Escape Velocity Read online

  “Lou!” My mother stares at me for a second. Then she laughs and turns to Brian. “What do you think, Brian? Is this a date?”

  He raises one eyebrow. “I don’t think Richard would appreciate that, do you?”

  “Ahh, no. Damn it.” Mom winks at me. “Actually, Brian’s one of my students. A wonderful poet. And he’s married. To Richard.”

  “Oh.” I look at him curiously, trying not to stare.

  I don’t know any gay people back home. Or black people. Or poets, for that matter. Though if I was gay, I probably wouldn’t stay in Drumheller any longer than I had to. I’m sort of embarrassed and feel like I need to say something, to sort of move the conversation along. “My boyfriend writes poetry,” I hear myself say.

  Zoe’s eyes flicker toward Brian for a fraction of a second, and I can practically see the wheels in her head turning as she decides how to play this so that she comes off looking like a good mother. Then she laughs. “I didn’t even know you had a boyfriend, you sly creature.”

  I shrug, half wishing I hadn’t said it but also realizing that for once, my mother actually seems interested in me. “We haven’t been together long.”

  “Well. What’s his name?”

  Mr. Samson’s face appears in my mind, smiling. “Tom.” I say it quickly, without planning the lie. I run my tongue over my chipped tooth. “His name is Tom.”

  “Really. Tom the poet.” She laughs again. I wonder what she’d say if Brian wasn’t here, if she’d react differently. But even when it is only the two of us, I feel like she is always acting, always putting on a performance. “Is he at your school?”

  I nod. “Yeah.” I don’t think she has ever asked me so many questions about myself all in a row.

  “Well. I’m going to want all the details later,” she says, and she gives me a grin that looks as real and warm as any smile I’ve ever gotten from her.

  That evening, when I am alone with my mother, I expect her to ask me more about Tom, but she seems to have forgotten all about him. Maybe her apparent interest was for Brian’s benefit, all for show. She’s quiet, off in her head somewhere, irritated by my attempts to make conversation.

  “Mom?” I put down my fork. I’ve eaten a whole chicken breast, a huge pile of mashed potatoes and some broccoli. I cooked while Mom and Brian talked about his novel manuscript, but she’s barely touched the food. I think she has eaten maybe one piece of broccoli and one bite of chicken. “You don’t like it?”

  “I had a late lunch.” She pushes her plate away. “I’m not very hungry.”

  I eat a few more mouthfuls, but the food has lost its appeal. I guess this is unfair, but I feel like my mother is pushing me away, not just my food. I watch her out of the corner of my eye while she drinks her water, looking cool and perfect as always. “You know that woman at the reading?” I say.

  She stiffens. “You mean the woman who introduced me? Her name’s Polly.”

  “No, not her.” I lift the pitcher on the table to refill her glass.

  She frowns and puts her hand over her glass to stop me, and I remember her words from last summer: She’s being completely ingratiating and trying to impress me. I put the pitcher back down, feeling stupid.

  “The woman who went on clapping,” I say. “When she tried to talk to you that other time, was it about anything in particular?”

  My mother doesn’t answer.

  “Why are you so interested in her?” my mother asks at last. I remember the slow steady sound of clapping and the way everyone turned and looked. I picture the old woman’s stringy gray hair hanging past her shoulders, the long hippie skirt. “I don’t know. She seemed out of place.”

  “Forget about her, Lou. I doubt she’ll show up again.”

  “But who is she?” I ask. “Is she someone you used to know? Or…”

  “Drop it.”

  “But…”

  She slams her hands against the table. “Christ, Lou. Are you deaf or just slow? I said, drop it!”

  I stare down at my plate. My heart is racing like I’ve been running, and my palms are slick with sweat. There is a very long silence, and I can’t bring myself to look at my mother. “Sorry,” I whisper at last. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I hear her sigh, long and shaky, and I glance up at her. She has her hands pushed against her face, and I can’t believe this, it isn’t possible, but I think she is crying. “I’m sorry,” I say again, panicky. “I’m really sorry, Zoe. Mom.”

