Just Like You Said It Would Be Page 26

  Jocelyn and I swerve into her room down the hall, launching ourselves onto her double bed in a single synchronized motion. I grab the body pillow for myself, coiling my legs around it while sliding the top portion under my head. “We don’t really have to talk,” I murmur into the pillow. “Just sing me to sleep.” But I raise my head from the pillow to look at her. “Do you ever think of Noah anymore?” She hasn’t brought him up since the leaves started to change colours.

  “Not really. Every once in a blue moon I have a dream about him.” Her voice drops. “A sex dream, you know. But we weren’t like you and Darragh. I barely knew him. I actually think about Anthony more.”

  “You do?”

  Jocelyn rolls onto her chest, propping herself up on her elbows so she’s staring down at me. “Not that I want to get back together. Sachiko appreciates him more—they seem good together. But it would’ve been nice if we could’ve stayed friends. He’s a good guy.”

  “He is,” I agree.

  Anthony even went looking for her when she was missing, and I think we’re both quietly remembering this when Joss sits up abruptly, her eyes bleary and skin waxy.

  “What’s wrong?” I unknot myself from the pillow.

  “I feel like I’m going to throw up.” She stands unsteadily, me a step behind her. Then her body bends like a snapped twig, and I scoop up a handful of her hair in the nick of time—just as a stew of half-digested slop escapes from between her lips. I rub her back with my other hand, my nostrils bristling at the smell of warm vomit.

  “Uhhhh,” Joss groans once she’s emptied out. “That was completely disgusting—sorry.” She navigates her way around the vomit puddle, motioning me forward. “Come on.” She leads me to the bathroom where I balance myself on the edge of the bathtub and she sits in front of the open-lidded toilet. ”Sorry,” she says again, her dewy lashes clumping together to make them look even thicker. “I didn’t think I was this bad.”

  “It’s okay.” It’s not the first time I’ve seen her throw up, and two years ago it was me regurgitating my breakfast into a school bathroom stall while Joss held my stuff and then ran my sweater under the sink to clean it off.

  “I wonder if it’s food poisoning like you had that time at school,” she says.

  “Maybe. Or an infestation in your guts like those people in the Aliens movies.”

  Joss’s left foot scissors out to kick my right. “Shut up. You’re going to make me puke again.”

  “Sorry.” I reach out to touch the top of her head.

  Jocelyn’s gaze rises to connect with mine, her shoulders swaying slightly. “But anyway, it sounds like you’re sort of inhabited too.”

  I suck on my teeth, my mind falling back across the miles while my body slumps in defeat. Somewhere he’s buttoning up a shirt, brushing his teeth, or still lying asleep in bed—alone or next to someone else, dreaming separate dreams with their skin pressed together.

  I sit up straight, wind a strand of hair around my finger, curling it until there’s nowhere left to go and I’m forced to release it and start over. “That’s exactly what I am,” I admit, grabbing my sides and explaining, although she’s heard it all before, exactly what it is I think I’ve lost.

  Chapter 22

  Is it too late?

  I started at The Video Vault three months ago, but already it feels like a second home. Here nobody makes me feel like they’re humouring my obsessive interest in movies. Probably ninety percent of the people who walk through the front door would naturally rather watch Cary Grant and Irene Dunne ribbing each other in glorious black and white or buy film festival tickets to the latest Pedro Almodóvar flick than sit through any Hollywood blockbuster at their local megaplex.

  The Video Vault caters to the cinephiles who want to own hard-copies of movies they love rather than just stream them from the Internet. While the store specializes in imports, Hollywood classics, and cult and art-house movies, just as much of their profits come from movie posters, film books and things like Breakfast at Tiffany’s tote bags and Star Wars bobbleheads.

