Out of Order Page 4

  The leaves are starting to turn yellow and fall from the trees. They crunch under my feet as I scuff my heels along the sidewalk. I’m curious about what Lee’s other boyfriends were like, but I don’t want to be nosy.

  GRAN IS SITTING in the kitchen, a ball of wool beside her and a craft book open on her lap. So far, craft books are the only thing I have ever seen her read. She comes over all the time. It’s been six months since Granddad died, but Gran’s still not used to living on her own yet, I guess. Mom says she cries a lot, but whenever I see her, she’s as hard and as sharp as the knitting needles clicking away in her hands.

  She glares up at me when I walk in arm in arm with Zelia. “A little late, aren’t you?”

  “I called,” I say defensively.

  Mom steps in.“It’s fine,” she says, giving Gran a warning look.

  “Look at you,”Gran says to me. “You’re getting too skinny.” She turns to my mother. “Jeanie, look at this girl. She’s skin and bones!”

  My mom looks at me, and then she turns to Gran, frown­ing. “Believe me, Mother, I am well aware of it. Just leave her alone, okay?”

  Gran raises her invisible eyebrows and says nothing, but I can feel her eyes on me for the whole meal. I force myself to eat a few mouthfuls of salad and some broccoli, but I push the pasta aside. Silently I dare Gran to comment. I know Mom will stand up for me.

  Both Gran and I are quiet; as usual, Mom and Zelia do most of the talking. Zelia is telling us about her mom’s new job, working for a lawyer.

  “Lee says he’s the most prominent lawyer in Victoria,” she says. “He’s really well known. It’s a really important position. She’s meeting a lot of people.”

  My mother smiles at her. “That’s great, Zelia. I’m so glad things are going well for her.”

  Zelia frowns and puts her fork down. She is silent for a moment, running her hand through her hair. “She’s pretty excited about it. I really hope it works out this time,” she says finally.

  Gran looks puzzled. “Why on earth wouldn’t it?” she asks.

  “She’s had a lot of bad luck with jobs,” Zelia says. She hesi­tates. “She tends to really like new things, you know? But then after a while she sort of loses interest.”

  Gran shakes her head disapprovingly.

  “Well, maybe this time will be different,” Mom says before Gran has a chance to comment. “Maybe she just needs to find something that Wts well for her.”

  Zelia looks down at her plate and nods. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  AFTER ZELIA AND Gran leave, Mom corners me before I make it up to my room.

  “I want to talk to you.” She is in the living room, folding laun­dry. “Here, give me a hand.” She hands me a pile of clothes, warm from the dryer. “I hardly see you anymore. Is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ve just been busy. And I have to do home­work tonight.”

  “You were very quiet at dinner,” she says.

  I shrug. “Gran was getting on my case.”

  Mom shakes her head slowly. “I know Gran can be critical sometimes—I grew up with her, after all. I know how it feels to have her pick at you. But she’s right, you know. You really are getting too thin.”

  I tense up and brace myself for an argument. “Don’t you start too.”

  “Sophie, I don’t want to get into a power struggle with you about this. I can’t force you to eat.” She takes a deep breath, as if she’s trying to stay calm. “I’m going to say this again and I want you to hear it, okay? You are too thin. I’m worried about you.”

  I drop my armful of laundry on the couch, unfolded. “I think I look fine.”

  Mom tilts her head to one side and studies my face. “You look beautiful; you always have. But if you keep losing weight, I’m making you an appointment to see a doctor.”

  I feel myself stiffen. “I’m not even trying to lose weight, okay?”

  “Oh, Sophie, please. I see you shoving the food around on your plate, pretending to eat.”

  I start to cry. I can’t help it. “I’m not trying to lose weight, really, Mom. I’m just trying to stay the same, not get fat. You don’t want me to get fat again, like I used to be, do you?” Tears clog my throat, but what I feel is anger.

  Mom looks like she might cry too. I look away.

  When she speaks, her voice is steady. “Sophie, you were never fat.”

  I stare at the laundry. Blurry scraps of color. I blink, and hot tears spill over and run down my cheeks. I turn away so Mom can’t see my face.

