Shades of Red (2 page)

“No, goofy girl. I'm cooking veal tonight. It'll melt all your troubles away.
Ciao
, baby!”

Darrell looked at the receiver for a moment before replacing it on its cradle. Right. Eating politically incorrect baby cattle was going to solve her problems.

She dragged herself out of bed and leaned over to pick up the fallen notebook. She could close the cover on the words, but her anger and fear were not so easy to put away. Shivering, she started to get dressed.

This can't be happening.

The doorbell rang a second time, and Darrell's mother clattered down the stairs in high heels — evidence that the unbelievable
was
happening. When your mother is a doctor who spends all day on her feet, whose only concession to fashion is to trade her tattered Birkenstocks for Hush Puppies — when the day comes that a mother like that runs downstairs to answer the door wearing high heels,
stilettos
no less, it is but one more sign indicating the end of the world.

The end of the world as Darrell knew it, anyway.

Her birthday had started out bleak and somehow managed to get worse. Even a call from Kate hadn't helped. The last thing Darrell wanted to do was to set up a detailed plan for spring break when there was still snow on the ground.

“Thinking about spring is what you're supposed to do in winter,” Kate had said. She'd also asked Darrell if she was mad at her mom and a bunch of other things besides, none of which Darrell had been in a mood to discuss. Kate, using her best be-cheerful-at-all-costs voice, had promised to meet Darrell at school the following day, and Darrell had only just remembered to thank her friend for the bouquet of balloons that gently bobbed in the hall.

Even a special delivery package of birthday brownies from Brodie hadn't helped.

Janice Connor slowed her trajectory by grabbing the scratched and worn newel post at the bottom of the stairs and peered into the darkened living room where Darrell was doing her best to hide from parental attention.

“What happened to the candles I lit?”

Darrell shrugged. She'd pinched them out at least fifteen minutes earlier. Trust her mother to have been too busy to notice.

“The one by the window was making the curtain smoke,” she said, as innocently as she could manage. “I was worried they were a fire hazard.”

The doorbell rang a third time, the chime taking on a frantic note.

“Coming!” called Darrell's mother in a bright, artificial voice, but she didn't make a move toward the door. Instead she smoothed her dress nervously and peered again into the living room. “You'd better just put the lights on then, kiddo,” she said resignedly. “So much for ambience.”

Darrell felt her temper flare. “Who cares about ambience, anyway?” she snapped. “You just don't want this guy to see the piles of your stuff behind the chair. If he's going to be your boyfriend, don't you think he ought to see how we really live?”

“Darrell! Women my age do not have boyfriends. But he
is
my friend, and I'd like him to be yours, too.” Her mother's voice took on a wheedling tone as she shuffled a pile of books and papers farther into a dark corner. “Please just try to be nice, okay?”

Darrell rolled her eyes as her mother fluffed up her hair and scurried away. She was just leaning over to flick on the lamp when a blast of cold air swirled into the room. The cold condensed into a solid lump of ice somewhere just north of her stomach. She shivered.

The click of heels announced her mother's return.

“David, I'd like you to meet my daughter. Darrell, this is my friend Doctor David Asa.”

Darrell could hardly bring herself to lift her head. Lethargy settled around her shoulders like a heavy shawl, and she fiddled with a piece of chalk pastel she'd found stuck under the lamp.

“Hi, Darrell.” His voice, warm and deep, jarred her into looking up. Strange hearing a voice like that in this room — in this house that had been home to two females for so long. But when she did finally raise her head, Darrell was relieved to see that the man in front of her did not look at all familiar. His hair was blonde and stuck up from his forehead in a gawky way. In his hands was a small lumpy package. His glasses were completely fogged from the warmth of the room, so she couldn't see his eyes, but she could see enough of him to realize he was a stranger. And as far as she cared, he could stay that way.

“Darrell?” The frantic note in her mother's voice was back. “Can you say hello, please?”

