Every Happy Family (12 page)

“I'm really hungry,” she says. “Is it time to eat?”

Jill is already downstairs at the café, sitting in a booth, wearing a stiff, troubled smile. Haven't cleaned my room like forever, thinks Pema. Is that it?

“Hi sweethearts one and two,” she says, too brightly.

“Hey, Mom.”

Les bends to kiss Jill's head then slides in beside her. Having the long seat on the other side of the booth all to herself makes Pema wish Beau was here. He'd stick up for her, whatever it is she's done. A distracted smile occupies Jill's lips as she glances at Les, the table, then out the window.

They can't know about the joint she smoked with Olivia, which was painful to inhale and just made her sleepy. Or the twenty-dollar bill she found on the floor in the front hall, which
could
have been hers. She hides behind the menu, reluctantly skips the French toast section and locates The Masterpiece. Gives it a quick read.

“Can I get the Masterpiece?” she blurts, hoping to delay whatever's coming. She points to the description. “It's the chef's special, which today is a...” she sounds out the word, “frit-ta-ta.”

“You like eggs. It's like an open-faced omelet,” says Jill.

“It's what I'd call an egg pancake,” says Les. “Usually thickened with milk powder.”

“Oh.” She's doesn't like unfamiliar foods and would rather have the French toast but cares more about having a story to tell her friends. “The thing is the waitress –”

“Server,” Jill corrects.

“Server, flips a coin at the end of the meal and if you win you get your meal for free.”

“And if you lose?” asks Les.

“You pay double. But it's only ten dollars and I can pay the other ten if I lose.”

“Curious business ploy,” says Les. “One assumes they'd break even in the long run,”

“You don't have to pay,” says Jill.

“So I can order it?” asks Pema.

“Yes,” says Jill, her clipped tone pushing nine.

The server is a waiter with a long narrow face and thick lips that pucker when he talks. He reminds Pema of Nemo in
Finding Nemo
. She orders hot chocolate, Jill and Les coffee. Is he wearing guyliner? In a solemn voice, Jill orders the smoked salmon benny.

Pema leans over the table towards Les. “Please get the French toast,” she says, putting on her own worried face, “in case I don't like my frittata?”

“Sure.”

“With blueberries?”

“What if I don't like blueberries.”

“Don't you?”

“With blueberries,” he tells the waiter.

“And I'll have the Masterpiece,” she announces.

“Alright!” The waiter flings a hand in the air as if for a high-five then points a finger at her. “Hope you're hungry.”

“I'm hungry.” She points back. He is definitely wearing guyliner.

“You think he's gay?” she says after he's gone.

“Who?” asks Les.

“The waiter.”

“Server and it's his business,” says Jill.

“I know,” she says, hating how easily her mother can shut down a conversation before it's even started.

Jill asks about the exhibit.

“Auntie Annie would have approved,” Pema says, thinking that she can potentially redeem whatever it is she's screwed up. “They repurpose, like, everything.”

“They repurpose everything,” says Jill.

“They repurpose everything,” she repeats. “Like, there were... I mean there were these crazy hats made out of horsehair. Hand drums made out of skulls and horsehide. Religious objects made from the metal from space.” She looks to Les.

“Meteoric iron.”

“Something falls from the sky and they're on it,” she says, hoping for a laugh and having to settle for distracted smiles. “Some of the jewelry was pretty cool, lots of turquoise and amber.”

“Any Tibetans there?”

“Besides the monks?” says Pema, thinking it a stupid question. As far as she knows there are maybe five Tibetans in Victoria, and she's one of them.

“No,” says Les.

Their drinks arrive. Pema takes a spoon to her whipped cream and watches Jill absently stir her coffee and stare out the window at nothing. Les, who never looks uncomfortable, looks uncomfortable. How bad can it be? Quinn lost his car privileges last weekend after he puked and passed out on the front lawn. Whatever she's done can't touch that. She grabs the plastic card on the table to read about
Dessert Impressions
. She can ignore them too. Jill's phone rings. She takes it out, checks who's calling and turns it off.

Another long minute goes by and Pema's about to take out her own phone to text Katie when Jill says in an earnest voice, “We need to talk, Pema.” Jill's face is so serious Pema almost laughs. But then Les lets go a big fat uncharacteristic sigh.

“What is it?” It's big. A two-parent problem is rare, and not knowing is making her anxious. She knows her dad has been sick. Her stomach falls.

“We've waited to show you these,” Jill says, digging in her bag, “until we felt you could handle...” Her voice cracks and she covers her eyes.

Pema can't remember ever seeing her mother cry. Jill never loses it, is the most together mother of all her friends' mothers. Les slips his arm around Jill and presses his head against hers, causing Pema to feel startlingly alone on her side of the booth.

“What aren't you telling me?” She feels her own tears coming.

Jill takes a big breath and wipes her eyes with her napkin. “I'm sorry, Pema. It's actually a happy thing.”