  Since I only do two shifts a week I’m still getting to know some of the regulars. The more reclusive ones haven’t entirely warmed up to me yet so sometimes I get stuck doing the grunt work—shrink wrapping DVDs and rearranging stock on the shelves—while customers confer with one of the employees who’ve been around longer. The most extreme example is an impeccably dressed old man with a pencil moustache who will barely even look at me. In the beginning I tried hard to win Mr. Schuller over, but his efforts to ignore me were so strenuous that lately I’ll say hello to him but otherwise leave him alone.

  At the moment Mr. Schuller and Lennox are chatting in the middle of the store’s foreign language section while I man the cash register. It seems to me that Lennox has let the conversation go on longer than usual because he’d rather not be around me either. He was already here when I arrived at a quarter to eleven this morning. When I said I hoped we were cool he shrugged off the implication that anything could be the matter, but he’s been really low key with me all day. We’ve spent six minutes, tops, within ten feet of each other so far this shift.

  It’s been snowing on and off since yesterday morning and the bad weather must be keeping customers away because, Mr. Schuller’s presence aside, the store is dead. Normally that wouldn’t bother me. I’d stick on something like the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Donnie Darko and enjoy the downtime. But coming the day after Darragh’s pointed silence, the twin cold shoulders from Mr. Schuller and Lennox get under my skin. When the credits of Spirited Away begin to roll, I restart the film and grab my phone from beneath the counter, hoping one of my friends will be around to make me feel less unpopular.

  Strictly speaking we’re not supposed to use our phones in plain sight of the customers, but today I’m making an exception for Mr. Schuller. Glancing down at my cell, I notice two texts waiting for me. The first message reads:

  Thanks, Amira. A very Happy New Year to you too. All the best!

  My thumb jerks in response. Darragh’s name is at the top of the message and it’s not the only one. I’m nearly holding my breath as my eyes fly over the second text.

  I meant it. We had a good summer. I wish it could’ve been more.

  That’s it. No explanation of why he took over a day to get in touch and no hint about what I should do next.

  I stare across the store at Lennox who has begun to break away from Mr. Schuller and is rapidly approaching the counter. “Can you switch in something else?” he asks.

  Dazed, I push my phone into my back pocket. “What?”

  “Can we nix the Spirited Away reprise?” he says. “What do you say to some film noir? Double Indemnity or Touch of Evil?”

  “Sure. Whatever.” This is as normal as Lennox has been with me all day and I’m spacing on him. But realizing that doesn’t help. I bound out from behind the counter and weave in the general direction of the stock room/back office, which contains a bathroom that’s best avoided whenever possible. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  In truth, I don’t make it that far. I loiter around the back room, which resembles a serial killer’s apartment, a large percentage of its wall space covered in twenty-five years’ worth of news clippings. In this case the clippings are movie reviews rather than murder reports. Because she has Multiple Sclerosis, the owner of The Video Vault doesn’t spend much time in the store anymore, but Loretta loves movies more than anyone I’ve ever met, including the people in my summer screenwriting class.

  With only Loretta’s collection of yellowing reviews for company, I read both of Darragh’s messages over multiple times. I don’t know what I expected when I texted him two nights ago—that somehow my will alone would solve the problem of the three thousand miles between us.

  We said we wouldn’t be friends and that’s not what I want this to turn into now. He has to know I’m serious and before I can lose my nerve I type:

  Is it too late?

&
nbsp; I hit send and then shut my phone off like I did on New Year’s Eve. The store closes in an hour; I’ll check messages again once I’m home. I can’t let myself get too frantic with the phone while I’m at work.

  Now that I’m in no mood to talk Lennox seems fine and I slide back around the counter and rise to the occasion, acting like today is business as usual. It’s the least I can do for him after what went down between us on New Year’s. Soon enough we’re locking up and I’m hopping off the bus and hurtling towards home. I smell garlic and nuts cooking as I dart through the front door and I swing into the kitchen to tell my mom that Loretta came into work with Japanese food for us minutes before closing. It’s a harmless lie; I just need uninterrupted time with my phone.

