earthgirl (14 page)

“It's just like the ones at the Sunshine Spa!” she giggled as she kissed me on the hair.

“What's in it?” Claire demanded as she tore through my cleverly recycled newspaper comics wrapping paper to reveal the stylin' rubber tire pouch I'd found for her. “It weighs a ton!”

“Nothing,” I answered. “It's just the purse.”

“Oh,” she sighed, looking into the black emptiness and finding the shiny penny I'd left there for good luck. “It looks like a tire.”

“It is a tire! Recycled. Pretty clever huh?”

“No,” Clare muttered. Then again she was like that about every gift. Even the gift certificates Mom and Dad usually opted for so she wouldn't whine that they didn't understand her or know who she really was.

As for me, I scored a Patagonia shell after many explanations of the company's ethical mandate and quality, some quiet pleading (okay, begging) and not-so-casual around-the-house brochure placement.

All in all a successful haul for our supposed holiday ambivalence.

“You absolutely sure you don't want to come skiing?” Dad asked in a last-ditch effort to twist my arm into forced family frolic.

“Yep,” I said twirling around in my excellent new jacket.

“No fair,” Clare wailed. “How come she gets Patagucci and I get the no-name special? She doesn't even care about labels and I do.”

“Your sister doesn't grow out of things every week. Sabine, you can still reconsider and put that jacket to good use,” Mom said. “You can take a black diamond clinic if you think skiing with us is too boring.”

“Nope,” I said as I took off my fab new winter wear.

“I worry you'll be bored here,” Mom sighed. “And lonely.”

“I've got lots of shifts at the co-op,” I assured. “I'll be fine.”

“We appreciate you've got a part-time job,” Dad said. “But working through the holidays isn't much of one.”

“Oh, like she'll be working,” Clare scoffed.

I almost shot her the evil-eye, but realized it would be better to ignore her.

“It's just a few days,” I reminded them. “And I'm excited to be on my own for once. I mean, hanging with my friends.”

Clare snorted. She was clearly way more on the ball than my parentals. Little creep.

To avoid further interrogation or attempts at guilting, I kissed the units and thanked them again for the choice graft before bolting for my room. Enough with the family stuff already. I wanted to focus my energy and attention on Vray.

Even though he said he didn't care about ritualized holidays, I still wanted to get him a present. I struggled for something meaningful but not too full of meaning. I worried about a gift that made too much of a statement. At the same time, I worried I might end up getting one that didn't say enough. It was a major league tangle for sure.

Before I freaked myself out too much, I decided to enlist Ruby's expertise because (a) she was very fashionable (especially for someone so crunchy and granola, but then she was an art student!) and (b) as a long-time family friend had historical insights into My Guy and (c) she actually had the insight and generosity to offer.

On her very sage advice, I ended up buying him this
beautiful leather lace with a bone amulet on it. It was shaped like a strange letter and the guy in the shop told me it was an Australian aboriginal symbol. Ruby liked it because it looked like the Hindu
Om
, which she explained signified the great power of the other and was chanted before yoga and meditation because the tone had a relaxing, mind and body calming quality.

It was an excellent guy gift. Plus it was international and obscure with a hint of surfer dude, rockstar and tree hugger all rolled into something he could wear around his neck and close to his heart.

But the real present was... me!

Yep, I'd decided that the time was right, the guy was right, all was right in the universe.

That everything had conspired to make this very moment the right one.

The front door was unlocked, so I let myself into Vray's family's old Victorian house. It was this amazing hundred-year-old red-brick place in Cabbagetown, the oldest neighborhood in the city.

I'd already knocked and rung the bell so when he didn't answer after a few long minutes, I tried the brass doorknob. I figured since he was expecting me, he must be home. He probably had on headphones or was in the shower, which also explained why he'd left the door open for me. Very thoughtful, really.

