Big Guy Read online

I look at my watch. Crap. I’m really late. I nod thanks to Mrs. Buckley and run down the stairs, practically knocking over an old man at the bottom.

  Francine is sitting behind her desk, drinking coffee. She shoots a sharp glance at me. “Mrs. Buckley give you any trouble?”

  I shake my head, deciding not to mention that I didn’t give her a bath.

  Francine taps her watch but doesn’t say anything, just gives me a list of appointments for the day. To my relief, Aaliyah’s name isn’t on it. Just thinking about yesterday makes my cheeks and neck burn. I don’t know what I was thinking, going to talk to her like that.

  Chapter Seven

  After work, I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, thinking. Weird things are getting to me lately. Take Aaliyah, for example. And now old Mrs. Buckley and her photographs. They keep popping into my head for no reason. It’s so strange that someone can be young and have a family and do all those things and then end up all alone, stuck in a lousy little apartment with bossy care workers and a bunch of old pictures. It’s depressing.

  I don’t want that to be me.

  I pick up the phone and call Gabi. She’s my best friend, I guess. We don’t see each other all that often, but we’ve been friends forever and she’s one of the few people I really talk about things with.

  She picks up on the first ring. “Yellow?”

  “That’s so corny, that yellow thing. I wish you’d drop it already.”

  She laughs. “Let me guess. My cheerful and always supportive friend Derek.”

  “Ha ha.” I clear my throat. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “Got a date. Getting together with that barista from Java Joe’s. You know, the tall girl with the black hair? The really, really cute one with the eyebrow ring and the gorgeous smile?”

  “Uh-huh.” Gabi, unlike me, seems to have no difficulty finding dates. Even the straight girls have crushes on her.

  “What’s up, Derek?”

  I try to sound casual. “Nothing major. Just be good to talk to you, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh. Cut the crap and tell me what’s going on.”

  The thing is, I’m having some trouble talking. There seems to be a golf ball lodged in my throat and it hurts to swallow. Get a grip, you freaking idiot.

  “Gabi,” I say. My voice cracks embarrassingly.

  “It’s your dad, isn’t it? Is he drunk? What happened?” Gabi’s voice rises. “Should I come over?”

  “No. He’s fine. Well, you know. The usual. He’s passed out on the couch with the television blaring.” I pause, listening. From the living room, I can hear some reality show host encouraging the contestants to eat cockroaches.

  There’s a long pause.

  “Derek...I can cancel this date if you want.”

  “Nah, don’t do that.”

  “Tomorrow, then.”

  Across my bedroom, the computer screen is black and empty. This is the first time in months that I haven’t checked my messages the second I walked in the door.

  “Okay,” I say. “Tomorrow night. JavaJoe’s? Or will you be too busy flirting with your barista if we go there?”

  I can picture Gabi nodding, grinning.

  “She’s not working tomorrow night,” she says. “See you there.”

  That night, for the first time since I met Ethan, I don’t even turn on my computer. I look at his picture about a hundred times though: that smile, those eyes. Instead of that giddy warm feeling I usually get when I look at him, now I just feel cold and sick.

  I can’t believe I could’ve been so stupid as to think this could ever work.

  Francine greets me with her tight smile the next morning. “You’re seeing Mrs. Buckley first,” she says. “Basic cleaning. She’s been hiding food again.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Then Aaliyah. She needs help getting ready for a lunch date.”

  “A lunch date?”

  “She’s expecting you by 10 am. If you have time in between, we’re still short-staffed in the kitchen.”

  “She doesn’t like male care workers,” I say.

  Francine looks at me oddly. “Well, she asked for you.”

  I’m pretty nervous, to be honest. Something about Aaliyah really gets to me. Plus I made such an ass of myself last time I saw her. I shake my head and try to push the memory aside.

