Beyond Blonde (18 page)

Sara nodded while rifling through her big bag. She pulled out my purse. “You left this at Madison’s. Where did you take off to?”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m surprised you noticed, what with you and George sucking in the same oxygen and all.”

She let that pass. “How could I not notice when our assistant coach kept rousting around and demanding to know where you were.”

“David?” The hickeys throbbed on cue. How annoying was that?

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Something happen between the two of you? I mean something other than you throwing rocks at each other?”

Being pulled into him.
“We had words,” I said.

“You are the most combustible couple in the whole school.”

“What the hell, Sarah! We are
not
a couple.”

She stopped in her tracks, and since she had me by the arm, she stopped me too. “Whoa, where there’s that much smoke …” She put up her hand. “It seemed like he was worried is all. He kept asking if you often went home alone, how far away was it, did you usually walk, et cetera, et cetera. I’m telling you, Janice was steamed. She was ready to do him right then and there.”

“So, did he leave with her?”

“Why on earth would you care, Sophie?” She dug her elbow into my side.

“I don’t. Not a bit. I’m not another notch.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Did you know that he’s always been jealous of Luke?” Sarah looked skeptical. “Everybody says so.”

She shook her head. “That just doesn’t seem right. Half the girls in the known universe are panting after him. Madison could find out …”

“No!” We started walking again. “I mean, who cares either way, right? Let’s just walk, okay? It’s so good to be home.” I looked up. “Euclid Avenue. This is it, Sarah. My street.”

“Cool! Which one was your home?”

Yes, which one? “Number 362?” We walked up to 362. Tidy and tightly bunched semi-detached homes lined both sides of the street, each a replica of the other. In the summer, instead of front lawns, little rectangles teemed with dahlias and preening gladiolas mixed in among beefsteak tomatoes
and monster zucchinis. Every slit of a veranda had at least three chairs for sitting on, for observing and inserting yourself into street theatre.

Was this it? Could be, but … it was always summer in my memories and now the gardens were buried in greying snow. The fences had changed, paint colours were updated. It threw everything off.

“Is this your house, Sophie?”

“I don’t know! My God, I really
don’t
know. How is that possible? It was in my head all these years. Home, the last place I was happy …” I walked over to number 364, back to 362, then to 366 and back to 364.

“Sophie?”

“I don’t know, Sarah. I just don’t know.” My heart raced. “It’s all so different, but not! I can’t tell which one’s my house.” Tears bullied their way up to my eyes. “It was so important, this house where we
all
lived. This was home and now I can’t even find it! I’ve lost my home.”

“No you haven’t, you dope!” Sarah threw her arms around me. “What are you talking about? You have a home with Mama and us and the Aunties and even Papa.”

I groaned.

“It’s true! This,” she flicked her hand at the houses, “whichever one it’s supposed to be, is not your home.
We’re
your home.” She grabbed a wadded-up Kleenex out of her pocket and gave it to me. “Get it?”

It took forever just to unfurl the Kleenex. “Yeah.” I blew into it. “Sorry, I’ve been a wreck lately.” I blew again. She looked skeptical. “No really, let’s go. Time for Honest Ed’s!”

We marched back to Bloor Street, but not so fast that I wasn’t whiplashed by how different the people looked. This neighbourhood was one of those long-established and long-suffering entry points for Canada’s immigrants. So, of course, just about everyone looked like they came from some unpronounceable place, but that wasn’t it. On Bloor and Bay, it was the seventies: maxi dresses, wide-leg pants, perms, psychedelic colours. On Bloor and Bathurst, it was still the fifties: narrow ties, housedresses, fake pearls, and real gold.

And in Honest Ed’s, it was the land that time forgot.

“Wow!” said Sarah when we stepped in. She couldn’t navigate the rabbit’s warren of aisles, half floors, and stairs that didn’t seem to go anywhere. I grabbed Sarah and yanked her through aisles of tables loaded down with copper pots, men’s underwear, and packages of Epsom salts. I pulled her down one set of stairs and up the other, until we got to the pharmacy, and then I inhaled and walked straight over to the pharmacist, like my old librarian friend, Mrs. Theodora Setterington, had coached me to last year.

