The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (17 page)

My left knees brushes against the arm of the couch. “Dad?”

He looks up from his book.

“I just thought I should let you know I have plans with Gage tomorrow night,” I continue.

Dad’s bottom lip bulges. He closes his book and sets it down next to him. “A date?” Dad clarifies. “At least spare me the shtick about men and women being friends this time.”

“All right … a date, yeah.”

“If we have any repeats of Friday night, you have to know there’ll be repercussions, Serena.” He pushes at his reading glasses. “What was this guy’s name again?”

I told Dad that last time but the info’s obviously already been forgotten. Typical. “Gage Cochrane,” I reply, with no hint of attitude in my voice.

“I want you to give me Gage’s home phone number, address, and his cell,” Dad says. “And if you’re not back here by eleven, I guarantee you’re going to have a problem with me that won’t be resolved by walking out and spending a couple of nights at your friends’.”

“There won’t be any problems,” I promise. Eleven is my normal weekday curfew. On the weekends I get an extra hour, but it’s not like my parents were really keeping track until last Friday. If I’d lied to them from the start and told them that I was going to a party and wouldn’t be back until late they wouldn’t have had a problem with it. The last time I was at a party with Jacob they gave me until one o’clock, but Dad barely noticed me when I came home and Mom was already up in bed.

I have to text Gage to ask for his full address, which I didn’t pay close attention to last Friday, and then jot the info out for my dad on a pink Post-it. The next evening, I’m dressed and hanging out by the front door five minutes before Gage said he’d be here so that he won’t be subjected to questioning from my newly conscientious father.

I’m out the door a second after he rings the bell, skates in hand because Gage has suggested we go ice skating at Raeburn Park. The park’s really pretty in the winter, a wide ring of ice surrounding the gazebo and green and blue lights lacing the trees and overhead arches. My skates are tight because I’ve almost outgrown them the same way I’ve outgrown my Rollerblades, and Gage skates twenty times better than me, but we have fun. He tries to teach me how to cross over properly when I turn (something I’ve never gotten the hang of) and at one point I go down with a smack and lose my breath.

Gage reaches for me with both hands and gets me on my feet again. “You all right?” he asks, leaning in to press his lips against my eyebrow.

Better now, thanks. “I’ll live but
ouch
.”

“You want to take a break and get some hot chocolate or something?” he asks. “There’s a diner across the street. They have great chili cheese fries.”

We unlace our skates and head for the diner where I sip hot chocolate and watch Gage eat chili cheese fries, munching on a grand total of three myself. “Have some more,” he coaxes, pushing the plate in my direction. “You’ve hardly touched them.”

“They’re good,” I assure him. “I just don’t want to eat too much.”

“You’re not on a diet?” he says as though that would be a crazy idea.

“Not really.”
Always
would be a more honest answer. “I just try to stick to eating when I’m hungry so that way I don’t end up eating a lot of junk.” A week ago I wasn’t shy about going down on Gage, but talking about food with him makes me want to blush. Dumb.

“I try not to eat too much junk either now, especially when Akayla’s around.” Gage pauses and drums his fingers on the table. “Chili cheese fries are one of my greatest weaknesses.”

“So what are the others?”

Gage’s cheeks stretch to make room for a melt-in-your-mouth gorgeous grin. He picks up his fork and sticks it into a chunky French fry.

“What?” I urge, kicking him under the table as I smile back. “What’re you thinking?”

Gage is chewing on a cheesy fry. He washes it down with a swig of hot chocolate before saying, “Just about you.” His smile’s back full force. “I want you to stick around for a while, so the only weaknesses I’m going to admit to are things like chili cheese fries. Sorry.”

“I think I know another one already,” I tell him. “Girls in need of
a ride, whether they’re hanging out in front of a drugstore or screaming at you on the phone.”

“That wasn’t even close to screaming, believe me.” Gage leans over the table and whispers, “Besides, it was worth it.” That’s what I said to him when he called on Sunday and it’s nice to hear it aimed back at me. “You could probably even get away with worse, but I guess I shouldn’t tell you that.”

