The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing Read online

  “Not calling is wrong,” Mom says shrilly. “You know how much we worry, Serena.”

  I’ve already heard this from Dad, and I know they have reason to be mad, but coming from my mother’s mouth the lecture rings a little hollow. She spends all her evenings in the den doing eBay research, surrounded by her countless crystal friends. That’s what I’ve interrupted tonight, hours and hours of nothing.

  “You worry about Devin,” I say. “Not about me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Dad shouts, his left eyebrow pulsating. “Your mother has been making phone calls about you all night, worrying herself sick. We can’t have another one of you going missing!” Dad’s chin wobbles, making me wonder if he actually might break down and cry.

  Maybe his display should be enough worry for me, but I stare at my mother in her yellow pyjamas, her face pale and weary-looking the way it always is after she’s removed her makeup for the night, and feel a fraction of the frustration with her that I imagine Devin used to. Why act so worried when you know you won’t do anything about it, Mom? Save your strength.

  “I’m surprised you even noticed I was gone,” I declare, scowling at her. “What happened? Nothing to bid on tonight?” Did Devin hate me this much when he told me to stuff my face? Where do these awful feelings come from?

  Mom’s hand sails through the air and connects with my cheek. The pain registers first. My own hand rises to touch the smarting cheek. Then I feel ashamed. No one’s ever hit me before. I shouldn’t have pulled an attitude, but she didn’t have to hit me.

  My father glances at my mother, shocked. She turns and pads swiftly away in her slipper feet, leaving Dad and I alone in the hallway.

  Dad looks in my general direction but avoids my eyes, embarrassed. Is he embarrassed for me or for my mother? I’m embarrassed for all of us. I want a new family composed of people who don’t say and do mean things to each other or turn into addicts. I want to call Gage and ask him if I can spend the next two and a half years of high school sleeping on his couch. Falling asleep on his sofa with him was the calmest I’ve felt in … I don’t even know.

  “You’re all right,” Dad says quietly. “You have no idea how worried she was …” His voice trails off.

  There’s nothing left for me to say. I stare past him, at the wall, and kick off my shoes and unbutton my coat. Then I edge past my father, my cheek throbbing, and stuff my coat into the overcrowded hall closet.

  My parents would never know I was missing from glancing into the closet, that’s for sure. My brothers’ old coats take up more room in it than mine do. If Devin had to steal from us why didn’t he take some goddamn coats?

  “Are you going up to bed?” Dad asks in a brittle voice.

  I nod without turning back towards him and stick my hand up to wave good night.

  “Good night, Serena,” he says to my back. “See you in the morning.”

  ***

  The next morning I lie in bed until my bladder’s about to burst. Then I bring my cell into the bathroom with me and check messages again while peeing. I texted Nicole last night to let her know I was home and there’s a reply asking for details.

  I creep back into my bedroom, dive under the covers, and weave fragments of the truth into a new fiction for her. I can’t tell her about Gage now. That would mean admitting my original lie, and after what happened with my parents last night I’m not ready to have my friends angry with me too. Once I’ve got my story straight I call Nicole and thank her for covering for me.

  “I almost didn’t,” she says. “I was starting to think something happened to you downtown. Why didn’t you call me or Genevieve back last night? Izzy called me too — said your mom called her looking for you. It sounds like she was calling everyone. I bet she even called Jacob.”

  “I hope not.”

  “I bet she did,” Nicole says again. “She sounded a bit mental on the phone. And here I was thinking you were kidnapped by some psycho and that I could’ve been holding up a police investigation.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, the blanket pulled up to my chin. “I guess I went a bit mental myself, talking to all these homeless people and thinking bad things about what Devin could be doing. It was pretty rough.” It feels wrong to be using Devin as my cover, but I did think those things yesterday, before Gage showed up and made me forget them for a while. “It got so I didn’t have the energy to ask anyone else. But I didn’t want to go home either so I shut off my phone, walked to the movie theatre just off Queen Street, and sat there eating fast food and watching movies until the theatre closed.”

