Flannery (22 page)

I said get
off
the table, you fat cow, Gary shouts.

I trusted you, she says into the mike. But her voice sounds small.

Tyrone has finally made it through the crowd. He's grabbing me, saying, Come on, we have to get out of here. The cops are coming. They'll arrest me if they find me here. Somebody gave them my name about the graffiti. Flannery, come on.

You go, I say.

Come on, he says. I'm afraid you'll get trampled.

I can't leave Amber, I shout. For a second Tyrone stands absolutely still, looking up at Amber and the projection. He looks back at the doorway. And then he starts fighting his way through the crowd toward Amber.

I'll get her, he shouts over his shoulder.

Amber turns back to look at herself, then starts backing away from the projection. She has covered her mouth with one hand.

And that's when we hear the deck.

It's a high-pitched wrenching. The wood cracking and nails screaming as they're torn from the house and the screams of all the people on the deck. The deck is coming away from the house and for a brief moment it seems to sway on its struts like the whole deck is on walking stilts and it's going to walk all those stoned, drunken, dancing people across the city and over the Southside Hills and far away into the sky and the stars.

Then it crashes through the maple trees tossing forty-three teenagers out of it as it falls.

Cops, someone yells. Cops! We can hear the sirens on the street.

Everyone in the house is rushing toward the back door. People are climbing out all the ground-floor windows.

Amber whirls around to face us again and there is no Amber. Whatever drugs she has taken, or whatever Gary might have slipped in her drink, she isn't Amber anymore. She is searching the crowd for Gary and she sees him.

Fat fucking cow, he's shouting over and over.

Amber suddenly tears her shirt open. Buttons go flying. And she wriggles out of it and whips it around in circles over her head and tosses it.

I'm screaming at her, No, Amber. Get down. Amber, I'm here. I'm here.

Then she rips down one bra strap and then the other and pulls the bra down to her waist so it hangs there. She's just standing there half-naked, not moving, with the picture of her naked on the wall behind her, and she falls face forward onto the floor.

Get her, Brittany says. She'll be trampled. But I am already pushing through the crowd. And that's when I see Kyle Keating. He's moving against the crowd trying to get to Amber too.

Somehow Kyle and Tyrone get to her first. Brittany sweeps the cans and booze bottles off the dining-room table and the boys lay her down on it.

She's out cold. Tyrone takes off his jean jacket and covers her with it.

She's in shock, Kyle says. Get her into the recovery position. We need an ambulance. He's already punching 911 into his phone.

Brittany turns away and has disappeared into the crowd. Then I see the naked picture of Amber come down and I glance at the projector, and Brittany has the computer and she's shoving it into her army surplus bag.

Amber's eyes are rolled back in her head and I can only see white slits. She is clammy.

Wake her up, I keep saying. Wake her up, wake her up. And for a minute her eyes do flutter open and she looks at me. She is looking into my eyes and I have her hand and I'm squeezing her hand.

Flannery, she says. Did you like the video? Isn't it great?

But her eyes roll back in her head again.

Then the ambulance attendants arrive and Kyle tells them her breathing is slow and he tells them her pulse and one of them writes down everything Kyle tells them on a clipboard. Then they load her onto the stretcher.

Kids who have been injured on the deck are also being loaded onto stretchers. I am shaking and crying and Kyle is holding my hand.

Chad has passed out in the corner of the living room. Kyle runs upstairs and comes back with a pillow and a bunch of blankets and we put Chad in the recovery position and go to find our coats. I can't figure out where Tyrone and Evelyn have gone.

There is still a huge pile of boots in the porch. People must have taken off in their stocking feet. My boots are gone, but I borrow another pair that fit. And we step out onto the sidewalk.

It's only two in the morning. There are broken bottles all over the sidewalk. The glass glitters under the streetlight. The snow is falling in tatters. Kyle throws an arm around me, and he walks me home in the snow.

30

It takes me until the next day to find out that Tyrone stayed around to help the people who were hurt when the deck collapsed. And because of that, he got arrested. Someone had posted his picture on Facebook and identified him as the SprayPig and one of the cops who stormed the party recognized him. There were pictures on Instagram of him being cuffed and put in the back of a police cruiser. He was taken straight to the youth corrections facility in Whitbourne.

