When I come downstairs later, Carlie doesn’t ask me why I slept in her bed last night. We both pretend it never happened.
IT TAKES ME A WHILE to pick an outfit for the party — like over the summer I’ve forgotten how to dress myself — and in the end I go for something simple: jeans, a purple hoodie, sneakers. Mom’s standing by the sink, hidden in a cloud of spaghetti steam as she dumps the noodles into the colander. “Take a jacket,” she says. “Chilly tonight.” There’s a hint of blue left in the night sky and a purple stain where the sun has disappeared. As I round the corner of our block, I hear the bus pull away from the stop, so I decide to keep walking down to Lonsdale, where I can catch another one. Ambulance sirens whir out of the hospital on 13th Street and the sidewalks are empty, a cool wind — the first sign of fall — whistling down the street.
I flip up my hood and walk quickly, rubbing my arms for warmth. My slow-death summer is truly over. I spent it helping my dad with odd jobs around the house: painting the rec room, weeding the garden, clearing out the garage. I lost two months covered in cobwebs, hauling garbage bags of my parents’ old hippie clothes for Goodwill. Mom made me drain the backyard pond because she didn’t want to be held responsible for attracting West Nile virus mosquitos that could potentially wipe out the entire neighbourhood. God forbid my parents let me just lie on the couch, eating fruit cups topped with microwaved marshmallows.
So I wasn’t dreading going back to school, but I wouldn’t say I was cheery about it either. I wouldn’t say I was skipping the whole way through the halls into grade nine homeroom. Over the summer there was some sort of tectonic shift beneath the school and I spent the first week wandering around like a new student, even though I spent a thousand hours in this purgatory last year. I was always on the wrong floor or walking into the wrong classroom, thirty pairs of eyes laser-zapping me in the chest. Things still aren’t quite right, as though everyone is walking on a tilt — at least that’s the way it looks through my eyes.
Kids are talking about what went on between me and Max, but it’s hard to figure out exactly what they’re saying because I get all my information from Kate and she was occupied with Elgin all summer. I thought things might be different now that we’re back at school, but so far Kate’s spent every lunch hour with Elgin in a little windowed alcove next to the library that no one knew even existed before Kate and Elgin started eating there. I walked by on the first day of school and Kate was curled in a ball on the floor, resting her head in his lap. It’s probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.
Today I found a note in my locker that said, Quit spreading STDs — anonymous, of course. I was scurrying by the alcove, ready to skip out and go home early, when Kate called out to me. “You coming tonight?” I had no idea what she was talking about, but I said, Yeah, yeah, see you there, and found out from Rana where the party was.
On the bus, I sit near the front, as far away as I can get from a group of kids from my grade. We all get off at the same stop, and I hold back, waiting for them to get far enough ahead so I can follow them to the party without them noticing me. The house is near the top of Montroyal, two blocks from my old elementary school, in one of those stuccoed Vancouver Specials kids always want to trash. As soon as I walk through the front door, I catch sight of Max’s ratty old toque weaving through the crowded living room, so I head down a flight of stairs and end up in the laundry room, where it’s so warm and cozy I think, What’s the harm in staying here awhile? I turn the dryer on even though it’s empty, the room filling with the smell of fabric softener and warm socks, and lie back, letting the vibrations jiggle my brain. It’s a good solution because it’s impossible to hear my heart thumping in my chest over the racket.
Max’s name has become a joke — no one knows how it started. MAX. At the beginning of the school year, his name began appearing all over, scrawled on lockers with sharpie, dug into the wood tops of desks, scribbled on the doors of the bathroom stalls. It’s nothing but his name, but it’s become a swear word like fuck or slut. If his name ends up on your locker you scrub it off. Sometimes I hear it whispered at my back like a dirty secret. Lately I’ve been pretending to have headaches. It’s good for getting out of things — gym class, school presentations, lunch in the cafeteria. My mother took me to the family doctor yesterday. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said. “You’re in perfect health.” It was almost an accusation.
Kate opens the laundry room door, music pouring in around her. “This is sad,” she says.
“I was waiting for you.” I sit up cross-legged to make room for her.
“You need to get a life,” she says, hopping up beside me and resting her head on my shoulder.
“I have one,” I say. “How was your summer?”
“Fantastic!” Kate doesn’t mention anything about abandoning me. We pick up as though nothing has changed. She’s in a great mood, better than I’ve ever seen, and it makes me realize how badly I miss her.
“Is he out there?” I ask.
“Yeah, he’s out there,” she says. Her cheeks are pink. Drama turns her on. “I’m not staying in here all night.”
“I know,” I say, bringing my legs to my chest and dropping my head on my knees.
“Fine, a few more minutes, but then we go out there.”
Elgin opens the laundry room door. “What are you doing in here?”
“Now it really is a pity party,” Kate says.
“I want him to disappear,” I say, closing my eyes. I think they both assume I mean Max, but I actually mean Elgin.
“You guys are so bitchy,” he says, sitting on a laundry hamper and pulling a baggie of mushrooms out of his coat pocket. “What’s so bad about Max anyway?”
“There’s nothing bad about him—” I say.
“He’s strange,” Kate says, holding out her hands.
“He dropped acid. He’s so messed up right now he probably doesn’t even know you’re here.” Elgin places a tangle of slug-like mushrooms into Kate’s cupped palms. “I don’t think he even knows he’s here.”
“You could’ve baked us some brownies or something,” Kate says, grabbing the bottle of water Elgin hands to her and swallowing the mushrooms with one big gulp. “Didn’t even taste them.”
I do the same and taste the earth — dirt, dead leaves and the bottoms of everyone’s shoes.
“I did mine already,” Elgin says. “Let’s go.”
“You’ll feel better around lots of people,” Kate says.
“Right,” I say, following them out the door. “Sure I will.”
The living room is packed with kids, but Max is nowhere in sight. There’s still a buzz in the house, though, like a mosquito in a dark bedroom. Rana sees me through all the people and waves me over to the couch where she’s sitting. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, gazing up at me with this expectant look like she’s waiting for me to do a cartwheel. Kate turns away to find someone else to talk to — she doesn’t even pretend to like Rana. I shrug and squeeze onto the couch between her and two kids playing video games, my bum sinking into the crack between the cushions where there are crumbs and loose change.
Lately I’ve been doing more stuff with Rana and somehow she’s come to the conclusion she’s my new best friend, and maybe she is now. Maybe that’s how friendships happen. The couple of times I did leave my parents’ place over the summer, I hung out at Rana’s house against my wishes — I was forced by total boredom. Her house is cold and smells like mildew and her mother always asks us to be quiet, but her Dad owns a sandwich shop, so at least there are always good cold cuts in the fridge. We sit at her kitchen table, whispering and eating deli slices rolled into tubes, and every half hour or so she asks me if I’m having fun and I tell her I’d have more fun if she stopped asking me that. We were eating mint chocolate chip ice cream one afternoon and when her father came home we had to hide our bowls on our knees under the table. The whole place makes me nervous. Rana acts like her house is the most normal home on earth and maybe to her it is. I sat with my bowl of ice cream melting on my knees while Rana’s dad asked me questions about school — what subjects I liked, if I played a musical instrument, if I was interested in sports. When he left, Rana set her bowl on the table and went back to eating as if nothing was out of the ordinary.