof and stepped around the trash to the edge. She stared into the night, past the blue TV shimmer of rooms lit behind curtains, over the roofs and across to the little playground.

The girl was still there, on a swing, pumping hard, so high the chain slackened before letting her down. Then suddenly she stopped, digging her bare feet into the sand. There was a tiny flash of flame as she lit a cigarette, the tip bright orange as she inhaled. She kicked herself in circles, tightening the chain until it wouldn't turn anymore. Then for a second, she stared across the night between them and right at Zoe until she let go, spinning into a dark fast blur.

The next time Zoe
saw the girl was on the first day of school. Her name was Beck, short for Rebecca, and she was definitely what Alice would call “a piece of work.” Zoe was herded into the gym that first morning along with all the other new students to get paired up with someone who was supposed to show them around. Mr. Cromwell, the fat counselor in charge, called them “volunteer ambassadors.” Most of them looked like factory-fresh Christians, with perfect haircuts and preppy clothes, the girls with careful lipstick, the boys with polished shoes and buttoned-up shirts tucked in; but some of them obviously did not want to
be there, including Beck, who strolled in while Mr. Cromwell blathered on about the school's district-wide famous zero tolerance policy on drugs.