Just J (11 page)

“I watch a lot of science fiction,” he says, shattering my newly formed illusion.

I laugh. Connor doesn't look amused.

“People highly underestimate the educational value of movies and television. Especially science fiction,” he says defensively.

I laugh harder, but it's not at him.

Connor doesn't know that though, and he turns and starts to swim to shore.

“Stop,” I yell after him. “I'm not laughing at
you
.”

He turns around to face me. “No? What are you laughing at then?”

I can't reply, because I don't know what I'm laughing at, and realizing that I don't know makes me laugh all the harder. It's quite a strange feeling, laughing; my stomach will probably hurt tomorrow.

Connor turns away again.

“No, stop, really, please.” I get it under control.

He turns back to me.

“Thank you,” I say—I meant to say sorry, but it was thank you that came out.

“For what?”

“Just thank you,” is all I can reply.

He looks at me, confused. I would look at me confused too. Connor swims toward me. A head bobs along the top of the dunes, like a puppet.

Connor reaches me.

“There's somebody up there,” I tell him, and he spins around and looks.

“No there isn't,” he says, spinning back. “It's the sun playing tricks.”

I don't like being told I'm imagining things, and my look tells him so. He smiles apologetically, but his smile's got a bit of condescension to it too, because he still doesn't believe me.

“It looked like someone with a mullet,” I say, to add sub–stance to my “vision.”

Connor's eyes get bigger and worry transforms his face.

“My brother!” he says, quickly turning and swimming to shore.

“What?” I yell after him.

After making our way back to where we'd left the bikes, we stand side by side, looking up. I've put shorts and a T-shirt on over my swimsuit, but they won't do much to protect me from the fir needles, and I have no intention of putting the dirty clothes back on.

“My brother,” Connor repeats.

“How'd he get them up there?” I ask, looking to the top of the thirty-foot Douglas fir—the kind we always got for a Christmas tree. Our bicycles hang like ornaments near its peak.

Connor shakes his lowered head and mumbles, “Probably had his monkey do it.”

I don't ask.

Connor walks to the base of the tree and starts climbing.

“Can't you just teleport them down?” I say. This time the laugh
is
at Connor's expense.

Chapter Twenty

C
onnor rescues both bikes but gets covered in cuts and scrapes in the process. Seeing him all sticky and cut up makes me feel bad about the poor timing of my sci-fi joke, and I apologize to him when he leaves me at my aunt's to go to work. He'll forgive me—eventually.

That afternoon, and every afternoon that follows, I help with the house's restoration, though resurrection would be a more apt term; we're bringing the house back to life and out of isolation.

Most evenings we spend on the beach. Aunt Guin invests in a tent to protect us from the morning dew.

There are few rainfalls, so we keep the tent's mesh sun–roof open almost every evening, and I fall asleep under the stars' watchful gaze. She also buys a portable stereo that we listen to while we work.

Art plays the guitar around the campfire at night and Aunt Guin sketches caricatures of us. She's promised to do a painting for me on a “grander scale,” whatever that means. Connor sometimes comes for dinner when he's done helping in the store, and sometimes I go over to his place. Connor also plays the guitar. I discover this when he plays “If You Could Read My Mind,” one of my favorite Lightfoot songs.

“I'm surprised a city girl has even heard of Gordon Lightfoot,” Connor says with a cheeky grin.

I reply by rolling my eyes.

He then plays another Lightfoot song, the one Mom used to play at the Christmas parties—“Song for a Winter's Night.” It seems almost surreal hearing it on a beach in the middle of summer.

From the dunes, I could swear I hear the sound of a piano, and I close my eyes to try and picture Mom playing it. Nothing comes but a cold shiver like snow falling on my bare skin. A flake lands in the corner of my eye and melts, tracing a line down my cheek.

I open my eyes and Connor warms me with a smile. The corners of my mouth rise with unexpected ease as I return his sign of affection.

The laughter that Connor gave me lasts throughout the summer. I even share it with Art and Aunt Guin when I try to participate in some of their bizarre word games.

My weekly phone calls to Dad and Billy get less painful as each week passes more quickly than the last.

Like the sparks that broke from the fire to become stars, my summer is turning into a collection of fleeting moments that scatter themselves like points of light filling the void of my life.

Though we all help each other out, Aunt Guin is in charge of the house's interior salvation. I get to offer suggestions on all areas of the remodeling, inside and out. Art is mainly responsible for the exterior.

At Aunt Guin's insistence, I expand my musical horizons. When you share the same cd player while you work, musical tastes can become a problem.

I take some of the money she pays me and, on one of our trips into town, invest in a Gordon Lightfoot tribute cd—one step at a time—which leads me to buy Ron Sexsmith's
Cobblestone
Runway
, which leads to Coldplay, which then leads me to other music that the kids at school might even consider “cool.” I don't let that discourage me.

When Aunt Guin gets her turn at the stereo, we listen to world music, stuff like African drumming or Balinese gamelan music, which sounds like a garage band playing wind chimes.

Art's musical preference is classic rock, but he's very easygoing so he doesn't often get his choice. He originally wanted to listen to country music, but Aunt Guin and I immediately put the kibosh on that.

“I thought you of all people would be more open-minded about music,” Art says to Aunt Guin in defense of his musical selection.

“Everyone has a line that they don't care to cross,” Aunt Guin says, “and country music is mine.”

