The Clay Girl Read online

  Len collects the receipts. “She made that, too. Pick one if you like.”

  “Will you forgive me, Ari?”

  “I guess we’re cool.” I point to the foil-wrapped packet in his hand. “Babcia sending you home with cabbage rolls?”

  His dimples come out with his half smile and he actually quotes my words by heart. “‘No matter his shoes are empty. The silver ocean rolls him to the table and there he feasts on losses until the whole world is full.’ Ari, it really is brilliant. If I’ve discouraged you from writing, then I shouldn’t be teaching.”

  He leaves, but my imagination keeps him close. There may not be any thumping in the room beside mine but my curious hand is exploring under my candy-striped sheets and fireflies spark in my head.

  SEVENTEEN

  Mum washes down soul-numbing pills with whisktea. She doesn’t seem to hate me as much when she’s hanging out with Martians, but then again she doesn’t notice dog shit on her shoe, either.

  Len calls up the stairs for the fiftieth time. “Jillianne, up now!” The only times she makes it to school is when Mike Fudge, aka The Candyman, has treats.

  Mum says, “Let her be. She was up late.”

  Len fights with the sleeve of his coat. I help him with the tangle. “I have a lead on some T-shirts and scrap leather in Windsor. Wait on me and we’ll walk Zodiac together.” He leaks out the door, descending the street with no whistle and no head to the sky.

  I rummage behind the condiments. “Where’s my lunch?” Every night Babcia makes me a paper-bag feast, the most delicious part being words that Uncle Iggy writes on the folded-down flap. The bag is crumpled on the floor, only my quote remains from Jillianne’s midnight raid. The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.—Proust

  The bag quotes have made Miss Standish and me sort of friends. She singled me out one history class when I passed one to Nick Potter. “Miss Appleton, stand up and let us all hear what is so important between you and Mr. Potter.”

  I read, “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

  She snatched the bag from my hand. “Who wrote this?”

  “My uncle. I mean Emerson, ma’am.”

  “And you thought Nicholas needed it?”

  “I usually pass them on at lunch but he had basketball.” The class oooed and Sharon Murdock, his girlfriend, wanted to punch-slap me the way girlie-girls do.

  Miss Standish squashed the teasing by going to the first desk, first row. “Tom, give me any words that inspire you.” Silence slipped from desk to desk until she reached Nick. “Mr. Potter?”

  “Only those who risk going too far can find out how far he can go. T. S. Eliot.”

  Nick’s black hair hung shaggy around his always-tanned face. He was as cute as he was smart and if I didn’t love Jake and Mr. West, I might love him.

  After school he waited by the fence. “Hey, Ari.”

  “Sorry about the mess.”

  “It’s not so much a mess having the coolest girl in school pass you notes.”

  I scanned the situation: jeans tucked into beaded mukluks, Babcia’s festival-of-the-Ukraine sweater and ribbons, like a tambourine tail, weaving through the hair braided over my shoulder. I had me pegged more as freak-of-the-universe.

  “You want to hang out?”

  “What about Sharon?”

  “We broke up.”

  “I have to get to work.”

  “You work?”

  “Design and sales.”

  “Cool.”

  “And weekends I wait tables in the Village.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Yeah, the Riverboat. I showed up so much looking for my sister, her boss put me to work.”

  I figured there was no harm scoping out my options while in exile from the East and waiting for Mr. West. My smile dislodged him from the fence and every after-school since then Nick walks me to the store. And at the beginning of every history class, Miss Standish opens her hand for the bag.

  Maybe having a little hope in the minds of tomorrow make teachers a little less grumpy today. However, having Nick as my almost-boyfriend has set Sharon and her demon followers plotting human sacrifice.

  Mum spilling tea pulls me away from crucifixions to baptisms in 90 proof spirits. “You okay, Mummy?”

  Her eyes search for something. “When did your hair get so much gold in it, Hariet?”

  “It’s not near as pretty as yours.” I kiss her cheek. She swipes it off with her sleeve. “We’re getting low on bead strings. If you feel like making a few, supplies are by the TV. I’m going to check on Grandma before school.”