“Excuse me, sir. We’d like to buy some condoms, please.”

Sarah squealed and would have run off, but I had a death grip on her ski jacket. The pharmacist, an ancient-marinertype guy, just looked at us, from Sarah to me and back to Sarah. Okay, this could go so wrong.

“Sheepskin or latex?”

We looked at each other. “Eeew, they kill Lamb Chop for this?” Sarah whimpered.

“Latex, please,” I said.

“Do you think that a box of eighteen will be, uh, adequate?”

Sarah wanted to bolt again. I held tight.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

I reached for the box but he took it back. “I think you may want to pay for it here.” He nodded his head at Sarah. “She’s not gonna make it through the front checkout line.”

He had a point. Sarah was whiter than a toilet bowl. “Yes, sir. Thank you so much, sir.” I gave him a twenty and he fixed us up.

We bolted out of Honest Ed’s like our butts were on fire. Back on Bloor Street we allowed ourselves a little victory dance.

And then the skies opened up and it started to pour. Sarah and I tore off laughing for no good reason, all the way to the subway station. The rain came down in sheets punctured by the occasional lightning bolt. It was December and this kind of storm was strange. I couldn’t help feeling that it was some kind of major sign, except I couldn’t figure out the message. I was a mess of guilt and good—good guilt? Given what I had just done for Sarah, what had happened with Luke earlier, and what had happened with David last night, God and everybody living on my altar were either spitting on me or absolving me of my sins. Thing is, if a verdict came in at that moment, I had a nagging feeling that I’d come out way more sinner than saint.

I dreamed about him
last night, again. David I mean. It was humiliating. Every night I’d go to bed thinking about Luke, Christmas presents, and Papa, and then I’d toss and turn under David’s hands on me.

Even in my dreams he’s all superior and despicable. I needed an exorcism. If I could just put him in his place. After I brushed my teeth, I went to Papa’s mirror where I do all my best posing. I visualize myself walking into the library and bumping into David. I toss my hair just so, as he says, “Hey, Sophie, what a surprise meeting you here.” He drinks me in all lazy-like, which of course offends me, so I retort with flashing eyes and nostrils flaring. No, that was probably too Harlequin romance, too
Sweet Savage Love
. I check the mirror. It definitely looks like I’m having a spasm; have to work on that. Anyway, with flashing eyes and
barely
flaring nostrils, I
retort
charmingly, “Yes, David, shocking isn’t it? I can read!”

Hmmm, a titch too hostile. I make him look hurt though, which I like, a lot. I spend the next twenty minutes trying out different poses in reaction to what David might say. I smile, I sparkle, I gasp with thoughtful concern, all this while sharing bracingly intelligent repartee about America’s exit strategy from Vietnam. I’d have to go to the library and get stuff about America’s exit strategy or some other big-brain item that I’d floor him with. The girl in the mirror looked skeptical.

I could hardly blame her. I turned and went to my altar, turned my Buddha back around, lit the candle, and started praying, hard.

Dear Everybody, please forgive me for all my impure thoughts, my inclination for revenge, and for thinking about myself so much. I ask you for blessings for my family and friends and, if one of you is not too busy with the world’s more pressing problems, could you please make sure that Papa never takes a drink again and comes home very, very soon.

Thank you, thank you.

Amen.

I thought about tacking on the AA prayer about changing the things you can change and leaving the rest alone, but the phone rang. I blew out the candle and ran to get it.

“Buboola, baby, sveetie!”

“Hi Auntie Eva.”

“Your Mama is to home?”

“Nope, either at the office or showing houses.”

“Tell her zat for sure I’m vanting to do za Christmas dinner here, vit everybodies.” Long pause. “It vill help vit za engraving.”

“You mean, grieving?”

“
Zat
is vat I said.”

“Sorry, I misheard.”

