Escape Velocity (9 page)

“Are you guys dating?” I ask. I know it's considered rude to be so direct—Dana Leigh's always bugging me about it—but sometimes I can't seem to help it. It's like the words scoot right past the little brain filter that is supposed to stop them.

“Lou!” My mother stares at me for a second. Then she laughs and turns to Brian. “What do you think, Brian? Is this a date?”

He raises one eyebrow. “I don't think Richard would appreciate that, do you?”

“Ahh, no. Damn it.” Mom winks at me. “Actually, Brian's one of my students. A wonderful poet. And he's married. To Richard.”

“Oh.” I look at him curiously, trying not to stare.

I don't know any gay people back home. Or black people. Or poets, for that matter. Though if I was gay, I probably wouldn't stay in Drumheller any longer than I had to. I'm sort of embarrassed and feel like I need to say something, to sort of move the conversation along. “My boyfriend writes poetry,” I hear myself say.

Zoe's eyes flicker toward Brian for a fraction of a second, and I can practically see the wheels in her head turning as she decides how to play this so that she comes off looking like a good mother. Then she laughs. “I didn't even know you had a boyfriend, you sly creature.”

I shrug, half wishing I hadn't said it but also realizing that for once, my mother actually seems interested in me. “We haven't been together long.”

“Well. What's his name?”

Mr. Samson's face appears in my mind, smiling. “Tom.” I say it quickly, without planning the lie. I run my tongue over my chipped tooth. “His name is Tom.”

“Really. Tom the poet.” She laughs again. I wonder what she'd say if Brian wasn't here, if she'd react differently. But even when it is only the two of us, I feel like she is always acting, always putting on a performance. “Is he at your school?”

I nod. “Yeah.” I don't think she has ever asked me so many questions about myself all in a row.

“Well. I'm going to want all the details later,” she says, and she gives me a grin that looks as real and warm as any smile I've ever gotten from her.

That evening, when I am alone with my mother, I expect her to ask me more about Tom, but she seems to have forgotten all about him. Maybe her apparent interest was for Brian's benefit, all for show. She's quiet, off in her head somewhere, irritated by my attempts to make conversation.

“Mom?” I put down my fork. I've eaten a whole chicken breast, a huge pile of mashed potatoes and some broccoli. I cooked while Mom and Brian talked about his novel manuscript, but she's barely touched the food. I think she has eaten maybe one piece of broccoli and one bite of chicken. “You don't like it?”

“I had a late lunch.” She pushes her plate away. “I'm not very hungry.”

I eat a few more mouthfuls, but the food has lost its appeal. I guess this is unfair, but I feel like my mother is pushing me away, not just my food. I watch her out of the corner of my eye while she drinks her water, looking cool and perfect as always. “You know that woman at the reading?” I say.

She stiffens. “You mean the woman who introduced me? Her name's Polly.”

“No, not her.” I lift the pitcher on the table to refill her glass.

She frowns and puts her hand over her glass to stop me, and I remember her words from last summer:
She's being completely ingratiating and trying to impress me.
I put the pitcher back down, feeling stupid.

“The woman who went on clapping,” I say. “When she tried to talk to you that other time, was it about anything in particular?”

My mother doesn't answer.

“Why are you so interested in her?” my mother asks at last. I remember the slow steady sound of clapping and the way everyone turned and looked. I picture the old woman's stringy gray hair hanging past her shoulders, the long hippie skirt. “I don't know. She seemed out of place.”

“Forget about her, Lou. I doubt she'll show up again.”

“But who is she?” I ask. “Is she someone you used to know? Or…”

“Drop it.”

“But…”

She slams her hands against the table. “Christ, Lou. Are you deaf or just slow? I said, drop it!”

I stare down at my plate. My heart is racing like I've been running, and my palms are slick with sweat. There is a very long silence, and I can't bring myself to look at my mother. “Sorry,” I whisper at last. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

I hear her sigh, long and shaky, and I glance up at her. She has her hands pushed against her face, and I can't believe this, it isn't possible, but I think she is crying. “I'm sorry,” I say again, panicky. “I'm really sorry, Zoe. Mom.”

“I know.” She lowers her hands, and her cheeks are wet with tears. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“It's okay.”

My mother puts her hands on the table, palms pushed down as if she is anchoring herself. She doesn't say anything for a long minute. The window is open, and I can hear the clatter of a skateboard going back and forth across the speed bump on the street outside.

“Lou. The woman at the reading…”

“You don't have to tell me.”

“I think I do.”

I suddenly know what she is going to say and I wonder when I realized this, because it makes no sense at all and there is no way I should have guessed it, except that there was something about that clapping woman that was so familiar.

“She's my mother,” Zoe says. “But we're not in contact. She's not someone I want in my life.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Did something happen? She looked sort of…I wondered if she was homeless, maybe. Or not well.”

“Lou.”

I swallow. “Yeah.”

“I don't want to see her. I don't want to talk about her.” She stands up. “She hasn't been in my life for a long time, and I don't want her in it now.”

“What if she needs help though? You can't let her live on the streets.”

