Circle of Stones (11 page)

“We're here to see Evelyn Sloane,” the taller of the two officers announces. “We have an appointment.”

“Of course. I believe she's in her office. Two doors down on your left.” Kim exudes calm. All I can manage to do is gawk. The officers make their way down the hall and Kim turns to me.

“You feeling all right, Tina?” she asks. “You're pale.”

I fan my face with my hands. “God. Phoof. Let me catch my breath.” I lean heavily on the counter, nearly collapsing with relief. “Lhia's school secretary just told me she's not in school today and when I saw the police walk in here, I panicked.” I feel a funny rumble in my throat, but it's not tears, it's bizarre laughter. Nervous laughter.

“Oh, you've got Momxiety.” Kim is laughing, too. “We've all been there, hon. Why don't you call Lhia on her cell? You'll feel better.”

I stop laughing. Did Lhia keep the cell in her school bag? If she did, would she answer if I called?

“Take a couple of deep breaths. Everything's all right.” Kim pats me on the hand. “If you want to go ahead and take your coffee break now I'll cover for you.”

“That's a good idea.” I straighten. I can already taste a cup of coffee, but I hesitate, wondering where Lhia is. “Normally I'd go ask Evelyn for a personal day, but —” I think about the police officers and Evelyn's black mood. “Probably not the best time for that.”

“Well, maybe she'll be done soon?” Kim says, shrugging. “It's probably just some kind of formality. Boring security talk.”

I dial Lhia's cell number from the phone in the lounge. It rings once then I hear a beep. She must have turned the damned thing off. I should have sprung for the voicemail package. Not that she would have checked it. I drop the receiver back into its cradle. The coffee urn is empty. I can't wait for a fresh pot, I can't sit still in the comfy chair, and I can't stop fretting about Lhia. I need to finish the letter. I need to talk to her. She needs to know our full story. Mystery twists things horribly, unnecessarily. She needs things to make sense. She needs to be careful. I need her to be safe. I cut my break short to stop the circular thinking. Work is always a good cure for that. I push through the lounge door, walk past the nurses' station, and peek around the corner at Evelyn's office. Her door is still closed.

“They're still in there.” Kim is still shuffling papers around in the nurses' station. She points at Evelyn's office. “Now I want to know what's going on.”

“I need to get back to work.” The words emerge feebly.

“Here, I've got some easy ones for you.” Kim hands me a couple of charts and pats me on the arm.

I try to keep busy. As I'm making my final rounds I notice Evelyn's office door is open. It's empty. When I turn the corner I see the police officers. They're standing and staring down the hall with stern, emotionless faces. I see them again later in the lobby, standing and waiting. Evelyn is pacing back and forth, making rapid gestures with one hand and clutching a cellphone to her ear with the other. A grey-haired man I recognize as the facility administrator and two women in suits appear. Evelyn ushers them down the hall without hanging up. I have no idea what's happening. My shift is over. All I want to do is get home and hug my daughter. I head to my locker. I swallow an extra-strength acetaminophen and half a bottle of stale water. I see something white. Sparkling zigzag patterns. An aura. It's the first symptom of a full-blown migraine. I grab my coat and head for the front door. Two white vans screech to a stop nearby. I search through my wallet and all of my pockets. Shapes and figures dash past. Red lights flash. I only have five bucks cash. Not enough for cab fare. I stare at the sidewalk and shade my eyes from the bright, painful lights. I don't wonder what the lights are. All I want to do is get away from them. I walk to the bus stop with my head down, each step pounding in my ears and stabbing in the deep space behind my eyes.

I arrive home to a messy apartment. Lhia has been doing laundry, and her things are hanging or lying everywhere in various stages of sorting. She's left her dirty dishes from breakfast or lunch on the kitchen counter and the sofa is covered in yet more textbooks. But she's not here. The acetaminophen has kicked in and the pain in my head has lessened to a dull, persistent throb. It slides down my neck and shoulders and pulsates in a series of tight knots tied up between my shoulder blades. I have to do something to keep myself busy, so I tidy the kitchen slowly, trying not to turn or move my head much. I clear off the sofa, fighting the urge to lie down, sleep off the headache.