She sees the letters in her mom's hand. “You don't look happy.”

“It
is
a happy thing,” says Les, practically snatching the letters from Jill. “It's from” – he reads from the top envelope – “Jampaling, I think that's how you say it, in Nepal. Pema, these are letters from your birth mother, Datso Tsering.”

The waiter sweeps over with their meals. “Your benny, ma'am. And for the young ma'am, one bacon, swiss cheese and sun-dried tomato frittata, drizzled in a tarragon cream sauce and served with our fab hash browns, sourdough toast and homemade fruit salad.”

Pema smiles up at him, willing his gay fish mouth to keep talking.

“I'll be right back with your French toast, sir.”

Les places the letters on the table and slides them towards her until they touch her napkin. Pema lifts her napkin and puts it in her lap because she likes small formalities.

“You don't have to read them now, but you should know that she's doing well,” he says.

There's a date stamped on the first envelope. 2006? She pulls her eyes away, pokes at her frittata to make sure the waiter's description is true. There are small green bits among the bacon and tomato. The waiter didn't say anything about green bits.

“She's living in a refugee village in rural Nepal. It's a community of a thousand Tibetans?” Les turns to Jill for confirmation.

“Right,” Jill says in a small voice.

The waiter arrives with Les's plate and Pema asks about these green bits.

“Those are scallion.” His tone is tantalizing. She likes his spiked belt.

“Thank you.”

“Not a problem.”

Her potatoes look exactly the way she hoped, a crispy brown the way Les makes them.

“She's remarried,” says Les, “and she and her husband both have jobs.”

Using her knife, she makes a space between her potatoes and the cream sauce. Ketchup goes with potatoes. Where's the ketchup? She signals the waiter, who hurries over, breathless. She asks for ketchup and laughs when he says, “Righteolly.”

She wishes Les would be quiet and eat his French toast now, but he seems keyed up and unable to stop.

“They have two children,” he continues, though Jill has grabbed his arm as if to stop him or tell him something. “Two girls.”

Pema squeezes the ketchup bottle, which farts noisily, unable to believe the amount of food on her plate.

“So you have two half-sisters,” he says as if she didn't get it the first time. “Eleven and four.”

Pema waves for the waiter again then realizes there's nothing she needs.

“Let her eat,” urges Jill, her hand fisted beside her plate. The whiteness of her mother's skin reminds Pema of the time she smeared Coppertone Instatan over Beau's face and arms to try and get his skin colour to match hers.

“It's a happy thing,” says Les, sounding almost angry now. “She wants to meet you, wants to know you.”

With her fork Pema turns over her potatoes in the ketchup to coat them. Wonders if her sisters have ever seen so much food on one plate.

Clearing his throat, Les manoeuvres out of his side of the booth, mumbles something about the washroom and walks away, leaving them in silence.

“Is everything all right with the food?” the waiter asks.

“Fine,” says Jill. “But maybe we'll take it to go?”

Pema nods, eyes on the table, not the least bit hungry any more.

“Nada problemo,” he says and begins collecting plates.

As soon as he leaves, she can't help herself and lays down on the booth's cool vinyl surface, tucks her knees into her stomach and stares at the silver pole holding up the table.

“Pema, sweetheart,” says Jill, her tone a gentle number one.

Her breath comes hard and fast to keep from crying or yelling or throwing up, she's not sure which.

“Please, let's not do this here,” says Jill, up to number two and a half.

Did they purposefully tell her this in public so she wouldn't make a scene?

“Sit up, please.” Number four.

She wipes at her eyes and closes her mouth to quiet her breath, thinks how she's always felt scrutinized by her adoptive mother and slightly afraid of her.

“Pema,” says Jill, her tone pushing six.

She slowly sits back up, hiding behind a curtain of hair.

“Thank you,” says Jill.

Pema can't think about it, any of it, and slips her phone out of her pocket to send Katie a text to see if she still wants to go shopping. For shoes for prom. And maybe a new necklace. Auntie Annie and she are designing the dress. They've already bought the material.

The waiter reappears with their boxed-up meals then holds up a quarter and beams at Pema. “We have to do the Masterpiece flip.”

She scans the room for Les, wants him to be here for this, but doesn't see him. Seems he's been gone a long time.

As the waiter takes a dramatic stance and balances the quarter on top of his thumb, Jill reaches for the letters as if to put them back in her purse and, without thinking, Pema slaps a hand on them and their eyes meet. Jill's smile wavers as her eyes and hand retreat.

“Feeling lucky?” he says, one eyebrow cocked. People at nearby tables have stopped eating to turn their heads and watch.

She smirks at his puckered smile. She's the luckiest girl in the world.

“Heads or tails?”

“Heads,” she says, and he flips the coin high into the air where it disappears in a glare of light.

Sisters

“What colour do you call the satin part?” asks Pema.

