Born Weird (5 page)

“Stop it,” their mother screamed. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

Nicola, who was not prone to losing it, looked at her children. She looked at the boxes scattered on the floor. “What are you people trying to do?” she asked.

“Make robots,” Kent truthfully answered.

“Robots? Surely the five of you can come up with something better than that. Something more …”

A silence followed. The sound of the rain striking the roof could be heard. Their mother’s eyes seemed to be focused on something quite far away. The silence captured their
attention, and the look on Nicola’s face, wistful and sad, cracked their self-absorbed shells.

“More what?”

“Just more. Larger. A bigger scale,” Nicola said. “Not a mimic of some movie. Something original. Something that can be all your own …”

“Okay …”

“But like what?”

“What, Mom? Tell us!”

“Like a city!”

“That’s a great idea!”

“From Mom!”

“Why so surprised?”

“How should we start?”

“A town hall?”

“A TV station!”

“A motorcycle speedway!”

“You choose, Mom,” Richard said. “What would you start with?”

“A hair salon,” she said, instantly. “A beauty parlour.”

And so they got started. That very afternoon they designed and built the It’s About Time Hair Cutting Saloon, situated in what would become the heart of Rainytown, the first of many buildings to follow.

If it hadn’t been for Besnard there were many things Nicola would have done with her life. But after he vanished she
didn’t do any of them. She didn’t even try. Two days after her husband’s crumpled Maserati was pulled from Georgian Bay, having apparently veered off the road and over a cliff, Nicola went into her bedroom. She closed the door. She did not come out.

The Weird siblings assumed that their mother was waiting for their father’s body to be found, just like they were. When the Maserati was towed out of the water, Besnard’s body had not come with it. It was thought that it had been swept away by the tide and that the same forces would soon push it back to shore. But two weeks later their father’s body had not been found and their mother had not come out of her room.

The meals she placed in the hallway went untouched, and Angie began to suspect that her mother was leaving the bedroom at night and making her own food. Angie set her alarm for 3:30 a.m. She crept downstairs, to the kitchen. To keep herself awake she brewed a pot of coffee. This was the first time she’d ever tried to do this. Angie took one sip and dumped the rest into the sink; it was the last coffee she ever tasted.

Angie sat at the kitchen table and waited. Without anything to keep her awake, she soon fell asleep. When she woke up her mother stood at the counter. Nicola wore a black pantsuit, heels and a small string of pearls. She was making a loaf of sandwiches. Angie watched her butter twelve slices of bread. She set down the knife and opened the refrigerator.
The light from inside shone on her carefully styled hair. She took out a jar of pickles and strained to open it.

“At least I know you’re eating,” Angie said. Her mother didn’t seem to hear her. She continued trying to open the pickle jar. “I said, it’s good to know that you’re eating!”

Frustrated, Nicola set the unopened jar on the counter. Angie went over to the cutlery drawer. She took out a knife and tapped the lid of the pickle jar in a circle. Then she set the jar back on the counter and put the knife back in the drawer. As she returned to her seat at the table, Nicola made another attempt to open the jar.

“Hey? Mom?”

“Yes!” Nicola said as the lid popped open. She fished out four pickles, sliced them and put them on the buttered bread. She got a tomato from the refrigerator. Angie took it off the counter. She held it in her hand. Her mother went back to the refrigerator and took another tomato out of the crisper.

“Please don’t do this,” Angie said. “Don’t do this to us.”

Nicola sliced the tomato. She put her pieces of bread together, stacked all the sandwiches on a dinner plate and carried the stack towards the kitchen doorway. Angie got up and stood in front of her mother. Nicola stopped. The sandwiches wobbled. For the briefest moment Angie was sure that her mother recognized her and that everything was going to be okay. But then the look of recognition disappeared. It went away so quickly that Angie couldn’t tell whether she’d caught her mother off guard and seen through
her act, or if the look hadn’t really been there in the first place. Keeping the plate level Nicola bent forwards at the waist. She leaned down until she and Angie were eye to eye.

