The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (4 page)

Nicole releases her hair. It flops against her shoulder. “I’m not in the mood for English homework.”

“That’s okay,” I tell her. “We don’t have to do English homework.”

“Okay then.” Nicole twirls a chunk of her hair around her finger again. “Where’s your locker?”

I tell her, and we arrange to meet there after last class. It’s funny how you quickly can click with someone you’ve never had a meaningful conversation with before. Once we start talking it’s like we knew each other in another life, and we end up hanging out the next day and the day after that. I give her the behind-the-scenes tour of my relationship with Jacob, and she badmouths Liam Powers and everyone who’s tried to mess with her over the video.

We get really good at tearing down certain people, especially when we’re together. Not every guy has something nasty to say about her. Some of them are cool and act like the video doesn’t make any difference, but we let ourselves get vicious with the rest of them, talking about how microscopic certain parts of their anatomy must be and how they probably couldn’t last any longer than thirteen seconds. It feels good to be mean like that, way better than attacking a punching bag.

About a week after Genevieve drove us home I run into her leaving the library and she asks how Nicole’s doing. “As bitter as us,” I say with a half smile, “but she’s cool.”

“I told you — no one’s as jaded as me.” Genevieve gives a pointy grin. “I’m glad to hear she’s okay though. At least she’ll be wiser next time.”

“I don’t think there’s going to be a next time any time soon.” I explain that both of us have decided we don’t want to waste our time. It’s what I decided before Nicole’s video anyway, but having two of us in it together seems less lonely.

“A one hundred per cent celibacy club?” Genevieve adjusts the paperback copy of
The Communist Manifesto
nestled under her arm. “You really think you two can stick with that?”

Excuse me?
I know she’s Genevieve Richardson, but it’s not like I’m some tragically self-esteem-challenged girl who has to super-glue herself to a series of random guys to feel like life has meaning. I’ve only kissed three guys since high school started. I just got wrapped up in the newness of being skinny for a while. Maybe you can’t imagine how that works when you’ve been as pretty as Genevieve Richardson all through high school.

“Just as well as you can,” I snap.

Genevieve tilts her head to the right. “I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Just — you know — we all have a way of being our own worst enemies at times.” Her fingers stroke
The Communist Manifesto
. I bet Devin, with his near photographic memory, could sum it up for me in five minutes or less. “Listen, if either of you need a ride home you can meet me in the parking lot,” she continues. “I pretty much always park in the same space. It’s the silver Honda Civic.”

I remember. “Cool. Thanks.”

One minute I felt like there was no one at Laurier who could really understand me and the next there are three of us united in a common cause. Maybe I’m wrong about people always disappointing you. Maybe it’s truer to say that
people will always surprise you
. When you think you can rely on them, they’ll happily prove you wrong, and when you expect absolutely nothing from them, they become the people you can share your true thoughts with. All I know is that after that Genevieve, Nicole, and I tell each other everything.

CHAPTER FIVE

~

TOTAL DRUG MART HIRES
me as a part-time cashier, which brings me one step closer to baby blue scooter ownership. I see a gorgeous, fully restored 1967 Vespa advertised online for $3499.99 and save the picture as inspiration. The Vespa looks like something you’d ride through the clouds on your way to heaven with classic
R.E.M
. songs playing as a soundtrack. If I had that scooter it would never rain again. It’s like guaranteed sunshine and good luck.

Genevieve tells me that she rode on the back of one when she was in France last summer but that it was red and not nearly as cool as the one I want. “The back of one with
who
?” Nicole asks. “Some French guy? Was he hot?”

“It was a girl,” Genevieve says. “And she was pretty hot, as a matter of fact.”

“French girls are always hot,” Nicole says knowingly. “They have flair or something.”

“Confidence,” Genevieve corrects. “It doesn’t even matter if they have flair or not — just that they think they do.”

“Uh-uh,” I chime in. “That’s like saying it doesn’t matter if you’re fat. Believe me, even if people don’t think of themselves as fat, other people do. Not everything is totally subjective. Real life isn’t like that
Hairspray
movie where the fat girl gets the cute guy just because she can dance. Guys don’t want the fat girl or the girl who only
thinks
she has flair but doesn’t.”

“Some guys like fat girls,” Nicole says, pulling her legs up on the couch with her. Her right leg has healed perfectly, with no scars to give the incident away. “You know, they get off on it.”

Genevieve reaches over and flicks me in the knee. “You know you were never fat though, right?”

My face smarts. I didn’t mean to sound like I was talking about me, but that’s Genevieve, she always picks up on things. “I just mean in general, but I was chubby enough that no one really gave me a second look before last August. That still counts.”

Genevieve wags her finger at me. “I guarantee there were guys ogling you before last August. It’s easy not to notice when you’re not interested in them.”

“Great, so none of the cute guys are interested in you when you’re fat,” I amend. “Does that sound more accurate?”

“Probably.” Nicole reaches for the gold nail polish on the coffee table next to her and gives it a shake. “But what can you expect?

