Girl in Shades (9 page)

“Let me tell her first.” I left both Elijah and Mrs. Roughen alone in the kitchen and ran out to my mother, who was sitting cross-legged on her mattress, eyes closed, sheet draped tightly over her shoulder.

“Mother?” I interrupted her. She opened her eyes slowly. “There is someone her to see you. Mrs. Roughen.”

“Why?” she asked, dropping her eyelids closed.

I shrugged.

“Tell her to come around, I guess.”

Mrs. Roughen inched round the side of the teepee and mimed a knock on the door flap.

“Come in, Trudie” was my mother's response. Her voice came out even and smooth with an invisible period at the end of her sentence. Mrs. Roughen ducked into my mother's air, in one complete swoop.

While she was inside, I stayed in the yard with Elijah. He dropped to the grass, lying back on his elbows and crossing his ripped jeans at the ankle. I could see his knees through the holes. I pushed my lips together and sat cross-legged beside him, my fingers interlaced in my lap. I watched the yellow light pulsing like tiny spotlights out from his chest.
I can't believe I let her drag me here
, I heard him think. I could feel his emotions drift through my mind like a bubbling stream: hunger, boredom, frustration, and finally, an image of a male face with a handlebar moustache.

“My parents are splitting up,” he said like an axe through a log. “At least, I'm pretty sure they are. My dad screwed some other chick.” I flinched and thought how weird the sentence sounded coming out of his perfect Chicklet teeth. Open sky above us began to cloud over while I thought of what to say next. “Have you ever done it?” he asked. I grimaced. “Of course not, you're probably too young anyway.”

“I'm only eleven,” I added in my defense. All I knew about sex at that time was what I had learned earlier in the year from a boring film at school about the menstrual cycle.

“Have you kissed someone at least?”

“Yes.” I studied the grass with intensity to avoid facing my lie.

“Hmm,” he snorted. “So you're a virgin then, eh?”

“I guess.”

“Let's go in the shed.”

“What?”

“I want to show you something.”

Going into the shed with a boy I had just met seemed extremely appealing then. It could have been an escape, a refuge. Maybe what awaited me inside my father's shed was more brilliant than a dying mother in a teepee? Maybe just for a moment I could be normal again — an adventurous, risk-taking version of the normal me.

So I followed Elijah into the shed. He slapped the door shut behind us and we were left in only medium darkness, thanks to one small plastic-covered window letting a thin stream of light through. I backed up and stumbled over the foot of my father's wheelbarrow (I had never seen him use it), and Elijah reached out his hand to touch the hoes, rakes, and shovels that hung from the ceiling. The smells of damp chipboard, grass clippings, and grease created a comforting bubble around the both of us. Then Elijah squeezed out a small box from the waistband of his pants — red, DuMaurier, half empty when he opened it.

“Want one?” he offered, pulling out a thin stick and placing it between his lips.

“No thanks.” I was let down by the cigarette, as if I was expecting a fancy lizard in a jar. He lit it with a match from his pocket, inhaled with a smacking sound and blew smoke into the air between us.

“My mom was pretty pissed when she found out about my dad.” His voice cracked on the word “dad.” “She threw her makeup bag at the wall in the bedroom and everything went flying: lipsticks, eye shadows, bottles of skin-coloured crap — it totally covered the white paint on the walls.”

“That's too bad,” I said.

“She cracked one of her mirrors, which is supposed to be bad luck, but she didn't seem to care much.” I knew Elijah was only thirteen, but he seemed to be aging in front of me as he spoke, grey hairs sprouting at his temples, wrinkles spreading out on his cheeks, the skin sagging under his chin. “It was the girl's gym teacher from the school where he teaches. Maybe they did the nasty in the utility closet or some shit like that.” The walls of the shed felt like they were shrinking around us. My armpits grew wet and the thoughts in my head grew louder and more threatening.

She's cute
— this from inside his head, though I didn't ask to hear it.

“Come here,” he said out loud, but instead he took two steps towards me. I replied with one tiny step in his direction.

“I know you are too much of a browner to smoke yourself, but if you lean forward, I'll blow some of it into your mouth.”

“After you have inhaled it?”

“No, just from my mouth. No biggie.” His response sounded logical and I complied, leaning into him so that I could smell the seaside freshness of his underarm deodorant — the first time I had smelled a “man” close-up. And somehow at that moment, Elijah Roughen morphed into a flesh and bones version of the secret love who had followed me around since I first heard him sing, Corey Hart, finally here to rescue me from the chaos of my mother's illness.