“Are you staying here too? It’s such a beautiful hotel,” Nicola said.

Not being recognized by her mother was unsettling, yet what troubled Angie even more was how much confidence and joy there was in Nicola’s voice. Emotions it had not conveyed for as long as Angie could remember.

“What’s your name?” Nicola asked.

“Please. Mom? Don’t?”

“Well, whoever you are,” she said and she lifted her left hand, extended her index finger and dabbed Angie on the nose, “you’re as cute as a bug!”

Angie looked at the floor. She watched her mother’s shoes as they stepped around her. She did not turn around as Nicola Weird left the room and climbed the stairs and stopped being her mom forever.

A
NGIE WAS SURPRISED WHEN
Lucy handed her a pillow and a sheet. “Wait,” she said. “I have to sleep on a couch and I have to make it up? This is no way to treat a guest.”

“You’re not a guest, you’re family,” Lucy said. Angie started to cry. Lucy turned out the light.

In the morning Angie woke up with stiff legs and a sore back. She took tiny steps into the kitchen, where Lucy had already made breakfast.

“Do you drink coffee yet?” Lucy asked. Angie shook her head no. Lucy poured her a glass of orange juice. The hardboiled eggs were perfectly timed. The toast was golden. Their taxi arrived at 8:55. Lucy’s suitcase was already at the door and Angie rushed to collect her things. Checking the lock three times, Lucy then carried both of their bags to the sidewalk. Here they stood for several moments as Angie inspected the cab.

In 1963 Angie’s grandfather Samuel D. Weird founded the Grace Taxi Service. He named the enterprise after his mother. When Besnard took over the business, in 1982, it
had grown into the second largest fleet in the city of Toronto.

Over time Besnard developed many theories about taxis. For one, he believed that you should make a wish while hailing a cab. If the first taxi that passed by stopped and picked you up, your wish would come true. He also felt that every taxi ride was metaphorical—that it could be interpreted, like tea leaves or the lines in your palm. But his most firmly held theory was that your choice of taxi was a reflection of how you saw yourself. Of all his theories, this was the one that had been most firmly passed on to his children.

“No visible dents or scratches,” Angie said. She circled the cab slowly.

“You still do this?”

“I would have liked a newer model,” Angie said as she came back around to the back passenger door.

“Not in this town.”

“Really?”

“ ‘Fraid so.”

“Okay, let’s take it,” Angie said. She slid into the back seat. “To the airport,” she told the driver.

“But first,” Lucy said as she got into the back seat and closed the door, “the Golden Sunsets Retirement Community, 170 Lipton Street.”

“I didn’t think you meant right away,” Angie said.

“Well, when did you think I meant?”

“I don’t know. Soonish? You know. In the near future.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. Six minutes later the cab stopped in front of 170 Lipton Street. The exterior of the Golden Sunsets Retirement Community was concrete and depressing. It was worse inside. Decades of wheelchairs had worn twin tracks into the thin grey carpet. The grandfather clock in the lobby leaned to the left. It smelled like medicine and the walls were painted a yellow that was much too optimistic.

“Is this really the best we can afford?” Angie asked.

“This is more than we can afford.”

They walked down the corridor. Angie tried not to look into the rooms. She failed. Some of the residents met her eyes. Others just stared through her. But most disturbing to Angie were their haircuts—zigzag patterns and asymmetrical bobs and parts that started just above the ear. Every single resident there sported a hairdo that looked suspiciously like Lucy’s.

“What’s with the hair?” Angie asked.

“You’ll see,” Lucy said, and she pressed the down button. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. Neither spoke. When the doors opened for B2, Lucy pointed to a handwritten cardboard sign masking-taped directly across the hall. The sign read:

IT
’
S ABOUT TIME HAIR CUTTING SALOON

Angie stepped out of the elevator. The doors began to close. “I’d go with you but I’ve just had mine done,” Lucy said.

