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“I don't know.”

“Well, don't force yourself into anything you're not comfortable with.”

Her glazed expression meant that her book was “unusually engrossing” and that she wasn't going to be much help in working this through. Why would she be? She hasn't dated since she and Dad split up six years ago, and at this rate, she never will again. She binge-reads the way other addicts binge-drink or binge-eat. I'm never going to be like her.

“Have you ever thought of wearing latex gloves when you're reading those?”

Mom gave me a blank look. “Hm?”

“Never mind.”

She probably thinks it's okay to go out with Kevin because I'm such good friends with Sasha. But I don't know Kevin that well; he's always just been Sasha's older brother.

I wonder if Sasha knows that Kevin phoned me?

Maybe he won't even call me back.

July

Thursday, July 1st / Friday, July 2nd, midnight

Hundreds of us packed the causeway from Laurel Point to the Inner Harbour and waited for it to get dark. People bobbed in canoes and outboard motor boats, too. The show didn't start till after ten o'clock. Kevin and I claimed spots right by the garden that spells
Welcome to Victoria
in begonias and pansies. We saw the glittering explosions
and
their reflections on the water. Sometimes the light zoomed right at us, and the crowd gasped like one person. At the end, “O Canada” played, and red and white-gold sparks filled the sky.

Kevin smoked the whole time. That must be why he's always chewing something when he's at home—he's not allowed to smoke in the town house. He looked amused by the whole celebration, and people usually smiled at him as they passed. I envied his confidence. When the national anthem played, he sang at the top of his lungs. Some drunken teenagers stumbled over to join him, and everyone linked arms, including me. As I swayed back and forth, scrambling to support the wasted girl beside me, it hit me: I was downtown at night without a parent, mine or anyone else's. Freedom smelled of salt water and outboard motor oil.

As we walked back to the car, Kevin told me more about tree-planting, about the blackflies and the rain and working ten-hour days six days in a row, then going in to Prince George and getting drunk on his day off. He noticed me shiver as the wind picked up and put his arm around me. “For warmth,” he said. It seemed to me that we got some funny looks; was it because he's so much older than me?

On the way home, he took the “scenic route” and stopped at a pull-off overlooking the ocean. He twisted the keys in the ignition and the car rumbled to a halt. Wind rushed in the window.

“Is this your first date, Natalie?”

I didn't want to answer him. The amused expression that seemed to make everyone else warm up to him didn't feel so good when he trained it on me. He was laughing at me with his eyes.

“Hey, it's okay. Only, maybe you don't know what to expect.”

I felt trapped in the car. “I don't know what you mean, but I want to go home.”

“Already?” He reached out and smoothed back my hair. I could smell the nicotine on his fingers. The calluses on his palm scraped my cheek, but he touched me gently. It felt okay. “I was so surprised when I saw you downstairs the other night.”

“I know, I'm sorry. It's just—”

He shook his head. “No worries. But you want to know what I was thinking?”

His fingers brushed a sensitive spot on the back of my neck. I shuddered.

“I give up.”

“What a babe.”

In the center of my chest, something strawberry-sized melted into liquid warmth.

“After, I kept picturing you standing there, and that's when I knew I had to call.”

He put his arm around my shoulders, pulled me towards him, and squeezed. His hands rubbed my back and razor stubble scratched my face. His mouth slid onto mine. I pressed my lips together but he tongued them open, his jaws wide. Yuck, smoker's breath. He was suddenly breathing hard, like he'd just surfaced from underwater, desperate for air. It scared me. I jerked my head and twisted in his arms. “Let me go!”

“What's the matter?”

I was huddling against the door on my side of the car. He seemed annoyed, but not for long.

“Never done that before, huh?” He winked. “It gets better. Cheer up, I'll take you home.”

When he dropped me off, he gave me a light punch in the arm. He didn't say he'd call me. I wished him luck with the blackflies.

Na
-ta-lie
Fer-
gu-son
now
has been
kissed.

