dog turd. As the smoke detector starts screaming, I grab the ruined bread with an oven mitt and throw it into the sink, where it lies hissing reproachfully. Lukas is flapping around uselessly under the smoke detector. I manhandle him out of the way and stab the red button with a barbecue tong. I take a big breath, dredge up a smile, turn around, and face Lukas.
“Well. Shall we watch the movie?”
Lukas looks at me like I’ve just suggested we sterilize a ballpoint pen and give each other tattoos.
“Oh. Um, isn’t it kind of late to start the movie? I was thinking I would head home.”
“But it’s only nine thirty.”
“I’ve been going to bed early.”
“We could make coffee.”
“I think I’ll just go home.” He walks to the front door and hops around self-consciously, putting on his shoes. I watch him from the kitchen. “I guess I’ll see you on Saturday then,” he says, dropping a shoe, picking it up again, and sticking it on his foot.
“What’s on Saturday?”
“Battle of the Bands.”
“Oh yeah.”
I try to keep my voice light, as if for me this is just another perfectly normal evening of making unwanted sexual advances, being a sloppy drunk, and standing there pathetically while the object of my affection falls all over himself trying to escape from my lovearium before it’s even dark outside.
Lukas finally gets his shoe on his foot. He grabs the door handle.
“Okay. Good night, Kiri.”
“Bye.”
He struggles with the door, discovers the lock, lets himself out, and pulls the door half-closed behind him without realizing you have to really yank it to get it shut. It floats open again behind him, as if to add the final insult to the huge festering injury that is my life. I sigh, walk over, and shut it myself.
Then I walk back to the piano. Because now that Lukas is gone, what else is left?
chapter twenty-one
The next morning, I take the bus to Kerrisdale, sit down at the piano, and play one hundred pages of dazzlingly complicated piano music from memory while Dr. Scaliteri sits on her ball, inspecting a suspicious mole on her cleavage. When I’m finished, she looks up and says one word: “Good.”
I stand up, bow, collect my books, and breeze out of the room.
International Young Pianists’ Showcase? I’ve got that shit in the bag.
The thrill of victory is a pleasant antidote to the sludge of humiliation left over from last night, and I float past the bus stop and on down the street, my fingers tingling with bliss. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. My lips keep drawing upward in a loose, dopey smile, and I can barely feel the pavement beneath my feet. I did it. I did it. So what do I want to do now?
I want to ride my bicycle.
Where is my bicycle?
In Bicycle Boy’s shed.
I swivel around like an ice skater and glide in the direction of downtown.
It turns out downtown is a two-and-a-half-hour walk away, plus another twenty minutes of backtracking when I mysteriously end up near the stadium.
Along the way I buy:
-three kiwis, a plum, and a pluot, all of which I eat except for the third kiwi, because the roof of my mouth starts itching in that way that sometimes happens when you eat too many kiwis;
-a cup of probiotic frozen yogurt with blackberries that inexplicably costs seven dollars, despite being very small and containing approximately twelve calories;
-a yam roll and an avocado roll from Happy Sushi that come in a plastic clamshell with fake green grass, a wasabi turd, and a little pile of pickled ginger like fairy tongues;
-a can of Diet Dr Pepper that makes me feel insane;
-a coffee drink with Chinese characters on the can that makes my sweat smell like coffee and makes me have to pee;
-a coffee at a coffee shop so they let me use the bathroom;
-a tube of SPF 60 sunscreen so I don’t get mysterious moles on my cleavage when I’m old like Dr. Scaliteri;
-a new pair of flip-flops after the toe-thong thingy on my left flip-flop comes out of its socket and I can’t get it back in;
-a wide-brimmed straw hat;
-a pair of tweezers and some questionable depilatory cream to deal with my eyebrow situation once and for all;
-a cranberry oat square at a coffee shop so they let me use the bathroom;
-a blue lightbulb;
-a jumbo bag of Meow Mix;
-an acorn squash;
-henna powder, incense, and temporary tattoos of various Hindu deities.
On my way to Skunk’s house,