Rules for Life (7 page)

“More like me babysitting you.” I pushed the start button on the microwave. “That's good. I'm glad you'll be here. I won't have to drag all the way across town to kill you in your sleep.”

“Hey, be nice to your big brother,” Jason said, dumping his eggs onto a plate and taking a seat at the table. That was another one of Mom's rules. “I know where they keep that picture of you wearing your potty for a hat.”

“You okay about today?” Jason asked after a few minutes of silence.

“No,” I said. “But it's happening anyway.”

“Yeah, I see talking to Dad worked real well.” Jason's fork had stopped in mid-air. His mouth was pulled sideways into a sneer.

I finished chewing, set down my spoon and pictured myself dumping the bowl on Jason's head and beating the shredded wheat into his hair with the spoon.

“Gee, maybe I should have gone out to the lake, gotten wrecked, climbed up on the roof and sung ‘Tangled up in Blue' while playing a toy guitar with only four strings,” I said.

The sneer slipped off Jason's face. He looked away for a minute then faced me again. “Okay, I deserved that,” he said.

I picked up my spoon again. “Nothing's going to change this.”

“You can move in with me if you want to.”

I sucked in a breath and tried to swallow at the same time. Milk and shredded wheat went up my nose. I choked. I coughed threads of cereal across the table, and milk dribbled down my face.

“Move in with you?” I finally managed to wheeze. “Are you serious?”

“And straight.” Jason pulled down his lower eyelids with his index fingers. “Don't let the red eyes fool you. I am not wasted—except for lack of sleep. You want to move in with me, you can.”

“But wouldn't that … ” I waved my hands in the air because I couldn't figure out how to finish the sentence.

“Make me crazy? Ruin my sex life?” Jason supplied as a grin spread across his face. “Yeah. So … it won't kill me.”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat that had nothing to do with cereal. Jason didn't act like my big brother very often. Well, okay, never. I shook my head. “It wouldn't kill you, but we might end up killing each other.”

He nodded. “Yeah, probably.”

I leaned across the table and kissed the top of his spiky head. “Thanks, Jason,” I said. Then I got up and rinsed my dishes in the sink. I could feel tears almost ready to fall and I didn't want that to happen.

15

R
ule #27: Great-looking shoes are worth the pain
. They were more than great-looking shoes. They were fabulous. Sparkly lavender high, high heels that laced halfway up my calf. And I didn't care if my feet hurt. Maybe they would take my mind off everything else that hurt.

I looked at my dress in the mirror again; pale blue with a round neck, no sleeves, and swirls of lavender and purple everywhere. No lace. No ruffles. No frills. I wondered where the last person to own the dress had worn it.

Spencer peeked out of the closet, whiskers twitching. He didn't like all the uproar. For a second I thought about hiding out in there with him. There was a knock at the bedroom door. Spencer retreated again.

Jason stuck his head in the room. “Ready?” he asked.

No. I wasn't ready.

I thought about holding my breath until my face turned purple and my eyes rolled back in my head, or diving under the bed and lying there for the rest of the day in the cool, dusty darkness.

Rule #7: Hiding under the bed won't solve anything. If the dust bunnies don't get you, the vacuum cleaner will
. Mom had told me that one the first day of school in grade six. I'd tried to put red streaks in my hair the night before, hoping it would make me look older. (I was still waiting for my breasts to pop out.) The streaks had turned out purple and I think they glowed in the dark.

Mom made me French toast and braided purple and silver ribbons into my hair so the purple chunks would look like I'd done them on purpose.

I looked down at her bracelet on my wrist. “I'm ready,” I said, turning around. Jason held out a hand. I was probably about five the last time we'd held hands. I hesitated for a second, then I laced my fingers through his and we went downstairs together.

Dad was in the middle of the living room. He looked incredibly handsome, his freshly shaved face and crisp, white shirt bright against his charcoal suit. “Look at the two of you,” he said. “You look great.”

“You're looking good too, Dad,” Jason said. I'd never seen the dark suit Jason was wearing. With his deep blue shirt and tie, the effect was sort of mobster chic.

