Smart Mouth Waitress (29 page)

When she suggested we cash out separately, I didn't argue, because I didn't figure it was worth fighting over.

Every
person has their own little quirks. I mean, apparently, Donny has a dick shaped like a banana. Being cash-aware is not a bad thing, but Courtney had done other stuff, too, like driving her car front-first into a parking spot someone else was trying to back into.

The man had actually gotten out of his car and given her a lecture about how “people in this country” value manners. He didn't know she wasn't from Hong Kong, but had been born here in Canada, the same as me. I'd felt such shame, as a white person, for his racist rant, that I'd almost overlooked the fact she'd stolen someone's parking spot. It happened in the West End, where free street parking is almost impossible, but still, what kind of a jerk steals a parking spot?

I was better off without her. Or was I? I didn't really have a choice in the matter, so whether she was a bad friend or not hardly mattered.

My heart felt heavy in my chest.

Friendship over
, I kept thinking every time I glanced over at her. She just looked right through me.

Because I couldn't do anything about Courtney, I switched over to obsessing about Marc for the rest of my shift.

I hadn't received any messages from Marc, so I had no story for his flirty behavior the night before. Perhaps he'd heard from Cooper about the nudity and been jealous.

When I thought about Cooper with his clothes off, it made me smile. I'd be taking someone's order down and I'd think about the brown-gold trail of hair on Cooper's muscular abdomen.

I pulled out my phone and posted on Cooper's Facebook wall, for everyone to see:
Art class was awesome! That model was HOT.

The hot part was true. Just thinking about the sketches made me eager to rush right home after my shift.

My joy seemed to spread to my tables, who laughed louder than Courtney's side of the restaurant, as though they knew it was a contest.

Donny said to me, as I was cashing out, “I should record that penis-acceptance song. Maybe a viral hit?”

“Ew,” I said. “Don't use penis and viral together.”

“I wish I knew a musician,” he said.

I tensed up, sensing what was coming next. “Parody isn't really my mother's thing,” I said.

He laughed. “What? You thought I meant your mother? Puh-leez. I said musician, not pop princess.”

I scowled at Donny. He could make fun of me all he wanted, but my mother was off-limits.

Toph rushed to my aid, saying, “I love Jade's music. She's really alternative, and alternative is totally coming back.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Is that true?” I listened to music, but I wasn't exactly up on trends, because I simply liked what I liked.

Toph said, “There's that song,
We are Young
. And, um, the cool one with the guy in all the body paint.”

Donny said, “Alternative's been coming back every year since forever, allegedly.”

I said, “What is alternative, exactly? I never understood that.”

Courtney, who had just came into the kitchen, said, “Duh. Alternative music is stuff white people like, like Vespa scooters and putting their kids in French immersion.”

The three white people in the kitchen looked back and forth at each other. None of us could disagree.

Donny said, “White people like Wes Anderson movies, farmer's markets, and,” he looked right at Courtney, “Asian girls.”

She took a little curtsy.

Toph said, “White people like brunch, and Portlandia.”

Normally, I'd stick around and play Stuff White People Like, but I wanted to get home and look at those sketches of Cooper.

As I stood by the back door, I said, “I love you guys,” to my coworkers.

They all made disgusted faces, as was the norm.

Chapter 19

Back at home, after
I took a good look at the sketches I'd made of Cooper, I started dinner.

A couple of weeks into looking after dinner almost every night, most girls my age would have been serving frozen dinners and toast, but I'd kept up my end of the bargain with my parents.

I actually enjoy cooking, especially if I can experiment with the recipes. My mother's had me help with the cooking since I was old enough to safely reach the stove, back when we lived in Dunbar. The first thing I made was preserves, using fresh figs from the tree in our back yard. Both of our houses have had fig trees, so it's hard for me to believe other people don't have yummy fresh figs in the summer.

That Tuesday night, I made what we call Stolen Soup.

One weekend afternoon, Mom and I had some incredible soup at a cafe, so she used the phone on her camera to take a picture of the ingredients, which were on a card next to the specials. The card was probably there to help people with allergies, not to give away the recipe, so we had a cackle over our criminal activity. The proportions weren't listed on the card, of course, but we'd experimented at home and concocted a soup that was even better than the cafe's.

Stolen Soup:

2 cans of black beans, drained but not rinsed

1 can corn niblets

1 fried onion

sliced carrots (as many as you like)

Cover with chicken stock and cook until the carrots are soft, then add:

3 cups of chopped, cooked chicken

1 can diced tomato

Season to taste with:

1-2 garlic cloves

freshly-grated ginger

1 tsp curry powder

2 tbsp peanut butter (secret ingredient!)

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp dijon mustard (another secret!)

My Stolen Soup that night turned out magnificent, as always. Dad wrinkled his nose and said it was “gumbo, not soup,” like he always does.

As we were digging into the soup, made with a minimal number of carrot slices to keep Dad and Garnet happy, all three of our phones buzzed or rang with incoming messages.

“Mommy,” I said.

“Mommy!” Garnet cried, and we all raced to get our phones out.

