The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (11 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

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IN CIVICS CLASS THE
next day Nicole wants to know if we’re hanging out after school. She keeps talking about ordering pizza at her place later and pondering various topping configurations, never mind that we just had lunch last period. Almost all of Nicole’s pizza ideas include pepperoni, but my favourite pizza of all time is Pizza Pizza’s Bacon Chicken Mushroom Melt with Italian sausage added on (my mouth tingles with desire at the thought of the Italian seasoning and mesquite chicken).

“I can come over but I can’t stay for pizza,” I tell her. I have an alibi at the ready and I act extra casual so she won’t suspect I’m lying about tonight. “My parents have a new bed on order. The delivery guys are coming anytime between five and nine and guess who’s stuck waiting for it?” I grimace like this is highly vexing. “I’d ask you to come over instead but my mom’s been in a really bad mood lately — like even more so than usual — and doesn’t want anyone around.”

“She doesn’t want anyone around even when she’s not there?” Nicole says, wriggling her eyebrows.

“We had a fight the other night and I’m not sure what time she’ll be home from her work thing tonight. It could be, like, seven or it could be nine-thirty.” Nicole’s mouth sags in sympathy for me. “But I can hang out at your place for an hour or so,” I add brightly. “Is Genevieve coming?”

Sure enough the three of us lounge around Nicole’s living room after school. Hiding my plans from the two of them gives me a tickly sensation at the back of my throat, like maybe I’ll cough up a furball. I still haven’t mentioned my Queen Street drama either, and it’s not that I don’t want to confide in them — because I do, I want to relive the entire incident and get their opinions on it so badly that I feel like a fake talking about anything else — but it’s easier to keep the news from my mother when no one on the planet aside from Morgan has a clue what I suspect.

We officially agreed over the phone last night, Morgan and I. It’s better not to upset my parents unless we have “further evidence.”

“Did you tell Jimmy?” I asked him.

“Of course,” Morgan replied as though I should’ve taken that as a given. “But he’ll keep it quiet too.”

So there are multiple things I’m keeping quiet lately — one of them Morgan knows, another would make my friends scowl, and the third is my obsession with weight, which is something I don’t like to talk about, although I never stop thinking about it. Maybe it wouldn’t sound like a big deal to naturally thin people, but I wish that I hadn’t finished off half my gourmet fries at the restaurant the other night because I have yet to drop the extra pound I picked up there. A pound is nothing, I know. But I swear I feel heavier, which is the last thing I want to feel when I’m about to go on a date. And why did Nicole have to go and mention pizza?

I need to fill up on water more from now on. That’s what I’ll do tonight; chomp on iceberg lettuce and guzzle calorie-free fluids. Being thin is almost as bad as being fat if you have to spend all your time
thinking
about food rather than eating it. And not only thinking about food but pretending to yourself that you’re
not
thinking about food. It’s so exhausting that it makes me want to break down and order Bacon Chicken Mushroom Melt pizza with Italian sausage.

I remind myself that I’m stronger than that and think about how much better I look in my jeans when I’m not filling up on things like pizza and fries. After about an hour at Nicole’s place, she and Genevieve drop me off at home, completely buying into my alibi. “You know you should’ve gotten your folks to buy you a new bed too,” Nicole says as we pull into my empty driveway. “You’re too old for a twin.”

“I have a twin,” Genevieve reminds her with a pointed expression. “If there’s no one sleeping next to you there’s plenty of room.”

I laugh in agreement to cover my guilt at lying to them. “So
exactly what are you getting up to in your double that we don’t know about, Nicole?”

“I don’t have any secrets,” Nicole reminds me, smiling ironically. “Whatever I’ve gotten up to in the past, everyone knows about. I’m like a teenage cautionary tale.”

Genevieve flicks her hair back over her shoulder with a toss of her head. “If you were a cautionary tale you’d be pregnant or have gonorrhea — we’re not cautionary tales, any of us; we’re just new and improved versions of ourselves. We got smart, unlike a lot of people we go to school with.”

