Poser (13 page)
I smiled (which was more of a drooling grimace). That was so Red.
“Anyway, we spent the whole morning together, talking, watching old movies...She's wonderful...So, you're looking at the new manager of Red Plush (and associated properties)!”
“What?!” I exclaimed, sitting up. A pulse of pain shuddered through my head. I sank back down onto the pillow.
“What?” I whispered.
“It's true. I'll be managing Red Plush and all those apartment buildings across the park! I've already given notice at the card store,” she smiled. “Felt good.”
Wow. A lot can happen when you're bleeding all over a hockey rink. This was almost too good to be true.
“And that's not all,” she rushed on, clearly excited. “Since Red's son moved out of the basement suite in her houseâyou know, the big blue house next door to Red Plush, she offered it to us! She showed it to me and it's really cute. You'll love it. Small, but it's just a few blocks from school, the Freys live on that street, and there's that park where you and the Frey boys play hockey...”
I have never seen her so excited. I lay back and watched her and listened to her plan. It really hurt to smile (and there was the drooling problem), but it was hard not to. Macy in Toronto, managing Cody, Mom managing Red Plush, me managing my own life. How could everything work out so well so quickly?
I fell asleep with Mom sitting there holding my hand. She was smiling big enough for both of us.
* * *
My class made cards for me. Most of them were standard get-well-sooners. Frey and Chan did one together. It had a crude, Sharpied hockey stick and puck on the front, and inside they wrote,
The Rink Is Waiting
. They didn't even sign it, but I knew who sent it.
Mrs. Walker had included a card of her own. It was one of those big, fancy metallic cards that cost about six dollars, from the kind of store my Mom works at (
oops
, used to work at!).
It said:
Dear Luke,
I'm very, very sorry for the accident and for your injuries. I feel badly about it. I've had a long talk with your mother, and I know the truth about your absences, and I think I understand why you lied to me about them. I have, however, arranged some volunteer work for you to do for the children's hospital when you get back.
Your junior-high family hopes you get well soon!
Sincerely, Principal Margaret Walker PS. I've signed up for skating lessons!
I know, I know. You're thinking I got off pretty lightly, aren't you? Monster lying, and then only having to do a little volunteer work? You're right. I owe Mrs. Walker big-time. Even though she broke my nose and split my lip, and there was a TON of blood (did I mention that?), I still owe her.
Shay's “card” was just a folded piece of loose-leaf. Inside, all it said was
Get better you Sick Freak
. That made me laugh. Maybe it's actually hard to be Shay.
My heart started thumping when I got to Edie's card. It was beautiful. She'd drawn a very detailed castle with a dragon wound around the top turret, its tail fins looking like the castle flags. Inside, it was like you'd opened the castle doors, and there was a banner that said
Welcome to the Kingdom
, and a view out of the high castle windows to forests and the sea. That card was so typical of Edie; I didn't really understand it, and it probably didn't mean anything very special to her, but it made me feel happy.
Something fluttered out of the card when I opened it, and I picked it up off the bed. It was a photo. I remembered that Edie had been one of the photographers for the FUNdraiser. It was a picture of me, number 13, skating away from the camera, hunched over my stick, looking like an actual hockey player.
On the back of the picture, Edie had written:
Hey, lucky
13
, bring your nose in soon so we can feel the bump.
It was a terrific picture, the only picture ever taken of me that I actually like.
I lay there holding the picture, staring out at the snow that was falling outside the hospital in the real non-hospital world. My whole body ached, my nine very ugly stitches in my very ugly upper lip were throbbing, and I couldn't breathe through my very swollen nose.
It was a strange time to think that life was just about perfect.
Sick Freak: The Luke Spinelli Story
.
BECOMING NORMAL: THE SORT-OF END OF THE LUKE SPINELLI STORY
After a few weeks of looking like Frankenstein's monster, I'm almost back to normal. My hair's grown in a bit. My bruises went from hideous purply-black to ghoulish blue to sickly greenish-yellow and then faded away. I can actually feel my face again, so I no longer drool disgustingly out of the side of my mouth without noticing it. The stitches are out of my upper lip, leaving a surprisingly small but very cool hockey-player-like scar. And even though the doctors yanked my nose all over the place to fix it, it's still a bit crooked.
I started volunteering at the hospital two days after I got out. Typically, it did not go as I had imagined. My imagination is never, ever right.
I had imagined myself wheeling sick, grateful little kids into the playroom, reading them funny books or pushing the snack trolley full of sugary treats. Pathetic, hey? And I'm not even getting into how I'd imagined diagnosing mystery illnesses that had baffled the best medical minds, performing emergency surgery and evacuating an entire unit from a raging chemical fire. Nope, I'll just leave it there.
Anyway, reality time. Most of my first volunteer shift was spent getting the hospital people to understand that I was not actually a patient. My face still being alarmingly hideous, they had me in a wheelchair and on the way to the emergency department before I knew what was happening.
