Beyond Blonde (16 page)

“What are you smiling at?”

She startled me. “You,” I said. “Us.”

“Yeah.” She plopped a bowl of Cheetos in front of me. “Well, on that point, like are you pissed at me or something?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you! You’ve been doing distant for weeks. What’s up? What did I do?”

“You?”

“Let’s not go through this again, yeah me. Are you bummed that I still haven’t come clean about Edna? You think I’m such a fake, don’t you?”

“Wow.” I shoved a fistful of Cheetos in my mouth. “Unbelievable. Madison, you who sat with me for hours pouring me coffee and keeping all those tampons coming until I finally got one in. You who made your grandfather reopen Papa’s court case.
And
you who kept the whole Papa in Prison thing a secret until I could figure out how to say the words. Who does that?! What kind of warm turd would I have to be to get all righteous with you? I am actually insulted!”

“Well …” She was trying not to smile. “I guess that
was
pretty fabulous of me. But …”

“Madison, I’ll adore you until I die. I don’t care how many of your secrets I take to the grave with me.” I reached for a Twinkie. “It would be good for you to come clean. But you
know
that. We’ve talked about it until we were hoarse.”

“Double-swear?”

“Hands on heart, swear.”

“Then it’s you, Sophie. What’s up? What
is
going on?”

“I saw him.”

“Luke.” It wasn’t a question. “Other than the church?”

I nodded.

“Other than today?”

“Today?!”

“Yeah, at the game.” Madison grabbed a stool and turned around to face me. “He was there for a bit in the first quarter. I thought for sure you knew. Even David saw him and then he left before the quarter ended.”

“David saw him?” My throat constricted. “Today? But I didn’t feel him, I always feel …” I sounded goofy even to me. “No, not today, at the park.”

“Sophie …”

“Totally by accident.” She folded her arms. “Pretty much. Just a couple of times, nothing happened, Madison. Nothing!”

“What you mean, you
feel
him?”

“It’s an electric thing. I can always sense him when he’s near.”

“Sophie, that is straight out of your cheesy romance novels.”

“I don’t read them anymore, remember. I got religion instead.”

“Well, he didn’t even sit. He was in the back row, at the very top. And never mind that. Are you sneaking around with—”

“No!” And without any warning, my eyes burned. “Not really.”

Madison reached over and put her hands on my knees. “Sophie …”

“He is so, so unhappy, Madison. Poor, poor Luke. It’s like his life is over.”

“Luke made that life, Sophie.”

“He loves
me.
Just me, he said so or he said ‘there was just me’ and I, well, there is just Luke, there will only ever be just Luke, Madison.”

I could tell she was trying not to roll her eyes. “He’s
married,
Sophie, with a wife and baby. Married.”

“I can’t help it, Madison. I’ve tried. I love him.” I put my head on the cool, soothing counter. “I’m sure of it. Almost a hundred percent, practically.”

“I know when I’m licked.” Her shoulders slumped. “Okay, let me know if you need my help.”

I threw my arms around her.

“I’m also licked about Edna. You’re right. She’s wearing me down. I’m going to tell them. Soonish.” She nodded to herself. “Enough about that. Let’s talk about your party. It’s going to be the party of the year, the best night of your life!”

The party again.
My stomach clenched.
I didn’t want to talk about the party, think about the party, or plan for the party. It got in the way of my denial about the party.
And unclenched.
She turned to me. “I know you hate the word, Sophie, but I keep my word when I give it.”
And clenched.
She grabbed my arm. “Your Sweet Seventeen will be brilliant. You will be brilliant, Sophie Kandinsky. I
promise,
” she said.

The first week
of December is always brutal at school and beyond brutal at home. It was mid-terms at Northern, a hellish week when all your projects and papers were due, plus the added thrill of exams. That was tolerable. What was
in
tolerable was Mama breathing down my neck every single second I was home. She got anxious during my mid-terms at the best of times, but some fool had gone and told her that marks counted as of now, that universities start looking at what you did in grade eleven. I will hunt that person down and give them cavities.

