Disconnect (2 page)

As I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the light to change, I realized that it wasn't my sparkling personality that Cleo was interested in.

She was new too. She didn't have any friends here and thought I might do.

I already had all the friends I needed. Even if they were miles away. And one was having another meltdown.

Chapter Three

I finally gave in to Mom's nagging and decided I would babysit for her friend. My real motive was knowing it would take more than my stingy allowance to get back to Calgary.

On my first visit to meet the kids, they looked sweet, sitting at the table.

“This is Emmy,” said Ms. Clarkson. The girl's hair was red and curly. “And this is Caden.” His mom ruffled his straight hair. “Sit down, please. Can I get you a snack?”

“I'm fine, thanks, Ms. Clarkson.”

“Call me Cynthia.”

“Do you got LEGO?” Caden asked me.

“That's all he thinks about,” Emmy said.

“I still have mine from when I was little,” I told Caden.

He grinned at me. “Do you want to see my space station?” He slid down from his chair and darted from the room.

“He will make you look at it, even if you don't want to.” Emmy rolled her eyes. “It is his pride and joy, that's what Mommy says. I don't have a pride and joy.”

“Is Emmy short for Emily?” I asked.

“It's Emerson.” The little girl got down from the table. “Not all Emmys are called Emily, you know.” She stood with her hands on her hips. “We have a Ping-Pong table downstairs. Can you play?”

“Daria is going to visit with me for a while,” said her mother.

“After, then?” asked Emerson.

“I don't expect she can stay long this time.”

My hand itched to wrap itself around the phone. At least five calls had come in since I got to the house. Mostly from Selena, who had only placed bronze in jazz dance and was having a major pity party.

But I did want this job. “I can play for a little while,” I told Emmy. “But I'm not very good.”

“I am,” said Emmy as she danced out of the room.

“So.” Ms. Clarkson drank the dregs of Caden's milk. “I need you Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. From two forty-five until about six. Three hours a day, three days a week.”

You didn't have to be in honors math to figure out that was more than three hours a day. “That's fine,” I answered. I could bring it up later. “Do I have to pick them up at school?”

“There's a car pool,” said Cynthia. “But you must be here when they get dropped off.”

“Sure.”

“I am looking for someone reliable,” she continued. “Basically, you give them a snack, let them watch no more than an hour of
TV
. They play well on their own. And together.”

“Sounds good.”

“Emmy is pretty steady,” Cynthia told me. “But keep an eye on Caden. He gets into mischief. But nothing too serious. So Tuesday, Thursday and Friday? How is eight dollars an hour?”

Twenty-four bucks a day. Seventy-two a week. How much would that be a month?

Not as much as retail, maybe, but enough to start saving for a trip home. “That's fine.”

I was hardly out the door before I was on my phone to Selena.
There's
always next time. Kno wot? I got a job!!
Babysitting 2kids. WDYT?

I had babysitting figured out by my third time. Paper and crayons and scissors kept Emerson happy for hours. Caden was more work. He was always bugging me to “Watch this,” “See what I can do?” or “Come and play.”

Today he kept leaning over to stick his head between mine and my phone while I tried to talk to Josie.

Cs cute. But his sister is way easier.
Any tips?
Josie has a rash of small cousins.

“Daria.”

R all boyz a pain?
I hit
Send
and watched the screen for Josie's reply.

“Daria!”

“What?” I nearly caught Caden with my elbow as I turned toward him.

He shoved his juice box at me. “I hate apple juice. It smells like sick. Doesn't it smell like sick, Emmy?”

“It's called vomit, if you must know,” she told him. “I like apple better than orange.” She dropped her empty juice box into the recycling bin.

“Vomit. Vomit. Vomit,” crowed Caden. He crammed the last cracker in his mouth. “Vomitvomitvomitvomit,” he chanted as he dashed out of the room and up the stairs.

Emmy rolled her eyes and opened her coloring book.

U talkg all boyz?
Josie texted.

