Lost Between Houses (3 page)

There was this guy from New York, he was a boarder at school. Usually those guys are all queers, everybody knows that, but this guy was sort of cool, he had wonderful shirts, pink ones and yellow ones, he wore them under his school blazer. Come to think of it, he looked like one of those guys who reads
Playboy,
you know,
What kind of man reads
Playboy? He had that kind of sophistication. He asked me if I’d let him play the records. It’d give him something to do besides sitting on the couch, looking like a goof. Course he got to meet everybody that way, everybody being an expert on what you should play at a party.

Dorian Bradshaw and some of the guys from the Catholic school hung around in the driveway, leaning against the old man’s car and drinking. Just as long as they didn’t get into a fight, I didn’t care. Some of those guys, I’ll tell you, they can go berserko. One of them grabbed a spray can once at a party
and wrote his name on the bedroom wall. Like in a complete stranger’s house. It wasn’t real hard to figure out who did it. Anyway, I didn’t want any of that shit at my party, so when they came back in, reeking, I kept an eye on them.

Harper mostly stayed up in his room. He had kind of an outbreak with his skin, it wasn’t his fault, I mean he didn’t eat chocolate or anything but it made him a little shy. One time he came down and made toast. I asked him if he wanted to hang around.

“No,” he said. “Thanks anyway. Not really my scene.”

She was wearing a blue, sparkly dress with little cotton straps on her shoulders. And a lot of eye make-up. From a certain angle, she looked sort of Asian. I heard her tell somebody this famous folk singer had written a song for her. I figured that was bullshit but there was enough to her you couldn’t be completely sure. I mean if you saw her in a Hollywood restaurant, you’d probably really envy her.

Pretty full of herself. Kept throwing these quick little looks around the room to see who was watching her. She came with a guy named Mitch. I didn’t invite him, he’s just one of those guys figures he’s welcome everywhere. And he usually is. Cowboy good looks, pale blue eyes (like a Siberian husky) and white teeth, quite a hit with the girls, on first impression anyway. He caught me staring at her. I dropped my glance too late. I didn’t want him to think I was a loser, pining after somebody else’s date.

I drifted around the living room to see how the party was doing. I ran into Daphne Gunn. She was the one who dropped me for playing spin the bottle with her best friend while she was in the hospital with a broken leg. That’s what she said anyway. I knew it was bullshit. She just liked somebody else better, this
guy, Danny Lang. In fact she probably put her friend up to it. Weird how much I missed her once she was gone. I walked around like a sick dog for a couple of days, maybe even a week. I even burst into tears one day in my mother’s bathroom because it occurred to me, just like that, out of the blue, that I couldn’t ride my bike over to Daphne’s house any more. I mean that’s what was so haunting about it, this thing that I used to do all the time I couldn’t do any more.

Anyway. She came with her new boyfriend, a guy with a funny-shaped head. To be fair he wasn’t a goof. Just sort of extraneous.

“Who’s Mr Cylinder Head?” I asked.

“He’s my new boyfriend.”

“Son of a gun,” I said, meaning I’m not sure what.

She introduced him. I didn’t want him feeling superior or anything, just because he had her and I didn’t, so I played my cards very carefully. I waited till I’d said something especially funny and then I split. I’ve got an exquisite sense of timing. I really know how to do that stuff.

There was a ton of people by now. I saw George Hara smoking a cigarette by the fireplace. He was wearing a cardigan with a shirt under it buttoned up at the collar. Very square. I guess he really
didn’t
go out very much. Nobody dressed like that in my part of town. The English guy didn’t come, which was all right because I’d have had to pay a lot of attention to him on account of him not knowing anybody. But I don’t know. I always feel responsible for everybody having a good time. It’s probably bullshit. I mean according to me it’s amazing they get their shoes tied without me around.

Four girls sat on the floor, their kilts pushed between their knees. They asked me to sit with them but I was too restless. I’d
chat a bit here and there but then I’d move on. I had the damnedest sensation of looking for something, of waiting for something to happen. So I’d get to the end of the room and then I’d turn around and go through the whole works again.

I went upstairs. I heard my mother talking to a couple of kids just outside the bathroom. But she was doing a good job so I left them alone. It’s a great ace up your sleeve, having a mother people like. It makes you look better. Then I remembered the couple in the basement, I wondered if they’d snuck back there.