As I read the message, an emotion came over me that made my stomach feel bloated, like I'd never be hungry again. I pushed my bowl of soup away in disgust.

To my surprise, Garnet started to cry. He didn't just cry little tears down his cheeks, either. He bawled, his mouth turned down in a grimace, sobs coming out of him.

This set me off, and pretty soon the two of us were blubbering.

The text was, indeed, from our mother, and she'd said she was staying in LA for “at least another month.”

My father set his phone on the table and finished eating his soup.

“This is better than how your mother makes it,” he said of the soup, which only set off Garnet's wails again.

I said, “Dad! That's all you've got to say?”

“I just live here,” he said, clearing his bowl and spoon away into the dishwasher.

Garnet wiped his nose and face with his shirt. “Dad! You can't let her do this to us.” 

“Your mother's a free spirit,” Dad said, his voice eerily calm. “She can't soar with the eagles if she's stuck here with us turkeys.”

“Spring break's coming up,” I said to my brother, trying to sound upbeat for his benefit. “We can check for a seat sale and fly down there for a visit. I've got some money saved up. What do you think of that?”

“She doesn't want her
children
there,” Dad said.

Angrily, I yelled at him, “She didn't say that! Don't make it worse than it has to be!”

Without answering me, he took a few steps toward his computer den, then turned and went in the direction of the front door. I heard his keys jingle, then the front door slammed shut.

I tried to grab Garnet for a hug, but he pulled away.

As he sulked, I tried to reassure him. “We can talk about everything when Dad gets back from his drive.”

“Talking doesn't do anything,” Garnet said.

“Now you sound exactly like Dad.”

“Yeah? Well you sound exactly like Mom, and I'm not very happy with her right now.”

“No shit. Me neither.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I don't need you. I can take care of myself.”

I pointed to my chest, stunned by the hate in his face. “Who are you talking to? I'm not Mom. Don't be mad at me.”

“You made her go,” he said.

“Uh, no way! Like she listens to anything I say!”

“You're dead to me,” he said, pushing past me to look in the fridge.

I was
dead
to him? 

Thinking about his hateful words, I wanted to grab him by the arm and smack his freckled little face, slapping away that bad attitude.

He grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and took it up to his room.

I looked at the text message from my mother, searching for information that wasn't there. She cited a “creative breakthrough,” whatever that meant. I didn't have to be a mind-reader to know my father was assuming the worst, and that the “creative breakthrough” involved some attractive keyboard player who had a key to her room.

At the risk of painting our family in a trashy light, I should mention there was a time Garnet's paternity was questioned. His face shape didn't match anyone on Dad's side of the family, and my father sent away some hair samples to one of those mail-order DNA places. It seems ridiculous now, when you see the two of them next to each other, but a few years ago, Garnet had more of a baby face and he didn't look like
anyone
in the family. We'd joked about him getting switched at the hospital.

The good news was the test came back showing my father was Garnet's biological parent. The bad news was, despite being so careful about having the results mailed to him at his work place, Dad used their shared credit card. Mom googled the mysterious name on the statement and figured things out on her own.

My father made it so much worse for himself by lying and saying the test was for someone at work. Then he yelled a bunch and stormed out of the house. 

Dad gets worked up sometimes with the yelling, when he goes into overreaction mode instead of avoidance. He scares me when he gets like that, because he's not
himself
anymore, like when someone's really drunk, or sleepwalking. His eyes are open, and he's seeing you, but it's not
him
. It's the Anger Monster.

After the credit card showdown, which took place on a Saturday morning during an otherwise-normal pancake breakfast, things were different in the house.

Dad slept downstairs on the sectional sofa for almost three weeks—long enough for me and my brother to assume it was the New Order of Things—until one day I came home from school and discovered my father and mother giggling in the big downstairs bathroom, the sounds of splashing coming from the tub.

Thus ended the Paternity Incident of 2009, which I'd assumed would be their one and only low point.

Until she sent the message about staying in LA for another month.

I got tired of pacing downstairs and went up to my room, taking the front stairs so I wouldn't go past my brother's door.

I looked at all of my mother's clothes in my laundry hamper. The opportunity-spotting part of my brain lit up. Another month of doing laundry and cooking dinner? That hadn't been part of our original agreement. Even at minimum wage, that extra month of work had to work out to some serious money.

I pulled out my phone and angrily stabbed the screen to send a message to my mother:
When available, please call to discuss $ compensation for housework.

She didn't call, but messaged me immediately with:
When available, please call to discuss $ for rental of bedroom.

Oh, yes she did.

Well played, Mom. Well played.

That was when I got the buckets of paint out of my bedroom closet, hunted down the brushes and painting supplies, and started painting my room. Garnet heard the noises and came to investigate.

I said, “I thought I was dead to you.”

“I'm a kid. I don't mean stuff I say.”

“You hurt my feelings.”

He frowned. “No I didn't.”

“You're not the baby anymore. You've grown two inches this year. Your innocent kid routine isn't going to cut it.”

He seemed genuinely troubled by this revelation. “What should I do?”