Just the 1s I kno!! I havnt met any
here, thats 4 sure.

“You've had a visitor.” Mom told me when I got home. She shifted the laundry hamper against her hip. “We had a nice chat. She knits!”

“Who knits?”

“Chloe.”

“It's Cleo,” I told her. “How do you know she knits?”

“I asked about her hat.”

In the past week, I'd not yet seen Cleo bareheaded. Perhaps she was bald.

“I gave her your number,” said Mom. “But she said she would drop by after supper.”

I glanced at my phone, but the only message was from Selena. “I do have homework, you know,” I said.

“Isn't it about time you made some friends?” said Mom.

“Cleo has piercings, Mother. In case you didn't notice. Probably tats. You know? Tattoos? Anyway, I have friends.”

Though right now I had no patience for more of Selena's dance postmortem.

Mom dropped two piles of clothes on the bed. “Friends
here
, Daria. Not ones that you spend hours with on your phone.”

“First you drag me away from Calgary. Now you won't let me talk to my friends?”

“You do exaggerate.” Mom sat on the bed. “I simply said that you might make an effort to make friends here.”

“And you think Cleo is a likely candidate?”

“Well, I will admit, she is a little…”

“Weird?”

“Don't be so judgmental,” said Mom. “She certainly has her own style.”

“She's in honors math, for Pete's sake. We have nothing in common.”

“She seemed nice.” Mom picked up the laundry basket. “But far be it from me to suggest who you should have for friends.”

Far be it from you to run my life, I thought as she left the room. I stuffed the clean clothes in the nearest drawer.

All evening, I was alert for every passing car or knock at the front door. I half imagined taking Cleo upstairs, showing her the dresser my grandfather had made. The pictures of the trip Josie and I took with the youth group last summer while Selena was at nature camp.

She didn't show up. By the time I went to bed, I was as annoyed as if I had been stood up. It was ridiculous. If I did make new friends here—not that I planned to—it would not be with a girl who wore homemade hats.

The next morning when I saw Cleo in the hallway, I expected her to stop. But she sailed by, waving at someone outside the cafeteria. Today her hat was pink with orange flowers around the brim.

I hugged my books to my chest, my phone in one hand and a can of apple juice in the other. I got a whiff of the juice. Caden was right. I ditched the can on the windowsill next to a wad of gum and a bus transfer.

Cleo flapped one hand in a feeble wave as I passed. But she kept talking to Drew Galling. Honors math student meets chess freak, I thought. A match made in heaven. Maybe she'd get off my back now.

Chapter Four

In class, I logged onto Facebook. When I couldn't think of an update to post, I scrolled through my text messages.

Hav u got my fav blu sweater?
Selena asked.

Blu sweater?
It was hanging in my closet at this very minute.

The 1 that goes with the gry skirt u
pinched fr J.

“Who do you talk to all the time?” Cleo was unpacking her bag as carefully as always. “A boyfriend?”

“Shut up!” I said. “Just friends. From my old school.”

Gry skirt?
I texted. This could go on all day.

“You know it can be an addiction?” asked Cleo. “Social media. Email, texting, online searching, games,” she recited. “Twitter. Facebook. All that stuff.”

“Everyone does it,” I told her as I typed in
Wear the green 1 u pinched
fr me.
“Anyway,” I said to Cleo, “how would you know? I've never seen you with a phone.”

“Remember books?” she asked. “Newspapers and magazines? Internet addiction is all over them these days. Articles, studies and such.” She fingered one of the flowers on her hat. “I know all about addictions.”

There didn't seem to be a proper response to this. But I couldn't help asking anyway. “You do?”

“Not me. But my dad, he's an alcoholic,” said Cleo. “Nine years dry, but still an alcoholic. He knows everything there is to know about addictions.” She counted off her fingers. “Heroin. Gambling. Alcohol. Chocolate. Internet use.” She looked at her hand. “There are tons more too. Shopping. Hand washing…”

“I am not addicted.” The words were hardly out of my mouth when my phone beeped.

