The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (10 page)

So far my favourite painting is one where a little girl with a smudgy face clutches a Little Person with a red baseball cap. You can only see the girl from the chin up, one of her hands reaching up over her head. She’s standing in a motel room window, behind gauzy cheaplooking curtains, illuminated by what must be headlights from a car parked outside. Looking at her you can’t help but wish the little girl was someplace better and wonder if she’s been left alone by whoever’s in that car.

Another one of the pictures I especially like is of a thirty-something-year-old man posed outside his gorgeous suburban house next to a life-sized Fisher-Price woman with yellow plastic hair and a blue plastic body, curves marking the presence of her bust and hips. The man’s hand is lying flat on top of her head, the same way you’d pet a dog or maybe a child’s head. I stand in front of the painting, taking a second look as I try to figure out what I think it’s about on my own, without the words I’ve already heard other people apply to Jimmy’s work.

“Hey, Serena,” Morgan says, his hand falling lightly on my back as he guides me across the room. “I want you to meet Ariel and her boyfriend, Grover.”

Ariel’s every bit as gorgeous in person as she is on
TV
, even though she has a big nose and her eyes are too far apart. “It’s nice to be able to put a face to the name,” she says, her teeth blinding me as she smiles and reaches out to squeeze my arm. “Morgan talks about you
a lot
.”

I smile back at Ariel and her boyfriend, whose band’s newest video is on heavy rotation on Much at the moment. He looks neater and less edgy in person, like someone who would sit behind you in science class and actually take notes.

Grover happens to be standing quite near the door, and as I fumble for something to say I spot a flash of something behind him the way you do in a scary movie, something you’re supposed to notice but not quite make out. My heart jumps. I squeeze by Ariel and Grover and rush for the door. My hand swings it open. Outside it’s the kind of cold you block from your mind as soon as June arrives, and I’m instantly freezing in my silk dress, but that’s not important.

I spin around, my eyes desperately scanning for the hint of dark green I saw pass by the door. Across the street, in front of a trendy clothing store with bare-chested mannequins, my stare catches and holds. He’s striding away in a green shell coat and I can only see his back now, but it was the side of his face, a glance of cheek and chin, that I caught sight of a few seconds ago. I haven’t laid eyes on him in seven long months, but I’d swear on the Holy Bible that my brother Devin’s darting along Queen Street in a dark green coat.

I run into the street, sprinting as fast as my high heel shoes will let me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

~

Crossing the street against the light, in my thin dress and delicate, winter-unfriendly four-inch heels, a taxi honks at me. My heart’s thudding erratically, like it’s forgotten how to keep time. I stop and look at the angry driver, and that’s all the time it takes for a streetcar to swoop Devin up. By the time I reach the other side of the road the streetcar doors are closing.

The patch of sidewalk Devin just walked down seems too ordinary to be the place where this just happened. I fold my arms across my chest and ogle it, stunned.

I’d probably stare for even longer only it’s so cold that my teeth are already chattering. As I turn and wait for the traffic light to change, I see Morgan, minus his coat same as me, standing directly across the road, glaring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Once the walk sign flashes, I hurry towards him, rubbing my arms.

“I think I saw Devin,” I say quickly. “He just crossed the street and hopped on a streetcar. We
missed
him. He was right here and we missed him.” My lips quiver as I go on. “Maybe he even lives around here. Do you realize he could live in your neighbourhood?” Maybe he’s been here all along, just blocks away from where Morgan works. The thought comes as a second shock. All this time and he’s been right here. How could we not have known?

Morgan’s jaw has fallen. His head slants down towards mine. “Are you sure it was him? You were inside the gallery. How much could you actually see?”

“I saw the side of his face as he passed by. He walked right in front of the gallery.” I’m speaking faster than I mean to. I can’t seem to slow down. “I only saw him for a second but it looked exactly like Devin. He looked like
thin
Devin, you know, how he looked near the end.” Now I’ve made it sound like my brother’s dead. “How he looked when he left, I mean.”

Morgan’s eyes cloud over. “Serena, you know that could’ve been anyone.”

“It could’ve been, but maybe it was him.” I pout as Morgan touches my arm. “Don’t you want it to have been him? Why don’t you believe me?”

Morgan sighs and pulls his head back. “It’s not that I don’t believe you or don’t want it to have been him. I just don’t think you should get your hopes up too high when the odds are it was some guy with a passing resemblance.”