Inside the place was stunning and unlike any of the suburbany houses, townhouses or apartments my other friends lived in. The windows were cut glass divided up by black strips, and the late afternoon sun threw these incredible rainbow slices of light on the taupe walls. The ceilings were high and the dark wood floors were shiny where they weren't covered in beautiful, exotic-looking rugs. Everything besides the kitchen, which definitely belonged in a movie or on a cooking show with its sparkling pots hanging above the huge restaurant stove, seemed like it had lived a dozen lifetimes before it ended up there.

I was so excited I practically raced up the narrow creaky staircase to his room on the third floor. But since I didn't want to be all winded when I got there, I slowed down near the top.

Vray's door was ajar and I could hear the lowing sounds of Thom Yorke's squeaky strange voice in the background. I never quite got Radiohead. I could barely understand what they were singing, even if I liked their politics.

I took a long deep breath and tried to calm the crazy smile that was exploding off my face and filling up my entire body at what was about to happen! My boyfriend and me consummating our love for each other and the world. What a funny word, consummating! Combo of consuming and mating, har har!

I was practically bouncing off the walls as I stepped through the door and saw him.

He was lying propped up in his messy bed with his arm in a navy canvas sling like a broken puppet. His cheek had the pale, yellowish hue of a bruise in progress. It looked like he'd been jumped and clobbered. Swarmed.

“Hey babe,” he slurred when he saw me. His eyes were glassy and he looked completely spaced out.

“What happened?” I asked as I darted toward him, wanting to hold him and kiss his damp face, but frightened I might break him more than he already appeared to be broken.

“Busted my collarbone,” he sighed. “Hurts like a bastard so I'm hopped up on painkillers, which I'd like to point out live up to their name.”

“How? What happened?”

“Some MoFo Navigator who couldn't navigate squeezed me out,” he snorted with a drowsy drawl.

“Didn't he see you?”

“Obviously not,” he half laughed, lifting the sling an inch before clenching his teeth and wincing in pain.

“And he didn't even stop? That's hit and run!” I was shocked and horrified as my mind raced at what could have happened to poor Vray.

To my Vray.

“Oh, he stopped. Had to inspect the damage to his pig-mobile. Too bad there wasn't any. Then, get this, creep has the nerve to say I shouldn't ride my bike in the winter, like it's any of his fucking business. Jerk-off.”

“Did the police come? Did they charge him with dangerous driving? Nail his ass to the wall?”

“You know, you're pretty cute when you get all worked up,” Vray laughed, patting the damp pillow beside him. “I think he got a ticket for an improper lane change or something, like he cares.”

I sat carefully beside him, brushing the sweat-knotted hair off his forehead and kissing his unbruised cheek. I looked at my broken boyfriend and even though I didn't want to be selfish, I couldn't help feeling disappointed and even angry that this had happened. At this supposed-to-be epic moment.

He couldn't even hug me and I might hurt him if I touched him.

“Are your parents coming back?” I asked, suddenly realizing the other implications of this horrible accident.

“Nah,” he sighed. “I'll be okay in a coupla days. My dad dispatched his sister Martha to make sure I've got food and don't OD on meds or something, but she's cool.”

“What about the band? The Christmas show?”

“Don't remind me,” he groaned.

“Well, at least you can still sing,” I offered, even though his thrashy guitar was actually the best thing about his singing.

“I don't want to think about any of that right now.” He let out a breath that sounded like he was deflating.

“I can't believe you got hurt,” I said, snuggling gently up to his good shoulder. And how much it hurt me to see him lying there like that. All mangled and broken and beaten down.

“It's a collarbone, Green Bean. Most commonly broken bone in the body, but hurts like a MoFo, I'll tell you that much.”

“This is awful. I'm so sorry this happened,” I said as I ran my hand through his curls.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. To me. To us.

“Finn nearly got his eye taken out by some asswipe waving a cigarette out the window last summer. Should've seen the scratch he left on the dude's Lexus. Priceless,” Vray said with a glint in his eye.

“He scratched his car?”

