The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (16 page)

At Nicole’s we play video games and eat kimchi, Nicole and Genevieve ultra-animated to distract me from my problems at home. When my cell rings I tell them to play on as I check who’s calling. Hmm, big brother Morgan, who no doubt received a panicked call from my parents last night along with half of the Western world.

“Hey, Morgan,” I say. “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain. My English teacher quoted him last year when she came back in October after being off with West Nile virus for two weeks.

Morgan laughs. “Yeah, I can hear that. I hope Mom and Dad weren’t too hard on you. I tried to calm them down when they called looking for you but you know how they can be.”

“Did you talk to them this morning?” I ask.

“Yeah, they said you showed sometime after one. Let me guess, was it a guy?”

I glance at Nicole and Genevieve absorbed in their game of zombie carnage. Blood and guts are spurting everywhere, intestines and eyeballs crowding the screen.

“Yeah,” I admit. Since my parents know, I can’t see what harm there is in Morgan knowing too. It’s crucial that I keep all my secrets and lies straight; one less lie to remember can only be a good thing.

“Knew it,” Morgan says, a smile in his voice. “Hope he was worth the trouble.”

I think so, but that’s not something I plan to go into right now. “Did Mom tell you what she did?”

“What she did?” Morgan repeats. “No, what’d she do?”

Genevieve turns and catches my eye. I can tell she overheard and is shooting some sympathy my way, even as she wastes lurching zombies.

“Ask her,” I say. “I don’t want to go into it now. But ask her. Make her tell you.”

“Jesus, Serena, don’t make me call her back. What happened?”

“I gotta go,” I tell him. My mouth is dry as I hang up. I don’t want to go back home to my parents at the end of the weekend. It doesn’t matter that my mother apologized; it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Nicole’s land line rings, breaking my train of thought. She pauses the zombie fest and goes to answer it.

“You can sleep over at my house tomorrow night if you’re not ready to go back home yet,” Genevieve offers, as though she can read my mind. “Thanks. I might.”

Nicole’s voice has cranked up, loud enough that Genevieve and I both turn to look at her. “She’s here with me right now,” Nicole says. “And that’s not where she was last night so Orlando is just spreading his regular bullshit.”

Nicole pauses to listen for a second. “I know you’re only repeating what you heard. I’m just saying I know for a fact that’s wrong.

“No, I can’t tell you that either because it’s personal,” she adds.
“Just trust me on this.”

Genevieve and I exchange puzzled glances and continue to listen in. Nicole’s rolling her eyes for our benefit so it’s obvious she doesn’t mind us eavesdropping.

“That was Renata,” Nicole announces after she hangs up. “Get this, the latest is that Orlando says he saw you in some guy’s car on Spruceland Avenue last night.”

“The cab driver?” Genevieve guesses.

“I said that too. But Renata says Orlando never said anything about a cab.” Nicole looks at me. “He said you were in this guy’s front seat next to him and that while he was driving you put your head down in his lap and started getting friendly with it. Would you believe that dickhead told her he was getting ready to take out his cell and start recording? Supposedly, the light changed and you sped off, which is a pretty convenient explanation for why he has no proof.”

Shit
. Why did Orlando, of all people, have to spot us and go mixing the truth with his jerk-off lies. Gage and I were on Spruceland last night, when he was driving me back home, but
nothing
happened. Who would believe that, though? If I admit to being in a car with a guy lots of people will automatically think the rest of what Orlando said is true too. The funny thing is that even the part that’s a lie is sort of true, only it didn’t happen last night.

“You know what people would see if we followed Orlando around and taped him?” Genevieve says sourly. “Orlando jerking off alone in his car while he films other people getting off. That’s the extent of his sex life. He should buy himself a wrist brace before he develops carpal tunnel.”

I haven’t said anything yet, and Genevieve and Nicole stare at me, waiting for me to freak out about this latest piece of bullshit. I look down at my hands, wondering why I can’t figure out what I’m doing and who I’m being without everyone else having something to say about it.

“We won’t let him get away with it,” Nicole says. “Monday morning we’re going to tear him to pieces. I bet your mom called Jacob and that when Orlando heard you were
MIA
he decided to run with the story.”

Genevieve nods. “Don’t let him get to you. No one’s going to believe it anyway.”

