Something Wicked (15 page)

“Well … it’s not like I don’t talk from experience.”

She doesn’t say anything back. Probably ’cause she knows I’ve got a lot on her, and that there’s no way she could win this argument. She starts to tidy up the kitchen a bit and then
finishes a half-eaten orange that’s been lying on the counter since yesterday.

“Anyway …” I let her off the hook. “I like him.”

My mom steps into the kitchen doorway, wipes her mouth with a napkin, and smiles. It was a rare confession of approval on my part. “You do?”

I smile. Suddenly the mood is lighter. I like that about me and my mom: we can say shit to each other one minute, then be nice the next. “Yeah. So like I said, don’t screw it up.”

She walks past me and tosses her crumpled napkin at my head. “Shut up,” she says playfully, and continues on to her room.

Twenty-Nine

He’s never going to call.

I can’t eat.

I’m always on the verge of tears.

He never said it for certain. Michael never came out and said, “We’re finished.”

Is it because he didn’t want to completely leave me?

I’m beginning to think that limbo is worse than heaven or hell.

The in-between.

I’m somewhere in between being in love and having my heart destroyed. I’m trapped in a waiting room, not permitted to feel bliss or misery. It’s like knowing you won the lottery but not having the ticket in your hand. Or being given a death sentence by a doctor but forgetting to ask just how long you have left.

I lie on my bed and smoke joint after joint after joint. My mom is in the living room, but she doesn’t mind me smoking ganja anymore, as long as I do it at home where she knows I’m safe. My mind drifts, soars, wafts, and squeezes through dark, pulsing tunnels, until I find myself in my no man’s land,
where every day I pace the muddied grass like a prisoner, back and forth. Caging me in are two rusty wire fences on either side. There are no trees. The sky is grey. It’s chilly but not uncomfortable.

I stand still for a while, in the middle, waiting. I hear birds.

Then I walk over to one of the side fences. This is the side where Michael loves me still. When I’m here, I feel our love so strongly. I feel like I know what he’s doing. He’s giving us time, because if he stayed with me, we wouldn’t last. He’s waiting for me to grow up, and then he’ll come back for me.

Next I wander over to the other side, where the grass is less worn. This is the side where misery lives. I can feel Michael’s ghost here. He’s gone. Beyond this fence is winter: hard, icy, windswept snow that blends into an indistinguishable white sky. I can bear it only for a few seconds before I panic, my chest constricts, and I can’t breathe. I feel I’ll collapse. I’d rather kill myself than disappear into that hopelessness.

Fuck you, Michael.

I need to know if I should wait for you or if you broke up with me.

I need an answer.

Now.

Thirty

The thought isn’t in my mind when I enter Dr. Williams’s office. At least, I don’t think it is. But while I’m here looking for some gauze, the file cabinet catches my eye. I know from being in the office before that our employee records are kept in there. I had to fill out an employee information sheet when I was hired. On the sheet, I had to write down emergency contact information. It occurs to me that if Michael wrote down his parents’ number, I could call them to get his new number and put an end to this waiting game.

The cabinet is locked, but a guy from school once showed me how to pick them, so I get a sharp knife from the kitchen and start jamming it in. It works.

Michael’s file is near the front. I simply write his mom Mavis Butler’s phone number down on a sticky note. But then I see the other stuff: his address, his resumé, his allergies. I want it all. Just to have it. So I take all the papers, fold them up, and put the whole bunch in my pocket. He isn’t there anymore, so no one would be looking for any of it.

Everything is good until I try to lock the file cabinet back up and it won’t go. A rush of panic spreads over me. I try to
ram and jam the drawer in, wiggle and push the lock, but it still doesn’t catch. I go back to the hallway to see if anyone is around, and then I give the drawer a few hard kicks.

“Hey!” A voice startles me. “What are you doing?” Rachel asks, appearing in the doorway.

I am relieved it’s only her. “Here, help me. The lock is jammed.”

She walks in, taking note of the knife on top of the cabinet. “What did you do, break it open?” She moves in, pushes my hand away, and tries to jimmy the lock.

“I already did that.”

She starts ramming the drawer the way I was when she walked in.

I push her out of the way. Useless girl. I should never have asked her in the first place. “Shut up! Move!” I command, getting mad at myself for thinking she’d be any better at this than me.