I looked up from my calculus. She was pacing the living room. Mama rearranged her house-showing schedule just so that she could babysit my studying. I now knew exactly how Papa felt when he was trying to find a job last year. She made me coffees, brought me sandwiches, paced, and asked if she could quiz me, time me, help me, over and over again.

By Friday, when exams were done, I actually contemplated having a drink at Madison’s End of Mid-Terms bash. It wasn’t supposed to be a party-party per se, it would be looser than that, a last-minute blow-off-some-steam type of deal. She invited less than thirty people, so, less than fifty ought to show. The party was going to be in her pool house way in the back of their yard, which had a slight whiff of danger, especially since she’d somehow got her parents to vacate the premises. Fabi, who would take a bullet for Madison, was supposed to be the adult in charge.

Fabi cleaned up the pool house and rigged it with space heaters while we stocked the mini-fridge and brought in armloads of ice and junk food. Madison insisted that we string up the summer lanterns and she was right. In the snow all softly lit up, it was like we were starring in
Doctor Zhivago
.

Madison just invited Northern kids, well except for George and Mike Jr., who were now a fixture because of Sarah and … was Mike Jr. circling Madison lately? Could be. He was an older boy, so he’d know not to move too fast or he’d scare her off. I felt heat rise off of Madison when he came in and kissed her fingers. Smooth. Of course our entire team was there, plus the “fans” who were loyal enough to come to our championship game. Some of the senior boys basketball team was invited, plus a couple of hockey players, and a stray football player or two. By ten-thirty or so, we had just under sixty kids.

Barbara Sweeton, left guard, second string, was in charge of the music. She and Barbara Barton kept it cool, alternating disco, rock, and seriously slow dance tunes. Kit
wandered around passing out mini Christmas cupcakes with a dependably lovesick Rick trailing behind her.

Madison was on the floor dancing with Mike Jr. Sarah was on the floor too, with George, but they were barely moving. I, of course, was with nobody and torqued pretty tight to boot. Something about the architecture of the pool house made you feel the songs more—they vibrated on the floor in a way that travelled up your body and, well, someone should bottle that. When I couldn’t stand it a minute longer, I went to the bar. Paul Wexler, who happened to be Madison’s next-door neighbour, was nominally in charge.

“Hey, Sophie.” He winked at me. “Sorry I couldn’t make the game. You look real nice tonight. Different from everybody else, but extra nice, always extra nice.”

“Thanks, Paul.” I was wearing black jeans and a black boat-neck top with a big wide slit at the neck and shoulders. It was my Audrey Hepburn look and I was about to tell him, but I then realized he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. It was Luke who loved old movies. Luke would have got it. I looked at the beers in the cooler, the vodkas and rums lining the bar. Did I want a drink?

“Madison said that if, by some miracle, you ended up looking for something, I was supposed to give you this.” Paul disappeared on the other side of the bar and then reappeared with an unopened bottle of Courvoisier and a smile. “Apparently, she’s had it and hid it for almost two years.” I looked out into the room. It oozed romance, right down to the snow decorating each windowpane on the French doors. Kids were talking, laughing, a group was playing Twister of all things in the corner behind
one of the sofas. But mainly there were couples. Couples dancing, couples kissing, couples everywhere. I wanted to be a couple. I wanted to crawl right out of myself. “Yeah, sure, why not? Please pour me a brandy, Paul.”

He was only too happy to oblige. Never mind a shot, Paul filled an entire juice glass. That would be more brandy than I’d drunk in my entire life. I’d never even been tipsy before. If I drank that I’d have to be hospitalized.

“Cheers, tiger!” He took a swig of his beer. “I’ll demand a dance as my payment.”

“Sure.” I smiled. Paul was sweet in that tall, blonde, sunburned skier kind of way. Apparently, he raced as well as played football. Maybe I could get myself to like Paul. He winked again.

Then again, maybe not. I looked out into the room. Before I could take a sip, or continue considering how unfulfilled I was feeling, Sarah popped up beside me, beaming blissfully.