I went downstairs. I opened the basement door and you’ll never guess what I saw. I saw the girl in the sparkly dress; only she wasn’t with Mitch, she was with some other guy, a prefect at my school, she had her head turned up and she was kissing him on the mouth, I could see her lower jaw moving. They broke apart when they saw me. I went back upstairs sort of shocked.

In a little while she came into the kitchen. I could feel her looking at me as she worked her way across the room. I opened the refrigerator and pretended to peer in. Then she was standing beside me. I could smell her.

“You remind me of somebody,” she said.

“Oh yes?”

“What does your father do?”

“He’s a stockbroker.”

“That sounds pretty interesting.” I looked at her blankly.

Somebody spilled a drink on the floor. I frowned.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “Somebody’ll clean it up.”

“Are you a model or something?” I asked.

“Only in the summer. The rest of the time I’m just like you.”

I
doubt that,
I thought.

“That’s a nice haircut.” I said. “What does
your
dad do?”

“My father works in the movies,” she said.

“Oh yeah?”

“He knows everybody.”

“Does he know Kenny Withers?”

“Probably. Who’s Kenny Withers?”

“He’s a friend of mine. He lives down the street. He collects stamps.”

She looked at me coolly.

“That’s very funny.” She waited a moment. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No.” I was sorry as soon as I said it.

“I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet she’s just not here tonight. I’ll bet you’re a two-timer.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Scarlet Duke.”

“Is that your real name?”

“You want to see some ID?” She reached around to a cloth purse that hung from her bare shoulder.

“No, no.”

“Here,” she said. “Smell that.” She put a wrist under my nose. I could see a little blue vein.

“It’s Boucheron. Very expensive.” She looked at me. “Nice eh?”

“Yes, very nice.”

“$110 a bottle.”

“How did you get here, Scarlet?”

“The guy I came with is a friend of the guy who lives here.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“He’s not really my boyfriend.”

“I live here.”

She looked startled. Very cool to have so much effect on her.

“You live here?”

“Yes.”

“By yourself?”

“No, with my mother. And my father. I got a brother too.” Mitch came over. His blond hair that fell just so over his forehead.

“Cool party,” he said.

Scarlet looked at a small gold watch on her wrist. “I have to go. My father will have a bird.” She extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.” I could smell her perfume again. “Think about me sometime,” she said. And then they left.

I cleaned up the spilt drink. Somebody got loose in the pantry and opened a can of corn. Spilled it too. Somebody turned on the TV but I unplugged it. You can’t have a TV on at a party. Rosemary Shank was sick in the bathroom. She always did that, got drunk and got a guy to look after her. But really, the party was a hit, little clusters of people sitting on the floor, the lights off, a candle here and there, everybody talking. I wondered why I’d never had one before.

And that girl. After the party was over, I sat for a little while in the living room. It was sort of like a battlefield the day after: half-empty glasses of coke, one with a cigarette butt in it, coagulated pieces of pizza, which tasted pretty good. Records out of their covers, a cushion squashed down on the chesterfield. And then that girl. I saw her chin moving when she kissed that guy; they must have been really going at it. The skin all soft under her chin. She was really something.

B
ECAUSE WE WERE RICH LITTLE PRICKS
we got out of school for the summer three weeks before everybody else. But first we had exams. My brother was writing the provincial finals, which was a big deal, him walking around the upstairs hallway with
King Lear
in his hand (it had a purple cover), looking out the window and whispering to himself. His skin had broken out again. He was mighty uptight. So was I, to be honest.

I got through History all right, I aced English, Latin was a breeze, I passed Math, maybe a 60, but then there was the last one, Physics. Sure enough, just like I’d predestined it, the night before my exam I open that book with the scary cover, I’m looking at the soup cans and I’ve never seen them before. I study till around midnight, till I’ve got sand in my eyes and then I go to bed up in the maid’s room. I set the alarm for four o’clock. I check it about five times. I turn out the light. I close my eyes. I sink right down to the bottom of the tank. I mean I’m like a dead man, lying there on the bottom, when the alarm goes off. I think it can’t be four o’clock, not yet, I’ve just got to sleep, there must be something wrong with the clock. So I pick it up in the dark and I squint at it. Fuck me: Four it is. I’m so tired I feel sick to my stomach, like something really bad is going to happen if I don’t
go right back to sleep. I feel like calling for my mother and getting her to write me a note, saying I can’t come to school today. Simon’s not feeling well. You can say that again.

