Flannery (8 page)

You're going to
pay
the heat bill? I ask when she finally hangs up the phone.

You heard the conversation, Flan. They're going to cut off the heat. The electricity. I can't let that happen. Don't worry, I should have a check from the Arts Council by then.

And then we can get my biology book too, right?

We'll have to see how much the check is for, Flannery. You'll have to borrow somebody else's book for little while longer.

At that moment the helicopter drone nosedives into the sink, which is full of soapy water.

Black Hawk down! screams Felix. He rushes over and pulls out the dripping helicopter. It's probably fried. We could have sold it at Traders when he got bored with it. The pawnshop might have coughed up just enough for my biology book.

I need a schoolbook, I scream. Is that too much to ask? I wrench open the closet door and let it slam against the wall, grab my windbreaker, shove my feet into my sneakers and slam the front door behind me.

Magnificent Mothering with Miranda

Your child knows what his body needs. Trust your child. Listen to what he tells you. Really listen. Don't say broccoli when your child says s'mores. We muddle the child's innate understanding of his nutritional needs by foisting upon innocent taste buds dank, limp, hairy, over-boiled vegetables and unripe fruit. The particular, slimy texture of banana is revolting to some children, don't forget that. People say the potassium in a banana is good for them. If the kid doesn't like banana, to potassium I say Pshaw!

Think of the carrot in the bottom drawer of the fridge. Think of the sweating plastic bag the carrots are crowded into, brownish juice in the plastic folds and wrinkles, the breathy stink of earth when you tear the plastic. This could ruin a child's appetite for a lifetime.

Do not insult your child's intelligence. The raw carrot stick is not a fun snack. Even if you smear it with peanut butter. Who would eat that? Who thought to call a celery stick with processed cheese and raisins Ants on a Log? Your child knows that calling them Ants on a Log doesn't make them taste any better.

Here's another piece of advice: Your kid doesn't like crusts, you cut them off.

Warning: A single Brussels sprout contains within its tight, balled-up little leaves enough despair and loneliness to destroy a childhood forever.

Don't do it.

Don't give your child a Brussels sprout. Your child will grow old and wither before your very eyes.

Next week: The Evils of a “Time Out.”

9

It's very cold. I'm only wearing a hoodie and a windbreaker and it's already dark. My ears are burning and I'm walking as fast as I can until I calm down. I can see stars above the white oil tanks on the Southside Hills. The digital clock at city hall says it's 7:06, and the temperature is minus 5.

I'm mad at everyone — mad at Amber, mad at Tyrone. Mad at Miranda for buying the video helicopter instead of my freaking biology book. Even though Felix has been making some pretty good videos.

And I'm mad at the power company. I mean, heat and electricity, shouldn't that be free? Doesn't everyone have a right to shelter? That's part of shelter.

I cross the street and head down to Water, past the construction on Waldegrave. The backhoes are abandoned at this hour but glow bright yellow in the floodlight of the excavated pit.

I'm jogging past the antique shop and the flower shop and those grungy, ancient bars down there where the bikers hang out. I'm on the west end of Water, across the street from the site of the new parking garage, next to the old train station.

A car passes on the other side of the street, and — 
boom
 — I see the graffiti. It's on the plywood wall around the parking garage construction site. The headlights of the car run over the mural, making it flare.

The Snow Queen. Tyrone has been doing a series of angry Snow Queens all fall, but this is the most extravagant thing I've ever seen him do. It runs the length of a whole block.

This Snow Queen is mostly silver and aquamarine and her hair flies around her head in silver tendrils and she has high comic-book cheekbones and a kind of silver bodice of scales and a flowing cape. There's a team of horses and flashes of lightning and a dragon covered in silver scales just like the ones on the Snow Queen's bodice.

All of this appears out of the dark in the few seconds it takes the car headlights to pass over the plywood wall, and at the very end of the wall, shaking a can of spray paint, is Tyrone O'Rourke. I see him, and then I think I can hear the ball bearings in the can doing their mad dance as he shakes it.