Hot guys like hot girls and vice versa. People pair up with people who are roughly at the same level of hotness as themselves.”

“But you were never fat,” Genevieve insists, her eyes on mine. “So, no, that doesn’t count.”

Nicole unscrews the top from her nail polish and slips a coat of gold on her big toe. “She’s right, you know. You were never fat. You were barely bigger than average.”

I was definitely bigger than average. And I’ve put a few pounds back on over the past few weeks. It’s hard not to eat when you’re hungry, and lately my appetite has come back some. There’s a bag of open pretzels lying between Nicole and me and I slide my hand into it as Morgan’s image flashes onto the
TV
in front of us.

“I really like this next one,” Morgan enthuses. “You know we’ve talked about this before, and I think she’s really developed a style of her own with this new —”

“I know,” Ariel interrupts with her perky smile. “You
luuuuv
this video. You can’t stop raving about it. I hear she’s going to be in the studio with you this weekend. Maybe you can get her to do a little unplugged for us here.” Ariel knocks her shoulder against Morgan’s. They’re like two peas in a pod, as my grandmother would say.

“You have to know I’ll try.” Morgan beams us a vision of his orthodontically repaired pearly whites. He had a slight overbite at one time, supposedly, but Devin says that he never remembers Morgan’s teeth being anything less than perfect.

I crunch on pretzels and listen to Genevieve say, “Attraction isn’t just based on physical attractiveness. You see a lot of people together where one person is clearly better-looking than the other.”

Genevieve isn’t the only one who picks up on things; what she just said was really about Costas. Before we became friends with Genevieve, Nicole and I both guessed that Costas Gavril had wanted an all-access pass to her body or treated her badly in some equally cliché way. But that wasn’t the case; back in October, Costas confessed to Genevieve that he was obsessed with someone else. Nicole and I are supposed to keep it a secret, even though Genevieve hates his guts and could make his life hell, but the girl — woman, actually — is Ms. Halliwell, his economics teacher. Costas told Genevieve that he’s not going to act on it but that he can’t stop thinking about her and didn’t think it was fair to keep his feelings a secret.

Genevieve isn’t in his econ class but shares a biology class with him and says she gets a stomach ache before class every day. Ms. Halliwell isn’t sexy like a teacher in movie. She has a good body but her hair is always a mess, like she doesn’t care how it looks. She’s not a flirty teacher either, so Costas having those feelings for her is one of those weird accidental things. I guess I should just accept the fact that I don’t understand guys.

Genevieve, Nicole, and I have lots of conversations like this, but we talk about deeper things like communism and poverty too. Nicole’s usually the one who burns out on those discussions first and makes us dance or go cruising. A couple of times Izzy and Marguerite or some of Genevieve’s and Nicole’s other friends join us, but the various groups don’t naturally gel. It’s so much easier when it’s just the three of us, so we root our New Year’s Eve plans in that. Nicole’s dad won’t care if we drink ourselves into a stupor at their place, but the plan is just watching movies, playing video games, and making fondue (which Genevieve has been wanting to do since she read about it in some 70s book about a couple that keeps screwing and then breaking up).

I’m going to bring finger food like samosas and sausage rolls, and every time I think about it I smile. Making fondue will be exponentially more fun than wondering why no one worthwhile wants to kiss me at midnight.

Unfortunately, I have the Christmas holidays to get through first. With no word from Devin, my parents avoid the season until the last minute. One night when Dad picks me up from Total Drug Mart I notice that they’ve put up the tree while I was work. Devin’s allergic to real trees so we have one of those fold-out fakes you buy at Walmart. It looks pretty good for an artificial tree, but I can’t imagine doing the holidays without Devin.

“Are the lights going up outside too, then?” I ask my father.

After a three-second delay he replies, “I suppose so. I’ll have to bring them up from the basement.”

“You don’t have to,” I tell him as I stare at the Christmas tree. “You’ll only have to take them down again in ten days.”

My father steps towards the tree, plucks a silver snowflake decoration from one of the middle branches, and repositions it on a barer lower branch. “Morgan’s coming for Christmas dinner.”

So that’s why everything has to look passably festive. Morgan. “I thought he wanted everyone to go to that hotel in Toronto,” I say. Morgan told me his idea over the phone a few days ago. He did Sunday brunch at the King Edward Hotel a couple of months ago and thought it would be the perfect place to take our parents (plus me and his boyfriend, Jimmy) for Christmas dinner — high ceilings, a sevencourse meal, and old-style opulence.

“Your mother wants to stay in,” Dad tells me. “You know she likes to do her turkey and stuffing. It’s tradition.”

I suspect the point of Morgan’s idea was to distract us from LeBlanc traditions — and Devin — but he should’ve known Mom wouldn’t want to get dressed up and go out somewhere for Christmas. The only places she goes these days are work or the supermarket. If we were rich she’d probably never feel the need to leave the house.

At Total Drug Mart I’m constantly surrounded by customers lining up for glossy wrapping paper, expensive skin cream gift sets, and boxes of Belgian chocolates. All the Christmas merchandise feels like theatre props and now it looks like I’ll have to put up with them at home too. There’s no escape.