Tyrone's actual trial won't be scheduled for months. But his lawyer has decided to contest the conditions of his release on bail. They're saying he'll have to live with his mother and Marty. Of course Tyrone refuses.

And so, three days after his arrest, there is a bail hearing.

Everybody piles into the courtroom for the hearing. Miranda is with Tyrone's mother. Pretty much everybody in grade twelve at Holy Heart is here. Even some of the teachers.

The crown prosecutor shows slides of what he calls Tyrone's “vandalism” over the past two years. There are slides of the Snow Queen mural, of course, and even one of the portrait of Tyrone's mother at the waterfall, washing the red dress in the river.

When that image comes up, people in the courthouse fidget in their seats. That painting, even more than the others, shows what an exceptional artist Tyrone is, and everybody can see it's a portrait of his mother. Even the judge comments on Tyrone's draftsmanship. Of course it makes me think about the kiss.

I feel sorry for him up there on the stand, talking about making art. He speaks about Marty too, and how it feels to watch someone punch your mother in the face.

But none of that is an excuse for treating people badly, he says. He looks straight at me when he says it.

I'm very sorry for those people I hurt, he says. I know my behavior has been selfish and wrong. And I'm sorry for it.

I know that I'm not in love with Tyrone anymore. But I'm ready to forgive him. And it feels good when I nod at him from my place in the audience, or whatever you call it when you're watching a person up on the stand in court.

Tyrone's lawyer talks about the history of graffiti art and compares Tyrone to Banksy — whom everybody in the courtroom quickly Googles on their phones. Except Miranda, of course, who already knows all about Banksy and doesn't know how to Google anything on her phone.

The biggest argument in favor of different bail conditions, according to Tyrone's lawyer, is his contentious relationship with his stepfather.

The integrity of Tyrone O'Rourke's living situation has deteriorated over the last several years, his lawyer says. His artwork is a creative response to this crisis, and though it is certainly vandalism and wrong-headed, Mr. O'Rourke is also a talented young man without a previous criminal record.

Tyrone looks at me again when his lawyer says this, possibly thinking of the headphones.

You're welcome
 — 
almost
, I think.

Nobody is allowed to report on Tyrone's bail hearing or identify him by name because he is still a minor. But that hasn't stopped the media frenzy over the SprayPig's arrest. The story is in the newspaper every day for a week, and it's the topic of three call-in radio shows and two separate segments on
Here and Now
,
each showing images of his work. The newspapers have featured full-page photographs of Tyrone's paintings, and he's even had some offers — people wanting to buy his sketches. There's talk he's been contacted by a gallery in Toronto.

The judge decided that Tyrone can live in a government-run short-term housing program for youth at risk, just long enough to get himself sorted out. And just days after his court appearance, his mother has Marty charged with several counts of physical assault. So Marty has moved out too and Miranda says Tyrone's mom is starting to put her life back together — the plan being that Tyrone will eventually move back in with her.

But even though Tyrone's no longer being held in custody, he doesn't show up at the Glacier for the Young Entrepreneurs' Exhibition. I didn't expect him to. He no longer wants credit for the work he didn't do. Miranda says he's going to do grade twelve over again, but this time at an alternative school, the Murphy Centre.

The Glacier has hordes of customers and onlookers passing through the fair. Everybody's parents show up, of course, and lots of teachers from all the different high schools in the city and rumor has it even the minister of finance is milling around somewhere. The duct tape wallets are a big hit. The bicycle tire sandals not so much. People say they pinch the toes. Somebody from Prince of Wales Collegiate had birdhouses that looked like the bars on George Street, and they flew off the shelves.

I'm fast selling out of the new batch of love potion. After the first one hundred bottles sold, I got to work on a fifty-bottle special edition for the fair — 
Super Strength
Eternal Love.
I know I could have sold even more but Fred the glassblower finally packed up his glass studio and set sail for Europe. These bottles are the last ones.

Just as I'm getting near to the end of my stock, Sensei Larry shows up at my stall and buys one, deciding to try it right there on the spot. He takes a mouthful and tips his head back and gargles, just for a joke. Then he downs the whole bottle and smacks his lips, just as Miranda's coming around the corner with Felix. My brother immediately goes into a very deep karate bow to show his respect for Sensei Larry, and he stays bent down like that for a good minute and a half.

