Something Wicked (13 page)

I decide to walk across the sloping lawn spotted with iron post lights, toward the water’s edge and along the beach. I don’t have a good mid-season coat, so I’m just wearing my hoodie over the dress I wore to dinner. There’s an older couple down there, wearing matching puffy sport vests like they’re right out of a Gap ad. They smile at me in a way that no old people ever smile at me in the city. It’s a nice smile. Like a look-atthe-sweet-young-girl-taking-a-stroll-in-the-moonlight smile. Like just because I’m in this ritzy place, suddenly I’m not a punk. And I should be pissed off at how superficial they are, but it feels good to be trusted by a stranger. Almost makes me feel like being trustworthy. Almost.

I continue walking. It’s so black and quiet. It’s a little cold, but not so bad for this time of year. I find a Muskoka chair that’s off on its own. I light my joint and sit, just watching
the moon and stars shimmering in the water. A loon calls in the distance. It’s the most romantic place I’ve ever been, and of course all I think about is Michael. I want him here so, so badly. But being at this resort with Scott makes me realize that Michael was more than just a good boyfriend. He was about the life I wanted to have, the one I always dreamed of. A normal life. A house. A family. A career. And so losing Michael is more than just losing someone I love. It’s like losing hope.

I reach up my hand to my mouth, close my eyes, and give it sloppy kisses. It’s a pathetic replacement, but I can almost convince myself I feel him … his warm mouth pulling at my bottom lip, then the top, then both. I want to disappear right into that mouth, first my lips, then my face, then my neck, then all of me. We used to kiss for hours. Sometimes that was all we’d do. Then sometimes his hand would reach down to my belly and up into my shirt. And the next morning my boobs would be full of purple and red hickeys. And I loved those bruised kisses that lingered for days. So all I’d have to do when I missed him was lift open the top of my shirt and look down.

Now I wish he had stained all of me. I wish every kiss he ever gave had left a mark on me forever.

Twenty-Three

I’m lying on a towel on the small beach beside the lake, eating my picnic sandwich and watching my mom and Scott, who are lying on a big towel a few feet away. There are no other guests around. Maybe they think it’s crazy to be on a beach at the end of fall, but it’s a really hot day, warm enough to wear just a long-sleeve shirt. In the morning, my mom joked that it was so hot she wanted to wear her pink bikini. She paraded around the living room in it, saying she’d get her last tan in before the winter comes. I knew she was only doing it to show off her wicked body. She’s thin and curvy in all the right places, while my body is just one fleshy flat line all around the perimeter, like a big rectangle.

I’m relaxed because I just smoked a joint behind the shack where they keep the canoes. I feel like a whole different person, no worries, just loving the heat of the sun on my face. It’s like I’m not even myself, like I’m being filmed for a movie or something. And I’m totally happy, mostly because my mom is happy. It works that way. I wish it didn’t. But I’ve lived long enough to know it’s true.

If I were honest with myself (which is what happens when I’m high), I’d say I really want my mom to marry Scott. It’s selfish, but if it happened, all our problems would go away. We wouldn’t have to worry about money and I wouldn’t have to worry about my mom all the time. Then I could just be a kid and do normal kid things. I think of myself in a bedroom with pink walls. I’d take figure skating lessons. We’d have a family dinner each night and someone would ask me if my homework was done. I’d have real dessert with whipped cream, and a curfew, and I’d study for exams.

I know that if this actually happened, I’d probably hate my life. I’d find it totally boring and fuck it all up, because it’s like it’s too late for me now. But who knows? Maybe after some time I’d get into it.

Some kind of bug lands on my neck and stings me. “Agghhh!” I shout, and slap my hand down hard. “Bitch!” I shout some more, really annoyed now, and then look back to my mom and Scott, who don’t even turn to see what the problem is.

Then it’s as if reality settles in, and I sober up. I shake my head, pissed off at the dumb fairy tale I was constructing. It was a stupid thought and I am an idiot for even letting myself get so far into the idea.