In fact, the next day my dad asks me to help him hang the outside lights, and on Christmas Eve my mother emerges from the den and insists I chop celery and onions for her stuffing recipe. It shouldn’t look like Christmas at our house and it definitely shouldn’t smell like it, but it does. After the stuffing’s done and sitting in a sealed container in the fridge I wash the homey smell out of my hair and go to bed before my parents can force any other fake seasonal activities on me.

Why couldn’t we have skipped Christmas altogether just this once? It’d be more honest than the four of us (plus Jimmy) pretending that we feel happy together and aren’t wondering where Devin is and whether he’s still
not well
. I should’ve volunteered to take the Christmas evening shift at Total Drug Mart and then lied to Morgan and my mother that I never really had a choice in the matter, being a new employee.

Because it’s too late for that I stay in bed for as long as I can on Christmas morning. When I get downstairs Mom and Dad have already opened the presents I left for them. I can’t afford the good stuff my mom goes crazy for, but the keepsake box I got her has tiny aurora borealis crystals on it, and when you hold it on a slant it shines like a rainbow. The engraving on it reads:
For Mom at Christmas. Love Always, Serena.

Mom smiles stiffly at me as I shuffle into the living room. My eyes land on the keepsake box, unwrapped under the tree next to the business card case I bought for my father. “Good morning, hon,” my mother says. “Thank you, that’s a beautiful gift.”

It doesn’t really matter what I got her or what she got me. We both know that. “You’re welcome,” I tell her.

Dad squeezes my shoulder. “Most of them left here are for you. I’m going to make some coffee. Can I get you a hot chocolate?”

If this year were like the ones before it, Devin would already have brewed coffee. He always got up early on Christmas Day, and the first thing Devin used to do on a daily basis was either make coffee or head out to pick some up. The smell of strong java would be permeating the room now.

I nod at my father and set to work opening my presents. If I were with Genevieve and Nicole everything wouldn’t feel like it was about Devin, but when I’m with my parents none of us can forget. Sitting under the tree with masses of stuff I don’t care about makes me feel raw like I did last summer. If someone turns on the radio to Christmas tunes my eyes will begin to sting.

I rip through the gifts as fast as I can so that the three of us can put some distance between us and the tree. Then Mom disappears into the den while Dad and I dispose of all the torn wrapping paper. We’d normally head over to St. Stephen’s on Christmas morning, but I’m relieved that no one says anything about church.

Later in the day Mom ropes me into assisting in the kitchen.
She asks how it’s going at work and I tell her about one of my lazy co-workers who keeps coming in fifteen minutes late and how a couple of days ago I saw a teenage guy drop out of my line and join one with an older cashier because he was buying a package of mint tingle condoms.

My mom smiles when I mention that. Not with the forced smile she had on her lips when I came downstairs but a real one. We talk more than we’ve talked in a long time. It feels nice, but I know better than to think it will last or to let myself miss it when it stops again. Not that I used to pour my heart out to my mother every day, but mostly now it feels like she’s rationing her words, saving energy for eBay bids and potential future Devin emergencies.

While we’re cooking together it doesn’t feel like Christmas, exactly, it’s just boiling, baking, and basting. Busywork. When it’s time to set the table with poinsettia napkins, though, we both clam up. Next to opening presents, Christmas dinner feels like the hardest part of the day. Last Christmas I gave Devin a goofy-looking Einstein tie and E=mc
2
tie pin that I ordered off the Internet, and when everyone else was either cleaning up or entertaining my grandparents he asked me about Clara, the ghost I used to see upstairs in our old house. I was really little at the time and my parents thought she was an imaginary friend, but I insisted she was real. It’s so long ago now that I honestly don’t know whether I made her up from bits of a dream I’d had or if there was something more to her. The image in my mind’s blurry, but Clara has a fancy black and white striped dress on, like something women would’ve worn a hundred years ago.

Being older, Devin could remember more of the things that I’d told him about her than I could remember myself. “You said she had a nice person face,” he told me. “And that she smelled like flowers.”

I hate that just setting the table on Christmas can make me remember good things about Devin. My parents tried to help him and he repaid them by throwing it back in their faces. Then he disappeared and made us wonder if he was still breathing. It’s not fair. I shouldn’t miss him. He doesn’t deserve it.

“Serena, can you pour some filtered water into the pitcher and slice in some lemon?” Mom calls from the kitchen. Her voice is tired and I know that she’s dealing with her own Christmas memories.

I do what she asks, my mind reaching for another memory to snap into place and stop the Devin ones. Like the first time Jacob took off my top, and then my bra. I loved watching him undo the little green buttons. He was so careful about it, and the size of his fingers made the buttons look even tinier. After we were finished rolling around together I wanted to ask him to button them up again for me, but it seemed silly. I should’ve asked him, though. It’s a nice thought, someone doing up your buttons, taking care of you. It wouldn’t have made him the person I wanted him to be but it might have made me regret him less.