Hey, I call out. I do some jumping jacks, crisscrossing my arms over my head. Hey, hey, I'm yelling.

His arm is raised with the paint can. He's spraying in the Snow Queen's left nostril.

Another car goes past, and another. His shadow stretches up high and sinks back down, the stallions rear, the whites of their eyes show, the dragon's claws sparkle. The mural is like a living thing, teeming with action and life.

Now a car slows on my side of the road and pulls to a stop beside me. Its engine is idling. Two burly men sit inside, one with a shiny film of short gray hair that glows in the streetlight. The other man has a black moustache and is so tall his head touches the roof of the car.

I freeze, mid-jumping jack.

The men are staring at me. What do they see? A sixteen-year-old freckled, buxom, near frostbitten, gangly kid doing jumping jacks in a desolate part of downtown, and she's jumping up and down to gain the attention of . . . ? Who?

Their heads both turn in unison to look across the street and they spot the graffiti.

Tyrone is making the Snow Queen's nostril flare just like Miranda's, actually, when she's cleaning the fridge and she finds a package of liquefied asparagus. It's liquefied because who has time to clean out the fridge when you're busy carving life-sized polar bears out of ice to protest global warming?

Or like when the pipes freeze and she has to go down in the basement with a blowtorch.

In those moments, Miranda's nostrils do their thing. They go flat and wide and quiver with flibbertigibbet determination.

Speaking of mothers, Tyrone's spray-painted Snow Queen looks a lot like his own mother, in fact, except that so far the Snow Queen has only one perfectly flared nostril instead of two.

I hear Tyrone shake the paint can again. The wind has died down a little and I really can hear it from all the way across the four lanes, a traffic island and a few skinny trees. I can even hear the hiss, the spraying of silver.

The one nostril makes the Snow Queen look like she has been waiting for that other nostril all her life. A lot is on the line for her. Her eyes are nearly bulging out from her dramatic cheekbones.

Tyrone is wearing a black hoodie and black jeans and a mask — like a gas mask, so he doesn't breathe in the fumes, and goggles, so the paint doesn't get in his eyes. He looks like E.T. or a cricket.

The silver-haired man on the passenger side of the car reaches down around his feet for something and slaps a siren on the dash and it whoop-whoops and throws out an arm of red light and blue light and they screech away to pull a U-ey farther up the road.

I yell, Run, it's the cops.
Run!

Tyrone turns and sees me and sees the cops and he bends and sweeps up his knapsack full of paint cans and takes off around the corner of the construction site.

They saw him because of me.

Because I was jumping around and waving like an idiot. It's my fault.

Behind the construction site there's the Waterford River and Symes Bridge. Tyrone's already sprinting over the bridge by the time the cops get their car pulled around the traffic island that divides the road. Now Tyrone is racing up through the forest on the Southside Hills, and I keep losing sight of him, but then I can see the tree branches swaying all their orange leaves as he climbs along the overgrown path that leads through the woods.

The cop car has skidded to a stop on the other side of the road and they've jumped out of the car and they're on foot, running up the same path behind the construction site. They're closing the distance between themselves and Tyrone pretty fast.

Then there's an engine revving up. I see the fan of a single headlight blinking as it passes through the tree trunks.

He's got his motorcycle! After a moment the cops come running back down around the building site and they get in the car and pull another U-ey, the siren going, and they're heading up to the Southside Hills.

The siren is very loud and high-pitched and it fades away. I stand there waiting, but there's nothing else to see.

The Snow Queen glares down at me from across the street. She's all haughty jaw and smolder. Sharp angles. She manages to look malevolent and smug, even though she still has the one-nostril problem.

All of Tyrone's Snow Queens are voluptuous and this is a comfort to me. If I'm not mistaken, Tyrone's queen wears a double-D.

10

A text from Amber! She wants me to walk to the Arts and Culture Centre with her after school. She has received permission to borrow from the costume bank for Gary's music video. They're only open until five and she really has to pick out a lot of stuff.

