Fruit (23 page)

“I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours or so,” Daniela said. “I’ll say I’m going to the fuckin’ mall or something.”

While I was standing there, I saw Daniela in a way I hadn’t before. I realized that even though she had a plugged-up nose and split ends and still wet the bed, she was my friend. Maybe even my best friend. But it was weird to think that because boys and girls aren’t supposed to be best friends.

I thought back to when Brian Cinder was teasing me, saying that I wanted to be a girl because I was hanging around the Goody-Goody Group. I was so embarrassed.
But here was Daniela, a girl and my friend and I wasn’t embarrassed at all. And my friend was in a situation — a very dangerous situation, and even though she didn’t realize it, she needed my help. Her virginity was on the line.

“I gotta go,” I told Daniela. “I have to pick up some stuff at the Shop ’N’ Bag. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No,” Daniela said. “But remember — keep your mouth shut about me and you-know-who.”

That night, I used a Kleenex instead of a sock.

“Allo?”

“Yes, is this Mr. Bertoli?” I made my voice as serious as possible. I was through fooling around. “Can you hear me, Mr. Bertoli? If you can, please say yes.”

“Who isa dis?”

“Never mind, Mr. Bertoli. My identity isn’t any of your business. But your daughter is my business.”

“Who isa dis?”

“I told you! Never mind. This isn’t about me. This is about Daniela.”

“Daniela?”

“Yes, Mr. Bertoli. And Phil, the Burger King Banger.”

“Burger King? You gotta wrong number.”

“No, I don’t!” I rubbed my temples. “Beware of Phil from Burger King. He is bad news.”

“What isa bad news? Someone deys die?”

“No, there is no bad news. I mean, Phil is bad news, Mr. Bertoli. Do you remember him? He gave Gianni a ride home from work one night and had dinner at your house. He is a bad seed. Do you understand?”

“Phil? He’sa bad seed?”

“Yes, that’s it, Mr. Bertoli. Now we’re on the same page. Phil is a bad seed.”

“Who isa dis?”

“Never mind. I don’t have time to play games with you. Just listen to me. Phil is the very worst kind of seed. A Banger seed. He’s after your daughter.”

“Who? Who isa dis?”

“Mr. Bertoli, you are not cooperating.” I tried to keep my voice down so my parents wouldn’t hear, but it was getting difficult.

“Who isa dis?”

“Mr. Bertoli, just listen to what . . .”

“Who isa dis?”

“I’m trying to tell you something very . . .”

“Who isa dis?”

Then I lost it.

“
GIANNI’S FRIEND PHIL WANTS TO FUCK YOUR DAUGHTER THIS WEEKEND! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME NOW?
”

I thought I heard a gasp on the other end, but I hung up very quickly. My heart was beating a million miles a minute. A secret agent would never blow his cool like that.

“Peter, did I just hear you say what I think I heard you say?”

It was my mother, calling from the kitchen.

“No you didn’t,” I called back.

I sat there for a minute and waited for my heart to slow down. The telephone call was very exciting and saying the f-word felt kind of good. Maybe that’s why Daniela uses it so much.

I wondered what was happening at the restaurant. Was Daniela there? Where was Phil? Did Mr. Bertoli finally understand what kind of danger Daniela was in? I was pretty sure about one thing, though — Phil wouldn’t be coming to fuckin’ dinner at the Bertolis anytime soon.

Daniela was out in the garage the next day. I was still nervous that she’d know it was me who blew the whistle on her and Phil. I decided I’d avoid her for the next little while in case she was angry at me. But as I tiptoed up her driveway to deliver the paper, Daniela turned and saw me.

“I’m gonna murder that fuckin’ bitch!” she yelled. “She gets it in her head that her pizella iron is in a box somewhere in the garage. Of course, she can’t remember
which
fuckin’ box. I’m gonna strangle her, I swear to god.”

I figured it was safe. “I’ll give you a hand,” I said, pulling my newspaper bag from around my shoulder. My customers could wait a bit.