“You’d have thought it was him too, if you’d seen him,” I insist. My heart sinks as I process Morgan’s doubt. Now he’s making me doubt it too, even as I tell him otherwise.

“Maybe I would.” Morgan nods diplomatically. “But it’s freezing out here and whoever it was is gone. Let’s get back inside. They’ll think there’s some kind of emergency.”

I’ve managed to step in some gum and I feel it sticky underfoot as I head for the gallery with Morgan. Inside Ariel gazes at us with concern. “She’s fine,” Morgan says with a hint of
please don’t ask
in his voice. Grover returns to Ariel’s side with two glasses of red wine in his hands. Ariel thanks him as she takes one.

After a couple of seconds, during which Grover silently absorbs the undercurrent between the three of us, he turns to Morgan and says, “Your boyfriend’s paintings are really interesting. I feel … unsettled but intrigued at the same time.”

I’m glad he didn’t use any of the more intellectual words I’ve heard tonight. I guess I’ve missed my chance to impress Ariel, and I don’t know why I should want to measure up to Morgan anyway; none of that matters.
I’m not sure whether the person I saw on Queen Street was really Devin or not, but the more I think about it, the more I realize whoever it was gave me hope. Devin’s not dead and he’s not a zombie. He’s out there walking around like the man in the green jacket, waiting for me to spot him.

“Morgan.” I involve my oldest brother in my giddy, distracted state by steadying myself against him and plucking gum from the bottom of my right shoe.

“People are disgusting, dropping their trash like that everywhere!” Jimmy says from behind us. He hands me a linen napkin to deposit the icky green-grey gum in. “Sometimes I wish I lived in the country.”

“Who’re you kidding?” Morgan quips. “You know how much dirt there is in the country? And remember how bored you were when we were at Orla’s for the weekend?”

Jimmy and Morgan squabble playfully over the merits and disadvantages of rural living, but my heart’s still galloping, thinking about the guy on the streetcar who may or may not have been Devin. Anyone’s findable. No one can hide forever, especially someone like Devin who didn’t have much money when he left and probably doesn’t have much now. I want to talk to Morgan about it, ask him where the streetcar ends up and why we can’t follow it, but I guess we’re too late, and anyway, my oldest brother has obviously already pushed the matter out of his head.

***

By the time Morgan drives me home hours later I’m angry. Jimmy, exhausted from the success of his opening, has gone home to bed and I tell Morgan that we should’ve jumped in his car and tailed the streetcar along Queen Street until the guy in the green shell coat hopped off.

Morgan screws up his eyebrows and says, “You’re telling me I should’ve run off in the middle of Jimmy’s show to chase down a streetcar, which would be gone by the time I reached the parking lot by the way, just
in case
the guy you
think
you saw was someone who doesn’t want our help in the first place?” Morgan sighs like he’s exhaling cigarette smoke and eyes me warily. “Is that what you’re saying?”

I shake my head in frustration and slide down in the passenger seat.

“Devin knows where to find us,” Morgan continues. “It’s not like any of us have disappeared. If he wants to get in touch, he can do it at any time.”

“He needs help,” I snap. “Do you think it’s so easy to ask for help after everything that happened?”

Morgan rubs the side of his face and keeps his gaze on the road. “He doesn’t want our help. That’s why he’s not calling.”

“
Wait
. Do you know something I don’t?” Is that why Morgan’s in such a hurry to throw me off the scent? Does he think he’s protecting me somehow? “Have you seen Devin in Toronto before? Have you talked to him?”

“
No
.” There’s a prickle in my brother’s tone, and an expression to match it. “
Of course not.
I haven’t seen or heard from him since he left home. Do you really think I’d keep something like that from you?”

“If you thought it was for the —” I begin, before Morgan cuts me off.

For the best.

“But I haven’t,” he counters. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Promise me,” I insist.

My brother’s voice softens despite the impatience in his face. “I promise, Serena. I haven’t seen or heard a word. I’m only saying, you remember how it was before Devin took off. All the shouting, the stealing, and the lying. Even if that was him outside the gallery, do you think he’s any different now? You know you can’t help someone if they don’t want it, and when you insist on trying they drag you down with them.”

Morgan’s pupils plead with me. “I really hope you won’t say anything to Mom and Dad. You can do what you want, obviously, but just think about it. They’ve been through enough.”

