A Hole in My Heart (3 page)

“It's for me.” Janet jumps off the couch towards the ringing telephone.

“No, it's Jerry. He said he'd call.” Dorothy rounds the door from the bathroom, grabbing the receiver off the wall. She runs her fingers though her blonde hair and takes in a big quietening breath. “Mackenzie residence. Dorothy speaking.” A scowl. “Yes, she's here.”

Janet holds out her hand with an I-told-you-it'd-be-for-me look on her face.

Dorothy puts her hand over the receiver. “Bummer. It's for you.” She rolls her eyes. “Who in the heck can be calling her?” They forget I'm sitting at the dining room table researching a Social Studies project in the encyclopedia. My stupid sisters.

“Bummer. The telephone's for you.” This time she yells. “Hurry up, Nora. They haven't got all day.”

“I only answer to Nora.” I snatch the receiver from behind her. The curly cord stretches and dances.

“Hello. Nora speaking.” I can't believe it. It's a response to my advertisement at the library. Yesterday I took my books back and got out
Anne of the Island
. While I was there I put up a notice:
Grade eight girl on 11th Street would like babysitting job, weekends
. If I'm going to get new shoes or go back to Penticton, I figure I'll have to earn the money myself. “That's fine. Thursday at four-thirty. Just let me get a pencil, please.” Dot hovers. I cover the receiver and grit my teeth. “Can't I have a telephone conversation in private?” I rummage in the desk drawer for paper. “Yes?” I scribble
523 East 8th Street
and repeat it into the receiver. “Thanks. I'll see you then.” I paste the note to my chest and stomp to my room.

“What's going on?” Dad's johnny-on-the-spot when there's anything possibly negative involving me.

“What d'ya know. Bummer got a phone call.” You'd think they'd say it quietly if they're going to talk like that.

“Don't you call her that. You know she doesn't like it. Maybe she has a friend.”

I can't believe it. Dad is actually taking my side for a change.

• • •

The Quinns' house is old and rambling, several blocks south and east of our place, with a large back garden and rickety-pickety fence. Well, picket fence. I just like the rickety-pickety rhyme. Mrs. Quinn meets me at the door.

“Hi. I'm Mrs. Quinn. Come in, come in. You must be Nora.” I shake out my blue umbrella. The white flowers on it squish and spread. “You look like a drowned rat.” My stomach twinges. Mum always said that when I came in from swimming. “And this leech hanging from my leg is Colin.”

“Hi, leech.” I can't help grinning. He's so cute — big brown eyes and a black cowlick that stands bolt upright from his short-back-and-sides cropped head.

Colin grins back. “I'm Colin. And I'm three years old.”

“You can't be. You're much bigger than that.” I hand my coat to Mrs. Quinn. “You must be at least four.”

Colin lets go of his mother's leg and stretches up tall. “When will I be four, Mummy?” He holds up five fingers.

“Not until January, dear.”

“You know your numbers already?” I bend over and fold down his thumb. At the same time I step out of my rain boots.

Mrs. Quinn ushers me into the living room. “These are my other two scallywags, Maureen and Patricia. Two girls jump up and down on the chesterfield and bat each other with pillows, laughing.

“Girls, girls. This is Nora. She's coming to help us out on Saturdays. She won't want to look after you if you act like a bunch of orangutans.”

I wonder if three kids will be too much. Even though I'm tall and in grade eight, I'm not thirteen until November because I skipped grade two. But four hours at fifty cents an hour — two dollars a week — is a gold mine. I think again of new shoes and a bus ticket to Penticton.

“As I told you on the phone, I work Saturdays from one to five at the five-to-a-dollar store. My sitter left a few weeks back. Her own mother needed more looking after so she had to quit. I've been trying to find a permanent sitter ever since.”

I glance around as Mrs. Quinn speaks. Games and books and blankets are strewn over the floor and a small black-and-white TV sits in the corner. The girls stop jumping.

“This is Maureen, my middle one.” The stocky girl's fine wisps of fire-engine red hair frame her face in front of long, thin braids. “And this is Patricia.” She pauses a moment. “My eldest.” She's much the same height as the first but thinnish, with light golden-red curls. I smile. Colin pulls at my leg.