  “You walked around the city at night by yourself?” Nicole says. “That must’ve been scary.”

  “I didn’t think about it. I was lost in my own head. And then I caught the last train home and had to cab it back to my house.” I take a deep breath as though just remembering last night is draining. “My parents freaked. My mom, she hit me.” Real tears spring to my eyes.

  Why did things have to get so bad between us? Why couldn’t she have tried harder to talk to me instead, like she would’ve before Devin left?

  “That’s awful,” Nicole says in a stunned voice. “I didn’t think she was like that. I mean, I know you’ve said she’s sort of unstable but …”

  I’ve never used the word unstable; that makes my mother sounds crazy, and I don’t believe she’s crazy. Severely messed up, but not crazy. A tear squeezes out of my eye, slides down my cheek and over my chin. “She was worried,” I say. “Not that that’s any excuse.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nicole says softly. “Can you get out of there for a while? You can come spend the rest of the weekend at my place if you want.”

  “I don’t have a ride. Could you phone Genevieve and ask her to pick me up?” No way am I asking my parents for permission to leave, but I need to get out of here. The place feels toxic and it makes me feel toxic too, like I’m being slowly poisoned.

  “I’ll call her now,” Nicole tells me.

  Forty minutes later the doorbell rings. I dash out of my bedroom, my knapsack (packed with a change of clothes, pyjamas, and my toothbrush) over my shoulders. “That’s for me,” I announce as I tear into the kitchen. “I’m spending the night at Nicole’s.”

  Mom’s sitting at the table in front of a partially eaten piece of toast and Dad has his hand on the coffee pot. “Hold on there a second, Serena,” Dad pleads. “We want to talk to you.”

  “My ride’s waiting.” I motion to the door.

  “Serena.” Mom looks uncertainly up at me. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a child go missing.”

  I had a brother go missing, but I guess that doesn’t count. I stare blankly at my mother. I’m not going to make this easy on her after what she did.

  “I’m sorry about last night.” Mom glances at her hands on either side of her plate. “Won’t you sit down with us and have some lunch. It’s almost twelve and you haven’t eaten.”

  “I’ll eat at Nicole’s.” I swivel on my heel and walk out into the hall, before I can say something I’ll regret. My eyes sting as I battle with my coat in the closet. “Somebody should throw out all these stupid old coats!” I shout as I jerk the front door open.

  I’m shaking a little as I throw myself into Genevieve’s Honda. The car smells like warm cinnamon and my shoulders immediately begin to relax. Genevieve’s long red hair looks slept-on and stringy and she’s not wearing her watch, which is almost as much a part of her as her left arm. “Open the glove compartment,” she commands. “I picked you up a Cinnabon for breakfast. I know you love those.”

  “Thanks.” I cringe at the thought of how many calories must be packed into a single Cinnabon. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “Nicole told me what happened at home. It’ll do your parents some good to see they can’t walk all over you.” Genevieve brushes her fingers across her lips. “No crumbs?”
she asks. “I had mine on the way over.”

  “No crumbs. You’re good.”

  Genevieve reverses as I bite into my Cinnabon. The cream cheese frosting floods my system with joy, almost as much as lying on Gage’s couch with him last night. I wish I could share some of the details with Genevieve but I know she’d only tell me that I’m being ridiculous and will just get screwed over in the end.

  “He already has a kid with someone else,” she’d say. “Do you want to be the mother of his next one? C’mon, Serena, smarten up!”

  I don’t need to hear her say it; I’m already hearing the lecture loud and clear in my head. Gage is my guilty secret and I’m glad at least he’s a happy one.

  At Nicole’s we play video games and eat kimchi, Nicole and Genevieve ultra-animated to distract me from my problems at home. When my cell rings I tell them to play on as I check who’s calling. Hmm, big brother Morgan, who no doubt received a panicked call from my parents last night along with half of the Western world.