“What were you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You jam a knife in a lock and it’s nothing? What are you stealing?”

“Fuck!” I remark, frustrated with the drawer. “Nothing that concerns you.”

She tries to help me again, but in the end we have to give up because it’s too risky with staff around.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I warn her. It comes out as a threat.

“Obviously,” Rachel snaps back.

We head back downstairs.

“What did you take?” she asks, following close behind me. “The petty cash?”

“No. A piece of paper.”

“Paper? What kind of paper? Why would you steal a piece of paper?”

I want to tell her about Michael. If she knew I only wanted a telephone number, I wouldn’t look like such a criminal. But I’ve been a little wary of Rachel lately. In fact, I’ve been suspicious of a lot of people at work. I know people can tell I smoke weed sometimes on my breaks. I can tell by the whispers. And they’re not talking to me so much anymore. Even one of the veterinarians hinted I should get some perfume when I walked by her after smoking a blunt on a break.

“Just forget it. And don’t tell anyone,” I warn her.

Thirty-One

I sit on my bed and look at the script I’ve written out. I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous.

I cut class this morning so I could call Michael’s mom from my room. My idea is to tell her I’m calling from the clinic. I’ll say Accounting realized they owe him one more cheque and they have some questions to ask him before they process it. Then I’ll get his number.

A woman answers the phone. “Hello?” It’s strange to hear her voice. She sounds old. I imagine this anorexic lady with long brownish hair framing Michael’s face.

I try to make my voice professional.“Yes. Hello. This is Becky Jarvis? I’m calling from Willow Animal Clinic, where Michael was employed? Accounting has noticed that they might owe him one more cheque? We are wondering if you could give us his number, so we could ask him some questions?”

“Oh,” she says, pausing a moment. “Well. Michael isn’t in town. He’s away for a bit. I don’t really have a number for him. But if I take your number, I can have him call you.”

“Where is he?” I blurt out.

“He’s in Chicago.”

“Why is he there?” I ask.

“Pardon me?”

“I mean, he left so quickly. No one expected it …”

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

Breathe.
“Becky. From Accounting.”

Her tone changes. “Becky. Let me take your number and he’ll call you.”

“Forget it,” I say abruptly, and hang up.

Thoughts race through my mind. I was hoping he was in a coma somewhere. Or locked up in a mental institution. In jail, or maybe even dead. But Chicago is just a phone call away. Chicago is so close.

A thought occurs to me. They call it an
epiphany
, “a sudden intuitive leap of understanding.” And just like the definition says, my epiphany truly
is
sudden. It’s stark and sharp and takes my breath away. It
is
a leap, a plunge into a black reality ending with a skull-breaking smack against hard concrete when I land.

He’s not coming back to me.

I sit on the floor, my back against the bed, cradle the phone in my lap, and curl over to bury my head in my arms. I feel my face contort and pull and squeeze. I don’t know what I’m doing, something between a scream and a cry. My mouth is open, there are tears, but it’s silent. And then … a huge gasp of air and I let it all go. It seems impossible to shed so much water from a seemingly dry body.

I feel like I’ve broken more than my heart. A rib? A lung? A muscle in my jaw? A tear duct?

I’m more sad than I was the day I found out Michael left me. Because that day there was uncertainty. And that meant there was hope. A possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpretation or misinformation.

But now there is a clear answer.

After some time, I get up off my bedroom floor and wander aimlessly around the room. I don’t know what to do. I walk over to my bed, then turn and walk over to my desk, then turn and walk over to my closet and then over to the window. I’m in a daze. My face feels numb and puffy.

Even though it’s a crappy, grey, cold day, I decide to go outside for a walk. I just need to move, feel the cold on my face. I end up wandering down behind our building to sit by the play park and smoke a cigarette. I wish I had some weed.

It’s an ugly time of year. The grass is brown. The trees are nearly all bare. There’s practically no colour anywhere. Some young boys are standing at the top of the plastic cylinder slides taking turns pissing down the orange tubes. An old Indian lady, all gracious and sparkling in her sari that swells from underneath a thick ski jacket, sits on another bench with what I guess is her grandchild. There’s pumping, vibrating music pulsing from a black car in the corner of the parking lot, windows tinted, motor running.

And then there’s me, sitting in the middle of this scene, feeling scattered and so very small. I bring my feet up to rest on the bench and hold my knees tight.