Part 8 (1/2)
”Nah, sit, you've got tea coming. I'll wait with you till Josh gets home.” She turned on the burner under the kettle and went to the fridge for milk. She made it the way Mum wanted me to drink it: half milk to give me more protein. ”So, Miss Gracey, where's your mum today?”
”School maybe, or else she might've gone downtown to the AA club with George. I don't know. Was Josh painting this morning?” There were tubes and brushes all over the place on the living-room floor. A big square of Josh's art paper was taped on a foam board beside them, the top part all swirly with reds and oranges.
”Yeah. I refuse to put his junk away for him, so I left it. He's doing some autumn painting for his art teacher. He wants a girl in the middle of the woods with a horse-actually, I think he wants you to model for him. I guess because you like horses so much.” I was all flattered. Josh could draw and paint better than any grown-up I knew. I asked her who was going to be the horse. She laughed. ”Actually, he was thinking that maybe when you and George go to the racetrack again, he could come and do some sketches of the horses and you together.”
”Oh. Yeah. Can you look at these math things? George was trying to help me last night, I mostly needed help with the subtraction stuff, and then he got into this other dividing thing and I got all confused and then my mum started getting mad and then -oh, it was just dumb. Here-these ones here, I just want someone to explain this stuff about carrying the number. See how come you can just take a one from this one and suddenly it's a ten or whatever?”
Sheryl Sugarman went into a thing about digits and numerical values and decimals and then I started hearing them again. The voices. She didn't know about them; I never told anyone. But they were yapping in my brain, in the background, kind of, so I couldn't pay that good of attention to stuff. My teeth clenched. It helped, kind of, if I clenched. Josh came in around then and they were quiet. They kept quiet around Josh. He said, ”Hey, what're you doing here?”
”I live here.”
He tisked at Sheryl and rolled his eyes. ”Not you.”
”I came to see you and to ask your mum about these math things. I think I get it now.” I didn't get anything. I just didn't want to talk about it any more.
”Well, I'm gonna go for a bike ride, some of my friends are meeting up at Riley Park to ride around. You wanna go? I'll double you.”
”Yeah, 'K.” I slapped my book shut and left it on the table. I could feel Sheryl Sugarman watching me. She told Josh she might not be there when he got back, so make sure he had his key.
My head started getting more clear when we got onto Main Street. Josh was on his bike with his feet on the ground, stepping himself along with me walking beside him. ”I'll double you as soon as we get down on the side streets, there's too many curbs and lights and stuff here.”
”'K.” I only knew Josh a little longer than George. I trusted him the same way, though; even when we argued and I couldn't stand him, I still wanted Josh around.
We crossed 33rd Avenue and someone whispered behind me. I looked back. No one was near. And then again-my name this time. I snapped my head around thinking maybe it was one of Josh's friends. Nothing. No one was anywhere near us, just cars and buses. It'd never happened around Josh before, he was my safe place.
”What's the matter?”
”Nothing!”
”Fine! Don't have a hairy. Is it the math? Don't you get the math still?”
”No! I get it!” Josh was a year ahead of me and he never had problems with math. Or anything. Kids liked him, he never got into fights, his mum didn't have to threaten them if they didn't leave him alone. And his art; anyone who saw his art-stuff s...o...b..red all over it. He even won twenty bucks in a contest around when I met him. I never won any contests, but I had twenty-one dollars I was saving since Toronto in my drawer. I never bragged about that, though-only some came from my allowance, and five dollars from last time at the racetrack and the rest I stole from my mum's wallet a little bit at a time. My plan was to buy her something beautiful one day, something she'd never get for herself. Or else, if we got broke again, like in Toronto, with no food in the house and nothing in her purse, I would spring it on her and say something like, ”Look, it's OK, I've got money for whatever you want.” I imagined how her eyes would be so happy she'd start to cry and she'd squeeze me and say, ”What would I ever do without you?” I was thinking about starting that with her nerve pills too, so she wouldn't get so upset when she ran out. But in the meantime I didn't want anyone to know about it. I figured she'd thank me in the long run.
Josh and I turned onto Quebec Street, past Sadie and Eddy's house. I sneezed and wondered how many sneezes it took to drop dead. Sadie'd told me on the weekend that every time you sneeze your heart stops. I didn't want to run into her.
”Do you wanna get on, I can double you now.”
”No. I want to keep walking still.”
”You're b.i.t.c.hy today” I didn't answer him. I hated when he used that word on me. ”Well, if nothing's wrong then how come you got two big frown lines between your eyebrows-you're gonna look like an old lady if you don't knock it off. Don't worry, though, my mum's got tons of Oil of Olay so I can keep you young and beautiful-even when you're twenty-five, everyone'll think you're eight still.”
”Shut up.”
”Jesus! What's up your a.s.s?”
And then the whispers echoed a.s.s and b.i.t.c.hy. a.s.s and b.i.t.c.hy. I yelled, ”Shut up!” over top of them, and then told him, ”Don't say that! I hate when you say that. a.s.s and b.i.t.c.hy. Don't say a.s.s and b.i.t.c.hy.”