Some people will believe it all right. They’ll want more details, so Orlando will have to make more crap up. I wince as I imagine the nasty things he’ll say.

“And even if it
was
true — so what?” Nicole says. “It’s none of his business.”

“Exactly,” I mutter. “I’m so sick of all this. It’s nobody’s business but mine what I do.”

“We’ll make a big joke of him on Monday, like Nicole says, and then everyone will forget about it,” Genevieve advises. “There’s no video. He’s just being an ass, trying to see what he can get away with.”

I chew my lip and think about Jacob. I know he’s hooked up with at least two girls since me, but one of his friends spots me riding around in a car with someone and it instantly mutates into gossip porn. I’m ready to spill hot chocolate over someone’s head again. If Orlando’s alone the next time he sees me he better watch out.

Genevieve, Nicole, and I go back to killing zombies, massacring with noticeably extra gusto. Limbs go flying. Innards ooze. Brains gush blood. If I could fix everything that’s wrong with my life by wasting virtual zombies, I’d be looking at outright perfection by dinnertime.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

~

SUNDAY NIGHT I COME
home for extra clothes and my dad stops me in the hallway and tells me he wants me to stay home tonight. I think he’s missing the point, which is that I’m currently rejecting his and Mom’s authority. I say I’ll be back Monday after school, grab a set of fresh everything, and jump into Genevieve’s car for the second time in two days. On the way to her house Morgan calls, having heard the extended version of my altercation with my parents, and tells me Mom was wrong and feels awful about what happened. I explain that I’m taking a temporary vacation from my folks and don’t really want to talk about it anymore.

Genevieve’s mom has made up their spare bedroom for me. It smells like coconut, but I can’t tell where the scent’s coming from. The shapely vase sitting on the windowsill is filled with fake pink and orange flowers but there’s no sign of an air freshener. Three paintings of various floral scenes hang on the pale yellow walls. They’re the kind of decorative decision that wouldn’t offend anyone, and overall the Richardsons’ spare room reminds me of the hotel suite I shared with my parents when we went to the Bahamas on vacation three and a half years ago.

I mean that in the best possible way — hotel rooms are an escape from real life, and in Genevieve’s spare room I feel cocooned, hidden away from anxiety and negativity. The duvet cover and matching pillowcases are a tranquil lavender and at the end of the night I lie between crisp sheets, inhaling deeply, listening to the affluent silence that echoes through the Richardsons’ corner lot and texting Gage. Twenty minutes later, when the surrounding purple and sweetness have almost sent to me to dreamland, my cell rings.

I reach for it with my eyes closed and mumble into the phone.

“Did I wake you up again?” Gage asks.

“It’s okay.” I yawn. “It’s just, this room is so much calmer than my house. I could probably lie here for fifteen hours if I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow.”

“So it sounds like your parents were pretty pissed off with you,” Gage says. “I can’t help feeling like it’s kinda my fault.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.” I roll over on my side, still holding my cell to my ear. “Don’t worry about it, they’ll get over it.” I’ve decided not to tell him exactly what happened with my mother. There’s so much serious stuff surrounding the two of us already — what we need is more mac and cheese fun and lying on his couch time. “Anyway, it was worth it.” If I was wide awake I might be afraid to say that to him but in my semi-blissful, surrounded by purple state it seems like the right thing.

Gage misses a beat in the conversation. Then his voice softens and he says, “I had a good time too. Hope we can do it again sometime soon.”

It’s exactly what I was wishing he’d say and I murmur, “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“How about Thursday then? Do you think your folks will ground you?”

I think after what my mother did they’d be afraid to, paranoid that I’d disappear like a certain other member of my family. “That only matters if I plan on listening to them,” I tell him.

“Don’t say that. I don’t want you getting into more trouble with them because of me. If you’re grounded, we can wait.”

I don’t want to wait, but I’m already feeling more conscious and less likely to say anything that’s the basic equivalent of
I like you a lot
. The last time I felt all excited about a guy he wanted me to suck face with Aya. I don’t think Gage is like that, but if I keep thinking the best of him it’ll be harder if he lets me down.

“Hey?” Gage says. “You still awake, Serena?”

I love the way my name sounds coming out of his mouth. It makes me picture myself as a better me.

“I’m here. I think Thursday should be all right. I’ll call you if it isn’t, okay?”