“This is for real?” Angie asked her.

“Don’t worry,” Lucy said. She held out her hand. The doors jumped back open. “She won’t even recognize you.”

Lucy removed her hand. The elevator closed. Angie took three steps forwards. She stood in front of the door that the sign was taped to. The handle was long and metal. Angie held it for several seconds. Then she pushed it down and went inside.

The room was obviously a disused janitor’s closet. It was small and lit by a single floor lamp. A shelf made of two-by-fours and plywood covered the back wall. There was a sink in the corner. Several mops hung to the right of it. Across from the sink was a wooden kitchen chair on which her mother slept.

Angie watched her sleep. She counted to sixty in her head. She gave the door a good shove, and Nicola woke up.

“Can I help you?”

“It’s me. Angie,” she said. She watched Nicola carefully. For a fraction of a second Angie was sure that her mother recognized her. But the look quickly disappeared and, once again, Angie couldn’t be sure if she’d caught her or imagined something that wasn’t there.

“You’re here for a haircut?”

“It’s me. Your fourth born. Angie.”

“You’re in luck. Mr. Weston cancelled.”

“I’m about to have a baby …”

“I guess I should say
he
was cancelled.”

“Really? Nothing?”

“God rest his soul,” Nicola said. She picked up the chair, turned it around and set it backwards in front of the sink. She patted it and Angie sat down. Her mother tied a peach-coloured beach towel around her neck. She touched Angie’s forehead, gently encouraging her to tilt back her head. Nicola washed Angie’s hair. The water was warm. The shampoo smelled like goat’s milk soap, which made Angie remember bathtubs full of siblings in their house on Palmerston Boulevard. She drifted off to sleep. She woke up with wet hair.

“You must be tired.”

“I didn’t feel that tired.”

“Something about this room just makes people wanna sleep,” Nicola said. She pulled a white towel from the far wall, revealing a mirror. “Nothing worse than staring at yourself all day,” she said.

Angie stood and Nicola moved the chair in front of the mirror. Angie sat down. She looked at her mother’s reflection. Nicola gathered Angie’s wet hair and let it fall over her shoulders.

“What were you thinking?”

“A trim?”

“I think it needs more than that.”

“No. Oh no. You know? Just a trim.”

“Why don’t you let me try something?”

“A trim is all I need. Really.”

Nicola nodded in agreement. She reached for her scissors, took a five-inch length of her daughter’s hair between her fingers and with a firm unhesitating motion, cut. A length of black hair dropped to the floor. Angie stared at it. A second clump, even longer, fell beside it. In the mirror she saw a third length between the jaws of her mother’s scissors and as they started to close, Angie shut her eyes.

“How far along are you?”

“Hmmm?”

“I know you’re not supposed to ask, but I don’t know who wouldn’t know there’s a baby in there.”

“Thirty-five weeks. Ish?”

“A girl?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I thought so. You’re carrying pretty low for it to be a boy.”

“If she’d been a boy I was going to name her Besnard.”

“You’re going it alone?”

“After my father. Besnard. Besnard Richard Weird?” Angie said. She opened her eyes. Nicola continued cutting.

“Sorry,” she said. “No ring, that’s all. Am I prying?”

“No. You’re not. There isn’t one.”

Angie’s mother made a clucking sound with her tongue.

“You disapprove?” Angie asked.

“If a woman wants a child there’s nothing worse than not having one. It’s just very hard to do it on your own.”

“Do you have children?”

“No, no. Well, almost.”

“What happened?”

“I lost my husband.”

“How?”

“A storm.”

“A storm?”

“The Great Storm of 2001. He was lost at sea. Do you remember it? That storm?” she asked. The scissors stopped. They looked at each other in the mirror.

“Of course.”

“Were you in it?”

“Sometimes I feel like I still am.”