  Grandma answers my knock. “Dolores, when did you get here?”

  Even before she calls me Dolores I can tell it’s a bad day. At night, I lay out her clothes so she knows how to get dressed. Today, she started at the wrong end. I wonder how long it took her to get her pantyhose over her dress. Her substantial cotton panties and white brassiere add the crowning touches. “Come on, Grandma, I’ll get you outside-in.”

  I slide into my spot just before “O Canada.” I offered my own Lord’s Prayer on my dash to school, Our Father, loafing in Heaven, my Gram can’t remember her name. Your kingdom come and shake up my mum before she screws over Len. Give me today my daily bread, ’cause my sister stole my lunch. Lead me into temptation behind the portables and deliver me from dumped Sharons. For mine are the hormones and the flowers and the stories. For Thursday. Amen

  Mr. West folds his arms as the class snakes out the door headed for math. “Third time this week you’ve been late, Ari.”

  “You ever had to deal with a naked granny, sir?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, maybe until you do you could cut a fellow human some slack.”

  The whole Appleton structure is precarious at best. But I catch some good breaks: a cheering section in the east, a few blocks south, a store crammed with Zajacs, and a Mr. West nodding me off. “Fair enough.”

  Lunchless, I head north to check on Grandma then home to scarf down a sandwich. Mum descends the stairs with her first button to second hole as I spread the mustard. “Hariet, I wasn’t expecting you home ’til dinner.”

  “Jillianne ate my lunch and Gran was right squirrelly this morning.”

  Some goon looking like Mr. Clean’s ugly brother tries to move his hulk down the stairs without them squeaking. “Hariet, this is Officer Irwin. He just came to talk some sense into Jillianne.” Sweat curdles on a bulby nose that might’ve once been used as a pincushion. I reach for the knob as I back toward the door. “Hariet?”

  I head for school but Jasper needs the store. Zodiac and the workroom wall me in safe. When Jacquie turns on the light I’m sitting on the floor, back to the wall. “Ari? Why aren’t you in school?”

  “Everything’s going to fall apart.”

  “I’m amazed it’s held together as long as it has. Look at it this way, when it collapses, you’ll either land here or with M&N. I’ll call the school and tell them you have cramps. Uncle Iggy needs help beading fringe for the bags.”

  “But Len . . . I . . .”

  “Len knows he never really had her. As long as he has you he’ll be okay.”

  When Jacquie hoists me up I see she’s turned both solid and transparent. “And you,” I say.

  “Who would’ve thought you and I would be the pick of the Appletons.”

  “I’m scared for Jillianne.”

  “I’m scared for you if you think it’s your job to save any of them. She’s drowning. She’ll only pull you under.”

  “But, you were drowning.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted a hope to grab on to. I don’t think she does.”

  After school Jacquie lets Nick into the workroom. He watches me dipping a
T-shirt. “You feeling better?”

  I nod.

  “I could help you with what you missed.”

  “I’ll muddle through it later. It’s the Christmas rush.”

  “Oh.”

  “You any good with your hands?”

  “What?”

  “Len gives me a buck fifty a shirt. Two for the fancier ones. They’ll sell like the wind up until Christmas. I’ll split the profits.”

  “Sundays are out, but Wednesday to Saturday I could.” He holds back my hair as I smooth a dry shirt out on the press. “Careful you don’t catch it.”

  You’d think after the day I’ve had I wouldn’t be interested in kissing a boy, but feeling his chest against my shoulder makes whoring mothers very unimportant. I lift my face and he gives a scared kiss. I turn for more because I like the feeling that spreads from his lips to my belly.

  He holds my baby finger. “Sharon’s having a party next Friday. You want to go?”

  Jasper pushes. Say yes. We like parties.

  Boys like messing under T-shirts more than making them. I’m four shirts to one ahead when Mrs. Potter drops by to see where Nick is working. Nick looks ready to hurl Babcia’s perogies at the maternal invasion.