  Having forced myself to wait to check my phone, I’m doubly nervous as I climb the stairs to my room. Four months and I’m still not ready to let him go. The thought of Darragh moving on is unbearable and I’m imagining the worst things, steeling myself for them, as I switch on my cell.

  They say no news is good news, but it doesn’t feel that way when I stare at my phone. There’s always the chance he could just be insanely busy. I have no idea what’s going on with his life now, aside from the snippets of Brash Heathens news I hear from Zoey. They’ve been gigging around the country more and have set up a couple of band social networking pages with their dates on them. Before I gave up trying to change my parents’ minds I used to look at the pages almost as often as I listened to the CD Darragh gave me. I haven’t let myself peek in months, but the temptation to do it again is almost overpowering.

  Instead I slink over to the window, pull up my blind and stare at the lumpy white neighbourhood lawns. When I was a kid I used to shovel for an old couple down the road, the Pawlaks. They were sweet people who paid me too much. Then, about three years ago, Mr. Pawlak took a couple of bad falls and they sold their house and moved into a nursing home.

  I never told Darragh about the Pawlaks and how, on the coldest days, Mrs. Pawlak used to make me a mug of cocoa after I’d finished their drive and walkway. Jazz would be playing on the radio while she’d tell me stories about her youth as a stage actress.

  There must be thousands of things Darragh still doesn’t know about me and that I never learned about him. I still want to know all those things and for the first few days or so after his messages I hold out some hope that he’ll get in touch again. I make excuses for him and play out fictional scenarios in my head. How the call will come in out of the blue when I least expect it. I’ll be at the mall or up to my ears in Video Vault customers and my phone will start ringing. I’ll sense it’s him before I see his number. We’ll almost fight because he waited a little too long to try to reach me. Then he’ll apologize and explain that he was afraid we’d end up evolving into something less than we should’ve been.

  “So why’d you call now then?” I’ll ask.

  “If there’s a chance you were serious and that I could see you again, I had to take it,” he’ll say.

  Or something like that. Something….

  I can’t pinpoint precisely when I give up on the idea, but life gets busy. More like, I make sure it’s busy. I take every extra shift at The Video Vault I can snatch and I delete every last digital copy of Darragh’s songs from my music libraries, giving his CD to Jocelyn for safekeeping so I won’t be able to listen to it. When I’m not at work I’m spending so much time at Joss’s house that Dad jokes about whether I’m planning to send out change of address forms. The rare times I’m at home, and not up to my ears in homework, I have my head buried in the sci-fi script I’ve tentatively titled The Day Before They Came. It’s about a couple in their early twenties who are on the verge of breaking up when concrete evidence of a recent alien crash on earth is discovered. The news that we’re not alone in the universe, and eventually the two main characters’ own interactions with the aliens, changes everything. For them and for everyone on the planet.

  It’s when I’m busy with the script, working out plot points involving my alien creatures, or hanging out with Joss, Yanna and Ker, talking about the schools we’ve applied to, our shiny futures just around the corner—that I come closest to forgetting about Darragh. If I never had to do anything else but write or focus on my friends, I guess you could say I was cured.

  Anyone else would believe I was and as I knock on Jocelyn’s door on a Saturday in mid-February he’s genuinely the last thing on my mind. Mr. and Mrs. Sandhu wanted Ajay’s first day home to be a family affair, but this is his second day and Mr. Sandhu smiles from the inside out as he ushers me into the house. “They are all in gathered in the living room,” he announces heartily.

  I don’t know who all means since Joss said Ajay was very clear about not wanting a welcome home party. Animated voices coax me along the hallway and into the living room where Joss is sitting on the couch next to Ajay, his ex-girlfriend Cameisha on his other side, his best friend Joel leaning forward in one of the armchairs and Ruby on the floor by the coffee table, Bert resting his head on her knee.

  “Hey,” I say warmly, making a beeline for Ajay. In all the years I’ve known him we’ve never hugged, but we do now—Ajay standing so he can wrap his arms around me and kiss my cheek. “It’s great to see you. You look good.”

