Girl in Shades (19 page)

Mother is giddy beyond recognition because I'm going out with Steven again. Spaz. If she paid attention at all she'd see that I'm not even that excited about it myself.

“I'm home!” It's Aunt Leah from downstairs. Boy, she's quick. She must have just gone to the convenience store up the street.

“I'm up here, hold on, I'm coming down.” I stuff the notebook back between the mattress and kick the picnic basket from the corner of the room and into the closet.

Leah is spreading out cans of beans, a loaf of white bread, and vegetable soup on the counter.

“I know that you and your mother didn't eat much meat. So I tried to keep it veggie as much as possible. She slaps two black Mars bars on the wooden cutting board making a hallow clunk. “And a little treat for us never hurt.”

She has taken my tape player and put it on the counter. She presses the PLAY button on my radio, and he starts singing.

Just a little uncertainty can bring you down

And nobody wants to know you now

And nobody wants to show you how

His voice makes me think about how stupid I was to believe that he would be able to help save Mother. How stupid I was to even send the letter.

“Shut it off!” I run across the room and lunge at the stop button. “I don't want to listen to him anymore.” Though I have never had an ex-boyfriend, or even a boyfriend for that matter if you don't count Elijah, I'm certain that the way I feel about Corey Hart now is how it would feel after breaking up with someone. My juicy longing has turned into disappointment.

“Easy, Maya. Just trying to lighten the mood.” She turns on the radio to a classical music station. The notes of stretching violins and harps fill my head while we wait for the toast to burn.

Later, someone comes to the door. Aunt Leah opens up wearing a white tank top without a bra — you can see her dark nipples, but she doesn't seem to care. It's two in the afternoon and I am on the couch watching a
Facts of Life
rerun.

“May I help you?” Aunt Leah licks peanut butter from her fingertips.

“Yes, I would like to speak with Steven Devine.” It's a woman's voice, small and shaky.

“And who may I ask, are you?”

“My name is Mrs. Clifton. I am a secretary at Lakeview Public School.”

“Oh.” I hear high heels click on the tile inside the door, and a clump when the door shuts.

“A student has reported to our principal that Maya Devine has been living at home alone, and because she hasn't been in school for the last few weeks, I volunteered to come see if everything was okay.”

“Everything is fine, Mrs. Clifton. I'm her aunt and I'm here, aren't I?”

I can hear Mrs. Clifton's thoughts, even from the living room. She's nervous. She doesn't feel comfortable standing up to a beefy girl like Aunt Leah, or pushing this issue.
I wish I could just stay behind the desk
, is what she thinks
. I should not put up with Herbert's abuse anymore. I'm not his slave girl
.

“Has something been keeping Maya from school?”

“Well, yes, Mrs. Clifton, a few things as a matter of fact.” (I am still on the couch, now with a blanket over my face.) “She's been sick with a terrible flu that has left her bed-ridden and, well, if you must know, her father has passed away.”

“Oh gosh, I am so sorry to hear that.” Mrs. Clifton now sounds nervous on the outside, and I can see berry red light from her body, fanning out from the hallway.

“Yes, she's been orphaned and if you don't mind, we certainly don't need to be bothered right now. Maya is moving across country to live with her grandparents. She will not be coming back to school with you.”

“I see.” Mrs. Clifton's voice is even quieter than before, like the last bit of air from a deflated balloon. “Thank you for telling me. Sorry, I didn't get your name?”

“Penelope, Penelope Wishing. It's my married name.”

“Well, okay, Penelope. I guess I can go now. Now that I know everything is okay.”

“It is in fact, very okay. Bye-bye.”

The heels click out and the door shuts. Aunt Leah comes and sits on the brown chair beside me in the living room.

“Aunt Leah, it's not true what you said, is it? About Father being dead? And me going to live with my grandparents?”

“No, that's not true.”

“Good. Because I'd rather live with you.”

She smiles and tugs at the frizzy ends of her straggly hair.

Though Aunt Leah says it's weird, I use the picnic basket as a carry-on bag. I put the notebook and the letter on the bottom and pack some underwear, a shirt, and pair of jeans on top of it. I wear my acid wash jacket and slide my mother's butterfly bracelets on my wrist. In a small suitcase that Aunt Leah found under the stairs, I place my mother's copy of the
Gita
, my Corey Hart tape (just in case I reconsider), three of my mother's aromatherapy bottles (sandalwood, patchouli, and lavender), two sweaters that used to hang in her closet, rolled up into soft balls, and some more of my own clothes. I put her journal in the inside pocket of my jacket.

“I can't believe she lived in here,” Aunt Leah says when I find her in the backyard. She is standing inside my mother's teepee, running her hands over the tarp walls.

“It wasn't that bad, really.”

“I suppose it helped her find some sort of peace within herself. Lord knows that woman needed it.”

