The Shore Girl (23 page)

“Jesus,” he cried, staggering backwards into the pack. Rebee stood motionless. The others yowled and scattered.
JD
stared down at himself, at the globs dripping off him. My globs.

“I'm gonna kill you, you little puke,” he snarled, flinging his head, a mad dog.

Rebee stepped closer to me. “You wanted a look-see. Here you go.” She tugged at the door ferociously until it groaned all the way up. I blinked the water from my eyes, waiting for the Cadillac to come out of the shadows. But there was just a black empty nothingness.

“Satisfied?” Rebee said calmly, brandishing her arm like a magician. The smell didn't seem to faze her.

JD
stared into the gaping empty hole beyond the door, his jaw hanging open, his rage extinguished.

The others were done with this party. They slunk back through the clearing in twos and threes, arguing about who would ride with
JD
.

“So you can get off my property now,” Rebee said to
JD
.

He glowered from me to Rebee to his disappearing buddies and then back to me. His fist clenched against his nose. He reeked. What was he thinking?
I can ignore it, beat the
crap out of this puker.
I inched backwards into the empty garage.

“You really want to do this?” Rebee asked, her voice low. She stepped towards
JD
. “Your friends are leaving.”

He glared after his retreating buddies. “That kid puked all over me,” he growled.

“I know,” Rebee responded. “He does that when he's scared.” And when he's happy and when he's bored, I wanted to tell her. But she was right. He does that when he's scared. Mostly. “You just wanted to take a look was all,” Rebee was saying, so quiet she was almost whispering.

“So whad he do with it?”
JD
had toned it down considerably. “Go,
JD
. If it turns up, you can have it.”

“Yah, sure.”

“Really,” she said. “I don't want it.”

He looked like he could almost believe her if she just kept talking in that calming voice.

“Go
JD
. There's nothing you want here tonight.”

Miraculously, he went. Slowly, at first. One clumsy backwards step at a time, not taking his eyes off her. Then he turned and stomped towards the others, the stink going with him. Drunk talk. Yelling. Doors slamming. The ground vibrating with the boom, boom, boom of cranked stereos and engines. Tires spun on the loose gravel.

And then we were alone in the night, Rebee and me. I crept out of my hiding place and stood beside her. What do you say after something like that?

“Hi, Rebee,” I said.

She looked up at the stars. So much light reflected in her eyes. We were mere specks under the twinkling sky. It felt like we were the only ones left to breathe for the world.

Rebee took a deep gulp of air, filling her lungs. “It's nice here,” she said quietly.

“Rebee, I'm sorry that I — ”

But she was moving away. Again. Striding forwards, into the clearing. It seemed if we weren't in a car, I spent all my time scrambling behind her.

“Rebee. I'm trying to tell you. I brought them here. Oh purpose. To stir up trouble. Trouble for you. On purpose!”

She dropped down in a grassy patch by some overgrown bushes. She lay on her back, spread her arms wide, and stared up at the sky. Of course I'd seen this before. That first time, from my hedge spot. The next kazillion times, she did her lying-down thing in my head. Rebee under the sky. Rebee under my skin. The pictures looked the same. I loved looking at them. I loved looking at her.

“I'm trying to apologize.” I stood over her, feeling hot and fired up. “You're not even listening.”

“Lie down beside me. Look up.”

“Don't you care I brought them here?” I said, my voice too loud, echoing a little. “
JD
could have punched you. I bet he punches girls all the time. This whole stupid night was my fault.”

Rebee pulled one knee up and swayed it back and forth. She kneaded her toes in the tall grass. “It's not so stupid. Look.”

I felt like a human blender. My body ached all over. I didn't want to look up, or look down on her like a moron, so I plunked on my ass and flattened myself in the grass. “Where did the car go?” I asked, eyes closed.

“It's gone,” Rebee said.

“Gone where?”

“I got rid of it. I didn't want it here.”

Got rid of it? Just like that? “So who did you call?” A tow truck? Mr. Melvin I-Can-Do-Anything?

“No one.”

“You said you couldn't drive.”

“I underestimated myself.”