Saturday, July 3rd

Mom, Paige, and I were grocery shopping when I spotted a woman weighing a grapefruit in her palm. One look at her coiffed hair—with its subtle gold and copper highlights and its complicated array of angles and flips—and I knew who it was: Mrs. Varkosky, mother of Sasha and Kevin. I tried to steer Mom over to the bulk food bins where she could busy herself scooping trail mix and organic rice. But she frowned and said she wasn't finished in the produce section yet. I squeezed avocadoes absently and willed Mrs. Varkosky not to turn around.

Mrs. V. works as a real estate agent and dresses the part: skirts and blazers that change colors with the seasons, shoes with heels that change height and width with the trends. As Mom would say, she wears war paint and business armor. Mom's own fashion motto is “comfort first.” True to form, she was wearing a sack-like dress and wide, flat sandals.

But Mom's outfit wasn't my biggest concern. There was what my mother might
say
. Possible gems: “What do you think of the budding romance between our children?” Ha, wouldn't Mrs. V. freak if she assumed that Sasha and I were gay? Or: “It was very
kind
of your son to take my daughter out on her very first date,” like he'd performed an act of charity. Little does she know that Kevin's not in it for the Cub Scout points.

Just then, Mrs. Varkosky looked up and caught me staring. Two vertical lines have etched themselves between her eyebrows. Sasha said she's considering Botox. A weary expression flitted across her face before she smiled.

“
Don't say anything
.” I spoke into Mom's ear without moving my lips.

Mom shot me a startled look and said, “Hello, Pauline.”

I found my voice. “Hi, Mrs. Varkosky.”

“It's the Ferguson girls. How are you all today? Aren't you grown up, Paige! Lovely performance the other week, Natalie. And how's the exhausted teacher? Enjoying your summer vacation, Denise?”

Luckily, we only had time to murmur brief responses before Mrs. V. had to dash. Paige watched Mrs. V. weave her way through the crowded store to the cash registers. “That lady is nice, but in a mean way,” she said.

For the rest of the shopping trip, I was so distracted that even Mom noticed. When she teased me about it, I snapped at her. We didn't talk the whole way home.

Sunday, July 4th

It's settled: Paige is going to Toronto in August on her own. She'll stay with Dad for three weeks, during which he has
promised
to take vacation. Paige always gets the benefit of Mom and Dad's screw-ups with
me
. Last year, Paige and I were all set to visit Dad together, as usual, when she came down with appendicitis and had to have an emergency operation. Naturally, she couldn't go. I hated to leave with her in the hospital. I kept seeing her greenish face dwarfed by the huge, white pillow. Everyone said there was no point in us both missing the trip, and besides, she was doing fine. I traveled alone. For the next two and a half weeks, I languished in Dad's condo in Oakville while he dealt with an “urgent project” that had come up “without his control,” even though he had booked the weeks off. I was bored and lonely and to top it all off, the air-conditioner broke.

Dad's girlfriend, Vi, wasn't too pleased about it either. She had scheduled her holidays at the same time as he had and couldn't postpone them. With Dad busy, she made a half-hearted attempt to entertain me. Our first and only shopping trip ground to a halt when I convinced her that, no, my parents didn't give me a clothing allowance. Unable to fathom an adolescent girl who didn't live to shop, Vi fled to her family's cabin in Parry Sound.

At the end of my stay, Dad finally made time for me, and we raced around the city, packing in Science World, the CNE, the Shakespeare play in High Park, and Sunnyside Beach. He took two rolls of film in three days. Vi must have conveyed her shock about my wardrobe to Dad because he also took me shopping at the Eaton Centre on Yonge Street and bought me so much stuff it wouldn't fit into my suitcase; I had to ship a parcel. When Paige saw the photos and the clothes, she wanted the same chance to hog Dad's attention. So, this year Paige will visit that cabin on Parry Sound with Dad and Vi—they'll canoe and swim and maybe water ski.

I'll just have to make the best of it here. Mom might go to a resort with her friend Marine in August. They'll haul a crate of novels each, I imagine. They'll need a wheelbarrow to move them into the cabin. Mom said Marine invited both of us, but I don't want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere with not one but two middle-aged bookworms. So I
might
be living here on my own for a week. Maybe Sasha could stay with me.
If
we're still friends, that is.