  Mrs. Buckley is happy to see me, anyway. She pats her white curly hair and smiles at me as if she’s invited me round for breakfast. I wish I could just drink tea and let her talk, but instead I tell her that we’re supposed to be cleaning up the hidden food.

  The smile falls away and her face crumples. “Derek. I thought you understood.”

  I shake my head. “Not really.”

  She turns her back and pretends to read a magazine. I clean up in silence, feeling like a traitor.

  At ten o’clock sharp, I knock on Aaliyah’s door.

  “So,” she says.

  I look at my running shoes, which are new and too white. “Francine said you need to get ready for a lunch date.”

  She nods. “I do, but I don’t need much help. Just fixing my hair so it looks decent.”

  You wouldn’t know it from what you see on TV, but being gay actually does not automatically mean a guy is a good hairdresser.

  I gesture to my own shaggy hair. “Hair’s not really one of my skills, you know.”

  Aaliyah laughs. “That’s okay. I just need it brushed and tied back.” She makes a face. “I should just get it cut short. Then I could manage it myself.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “I don’t know why I haven’t done it yet.” She pauses, looks at me and makes a face. “Yes I do. It’s like giving up, you know? Saying I’m not going to get better.”

  “It would grow again,” I say. I’m still really curious about what’s wrong with her, but I know better than to ask.

  Aaliyah laughs again, but this time it sounds like she’s laughing at me. She wheels her chair over to a table and picks up a hair-brush. “Here.”

  I take the brush and move behind her. “Just brush it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So,” I ask casually, “what’s your lunch date?”

  “My ex-fiancé,” she says.

  I’m dying to ask questions but I just keep brushing her hair.

  “Did Francine tell you I asked for you?” she asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She is quiet for a minute. Then she speaks softly. “How old are you?”

  I hesitate. “Seventeen. But Francine thinks I’m twenty.”

  “Francine’s a stupid cow,” she says.

  “That’s harsh.”

  Aaliyah shrugs, pulling her hair away. “Ow.” She twists in the wheelchair to look at me. “She is though. This place sucks.”

  I don’t say anything. It does suck.

  “Anyway,” she says, “I asked for you because I felt bad about what I said last time. You know. About you just wanting to hear that I did something stupid, that it was my fault.”

  I nod and force myself to meet her eyes. “You were right,” I admit. “Anyway, it’s none of my business.”

  “I had an aneurysm,” she says abruptly. “A blood vessel just blew in my head. No warning, no reason. Just—pow. One minute I was planning my wedding and working on a master’s degree. Next thing I knew I was in hospital and couldn’t even go to the bathroom without help.”

  I wince. “Wow. That’s pretty intense.” Wow? Intense? Could I say something more stupid?

  She laughs. “Indeed.”

  “But you’re having lunch with your fiancé,” I blunder on. “I mean, that’s good, right?”

  She turns her head away, signalling me to finish brushing her hair. “He won’t stop calling,” she says. “I finally agreed to meet him one last time. Maybe he needs to hear in person that it’s over.”

  “You ended it?” I blurt out.

  “Yes. You assumed he did, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I say,
trying to backpedal. “I just thought, maybe...”

  “Sure. Maybe no one would want to be with someone like me, right?” Aaliyah spits the words out. “Guess what, Derek? No one would.”

  “But you ended it?”

  She nods and I stop brushing. “I don’t want him sticking around out of pity,” she says. “I don’t need that.”

  I’m silent for a moment. “You’re still the same person, though,” I say. “I mean, he wouldn’t just stop caring about you.”

  Aaliyah wheels herself forward and turns to face me. “I don’t want to be ‘cared about’,” she says.

  I hold up a green hair tie that is twisted around the handle of her hairbrush. “You want this on?”

  She shrugs. “I guess it seems kind of weird, me trying to look good when I’m just ending the relationship anyway.”

  I think about Ethan for a moment.

