I start in anyway. We’re not pigs, Ruby. We just have a lot to contend with.
That’s what Marlene always says. We have a lot to contend with. I used to like it when she said that. Made me feel as if we were put-upon in a sophisticated sort of way. She said it to Mr. Walters when he called to complain that I’d skipped out. That happened when Sam was in town last, when I was feeling shitty about how it had all played out.
Sam had already been in town a few days when he called. I think he often waits until the last minute to decide if he feels like seeing me.
I had started grade 11 a couple of months before, so he offered to take me shopping. Kind of a combined birthday present/new school clothes thing. Didn’t have to ask me twice. Better than the alternative: just before I started grade 9, he mailed me a bunch of clothing but it was all girls’ size 10/11—as if he thought I was still a little kid.
My dad never sends any kind of child support whatsoever. I guess he feels he has to witness each purchase. He told Marlene once that there was no point in sending her cash—she would just drink it all away. That used to piss me off; now I think he might have had a point.
I asked him if we could go to Pacific Centre Mall in Vancouver. He didn’t see the reason. Why deal with the hassle of parking downtown, he said, when all the Burnaby stores have the same stuff.
Easy for him to say. He gets to be downtown whenever he feels like it.
So we drove ten minutes to Brentwood Mall. Sam stood around in his crisp orange shirt and his fancy creased slacks while I yanked on pair after pair of jeans. I kept looking at that orange shirt of his. In the expensive stores, they don’t say “orange,” they say “apricot.” Marlene said he gets a lot of his stuff tailor-made.
He watched me stand in the mirror, inspecting each pair of jeans. He frowned a lot. “Aren’t those too tight? How can you sit down in pants that tight?”
Sam is pretty out of it in that department. Jill has to lie down on her bed to do up her fly every morning. Jill said Crystal Norris has to lie down, take a wire hanger and hook it through the zipper tab so she can get the fly up without ripping the crap out of her fingers.
Sam bitched, but he still took me from store to store and bought me whatever I asked for: a new bomber jacket with a sheepskin collar, jeans, tops, running shoes, sweatshirts and a sharp-looking charcoal grey pantsuit because I said I might apply for a Christmas job.
Early on in the spree, he asked about whether I needed “panties.”
Jesus Christ, he said panties! I hate when guys say that word. They sound like skeevy old perverts.
Pass! No thanks. I wasn’t about to get new undies with him around anyway. Let’s face it: I barely knew Sam any more.
He also toured me around the drugstore and bought me tons of stuff that Marlene hates to spend money on like wheat-germ-oil-and-honey shampoo, baby-powder-scented deodorant, Noxzema and zit cream.
We were probably together two or three hours but we barely spoke. He asked a few monosyllabic questions: How’s school? How’s your grades? Got a plan for later? By “later,” he meant after I graduated high school.
Nope. Not exactly.
Mr. Walters and the other guidance counsellor had just taken the grade 11 class on a field trip to University of British Columbia and then on another one to Simon Fraser University. This was meant to give us the flavour of each post-secondary institution, help us decide which way we might lean: toward fancy-assed doctor or sock-and-sandals social worker. Both schools looked like hell as far as I was concerned.
I figured there had to be other options. Even George’s acting idea.
“The manager of our building is a drama coach,” I told Sam as we walked in the mall. “He thinks I should be an actress.”
Sam didn’t answer, just kept those hard thin lips of his zipped tight. My mind flashed to his face the day he climbed Mel’s front porch in Toronto, the way his mouth opened in shock when skinny Rick shoved him down the stairs. I felt bad for remembering.
“George said he doesn’t usually let someone as young as me into his classes,”