So Much It Hurts (11 page)

“Antoine said he thought he saw you two—at the mountain. In a pedal boat.”

“In a pedal boat? That's insane! Hey, I thought you said Antoine was dead to you.”

“He is,” Katie says. “Usually anyway.”

The metro is late. Katie grabs my arm. “D'you think there was a jumper?”

“Do you have to call them
jumpers
?”

I hate the dirty-socks smell of Montreal's underground city. But as long as there are no mechanical difficulties—and no suicides (what Katie calls
jumpers
)—you can usually set your watch by our metro system.

It was my idea to take Katie downtown shopping. I want to buy us friendship bracelets. I told Katie I wanted to make it up to her for missing her party and for saying no the last few times she wanted to go for coffee. “I'm over it, Iris. I know how obsessed you get when you're writing a paper for English. It totally sucked that you missed my party, but hey, your mom had food poisoning. It's not like you could've abandoned her. Not when it was coming out both ends,” Katie said.

“It was pretty gross.”

I'm getting better at lying. Probably because I'm getting so much practice. But I still don't enjoy it. Mostly because I'm worried I'll screw up and let the truth slip out. I don't worry about that happening when I'm onstage. Onstage, lying's allowed.

I see the white headlights of a metro car coming down the tunnel. The car pulls up, the silver doors slide open, and Katie and I grab facing seats.

“Can you imagine ever being so depressed you'd jump in front of a metro?” Katie can be kind of morbid sometimes—and loud too. “Just like that. Splat.” She smacks her thigh to demonstrate.

“I can't imagine. I think the people who do it must have serious mental problems. They're not just regular depressed.”

“I guess it'd be over quickly,” Katie says. “That's probably the appeal.”

“Yeah, but think of all the people you'd traumatize. The ones who saw your splattered remains.” When I'm with Katie, I get a little morbid too.

“Even worse,” Katie says, shaking her head, “think of all the people who'd be late for their appointments downtown, all because of your splattered remains.”

I shouldn't laugh. It's a bad joke. But it is funny, so I do. Katie bumps her knee against mine. For a minute, it feels like nothing's changed between us. I bump knees back.

“I miss you, Iris,” Katie says out of nowhere.

I'm afraid to look at her when she says that. Afraid she'll know I've been keeping something from her. “I miss you too,” I say to my clunky black boots.

“Has it ever occurred to you,” Katie asks, “that maybe you study too much?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you study too little?”

Katie rolls her eyes. “Nope, that's never occurred to me.”

She only brings up Facebook when we're transferring at the Lionel-Groulx terminus. So much for my hoping she hasn't been online. “I saw you changed your status to
In a relationship
and then you changed it back to
Single
. What's up with that? Don't tell me you gave Tommy another chance!” Katie has never had a very high opinion of Tommy. “I would so never give Antoine another chance.”

“Then how come you two are back on speaking terms?”

“That's different. We don't do much speaking.”

“Katie!”

It could be worse. Katie must not have seen what I wrote about feeling tuned in to “M.”

“I kind of did give Tommy another chance,” I tell her.

“I thought you hated him.”

“I never said I hated him. I just said I wasn't in love with him.”

“You really need to come out dancing with me one of these nights,” Katie says. “It'd be good for you.”

How can I tell Katie that going clubbing with a bunch of silly underage teenage girls trying to act grown up is the last thing I'm interested in? They go to clubs to meet guys, and I've already met the perfect guy. If anything, I feel sorry for Katie. What if she never meets anyone who makes her feel the way Mick makes me feel?

“You'd have totally loved the after-hours club we went to Saturday. I didn't get home till ten in the morning.”

“You must've been wrecked. What'd you tell your parents?”

Katie nudges me. “What do you think I told them?

That I slept over at your house.”

Thank God our moms don't compare notes. Katie's mom gets her hair blown out every week and has long lunches with her girlfriends at expensive restaurants downtown. My mom's too busy working to worry about her hair. And she's really careful with money.