Zoe's face is unreadable, closed off as tightly as a door slamming shut. “I'd like to drop this subject now,” she says. “And Lou?”

I nod.

“Do not bring it up again.” Her eyes are locked onto mine. “Ever.”

I nod again and drop my gaze. But there's no way I can leave this alone. I am going to find some answers. With or without Zoe's help.

Ten

T
he school is big, noisy and anonymous. I could sit through my classes and move through these hallways for weeks or months and leave again without even making a ripple. I was pretty much invisible at my old school in Drumheller. I have this feeling that if I stay invisible for much longer, I might disappear altogether.

The fact that I had no friends in Drumheller was my mother's fault. Or mine, maybe, for eavesdropping on her phone conversation.
Not a very likable girl.
I decided that if my own mother didn't like me, no one else would either. I walked into Drumheller High with a wall around me that you'd have needed a jackhammer to crack. Not that anyone bothered to try.

I wonder if my mother still thinks I am not very likable. I feel a flicker of anger—at her for what she said, and at myself for caring.

I turn to look at the girl at the desk beside mine. She has dark hair that hangs to her shoulders in a sleek bell-shape. It swings forward when she looks down at her books, so I can't see her face. She's a big girl, both tall and heavy, and even though it is warm today, she's wearing layer upon layer of loose dark clothes.

“Hi,” I say.

She doesn't hear me at first, or maybe she assumes I'm talking to someone else. I lean toward her. “Hey. I'm Lou.”

She looks up, and her hair swings back to reveal a doll-pretty face: huge eyes, round cheeks, button nose, skin as smooth and creamy as milk. “Justine,” she says.

“I'm new here,” I tell her. “First day.”

She shrugs. “Too bad. With ten being maximum suckage, I'd give this school an eight. Where are you from?”

“Alberta. I lived in Vancouver before that though. A couple of years ago.” I wonder what it is like to be as big as Justine, to take up that much space, to have so much weight to carry. Sometimes I can't stop staring at fat people, even though I know it's rude and I know I'd hate being stared at all the time. “Um, my dad had a heart attack,” I tell her. “That's why I had to come here. To stay with my mother.”

She looks right at me for the first time. “That blows. About your dad, I mean.”

“Yeah. Well, he's going to be okay.” I haven't spoken to him since Saturday night, and every time I think about him, my own heart starts racing.

“At least you get to see your mom.”

“Mmm.”

She wrinkles her button nose. “Oops. Not good?”

“Complicated.”

She drops her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No. No, it's fine.” I find myself imitating her nose-wrinkling gesture. “It really is complicated. I've never lived with her before.”

“Oh.” Justine's cheeks flush pink.

“So it's a little tense. But, you know, fine.”

The teacher shuffles her papers into a pile and stands up, clears her throat.

“Maybe we can hang out later,” I say quickly.

Justine looks surprised. “Maybe.”

I don't know why I said that. I wish I could snatch back the words. I'm not going to be here long enough to bother making friends, even if I wanted any. Plus I don't want to sound needy or clingy. No one likes that.

I sneak a sideways glance at Justine. She's looking down at her desk and her hair has swung forward, hiding her face again.

The teacher tells a very long and boring story about a trip she took to watch a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. As far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with this class. I open my notebook and write down:
FIND THE CLAPPING WOMAN.
I doodle a frame around my words, then tear off a scrap of paper and write:
Where do homeless people hang out in this city?
I hand it to Justine.

She takes it, looking furtive and guilty, like no one has ever handed her a note in class before. Her forehead creases as she reads my words. She sticks the paper in her binder, looks at me and mouths
later
.

“How come you asked me that question?” Justine asks me after class. We're standing in the hallway, and crowds of students are passing us on either side, like we're an island in a stream.

“I'm looking for someone,” I tell her.

“Yeah. But how come you asked me?” Her babyish face is suddenly hard.

“I don't know anyone else. Well, I don't know you either, I guess, but you were sitting closest.” I shrug. “Look, it's no big deal. I can look up homeless shelters online.”

She relaxes. “I thought maybe someone was saying things about me. Putting you up to it, you know? Trying to get at me.”

“No. Why would they?”

Justine snorts. “Like they need a reason.”

I wonder if kids bug her about being fat, but I don't want to ask because that'd be like admitting I noticed. “People can be assholes,” I say instead.

She nods. “I know, right? The thing is, I was on the streets for a couple years. Ran away when I was thirteen.” She shrugs. “I'm doing the group-home thing now.”

“Seriously?” I can't make what she's telling me match up with how innocent and childlike she looks.

“Yeah. Last year there were all these rumors going around about me. So I thought…”

“No. I hadn't heard anything.”

She shrugs. “Whatever.”

I don't think she believes me. “Honestly,” I say. “I mean, this is my first day. I haven't even talked to anyone else yet.”

“I don't mean to sound paranoid,” she says. “But there are a lot of really bitchy girls at this school.”

I nod. “I just asked because I want to find someone. This person I'm looking for, she's pretty old. Maybe sixty, I don't know.”