Beyond Blonde (9 page)

I watched him finish drying. “You too, Papa.”

“Well, my beautiful Buddhist-Jewish-Catholic, I’ve got to get back to the office and make some calls before I go on a run.” My God, he sounded so … I don’t know, like other fathers must sound on their way to work, so
I own a briefcase
. It was weird.

Papa hugged me goodbye.

I hugged back hard.

He was amazing and solid and consistent and … it’s just that there were entire minutes when I didn’t recognize him. Did Mama recognize him?

As soon as the door shut, I felt claustrophobic. A run would be perfect. I’d run my ass off today and tomorrow, so that by Monday’s practice, I would show dragon boy that I was in fabulous shape, that I was a basketball warrior queen, invincible, superhuman, a leader of leaders.

Not that I cared.

I slapped on a decaying pair of gym shorts and one of Papa’s old sweatshirts, pulled my hair back into a massive ponytail, and even though it was almost the end of September, I grabbed my designer sunglasses for good measure. They were my lucky glasses. Mike said so. He and Auntie Luba bought them for me on their honeymoon. They stayed at The Plaza in New York City, which is beyond romantic if you
can wrap your head around the fact that they’re both in their forties. Anyway, while they were there, Auntie Luba bought me these amazing Dior sunglasses from an entrepreneur who was selling them from a blanket on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. They looked fabulous on me, even though the gold
R
fell off on the very first day. Kit called them my Dios.

It was a good decision, good to be there. The park was built over a reservoir overlooking Spadina and St. Clair avenues, so it gave you a feeling of being on top of the world. This time, I almost had the place to myself, just a couple of other joggers and dog walkers. There was a running path all around the outside perimeter of the park. I planned to do at least six cycles, which would be more than two miles. That’ll show him. The colours were turning fast. They got more intense with every lap. The air was just crisp enough that I could pick up a scent of burning leaves every time I rounded the southwest corner. I felt charged, electrified, the hairs on the back of my neck raised.

Wait a min—

Was that my name?

“Sophie! Sophie, wait up!”

Someone cut the cables holding up my stomach.

Couldn’t be.

I ran faster, with my heart knocking around in my chest. My internal organs were a mess.

“Sophie, wait, hold on!”

Jesus God! Damn, can a Buddhist Jew say Jesus God? Think it?

I stopped but did not turn around.

“Soph, hey, I know it’s you under those glasses!”

If
she
was with him, if the baby, if the child,
his
child was, I would projectile vomit.

“Sophie!”

I stopped, inhaled, and turned around. Luke. All by himself. Gorgeous, smiling, adorable Lucas Pearson.

“Hey, you look great, Sophie.” He flashed his lone dimple.

I exhaled into his smile and then fixated on the fact that I was wearing gangrenous gym shorts and a fifteen-year-old sweatshirt. In a stupendously pathetic attempt to look better I sucked in my stomach and willed my lips to turn glossy.

“It must be the Dios.” He looked perplexed. “My sunglasses.” I took them off.

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Still great, in fact, even greater now that I can see your eyes. How are you, Sophie?” He stepped closer to me. Perilously close.

Fabulous, Holy Buddha, never better.

“Good. Okay. You know.” I stuck one of the sunglass arms into my mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. I saw Farrah Fawcett do that once on
Charlie’s Angels
and all the bad guys swooned, except I stuck it too far down and gagged.

A jogger blew by us and shot me a dirty look. Luke took my elbow and led me off the path. He walked us over to a massive chestnut, my favourite tree in the whole park.

“I watched you run for a while. Hope you don’t mind. Your form is impressive.”

Well, we can thank your best friend, the drill sergeant, for that.
But I didn’t say anything because Lucas Pearson was
holding my arm, hence, words were out of the question. Jesus, he still smelled of Sunlight Soap. I extricated myself before I got flooded by the physical memory of him.

It was instantly colder. I shivered. He moved to put his arm around me.

Stopped. Stepped back.

Colder still.