“Which club did you go to?” I don't ask because I'm interested, but because I know Katie is dying to tell me. It's like someone asking me how it feels to be onstage. Clubbing is Katie's passion. Mick says everyone should have a passion. That if we follow our passions, we'll always be headed in the right direction.

“It's called Circus. I'll bet you never even heard of it, right? It's in the Gay Village. The music was awesome, techno mostly. We never stopped dancing.” Katie's eyes are shining. All I can think about is how tired I'd feel if I stayed up all night. Were Katie and I ever in the same world?

Katie is just getting warmed up. “There's usually a twenty-dollar cover charge, but they let us in for free. The bouncer said, ‘Pretty girls bring in business.'” Katie laughs when she imitates the bouncer. “The place was packed.”

“Wow!” I try to sound excited. “Hey, d'you know any rice recipes?”

“Rice recipes?” Katie peels off one of her gloves and makes a show of feeling my forehead. “Are you all right, Iris?” You'd think I'd told her I was pregnant with triplets.

“Most people just boil water and add the rice. But I think there are better ways to do it. I meant to look online. Did you ever—”

“Did I ever research rice recipes? Who do you think I am—Martha friggin' Stewart? You really need to get a life, Iris. I swear, sometimes I think you're turning into some old lady. Going to bed early, studying nonstop and now, talking about rice recipes. Don't you ever just want to be seventeen?”

I don't tell Katie what I'm thinking: No, I don't ever just want to be seventeen. Not anymore. Not since I met Mick.

Accessories are on the ground floor at H&M. I like the pink and silver bracelets—they'd go with everything—but Katie chooses one with turquoise crystals. “It's more fun than the pink.” I know she's found another way to say I'm turning into a little old lady.

So I end up buying two turquoise bracelets. When the salesclerk asks if I want them wrapped, Katie says, “We're gonna wear them. They're friendship bracelets.” She slips hers on, holding it up to the fluorescent lighting so the crystals shimmer. “We've been besties since pre-school.” Katie squeezes my elbow.

I slip mine on too. I wish I'd bought the pink.

“Listen,” Katie says when we're leaving H&M, “Lenore was gonna be downtown this afternoon. I said we'd meet up with her for a bubble tea.”

“You did? Since when did you start hanging out with Lenore?”

“She came to Circus with us on Saturday. She was actually pretty cool.”

“I need to get home. To make that rice. It's for my mom. Ever since that business with the food poisoning, she's been trying to eat light.” My lie is starting to feel real.

“I totally love my bracelet, Iris.” Katie twirls her wrist. “Call me later, okay? Promise?” She blows me an air kiss. I can feel her looking over my head—probably for Lenore.

“I promise,” I tell her. Only I know I won't.

CHAPTER 15

“What a piece of work is a man!…
In action how like an angel…”
—HAMLET
, ACT 2, SCENE 2

M
ick's right.

I'm outgrowing Katie. He says it's part of life—like a child outgrowing a pair of pants. “They were a fine pair of pants, but they don't fit you anymore. They're too small for the person you are becoming,” he said. Mick also says it takes courage to let some relationships go. Still, I miss Katie.

“How do I know you won't outgrow me?” Almost as soon as the question was out of my mouth, I was sorry I'd asked it. I hate sounding insecure.

Mick didn't seem to mind. “That could never happen, Joey,” he said (I got little shivers when he said that). Then he took my hands and pressed them to his chest, over his heart. “We're soulmates, Joey. This is destiny.”

I love how that sounds.
Soulmates. This is destiny
. Still, I wish I knew whether Mick had that feeling with anyone else before me. Did he have it with Nial's mother—the woman he cut out of the photograph? But I don't ask. Maybe because I don't really want to know the answer.

My shift at Scoops is nearly over. It's a wonder people still want ice cream on such a wintery day. I'm looking out the window just as Mick's Jeep pulls up at the corner. It's snowing, and his windshield wipers are going double time. Phil looks up from the cash as I leave. “I'm glad you've got a ride. If you don't mind my asking, who's that guy who keeps coming to get you?”

“He's just a friend.”