I check the phone for messages but there aren't any. I think about who to call. My brother George, maybe. He lives nearby, but he's probably busy with his chic boyfriend and stylish friends. He always made better choices than me. In my busy haze of shifts, medical charts, bills, and parenting, I only seem to think of calling him when I need something or there's a problem — and he's usually so accommodating and kind it makes me feel even worse. My head starts to ache again.

What if she doesn't come home? What if I need to call the police? What would I do if Lhia went missing? I have to stop thinking about it. I stack mail and papers on the kitchen table and wipe it with a sponge. I retrieve the unfinished letter for Lhia from its hiding place under the mattress and rewrite it in neater script. When I'm done I shred the rough version of the letter into eight pieces and stuff them down the kitchen sink's garburator.

I decide to finish the good version of the letter later. There's more to say. I fold the piece of paper and set it between the pages of a hardcover coffee-table book on Ottawa and bring it to my room. Blurred vision again. I hold on to the wall for support and find my way to the bathroom where I run a washcloth under cold water. I barely have enough strength left in my hands to wring it out. Dizzy, I crawl back to my bed on my knees. I pull the covers over myself and put the damp, cool washcloth on my forehead. I close my eyes and watch splotches of red and green spin and shudder behind my eyelids.

About an hour later I hear a key in the lock. I lie in bed, paralyzed with pain and nausea, unable to get up and go talk to Lhia. I listen to the two soft thuds her shoes make as she discards them in the hall, the throb of the music she turns on in her room. I hear her wander through the apartment, take something out of the fridge in the kitchen, let a plate clatter onto the countertop. She spends a considerable amount of time in the bathroom. I hear the sound of the shower, her hairdryer, the clicking of her curling iron, the sound of cosmetic containers clanking against her metal makeup box. I try to force my limbs to move, my mouth to say something, but pain locks me firmly in place.

Lhia returns to her room. Her music drowns out whatever she's doing in there. Eventually I fall into a blank state of near sleep. I open my eyes at the sound of the front door banging shut. I look at the clock: the numbers are blurred but it has to be past eleven. I'm usually at work on Tuesday nights, but I didn't find time to tell her about my schedule changes. Where is Lhia going?

The throbbing in my head gradually begins to subside. The scrubs I'm still wearing feel sweaty and grubby. I get up, change into my pajamas, and wrap myself in my warm robe. The thought of food still turns my stomach, but I manage to fill the kettle and make myself a big mug of herbal tea. I take the tea and wander into Lhia's room. She's left the lamp on, and in the warm glow the stuffed animals from her childhood catch my eye. I sit down on her bed and hug each one of her old friends individually. There's Mr. Turtle, whose green fur is matted and shabby, Doctor Dog, a white puppy with a pink plastic stethoscope and a missing eye, and Wally, a purple walrus who's lost some stuffing through a hole in his side. Years ago I would have set up an operating room for these toys, mending each one as carefully as a surgeon.

I lean back. Bob the monkey stares at me with dark, surprised eyes. Lhia's favourite. I hug him and turn off the lamp. I lie on Lhia's bed, hold Bob, and wait for her to return. I have no idea what I'm going to say to her when she does.

I'm startled by a clunking sound outside. Lhia's window slides open. I watch her shadowy shape crawl in as cold air blows through the room. I smell something damp, earthy, and vaguely sweaty. I turn on the lamp and stare at my daughter's startled, black-lined eyes. I've never seen her with so much makeup on. Her hair is a strange, curly, matted snarl. I stifle the urge to grab her and brush it straight.

“Where were you?” I blurt stupidly. I smell alcohol on her breath, see a hint of something sheer and slinky under her jacket. A roar of anger, fear, and exhaustion drowns out her answer. But I watch her mouth moving and love her mouth, love her nose, love her cold-reddened ears, love her ridiculously, completely, unconditionally. In my head I repeat “don't grow up, don't grow up, don't grow up” as though I can slow down this train wreck with measly, useless words.

Out loud I mutter something ineffectual about not wanting to lecture her. I stare at Lhia, and get up out of her bed, knowing I'm failing her, wanting to tuck her in, good and tight.