“Because I might take advantage of the situation?” I say, cheeks bursting with another smile.

“You could.” His eyes twinkle. “You could devour all these fries and I wouldn’t even complain.”

“Well, that situation is easily fixed. You could always order more.”

“True. But again, I’m not going to point out the worst case scenarios and give you any ideas.”

“C’mon.” I pout at him in what I hope is a sexy way. “I can’t believe you’d think things like that about me.”

I can’t remember anyone, ever, smiling at me in as concentrated a way as Gage has been for the last couple of minutes and I wish we didn’t have this table between us. I want a second helping of last Friday night.

“I don’t,” Gage says, suddenly sincere. “Not really. I only think good things about you.”

Our eyes lock and hold, and I know Gage is a nice guy but there’s no mistaking the expression on his face; he’s wishing that table would disappear too.

“So.” He breaks the spell by checking his watch. “It’s only ten after nine. You want to hang out here a bit longer after we’re finished or maybe go someplace else?”

“Is that some kind of trick question?” I ask. “Because you know we’ve had trouble with that one before.”

“No, I know.” Gage’s voice is quiet. “You’re right. But we have some parameters, right? Because it’s not that I don’t want …” Our brassy-haired waitress swishes by and he glances sideways at her, stopping mid-sentence.

“Can I get you something else?” she asks, misinterpreting his look.

“We’re fine,” I say. “Thanks.”

Gage and I don’t resume that particular conversation until we’re back at his place, making out against his kitchen counter while he’s supposed to be getting me a drink of something cold. He lifts me up onto the counter and fits himself between my legs. Then he concentrates on my neck, which I never realized could feel so amazing. He kisses and nibbles until a sound escapes from my throat. It’s like something you hear in a dirty movie only quieter and for a shorter duration, because I’m not used to making noises like that. It happened a few times with Jacob but never with all my clothes on. Gage slides one of his hands over my breasts, which feels good too, and I stick both my hands under his shirt and spread them across his chest.

Things don’t go the way they did with Jacob, there’s no predetermined end to what we’re doing, just Gage burying his face in my shoulder and saying he’ll be back in a minute. I nod, hop down from the counter, pour myself a drink, and take it into the family room. Today the only sign of Akayla is a red and white beaded bracelet on top of the
TV
. The beads are flower-shaped and I stare at the bracelet, amazed at how small her wrist is and that Gage is partially responsible for keeping this miniature person healthy and happy.

“Hey,” he says when he ambles into the room a couple of minutes later, “I set my watch alarm so we won’t lose track of time.” He drops down next to me on the couch.

“Good thinking.” I tap his knee. “What were you saying earlier, when the waitress showed up?” I feel shy bringing it up, but I need to know more about the parameters he was talking about, clues about which lines not to cross when I’m in a situation like the one in the kitchen a few minutes ago.

Gage curls his hand around the back of his neck and scratches at his hair. He hunches over, resting both arms on his thighs. “Pretty much what we’ve already figured out.” His hand digs into his hair again. “I can’t afford to mess up again. This doesn’t really apply to you because you’re, you know, a virgin but it’s just better for me right now that I don’t have sex. It’s too much” — he straightens up, his eyes leaving mine for a second — “stress for now.”

I know Gage says he’s not good at first dates but I don’t believe for a second that he hasn’t been with anyone during the last four years. Maybe he’s had risky experiences in the more recent past and wants to change.

“Which probably sounds like a lame speech to you,” he continues. “Like it’s all about me and what I want, and you obviously have your own ideas of what you do or don’t want to do, which I’m sure never included having sex with me anyway.”

My ideas are changeable, dependent on the moment, but I’ve been having a lot of private thoughts about Gage lately. “I think we should just, you know, take it slow — the opposite of what happened the first time we went out,” I say, swinging one of my legs up onto the couch and tucking it underneath my other thigh. It’s difficult to talk about sex like this and sit still. “And with the understanding that even then there won’t be any actual sex.”

Gage’s cheeks are pink. “That sounds perfect to me.”

