Out of Order (3 page)

“This school. Any school.” Zelia shrugs and lights her cigarette. “What about you? You're new here, aren't you?”

I nod. “We just moved out from Ontario.”

“We?”

“Me and my mom.”

Zelia looks interested. “Just you and your mom? Same here. Just the two of us.” She flicks the ash off her cigarette, holds it with her hand cupped over it to protect it from the rain. “Where's your dad?”

I study my runners and wish I was wearing boots like Zelia's. “Died when I was a kid, but they split up before I was born,
so I never knew him anyway.” I turn toward her. “What about yours?”

She leans toward me, ignoring my question. “Aren't you curious about your dad?”

I think about that for a moment, wondering how to answer, wondering how Zelia feels about her own father. I decide to be honest. “Not really. It's always been just the two of us—me and my mom.”

Zelia tilts her head to one side as she listens, and her black hair falls over her face. She flips it back over her shoulder with a slender hand. Her nails are short and painted with black polish. “What does your mom do?”

“Psychologist,” I say. “Counselling. Our place has an old double garage that's been fixed up. She uses it as an office so she can work from home.” I pause. “How about yours?”

Zelia shrugs. “Nothing that interesting.”

An old man shuffles through the square and throws us a disapproving look. I drop my eyes, but Zelia just looks right at him and laughs. “Nathan,” she says.

“You know him?”

“No, that's just what I call old men.”

I grin at her, amused and surprised, forgetting my self-consciousness for a moment. “And what about old women? ”

Zelia looks at me, eyes as calm and blue as summer skies. “Why don't you give me a name for them?”

I think for a minute. This feels important, like a test I must pass. “Ethel?” I say, uncertainly. “Or Agatha? Or no, wait...Gertrude?”

Her eyes dance and she claps her hands in delight. “Yes,” she says softly, “Gertrude. That is absolutely perfect.”

I can feel a huge grin trying to sneak onto my face, but I force myself to shrug nonchalantly. In this moment, I know we are going to be friends.

This is what I believe: that the past will sink like a stone, the cold water quickly closing over it, leaving only a few faint ripples on its glassy surface.

FOR THREE WHOLE
weeks, it seems like everything is going to be great. September is almost a perfect month. Sometimes I catch myself smiling as I walk to school, a big goofy grin plastered across my face. Zelia is like no one else I've known. She seems older than the other girls in my classes and more confident. Fearless. She doesn't care what anyone else thinks, and when I'm with her I almost don't care either.

I still talk to Tammy and the others once in a while. There was no fight, no big breakup, but we're already growing distant. We're already forgetting that I almost joined their group. I spend every spare minute with Zelia.

Zelia doesn't ask me questions about myself, so I'm not always forced to lie or make up stories about my old school. And even though I would never let her know about who I used to be, she gets who I am, somehow. She recognizes that we're not like the others. I think that's why she likes me. We're on the outside because we want to be, because we don't want to be like everyone else.

Zelia does crazy things all the time, just to make me laugh. Last week we went into the pizza place in the square, and she
asked the guy who works there a million questions about how they make the pizza. Weird questions, like whether they use pickle juice in the dough and do they make a pizza with sardines and avocados. Zelia kept a totally straight face and made her eyes all round and innocent. I had to run outside because I was in danger of losing it, but Zelia didn't even crack a smile. The pizza guy just kept answering all her questions. I guess it doesn't hurt that she is totally gorgeous.

Mostly I still can't believe that Zelia has chosen me, Sophie Keller, to be her friend. Best friend, even. Last week after we had laughed until our faces hurt over the pizza place thing, she suddenly grabbed my arm and got all serious. I was frightened for a second, not knowing what was wrong. She just stared at me kind of solemnly with those blue eyes, and then she whis­pered that we were going to be best friends forever. I whispered it back to her:
best friends forever.

The last time I had a best friend was in grade seven. Patrice Low. Two weeks into grade eight she dumped me to hang out with Chloe Rankin and the rest of the gang who went on to make my life hell in grades eight and nine. I'm trying to forget those years. It's easier to keep things secret if I pretend they never happened.

