Nobody's Dog (9 page)

By the time we get though half the stores in the mall, I never want to shop with two girls again. It's bad enough to have to spend so much time with Aunt Laura, but with Libby wandering around commenting on all the clothes, I feel like a shopping prisoner. She takes my arm when we get to a jeans store and pretends she's my personal shopper. Aunt Laura's acting all buddy-buddy with Libby and trying to make me laugh, which makes me grumpier.

“Jakob?”

“Huh?”

Libby stands beside me looking into my face. “You okay? You've been staring at that T-shirt for ages.”

I look around. We're in Max Clothing, a store that's too expensive for Aunt Laura, but she's looking at the jeans and talking to a sales guy.

“I'm fine,” I say. I pull the yellow T-shirt off the table in front of me.

“It's not your colour.” Libby digs into the pile and pulls out a blue one. “How about this?”

“Whatever.”

She holds the T-shirt up to me. “Blue looks good with your eyes.”

“You're not my mother. Can't I find my own clothes?” I walk over to a rack of army pants and pretend to look for my size.

“What's going on?” a voice whispers in my ear.

I spin around so fast I knock Libby into a display of sweatshirts. “Don't do that,” I snap. “It's creepy.”

Libby pats the sweatshirts back into position. “Carmen has a name for people like —”

“Holy crap,
shut up
about Carmen,” I mutter.

Her eyes bug out but she doesn't say anything.

I walk past her and duck behind a stack of jackets. On the other side, Aunt Laura's coming toward me with jeans in both arms. I don't have time to see Libby's face, but I can guess what it looks like.

Two pairs of jeans and three T-shirts later, I'm still in the change room.

Aunt Laura throws a pair of army pants over the door. “How about these?”

Outside the change room, she and Libby are talking but I can't hear what they're saying. For all I know, Libby's telling her how weird I'm being, maybe even about me being out in the yard that first night.

I don't bother trying on the cargo pants, just pull on my old jeans and leave the rest of the clothes crumpled in the change room.

“How were they?” Aunt Laura asks. She holds the three T-shirts and pair of jeans we're going to buy.

“No good,” I say.

“Libby's been telling me about her drawings. I hear you've done a few yourself, Jakob.”

I clench my teeth to stop J from spitting words out.

“He's pretty good,” Libby says. “I wish he'd draw more.” It sounds like I'm a preschooler she's encouraging.

“I don't know why you're so excited about it,” I say, staring at the fake wood counter as the guy puts the clothes in a bag. “I'm a crappy artist and no one cares about it anyway.”

“Jakob.” Aunt Laura's hand comes down on my shoulder, pulling me around to face her. “What's with the attitude? Libby's trying to be nice. She's your friend.”

“Is she?” I can only look at Aunt Laura for a second, but that's enough to see the laser beams of disapproval she's shooting at me. “Jakob Nebedy, you better start talking. What's going on?” She pulls me out of the store, makes me sit on one of the slippery black leather chairs in the middle of the mall. The ones that are arranged with a rug between them to make you feel like you're in someone's living room. But we're not. We're in the plastic, fake-smelling mall in the middle of the summer. I want to be anywhere but here. I want to be nowhere.

“You've been acting strange for days, and with Mrs. Lester seeing you out at night and your dirty clothes in the washer — what's the deal? Are you into drugs? Talk to me.”

“No,” I mutter. The rug is red and purple checkers, with gold around each square.

“No to what, Jakob? Explain.”

J barges in — he shoves me aside and takes control of my brain. “
I
need to talk? What about you? Why are you talking to
me
about holding things in?”

“Jakob, I think —”

“You're the biggest liar in the world.” I'm yelling and it feels good. People are looking but I don't care.

Aunt Laura's face is white. The lines around her eyes and mouth are deeper than I remember. She looks old. “Jakob, can this wait until we get home?”

“Why? So you won't be embarrassed? So you can hide from this stuff for a little longer?”