“You're here,” I said with words that hovered before disappearing, but I still have no idea if Elijah said anything back. He probably just smirked and nodded, giving high fives to his ego. The dim room filled with light and I floated above the shed and back beside Corey in one swoop. And then again, and up and down so that the sky fell into my father's shed, and my father's shed floated into the sky. I squinted my eyes so that I hardly noticed when Corey filled my mouth with the gritty smoke, and it swam into my nose, my ears, my eyes.

And then he filled my mouth with something else from his face — slimy, wet, spongy, sticking me — I stuck out my tongue to meet it. My Corey, my saviour, my future.

Knuckles fell on the outside of the shed, creating a hollow echo.

“Oh, shit,” said Elijah.

“Maya, are you in there?” my father said from the other side. “Open up!” He knocked again, and I saw that Elijah had moved our old barbeque in front of the door and that it shook as my father pounded. I felt deceived and scowled at Elijah for it. I turned around and banged my head on a hanging lawnmower. Pain shot through my body.

“I'm here!” I said as tears sprang to my eyes. “Let me out of here!” I grabbed the dusty barbeque, toppled it onto its side and whacked open the door with my fingertips. There stood my father, stunned-face, in baggy jeans and an orange tie-dyed T-shirt, the one he wore for yardwork.

“Jesus Christ, Maya. What's going on? Who's this?”

“Elijah Roughen, sir. Trudie Roughen's son. She's in there with your wife right now.” Elijah held out his hand, but instead of taking it, my father said, “Were you two smoking in there?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Devine. But only me. I can assure you that your daughter is still very innocent.” Elijah had stamped out his cigarette on the floor of the shed and it still smoked when my father went inside. “Next time use an ashtray,” he told Elijah and then to me, while poking his head out the door, “Maya, your dinner is ready. Go inside and splash cold water on your face.” He had no other words for us — outside or inside.

When I got back from a dinner of burnt fish sticks and creamed corn from a can, Elijah was still waiting for his mother on the back deck, his feet up on a chair and his hands folded behind his head.

“I need a ride home,” he told me matter-of-factly as I passed him.

Mrs. Roughen came out of the teepee then. Around her head was a strange sort of light, violet and red sprinting around together, like she didn't know what to feel. She asked me if she could use the bathroom inside.

I nodded.

Then, she walked by me, silently, but I heard inside her head. And like that, I knew what was going on, what had happened. Why she wanted Mother as her friend.

I think it all came down to this: she was comforted by the fact that someone's life was more dreadful than her own.

And though my mother had never encouraged any of my supernatural abilities, I decided that this time I was going to tell her what I had heard — for her own good.

What I learned after that was that sometimes split-second decisions can change a lot of things.

Mother was on the bed with her knees hugged up to her chest, and she was looking out into nothing and biting the inside of her mouth like she had had enough of it all.

Maybe I wanted to impress her.

“Mrs. Roughen tried to kill herself last night,” I said. “On account of her husband breaking up with her because of some floozy in gym shorts.” I took a deep breath and continued. “She took a whole handful of blue pills with milk, but at the last minute she puked them all up into the sink.”

“What makes you say she tried to kill herself, Maya?” She looked surprised, more than I expected.

“She is relieved today that she didn't do it. She thinks that in the light of day, things look better. She's glad for what she does have. She could be dying, like you.”

“Did Elijah tell you that, Maya?” My mother's dark-circled eyes were wide open, like she was trying to see inside my head.

“I heard her think it.”

Mother just stared at me, unflinching. “Maya, I've told you, don't pay attention to that stuff. It's not who you are.”

“But it's real, Mother.”

“I know, Maya.” She was too weak to disagree with me as she usually did. She put her hand on mine.

Mrs. Roughen came back in fussing with her hair and blotting her freshly painted lips.

“As I was saying, Mari, you're going to get through all this just fine—”

My mother interrupted her. “Trudie, promise me you won't hurt yourself, okay? Nothing stupid, no man is worth it.”

“Excuse me, Mari?” I think they had both forgotten I was there.

“I know about the pills, Trudie,” she said with a sigh, dropping her ear to her shoulder.

“But how? I mean, why would you say something like that?” Mrs. Roughen began pacing around the teepee, like she was trying to walk off the awkwardness.