She really, really needs my help.

They're thinking ten female dancers in the video and fifteen male dancers and of course the whole band. And, most important, Gary, because he's the lead singer.

I have to meet her on the front steps of the school as soon as the buzzer goes. Melody can't make it. She has detention. Gary has basketball practice but he'll show up as soon as he can.

Oh thank God, Amber says when she sees me coming down the stairs.

We really have to hurry, she says.

I have to work hard to keep up with her all the way down the sidewalk, past Brother Rice and the Lions Club and the university residences on Allandale Road and across the lawn of the Arts and Culture Centre which is covered in orange and yellow leaves.

Amber talks the whole way, hardly stopping to breathe.

Gary says this. Gary says that.

Gary's mom brings them down a tray with two glasses of lime crush and a bowl of barbecue chips every day and they have to listen for the door to the basement opening at the top of the stairs if they're making out.

Gary's basement is renovated and he lives down there and there's a little bar and flatscreen TV and Gary's little brother is really cute and Gary's Pomeranian is just like a little mop.

Monique, Gary's Pomeranian, really loves Amber. Monique licks her ankle and her little tongue is like sandpaper.

Gary's Pomeranian tickles. Amber tells Gary, Your dog is tickling my ankle, but what can Gary do about it?

And it's hypoallergenic and doesn't shed and Gary wants them to get matching tattoos (Gary and Amber, not Gary and the Pomeranian), and Gary's band is playing an all-ages show on the weekend. Gary can't see her on Tuesdays or Thursdays or Fridays, because of the band.

And the video for their unit is going to be really wicked, Flannery. They're renting a limousine and the band is going to climb out of the limo and there are fireworks all around it, except for Gary, who stays in the limo but his window goes down and there he is with a cigar and a fedora and sunglasses and then the window goes back up. Gary thought of that part.

Amber is going to shoot it with Gary's new GoPro camera. Gary put the GoPro camera on Monique and got some really deadly shots. Gary rode his mountain bike down the Signal Hill trail and some old grandmother got mad because he was coming down the stairs and her grandkid was going up and Gary knew he wasn't going to hit the kid but they ruined his GoPro shot. And the grandmother was yelling and shaking her fist and Gary said it was really funny, this little old lady, her bifocals crooked, her gums flapping. You should see Gary on that mountain bike though, he can really go.

Gary says Amber could lose a pound or two, like, just here, on her hips? And she would look, you know,
skinnier
. It wouldn't surprise Amber if Gary's band gets really big. Gary says that there's a label that's been in touch because they saw an all-ages Gary and the band did and the guy was really nice. The guy said Gary really has something. The guy wants to see the video when it's finished, which is part of the reason they really need good costumes.

Gary wants her to get a tattoo with the name of his band on it.
The Squalls.
In a heart. With an arrow piercing it. Like, just a pound or two because Gary says she's starting to fatten up.

Gary doesn't like it when she talks to other guys because he's really sensitive and shy and it just makes him feel uncomfortable and most guys are jerks. And nobody understands Gary because he's really talented and sensitive.

Without Gary that band would just fall apart.

Gary listens to really cool music. It isn't true that Gary wouldn't let her dance with Tony Heffernan at the party, Tony was being a jerk and everybody was drinking and Gary just got a bit upset.

Gary is listening to the White Stripes right now.

Gary is thinking about growing his hair.

Gary is listening to M.I.A. right now.

Gary really likes some rap but not all rap. Gary's grandmother is deaf and sometimes she comes down the stairs when they're on the couch and they have to jump up. Gary really likes art films. He's seen all of Kubrick.

Tony Heffernan was twirling her around and he and Amber did a move from
Dirty Dancing
and she could see Gary on the couch with his arms crossed, the couch with a broken leg, and he was really pissed off but they were having so much fun dancing.