“How much sitting have you done before?” Mrs. Quinn asks.

I'm sort of honest. “Not much, but I love kids.” I bend down to Colin. “Just a moment. I have to talk to your mum. Then we can play.” I straighten up. “I have two little cousins who I used to look after.” But not completely honest. I omit to say Lizzie and I babysat together, only when we had to, and definitely not for money. “I do miss them.”

“Three children can be a handful. Do you still think you want to try?” I nod. “Well, I'll leave you with them for an hour or so. I'll be in the kitchen. Let's see how you manage.” Colin follows his mother out of the room. “No, no, dear. You stay here. I thought you wanted to play with Nora.”

Patricia and Maureen gather round. I crouch down. “Now which one of you is which again?” Colin wiggles in for a cuddle.

“I'm Maureen and I am seven and a half. But I prefer to be called Reenie.” This, the dimply dumpling with braids.

“Hi, Reenie.” I hold out my hand. We shake. “And, by my great powers of deduction, you must be Patricia.” The other child stands a bit apart.

“Yes, and she's not seven and a half. She's only seven years and three months. And Mum doesn't like her called Reenie. She says Maureen's such a beautiful name.”

“Maybe I can call her Reenie when your mum isn't around? Do you like Patricia or something else for short?”

“Well, some of my friends call me Pat. And Patricia is okay. But I like Trisha best. That's what Dad calls me.” She scowls at Maureen's equally fierce face.

“There you are then. When we're together, you're Trisha and Reenie. And how grown-up are you, Trisha?”

“Oh, I'm eight, but I'll be nine on March fourth.” Despite their difference in hair and bone structure, the two girls are much alike. Broad, open faces with pale skin and masses of freckles.

“I wish I had a sister close to my age. My two big sisters are much older and just a year apart from each other too. They're the greatest friends.” Still squatting, I run my hand over and over Colin's black cowlick. Each time it pops up again.
Unmanageable like the rest of him?
I wonder.

“Aren't you going to ask about me?” Colin takes my head between his hands and forces me to look straight at him.

“I guess you want me to talk to you, Colin. Do you go to school?”

He shakes his head. “I stay at Mrs. Jomori's. She has two baby girls. It's boring.”

“Where's your dad?”

“He's a miner. He's away.” Maureen grabs my arm and pulls me to the couch. “Let's jump some more.”

If I want this job — and I know now I do for sure — I figure I'd best calm the kids down and clean up the mess.

“Let's build a fort.” I pick up the two pillows and blankets strewn on the floor.

“Yay.” Three voices chorus.

“How?” asks Patricia.

“First we tidy up, make space in the middle of the room. And then we build.”

Over the next while the three children gather up the games and stack them in the corner with the books next to the TV. Meanwhile I straighten out the chesterfield and cushions, turn four chairs upside down in the middle of the room, and drape the blankets from the couch over the chair legs. We each choose a pillow as our sitting spot inside our new fort. I grab a battered blue copy of
The Littlebits
from the pile of books.

“Let's read a story.” Colin curls up on my lap, thumb in mouth. Maureen and Patricia snuggle in on either side. From the way the girls sigh I know they like the book as much as I did at their age.

The door opens and closes. But I read on to the end of the chapter. Then I hush the girls with a finger and squeeze out from under Colin's droopy body to go find Mrs. Quinn.

In the kitchen, the table is set for four and a smell of something sweet comes from the oven. Mrs. Quinn looks up from her book with a smile. “You certainly have a way with them. The last girl I tried was older than you but they ran rings around her.”

“Colin's asleep on the floor, Mrs. Quinn. In the fort.”

“Thanks, dear. You've been great. But before we decide for sure, I'd like to talk to your mother.”

I feel my face flush. “I don't have a mother.” Mrs. Quinn pauses, opens her mouth to say something but appears to change her mind.

“Then I can talk to your dad?”

“You can. But you don't need to. He'll say it's okay.”
He doesn't really notice me
, I add to myself.