But I get up and go over and sit at the desk, staring at the yellow wall, wrapped in a blanket. I open the horrible physics book. I turn the pages: more soup cans, more arrows.

After awhile I can hear the city waking up, I hear Bluestein’s mutt, I hear a car drive down the street, a solitary car, the first of the day. It’s sort of a relief actually when the sunlight comes through the window, it means I’m getting near the end. I go down to the kitchen and get some orange juice and toast and come back up to the maid’s room.

It’s an afternoon exam so I leave the house around noon. The street has a strange feel to it, and I realize it’s because I never come along here at this time. But it’s a pretty spring day, the sun high up in the sky; the clouds are long and feathery and the air smells sweet. I get to school an hour early. Some of the guys like to hang around the exam room, yacking like crazy, asking each other questions, but I don’t do that. I figure somebody’ll ask me something I don’t know and it’ll rattle the shit out of me. So I stay away. I feel like I’m balancing a big medicine ball on top of my head and any sudden movement in any direction will make it fall off and I won’t remember a thing. I head out to the soccer field. There’s nobody there and I settle down in the grass, me and my physics book. I lie on my stomach. I can see the school from here, I can see the boys, little tiny figures milling around the front door, I can hear their voices coming across the grounds. I can smell the grass. I look down and I can see an ant crawling around. I part the grass carefully and I watch him.

I finally open up the physics book. The sun reflects off the pages, it makes me squint, I stare down at the book, I start to
read but after awhile I realize I’m thinking about being in the boat up at our cottage, I’m thinking of the chink-chink the waves make under the hull on a choppy day. I turn the page, I look at it, but my attention just slides off like an egg slipping off a plate. Same for the next page. I can’t read any more, I can’t read another word or think about anything more and if it’s on the exam, well, that’s too bad for me. So I close the book, I just stretch out, I put my hand under my chin and I just wait there in the warm grass.

The exam went all right. I mean it didn’t make me sign up for science camp or anything, but I didn’t bomb out either. Funny thing about that book, though. The textbook. Like the minute I got out of the exam, it went from being the most important book in the world, right in the centre of the universe, to just a pile of pages with doodles all over them. It even
looked
different. I brought it home though. I was too superstitious to leave it lying around on a windowsill at school. I was afraid it might get pissed off at me and arrange things so I flunked. You can never be too careful.

Next day, we packed up the car and headed north to our cottage. The old man stayed in the Clinic. Which was just fine with me.

It was about a three-hour drive to get there and we always stopped at the same place for something to eat. It was a little roadside joint with fabulous hamburgers. Some local guy ran it but he turned it into a big deal, every summer it got bigger, more kids working on the grill, pretty girls taking your order in the parking lot.

“How come we never go anywhere else?” I said as I burst out of the car. It wasn’t really a question, I was just happy to be
out of school and I wanted to talk. But Harper was a little grumpy that day.

“I don’t know,” he grunted, “good burgers, I guess.” There was no point asking what was bugging him, he’d just tell you to buzz off. He wasn’t like me that way. I can’t keep anything to myself. I mean I find it physically difficult to keep my mouth shut.

Anyway. Out in the parking lot, the old lady opened a thermos of vodka and orange juice, she’d whipped it up before she left home, and poured herself a drink. She opened the car door and left it open. She had this crazy idea that you could drink in your car as long as you had one foot on the ground. She kept the car door open so she could get her leg out extra fast in case a cop walked by. Jesus. What these folks wouldn’t do for a noggin. Like I mean, what with the old man getting soused in the living room, night after night, you’d think this wasn’t such a hot idea. Everybody walking around in a fucking blur. Getting pissed off at stuff they couldn’t even remember in the morning. One night when I was little, like in grade seven, he called me downstairs to look at my math homework. Talk about looking for trouble. Course it was all screwed up, mistakes all over the place and next thing I know is he hurls the notebook into the air, it’s flapping there like some kind of bird and I’m running for cover.