“Hi.” Darrell stood up suddenly and, avoiding her mother's eye, lunged for the stairs. “I just remembered some packing I have to do for school,” she blurted and shot up the narrow staircase, taking the steps two at a time. “Nice to meet you,” she called over her shoulder.

Her mother's embarrassed voice, stumbling through some sort of apology, faded into the distance as Darrell closed the door to her room and collapsed onto her bed. Her fully packed suitcase and backpack sat neatly by the
door, ready to go. Desperate to take her mind off her mother's friend, Darrell pulled the notebook off the bedside table and flipped open the cover.

It did the trick. Her eyes were drawn to the words neatly printed across the top of the page, and her stomach twisted with anguish.

How do you live with yourself when you've killed someone — even if that someone was your sworn enemy?

She closed the book, unable to bear the sight of her own written confession. This had been the worst Christmas holiday she'd ever had, and her mother's new boyfriend just capped it. Well — not actually the worst. That had been reserved for the Christmas three long years ago — the one spent still recuperating from the biggest loss of her life. Recuperating but never recovering.

Darrell lay back on her bed and willed herself not to remember the events of that time, but it was useless. Memories flooded through her, and she could taste bitter tears at the back of her throat. She rubbed her leg, tired from taking the steps so quickly, and rolled over to look out the low window. The elderly oak standing guard over her bedroom was bare of leaves now, the snow that had fallen on Boxing Day still clinging to its branches. Snow was uncommon in a Vancouver
December, but this year had been cold, and the snow had fallen and stayed and fallen again. A few traces remained, mostly in frozen lumps under bushes.

That year had been snowy, too. It had fallen on Christmas Day, but she hadn't seen it. The medication she had been given had done its job after doctors removed forever the troublesome joint that had once been her right ankle. But nothing could block out the pain of the loss of her father — and so she slept most of that Christmas, away from snow and presents and anything that brought the memory of his smile to her heart.

The front door slammed again, and another blast of cold air swirled up the stairs to announce the arrival of Uncle Frank. Darrell sat up on her bed and hurriedly yanked off her prosthesis. Sure enough, within minutes she could hear pounding feet on the stairs. Her door shot open and the cheerful, heavily moustached face of her uncle peered inside.

“Don't you ever knock? What if I'd been getting dressed?”

He chuckled. “Hey, the number of times I looked at your bare bum when I changed your diapers makes me think I wouldn't be seeing anything new.”

Darrell raised her eyebrow skeptically. “Uh, I
am
fourteen, you know, Uncle Frank.”

“I know. And I'm supposed to treat you like an adult now, right? All the more reason for you to be downstairs
being nice to your mom's friend.” He wagged an admonishing finger. “Your mom's really nervous about this, you know. She wants you to like this guy. So what are you doing up here?”

Darrell glanced away uneasily and touched her prosthesis. “It's — uh — it's only that my new leg is bugging me for some reason. I need to adjust it or something.”

“Really?” Frank shot a sideways glance at his niece and reached down for the prosthesis. “Okay, let's have a look.”

Darrell pointedly gazed out the window into the dark night as Frank examined the leg in his calloused hands. “Very cool machine you've got here, Darrell. What's this one do?”

She shrugged. “It's pretty much the same as my old one. Just bigger, because I've grown again, and this one is better for running. It's made of titanium so it's lighter and supposed to have really good cushioning. Still hurts a bit when I run up the stairs, though.”

Frank sat down on the bed beside Darrell and gently placed the leg in her hands.

“I think you just need some time to get used to it. And maybe you gotta quit taking the stairs three at a time.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Baby girl, I hate that you have to wear that thing with all my heart,” he said softly. “But sometimes I think you forget how
lucky you are to have so many people working to help you to walk and run and swim.”

He stared at her for a long, quiet moment.

“And ski,” Darrell added ruefully, at last. She rubbed a crease in her forehead and met her uncle's eyes. “I have a special leg for skiing, too.”

Frank reached an arm around her. “That's my girl,” he said. “I knew you couldn't stay mad at me for long.”

He slipped a book onto Darrell's lap. “Look. I brought you something for your birthday.”

