Girl in Shades (2 page)

Aunt Leah dangles her glasses in front of my face, spectacles that line her cheekbones and turn darker when she's in the sun. “Wear these,” she says, “so no one will see you crying.” She leans towards me and winks, her fuzzy hair dropping in around her face, the sharp corners of her front teeth peeking out from under her lips.

I'm not crying, but wonder why it would matter if someone saw me if I did. She was my mother after all.

The glasses find the bridge of my nose anyway and through the lenses I see a new version of the world. Magnified images drag in and out, screaming the strength of Aunt Leah's prescription. My temples buzz and my eyes beg to be released, but after a minute, they settle and make out what appears to be around me. My mother's oak coffin. My father licking his lips. Rain growing in dark clouds. Cut tulips wilting in a spotlight of sun. Somewhere, someone burns a fire.

The fifteen people around the grave have a combined mass of grey circling their heads, spongy grey that wanes and lifts with their heavy breath. I can hear their inner voices, some asking why, some wishing they had brought an umbrella, some worrying about what will happen to me and my father. And then Trudie Roughen, the woman who called herself my mother's best friend during the last six months of her life, steps out in her sticky red lips, hair-sprayed bangs, and floral sundress. She makes my mother sound like a pair of shoes she once owned.

“Marigold made me feel comfortable and eased much of the pain I was feeling,” she says. “She had such a gift. She helped me see things in a different way. It is comforting to know that she is finally free from all her suffering.” She steps back slowly, into the line beside her son, Elijah, with slicked back hair and a suit jacket that's too tight. He is looking down and playing with the fraying Velcro on his digital watch. I want to go over to him. I want to thank him for the bees, but I know I can't. I try not to stare at him, but I can feel him there like he's ten feet tall.

If I close my eyes behind these darkened glasses, will I disappear?

Mrs. Roughen has decided to move away from Saskatoon. I don't want her to take Elijah with her, but she is. They are going to live in Toronto now that Mrs. Roughen is finally divorcing Mr. Roughen. To think how she lectured my mother on how to make a good marriage, and now she is divorcing and my mother is heading into the ground. I panic when I remember they are putting my mother in the earth. I never wanted that. Invisible ants race up my spine and chase each other around the base of my neck, burning a hole. I imagine myself racing from my spot beside my father and throwing myself onto the coffin we picked out, scraping at the lip with my fingernails until the wood grows thin enough to push through, climbing in and lying beside her, kissing her face, stroking her earlobes, and wrapping each stiff arm around me.

People start to walk away. They are lowering the box into the earth, without me in it. There are some things that even tinted specs cannot hide. Softly, to try and block out the sobs and whimpers from those around me, I start to sing a song I learned last year in grade five: “My eyes are blind, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me.”

My father, standing on my right, is the only one who can hear me singing. He jabs me in the ribs with his elbow, lightly, telling me to be quiet.

But I don't stop, I can't. “My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me.”

“Maya, I'm serious, cut it out,” he says.

I finish so only I can hear, “I haaaaavvvve noottt brought . . . my specs . . . with . . . me.”

I turn twelve on the day after my mother's funeral, which takes a lot of the fun out of having a birthday. My father still carts a cake home from the IGA that has “Happy Birthday, Maya” written in red in the middle, but there is no singing. My father's younger sister, Aunt Leah, age twenty-one, is here to help us again, so she cuts three pieces of cake and puts them each on white saucers for us. She licks her fingers after each piece drops to the plate and my father gives her a disgusted look. Then, my father, my Aunt Leah, and I hold our forks and look down at the chocolate clumps in silence.

In September I go back to school. On the second day, I count the flattened plops of chewing gum on the step out behind the school. I do it to appear to be content and to keep myself busy throughout recess. After I have finished counting them — twelve, like my age — I begin to categorize them in my mind. Four pink (most likely strawberry), three blue (blueberry or blue raspberry), and the other five black from the weight and dirt of people's sneakers.

“Maya, when you pretend to look busy, you just look like more of a loser.” It's Jackie — friend turned enemy.

“Piss off,” I say to her in my straightest, most disinterested voice.

She walks towards me with one hand on her bony hip. Her white blouse has been tied in a knot and her belly button peaks out at me. Her denim skirt hangs on by what seems like only a few threads, exposing the white of her legs. Her penny loafers scrape on the cement as she moves closer.

“What's the matter, Maya, got no friends this year? Maybe you should try attending class sometime.” I take this as a shot at my mother's illness.

“Jackie,” I say, letting my mouth gape open after her name falls out. “Unless you want me to tell your new friends how you wet your sleeping bag at my house last year, piss off like I told you the first time.”

From Jackie's mouth, “Go to hell!” and from inside her head,
Did anyone just hear her say that?
She turns her head to monitor the backs of what I like to call her “Superstar Gang” — her new friends, three girls with bangs teased four inches off their foreheads and neon scarves tied around their ponytails.

At first I thought that hearing what people were thinking was the only good thing that came out of my mother's sickness. But now, I would give up this strangeness for just a glimpse of my mother. And not her ghost from the closet, either. I mean the real thing.

I've been hearing things off and on in short snippets. Not all the time, and not when I try to. The voices usually sneak up on me while I am reading
People Magazine
in line at the grocery store, or riding my bike past a flock of old ladies. And some of the things I hear have gotten monotonous, annoying even, like listening to a song you hate played over and over. I don't mind hearing about why my father hates his boss, or how Aunt Leah wished her thighs were less lumpy, but with school back on, I could do without listening to Mr. Wigman debate whether or not to shave his back. I just want to concentrate on science class.