  Mercifully, my tits aren’t flapping under my tank top, which sometimes happens after hours of pressing shirts. I look Amish in my apron and head scarf.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Potter. It sure has been a blessing having Nick’s help.” Somewhere between kisses, Nick mentioned that his parental units were über-Christian.

  Nick’s bowels can be heard clamping when Mrs. Potter says, “Perhaps you’d join us for church on Sunday.”

  I look to Len, as salesman-savvy as they come. “Papa?”

  “If your chores and homework are done, child.”

  She leaves, reassured her son is keeping company with Ari Ingalls from Little Store in the Big City.

  Nick is silent as we saunter to Sharon’s party. “Listen, if having me over Sunday is such a horror I’ll contract smallpox.”

  “It’s not you. My parents are just way too much parents.”

  “Yeah, well my dad’s fish bait in the St. Lawrence. Life’s a bitch. Actually, my mom’s the bitch.”

  Compared to a down-east party, this one’s a dental appointment with Cheesies and orange Crush, make-out music, and an ex-girlfriend who is Gestapo-clever. A turn around the indoor-outdoor carpet to “If I Fell” is nice until Sharon says, “Your turn, Ari. I pick Randy for you.” She pushes us toward a closet. “Ten minutes.”

  Randy is the boy most likely to skin a live cat. Before she can shove us inside I do-se-do out of his clutches. “No thanks.”

  A chicken-in-the-middle-of-a-wolf-pack frenzy ensues as Randy nabs my arm and the Sharon Supporters sweep me toward the closet. It becomes clear why women go for the tall guy and not the little weenies. Nick unravels the fray with big pushes and arm twists. “Ari doesn’t do anything Ari doesn’t want to do.” He reestablishes his stud standing on our way out. “And we don’t need to hide in a closet to make out.”

  He places his coat over my shivers as I throw up fluorescent orange crap on Sharon’s lawn.

  “Thought I heard you down here. Ari, are you crying?” Jacquie ratchets up my chin. “What are you on?” Her voice echoes and her pale hair hangs like broken feathers. My knees swallow my face as she slides down beside me. “What did you take?”

  “Some shit Malik gave me.”

  “What?”

  “Yellow sunshine.” The world cracks and I’m cartwheeling into the deep. “It’s so dark.”

  “Don’t start this, Ari.”

  “I’m on the other side of the ride. I’m sorry. I just wanted to be anywhere but here.”

  Laughter sprays through her nose. “Well, that’s a round-trip ticket if I ever saw one.” She snatches the blanket from the bed and pulls my head to her lap. “Does Len know you’re here?”

  “At-the-store here. But not screwed-up here. Please, don’t tell him.”

  “Won’t have to. He’ll sense it in his soft bones.” For a long while she strokes me like I’m made of kitten-fur. “How was the party?”

  “Come Monday, my cool status will be back to freak. They all saw how much I hate being locked in a room.”

  “Mum sure screwed us up, didn’t she?”

  So many times growing up, a keyed room was Door-a the Babysitter. When sisters we’re locked in with me I didn’t hate it so much, but I despised when just Jasper and me waited out the long days and nights. Peeing my pants ’til I was empty. My tongue turning to sand in my mouth.

  “We never had a home, but Mum always found a room.” Jacquie washes a rain of tears from my face and holds a hankie to my nose. “Come get to bed.” She struggles to her feet, her nightie floating around her growing belly like maritime mist.

  “Whenever I was inside Door-a, Jasper would paint a sister-house. June was the solid walls. Jennah, the windows. Jory made the roof and Jillianne the floor. You were always the yellow door.” We stand face to face. “I know it was you who stood between them and us whenever you could.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Forest church and ocean sanctuaries suit me better than solid pews. When the pastor commands, “Bow your head and close your eyes,” I lift mine, eyes full-wide because, in the dark, a line of jewels stretch out, biggest to small, and I remember Daddy picking the shiniest to take to lunch after church.

  Mr. Potter looks in the rearview. “Did you enjoy the service, Ari?”