Nicole and I nod at this. I desperately want to be a new, improved version of myself but the new me and the old me are trapped inside the same body. Genevieve honks as she and Nicole pull away from my house in her Honda. Thankfully today’s not one of Mom’s “sick” days so I don’t have to explain what she’s doing home when she’s supposed to be conducting unspecified late business, serving as my cover story.

Inside my bedroom, I slide open the closet and stare longingly at my silk floral-print wrap dress but reach for a dark denim skirt instead. I pull grey ribbed tights on under it and tug my arms into a matching tight grey sweater. Jacob always said I had great breasts. Well, most of the time he used other words instead but that wasn’t one of the things I minded about him.

Stop thinking about Jacob, I lecture. I don’t want my mind hanging on him as some kind of bad example to avoid. Better to start fresh, with the sky as the limit.

Dad has a container of deli-bought ravioli with him when he arrives home but Mom has already started on a homemade rice and vegetable medley. “I’ll grab dinner while I’m out,” I tell them. “I’m going to a movie with a friend.”

Dad’s head swivels on his shoulders. “A friend?” he repeats. “Do you already have Jacob’s replacement lined up?”

I pin a smile onto my face, the mention of Jacob turning my stomach sour. “I’m not looking for any replacements. This is just a friend, a work friend.”

“A friend with a male name,” Mom surmises, dragging a wooden spoon through her rice and veggies.

A friend with a male name and male appendages, but I know Mom will only be interested in this revelation for a few more minutes. If I spilled the news about my possible Devin sighting any questions about what I’m doing tonight would instantly evaporate. I’d go back to being supporting cast for Devin, even in his absence.

“His name’s Gage,” I confirm, still smiling. “You’ve heard that men and women can be friends, right? I think that was legally decided in the 70s.”

My parents would probably let me leave with Gage even if I admitted that he doesn’t work at Total and that we’re about to go on an actual date together but I don’t want to watch my mother and father cobble together some manufactured additional concern when I know that their true priority is their missing second son.

As it is, my parents take my word for it and don’t insist on coming to the door when Gage rings the bell at a quarter after seven. He stands on my doorstep in black cargo pants and the same light leather coat he was wearing the day he drove me home from work. “Sorry I’m late,” he says, his face creasing apologetically. “There was something I had to take care of at home.”

“Fifteen minutes isn’t really late,” I tell him, wondering why I’m already making excuses for him.

Gage eyes my body up quickly, like he doesn’t want to be caught doing it. “I’m usually on time,” he continues, his almost dirty blond hair fluttering in the wind.

“You’ll catch cold in that jacket,” I lecture to make up for letting him off the hook about the fifteen minutes. “You’re going to get hypothermia, which will be a much bigger deal than being fifteen minutes late.”

I wait for him to make some joke about sharing my body heat, like Jacob would’ve done. Instead Gage nods like I could be right and that he’s not surprised to have his mistakes pointed out to him. “It’s all bad, isn’t it? Should I drive home and get another coat?”

“Then you’d be later still,” I point out. I love watching Gage’s eyes take me in. They look warm, even as the rest of him is probably about to freeze to death on my doorstep. I smile at him, glad we’re doing this even though I had to lie to my friends about it. Watching him watch me, I feel like someone just lit me up from the inside.

Gage tosses his head back and bites his lip, a grin stealing onto his face. “So it looks like I’m screwed.”

“You really are.” I pause for a few seconds, as though I’m thinking it all over. “Let me get my coat, at least then it will be only one of us with hypothermia.” I beckon him inside and pull my wool coat out of the closet.

Seconds later we sit inside Gage’s car where he says, “I was thinking we could go to Kelsey’s, but whatever you’re in the mood for is fine with me.” He smiles again and reaches quickly into the back seat to pick up a scrap of newspaper. “I ripped out the movie listings. There are a couple of things that might be worth watching. See what you think.” He hands me the paper, shaking his head as I take it. “I don’t know why I’m giving you this now. You can wait and read it at the restaurant. Or maybe you already know what you want to watch.” He winds his left hand around the side of his neck, his smile slipping from his face. “Sorry, I’m not great at this.”

“This?” I repeat.

“First dates.” Gage’s hand massages his neck. “All the getting to know you and
what should we do
small talk.”