Art turns to me, looking for support.

“You know,” Art says to me, “if you like Gordon Lightfoot, you should really give country music a try.”

“Gordon is
not
country,” I tell him. And it is never mentioned again.

With the rhythm of tribal drums and what sounds like a squirrel being ironed coming from inside the house, a chill goes through my body as I find myself almost liking it. Maybe I've just built up an immunity to it over the summer. Yeah, that must be it.

I look over at Art, who's wearing his blue sunglass clips under a Shady Brady straw cowboy hat. The hat's name suits it since it keeps Art's face and neck in constant shade. What if he'd gotten to listen to country? Would I have found myself almost liking…oh, I can't even go there.

With the yard cleaned up, gardens planted and the trees all perfectly trimmed, Art helps me with the painting. He puts the finishing touches on a green shutter while I work at making the rest of the house sparkling white.

He's so focused and quiet when he works, never forcing a conversation or a game.

“Art?” I say. “You're not as weird as Aunt Guin—at least not when she's not around.”

Art laughs. “You think your aunt's weird?”

“In a good way. I mean, I really like her,” which is true, “it's just, you seem a bit more…”

“Boring,” he says.

“No, ” I assure him. “You're just more, well…normal.”

“That's what I said—boring,” he says, and then he smiles at me to let me know he's half joking. “Your Aunt Guin and I knew each other in university. We were in the same philosophy class. When we get together, I slip back into post-secondary playfulness.”

“What was she like in university?”

“Same as she is now. Your aunt's always been a free spirit.”

“I didn't meet her till my mom died.”

“I know.”

“Do you know why?”

“That's something you'll have to ask her,” he says.

“Where are you from, Art?” I ask.

“Toronto. I live there with my wife and kids.”

“You have kids?”

“Don't sound so surprised!”

“I'm not…I just…”

“A boy and a girl,” he continues, letting me off the hook. “Eight and ten. They're with their mother and her family in Poland for the summer. I could have gone, but when Guin called and wanted me to go in with her on finding a house to fix up and sell, I said yes. And to be honest, a summer with my in-laws didn't really appeal to me.”

“Your wife doesn't worry about you spending the summer with another woman?” I ask.

“No,” he says with a chuckle, the reason for which is unclear.

“Why…wait. Did you say Aunt Guin's going to sell this place?”

“That's what she does. Finds places in need of restora–tion, brings them back to their former glory—and usually a bit more—and moves on.”

I don't know why, but this information gives me a sinking feeling.

“But she ordered furniture; it's coming next week.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “She knows what she's doing. People who buy beach houses probably want them set up and ready to go.”

This makes me feel even worse. Strangers living in
my
house. I try to push the idea from my mind as I paint over the gray boards.

“A white wedding cake is not as pure and offers less reason for celebration,” Aunt Guin says, coming outside to look at the house.

“It's tastier though,” Art counters.

“There are instances when that is debatable,” Aunt Guin says.

“True,” Art says, putting his brush down. He looks over at me, then climbs down the ladder. “I'm going to go do some work in the backyard,” he says.

I know he's doing it to give us time to talk, but I have no intention of taking advantage of the opportunity. I'm feeling a little ripped off, giving so much to something only to have it taken away.

“I guess it's you and me, kid,” she says, bouncing up the ladder to take Art's place. “Do you want to play a game?”

“No.”

“How about Twenty Questions?” she asks, as cheery as ever.

“No! Don't you ever listen to what other people want?”

She looks at me like a wounded puppy, and then she smiles. “No games then.”

We both continue painting. The late-August sun feels cold on my back as the afternoon drags on. The sun is taking longer to set than the entire summer has taken to pass. I barely even noticed that it was going.

Chapter Twenty-one

A
s the sky turns red, I ride my bike over to Connor's, where I am forced, once again, to watch the sci-fi channel, though it doesn't take much convincing anymore. As it turns out, it's nowhere near as painful as I thought it was going to be. Less painful than, say, Billy's martial arts movies. Not that I'll be going to conventions or dressing up like an alien any time soon, but over the summer I've actu–ally begun to enjoy
some
of the shows.

Connor's mother, who is even larger than I pictured when he said she was too fat for the bicycle, brings our dinner—burgers and fries—into the tv room from the short-order kitchen in their store. She's a stern but friendly woman, though her height—over six feet—intimidated me at first.

She knocks Connor's feet off the coffee table and yells, “How many times have I told you?”

“Sorry, Mom,” he says meekly.

“Can I get you anything else, dear?” she sweetly asks me.

“No, thank you,” I tell her.

The short-order kitchen and the endless supply of candy from the store take their toll on me despite the physical labor on the house, the search for Moonlight Palace, the biking and Aunt Guin's endless salads and fruit plates. The steak on the first night was definitely a “special occasion” meal. On top of my universal weight gain, over the summer I start to develop, and Aunt Guin has to take me to buy my first bra.

“You're growing up,” she says as proudly as if she'd raised me.

“I'm getting fat,” I correct her as I try on ever-increasing sizes while looking into what I hope is a funhouse mirror.

“You'd have to put on another twenty pounds before you even approached plump.”

She's right,
if
you go by health standards and
not
the anorexic vogue
.

Aunt Guin never lets me put myself down in any way.

“Words shape our world,” she always says. “They have their own energy—positive and negative—and you should always choose the positive. Always treat words with the respect they so richly deserve.”