Fruit (20 page)

“Nothing will happen, Beth,” my dad said. “We’ll have to leave him alone sooner or later. And I think he’s responsible enough.”

“You can trust me,” I said. I couldn’t believe my dad was letting me stay home. Maybe he felt bad about bringing up the idea of me going to
The Sound of Music
with my mother.

“I’m still not sure,” my mom said. She was twisting her hands. But I knew my dad would win. He seemed pretty determined.

I was so excited, I could hardly sleep that night. I kept thinking about what I would do the next day. I could snoop through Nancy and Christine’s dresser drawers. I could play my new Olivia Newton-John
Greatest Hits Vol. 2
album as loud as I wanted to. I could make cookies from my new cookbook. I could even walk around the house naked, though I knew I wouldn’t. But one thing was for sure — the day was all mine and that was the best birthday present ever.

Everyone left the next day at noon. My mom handed me a list of phone numbers to call in case of an emergency.

“If worse comes to worst, you can always phone Uncle Ed,” she said. “Although I don’t know if he’d be much good for anything. Whatever you do, don’t answer the door for strangers. Perverts are out there.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Nancy said. “Or else he’ll put a big sign in the front yard, saying ‘My parents aren’t home. Perverts welcome.’”

“That’s not funny, Nancy,” my mom said. “I had an encounter with a pervert when I was Peter’s age and let me tell you, it wasn’t funny in the least.”

My mom got flashed one day when she was walking home from school. She tells us the story about once a year. “That was the day my innocence died,” she always says, shaking her head.

When the Granada finally pulled out of the driveway, the first thing I did was lock the door. Then I sat at the kitchen table, trying to figure out what to do next. The house was so quiet! I could even hear the clock ticking in the next room. I got up and scooped myself a bowl of Neapolitan ice cream. I squirted some chocolate sauce on top and thought about calling Andrew Sinclair. But what
would I say? Then I thought about Debbie Andover. I wondered if she had plans for the day. Maybe she’d like to come over for dinner. I could make teriyaki chicken for her. We’d just learned the recipe in home ec.

“Just a little something I whipped up,” I’d say to her. But I didn’t have her phone number. Besides, she had no idea who I was or that I was in love with her.

Then I started to panic — what if Great Aunt Vivienne was dead when my family got to London? Then they’d have to turn around and come home. My whole day would be ruined! I had to act fast, so I finished off my ice cream and headed straight for the shower.

While I had the showerhead on my dink, I thought about Debbie Andover. I closed my eyes and tried to think about what her boobs looked like under her nun’s dress. Were her nipples soft and puffy like mine? Or did they look like little pink berets? But every time I got close to seeing them, Billy Archer would pop up in my head, wearing his red parachute pants and asking me to touch his dink.

“You’re very persistent, Billy,” I said. “I’ll let you do what you want, but then you’ll have to let me get back to Debbie.”

When I got to the point where my hand was over his dink, I got the tingly feeling in my crotch.

“Rock it, Billy! Rock it all night long!” I called as my dink made sperm.

I lay there for a bit, watching the water roll off my big belly. I was disappointed that I never got to see Debbie’s nipples. I know I should’ve been thinking about them
instead of Billy Archer. And I kept hearing Debbie’s voice, saying, “I thought you loved me, Peter.”

As I dried myself off, I thought about a way I could make it up to her — to prove that I still loved her. But how? Then it hit me. I went to my parent’s bedroom and sat down at my mom’s vanity table. I started with her beige CoverGirl foundation and rubbed it into my cheeks and forehead, making sure I didn’t leave any lines around my neck. Then, I took some blush and brushed it onto my cheeks to highlight my bone structure.

“You have wonderful cheekbones,” someone said.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

The blue shadow I put on my eyelids made me look mysterious and the mascara darkened and curled my lashes. For the final touch, I picked the reddest lipstick I could find and carefully painted my mouth, making sure I stayed in the lines. Then I took a Kleenex and kissed it like my mom does and checked my teeth for lipstick.