“Sounds good,” Gage says. “Go back to sleep. Night, Serena.”

I say good night back, hang up, and smile into my pillow.

***

The first person I see at school the next day is Jon Wheatley, and he acts like he hasn’t heard any nasty rumours about me, so maybe Orlando’s lies haven’t spread as far as I’ve imagined. Then I get to history class and Bryant Torres, the sophomore basketball team’s power forward, smirks at me as I pass his desk.

“Heard you had a good weekend,” he says. “Spit or swallow?”

My jaw drops. The guys sitting closest to him laugh loudly while the girls look various shades of uncomfortable as I slide into my seat.

“He’s been working on that gem all weekend,” someone says sarcastically from behind me. I turn and glance at Dina Manzoor, who is destined to be a permanent resident at the top of the Laurier honour roll.

I nod at Dina to thank her. Then I stare at Bryant Torres’s back like he and his buddies are so far beneath me that I might even pity them a little and say, “You left out
bite
, which I’m guessing is what usually happens to you.”

Bryant smirks, but the other guys laugh out loud. “Does that trigger some bad memories, Torres?” one of them asks.

Izzy zips into the midst of the laughter and glues her gaze to mine. I’ve already spoken to her so she knows the rumour’s a lie. “What’s going on?” she asks, stopping at my desk.

“Rumours and lies courtesy of Orlando,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone.

“And Bryant’s penile repair surgery,” Dina chimes in. Dina and I don’t usually talk that much but now I see that she’s her own kind of cool, which doesn’t have much to do with how a lot of other people define the word but is probably a good fit with a more highly evolved, non-savage-inspired definition.

“And Bryant’s penile repair surgery,” I concur. “Which, as you can guess, he doesn’t really want to talk about in much depth.”

“Nice deflection,” Bryant quips, then eyes his buddies. “But notice she never answered the original question.”

“Notice how Bryant’s trying to bury the topic of his penis surgery. Uh-oh.” I fake concern. “Guess it didn’t go so well. Next time watch out for that third option, Bry. Teeth can do a lot of damage.”

Bryant doesn’t have any time to regain the upper hand. Mrs. Vinicky plunks herself into her chair and takes attendance. The rest of the day goes better than I expected. Lots of people either don’t believe Orlando’s story or don’t care whether it’s true or not. I pass him in the hall with Jacob before last period, Nicole at my side. The four of us glare at each other until Jacob, in a level voice, says, “I never knew you were such a ho.”

“Your friend’s a liar and you know it,” Nicole snaps. “Good luck with anybody getting with either of you now. The way you keep trashing girls no one will go near you.”

Orlando focuses on Nicole, his eyes self-righteous and cocky. “It’s not trash if it’s the truth. Face it, your friend’s a ho. That’s not our problem.”

“So you’ve got your version and we have
the truth
,” I say, contempt oozing out of my mouth as I continue. “Why don’t you guys just get a life already?” I pull Nicole away with me before the conversation can degenerate further. I still want to kill Orlando, but if he starts giving details about Gage and his car, I’m dead too. My friends could easily start putting two and two together.

“Why’d you do that?” Nicole asks once we’re a safe distance from Jacob and Orlando. “We should’ve lain into him about his creepy mention of videotaping — asked if he was stalking you now or what the fu—”

“I could just see it wouldn’t go anywhere,” I interrupt. “I didn’t want us all screaming at each other in the middle of the hall while everyone listens in. Besides, I just …” I clasp my hands together and fold them under my sweatshirt, skin against skin. “I’m just tired, you know? Orlando’s a piece of shit and I want to break all his fingers but what’s the point? It’s not like he’s going to admit it’s a lie. We’re better off spreading that news around ourselves.”

Nicole’s hands scrunch into two fists. She glances at the ceiling, her face heavy with frustration. “It just doesn’t seem fair. We should be able to make him take it back if it’s not true.”

“Life isn’t fair.” That’s something I’ve heard my father say countless times over the years but not, now that I think of it, since Devin left.

Nicole and I are going in different directions, and I thank her for backing me up before we split up at the library. I have to write half a page on who I relate to most for civics tomorrow: Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, or Terry Fox. That will mean Internet research later, and thinking about research makes my mind land on Gage, who knows about good libraries. I’m already looking forward to seeing him again on Thursday.