“I went out,” Lhia says. She stares at the floor, and won't look me in the eye. “Just for a bit, to see some friends? Um … sorry I'm late. I, like, never do this.”

She looks up, eyes wide. “Don't worry, Mom.”

“I don't know what to do with you anymore, Lhia.” The words emerge, as if by their own volition, as I'm about to leave the room. “I'm going to get your uncle to talk to you, and I want you to start focusing more on school.”

“I will, Mom.” She says it in her little girl voice, the voice of the Lhia I know.

“And no more wandering around the city at night. It's not safe.” I hand Lhia her monkey.

In my bedroom I try to relax, but I don't even feel like lying down, never mind sleeping. My migraine has improved. It's a mere dull ache now. It's time to act. I see the Ottawa book and carefully remove the letter. It's not finished yet. It doesn't matter. I get up to go give it to Lhia, but she's in the bathroom. I hope she's washing off all that makeup. I pace in the kitchen then turn on the TV, changing the channel from the music station to the news. I sit on the couch holding the letter and watch. Perhaps they'll announce the results of the autopsy on the man in the canal. I want to know if my diagnosis is right. Heart attack, not homicide.

“In other news,” the confident woman broadcaster says, then, looking straight at the camera, “three arrests were made early this evening at the Glengarry Centre for Long Term Care. Both the head nurse and the administrator of this seniors' facility have resigned. Here's Safa Patel with more on the story.”

I hear the bathroom door open. I stand up but can't bring myself to look away from the screen. My workplace on television. There's the front door, the hallway, the nurses' station. There's a press conference. Evelyn reading from a paper, saying she's resigning. Microphones in the face of the grey-haired administrator as he reads an apology. My head begins to throb again. I listen to the reporter saying staff conspired together. That they gave certain patients more painkillers and sleeping medications than prescribed. That they falsified charts and documents to cover it up. All to earn overtime pay, and make longer hours easier. How could I not know this? I double-checked. I always double-checked everything. I hear the reporter say it was all discovered when a patient's son started looking into his father's death. I hear her saying that the health of several other ailing patients is being called into question.

My skin crawls. The reporter names Faye as one of the nurses arrested. I fold Lhia's letter anxiously in half, then again in quarters. I should have known. I should have figured it out. I should have said something. The reporter says Megan Thompson's name, another nurse on the same shift as Faye. Then she says Kim Trellis.

I sit down. Faye, Megan, and a third nurse are shown covering their faces as they're handcuffed and taken away by police. It can't be Kim, not my Kim. But there she is in the same scrubs she was wearing today. There must be a mistake. I thought she was like family. I thought she was getting to work early. I thought she was wealthy, that her husband still had his job. Why would she lie to me?

I believe in liars. I believe lies.

“Mom?” I hear Lhia say, and when I turn and look at her she's in her flannel pajamas with her hair in a ponytail and her face scrubbed pink. My little girl. My beautiful girl.

“What's wrong?” she asks.

Lhia is looking at me with worry in her eyes.

“A bit of bad news.” I stand up, turn the TV off with the remote control, then I crumple Lhia's letter into a tight ball behind my back. Some things you don't want to know. Some things you're worse off for knowing. And fear is as self-indulgent as crying. Because you never see the worst traumas coming, even when they're right in front of you.

“We'll be all right, though.” I put my arm around Lhia's thin shoulder and squeeze her tight.

I
step through rubble, my boots sticking in shards of concrete and mangled metal. I climb as old bricks spill downwards like apples from a pyramid grocery display. Lyle is already on the stairwell. I look up and see his body framed in the silhouette of debris, backlit by dim demolition site lights. Exposed in an open shaft missing three walls. The stairs ascend three flights and then stop, midair. I want to climb to the top.

The old building hums and groans as pieces of it clink under my feet then fall away. I scramble toward the level part of the concrete pile, then stare down a wide gap. I stick one leg out, toeing toward the stairs, but my black velvet skirt gets in the way. I hike it up above my knees. Lyle whistles. I nearly lose my balance. I grab at a metal pipe and lean my body forward until my boot hits the first step. I hoist myself across.