“You just keep your mouth shut, Maya,” Jackie yells. She walks back to meet her gang. She was never this loud when we walked home together last year. I used to think she was clever and elegant, which is a great mix, especially for a girl.

“See ya, Jackie,” I say, mainly to spite her, as if pretending we were friends again would be the biggest insult she received all week. I return my attention to the chewing gum and think about scraping it off with my banana clip before the bell rings.

My father makes me come home after school to an empty house. He gave me my own key to let myself in because he works most nights until around 8:00. Sometimes I like having the house to myself but sometimes I get lonely. I spend a lot of time trying on my mother's clothes and reading her books, especially the
Bhagavad Gita
, which I have gotten as good as her at pretending I understand. When I read the fancy words that make no sense, I feel like I am having a conversation with my mother because she herself was a fancy word that made no sense. As I read, I smell her aromatherapy bottles, the ones meant to heal her, and dab the scents in my hair. The girl who brought them to Mother told me that it takes something like five pounds of plant material to make one drop of these oils, which makes them precious enough to wrap in a towel and keep in the top drawer of my dresser. Sandalwood to help me think, lavender if I can't sleep, orange to be happy. I wear the orange one a lot but try not to waste it. I know my father won't buy more when these run out.

My father works as a senior agent for Shining Star Talent Agency across the river, where he is in charge of finding “gigs” for actresses with blond hair, white teeth, and large breasts. He gets TV shows, fashion shows, and fancy trips to Toronto for beautiful-looking people hidden from everyone out in Saskatchewan. Sometimes they travel from Manitoba to see him, if they have something special. He says that as well as having a certain look, they have to be able to act. But I know what it takes to make it in Hollywood, or Toronto for that matter.

When my father comes home from the office, he has talked himself out. I once heard him think that he was sick of blathering on all day and I guess that's why he has nothing left for me but grunts and weak smiles. We sit across from each other at the table while he eats the takeout dinner he brought home with him. I usually save some of his leftovers for my own dinner the next day. Sometimes I can tell that he's trying. He asks me how school was, I tell him fine, he says what did you learn, I say not much, and then we stare at each other some more. These are occasions when I can't hear a word from inside his head, and I want to more than anything.

One day after work, my father tells me that he thinks I would be perfect for a shampoo commercial he is casting. “What with your shiny hair and gorgeous canary eyes, you will light up the screen.”

I have never thought my hair was gorgeous. When I try to run my fingers through it, they get stuck. But I guess with the right shampoo it could be better?

“What would I have to do?” I ask him.

“Well, we'd have to audition you first. And then if you get it, I would come with you for the shoot.”

“The shoot?” I say.

“Yes, when they film the commercial.”

“Oh, okay. I guess.” I am not sure about my father's plans to combine office and home life, but am comforted by his attempt. And maybe he's right; maybe I would look good on the screen. If nothing else I can pretend to be beautiful.

I have to take a day off school to go to the audition, which I know will please Jackie and her “Gang,” forever on the lookout for ammunition. Jackie hears me tell Mr. Wigman that I will be absent tomorrow and that my father has written a note.

“Got a hot date?” Jackie shouts from the back of the room. Giggles spread throughout the classroom.

“For your information, I have an audition,” I say and realize that everyone in the class has stopped reading their math textbook to listen. “I am going to be in a commercial.”

“What are they selling? Dog food?” Jackie barks back.

“Ladies, that's enough,” Mr. Wigman interjects. “Jackie, leave Maya alone.” Mr. Wigman pats me on the arm and signs my note to take to the office. I feel the combined gaze of everyone in the class on the back of my head as I turn to leave.

Before going to the audition, my father and I stop at his office to pick up forms and a school picture of me that he had blown up on the computer. “Your headshot,” he proclaims, shoving it inside a manila envelope. The woman who gave it to him concerns me the most. Long black hair that touches my father's arm when she hands him the photo, almond-shaped eyes that were not born in Saskatoon, that's for sure, and a curvy figure wrapped in a black dress and surrounded by yellow light that weaves itself up and down inches from her body. She introduces herself as Consuela, only my father calls her Connie. She looks like a flamenco dancer, but younger than any I have seen on television.

“It's wonderful to finally meet you, Maya,” Connie says when my father leaves the room for paper clips. She sounds like the tall guy in the white suit on
Fantasy Island
. “Your father talks about you all the time.” I nod and look at the sleeve of my striped shirt. The cuff seems to have moved further up my arm since I last wore it. “You know, your father is a pretty important guy. He has achieved a lot — the other agents learn much from him. He works hard so you can have everything you need.”

“I know,” I say. Then Connie smoothes her finger over her bottom lip and puts her hand on my back.

“I am so sorry about your mother, Maya,” she says, pronouncing every one of her syllables with distinct beats. For a second I remember what it's like to have a woman comfort me — anyone, for that matter — and submit myself to her pretend niceness by nodding again. My bottom lip protrudes and tears prick the insides of my eyeballs.

My father returns with my paperwork fastened together. He's developed a résumé for me that includes my age, height, weight, hair colour, and eye colour. When we leave, he thanks Connie by looking straight into her eyes and smiling, something he must save for the office.

The audition passes quickly and is far less glamorous than I would have expected. My father talks to a lady with a clipboard and she lets me into the room before any of the other girls waiting. Inside the room, two men with matching grey hair and warm red light shooting out around their faces sit behind a table. They ask me how old I am and where I go to school and that kind of stuff. Mostly they just want to look at me. And then they make me read something off a piece of paper. “Shinesse helps me be the girl that everyone notices.” I say this straight-faced while scooping hair off my forehead like they told me, and they thank me for my time, to which I respond, “No problem. I like to take the day off school.”