“Luke, were you at, did you come to Luigi’s funeral?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He stroked the tree trunk. I looked longingly at the tree. “I wanted to pay my respects.”

I was aware that he looked haunted or hunted. I was aware that there were circles under his eyes, blue circles, blue eyes, stubble on his jaw. Luke was tired. I was also aware that all this made him more gorgeous. I scanned my word file for something to say, then remembered that it was his turn to speak. He didn’t. Instead, he reached over and touched my lips with his fingers.

Jesus God Buddha Moses.

He drew them away immediately.

We both pretended it didn’t happen.

“Yeah, so I remembered Luigi from Mike and Luba’s wedding.”

I like to think that we both paused to remember the wedding, the dancing, the fire escape, the promises.

“But then I chickened out and snuck away as soon as you finished the reading. You did great. You looked great.”

Okay, enough already. “How’s … uh …” I couldn’t get the words out.
Alison the slut who trapped you by getting pregnant
just didn’t seem appropriate.

“Fine,” he said.

“Good, good.” I nodded. “And so, what are you, uh, doing?”

“Well I got my GED and now I’m working full-time at my dad’s place. I’ll save up a bit and then my folks will help put me through college and then …”

Blah, blah, blah, blah …

I wanted to fall into him and slap him at the same time. A gust of wind blew his hair into his eyes. I could just reach up. Instead, I shivered again. “Well, I better go,” I said. “Gotta run, so to speak.”

“Running is good.” He had not taken his eyes off me.

Danger, danger, Sophie Kandinsky
. I must never ever see him again.

“Yeah, I’ll be running a lot,” I said. Pause. “Here, I mean.” Big pause.

“Yeah, good.” Luke smiled, but he looked sad. “Running’s good,” he repeated. “You look good, real good.” Then he turned and walked away, taking the sun and all the best parts of me with him. I watched him until he disappeared over the horizon. He did not turn around.

It was innocent. Totally. I know I didn’t
do
or even say anything wrong. But I still felt wrong. Luke. Damn. Thank God for my altar. As soon as I got home, I was going to pray for forgiveness to all my new religions. Let them sort out my sins. That’s what they were there for. Besides, it was way too complicated for me.

Wait, did he say I looked good?

“What’s up, buttercup?”
Kit watched me watch myself in the mirror. I was using mascara application as an excuse to watch me. I was enthralled with me. What did
he
see when he looked at me? I don’t think he saw what I saw.

“Nothing much.” I shrugged.

Madison looked up from her jewellery drawers. “Sophie, you’ve been staring at yourself in the mirror for an hour and a half.”

Oops.

“Is this like one of your new religious traditions?” She put on an armload of bangles. “Is it a Zoro thing?”

“Zoroastrianism, and I keep telling you guys that I’m for sure a Buddhist Jew, probably.”

“Yeah, but still, sweetie,” said Sarah, adjusting her bra straps. “You’re wearing a year’s worth of mascara.”

I looked at my eyes and instead Luke’s blue eyes burned
through and watched me. One lousy touch and I was in trouble all over again.

Kit snapped her fingers in front of my face. “You’re zoning out again. Something’s up, give.”

The new, spiritual Sophie was not a liar. “I was thinking of Luke,” I said. The partial truth is still the truth. Ask anybody.

“Ohhh …” they said.

Total sympathy.

“Why?” asked Sarah as she threw me her Love’s Fresh Lemon.

“Why what?” I asked, dousing myself in lemon.

“She means, why
now
?” Kit said.

“Well,” I gathered up the lie, “I don’t know, here we are getting all gussied up for a party at Makeout Mansion again, and I just flashed to my first party there, remember?”

“When we found out that you’d never been felt up or even kissed before?” Kit shook her head.

“And we had to give you emergency slow-dance lessons?” said Madison.

Sarah sighed. “Wow, a thousand years ago.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And remember Ferguson Englehardt did his best to ‘make me a woman’? I swear for a minute I thought I was a lesbian.” Sarah and Madison snorted. “And then Luke came after me and well, and then he touched me.”