“I guess.”

“It was crazy what happened near the end, with everyone coming here and stuff. I even read an article about it in the
Toronto Star
when I first got there.”

I nod.

“Hey, gemstones!” Aunt Leah reaches to the two jagged stones on the bed where my mother's pillows used to be.

“They are quartz and malachite,” I say, grabbing them from her and putting one in each of my pockets. “For healing and protection.”

“What are those things on your wrist?” She crinkles her eyebrows like I'm keeping a secret.

“Bracelets.”

“Where did you get them?”

“The flea market with my friend Heather.”

“I guess we better call a cab. Our flight is at six o'clock
.
”

When the cab is waiting on the street and I have loaded my picnic basket into the trunk, I hear a voice from behind me.

“Maya! Where are you going?” It is Chauncey. I turn around and smile when I see him.

“I'm going to live in Toronto, Chauncey, with my Aunt Leah.” Leah sticks her hand out from the back seat and waves.

“Really, the big city? Hogtown?”

“Yup. Tell Jackie good riddance.”

“I will.”

“Cool.”

“Heather wants you to know she is sorry.”

“For what?”

“For telling the school about you being home alone.” I don't say anything. “Don't be mad, Maya, she was just worried about you.”

I force my lips to move, “I know.” I move to get into the car.

“Maya?”

“What?” I stop with one leg lifted into the back seat.

“Don't become a pretentious city snob, okay? (In his mind he is saying,
I wish she wasn't going
, which feels good.)

“I'll try not to.” I bounce into my seat. Door slams and we drive away from my house, from the teepee, from my mother's ghost, from my father. Through the black lines of the back windshield, Chauncey gets smaller and smaller until he becomes nothing.

Our plane rises up over golden fields of wheat, silos, skinny streams — my first time in the sky. I'm not going to Montreal as I planned, but I am going somewhere. Away.

“This is totally awesome,” I say to Aunt Leah.

“I knew you'd like it.” She is reading the in-flight magazine and doesn't look up.

We zoom up until the clouds engulf us, bumping up until we reach the eternal space. Sun warms up the egg-shaped window.

“Maya, I forgot to tell you, I saw your shampoo commercial the other night after
Let's Make a Deal
. Great stuff. You really convinced me that you gave a shit about what your hair looks like, and that you have the potential of feeling bodacious.” She laughs through her nose.

I raise my hand to quiet her and use my finger to brush my bangs from my forehead.

“What's that notebook?” She points to my lap where it sits for safe-keeping.

“It's just something I wrote,” I say as she looks back at her magazine.

Out my window, the sky shines blue above the clouds — every space packed tight with spirit. Why didn't anyone tell me such a place exists? I let out my air, the smooth stones are jabbing me from my pockets. I take them out and put them on the tiny table that flips down from the back of the seat in front of me. I look down at my lap and open the notebook to where I left off.

November 27, 1972

Christ, where do I start. Shit, shit, shit.

I didn't go out to Roland's with Steven. I wanted to, I planned to. I got ready to. But on the way out the door I was abducted. I like to say abducted because it sounds much more glamorous, like that little girl who was stolen from the 7-Eleven in the States. Truth is, it wasn't like that at all. I chose to go. My hair swept off my face, a shirt a little tighter than Mother would allow, nylons, and foundation covering the bags under my eyes. I chose to go with him, I did. I can't blame anyone else but myself really. It happened like this:

I was coming out the front door of my house. I thought I would meet Steven on the street when he came, just to get Mother out of my hair for a few minutes. To prepare myself to make it all up to him and get on with where we were (ho hum). When there he was, coming up the front walk from the street.

Don't you look beautiful tonight, he said.

Amar.

Hello, Marigold. I'm sorry I haven't called.

That's okay.

I was away for a few days, and then resting.

I see.

I was looking out towards the street, where Steven would be pulling up in the Valiant. Amar was looking straight at me. He had a heavier jacket on finally, sheepskin, and blue jeans with desert boots. The same old beads around his neck.

I was hoping to take you out again, he said pointing to the red and white Volkswagen van parked across the street, in front of a fire hydrant.

Were you? I pretended to be disinterested as well as I could.

Are you available now?

I have a date. (I said this with a straight face. God, I really am proud of how I was able to say this, like I hadn't been thinking of him at all.)

Can you cancel?

This took me by surprise. I mean, I wasn't expecting it after six days with no word from him. My first instinct was to tell him, Hell no, I can't cancel — I already did it once and look at the trouble I am in with my boyfriend. But I didn't say that. How could I? He was clean shaven this time, no mustache at all and his skin smooth like it was inviting your hand. If anyone else asked me to cancel my plans on such short notice, why, I would probably sock 'em one. But him. The fact that he had the courage to ask made it all that more enticing to say yes. Imagine. Saying yes to such a request. Taking off with some Indian man when I was supposed to be fixing things with my boyfriend. Imagine. Making things worse instead?