If his show of nerves is an act it’s a good one. I’m starting to believe him. “We can pretend we’re just hanging out,” I tell him. “That we’ve known each other for years.”

Gage tilts his head as he stares at me. “If we’ve known each other for years I already know that your last name is …” He stretches out the last word and prompts me with his eyes.

“LeBlanc,” I tell him. I hope he’s telling the truth about not being great at first dates. I don’t want to find out at the end of this that I’ve been played.

“LeBlanc,” he repeats slowly. “And that you’re …”

I’m not sure what he’s looking for here. I stare quizzically back.

“Okay.” Gage laughs. “It’s going to be really hard for me to pretend we’ve hung out before when I don’t know a thing about you besides your name and that you work at Total Drug Mart and believe in ghosts.”

“That’s true. But you’ve got one up on me. I still don’t know your last name.”

“It’s Cochrane.” He turns his key and starts the engine. “Why don’t you tell me where you want to go before we fill each other in on the rest? Otherwise we might never get out of your driveway.”

“Kelsey’s is perfect.” I glance at the torn newspaper page in the dark. “We can look at the movie listings together later.”

Gage waits until I’ve put my seat belt on to back out of the
driveway. “There’s really not all that much to know about me,” he continues. “Right now I’m working at a warehouse, getting some money together. I guess you could say I’m at a point where I’m trying to figure out what to do with myself. I didn’t know what to do when I graduated so …” He shrugs. “I’m hoping it’ll fall into place, but I’m not in a hurry.”

“I don’t know what to do with my life either,” I confess.

“You’ll work it out,” Gage says confidently as he glances at me. “You’ve got time.”

“A few years, I guess.”

Gage’s eyes hang on me longer this time. “How old are you anyway?”

Seeing as I just found out that he’s already graduated, “fifteen” doesn’t seem like it would be a popular answer. Why make things trickier than they have to be? I twirl my hair around my finger and quote him a number that will be true in three months.

“Sixteen?” he repeats, surprise leaking into his voice. “I would’ve guessed seventeen or eighteen. You’re just a baby. You have all the time in the world. What are you, like, in eleventh grade?”

“Eleventh grade,” I echo, fudging the truth imperceptibly. “Yep. How old are you?”

“Nineteen. Eleventh grade seems like …” He exhales loudly. An expression I can’t decipher sweeps across his face. “Like a lifetime ago.”

“Well, it would,” I tease. “You’re ancient. I mean,
nineteen
. Wow. I don’t see how you could even be interested in me with the big gap in our maturity levels and all.”

“You’re a mid-life crisis date,” Gage jokes, his eyes crinkling up, and God, he looks so gorgeous when he smiles that I want to spend the rest of the night saying things that will make him break out in grins.

Over dinner I do my best to make that happen repeatedly. The entrees don’t start at $21.95 but the restaurant’s nice just the same and we have a good time. I order salad and water, like I promised myself, and Gage cuts off a piece of his steak for me and drinks one beer and then 7-Up. He says he only ever has one beer if he’s driving. I also find out that he lives with his mom near the big rec centre on Laird.

“I had swimming lessons there when I was younger,” I tell him. My mom used to love to swim. There was a time, when I was seven or eight, that we’d go to the public swim here together pretty regularly. The pride in her eyes when I showed off my newly learned diving skills courses through my memory, leaving muddy waves in its wake. I must’ve made her watch me three or four times in a row. She beamed at me every single time.

“Me too,” Gage says. “Used to have hockey practice there too. They have everything at that place. There’s even a really good library just next door.”

I’ve never heard any guy my age comment on the quality of a library before. Gage adds that he’s bigger into soccer than hockey these days and that the team he plays for will start up again in the spring. He’s a big Toronto FC supporter, even though “their midfield sucks.” I pretend to be interested and ask him follow-up questions about the team. He’s so enthusiastic that after a while it actually becomes a bit contagious, although I’ve never once watched a professional soccer match. “I can pick up a couple of tickets for us when the season starts,” he offers. “I mean, you know, if you like the idea and if we’re still hanging out.”