Watch How We Walk (13 page)

20

IT HAD GOTTEN COLD, JUST
after the first snowfall of the season. My breath wisped like I was smoking and I tried to ignore it, tried not to see the swirling shapes and faces. That happens when sleep abandons you. You see things, glimmers and flickers, elusive forms darting in and out of your periphery, but you can't quite focus on them before they scurry, unseen, into corners. Memory becomes pliable and elastic, and you stop believing that time moves from point A to point B. Beginnings and endings are less significant. By that frozen day, things had begun to overlap, to occur out of sequence, and I struggled to fit them all back together again, to scrabble at the pieces I had collected and hoarded. I tried to shove them back together in the right order, but by then I couldn't remember their chronology anymore.

I could see her face when I exhaled, so I put on a scarf, but that made my face wet and even colder. The corner of my left eye twitched for an impossibly long time, strange and disconcerting. A tiny heart beating way too fast, about to explode. A microscopic bird, trapped and panicked, beneath my eyelashes. I leaned against a mailbox and closed my eyes until the pulsing stilled. I counted eleven deep breaths.

— Are you okay? A woman pushing a stroller stopped, reached her arm toward me. I pulled away.

— I'm fine. I resumed walking and winced. I called back over my shoulder.

— Thanks.

Though they were too small for me, I wore her eight-hole Doc Martens. They were tight when I put them on that morning, but I had convinced myself that they would stretch as I walked. I wanted them to fit, I wanted them to be mine. They'd been in one of the boxes I stashed under my bed, along with various t-shirts and skirts, countless mixed tapes, old photos, and dried-up makeup. My dusty shrine of decade-old fragments.

The two-page list of record stores was in my pocket. I fixed my gaze beyond my breath and watched the street signs and building numbers. The first shop, Sound Effects, was easy to find. Electronic music blasted through a rush of warm air as I pushed open the door. The girl behind the counter peered briefly at me from beneath her blue bangs, said nothing, and went back to the magazine she was reading. The rest of her hair was a yellow tangle piled on top of her head and she wore what looked like a dog collar around her neck. The store sold gleaming keyboards on small platforms, shelves of microphones, various cords, and expensive devices with a lot of knobs on them. I wandered down one aisle and back up the other. There were a few bins of CDs and tapes and records, but I recognized none of the bands. The repetitive song that had been playing slowed, then stopped. No one else was in the store. My arm itched and I rubbed it through my coat.

— Looking for anything in particular?

The girl stared at me like I'd been shoving tapes down my pants or something, her one eyebrow slightly raised, expectant.

— No, not really.

The music resumed with a deep thumping. My eye started to twitch again and I tried to ignore it. I hoped she wouldn't notice and think I had some weird, contagious infection. I walked up to the counter with what I hoped resembled confidence.

— Um, I was just wondering, is Theo working today?

— Who?

— Theo. When's he in again?

— Nobody named Theo works here. You mean Tommy? Lots of girls come in looking for Tommy . . .

— No. I guess I have the wrong store.

She smirked.

— You sure?

— Yeah. I'm sure.

— Whatever. Good luck.

What had I expected? That he'd be there, in the first store on my list? I shook my head and went back out into the cold and kept walking. On to the next. It got easier to ask after the first few times, but I didn't know what I would say to Theo if I found him.

What am I supposed to say to him?

Pick up where I left off.

What does that mean? Can't I just say ‘give me back my sister'?

For the next few hours, the blisters on my heels throbbed and swelled, and finally broke raw and bled through my socks.

I didn't know what she meant. What was I supposed to do with him? I thought she wanted revenge. I thought she wanted me to cut his brake cables, or get him fired from his job, or make his life hell in some way. But pick up where she left off? What did that mean? Be his girlfriend? Is that what she meant? Was it a trap?

I started to take my frustration out on the bitter record store employees, like a guy in tight black jeans and a ring through his eyebrow.

— Are you sure no one by that name works here?

— Yeah, I'm sure. I'm the assistant manager, okay?