“I'll phone him anyway. You be here on Saturday then, let's see, a little early, so I can show you the routine. About a quarter after twelve. Is that okay?” I know I want the money and I know I'm going to like it here. “If it goes well this Saturday then you have the job for good. I'll check with my children, of course.” She presses a fifty-cent piece into my hand. “That's for today. Thanks, dear. Can you see yourself out? I don't want Colin to sleep too long or he won't want to go to bed tonight.”

“Say bye to them for me, then.” I slip on my boots and raincoat and partially open the still-dripping umbrella. “See you Saturday. Oh, and thanks.”

I hurry home up Moody Avenue. My head's in a busy cloud of counting all the money I'll have when I hear a man's roar.

“Get yourself back in here, now.” Another roar. “If you don't, I'll give you something to complain about.” This time some of the words are slurred. I look around. There's no one on the street but me. I'm scared. But then I see movement. A girl, curled up next to a forsythia bush. It looks like Dolores. It can't be, but it is.

On Monday, school is as boring as ever. Even Music, which I loved — and I really mean loved — in Penticton, is boring. Here, Mrs. Bramley strums on her autoharp and we're supposed to sing. Hardly anyone does, and if they do it's a half sing. She flings one arm about as if to work up some enthusiasm but still it's an off-key, pathetic effort. Well, what do you expect with songs with words like “Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?” In Penticton we used to sing songs from musicals.

Two summers ago our whole family went to see the movie
South Pacific
for Mum's birthday, the twelfth of August. We sang “Some Enchanted Evening” and “I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” for days after. Mum then bought the record for Janet's birthday a few weeks later, and the singing started all over again. I know every piece. At the end of the class, I almost say to Mrs. Bramley, if we sang something from
South Pacific
or
Oklahoma!
maybe the kids would sing. But then I think,
Nah. If we do sing songs like that, I'll cry remembering.

Right after Music is Physical Training, PT for short. It's my most hated class. It's not that I don't like to run or exercise or play soccer. I do. It's that I can't be invisible. In all my other classes, I go about my business, head down, and they go about theirs. Here it's different. I stick out because I'm pretty hopeless. Like, if we play field hockey, I trip over the stick. If we play soccer, my kick misses the ball and I stumble and nearly fall on my face. Dad said last year it's because I'm long and skinny and growing so fast. Surely that can't go on forever. Maybe I'm just uncoordinated and clumsy. Either way, it doesn't help when people are giggling behind their hands.

After class, it's even worse. We have to have a shower, but not if we have our period. Today, Margo Latimer says, “Please, Mrs. Grantham, will you excuse me from showering?” The other girls tee-hee.

Then someone invariably says to me, “Of course
you
have to take a shower.” They tee-hee some more. Of course I have to. It's written all over my flat chest. There's more sniggering. What they're really saying is,
Too bad you're so immature.
So what's so great about getting your period, especially when they call it “the curse”? Nothing. At least not the way Dot whines and moans.

All this to say, nothing much has changed in three weeks at Sutherland Junior High. Except maybe I'm getting better at ignoring them. Well, not really. Even if I ignore them, I can't forget. What I really want is Mum back, Mum to hug me and tell me I'm special the way she used to. Dad doesn't even know I'm here.

Actually, maybe he would if I didn't make meals when I'm supposed to. Just a thought. When I get home I scrawl a new message on my chalkboard.

If I stop making meals

will you play with me

the way you used to,

Dad?

• • •

After school I go next door. The back steps of the Rev. and Mrs. Jim Taylor's house are painted in thick layers of grey. It's like if the sun dares to dry and lift the paint or a wayward shoe dares to chip it, more paint is slapped on. The Taylors themselves look grey. Just like I imagine a Reverend and Mrs. would look. And inside their house, everything is prim and proper, with doilies on side tables and the good china imprisoned in neat piles behind the glass doors of the buffet. There might as well be
No Touching
signs in every corner.

Despite their kid-unfriendly house and her hard and boney look, Mrs. Taylor is okay. She's invited me over to see her cat, Fluffy, who's having kittens. The cat has long black hair with a splash of white under her chin.

As far as I'm concerned, Fluffy is the most boring name imaginable for a cat. So I call her Carmody instead. But I don't say so in front of Mrs. Taylor. Just like I won't use the word pregnant again. I did once. Mrs. Taylor looked at me and said with her thin-lipped, cold voice, “Proper girls do not use words like that.”