“Two more beers, please.” She fanned herself. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Not good. “Hot in here, ain’t it, Soph?”

Warning bells rang around me. We had a real scare with Sarah last year just about at this time. It’s like she loses her brains every winter. I leaned over and whispered, “I think we should go to the girls’ room.”

“I don’t have to pee, but if you want some company sure, Soph!”

The lights in the pool house suddenly got dimmer. Someone was playing with them. Our DJs, the Barbaras, were spinning sexy hurtin’ tunes. I heard a little yelp, giggling. And then the air changed. David walked in. Well, strode in. Well, as much
as anyone can stride anywhere with Janice Wilton clinging to him like Saran Wrap. It was a testament to his strength that David Walter could move at all. The room sparked; everyone noted his arrival. Janice started sucking his face as soon as he plopped down on the sofa. It could turn your stomach.

“Wow,” said Sarah. “She won’t even let that poor boy catch a breath.”

“Yeah, poor boy.”

Two other girls joined him and Janice on the overcrowded sofa. David semi-reclined and his retinue rearranged themselves around him. Sandy Thomas minced up to the bar, got four beers, and minced back.

“You know.” Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off them. I stared at the opposite wall like I was personally responsible for holding it up. “You know,” she repeated, “I think our coach is a wee bit loaded. Hmm, looks good on him. But then again, you gotta admit that everything looks good on him. If it weren’t for George …”

“Speaking of George, girls’ room, Sarah? Not here, the one in the house.”

I grabbed my drink and her. The sharp frigid air was a slap in the face compared with the steamy pool house.

“What’s going on, Sarah? I know all the signs now. You promised me that you weren’t ever going to put yourself in that position again. So to speak.”

She didn’t say anything until we got to the house. “I know I said I wouldn’t, Sophie.”

My stomach seized. I was still spooked from last year’s five-alarm pregnancy scare, but not so our Sarah. “Holy
Moses, Sarah, you promised!” There was that word again. “I can’t take it! Have you and George, don’t tell me you …”

“No!” She yanked me into the main floor powder room and shut the door. “Not yet, I mean. I, we haven’t and I wouldn’t tonight, honestly, but see the thing of it is …”

“What do you mean
but
? Sarah, we can’t go through that again!”

She jumped up and sat on the vanity counter. “Oh hose yourself down. You’re wound up tighter than a copper coil. What you need is a good, uh, romance.”

“Sarah Davis, you’re drunk!”

“Oh Lord, just a little, and when did you turn into such a priss?” She faced the mirror and played with her hair.

“Sarah?”

“Relax.” She swung back to me. “I haven’t, but one day, maybe soon, we may, and I want to be prepared this time. I read all about it in those pamphlets you got me from Planned Parenthood last year. Condoms, I mean. I’m actually going to buy them and make him wear them, I swear. I’m never, ever going to go through a nightmare like last year again. Like how mature and super responsible is that?”

I took a big swig of brandy.

“And you’re going to help.”

And then another swig.

“We have to go somewhere where no one could possibly recognize us and buy some. Plan? I’ll be seventeen in March, that’s practically an adult, after all. How about tomorrow?”

I pulled down the toilet seat lid and sat. Holy crap.

“I really, really like him, Soph. How about after you’re finished at Mike’s?”

“I guess,” I groaned. “I mean, if you’re bound and determined, I suppose it’s better than—”

“That’s my Soph.” She jumped off the counter. “Tomorrow, four-thirty, at Bathurst station!” And then she dashed off, leaving me in the can, so to speak. Priss? Did she say I was prissy? I took another sip and then got up. “Prissy?” I snorted. Then I realized I’d said it out loud. “It’s just me, Fabi!” I said to the hallway. “I’m going back to the party now.”

I took another sip and noted that I was feeling nice and warmish in the various bits of me. As if anyone cared.

Not true, Paul had looked like he cared. Maybe I
could
make myself care that he cared. I stepped back outside into the yard. Took another sip as I picked my way through the snow and tried to imagine Paul holding me. I shuddered.