I stomped out, sighing loudly, as though personally affronted. I heard him laugh as I left. I turned around and swung open the door.

— Go to hell!

I continued, refusing to let frustration slow my progress. My list was arranged in what I thought was a reasonable route through the city. The next stores were in a west end neighbourhood, farther from downtown, less commercial, and hopefully full of the kind of places where Theo would work. I wanted to reach a few of them before they closed.

I walked for another hour, crossing railroad tracks and passing abandoned buildings, until I was in a different area entirely. Pedestrians were fewer and there were more industrial and automotive businesses than retailers. My rage had waned and my pace slowed. The inside of my left forearm was still sore. At the next red light I pushed up my sleeve to find out why it stung so much. What I saw made my stomach churn.

A mess of jagged scratches, sticky and raw where the scabs had torn off and stuck to the sleeve of my sweater. A network of lines, deliberate intersections, scrawled desperately — a message.

One series of marks looked like numbers, and I twisted my forearm around and squinted. 53235. I didn't remember etching these digits, nor did I know what they meant. Or what she was trying to tell me. A palindrome. The origins of the word
palindrome
were Greek:
running back again.
Beginnings and endings that were the same, and could be repeated, over and over, to infinity. I shivered.

I stopped looking at the addresses and walked as fast as I could. I just wanted to stop thinking, to be conscious only of my body. I ran, and my lungs ached with searing cold and my feet burned with blisters. I didn't even realize I was crying until I stopped moving and rested with my hands on my knees and my head between my legs. I stayed that way until I could breathe normally again.

I wiped my face with my scarf and a taxi driver slowed down and honked his horn.

— Fuck you! I screamed.

He kept going. That may have been the first time I'd ever said that, to anyone, ever. I started to laugh, almost silently at first, then out loud — not that my swearing was funny, but the sheer release was mania, it was adrenaline, it was addictive. I had to say it again and again, and the words became contagious, infecting each other and multiplying, and even if I had tried, I couldn't have stopped them.

— Fuck you! I howled over and over into the desolate street. My scarf was undone and my hair whipped across my face. I must have looked like a crazy person, screaming obscenities and laughing my head off, but I didn't care. It was liberation. It didn't matter what anyone thought of me. There were no Ministerial Servants to decide if I was accepted or not, no elders to admonish me, not even any family to punish me anymore.

I walked on, deeper into the unfamiliar neighbourhood.

The wind was icy and the city was huge. It was just before dusk, when the light is exhilarating, when it gleams gold and silver against tall buildings and bounces off windows and cars like an excited, living thing. The walls and storefronts glimmered as though underwater, the sun glazing them from afar. It was my favourite time of day. It was the only time when I could be invisible again, when I could stop thinking and just look.

I pulled off my glove and pressed the bracelet against my cheek.

I was falling backward into her.

Ten years of obliterating memory, of nothing but school and homework and Bible study and planning my way out. Shock is a great eclipser, and can last years.

But as soon as I left home, I remembered everything — a flood, a typhoon, a volcano — Lenora the natural disaster.

By then I was on the second page of my list, and no Theos worked in any of the stores. I was lost, and couldn't find the next one on my list. Where I expected The Record Keeper, there was a gas station. The light began to fade into grey, and my determination soon followed. I didn't know where I was but I didn't want to go home. I was a failure. All day I'd tried so hard, and with what result? My blisters oozed, I was lost, on the verge of frostbite, and I hadn't found him. I slumped against the wall in the doorway of what looked like an old warehouse. Everything started to hurt at once: my clawed up arm, my aching feet, my empty stomach.

Suddenly the door behind me swung open and gouged my back. I yelped.

— Oh my God, I'm sorry! Are you okay?

A tall woman with her hair in a bun stood over me. I nodded.

— Are you sure? She adjusted the gym bag on her shoulder.

— Yeah, I'm fine.

She got into a white car parked on the side of the street and drove away. I stood on the sidewalk, rattled back into reality, and looked at the sign over the doorway I'd been whimpering in.