  “I know.” She lowers her hands, and her cheeks are wet with tears. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  My mother puts her hands on the table, palms pushed down as if she is anchoring herself. She doesn’t say anything for a long minute. The window is open, and I can hear the clatter of a skateboard going back and forth across the speed bump on the street outside.

  “Lou. The woman at the reading…”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I think I do.”

  I suddenly know what she is going to say and I wonder when I realized this, because it makes no sense at all and there is no way I should have guessed it, except that there was something about that clapping woman that was so familiar.

  “She’s my mother,” Zoe says. “But we’re not in contact. She’s not someone I want in my life.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “Did something happen? She looked sort of…I wondered if she was homeless, maybe. Or not well.”

  “Lou.”

  I swallow. “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to talk about her.” She stands up. “She hasn’t been in my life for a long time, and I don’t want her in it now.”

  “What if she needs help though? You can’t let her live on the streets.”

  Zoe’s face is unreadable, closed off as tightly as a door slamming shut. “I’d like to drop this subject now,” she says. “And Lou?”

  I nod.

  “Do not bring it up again.” Her eyes are locked onto mine. “Ever.”

  I nod again and drop my gaze. But there’s no way I can leave this alone. I am going to find some answers. With or without Zoe’s help.

  Ten

  The school is big, noisy and anonymous. I could sit through my classes and move through these hallways for weeks or months and leave again without even making a ripple. I was pretty much invisible at my old school in Drumheller. I have this feeling that if I stay invisible for much longer, I might disappear altogether.

  The fact that I had no friends in Drumheller was my mother’s fault. Or mine, maybe, for eavesdropping on her phone conversation. Not a very likable girl. I decided that if my own mother didn’t like me, no one else would either. I walked into Drumheller High with a wall around me that you’d have needed a jackhammer to crack. Not that anyone bothered to try.

  I wonder if my mother still thinks I am not very likable. I feel a flicker of anger—at her for what she said, and at myself for caring.

  I turn to look at the girl at the desk beside mine. She has dark hair that hangs to her shoulders in a sleek bell-shape. It swings forward when she looks down at her books, so I can’t see her face. She’s a big girl, both tall and heavy, and even though it is warm today, she’s wearing layer upon layer of loose dark clothes.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She doesn’t hear me at first, or maybe she assumes I’m talking to someone else. I lean toward her. “Hey. I’m Lou.”

  She looks up, and her hair swings back to reveal a doll-pretty face: huge eyes, round cheeks, button nose, skin as smooth and creamy as milk. “Justine,” she says.

  “I’m new here,” I tell her. “First day.”

  She shrugs. “Too bad. With ten being maximum suckage, I’d give this school an eight. Where are you from?”

  “Alberta. I lived in Vancouver before that though. A couple of years ago.” I wonder what it is like to be as big as Justine, to take up that much space, to have so much weight to carry. Sometimes I can’t s
top staring at fat people, even though I know it’s rude and I know I’d hate being stared at all the time. “Um, my dad had a heart attack,” I tell her. “That’s why I had to come here. To stay with my mother.”

  She looks right at me for the first time. “That blows. About your dad, I mean.”

  “Yeah. Well, he’s going to be okay.” I haven’t spoken to him since Saturday night, and every time I think about him, my own heart starts racing.

  “At least you get to see your mom.”

  “Mmm.”

  She wrinkles her button nose. “Oops. Not good?”

  “Complicated.”

  She drops her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “No. No, it’s fine.” I find myself imitating her nose-wrinkling gesture. “It really is complicated. I’ve never lived with her before.”

  “Oh.” Justine’s cheeks flush pink.

  “So it’s a little tense. But, you know, fine.”

  The teacher shuffles her papers into a pile and stands up, clears her throat.

  “Maybe we can hang out later,” I say quickly.

  Justine looks surprised. “Maybe.”