“I'm … uh … glad you're both here,” Dad said. He glanced at me. “Thank you.”

He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. It was as if he'd suddenly discovered he had them. As if he'd looked down and found these “things” at the end of his arms. Now they were everywhere, tapping and snapping, adjusting his jacket, touching his hair.

“Hey, Dad, why don't I drive?” Jason said.

“Yeah, why not,” Dad said, handing over the keys. He looked at me again.

Don't look at me, I thought. You're not leaving me any space to breathe. I'm here in my pretty dress and my sparkly shoes. That's all you're going to get. That's all I have to give.

Somehow we got out of the house and into the car. I leaned my head against the back seat and closed my eyes.

Dad and Anne were getting married at a small inn about half an hour out of the city. It was going to be a very small, simple wedding, no fancy ceremony or reception, just all of us and some of Anne's and Dad's friends. My grandmother, Dad's mother, wasn't coming. She lived in a nursing home in Montreal and she didn't remember things very well. Anne's mother and father were dead, and like Dad, she didn't have any brothers or sisters.

Jason pulled into the parking lot with a little spray of gravel. Peter Gregory came down the steps of the old house. I hadn't known he was coming.

Peter and Dad had been friends since they were in the seventh grade. The last time Peter had been in town was just before Jason went to rehab.

I got out of the car. Peter grinned and said, “Wow!” I smiled and hugged him. He was pretty “wow” himself in a gray suit and black turtleneck with his salt-and-pepper hair and beard.

Peter pulled Dad into a bear hug and then shook hands with Jason. Dad's hands were going again.

“Well, old man,” Peter said, “this is your last chance to cut and run.”

“Too late,” Jason said, grinning and swinging the car keys in the air.

I didn't know anything about getting married, but it seemed to me that Dad should have looked happier. He should have looked happy period, not like a raccoon squatting on the center line, trying to decide which way to run while the traffic whipped by in both directions.

Peter reached into his pocket. “I thought you might need this,” he said. He pulled out a brown necktie, shiny, wide and ugly.

“Oh lord, Peter, that's not … ” Dad began.

Peter nodded and draped the tie around his neck.

“You kept that damn thing all this time?”

“Truth, I forgot I had it. Laura found it in a box in the basement.”

“Excuse me,” Jason said, “but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be old, new, borrowed, blue, not old, ugly, borrowed and brown. And it only applies to the bride.”

“You mean you haven't told them the story?” Peter asked, with an ask-me-why-I'm-grinning grin.

“What story?” I said.

“When your father married your mother,” he held up one finger, “the first time, he was … well, he couldn't sleep the night before and he … let's say he over-medicated.”

Jason shot a look at Dad, and a smirk started across Jason's face.

“The two of us were waiting in this little room in the basement of the church before the ceremony. It just had this one small window, high up in the wall. And Marc was feeling—”

“—hungover?” Jason supplied.

“There's no bathroom. There's not even a garbage can or a paper bag in the room. So he grabs a chair, climbs up, flings up the window, shoves his head out and … you know. The only problem was, when he stuck his head out, his tie sort of flew out too.”

Jason's eyes were closed and he was shaking with silent laughter. I could even feel it in myself.

“The minister's wife came in, thank God. She took the tie and washed it in the kitchen sink. Of course there was no way to dry it. So she decided I should give him my tie, because I was only the best man and no one was going to be looking at me.

“And great guy that I was and still am, I did. I stood there, while he got married, with that cold, wet tie around my neck, sticking to my chest through my shirt.”

“Why didn't anyone ever tell me this?” Jason asked.

I looked over at Dad. His mouth stretched up in what passed for a smile, but his lips had almost disappeared. And he kept looking away from Peter. He doesn't like this, I realized.

Peter raised both hands. “Wait. That's not the end of the story.” He held up two fingers. “Marc and Susan, take two. Four and a half years later. Same church, same tie. Someone brings you down.” He pointed at Jason. “Marc lifts you up in the air and you do this precision, projectile puke right on the tie.”