  She sighs. “You’ve always been so hard on yourself,” she says. She reaches out and puts her hand on my shoulder tentatively. “I don’t know why. Am I too critical or something? Do you feel like I expect too much of you?”

  “Everything is not always about you, okay?” I shrug her hand off, run up to my room and slam the door behind me.

  My eyes fall on the photograph on my dresser. It is a picture of my mother and me at the beach. Her arm is tight around me, pulling me close, and my head rests against her shoulder. The sea is behind us and you can see the white sails flying on the blue water. The sun is on our faces, and we are both laughing.

  I remember that moment: it was in August, just a couple of months ago. We’d driven all the way across the country together and couldn’t believe we were really living somewhere near a beach. We asked a woman with some small kids to take our picture. I felt like we were on holiday.

  I turn the picture to face the wall. Mom and I don’t exactly fight, but we don’t talk anymore either. It’s like there is an ocean between us that gets wider and deeper every day. I wish I could sail across it, but I wouldn’t even know how to begin.

  Seven

  BY MID-OCTOBER, I have a routine that means I’m out of the house as much as possible. On the weekends, after I ride, Zelia and I meet downtown. We always meet in the same place—right outside the bookstore.

  Today I arrive first. I sit on the sidewalk, stick my legs out in front of me and tug the hem of my skirt down toward my knees. I have army boots now, like Zelia’s. They are heavy and make my legs look really skinny. I cross and uncross my ankles; then I press my boots together so my legs look like they are joined together at the foot, like disposable wooden chopsticks.

  A couple of old men are sitting on a sidewalk bench between me and the curb. They are drinking, passing a bottle in a paper bag back and forth. They don’t talk or even look at each other.

  I study them. The short fat one is a Henry, I decide. The older one, with the beard, is definitely a Nathan.

  I slip my hand into my army surplus backpack and feel the cool smoothness of the bottle of vodka I stole from the liquor cabinet at home. My stomach is tight. I promised Zelia I would bring something for us to drink. I haven’t ever had more than half a glass of wine, with my mother, but I didn’t tell Zelia that.

  A middle-aged woman approaches me. She is wearing tight gray track pants, and I can see the line where her hips bulge out above her underwear. A Brenda. I can tell that she doesn’t want to get too close to the men on the bench, but she has to step carefully because my legs are blocking the sidewalk. I don’t move them: that’s against Zelia’s ever-growing list of rules.

  Of course I don’t technically have to play by the rules since Zelia isn’t here yet. I’m in our special place though. I’m on our turf. I can feel my skin toughening as I sit here. It’s like growing armor, shiny and hard.

  Still, I don’t let myself meet the fat woman’s eyes.

  I wonder what Zelia will decide we should do today. I feel a vague apprehension as I lift my eyes and glance down the street. I hate waiting by myself. I pull a pack of Camels out of my jacket pocket, tap one out and light it. I like the rituals of smoking now—matches and Zippo lighters, ashtrays, standing outside with Zelia and the other smokers at school—but the harsh smoke hurts my throat. I only pretend to inhale.

  I’m down to the butt when Zelia arrives. She had to have brunch with her mother and Michael, so t
hey are dropping her off. I hastily crush my smoke under my boot heel as the white Mustang pulls up to the curb. Zelia gets out of the car. Lee checks her hair in the rearview mirror and flashes her bleach-bright smile at us as she drives off.

  Zelia grabs my arm. “Come on,” she says. “Mom made me wear this to the restaurant. I have to get changed.” She scowls. “Not like she usually notices what I wear. But all of a sudden I have to dress to impress Michael.”

  I laugh. Zelia is wearing a pink cashmere turtleneck. She looks like one of the rich kids from school, the ones who spend their winter vacations skiing in Colorado, the ones who drive their own cars and forget their two-hundred-dollar sweaters in the lunchroom.

  We repeat our routine of pretending to browse at the book­store before we get a staff person to let us into the washroom. Zelia yanks her sweater over her head and holds it away from her like it’s infested with fleas. She stands there in her bra, pull­ing clothes out of her bag. When she reaches her arms over her head, I can see her ribs softly outlined under her pale skin. I press my hand against my side, curl my fingers around and count the sharp ridges. It makes me feel safer.