“Just don't do it, Trudie. I know what it feels like to get jerked around by someone who you thought could be the one for you. Trust me, you can go on without him.”

“Mari, how could you know about this?” Tears had flooded her eyes, purple spirals of light had swirled out from her head.

“Just try to pretend the whole thing never happened. Really.”

Mrs. Roughen's face had dropped in shock; her chin was practically resting on her collar bone.

“Mari, I don't know how you know all this. But I have to say, at the risk of making this all about me, that this is exactly what I need in my life right now.”

“You need what in your life, Trudie?”

“You have a gift. A gift that points to something more. Something bigger than this earth. Something to believe in.”

“I just wanted to tell you, Trudie. That's it. It's nothing more.”

“You are so brave, Mari,” she said, stroking my mother's bare shoulder. “Could it be you already know what is in store for you? You've seen it, haven't you?”

“Trudie, I don't know what you're—”

“Mari, please. Can you tell me more? I want to know exactly what life has in store for me.”

I looked at my mother, waiting for her to brush it off, or maybe even to tell the truth, but she didn't. Instead, she took a long, slow breath, dragged her tongue across her teeth, and said, “You'll meet someone, Trudie. A new boyfriend, with dark hair and broad shoulders, younger than you. You'll be so happy together.” My mother looked to the left. She was making it all up.

That night, after Mrs. Roughen left, I refused to stay outside with my mother. She knew why. So, after Father had finished scrubbing the red mark off the side of the teepee, he went in to be with her. I opened the back door real late and thought I heard them laughing. He stayed there all night, and even until morning. It was the only time I remember him sleeping out there, and thinking back, I am pretty sure that was the night it happened.

That must have been the night the baby was made.

My father, or Steve, as Connie from his office calls him, has a tattoo over his heart. I sometimes wonder if Connie has seen it, especially now that Mother is gone. Maybe he has hidden it from her as he has hidden it from me my whole life. I have only seen it a few times.

When I was around seven, my mother told me the story of how he got it. We were waiting to hand out flyers in front of the public school I would have attended if I had not been home-schooled, when she told me how he had made the tattoo himself. He had taken some black ink out of a pen, looked into the mirror shirtless, and with one of his mother's sewing needles, trapped black ink under his skin by pushing the pin in and out. She didn't mention how much it hurt him, but I'm sure it must have. I'd have been done after the first prick.

He got it before they were married and before I was born. When she told me about it, she had a look of regret, like maybe she wished he hadn't done it.

His tattoo says “Mari,” my mother's nickname. Maybe he had intended to create her entire name, “Marigold,” but had got tired at the “i.” It's hard to say with my father. Regardless, from then on my mother's nickname made its home on my father's chest. “Mari” in black, shaky letters. “Mari,” darker in some spots and spread out along a crooked line.

The first time I saw it, I was five and my father had taken me swimming in the outdoor pool at the end of Lakeview Street. We had to get out of the house that day — Mother was sad in bed for the first time I can remember.

“Why do you have that there?” I said, pointing when he removed his shirt. This made a wrinkled lady look too and crinkle her nose in distaste.

“‘Mari' is short for your mother's name,” he told me as he slid into the chlorinated pool and bent his knees so that his tattoo dropped under the waterline. That's all he wanted to say about it.

After that, I would try to catch glimpses of the “Mari” tattoo whenever I could. When I caught him changing his shirt I would look right at the spot. When he wore white thin T-shirts, I would squint to try to make out the outline, as if my mother herself was trapped under there.

At the age of eight I vowed to get a tattoo myself, as soon as I was old enough to take the bus downtown.

As far as I am concerned, my father is careless. Getting ready for school, I whip around the corner into the bathroom to find him standing there. Two beats provide me with an unobstructed viewing of his “Mari” tattoo, black on his wet skin. I try not to look at anything else.

“Shut the door!” my father screams.

“Lock the door next time,” I mutter, closing it myself without turning the knob.

From behind the closed door: “What did you say?!” It opens again with the kick of a heel. My father, with a towel wrapped around his waist, tosses a stick of deodorant into the sink and comes after me.

“Don't talk back to me, Maya, I'm sick of it!” He grabs me in the hall by my pyjama top, taking a handful of fleece into his fist, and pushes me to the ground. Gravity stuns me quiet. My father trips to his knees and I wonder if he is going to pounce on me. Instead, he covers his face with his fingers. His bare back curves and his shoulders start to rock.