“Hey, it's a God-given talent,” Jason said with a shrug.

“So there I am, another wedding of your father's, wearing a cold, wet necktie.” He turned, smiling, to Dad. “Marc, you will notice this time,” he pointed to his sweater, “no tie.” He pulled the loose tie off his neck. “But I am prepared.”

Dad took the tie and put it in his left pocket. “Thanks, Peter,” he said. “I think.” He looked around the parking lot. “Is Anne here yet?”

“You're not supposed to see the bride before the ceremony, remember?” Peter said.

“That's an old superstition.”

I grabbed Dad's arm before he could head inside. “Maybe Anne believes in it.”

I did. At least for that day … sort of. I didn't want to challenge fate, the wedding gods or the great cosmic plan. I didn't want Dad and Anne to get married, but I didn't want the marriage any more doomed than it already was. “How about if I go see if Anne's here. All right?”

Dad turned to look at me. He exhaled so softly I almost missed the sigh. He nodded. “Tell her I … tell her … I'm here.”

I picked my way across the gravel, wobbling as my high heels sank down between the little rocks. When I stepped inside the old house a young woman with spiky hair like Jason's leaned around the doorway to the right. She was holding two small pots of yellow roses. Anne was upstairs getting dressed, she told me, first door at the top of the stairs. I held the banister with one hand, my skirt with the other and made my way carefully up the steps. Outside the door I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders and knocked.

“Come in.” Anne was standing in front of a long oval mirror. She turned, her eyes widening with surprise when she saw it was me. But in the moment before she turned, while she was still looking at her reflection, she'd looked almost as if she was scared, biting the side of her lip.

“You look beautiful, Isabelle,” she said.

There was a silence. “You … too,” I said, finally remembering my manners.

She did. Her hair had been cut even shorter, and soft bits curled around her face. Her dress was ivory with a tint of pink. It had long, fitted sleeves, a scoop neck and slim skirt.

“Dad just wanted you to know we're here,” I said. “And … do you need anything?” I brushed invisible lint off my skirt. Oh Lord, that hand thing of Dad's was catching.

“I don't think so.” Anne hesitated. “Except I couldn't do a couple of the buttons at the back of my dress.”

“I'll do them. Turn around.” The buttons and the loops of fabric that hooked around them were so tiny my fingers felt like they belonged on a giant's hands.

“My fingers are cold,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

“Cold hands, warm heart.”

“Excuse me?”

“It's just something my grandmother used to say, ‘Cold hands, warm heart.' She had a lot of sayings like that.”

The second button finally slid through its loop. The sun was streaming through the window, making a patchwork of light on the floor. Anne smiled. “She used to say, ‘Happy is the bride that the sun shines on, happy is the corpse that the rain rains on.'”

“I guess you're happy then,” I said.

She looked straight at me. “Yes, I am. And I hope … I believe we all can be, once we get to know each other. It'll just take some time.”

I didn't say anything. Anne broke the silence. “Is your father okay?” she asked.

“He's fine. His friend Peter was telling us this really funny story about Dad, when he and my mom got married. Dad was so nervous he threw up all over his tie.”

Maybe it seemed cruel to talk about my mother on that day, but I needed Anne to know that I wasn't going to forget about Mom, not that day, not any day.

Anne crossed over to the bed and picked up a white box. “Could you take these downstairs?” she asked. “There's a boutonnière for your—for Marc, and for Peter and Jason.” She hesitated. “And there are flowers for you.”

I took the box. “Flowers for me?” I said. “You didn't have to do that.”

“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to.”

I didn't know what to say. That's not something that usually happens to me. And I didn't like the way it made me feel—uncomfortable and uncertain. I had to clear my throat twice before I could get a thank-you out.

“I'll see you downstairs,” Anne said. “Thanks for doing those buttons.”

I stopped at the top of the stairs and lifted the lid of the flower box. Under the tissue paper was a little bouquet of peach and white roses. My favorites.