Lemon (14 page)

‘The human genome.'

‘Really? That's fascinating.'

Damian wipes his snout. ‘Your real mother seems mighty keen to meet you. She even called
me
.' He's waiting for me to ask why but I don't. ‘She sounds nice.'

‘That's exciting,' the tomato says, ‘finding your real mother.' She says
exciting
exactly the way Damian does.

‘Where's
your
mother?' I ask her.

‘Hamilton.'

‘Do you ever see her?'

‘Sometimes, at Christmas.'

‘So your real mother lives an hour away but you only see her sometimes at Christmas. That's exciting.'

‘Don't get snarky,' Damian says, which he always does when I state the obvious.

Rossi's life purpose is to get a job at h&m. I go with her to fill out her one hundredth application. After she fills out the form she looks for something to spend her mother's hard-earned cabbage on. ‘I need a top for the party,' she says.

I'm so sick of hearing about the party – who is or isn't going and with whom – I try to think of a compelling change of topic. ‘Too bad you can't poison people these days,' I say.

Rossi keeps flipping through racks at high speed.

‘Before autopsies,' I continue, ‘everybody was getting poisoned. Royalty was always ordering servants to sample food to make sure it wasn't poisoned. Imagine being the servant, getting a bite of a decent meal for a change then waiting to see if it'll kill you.'

Maybe Lillian could slip something into the bank manager's coffee while she stops by with Timbits for her former co-workers. They'll act happy to see her even though they don't want her around because she reminds them of what shit-eaters they are. She'll personally deliver the poisoned coffee to the boss. Or maybe she'll jet up to head office and chase after the ceo with an arsenic-laced Timbit. I like endings where everybody dies. Shakespeare had that right. The vengeful and the avengers, all toast.

All the tops look shrunken. Rossi tries one on anyway.

‘It looks too small,' I say.

‘It's supposed to look that way. I'm not sure about the colour, though. Do you like the pink better?'

She always asks my advice before ignoring it.

‘It's too small,' I repeat. I don't want her falling out of a toddler shirt at the party.

‘That's the style, Lemon, get a grip.'

I try to remember her old body. The body that could do walking handstands. She tries on a toddler miniskirt and gets pissed when she can't zip it up. Maybe Courtney, Lillian's shopaholic friend, could try on toddler clothes. Courtney's one of those pretty, skinny women everybody hates. Lillian spends way too much time envying her. Envy is the sorrow of fools. Some ancient Chinese guy said that.

Mr. Paluska is playing cards with Kadylak. With his free hand he's massaging her feet. I don't
want to interfere so I take the book cart around to some other kids. They all have private rooms because infections can kill them. The conscious ones get pretty excited when they see me. It's not like they're all saints, some are just plain mean. But overall, potentially fatal illness seems to make people nicer. Too bad we can't compute that we're all going to expire sooner or later so we might as well behave decently. I was up a tree the other day and these two suits were arguing over a parking spot, actually screaming at each other. The suit who screamed the loudest got the parking spot. Which makes you wonder about world politics.

This girl called Molly, who was probably alright once but has been spoiled rotten and thinks I'm her servant, is trying to get me to go downstairs and buy her some fries. The steroids make these kids crave salt and therefore junk food. Of course the corporations are more than happy to comply. We've got Burger King, Pizza Hut,
KFC
, right here in the hospital, all providing excellent nourishment. ‘My mom would get me fries,' Molly says. ‘You're mean. I'm going to tell my dad.' The room is packed with stuffed toys her parents and their associates have given her. It's scary, actually, all those staring eyes. Just one stuffed animal would perk up Kadylak. I shove a penguin into the book cart while Molly's sulking.

I see Mr. Paluska in the corridor in his paint-splattered T-shirt. He's got young Marlon Brando shoulders from heaving paint cans around. I liked that movie. Of course I had to run around shouting ‘Steeeeelllllaaaaa!' for a couple of days. Vivien was pretty convincing in it, probably because in real life she was finding out that Larry was a queer.

‘Can you go see her?' Mr. Paluska asks.

‘Of course.'

‘She miss her mother.'

‘I know. I'll go right away.'