The inside of his van smelled like mildew, but was extremely clean. Dashboard and seats were polished with something, and the carpet under my feet had not a speck on it. When he shut my door and walked around to the other side, I popped his glove compartment: map of Ontario, half eaten bag of chips, napkins, long stick of something (incense?). I snapped it shut when he got into his seat. (I just wanted to know what was inside him.)

It took him three tries to start the engine — sputtering and spitting until it took. I was glad when it did because having Steven pull up and seeing me in Amar's car would not have been something I could have taken at that moment.

He stuck a tape into the tape deck while we drove. Some sort of weird music he said was a sitar (an Indian version of a guitar as he explained without me asking). And when we got to his cabin — out of town, on the highway, off onto a dirt road, into the forest — I still couldn't believe I had gone. Me. A strange man's cabin. Steven at my house waiting for me. They were probably worried by now.

I didn't care. I was alive, more so than ever.

I told you it wasn't much to look at, he said, opening the front door. The cabin was hidden behind a huge rock on a dirt road off the highway, buried among cedars, backing onto Indian River. The banks were covered with a thin blanket of snow. Snow that hadn't yet fallen in downtown Peterborough. Not at all this season.

It's just fine, I said. We walked in and he shut the door.

There wasn't much furniture inside, not much of anything. A simple plaid couch, a small coffee table with ashes on it, a half-empty glass sitting on a counter, scattered books.

My mother wasn't here long, he said. She didn't have much of a chance to fix the place up.

Must be nice to have your own place, I started to say (getting only the first two words out, must be, but stopped when I realized how immature that sounded). Instead, I asked him what he was going to do with the place now. Do you think you'll stay?

Do you think I should? He reached for my hand and cupped his fingers around it. His palm was rough on the top part but squishy, soft even in the centre.

You should do whatever you want to do, I said taking my hand back to throw my coat across the back of the couch. I sat down, looked up at him, into his brown eyes, his pupils large and round.

Marigold, you have the most beautiful aura around you tonight, he said to me, and I blushed.

Whatever, I said back.

No really, blues and greens, fantastic.

I don't know what you're talking about, Amar.

It's just that sometimes, the most beautiful part of a person is that part that no one can see or hear. The part that no one even believes is there.

He stared to light candles, candles he pulled from drawers and closets and from behind curtains. Candles that he lit and placed mainly on the coffee table in front of me, and on the kitchen counter behind our heads. Soon our skin glowed the same colour in the soft light.

What's that book? I asked him. It was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, dog-eared, thin, black and orange cover.

The
Bhagavad Gita
, he said. Have you ever read it?

I shook my head.

'Tis a shame that no one in the West is interested. Within it are the keys, Marigold.

Keys to what?

To happiness, to living a happy, perfect life.

So why aren't you living one then? I said, flipping through its pages. That old book smell tickled my nose.

Marigold, he said. It's complicated here in the halls of illusion. It's hard to live the truth even though you know it's there. (I have to admit now that his religious gobbledygoop was making me have second thoughts about being there, but I went along with it.)

Ah, you have doubts. I can hear that, Marigold. But it's a lifestyle you have to embrace, and once you do, fuck, ecstasy is yours.

Is that why you hang out cross-legged under trees and stuff? I said.

There are other ways to get there. As he said this, he sat on the couch beside me, his thin thighs lining up against mine, touching. He put his upside down fist in front of me and opened his fingers. Lying on his palm were two small pieces of paper. Two small squares.

Put it on your tongue, he said. And though I think I knew where it would lead me (devil's work as my mother would say) and though it was not something I have done before, I did as he asked.

I took one of the small squares and placed it on my tongue. It dissolved like nothing. He did the same. And we waited.

Mother is knocking at my bedroom door. Get lost, I just yelled at her. Her knocks and whines are still pounding through my mind. Get lost, I yell again even though she is probably back in her bedroom by now. She's wants to talk about it, of course. I want her to leave me alone.

It took a while before we felt anything. Amar was quiet. He seemed to be thinking about something, maybe his mother? I pulled at my nylons as we waited, watching them spring back onto my legs. His words grew increasingly incoherent. It's useless attachment, he said. That's what keeps us trapped in this delusion that our mind creates, keeps us trapped behind this veil.

His gaze grew softer as he spoke.

We're deluded! he said, more and more space finding its way between his words. We are so bound to this material world and this mortal physical existence. It makes me sick, Marigold, it does.

I wasn't really listening to him, just nodding while the room seemed to be lighting up, candles growing brighter and brighter.

You can't let your emotions toss you around, Marigold. You can't. Your supreme self is more than that.

Supreme self? I muttered.

He lit a cigarette with a lighter he found on the floor and puffed out clouds of smoke into the room, leaning back beside me on the couch.