“Should be a song.” Kit turned away.

“We just have to find you someone new and fabulous!” gushed Sarah. “And we’ll do it tonight. I can just feel it.”

“You just watch what and who you’re feeling, Sarah Davis,” warned Madison. “We’ve been lucky that our reputation is
still intact with all your enthusiastic feelings. We haven’t been to one of Anita’s parties in forever. This is a tri-high-school party, so …”

“So our desirability quotient is on the line for Lawrence Heights, North Toronto Park, as well as Northern.” I bowed as Sarah and Kit clapped.

“Oh, just behave,” groaned Madison. “I’m meeting Billy there, and I’ll be too busy to monitor us.”

The party was raging by the time we got to Anita Shepard’s, aka Makeout Mansion. Kids spilled out of the house and onto the veranda and the lawn, even though it was cold enough to see your breath. The floor pulsed to the beat of “Boogie Fever” and the hallway reeked of incense, weed, and beer. I spotted Jessica Sherman in the far corner of the hallway with two other girls from our second string. They were a stoned, giggling heap on the floor. Not their best look.

I was way too uptight to get that out of control. I barely drank at these things, just nursed a beer through the night while I nursed my party girl reputation at the same time. Weed? I didn’t know how to nurse that, so no way. The Blondes just thought scrunching up your face over a boogered joint was unseemly. Each one was a devoted Southern Comfort and Seven drinker.

Anita’s had the perfect party layout. To the right was the living room, where it looked like the most devoted smokers and tokers were holding court. On the left of the hallway was the front parlour, where I headed after I grabbed a beer. The Blondes went straight for the family room in the back, where they would stash their booze in the mini-fridge. The
family room is where all the action took place, the dancing, the making out, although there were also other rooms for that. Anita’s always had a certain darkness, a wisp of danger. Maybe it was my imagination, but it felt extra wispy tonight.

Speaking of danger, damn, David was here. I almost turned and ran right out, but then I stiffened. No sir, no way, I had every bit as much right to be here as David Walter did. He was lounging on a back window seat with two girls hanging off him. It was like something out of a cheesy James Bond movie. Not that I cared.

Then David saw me. He looked more put out than he usually did when he saw me.

I took a sip of my beer and raised it to him.

He looked even more irritated. What?! Did he hate immigrants, was it my hair, the Alison-Luke thing, what? One of the girls was nibbling his ear. I vaguely recognized her as a friend of Anita’s. I thought deeply uncharitable thoughts about her until I looked away. Then I looked back, but just out of the corner of my eye so he couldn’t tell I was looking. The other one—the one that wasn’t chewing on his ear like it was one of the seven food groups, was rubbing his stomach. Jesus God! I mean, under his shirt, in full view of everyone. It was appalling, but it was also like a car wreck. I couldn’t look away. Then Buddha, thank God, sent Sue Winger, a senior from Lawrence Park, over to me. Sue is a motor-mouth extraordinaire and she blocked my view. It was at least twenty minutes before I could extricate myself from her, and I only did that when Madison ran back for a courage hug. “What
courage hug
?” But she was off again.

I couldn’t wait to tell Kit and Sarah that our assistant coach was mercilessly assaulting two girls at the same time. Where were they, anyway? They didn’t usually hang out in the backroom. I started looking for them down the hall and under the stairway nook. Nope. In the front dining room. Nope. I chatted to a couple of football players in the library, including Paul Wexler, who tended to light up whenever he saw me, if I do say so myself. My beer was bathwater warm by the time I got to the family room.

Oh dear.

Kit was on top of a coffee table shaking her booty to “Shake, Shake, Shake, Shake Your Booty.” Rick Metcalfe, who had never gotten over her, was alternately egging her on and trying to get her off to be with him. Now, Kit was a spirited kind of kid, but this was beyond exuberance. I searched for potential reinforcements and spotted Sarah in a corner slow dancing with George, Mike’s nephew. Not only was it
not
a slow song, but Sarah was in a take-no-oxygen lip-lock with the boy.