  Zelia pulls on a thin black sweater. The sleeves are so long that they cover her hands. Instead of rolling them up, she pokes her thumbs through the wool. It looks kind of like she’s wear­ing gloves with the fingers cut off.

  I hand her the bottle and she takes a long gulp of vodka, makes a face, shudders and hands it back to me. I sit on the coun­ter and watch as she takes makeup out of her bag, leans in close to the mirror and runs a black eyeliner along the narrow soft part inside the lashes. Zelia always tells me to put my eyeliner outside the lashes; she says it makes my eyes look bigger. But Zelia’s eyes are huge and dark-lashed even without makeup.

  I swallow a burning mouthful of vodka and almost imme­diately feel an answering warmth creep through my arms and chest. I lean my head back against the mirror.

  “Do you have the rings?” I ask.

  Zelia nods and grins. She roots around in her bag. “Here.” She hands me a small velvet bag with a Crown Royal logo.

  I slip my hand in, close my fingers on cool metal and pull out our assortment of drugstore rings. I choose a snake with green glass eyes, biting down on its own tail. I slide it on my finger and hold the bag out to Zelia. “Your turn,” I say.

  Zelia picks out a fat gold ring with a red stone and pushes it onto her thumb.

  We take turns picking until we each have three or four rings on each hand and the bag is empty. Then I slide off the counter and stand up. I hold up my hands, palms out, fingers spread. My nails, like Zelia’s, are short and painted black. When we run out of black polish, we use permanent markers. Zelia lifts her hands and presses them against mine, fingertip to fingertip.

  “Best friends forever,” we whisper.

  Our eyes meet, and my stomach does a little flip. I look away. Zelia is so beautiful.

  We stay in the washroom for a few minutes, sitting on the counter, drinking. I feel a little strange—not drunk exactly, but like nothing is quite real. I get this feeling a lot lately, even when I’m not drinking. It’s as if I am remembering a dream. It feels like there is something really important right at the edge of my mind, but I can’t quite think what it is. Everything around me looks sharper and brighter and somehow more significant. I can’t explain it to Zelia. I tried before, and she just looked at me like I was crazy, so now I don’t say anything.

  Finally, Zelia says, “So, I’ve been thinking about what we should do today.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  Zelia starts giggling. She pulls two hats out of her bag and hands one to me.

  I pick it up. It is black and old-fashioned, with fake flowers and gauzy bits. It looks like something my grandmother might wear: a Gertrude hat. “No way,” I say. “I’m not wearing this, am I?”

  “Nope,” Zelia says. “Unless you really want to.”

  I have no idea where she is going with this hat thing, so I take another mouthful of vodka and wait.

  “The hats are for money,” she says. “We’re going to panhandle.” She is all excited, looking at me like I’m six and she has just said we’re going to the circus.

  “What?” I don’t get it.

  Zelia drums her fingers on her thigh. She is always impa­tient, always two steps ahead. Sometimes I wonder why she hangs out with me.

  “You know. Panhandle. Beg. Sit on the sidewalk and ask for money.”

  I tug on a lock of my hair and twist it slowly around my finger. “What’s the point?” I ask.

  Zelia shrugs. “Exactly.”

  Eight

  THE GLARE OF the hazy gray sky hurts my eyes after sitting in the dimly lit washroom. Zelia says they keep the lights low in the washrooms so that junkies won’t go there to shoot up. I don’t see how she could know something like that, and anyway, the washrooms are always locked. Still, I don’t say anything.

  We find a spot on the sidewalk, and Zelia arranges us. She is like a stage director, telling me how to sit, where to place my hat, making sure all the details are just the way she wants them. I surrender myself to her sense of purpose.

  We sit and wait, not talking. Zelia puts on headphones and turns on her MP3 player. The air is damp and stinks of car exhaust. A woman is walking toward us. Zelia looks at her; then she looks at me. She raises one eyebrow in an unspoken question.