Eventually, I did do some volunteer work. My job was Playroom Freak, and I did it well. I scared off several little sick kids from the playroom where I was tidying up toys and had to explain my messed-up face to some of the braver ones who stayed.
“Hockey injury,” I said very casually. You
know
I'll be bragging about that my whole life long.
Even though my days of modeling are over, it still comes back to haunt me occasionally. For example, we got a catalog in the mail yesterday. Remember that modeling shoot I did with Clarissa and a bunch of other kids where Clarissa was being a real jerk? It was a few chapters back?
Remember how we were all fake-pointing and fake-laughing like fools at the amazing, astonishing, droopy, deflated purple balloon? Everyone but Clarissa. She's fake-smiling right into the camera, in the classic centerof-attention, look-at-me Clarissa pose.
Turns out, we're actually pointing and grinning at a big yellow circle that says
Seniors Get
15
% off on Tuesdays!
Pretty glamorous life I used to lead, hey?
In other modeling news, I got an email from Cody Radwanski yesterday.
Have you heard? Cody is the new face of McTavish Soup. It's a huge campaign: the whole North American market. Cody's the McTavish Soup Kid. You've probably seen the commercials. It's all quiet. The camera pans in from outer space down to Cody's face. He's eating soup. He finishes slurping a noodle, opens his huge blue eyes really wide and whispers blissfully, “Oodles of noodles!” Like he
really means it
(which he probably does). And a voiceover says, “McTavish Soup. It really matters.”
Watch for big things from Cody.
So here's his email. It's so Cody.
Hi, Lukester, please tell me you aren't mad at me? I mean, for Macy moving out to Toronto and everything. She says you aren't mad. I hope you aren't.
I can't believe you quit modeling! You were awesome! The best! Don't you miss it? We had such awesome times, you, me and Chad. Remember the skateboarding shoot? AWESOME! I'll never forget you, Lukester. You were always there for me. A Best Friend Forever.
Hey, have you seen the Oodles of Noodles commercials? Macy got me that audition. I love that soup. It really DOES have oodles of noodles!
Macy's got Chad as a client now too! His mom is fine with it. He still has great hair. He's trying to break into the music industry. He did a YouTube video of a song he wrote called “Click It!” It's awesome! The next Justin Bieber!
Macy says she's got some movie auditions lined up for me. I'm thinking of changing my last name to Rad. Just Cody Rad, without the wanski. Tell me what you think.
I have to go to a shoot now. It's a holiday one. I love holiday shoots! I think it's Easter. Hope I find lots of eggs!
Cody
Good old Cody Rad (wanski). It was great to hear from him.
Macy emails regularly. Even in print, she's pure Macy, only quieter. Here's her latest:
Hugs and kisses from TO, BB! Hey, I got a lead on a sporty shoot that you'd be perfect for (the rugged look is coming back in too), so if you're having second thoughts, let me know. Tell your mom I'm sending out a check for you guys. Oodles of moola from the McTavish Soup campaign! Buy yourself a good hockey helmet, skates, the works, you jock you.
Love, Auntie Macy
Mom and I moved out of the Dead End Street duplex. We boxed up all the pictures of me and put them in Red's basement storage. Red's house is awesome. We've got our own separate apartment downstairs, but sometimes we get together with Red for dinner or a movie. Humphrey the bulldog has sort of adopted me and comes and goes in our apartment like he owns the place. He even sometimes sleeps in my bed. I take him for a walk every day. I get
paid
to have fun with a dog. I'm saving up for a bike.
Almost every day after school, I play hockey with Frey and his brothers. Mom found us some secondhand benches and a storage bin for all the gear, so we're practically semiprofessional.
Shay doesn't bug me anymore. Why? Who knows. Did the on-ice accident convince him that I was too tough? Too weird? Too sick-freakish? I'll never know. All I know is that the next person he picks on is going to have a little help from me.
* * *
Well, hey, you know what? I think we're almost done here.
Thanks for sticking with me through the whole book, even when I've been annoying and whiny. You've been great. I promise you this: I'll read the story of your life when you get around to writing it.
I'm sure you have one. Everybody's got a story.
I have to stop now. Pizza's here.
Maybe you haven't heard. In the new, improved real world of Luke Spinelli, Saturday nights are pizza nights. With real soda and everything.
Okay, get up. I think we have time for one last pose.
Grab a piece of pizza. Hold it about an inch from your mouth. Close your eyes, breathe and smile. Hold that pose. Now bite aaaaannnd chew.
Repeat, even if nobody's watching.
Especially
if nobody's watching.
Thanks to my editor, Sarah Harvey, who made me laugh while making the book better. Thanks also to all my family for their kindness while I wrote this book, and especially to Kate, for understanding how even small stories matter.
ALISON HUGHES has lived, worked and studied in Canada, England and Australia. She started writing when it became clear that it was much more fun and flexible than law and didn't require her to wear nylons. She lives in Edmonton with her husband and three children; her three dogs and two cats are her writers' group. She has never been a child model and is much more comfortable behind the camera in family pictures.