She knew Gary'd had too much to drink, so she decided to leave. He pushed himself up off the couch and stood in the doorway, blocked the door, yes, okay, that happened, he wouldn't let her walk home by herself because it was late. I mean, it's dangerous. At night. To walk by yourself, obviously. If you're a girl.

Amber wouldn't actually call it a shove. He put his hand on her shoulder. He did
not
shove her. That was just Elaine Power exaggerating. Elaine with her third-wave feminism which she will never shut up about.

Gary caught Elaine on the GoPro camera mouthing off and it's really funny. She's really shrill and Gary might put it in the music video but just, like, turn down the sound so it'll just be Elaine's big mouth going.

And Tony Heffernan was exaggerating and they shouldn't have written that on Facebook. It just made it worse. Gary called him a fag, yes, that's true, right up in his face, a faggot, and it's true that spit came out of his mouth and landed on Tony's face, and Tony
is
gay is the problem, and he's studying ballet, so it wasn't nice of Gary, that's true, he got carried away because he felt so jealous. But he apologized later to Tony, Sorry about that man — bros, right? And okay, so he's not totally perfect, he's very sensitive, and sometimes he loses his temper a little bit because, it's because he really loves her, and Gary wrote a song about Amber that's really beautiful.

Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary.

What a weird word it is. Gary. When you hear it over and over. There's only one word worse than Gary.

And that word is
we
.

Since when did Amber become
we
, I want to ask her. I used to be half of
we
, I'd like to tell her. I hardly knew what she meant, when I first heard her say it.

We
have to study for biology.
We
think what's going on in the Middle East right now is scary. We both got 89 on that quiz. We think it's dangerous for girls to drink because they're vulnerable. We think that when girls get drunk, like, what do they expect? We think sexual assault is not okay, obviously, but, like Gary says, we think you have to take care of yourself. You can't just go passing out all over the place. Like, who goes down to George Street dressed like that? Like, let's not get all victimy here. We think it's okay to protest, of course, but graffiti is destroying public property. Like, is vandalism okay all of a sudden? I mean it's fine, obviously, but somebody has to pay for that, Flannery.

Amber, what's going on with your face?

Pardon?

Your expression, you look surprised all the time these days. Wait a minute, did you pluck your eyebrows?

I had them waxed. So what?

You had them waxed? You paid for that? You know your eyebrows don't grow back, right?

I think it looks nice. Gary paid for it, if you must know.

Let me guess. Gary thought your eyebrows were too hairy?

We think you should get it done too, actually. You're getting a unibrow, Flan.

We're in the basement of the Arts and Culture Centre by this point, surrounded by tons and tons and tons of costumes. There are a gazillion giant white Sugar Plum Fairy dresses with tulle skirts and lots of sequins and feather boas and faux-mink stoles. I'm wearing a red saloon dress with a giant bustle on the back, and Amber has on a mermaid costume. She's standing in front of a giant mirror framed in lightbulbs, trying to flap her tail. I've just put on a hat that has a big pile of fruit on the brim — apples, oranges, pears and bananas. I lift the netting that hangs off the brim of the hat. Amber is staring at herself. She looks so beautiful, but somehow even more tired than usual, the circles under her eyes darker than before.

We better get this stuff back on the hangers, she says. It's already quarter to five. I'll just tell the lady what we've decided to borrow. She has to tag the stuff, and then we'll come back and get it on the day of the shoot.

I'm putting all the hats back on the top shelf while Amber lists off everything she needs to the costume lady in another office.

Neither of us mentions, on the walk home, that Gary didn't show up. Instead Amber wants to talk about losing your virginity with someone you love, when you're ready, of course. The person you're going to spend your life with. No big deal, right?

Obviously, it doesn't have to be that way, she says. I mean, you don't have to love the guy or girl or whoever. I mean, it can be casual. It can just be fun, you know. That's what Melody Martin says.

But if you happen to have found the guy you're supposed to love for your whole life, might as well be him, right?

I think I will be in love with Tyrone my whole life, I say.

Tyrone is just a passing thing, she says. I'm talking about love.