“Check that pile of shit over there,” she said, pointing to a stack of boxes against the wall.

“What does a pizella iron look like?” I asked her as I started opening boxes.

“Like a pizella iron,” Daniela said.

I knew I had to ask her about Phil, just to make sure my last phone call worked. But I had to ask it in just the right way or else I’d sound suspicious. I yawned and stretched. “Still going away for the weekend with what’s-his-name?” I asked.

Daniela stopped for a second. Then she turned her back to me and opened up a shoebox.

“Phil and I are through,” she said.

I was glad she wasn’t facing me, because I almost smiled.

“Really?” I asked. “What happened?”

“It’s too complicated to explain,” Daniela said. “I don’t want to get into it. Let’s just say my brother is as good as fuckin’ dead. Where’s that fuckin’ pizella iron?” She picked up another box, looked inside, and then chucked it over her shoulder. Then she sat down on a stepladder and sighed. “I’m never gonna find it. Can you tell me why I’m even looking in the first place?”

“Why don’t you ask your mother to look for herself?”

“It’s not that,” Daniela said. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not . . . it’s just . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

I watched as she fingered one of her split ends. I got a weird feeling and I knew that if I didn’t do something fast, Daniela would start crying and that just couldn’t happen.

“I bet I can figure it out,” I said.

“Figure what out?” Daniela looked up at me.

“About you and Phil.”

“What?” Daniela put her hand on her hip.

“You dumped him, didn’t you?”

She paused. Then she narrowed her eyes. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you,” I said. “And I know that it takes a lot more than a shark’s tooth pendant to impress you.
Like you said yourself, you’re not like other girls, batting their eyelashes over some jerk who doesn’t give you the time of day. You’ve got too much self-respect for that.”

“Self-respect,” Daniela repeated, but it came out sounding like a question.

“And high standards. Did Phil cry when you broke it off?”

“A little,” she said. Then she got up from the step-ladder and grabbed another box. “Actually, the fucker wouldn’t stop bawling. Talk about a fuckin’ baby! I tried to be easy on him, though.”

I nodded slowly and then grabbed my newspaper bag. “My work here is done,” I thought to myself.

“I have to get back to delivering these,” I said. “If Mr. Cornish doesn’t get his paper by five, he’ll bust a gut.”

“Okay,” Daniela said. She was holding an empty box in each of her hands. “I guess I’ll finish looking for this fuckin’ iron.”

“You’ll find it,” I said. “Sooner or later.”

Then I went on to deliver the rest of my papers.

ten

No one can agree on what to get my parents for their anniversary. Christine thinks we should get them a bird-house. Nancy wants to get them electric toothbrushes. I want to get them sheers.

“That’s the stupidest gift I’ve ever heard of,” Christine said. “Who buys someone curtains for a present?”

“Sheers,”
I said. “Not curtains. Mom’s always saying how she wants sheers. Like the kind Mrs. LaFlamme has.”

“I still think it’s a stupid idea.”

“It’s no stupider than a birdhouse. There’ll be bird poop all over the place. Mom and Dad don’t even like birds.”

“How do you know? I don’t remember them ever shooting chickadees in our backyard.”

“You’re both way off,” Nancy said. “Electric toothbrushes are the way to go. Bubbles bought a pair for her parents for Christmas and they love them.”

“And what did her parents buy for her?” Christine asked. “A pair of pliers to help her zip up her jeans?”

“Bubbles has never been anything but nice to you and
you don’t even give her the time of day. Your attitude really sucks.”

“
My
attitude? Look who’s talking!”

I started to get a headache. Christine and Nancy fight all the time now. Christine says Bubbles has a single digit I.Q. Nancy says Christine is a snob. Christine says Nancy is acting immature. Nancy says that Christine is acting like a bitch. Christine says that Nancy thinks she’s better than everyone else. Nancy says that Christine thinks she’s better than everyone else. It gets pretty annoying after a while.