Libby stands behind Aunt Laura, her hands over her mouth, looking halfway between scared and fascinated.

“They died, okay? I'm the one who should be the most screwed up. I'm their son. But you act like it doesn't matter.”

“Jakob, that's not true —”

“Of course it's true!” I shout. “You didn't want to have all their stuff to deal with — you had your own life. I heard you talking to my mom. You said you didn't want to live with us. Then you moved in and all their stuff disappeared. It's like they never existed in the house.”

“Stop it!” She grabs my shoulder and shakes me, but not for long, because I rip out of her grasp and sprint down the mall. Everything becomes a blur, stores moving into each other as I race nowhere — just away.

But the end of the mall is the entrance to Sears, and the glaring lights, too-sweet perfume, cheesy music take me back to last Christmas, my mom laughing beside me, showing me a half-price flower vase we could give Aunt Laura. We're going to have an early Christmas because my parents and I are going on vacation and Aunt Laura's alone this year. She's coming over to our house for dinner. I'm stoked to tell her about our holiday plans.

“Jakob. Jakob, listen to me.”

Someone's shaking me, moving my body back and forth. It's Aunt Laura, crouching, her arms around me — I can smell her deodorant. We're on the floor beside a round rack of men's pants. I can't figure out if I'm the one who
started rocking or if she's moving us both.

“Jakob, I'm sorry. We'll talk about it. I promise. Just don't run.”

I stare at the shiny silver arm of the pants rack. Focusing on something calms me down. “I was here with Mom,” I hear myself say. “We were buying you that vase for Christmas.”

Aunt Laura nods — her chin moves up and down on my head. She breathes deeply and exhales. “The one on the mantelpiece. It's my favourite.”

When we get home I go to the bathroom to wash my face. A few tears leaked out on the drive back and I don't like the crusty feeling on my cheeks. Libby has disappeared. I guess it wasn't hard to do when Aunt Laura and I were so distracted.

As I sit on the side of the bath, looking at the blue floor tiles, I hear music come on downstairs. Some terrible girl-band. I've never thought about her music before. For an artist, someone with alternative written all over her, she has pretty boring taste in music. I wonder if she'd like the Cosmic Turkeys.

“Jakob? You okay in there?” Aunt Laura stands outside the door, probably worried I'll get into her razors or something.

“Just a minute,” I say. I listen to the muffled music until the song ends and another one starts, sounding exactly the same. I'd rather be downstairs, hanging out with Libby, than about to face Aunt Laura. I could say all kinds of things to Libby and she'd understand. Or she would have before I bit her head off.

“Jakob?”

I get up and open the door.

The photo album Aunt Laura hands me is black and
ordinary, but it's stuffed full of photos and papers, as if someone wanted to keep everything but didn't have time to organize it.

I open to the first page. It's me as a baby: four faded photos with captions in my mom's handwriting.
Jakob, six months. Jakob at Brunswick Beach, fourteen months
. The next page is them — my mom and dad at their wedding, on vacation, at someone's house. My dad with a beard and without. I have a vague memory of seeing some of these photos before, but some are brand new to me. It's like looking at their life as if I'm a stranger.

I have a sudden flash of his smile, his white teeth, the rest in shadow. He's in the driver's seat and we're going somewhere. He looks back at me. Headlights of other cars flash in the dark.

“Do you remember the first week?”

I shake my head. The time after the accident is a blur because I was in the hospital with a head injury, then at home in bed most of the time.

“Well, the first week, I was still feeling numb,” Aunt Laura says, “so I just did whatever they told me. They said to talk about it with you, even though you weren't always conscious. I talked about Melissa and Charlie —” She squeezes her eyes shut. “ — because I thought it might help you to get better faster. I talked about times when you were little and things I'd done with your mom. And even though it made me feel more and more sad, I thought I was helping you —”

I stare at the corner of the album because I can't look at her. This kind of crying might be contagious.