I climb the stairs two at a time in the dark as wind blows dust in my eyes and whips my hair back. Lyle sits on the top step with his legs dangling over the edge. I sit down beside him and swing my legs back and forth. We're facing the back of the heap, staring at the surrounding office buildings and their nighttime fluorescence. There's an old ghost sign painted on the brick of the adjacent building. Lyle reads it out loud.

“Dack's shoe politics.”

“Yeah, this is Ottawa, but that says shoe polish,” I say.

Lyle punches me in the arm and I punch him back.

“So that building has been here, like, longer than this one.” He looks away and takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Yeah, but they're tearing this one down first. Must be from the seventies or something.” I watch as Lyle rips the plastic off the pack and throws the shiny inner wrapper over the edge.

“It was ugly
and
not built to last.” Lyle grins and puts two cigarettes in his mouth. He cups his hand against the wind, flicks his lighter, and then both cigarettes flare red. He hands one to me. “For you, Lhia.”

He remembers my name. I take the cigarette. Act casual.

“Still, it's a piece of history,” I say. I've never held a cigarette before. I push it between the fingers of my gloved hand. Then cross my legs and lean my elbow on my knee, my cigarette in the air, like in a 1940s movie. “It's older than we are.”

Lyle leans back and looks at me. He holds his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, taps ash over the edge, then takes a drag.

I'm still waving the cigarette in my hand. “I don't really smoke,” I say. I lift the cigarette toward my shoulder, starlet-style, with no intention of aiming it toward my mouth. “I'm just trying to look like Mildred Pierce.”

Lyle takes another drag. “Who?”

“Lady from a really old black-and-white movie.”

We hear the crunch of shifting concrete and turn to look, but there's no one there. The building's remnants are settling. Lyle leans into me. I feel his breath on the back of my neck. I look at him and he blows smoke into my face. It makes me cough.

“Gross!”

“What?” Lyle leans in closer. “Blowing smoke in someone's face means you want them.”

Lyle's leather jacket presses into my shoulder. His jeans rub against my knee. I stop breathing. I think I'm going to need my mom's defibrillator.

“I want to taste cigarettes on your tongue,” Lyle whispers into my ear. The stubble of his chin tickles and scratches.

My mind races.
No. Yes. No. Mom'sgoingto­killmeI'm ­definitelygoingtohell.

Out loud I say, “Okay,” and tap the ash end of the cigarette over the edge, like Lyle did. I hold the cigarette up to my mouth and taste paper. I suck in toxins, let the smoke release again through my mouth. I try not to huff it down into my lungs. I think of surgeon general's warnings about cigarette-smoking, mom's threats, cancer, tuburculosis, tumours, heart disease, stroke, death. I feel Lyle's hands on my back and then his lips push against mine, softer than I imagined, and then his tongue. My mouth must taste like warm, musty, slippery, greasy, tobacco dirt. Lyle stops to breathe, his face an inch away from mine, and I want to kiss him again. I feel all quivery, funny, shaky, and I giggle and Lyle laughs a little and neither of us are sure what to do next so we do kiss again and it's as good as the first time if not better and then he takes a drag and I make the mistake of looking at my watch. All I want to do is remember the time, record it in my own personal history forever and ever. Amen. This moment, 2:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m. Lyle gives me a look and leans back.

“Do you have to go?”

I'm a ruiner.

Lyle flicks his cigarette butt into the rubble. I stare at it, waiting for the debris below to flare into movie flames or TV explosions. Nothing happens. I flick my cigarette in the same direction. It doesn't make it nearly as far. No more fire, no more sparks. Lyle considers the empty street below.

“Ottawa is soooo boring,” he says, which I take to mean I'm boring. I am a concrete slab. I shiver.

“You're cold.” Lyle rubs my arm. “We should go.”