  “Hey, Morgan,” I say. “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain. My English teacher quoted him last year when she came back in October after being off with West Nile virus for two weeks.

  Morgan laughs. “Yeah, I can hear that. I hope Mom and Dad weren’t too hard on you. I tried to calm them down when they called looking for you but you know how they can be.”

  “Did you talk to them this morning?” I ask.

  “Yeah, they said you showed sometime after one. Let me guess, was it a guy?”

  I glance at Nicole and Genevieve absorbed in their game of zombie carnage. Blood and guts are spurting everywhere, intestines and eyeballs crowding the screen.

  “Yeah,” I admit. Since my parents know, I can’t see what harm there is in Morgan knowing too. It’s crucial that I keep all my secrets and lies straight; one less lie to remember can only be a good thing.

  “Knew it,” Morgan says, a smile in his voice. “Hope he was worth the trouble.”

  I think so, but that’s not something I plan to go into right now. “Did Mom tell you what she did?”

  “What she did?” Morgan repeats. “No, what’d she do?”

  Genevieve turns and catches my eye. I can tell she overheard and is shooting some sympathy my way, even as she wastes lurching zombies.

  “Ask her,” I say. “I don’t want to go into it now. But ask her. Make her tell you.”

  “Jesus, Serena, don’t make me call her back. What happened?”

  “I gotta go,” I tell him. My mouth is dry as I hang up. I don’t want to go back home to my parents at the end of the weekend. It doesn’t matter that my mother apologized; it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

  Nicole’s land line rings, breaking my train of thought. She pauses the zombie fest and goes to answer it.

  “You can sleep over at my house tomorrow night if you’re not ready to go back home yet,” Genevieve offers, as though she can read my mind. “Thanks. I might.”

  Nicole’s voice has cranked up, loud enough that Genevieve and I both turn to look at her. “She’s here with me right now,” Nicole says. “And that’s not where she was last night so Orlando is just spreading his regular bullshit.”

  Nicole pauses to listen for a second. “I know you’re only repeating what you heard. I’m just saying I know for a fact that’s wrong.

  “No, I can’t tell you that either because it’s personal,” she adds. “Just trust me on this.”

  Genevieve and I exchange puzzled glances and continue to listen in. Nicole’s rolling her eyes for our benefit so it’s obvious she doesn’t mind us eavesdropping.

  “That was Renata,” Nicole announces after she hangs up. “Get this, the latest is that Orlando says he saw you in some guy’s car on Spruceland Avenue last night.”

  “The cab driver?” Genevieve guesses.

  “I said that too. But Renata says Orlando never said anything about a cab.” Nicole looks at me. “He said you were in this guy’s front seat next to him and that while he was driving you put your head down in his lap and started getting friendly with it. Would you believe that dickhead told her he was getting ready to take out his cell and start recording? Supposedly, the light changed and you sped off, which is a pretty convenient explanation for why he has no proof.”

  Shit. Why did Orlando, of all people, have to spot us and go mixing the truth with his jerk-off lies. Gage and I were on Spruceland last night, when he was driving me back home, but nothing happened. Who would believe that, though? If I admit to being in a car with a guy lots of people will automatically think the rest of what Orlando said is true too. The funny thing is that even the part that’s a lie is sort of true, only it didn’t happen last night.

  “You know what people would see if we followed Orlando around and taped him?” Genevieve says sourly. “Orlando jerking off alone in his car while he films other people getting off. That’s the extent of his sex life. He should buy himself a wrist brace before he develops carpal tunnel.”

  I haven’t said anything yet, and Genevieve and Nicole stare at me, waiting for me to freak out about this latest piece of bullshit. I look down at my hands, wondering why I can’t figure out what I’m doing and who I’m being without everyone else having something to say about it.

  “We won’t let him get away with it,” Nicole says. “Monday morning we’re going to tear him to pieces. I bet your mom called Jacob and that when Orlando heard you were MIA he decided to run with the story.”