“And then you woke up and I had to tell you all over again because you'd forgotten. And you just lost it. I thought
it might have been easier to hear all those things, but it wasn't. I broke your heart and you broke mine — your little bandaged face.” She rubs her eyes. “I couldn't bear it.”

“So you stopped talking about it.” I stare at a photo of my dad and me and a big cake that says
Happy Birthday, Mom
.

“It was easier because you weren't talking about it either. You didn't speak for weeks, and then when you went back to school, suddenly it was like nothing had happened. You were hanging out with Grant and doing homework and I didn't know what to think.”

I didn't know what to think, either. I felt zoned out and separate from everyone, but eventually I got used to it. It was easier not to think about it.

“Your mom made that album for me when you were a baby. I added more as I went through their stuff.” She takes a tissue from her pocket. “It was all in the garage until last week. All their things. I couldn't face going through it — like burying them a second time.”

“But you went through their stuff?”

She nods. “I found that, started putting more photos in it. My therapist's suggestion.”

I flip another page. More parents smiling. Me smiling. One of Aunt Laura holding my hand as I walk on a log at the beach.

“Can I look in the garage?”

“Of course. I think you need to,” she says.

“Will you come with me?”

“Are you sure?”

I think for a second. “Yeah.”

She smiles a little, leans forward. “Can we have no more secrets or unspoken things? Can we move forward from here with a clean slate?”

Her eyes are so hopeful that I can only nod, while inside J's telling me to keep my mouth shut. I might not be done with roaming, with the memories hidden at the intersection, but this is it — the chance to come clean about everything. I open my mouth.

But just one more night. No one else can do it but me. I promise I'll never lie again after I know the truth.

She's still looking at me, waiting.

“Okay,” I say. “Clean slate.”

I start at one end of the garage, opening and emptying books and papers and clothes onto the floor. I find my mom's Master's textbooks. My dad's accounting files. A box of baby clothes and toys that must be mine. I can't believe their whole lives fit in these boxes.

“You shouldn't rummage on an empty stomach.” Aunt Laura stands in the doorway with a sandwich on a plate. “Need any help?”

I hold up a framed photo of my parents in front of a cheesy painted backdrop.

“Very 1998.” Aunt Laura puts the sandwich on a chair and opens another box. “Cookbooks. Melissa was a terrible cook.”

“Her lasagna was always burned. I used to think it was supposed to be like that.” I pull out a glass bowl that used to sit on the coffee table. I broke it when I was five and Mom glued it back together. The glue has changed colour and you can really see the crack.

“Do you dream about them?” Aunt Laura's thumbing through Christmas cards.

I look down at my hands.

She takes out a stack of CDs. “I do.”

I go back to my box, find a bunch of brochures about the Okanagan at the bottom. We went there one summer. Dad went crazy about the stars he could see.

“Do you know where the telescope is?” I ask.

“Huh?” Aunt Laura's got her head in a box.

“My dad's telescope.”

“I think it's over there in that big chest.” She points to the corner with an armchair, an old lamp and a big wooden chest that used to be in my parents' bedroom.

My heart starts thudding as I walk over and open the lid. I don't know why it makes me nervous. A purple blanket lies on top. I pull it back and underneath is the body of the telescope. I remember when it seemed as big as I was. It's heavy too — there are a lot of mirrors in there to get the magnification. Dad wouldn't let anyone else move it. I brace myself and lift it out.

“It's a monster,” Aunt Laura says. She helps me put the body on the blanket.

I reach for the legs. “Did you ever look through it?”

“Once. I think it was the moon. There must be books about stars around here. I thought I saw a star chart or something.”

“I have that,” I say. “I mean, I found it a while ago.”

She looks at me for a long time and I start to feel squirmy.

“This is good, Jakob,” she says. “I'm glad we're doing this. It's healthy.”

“Yeah,” I say, letting out my breath. “Me too.”

Soleil's voice echoes in the kitchen, in my head, as I wake up. It's after nine. Why isn't she at work? And why is she in our kitchen?