To me too, only after all that I’m not much clearer on what exactly our parameters are except that Gage won’t be trying to persuade me that losing my virginity to him would automatically make us closer. Even if I wanted him to be my first, which I’m not sure about either way, Gage doesn’t.

Whatever else happens is up to the two of us, and my mind has already started to wander away from what the parameters forbid and towards what they include. I snuggle up to him on the couch, our arms and legs weaving themselves together as our bodies stretch out along the cushions. I don’t want to know how much time we have left before his watch alarm beeps. There’s no reason to think about the end when we’re just at the beginning.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

~

IN MY OWN BED
later I dream about Devin. It starts out like the nightmare I’ve had at least twenty times before, the one where Devin goes on a rampage, screaming terrible things at me and my parents. But this time the shouting doesn’t come. The four of us are sitting in the kitchen in the morning light, eating scrambled eggs, when Devin announces that it’s time for him to go jogging. Somehow my eyes follow him, like in a movie. I’m outside with Devin, watching him run in step with Terry Fox. The two of them smile but don’t speak.

They know each other. I can tell by how comfortable they look next to each other. They’ve done this run before.

The film’s grainy and the colour’s faded and all I do is watch them run, their feet pounding the pavement as the background changes from houses to fields.

I feel strangely calm when I wake up. This is the first good dream I’ve had about my brother in over seven months. It could be some kind of sign that he’s getting better, changing back into the Devin I knew from before. But suddenly, while I’m massaging shampoo into my scalp in the shower, it occurs to me that Terry Fox is dead and gone.

If my brother’s with Terry, does that make him dead and gone too?

Terry Fox was only a year older than Devin is now when he died. He found out the cancer had spread to his lungs and had to stop his run across the country. Dread burrows in my chest at the thought. Why send me a message like this when there’s nothing I can do to help my brother?

Get a grip
, I lecture.
You’re not making sense.
The dream’s not a message, it’s nothing but a mishmash of thoughts I’ve been carrying around in my head recently. But no matter how many times I repeat that thought, I can’t rationalize myself out of the desire to hurry through my shower and rush to the computer.

I rinse my shampoo off, rub body wash over all the crucial places, and jump out onto the cold bathroom floor. In my bedroom, I pull up the Terry Fox Foundation website and fact check, my hair dripping down the back of my pyjamas. Terry stopped running on September 1, 1980, and died on June 28, 1981, almost ten months after he found out the cancer was back. Does that mean something? Do we have three more months to save Devin?

I’m losing it.
There’s no warning.
No good or bad signs. No fate.

I’m just a girl who dreams about her missing brother.

I know all that with almost as much certainty as I know the earth is round, but I don’t take the Terry Fox coin out of my wallet. I can be a little crazy if I want, assign my brother a guardian angel. It’s better than spending hours on eBay, isn’t it?

So I walk around with the coin on me for the fourth day in a row and at lunch, while I’m looking for Nicole, Izzy, Marguerite, or Genevieve in the cafeteria, one of Aya’s friends catches my eye. I see her motion to Aya, whose gaze flashes up to meet mine.

She gets up from her chair and marches over to me. “Hi, Serena.” Aya’s shiny jet black hair used to be long, but she had it bobbed last week. The new look is more sophisticated, which I guess is the image she’s going for now.

“Hey, Aya, have you seen Nicole or any of them?” Aya and I are friends these days, but I still don’t feel entirely at ease with her.

“Marguerite just came in.” Aya motions to the door not far behind me. “Before you go, I just wanted to ask you something — do you like skating?”

Skating? Did someone spot me with Gage last night? I knew I couldn’t keep the secret forever, but I was hoping the news wouldn’t break so soon. I take a breath and prepare to admit that I was in Raeburn Park with a guy last night. I’ll pretend I just met him there and barely know him. No one has to know any different.

“Because there’s this skating thing in Toronto tonight, one of those tours that all the pros do,” Aya continues. “Anyway, my mother has eight free tickets and she said I could bring someone. Nanami was supposed to go but she’s home sick with the flu.”

