Maidenhead (8 page)

‘Can’t she open a window?’ my father asked, moving in and swatting the air.

My mother flinched. ‘Do it yourself.’

My father wrestled with my window until it unstuck. Then he bent down and huffed the cold air from the screen. It was overdramatic. My father’s hair wasn’t combed. His nose was still red from the sun in Key West.

‘You looking forward to going back to school?’ My mom’s voice was too quiet. She sat down on the edge of my bed.

‘You know I’m not.’

‘You’ve been using the cortisone,’ my dad said. ‘So it’s already getting better.’

‘You can go out with Jen and Charlene and those girls, you know. You can sleep over at Jen’s. We discussed that. That’s fine with us now.’

There’s this guy, this man who thinks I’m beautiful and he made me this necklace that protects me and he’s going to come here and see me!

‘We want you to be happy ... ’ My father’s voice cracked.

I looked at him. He covered his face with both hands.

‘It’s okay, Myra. He’s okay.’

I thought of a hyena, shot in the foot.

‘I’m not okay, Irene! Don’t put words in my mouth.’

I could only look at my mother. Not the force field of pain that was suddenly my father.

‘You know when you have a fight with Jen, or one of your friends, Myra?’ My mother’s voice was too calm. ‘Well, your dad and I have had a lot of fights lately ... ’

My dad rubbed his face hard. ‘Why did we have to do this at the same time?’

Both of our faces were too red and sore, it felt weirdly genetic.

‘You can leave now, Neil, if you want.’

‘No!’ my father screamed, his snout scrunched. ‘You made me do this with you. Let’s finish it. Christ. She’s not a child anymore.’

I wished Jody were here in my room, Jeff too.

‘Your father and I think that it would be better if we took a break from each other,’ my mother said.

Then my father stumbled forward as if he were going to punch a wall.

‘Just leave now, Neil,’ my mother commanded.

My father changed directions and lurched out of my room.

‘He’s just upset,’ my mother said. ‘He’ll be okay. He’s an adult.’

I mean, I knew my parents didn’t have a great relationship, I’d even told Jen before that I thought they should get a divorce like her parents. But now it felt like a hammer, a table cracked down the middle.

‘I have a lot of interests, things I need to do, Myra ... ’

‘When’s it going to happen?’ My room gusted with cold.

‘Oh, Myra ... ’

‘What?’

My mom leaned in towards me. I wrapped my blankets up to my chin.

‘I’m sorry. You can’t really understand right now, can you?’

I knew my mom had gotten married to my dad when she was nineteen, like all those girls on Spring Break. She was pretty much the same age as Jody was now. It almost didn’t seem possible. I was hugging myself. My mother was sitting on the edge of my bed telling me that she was going to teach English in Korea for a year.

‘A
year
? Korea? That’s so far. Did you tell Jody?’

‘She’s okay with it,’ my mom said. ‘But are you?’

‘You’re going alone there?’

‘No.’

‘God, I knew it ... ’

‘Wait, Myra. My god, what do you think? I’m going with Sarah and Jon, the couple I met at my Spanish class this year.’

‘I can’t believe it, I mean we just went away! Jeff is only fourteen!’

‘Myra, I know you can’t understand this right now.’

I didn’t know if my mother ever had a boyfriend before marrying my father. I didn’t want to be so upset. I wanted her to get the fuck out of my room.

‘Your cheek is going to clear up before school. Things are going to be fine if you keep using that cream.’

My mother hugged me heavily then, on top of my blankets. I couldn’t untangle myself to hug her back or push her off. I couldn’t believe she was leaving. We had to live alone with my dad?

‘It’s okay that you’re mad at me, Myra,’ my mother whispered into my hair. ‘I might be mad too, if I were you.’

‘You don’t know what’s going on with me,’ I croaked.

‘It would make me feel a lot steadier right now, Myra, if you could just try to understand things from my perspective.’

My mother was always so young-looking that strangers thought me and Jody and her were all sisters. I held on to my necklace and closed my eyes. Elijah made me this necklace, this chain that was locked on me now. He said it was beautiful that I didn’t know how beautiful I was.

GAYL: She’s forgetting things! Tripping. Like what about me?

LEE: No, no, she’s managing all right.

GAYL: Man, I just want to get to the dirty stuff now.

LEE: Leave her alone, she’s lonely. Let’s leave her alone.

§

My red shiny miniskirt, white leather booties and cut-off white V-neck T to distract from my face. I was supposed to meet Jen at her place with Charlene. I was supposed to show off my tan lines and trade stories about March Break. But at my mother’s makeup table with the daytime light setting, I thought my cheek looked medieval or something: I was a leprous species close-up. I shoved my hand down my skirt. Thank god I could make myself come. That was the only thing I could be thankful for. I could come in seconds now just by squeezing my legs together, squeezing inside. My mom had at least fifty different tubs inside her table. I dipped into two of the peach-coloured foundations and rubbed my entire face with the stuff. Then I turned the light setting to night and blue-purple dots bounced off my fresh mask. It didn’t look bad, it looked kind of glamorous, actually. I painted on another layer of the stuff, then I dusted with powder, smoothing over the cracks. The lights on my skin were like cars on the road.