“Hey, there he is,” Soleil exclaims as I wander to the bathroom. “Want to do something fun today, Jakob?”

“Depends what it is,” I mumble.

“How about you come with Patrick, Libby and me to Playland?”

Aunt Laura looks at me while I think about it. She knows Dr. Tang told me to stay away from things that might cause me extra stress or anxiety, like racing cars or fast amusement park rides.

Playland used to be the best part of the summer.

“Aren't you supposed to be working?” I ask Soleil.

She leans against the kitchen counter. “My new job doesn't start until tomorrow. Patrick had an appointment this morning so he took the afternoon off too. We'll have you back before dinnertime.”

“You're leaving right now?” I ask.

“Well, after you've dressed and eaten something.” Soleil laughs. “Libby asked if you could come and I thought it was a great idea. Patrick really wants to meet you.”

Right. Patrick. Great.

I take a step into the bathroom. “I don't know if I'm up to it.”

Aunt Laura looks like she's trying to diagnose me. “I'm sure you're still worn out from yesterday, but I think it'll be good for you to get out.”

“I heard you had a hard day,” Soleil says with a smile. I wonder if she can say anything seriously.

“Did Libby tell you?”

She shrugs. “She said you didn't like shopping with girls.”

“That's about it,” Aunt Laura says, looking at me.

“Please come with us, J-man,” Soleil says. “How long's it been since you went to Playland?”

“Last summer, with my parents.”

Aunt Laura's still looking at me.

My dad and I did the Gravitator and went in the haunted house three times. Mom actually braved the giant swing even though she was afraid of heights. We all agreed the hot dogs were average but the mini doughnuts were the best in the world. The problem is it won't be the same Playland without them. But then I guess nothing's the same anymore. I can almost hear Aunt Laura in my head:
It's time to start living and moving on
.

They're both waiting. “Okay,” I say, “but I need a few minutes.”

“Great, J-man,” Soleil bounces toward the door. “We'll be waiting downstairs.”

After she's gone and I've closed the bathroom door, I hear Aunt Laura walk down the hall. As soon as I've finished peeing, she knocks.

“You know you don't have to go on any rides, right? If it scares you? You can always call me if it gets too overwhelming. I'll be running errands but I'll have my phone.”

“It's fine. I'm fine.” I keep my hand on the shower tap, waiting until she's gone.

Just as I'm about to turn it on, she says, “Jakob, I think this is really brave of you. I'm glad you're going with them.”

“Why?” I ask, although I know what she's going to say.

“You're facing things, getting on with your life. We both need to do that.”

I turn on the hot water and let it steam up the room. It's already warm in here, but I like the feeling of the steam surrounding me, sticking to my skin. Making me sweat.

When I come down the back steps, Libby's on the grass with her sketchpad and a piece of charcoal. Looking over her shoulder, I can make out a shaded shape on the paper, maybe a bed or square blanket. At the bottom, two feet stick out.

“Oh, hi,” she says distractedly.

“Hey, about yesterday …”

“It's no big deal. You've got a lot on your mind. I get it.” She looks up and smiles.

“You do?”

“Laura said you didn't mean it. You didn't, did you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

I feel relieved and worried that she's not making this harder for me. “Well, I do like your drawings. This one looks interesting.”

She pulls down the back of her black T-shirt and leans over the drawing. Her nose is an inch from the page, her hair hiding whatever detail she's adding. “By the way, ‘interesting' means nothing these days. Carmen says —” She looks up at me for a moment but then keeps going. “Carmen says when people say something you make is
interesting, they're using it as a filler word because they can't commit to anything else.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I step to the side and try to see what she's doing.

She shields the paper.

“How can I say anything else when you won't let me see it?”

“I'm adding something. Give me a second.” She leans back and lifts up the sketchbook. “Tell me what you see.”

