able to tell people that she’s a virgin any more. She kept repeating it over and over. As if her hymen was the best and most crucial part of her.
You’d think that someone had murdered her family and stolen everything she valued in the entire world the way she carried on. Meanwhile, nobody we know ever believed she was a virgin anyway, not the way she’s always strutting around like she knows more about sex and drugs than we’d know in a lifetime.
I hope to hell she had the brains to make Roman use a rubber, that’s all I can say.
Sitting up, I grab my jeans from the end of the bed, haul them on and step into my sandals. Jill wakes. A groan. She rolls onto her back and then back onto her side. She pushes herself up on one elbow.
“Oh fuck. I think I’m going to boke.”
“Better do it out the window,” I tell her.
She squints up at me, eye shadow and mascara smudges all over her face. “Sammie,” she says.
I just look at her.
Her eyes are red and puffy and it seems as if she’s about to start bawling all over again. “Swear. Please. Swear to god you won’t tell anyone what I told you.”
I shrug and shake my head. “Who am I going to tell?”
TWENTY-SEVEN
IT’S ABOUT TWO in the afternoon when I get to the balcony of our apartment. I was supposed to be here sometime around noon but I decided to walk from Jill’s and the closer I got the more anxious I got. I stopped at a phone booth on Kingsway and dialled Marlene. I’m going to be late, I said. Have an errand to do. Have to pick up something for Ruby.
“That’s okay,” my mother said. “I’ll be around.”
The way she said that made me feel sad. Ruby had said that Marlene sounded good, but maybe what “good” meant to Ruby was that Marlene had lost her will to kick ass.
I stood on the sidewalk and tried to think of some decent way to stall. I glanced at the arcade a few doors down but I can’t stand those crummy places. Talk about the ultimate sucker’s paradise: a room stuffed with flashing machines that scream for quarters.
The Pantry Restaurant was behind me. I thought about going in there and killing time over a cup of coffee. Then again, I was right beside the bus stop. Why not go downtown for an hour, hang out. The sight of Vancouver would probably do me good, remind me of my goal in life: to get the hell out of Burnaby.
The more I thought about it, the better downtown sounded. I could even hit the big drugstore down on Robson Street again. Sitting in the bus shelter, I imagined myself walking into that drugstore, bag in one pocket, receipt in the other, but every time I tried to see it in my head, a hand landed on my shoulder, and that voice echoed in my head again: Come on, kid. Seriously?
When the downtown bus finally stopped in front of me, I just sat there looking up at the driver while a wrinkly little man moved slowly down the steps and onto the sidewalk. The driver raised his eyebrows at me but I didn’t budge. Come on, kid. Seriously? He shut the door and drove on.
Shut up! I thought. Get over it. Shake it off. That hustle was amateur-hour anyway. There are better reasons to get out of Burnaby. Go down to Robson Street and look in the fancy shops, walk all the way down to Denman. Hang out at English Bay.
I imagined myself hopping on the next bus, getting off downtown and kicking around Robson Street without a care in the world. I’d be just turning away from a store window when I’d run smack into Sam.
Fancy meeting you here, I’d say.
He’d be stunned and tongue-tied at first and then he’d ask me if I wanted to grab a bite. We’d go to a restaurant. Someplace nice. We’d sit down at a table and … And I couldn’t imagine what then. Sitting in the bus shelter, I worked on witty lines, clever quips that would cause Sam to see me in a way he never had.
Come on, kid. Seriously?
The thought of those words in Sam’s mouth made me shudder.
Fact of the matter is, if I were to see my dad on some street like Robson, he’d likely be with Peggy. I wonder if Peggy still boosts, if