‘You look hot, My!’ Jen came bounding down the stairs of her place. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. At least my cheek didn’t hurt as much anymore. ‘You look like an actress or something!’ She smelled like coconut cream. Jen said once, drunk, that she thought I had a good body. I knew by the way she checked me out, without wanting to be too obvious, that she had that thought again. She was always tabulating thoughts and weighing them out. I was thinking I should give her a compliment too. Jen was tanned to the point of near-burn. She always wore the right amount of makeup because her dad’s girlfriend was a clerk at Holt Renfrew and she’d taught her how to do it right. All the guys liked Jen. She’d had three boyfriends already, all in Grade 12. I followed her up the stairs to her bedroom. There was a flask on her pillow. She gave me a swig.

‘Our trip was fucking awesome. My, you have to tell me all about yours when Char comes. Tell us all the dirty details. Oh god, Dave and my mom were totally relaxed in Cabo and we tried to get the Mexican guys at our hotel to sneak booze into my drink. This guy, the bartender, did stuff like that, he said, for caliente girls like me. He was nineteen and Dave knew I was hot for him and he almost tried to set us up. He kept making jokes at dinner saying, You know this girl is going to be at the pool later, right? His name was Ricky, but I called him his real name, Ricardo, he was so fucking embarrassed that Dave was doing that. It was cute though, really. I’ve got his email, we’re gonna talk.’

Jen smiled. She took three long chugs off the flask. She was already planning our graduation trip. I was thinking about how I was going to tell Jen about Elijah. Charlene was black and I wondered if she’d think it was weird that I was with a black guy who I met on the beach. Who wanted me to touch his cock. Who pissed on me. Who was going to come here. Jen would fucking freak out if she knew.

‘That’s cool about Ricardo,’ I said.

‘Yeah, yeah, he’s amazing. A rock star. You’d think so too. Next time your parents should let you come with me to Cabo. We’ll have a fucking blast! We’re old enough in Mexico to really drink. Tequila, baby. The good stuff.’

I don’t think my mother ever liked Jen. My mother had looked tiny with her backpack on, standing at the door to say goodbye. She looked like one of those Korean women on her book cover, dressed up and silent and stiff, against a wall of rock.

‘I’m gonna keep in touch with Ricardo, maybe he has a hot friend for you too.’

I knew at that moment in Jen’s room that I wouldn’t ever be with a guy like she was with a guy. It all seemed too obvious, too ordinary. I liked men who were older than me. I liked black men. I liked musicians. This was the kind of guy I wanted to be with. This was the kind of person I wanted to understand. I didn’t want to understand Jen or her tallied-up, shallow conquests.

‘Myra, is something wrong? You seem kind of sad or something, girlfriend.’

‘Nah, I’m okay. I just want more to drink.’

I hated my mother and father. I was bored with Jen. I wanted to watch porn. I’d found this website for free, it was a service or something that delivered these video clips to your inbox. They were a minute, sometimes more, of these girls getting fucked, like what I saw in Key West but even more extreme, with headings like:
asschick, teenwhore, slutgettingcock
. Jeff had bawled at the door when the taxi arrived for my mom. Jody gave my mom a massive hug. My father hid out in the basement alone. I let my mom kiss my forehead. Her lips were lukewarm. I watched her struggle into the taxi, that backpack was half of her height. I got a new porno teaser delivered every day.

‘My parents are getting a divorce,’ I said to Jen. I was hiccupping. It occurred to me that my mother had planned her escape.

‘Seriously, Myra? Oh god, I’m so sorry.’ Jen passed me the flask.

Those video clips made me really feel fucking. A cock going in and in and in. Girls’ mouths gagging and jacking wide.

‘Actually, I’m not sorry, Myra. Welcome to the club!’

Charlene was ringing the bell. Jen kissed me on the lips before she ran for the door. One long swig and I finished the flask. Elijah was coming here. My mother was gone. I wore all this makeup and saw all this porn. Me: on the edge of being free.

§

In the blue smoked-up backyard with Jen and Charlene, I ended up drinking five big plastic cups from the keg. I started crying, pretty uncontrolled, when Jen told me that my face looked orange.

‘You should let my dad’s girlfriend give you a lesson, My, it’s okay, it’s just too much powder, Ella’s so good, I swear, I use everything she taught me.’

Jen was right up in my face and I shoved her away with both hands.

‘I’m just trying to help you, Myra!’ Jen screamed.

I had to stop crying.

‘Oh god, I care about you!’ Jen moaned way too loud. ‘Your face looks weird, My, seriously, why’d you put all that crap on your face! I know what you’re going through, you don’t think that I know?’

‘Leave me alone, you fucking butch!’ I meant to say bitch and Charlene laughed that I said
butch
.

Charlene slung her arm around Jen’s shoulder, coaxing her away from me. Obviously Charlene thought I was totally disgusting. I stopped crying and smeared my face. Charlene and Jen looked like two sheep nuzzling each other. They moved towards the weeping willow at the end of the yard where a group of girls smoked. I watched Jen get swallowed up in the female herd. It was totally pathetic.

I stood at the side fence of the backyard connecting the groups of people into dots. Leaves from a tree in the yard next door scratched the top of my head. No one came and talked to me. After a while, I went back inside the house. There was a staircase at the back of the kitchen. I walked through where a couple of kids I didn’t know were smoking at a table. One of the girls stared at me as I passed her. I hadn’t seen her before at our school. She had frizzy brown hair, a long nose and she was strange in the eyes. They were brown but they had this bluish glow to them. She seemed calf-eyed, the colours streaking, as if the calf were being electrocuted.