Just J (6 page)

The driver, who looks about the same age as Aunt Guin, has long white hair tied back in a ponytail. His hairline points to blue sunglasses sitting on a little white nose. He leans out his window and removes what turn out to be sunglass clips, revealing violet eyes behind clear lenses in round wire frames. I quickly look down at the ground so that he won't catch me staring at him. I've never seen an albino before, and I don't want to be an insensitive jerk and stare at him like he's some kind of freak, because he's not—he's just dif–ferent than normal people. Not that he's not normal…oh, this is awkward.

“Hello, ladies. Where would the two of you be off to today?” he asks.

Oh God, maybe he'll think I'm repulsed by him or some–thing, and that's why I'm staring at the ground. I don't know if I can look without staring, though. What a horrible way to find out I'm an idiot.

“We're headed to Prince Edward County,” Aunt Guin tells him.

“What a lucky coincidence! So am I. And what part of the county would you be going to?”

The way they talk to each other, it's as if they were put–ting on a show for me, mocking themselves as they speak, but they don't seem to be paying much attention to me at all. They seem more interested in entertaining themselves, which is fine. It lets me continue to stare at my feet.

“Why, out near Sandbanks Provincial Park.”

“This is your lucky day indeed. That's where I'm headed.”

“My name is Guinevere and this is my niece, Jenevieve, and we would be awfully grateful for a lift.”

“Guin and Jen, lovely. I would be happy for the company. My name's Arthur, but you may call me Art. Tell me, Jen, is there something particularly fascinating about the patch of ground at your feet or is it the shoes that are demanding your undivided attention?”

Busted! I slowly look up and my eyes go to Aunt Guin first, to prepare myself or perhaps in hopes of rescue. She points to her eyes and then her mouth. I don't know why, but I wipe both my eyes and my mouth, just to be sure.

I look up at Art, and the first thing I notice is his mouth, which is curved up in the warmest and friendliest of smiles. Making my way up to his eyes, I find them gentle and playful with just a distant hint of sadness. I've never looked so closely at a person's smile or so deeply into their eyes before, but as I do, all our differences disappear.

“Nice to meet you, Jen,” he says.

“Just J,” I say, introducing myself properly. “And it's nice to meet you too.”

“Hop in,” he says as he pops open the side door. As nice as he is, I still don't feel comfortable getting into a stranger's van.

“If you know him, why did you introduce yourself?” I whisper to Aunt Guin.

“Every moment is the beginning of a new journey and another chance to reinvent oneself. Every time you introduce yourself, you start fresh. It makes it easier.”

“Besides,” adds Art, “think about how much stress and how many awkward moments could be avoided if you never had to remember anyone's name.”

Oh no, there's two of them.

The van smells like gasoline. In the back there's a wall of freshly cut wood. They say that you can tell the age of the tree if you count the rings, so I count one of the rounds. It has close to thirty-eight rings. Maybe it was planted the year Mom was born. And died about the same time too. I try to picture the trees as they once stood, but I see only their dismembered bodies lying before me. As we make our way out of the city, the living trees can't take away the images of the remains. Seeing a seedling on one lawn, planted next to a stump, almost makes me sick.

The smell of dead trees overpowers the stink of gasoline and conquers my senses. It's the smell of death, and yet it's a pleasant smell—it's Christmas.

We used to make a big deal out of Christmas. Ours was always the largest tree on the block, and on Christmas Eve we'd invite the whole neighborhood over. The outside of the house would be covered in lights and the inside with tinsel and fresh-cut cedar boughs.

We live near a golf course, and Mom would go there at night with Billy, me, a toboggan and a pair of clippers. She'd cut branches off the cedars that line the course and I'd pile them on and around Billy, who stayed on the toboggan. He'd do his best to hold onto them. Mom loved the smell; she'd sniff the end of each one after she cut it. Dad used to play the course, so he pretended that he didn't approve, but he'd always tell Mom which trees needed trimming
if
she insisted on cutting them.