‘Thank you.' He grabs my hand and holds if for a second and I feel ready to pass out because
no one
holds my hand. He lets go almost immediately, probably because I look stunned or something. My hand just dangles there in a cold wind.

‘Now my other children sick,' he says. ‘Whole family sick.'

‘I'm so sorry.'

He shrugs and heads for the elevator. I watch his shoulders.

Kadylak's lost more muscle mass and has trouble walking. I wheel her into the playroom. She wants to play house, invite me over, serve me plastic pies and cakes. She goes nuts when I give her the penguin, holds it against her face and kisses it. Of course I'm worried Princess Molly's going to show up and snatch it from her.

‘What are you going to call it?' I ask. ‘Is it a him or a her?'

‘A her,' she announces. ‘I'm going to call her Sweetheart.'

‘That's a nice name.' The whole time I'm thinking how sick it is that I've been ogling her father's body.

‘She's going to sleep with me, beside Mischa.' Mischa the bear is losing fur.

‘I'm sure they'll get along great,' I say.

‘Can you read me
Tilly?'

So Tilly goes to the village and on the way back Hal is waiting for her with a net. He and his neanderthal cohorts drop it on her from a tree. She struggles to escape but just gets more tangled in the ropes. Kadylak looks worried out of her mind, gripping a piece of plastic cheesecake. ‘Maybe I shouldn't read anymore,' I say.

‘Please read.'

Hal starts ripping up Tilly's petticoats while the other goons cheer him on. All of a sudden, you'll never guess, the farmer shows up.

‘I knew it!' Kadylak says.

The farmer carries her in his arms to the old folks' cabin. He says he's going to protect her from now on, but we all know he's got cows to look after.

‘He should shoot Hal,' Kadylak says.

‘Then he'd go to prison.'

‘He could say it was an accident.'

‘That doesn't always work out.'

A couple of pages later, Hal and company have torched the cabin and the old folks have died from shock or whatever. Poor Tilly sees the smoke and charges up the hill.

‘Where's Simon?' Kadylak demands. Simon's the farmer.

‘He's shearing sheep or something.'

‘He said he would protect her.' Which makes me think of all the times I've told Kadylak she's not going to die and she's believed me. We start out small, believing everybody, and then we grow up and figure out everybody's full of it.

15

W
aldo, the security guard, is hanging around the counter talking about two boys who spilled lighter fluid on a girl and set her on fire. ‘Like, can you get your head around that one, like what kind of psychos would do that?'

‘Maybe they saw it on a reality show,' I say. Doyle's slamming around the scoops and buckets because he gets jealous when I talk to Waldo. When Waldo isn't around, Doyle scoffs, ‘What's it take to get a job as a security guard?'

‘So this woman's walking along the beach and finds a bottle,' Waldo says, and I feel a joke coming on.

‘What kind of bottle?' I ask, feigning interest to annoy Doyle.

‘Any kind, doesn't matter. The thing is, there's a message in it. So she gets it out and it says if she rubs the bottle, she'll get a wish. So she rubs it and a genie pops out and the woman says, “How come I only get one wish, you're supposed to get three?” “That's the deal,” the genie says. “One wish.”'

You have to wonder why it's always guys telling jokes, and how they don't notice nobody thinks they're funny. I keep looking fascinated to aggravate Doyle who starts cramming napkins into the dispensers.

‘So the woman says,' Waldo continues, ‘“I wish for world peace.” The genie goes, “Well, that's a little hard because there's wars all over the place.” The woman says she'll write a list for him and he can sum up all the war zones in one wish. He says he doesn't know if he can do that, that's a mighty big wish. She writes it out anyway – it takes a couple of hours – and shows it to him and he says, “No way can I pull this off, you're going to have to think of another wish.” So she says, “Okay, how about finding me a good man who's not afraid of commitment, who's got a decent job, who'll share the housecleaning and cooking and take the garbage out without me nagging him?” The genie looks real worried for a second then he says, “That's a really big wish. Can I see that world peace list again?”' Waldo sucks on his slushie, I do a fake hahaha laugh to bug Doyle. ‘Shouldn't you be doing the rounds?' he says to Waldo. He's staking out his territory. Soon he'll be raping rhinoceroses.