I grabbed the post next to me. It had become harder and harder to distinguish what I'd dreamed from what I'd imagined, and what had happened from what was happening. I unzipped my coat, threw my glove on the ground, and pulled a rumpled business card from my pocket.

Academy of Circus Arts.

I breathed in, and I knew what I had to do, whether I found Theo or not.

I pulled open the door that had just scraped my back.

A wall of bright light and heat and echoes stopped me, and I stood still. There were trampolines, trapeze rigs, acrobats, dancers — noise and movement everywhere. I pulled off my coat and let it drop. High above me, suspended between poles and ladders, was a thick cable. A thin man stood poised in the centre of it, as though suspended, majestic, in mid-air. A funambulist.

I pushed up my sleeves, put my hands on my hips, and smiled, until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I blinked and tried to focus on the blond woman next to me. It was the young woman who'd complimented my posture at the pub.

She stared at me, then frowned.

— Your arm is bleeding.

21

— TYLER, WHAT ARE YOU
trying to prove? Don't you know that people are saying all sorts of things about you? Emily's mom is hissing questions through her teeth as though she doesn't want to ask but they slither out anyway.

Uncle Tyler shrugs. He's going to the Tuesday night meeting at the Kingdom Hall with Emily and Lenora and their parents. It was their father's idea that he have dinner with them — roast beef — even though he doesn't seem to like Uncle Tyler very much. Hardly any of them spoke during the meal, and as soon as they were finished eating, Lenora dashed up to her room and their dad retreated to the den. Emily and her mom and Uncle Tyler sat for a while longer. Weeks have passed since their last argument about his hair, and he still hasn't gotten it cut.

— Look, it's just hair; it's not such a big deal.

Her mom shakes her head.

— It's a big deal to the elders. It's not just about your hair, either—

— It's hardly even long, give me a break. It's barely past my collar.

Any hair that goes beyond the collar of a brother's Hall shirt is considered long, and therefore worldly.

Emily opens her math book and pretends to do her homework, which is already done. She runs her fingers through her chin-length bob. Both of her braids, sadly reunited, are hidden in a shoebox under her bed. Lenora said that it looked better like this anyway, but only because it was her fault she had to get it all cut off in the first place.

— Look, the elders have said a few things, unofficially, to Jim — and they wanted him to counsel you. I asked him to let me do it, but if you're not going to listen to me, it's going to get blown way out of proportion. They think that if you're letting your appearance become worldly, then you must be behaving that way too, blah blah blah, so they're going to start watching you more closely. If they haven't already.

— What's that supposed to mean?

Emily looks at her uncle, then at her mom, then back at her uncle.

— Emily, it's time for you to go upstairs and get ready for the meeting. You can wear whichever dress you want.

Emily doesn't respond, and keeps her head hovered over her textbook.

— Tyler, I don't know what it means. You know how the elders' wives are, always watching what everyone else does and then telling their husbands. Things can get out of control really quickly. If there's anything you're doing that you shouldn't, if you're associating with worldly friends too much, stop now before they find out.

Emily wants to tell her mom about Michael and Jeff, that Uncle Tyler met them out in service, that they're interested in learning the Truth and will probably start attending the meetings soon, and that they won't be worldly for long. She doesn't, not yet, and she bites the insides of her cheeks, and slowly packs up her homework, waiting for her uncle to tell her mom about them himself.

— You're overreacting.

— I wish I was. You know how rumours fly around the Hall. Once they start, there's no stopping them, and before you know it you're being publicly reproved or hauled in front of a Judicial Committee.

Uncle Tyler shifts in his chair. Emily clears her throat.

— Tell them about those guys that you're almost studying with. Tell the elders about them, and then they can't be mad, right?

— What? Who is she talking about?

— No one. Forget it.

— But why? They seemed interested. They took the magazines and talked to you all afternoon.

— Yeah, well, they're not interested, okay? And Viv, relax about my hair. It's just stupid gossip.

— I know. But stupid gossip is dangerous. Just cut your hair to appease them. Trust me, it'll make life easier.