“Not intentionally, unfortunately, and it was the guy's fault anyway. He pulls over in the No Stopping bike lane like a pompous jerk. So Finn's riding in front of me and pulls out to pass him when this fat, pasty arm shoots out the
driver's window and nails Finn with a lit butt. Finn's so freaked he swerves, but there's cars beside us and he ends up scraping against the guy's fender,
cccccccrrrrrrsssskkkk
. It was a beautiful thing.”

Even though I was sort of shocked at the way Vray described it, I was also a little pumped. And almost sorry I hadn't done some of my own scratch-worthy damage to the littering lunatic lady's car.

At the very moment, I hated drivers and especially those arrogant S.U.X. drivers with every cell of my being. I hadn't exactly liked them and their obnoxious oversized steroid-fed cars before, but that didn't compare with the anger and disgust I was feeling right now.

Before this moment, it had been an abstract kind of anger at what they stood for and were doing to the planet. How they drove around in their monster machines as if their lives depended on it. Like it was their right.

Now their greed and gluttony had had a direct impact on me and my life. Their choices and actions affected me, my boyfriend, my life and my plans.

It was outrageous.

“We should do something,” I said. “When you're better, we should do something major. I mean, what's with these people? First that crazy woman hurls her garbage at me and now this! It's like some kind of four-wheel conspiracy to kill and maim cyclists! We have to do something.”

“Man, you're hot when you're all amped up like that,” Vray said quietly. “Sucks that I can't do much about it. Can't even wrap my arms around you and slobber all over your
hot little bod. Well, just my one arm, but I wish it were both.”

Me, too, I thought, letting out a sigh and snuggling carefully against his chest.

•••

We must have fallen asleep because it was Vray's Aunt Martha who woke us a while later.

“Hey, there, Matty, looks like you're feeling a bit better,” Martha said, giving us both a gentle nudge.

“Painkillers,” Vray answered sleepily. “And I asked you to please not call me that.”

“Roger that, Vray. Hi, I'm Martha, his amazing aunt, and you must be the fabulous Sabine,” she said, turning to me with a big smile and the same sparkling green eyes as Vray. “At least I hope so, or I'm going to be more embarrassed than either of you at this particular second.”

“Who else would she be?” Vray snorted.

“Yes,” I nodded as I scooched up from the pillow, wiping away the grotty film of sleep from my mouth. “And I was just leaving.” Not to mention epically embarrassed to have been caught like that, even if she was very sweet about it.

“Don't even think about it,” she said nonchalantly. “If you stay here tonight I can go home. You're good to stay over, right?”

I didn't know what to say. I'd never met an adult who was so casual in a situation like this. Even if it did involve a sensible girl and a dosed-up, busted and groggy boy.

“She can hang out and play nurse,” Vray answered for me. “We were talking about it right before you got here.”

“Great. It's about time Matty — sorry, Vray — had more positive female energy in his world,” Martha smiled as she swept across the room briskly tidying things up like a jeans-and fleece-wearing Mary Poppins. “Nice contrast from that pack of wolves he usually runs with.”

“Grrrr,” Vray growled at her.

“I've got pizza and salad in the kitchen. You can get your sorry butt downstairs out of this manky room to eat something, right?” she said as she bounded out the door onto the landing.

“Did she just ask me to sleep over?” I looked at Vray.

“Yup,” Vray grinned wickedly.

“To sleep over here with you, alone?”

“Oh, like you hadn't planned to?” he said, pointing to my bulging backpack on the floor beside one of his many teetering towers of smartypants books.

“You knew?” I asked, feeling vaguely thrilled he was so clued in. So in tune with me and what was on my mind.

“Sort of,” he answered, his glassy eyes sparkling and nodding toward an unopened box of condoms tucked beside the night-table lamp. “I definitely hoped so. If not tonight sometime during the holidays.”

“I can't believe I'm so transparent,” I said, leaping off the bed to smooth my hair and unrumple my clothes. “I might even be insulted.”

“Why? We're just totally in sync,” he said softly.

“We are, aren't we,” I agreed, with another one of those overwhelming body-engulfing smiles taking me over. “Like two of a kind.”