  I don’t know why I said that. I wish I could snatch back the words. I’m not going to be here long enough to bother making friends, even if I wanted any. Plus I don’t want to sound needy or clingy. No one likes that.

  I sneak a sideways glance at Justine. She’s looking down at her desk and her hair has swung forward, hiding her face again.

  The teacher tells a very long and boring story about a trip she took to watch a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. As far as I can tell, it has absolutely nothing to do with this class. I open my notebook and write down: FIND THE CLAPPING WOMAN. I doodle a frame around my words, then tear off a scrap of paper and write: Where do homeless people hang out in this city? I hand it to Justine.

  She takes it, looking furtive and guilty, like no one has ever handed her a note in class before. Her forehead creases as she reads my words. She sticks the paper in her binder, looks at me and mouths later.

  “How come you asked me that question?” Justine asks me after class. We’re standing in the hallway, and crowds of students are passing us on either side, like we’re an island in a stream.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I tell her.

  “Yeah. But how come you asked me?” Her babyish face is suddenly hard.

  “I don’t know anyone else. Well, I don’t know you either, I guess, but you were sitting closest.” I shrug. “Look, it’s no big deal. I can look up homeless shelters online.”

  She relaxes. “I thought maybe someone was saying things about me. Putting you up to it, you know? Trying to get at me.”

  “No. Why would they?”

  Justine snorts. “Like they need a reason.”

  I wonder if kids bug her about being fat, but I don’t want to ask because that’d be like admitting I noticed. “People can be assholes,” I say instead.

  She nods. “I know, right? The thing is, I was on the streets for a couple years. Ran away when I was thirteen.” She shrugs. “I’m doing the group-home thing now.”

  “Seriously?” I can’t make what she’s telling me match up with how innocent and childlike she looks.

  “Yeah. Last year there were all these rumors going around about me. So I thought…”

  “No. I hadn’t heard anything.”

  She shrugs. “Whatever.”

  I don’t think she believes me. “Honestly,” I say. “I mean, this is my first day. I haven’t even talked to anyone else yet.”

  “I don’t mean to sound paranoid,” she says. “But there are a lot of really bitchy girls at this school.”

  I nod. “I just asked because I want to find someone. This person I’m looking for, she’s pretty old. Maybe sixty, I don’t know.”

  “And she’s homeless?”

  “I think so. Maybe. I don’t really know.”

  Justine frowns. “I guess you’ve already done the obvious stuff, like googling her name.”

  Would she be a Summers like Zoe? Or was that Zoe’s father’s name? I realize I know nothing at all about my mother’s family—whether she has sisters or brothers, whether her parents were married, what their names are. Maybe I have a grandfather out there somewhere as well. Aunts, uncles, cousins…

  “Lou? Have you googled her?”

  I try to focus. “Uh, I don’t know her name.” I look at Justine. “I know. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “Well, not impossible. Victoria’s not that big. Still, if you don’t even know her name…”

  “Yeah.” I study my fingernails and pick at one of the torn edges. Dana Leigh would flip out if she saw what a mess my nails are in. She was always trying to give me manicures.

  There’s a long pause, and then Justine says, “So who is she? I mean, why are you looking for her?”

  The hallways are emptying, everyone heading to their next classes. “She’s my mother’s mother.”

  “Your grandmother.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Duh. Obviously. But I hadn’t really thought of her in those terms. Grandmother. The word doesn’t fit easily with the picture of the straggly-haired woman.

  Justine’s dark eyebrows are raised. “I guess there are some places you could try. Shelters and stuff. But…”

  “It’s a kind of a remote chance. I know.”

  “If you knew her name, you could ask people if they’d seen her.”

  “I’ll try to find out,” I tell Justine, and my stomach tightens. I can’t imagine bringing the subject up again with Zoe.

  Eleven

  When I get home, my mother is at her desk, staring at the computer screen. She swivels her chair around to face me. “How was school?”

  “Fine.” I step closer and try to see what she is working on, but she has closed the window. “Are you writing?”