I think about that but don’t make any promises. Odds are that Morgan’s right and Devin’s still hooked and wants nothing to do with the rest of the LeBlancs, but the next day at school I can’t stop going over the moment on Queen Street in my mind. If it were me in Devin’s place, what would he have done?

I think about how when I was young Devin seemed to be the first person to notice whenever I was upset, like the time when I was ten and went trick-or-treating with some friends on Halloween. At one of the houses a woman with no hair and a baby on her hip answered the door. Her face wasn’t wrinkly but the baldness made her look older than she probably was. She was really skinny too, the way Devin is in my dreams now, and my friends and I stared at her and forgot to speak.

“All I have left now is bubble gum,” she said apologetically, reaching towards our bags to deposit the tiny packages. The baby on her hip seemed too chubby and healthy to belong to her, and the woman didn’t seem to care that we were seeing her without her hair. We went to a lot of houses that night — I ended up with two jumbo bags full of chocolate bars, potato chips, gummies, and concentrated sugar products — but the bald, fragile-looking woman stayed in my head.

When I got home I was quiet and Devin asked if I’d gotten into a fight with my friends or something. I told him about the woman and the baby and he said she was probably going through chemotherapy for some kind of cancer.

“Cancer?” I repeated. So maybe she’d die and the baby wouldn’t have a mother?

“Yeah, but she’s lucky she’s getting the chemo,” Devin continued. “In the old days mostly people just died when they got cancer. Now she’s got a fighting chance.” He bit his lip like he realized he wasn’t calming me down any. “But you know, it could always just be something like alopecia, that can make people — women too — lose their hair when there’s nothing else wrong with them. I bet that’s what she has.”

“Really?” I asked suspiciously. “You’re not making that up?”

“What? Like I’m going to make up a word like
alopecia
?” Devin shook his head at me. He would’ve been sixteen at the time and a master at rolling his eyes, but he usually saved that for Mom and Morgan or people he didn’t like. “You can look it up on the Internet and read all about it if you don’t believe me.”

I can’t remember whether I looked it up or not but what I do remember was that neither of my brothers ever tormented me the way other people complain that their older siblings often do. There’s only a year between my brothers, so you’d think they’d have been close to each other growing up, but it was always Devin and I who were close. Morgan just never seemed to take that much notice of either of us.

A few months after that Halloween incident, and not long after a record-breaking snowstorm and cold spell left Glenashton covered in white, two boys who took the same school bus home as me pelted me with snowballs three days in a row. Some of the snow was closer to being ice and on that third day I slipped and fell while trying to avoid the pain of being hit. I got the wind knocked out of me, and when I told Devin my face was still red from trying to catch my breath. He was waiting for me when I hopped off the bus on the fourth day and he fixed a death glare at the boys. Their heads dropped down towards their chins as they turned slowly away, like any sudden movement might provoke him.

If my mom knew about the snowballs she probably would’ve said one of the boys liked me (as though no one ever has a
mean
motive for singling someone out) but Devin advised that I should give “idiots like that” withering looks and build up a force field of anger around myself that wouldn’t let them get near me. I guess that’s what Aya, Genevieve, Nicole, and I have done lately. Sixteen-year-old Devin would’ve approved but he’d also count Gage out on looks alone. Does that make him wrong, or am I the one who’s wrong now?

After school Genevieve drops me off at Total Drug Mart for my shift. Ki can’t stop throwing up in the bathroom, so we’re down a cashier. I barely have time for a break, but that’s good because it stops me thinking about Devin on Queen Street — or Devin, wherever he may be. Ki’s mom picks her up and says her brother’s already home with the stomach flu and now she’ll have two patients on her hands. I don’t want to pick up the stomach flu before my date with Gage; I buy chewable Vitamin C and coat my hands with liquid sanitizer every chance I get.

As I count the contents of my register at the end of the night my mind flips back and forth between tomorrow’s date and what my parents would say if I ignored Morgan’s wishes and told them that I thought I saw Devin downtown. My best guess is that Dad would agree with Morgan that I was imagining things and Mom would go into hysterics and get straight on the highway. She’s taken Devin’s disappearance worse than anyone; I don’t want to be responsible for getting her hopes up again only to have them shredded worse than ever. There’s not enough left of my mother to handle that right now.

Drug addict Devin would break her heart. Who else could we hope to find but him, and why then do I insist on thinking there’s some hope left?