“I’m cold, I’m going,” I announce, standing up and shaking the sand off my ass. I friggin’ hate sand.

“Yeah. Okay.” My mom waves absent-mindedly and goes back to her deep conversation with Scott. With nothing else to do, I decide to head back to the room and drink a beer. I don’t even like beer, but I’ll do anything just to shut my mind up.

Twenty-Four

It’s always a little bit awkward when I walk into Eric’s office. It’s hard to shift gears from thinking about nothing to thinking about something. I spend every day just trying to forget how I really feel and then I have to face it all when I see him.

“Hey,” I greet him, toss my backpack onto one of the empty chairs, and unzip my jacket.

“Hey yourself. Good timing—I just walked in. How’s it going?” Eric takes off his own coat and puts down a Starbucks cup on the table.

“Okay,” I answer, sit down, pick up two stress balls that are in a basket on the table, and start to juggle them while Eric puts away a folder and finishes writing a number on a yellow sticky note. He makes some small talk about stuff—school and my work—before he brings up what he really wants to discuss.

“So, how was the weekend away?”

“Actually, it was really good.” I try to toss the balls up and down in one hand. One of them goes flying down to the floor and I’m too lazy to get it, so I just lean back and start squeezing the other one in my hands.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am. I didn’t think I’d like it.”

“Hmmm … I’m glad. You like Scott?”

“Yeah. I can’t really complain. Which feels weird. I guess part of me wants to hate him. And I guess I wanted to have a terrible time.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause it would be a lot easier than getting hurt in the end. It’s obvious Scott and my mom aren’t going to stay together. He’s rich and has a nice house. And he’s all proper and polite. And this perfect little life we have with him is just borrowed. I mean, you just can’t go from a shitty apartment and living in a shelter to some mansion in Rosedale. It doesn’t work like that, even though my mom promised, one day, we’d have a home. A real home, you know?”

“I’m sure she meant it when she said it.”

“Yeah. I remember exactly when she said it. We were in the shelter after Bradley died. We were sitting in our crappy room, on the bed.”

“That’s right, you were there a couple of months. What was that like?”

“It was okay. We slept in a dorm room with something like ten beds. There were a couple other kids in there, but no men. Only women.” I close my eyes and start to move around the room I see in my mind. “There were bunk beds, and me and my mom had two lower bunks side by side. In between us was a table we could put our stuff on. And a little cupboard underneath the table we could lock and keep some clothes in. We had to change in there with everyone else around. It was really awkward. But what was most terrible was sleeping. Hearing everyone breathe and snore and fart. And sometimes I heard my mom crying. That was the worst. I remember that really scaring me.” I pause a second, because I hadn’t thought
of all this in such a long time and it’s weird how real it still feels to me. “I remember waking in the dark, really late, and always hearing the radio playing down the hall, at the security desk. There was never total silence. Which probably should have been comforting, but actually was kind of creepy.”

I open my eyes again. “The worst was the toilets. There was an open shower area, without any drapes. Just a few shower pipes with, like, five shower heads around each one, so all the women had to stand naked in little circles. It was really gross. It was the first time I saw women’s bodies.” The recollection makes me shudder.

“Where did you eat?”

“In the cafeteria. It was a big room with longish tables. We usually sat alone or with a friend of my mom’s, who also had a kid who was a few years younger than me that I got stuck basically babysitting while they talked. There was a playroom. I remember that being cool, even though I was too old for it. I’d colour, and play this game with marbles. A lady used to play with me. She was young. I think she was a volunteer. One time I made chocolate chip cookies with her in the kitchen.”

“So you’ve described what it looked like. What about the general feel of the place?”