“Do you realize that our mom wears dentures, Nancy?” Christine asked. “If you can explain to me the benefit of giving an electric toothbrush to someone with false teeth, please tell me.”

“What? Like she can’t take them out and brush them?”

“I still think sheers are the only way to go,” I said.

“Shut up, Peter!” Nancy and Christine yelled.

“Why don’t both of you just shut up!” I yelled back. It was like a bomb went off inside of me, I was so angry at them. “You’re both acting like complete losers!” I turned to Nancy. “If Bubbles is such a nice person, then why did she only talk to you
after
you broke up with André? And Christine, I don’t care how mean you are to everyone. I wouldn’t tell you to ‘go away’ if
you
were the one being chased by a bunch of Bangers in Lambton Mall. I’d still let you in the store, Peoples policy or no Peoples policy.”

I turned around and stormed down the hall. I couldn’t even bear to look at them anymore.

“What’s
his
problem?” I heard Nancy say to Christine.

That just made me want to turn back and scream, “
You’re
the one with the problem, Nancy!
You’re
the one with the birth control pills in your dresser drawer!”

But I didn’t because then Nancy would ask me what I was doing in her dresser drawer in the first place and how could I tell her that I was looking for her copy of
Playgirl?
So I closed my bedroom door and put my desk chair beneath the doorknob and tried to remember back to the way things were before — before Nancy turned into a sister who has sex before marriage and hangs out with people named Bubbles. Before Nancy dumped André.

Before Nancy was thin.

I guess things started to go wrong last fall, around the time I hung up on John DeLouza. Up until then, everything was the same as it had always been. Nancy would go off to work her weekend shift at Tim Horton’s and come back with a bag of day-olds. Suzanne’s flyers would come in the mail and Nancy would hide them. On Sunday afternoons, she and André would sit at the kitchen table with the Sears catalogue and pick out the things they’d need once they got married.

It was pretty clear to me that André loved Nancy, even if he was a loser. I’d find cards from him in Nancy’s drawer. “To my little bunny,” one said. “I wuv you.” That made me want to puke. Did he really call her that? Another time, I found a card that said, “You rock me like a hurricane, babe,” which was pretty tacky, if you ask me.

One time, though, I found a whole letter from André
in Nancy’s bottom drawer. It was written on lined, three-hole paper and smelled like cologne. There were a lot of spelling mistakes, which proved that André was dumber than I thought.

“Nancy, I was thinking about last nite and what you said,” it said. “I know there are certian people that think you could do better than me (i.e. your parents) but they don’t know how much we care abot each other. We’re good together, babe and I promise I’ll take care of you. I’ll get a good job, we can by a house and start a family. It’ll be like all our dreams came true. I promise you, it’ll hapen, so please don’t go! I don’t know what I’d do if you ever leave me. I love you so much. xoxo André.”

What did Nancy say to him? Did she tell him she wanted to break up? Did she say that they came from different worlds? Did she tell him to walk away, André, just walk away and never look back, no matter how much it hurt? I folded the note up and put it back in Nancy’s drawer. Whatever she said to him, she must’ve changed her mind, because Nancy kept on ordering appliances and hand towels from Sears.

“What on earth is going on here?” my mom asked one day after Sears called to tell Nancy that her new Kenmore six-speed blender was ready for pick-up. “Nancy, this has got to stop.”

“What are you talking about?” Nancy asked. She was flipping through the Consumer’s Distributing catalogue.

“Well I don’t see why an eighteen-year-old girl needs a blender. And besides, Nancy, don’t you think André should find a job before you start stocking the cupboard?”

Nancy licked her thumb and flipped the page. “Give the guy a break, would you?”

“Look, Nancy,” my mom said. “I understand that you care for André a great deal and I know it isn’t easy for a girl like you, but that doesn’t mean you should settle for the first . . .”

“What do you mean ‘a girl like you?’” Nancy interrupted.

“Pardon?” my mom asked. A phony smile spread across her face.

Nancy stood up from her chair and crossed her arms. “You heard me. I asked you what you meant when you said ‘a girl like you?’”