So Much It Hurts (21 page)

“It's me—Iris. Your bubbie's neighbor. I recognize you from the photos in her apartment. What are you doing here?”

“Wow, Iris,” he says, extending his free arm to shake mine. “This is pretty weird, isn't it? I came to town to look in on Bubbie, but then I lined up a couple of interviews with some people in McGill's Engineering Department. My friend Tony's younger brother is Vincent, who works sound on the play. Anyway, Vince told us to drop by tonight. Bubbie went to bed early, so I figured I'd hang out here for a bit.”

“How'd you like your bubbie's chicken last week?”

Errol grins. “No one makes chicken like my bubbie. Hey,” he says, and I catch him looking around the room. “Is your boyfriend here? The older guy?”

“Uh, no, he isn't. He had to work.” I drop my voice. “Listen, Errol, if you don't mind, it'd be better if you don't mention him here—or that I even have a boyfriend.”

“Okay,” he whispers, though I get the feeling it isn't okay and that he wants to say more. Which is why I'm relieved when he asks, “How about I get you another beer?”

I follow Errol to the cooler by the stairway. I can tell from the sweet smoky smell drifting up the stairs that someone is smoking weed in the basement. Errol reaches into the cooler and hands me a beer. He introduces me to a tall guy who wears his hair in a ponytail. Vince's brother, Tony. “That teacher's not with you, is she?” Tony asks.

“You mean Ms. Cameron?” I say. “No, she's in the kitchen, organizing the food.”

“Well then, you guys should definitely check out the laundry room in this place,” Tony says.

The laundry room is bigger and more tricked out than our kitchen. The washer, dryer and sink are stainless steel; the walls and floors are so white that when I first walk in, my eyes need to adjust to the brightness. But Tony hasn't sent us here for the decor. A bunch of kids are passing around a joint. Katie's with them. She must have come downstairs when I was in the kitchen.

I smoked up a couple of times with Tommy, but it never did anything for me except give me a headache. So when Katie passes me the joint, I hold on to it for a few seconds while I decide whether to take a puff or pass it on. I don't want to end up with another headache, but I also don't want to be the only straight one in the room. Here I go again, unable to make a simple decision. If I can't decide, well then, I probably shouldn't have one. I start to pass the joint to Errol, but at the very last second I take it back and bring it to my lips for a quick puff. I can still see Katie's hot-pink lipstick on the rim. The smoke burns as it travels down my throat and into my lungs.

Maybe this time I do get stoned. Because not too long afterward—how long exactly I'm not sure—I find myself back upstairs, sitting cross-legged on the Persian carpet in Lenore's den. How many fireplaces can one house have? Errol is sitting across from me on an oversized pillow with lots of tassels hanging off it. I'm thinking that if I wasn't going out with Mick, I might think Errol was cute. The thought makes me laugh out loud.

“What's so funny?” Errol wants to know.

“Nothing. It feels like I'm in a play.”

“You are in a play, silly,” says Lenore, who has wandered into the room. “I'm the leading actress. You've got a small supporting role.” She laughs when she says that, then wanders out, like the ghost of Hamlet's father.

Why didn't I notice Ms. Cameron sitting on the couch across from us? I must be really stoned. “We're always in a play. All of us—at every moment,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “As the bard says, ‘All the world's a stage.' Only in this play, this here-and-now play, there's no rehearsing.” She hangs her head as if she thinks that's a bad thing. Then she lifts it to look right at me. “You don't want to make too much of a mess of things, Iris. A little mess is not so bad, but a big mess…” She shakes her head. “A big mess is not so good. It's harder to get out of the big messes. That's why, as Polonius says, we have to tender ourselves more dearly…”

Errol nudges me. “What's she talking about?” he whispers.

“I'm not sure,” I whisper back, “but I think I'm stoned.” That must have been some strong weed.

“D'you wanna get some fresh air?” Errol asks.

We have to dig to find our jackets on the coatrack. Then we walk along the side of the house to where the back deck is. I hear Errol take a deep breath. “Look Iris, we don't really know each other, and this probably isn't my business. But my bubbie, she's not crazy about your boyfriend. I know she can be a busybody sometimes, but Bubbie's not stupid. She thinks he…well…she thinks maybe he hits you.”

For a moment, I am totally sober. Mostly, I think, because I can't believe Errol just said that. “He doesn't,” I say. “He wouldn't. Never. Ever. Your bubbie doesn't know him.” I say it firmly, so Errol will know he needs to drop the subject. “Besides, I'm a big girl.” When I hear myself speak, it sounds like the words are coming from far away, and I realize how stoned I still am. And that I don't want to be having this conversation.

“Look.” Errol digs his hands into his jacket pockets. “I'm sorry I said anything. I shouldn't have. It's just…Bubbie worries. Maybe I'm a worrier too. Maybe it's in my genes.”

“Did anyone ever hit you?” I ask Errol. I'm not quite sure where the question came from. And it's too late now to take it back.

“My mom once. Not hard though. I was picking on my kid brother. I guess I had it coming.” Errol's eyes are bloodshot, and I wonder if that means mine are too. “It was no big deal.”

Errol's quiet for a bit. When he speaks again, his voice is thoughtful. “The roughest thing I ever went through was when my zaidie died. I really loved the guy. But even worse than losing him was seeing what happened to my mom. It was the first time I ever saw anybody lose it. Really lose it. When she got the news he was gone, she curled up on the floor and howled like a baby. None of us could make her stop, not even my dad. I'll tell you something, Iris. Seeing her like that, well, it scared me shitless.”