I’m not, on the other hand, looking forward to being back at home, awash in chronic toxicity. I leave my iPod and speakers on in my bedroom so my parents will know I’m back, but pray that they’ll leave me alone. Of course, that’s not what happens. My mother raps at my door at 5:40 and then sticks her head in.

I’m sitting at my computer, in the middle of typing up my paper on Terry Fox. He was only twenty-two when he died, which makes him easier to relate to than Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa. We watched a movie about Terry in grade school. He lost his leg to cancer and then ran across the country to raise money for research. I don’t think I could ever be that brave. If I really think about it, it makes me want to cry for this guy who has been dead for almost thirty years.

Seeing my mother’s face at the door makes me want to cry too, but for entirely different reasons.

“You’re back,” she says, her hands hanging limply at her sides as she steps inside my room. She used to rub cream on her hands to fade the age spots but you can still see them.

“Please stop with the silent treatment,” she says as she stares back at me with big eyes. “I’m so sorry about Friday. Whatever you may think, I do worry about you.”

“Mom —” I try to stop her.

“Maybe you could come see Doctor Berkovich with me next time. We could talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to Doctor Berkovich. You’re the one who did something wrong here, not me.”

“You were out till all hours on Friday, Serena.” The pitch of Mom’s voice rises. “We had no idea where you were. None of your friends knew where you were.”

“One time, that happened. One single time. I’m going to do things you don’t approve of now and then.” My own voice is nearly a shriek. “Are you going to have some crazy new reaction every time? Because I can’t deal with that on top of everything else.”

Mom presses two fingers against her forehead. “Serena, please. Calm down.”

“How can I be calm, never knowing when you’re going to go off on me?”

“That’s never going to happen again.” Mom grits her teeth and stares past me. “Your father’s going to deal with you in those situations from now on. Obviously I just can’t … handle the stress.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be pissed off with my mother for not being able to deal with Devin’s disappearance, but the truth is I’m so tired of it. Why does she get to be fragile when I still have to pull myself together?

“Mom.” I start out tentative because even with everything I’ve just said, I don’t want to be the one to kick another dent into what’s left of her armour. “Can we just have some dinner? I don’t want to talk about stress or Doctor Berkovich or Devin. Can’t we just …”

Mom nods readily. She doesn’t do much homemade cooking anymore but that’s obviously something she can handle, when she has to. “What would you like? I have the ingredients for that tuna and leek casserole you like.”

“That’d be great. Thanks.”

Mom stands in my room, nodding. I hate her, desperately want her to get a grip, and would do almost anything to avoid making her cry, all at the same time. Feelings should be more cut and dried than that.

Mom goes off to make dinner, and when my dad gets home we sit down to eat together and pretend we’re a regular family. Dad doesn’t talk about Friday night or make any reference to my absence; he just asks how school was. I humour him and talk about Terry Fox. My father reminds me that I have a special edition dollar coin with Terry’s image on it.

After dinner I search out the coin, among the various other collector coins my grandmother and grandfather send me for every birthday. I should have a special case for them but instead they’re lumped up inside a pine photo box. Terry’s dollar coin is near the top, like he knew I’d be looking for it soon and placed it there himself. He’s immortalized in mid-stride, golden with fir trees behind him. I slide the coin into one of my wallet side pockets, without knowing why I’m doing it.

By Wednesday no one at school’s even mentioning the rumour about me anymore. Mom takes one more shot at trying to convince me to visit Doctor Berkovich with her and then goes back to her normal cloistering-herself-in-the-den routine. I’m not grounded, as far as I know, which is pretty much what I say to Gage when he calls on Wednesday night.

“Do they know we’re going out tomorrow?” Gage asks.

“I haven’t exactly mentioned that yet. I thought I’d wait until the last minute. Give them less chance to get upset.”

“The last minute might make them more upset,” Gage points out. “Promise me you’ll tell them tonight. It’s so much easier hanging out if we don’t have them against us.”

I sigh into the phone. “Okay, you’re right.” As soon as we’ve said goodbye I march downstairs to talk to my father, the one who’s been officially appointed to deal with me in these matters. He’s sitting in the living room, his feet up on the coffee table, reading a history book that has John F. Kennedy and some other guy on the cover.