Phil drums his fingers on the counter. “From what I can tell, he looks a little old to be your friend.”

“He isn't.” I hope that'll shut Phil up, but it doesn't.

“How come he never comes inside?”

“I don't know. I'll ask him. See ya, Phil.”

When I get in the Jeep and Mick kisses me hard on the lips, I forget Phil, the demanding customers, the after-dinner rush and the squishy sound my nurse's shoes made all afternoon as I flew across the restaurant's sticky floor.

“We're making a quick stop.” Mick's voice doesn't give anything away.

“What for?”

Mick puts a finger to his lips. It's another surprise! I smile—not just with my lips but inside too. Mick's more fun than anyone I've ever known. He turns life into a game. It's another thing I love about him. It's also why I miss him so much when we're apart. On weeknights, when I go back to Mom's, everything there feels flat and dull. Like my world's in black and white, not color, the way it is when I'm with Mick.

Mick pulls up in front of a stone townhouse on a pretty street tucked away behind the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. “We're going to stop in to see Marilyn—she's a friend of Isobel's. She has something for us.”

I reach for Mick's hand as we trudge along the path to the house, but he won't hold hands. That must mean Isobel's friend isn't supposed to know about us.

Before we can ring the bell, a tall woman with hair like gray straw opens the door. She doesn't say a word, just takes our coats and gestures for us to follow her inside.

“Here they are,” she whispers. There's a fire crackling in the fireplace in her living room. In front of the fireplace is a round wicker basket. Inside it is a sleek marmalade cat with three tiny kittens—one calico, two marmalade like their mom—curled around her. Two other kittens, just as small but black, come racing across the wooden floor, running sideways the way kittens do.

The sleeping kittens are rolled into fuzzy snail balls. One of the marmalade ones opens a yellow eye, looks right at me and yawns.

“I asked Iris here to come along and help me pick out a kitten,” Mick tells the straw-haired woman.

“Are we really getting a kitten?” I squeal, but then I correct myself. “Are
you
really getting a kitten, Mick?”

“I'm really getting a kitten.”

Marilyn puts her hands on her hips and looks at Mick. “It's important to me that these kittens go to good homes. So I need to know what'll happen to the kit if you go back to Australia. Isobel told me you're from there.”

“Let's just say at the moment there's a lot keeping me here.” Mick doesn't look at me when he says this—I know he can't—but I know he means me, that I'm keeping him in Montreal. My heart swells with pleasure.

“How do you two know each other exactly?” Marilyn asks. For a moment, her eyes narrow like the marmalade cat's.

“Iris is one of Isobel's star students. I spotted her waiting at the bus stop. The snow was coming down pretty hard on the poor kid, so I offered her a ride.” Mick's a much better liar than I am. Still, I don't like him calling me a
kid
.

“Well then, Iris,” Mick says. “Which one do you like?”

The two black kittens are frisky and beautiful. The calico in the basket is purring like a small engine. But it's the marmalade yawner I think I want. When I lean close to the basket, he stretches out one paw in my direction, as if he's asking for my help.

“It looks like this little guy likes you,” Mick says. I feel bad for taking the kitten from his mom, but when I scoop him up, he doesn't object. Instead, he settles into the crook of my arm and licks the inside of my elbow. His little pink tongue makes me laugh.

“I've got some kitten food to get you started. You'll need to buy a litter box,” Marilyn says. “I'm glad to see him go to a good home.”

Marilyn watches from the doorway as Mick and I head back to the Jeep. I'm holding our new kitten inside my coat. Mick walks several feet ahead of us. He doesn't notice when I nearly slip on an icy patch.

“Look out for yourself, Iris,” Marilyn calls out.

“What are you going to name him?” Mick asks when we're back in the Jeep. The kitten is still curled up inside my coat.

“I haven't decided yet.”

I wait in the car while Mick goes into the pet store. From the parking lot, I can look through the store windows. Mick is carrying a giant box of cat litter. His cheeks are rosy from the cold. When he sees me watching him, he waves a feathery cat toy at me. I'm careful not to laugh. I don't want to wake the kitten.