CHAPTER 26

“…if like a crab you could go backward.”
—HAMLET
, ACT 2, SCENE 2

D
oes an image ever just bloom in your head? Like a flower, only without a stem or roots or soil? And nowhere near as pretty as a flower. Not pretty at all—not in my case anyhow.

You don't ask for the picture. It just appears, presto, out of nowhere. And you can't make it go away, even when you try. Once the picture starts to bloom, there's no stopping it.

Maybe it's the weed, but that's what's happening to me now.

The image blooming in my mind is of a girl—a little girl—crouched inside a walk-in closet. She is surrounded by racks of clothing. There are men's clothes on one side, women's on the other. She can tell because the women's clothes feel silky soft; the clothes on the other side are prickly and rough. The smells are different too. The women's clothes smell like lemon, only sweeter; the men's have a warm and spicy smell.

The floor is cold and hard underneath the little girl's legs. Sometimes, as she rocks back and forth, her shoulders touch the crinkly plastic on the clothes that have come from the dry cleaner's. Though I can't yet see the little girl's face, I know it's me. It's as if I can still feel the crinkly plastic on my shoulders and smell the sweet lemon and the warm spices.

In the pictures I've seen of myself when I was little, I'm almost always holding on to a giant blue cloth doll. And smiling. A smile that's too big for my small face.

The little girl in the closet doesn't have her doll—and she isn't smiling.

Something bad is happening, has happened, is about to happen. That's why she's hiding in the closet. It's safer there than out in the living room with them.

“Iris, you okay?” It takes me a moment to reorient myself. Errol's talking to me. We're outside on Lenore's porch, at the cast party. What was it Ms. Cameron said before?
There's no rehearsing
.

“I'm okay. Just a little dizzy. I should probably sit.”

“Here, let me help you.” Errol leads me to a rattan couch that Lenore's family must have forgotten to take in for the winter. There's a pillow that smells like mould on it. But I need to sit.

Errol helps me. “Is that better?” he asks.

I nod to tell him it is. I want to thank him for being kind to me, but I can't. It's as if the memory is calling me back, asking to be remembered.

Why am I remembering that little girl—me—in the closet? How come when you try hard to remember something—like a joke you heard a long time ago and want to tell your friends
—
it doesn't always work? And then other times, a memory just comes back, like the image blooming in my head? Why is the little girl so scared?

Part of me is curious and wants to go back and remember; another part doesn't. That other part wants yellow tape around the memory—the sort of tape the police put up after there's been a gruesome accident.

The kind that says to everyone who sees it,
Danger! Keep
away for your own good!

But I can't keep away from the yellow tape.

Another picture has begun to bloom.

It's a man—his face is blurry There's a woman now too. Mommy. She's wearing a long yellow sweater dress, and her hair goes past her shoulders. She has an angry face. They are both angry—so angry they have forgotten the little girl who was in the room with them. They didn't even notice when she left to hide in the closet. There wasn't time for her to bring her blue doll.

The little girl presses her hands tight over her ears to block out the angry noises. There, she thinks, that is better.

The picture in my head goes black. Even when I try squinting, the picture won't come back. But there's something else I'm remembering. Not a picture. A sound—the words to an old nursery rhyme.

This little piggy went to market.

This little piggy stayed at home.

And why, now, do I feel a painful throbbing in my ring finger—the little piggy that had none? I haven't done anything to make it sore. I didn't sit on it or bang it into anything.

Errol has gone back inside to get me a glass of water. When he comes back, he says, “Have a drink. It'll make you feel better. That dope was pretty strong, and you got seriously buzzed, Iris. I'm kinda buzzed myself.”

“Thanks,” I manage to say as I take greedy gulps of the water.

I don't tell Errol about the flashback. I need time to figure out what it means. Besides, I hardly know him.

I look at my fingers holding the water glass. The ring finger, the one that's hurting, is fatter than the rest. It's always been that way. Or has it?

It's the finger that fit my father's ring. He told me the dragon was a symbol of strength. But I took it off after Mick said he didn't like it.

“Are you looking for something?” Errol asks when I pick up my purse from the rattan couch and start rifling through it.

“A ring. From my dad.” It's the first time I've used the word
dad,
not
father
.

I have to feel around for the ring, but I finally find it. I blow the lint off it.

I slide the ring back on my finger. This time, I won't take it off. Even if the dragon is creepy. Even if Mick doesn't like it.

CHAPTER 27

“What is between you? Give me up the truth.”
—HAMLET
, ACT 1, SCENE 3

I
t's nearly 2:00
AM
when Errol drops me off at Mom's. Thank God her bedroom light is off. I let myself in as quietly as I can. But then I hear her trudging down the stairs. Even in the dark, I can feel her standing in the hall. “I know we said we'd talk tomorrow, Iris,” she says. At least she didn't call me
Iris Wagner.
Maybe she's just glad I'm home.

“Mom, I'm going straight to bed.”

“I just wanted to know you were safe.”

I let her rock me in her arms for a few seconds before I pull away. “I'm safe, Mom,” I whisper into the darkness.

I almost text Mick when I get into bed. But I'm afraid to wake him. And if he isn't at the loft…well, I don't want to know.

In the morning, everything's the same. Mom and I sit at our usual table at the front of the bagel place. We have our usual breakfast: toasted sesame bagels with scrambled eggs (I wasn't in the mood for poached), fruit salad instead of potatoes. We even have the same waitress. I help her with the cutlery.

Yet everything is different.

Somehow, I managed to sleep last night, even though my head was spinning from trying to figure things out. How much can I tell my mom about what's going on? And why did I remember hiding in the closet? I want to ask her about that, but I'm not sure I can. And what about my father? Will I have the courage to talk to her about him?