It's still a square blanket or something. The feet still stick out the bottom — bare feet with big toes. But she's added things at the top, shapes at the top of the square. Clothes. A pair of pants and something that could be a shirt. It's not a bed or a blanket. It's a door. The door of a change room.

“Hey there,” a man's voice says behind me. “You must be Jakob.”

I turn. A tall, lanky guy with long brown hair stands in the doorway of the suite. His face is tanned and his eyes are blue and smiling. J knows it's going to be hard to hate this guy.

“I'm Patrick,” he says, coming up the steps and holding out his hand.

It's large and warm and I feel about two feet tall next to him. “I'm Jakob,” I say, realizing he already knows this.

“Soleil's told me all about you. I'm glad you're coming along. I'm pretty new to town, so Playland's kind of a big adventure.”

“Patrick's from Bella Coola,” Libby says behind me.

“You been up north?” Patrick asks me. He stares into my eyes like he's never had a thing to hide, doesn't expect me to either.

“No,” I say. I count the weeds growing up under the deck. The only thing I know is there are lots of dogs needing homes
up north because they're all strays. The shelters even fly them down sometimes, but the nice-looking ones are off the websites in days.

“Well, it's another world,” Patrick says. “The big city kind of freaked me out when I got here. So many people, cars, stuff happening all the time. Everything's so darn fast. Right, Lib?”

“You're right. It is pretty fast,” Libby agrees, like they've been buddies for years. It really bugs me and I don't know why.

“Whatcha drawing?” Patrick asks.

Libby shows him the sketchbook. “It's for Jakob.”

“Kind of abstract, eh?” Patrick leans in to study the drawing.

“It's me in a change room,” I say. “Not really that abstract. She just hasn't drawn the other stuff — walls and floor and people.”

“Right. I see that. Kind of like that stuff's not needed because this is the focus.”

“Exactly,” Libby says excitedly. “It's the story of that moment.”

“But there's not really a story there,” I say. “I was just trying on clothes.”

How come this guy can show up and suddenly start talking about Libby's art like he gets it?

“I wouldn't say that,” Patrick says, scratching his neck. His long hair falls in his face and he pulls it back. I never knew a guy with long hair before. “I think it's pretty great,” he says. “There's a strong message here. Changing, trying new things, like we do in life. Is that where you're going with it?” He looks at Libby.

Her face is lit up like a Christmas tree. You'd think Patrick
was the one to plug the cord into the wall. “Yeah, that's it!”

She so didn't mean that when she drew it. She's just jumping on whatever he says.

“Hey guys. Ready to go?” Soleil closes the door to the suite and locks it. She's wearing a skirt that's a little too short — not that I'm complaining — but you can tell she's trying for her new boyfriend.

“Looking good, babe,” Patrick says. “You ready to go, Jakob?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I mumble. This is turning out to be a bad idea.

“Libby, can we leave the sketchbook here?” Soleil puts a hand on her hip. “There are too many places to lose it at Playland. You'll be busy, anyway.”

“But it's a great place to sketch people.”

Soleil gives Libby a no-arguments look. My mom used to give me that too.

“What good's going to Playland if you're just going to be sitting there drawing stuff?” I ask Libby.

Soleil smiles at me as she unlocks the door so Libby can stomp down the steps and put the sketchbook inside.

“Does she draw you a lot?” Patrick asks me.

His voice makes me jump a little. “Uh, no. I mean once or twice. She mostly draws nature and animals.”

“She's pretty good. There's something about what she captures that really speaks to you. Don't you think?”

There's that word again:
capture
. It gives me the shivers.

Libby stomps back up the steps, followed by her mom. I'm relieved that I don't have to answer Patrick when Soleil ushers us toward the gate. “Let's get going. Enough messing around. Time to have some serious fun.”

It's a little weird to be driving across town with Soleil, Libby and Patrick as if we're a family or something, but after I get used to Soleil's slow driving and Libby's off-key humming to the plastic girl-band song on the radio, it's not so bad.