Annie bunches her lips. “How about dewdrop green. Or forest sunlight . Or underwater dwelling.”

“And the velvet? Is that turquoise?”

“Turquoise green, not blue.”

“Cody and his friends are renting a party bus for after the grad ball.”

“Sounds like fun, fun, fun. Is he coming here to pick you up?”

After Pema found out that Jill and Les had kept her birth mother's letters secret for more than two years, she stopped speaking to them and moved in with Annie. It was only going to be for the weekend but then she decided to stay. Annie couldn't be more thrilled to have her.

“Yes. His dad's driving us. I wish Katie was going too, or Olivia. I think I'm the only grade eleven except for some guy who I don't really know.”

“Next year you and your buds will all be together. Think of this as a practice run.”

Pema doesn't respond.

“Cuddly Cody. He's got the best hair that kid.” Annie scrunches her nose. “You just want to roll in it.”

“He is cute, isn't he?”

“Yeah, cute, but you're a stunner and are going to be the bomb in this dress,” says Annie, which wins a brief smile.

“So Cody's wondering what colour tie he should wear.”

“Black suit?”

“Yeah.”

“White shirt?” asks Annie.

“We were thinking a black shirt might be –”

“No. White shirt. And I'll make him a velvet tie out of your dress material.”

“Cool.”

“But it's going to be a bow tie.”

“Bow tie?”

“Bow ties are so in, trust me. And one of my leather cummerbunds. And tell him to forget the vest and we'll make him some suspenders.”

“Love suspenders.”

“Braided ones. We'll braid some leather strips” – Annie points across the studio where used belts dangle from hooks along the wall – “maybe weave in some strands of your velvet.”

“Cool. What about corsages?”

“Pale yellow, but don't get chrysanthemums. Cheap funeral flowers. Lilies would be good. Or roses. Yeah, get roses. They'll bring out the texture of the velvet. Maybe,” says Annie, thinking aloud, “the criss-crossing part across your boobs should be leather. No, no, stupid idea. Too Harley D. We're already getting a bit matchy matchy.”

They work quietly for a while, Pema cutting the skirt material, Annie pinning the bodice.

“Katie always dreamed of going to prom with Beau. Confessed she's always had a crush on him.”

“I'd have a crush on him too if he wasn't my nephew and I was a child molester. No reason the sexy beast can't go next year to both his own and yours. We'll send for him. Say his favourite aunt had a heart attack, might not make it, is asking for him.”

“You know what he said when I told him about the letters?”

Annie holds a pin between her lips and can't talk.

“‘So?' That's what he said. I'm crying my eyes out and he's says, ‘So?'”

“Guys turn and run to the nearest hockey bar, rugby bar, when women get emotional.”

“We used to be, like, so close.”

“That closeness is getting stretched, sure, but like a rubber band it'll snap back once he's home.”

“Last time he was home, Katie had a party and he didn't even come. If he wasn't sleeping, he was hanging out at David's. Barely said two words to me.”

“Just a phase, Pema Pea. Both your brothers love you and always will.”

“Auntie Annie?”

“What? Pass me the scissors, Sweet Girl. No, the shears.”

Pema passes the shears. “Do you think I should go to Nepal?”

“Gawd, I certainly would. Be knocking on my dad's door as we speak if he was alive, hoping he was the next best drug. The key” – she raises her hand holding the shears – “is not to expect anything and it'll be great.”

“My birth mom doesn't speak English.”

“You'll pick up Tibetan again. It'll be like déjà vu.”

“I don't think so.”

“Think so.”

“I'm so mad at Mom and Dad.”

Annie bites her tongue. It's the first time Pema's brought up the subject of why she's sleeping in Annie's bed.

“They think I was too stupid to have a say about it. Two years. And what if, like your dad, my birth mother died in those two years.” Pema's voice is building to a crescendo. “Or dies next week.”

“They were just scared of losing you, Sweet Pea. That's all. Don't be too hard on them.”

“After prom, I'm fucking going and never coming back.”

“Whoa, whoa. Come here girl.”

Pema drops her scissors and walks around the table where Annie grabs her by the shirt and yanks her in for a hug. “You swore on your mother's grave you wouldn't get taller than me.”

“Which mother?” Pema buries her face in Annie's shoulder, her body stiffening like it does before she cries. “The one who got rid of me, or the one who lied to me.”

Annie holds her tighter. “I'm also adopted, remember, and if I have learned one thing in life it's not to try to figure out who you are. If you just think of yourself as everybody's daughter, a daughter of the world, it's much easier. And more inclusive.”

An explosive gulp of air lets loose the demon and Pema is blubbering that she's so confused and wishes she was never born.

“Nobody said life was a bed of roses,” says Annie. “Well, maybe somebody did, some fool, but anyway, it's going to be all right.” She strokes her niece's hair. “I'm almost sure of it.”