I think it's going to be like in the movies now. The scene where Lyle gives me his coat, takes my hand, and guides me steadily with his other hand on my back. I want to be guided. But Lyle gets up, dusts off his pants, and starts walking down the steps without looking back. I try to keep up. I see him sink-sliding down the rubble ahead of me. My skirt catches on metal, rips. My nose runs from the dust and I catch it with the dirty fingertip of my glove, which still smells like Value Village. And now smoke. I'm not glamorous or adventurous. Lyle doesn't want to kiss me again. I slip and there's nothing solid to grab on to. I regain my balance by sheer will. A few more steps and I'm finally at the bottom. Lyle waits for me to hop over the inadequate orange plastic fencing. He doesn't even look as I hike up my skirt. I'm over the top and on the sidewalk. I stand
thisclose
to him. He's already lit another cigarette for himself. He smiles, his eyes crinkling as shadows dance on his face in the yellow streetlight.

“Where do you live?”

“This way. A few blocks.” I gesture, take a step, and Lyle starts walking with me. We are halfway down the block when an orange municipal truck packed with pylons slows past us. Two huge workers in coveralls and ball caps stare at us as if they know where we were and what we were doing. I'm afraid we're about to get busted for climbing around the demolition site, but then Lyle takes my hand. He leans down and kisses me lightly on the mouth until the workers drive away.

Lyle stuffs his hands in his pockets and we start walking again. I can't think of anything to say. Silence for a whole block, and then another.

“It's this one.” I point at the condo building where my mom and I live. “Ground floor. I'm going to go through the window because —”

“Do you have roommates?” Lyle looks around, hands still in his pockets. I'm not sure if he wants to come in. If he's supposed to come in. If he should come in.

“Yeah, sort of.” I stand in the row of plants under the window and gaze at Lyle. I wait to see if he's going to kiss me again or ask for my last name or phone number. He hesitates then takes a step back. The streetlight shines down on the top of his head. I try to memorize his dark brown messy hair, brown eyes, crooked nose, leather jacket, skinny black jeans.

“Good night.” He sort of shrugs and I think I see him raise his eyebrows and half smile, but I'm not sure. “See you next week, I guess.”

“Yeah.” I watch him start walking away, but stop myself in case he looks back. I slide the window open, hop up on the ledge, and dive through, back into my normal, everyday life, back into my room. I close the window behind me, straighten the curtains, and then tear off my black corduroy jacket, vintage corset, velvet skirt, black leather boots, gloves. I put on my flannel pajamas and smear gooey cold makeup remover across my eyes. I throw all evidence of my underage drinking, nightclubbing, and curfew-breaking into a heap in the closet. I open my door and tiptoe into the hall. Silence. Mom's still at work. Night shift. Relief. Every once in awhile she comes home early, which is why I snuck in. But maybe I should have taken Lyle through the front door. Maybe the window thing was weird.

I wish I could have given Lyle my cellphone number. I am the only high school student on the planet with such a useless hunk of plastic for a phone. I think it's designed for senior citizens or something. People who need to make an emergency call because they dropped the remote control and can't find it. I can't even text with it. I've seen documentaries where people in shantytowns are talking on ultra-sweet, brand-new cells. Mom says we can't afford extras. But everything is an extra, and the condo we're renting from some civil servant is a shitbox. Awful carpets that probably once looked beige, but are now stained grey. Small rooms like cells. Cracks in the walls my mom tried to cover over with pictures. Ugly kitchen cupboards from the nineties. It's all so very “homey” as in homely, as in ghetto, as in embarrassing. So when mom asks me why I don't bring my friends over I give her a look and ask for a new cellphone. Again.

Seriously. Nobody does anything at school other than text each other, so if you don't have a real phone you don't exist. When I'm in class I sit at the back and hold books up in front of me as though they're camouflage. But I wear black thrift-shop clothes and unravelling sweaters, so I stick out and get picked on in the halls.

I get:

“Hey, Morticia, where's the funeral?”

“Orphan Annie called and she wants her sweater back.”

“Ewwwww. Something smells. Like dead people.”