“Iz okay. You are okay, buboola?”

I shrugged and then realized that she couldn’t see me shrugging. “Yeah.”

“You don’t sound happy enough.”

“Happy
enough
?”

“
Da!
Christmas is coming, your parents are behaving nice, you are beautiful,
and
you are young.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot.” I had to agree.

“You must be young for all of us, baby buboola.”

“Whoa, too much pressure, Auntie Eva! Why don’t you guys just relive your own youth?”

Nothing.

“Auntie Eva?”

“Sorry, darrrling. You don’t know because ve don’t told you. Ve ver never young, not really. Zer vas za var, zer vas za Communists, za fascists. Zer vas too many knockings on za doors in za night, for Radmila, Luba, and your Mama.”

“And you too.”

“And me too.”

I did not deserve to breathe. “I’m sorry, Auntie Eva. I knew a bit, even though you guys don’t talk about that stuff. I am so, so sorry!”

“No, no, no, stop! Iz finished, kaput! And ve are having a party!”

“Okay, so, about that.”

“Madison and me sent out za invitations, but it must be a secret surprise.”

“But it’s almost two months away!”

“Ve vant to make it sure.”

I would have to kill Madison. She should know better than to get caught up in an Auntie frenzy.

“Already, za peoples are saying zey are coming and zey are exploding vit za excitement.”

Okay, maybe too late to pull the party plug. “Uncle,” I whimpered.

“
Da,
Uncle Mike vill be zer,
pa
sure, iz his restaurant, and Uncle Dragan too, but ve old people vill be gone, I hope to die, by za midnight.”

I started to hyperventilate. A guest list, invites going out, people coming.
Everyone staring at me. And then the big bad thing would happen.
“Who did you ask?” I heard rustling and shuffling.

“I have it here in my hands your list. Za old people you know.”

I nodded, my stomach tightened.

“Your basketball team and za boyfriends, ahhh, za nephews, peoples from your English and chemistry class. Some boys from za football, some senior boys, ahhh …” crinkle, shuffle, “some senior basketball boys …” Tighter, tighter, tighter … “Valter David of course!”

“NO! Don’t!”

“Yes! Vat no? Vhy not?”

“He won’t come!”

“Darrrling buboola, he vas za first von to say he’s coming for sure! Absolutely!”

What a mess. Was he going to bring a date? An entourage? I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It would be humiliating to ask and that boy had humiliated me enough. Besides, I didn’t care. Who cares? Nobody.

“Ve, za Aunties and za Blondes and your Mama for sure, are to have a very top secret, for my eyes only, planning for za decorations, for za music, za food, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

I was doomed. All those people, watching and waiting for some Sophie-sized disaster that I was sure I could deliver on. We might as well film it.

“Uncle Dragan is going to bring his movie camera.” I suppose they’d notice if I wasn’t there. “It vill be for sure za sveetest Sveet Seventeen party!”

I heard her snuffling into a handkerchief. “Yes, Auntie Eva, it will. I can feel it now. I’m sorry I wasn’t excited enough earlier. I’m excited, now.” Dear Lord. “Now that you’ve explained it all to me.”

Snuffle, snuffle. “You are for sure don’t lying.”

“I am for sure not lying,” I lied.

“And you vill be Sveet Seventeen for all of us?”

I thought about them conniving and conspiring at Auntie Eva’s dining room table. My motley crew of Aunties and Blondes.

It was just one night. I’ve survived worse. “Can’t wait,” I said.

As soon as I hung up, Mama and Madison burst through the door.

“Look vat I found it in da elevators!” Mama pointed to Madison like she was a lucky penny.

“Mama, call Auntie Eva.” I glared at Madison.

Madison followed me into my room almost sheepishly until she actually got there, and then she looked around like she was seeing it for the first time. What was it with everyone and my room this year? You’d think they’d been coming to another Sophie’s bedroom all these years. My little altar was like this island of perfect prettiness plopped onto a moonscape. She wrinkled her nose.