Darrell took the book but didn't glance at it. “You know I'm not mad at you, Uncle Frank. I just can't believe Mom is bringing this guy over to our house. I mean, it's stupid to have a boyfriend when you're her age. And what does she need anyone else for, anyway? She's got me to keep her company.”

Frank laughed. “Well, don't forget, this guy's got to pass muster with me, too. If I think he's a jerk, it's out the door on his butt, okay?” He got to his feet.

Darrell managed a little smile. “Okay.”

“You need help to get that thing on?”

She shook her head. “No. I can manage. Thanks for the book, Uncle Frank. I'll be down in a minute.”

As the door closed behind her uncle, the prosthesis shifted in her hand and knocked his book to the floor. Darrell slowly slipped on her new leg and tugged her
jeans back into place before reaching down to pick up the paperback.

A hooded figure dominated the vermilion cover, one hand raised as if in plea or supplication. “W. Goldman,” she read aloud. “
Escape from Spain
.” Ignoring the burning ache that settled into her leg as she stood up, Darrell clutched the book like a life raft and headed for the stairs.

Darrell lay disconsolately on the couch, fiddling with a piece of tinsel that had wrapped itself around her ankle earlier in the day. She was heading back to school this afternoon. Eagle Glen Alternative School. The best school she'd ever known — and the strangest. But all the things that made it special brought back terrible memories of her last days and the loss of Conrad. And life at home was no better.

Dinner last night had been a disaster. But when she'd dragged herself downstairs this morning, her mother had acted like nothing had happened. Darrell had ended up helping take down the tree, and the effort had sapped all her remaining energy. She collapsed on the couch, overcome by the lethargy that had dogged her the entire holiday season. Delaney dozed in a tight ball on the rug near the couch, snoring gently and making her feel sleepier than ever. Her new book sat on the table beside the couch, unread. It seemed too much like work to open the cover.

“Darrell!” Dr. Connor's disembodied voice floated down the stairs. “Time to get changed, okay? We've got to start for school in less than an hour.”

School.

Darrell wrapped the tinsel around her finger and reached for the television remote. “I've set out my clothes, Mom!” she called. “I'll be up in a few minutes — just want to finish my show.”

She flipped on the television. A news station showed footage of casualties in the latest skirmish in the Middle East. Darrell stared at the screen but couldn't determine where the mangled bodies were from. Were they rebels? Terrorists? Civilians? And how could anyone tell the difference? The flat snap of gunfire from somewhere behind the reporter onscreen startled Delaney awake, and he looked around blearily before settling down to sleep again.

Darrell gave up trying to figure out who was killing whom and changed channels. She stared at the flickering images through half-closed eyes. Scenes of war shifted into an arsenal of advertising. Ads for cars. Ads for diapers. Ads for beer. Darrell flicked through all the channels. Plenty of ads and not much else to see on Sunday morning television when a person's mother won't pay for cable.

The remote slid out of her hands as Darrell stared dully at the screen. The picture settled on a group of
women in matching choral robes swaying stiffly from side to side.

“Probably an ad for some church,” she muttered. Still, it saved her from thinking about her mother or school.

The music ended, and a man with a high blonde pompadour stepped onto the screen. He embraced each of the robed women in turn.

Darrell strained to reach the remote, but it lay on the floor just beyond her fingertips. The effort of stretching out her arm was too much, and she slumped deeper into the couch. The blonde man twirled to face the camera, his widely spaced eyes exuding sincerity. His voice flowed like hot caramel. “Do you believe?”

Darrell closed her eyes. This was almost enough to send her upstairs to get changed. Almost. But every time her thoughts turned to Eagle Glen, the same feeling of exhaustion descended, slowing her movements and dulling her thoughts.

“Do you
really
believe?”

Yeah
, Darrell thought bitterly.
Yeah, I believe. I believe that everything I used to believe is wrong — that time and space are not what I thought they were and that bad things can happen to good people and that good things can happen to bad people and that it's all an exercise in the random behaviour of the universe.