  I study the woman. Carefully highlighted hair, pale lipstick, smooth tan. Long legs tightly encased in what Zelia calls spray-on jeans. High-heeled pink sandals cage her feet and shorten her stride.

  “An easy one,” I say, grinning at Zelia.

  She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah. A Tiffany, for sure.”

  The woman averts her gaze as she approaches us.

  Zelia holds out her hat. “Spare any change?” she asks, as if she has done this a thousand times before.

  The woman pretends not to hear and walks right past us.

  “God,” I say. “I’d rather be shot than wear shoes like that.”

  Zelia shifts to face me. She flips her straight fall of hair back over her shoulder and pulls her headphones oV so they hang loosely around her neck. I can feel my own hair curling in the damp air in deWance of the no-frizz leave-in conditioner I always use.

  “Next one’s yours,” she says.

  I shrug. “Whatever.”

  The next person to approach is a woman carrying a baby and pushing a stroller. As she gets closer, I can see that her stroller is full of groceries. The baby is squirming and fussing as she tries to balance him on her hip as she walks.

  Zelia nudges me with her elbow, hard.

  “Spare change?” I blurt. The woman has already passed us, and I brace myself for Zelia’s criticism of my performance. To my surprise, though, the woman stops and turns. She looks at us for a moment and sighs. She is younger than I first thought, and she has shadows under her eyes.

  “Sure,” she says, “I think I have some change.” She shifts her baby onto her other hip, bends over and fumbles in her stroller. A package of diapers tumbles to the sidewalk, and she swears under her breath. The baby starts to cry, a high thin wail.

  I find myself mumbling an apology. I get up, step toward her and pick up the diapers.

  She finds her wallet and shakes a few quarters into my hat.

  My cheeks are burning. “Uh, thanks,” I say as I hand her the diaper package.

  I watch her walk away. I can feel Zelia glaring at me. “What?” I ask.

  “What was she?”

  “A Martha,” I say.

  “Right,” says Zelia. “Right. A Martha. Someone who spends her life wiping butts and mushing up carrots. Someone who can pick up her own damn diapers.” She is eyeing me suspiciously, as if she can read my treacherous thoughts.

  What I’m thinking is: Zelia always goes too far.

  Zelia slips her headphones from around her neck and puts her MP3 player in her bag. “You can do the next one too,” she says.

&n
bsp; It’s a challenge, a test. I chew on the inside of my bottom lip. “Okay,” I say.

  Zelia’s mouth is a hard line, her eyes an empty blue.

  I wait for the next person to walk past. I’ll only look at the shoes, I decide. I’ll stare at the sidewalk and I’ll only look at the shoes, and when I see shoes, I’ll say, “Spare any change?” I’ll say it as if I’ve said it a thousand times before, and I won’t look up.

  I stare at the sidewalk for what feels like a long time. Pale blades of grass are pushing up through the cracks. Finally I see a pair of feet approaching. Women’s shoes. Old lady shoes. A Gertrude, I think. I bite down on my lip nervously, taste metal, suck a Wne thread of blood across my tongue.

  The shoes are closer now, white orthotic shoes below bulgy veined ankles. “Spare any change?” I ask. My voice sounds stronger this time, more like Zelia’s.

  The shoes stop, and there is a long silence.

  Slowly, almost against my will, my eyes travel up, past the bulgy ankles, the green floral skirt, the round swell of belly, the cardigan buttoned over sagging breasts. I close my eyes and feel a dizzying rush of shame.

  “Young lady,” says my grandmother. “What in God’s name do you think you are doing?”

  I open my mouth, but no words come. A tight lump is swelling in my throat.

  My grandmother is shaking her head. “I don’t know what to say. Have you been drinking?” She bends closer and I pull back, not wanting her to smell the alcohol on my breath.

  “You are completely out of order,” she says.

  “I—I—It was just a game,” I say. Out of order. She’s right. That’s how I feel. Like something within me is broken. I press my hands against my mouth and swallow hard.

  She stands still for a moment, her body rigid and unyield­ing. She looks me straight in the face, and her brown eyes are bruised and bewildered. I stare at her. I stare across the space between us. I can feel my heart pounding at my temples; my face and ears are on fire.