“I don’t know …” I try to think about being twelve again. Imagine myself walking around the place. “I don’t really remember being sad. I was more worried about my mom. The place itself wasn’t awful. It’s only later, when I got older, that I put negative feelings into the memories. It’s like at the time, it just
was
. There were always people around, you know? And nothing was ours—not the sheets or the pillows or even the soap. But it wasn’t that bad. It was more the idea that no one wanted to be there that made it depressing. I guess if it was a place people
wanted
to go, it would have been fine. But since it was a shelter and no one wants to be in a shelter, it was like
reality turned everything a certain grey and you couldn’t see the colour.” My lips stop moving and it’s as if I’ve just returned to the room after being far away in my mind. “Oh,” I remark, “I’ve been talking a lot.”

“It’s okay. That’s what we’re here for.”

“My mouth is tired.”

Eric laughs. “Then let’s give it a rest, shall we?”

Twenty-Five

I try to pretend to myself that I’ve stopped thinking about Michael. I pretend to everyone that things are fine, but inside I’m really dying. Each morning I wake with the hope that maybe today he will call. And each night I go to bed, sad that he didn’t. When I can’t sleep, I lie in the dark and go over every single second we ever spent together, from beginning to end. I play it like a movie in my head, so I even see myself in the scenes. Then sometimes I imagine him calling me.

“Hi.”

“Michael?”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I know you’re mad, but I’m coming back for you.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. Not now. In two years. I love you, Melissa. I want to be with you forever. Wait for me. When you’re eighteen, I’ll be there.”

“Eighteen? That’s so long. Why eighteen? It’s just a number. I can’t wait. I might be dead by then.”

“You won’t be dead. You’re too strong, baby. We’re going to be together. I know it.”

“But if you love me, how can you be away from me?”

“I need to get my shit together. You need to get older. If we’re together now, we won’t last.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s true. But I can’t be alone so long. You have to come back.”

“I will.”

“I don’t think I can wait so long.”

“Wait, baby. Wait. I will wait for you …”

And it goes on and on like that. But I wonder how long
I
can go on like this—waking with hope, falling asleep in tears. It feels endless, but I suppose it’s bound to stop. One day I’m bound to wake without the thought of Michael beside me in my bed. Aren’t I?

Twenty-Six

The minute I swear off men, I meet someone remotely interesting. His name is Fortune, he’s nineteen, and he’s so incredibly gorgeous it’s almost impossible not to want to jump him. He’s got a baby face, beautiful brown skin, short dreads, and the most amazing body. “It’s as if he puts sexy into every movement,” Jess says. Hot, hot, hot! He’ll be standing in front of you then suddenly reach up over his head to stretch, revealing his six-pack stomach. Or he’ll lean one arm up on the fridge door at a party, deciding for the longest time on what beer to take, while all the girls in the room stare at his fine ass.

I’ve seen him around before. I always thought he was cute, but it was obvious he was a player, so I didn’t consider him. He’s the kind of guy who makes girls fall in love with him, gets what he can out of them, and moves on.
Any
girl—Chinese, black, Hispanic, brown, anything. Even the guys are drawn to him. He always has a permanent posse of wannabes hanging around.

But on Saturday night, at Jasmyn’s friend’s friend’s friend’s place, here Fortune is, beside me on the couch, treating me
like I’m the only girl in the room. His thigh pressed against mine. His sexy voice up close in my ear, so close I feel his cheek against mine. I’m so fucked up on some stuff Jasmyn gave me to snort that I decide to tolerate him. He is telling me I’m different than the other girls. He is telling me he’s been watching me a long time.

“That’s bull,” I argue.

He laughs. “You see? You’re smart. I like that. You don’t let me get away with shit and I barely know you.” He reaches his arm around me, resting his hand against my tit as if it’s unintentional. “You walk around like you don’t care about anyone. Like you’re a dyke or something. Your friend Allison kind of looks like a dyke. What’s up? Are you a carpet muncher?”

I slap him in the chest. “No!”

“You sure?” He puts his hand back again.

“Is this why you prey on sixteen-year-olds? Because they buy this shit?” I pull away firmly this time.

“Hah!” He laughs. “Usually.”