— Fine. I'll do it this weekend.

— Fine.

They get up and start the dishes and Emily goes upstairs to change into her Hall outfit. She's disappointed her uncle didn't mention his back calls, and she can't understand why people don't help themselves better when they're getting in trouble. He and Lenora just make it worse. It would be so easy for them to just get along and do things right, but they don't. It's like they want to get in trouble.

She stares into her closet. She has no idea what to wear. Emily doesn't care very much about clothes, or hair for that matter, not like Lenora, who plans out her outfits and alters her tops and skirts to fit her better, or to look cooler, by adding extra zippers or rows of black velvet ribbon.
I use clothing to express my individuality
, Lenora explains, but Emily doesn't really understand. Who cares? She doesn't want anyone to look at her anyway.

As usual, her sister's door is closed, but Emily knocks.

— It's me. Can you help me get ready? I don't know what to wear.

Lenora rarely passes up an opportunity to dress her sister, and Emily hopes this time will be no different.

There is no answer to her knock. The water goes on in the bathroom and Emily sighs — one of her sister's epic showers. She goes into Lenora's bedroom anyway and closes the door softly behind her. Maybe she can get some ideas from her sister's closet.

It's a mess, with piles of dirty clothes on the floor of the closet, shirts and pants and dresses falling from hangers, reminding Emily of slabs of meat dangling from hooks in the window of the butcher shop. She winces and wishes she hadn't thought of that. There are black t-shirts, jeans, kilts, and second-hand cardigans all jumbled together. Not like her own closet, which is neatly organized — shirts first, then sweaters, dresses, pants, skirts, and everything that is the same colour together. It's easier to find things that way. She sees nothing she wants to borrow and everything would be way too big on her anyway. The shower still hums and sputters in the bathroom.

She glances around her sister's dark and messy room and wrinkles her nose. It smells like her vanilla perfume, candle wax, and unwashed laundry; she should open a window once in a while. School books are scattered on the floor, makeup is strewn across the vanity, and bottles of nail polish glint chaotically across her desk. Her bed, unlike Emily's, is rumpled and unmade, and her outfit for the night's meeting is strewn across the blankets. There is a black skirt and a red turtleneck sweater, a pair of black tights and a matching black bra and underwear set, ready to put on when she comes back from the bathroom.

Emily can't imagine what it must be like to wear a bra. Her own chest is flat, and shows no signs of changing, which is just fine with her. She turns sideways in the mirror and runs her hands over her chest; so far so good. But she can't stop looking at Lenora's bra — it's a grown-up thing, complicated with hooks and lace, beautiful and dangerous. She can't believe their mother let Lenora get a bra like that, so ornate and decadent, and — as the elders would call it — immodest. She's seen her mother's bras in the laundry before, plain and floppy and white or beige and sometimes pink but never this fancy. It's an exquisite three-dimensional sculpture. Emily picks it ups and runs her fingertips along the lace trim on the cups and straps. Something flutters in her stomach, papery wings, fear, envy, almost pleasure, and her pulse leaps to keep up. She holds it across her outstretched palms like a treasure, or an injured bird, and listens again at the door. The water still runs, and her mom and Uncle Tyler chat and laugh downstairs. She has time.

As fast as she can, she pulls off her blue sweater and tosses it onto the end of Lenora's bed. She slides her arms under the bra straps and pulls it to her chest. Reaching behind her, she tries to fasten the hooks but can't quite reach. There are two of them, and all she has to do is hook them together, but she can't see what she's doing, and it's too frustrating. How does Lenora do this every day? It must take a lot of extra time. No wonder Lenora is always late for the meetings and for school.

Her arm starts to tense and cramp up from the awkward angle and she gives up. She'll just pretend it's done up properly, and leaves the back open between her shoulder blades. Taking a deep breath, she turns to face the mirror. Her eyes widen, and her stomach aches but in way that feels good, and without meaning to, she squeezes her legs together, which also feels good. She looks funny, like she's playing dress-up, which she is, but it's exciting. At the same time, her face starts to go red, because she suspects she's doing something quite wrong. Before reaching for her sweater, she takes one more long look. When she is old enough, she is going to get a fancy bra just like this.