I wouldn't want to wear their stupid sweatshop clothes and look exactly like everyone else, even if I could afford them. There's nothing elegant about jeans and T-shirts. “Ten-year-old kids probably made your shirt, you know,” is my usual (totally inadequate) comeback. I want to grow up to be glamorous. Like in old movies — the ones I watch with my mom, because we both love the clothes. And the drama. And the starlet attitude. I don't care that nobody else at school has ever seen these movies. It's my thing. Goth is kinda close if you think about it. Velvet and lace and ruffles and dresses and black and burgundy and dramatic makeup and elaborate hair. I can dress up in black and feel like I'm Dietrich or Hepburn. Ish.

So I don't really have any friends at school except for Skye, and I don't even like her very much. She doesn't like me, either, but she also dresses in black and dyes crazy stripes in her hair. We started sitting together in the non-participating section of gym class, and in the absolutely no-cheering area of every school assembly. The more people assumed we were friends, the more we began to act that way. Now, instead of sitting and staring at the high school circus in silence, we say things like:

“Hey, Skye.”

“Hey, Lhia.”

“This sucks.”

“Yup.”

I've been making real friends at a nightclub in the market called Zaphod Beeblebrox. It has a goth-industrial night once a week. If you show up often enough, people stop glaring at you and start talking. You have to prove you're not an imposter dressed up for a lark. I'm still learning about the music. I like it, though. It's heavy and angry and dramatic. Like movies. And Zaphod's is where I met Lyle. I think he's in his twenties. He hasn't asked how old I am so I haven't told him I'm underage. I can pass for about nineteen and a half when I wear a ton of black eye-makeup and opera gloves, which is why the bouncer keeps letting me in, even though my I.D. is so obviously fake. Other than the black hair, I don't resemble Mandy Chan, age nineteen, at all.

I like to sketch from photographs sometimes and the fake I.D. is what I drew in this journal-type sketchbook I sketch and write in, which my mom read, which is what got me into so much trouble last week. I tried to tell her everything in there is total fiction. I said my life is so boring I have to make stuff up. I don't know if she believed me or not. The whole thing was so stupid. I wish I fit in with the art and manga nerds at school, because they're the only other people I know who walk around with notebooks and write on actual
paper
, with a
pen
.

M
om's sleeping on and off all day. Shift work makes her cranky, so I can't stay at home. But I don't want to go to school. If I skip the morning I'm only missing French, gym, and a spare. I grab my black canvas bag and stuff it with my notebook and a couple of old
Sandman
graphic novels I found at the public library. I take a juice box from the fridge for lunch, lace up my tall, black second-hand boots, and head out. I like to walk around my neighbourhood and look around. It's a bizarre mash-up of big, beautiful old homes, formerly big, beautiful old homes converted into dingy student apartments, condo towers, office buildings, and hotels. I usually find a lot of things to sketch.

There's a field by the old Ottawa Tech high school on Slater Street. In the summer it's an endless pickup soccer game, but today it's empty. I walk past the creepy lot where there's a crumbling foundation for one of those big beautiful old homes, but no house. No development, either. I always wonder what the story is — what happened to the house and why there's no condo built there by now. I continue past dirty, tired trees and bushes and a sad, disorganized attempt at a community garden to get to what looks like an ancient stone retaining wall. The wall rises as the street and the sidewalk dip, growing taller and more menacing as you sink lower. Sometimes there are little cards with the Virgin Mary or Catholic saints on them stuck into the crevasses between the stones. Something happened in that knocked-down old house. I can feel it.

I'm looking for a saint card or candle when I see a tiny picture stuck in the wall. It's a painting of someone's hand reaching into deep indigo. I guess that's supposed to be night. I pull it out. It's about the size of a Post-it note — a small piece of canvas stretched over popsicle sticks. I turn it over in my hand and there's a small
N
on the back in pencil. Or maybe it's a squiggle. Or a
Z
. I don't notice that the paint is still partially wet until I get it all over my fingers. As I rub it off onto my long black skirt I get this feeling I'm being watched. I was planning to slip the painting in my bag and keep it, but now I'm not sure. I turn all the way around, but no one's there. I hear a twig snap and look up. The bushes are moving, but that might be the wind. I shiver, put the painting back where I found it, and walk away quickly, heading back into Centretown where the modern bricks and mortar are too new to contain any ghost stories.