“I'm sorry for talking back,” I say curling myself into the carpet, into an indestructible ball, protecting myself from the mucky air mixing itself up around my father's head. When he speaks, I can tell that his nose has filled up, and when he looks up I can see that his eyes are swelling red.
It's not your fault. It's never been your fault
, I hear him think, but out loud he says nothing, only pats me on the head, stands, and turns to go back into the bathroom. I feel as though a hurricane has switched direction at the last second, saving my home from being destroyed.

To apologize for throwing me, my father takes me to his office to photocopy parts of my body. I choose to do my face first, while he stands guard at the door of the copy room. Balancing on a stool, I press my nose onto the cool glass and push the lid into my head with my right hand. The machine squishes my body like I am the meat in a Xerox sandwich. I push the green button with my free hand. Light travels across my face, bringing heat with it. Through my eyelids, my eyeballs fill with white and my head and my body. I disappear into a hot, bright world. And it seems more real than what is supposed to be. I press the button again, repeating the flash. Does it hurt? Not really. I hear my face slide out on paper, for as many times as I have pressed “start.”

“I told you, not your face,” my father says, hanging over me, pulling me back. “You're going to fry your brain. Do your hands instead.”

I take his advice and place my palm flat on the glass, crunching the lid over my knuckles. He presses the green button for me three times. Soon I wave at myself from the out tray. I pick up the pages and study the black and white image of my hand. The tiny lines form a triangle that traps empty space within it. I imagine living there with what Aunt Leah told me was my lifeline, stretching halfway across my hand. Not long enough to shelter me, I hear a repeat of Aunt Leah's words — “It's short, but it may just mean you will reinvent yourself.”

“Wanna do your butt?” my father asks, laughing.

“No, thanks.” I flip past my hand picture and see the one of my face: me — only squished, like I am trying to get in, or out.

“Are you done then?”

“Yes, thanks.”

We go back into my father's office. Connie's there. And just like most days I'm there, she runs over to him like he's a magnet.

Green. Green. Green. I can hardly see her because of all the green around her face and body.

“Steve, Steve,” she says. “There you are. I need you, hon.” She puts her hand on the small of his back, which makes him smile.

“Uh, yes, hi Connie.” My father seems unsettled. “I will come and sign that contract in a moment.”

Connie licks her lips and picks at her bangs, trying to tease them up with her index finger and thumb. She stares at him, to me, and back. Finally she speaks. “Right, the contract that needs signing. That's why I need you, exactly.” She winks at my father and walks past him, the curves of her bottom shifting back and forth under her black dress. To my surprise, I hear her thinking,
Mi corazón, mi corazón, mi corazón. Tell her, Steve.

“Tell me what?” I yell at her without deciding to.

“Huh?” she turns back and blurts out, contorting her face into something ugly.

“Maya, stop it,” my father says and I say sorry. (I've got to watch that.) “I'll catch up with you later, Connie. I've got to take Maya back to school.”

At school I discover that I have missed the morning class, mathematics, which suits me fine. Kids are already milling in the hallways before lunch, which is where I meet Chauncey and Heather.

“Maya, hi!” Chauncey says through his nose, scraping a pimple off his chin. “Did you hear that Jackie isn't here again today? That's almost seven days away from school. What a baby.”

“I heard her mom is keeping her away because she's scared of her getting hurt again,” Heather adds.

“It was her own fault,” I say, pleased to have new comrades. “She has to learn to keep her trap shut about my mother.” They grow silent then, but Heather adds that her own mother attended my mother's funeral, that she had also come to pray for her near the end. This is not something I want to dwell on, so I ask them what they are doing for lunch.

We eat our sandwiches in the lunchroom together (I made mine myself). Chauncey drops some “sloppy” from his Sloppy Joe on his blue button-up. Heather eats only one small corner of her bun and I eat mine down heartily, like this was my last supper.

By Christmas time, Connie is spending at least one night a week sleeping with my father in my mother's bed. I pretend not to hear her as she quietly knocks on the front door after I'm asleep and my father lets her in. I hear them talking, followed by silence in which I lie awake in bed listening, tracing the outline of my father's “Mari” tattoo in my mind's eye, and watching crimson streaks of light from my own body shoot around me in the dark.