Yes, Marigold. Surrender! Surrender! Surrender! Have you ever heard of karma? It keeps going. The attachment keeps going if you don't . . . choose . . . differently. It you don't stop it. Fuck the depression and sadness.

His words came out slower by then, each syllable taking an eternity. He was looking down at the dirty floor and his eyes seemed to be getting wetter. When he started talking again and swept his hand through the air, I swear to God, there was colour that followed it. Red, pink, blue, sweeping past our faces, hovering before disappearing again, absorbing. I reached out to grab the colour streaks and he laughed at me, pushing my hand down.

I think I screamed when I saw it (can't remember the last time anything made me scream). His face when he turned around to look at me, to hold my arm down. His features, flat forehead, round eyeballs, pointy nose, melting down into nothing, like a candle that disappears with a flame.

You're melting! I yelled at him. The top of his head wasn't there anymore, just his thin lips smiling and laughing. And his finger pointing at me as it too started to dissolve. He grabbed my arm, hard, with his other hand and held me down on the couch.

Stop it! I shoved him and ran to the door. I ran right through the door (I think?) out into the yard behind the house, and down to the river, screaming. I just wanted to get away. I felt like he was stripping layers of skin off my body or something. I had to get out of there, but there was nowhere to run to. My feet were bare in the snow and I collapsed into it. I looked behind me then to see my own footprints, rising up into the air and landing on top of me.

He followed me out. His head was whole again. He was no longer laughing.

My footprints, I said. My footprints are all over me.

He took his hands and ran them down my shoulders, then across my chest, then his hands across my face, so I could smell him inside the lines of his palms. And I let him. I felt stuck in place, like a boulder buried deep in the earth.

Does that help? he asked. Are the footprints gone?

Yes. I said. Thank you. I was crying then, only a little.

His hands were on my wrists then, wrapping round and pushing me back into the snow. Back onto my spine. Snow coming down around us. My footprints gone because he made it so. He loosened his grip on my wrists and started to open my arms up and back, slowly in the snow.

Snow angels, he said. And it sounded like he said, Go and tell, which really made no sense, but I started making angels myself in the snow, with my arms and feet and laughing as the black sky filled my head and stars dotted my eyes.

He lay down beside me on the ground. Moving his own arms and feet in and out, until we were both laughing.

His angel wing landed on my breast.

I undid the buttons of my blouse and placed his fingers on either side of my nipple.

He flipped from his back to his side to his stomach, landing on top of me. Open blouse, snow falling, stones from the ground in my back, mildew smell from the car, smoke from burned candles on his chest hair.

His hands worked their way up the sides of my body, over my hips, across my stomach, up to my ears. Then they went down again, down the front, under my skirt, staying there the longest, circling fingers that dipped themselves in, wetness that appeared from nowhere.

What was I doing?

He took me there in the snow, trees around us clapping and cheering, the snow angels we made floating above us, smiling serenely. That which I hadn't let any man touch, I let him take last night.

And now, I want to remember every detail.

I got home at 6:00 this morning. He drove me, but we didn't speak much. He said goodbye with a quick peck on my lips. I couldn't find the words to ask what he was thinking.

Mother was waiting in the kitchen when I came in, asleep at a kitchen chair, the telephone in front of her.

I'm back, I said as one word. And she started crying, moaning about fear of losing me, and how worried Steven was, and how they were going to call the police if I wasn't home by 7:00.

I'm a big girl now, was all I said. You can stop worrying about me.

I pushed her away and went to my bedroom. I slept five hours, and now I am awake. It's almost noon. The phone has been ringing. I am not opening the door.

I can't believe I let him go without asking him. How will I know?

I think I might be in love. Maybe, you never know. He sees me like no one else does and it's not just because of what we took, or what we did. Amar. Amar. Amar.

I'm going back. I am going to take my mother's car keys off the table, and drive out there. Back to the cabin.

I can't wait any longer.

I need to know if we have found something special.

November 27, 1972 (later)

I drove all the way out there, in Mother's car, without her knowing. It was almost 3:00 by the time I got there (because of the time it took me to find my nerve).

He was gone. The cabin locked up. As far as I could see there was nothing inside, except for the couch and tables. No candles, no books, nothing and nobody. His van was not in the driveway. I felt foolish. The wind whistled in my ear, mocking me.

When I reached home, Mother was holding a thick white envelope. Mari, we need to talk about this, she said when I tried to grab it. She moved her hand. Mari, this was dropped off to me by a very scary looking man.

Just give it to me, Mother.

He was an East Indian man. What is going on? Why do you know an Indian man? Is this where you were last night?

I pushed my mother's hand into the side of the refrigerator and grabbed the envelope from her fingers, telling her again to just give it to me. She did.

I took the envelope up to my room and opened the part that had already been torn (and read no doubt).