Everyone was at our Christmas parties. Not just people from the neighborhood, but people from my parents' work and my school friends too—back when I had friends. Mom would play the piano and sing Gordon Lightfoot's “Song for a Winter's Night.” I'd tell her she was awful and that it was embarrassing. She'd tell me not to take things so seriously and to stop worrying about what other people thought.

Then she'd convince Dad to sing a duet of “Baby It's Cold Outside.” I'd always make it clear to my friends just how mortifying I found it.

Mom loved to laugh and have a good time. Entertaining was her thing. She and my dad would do a dramatic reading of “ 'Twas the Night before Christmas,” acting out the different parts—complete with wardrobe and props—grabbing some unsuspecting person out of the crowd to spin around with at the “turned with a jerk” part.

It was the very definition of corny, but all the younger kids and the adults—with the help of a little rum and eggnog— loved it. My friends and I would watch from the sidelines, making sure always to be laughing at, and never with, them.

On Christmas morning, Mom would be up before any of us, even Billy. Dean Martin's “Silver Bells” blasting from the stereo would awaken the rest of us. She'd spray fake snow everywhere as we came down the stairs, and then we'd rip open the mound of presents. At least, I think that was us. I remember it all right, but not to touch, not to feel, just to watch, like an old film. Last Christmas—now
that
I can still feel with painful clarity.

There was no party, and there were no lights outside or cedar inside—only a touch of tinsel and a sad little tree for a sorry little Christmas. We all had to wait for Mom to wake up and for Dad to help her down the stairs to the chair by the fire. He wrapped her in a blanket, put a scarf around her neck and turned up the gas fireplace. He then straightened the knitted, pale yellow toque she'd been wearing since she lost her hair. After that he went into the kitchen, made her a cup of tea and handed it to her gingerly.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked her for the thousandth time.

“Yes, I'm fine. Just open your presents.”

“You're sure?” he asked again.

“She's fine! Now can we get on with it?” I answered for her. Dad gave me a dirty look, but he didn't say anything.

I vividly remember Mom's frailty and how not even the fire's reflection could give her face any color. I remember Dad's patience and gentleness, Billy's enthusiasm, my anger. I watched all of it with a great fury, and I let that fury be known for the rest of the day. Why shouldn't I have been angry? I had lost my Christmas.

I got to be in the school's Christmas pageant, but I was the only one there without a parent. Dad arranged for me to get a ride with the neighbors and their kid, Martha.

Martha stuck to me all night like a bad smell—literally— and in doing so ensured the complete destruction of what remained of my social standing.

The thing about Martha, besides her “top student” marks and her random, loud, snorting laugh, is that she will occa–sionally stick her hand down the back of her skirt, pull it out and sniff it. She did it that night,
on stage
!

My perfect evening was complete when, on the way to the car, Martha grabbed
my hand
with
the hand
—Merry Christmas!

All I wanted was one morning—Christmas morning— just a couple of hours of normality. But Mom couldn't even give us that. How hard would it have been? One hundred and twenty minutes of pretending everything was all right. That was it. That was all I wanted.

“So are you a serial tree-killer or something?” It just comes out. I have no control. I need a distraction.

Art is talking to Aunt Guin, and from the way he jumps when I speak, I'd say he'd forgotten about me. I must have been zoned out for a while.

“What?” Art says. “Oh no. I'm a tree surgeon. I euthanize when I have to, but I save whenever I can. I'm bringing the wood with us for the campfire.”

A campfire? Yee-haw.

“What do you do?” Aunt Guin asks me.

“I'm still in school—obviously—and if you're asking what I want to do when I grow up, I don't know.”

“I mean what I say, and I say what I mean. School's not your passion. What do you enjoy doing?”

“I don't enjoy anything,” I tell her. “I don't feel like talking anymore.”

“Okay,” Aunt Guin says, as polite as ever, not even acknowledging my rudeness. She turns to Art. “I can't wait to see the house. It sounds perfect.”

“You haven't seen the house yet?” I ask, a little con–cerned.