After I was finished, I gave myself a good look in the mirror. “Not a bad job, Peter Paddington,” I thought. “Or is that Ms. Andover?”

But I wasn’t finished. I put on one of my mom’s bras and stuffed a pair of socks into each of the cups.

“Stop staring at my boobs,” I said to the mirror. “I have a brain, too.”

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. “Ten minutes until show time!” a voice called.

“All right!” I muttered. “Just give me a minute of peace, would you?”

I hurried to my mom’s closet to find a dress, since
Christine’s clothes would be too small. So would Nancy’s, I thought. But I didn’t want to wreck the moment thinking about that. I found my mom’s black dress. It was a little tight around the waist and it was tricky getting the zipper done up in the back, but I managed to do it halfway. Then I squeezed my feet into a pair of her black shoes and found a pair of pearl clip-on earrings. The final touch was the long, black wig that Christine had in her closet. Mrs. LaFlamme had given it to her to use for a witch costume one Halloween.

Once everything was in place, I stood in front of the full-length mirror. I tossed my long black hair from side to side and laughed.

“Dark angel,” a man said.

“Beware!” another said. “She’ll break your heart.”

But it isn’t true! I don’t break hearts. People just think that because I’m so beautiful. Inside, I’m sad and lonely and bored of all this attention.

I walked out to the kitchen, listening to the sharp clickety-click of my heels on the linoleum. I almost wiped out, so to be on the safe side, I tiptoed to the living room and sat down on the sofa. I crossed my legs, making sure to pull my dress up a bit to show off my long legs.

But I couldn’t sit for long. The audience was waiting.

“I don’t want to go on,” I said to my manager. “I’m not up for it.”

“The whole country is out there tonight!” Jameson said. “The public wants you. You don’t have a choice. Now get out there and give them what they want.”

I had almost reached the stage downstairs when I
realized I didn’t have
The Sound of Music
album. What would I perform? And then I remembered my new Olivia Newton-John album, so I went to my room, grabbed it, and headed back downstairs. I put on my favourite song, “A Little More Love,” and turned up the volume. Suddenly, Olivia’s voice,
my
voice, filled the auditorium. The spotlight was on me as I danced and twirled around the stage. The audience was listening to my every word. Some people were even crying because my emotions were so real and so true.

I knew that Mr. Hanlan was in the audience watching me and he’d send me flowers and maybe I’d have a drink with him if he asked me. But maybe I wouldn’t. And Andrew. Poor Andrew. Sitting by himself. Billy, too. All of them watching me, loving me, wanting me to be close to them, but knowing that I was a Dark Angel. If they got too close to me, I’d only break their hearts again.

And my voice was hitting all the right notes, even the high ones, and I kept twirling so fast that you’d think I’d be dizzy, except I knew the trick and that’s to keep your eyes focused on one spot. So I was looking at the basement window each time I twirled. My dress and hair were flying through the air, my high heels clicking on the tiles. I could hear the people in the audience calling, “Bravo! Bravo!” and I knew that I’d be on the front page of the
Observer
the next morning. “Sensational!” the headline would read. And when I returned to my dressing room, there would be a million red roses waiting for me from my fans around the world. I’d say things like “Oh, you shouldn’t have” and “For little ol’ me?” And just when I
was at the point where I could actually smell the roses, I twirled and saw Uncle Ed’s face staring at me through the window.

I froze with my back to the window. Was it really him? Somehow, I managed to turn my head around. He was gone. I ran to the window and closed the curtains and turned off the stereo and then I raced up the stairs, slid through the kitchen and into the bathroom. I slammed the door behind me and locked it.

Was I hallucinating? I yanked off the dress and the wig and the earrings. Maybe he wasn’t really there. I kicked off the shoes. Maybe it was just my imagination. But I saw him so clearly. He was wearing a yellow baseball hat and a green jacket.