Patrick assumes I want to go on as many rides as possible and says he'll come with me on the crazier ones if I want, which makes Soleil touch his hand and smile. “Thanks, honey. I get motion sick.”

It makes me a little motion sick to watch them.

I haven't decided if I can handle roller coasters or anything, but J keeps whispering that it'll look wimpy to be there looking at all the rides and not go on any, especially if Patrick's going.

“I don't want to go in the haunted house,” Libby says. “It'll give me nightmares.”

“It's not scary at all,” I say. “I went in last year with my dad and we just laughed the whole time.” That's not exactly true. We got freaked out in a few places, but we didn't tell my mom that.

Libby looks like she doesn't believe me anyway. “I'd rather not. Being scared doesn't sound like fun to me.”

“I'm telling you, it's not scary.”

“I guess that's another one for you and me, Jakob,” Patrick says.

Soleil gives him another sappy look and it makes me want to puke. I stare out the window at the crappy part of town we're driving through and pretend not to listen to Libby and Patrick's conversation about paint colours. Since Patrick's a house painter, I guess he knows a thing or two.

As soon as we get inside the gates, Libby has to pee. I roll my eyes, then find Patrick smiling at me.

“Girls have small bladders,” he says, patting my
shoulder again. “Get used to it. They always gotta pee at the worst times.”

“We'll meet you by the carousel,” Soleil calls, already following Libby.

Patrick and I wander through the crowd of kids, teenagers, occasional old people and hassled-looking parents. Cotton candy and hot dogs are everywhere — the smell of sugar and ketchup and that delicious, fake meat. My mouth starts to water.

Patrick glances at one of the stands and swears. “Is that what they charge for a hot dog around here? That's robbery.”

“No, it's Playland,” I say. “Isn't it called a captive audience?”

Patrick laughs. “That's exactly what it is.”

“How about mini doughnuts?” I suggest, thinking since hot dogs seem to be out, maybe I can score some of those. Aunt Laura didn't give me enough money for a junk food spending spree.

Patrick saunters over to the doughnut stall. He doesn't walk or stroll. I realize where I've seen that before: Chilko saunters too. It's a loose kind of walking that makes you think they've got all the time in the world, but could move fast if they had to.

The doughnuts smell even better than the hot dogs — sweet and cinnamony, golden from the deep fryer. He hands over some money and we rip into the bag.

By the time the girls find us, we have sugar and doughnut remnants all over our hands and faces. “Watch out,” Patrick mutters. “My boyfriend senses are telling me we should have bought them a bag.”

“They can buy their own,” I say. “There's lots.”

“Ah, young sir, but women always expect you to be the gentleman. Just wait.”

Soleil brushes a spot on Patrick's face. “Hey, don't save any for us. We're fine.”

He looks guilty and smug at the same time. “Jakob here thinks you should get your own. They're not going to run out.” He turns to me. “Did I get that right?”

“No way!” I splutter. “I didn't say that. I just meant —”

“It's okay, J-man,” Soleil says. “I'm sure it will never happen again.” She pokes Patrick in the ribs and they do that nauseating tickley couple thing.

Libby and I take one look at them and walk toward the carousel.

“So you missing your sketchbook yet?” I ask.

“Well, that guy over there would be great to draw.” She points to a blue face-painted man on stilts. “But otherwise it's okay.” She watches the shiny horses go around the carousel. Kids and parents look out at us as if they're on a stage and we're the audience. Libby smiles up at them and says totally calmly, “By the way, I saw you sneak out the other night.”

The glaring carousel music suddenly switches off. The world's sound switches off. I'm alone in the silence that follows her sentence. She watches the people as if nothing has changed.

“What do you mean?” I ask. Hope, hope, hope she's joking.

“I mean, when you snuck out at twelve-fifteen two nights ago, I saw you.”

I'm not sure if I should cry or laugh. Thank god someone knows. Make something up, J says. Cover the tracks. “Why didn't you say anything yesterday?” I ask instead.