I wonder if Kevin will call me before he leaves town.

Monday, July 5th

Sasha and Jamie were basking in a lozenge of sunlight on the wooden floor of the dance studio when I arrived for the first day of the summer intensive. Sasha looked at me and darted her eyes away without smiling. She snuck another look at me in the mirror. Had Kevin blabbed to her about the date? Was she already thinking of me as “Gina the Second, Traitor”?

I wanted to approach her, but she wasn't making it easy. She reached for her toes and all I saw was the curve of her back and her hair in its tidy bun. She was wearing a new, eggplant-colored leotard. As I moved closer, Sasha and Jamie burst out laughing. My intestines shriveled as I watched Sasha's profile and Jamie's face. The two of them have perfect complexions. My nose was starting to shine and my upper lip prickled with sweat.

Thankfully, Ms. Kelly flung open the door to the studio at that moment and strode in. “Good morning, girls! Find a place on the floor. Natalie, don't stand there like a blue heron stalking minnows. There's a spot down front.”

I settled in next to the junior girls. Lisa slipped into the studio at the last minute. Outside the window, gravel crunched under the wheels of her boyfriend's blue pickup truck. He used to honk as he pulled away, until Ms. Kelly put a stop to it. As Stretch and Conditioning class began, it occurred to me (for the millionth time) that Ms. Kelly should have been a drill sergeant. She makes us do push-ups and sit-ups, and she yells at the people who slow down, rest, or groan. In the center work, she stands beside each of us with a ruler held level with the tops of our heads and makes us kick it. Anyone who doesn't reach it, she sentences to fifteen minutes of extra hamstring stretches and splits per day. Sometimes she prods us with that ruler—“Pull up your knees! … Turn out from the tops of your thighs!” Poke, poke.

When she choreographs, Ms. Kelly cleans each set of eight counts before she continues. She says that learning the whole piece before starting to clean creates lazy dancers with bad habits. So, in jazz class today, we repeated the first few bars of the piece
ad nauseam
: “Stretch your lines! Are those
hands
on the ends of your arms, or dead fish? Energy in the fingertips! … Point your feet! … Synchronize your movement! Natalie, this is not a solo!”

Sash and I didn't talk all day. She was avoiding me, I think.

Kevin should leave to go tree planting soon. Then things can get back to normal.

Wednesday, July 7th

We thrust our hips from side to side. We rippled our torsos in body waves. We draped our arms over our heads. With our backs to the audience, we put our hands on our hips and turned our heads over our shoulders with a come-hither look. We slid in splits to the floor, leaned back on bent elbows, and fanned our legs.

At the end of jazz class, Ms. Kelly made us try on our costumes for a photo shoot: red Lycra unitards with plunging neck and back lines. We bunched up in a pose, and for a split second, when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't tell which one I was. Then I zeroed in on the legs. I was the one with the thickset, bow-legged calves. Gross. Ms. Kelly circled us, snapping one photo after another. I checked out the rear view. The V-neck exposed a bunch of zits on my back that I didn't even know were there. I can't wear those stupid unitards anymore. I might have to quit dance altogether.

Ms. Kelly let the camera drop from her face and exhaled in exasperation. “Natalie, do you think you could wipe that sneer off your face?”

I flashed her a fake smile. Some of the other girls were goofing off, sticking out their butts and squishing their boobs together to make cleavage.

Ms. Kelly sighed. “I can see it's hopeless to continue. You've obviously shut off your brains for the day. But before you go, I have an important announcement to make.”

Jamie and Sasha were bent over, looking through their legs into the mirror. “I can't believe this is supposed to look sexy!” Jamie said, red in the face.

“Jamie and Sasha! May I have your attention, please?”

They whipped themselves upright, and Sasha staggered a little. “Whoa, head rush.” Jamie steadied her with a hand on her back.

“I'm happy to announce that next week, and the week after, you're going to have a guest teacher, Petra Moss. Petra is one of my star graduates, and I want you to show her that our standards remain as high as ever! Understood?”

With mock obedience, we echoed in unison: “Understood.”