  Jasper mutters, It tore our guts out.

  “Yes, it was very nice, thank you, sir.”

  Mrs. Potter asks, “What were you writing during the service?”

  “The Christmas music inspired the seasonal poem we have to do for school.”

  “Oh, let’s hear it.”

  “Um . . . it needs work.”

  Nick nabs it from my hand, chewing his lip as he absorbs it.

  Unholy Night

  God,

  rewind two thousand years,

  send your daughter down to earth,

  exalt her

  princess of peace

  let the world feel her

  worth.

  On silent nights,

  unholy nights

  she falls

  on her knees

  for men believing they are king

  and she was sent to please.

  “Ari’s an amazing writer.” He whispers in my ear. “I’m so sorry about Sharon’s party.”

  “We hear you’re giving Nick a run for first place.”

  “Not hardly, Mr. Potter. He trounces me in math and science.”

  A dog looking like a hairy slipper with legs comes yapping to the door, near crazy from the smell of pot roast. Nick’s mother hangs up coats and slips on an apron. “Nick, let P.P. out back.”

  Nick turns the colour of green dye mixed with yellow. “It’s short for Powder Puff.”

  We sit at a fancied-up table. Every bite of beef comes with a milking for information. “Do you have brothers and sisters, Ari?”

  “Five sisters, ma’am.”

  “Five! Older? Younger? What do they do?”

  “Older. Jennah was an executive with Hydro but she felt being home with her kids was more important. Um, June’s a writer . . . living in Paris. Jacquie’s a businesswoman. She runs the family business. Jory is a . . . a therapist. And Jillianne’s . . . studying to be a pharmacist.”

  “How is it your name is Ari?”

  “It’s my second name. So many J’s got too confusing.”

  “What’s your first name?”

  “Um . . . Jewel.”

  “And what would you like to do after high school, Jewel?”

  “Be a potter, ma’am.” A post-nuclear horror descends. “No, not a Potter. I
mean a clay-and-kiln potter. Summers I study with an artist on the East Coast.”

  “Sounds like a wonderful little hobby. Nicholas is going to study medicine. And his little friend Sharon wants to be a nurse.”

  Perfect, after she gouges out your eyes she can put a Band-Aid on them.

  Shh, Jasper. “It just gives me income to put away for university. I’m going to become . . . a marine biologist. Work on the declining whale population. There’s a fine ecological balance affecting every creature down to the smallest bit of plankton.”

  Lies carry me through until Nick walks me home. “Sorry about the inquisition.” I shrug. “Did your dad really drown saving a dolphin trapped in a net?”

  “Something like.” I veer from the blue house to Grandma’s. “See you tomorrow.”

  I’m discovering that grannies who can’t remember why they got a spoon from the drawer remember stories they’re not supposed to tell. I press for information before the elevator stops going to the top floor. Things move a little when I get her dressed and make tea. I prime the old memory as we fold laundry. “It was spring, wasn’t it when Hariet was born? You took her to Mary’s, was it?” So far I’ve unearthed that Mum was drinking sloppy, Daddy was drinking mean. Before I was born the sisters got doled out and Grandma loaded Mum on the train to Skyfish.

  “Mile after mile, Theresa worried at her nails, saying, ‘Vincent will have his boy and we’ll be a happy family again.’ I knew by the way she was carrying that another girl was coming their way and all I could think was the only safe place for the babe was with Mary.”

  “Mummy must have been so disappointed.”

  “When wasn’t that girl disappointed? Such a bonnie sprite was given to her, weighing, I’d guess, less than a five pound sack of sugar. Mary coaxed in special formula and that tall one, Nia, walked her through the crying nights.” Grandma journeys back fourteen years. “Mary Catherine called the wee thing Joy. She was near frantic one day when Theresa took the baby for a walk. Hours passed before this big man came with Joy tucked in his arm. He’d found her on the shore. We thought Theresa had drowned ’til she was discovered anchored at the Legion. After that it was decided that Joy would stay with Mary.”