Josh laughed down at his handlebars and said, ”Ay ay, captain.”
My head was quiet again. He coasted and I walked another block; we were getting close to the park. I was scared of having it start up again around those other boys. ”Do you have to go right to Riley Park, can't we keep walking a bit?”
”Uh huh,” and he leaned down, sort of folding his arms across his handlebars, staring into the front wheel while it turned and skipping his toes along the road, ”if you quit biting my head off for a while.”
”I am not. Can you just-um. OK, I'm sorry! I have to, can you just-'K, don't say anything, just, um. Do you ever hear stuff?”
He turned his head and looked at me. I looked back, then down at my feet stepping. He said, ”Can I answer?” I rolled my eyes, so he said, ”OK. I don't get it, what stuff?”
”Stuff. Stuff, like voices. Like sometimes someone whispers your name and you turn around and they're not there, n.o.body's there or else there's maybe someone there but you know they never said anything because it was a lady's voice and it's a man behind you.”
”Um. Sometimes I dream it, like once I woke up and saw my zaidy sitting in a rocking chair smiling at me and he was wearing a red baseball cap. He never even owned a baseball cap. And then we got a call from the hospital that he died during the night. Weird eh? My mum says I dreamed it, but it was pretty real. I think he came to see me before he left.-Like that, like a ghost?”
”I don't know. No. I don't think so. Or sometimes just voices and no one calling to you or anything, sort of like people arguing in your head so you can hardly hear the people in the room with you.”
Josh pushed himself up, put his hands back on his handlebar grips. Then he chewed on his bottom lip a second. ”Uh-uh. Do you?”
”Kind of. Yeah. Promise you won't tell, not even your mum ... Um. Um. Mostly it happens in school when I'm trying to think, like during a test, times-tables tests and stuff.” My fingers twisted on each other. I was scared he'd think I was mental or something. He asked me what they said, what it sounded like. ”It sounds like tinkling and clanging, like there's lots of stuff, you know, like those fancy dinners Columbo goes to sometimes when he's solving a murder mystery. And they're all talking, they start talking over each other and they have rich people accents-English accents-and they start arguing. Especially this one lady, who's older and she keeps saying, 'Shutt Upp' when people talk back to her and then they get louder and louder over each other until I can't hear anything. And they all have English accents, did I say that already?”
”Wow. Did you tell your mum?”
”No. I don't wanna tell her. I'm afraid she'll make me go to a psycho guy or something. She was going to before because of when I clenched, when I'd clench my teeth and eyes shut. Sometimes I just like clenching, though. It feels like I can't get still until I scrunch everything as tight as it'll go and then I can be normal again. Sometimes it helps make it be quiet, though. Or sometimes I can't get it quiet and I can't do anything.”
”Man. Is that why you can't get the math stuff sometimes?”
”I don't know. Maybe. It happened with your mum when she was showing me stuff and I started to get all mixed up-please don't tell her, though, promise you won't tell her or she'll tell my mum and I don't wanna to tell my mum yet.”
”'K. Maybe you should tell George?”
”No. I don't wanna tell George. It'll go away, I think I can make 'em stop.”
Josh squished a palm in his eye for a second, then he bit a nail off and looked at me. ”Do you want me to double you?”
”'K. Do you wanna come with me and George to the racetrack on Sat.u.r.day?”
”'K. Do you wanna skip Riley Park and just go back to my place and listen to records? My mum got me a Joni Mitch.e.l.l record for my birthday. It's all live from a concert she did.”
When we got back, Sheryl'd already left. Josh got pillows from his bedroom and threw them on the living-room floor. I laid on top of the whole pile while he took Joni Mitch.e.l.l out. He held it like a wet painting, putting it on the turntable. The record was from a concert and there was lots of clapping and cheering before she sang. Josh flopped down beside me and we propped up on our elbows and bounced our heads in time.
”I like this song,” he told me, ”it always cheers me up.” And he started singing this song called ”You Turn Me On Like a Radio.” Next came ”Big Yellow Taxi.” I didn't like it; it didn't sound like the one I was used to. ”Yeah, it's different, huh, here lemme play you this one, it's my favourite.” Josh jumped up and snaggled the needle off.
I flipped on my back waiting for him to flip the record. ”Do you have that song, ”I gotta brand new pair of rollerskates, you gotta brand new key”? She sings that song, right?”
”Nope, that's someone else. That's kind of dumb, that song.”
”No it's not, it's my favourite.” I turned back over, lumps in my throat: one because he didn't have the song, and one cuz he didn't like it.
Josh looked in my eyes before he set the needle back down. ”Oh, you mean that one that goes, um-” and he nahhed and hummed the tune for me. ”Yeah, I like that one too.” It was like he just gave me something cat-fur soft and pink and it made my throat ache even more. Then Joni Mitch.e.l.l's sore-throat voice talked at us. She said everybody should sing along with her because this next song was made for out-of-tune voices, the more out of tune the better, and Josh nudged me. ”See, it's perfect for you.” I smacked him and Joni sang, Yesterday a child came out to wonder, caught a dragonfly inside a jar fearful when the sky was full of thunder and tearful at the falling of a star ...