— Oh my God! You pervert!

Lenora, wrapped in her thick yellow bathrobe, stands in her doorway and shrieks. One hand is over her mouth and other is on her hip. Emily turns purple, she feels sick, she cannot look at herself or anywhere. She flings the bra to the ground like a poisonous snake and grabs her sweater all in the same motion.

— What's going on up there? their mother yells from the bottom of the stairs.

— Nothing! they shout back in unison, and Lenora slams the door and, feet wide apart, arms folded across her chest, she stands in front of it.

— What were you doing?

Emily, fully clothed again, stares at her sister's red and black flecked carpet and says nothing. She can hear Lenora smirk without looking.

— Answer me. Why were you trying on my bra? Are you some kind of kinky weirdo?

— No!

— Well, why then? Do I have to get Mom up here? Or Dad?

— No! Emily tries to push past her and run away but Lenora shoves her back onto the bed.

— Did you like it?

— Like what?

— Wearing my sexy bra?

— Gross!

— Liar.

— Let me go!

Emily's throat snaps shut with a dull ache. She doesn't want to cry in front of her sister; she fights and fights and closes her eyes and turns her head but it's too late.

— I'm sorry. Let me go.

— Not so fast. First, put it back where you found it.

The room is blurry through her tears and too hot and it smells and she wants out so badly but knows that's impossible now, and it's all her own stupid, stupid fault.

She doesn't look at the bra, but picks it up by its strap with two fingers and holds it as far from her body as possible and drops it onto the bed.

— Second, I won't tell on you if you keep a secret for me. Oh, and I hope it goes without saying that you will not ever even mention the very existence of that bra to Mom or Dad, right?

Emily nods so hard she thinks her head might launch from her neck and bounce against the far wall.

— Good. Now go get changed for the Hall and then I'll tell you some stuff. Now that I know you can never, ever tell on me about anything!

Emily can still hear her laughing as she closes her own bedroom door. She throws herself onto her bed and cries. What was she thinking? Of all the ridiculous, embarrassing things in the world to do, she had to do that. She wishes so hard that she could take it back and erase it from reality forever.

— Hurry up!

She can't feel sorry for herself for long though, they'll be leaving for the meeting soon, and Lenora is calling her. She quickly opts for her beige corduroy skirt and leaves on the same blue sweater, tugs on some tights and heads back to Lenora's room.

— So guess what.

Emily shrugs and still can't meet Lenora's eyes.

— What?

— Uncle Tyler's in big trouble.

— What are you talking about?

— I know things.

— You do not. He's not in trouble. He just has to get his hair cut.

Lenora laughs again. Emily wishes she didn't always make Lenora laugh without meaning to.

— What's so funny?

— You. You're so naïve.

— What's ‘naïve' mean?

— Stupid.

Emily tries to ignore her. Not because of the insults, but because she doesn't want to hear any more about Uncle Tyler, or Lenora's secrets. They don't make her feel special or privileged like a secret should; they just make her feel nervous and nauseated and like she's done something very wrong herself.

But Lenora isn't finished.

— His hair is the least of his worries.

Emily's eye is itchy. She tries to resist, but the burning twinge is insistent. She rubs her eye, but that's not enough. She rubs it again, then plucks out a bottom eyelash. It stings, but in a good way. Then she pulls out another, and that feels so good that she plucks out another, and another and another. Four, five, six, seven. She counts eleven eyelashes before Lenora yells at her.

— Stop it! That's disgusting! You already have a big bald patch under your other eye. You look like a freak.

Emily sits on her hands on the bed near Lenora. Lenora stands up and twirls around the room, doing a fake dance to no music. Emily wonders if she's wearing the special bra under her turtleneck. She hopes not, and doesn't look anywhere but at her face or the floor. Lenora sways her hips and waves her arms.