Zelia and I have all these private jokes and games we play, like the name game. Nathan and Gertrude were just the beginning. Girls who are all about clothes and shopping are Madisons; fat women are Berthas or Brendas; bimbos are Tiffanys. Uptight older teachers or librarians are Mildreds or Georges. Clones are just Clones.

One day in the second week of school, Zelia decides that losers will be called Ermentrude, after a slightly chubby girl in our class who wears thick glasses and jeans with a really high waist. Zelia pretends to hike her own pants up to her armpits and does Ermentrude impersonations. Zelia's funny, but I have to fake my laughter. It reminds me not to let down my guard, not to let her know anything about who I used to be.

Sometimes I wake up after a bad dream and sit in sweat-soaked and tangled sheets, trying to figure out what is real and what is not, what was then and what is now. Sometimes I dream that Zelia is calling me Ermentrude, saying I'm fat, laughing at me for believing that she really liked me. I have to get up and splash cold water on my face, stare at my gray eyes in the mirror and feel my newly sharp bones to remind myself that I am safe and that everything is different now. Zelia and I are friends.

I ride Keltie after school a couple of times a week, but on the other days Zelia comes home with me. We hang out in my bedroom, which is small and square, with three walls painted white and one deep red. Gran's quilt covers the bed in a pattern of soft greens and blues, and there is a large round mirror above my dresser, its glass half-covered with photographs of horses I've ridden. I have hidden away all the school yearbooks and the photographs of myself from the last couple of years. The books and cd's that line my shelves have been carefully selected to bolster my new image. Any music I am at all unsure about is hidden under the bed, along with a teddy bear I've had since I was a baby and all my poetry books. Still, I am nervous the first
few times Zelia comes over. I can't shake my fear that some­thing ugly might sneak out from the past and spoil everything.

The first day of October dawns gray and rainy, but during the afternoon the wind picks up and clears the skies. When I leave school at 3:30, it is cold and bright. I wait in the school­yard, looking around for Zelia, and my breath forms plumes of mist that hang in front of me. Everything looks sharp and clear, as if the air is thinner than usual. When I look back on this day, I will remember it as the time everything began to fall apart.

ZELIA WANTS TO
go to the drugstore on the way back to my place. I know my mother won't like my being home late, but I don't say anything. I walk quickly and hope Zelia won't take too long.

There are some of those gumball-type vending machines just inside the door. Zelia points at one filled with gaudy jewelry.

“Check this out,” she says, laughing. She crams in quarter after quarter and hands me the little clear plastic bubbles that spill out of the machine. I pop them open and empty the shiny rings into her cupped hands. They are ultra-tacky, with chunks of glass for stones: blue, red, green.

“Pick one,” she says.

They're all a bit too big. I take a gold one with a green stone and slide it onto my thumb.

Zelia slips a matching ring onto her finger and turns her hand toward me, palm out. I hold my hand against hers in a slow-motion high five.

“Best friends forever,” Zelia says.

My breath catches in my throat. “Best friends forever,” I whisper. In this moment, I am happy.

We try on all the sunglasses from the drugstore racks, making faces and laughing at each other. Zelia perches a pair of reading glasses on the end of her nose.

“Gertrude,” I say quickly. I feel a little twinge of discomfort. My grandmother has a pair just like that.

She laughs. “Yup, they're definitely Gertrude glasses. Points for speed.” She puts on a pair of pink-rhinestone-studded sunglasses and strikes a pose.

“Tiffany?” I guess.

“Yup. Points for accuracy.” She hands me a simple black pair. “Here, try these ones.”

I slip them on and look at myself in the small mirror on top of the rack. I look so different with my eyes hidden. Older. More interesting. More like Zelia. The sunglasses make my red hair look kind of dramatic—kind of striking—instead of just out of control.

“You should get those,” she says.

I look at the price tag. “Can't. I only have a couple of bucks on me.”

Zelia takes them from me, glances quickly around, and then she shoves them in her jacket pocket.

I stare at her.