“I thought you didn't want to talk,” says Aunt Guin.

“I don't.”

“Then I'm confused by the question, or more to the point…”

“And it's always good to get to the point,” Art interjects.

“Oh, I couldn't agree more,” Aunt Guin concurs. “Far too many people spend far too much time avoiding the issue…”

“Rambling on and on…,” Art adds.

“About things that have nothing to do with what they're really thinking about…”

“While you sit there just thinking…,” Art says.

“Come on, get on with it. I mean, really…,” Aunt Guin says.

“The point being!” I could bear it no longer.

“Excuse me? Oh yes, the fact that you asked the ques–tion,” Aunt Guin says.

“Perhaps,” Art ponders, “she didn't mean to say that she didn't want to talk, but rather that she didn't want to answer.”

“Ahh, some sort of game then…in which she only asks questions…” She turns to Art as Art turns to her.

“Twenty Questions!” they say together. They're far too excited for people their age.

“And what was the category?” Art asks.

Now if I were smart I would have cleared up this whole game-playing nonsense. But apparently I'm not quite as clever as I give myself credit for. “Your house!” I say, and then I quietly try to correct myself. “But I'm not…” Too late.

“Oh yes, I remember the question now. No,” Aunt Guin replies.

“Why would you buy a house that you haven't seen?” I ask.

“EEEE!” Art makes a buzzer sound. “In Twenty Questions, only questions which can be answered with yes or no, or true or false, are permitted.”

“What if it's infested with rats?” I ask.

“EEEE!”

“I'm not playing Twenty Questions!” I say, trying to make it as clear as possible.

“Really? We are,” Aunt Guin informs me.

“Oh, this could make things tricky,” Art says with gen–uine concern.

“Forget it,” I say.

“Are you sure you want to give up so quickly?” Art asks.

“I'm sure,” I tell him.

“My turn,” Aunt Guin says.

“Topic?” Art asks.

“Animal.”

“Does it have fur?”

“Yes.”

I'm starting to think that Aunt Guin isn't as smart as I first thought.

“Can it dance?” Art asks.

“Maybe,” Aunt Guin replies after careful consideration.

In fact, I'm starting to think she doesn't know much of anything, just like everyone else.

“Can it dance while people are watching?”

“No.”

Their voices fade as I look out at the highway and my ears fill with the sound of rubber on asphalt and the engine hum that's thrown back at us from the large sound barriers.

I wonder what it's like beyond those barriers. Do they actually block out enough sound to allow you to forget what's on the other side? How high does the wall have to be? How thick? Where can I order one?

“A platypus?” Art asks Aunt Guin.

“Yes!” she replies.

Excited laughter is the last thing I hear as I let the van's motion carry me away to a much-needed sleep.

Chapter Twelve

T
he light of the late-afternoon sun is intensified by the van's windows and turns the inside of my eyelids from black to white, interrupting my slumber and forcing me to blink myself awake.

“It's beautiful,” Aunt Guin says as she opens her door. It's only now that I realize the van has come to a stop. I hear a second door open, so I stretch and, with a few more blinks, clear my eyes.

I look out the window, but my eyes must not be fully adjusted. The house appears decrepit. There's a porch and a second-floor balcony held up by willpower and chipped paint; in fact, the whole house looks like it's held together by willpower and chipped paint.

“It is perfect, absolutely perfect,” Aunt Guin raves.

“I thought you'd like it,” Art says.

“It's ideal,” she replies.

I keep blinking but nothing changes. I open my backpack to check for sunglasses. There's a pair inside the makeup bag, sitting right on top. I quickly put them on, but they don't improve the house's appearance. It must be the van's side window—please let it be the side window. Sliding the door open reveals a yard that is screaming out for aban–doned cars and a beat-up rv. The yard is the deathbed on which the house lies.

“We're not staying here?” I ask as my stomach tightens.

“Of course we are,” Aunt Guin replies.

“It's an abandoned house,” I point out.

“Not anymore!” she says.

“A sneeze could knock it over,” I say, only half joking.