“Oh.” I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid to think about what she'd done. Did she get rid of everything she didn't want? Cars, mothers, crazy aunties, drunken grease balls, zit boys from next door?

“Open your eyes, Joey. Look for a shooting star.”

It was incredible. The big night sky hurtling down. Blue-white points, reds and yellows, round fuzz balls, light bouncing. It was better than a movie.

We lay like that for a long time, side by side on the grass. There was a kids' song about falling stars, but I couldn't think of the words. Rebee spotted two, one right after the other. I missed them both.

“How come you were ignoring me?” I asked. “That's why I told Jemma about the car. I was mad at you. I knew she'd tell her hoser friends.”

“People do bad things,” Rebee said, too matter-of-factly. Then she passed me her Wintergreen package. I wanted to ask, what people? Did she mean me, or her, or
JD
, or the world? But she said, “Un-focus your eyes. Look for different shapes in the patterns.”

I saw floaters more than shapes. I took a Life Saver and gave her back the roll.

“I thought I hated you,” I said.

“Do you?”

“No. Of course not.”

She pointed to the tiny lights above us. “Makes you want to reach up and grab one.”

I wanted to take her hand. “Are we friends?” I held my breath.

She stayed quiet for too long, so I asked again. “Are we, Rebee?”

Rebee cupped her hands behind her head. She still wasn't looking at me. “You don't need a friend like me, Joey.”

I leaned on my elbow and stared at her. Her eyes were enormous. Strands of her hair shimmered silver under the stars. “Yes, I do,” I said. “Is it cause I'm a dweeb?”

She sat up and brushed grass off her sweater. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're quite brave really. And you've got perfect aim.”

“Brave,” I snorted. “I'm the biggest coward I know.”

“I watched you behind that tree.”

“You saw that? Me?”

“Uh-huh,” she said.

Of course she could see that dweeby stick of a boy sniveling behind a tree. She was a girl who saw everything.

“You could have stayed there,” she stretched her arms. “But you didn't.”

“And you think that's brave?”

“I do.”

She didn't say things just to be nice. She really meant it. “Then why can't we be friends?”

“All right,” she said, finally. “For tonight we're friends.”

“I don't want to be friends just for tonight.” I was whining like a baby, but I couldn't help myself.

Rebee sighed. “You're hard to please.”

“Don't you care what happens?” My heart was thudding.

She was remarkably calm. Annoyed maybe. “We'll call this whatever you want. Your mom will come back. Soon, I bet. You'll get settled in school somewhere and you'll meet real friends and you'll forget all about Chesterfield and this crazy summer.”

She was ready to end it before we even started. She thought she knew me, but she was wrong. I didn't want other friends. I wanted her. I didn't care if Carla ever showed up. In fact, I'd rather she didn't.

“My mom's nuts. I never want to see her again.”

Rebee turned to me under that big shining sky. “Listen to me. Your mom comes back, you go with her. Eat your Cheerios. Do your math. You watch and listen. Endure. One day, it will be over. You'll wake up one morning and realize you can walk out that door and take any road you want.” She put her fingers on my shoulder and squeezed. “You don't have to end like you started, Joey. You know that, right?”

I didn't know anything. All I wanted was to stay with her on the grass. But she was getting to her feet, stretching her arms slow and strong. She took my arm and pulled me to my feet and towards the hedge that separated our houses. I limped along beside her silently. When we got to the road, she said, “You'll be okay, Joey.”

“Whatever.”

How could I tell her? I was thirteen. She was more than I knew how to imagine.

She fished her Wintergreens from her jeans pocket and took my hand in hers. She dropped the roll in my palm and closed my fist in her fingers and held them there. Her skin felt warm, hot almost. “In case you need light,” she said, smiling.

I watched until she got halfway to her porch. Then I yelled, “Don't ignore me, Rebee.”

“I won't,” she said with a wave of her arm. She might have been lying, telling me what I needed to hear, because even though I chanted in my head,
look back, look back, look back
, she never did.

* * *

Rebee got it part right.

Carla showed up the next morning to collect me like I was a box waiting for her at the post office. She arrived at ten. By half past eleven we were careening down the highway. I couldn't stop us. It started lovey-dovey. Joey, baby, look at you. What happened to your forehead? Give your momma a hug. So great of you to watch him for me, Nelda.