Is that all? I run my fingers through my hair and exhale. I guess none of Aya’s other friends could make it tonight. Aya and I have never really hung out on our own, but I’m so grateful that my secret’s intact that ultimately I’d agree to anything. “I can make it tonight,” I tell her. “Thanks.”

At the Air Canada Centre later we’re thirteen rows up from the ice. Aya’s mom takes the aisle seat and the rest of us — Aya, her three aunts, her twin cousins, and me — file further into our row. The music’s too loud to allow much talking during the show, which is full of all the triple axles and fancy footwork a figure skating fan could ever want, but at the intermission Aya, her cousins, and I spend fifteen minutes in line for fast-food chicken. Rose and Lily are fourteen and don’t look anything alike, except for their perfectly straight noses. Lily’s the one who does all the talking, and as we stand there she won’t shut up about this guy who’s been flirting with her in geography class. He’s texted her four times and they were supposed to meet at the mall a couple of days ago but he cancelled at the last minute because of some family thing. It’s amazing the info you can pick up within fifteen minutes, and I can see she’s full-scale gaga for this guy. If I had a sympathetic twin this is most likely how I’d sound when talking to her about Gage.

“Who is this guy
exactly
?” Aya asks finally, her tone critical. “Is he sporty or smart or what?”

Lily shoots Rose an uncertain look before answering: “He’s in between. But he’s cute. Very cute. And funny too.”

“So you want to go out with him or what?” Aya says.

“Maybe.” Lily shrugs, wanting out of the conversation now that Aya’s beaming a spotlight on her feelings. “I dunno …”

“You’re better off sticking to texting him and joking around in class,” Aya says knowingly. “Trust me. Crossing that line isn’t worth the effort most of the time. Somebody who’s that cute and as much of a flirt as you’re saying isn’t going to want to come over to your house and do homework in the kitchen with you while your parents walk in and out.”

“How do you know?” quiet twin Rose says, sticking her chin out. “You have a guy?” Even Aya’s younger cousins recognize her as the good girl type, it seems. I bet they’d pay more attention to what she’s saying if they knew about her make-out video.

Aya’s eyes smoulder. “I don’t need to have a guy to know that.” Up to this point I’ve just been listening without comment, and now I watch Aya bite down on her lip. “
Whatever
. I’m just trying to save you some hassle, Lily. Find out for yourself if that’s what you want.”

Lily plays with her hair and takes another step closer to fast-food chicken — we all do (although the only thing I plan on ordering is diet pop). “I never said I wanted to go out with him.”

“Yeah, but you obviously do,” Rose says with a mischievous smile. “Remember what you said at lunch today about his T-shirt and how —?”

“Shut up why don’t you?” Lily cuts in, giving her sister a gentle shove. The two of them lower their voices, losing themselves in their own private conversation as Aya and I stand behind them, forced to talk amongst ourselves.

“I don’t want to be bitter,” Aya tells me. “Is that how I sound?”

“My experiences have been pretty much like yours. So judging from that I’d have to say odds are you’re right about the guy she likes.” I shrug lightly, wishing I could slide some other, more recent truths, into the conversation. But I can’t think how to do that and still keep my secret safe.

“Yeah, I know,” Aya says, “but we can’t constantly judge everyone according to our bad experiences.” The two of us take another half step towards greasy chicken. “Think of guys like Joyeux Maduka. He’s nice to everyone all the time.”

“Yeah, but Joyeux is like a modern day saint. You can’t really compare him to normal guys.” I don’t know which side of the conversation I’m on anymore. I think of Gage walking around with Akayla’s pink heart sticker in his wallet and it melts me on the spot.

“Okay, but he’s not the only one.”

“I guess,” I say slowly. “Maybe we just have one of those bad boy complexes.” It’s more complicated than that, but I’d need a degree in sociology to really understand it all. Look at what happened to Nicole and Genevieve — Liam Powers and Costas Gavril aren’t typical bad boys but things still got messed up.

“Do you?” Aya’s dark eyes stare at me like she means to get to the bottom of this.