To my horror, Damian and the tomato appear, arm in arm. ‘Look at my hard-working girl,' he says. ‘I like the hat.'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘We just saw the most amazing movie,' the tomato says, and I fear she's about to tell me about it.

‘What'll you have?' he asks her.

This shuts her up; she'll be choosing a flavour for a couple of hours.

‘Drew isn't returning my calls,' he says. ‘Is she alright?'

‘Swell.'

‘Has she gone out yet?'

‘Line dancing.'

‘Really?'

‘She's met some pilot who takes her flying. She loves it.' A smattering of jealousy purples the old lothario's face.

The tomato, finger in mouth, pulls him to her side. ‘I can't decide whether to go soft or hard.'

‘Less chance of botulism with the hard stuff,' I say.

Damian fishes a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to me. ‘Your real mother's number. You took off so fast I didn't get a chance to give it to you.'

‘I think I'll have the Cherry Cobbler,' the tomato announces, clapping her paws together. I stuff the paper in my pocket and grab a scoop.

Rossi's completely freaked because she masturbated on her cell and now Kirsten's broadcast it worldwide.

‘Why did you send it to her?' I ask, swallowing a Timbit. I ordered ten to share but, of course, I'm eating them all.

‘She said she was only going to show it to the guys we know,' Rossi says. ‘Like, the ones going to the party.'

‘Did you get a list?' Tora asks. She's got her laptop out and is working on her essay for Swails.

‘What do you mean, did I get a list?'

‘Get it in writing,' Tora says.

‘Is that supposed to be funny?'

‘Why are you so desperate to be mated?' I ask.

‘I'm not desperate.' She's got zits on her chin, a sure sign of desperation. ‘That bitch is sewering me.'

‘Maybe you shouldn't go to the party,' I suggest.

‘And let her get away with it? No way. I'm going.'

‘How does your going stop her getting away with it?' Tora the future shrink inquires, still tapping on her computer.

‘I'm going to hold my head high. I've got nothing to be ashamed of.'

A young woman struggles through the glass doors on crutches. She's missing a leg below the knee. I'm used to seeing limbless people in photos from Afghanistan or Iraq, victims of land mines. But this amputee shocks me because she's white and smiling and talking cheerfully to another young woman who has both legs. Girls' night out. Smiling and talking cheerfully with just one leg. I wait for Rossi to notice her but she doesn't. I start reading a sports section that's lying around, not because I'm interested but because I don't know what to say to Rossi and I finished
The Mayor of Casterbridge
and haven't gotten my glommers on a new tome yet. Tora's no help because she's busy getting another 100 percent. Some Chinese basketball player is over seven feet tall. It turns out his parents were both tall and ‘encouraged' by the Chinese authorities to copulate. They didn't marry for love but to produce a giant for the Chinese government. The giant was treated by a special doctor who fed him bee pollen and caterpillar fungus to make him grow even bigger. Now he plays for the nba but he's scared to go out of his room when he isn't playing basketball because if he gets into any kind of scandal, the Chinese government will chew him out, not to mention the nba and all his corporate sponsors who've got million of dollars tied up in him. So the giant sits in his room playing computer games while the other players party.

‘I can't believe you guys don't care about what's happening to me,' Rossi says.

‘I do care,' I say. ‘I just can't relate.'

‘What do you mean you can't relate?'

‘All this hoochie chasing.'

‘It's not about sex,' Rossi argues.

‘What's it about then?' I know it's about being popular, accepted and all that but I want her version.

‘I like guys.'

Same old line.

Drew needs her teeth cleaned. She's been putting it off and now her gums are bleeding. She's agreed to go to the dentist if I accompany her, which means I get to play hooky. It takes her about four hours to get dressed. When she comes downstairs I notice her pants are hanging off her. More weight lost on the peanut butter diet. ‘You should eat something now,' I say, ‘because you won't be able to later.' The dentist has to freeze her entire mouth before the cleaning because Drew is supersensitive. She doesn't answer me, just pulls on a jacket that looks a size too big.