  She shrugs. “Not productively, no. All this…” She flaps her hand. “You, your father…”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yes. Well. Don’t you have homework or something?”

  She is sending out go-away vibes that are as real and unmistakable as hands pushing me out the door. Little signals zipping through the air: get lost get lost get lost. “I guess I’ll go to my room and read,” I say. “Can I call Dad?”

  “Go ahead. Good idea.”

  I can hear the relief in her voice. My own mother can’t stand having me near her. She can’t even be bothered to hide how she feels.

  The spare room—my room now—is cool and quiet. I lie down on the bed and wonder why my mother dislikes me so much. Sometimes I feel like even being in the same room as me is painful for her. Like she has severe allergies and I make her itch, give her hives, make her throat swell up. I blink a few times and push my fists against my eye sockets until I see green stars. Then I pick up the phone and call my father.

  He answers right away. “Hello?”

  “Dad? How are you doing?”

  “Ahh, Lou. I was gonna call you. Not doing so well, kiddo. The stent they put in? Remember? The tube thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I started having some chest pains again, getting short of breath.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “They think it’s blocking. Looks like I’m going to be having bypass surgery tomorrow.”

  I roll over on the bed, lie on my back with a pillow clutched to my chest with my free arm. “Dad?” I don’t want to upset him, can’t let myself start to cry, but I’m scared. Except maybe for the moment watching him be helped into the ambulance, I’ve never been so scared.

  “Listen. It’s going to be fine. They do lots of these operations here.”

  “Okay.” There’s a knife-sharp pain in my throat, and I can barely push the word past it.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you? I’m sorry about this, kiddo.”

  I nod, even though obviously he can’t see me.

  “Don’t worry. Is it going okay with Zoe?”

  “Yes. No.” I lower
my voice. “She doesn’t like me.”

  “That’s just how she is. She probably doesn’t know how to be with you.”

  “Dad. She can’t stand me.” My voice is rising, and I don’t want to stress him out, but I can’t help myself. “Can’t I stay with Dana Leigh? Can you ask her?”

  “I can’t walk, I can’t do shit, Lou. I’m not going home anytime soon. If it was only a few days, maybe Dana Leigh could help out, but…”

  “She said no, didn’t she? You already asked her.”

  He clears his throat. “Yeah. I asked her.”

  I bet it’s Trevor that doesn’t want me there. I wouldn’t expect Dana Leigh to put me first, ahead of him, but it still hurts that she’d say no. I sit up and stare at the stupid oil-spill painting. “I don’t think Zoe wants me here either,” I say.

  “Tough,” Dad says. “She’ll have to deal.” Then his voice softens. “It’s not about you, okay? You’re terrific.”

  “Doesn’t seem like she thinks so.”

  “Lou.” He coughs, clears his throat again. “Your mother is a wonderful person in many ways. But she’s, well, self-centered. To say the least.”

  I’ve never heard him criticize her before. In fifteen years, I have never heard him say a single bad thing about her. “Dad? Do you know anything about Mom’s parents? About her mother?”

  “Her parents? Why?”

  “I just wondered.”

  “I never met them,” he said.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “I know her dad died when she was a teenager. Your age, maybe younger. Car accident, I think it was. Or cancer, maybe. I can’t remember.”

  “And her mom?”

  “She never talked about her mom,” he said. “The topic was kind of off-limits.”

  “Weren’t you curious? I mean, didn’t you think that was kind of odd?”

  “Zoe was a very private person.” He gives a half-laugh, the kind that means nothing is really funny. “Independent, I guess you could say. Kept people at a bit of a distance. I figured she and her mom weren’t close.”

  “Yeah, but still. You really don’t know anything about her family at all?”

  “No.” He pauses. “There’s one thing I can tell you. They weren’t wealthy. Or at any rate, they weren’t sharing the wealth if there was any to share. She was putting herself through school. Student loans, two part-time jobs. She was always worried about money.”