Organic, right? Sensei Larry asks me.

Yup, I say. It's just a gag. But the bottles are pretty.

So, says Sensei Larry to Miranda, There's this thing happening, a medieval banquet at the Sheraton. People are coming from all over Canada, and I don't know if this is your thing, but there are costumes. I'll be going in chainmail. Anyway, you already have the tiara. So I was just wondering if you'd like to come with me. You know, there'll be mead, and a meal of venison and quail.

Well, I'd love to, Larry, Miranda says. Thanks for asking.

Sensei Larry puts the empty potion bottle back on the table and I start to pack up.

Right about then, Ms. Rideout, the Wiccan lawyer, shows up at my table. She has the cutest little baby in a Snugli strapped to her chest.

I'd like to make a purchase, she says. She buys a bottle of
Super Strength Eternal Love
and cracks it open right there and takes a sip.

Just then her baby wakes up and starts screaming. But Ms. Rideout just gazes down lovingly into her baby's eyes.

Well, hello there, cutie, she says. Mommy loves you, yes she does, yes she does.

Mr. Payne comes by to add up my sales so he can calculate my mark.

You've done well, Malone, he says. Especially considering you were working on your own. You're an independent young woman with a good head on your shoulders. I'm giving you an extra five marks for going solo. I just need to sample your product again for quality control before determining your final grade, he says.

Then he notices Ms. Rideout and her baby.

And who have we here? Mr. Payne asks. He tickles the baby under the chin and the baby is so surprised she stops crying.

Then he takes a bottle of potion up from the table and as he's chatting distractedly with Ms. Rideout he raises the bottle almost to his lips, but I grab it out of his hand.

I wouldn't do that if I were you, I say.

Thankfully he doesn't really notice because he is being paged over the loudspeaker. It's time for him to announce the winner of the Young Entrepreneurs' Award for Excellence.

And of course it goes to Elaine Power and Mark Galway, who receive $1,000 to continue their work in environmental activism and communications innovation. Mr. Payne explains, over the loudspeaker, that “although Power and Galway didn't actually manufacture a unit that could actually, ahem,
sell
, which was, after all, the most important requirement of the entrepreneurial units, they were brave and defiant and innovative and working to save our planet.”

Also (though he doesn't say this), Mark Galway's grandfather sponsors the award.

I realize that after I wire Fred the money for the potion bottles, I'll still have quite a tidy little sum. I'd love to buy Miranda something spectacular with the earnings. Maybe a beautiful medieval ballgown. It could be her medieval number.

Two weeks later, when Sensei Larry shows up for Miranda's date, the visor on his helmet has frozen shut because it's so cold, and he clinks and clanks with every step. But I can see all the neighbors in their windows watching Miranda head off down the road in the fluffiest evening gown Value Village had to offer, with a knight in shining armor.

Epilogue

Chad and Jordan and Devon did the best they could to clean up Chad's house after the party. They got Chad's uncle to replace the back door, but the deck wasn't repaired until Chad's parents were back from China. Several people broke bones in the accident, but nobody was killed, and the ambulance attendants said that was a miracle.

The naked picture of Amber was all over the Internet and she didn't come back to school in the new year. I heard she was asked to leave the swim team, but that might not be true. It is true that she gave up swimming. Maybe she just decided, when it came right down to it, she didn't want to be a swimmer anymore.

After Christmas she was sent to finish the year at a private school in Toronto.

I went to visit her house once before she left and her dad asked me to wait in the porch (they call it the vestibule) and I stood there a long time while he talked to Amber somewhere upstairs.

He came back down and said she didn't want to see anyone. I could tell Sean was angry with me. Maybe he was angry with everyone. I know now that he and Cindy were in the middle of separating. They'd seen the picture on the Internet, of course, and I think it was too much for them. Since then Cindy has bought a new house on the other side of town.

The winter wore on after all of that, and I pretty much kept my head down.