I stopped and listened. There was nothing but silence. If that
was
him, he would’ve knocked, I said to myself. But why would he come over? He knew my parents were going to London.

Unless my mom asked him to check up on me.

And then it all made sense, that Uncle Ed really
had
seen me. My mom must’ve called him before she left and asked him to drop by the house to make sure everything was okay. How could she do that to me? Especially after I went with her to that stupid play.

I turned to wash my make-up off and saw my reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. I was still wearing my mom’s bra. My red lipstick had smudged and my mascara was running down my face. I looked like my mom in the Conch Shell, the day she fell on her butt and cried. I heard her voice in my head.

You spend all your time up in the clouds, until, one day, reality decides to pull you back down.

I finished washing my face and put back my mom’s shoes and her bra and dress. I put Christine’s wig back in her closet. Then I jumped into the shower and rinsed myself clean. I didn’t even look at the showerhead.

After I dried myself off, I put on my old rugby pants and taped up my nipples and pulled my sweatshirt on. Then I grabbed a Jane Parker spice cake off the kitchen counter, went to my room, and put my desk chair under the door handle.

I did something very bad. I knew it. I had let a Bedtime Movie leave my head and come to life. And I’d been caught. Uncle Ed had seen me. He had seen me and what was he thinking right now? How was I going to explain what I was doing when my parents asked me?

“See?!?” my mom would scream. “I told you we should’ve signed him up for Bluewater Hockey!”

“If he had taken shop class, this wouldn’t have happened,” my dad would cry.

“Looks like
you’re
the pervert,” Nancy would say.

“And we know what you do with the showerhead,” Christine would say.

Worst of all, I could hear Uncle Ed telling Janice Appleby and all the rest of the donut shop girls about me.

“You should’ve seen it,” he’d say, shaking his head and biting into his Boston Cream. “Kid’s dancing around in a dress and make-up, listening to Olivia Newton-John. Shouldn’t have gotten him that record for his birthday.”

It would only be a matter of time before the rest of the
class found out about me. And my nipples. And what I did to Billy Archer. They’d show up in front of my house with lit torches and ropes in their hands, yelling, “Send him out! Send him out!”

“Aren’t you getting a little carried away?” my nipples asked.

“No,” I said. “And I don’t remember asking you for your opinion.”

“Don’t get angry at us.
We’re
not the ones who put on a pair of pantyhose.”

“You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?”

“Not better,” my nipples said, “just smarter. Uncle Ed won’t say anything. You know that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You’re both the same.”

“That’s not true at all! Uncle Ed and I are nothing alike. He’s annoying and talks too much and wears too much cologne.”

“If he tells on you, he tells on himself,” my nipples said. “You’ll see.”

“You’re crazy,” I told my nipples. “You’ve lost your marbles.”

They kept quiet for the rest of the afternoon.

I must’ve fallen asleep after I finished eating the spice cake because I woke up to the sound of the back door closing.

“Well, the house isn’t burned to the ground,” I heard my dad say.

“I smell drugs,” Nancy said.

“Don’t be smart,” my mom said. “Peter? Are you here, dear?”

She came and knocked on my door. I was afraid to open it, but I didn’t have a choice.

“Why are you in here with the door shut?”

I shrugged. “Just used to it, I guess.”

“Did you have a good day?”

I shrugged again.

“Did anyone call?” my mom asked.

“No,” I said. Why would I tell her the truth? Uncle Ed would give her all the details.

Later that night, I heard her on the phone to him. I stood at my bedroom door listening.

“Now Ed, I asked you to do one thing for me. Well, what do you mean you didn’t have time? Oh Ed, I wish I could trust you sometimes . . . .”

My nipples were right! Uncle Ed
didn’t
tell on me. But why?

“Why did he lie?” I asked my nipples. They kept quiet. I unpeeled the masking tape to give them some air and asked them again. “Why didn’t Uncle Ed say something?”

But my nipples just stared back at me from my mirror. For once, they had nothing to say.

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