“Like what?” I asked.

She cleared her throat. Her voice came out raspy. “Words referring to our bodies and private matters.”

My doctor dad uses all sorts of words. I kind of know you don't go around saying penis and vagina and breast in public, but I'm really not sure what's wrong with pregnant. Isn't that how we all got here? Anyway, that tells you something about Mrs. Taylor.

The point of all this is that Fluffy/Carmody is going to have kittens really soon. I would like to be there when she has them, but I haven't asked Mrs. Taylor. I don't think she'd be for it, given I have to be protected even from words like pregnant. But I figure my odds for being present for the birth are much higher if I go to the Taylors' really often. The cat bed is on the outside back porch so that's easy.

Today there's another girl next door. She's Mrs. Taylor's niece and she's nine. Her name is Stella. We sit on the porch. First I pat Carmody, then she pats Carmody. The cat purrs warm and soft. We purr too, a human-type purr. Stella tells me about her big bossy sister, Lori. I tell her my big sisters are bossy too. I don't tell her about Mum. And she doesn't ask.

When I leave for home, Stella says, “Will you be here tomorrow?”

“Probably.”

“See yah then.” It feels nice. Like I have a friend. But being only nine, she's not a real friend.

I want new shoes

I want a real friend

I want to go back to Penticton

• • •

I open my autograph book:

To my best friend Nora,

Out in the ocean

On a little rock —

Three little words

“Forget me not.”

Love and good thoughts,

Vicki Matthews

Has she forgotten me already?

• • •

Penticton

September 22, 1959

Dear Nora,

Thanks for your letter. I received it right after I mailed my last one. You still don't sound happy. Why not? You get to be in the big city and not in this dump of a town. But then I wasn't very happy in my last letter, if I remember correctly.

I've changed my mind about Mrs. Cramer. She's really unfair. In homeroom some of the guys are so stupid. And because of that she now jumps on all of us if we barely move. Her son (do you remember Billy Cramer?) is in my Math and Science classes and he's weird or dumb or both. There must be something wrong — I mean really wrong — with him, the way he acts. Mind you, it must be awful to have your mother as a teacher, especially when kids don't like her. Or at least I don't.

I play the guessing game with Dougie and Jack much more now that you're not here. Tonight it was the planets and stars and moons and stuff from
World Book
. The boys are either really smart or have great memories. Miss Banks, Jack's first-grade teacher (we had her too, remember?), stopped Mum downtown on Saturday. Apparently Miss Banks had pointed to the letter
q
over the blackboard at school and said it's always followed by a
u
. Jack's hand shot up. “What about Qatar?” Isn't that a hoot? I bet her face was red. The boys and I had been looking at a map of the Middle East a few nights earlier. I think they're going to be extra really smart because, with you not here, I have nothing to do but teach them things.

I'm telling you a secret. A secret from Mum and Dad, that is. Everybody in the whole school almost knows, so I guess it isn't a secret. I couldn't get up the stairs at school today. You know the big stairs at the side of the building we always go into? Well, at about step four, I just knew I couldn't get to the top. I was panting and my breathing was really shallow. It was scary. The principal and Miss Dale took my arms and helped me to the classroom. They tried to make me go to the nurse's room but I said
no
. I knew they would phone Mum if I did. It was
soooo
embarrassing. I could see kids whispering behind their hands.

Don't you dare tell Uncle Alan or Janet or Dorothy.

I'm finding
Anne of the Island
pretty dull. Maybe Mum was right that it's too old for me. That Philippa Gordon is so silly, and all the girls (except Anne) ever talk about is boys. I only read it when I have nothing else to read. I had to renew it.

I guess I'm in a bad mood again. Jenny is back from her holiday
finally,
but I don't like her much anymore. She's really stuck-up. She got to drive to Ontario in the summer. Somehow it makes her better than us. I don't know why. Anyway, I usually hang around with Clara and Molly now but that's not the same as with the old Jenny or you.

Write soon.

Your cousin,

Lizzie

PS Don't you dare tell.