Now everyone is getting ready for prom and I've been on a committee with Elaine Power and Mark Galway (still crazy about each other) to promote a Green Grad. We raised funds for those who can't afford prom tickets (myself!) and started a prom dress recycling program. In all, forty-two dresses were donated, in all shapes and sizes, most of them worn only once.

Elaine wanted a vegan menu too, but the meat eaters revolted. Nevertheless, I can't help but think that if my father, the stranger who sailed into town on a yacht made of garbage, somehow heard of my existence and, furthermore, somehow heard that I helped pull off Green Grad and found forty-two economically disadvantaged young women beautiful prom dresses for absolutely free, and also provided free tickets to the prom for anyone who needed them, then maybe my father, whoever he is, would be proud of me.

On the day of my last exam, Kyle Keating asks me to the butterfly exhibit at Bowring Park. Elaine Power was telling him about it in the corridor and I was walking by and he asked if I would go with him to check it out.

It hardly qualifies as a date. I just happened to be there when they were talking about it and I said I would go. I had been kind of keeping to myself all term, concentrating on my studies, figuring out about university in the fall.

But I agreed because it was sunny after twelve days of rain and I thought it would be fun to hop on a metro bus and find our way out to Bowring Park. Also, when I walked out the front doors of Holy Heart onto Bonaventure that day, I would be finished with high school forever.

I left my biology textbook at the office, for some kid starting grade twelve next year who might not have enough money to buy one. I decided not to even try to sell it.

Also, I've had a text from Amber. The first one since she left for Toronto six months ago.

She's coming home, and she really wants to get together for a coffee. That was all she said and I texted back,
Sure
, and I added an
xo
. Then she texted,
I am so sorry
.

I know Amber and I will never be the kind of friends we once were. But I can feel myself start to melt. I wrote back that I was looking forward to seeing her.

And that was it for the texts.

Gary Bowen is still making music with his band. The video Amber made has gotten over 300,000 hits on YouTube. And there are rumors of a CD in the works. Some scouts have expressed interest. He has a new girlfriend whom everybody says he's cheating on.

The butterflies.

The air is moist and very warm and green-smelling in the big glass greenhouse in Bowring Park. Kyle opens the glass door and I duck under his arm and step inside. It smells of flowers and earth and algae growing in the rock pools. There's a tinkling fountain in the center of the greenhouse and a few crying, terrified toddlers.

There's one little girl with pale blonde hair the color of a peeled banana, and her cheeks are flushed as if she's just woken from a nap. A butterfly lands on her nose. She screams in terror and tears squeeze out the corners of her eyes and roll down her rosy cheeks.

Butterflies everywhere.

They bat their wings in the soupy air in a slow/fast way, as if they have all the time in the world.

There's a glass case full of chrysalises. Tiny papery-looking sacs, each carefully pinned to a wooden slat.

One papery sac has a hole punched in the bottom. I watch a wing unfold. It's black and white with a strip of fluorescent pink.

It unfolds in the way all unfolding things unfold: pup-tents, origami cranes, inflatable rubber dinghies, the rest of your life. Popping out, unbuckling, flinging itself into being, already knowing what it will become. Unable to stop itself and not knowing but thoughtful about each unfolding pucker and undinted, undented, smooth and trembling wing and yes, yes. This is it.

Kyle Keating holds his fist under my nose. There's a brown butterfly on the back of his hand. It's a big butterfly and its brown wings are closed and it has subtle, dull markings. It looks like tree bark.

After a long moment the butterfly on Kyle's hand opens. It's as though it has decided to open. It's had a think. The wings of the dull brown butterfly are iridescent green on the inside.

It is unexpected. I look up into Kyle's eyes, and I see he thinks it's unexpected too.

I would like to say that Kyle Keating gets the idea, during that unexpected moment of awe, to kiss me.

But what happens in that startling moment with the butterfly is something much more inexplicable. You know the phrase “weak in the knees,” or “turned to jelly,” or “lost control” or “overcome with rapture”?

Never mind those silly phrases. Banish them from your mind.

I will tell you what happens in the moist, sun-beaten heat of the condensation-swathed glass house while we are awed, Kyle Keating and me, in a flickering halo of butterflies. What happens is I stand up on my tiptoes and kiss Kyle Keating right on the mouth.

Some part of me has decided. And there it is. I kiss him.