“Come on,” she says, like nothing is wrong. “I need to get mascara.”

I follow, my heart pounding. A fragment of memory pokes through, a sharp little ghost. Girls' voices:
Teacher's pet.
Chickenshit. Think you're something special, don't you, Fatso?

I push the voices back beneath the surface, hold them under. I say nothing.

“Here,” says Zelia. “I'll just buy this.” She pays for her makeup and we head out into the brilliant sunshine. We're only a few steps from the store when Zelia pulls out the sunglasses and hands them to me. “Present for you,” she says.

I cram them hastily into my pocket. “Thanks,” I say, and together we walk through the quiet streets to my house.

My mother is in the kitchen, reading a magazine while she microwaves a cup of leftover coffee. Her red hair falls loose to her shoulders, and she is wearing a cream silk blouse and beige dress pants. This means she has been seeing clients; when she isn't working she pretty much lives in sweats.

We never hang out at Zelia's place, but I met her mom once when she drove by the school to drop off some things for Zelia. She is stunning, like Zelia, with the same straight black hair and blue eyes. I bet she doesn't even own sweat pants. She pulled up to the curb in a white sports car, and Zelia grabbed my arm, drew me over and introduced me. Her mother smiled, all shiny red lipstick and white teeth, and told me to call her Lee. Then she murmured something about an appointment, handed Zelia a duVel bag and sped off, blowing us a kiss over her shoulder. She reminded me of someone in a movie. Kind of glamorous.

Mom takes her coffee out of the microwave and stirs a spoonful of sugar into it. She doesn't say anything about our being late, but she gives me a look that lets me know she has been waiting for us.

“So how was school?” she asks.

“Fine,” I say.

I would rather just go up to my room, but Zelia pulls up a kitchen chair and sits down. She always wants to visit with my mom. At first I thought she was just being polite, but now she and Mom talk all the time.

“Hi, Dr. Keller,” Zelia says. “How's it going?”

My mom nods. “Okay. Busy, but a good day.” She looks at me sharply. “Are you wearing makeup?”

I have forgotten to wash it off.

She sighs. “It's okay, Sophie. I suppose most girls do at your age.”

I nod vaguely and let my mind wander while Zelia and my mom chat away about makeup, clothes and the eighties music Mom listens to. Mom is laughing and telling some story about trying to iron her hair for her prom and accidentally scorching it. If it wasn't for the fact that Mom and I look so much alike, anyone watching would think Zelia was the daughter and I was the friend.

Zelia grabs my arm and leans forward. “Dr. Keller, Sophie and I were wondering. If you aren't seeing clients tonight, could we hang out in your office?”

I blink. She's never mentioned this idea to me.

Mom looks taken aback. “Why can't you hang out in Sophie's room?”

“Oh, if you don't want us to, it's no big deal,” Zelia says. “I just thought, you know, if you weren't using it tonight...”

I wonder what she is up to.

Mom frowns. “Well, I suppose that'd be okay.”

Zelia flashes her radiant smile. “Thanks.”

I follow Zelia through my house, out the back door and down the path to the office. The door is locked and I have to run back into the house for the key.

Mom catches me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything's fine,” I say, surprised.

“I just thought...I don't know.” She looks at me hard, lowering eyebrows which, like mine, are so fair you can barely see them. “You would talk to me, wouldn't you? If something was wrong?”

“Sure. But nothing's wrong. Really.”

Mom releases my shoulder. “Okay, Sophie.”

When I get back to Mom's office, I don't see Zelia. As I stand there, key in my hand, I hear her whisper.

“Sophie, back here.”

She is sitting cross-legged on the damp grass behind the office, hidden from my mom's view. Smoke curls up from the cigarette held loosely between her fingers. She holds the pack out toward me. Oddly, in this moment I remember all my mom's talks about peer pressure and how to resist it. But there is no pressure here, no crowd of smokers, no voices urging me to just try it. Zelia doesn't care if I smoke. If I say
no thanks
, like I always have until now, she'll just shrug and put the cigarettes away. So I don't know why, this time, I reach out and take one.