  Genevieve nods. “Don’t let him get to you. No one’s going to believe it anyway.”

  Some people will believe it all right. They’ll want more details, so Orlando will have to make more crap up. I wince as I imagine the nasty things he’ll say.

  “And even if it was true — so what?” Nicole says. “It’s none of his business.”

  “Exactly,” I mutter. “I’m so sick of all this. It’s nobody’s business but mine what I do.”

  “We’ll make a big joke of him on Monday, like Nicole says, and then everyone will forget about it,” Genevieve advises. “There’s no video. He’s just being an ass, trying to see what he can get away with.”

  I chew my lip and think about Jacob. I know he’s hooked up with at least two girls since me, but one of his friends spots me riding around in a car with someone and it instantly mutates into gossip porn. I’m ready to spill hot chocolate over someone’s head again. If Orlando’s alone the next time he sees me he better watch out.

  Genevieve, Nicole, and I go back to killing zombies, massacring with noticeably extra gusto. Limbs go flying. Innards ooze. Brains gush blood. If I could fix everything that’s wrong with my life by wasting virtual zombies, I’d be looking at outright perfection by dinnertime.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ~

  SUNDAY NIGHT I COME home for extra clothes and my dad stops me in the hallway and tells me he wants me to stay home tonight. I think he’s missing the point, which is that I’m currently rejecting his and Mom’s authority. I say I’ll be back Monday after school, grab a set of fresh everything, and jump into Genevieve’s car for the second time in two days. On the way to her house Morgan calls, having heard the extended version of my altercation with my parents, and tells me Mom was wrong and feels awful about what happened. I explain that I’m taking a temporary vacation from my folks and don’t really want to talk about it anymore.

  Genevieve’s mom has made up their spare bedroom for me. It smells like coconut, but I can’t tell where the scent’s coming from. The shapely vase sitting on the windowsill is filled with fake pink and orange flowers but there’s no sign of an air freshener. Three paintings of various floral scenes hang on the pale yellow walls. They’re the kind of decorative decision that wouldn’t offend anyone, and overall the Richardsons’ spare room reminds me of the hotel suite I shared with my parents when we went to the Bahamas on
vacation three and a half years ago.

  I mean that in the best possible way — hotel rooms are an escape from real life, and in Genevieve’s spare room I feel cocooned, hidden away from anxiety and negativity. The duvet cover and matching pillowcases are a tranquil lavender and at the end of the night I lie between crisp sheets, inhaling deeply, listening to the affluent silence that echoes through the Richardsons’ corner lot and texting Gage. Twenty minutes later, when the surrounding purple and sweetness have almost sent to me to dreamland, my cell rings.

  I reach for it with my eyes closed and mumble into the phone.

  “Did I wake you up again?” Gage asks.

  “It’s okay.” I yawn. “It’s just, this room is so much calmer than my house. I could probably lie here for fifteen hours if I didn’t have to go to school tomorrow.”

  “So it sounds like your parents were pretty pissed off with you,” Gage says. “I can’t help feeling like it’s kinda my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault.” I roll over on my side, still holding my cell to my ear. “Don’t worry about it, they’ll get over it.” I’ve decided not to tell him exactly what happened with my mother. There’s so much serious stuff surrounding the two of us already — what we need is more mac and cheese fun and lying on his couch time. “Anyway, it was worth it.” If I was wide awake I might be afraid to say that to him but in my semi-blissful, surrounded by purple state it seems like the right thing.

  Gage misses a beat in the conversation. Then his voice softens and he says, “I had a good time too. Hope we can do it again sometime soon.”

  It’s exactly what I was wishing he’d say and I murmur, “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  “How about Thursday then? Do you think your folks will ground you?”

  I think after what my mother did they’d be afraid to, paranoid that I’d disappear like a certain other member of my family. “That only matters if I plan on listening to them,” I tell him.

  “Don’t say that. I don’t want you getting into more trouble with them because of me. If you’re grounded, we can wait.”