“Anytime,” Paul says, smiling at me. The dead tooth could ruin everything, but for once it doesn’t.
As soon as I get to my room, I call Rana to apologize. All she says is, lucky slut.
AFTER DINNER I GO to Elgin’s to watch TV. We fall asleep on the couch, but when I wake up I’m alone in Elgin’s bed and it’s dark and I have no idea what time it is. I can hear his mother in the living room talking about me as I fumble for my clothes, quietly slipping them on under the sheets. She’s talking about feeding me, asking why she has to work to put food in my mouth, and I can hear Elgin mumbling, but I can’t make out the words. I try to find my socks, but give up and slip my bare feet into my sneaks. Their voices get louder, like they’re right outside the bedroom door. “Why don’t you sleep at her house?”
“Mom.” Elgin’s voice cracks. “Stop!”
“Let me in there. I’ll tell her myself.” I stand frozen at the edge of the bed, waiting for the door to swing open. There’s a scuffle outside the door, then a slap, and Elgin shouts, almost growls, “Leave me alone.” I’ve never heard Elgin like that before, like the angry words are being ripped from his guts. “I hate you. You fucking bitch.” I hear spit flying and their bodies struggling against the door. His mother cries out and I open the window, highway noise flooding the room. As I hop out, and just before the bedroom door opens, I can hear Elgin sobbing, saying over and over, “I hate this house.” I run across the backyard without looking back. Out the window his mother shouts, “Are you running, you little slut?” Next door a porch light flips on and I squeeze between the blackberry bushes, scratching up my arms.
At the edge of the highway, I tuck my hands in my T-shirt for warmth. I forgot my coat, but the rain has stopped, the night unexpectedly clear — moonless and cold. I wait for a break in traffic before running across the highway. Cars without drivers whip by on the dark road. I walk along the drainage ditch with my thumb out, hoping to God Carlie’s blue Nova will magically appear. No one picks me up for a while, and by the time a red minivan stops on the side of the road, I’m shaking I’m so cold. A rosy-cheeked lady leans across the passenger seat, the door still locked, and sticks her head out the window. “You shouldn’t be hitchhiking.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s a bad idea.” She sits in the car, exhaust spiralling up toward the stars. It doesn’t look like she’s going to let me in, so I start to walk down the highway to find another ride. The horn toots lightly and I walk back. “Get in,” she says. “It’s too cold to be standing out here with no coat.” I open the door, letting the car swallow me into its warmth. There’s classical music playing from the radio and a churchy feeling swells up inside me. “I’d like to take you right to your house,” the lady says. “I don’t mind if it’s out of the way. Just make me a promise you won’t hitchhike again. It’s not safe for girls.” I tell her the address and buckle my seat belt.
“That’s not too far,” she says cheerfully. She’s either plump or bundled in too many layers of clothes. The buttons on her coat look like they’re going to pop. “A long way if you’re walking though.” She looks like a mother. I know she’s a mother.
“Thanks a lot,” I say. She nods her head and puts on her turn signal, checking her blind spot twice before pulling out onto the empty highway.
I close my eyes and fall asleep.
THE WOMAN DROPS ME off at the entrance to the subdivision and I walk through the dead-quiet streets lined with identical homes. A mist comes up from the canyon and I get lost in all the cul-de-sacs before I find Kate’s house. I walk around to the backyard and sit on the edge of the trampoline, trying to figure out how to get up to Kate’s window. Someone passes back and forth behind the curtains like they’re pacing or tidying up. The window casts a square of light on the grass and the air has that crackly electrical feeling like the static in my hair when I pull off my toque. A light is turned off in the room and replaced by a dimmer one, a bedroom lamp. Sitting in the middle of the trampoline with my knees pulled up to my chest for warmth, I cup my hands around my mouth and whisper, “Kate.”
The room goes dark. It almost feels cold enough to snow.
THE WINTER I WAS in grade eight, it snowed for the first time in what felt like years. All night the fat flakes fell from the sky. Kate called my house all excited. She talked to my dad for a while about when the last time was it snowed like this — if ever — and my dad told stories about how they used to go skating on Lost Lagoon when he was a kid, how the water never got cold enough to freeze solid anymore. “Maybe we can go outdoor skating,” Kate said breathlessly when I grabbed the phone.
The entire city shut down. I had to walk home from Lonsdale because the bus driver wouldn’t venture off the main roads. Carlie and I stood in the garden grinning like dummies. In my head I kept hearing the words winter wonderland, winter wonderland, like I was high on drugs or something. We didn’t want to move our feet the ground felt so precious. The cat came scooting by us headed straight for the door, his legs taking exaggerated leaps through the snow. I was so disappointed when Dad came barrelling through it all, dragging Carlie and me into the powder with him. The patches of grass showing through the white were so ugly. But I accepted it as something that happens — nothing could ever stay that perfect forever.
The next morning Kate called early and I was still in bed watching the snowflakes twirl madly down onto my skylight. I could hear my dad outside, the scrape of the shovel as he cleared the driveway. Kate came over and we put on winter clothes, even ski pants that we tucked into our boots. I loved the feeling of being untouchable, wrapped in wool and nylon; nothing could get to me, not the snow or the cold. I rolled around on the sidewalk, crawled through the street, lay on my back with my mouth wide open, eating the flakes like a two-year-old. “It’s a perfect day,” Kate said. She let herself fall in the snow, arms above her head, but for some reason she didn’t look happy. The buses still weren’t running and there were almost no cars on the road. Occasionally we heard an engine revving far off, but all the sounds were muffled, everything travelling long distances, as though sounds were coming right across Burrard Inlet.
We walked the whole way to Mosquito Creek. It took us almost an hour. Kate wanted to have a winter picnic. She had everything we needed in her backpack: a thermos of hot chocolate, ham sandwiches, and peanut butter cookies. The only people we saw on the way there were a group of kids near Grand Boulevard sliding down a hill on garbage bags, and an old person crossing 13th Street holding a broken umbrella with a perfect mound of snow collected on top. I kept suggesting other places we could stop for our picnic — we passed six or seven parks along the way — but Kate was determined. As we trudged up Lonsdale through the snow, she clenched her teeth, her jaw drawn in a tight line.
Once we got to Mosquito Creek, I took her mitted hand. The longer we walked, the more her enthusiasm for the day drained from her. By the time we reached the creek, she looked like she was ready to drop into a snow bank. She tried to pull her hand away a few times, but I hung on to her and we walked carefully over the boulders and rocks until we found a flat spot under the cover of some heavy evergreen branches. There was a fine dusting of snow on the ground under the tree, like someone had sprinkled icing sugar all over the pine needles. We spread out the blanket Kate had brought and unwrapped our sandwiches. The branches created a small cave of shelter and we chewed quietly, watching the snow pile up around us. “It’s like a church,” Kate said, pouring the hot chocolate. “I guess,” I said, but I’d never been inside a church. When I looked at churches from the street, passing in a car or walking by, this was close to what I thought was inside — a quiet white perfection, something so simple and obvious. I imagined if we stayed there all day, the snow would seal up our cave and we would have our own confession booth. Kate smiled when I told her this, then she looked away, up into the tree. “My dad left this morning,” she said.