The twins slide along the fast food counter to make room for us. Our fast-food chicken moment has arrived, which makes it easy for me to avoid Aya’s question. It looks like the only truths I’m ready to experience tonight are citric acid, sucralose, and maybe a back flip or two by some former gold medallists. “You go first,” I tell Aya. “I’m only getting a drink.”

***

Gage and I hang out a few more times. I tell him I’m getting hooked on him but I say it like I’m mostly kidding so I won’t scare him. One night we end up falling asleep on his couch again, but his watch alarm saves my ass. Another time we bump into a friend of his at Starbucks, and Gage explains that Elliott is in a community teen father group he goes to.

“Does he have a boy or a girl?” I ask casually. Sometimes I wish I could’ve met Gage before he had Akayla, but I would’ve been too young for him then anyway. I’m almost used to the idea of Akayla from the evidence of her existence that I see strewn around the apartment, but when I take that further in my mind, it makes me jumpy. It’s sweet to imagine things like Gage getting her up in the morning and feeding her cereal and Nutella and banana sandwiches (her favourite food, according to Gage), but his daughter’s not a puppy. Gage’s responsibilities are huge and they make me wonder what exactly mine could be, if I ever meet her.

I do want to meet her. Sort of. And then I don’t. I want to keep my relationship with Gage just between us, but if we stay inside our bubble forever I’ll never fully know him. These are things I avoid thinking about the same way I avoid thinking about Devin most of the time. I still want a baby blue scooter to whirl around Glenashton on, and I’m putting money aside for it bit by bit. That’s a good thing to think about. I should be able to afford a sparkly brand new one by the summer before senior year. It might not be a 1967 Vespa but it’ll be sweet. By senior year I’ll be in full flair and confidence mode, with an awesome career plan and the ability to take my thinness for granted.

It’s a lot to accomplish in a year and a half, but I can do it. The problem with this future vision of myself is that I can’t imagine Gage next to me there, which is something I don’t even realize until I spot him roaming around Total Drug Mart one Tuesday night. One of his hands is grasping a basketful of items he intends to buy and the other is holding a much smaller hand with a red and white beaded bracelet dangling from its wrist.

Akayla Cochrane’s tight ringlets spill down over her puffy pink coat. Her winter boots are pink too. I’m too far away to tell for sure but I think they might have some Disney figure on them. Gage cocks his head at me and smiles but it’s Ki’s cash register he heads for.

I can’t blame him — my line is two people longer than hers at the moment — but I still feel funny about it. My natural inclination is to stare at Akayla, because I’ve never seen her in real life before. But I don’t want her or Gage to notice my ogling. I smile quickly and then turn my attention back to the man in front of me. I scan in his laundry detergent, antacid, and cheese slices and slip them into the cloth tote bag he’s laid on the counter. Next up is a blond woman buying hair dye and a bunch of stuff from our organic line of products.

“I tried some of this the other night,” I tell her as I pick up the bottle of roasted red pepper dressing. “It was pretty good.”

“It should be for that price,” the woman complains, dragging her fingers through her hair and looking bored with me.

What do you expect if you buy organic salad dressing?
Hello
. I smile anyway and ask her if she wants a bag. I’m loading her overpriced organic items and non-organic hair dye into it when Gage appears by her side.

“I just wanted to say hi,” he says, giving me a peek at his gorgeous dimples. “I’ll talk to you later?”

I glance quickly down at Akayla and then back at Gage. “Yeah, later. See you.” I smile for him, wondering how I could’ve forgotten to insert Gage into my vision of the future, even for a moment. If I’m waiting for everything to be simple, I’ll be waiting all my life. Real life isn’t perfect and easy like in the movies. Real life is a great guy like Gage having a four-year-old daughter and by extension a semi-complicated life.

Gage and Akayla walk out of the store together, and I hear her highpitched childish voice say, “Let me carry one, Dad.” My back’s turned, but I imagine him surrendering one of the lighter bags.

I’ve never had a problem imagining the two of them together; what’s hard is imaging us as a group of three, which is why once Gage and Akayla are gone all I want to do is fill my mind with thoughts of senior year and my baby blue scooter again.