  “No,” I say. “Not so weird.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sometimes I really wish I could call Mom. Like I said, I don’t blame her for leaving Dad, but I wish she could have found a way to leave him without leaving me too. Or I wish she’d left years ago and taken me with her. I guess she tried once, when I was a kid. We stayed in a women’s shelter. It was okay. There were some other kids and the counselors were nice. We didn’t stay long though. Mom said she wasn’t like the other women there, that Dad wasn’t as bad as all that.

  The weird thing is, it used to seem like she wasn’t very strong—like Dad was twice as big and twice as loud. But since Mom left, he’s kind of shriveled up and faded away.

  And I’m twice as big as him now. He doesn’t scare me anymore. But I think I’ll always hate him for driving Mom away.

  When I get home from work, he’s sitting on the couch as usual, with the TV on. It’s some news show. A gay couple in Vancouver has just won some court case.

  “Look at this crap,” Dad says, gesturing with the remote control. “Gays getting married, wanting this and that. God created Adam and Eve, not—”

  “Adam and Steve,” I say wearily. “I know, Dad.”

  He looks at me suspiciously. “I’m not a bigot, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. “People can do what they want in private. I just don’t see why they have to drag everyone else into their business.”

  If there is one thing I know for sure, it is that trying to reason with my father is a complete and utter waste of time. I try anyway. “Straight people don’t have to keep their lives and marriages and relationships private.”

  He stares at me like I’m the idiot. “Sounds like the kind of bleeding-heart crap your mother always says.”

  “Mom’s gone,” I say. “Remember?” Then I walk past him to my room.

  Ethan’s not online but there’s an e-mail from him in my inbox:

  hey derek. i didn’t hear from you

  yesterday, hope everything is okay.

  my sister is here for a visit and

  now everyone is all obsessed with

  this wedding—all they talk about is

  flowers and cakes and bridesmaids’

  dresses. it’s kind of funny. they think

  i’m excited about it too—and i am,

  only it’s seeing you that i’m excited

  about, not the wedding itself.

  tho actually it is kind of cool, seeing

  my sister all blissed out about this

  guy and planning a life with him.

  made me wonder if I’ll ever do that.

  you think you would? get married, i

  mean? (don’t panic. not a proposal!

  just curious)

  I hit reply and start typing:

  hey ethan.

  Then I freeze up. I want to tell him about what my dad just said about gay marriage, and about Aaliyah and Mrs. Buckley...to tell him about everything, the way I have been for the last few months. But how can I keep talking to him like nothing is wrong? And how do I end this without hurting him?

  In the end, I just switch off the computer and lie on my bed until it’s time to meet Gabi.

  Gabi’s already at Java Joe’s when I arrive, her hair all spiked up and newly blond.

  “Hey, babe,” she says.

  “Hey, Gabi.” I slide into the chair across from her. “Nice hair.”

  “I already ordered,” she says.

  Two frothy, pale green, whipped-cream-topped drinks are sitting on the table.

  I grimace. “What is that?”

  “Mint mocha latte,” she says. “It’s on me.”

  Gabi never drinks regular coffee like everyone else. She likes her drinks sugar-filled. She doesn’t usually make me drink them though.

  “What’s up?” I ask. “Why the generosity with the frothy green beverages?”

  She grins. “We’re celebrating.”

  “Ah. Last night was a success then?”

  She leans across the table and grabs my arm. “Derek, success would be an understatement.”

  I raise one eyebrow. “You got laid?”

  “So crude,” Gabi says, pretending to be shocked. Then she winks. “She is so hot.”

  “And not so straight?”

  Gabi grins broadly. “Not so straight at all.”

  This is Gabi’s solution to living in a small town. As she says, she’s already dated all the girls who know they’re queer. Now she’s dating the ones who aren’t quite sure.

  She suddenly turns serious. “What about you, Derek? What’s up?”

  I frown. “It’s Ethan.”

  “No way. He didn’t dump you. I don’t believe it.”

  Gabi’s heard a lot about Ethan over the past few months. She’s even read some of his e-mails.