Let's make nice
didn't last. It never does with Carla. She can't keep her mouth shut. Shouldn't you get rid of this, Nelda? What are you saving that old thing for? Grandma skulked around in her knitted slippers, slamming cupboards, muttering about how the girl was ungrateful, so high and mighty you'd think she'd just hung the moon. I thought she'd be an ally, but by the time Carla was done, Grandma seemed ready to be rid of us both.

I stayed away from Rebee's door. I didn't want goodbyes. Rebee knew a lot of stuff, but she didn't know everything. She didn't know, for example, that you can rearrange your existence so as not to forget. Every thought, every movement, every feeling, every molecule. Your survival can depend on it.

Carla said she'd borrowed the car from her new friend. Calvin somebody or other. It smelled like dirty feet. A pair of scuffed handcuffs dangled from the rear-view mirror. She'd brought me a stupid beaded basket, courtesy of her orphan boys. Either my mother had really managed to get herself to Africa, or the basket was a cover from the dollar store. She hadn't brought up Jesus once. She coulda spent the summer in Vegas for all I knew.

Carla waited until her first pee break before she thought to ask, “Anything go on for you? While I was gone?”

Nothing, Carla. Nothing at all.

There was stomach thunder, the start of the threat. I fingered Rebee's Life Savers, wedged in my pocket. I concentrated on rearranging my insides. Rebee in the grass. Rebee in me. My guts tried to push her out, but she was too strong, and when the shredded strands shrank back to their cave, I was covered in sweat and feeling like I'd won something.

Carla parked at a rest stop beside an overflowing garbage can. The sign said no camping like somebody might. There was a sagging wooden picnic table with shattered boards along the top. A group of brown cows bunched by a fence behind the outhouses.

“Aren't you getting out?” She rummaged through her purse, pulled out her lipstick, and smeared red across her mouth.

“Stop sulking, Joey. I came back, didn't I?” When I didn't answer, she slammed her door hard.

The cows raised their heads. We stared at each other until one by one they shoved their noses back in the tall grass. I closed my eyes, waiting for Carla to finish her business, and endured.

REBEE

SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DROWNING.
I see myself standing on the cliff looking down. Darkness falls, and the water below churns and roars. The Judge's car starts to rise from the bottom of the troubled lake, and my fear rises with it. I tell myself that nobody knows; there will be no search. I tell myself all kinds of lies to make the trembling stop.

* * *

Sometimes I think about those ice children discovered in the mountains of the ancient Inca Empire.

And the others, too. The ones who haven't been found, sacrificed to the mountain gods by their mothers. Children buried close to heaven with nothing but bags of nail clippings their mothers saved for them in case their spirits returned.

Nail clippings are necessary in uncivilized times.

When Jake came to my grandfather's house that day,

I flushed mine down the toilet. I just opened my nail box and sprinkled them into the water. I suppose I decided, without really thinking it, there was nothing left of that world to hang onto.

I don't need nails to keep me safe anymore. I've learned to wear mittens in January. To shield my July eyes from the white hot sun. To sleep without dreaming, to wake without fighting my pillow.

I've learned to cook too. Carrots in orange sauce. Asparagus with lemon. Sticky rice. Apple pie. I cook roasts on Sundays in my grandfather's blue-speckled pot, opening my closets and drawers, letting the dark meaty smell get into my sweaters and shoes. This weekend, I'm going to bake the Chocolate Angel Food Cake, page
292
from
County Cooking
, with powdered sugar and frosting daisies and twenty-one candles circling the top.

My mother forgot to teach me these things. That's not true. My mother forgets nothing.

I don't even know how to find her. Vanishing is what she does best. Over and over and over again. We never left Alberta, ricocheting inside her borders like an angry bullet. Just look at her map, shaped like a holster. If you look closely, you can find the dot named Chesterfield. Inside the dot, look for Blueberry Hill. Step around the towering hedge that no one owns and out onto the oiled road. When you can go no further, you can see the white house with the stippled green roof, the wrap-around veranda and the old wicker chair.