I made a face. Cleo laughed.

Okay, I laughed too. “Technology is important,” I told her over the ringtone. “My dad says it levels the playing field. We all have access to the same information, thanks to technology. He works in the
Sun
's printing plant. He knows all about technology. Now look what you've done. I've missed my call,” I said.

“That's elitist,” said Cleo.

“What's elitist? What do you mean?”

“It assumes that everyone has access,” she said. “Poor people. The elderly. Homeless…”

There was no time to get into it with her. The English teacher strode through the door reciting, from a book. But she never looked at the page once. On and on she went, her eyes scanning the students as the words poured from her mouth.

How many poems could one person memorize?

The class soon settled and fell silent.

“Good. Thanks, everyone.” Ms. Watson closed the book and put it on her desk. I held my phone on my lap to google a few words I recalled from the poem. Later, I would teach Cleo the importance of access to information by telling her who wrote the poem and when.

“That poem Ms. Watson was reciting? I checked online,” I told Cleo after school. I held out my phone to show her the Wiki article. “It's by the same guy who wrote
The Just So Stories
. Did you read them when you were a kid?”

She didn't bother to check the screen. “Sure, I know Rudyard Kipling. The poem's called ‘If.' Any fool knows that.” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and put down her bag. When she shook back her hair, the purple tassel on top of her hat shivered. “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” she recited. “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you / But make allowance for their doubting too…”

It didn't take long for Cleo's performance and her weird getup to attract an audience. A guy in a hard hat and dusty work boots whistled. A woman wearing runners with her business suit looked up from her phone.

“Okay. I get the message.”

Cleo ignored me. “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue / Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch…”

#? poems do u know?
I texted Selena.

WWTK? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The Hiwayman. Is this a test?

I loved “The Highwayman.” But even between the two of us, we could never remember all the words.
More ltr. GTG
I texted her when I realized Cleo had finally wound down.

She picked up her bag and tugged her hat. “I should have passed this around to make a buck or two,” she said as two women walked away smiling.

“Doesn't that ring in your lip hurt?” I asked.

“This?” As Cleo tugged on it, her lip stretched out, showing the moist skin inside.

I winced. “It hurts just to look at it.”

“I forget it's there.” Cleo slung her bag across her shoulder. A bunch of kids at the bus stop stared at us, muttering as we passed them.

“Don't your parents care?” I asked.

She pulled on her lip again and peered down at it cross-eyed. “When I was twelve, they told me that if they put no limits on me, I would set them myself.” She grinned. “So I got pierced. And a tattoo, which I had to do myself. I'll show you sometime. Last Christmas, in our last house, I spent the day painting my room black and playing the Grateful Dead. Better than lentil loaf with the rellies any day.”

“You can do anything you want?”

“It may sound like freedom,” said Cleo. “But Mom and Dad still run the show. No red meat or smoking tobacco in the house. No aerosols. No
TV
.”

“You're kidding!” The new flat-screen Dad bought when we moved took up a whole wall of the living room.

“It's no big deal,” she said.

“You can download stuff, though, right?” I asked. “Movies? Documentaries, even? Music videos?”

“We don't have a computer.”

“No computer?” What planet did this girl come from?

“But they know me well at the library.” Cleo grinned. “The one here has fourteen computer stations. Back in Westbank, only three!”

“What about a phone?”

“Course I have a phone.” Cleo grinned and slapped her forehead. “Silly me. You mean a cell phone, right? No.”

No red meat was one thing. But no cell, or smartphone or iPad? “How do you keep in touch with people? With what's going on? How do your parents check up on you?”

“I'm supposed to be where I say I'm going to be. And be home when I say I'll be home. I had a bunch of buddies in Westbank. But the place was so small, we hardly ever needed to phone each other. It won't take me long to get connected here.” Cleo grinned. “I already met you, didn't I?”