  “No,” I say, hesitating. I have to talk to someone but it feels so...humiliating.

  “What is it then?” Her pixie face creases with concern, and her green eyes meet mine.

  “Ethan is flying out from bc,” I say. “His sister’s getting married in Kitchener and he wants to come and see me.”

  Gabi stares at me. “And? Hello? This is a problem because?”

  I shake my head. “This is really embarrassing.”

  “You’re shy.” She tilts her head to one side. “He doesn’t know he’s your first, you know, boyfriend?”

  “It’s not that. He knows that.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  I take a sip of sugary whipped cream. “Ugh,” I say.

  “Derek. Come on. What’s wrong?”

  I stare at the surface of my drink and stir it with the spoon. “I sent him a picture of myself. An old one. You know, before I put on all this weight.”

  Gabi looks surprised. “You did? Why?”

  “Yeah. I know it was stupid but I didn’t really think we’d ever meet, you know?”

  She studies my face. “It’s not that big a deal. So you’re a bit heavier than you were. You’re still the same person he’s been talking to every day for months. For, like, hours. And hours and hours—”

  “I’m not going to meet him. I can’t.”

  Gabi grabs her spiky hair with both hands. “Derek! Don’t be an idiot. This guy is the best thing that’s happened to you in ages.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Seriously. You and Ethan are—I don’t know, soul mates or something. You’re crazy about him. He’s crazy about you.”

  I blink. “I know.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to break up with him,” I say. “I have to.”

  She shakes her head. “No. No, no, no. Don’t do that. You guys are really good together.”

  “Gabi, we’ve never met. I’m not letting him come all the way out here so he can dump me in person when he finds out I’m fat.”

  “You’re not.”

  I just look at her.

  She shrugs. “Okay, so you’re fat. You’re also terrific, smart, funny and kind. And you’re still the same person Ethan fell in love with. Give the guy a chance.”
/>
  I fold my arms across my chest. Maybe Gabi is right. Maybe Ethan would be able to see past the fat.

  But I’ve already made up my mind.

  Chapter Nine

  I figure there’s no point in putting it off. So when I get home, I switch on the computer. Ethan’s not online, which is good. I don’t think I could handle a conversation about this.

  ethan, I write, i’ve been thinking about

  things and i think it would be better

  if u didn’t come here. i don’t think we

  should meet in person. the thing is, i

  don’t think we should really continue

  this relationship. i’m sorry. i hope

  u have a good time at the wedding

  anyway

  I rub my hands over my face. I feel like I should say more, give some explanation, but there’s no explanation I can give. I delete the last line, the one about having a good time at the wedding. Then I hit Send.

  At 3 am I’m still awake, wondering what Ethan will think when he reads the e-mail. I roll over and kick off the blankets. Too hot, too cold, too hot. Finally I get out of bed, find Ethan’s picture under the mouse pad and take it back to bed with me. I turn on my bedside light and study the face: his easy smile, his smooth cheeks and straight nose, his warm brown eyes. I trace the smile with my finger, lay the picture beside me on my pillow and turn out the light.

  It seems like a few minutes later that my alarm is going off. I drag myself out of bed, brush my teeth, gargle with mouthwash. I keep looking at the computer while I’m getting dressed. Ethan will still be sleeping, since it’s three hours earlier out west.

  Francine tells me I’m with Aaliyah again this morning. As I walk up the stairs, I realize I’m glad. She’s prickly as hell, but there’s something about her.

  She’s waiting in the living room, her hair lank and dark gray shadows ringing her eyes.

  “I need a shower,” she says.

  “Okay.” I look at her. “I thought you didn’t like male care workers.”

  She shrugs. “You’re okay. Besides, that girl Paula makes me crazy. Talks to me like I’m retarded, or six years old. Like this place is a daycare for toddlers.”

  I grin. “That’s what Mrs. Buckley says too.”