  Different. Not necessarily older but not like the same person I last saw in June before leaving for Dublin.

  “Thank you.” He bows his head. “It’s good to be back.”

  I cross over to the unoccupied armchair, lowering myself into it. Joel nods hello at me, launching into a funny story about his Humanities professor, a tale he’d obviously begun before I walked into the room. Ruby giggles at the professor’s absent-minded antics. We all do, chiming in with stories about our own teachers, good and bad. Cameisha talks about the cosmopolitan vibe of Montreal which inspires Joss to cajole Ruby—who goes to a French immersion school—into showing off some of her French, but Ruby goes uncharacteristically shy. Then Mrs. Sandhu bustles in with a tray of pakoras, samosas and aloo tikki while Mr. Sandhu offers juice and soft drinks.

  They’re both so full of good cheer at having Ajay back that it’s a wonder they don’t burst out of their buttons; I feel my own smile stretch wide across my face at the sight. Ajay sits quietly and listens to the chatter volleying around the room, Mr. and Mrs. Sandhu popping in and out of the living room at intervals to chat too. Having been kept apart from Ajay for six months, they can now make him appear before their eyes at will, and so they do. Again and again.

  For once, my parents don’t care if I miss curfew. I stay late into the night. Ruby drags out the family board games and no one tells her to go to bed either. The six of us play Sequence, Jenga, and then Clue until Ajay falls asleep sitting up. I excuse myself to go the bathroom while the others debate whether they should wake him or break up the gathering.

  Because the ground floor bathroom is in use I end up on the second floor. Afterwards, when I’m ambling back through the upstairs hallway, I pass Ajay’s bedroom, my eyes drawn inside by the bright ceiling light.

  Cameisha and Ajay have their arms clasped around each other in the middle of the room. He’s rocking her gently in his arms, nearly the way a parent rocks a baby—or maybe it’s her rocking him—I tear my eyes away from them before I can tell which. I can’t say what it means either, if who they were to each other once is who they’ll be again. But to have someone who will hold you like that in your life, whether they call themselves a friend or something else, is a precious thing.

  For a minute life flashes forward behind my eyes. I see Ajay growing into the better person he wants to be, the pain of the months since the accident like a hole that never closes but changes shape so that it can be lived around. I see Melanie Cheng maybe someday walking on her own two legs again—it could still happen—and Ruby still being like a little sister to me when she is taller than I am now, different colours on her walls. I see Jocelyn threaded through all the years ahead—at graduations and weddings, coffee dates; throug
h babies, careers, middle-aged birthday parties, whispered conversations about the times we were afraid of being crazy and held back, only to regret it, and the times we clawed through our own restraints and then had to face the bitter consequences. I know I’m only projecting, that the emotions of the day have seeped inside me, filled to overflowing, but it honestly feels like this is how life will unfold.

  There are hazy images of movies and writing, losing myself in script after script, the world of imagination forever as my centre of gravity. But then the flash forward begins to stutter and limp and my brain gravitates towards the person I managed to forget for hours at a time tonight. I can’t see him in the future, but I can feel his impact. Even there, in my projection. He’s lingering around corners and ducking behind trees, the guy who lied to me when he said maybe there would be some way for us later but who, regardless, is with me on the day after Ajay comes home.

  Chapter 23

  Maybe I used to be better at this.

  My screenwriting interview at the York University campus is on a Saturday in mid-March. Not everyone lands an interview, which means the members of the Film Department faculty who read my writing portfolio must have liked Happiness is Easy. By interview day I’ve finished a rough draft of The Day Before They Came and have copies on hand for the faculty members in case they want to read it too.

  Part of my application involved submitting a short essay on why I want to focus my university studies on screenwriting and when I sit down in front of the two faculty members set to interview me one of them quotes from my essay: “When I’m writing, I’m looking for something. Sometimes it turns out to be something different than what I thought I was searching for. But always it’s the characters that draw me into a story, and I want to write films that make people care about the characters they’re watching.”